So yeah...I'm really tired...And I can't really think of anything to say except that I don't own a lot of this scene, Starkid does...Yeah, the ending is kinda abrupt...Yeah...I need to sleep...On the bright side, no homework tonight :D...ugh...Odyssey tomorrow...I'm done telling you about random aspects in my life now...
Taz had a restless night of sleep that night. It took her about 6 hours to fall asleep, she was thinking about how normal Up had seemed that day. This was the closest to himself he had been sine his injury, he had even offered to watch the Karate Kid! She felt bad in declining, but she didn't think that she would have been able to handle it if he had gone back to the way he had been these past two years.
Then the nightmare, it had been awful, she relived that day in her dreams so many times, but this time it had been different, he hadn't woken up after the surgery. Waking up screaming was a thing that hadn't happened in nearly a year, and Up coming to check on her, that hadn't happened in longer. By the end of the night, Taz firmly believed that Up was coming back, and that he would be back soon.
Up didn't sleep well that night. It wasn't the longest he'd ever tried to fall asleep, but still, 6 hours is a long time to spend trying to fall asleep. How many nightmares has Taz had that I haven't been there to make sure she's ok? How many times has she needed me? Why am I allowed to wallow in self-pity when she has to deal with nightmares and the rest of the crew? Because, you've gone through an injury and you're still recovering. I've been recovering for two years, how come I'm not better yet? Maybe you're not getting better, Up, maybe you're too weak to get better. By the end of the night, Up was convinced that he was not going to recover.
The next day, Taz stomped into the mess hall, very grumpy, but feeling much better about Up's situation. "Where's dat idiota February? Still in her room, getting ready to impress you idiotas?" she asked Krayonder.
"Dude! She totally went down to the planet! I mean, like whoa! I hope she has fun!" he yelled.
"Right, I'm sure she'll love it, and her finds will be very schiency," Taz said caustically. After she had finished her food, she ran to the gym to work out. Suddenly, alarms were blaring, telling them how they were going on a rescue mission. She ran back to her room, and grabbed her zapper, and ran to the command room. "All right people! You heard it! This is a rescue mission! Get jour zappers and set them to pew!" she fired a couple shots to demonstrate.
"Woah! Hey Taz, you're pretty tough for a chick!" Krayonder shouted.
"I was just about to say the same thing about jou," Taz replied, only half meaning it, he wasn't tough. "Specs, scan the surface of this planet, I want to know what's going on down there," she ordered.
"I'll try Lieutenant, but.." Taz didn't listen to the rest, knowing that she wouldn't understand it anyways.
"Uh, excuse me, little girl? I'm new and I was just wondering, what's this?" some guy Taz hadn't seen asked her.
"Dat's jour zapper!" she couldn't believe it, not only had he called her a 'little girl,' but he didn't know what a zapper was! Did he even go to the academy?
"Oh, well what's that?" he asked, completely clueless.
"It's a gun, stupid, jou shoot stuff wid it!" she said, her anger growing.
"Oh, well that's not what I was using it for," he said. Taz nearly asked him 'what de hell for?' when he continued, "You see, where I come from Farm Planet…" well that certainly explained it, Farm Planet had nothing. She stopped listening and inspected her gear.
When she found he was still talking, she promptly told him to get out of her face because she was prepping for a rescue mission.
"I know! I'm on the rescue mission too!" Taz's hopes for some decent people plummeted, "Hey, my name is Tootsie Noodles!"
Taz registered that he had the oddest name she had ever heard, and said the first words that came to her, "What de hell kind of a name is dat?"
"Well, you see, on Farm Planet…" she tuned him out again, not caring.
"Callar! What am I supposed to do with jou? Jou know nothing!" Taz walked around to avoid Tootsie, and turned to face the crew, "So, dis is de rescue squad?" she told them how they didn't have what it took to serve under Up, and only really registered what was happening when that idiot Krayonder said that Up had gone soft. She turned around to face him, "Hey! Jou got something to say about de Commander?" with pleasure she noticed how scared he got when she said that, stammering out some excuse about how he forgot they fought together. "Yeah, Krayonder, where he saved my life a hundred times!"
