Chapter 9

That afternoon everyone on the team visited me, and my father too. They had all been really concerned, and it made me feel good to know that they cared.

Tiny spent an especially long time with me, telling me about the new videogames he was ordering, and about his childhood growing up in a fishing village. He promised to take me fishing soon, and it actually kind of sounded like fun.

But the biggest surprise had been Princess. After visiting hours were officially over, she had entered my room, explaining that she had asked to remain a 'patient', so that she could spend the night with me.

"You… don't have to…" I said.

"I know that, silly!" Princess replied, "I want to!"

"You do?" I was surprised. Did Princess have some kind of strange desire to be a nurse? Or maybe she just wanted the uniform… hey, maybe Mark had a thing for nurse costumes…

"When I was sick, at the orphanage, sometimes I would spend the night in the infirmary." Princess said quietly. "It was always so dark, and lonely. It almost made the sickness worse, when everything was so solitary…" Her voice trailed off, lost in the memory.

Wow. I hadn't thought about what Princess had been doing before she joined G-Force. She had been in an orphanage. She didn't have any idea of who her real parents were. All she had was G-Force, and an intense desire to prove herself.

It sounded pretty familiar.

"Thanks, Princess." I said, groping for her hand. She took my fingers in hers, and squeezed them. It felt good, actually. Like someone really cared for me.

We spent a couple of hours talking about random stuff. She told me about her childhood at the orphanage, and I talked about living in the lab with those boring old scientists. I told her that I liked the drums in the Ready Room, and she suggested that she could join me on her guitar. She'd even play some decent shit, and not any of that folksy crap. She also told me that she had convinced my father to let me stay with her at Jill's. Jill's turned out to be a snack bar that Princess worked at part-time, when she wasn't on duty for G-Force. It actually sounded fantastic for a kid like me, who had spent almost his entire life underwater in Center Neptune.

"I can't believe you stuck your damn neck out for me like that!" I said, "Why'd you go to so much fucking trouble?" "Broop… breep… why… did you…doot… do that?"

"I just thought…" Princess seemed to be choosing her words carefully, "I thought that you might want a little more freedom. Everyone needs a place to go… a home."

"You… want … a home… with me?" I was blown away.

"Only if you do." she said quickly.

"Damn straight!" I laughed. "Brrrrt… you bet!"

Princess found a microwave somewhere, and she made popcorn for us. We ate it as we talked. After a little while, she got out her guitar and started playing and singing for me. Damn, she was pretty good. Her voice was decent… very clean and sweet. I found myself drifting away, just listening to the sound of her music.

Before I realized it, I had fallen asleep.

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A man in an ugly green uniform approached me, pointing a rifle at my head. I reached for my bolos, but they were gone. As I moved to kick him, my foot slipped, and I found myself falling to the ground. Only I didn't stop there. I kept on falling, through the floor and into a giant wall of flames. I couldn't breathe, and the heat was intense as my uniform smoldered and burned. I tried to cry out for help, but my throat was parched and the only sound I was able to make was a hoarse croak.

"Help…" came a dry, scratchy whisper from my mouth.

I felt a soft hand on my forehead, and a straw pushed between my lips. Icy cold water came forth, and I gulped it gratefully.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Princess asked quietly.

"Yeah…" I muttered. "Thanks…"

"No problem." she replied. I felt her kiss my cheek, and she pulled the covers up around me. "Just go back to sleep. Everything will be fine in the morning."

"Okay…" I yawned. I wondered what time it was. With these bandages over my eyes, I had no idea.

"It's 3 am." Princess said, reading my mind. "Don't worry. You'll know it's morning when I'm harassing the doctors to take those bandages off of your face."

I laughed softly, before snuggling back under the covers.

As I drifted off to sleep again, a sudden thought entered my mind.

This was what it felt like, to have a mother.