He was going to do it. He was going to go all around, as fast as possible. Lightning checked around him, looking to ensure he was alone at the Butte. It had only been a month or so since Doc permitted him to come here alone. Even now, Sheriff still incessantly warned him of the dreaded Cacti patch siding the fourth turn on the track each time he set off here.

He was all bark and no bite, his confidence. As confident as he acted, he was still too embarrassed at times. This event is such a time. He loved this dirt track. He'd spent countless days playing in the shade of the butte, swing who could drive highest at the cliff the second and third turn sloped up into on the outside with Mater. Hours trying to goad someone in town, whoever was watching him, to race around the track. Everyone was always so slow in the dusty town. And yet no one seemed interested in actually using the track. Grandpa Doc once turned on him about his incessant begging, that no is no, and he wouldn't be caught dead racing around that track, so drop it.

Perhaps this indirect negativism towards and disregard for the dirt track was why Lightning didn't want no one to see him test the track himself.

He was by all means, not fast as he flew around the track. To him, he was as fast as his name, despite still being rather small and young, at only the age of ten. And yet, it was enough for him. The way he seemingly carved through the wind surrounding him, how the dirt kicked up loose under his tires, the way his little engine seemed to growl with effort. It was exhilarating.

He loved it all. Even when his rear tires swerved practically on the edge of the cliff on the fourth turn, earning him one of the biggest scares of his life. When he completed a lap, he simply decided to continue on, and this time get that darned turn right.

Which he did, by realizing he was still small, and thus that by staying closer to the inside of the turn he could make the turn without nearly falling to the clutches of the so warned about evil cacti. That's not to say the turn wasn't still sloppy, it was. He simply didn't care, already content with his progress.

It wasn't until what may have been an hour later that he finally stopped, exhausted, and feeling close to that strange empty feeling when he was low on gas. It wasn't until now he realized how strangely hot it was for early spring. Or perhaps that was just him. Either way, seeing the suns position, or rather how it had moved, he realized he should head back to town, which he did promptly.

the red child exited Flo's cafe, a tray attached to him and carrying drinks he offered to Luigi, Guido, and Lizzie. They all thanked him gratefully, as the rest of the town was served by Flo.

Originally, Lightning thought perhaps he could fill up during dinner, before realising Hudson might question him on it. At the same time, Hudson might not, it mattered not. Lightning felt this new habit of his should be kept to himself, his own little fun secret, as all young children seemed to harbor.

Before settling down to drink up himself, he made his final stop with Mater. "Why thanks, Lightning!"

Lightning had become his unofficial official name. It never was clearly verbally stated as to be his name from a certain time forward. However, at some point in his time when he first arrived, his memory of those first couple weeks, and his life beforehand were already fading, the nickname had formed. One thing he had not forgotten was that it had formed from his love of lightning, however, it may have happened. Doc called him it as he came to call the Hornet Grandpa, and soon the other townsfolk picked up the nickname as well.

By now, it was just his name. He wasn't called by much of anything else, with the exception of Sheriff's calling him son, and Doc calling him kid, kiddo, and little tyke.

Lightning settled in between Doc and Sheriff and began to drink his own fluid. The two might as well have been his fathers. They weren't in any relationship, but they always spent the middle of the day together in Doc's clinic during the summer, and, thanks to Sheriff staying when it became too cold in the early hours of winter morning, together in the morning during the cold seasons. While Doc gave most the lessons and talks, as well as talking toos, Sheriff was the one to explain the Hornet's ways, keeping Lightning from ever being too downhearted without invalidating Doc's lesson.

The child watched as Flo offered Filmore a drink like always, and as always Fillmore turned her down with a gesture to his own 'organic' drinks. As always, Flo chuckled to herself and rolled away as Sarge barked at Fillmore for turning down a perfectly good drink against his 'hippie junk.'

When Lightning had asked Flo why she still offered the drink every day to Fillmore despite always being rejected, Flo simply said it was polite to offer anyways.

After, as they all returned to their respective businesses, Lightning followed inside for his daily lesson. Today they were focusing on multiplication. Flo was currently trying to work Lightning into three-digit multiplication, much to Lightning's distaste.

"Why is this important again?"

"Honey we ain't got any calculators here. If you ever have to deal with budgeting, you'll have to deal with multiplication. Package deal, uh huh."

Lightning grumbled, pouting as he worked on a multiplication table on the floor of the cafe as Flo cleaned up the area of dust.

Upon looking back up, halfway done with his work, the kid found Flo in the back of the cafe. The storage room was dark, with poor lighting, and Flo's shadow was all of her that was visible as she counted products.

"How come you take stock every day? Can't you just count how many of us eat at each meal?"

