Hey you folks...
Thank you so much for your comments and private messages and all... Thanks for reading this story my loyal readers! And a big thank you for having the energy to actually follow this story even if I might have these long periods of time when I don't upload a new chapter in many weeks...
But, here I am again, with a new chapter... It's a long one again. I don't know if it's "Vlaatjee-long" but for me, a long one nevertheless XD
So, a couple of things about the next chapter... I really have grown to love writing about Harley, I don't know why, I just love that character. Also maybe some of you start to notice some darker turns in this story, concidering the Fighters' inner battles and all...I did name this story as "The Good, The Bad and the Rebels" so that might indicate where this is heading...I've always enjoyed writing about these lines between the good and bad. And sometimes the line is hard to draw... Well, we'll see where this all goes... We'll find out together :D
So, writer's block is over and it's time to continue with this story.
Hope you guys like it and like always it would be really appreciated if you could leave a comment after reading, it will help me get through the writer's blocks faster and with more efficiency...
Peace out!
-SpaceFlora
The Good, The Bad and the Rebels
Chapter 17
Hunches and Doubts
The beautiful burgundy haired and golden furred medic hurried the corridors inside the Headquarters. Beretta felt herself a bit nervous as she was peaking inside the rooms and kitchen and the main hall... She wasn't sure for whom she was particularly looking for but when she saw the ginger-coloured mechanic rushing towards her she stopped and opened her mouth.
"Harley..." Beretta started but the Martian mechanic, who was still wearing her greasy work overalls like that was the only outfit she owned, only raised her hand to her while rushing past.
"Not now!"
"I need to talk to you...!" Beretta raised her voice after her and first it looked like Harley couldn't care less but then she suddenly stopped and with a visible sigh, she turned around on her heels to face the other one of the medics they currently had in the HQ.
"..so?" Harley then shrugged anxiously her shoulders, like she was in a hurry to continue her run to where ever she was heading to.
Beretta looked around them but all the Fighters and rebel rats were all just chilling around the base and noone was in the hearing distance at the moment.
"What would you do if you had some suspisions over someone and that those suspisions might be very very important but then again you're not completely sure your hunch is right...?"
Harley only blinked at this and then gave a frusrated sigh.
"Well, I would say to this person to just spill it out and ditch the stupid riddles and stop wasting my time!"
Beretta was a bit taken back by her behaviour but then again, Harley had not been showing her too much kindness throughout the time Beretta had been spending with the Fighters back in their base again. Well, she had not been in her best behaviour either after Rimfire had dropped her and Aprilia there but she had comen around... And she knew Harley from the days of war, she had only changed a couple of words with her back then but she had heard about this feisty mechanic who didn't necessarily always have her filter on when she spoke to people and Beretta had known a couple of medics who had ended up crying after Harley had been telling them straight... She had thought back then that the only reason the Fighters had not fired her difficult ass had been because Stoker had infact been in love with her, everyone had known that. And beacause she was one of the best mechanics out there and the Fighters respected her. Also, it couldn't have hurt that Harley was quite easy on the eye, especially in the middle of the war. And now, here they all were again, as Beretta was looking into those deep blue eyes of the ginger-coloured female who was still inpatiently glaring her back.
"Okay, so... here's what I think..." Beretta took a deep breath but then lowered her voice a bit.
"I think Mina had a relationship with Mace and that her kid is actually Mace's son!"
Harley stared at her, like she suddenly was the most curious looking animal but then she gave a heartful laughter and shook her head, like what she had just heard was the most idiotic thing ever.
"Man, I've heard some weird rumours around here but that tops it all!"
"I'm serious!" Beretta felt a bit annoyed but kept her voice down. Harley still looked like she didn't believe her but sighed and put her hand on her hip in a relaxed way.
"Why would you think that? And you're talking about the Mace here, Mace the Traitor, the-rat-that-infiltrated-into-our-group Mace?"
