Chapter Eleven:
"Pass the flour, dear!"
"Ye—"
"I've got it!"
Alexys sat at the table while Alex and Hilda baked what could only be described as a parade of delicious treats. It had begun with Alex sitting off to the side but quickly shifted when the mention of lemon cookies was made. Alexys didn't mind the switch up. It gave her time to play detective with the pictures she had taken of the Dean's desk. So far she had found three other clues.
"So, you're doing all this for Luke then?" Hilda asked, throwing some flour on the counter so she could begin rolling.
Alex finished up adding the food coloring to the dough for the final color of his rainbow, "Uh, yeah. He's been really sweet these past few days and I want to do something to show him how much I care."
"I'm honestly surprised both Luke and Nick are not here at the moment waiting in your rooms," Hilda teased.
"Is it a problem?" Alexys asked, feeling suddenly so ungrateful for not asking permission to bring guests under the woman's roof.
"Oh, don't be silly. You both are grown and I trust your jud…I trust if you like one of his partners and he like's one of yours then they are a good thing," she grinned.
"Was that shade?" Alex looked to Alexys and she back to him with a laugh.
"I don't know the meaning," she grinned before placing a dot of dough on Alex's nose.
Ding.
"Oh, I believe the banana bread is done," Hilda rushed to the oven to pull free the loaf.
Alexys jumped to her feet to hover around Hilda as she made her adjustments to it, "Aunt Hilda, I love banana bread. Please, can I have some banana bread?"
"No, it has to cool down. Here, have another pudding," she walked to the fridge and pulled out cup of homemade vanilla flavor.
"Thank you but I really would stop bothering you if I could have a piece of the browkies?" Alexys pouted as she looked to the perfectly cut pieces sitting under a glass top.
"Those are for Luke and…possibly Nick. Ours are in the oven and I think we've got about a minute or two left," Alex checked his fitbit.
"That is much too soon. It'll need to stay for at least another twenty minutes," Hilda tsked.
"Don't worry about us, Aunt Hilda, we like it a little under done," Alexys tried to soothe the woman's concern.
"I don't know about that. The last thing I need is you two getting upset tummies before the Finals Dance," she turned her back to them to mix something that needed mixing.
"Why is that?" Alex asked, looking to the woman at his side.
"The Dean told me that you may be involved in an entertainment portion," she looked back to them with joy and excitement, "So what's it going to be?"
"Alex is doing stand up."
He gasped, "I am not!"
"Alexander! How could you not tell me?" the eagerness on her face was adorable.
He shook his head, "Aunt Hilda, I'm not! I would tell you but it's not a thing!"
The phone in the hall began to ring and Hilda quickly cleaned her hands, "I'll be back shortly. Stay out of trouble and don't touch my banana bread."
Alexys groaned but when she did the alarm for the browkies went off, "Thank God!"
"So tell me more. What happened after you tried to leave?" Alex whisper shouted.
She tried to get the browkies from the oven as she answered, "Professor W snatched the date book from me and I convinced Dean Pelton that me and Professor Smythe and the student board are planning a surprise involving Jeff Winger."
"And he believed it?" Alex shook his head.
"He ate it up!" Alexys grinned as she brought over clear baking tray of browkies.
"It probably helps that I was able to talk to him about Jeff for about five minutes before that Professor W interrupted," Alex cleaned his own hands off then walked to the fridge to grab some milk.
"Oh, you should have asked me to get it for you!" Alexys pouted, trying to carve out a piece with a butter knife.
"You've got your hands full, plus! You're telling me the story."
"Oh right, I walked out with Professor Smythe and then I booked it. The sexual tension between us is thick! I can always taste it and it tastes like," she tasted the air, "Cabbage. But anyway! If they hadn't interrupted then…I don't know what would have happened. We probably would have been making out."
"Are you going to tell Nick about this encounter?" Alex took a sip of the milk before grabbing a small plate to get his own piece of browkie.
Alexys shoved her piece into her mouth and breathed in and out excessively to soothe the burning but when she did she gave Alex a thumbs up, "This is excellent! What were you saying?"
"Are you going to tell Nick about this encounter?"
