Jhondie
I went back to the motel where Justin and I had spent the day and waited. And waited. And paced a thousand times across the room. And waited. I managed to annoy the hell out of Zack who was still hanging around for some reason that I couldn't fathom. Maybe it was to make sure that I was really planning on leaving Seattle. I was as soon as I heard from Justin. But what was taking so long? Did he have to have surgery? I thought about that, and immediately went to go do some recon at the hospital, but Zack stopped me. He reminded me that Justin was fine when we left him so chances were that he was still fine. Justin had just lied to the cops about a lot of things and if I showed up then it was going to cause a lot more questions to be asked and questions were a very bad thing. I hated it when Zack was right. So I went back to pacing.
Zack ignored me for a long time. He watched TV for a while and let me have my little mental breakdown in peace and quiet. Jerk. I knew why he wasn't leaving. He was on guard duty to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. I was in the mood to fret and if I didn't know better, I would have sworn that I was amusing the hell out of him. That was the main reason I changed my pacing route and made sure I walked back and forth in front of the TV. If he wanted to keep pissing me off, then I was going to tell him that just the morning before I had sex on the very bed he was laying back on.
After what must have been, despite what the clock was saying because we all know how clocks lie, a thirty-seven hour wait, the phone rang. Zack didn't move. He wasn't about to risk getting run down as I ran to the phone. Zack had been stronger than me and better at hand to hand combat, but I was much faster. I crossed the room in a fraction of a second and had the phone in hand.
"Hello?" I said, expecting anything at this point.
"Hey baby," Justin's casual reply came back. I nearly collapsed in relief.
"Are you okay?" I asked, glad that Zack had his back to me while watching TV. I didn't want to see him rolling his eyes and looking annoyed when I dared to express some kind of emotion besides "let's go hide or kill something".
"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied. I could tell from his voice that he was relaxing somewhere. God, I wanted to be with him right then. "They shot me up with some great stuff, stitched me up and now I'm going to let the drugs do what they're supposed to do and sleep for a little bit."
I smiled. He sounded so out of it. "Where are you at?" I could ditch Zack and head over there. I was sure Zack was ready to get away from me anyways. He did not like spending this much time close to one of us. And we had actually talked some too. Just chatting kind of talk. Very, very strange. But I liked it.
Justin blew out a breath and I knew something was wrong. "I am at the hotel Dad took me to when he came to the hospital to get me." Oh hell. Please don't tell me."Oh," he added, "you might want to call your mother and let her know that you're not dead either." I closed my eyes and prayed I would be struck dead about then. Finding out that I had lied to her and waltzed off into a battle zone was not going to make her a happy camper. There were things worse than dealing with Mom when she was pissed. Wrestling a wild panther that hadn't eaten in two days was probably one of them, but only if you had just had your eyes gouged out with hot pokers as well.
I was still alive. Figures. I had used up all of my prayer points in the last two days I guess. "I guess staying here and hiding from her for a few years until she calms down is out of the question," I said, trying to be humorous. From the black look Zack shot me all of a sudden, he didn't find it quite so funny. What the hell was his problem with me being in Seattle? "Maybe I'll just stick around until you finish up here and give her some time to cool off."
Justin thought about it for a minute. "I think it would be much better all the way around if you went back to LA. I'm probably going to leave tomorrow night or the next morning at the latest. And if you're here then Steiner is going to wonder about the whole parole situation." He yawned hugely and I knew he was staying awake by a sheer effort of will. "Everything is fine now, cariƱa. Just take care of yourself, okay?"
"I will," I promised. "Call me when you wake up."
"Will do," he muttered. "Love you."
"Me too," I replied, not wanting to make Zack vomit when he heard the "L" word from my mouth. The receiver clicked and I hung up, feeling much better.
"When are you leaving?" Zack asked immediately. I sighed. There went the semi-human person I had been conversing with earlier and in walked my soldier of a big brother.
"I think the first flight to LA in the morning," I replied. He glared at me pointedly. It was glare #302 that meant, "you need to move out now". "I'd leave tonight and try to get a flight out, but honestly, I'm tired and want some time to rest before I get moving again."
"You want to sleep?" he asked skeptically.
"It's not unheard of for me to sleep, as you would know if you were around more often," I replied teasingly. "It's been a good week since I've slept and I was under a lot of stress the last couple of days." I paused and grimaced. "Besides, it lets me putting off calling my mom and apologizing for lying to her a little while longer."
