"Hurry up Mack!" Lightning whined from his trailer.

"I'm goin' EXACTLY the speed limit, Buddy," Mack informed Lightning through his speakerphone.

They gad driven all night from California and were already on the beginning stretch of the original Route 66 road leading to Radiator Springs. Lightning sat inside his trailer drumming his tire against the side if the trailer impatiently.

"Buddy, that won't make us go any faster. It just throws me off balance," Mack told him. Reluctantly, Lightning stopped.

He stared with a weird face at his bobble head miniature models of himself. They really resembled him now. He was so nervous and anxious that he felt he would start bobbing along right with them. Instead, he asked," How can you be so calm? Sally just had an engine attack yesterday. She could have died!"

"Well, she's fine now, ain't she?"

"Well, Doc told me she was. He wouldn't let me talk to her though for some weird reason. But she still can get weak and collapse!"

"Kid, I bet she's gonna be okay. She's still young and strong," Mack encouraged his friend.

"Yeah… but there's still that chance."

Mack gave up and kept on driving. The town's view came up from the horizon, finally. Lightning was itching to get out.

"Okay, Mack, I'm street legal here and I can go faster than you, no offense. So, let me out here," he ordered, the energy building up inside him.

There were no tourists, surprisingly, so Mack just stopped right there and then and let the ball of electricity on wheels out of his containment. Lightning sped off the moment his tires touched the ground, and he called out the citizen's names out frantically.

"Hey! McQueen's back!" Sheriff announced, coming out of nowhere. "Slow down, Boy. Good grief! I didn't expect ya home this soon."

"Well, as he says…. He is speed," Mater said, also coming out of nowhere, but Lightning was too worried to be confused and ask why.

"MaterMaterMaterMater….. where is she?" Lightning panted.

"Where's who?"

"Sally of course!!!" he yelled in despair. He was not in the mood for playing games. "Is she at Doc's or… where?!"

"Are you talking about Sally?" Doc asked, obviously coming from his clinic down the road.

"Yep, he's talkin' 'bout Miss Sally," Mater confirmed.

"Where is she Doc?"

"I heard the commotion from down the street. If I didn't know better, I'd think you have special feeling for the girl," Doc teased, his eyes sparkling with playfulness.

Lightning blushed, but now was not the time to defend himself. "What is wrong with you guys? Can't ya answer a simple question? WHERE IS SALLY?!?!?!?"

"She's at the Wheel Well," Doc simply stated. His face was, as usual, emotionless.

Lightning took off without so much as a thank you. The three cars laughed at the race car. He heard it and thought , "How could they be laughing when such a tragedy happened?"

He reached the Wheel Well in record time and immediately spotted the light blue 911 Carrera Porsche by the cliff, gazing up at the newly refurbished motel. She apparently heard an engine, for she slowly reversed to see him parked there. Their eyes locked for a moment, then he quickly drove up to her.

"Hi Sally. How are you? Do you hurt? Where does it hurt? Can I see? I hope you're better. I came as soon as I could," he said all at once, slurring everything onto one sentence.

Sally lightly chuckled. "You'd be a great examination doctor if you keep that up!"

Lightning didn't see anything funny in this. Didn't she just have a life altering attack? Why was she not in the ICU part of Doc's clinic? "Sally, what's wrong with you? I've always considered you to be level headed… but you were fatally struck yesterday, and now you're up here laughing!"

"I didn't have an engine attack," she quietly stated.

Lightning stared at her without blinking his eyes. "WWHHAAAAAAAATTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

"I didn't have one. It was set up to try to get you away from your 2 month conference."

He just wanted to scream, drive off the cliff, and sing the Four Peters before he went splat. What did they take him for? A victim of some cheap jokes? "You dragged me out here for me to learn that the reason I left wasn't true?" he asked between bared teeth, trying to contain his boiling anger.

"We didn't drag you out here, you made that decision on your own. You didn't HAVE to come back." Her eyes twinkled like she had something she was hiding. "You didn't HAVE to be at those conferences anyway, did you?"

"Well…. No… but it's good for my image when I'm there. Plus I can learn what's going on behind my back while I race, and I can stand up for the decisions on what and what not to change about my racing." He sighed. "Ya know, I'm kinda glad you got me to come back."

"Oh! This is for you," Sally said giving him a folded up paper, then drove off down the alley with speed even Lightning himself found it hard to match. Lightning watched her for a minute in confusion. Something was up. He looked at the front of the paper. It said, "We brought ya here because it's a special day today. Remember what it is?" Being totally clueless, he opened the paper, and inside it finished, "This will give you a clue… Happy Birthday, Stickers!" His eyes grew wide in remembrance, then he read the bottem. It said," Enjoy eating my dust."

