Final chapter! Final, final chapter! It's probably wrong to be so happy about this, but I am, because this story was keeping me way behind schedule. I only allow myself now to do three stories at a time, and I have at least eight different stories planned that I could never do because of FH and now I finally can.
But it's sad to, because saying good-bye to FH is saying good-bye to the ANT Farm archive for at least a year or something like that, and it's gonna be really hard to say good-bye to my Folive and Clexi readers and reviewers.
Yeah, I'm feeling plenty of different things with this story. It's kinda like a love/hate thing I got going on with this thing and I don't think that's normal.
I don't know if I can gaurntee you will love this ending chapter as a closing chapter because it will be insanely rushed, but I'm just whatever.
The plan, so incredibly, gorgeously brilliant was a sloppy mess.
They only had three hours to plan everything, make the right alliances and destroy the right enemies to make this work. Lexi, a former enemy herself in a way, knew that despite the busy planning process it would easy enough for their side-tracked minds.
Olive would finally be with them again.
It took a third of those three hours to beg Cameron, gather the paint and right explosives for the paint. And it took another third to convince her and Fletcher's parents that, yes, they knew what they were doing and, certainly, no one would get majorly hurt. They weren't criminals.
The final hour. The hardest hour. Where everything—the success of their plan, the precise assurance that it would work, and the confirmation that it was indeed who they thought it was from Cameron—fell into place.
Not bad, Lexi thought, not bad at all.
Now, if only it would work.
Fletcher was nervous, anxious, enthused, angered, and saddened. There were so many possibilities, scenarios all relying on the ticking paint can in his hand. It felt like holding a gun. Almost.
Lexi happened to be a genius in Science. He had felt at ease watching her work so carefully, so sure of where the wires went and how they did so. It also made him feel a bit out of place, just standing there to the side as he watched her hands grab and place their supplies wherever it helped perfect their plan.
But standing there, in a dark alley next to the fanciest place in Seattle while holding a paint can tick tick ticking away like a warning, handle slick and metal and heavy, was frightening. Fletcher wasn't sure he could breathe.
"Is your heart beating as loud as mine?" he asked the blonde next to him feverishly.
"Oh, good, I thought that was mine." Lexi put a gloved hand over her heart, feeling it beat against her palm rapidly. She was positive beads of sweat were gathering at her temples from anticipation. It was nice to know she wasn't the only nervous one. But they couldn't back out now; this was their only chance.
Her phone, sweaty and slick in her grip, practically shook in he hands. "Is everything ready?"
"Perfectly in place," Cameron responded with clear clarity.
Lexi allowed herself a small smile. "Great, thanks Cam."
As she put her phone away, she couldn't help but think of how that was the first time they called one another. And hoped it wouldn't be the last.
A door, rusty and bare, clearly unused at this time of night, didn't make a sound as it watched the two slip through and into darkness. Their footfalls fell silent as they crept down the hall. Lexi ran a hand along the cement walls, getting a shiver—this place was so surreal.
"What do we do now?" she can't help but ask. Their plan in all its brilliance was starting to slip away from doubt.
"Where do you think they'd keep her?" Fletcher answered with a question. Lexi kind of hated how he always did that because he was creating more questions on top of old ones. So annoying.
"They?"
"There's going to be more than one of him, and Cameron said Chyna wasn't home."
Lexi's leg started to bounce; it was a completely different battle field, she realized, when meeting your worst enemy outside school. School had a routine—trash talk, gossip, confront, yell at, repeat the next day—but outside of school you were almost defenseless because you never knew what the other was going to do.
Her heart nearly stopped when she felt a door frame. Lexi almost didn't say anything—almost.
"I think I found it," she exclaimed weakly, grasping a dirty door handle that groaned with she clutched it a little too tight.
Fletcher gripped the paint handle harder. "Do you remember the plan?" he asked.
"Yeah," Lexi responded, adrenaline pumping in her veins. She might just drop to the floor. Very soon. "But don't you think it'd be a bit more guarded?"
"Just because they're criminals can't they can't be idiots too."
And that's when everything truly worked.
Straight from the beginning they had been guessing. All it took was the bang of the door and holler of the goons for Fletcher to know that this was real. The taste of success so thrilling as his hand shot out to throw the paint, his cry of triumph so so loud and honest—yes, gorgeous and brilliant the plan was.
