A/N: I realized a blunder I made in the last chapter: it makes much more sense for Plankton to have a key, so I'm changing Squidward and Angel's destination to the Chum Bucket. I have corrected it in the previous chapter.
Squidward and Angel were only a few blocks from the Chum Bucket when they noticed the boat behind them was picking up speed.
"That guy's been tailing us since we left the Krusty Krab," Angel said, "Do you think he's following us?"
Squidward squinted in the rearview mirror, but couldn't make out the driver's face. "I don't recognize the boat, but I do remember seeing it a few minutes ago. He could be another customer going to the Chum Bucket for dinner."
"I'm going to take a turn about the next block. If he follows me, I'll know." That stated, Angel put on her blinker and turned left across the traffic-less road. She took another left two blocks later, instructing Squidward to watch out for that boat. Then she made her way back to the main road.
"I don't see him. I guess he wasn't following us after all." Angel chuckled embarrassedly, "You must think me kinda paranoid."
Squidward shook his head. "It's actually comforting; at least I know that you've given some credit to my story. Otherwise you wouldn't be this cautious."
"I'm cautious by nature, but not generally para–" CRUNCH!
The ugly old jalopy from before smashed into the passenger side of Angel's boat, crumpling the fiberglass and spraying shards of the headlights everywhere. Squidward heard Angel screaming and threw out his hand to help her, but everything was spinning and he couldn't get his bearings and there was so much noise and debris and swirling images
SpongeBob and Plankton were on their way back to the Chum Bucket when they heard the distinct cacophony of a boat crash. Forgetting his previous agenda, the taller of the two sprinted off in what he thought was the direction of the disaster. The latter took a moment to consider before sighing and racing after his companion.
SpongeBob was halfway to the scene when he realized he'd have no idea what to do once he got there. He was a simple fry cook, having no medical training or even points of reference from the wide variety of medical shows he'd never bothered to watch. But he barely had time to wonder why he cared so much before he expelled all his doubts and continued running toward the sound of windows shattering and tires fighting the asphalt.
When he burst onto the scene from the shadows of the buildings around him, SpongeBob surveyed the wreckage to see if he recognized either of the boats. He didn't, but he was more concerned about the state of the victims than their identities. "Hello! Are you alright?" He called out to the drivers, but no one responded. Fearing the worst, he jogged up to the smoking mass of mangled fiberglass and jerked open the least-affected door – the driver's door. A woman in the front seat groaned, and SpongeBob instinctively wove his arm around her, helping her out of the mechanical monster. She was conscious enough to walk with him to the sidewalk, but the large gash on her forehead must've had more of an impact than he'd first realized.
Think, he commanded himself, What's the first thing you do after pulling a victim to safety? You watched a special about this once, so think! SpongeBob decided to ask her questions, assess her mental state, and see if there was anything else he needed to know. "What's your name?"
The woman groaned again, holding her head. Her eyes had been shut tightly the whole time, but were now less so than before. SpongeBob repeated the question, and her eyelids fluttered open. She glanced up at him and mumbled, "Squidward?"
The blood drained from his face, and SpongeBob staggered to a sitting position before he could pass out. "What did you say?"
Her eyes, which had been swimming, began to focus on him, and she coughed harshly before saying, "My friend… did you get him out?"
"What friend? Was there someone else in the boat with you?"
The woman coughed again, nodding as she did so, which was all her rescuer needed. Jumping to his feet, he bolted across the street and practically leapt over the side of her boat, landing in the grit-covered backseat. "Squidward!? Anyone back here?" He began digging through the pile of junk and chunks of wreckage, but came up empty. Desperate, he peered over the opposite side of the boat, hoping that her passenger had escaped that way. And then he saw something else – two silhouettes he could barely make out through a wall of brown steam, performing some strange dance that made no sense to the tired man's compromised brain.
It took the jarring cry of a single word, "Help!" before SpongeBob could regain his feet, and he rushed to their aid. Bursting through the scalding mist, he realized that it was not a dance, but rather a battle going on between two roughed-up men. His heart stuttered as he took in the scene: the man on top was throwing punches at the other, landing nearly every one.
A rage overcame SpongeBob, and he charged the oppressor, slamming him into the ground with the full force of his body. Feral snarls tore from his lips as he tightened his fingers around the starfish's neck. The man under hand was startled, now frightened, flailing in a frenzied attempt to free himself, but such was futile with the frenetic sponge so divorced from his sanity that he didn't hear the screams of protest until a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He whipped around, rearing his fist to swing at whoever dared to disturb him, but he stopped. The concerned face staring back at him was so familiar that he instantly cooled, releasing the starfish and allowing the blue tentacle offered to pull him to his feet.