"Yes! I'm talking about the Mace! Mina showed me an old photo of her son and despite him being still a baby in that, I'm sure he is a rat. Well, a half-rat..."
"A rat? You're sure?"
"Ofcourse! Look I went to med school here as well, I think I know how to distinguish a rat from a mouse!"
"Okay, well, what makes you so sure that it's Mace's kid...? I mean, unfortunately there are thousands of rats out there...She might have slept with anyone of them..." Harley spoke not even trying to mask her hate towards the rats and chills went through her even when thinking about the possible love affair between a mouse and a rat.
"Just from the things she told me... about the father of her child, about the timeline... It all fits! She told us that her son would be five years old by now...Well, guess who joined you guys roughly six years ago?" Beretta asked.
Harley studied her in silence before opening her mouth again.
"It could be just a coincidence."
"But then again, it may not be..."
Harley was silently observing her still but then nodded thoughtfully.
"You told anyone else here about your suspisions?"
"No... You're the only one I've told..."
"I'm flattered..." Harley added sarcastically and that caused Beretta to make a face at her but Harley then eased up a little and shifted from one foot to the other, thinking.
"Okay, listen... Don't tell anyone about this... Not yet. When Stoker comes back, we can go to him and you can tell him what you just told me... He can decide what we're gonna do about that information..."
"Well, it's only a hunch...not a cold fact..."
"But if that hunch turns out to be a fact, there's someone in here, who has to answer a few questions...Again." Harley said and then only turned around and left.
x
x
The light in the ceiling flickered a moment before it became clear and steady again. Modo was looking at it, sitting on the only chair in the corner of the room but still pretty close to Simson's bed. Shelly, the doctor was hovering over Simson who was still unconscious and she ran some tests.
Modo let his gaze fell on the female doctor and he could felt a pinch inside him again. From the things it looked like Shelly was back on her normal self, well she seemed normal and relaxed, doing her job, Modo didn't know her so he couldn't really know what type of person she really was or detect any sudden changes in her personality like for example best friends could do.
The pinch inside him grew into this stronger coiling unpleasant feeling as he was regarding her still and he knew exactly what the uneasy feeling was about. It was because he had done something he had never done, something he had sworn to never to do. He had threaten a woman's life. He had pointed his gun at a woman. This small woman who had infact saved his and Simson's lives. Ofcourse Modo hadn't known that the moment the strange person had stepped inside the room (a storageroom situated in the basement of the Brimstone Hospital he had learned out later). The strange environment, the fact that he had been tied up and the fact that everything had went pretty much downhill from the moment they had stepped their biker boots back on the red Martian soil again with his two bros... It all had made him panic and the panic had numbed his judgement. And frankly, it made him sick. To hurt or threaten the lives of the women and children was a very big no-no in his books, and a mistake that people had to pay for if he ever found out about it. And now he had done the same thing and that was unforgivable.
And it was a painfully clear example of the things he had already told to Aprilia earlier when she had been confronting him... That the lines of the good and bad had started to blur. And that he had started to doubt the actions they had made and continue to make as Fighters. He had started to question whether or not the Fighters were the good guys here, if in a war there even could be anything good. He remembered that Aprilia told him it was all done for the greater good but Modo still doubted that there would ever be a good excuse to do bad things. He also knew that as a Fighter, it was dangerous to have doubts. Doubt meant more mistakes.
And he noticed him asking the same question over and over again now...If he was capable of betraying his own strong convictions, the beliefs that his own Mommah had taught him, who knows what he was capable of?
"Are you okay?"
Modo startled violently once he was dragged from his inner battles and raised his look to meet the slightly worried expression Shelly had while still standing beside Simson's bed. Modo cleared his throat.
"Yes." He answered with a small stutter in his voice even if he tried to keep it as steady as he could.