Zack didn't say anything about that, but he did smirk for a second. I told him that I had hacked my way here for the flight and the paperwork and what I had told Mom. I think me being able to pull one over on Mom had actually impressed him. He knew how hard that was to do to her. There had been more than one time that she had looked at him, told him to knock off the lies and just refuse to answer when he didn't want to tell the truth. I think it was possible that she was the only person to ever perceive when he was being less than honest. In any case, that smirk meant "better you than me". Genetically engineered super soldier or not, nobody wanted to deal with my mother when she was in a mood.
I lay down on the bed, stretching out with my hands behind my head. My eyes closed as I relaxed. Relaxed. I could relax right then. Zack was there. At Manticore I had always felt safer if Zack was nearby. He had been the strong one, the tough one. He was the one that didn't shatter when Eva died. Was murdered. I had followed his lead then and not fallen apart and attacked Lydecker like I wanted to. He kept me from getting killed as well that night as well I suppose. And then we had made our escape and simply trusted in him and what he wanted us to do.
Having him with me then reminded me about the nights at Manticore when we were together. Thinking about it, this was the first time that I had rested and had another X-5 with me. I was never scared at nights at Manticore for that very reason. We were together. We trusted each other and would protect the others and cover for them if there was a problem. And if you needed something else, if you had a really bad day or things were just becoming too much and you didn't know if you could take it another day, there was always that one thing that could be said, and it was always responded to. Not by any one person in particular, though it was mostly Ben, but we all knew and all understood without needing to explain. One little request.
"Tell me about the good place," I said out loud, very quietly.
I could feel Zack get tense for a moment. That was the one thing he probably never expected me to say again in my life. And I knew that if I directly questioned him, he would say it was all a fairy tale, something that we had all made up in order to keep ourselves sane and believing that there was more out there than pain and death. It might have been. But it had a purpose back then. And somehow, it still did. I knew that as I felt Zack move, sliding down so that he was lying beside me.
"In the good place," he whispered, so quietly even I had a hard time hearing him, "you can sleep as late as you want. And there's always enough to eat and nobody ever has to go to the basement. You'll never have to do munitions drills if you don't want to. When you're in the good place."
His words seemed to mingle into a flow of comforting sound as I let sleep overtake me, plunging me into a dreamless dark.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I'll have her there then." Zack's words woke me a few hours later. Hours. I must have been exhausted. Either that or Zack slipped me something in a drink. I wouldn't think that, but I put nothing past him. Still, who the hell was he talking to? Zack hung up the phone, all traces of his former gentleness gone. Maybe that had been a dream but it certainly didn't feel like it. Oh well. That was just.Zack.
"Get your gear," he ordered. "We've got a rendezvous in an hour to get you out of the city."
"I'm going back to Los Angeles after I see Justin," I said pointedly. It wasn't the seeing Justin part that I was really concerned about. I knew he was fine and would be home in a day or so. I wanted Zack to know that whomever we were meeting, they were taking me back to LA. If he wanted to play hardball and threaten to cut off contact, then I would call his bluff. I was going home.
Zack grunted some sort of reply and I got my stuff together. I also noticed that Zack had finished off an extra large supreme pizza that only had two slices missing from it when I went to sleep. But that wasn't important. Important was the fact he was constantly checking the time as we headed out of the motel and into Seattle. I still had my forged sector pass. Zack had actually approved of that. He didn't ask me how I had gotten it. That wasn't important to him. He had one of his own so we were all set as we weaved through the streets until we got to a seedier section of town.
It actually wasn't all that bad. It was just where the regular people lived. The ones with the menial jobs that were squatting in what should have been abandoned apartment buildings. Most of them were probably good people that were stuck in the quagmire of the post-Pulse economic depression. Nobody was trying to mug us, so what could I say. I guess to them I would have been a California princess with my nice house and family and education.
Zack had blended into the crowds with me quite well. His arm was casually draped over my shoulders and was smiling and occasionally laughing at whatever fake conversation we were making as we meandered down the streets. You wouldn't have even thought of him as a toughened soldier on a serious mission if you didn't know him. We just looked like a couple of close friends, probably dating, that had just gotten off of work and were heading to our favorite hangout. The type that you might smile at for a moment, happy to see that someone found happiness in this miserable world, and then forget about five minutes later. The best place to hide, after all, is in the largest crowd possible.