"I could. But I've too much time and too little to do. Might as well keep the old habits."

"You've got Ramone."

"Yes, but we both get bored, we love each other very much, sweetie, but we understanding trying to keep busy. Happens when love lasts, don't die down none, just becomes part of life."

Flo's short anecdotes usually helped Lightning work on his mathematics. It kept him from growing too stressed, and gave short breaks where he'd ponder her words for a couple minutes. Flo didn't mind either, with the others she was near always caught up in what was occurring, paying more attention to others than herself. Another old gossip habit leftover from the hay day of the small town. It was nice to speak her thoughts, to think of her own ways every once in a while due to the child's inquiries.

"I'm gonna get married, and stayed married for a long time. Like you and Ramone-" How sweet, pondered Flo. "And Pops and Grandpa."

Flo stopped in her tracks, a look of mild confusion on her features for a moment. Suddenly she left Storage and instead came to Lightning, near chuckling to herself.

"Now why would you say they're married?" She asked in her always loud tone, her look of amusement making it clear she wasn't actually upset.

"We-ell, they are always having fun, and taking me places, and Sheriff is the only one who can get close to Doc, and they spend more time together than you and Ramone, and you're married. Hey, is Sarge and Fillmore married? I knew old people in love who bickered just like them."

By now all Flo could do was laugh loudly at the kid before her, before trying to speak. "No, no, Doc and Sheriff aren't... Honey, it's only me and Ramone whose in love like that, K?"

While Lightning had grinned at the laughter, seeing it as a positive response, it left at the answer. He wasn't crouching, but rather had a look of thought as he took in Flo's words.

Meanwhile, Flo was rolling off back into storage talking to herself.

"Doc and Sheriff... Sarge and Fillmore! The audacity. That's just how chillun be, I guess. Gotta love the bugger..."

Lightning finished his worksheet on multiplication.

The moon hung in the sky, not quite high, not quite low. It was bright and cast the desert and Radiator Springs into silver light. Lightning was currently staring out of his window and into the night. He was nervous, he was supposed to be in by sundown, asleep by nightfall. Yet here he was, awake and about to leave after midnight.

He turned around in his room and prepared himself to leave. He faintly remembered how he got his room. Within the first couple of days arriving here at Radiator Springs, Doc had set out to buy supplies for Lightning. The kid expected a few toys, as was said to look forward too. Instead, the doctor managed to bring back a crew of labor cars, who built a new room and attached it to Doc's clinic, besides Doc's own room.

The room was of average size for a car, painted a cream-yellow as opposed to a cream white, with a soft maroon trim. In it, he had a wooden trunk with his toys and a Nightstand of the same furnishing. It was simple, but he liked it that way, he was rarely in it anyways, always helping out around town, or playing around, well, town. Or Willy's Butte, or once in the rare while the steeping presence of the abandoned Wheel Well. He didn't really need his room other than for sleep, like his Pa.

He left the room.

He hated feeling empty, but new the others would ask if he tried to fill up on gas so early from the next time he was due to. He wanted to avoid the questions, he kept his first real drive around Willy's Butte a secret for a reason.

He hesitated passing Doc's room. The old man left the door open, so he could come to the rescue when needed. As in, when Lightning was stuck in the thralls of a nightmare. He didn't have nightmares anymore. Still, Doc slept every night with his door open now. He almost felt bad, knowing he would be betraying the trust of whom was raising him.

But if the adults could do it, why couldn't he?

With that, he slipped out of the door of the clinic as quietly as possible. As soon as he did, he felt a wave of apprehension fill him seeing the town before him. It was late enough that all the lights were off, with the exception of the singular light for their one intersection that was perpetually stuck on yellow. Sometimes Lightning wondered why they didn't simply shut it off.

Either way, for a reason he wasn't quite sure he was almost certain he felt tiny droplets of water on him as his breath started to speed up in pace. He shook himself, evening his breath, and rolled forward into the night and towards Flo's cafe. He reminded himself he was not stealing, he had once asked Sheriff about using a pump here unsupervised, without Flo's knowing, and Sheriff said it would technically not be thievery, so long as the one doing so was not unreasonable in their need of the gas.

This wasn't unreasonable, was it?

And so he crept onto Flo's property. If it was a gas station, wasn't it technically private property? But then, Flo lived there, and that would make it private. He thought to himself that perhaps he should stop asking so many curious questions about the law. or maybe Sheriff should just stop answering the questions.

Speaking of Sheriff, Lightning was just about to hit the pedal for the gas pump when he heard it.

"Lightnin?"

Lightning flinched, wrenching forward ever so slightly as he tensed. Busted. He turned around to face the direction Sheriff's voice was originating from.