"You look pale..." Shelly stated and made a mental note that this big male who seemed to be gigantic even when sitting down had looked like a scared kid the second she had asked him a simple question but she quickly came into conclusion that this grey furred Fighter was only a bit shaken up after the traumatic events he had comen across with his rat friend.
"Ah'm okay." Modo only murmured back, nodding, trying to convince in a very poor way that he was alright but he had never been any good in disguising his true emotions. That made him the worst liar, too.
Shelly studied him, her other eyebrow raised. Her eyes then fell on his right side and she could see some blood running along his side and she quickly took a stack of paper towels and hurried to him. Modo only saw her running at him and he nearly was to leave his seat and flee but as she knelt down infront of him and pressed the paper towels against his side, on top of his fresh stitches, he gave a look to his right side as well.
"You're bleeding..." Shelly stated the obvious since Modo could see that now himself as well. The grey furred giant only cleared his throat and nodded and was to press his stitches himself with the stack of papers towels but Shelly firmly moved his hand away.
"I'm the doctor here... You just sit still..."
Modo studied her but then turned his look away like that way giving the doctor some privacy to do her work. He very seldomly argued with the women since he had learned out from the very early age that the women usually were right. Shelly gave him a look, now suddenly noticing how close they were from each other and she could easily see the dirt in his fur and the old scars he had all over his body and the holes and nicks that indicated the near-misses in his ears. From his ears her eyes continued to scan the black fabric that went around his head that made the eyepatch, to cover his left eyesocket. Modo was looking around the room and was completely oblivious of the female doctor's wandering eyes but as he turned his only working eye towards the doctor again, he met her look and Shelly quickly changed it back on the stitches again.
Shelly's mind had suddenly started to race as her thoughts were temporally turned back on the war the whole Mars had wittnessed just a couple of years back. The Plutarkian War had lasted from six to seven years, depending where one began to count. So the war had began around nine to ten years ago. Nine to ten years ago the man sitting now infront of her would have been quite a young man still. She found herself thinking what those eyes of him had seen and what that clearly suffered and damaged body had wittnessed and done. She could feel his tension radiating from him even if he looked relaxed. It was the inner tension, tension that only grew inside a man during the many traumatic and stressful situations and years. Even if he looked at ease, she could tell that from a one small noise or a word, he would sprang into action. These soldiers were like fine-tuned machines that never slept. And it made her a bit wary of him again, not because she thought he was a bad man, he seemingly was good-natured and well-behaving, most of the time that was...But there was something very unpredictable always with these soldiers that didn't really remember or know anything else outside the war fields, battles and death.
The doctor carefully let her look wander from his fresh stitches to his whole right side which was badly scarred and only partly to be seen under the Fighter's vest he had on. The area had healed though but still lacked fur in many places and the area was like a puzzle of grey fur and light pink scars. Following the scars her eyes finally fell on the bionic arm right next to her head.
She tried to be discreet with her goggle since she was a doctor after all and she had seen pretty disturbing things and she knew it was rude to stare but the shining and odd steel arm just caught her eyes and her attempt to be discreet failed.
"A missile."
She heard his low rumble to her right and she swiftly met his look but immidiately realized that he had noticed her stare.
"I'm sorry, didn't mean to stare..."
"That's okay..." Modo talked warmly.
"Ah might sometimes forget myself that it's a rare thing to see a mouse sportin' a steelfin like that..."
"Does it hurt?"
Modo shook his head.
"Nah, even forget about it sometimes...Ah get ghost pains though...Then it feels like Ah'm havin' three arms which is pretty freaky..."
"...It's just that I've seen many prostheses on war veterans in here but I've just never seen a prosthesis like that..."
After a short silence that suddenly fell over them Shelly turned her eyes back on Modo, to study his expression as this was only observing her back. He then huffed quietly but nodded thoughtfully.
"Funny...Ah have never thought of that rusty piece of metal as a prosthesis.." He said the last word like tasting it, feeling the word in his mouth. Shelly's look was a bit doubtful.