I felt Zack prepare to move before he actually did. His arm around me tensed even though his expression didn't change from the friendly affable one he had painted on. He then laughed and swung me around so that we were off of the main sidewalk and my back was now against the side of a building. Zack's face was close to mine so that an outside observer would swear that he was kissing me, but he wasn't. He glanced once at the sidewalk and my eyes followed his.
And then I saw.oh God.I saw.no mistaking.oh my God anyone but that.
I went back to the motel where Justin and I had spent the day and waited. And waited. And paced a thousand times across the room. And waited. I managed to annoy the hell out of Zack who was still hanging around for some reason that I couldn't fathom. Maybe it was to make sure that I was really planning on leaving Seattle. I was as soon as I heard from Justin. But what was taking so long? Did he have to have surgery? I thought about that, and immediately went to go do some recon at the hospital, but Zack stopped me. He reminded me that Justin was fine when we left him so chances were that he was still fine. Justin had just lied to the cops about a lot of things and if I showed up then it was going to cause a lot more questions to be asked and questions were a very bad thing. I hated it when Zack was right. So I went back to pacing.
Zack ignored me for a long time. He watched TV for a while and let me have my little mental breakdown in peace and quiet. Jerk. I knew why he wasn't leaving. He was on guard duty to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. I was in the mood to fret and if I didn't know better, I would have sworn that I was amusing the hell out of him. That was the main reason I changed my pacing route and made sure I walked back and forth in front of the TV. If he wanted to keep pissing me off, then I was going to tell him that just the morning before I had sex on the very bed he was laying back on.
After what must have been, despite what the clock was saying because we all know how clocks lie, a thirty-seven hour wait, the phone rang. Zack didn't move. He wasn't about to risk getting run down as I ran to the phone. Zack had been stronger than me and better at hand to hand combat, but I was much faster. I crossed the room in a fraction of a second and had the phone in hand.
"Hello?" I said, expecting anything at this point.
"Hey baby," Justin's casual reply came back. I nearly collapsed in relief.
"Are you okay?" I asked, glad that Zack had his back to me while watching TV. I didn't want to see him rolling his eyes and looking annoyed when I dared to express some kind of emotion besides "let's go hide or kill something".
"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied. I could tell from his voice that he was relaxing somewhere. God, I wanted to be with him right then. "They shot me up with some great stuff, stitched me up and now I'm going to let the drugs do what they're supposed to do and sleep for a little bit."
I smiled. He sounded so out of it. "Where are you at?" I could ditch Zack and head over there. I was sure Zack was ready to get away from me anyways. He did not like spending this much time close to one of us. And we had actually talked some too. Just chatting kind of talk. Very, very strange. But I liked it.
Justin blew out a breath and I knew something was wrong. "I am at the hotel Dad took me to when he came to the hospital to get me." Oh hell. Please don't tell me."Oh," he added, "you might want to call your mother and let her know that you're not dead either." I closed my eyes and prayed I would be struck dead about then. Finding out that I had lied to her and waltzed off into a battle zone was not going to make her a happy camper. There were things worse than dealing with Mom when she was pissed. Wrestling a wild panther that hadn't eaten in two days was probably one of them, but only if you had just had your eyes gouged out with hot pokers as well.
I was still alive. Figures. I had used up all of my prayer points in the last two days I guess. "I guess staying here and hiding from her for a few years until she calms down is out of the question," I said, trying to be humorous. From the black look Zack shot me all of a sudden, he didn't find it quite so funny. What the hell was his problem with me being in Seattle? "Maybe I'll just stick around until you finish up here and give her some time to cool off."
Justin thought about it for a minute. "I think it would be much better all the way around if you went back to LA. I'm probably going to leave tomorrow night or the next morning at the latest. And if you're here then Steiner is going to wonder about the whole parole situation." He yawned hugely and I knew he was staying awake by a sheer effort of will. "Everything is fine now, cariƱa. Just take care of yourself, okay?"
"I will," I promised. "Call me when you wake up."
"Will do," he muttered. "Love you."
"Me too," I replied, not wanting to make Zack vomit when he heard the "L" word from my mouth. The receiver clicked and I hung up, feeling much better.
"When are you leaving?" Zack asked immediately. I sighed. There went the semi-human person I had been conversing with earlier and in walked my soldier of a big brother.
