CrazyA: TA-DA!! I'm still existing, don't panic.
Dr C: Hooray. *Oh how he loves sarcasm*
CrazyA: Guys, I would never EVER ditch this story!! I've just had a whole heap of stories going on at once... bleaugh. But still, don't quit your subscriptions or do anything drastic just because I haven't updated in a while. And let me tell you, thsi chappie was worth the wait!
Dr C: Read and review!
8. Golf, Guilt and Lovers
"When you said 'golf'... I never expected this."
Wendy's head, minus one eye, was sitting on the far side of the room. Link had one of her legs swung over his shoulder, while BOB had the other carefully aimed at his eye (which was being balanced on one of Dr C's chewed-up pencils.) Link was winning, since he could use both eyes, and Dr C was working on the other side of the room.
"Gentlemen, please. I'm sure that Wendy isn't entirely comfortable with this situation," he said from the table, a screwdriver embedded in the C-Square.
Wendy smiled, rolling her eye loosely in her socket until it turned to the scientist. "It's okay, doc. I'll just whoop them later when my legs are back in their sockets. In fact, want to join in? It's a more relaxing way to load off the stress without having to do that stupid training course."
Dr C sat there, silently working on his project. He put down the screwdriver, a small smile on his face and looked over at Wendy's head from the corner of his eye. "Seriously, go for it. Just use one of my arms."
He stood up, tucked in his chair, packed away his toolbox, and walked over to Wendy's torso that sat up against the wall. It tore off her right arm and threw it over to him, which he caught skilfully. She sucked in a breath of air, building up pressure behind her eye until it popped out of her head and started rolling along the floor to his feet.
"Uh... ew," BOB said, pointing at the rolling sphere. "That is seriously weird..."
"Just hurry up and swing," Link muttered impatiently. Wendy stretched her mouth as wide as she could as he swung, his eye flying right through the air and landing on Insectosaurus' fuzzy skull. He let out a roar, which made Link smile. "You heard the guy. You're going to have to shoot from up there."
"Aw... do I have to?" BOB whined. His blinking organ could see that he was high up, and he knew that he was atop of Insectosaurus because he could feel the fuzzy carpet-like mass he was balanced on.
"Sorry BOB, but it's the rules," Dr C said with a sigh. He brushed the eye against his breast-pocket, cleaning it of dirt, which gave Wendy a head-ache.
"Whoever's going that, quit it. All I can see is a blur of white..."
"Oh!" He instantly stopped, nearly dropping the valuable part of her. "I-I'm sorry."
"Meh, I'm fine," Wendy said, smiling at him. "At least you're not as bad as Link..."
"What? What did I do?!" he exclaimed, looking up from his swing-stance.
"Nothing," Wendy said sarcastically. "Except for maybe when you used my eyes as juggling balls, but apart from that, nothing at all."
"Heh, that was pretty funny..." BOB said from atop of Insectosaurus.
Wendy tried glaring at him, but it didn't work if her eyes were in two different spots. "Just swing, fish-boy..."
Link chuckled. "Oh, you're so cute when you're mad..." he teased. He swung, and the eyeball rolled along the floor and went straight for Wendy's mouth. She smirked and blew it away, sending it to the other side of the room. "Hey! Why'd you-"
"Link, you should know better than to mess with the equipment..." she interrupted, smirking merrily. Dr C stifled a laugh. Wendy heard, swivelling her eye so it looked up at him. "Your turn, doc."
He smiled and carefully placed her eye on the floor with the utmost care. Wendy smiled. Link and BOB didn't really have the same care that he had... Wendy locked her wrist, just as she had with her ankles for the other two monsters, and he swung. Her pure white orb rolled along the floor, stopping a few feet away from her head.
BOB wolf-whistled. "Smooth moves, Doctor Cockroach!"
Link shrugged, swinging Wendy's leg over his shoulder. "Just because he's your boyfriend doesn't mean you let him win..."
Wendy blinked, trying her best to turn her head in his direction. "What did you say?"
"Oh, nothing..." he said, covering up the obvious truth.
Just as Wendy was about to push further questions, one of the metal doors opened to reveal General Monger, looking both confused and agitated at the same time. He looked from one monster to the other, getting more and more confused when he realised that the golf-clubs they used were, in fact, one of his monsters. "What in the name of Ridley Scott is going on in here?"
Everyone looked over to him, giving blank stares back. "We're playing mini-golf!" BOB said cheerily. "Want to join?"
All the monsters stared at him expectedly, each face bright and even eager. At first, Monger was about to protest. These were hideous monsters that expected him to play a childish game made up by a bunch of nerds. But then, before he even knew what he was doing, he nodded.
"Why not? Anyone got a spare ball?"
