A/N: Many, many, many, MANY thanks to pitbulllady for all for being the first to review and also supplying me with a lot of information that I had never caught onto before. Thanks to her and some suggestions that I have been looking up, I now have a much better idea of what I'm trying to write about.

The rating will now be changed to T until the story starts to get more graphic. But until then there's going to be some swearing and every now and then some blood, so don't say I didn't warn anybody. It's right here, I can prove it!

Disclaimer: If I owned Monsters Inc., I'm pretty sure all of the original characters would be pretty friggin' devastated. So, luckily for them, I can't have any sort of claim over them except for the right to write stories. As for Jane, Sonic, any of her animals and eventually friends that will show up with minor parts in the story, they are all mine. They are the unfortunate ones.

Okay, for one, getting shot hurts. A lot. Randall stood there, mostly in shock, staring from the girl, to her gun, and then to his upper left shoulder. Blood was already beginning to ooze out of the wound he was subconsciously gripping, making him feel nauseous. All of the pain he had felt the day prior had returned. It was very overwhelming, that was for sure. His head ached, his throat was sore again, and his joints felt so stiff. If this was his panicked reaction to getting shot, he hoped this was the last time anyone ever pointed a gun in his direction. It was enough to make him… to make him…

Randall's thought process came to a slowed halt. After that, he had started to lose his footing, stumbling and swaying a little back and forth. His head throbbed with each little movement, making him close his eyes before he threw up. And then he just lost control, and fell to the ground.

That was the last thing he remembered.

Ugh… am I dead?

In comparison to the cold nights spent outside, sleeping on mud that looked softer than it actually was, Randall was very warm. Whatever he was on was very soft too. Maybe he finally died? If he did, this afterlife wasn't so bad. He was on something soft, and so comfortable he didn't want to worry about anything for a bit. Curled up like a cat, head resting on a pillow, Randall snuggled deeper into the cushions. He was under what felt like a million blankets, but he wasn't complaining. It was warm here, wherever he was. Actually, this warm feeling he was having right now reminded him of the nights he'd pass out on the couch back at home. Maybe that whole ordeal with the little girl was all a dream, and he was never banished?

That thought alone was enough to make the reptile-like monster smile into his pillow. If that was the case, then there really wasn't anything to worry about rather than work. Maybe he should just take the day off… yeah, he'd do that. Just a phone call was all it took. Randall let out a loud yawn, arching his back off of the couch to stretch. Some of his stiffer joints popped, relieving built up pressure. What bothered him the most was that he couldn't move his upper left arm much without wanting to cry. That was when he realized… he wasn't on his couch.

Randall's eyes snapped open, not yet moving from his arched position on the couch. He didn't recognize his surroundings at all. First off, the couch he was on was cream white. A large, forty-two inch flat screen was directly across the room from where the couch was facing. The small television area underneath consisted of a silver DVD player, which sat on top of an ancient VCR. A movie rack beside the television had about a million movies sitting on it, half of them DVDs and the other half were all cassettes. Some of them were games for the Nintendo Wii, which was sitting just below the screen of the television.

To the left of the couch was a matching recliner, and to the right was a matching love seat. In the middle of all of that was a wooden, oval-shaped coffee table which held all the remotes to the DVD player, television, and the Wii. But there wasn't one for the VCR. The walls were a light beige, and the hardwood floor was made of Ash Wood.

Another look also revealed that it had to be morning, judging by the light coming in from the tall windows, which were on the wall behind the couch. He didn't realize until then too that the ceiling was very high up. What kind of house were they in? This was huge!

Randall slowly settled back on the couch, not curled up like he was. Where the hell was he? This wasn't his house, and this most certainly was not the woods. So where on Earth was he now? He started to sit up in order to stretch his limbs a little better, before stiffening some. A joint he had not completely moved just yet refused to budge any further than it had. His upper left shoulder was sore! Randall looked down at it to inspect the damage, now remembering what had happened the previous night. Sure enough, traces of stitching stared back at him. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he turned to look for the crazy broad who shot him. She wasn't in sight, but he could hear her.

"No, cat, this isn't for you!" her faint voice from the other room scolded. Randall growled at the sound of her voice. Once he saw her she was going down. He had no care for the fact that it was a girl; she shot him! Who cares if she stitched him back up, nothings going to take away the shame and humiliation when he gets back to Monstropolis. Monsters are going to wonder what that scar is from. Oh, he got shot by a kid. That's not really a story he plans to share with anyone, especially if he finally gets the respect he rightfully deserved.

