Chasing Happiness

Chapter 3: On the road

A.N. Hey guys! I'm aware that this is four weeks late but I wasn't really sure what to do for this chapter. As you can see the writing style is a little different than the previous two chapters but that shouldn't be to big of a difference; I am going to try to move to a more implied point of view method that a direct one. I rewrote this so many times that I just don't even think that it matches my original idea. The chapter was getting long so I split it up and the rest will be posted tomorrow.

Disclaimer*: I don't own any of this fictional universe.

*Disclaimers on a Fanfiction site don't really make sense to me so I will only be posting them once per story, I just forgot to in the first chapter.

~Ace

Kevin POV

Kevin woke at sunrise knowing that after today there would be no taking anything back. He lay there trying to find a last minute excuse to not do this, 'Yeah, we could move to another planet, become farmers, never set foot within the galactic alliance again.' The idiots in the Plumber we bound to use his past against him eventually even though they needed them now what about when they didn't, 'Probably even have me do shady things then pull me up on charges.' There was chance that his contacts might get a little pissy that he was now working with the enemy and just because he wasn't a snitch didn't mean they would let this go. There was like a 50/50 chance this all went south and he was sweating just thinking about it.

Nova was fast asleep next to him but that wasn't really new, Kevin wasn't sure that she thought through what could happen if things didn't work out with this. She was pretty chill about all this and only asked if the job had good pay, 'Until they decide they need a fall guy then that money will cut off real quick,' he laughed nervously to himself. He wasn't used to being this stressed about anything but he knew of a bunch of informants in the past that worked with the plumbers and when there was a problem it became the blame game. Even with his worst jobs betrayal like that wasn't common, that kind of reputation spread around and would be bad for business only money came between partners and Kevin couldn't really fault anyone for that. He remembered many times where when there was a fight for loot bad shit went down so he always stayed with his original amount, the money was never worth being killed over almost made that mistake once but never again.

Today they were going to the Plumbers to get subcontracted for their engineering and trade divisions. He was glad that Max didn't ask him to join research; Max knew Kevin hated even telling people about the things he made so sharing it with the PLUMBERS. Getting out of bed he goes to the shower, it was time to bite the bullet. The warm water was a great distraction from the panic. He was going to read that contract a dozen times before he even thought about signing it, Max was great and all but he was too trusting of the other Plumbers, Kevin was expecting there to be some kind of wordy bullshit that would screw them over and if that happened they would be leaving.

Kevin had a ration bar before heading out; he didn't really think that they would have a chance to eat today. Nova wasn't in bed when he came out so she was probably in the car, he thought that she was too excited but at least she wasn't freaking out like he was. Going into the basement to check on the power stores he sees two more batteries the size of barrels are glowing a bright blue, Nova must have come down in the middle of the night. The basement was a big empty space when they moved in but it was slowly filled with alien batteries, they now had almost 50 and used them to store Nova's excess energy, a few times a year he would go and discreetly get rid of the energy, he couldn't sell it because he didn't let word get around that there was Anodite energy around. The waste of her energy annoyed him but he only just figured out how to get the car working with it, his baby ending up with a modified battery, engine, weaponry and a ton of others stuff. He would figure out how to work on the house later now that he had a bit of help from Max.

Leaving the basement, he hears Nova in the garage the door swung open from her probably slamming it open in a hurry. Leaning on the frame Kevin looks at the chaos going on in the garage, the lights were flashing, the car was rocking, its weapons popping out randomly; a little concerning but he didn't think she'd use the car's defences in the house. Inside the car the radio was constantly changing stations, the Anodite nowhere to be seen, Kevin knew she was just in the car's circuitry but it was a little weird to have his car freaking out and no one in it. He was glad that she hadn't done this with the old car (it was practically a new car almost nothing was the same), whenever she tried to mess with normal electronics she messed them up bad.

Knocking on the glass to get her attention, the car stops rocking immediately, everything pulls back in the radio turns off and she shoots through the port on the dashboard into the driver's seat. The fakest smile was on her face as she moves over letting him get into the car, "You know you could just ask me what's new. Damn, you filled it up, be a little more gentle next time she's gonna have to get used to you." At some point when she was messing around she filled both fuel cells, he was a little worried that she might overdo it and the entire thing give out but it seemed fine. They pulled out of the garage and sped down the road enjoying the smoothness of the car and forgetting for a minute what they were going to do.

Kevin in the corner of his eye saw the blunette perched on the seat looking out the window, not really safe but she was an Anodite so even if something happened she didn't need a seatbelt. She seemed excited and the wonder in her eyes as the sites passed was always nice to see, they didn't really go out together often anymore so whenever they did she was always super excited. They didn't always have a place to stay for more than a few weeks at a time; he remembered when they would sleep in warehouses of hitch rides under cars or at the backs of trucks. It was still a little weird some days when Kevin woke up in the house, it was thanks to Max that they even had it and he would never forget that, the man had been going all out to help them from the start.

~FLASHBACK~

They were stuck in at the edge of a tiny town in a junkyard and had nowhere else that they could hide. Kevin tried to steal food from the small store in the middle of town but was caught by the manager and almost didn't get away. The bastard was gonna remember him if he came back so they just had three cans of soup to last until they could get out of here, 'Blue's gonna hate this.' They were caught hitching a ride in a food truck two days ago when the driver saw a glow coming from behind one of the crates and they had to run. Kevin wasn't sure they would have gotten away if he hadn't freaked out seeing a bright blue hovering child. They had been trying to get into the city just past the town and now they were stuck.