"I'm sorry if I said something to upset you..."
"No, ya didn't upset me, ma'am... You're right. The main reason why Ah'm still having that thing on is because Ah'm right-handed so it really helps me with the daily routines to have both arms...Maybe it's a high time for us all to start speaking with the right terms and seeing things as they really are..." He then added enigmatically but it looked like he was talking mainly to himself as Shelly didn't really know to whom this "us" was referring to. So, she only lowered her voice a bit.
"I'm sorry that happened to you."
Modo only nodded back, he was brought up to think that if someone was acting genuinely, one didn't start to bicker over things, even if he did not like for people to feel sorry for him. He changed his look back on Simson again.
"Well...Ah'm only happy it wasn't my tail..."
Shelly gave the rat also a look and like remembering what she had been doing before he had rushed to his side dawned on her.
"Press these while I check on him again... The stitches are fine, they're just not taking it kindly that you're already up and running only five hours after the surgery...To which as a doctor I have to say that it is not a good thing and you should not do that."
"We Fighters make the worst patients, Ah've been told..."
"Yes, that is absolutely correct...Try to be still. I don't want you to bleed out and have to confront Aprilia about it..."
A slight smile appeared to etch Modo's facial features while hearing his sweetheart's name. Shelly gave him a glance over Simson's bed while checking his vitals and had to smile herself too.
"I'm glad that Aprilia found someone who smiles like that after hearing her name."
Modo blushed a little and lowered his look to gaze his boots but he suddenly felt the same sickening pinch inside him again. He gave a sigh and closed his eye, trying to ease his breathing which had become a bit unstable suddenly.
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Primer pushed the cart along the forth floor. The search had been a failure in this floor as well, there had not been any signs on her Uncle and she had forgotten to hand out some of the patients their medicines and her superior had given her a long lecture and that had not left her in the best mood.
She had tried to see where the two Army soldiers had gone as well but she had lost them out of her sight nearly as soon as she had started to scan the forth floor, leaving her wondering where they might have gone and she had a nagging feeling that they were infact looking for the same persons and this was starting to resemble a race to who gets to find her Uncle first.
The sandcoloured young female cursed under her breath while pushing the cart, too lost in her thoughts to even smile at the patients anymore that were walking past her.
Where was he...?
She had heard that Uncle Modo had been back on Mars a few weeks now but she personally hadn't seen him yet. She felt a tiny pinch of jealousy for her brother, mother and grandmother who all had seen Modo already. Even her stepdad Radius had seen her Uncle and that fact just made her mad. Radius didn't even like Uncle Modo and he still got to see him? Life was not fair...
She would've loved to have been spending some good quality time with her uncle. During these recent years, she had only once seen him and even during the war her uncle had only rarely had the time to visit home. That made her a bit pissed-off. Family was important. Why he hadn't been visiting them more often? And had it really been that necessary for him to be on that stupid blue planet? Yeah, there must have been beautiful with all the water and all but still. This was their home, this is where her family belonged. Not onto some stupid planet that was giddyly orbiting the Sun with its' people wasting their abundent resources like there was no tomorrow. Yeah, Primer had read about the Earth and in what state it started to be in. For crying out loud, some planets had their resources stolen and never to be returned again and these guys were destroying their planet themselves... Life gets to be funny at times...
She sighed and stopped pushing the cart that was now nearly empty of all the meds that had been previously been stacked to it. She had searched all the four floors already and that meant that the only place she had not still checked was the basement, where some of the maintance stuff along with the heating systems and all were kept. And she did not have the access there. She tried to think of a way before she finally figured it out and took her mobile VidCom and dialled a number.
"Primer?"
"I need your help, nerd."
"So, shoot." Her brother's voice replied.
"I need you to hack into the hospital's database and get me the access to the basement..."
"Hardly a difficult task."