SpongeBob's jaw went slack, and he asked in a faltering voice, "Squidward? Is it really you?"
Squidward nodded softly, tears sliding down his smiling cheeks. In unison, the men embraced each other, their battered arms holding strong despite the strain the recent events had put on them. The hug transitioned seamlessly into a passionate kiss, broken only by the sudden splutters of the starfish beneath them.
SpongeBob reluctantly left the warmth of his fiancé and jerked the attacker to his feet, pinning his arms behind him roughly. "Patrick, what are you doing here? Why were you beating up Squidward?"
"Don't waste your time with him," Squidward spat, wiping bloody dribble from his busted lip. "Let's get him inside the Chum Bucket before we interrogate him. Plankton's sure to have something to bind him with."
"What about your friend? The woman who was driving you?"
"Angel! I completely forgot about her. Is she okay?"
"I'm fine, Squidward," Nurse Angel replied from behind them, "Mr. Plankton was about to escort me to his restaurant." Plankton stood beside her, his crown creased in concern.
Together, the group picked their way across the wreckage and down the block to the Chum Bucket.
"I'll run ahead and get Karen to find restraints for our guest," Plankton said, then took off into the restaurant.
The other four stumbled along, slowed down by the beaten starfish's failed attempts to break free. When at last they made it inside, the hosts were waiting for them with a pair of manacles. SpongeBob took them and handcuffed Patrick to a metal chair. No customers were around to witness, which would have confused SpongeBob had he not been told earlier that Plankton had taken the day off. He hadn't realized he'd closed the entire restaurant, but was now thankful for it.
"Should we call the police?" Angel asked when no one said anything.
"Not just yet," SpongeBob said, "Patrick hasn't told us his story yet, and it would be such a pity if he never got the chance."
Angel looked to Squidward for advice, but he said, "SpongeBob's right. We have a lot of unanswered questions we might not get to ask if the police take Patrick first. Plankton, could you find Ms. Angel something to drink?"
"Sure thing." Plankton left for the kitchen. He came back moments later with a soda, which he handed to the woman before returning to his wife's side and falling silent. Any uneasiness he might have felt toward the situation he kept hidden.
"What do we ask him first?" Squidward asked his fiancé.
"It's pointless to ask at all," Patrick spoke up, "I'm not telling you anything, and you don't have the stomach to torture the information out of me. Without your memories, you'll never know what truly happened."
SpongeBob gasped, having forgotten his lost memories in all the uproar. He turned to his fiancé and demanded, "Did you get my brain back?"
Patrick cackled before the squid could answer. "No, he didn't. He's just as inept as you are, you spineless queer."
Without explanation, Squidward made a sudden dash out the door. The party stared after him in confusion, but no one followed. They stood in awkward silence for several minutes. Then he reappeared at last, a brown cooler tucked under his arm. "Angel, help me," he demanded, out of breath. It took her only a moment to remember what was in the cooler, and then the nurse dropped to her knees beside her former patient and began fiddling with the strange, pink substance inside.
"Squid, what's going on?" SpongeBob demanded.
Squidward instantly stood and took his hand. "Darling, I need you to sit down for me."
Confused but trusting, the sponge took a seat in one of the more comfortable chairs. "What are you doing?"
"It's still intact," Angel said from her position on the floor. "You are lucky it wasn't damaged in the wreck."
"Great. Do you have a scalpel?"
Angel shook her head sadly. "No, I don't. But you'd need to sedate him first."
Squidward cursed under his breath. He stalked over to Patrick and demanded, "Where are your medical supplies?"
"As if I'd let you use them," Patrick scowled.
"I have a few things in my lab downstairs," Plankton volunteered, "They're old, from way back when I was a villain and tried all those harebrained schemes to defeat Eugene." His voice broke on the name. Turning, he commanded, "Follow me. We might as well take this all downstairs."
Angel packed up the cooler while Squidward and SpongeBob dragged their prisoner after Plankton and his computer-wife. When they came to the top of the stairs, Karen transformed into a flying monitor and led the way down into the bowels of this strange, metallic creature they called a restaurant. For a moment the group was submerged in total darkness. Then Karen whirled into action, and soon the fluorescent lights were flickering on across the tall, metal-clad room. Forgotten projects lined the walls of the large laboratory, and SpongeBob, Plankton, and Squidward took them in with mild nostalgia.
Squidward turned to Plankton. "Do you maybe have a room where we can lock Patrick up while we reattach SpongeBob's brain? Just somewhere temporary until we finish with this."
Plankton nodded and led them to a cramped, poorly-lit room he called "The Dungeon." Once he was secured and the thick door locked, he led them deeper into the lab, into a room off the main path that he assured them was for medical use.