"I was thinking about it," Alexys drank her water glass, "And as much as I want…I can't. He's going to ask what I was doing in the office and I can't tell him."
A timer dinged and Alex rushed to the other side of the counter.
"That's true, you definitely can't tell him. Did you figure anything else out from the pictures you took? Genius by the way," Alex said his words but his eyes were on the work he was doing.
"I got the idea from Sherlock," she grinned at the fact that Alex looked up at her with an "aww" expression. She continued, "Yeah, actually. So not only do we have Father Blackwood's number but it looks like there's the number of a JRM. I think that's the weather guy."
"Why would the Dean have that?"
"Well next is a tiny star and what I think says '?.' Maybe he contacted the Dean like Nick hoped he would?"
"Maybe, sounds weird though," Alex turned away from Alexys to do something on the stove.
"Yeah, but everything's weird. There's also a notion on Christmas Eve. It says 'ASAS' like maybe he meant to write 'ASAP' or something? I told you about what it says on the Tenth right?"
"You did which is concerning because that was the day we arrived and that was the day Waylon Jennings saw something scary enough for us to have to separate in this town and it's also the day of the Finals Dance," Alex looked back to Alexys with a sigh.
Alexys paused before bringing forward something that remained on her mind, "We still don't know where Waylon is. We don't know about Wanda or Loretta either. We haven't had a chance to talk to Dolly and now Willie's gone. Time keeps moving on…"
"Should I stop baking and should we sneak into Cerberus Books to find out where Dolly lives?" Alex looked to Alexys as if he had been thinking of doing it for some time.
She shook her head and continued eating the browkie, "What can be done cannot be done tonight. But I'm thinking this: the crack in our case is somewhere in one of these pictures I took. There's something I'm missing and I think we need to be missing school tomorrow to get some research time in."
Alex looked to Alexys with approval of the plan. Though his hands were covered in some sort of baking goop he lifted his right and placed his left over his chest. From a slight distance Alexys did the same and they completed their handshake without touching.
"Now that we're agreed. I'm going to head to my room to retire for the evening," Alexys moved quickly to where the banana bread was waiting and grabbed the tray as quietly as she could.
"Hey, leave the banana bread. Aunt Hilda!"
The blonde haired woman came into the room with a look of surprise that made them both freeze in their tracks.
"That was Father Blackwood," her face cracked into a smile, "He's asked me to cater an event!"
The rest of the evening was spent with Alex and Alexys attempting to convince Hilda to deny the job. Regardless of every angle they took she dismissed them with statements of open-mindedness. Alex used every tool in his arsenal of convincing and when that didn't work Alexys cried. All Hilda did was shake her head in disappointment. When the evening was done the two walked back to their rooms defeated.
But when morning arrived they awoke with new vigor. The two jumped into action, making sure to sneak out of the house before Hilda or Zelda had any clue they were awake. They walked away from the house and Spellman mortuary with satisfaction.
"I'd say that was a great escape," Alexys smirked, pulling a piece of banana bread from her pocket to munch on.
"When did you have time to grab that! It's for the bake sale!" Alex couldn't hide his amusement at the surprise.
She handed a piece over to him, "I have my ways."
Since it was still very early in the day they decided to head to the public library to do the research. They had both brought their own laptops in their backpacks with the intention of working out some of the details that still remained missing. When they arrived it was relatively empty with not even a librarian at the front desk. Alex and Alexys seemed to recall a study room in the back they could use away from prying eyes and listening ears. As soon as they stepped foot inside they began to work.
Alex searched for any information on the town of Greendale and any odd occurrences.
Alexys searched for news on the compasses outside of the town.
"You would think something this big would make international news," Alexys mumbled to herself.
"Yeah, there's only one paragraph I can find in the online newspaper," Alex shook his head, "What would the Doctor do in this situation?"
"Which one?" Alexys huffed.
"He'd already know what to do," Alex answered his own question, "He'd know who to talk to and how to get answers."
"We do know who to talk to. We're just…biding our time," she shrugged.
"Do we have time to bide?" he spoke as he typed some more keywords into the Google search bar.
"I'll talk to Professor Wardwell," Alexys decided, "We need to figure out if she's Lilith or Missy."