"Then do it already!" Primer snorted and ended the call. She cursed under her breath but suddenly stopped as she spotted the two Army soldiers walking towards her. She quickly turned her look away and turned to pretend to read the white board with that day's tasks written on it while the soldiers walked past her. She tried to casually and carefully look after them and she saw how these soldiers met with the head of the hospital. She couldn't hear what they were talking about and she was concentrated so deeply trying to hear what they were saying that when her mobile VidCom rang again she startled and took it out of her pocket and took the call.
"Done."
"...yeah? This fast?"
"I told you, it's kid's play."
"Well, that suit ya well then, twinster..."
"Simple 'thanks' would be nice..."
"Yeah, yeah...Listen, I was meaning to tell you but then got distracted while trying to look for our Uncle...It just seems that I'm not the only one looking for him. There came two soldiers here. They asked all these questions about the Fighters and it looks like they've been snooping around the hospital as well... They're currently speaking with the CEO..." Primer was keeping her voice down as she carefully tried to make sneak peaks towards the soldiers' direction.
There was a small silence on the other end but then Rimfire raised his voice a bit.
"Listen, sis, you need to get away from there... Those guys are no good news..."
"But...They're the Army...? Ain't the Army looking after us, the citizens I mean..?"
"Oh, my gods, really, sis? I don't have time to tell you in how much danger you're in at the moment! Just get out of there! If they find out your Uncle Modo's niece then..."
"But I wanna find Uncle! I'm not done with my search!"
"No! Stop searching, Primer! It's too dangerous!"
"It is not, I'm surrounded by people here, noone's gonna do me no harm! I'm gonna go and find my Uncle! And that's that!" Primer stated and then hung up the call and as she did that she saw the two soldiers suddenly looking at her direction and she quickly turned her look away. She could hear that her name was been called and she closed her eyes. Damn it! She stared at the whiteboard intensively, hoping that she had heard it wrong and that those men would just disappear soon... But ofcourse, she was wrong and she felt a light touch on her shoulder. She turned to look straight into the eyes of the CEO of the Hospital.
"Nurse Primer...?"
"Hm?"
"I told these fine men that you'll show them around the hospital, they're looking for a few gentlemen that might have checked into as patients here today..."
"Oh?" Primer only voiced, like hearing about this the first time and turned her glance at the two soldiers who stood there their back straight and they nodded politely at her as they remembered her from the elevator.
"You're not doing anything special at the moment, are you...?" Her superior asked and Primer stuttered.
"Well, actually..."
"Good! Then it's settled!" The CEO clapped her hands together and left. Primer's look narrowed and if she could she would've thrown axes after her superior but she then gave the two soldiers another glance.
"Okay, this way..." She only said and pushed her cart into movement again as they were heading towards the elevators. She pushed the button and as the doors slid open they all three entered the lift. Primer was to push the button to the first floor but the other solder prevented her in doing so.
"We're going to the basement, miss..."
"The basement...? But I don't have the access to that..." Primer tried to be convincing even if she just had gotten Rimfire to get her the access to that floor. The soldiers gave each other a look and then the other one suddenly reach out to Primer, holding out his hand. Primer gave the hand a puzzled look.
"Your access card miss..." The soldiers asked and Primer, in some what reluctantly gave the card to the man infront of her and the soldier then placed the card to the reader and pushed the button to the basement. The doors started to slid close slowly and Primer pressed her eyes close and as she opened them she saw the two soldiers looking at her.
"Well, how about that, you got the access after all..."
Primer only stared at the men under her brows, silently. The lift nudged into movement and there was a silence in the elevator. Primer usually thought the lift was very quick but now it felt like it didn't move at all. The soldiers were looking at her back and then suddenly the other one stopped the elevator in between two storeys and Primer felt her heart to start beat faster but she still stared at the men.
"Where are they?" The other soldier asked.
"Who?" Primer's voice was weak.
"You know perfectly well, missy..."