Dr C smiled and took out his notebook, tearing out a piece of paper and tightly scrunching it up into a ball. "I'm afraid it's not effective... but it'll do..." He threw it to the general, who caught it in one hand as he tore off Wendy's last limb in one swift move.
"Back in '75 they called me the Golfinator," he bragged. Wendy snickered and opened up her mouth, not expecting anything major. Those who bragged were never that good a player. But he let out a massive swing, sending the ball flying. Wendy gasped as the ball hit the back of her mouth, spitting it out quick-sharp on instinct.
Everyone broke out into applause, and even Wendy managed to pat him on the back. "Nice job, Monger!" Link congratulated.
"An excellent shot!" praised Dr C.
"Aww... sorry General! I guess you're the loser!" BOB yelled from the top of Insectosaurus.
"No, BOB! Monger won!" Wendy called back. She faced Monger again, smiling cheerfully. "Congrats!"
Monger smiled back. "Thanks, little lady. Fellas, it's just about twelve. You all ready for lunch?"
BOB jumped from the top of Insectosaurus, landing on the floor in one solid, wobbling piece. "Sure am!" Link followed him over to the table, sitting down and drooling over the pile of fish as the giant blue mass started to dissolve his ham.
But the brain and the garbage were untouched.
Wendy tried rolling her skull over to her torso, which was attempting to put her right leg in her left socket. But alas, her tries didn't work. She blindly started putting herself back together again, only just managing to get her legs in place. Now where was that other arm?
"Need a hand?" a British accent asked. Wendy didn't need eyes to know it was Doctor Cockroach.
"Actually, an arm..." she said with a smile. "But some help would be nice..." He smiled back, even though she couldn't see him, and carefully picked up her head, walking her over to the rest of the girl's body and clicking it back into place with her spine.
"Thanks," she said, twisting her neck side to side and smiling at the cracks and creaks it made. She felt his smooth hands hold something else of hers, she imagined being her eyes, and sure enough she could see only the dark pink close-up of a hand. She heard his light footsteps come nearer and felt his presence come before her, kneeling down on the floor so that he looked into her eye-sockets. And carefully, so very carefully, he poked the orbs back into place.
"There we go," he said, watching her blink several times so that her eyes could adjust. "That should make things easier..."
Wendy blinked things into focus, taken back when she saw the doctor so close to her. "Thanks..." she managed to say. "I'll take it from here."
He gave a final smile and scurried off to the table, starting to feast on the pile of trash. Wendy finally found her arm and clicked it back into place, running over to the guys at last and starting the daily brain-feasting ritual that the others were getting used to.
"So General, what brings you down here today?" she asked, swallowing a mouthful of brain at the same time.
He shrugged his shoulders. "No real reason, just wanted to see how you were all feeling."
Wendy blinked. This was very unlike him. When she had first met the General, he was a real hard-ass. But now... he seemed friendlier. "I think we're pretty cool... what about you? How have you been?"
Monger blinked. No one really bothered to ask about his personal life. "Um... I'm sure you're not interested..."
"Sure we are, General!" Link said in all honesty. "C'mon, what's been happening?"
Monger smiled, and BOB could swear that he saw the frosty old bastard blush. "I've got a date with a little lady tonight..."
Everyone stared blankly, jaw-dropped in amazement. There were so many things surprising about what he said that they had no idea where to start. Monger, the most hard-boiled egg in the nest, never mentioned a social life to them, let alone a girlfriend. But the wistful look in his eyes and the slight hint of embarrassment in his voice was enough for them to believe it.
"Congratulations," Dr C said cheerfully after realising how wide his jaw was open. "What's her name?"
"Peg Scott... the cutest little girl in Texas..." he said, dreaming off. "She makes me feel so alive and young again... I think she might just be the one for me..."
Wendy smiled, going off into her own wistful state. Everyone did. Link dreamt of the girls at Coco beach... BOB dreamt of his dream girl, with a jiggly attitude to match his own... and Dr C was dreaming of a girl he'd known a long, long time ago...
"You must be a lucky guy then," Link said at last, still in a daze. "You can go outside and meet new people while we're all stuck in here..."
"Well, we've got Wendy, don't we?" BOB said. "She's our own cutest girl in Texas, right?"
Link grinned. "You're right, BOB! Hey, Doc! Isn't Wendy a little cutie?" he said, grabbing Wendy around the throat and giving her a noogie despite the protests.
Dr C gave a quick glare at Link before looking to the screaming zombie, clearing his throat and sitting up straight in an attempt to be polite about the issue. "I must admit, Wendy, you are-"
"Link, knock it off!" she interrupted, not noticing that he had an answer for her. "Stop trying to push us together like some kind of matchmaker! Besides, I'm sure that Doctor Cockroach has a girl back home!"