She came bouncing down the corridor into the living area(he just assumed that's where he is) humming something to herself, and stopped in the archway. The girl could tell he was awake, staring at him dumbstruck, but keeping her distance.

"I just came by to check on you," she said nervously, holding both hands behind her back. Randall growled, baring sharp teeth at her. He could feel his fronds stand straight on alert. She saw that too, and whimpered a little, breaking eye contact.

"You're running a fever," she continued after a moment longer, catching her breath. What, she's never seen a monster before? Randall paused in his growling, waiting for her to come a little closer. She did, albeit hesitantly, "And you had a lot of bruises. So, I stitched you up. But…you've been out for almost two days now. I didn't expect you to wake up this morning."

She got a little braver, lifting her head to look at him directly. Her shy body language disappeared, and she decided to walk over to the couch. Randall flicked his tail in agitation, scanning her for any possible threat. He saw none, really, but didn't get a really good look at her until now.

Long, light copper colored hair that reached the small of her back. Definitely longer than any fur on a monster he's ever seen. He stared at it for a minute, then moved down to see if there was anything else he could note. Humans looked the same, if he ever needed to find this one again(he hoped to god he wouldn't) then he might as well make some form of a mental picture.

Aside from that she wore a black tank top, and red shorts. So, she probably just got out of bed, since she wasn't fully dressed yet. After trying not to laugh at her fuzzy purple socks, he managed to maintain the snarl on his face and look at hers. Large, grey eyes glared back at him, as if she was doing the same thing he was. Black make up was smudged around her eyes, making her look kind of dead. She must not have cleaned her face at night if she woke up every morning like this.

"Where are you from?"

Randall didn't say anything. He just glared, letting out a low hiss. The girl grew a little frustrated. "Oh come on, I know you talk!"

He hissed louder, all of his muscles tensing; aside from the ones on his upper left torso. It hurt in some spots, but it was sort of an instinct. Given, it was an instinct he had developed while working for Waternoose in the scaring industry, but old habits tend to, ah…die hard. He wouldn't have held up his angry snarl for so long if she showed at least a little bit of fear. But she didn't.

Assuming he wasn't going to let her near him any time soon, she got up from the couch to leave.

That's when he decided to attack.

Randall dove off the couch, causing the blankets to take flight everywhere. Within hardly a second he had her pinned down on the ground, snarling into her face. His upper right arm was pressed against her neck, applying as much pressure he could without completely choking her out. His lower two arms held down her forearms, and a pair of his legs kept her knees from bending up. She was almost completely immobile, and the only reaction he got out of her was a startled gasp.

This was enough to drive him insane! She was nervous. He needed her to be scared! That's his job! Well… was his job. Had he lost his touch or something? Randall let out a furious yell, which to her probably sounded more like a roar. His upper left hand clenched into a fist he wanted to drive into her chest. Why wasn't she scared?

"You're gonna regret shooting at me," he said, allowing a nasty smile to stretch his features. He could feel her throat tighten up. Randall lifted the pressure just a little, allowing her enough room to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Technically," she choked, "I missed."

That pissed him off.

"Missed?" he roared, tightening his grip on her throat a bit. "I felt it! I felt the blood that came from my arm!"

"Yeah, well- ah, ow," she winced, attempting to swallow again. He allowed her to. As soon as she did he reapplied the pressure he had been and let out a low growl, waiting for her answer. She took a choked breath before continuing, "It skimmed your arm. I stitched it up. Didn't find any traces of the bullet."

"It doesn't matter! I was still hit by it at all!"

She tried to say something, but he pressed harder while he kept yelling. "You have no idea what it feels like! And I was happy not knowing! I should skin you alive and throw you in a pile of salt, you know that? Or better yet, maybe I'll-"

"Will you shut up already?" she screamed, seizing him in mid-rant. Immediately his grip on her and all of her limbs loosened a little, but she didn't attempt to pull away. Randall was pretty taken aback by her outburst. It's been a while since he's been yelled at like that. Well, other than Waternoose's complaining about the Scream Extractor, but that was beside the point. He was around Fungus twenty-four seven, and not even the three eyed monster back talked like this girl did. The look on her face told him she was just as surprised as he was. Swallowing hard, she blinked a few times before taking a deep, much needed breath, "You have no idea how horrible I feel about it. Yeah, I know, its not one of those things I can just kiss better and it will all be alright. But please, please, let me find a way to make it up to you," she begged from underneath him.

Randall had to think for a minute. Every being in his body screamed no, but an idea struck his mind. "You got any family?" he asked, eyeing her for a second. She sighed, breaking eye contact.