"I don't know anything!" Primer raised her voice but it lacked the power.
"Where are they?!" The soldier suddenly banged his fist against the elevator wall just an inch away from Primer's head and this shook her head screaming.
"I don't know!"
The soldier quickly and forcefully placed his palm over her mouth to prevent her from screaming and gave the other soldier a look over his shoulder.
"Cover the camera!"
x
x
bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam...
Vinnie was banging the back of his head against the wall of the hospital as he was sitting on a bench near the back exit of the big building.
bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam...
Stoker, who stood a few metres away from him, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, slowly turned his head to him. The two of them with Seven were all waiting in the shadows of the big medical building. What they were waiting for they didn't really know.
"Stop that." Stoker told the white furred male and an annoyance was to be heard through his raspy voice.
bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam...
"Vinnie!"
"Wha'?"
"Stop it!"
"But I'm bored!"
"Well, you'll be braindamaged as well if you keep on doin' that...! Although I highly doubt there'll be much to damage in the first place..." Stoker muttered, turning his look back to face the uneventful scenery of another wall near them. Seven snickered for the last comment, sitting between them and laying his cheerful eyes on the white mouse who looked now like pouting next to him. The rat then gave Stoker another look.
"So, old man... What's the plan here...? I have to say that my buttcheeks are trying to tell me that they've soon lost their every bit of sensation from all this sitting..."
"There is no plan." Stoker only commented and they both heard a crash next to them and turned to give Vinnie a look who was at the moment sitting on the ground, feeling his sore behind after his little fall and landing but was now facing the old commander with his round shocked eyes.
"What?! No plan?! There is no plan?! I thought we were waiting for the grand attack!"
"Attack? Attack against what, Vinnie? The hospital? The nurses?" Stoker snorted and added.
"We're not here to fight!"
"But we could be! That's the whole point..!" Vinnie raised his bleeding voice.
"We're here for our comrades, Vinnie. To check that they'll be okay...We're not here to cause any trouble..."
Vinnie heaved in shocked, his eyes becoming so big they threatened to fall out of their sockets.
"Say what...?! This mouse was born to cause trouble! You can't keep this rocket from popping!"
"Well, I tell you to stay in your launch pad, hot shot! Pop it all you like in your own time!" Stoker raised his voice and Seven flinched next to him but Vinnie seemed just as nonchalant as ever, like he wasn't the one who was raising the old commander's blood pressures.
"Geez, don't stress yourself, grandpa... You gotta learn how to chill... You know how frowning makes ya look older..."
Stoker closed his eyes and started to count to ten. He had missed his three best fighters the past three years, seeing them only a handful of times during that time but in the moments like these he wished there would be more distance between them again. Specially with Vinnie, who was a very gifted Fighter but he was also very gifted in rubbing him the wrong way.
Suddenly they all heard footsteps coming their way and they all automatically moved their hands on their guns. As the source of the footsteps came around the corner everyone sighed and took their fingers off the triggers as they saw it was only Rimfire. The young male was holding a mobile VidCom in his hands, tapping it against the palm of his hand with a bit of a worried expression.
"Stoke..."
Stoker studied him a second before giving a nearly bored look back.
"Oh no...What did you do now?"
"I...may have done something stupid..." The young male began but Vinnie jumped to his feet and pointed at Rimfire with his thumb, giving Stoker a look.
"Now, wait a minute...! He gets to do something stupid but I can't...?!"
Stoker walked over to them and only gave a very meaningful glare to Vinnie but then turned his eyes back on this young male infront of him.
"What did you do?"
x
x
Everyone stepped away as Harley stomped her way through the mass of Fighters and Rebel Rats that were hanging around the Headquarters. Her mind was racing as she was still thinking about what Beretta had told her. That matter had to be investigated and Harley would put her mind into it as soon as she would find this runaway alien... Where on Mars had she gone? She would have had other things to do, she liked to remind herself. She did not want to babysit some souvenier babes the guys take home from their intergalactic trips...But she loved this raggety bunch of Fighters, and she adored the three males Throttle, Modo and Vinnie... And if they loved their little hairless creature then that meant she had to at least tolerate that female and right now she had a mission to find out where she was and, maybe even more importantly, why she had ran away...