At that point, everyone went quiet and turned around to the scientist expectedly. No one had ever, in the history of ever, asked Dr C about his past life. He looked from face to face, cleared his throat once more and answered.
"I did."
The blob that was BOB's bottom jaw dropped to the ground. Link's eyes went huge, and one dropped from Wendy's socket. Monger, however, was the first to speak. "What was she like?"
Dr C smiled at the memory and looked down at his pile of garbage, not really able to talk. "She was... beautiful. A lab assistant... but... she died just a few days after I proposed to her, actually..."
"You had a fiancé?" Wendy asked, scooching forward in her seat so that she could get closer to him. She had never seen him so sad before...
"EW!" BOB screamed. "Doc's gay!"
"No, BOB! He was going to marry her!!" Link yelled back.
Dr C ignored the last two interruptions but looked over to Wendy, giving a slight smile. "Yes... she died of a blood disease... She didn't tell anyone about it... I guess she didn't want anyone to worry. She was trying to find a cure in her spare time, but... I guess it was too late..." He drifted off and looked away from the group, not wanting them to see the moistness of his eyes.
But Wendy still saw. Her own eyes were damp at the thought of one man losing everything that was precious to him. His respect, his looks, and now his beloved. She stretched across the table and clasped his hand in hers.
"I'm sorry..." she said quietly. "I shouldn't have asked..."
He looked over to her, his golden-brown eyes shiny from tears. He gave a slight smile and squeezed her hand. "It's okay... I'm fine."
Monger spoke up from the silence of the room. "Doctor Cockroach... if you need some time... you can be excused."
Dr C stood up at once and smiled, though his eyes were still damp. "Thankyou, General... I'll see you some other time, gentlemen... and Wendy..." With that, he left, too depressed to even go back for his toolbox, and ignored the eyes that stared after him as the metal doors clamped shut.
Wendy couldn't speak, or move, or even look at anyone in the room. She blamed herself for bringing up the past... it was best forgotten anyway. She stared at her empty bowl and sighed, running a fingertip through the grease left from her organ. She felt so guilty... and empty...like part of her heart had been torn open and was trying to do the same to all her other organs.
"Wow..." BOB finally said. "I've never seen Doctor Cockroach so sad before... he must've really liked her..."
"He loved her, BOB..." Link replied glumly. He also felt a twinge of guilt inside him... after all, he had been trying to push the Doc onto Wendy when this whole time he was still mourning over his previous girl... "All these years and we didn't ask once..."
"How dumb were we?" BOB asked the six of them. Insectosaurus let out a wail, on the brink of tears himself. Even Monger looked hurt, and he was about as emotional as a Greek statue.
"God, I'm so stupid..." Wendy muttered, running her fingers through her hair and leaning back in her chair. "I never should've mentioned anything... he probably hates me..."
Monger shook his head. "Of course not. If anything, he'll like you more."
Insectosaurus let out a roar in agreement. Link turned around and nodded, a small smile coming back at last. "He's right. You're the only person out of the five of us who's ever asked anyone in here about their life before... this. Not to mention that you were the only one of us to comfort him."
Wendy looked from one face to another, a smile coming back to her face also. "You're serious?"
Monger nodded, joining in on the pleasant-expression-club. "Plus, maybe this talk has opened his eyes a little... Maybe he knows that he's got to move on..."
"Maybe with Wendy?" BOB said enthusiastically, cheering up instantly. Wendy shook her head, but smiled just as cheerfully.
"Guys, just because I'm the only monster with breasts does not make me the one and only for Doctor C..." she said sarcastically. But her casual tone faded as she thought back to the subject. "But before I screw anything else up, I might as well pry a little more." She turned to Link first, crossing her legs in a very news-reporter-fashion. "So tell me, do you have a girlfriend?"
"Or a boyfriend..." Monger muttered. Everyone turned to him, wide-eyed blinking. "What? It's a possibility one of the fellas here is a fruit! Heck, I even thought our Doc might've been on the Broadway side of life..."
"Well guess what buddy, I've had neither..." Link interrupted. "Sure, there were a few girls on Coco Beach that I admired, but that was it. But...I'm pretty sure any girl would be happy to go on a date with the Link-ster."
"Who's the Link-ster?" BOB asked. Before Link could answer, Wendy interrupted quickly with the same question. "Uh... do perverted freaks count?"
Wendy blinked. "You had a pervert?" She could never imagine someone using a pair of binoculars to spy on a giant blue mass of goo stripping off for a shower.
"Yeah!" he said, slightly hurt that she didn't know. "Jake was such a jerk! He dug me up when I was dead and tried to make out with my corpse... whatever that means..."