Not to mention completely insane, for lack of a better word.
But there she was. And all he saw when the tick tick boom came.
Lexi ducked. Her eyes didn't. They remained open as she crumpled to the fall, watching eagerly.
She had waited forever to see this moment.
It was like watching a feature film only you knew you could see. It was really something, but at the same time disappointing. The blast, colorful and bright, bombed over everything, smashing the room into silence. Lexi blinked.
Her head and hair (thankfully covered by her hood that was fortunately up at the time) blocked mostly by her shielding arms, paint staining the sleeves and the rest of her body. The entire room, goons (henchmen, whatever) glued to wall included, swirled to together like an artists' palette.
But she didn't notice or care.
Olive—was right in front of her.
Despite this, Lexi couldn't help but cringe at the sight. Her happiness battled the nearly immediate desire to stay away from the grotesque girl sitting in that chair. She didn't look like Olive; it was hard to believe she was Olive. So odd, ill, and under mannered—nothing like the smart blonde would allow herself to come.
But she couldn't help it. Lexi tried to bite back her tears.
Everything was different now.
But Fletcher didn't hold back.
Something in him, unlocked and charged and ready, busted from inside him, rocketing him forward. Their bodies stuck together with the paint keeping them smashed together, in place like glue. Fletcher continued to smile, crashing their lips together. So rough and bruising and right, nothing could destroy that moment.
He expected sirens. A click of a lock then the finality of a gun, ending them all; nothing was ever that simple.
Except, maybe in the movies that no one ever watched just because of that reason.
No way was Fletcher going to be able to kiss his girlfriend, save from all the madness, and escape peacefully without some sort of strike back.
Nothing.
Olive sat still and shell-shocked in her chair. Sore, numb, and overall, happily disappointed. This was too, too easy. They should be dead by now. She shouldn't be able to sit there, tingly from passion and enjoying the feel of her boyfriend's lips on her—despite the pain and pounding soreness radiating from her bruises and cuts. She swayed only in the slightest, the blood loss starting to take over.
Olive didn't have to blink to be running, the rickety damned chair falling to ground and practically splintering into pieces as she's dragged off and out in to the darkness of the hall. She felt bad, really, for not being able to help, but she figured, hey, do they want help or a dead body on their hands?
Moonlight stung her eyes; the cold night air rips through her core and slapped her harshly.
Before she fell—to the ground in that painful heap of relief and pain and cheeriness and love and just a tight, knotty bundle on the ground—Olive started to laugh. The sound, out of place in the chilling night air, lifted and fluttered briefly before ripped to shreds by the disapproving wind.
Her last thought: This has to be the only time I'm happy about him being a drunk asshole.
Oh the looks. They had to be the best part of it all. The look when they carried-slash-dragged-yanked their best friend's body all the way to the downtown hospital; sweaty, panting, and thick with grime. Another look when, yes, that was the girl who had been missing for days. And the final look when they sat down in the waiting room to stay there for an hour before anyone else arrived, and another five when everyone else did finally show up.
It was all pretty satisfying.
And the sobbing. It was pretty overwhelming. Lexi and Fletcher's mothers cried and cried, their fathers sitting in stony silence before shedding a couple tears, too. They must have been such a big group and an odd sight. Only adding to the weirdness, two pairs of police officers started pulling the two families aside, wanting to speak to the children and get their take on everything.
Fletcher didn't care.
He was statuesque through all the questions, keeping his beady stare down the hall aimed at the room staring right back at him. No slim glass window to look through—a solid metal door offering now views of what's inside.
He had to know. Immediately.
Fletcher didn't risk everything to save her and then have her yanked away again. Not this time.
Stupid nurses; stupid doctors; stupid test; stupid rules. Fletcher was tired of restraints and obstacles; he just wanted Olive.
"Olivia Doyle?"
Hours later—they made him wait two hours after getting through with the police. That was too, too long. Too long for his patience to take.
Lexi scooted closer (quite hard to do with a drooling Micheal sawing away on her shoulder, but she managed) to the artist as the parents stood. The doctor, all kind eyes, crinkle faced and gray haired, pulled the ring of adults to the side, a clipboard and thick clipboard in hands. The sight of the large stack made Lexi's empty, upset stomach churn.