Lightning immediately glanced over to where Sally had left. As if on cue when he read the letter, a cloud of dust was still floating through the air where she had taken off.

"Not on your life," he purred, revving his engine and shooting off like a rocket. He caught up with the cruising Porsche in no time.

"Wow," Sally breathed when he passed her. She knew he was fast, but his speed still charmed her. She stopped when she saw him halt several yards ahead and make a u-turn back to meet her. He slowly and quietly drove up to her with eyes full of expression.

"Thank you," he said tenderly with a sincere smile. She nudged him playfully, and they headed back to town at a medium pace. "I still can't believe I forgot it was my birthday! I guess that proves I'm not so self absorbed any more. I've got loads of humility now!"

Sally laughed at him. "Yep, you sure do."

"And you guys set everything up for me. That was so thoughtful… no matter how scared I felt about the main set up."

"You were really scared about me 'having an engine attack'?" Sally asked.

Lightning blushed. "Well, yes. I mean, you're my friend and all…" he trailed off nervously. "Tell you the truth, I don't wanna spend my b-day anywhere else but here."

The way back to town was in a comfortable silence. Lightning couldn't stand to think of spending his birthday at a conference. He knew Mack would explain to Harv, who would explain to the members of the board why he left. They would understand. They also had skipped meetings for family. He was just glad to be free from it a while.

"Look! The love birds are back!" Mater announced, seeing the two drive up side by side.

"Oh, can it, Mater!" Lightning snapped, noticing the dreamy expressions on everyone's face when they came to welcome him home.

"Glad to have ya back, Honey," Flo said, tossing him his favorite can of oil. "On the house."

"Now that's what I like: a lot of love and peace, Man," Filmore slurred. Sarge grunted and frowned at him.

"Didn't get any tickets in L.A. did ya?" Sheriff tried.

"Not a single one," Lightning replied before taking a big sip of oil.

"Surprising," Sheriff mumbled under his breath.

An ear-piercing shower of screams came quite suddenly from behind Lightning. He recognized them immediately and groaned inaudibly for he knew what came next. He mockingly mouthed the words at the same time they were spoken.

"Oh my gosh! Lightning's back!!!!"

He put a fake smile on his face and turned to meet the twins, Mia and Tia. "Hey, girls."

"Hi Lightning! You want me to get you something?" they asked in unison.

Before he could answer, Mia said, out of unison, "Um, I was going to serve him."

"I'm sorry, Mia, but he doesn't need two waitresses. Besides, I wanted to serve him before you did."

"Excuse me! I wanted to serve him since yesterday!" Mia shot back.

"I was thinking of serving him two days ago!"

The frowns turned on and the townsfolk looked at each other, preparing for the explosion.

"OH YEAH?!" Mia screamed.

"YEAH!!!" Tia screamed even louder.

They kept on going back and forth saying the same thing over and over again. Everyone winced. Flo heard them and quickly drove out of her café nook to investigate.

"Awright! You two stop it or I'll give you both GOOD reason to scream like that and you'll be screamin' your way out if town!" she barked.

"Trust me, girls. She ain't kiddin;. I know her ways, unfortunately!" Ramone warned.

Tia and Mia glared at one another then began to serve the cars again, each on the opposite sides of the lot. Finally, a gentle breeze blew and the town was quiet again, except for Lizzy's old radio playing "Mamma Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys". Lightning took in the scenery from beside Sally.

"Nice sunset, huh?" Sally asked him.

"Yeah… it's unusually red this evening," Lightning observed,

"The sun's showing the whole world your true color indicating it's your special day."

Lightning now noticed many of the citizens were missing. There was movement going on down by Mater's garage. Sally saw the questioning look on his face and assured him some were helping Mater with something. It was too far w]away for him to see but he decided not to pay attention to it, (after ,MUCH persuasion from Sally of course). When it was totally dark, he heard shouts and grumblings coming from where everyone else was at. He couldn't contain himself any longer.

"Okay! That's it. I'm gonna go see what's up," he said, leaving Sally's side and driving onto the road.

When he was halfway down the road, a bright light suddenly flashed before his eyes. He screamed with fright. He couldn't hear and there was a LOUD booming sound echoing into the new night. He shut his eyes tightly and prepared for an explosion.

……………………………………………………………………………………………....

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions for a title were greatly appreciated!! Thank you for being so nice in your reviews. I'm not that good of a writer, though, am I? Sorry if I caused any disappointment about Lightning's sudden up and leave. I wanted to establish the Radiator Spring's sense of playfulness I think them to have. Well, tell me what ya'll think. =)