"What are you doing out here, son? You're only ten y'know."

Lightning must have really been tired, for he could come up with an excuse near perfectly during the day, and yet here he was frozen, not quite from fear. His mind was blank, and soon the light off in the short distance was two headlights shining directly onto him.

Finally Lightning concocted a reply. "I'm not ten, I'm ten... And a half."

He had finished confidently.

Sheriff looked over where Lightning was positioned at the blue and white cafe.

"Gas, now why would you be getti-"

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"I was asking you a ques-"

"It will answer your question."

By now Sheriff was in front of Lightning and had long since turned off his headlights so he didn't blind the little. He had a look of inquisition, one eyelid lowered in comparison to the other, lips pursed. "Sure then, but it ain't nice to interrupt peoples."

"Right, sorry. Uh, you have to promise not to tell Doc, okay?"

"Now why wouldn't I tell him?"

"Please?"

Sheriff paused, before relenting and agreeing to the significantly younger's wishes. He wasn't sure why the car wanted to hide something from Hudson, but he was a cop, and he was sure Lightning wasn't stupid enough to outright admit he had committed a crime to a police officer.

And he sort of wanted to deny the thought of Lightning ever committing a crime.

"Okay, so I went to Willy's Butte, alone cuz you all said I could."

"Uh huh, keep your voice low, Flo's a light sleeper, k boy?"

"Sorry, but anyways, I raced around it. And I didn't fall into the cactus! It was so much fun! And I just kept goin and goin till I was too tired to do any more. I was so fast!"

Sheriff's eyes had gone wide, and Lightning in the back of his mind doubted telling of his adventure to even Sheriff. Yes, he came to Sheriff for actual help with issues, but he usually vented to either Lizzie or Fillmore.

He told all his secrets to Fillmore.

Finally, Sheriff spoke. "I'm sure you had fun out there, however, what if something happened? Something broke? If you did fall into the cacti? And it's cacti, not cactus son."

Lightning's eyes widened a sliver, before pouring and averting his gaze from the old Club Coupe. "I guess your right. Does that mean no more racing?"

"How much do you want to keep this a secret?" Sheriff hit the pedal besides the gas stall, and a gas pump went to fill lightning up.

"A lot. It's a big secret. Only I can tell people."

"Now why do you want it to be so?"

"I don't know. But Doc most definitely can't know. He gets angry when I ask him to race around it, like it's a bad thing. He won't tell me why though."

Ah, Doc had always treated the track with near contempt when they still did local races. Back when town was still open, and people could sign up to partake in a quick race for fun. Doc never attended the event in the one year it lasted while he settled in.

The gas pump stopped, and Lightning shook it off.

"You're right. He gets like that with me too. Don't know nothin or why. So, tell you what, I'll let you race down there, and it'll be our little secret."

"Really?" Lightning looked as giddy as the day he had gotten his first paint job. "And I can go on my own, those cacti will never touch me!"

"Now hold on just a sec there, kiddo. I'm gon come with you to watch you. Just in case somethin' does happen. Better safe than sorry."

"Okay..."

"Would you rather I ban you from going at all?"

"No!"

They begun to head back to Doc's clinic, slowly but surely, both keeping their headlights off. Other than a white cab and doors, Sheriff practically blended into the night.

"Oh, and son? No more sneaking out. I'll come get you, either turning in here or on a break when I feel like simply staying out there on patrol."

"Right. Cuz I nee-" Lightning have a heavy yawn. "Need sleep to grow. Not be no runt."

Sheriff chuckled to himself as they rolled up to Doc's clinic.

They entered silently. The only sound was the soft snore of Doc. Sheriff and Lightning shared an amused look, before both slightly jumping at what sounded like a half a sneeze amidst said snoring. It was darker inside than outside, and Lightning found it hard to see and navigate himself what with now being thoroughly exhausted from his short adventure.

And so Sheriff took it upon himself to help sneak Lightning back into his room before settling to sleep on the completely lowered lift in the main room of the clinic.

There had been a police department, though it was more an office withholding a singular small cell. However it had been unkept and was now near dilapidated. Sheriff let it go to rot upon realising he preferred staying at Doc's. Now he enjoyed coming back to the clinic as his place to unwind. Now there wasn't just Doc, there was Lightning, who was making not only them but the whole family feel more like a family than just a close knit community.

That night, before succumbing to sleep himself, Sheriff swore he'd protect Lightning at all costs possible.

so, not that I will make them a thing, but what do yall think about the ships of Doc n Sheriff, or Fillmore and Sarge? again, not going to be in this story at all, im just curious thanks to Lightning's own wild curiosity.