"Yes, but they don't live here. It's just me."

In this huge house? Nuh-uh, there's no way this little girl lived in this place all by herself. Randall shook off the thought. The point is, she had family. Which means…

"How old is the youngest kid?"

"What? Why?"

"Just answer the damn question!" he snapped, trying not to let out another hiss. The girl flinched, scrunching her eyes shut. She whimpered a little, obviously unsure about whether or not she should answer the question.

To be honest, whether or not she deserved it, having power over her just felt so wrong. Having power over any female in general was just wrong, human or no. He was seriously starting to feel sick, but he needed answers. Just one more question, that's all he needed, and he'd let her go. But she still wasn't budging! Randall wanted to growl, to scare it out of her. That would just give her more of a reason not to tell him though, wouldn't it?

"Nine," she breathed.

Perfect. A kid! This was his first step into getting home! All he had to do was find this kid and their closet and go home!

"Alright, you wanna make it up to me?" he asked, not yet getting off.

"Uh, so long as it doesn't involve me feeding my own family to you," she grumbled. Randall scoffed. Eat her family? Does she really believe that's what he wanted? He almost snarled if he wouldn't have caught himself. He shook his head.

"No! Ew, god no!" Honestly, the thought of eating kids made him gag. How could she assume such a thing? The girl beneath him relaxed at his confession, now seeming more comfortable than she did when he had threatened her.

"Okay," she sighed, relief relaxing her facial features, "Can I get up now?"

Randall sat up, and backed away from her, albeit he was still alert. Just because she was close to being his ticket home did not mean he was going to be friendly towards her. So long as she accepted that, they were going to get along great.

"Look," she said, standing up and stretching her back, "I know there's a lot to discuss about why you need information on my youngest step-brother. But, honestly, you're still sick. I could feel your fever when you were just holding me down so, please, lay back down?" she begged.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going home! Now how far does your family live from you?"

He was almost to the front door when she suddenly appeared, running her back into it to block his path. He didn't even hear her run! That was creepy, he'll admit it. But that didn't mean her little stunt didn't piss him off any. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"My family lives very far from here. If you try walking in the state you're in, you won't make it," she murmured, pressing herself further into the door and locking it. Randall's fronds stood up a little further, showing his aggravation. But she didn't back down, just staring at him with a dead-pan expression.

"How far?"

"They live along the eastern seaboard," she said, looking away, and then back at him. She was definitely struggling on how to explain it to him, he could tell. Randall was a little offended by this. He wasn't stupid! Okay, big whoop, Eastern Seaboard. How far away is it from where he was? She answered his mental question the second he had asked himself, "We're a few states away from that."

Randall snarled. He didn't have a very good visual at all but from the sound of her explanation they weren't close at all. She lowered her head but still refused to move. "If you want to go on your own, you can, but just please wait until you're fully healed?"

As amazing as falling asleep on the couch sounded, he needed to get back home. He simply refused, but so did she. The girl still would not budge. Maybe if he slept for a few more hours… maybe then she'd let him go. Giving her one more glare, he turned around and headed back to the couch, without another word from her.

Rebuilding an entire company and its morals sucks. Not only did he have to come up with new slogans, schedules and advertisements; he also had to go through a lot of the paperwork too. Rather than matching up each child with their ideal monster to scare them, he had to dip into their likes and dislikes in order to figure out who would make them laugh the most. It was enough to make Mike say, "Well, pal, good luck with that," before leaving the big, furry monster in his misery. And it was almost enough to make James P. Sullivan himself give up. But if there was anything Sulley didn't want to be called, it was a 'quitter.'

Luckily, though, after a few sleepless nights of staring at paperwork and going through files and records(along with the help of Celia and Mike) with only few breaks in between, he had finally gotten most of the hard stuff out of the way. Now being jobless and promising their landlord that they were getting the money, the trio had all the time in the world to get this done in about a week and a half. Not like they didn't want to take their sweet time, but with there being an energy crisis, and no quotas on scream points being made at all anymore, was enough to rush them into finishing early. Now all they had to do was re-employ all the monsters, just in different areas. Obviously some scarers won't be able to make children laugh like they had made them scream. And this also told assistants that it was their time to shine. But all of that wasn't the problem.