"Yeah, he was like a super soldier!"
Past tense? Taz noted with displeasure, swinging her fists, "What do jou mean, was?" he stammered something about his injury, earning a death glare from her, and proceeded to tell her the rumor he heard. She was vaguely aware of telling him to put his hand on the wall, anger pulsing through her entire being. When she took aim with her knife, she heard him telling her not to throw a knife in his hand, and relented. His sigh of relief was it, though, and she drove the knife through his back, not in a place that would kill, but it sill hurt like hell. She called him a fart and started telling him things about Up that various fans had told her over the years. Ending with her telling him to walk the pain off and stabbing her own stomach, vaguely feeling the pain, but not much.
Commander on deck! Drop-down in two minutes! The automated voice boomed. "Yeah, fall in!" Taz yelled, "And jou better pray dat Up likes jour stupid faces, or he might just rip dem off!" she added to give them the fear factor that he needed them to have.
The door opened, and Up limped in dramatically, "All right, boys and girls," he drawled after he threw his cigar into February's mirror, breaking it. "I'm Commander Up," not like they don't already know dat, Taz thought, "Now I'm sure you've all heard some no-good, nasty, down-right mean-spirited rumors about me floatin' around the ship, and I'm sure you're all wondering to yourselves, are they true? Well? Go on! Ask me! Ask me right to my mug!" he yelled, sounding quite impressive, no one asked him. "Yeah, that's right, you're fraidy-cats, because one look at this," he gestured to his face, "is all you need to know that there ain't a lick of truth to 'em! I do not peepee sittin' down!" Taz grimaced, knowing that things could only go downhill from there, "I never did it! And the one time you might of heard about was because the gravity was on to high! You try to peepee standing up when the gravity's on three-times to high!"
Taz stopped listening there, knowing that she would have to do some damage control and that this mission was a terrible idea. She heard the speaker say that drop-down was in a minute, and she pulled Up to the side when she saw him crying, "Damn it, Up, what are jou doing?"
"Taz, you believe me, I peepee like a big boy!"
"Shut up! Jour supposed to give dem some speech to scare dem! Remember like in de old days, 'If jou don't die for something, den I will kill jou for nothing,' remember? Tough!"
"Yeah, yeah," he said nodding, "Damn it," he walked back over to the squad, "Alright everybody, I goofed up. If you give me some of your patience…"
Again, Taz stopped listening knowing that this would only get worse, she couldn't remember why she had thought that Up would get better. Then he said something about getting an apple in your candy basket on Halloween, and brought out that damn mirror! She hated that mirror! He started yelling at the mirror and punched it, wincing in pain and asking her if his knuckle was bleeding, "Jou didn't even break de glass!" she told him, and he went back to moping, crying on her shoulder. "Get it together, let's go!" she said when drop-down was announced. Then Junior pushed them back, and introduced the robot that was now on their team.
Her anger started bubbling up again, but she momentarily forgot it when Up kissed her back, she felt a tingle where his lips had been, and she yelled at Junior about how robots couldn't be trusted and told him the reasons why she shouldn't be on the team. Typically, she still ended up going.
After most of the squad had left, she saw Up edging away from the exit, and she went over and grabbed him. He told her that he felt like a wet-blanket and she launched into a monologue, "Do jou remember, when we met, at my Quinceañera? And jou saved me from does killer robots who tried to string me up like a piñata and smash me open so they could eat my guts?"
"Yeah, I destroyed them."
"Yeah, dat was tough! Or that time when de bullies were picking on me because I so little, and I liked to read? And I got on jour back, and we chased dem into de dumpster! Dat was tough!Or dat time, jou taught me calculus? Calculus was tough!" He went on with some excuse as to why he wasn't tough anymore, and she told him to get back up, and they might have danced a little, but that wasn't important.
When Up danced with Taz, he had felt something, something he hadn't felt in two years, it had felt almost like the old days. He knew that she didn't like him like that, and tried to push away thoughts of them being together. Just being so close to her was enough to make him remember what he had fought for in the old days. He would try his hardest to get better for her, there was no way he was going to fail her again. Not recovering was not an option.