Plankton hopped up on a stool next to the hard, steel lab table. "Karen, would you please sterilize this?" Karen did as she was told, bringing over the necessary tools in addition, as though the standard setup were etched into her RAM. "Thank you, dear. Squidward, all the materials you need should be here. Do you know what you're doing?"
Squidward nodded. "I've memorized the procedure. But I'm not exactly sure how to operate the anesthesia."
"I can help with that," Nurse Angel volunteered. "I've had to help many residents over the years; I know my way around these machines."
Squidward turned to SpongeBob. "Sweetie, I need you to lie down on the table. Nurse Angel and I are going to reattach your frontal lobe to the rest of your brain."
"Are you sure you can do that? I mean, Patrick hates us. He could have lied in his instructions."
Squidward enveloped one of his shaking hands in both of his. "Sweetheart, I'm not using Patrick's instructions. The doctor from the Mariana Trench taught me how to do it, and I trust him – mainly because I watched him do the exact same procedure on another patient. I know what I'm doing."
SpongeBob met his eyes hesitantly, but once they connected, his fear ebbed away. "I trust you."
Squidward pulled him into a kiss before helping him onto the rigid table. "Lay. Nurse Angel, if you would."
The nurse took his right arm and sterilized the spot directly above the inside of the elbow, where his vein was most prominent. "You're going to feel a sharp sting when I put it in, but it's only temporary. Tell me about your job."
SpongeBob began to talk, answering her questions and barely noticing when she put the needle in his arm. Before he realized it, he had drifted off to sleep…
Evilene paced the round enclosure of the pineapple's bedroom, feeling very much like a bird in a cage. Patrick had not responded to her calls since he'd hung up with the promise to "intercept them." SpongeBob was not back, and the sun was midway through its setting ritual. Growling, she grabbed a pillow and took out her frustration on it. Then when she had thoroughly throttled the stuffed foe, she stomped down into the living room and turned on the news, hoping that maybe they had all died in a fiery shootout. She cursed when it opened on a commercial, and stalked into the kitchen to make herself an eggplant and peanut brittle cheeseburger. These pregnancy cravings were really starting to work her nerve, but she couldn't blame the little one inside her – she loved her unborn daughter too much. She'll be the one steady good thing in my life, she told herself, munching meditatively on her concoction.
When the news finally came on, the top story for the night was of a boat wreck in the middle of downtown. The reporter went on to say that the scene was baffling in particular because neither of the drivers could be found. "If anyone has any information on either of the drivers, Angel N. Kelsea or Ringo Starr, please contact the number at the bottom of the screen. Further police investigation pending."
Evilene shot out of her seat when she recognized one of Patrick's aliases. So he had managed to intercept them, but then where was he? Where were the bodies? And why wasn't he answering his cellphone?
She considered perhaps that he was off hiding them, probably having to take extra measures to make sure they were dead, since crashes don't always kill. Now she had to weigh her options: should she sit tight and wait for SpongeBob to return and Patrick to call her, or should she take a trip out to the Chum Bucket to make sure matters had been dealt with. After careful deliberation, she forsook logic and prepared for a roadtrip.
The minutes ticked away as Squidward sat on the stool beside his beloved. The surgery had gone exactly as he'd hoped – he'd attached the frontal lobe with no complications, and it hadn't taken long at all. The only thing left to do was wait for SpongeBob to awake. But waiting was the most excruciating thing he'd gone through since the last time SpongeBob had been in the hospital, and he had neither the time nor the patience to wait that long again.
The hostile steel of the cold lab began to seep into his bones. Squidward curled inward toward his fiancé, hoping affectionate contact would speed the process along (though admittedly it hadn't before). He was alone with SpongeBob; the others had been sent out to prepare dinner. Squidward contemplated how nice a hot meal would be after going without for so long. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd sat down to a normal, home-cooked meal. Thinking back, it was probably that last night with SpongeBob, the night they'd gone home rejoicing because Patrick was divorcing Evilene and she would finally be out of their hair. Then the next morning came with the news that Patrick had cut out SpongeBob's memories, that he had used them to prove Evilene had cheated on him.
Squidward suddenly realized that SpongeBob never knew whether he'd cheated. But he consoled himself with the fact that he wouldn't have to explain, that his beloved would wake up soon with all his memories intact and a bunch of answers to some things Squidward was sure were the true reason his memories had been stolen in the first place. He squeezed SpongeBob's hand. Oh please wake up…
A/N: I hate to end it right here, but I must, for there are things to do and people to see. I will update again before summer ends - I promised I would complete this story before school starts back, and I'll do my best to keep that promise. Don't forget to follow.