But she had looked everywhere in the base and there had not been any traces of this female Earthling. Harley came to the garage and she sighed and crossed her arms, thinking. Where, oh where would she go if she would be a strange alien in a strange planet...? She let her eyes circle on the bikes and suddenly stopped and let her look wander on the bikes again. She was pretty sure there was one bike missing. She carefully walked over to the IQ-equipped machines and looked around. She looked and looked before then turning her gaze on the floor and there she saw the fresh tracks, leading out of the garage.
Bingo! She thought and then walked over the big garage doors and pressed the button to open them and stepped inside this big cave the doors lead to. But there was noone there, only the dark sky was peaking from the smaller entrance of the cave, a dark hue that was starting to gently overpower Mars and slowly turning the day into evening. Harley took a few steps and inhaled, closing her eyes. It was a rare thing to have fresh air in their lungs since they were more or less spending their time under the ground, inside.
"Looking for me?" She suddenly heard and she quickly turned around and she saw Charley sitting on a rock, a bike beside her and a backbag to her other side. Harley took a few steps towards the Earthling but taking her time, like the auburn-haired mechanic would not have been the reason for her to get out here. Charley raised her eyebrow but then suddenly gave a small laugh and shook her head. Harley glanced at her, looking a bit surprised, now standing only a few metres away from the woman.
"You don't really like me, hu?" Charley only asked, giving her another glance. Harley had her arms crossed and she rocked on her heels before she then sighed and placed her hands inside the pockets of her greasy overalls, glancing around them.
"Haven't said that..."
"Sometimes one doesn't actually need to say anything..."
"It's not that I don't like you... Don't take it personally. I'm just having rather big trust issues..."
"So I've gathered..."
"Yeah, well... " Harley looked down at the hard stone ground beneath her boots. She then raised her look to meet hers.
"Care to share why you're sitting out here with a stolen bike?"
Charley grew quiet again and she scratched her neck.
"I guess I just panicked. Sorry for the bike..."
"Don't worry about it." Harley muttered and gave her a look.
"So, why didn't you run away?"
"I don't know. Guess I just realized that if I runaway from here there isn't actually anything or anyone out there waiting for me..." Charley talked, rubbing his black jeans with the nail of her finger.
"What about your folks back on Earth?" Harley asked.
"I haven't got too much family left... Noone that I feel close to anyhow..."
Harley nodded silently, observing this alien infront of her. She then let out a deep sigh and sat down close to her, using another rock as a chair.
"Look... I'm sorry if I was a bit of an... asshole earlier... I don't always mean the things I say, just so you know..."
"Yeah... Well, that's okay...For your information I'm pretty used to this foot-in-mouth-syndrome... But maybe I needed to hear those words to really figure it out what it is that I wanted... I've been a bit lost in here these past couple of weeks..."
"Sorry to hear that... "
There was a little silence.
"So, you stayed because there was nowhere else to go?" Harley asked carefully.
"No...I just realized that this is where my family is. I know it's fucked up, me being from another planet and all... but that's the way it is. Those tree are my family."
Harley gave a laugh and Charley joined in.
"Yeah, well this is one big fucked-up family that's for sure but hey, one more family member wouldn't hurt...Welcome on board!" Harley smiled at the Earthling who only smiled and nodded back. The auburn haired mechanic then got up and Harley followed the lead. Before taking the bike and the backbag back inside Charley gave Harley another glance.
"If it's okay... Could we keep this thing as a secret...?"
"My lips are sealed." Harley nodded and then waved at the camera and the doors began to slide open.
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