"Which one would be worse?" Alex pondered the possibilities of how both could be used as an enemy.
"I don't know bu—"
"I found something!"
Alexys jumped to her feet to view what was on Alex's laptop. To both their surprise they found a website detailing all the odd events of Greendale that the newspapers did not mention. It read like a fanwiki page with lots of categories and tabs and highlighted words leading to different pages. The two looked to each other with curiosity. Alex went to the page of articles and clicked the title: "Why Does it Feel Like the Universe Just Started Yesterday?"
Three Hours Later…
Alex sat with his eyes shut and head on the table.
Alexys laid on a group of chairs she pushed together as she stared at the ceiling.
The laptop played one of the many videos of two young men walking down the street leading out of town only to arrive at the "Welcome to Greendale" sign à la Pleasantville. Commentary on whether this odd town could be likened to Nightvale, Storybrooke, [Undisclosed] and other fictional towns played between the two young men. The video ended with the signature flashing and the words "Cool ABED FILMS" with the stamp of his head.
"So…we're stuck…" was all Alexys could manage to say at the end of the video.
"So…none of this is real," Alex lifted his head from the table.
"But which part isn't real? The part with the Highwaymen or the part with…" she couldn't finish her sentence.
Alex did it anyway, "Luke and Nick."
The video played into the next one and out came, "This is a message to the Inspector and his Constables."
Both Alex and Alexys moved to the lap top again to see the vision of Abed in front of the camera.
"I don't know what's going on but I'm afraid for myself and my friends. There are things falling from the sky and now the Church of Stillhet is helping my father and his falafel business. I don't have any problems with religion but this Church scares me. We can't leave the town and no one notices or cares. This could be the work of Blorgins or…any other of your nemesis. But please. Help me, Inspector. You're my only hope."
The video went black but suddenly it clicked on again.
"Except for Minerva."
The video went black again then came the "Cool ABED FILMS" to signal it was over.
Alex pressed the spacebar, pausing the video there so that no others could show up. They had nearly gone through every video including one of Abed and Troy acting like humans that had evolved from dinosaurs with small arms attempting to crack and bite a couple of compasses they had in hand. Alexys looked to her friend and saw the tears coming up before he could hide them.
"Oh, Alex," she wrapped her arms around him for a hug as his tears fell.
"It's Luke, this mean's Luke isn't real and all the great things he said. None of it is real," he cried, holding onto Alexys as if she were an anchor.
Alexys was strong in her embrace of him, "That doesn't necessarily mean that. Remember what the Doctor said about us? We're from the wrong universe and the Doctors were able to cross to ours easily because of the cracks. This could just be part of that. Maybe the cracks are getting wider and more people are stumbling into the wrong place. Especially with the Time Fissures."
"I don't know…I knew it was too good to be true but still. I—," he swallowed the frog in his throat before continuing, "I believed it. I believed him."
"Listen, I think Luke is real and if he isn't? He still needs to be saved. We still need to figure out what's going on and save the universe. And who defines what is real? If we take him out of this universe and into ours? What's the worst that can happen? He leaves his family behind and needs a new identity to survive off of. People that come across him think he looks like an actor? That's not that bad," Alexys tried to laugh to bring lightness to her words.
"The Doctor would never let him come," Alex shook his head.
"You leave the Doctor to me," Alexys smiled, "But hey, why don't we look at this as a success. We found a website with honest news on what's going on. We haven't even had a chance to look at the speculation page. Maybe we can look at what Abed thinks is going to happen next."
"No…if we read what will happen it becomes fixed. Remember?"
"Right…right. Well…" Alexys grabbed a small pencil and scribbled onto the desk, "Look. The ending is here. 'And they all lived happily ever after.' Fixed."
"It does…What is that?"
Close to where Alexys had written there seemed to be a drawing stretching out across the table. They moved their bags and their computers to get a better look at what it could be. When they did they gasped to see what was on the table. They shuddered at the sight of a crack drawn in great detail with the same arching and terrifying smile present. The two looked at each other and decided it was time to go to Cerberus Books.
On the way out Alexys thought she saw curly hair but she dismissed it.
The urge to leave became entirely too great.