Running back through the dump they were crashing in he passes a large crater in the ground. That morning Blue started freaking out and glowed super bright, Kevin almost didn't get far enough away before she exploded taking out a chunk of land and an old truck. They had to get out of this place and fast before anyone noticed what happened, no one was ever watching the place and Kevin only saw a wrecker drop off a wrecked car at the edge of the land far from the crater in the centre. Looking around he tries to find the place where he put her; she couldn't really move much after whatever that was happened so he put her in one of the piles of wrecked cars so she could rest.

A blue head pops up from under a car, Kevin was glad she was a wake but a little freaked out when she walked up to him. He was used to her not talking sometimes but having her be on the ground was weird, the first time this happened a few months ago she didn't float for a week and Kevin ended up having to pull her when they had to run from the abandoned house they were staying in before the wreckers noticed them, she just wasn't good on her feet. They sat and ate one of the cans not even bothering to cook it, he never got sick and she could eat anything.

"The next delivery truck is leaving in 3 days, I heard an old guy say they were taking corn into the city," he told her but she just ignored him, when he came back she had checked him for injuries and then went back to resting. Kevin wasn't sure how well they'd be able to hide in the corn, 'Blue's glow will probably be back by tomorrow,' her glow was barely there but wouldn't be for long. They were going to the old lake in the morning to try and get some fish to eat, he couldn't swim that good but the soup wasn't gonna last that long and the one farm they tried to get to had a ton of dogs. Putting out the fire they used to cook the soup, Kevin goes to lay in the car with Blue, no one had checked out the explosion, so maybe they wouldn't get caught before they could get out of this place.

The next day

Before dawn they started sneaking through the town to get to the lake, there was a dog at the sheriff's office that hated them and would probably smell them if they went through the middle of town so they had to go the long way around. There were no problems getting to the lake and the many reeds would make it easy to hide. Kevin left Bluebell in some reeds neck deep in water because with the sun barely out her glow was a little too bright and Kevin saw an old beaten up RV near the pier so someone could see her if they weren't careful.

They had been at the lake all day and hadn't caught anything, it was like something killed all the fish, Kevin had been going under the water so often that now the sun was completely up. Earlier he saw two kids leave the RV and head into town but an old man had been sitting on the with his fishing pole the entire time even though he wasn't catching anything. Blue wasn't doing much; still standing where he left her, when he left the water around her was warming up meaning that she was probably getting better and her energy coming back.

He swam under the Pier to get back to the reeds, they were going to have to risk the store again, because the farm was too dangerous and lake idea was a dud. Getting to the reeds he didn't see her glow, getting into the centre he popped out of the water, she wasn't there, the water was still warm but he couldn't see her anywhere, even after parting all the reeds and risking being noticed. 'WHERE IS SHE?' Kevin was panicking and almost jumped out of the reeds to look for her but he hears old tourist guy talking, peaking out he sees her standing in front of the tourist and he was scanning her with some weird alien gadget. Running as fast as he could to get there, his heart hammering, 'The hunters are HERE? How did they even know where to find her?'

As he reaches the hunter and Blue, she now has a large bag in her hand, him patting her head, Kevin freezes behind her catching some of what he was saying, "…these should help you kids out till you get back on your feet. I was a little worried who I'd find when the Rust Bucket picked up an explosion of Anodite energy, I don't think a cute little thing like you meant any harm but you should rest up the scan showed you'll be fine in a few days. Oh and tell your friend back there to be careful swimming, its October, you'll catch you death of cold." With that he went back into his RV and drove off with Kevin still frozen behind her trying to figure out how they are both even still alive. The rustling of the bag in Blue's hands draws his attention as she sits on the ground pulling out fruits, bread, canned food, a box of cereal and bottles of water. He'd talk to Blue later but for now he just wanted to eat and forget about this whole day.

~ FLASHBACK END ~

Kevin had yelled at Nova for almost an hour that night while she just sat there eating slices of bread. Back then they had a lot to be worried about he had stolen her from some aliens only a few years back and had no idea when the traffickers would find them or what they would do when they did. Kevin knew now that chances were those traffickers were off planet the same day that Kevin took Nova and might not even have cared enough to look as they had all sorts of aliens held there. They had no idea what to even do about Nova's little problem and were constantly afraid of being caught but in that moment she had been so out of it that when Max had called out to her she couldn't even remember why she had been hiding. Now they had control to the point where she didn't even have to worry about it anymore as long as they stuck to the plan and took care of the batteries.

From that first meeting on Max kept popping up in their lives with help or advice every now and then, until now where they were close enough to think of him as a friend and now he was trying to help them again, this time with getting an 'honest' job. Kevin had tried working as a mechanic on Earth for a while, he was good at it but things kept happening, alien things, that had his switching from shop to shop till now where he gave up. He'd give Max's plan a chance, just because he was a good friend and he'd never stabbed them in the back.

Nova POV

Nova saw Kevin staring almost blankly at the road, she knew he had been thinking about Max and how they met, it was the same when Max helped them get the house. She remembered that day even though it was a little fuzzy because she was so tired, Max had called out to her while Kevin was under the water, he obviously didn't expect a child, he had even called her 'Verdona', she hadn't said anything but he just knew she wasn't feeling well as he ran into the Rust Bucket and came out with a scanner. He hadn't known anything about her other than that, she wasn't alone and that they were hungry, his advice and gentle pat on the head was the first parental interaction she had ever experienced, she dreamed about it for weeks and whenever they saw him again she would always rush to him despite Kevin's initial warnings.

They were almost to headquarters and Nova felt more sure than ever that they were making the right choice, there would be problems but the mere protection that the Plumbers could provide would keep Kevin out of the more dangerous situations he'd been in lately trying to make them a living. She believed she was strong enough now to protect Kevin if any of the soldiers tried anything behind Max's back and she wasn't afraid to fight.

A.N. So here is the journey to Plumber HQ, in the next chapter you'll see Max again so there's that to look forward to.

~Ace