"What do you think they did to her?" she asked her friend nervously, adjusting her brother back onto her lap and not halfway to the floor.
"Classic things," Fletcher grumbled gruffly. "Asked her questions, she didn't give an answer, they punished her for it. I find it hard they broke out anything heavy though; drunks are too stupid to do anything like that."
Lexi bit down on her lip and stared at the glossy floor tiles, hoping he was right.
"Lexi."
She turned in her chair. Her body felt lighter now, not weighed down by the body of her sleeping brother. But she didn't want to get up; even the cracked waiting chair seemed better than facing Olive. She'd let her down; nearly gotten there too late.
"Alexis, it's time to wake up." Her dad's trying now; when he said he full name, he always meant that it was no laughing matter.
Lexi didn't want to get up.
Limbs stiff, she sat up, stretching and wincing when she heard the pop of her arm and shoulder. No doctors in sight, no Fletcher either. Micheal, still asleep, drooled away soundly on her father's shoulder.
"We're going to leave soon," her mother informed gently as Lexi touched up her clothes and ran a hand through her knotty hair. Her clothes were still a stained mess; the paint had dried to awkwardly chip and stick whenever she moved. "You better go see Olive while you can."
Lexi stood, smiling at her parents like everything was fine and she'd been waiting for this moment forever. But as she turned to go down the hall and to the door, she felt like crying. Time dragged on as she shuffled toward the door. She shivered when her hand touch the doorknob. It felt like a crime she twisted the knob and waked through the door.
The sight was so normal she could nearly laugh.
Olive was bruised—cut lips, swollen eye, bruised from neck down, greasy hair and pale, sunken face with hollowed eyes. She looked so tiny in the hospital bed, nearly drowning in the gown they made her wear. Her bones popped out in random places in a unhealthy way.
Otherwise, completely normal. Fletcher (there he was) with disheveled hair and snoozing away, was wrapped around her good (right) arm, his lower half nearly dropping off the side. Olive on the other hand looked completely calm for being a victim of such things. She looked up at the TV through lazy eyes, remote in a loose grip.
"You're looking better," Lexi couldn't help but say. She wasn't completely in the room but not out of the room either. She felt that keeping her distance would be best.
Olive didn't even jump. "I guess," is all she said before pointing to the TV screen and letting out a yawned, "Look."
Sirens blares. Squad cars (two, four,...eight of them, Lexi counted) and even a bus from the juvenile detention hall were on guard behind a busty brunette of a reporter. Her waxy cheeks nearly bust as she gripped her microphone. "I'm here standing in front of the St. Red Rose hotel, one of the most highly reviewed hotels in all of the state. Reportedly kidnapped teen Olivia Doyle was found trapped in the underground storage units at midnight. While the rescuers remain anonymous, it is found that father Gregory Doyle and accomplice, Chyna Parks, freshman of Webster high school, were behind the kidnapping..."
The reporter's voice faded as Olive switched the TV to mute.
Then she started to laugh.
Lexi jumped, grabbing at the door frame from unexpected noise. But there Olive sat, remote in hand, laughing with her head leaning back on the stiff, rocky feel on her two pillows.
Soon the blonde joined in two.
During her laughter, Lexi thought to look at the disapproving clock tick tick ticking away on the wall. Wow, she couldn't help but think. 3 am and they were drunk, drunk with laughter and insanity. But somehow, Lexi figured with a grin, they were going to be okay.
Fletcher continued to snore away, but the slight swell of his lip and tinge of red to his cheeks gave away what he did before. And Lexi started to laugh again. Olive had calmed only in the slightest. But she still, laughed and laughed away because, yeah, her life was pretty crazy right now.
But normal was boring and so overrated, anyway. Plus, she spent her entire life aching to be normal. What's the point now, Olive thought, when she knew she never would be?
Normal was a faraway dream. And that was okay for now.
There was always another time.
Wow, this chapter sucked on so many levels and probably doesn't even make sense. But, this was the last chapter, it's 2 am on Christmas day, so my caring factor isn't high.
But, whatever. Merry Christmas?
Just review and tell me how sucky it was.