Sulley was sprawled on his back in front of the fireplace, taking in the heat of flame. He held a clipboard above himself so he could still read it, while trying to decide which monster to pick or suggest to which job. Mike, sitting at their desk, was doing a similar task. He was going through applications and résumés of monsters that were interested in working for M.I. again, and others that have never worked for them before. While they were working on that, Celia was left with the final, and most difficult task that they had been trying to complete since the very beginning. She was sitting in Mike's small, round chair. It really wasn't very comfortable but, she didn't really want to be sprawled out on the floor either. It just wouldn't be appropriate.

The chair was so close to the ground for her that her tentacles were curled up tightly to her torso. Resting on her knees was a notebook with a million rhymes she was trying to come up with, mainly anything that had to do with smiles, or laughter, or something!

"Two and a half years," Sulley was heard mumbling out loud to himself. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked over at the back of Mike's head(which was also his body). He stared at the coloration of his friend's skin like it held the answers to everything he questioned. But in all honesty, he was just tired of staring at the damn clipboard. His comment had caught the small green monster's attention, and eventually Celia's, as they both were now staring at him with a questionable look.

"What about 'two and a half years,' Fur Ball?"

"Roz said she had worked for M.I. undercover for two and a half years. Only for undercover work. I don't see any reason for her to come back and work for us again. Especially if she's Number One in the CDA."

"I don't quite get your point," Mike replied, turning back around to go through more applications. It was just like filing paperwork. And he hated filing paperwork.

"Well, no one is offering to be the new Bookkeeper. No one is even accepting the offer of being the next Bookkeeper. And they have the most important jobs!"

Celia's snakes let out a soft hiss, each looking and exchanging glances between each other and their master. The female monster let out a soft sigh, having an inward conversation between her and her hair. This was something she could easily solve. Besides, before she even worked for Monsters Incorporated, she had to solve problems like these daily just to pay the rent.

"Temps," she shrugged, turning back to her notebook and jotting another possible slogan down. She glared at it, decided she didn't like it, and scratched it out.

"Temps?" the blue monster asked, tapping the end of his pen on the clipboard. Celia rolled her eye and turned to him with an expression that said 'are you deaf?'

"Just have temps fill the position of Bookkeeper until we find someone more permanent."

"Not bad," Sulley smiled, flipping the paper over the clipboard and moving on to the next page. Mike turned around and gave her a thumbs up, along with a 'Good Job, Schmoopsiepoo!' Celia smiled triumphantly, and turned around to jot down the latest idea for a possible slogan. She gasped at what she had wrote, staring at it for a few seconds. Her small mouth morphed into a bright smile, staring down at the paper. She was on a roll! One good idea right after the next!

The purple snakes in her hair giggled with excitement, giving small hissed compliments on the idea. Celia jumped up out of Mike's chair, sending paper and the notebook itself flying elsewhere. "I've got it!" she yelled, holding up her pencil triumphantly.

The two other monsters looked back at her expectantly, waiting for her next idea. Celia bit her lip in excitement, trying not to get too giddy. She was just so happy, she knew they'd like this one!

"It's Laughter We're After!"

Randall was honestly the most comfortable monster in the world right now. Despite having been grazed by some crazy chick's bullet, beaten in the head with a shovel, bitten on the tail by a dog and even being stuck in the human world, no one was just as satisfied as he was right now. Partially asleep, dreaming peacefully of his plan to get back home. Yeah, he'd be there in no time. It's probably going to take a lot of patience to get a long with the girl though. Hell, he doesn't even know her name yet! Better off not knowing. It'd be too much of a risk. When you name something, you only grow attached to it, he thought, sneering at the idea of him being fond of her. Why the hell would Sullivan come to like the little girl? She was a human, nothing more and nothing less. All she was to them was a source of power. This human he was stuck with was more useless than that little brat ever was, so it'll be easy not falling for that trick.

But still… why? He never understood it. No, he was never directly mean to the kid, or did anything to harm her. Randall had always tried being gentle with her, despite the fact he had tried using her as an experiment for the Scream Extractor. At least he wasn't like Mike, who went as far as to trust Randall just to get rid of the kid! The reptilian monster shuddered when he tried picturing himself with this recent human. She was a mess, he'd seen that earlier when he saw the make-up smeared around her eyes. There was no way!

Randall took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm himself. He was halfway asleep when something huge and heavy leapt onto the couch, and settling on top of his head to rest. The monster growled, opening his eyes slightly to look up and see it was… a cat.

"Damn it," he muttered, kicking the stupid thing off of the couch, "Get out of here."

A/N: I have no clue why I ended the chapter the way I did but I just couldn't help but giggle at ending it with an introduction to Jane's cat. The idea made me laugh. Hope it made you guys chuckle like I did!