AN: Happy New Year!
This was not how he had anticipated spending New Year.
His original plans had been to celebrate under the somewhat newly restored neon of Radiator Springs. He'd only intended to pick up the few things he'd been sent for and return well before midnight to ring in the new year with the family he'd gained in the last two years.
This was not Radiator Springs.
The walls were white and clean at least, the lights annoyingly bright and the hallway smelled like floor cleaner. He would have much preferred the smell of dinner at the V8.
Two counties away at 9:00 in a single holding cell was not his idea of a good time. He'd just wanted to get home, he had a lead foot, so what.
He'd forgotten his license in Sally's car, big deal.
But that bottle of homemade wine in the back seat had apparently sent the officer over the edge. Lightning hadn't touched it. He never touched alcohol if he intended to drive, but what was supposed to have been a gift from some long lost relative of Mater's that he hadn't been able to pick up himself was the whole reason Lightning was stuck staring at the door. Transporting what law enforcement considered an open container from point A to point B was apparently a big no no.
Sally was livid.
"Did they even test you?"
"You mean like a breathalyzer?"
"Yes."
"Then no, they didn't."
"That's not legal, tell me where you are and I'll be there as soon as possible."
Her voice had been professional and sharp, and the conversation barely lasted five minutes, leaving Lightning to go back to sitting in silence. The minute hand on the clock above the door ticked away, and before he knew it, it was 10:20 and Sally hadn't gotten there yet.
Lightning shifted from side to side, stretching his back after sitting on the metal bench for over an hour. He knew staring at the door wasn't going to make anything happen any sooner but it was that, the clock, or the plain white walls.
So the clock occupied him for a full three minutes, he'd counted to sixty three times in his head as the black dial moved around the face. He blinked and refocused his eyes when he heard conversation in the hall. He sat up straighter when the doorknob turned and his face paled considerably even as he forced a smirk.
"This is the worst doctor's appointment I've ever had, I'm giving a bad review on Yelp."
Doc only raised a brow before eyeing the kid carefully, unable to close the door unless an officer was present. "You really think I'm in the yellow pages."
"Where's Sally?"
"Couldn't get away from The Cone."
Before Lightning could say anything else Doc had hit him with a hundred questions, what had happened, where, what time, was he tested, was he given a specific reason, was anything even explained to him as he'd been put in that room.
Lightning only shrugged while shaking his head. "There's just a bottle of wine in the back. I never had-" He trailed off at the look on Doc's face. "What?"
"Nothing." His crew chief only shook his head with an exhausted look of exasperation before he turned for the hall again, speaking more to himself, as Lightning barely heard him. "Just wondering how I get dragged in to these things all the time..."
It had certainly caught his attention, though. "What? What do you mean?"
"I said it's nothing. Stay here, and don't say anything until I come back."
"Don't say anything? At all?"
"That is what I said."
"But wh-"
"Hot Rod, for once in your life, do something without asking fifty questions as to why."
Lightning finally fell silent, and was left in the room alone once more. This time he did stare at the clock.
It was exactly twenty-eight minutes before Doc returned with some forms and a deputy to witness. He didn't exactly have jurisdiction there but the law was the law and if it wasn't followed to a T, no one wanted to deal with the fall out over something like that.
The deputy was maybe a few years older than Lightning, not directly involved with the evening's fiasco and was only too happy to have the situation remedied. Lightning could tell he was a race fan and once the forms were folded and in his hand he'd made the comment that he'd seen the Hornet out front. Lightning hadn't been real surprised by Doc's less than chipper response.
Walking down the hall and through the main doors, Lightning was thrilled to feel the cool air and the breeze against his face after being in that room so long.
He realized that Doc had the keys to his personal car, and was turned down when he asked for them.
"You were pulled over for speeding to begin with, I'm driving."
"But the whole reason I was out was to get Mater's-"
"Put it in the trunk."
"Why the trunk?"
"Because I said so."
He retrieved the homemade wine and made sure the doors were locked before doing as he was told. "We'll come back for this-?"
"Tomorrow."
He'd started to speak but trailed off as he'd gone around to the passenger side and heard Doc's comment, something about déjà vu.
"What do you mean?" He asked once he was in the Hornet.
"Hmm?" Doc only glanced toward him once, after a year and a half he was fairly used to Lightning immediately going for the radio and readjusting everything in the vehicle.
"I heard you saying something, you bail people out of jail often?"
"Huh, no. You've seen the size of Carburetor County."
"Then I guess I don't know what your talking about."
"Maybe you weren't part of the conversation."
Lightning stopped sliding the tuner back and forth and grinned faintly. "I thought Lizzie was the only one who talked to herself."
He could sense the eye roll without looking up and could see the internal debate taking place when he did look to see Doc's reaction, even in the darkness of the car. He'd gotten fairly good at picking up on the little things like that.
"Only ever tried to do that once, I was younger than you are now and it did not go according to plan."
"What do you mean?"
"Not so many checks and balances back then, you upset a cop, you were done unless you knew someone higher ranking."
Silence reigned over the car a moment, the radio station playing some holiday appropriate tune that Lightning didn't recognize. He didn't care, though, the conversation had just gotten very interesting.
"How do you know that?" It was more of a statement than a question.
Doc only leveled him with a look and Lightning lost it.
"No way! You! The Honorable Doc Hudson have been arrested?"
Whatever Doc might have had to say was drowned out with Lightning's new found information.
"That is amazing! What did you do? I can't believe-!"
He did jump, though, when Doc laid on the horn to get his attention.
Doc had gone on to explain that in his first or second year racing, he couldn't quite remember, he'd found himself in a slightly harder spot than Lightning had that evening.
"I hadn't even been the one originally detained. We pointed out the crookedness of a certain deputy and he didn't care much for our observational skills."
"How old were you?"
"Twenty-two maybe? If I was lucky." He glanced in the mirror and merged on to the off ramp.
Lightning realized he was comforted by the Rt 66 signs as they came to a stop sign at the junction and made a right.
"They'd threatened my car, in not so many words, because I was dumb enough to show up with it."
"Uh...you showed up with it this time too..."
"I also know the law better this time around."
Lightning conceded to that and fell silent a moment before his brows lowered.
"So what you said about getting bailed out...who was it that-"
"I think that's a story for another time-"
His jaw dropped. "Doc, that's not fair! You can't start a story and just-!"
Doc wasn't giving in, though. "-and there's The Cone. Go ahead, Hot Rod. Let Sally know you're alright."
It was only 11:45, they still had time to make it over to Flo's. Lightning was bounding up the walk when he heard Doc call out to him.
"Get that bottle out of my trunk before Sheriff has a fit!"