"Uh... that was me, BOB. Jake was my pervert," she replied, not wanting to remember that very unpleasant experience. "But let me tell you one thing, you can have him." She looked up from BOB to the giant orange fuzz-ball that was Insectosaurus. "What about you, little guy? Ever had a girlfriend?"
He let out a roar for a reply.
Link blinked, his jaw dropping even further than it had when Monger burst his news. Wendy stared at him, more confused than ever, and finally cleared her throat. "What is it?"
"He hasn't had a girlfriend..."
"So what?" BOB asked. "Why are you getting all freaky?"
"He's had a boyfriend instead..."
"OKAY, I AM OUTTA HERE!" the zombie declared. "Before anything gets weirder than normal, I'm going back to my room!" She stood up and pushed her chair in, giving a last wave to the people she called her friends and turning around. But something out of the corner of her eye grabbed her attention...
...Dr C's toolbox.
She picked it up carefully, surprised at the weight of it, and carried it in her arms to her door. "I'm going to have to talk to him some time or another..." she muttered as the doors opened to her room. Just as the doors were starting to close, she quickly ducked her head around to get one last sarcastic comment in.
"Monger! Good luck on the date! God knows you're gonna need it!!" she yelled across the room, giving a cheesy thumbs-up to match her attitude.
Monger smirked and did something he thought he'd never do as a warden for a bunch of freaks to society: he flipped her the birdie. Wendy laughed and jumped back inside her room before the doors shut around her neck, careful not to drop anything from Dr C's box.
She took a deep gulp, swallowed back her regret, and walked towards the wall of her cell. "I'll be needing a little luck too, Mr G..." she muttered. She balanced the toolbox in one arm and knocked loudly on the metal of the wall. "Okay, here goes..."
The wall slid open, revealing the clean and perfect white space that was Dr C's room. He was looking around in the room for something important of his, Wendy knew that much from the panicked look on his face. But she was too nervous to say anything... she was always bad with apologies... they were always so hideously awkward.
"I could swear I had it with me..." he muttered, looking through a pile of blue and yellow Lego. "Unless I left it out with the others... But I'll look so foolish going back for it... but I need it done by tomorrow for Wendy... damn it!" he swore to himself, standing up and leaving that one pile for now. Just as he was about to search through another pile of spare parts and scrap materials, he noticed Wendy out of the corner of his wide eyes. "Oh! Um... hello there..." he said nervously and awkwardly.
Wendy giggled, but tried to hide it back. He was always so... sweet whenever he tried to be casual. "Hi..." she replied at a similar level of awkward. "Were you looking for this?" she asked, holding out the toolbox.
The scientist's eyes widened at the sight of it, and a smile of relief came to his face. "Thankyou!" he said, scurrying over at top-speed. He took it off her and held it in his own arms, making sure that everything was in there. "I was getting worried..."
And so the awkwardness began. Wendy somehow managed to summon up the courage to talk first, and started to ramble away. "I'm sorry... I really shouldn't have... It wasn't any of my business and I should have kept my nose out of it-"
"-don't be sorry!" he interrupted before she could make herself feel any worse. "I mean... you have nothing to be sorry for." He gave a reassuring smile, even though his eyes were ever-so-slightly-bloodshot.
Wendy smiled back anyway, pleased to know that this wasn't going to be as hard as she had imagined it to be. "It's just that... you looked so sad, I couldn't help but feel awful and-"
"-my dear, I'm fine. You seem to be taking this worse than I am!" he said, chuckling at her worried expression. "I merely needed a moment to collect myself, that's all. And...I'm sorry that you're sorry."
Wendy laughed. "You really are a Mad Hatter, aren't you?" she said, her attitude back to normal. "So, just checking for the hundredth time, you're alright? You're not angry or anything?"
"And for the hundredth time, I'm fine and quite content..." he answered calmly. Wendy smiled, gave a slight wave, and started walking back to her own room. Just as she was turning around, Dr C realised something that he still had to tell Wendy. Something that he never got to say earlier that day...
"Wendy I-"
But the walls closed up again, cutting him off for the second time that day. But he still continued anyway, despite the fact that there was a thick layer of metal between the two.
"Wendy... you are not cute... you're charming... witty... and a true friend..." he said with a sigh. "And most of all... you are... beautiful. Maybe not the type of beautiful you think you should be... but that doesn't mean you're not..." He looked up at the towering white wall before walking off, smiling at the memory of her laugh. "And you're definitely one of the funniest of girls I've met in my lifetime..."
CrazyA: ISN'T IT TRAGIC!!! Bwaaaahhh.... *goes off to cry in corner* Sniffle... please review...