"I think the first flight to LA in the morning," I replied. He glared at me pointedly. It was glare #302 that meant, "you need to move out now". "I'd leave tonight and try to get a flight out, but honestly, I'm tired and want some time to rest before I get moving again."
"You want to sleep?" he asked skeptically.
"It's not unheard of for me to sleep, as you would know if you were around more often," I replied teasingly. "It's been a good week since I've slept and I was under a lot of stress the last couple of days." I paused and grimaced. "Besides, it lets me putting off calling my mom and apologizing for lying to her a little while longer."
Zack didn't say anything about that, but he did smirk for a second. I told him that I had hacked my way here for the flight and the paperwork and what I had told Mom. I think me being able to pull one over on Mom had actually impressed him. He knew how hard that was to do to her. There had been more than one time that she had looked at him, told him to knock off the lies and just refuse to answer when he didn't want to tell the truth. I think it was possible that she was the only person to ever perceive when he was being less than honest. In any case, that smirk meant "better you than me". Genetically engineered super soldier or not, nobody wanted to deal with my mother when she was in a mood.
I lay down on the bed, stretching out with my hands behind my head. My eyes closed as I relaxed. Relaxed. I could relax right then. Zack was there. At Manticore I had always felt safer if Zack was nearby. He had been the strong one, the tough one. He was the one that didn't shatter when Eva died. Was murdered. I had followed his lead then and not fallen apart and attacked Lydecker like I wanted to. He kept me from getting killed as well that night as well I suppose. And then we had made our escape and simply trusted in him and what he wanted us to do.
Having him with me then reminded me about the nights at Manticore when we were together. Thinking about it, this was the first time that I had rested and had another X-5 with me. I was never scared at nights at Manticore for that very reason. We were together. We trusted each other and would protect the others and cover for them if there was a problem. And if you needed something else, if you had a really bad day or things were just becoming too much and you didn't know if you could take it another day, there was always that one thing that could be said, and it was always responded to. Not by any one person in particular, though it was mostly Ben, but we all knew and all understood without needing to explain. One little request.
"Tell me about the good place," I said out loud, very quietly.
I could feel Zack get tense for a moment. That was the one thing he probably never expected me to say again in my life. And I knew that if I directly questioned him, he would say it was all a fairy tale, something that we had all made up in order to keep ourselves sane and believing that there was more out there than pain and death. It might have been. But it had a purpose back then. And somehow, it still did. I knew that as I felt Zack move, sliding down so that he was lying beside me.
"In the good place," he whispered, so quietly even I had a hard time hearing him, "you can sleep as late as you want. And there's always enough to eat and nobody ever has to go to the basement. You'll never have to do munitions drills if you don't want to. When you're in the good place."
His words seemed to mingle into a flow of comforting sound as I let sleep overtake me, plunging me into a dreamless dark.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I'll have her there then." Zack's words woke me a few hours later. Hours. I must have been exhausted. Either that or Zack slipped me something in a drink. I wouldn't think that, but I put nothing past him. Still, who the hell was he talking to? Zack hung up the phone, all traces of his former gentleness gone. Maybe that had been a dream but it certainly didn't feel like it. Oh well. That was just.Zack.
"Get your gear," he ordered. "We've got a rendezvous in an hour to get you out of the city."
"I'm going back to Los Angeles after I see Justin," I said pointedly. It wasn't the seeing Justin part that I was really concerned about. I knew he was fine and would be home in a day or so. I wanted Zack to know that whomever we were meeting, they were taking me back to LA. If he wanted to play hardball and threaten to cut off contact, then I would call his bluff. I was going home.
Zack grunted some sort of reply and I got my stuff together. I also noticed that Zack had finished off an extra large supreme pizza that only had two slices missing from it when I went to sleep. But that wasn't important. Important was the fact he was constantly checking the time as we headed out of the motel and into Seattle. I still had my forged sector pass. Zack had actually approved of that. He didn't ask me how I had gotten it. That wasn't important to him. He had one of his own so we were all set as we weaved through the streets until we got to a seedier section of town.
It actually wasn't all that bad. It was just where the regular people lived. The ones with the menial jobs that were squatting in what should have been abandoned apartment buildings. Most of them were probably good people that were stuck in the quagmire of the post-Pulse economic depression. Nobody was trying to mug us, so what could I say. I guess to them I would have been a California princess with my nice house and family and education.
Zack had blended into the crowds with me quite well. His arm was casually draped over my shoulders and was smiling and occasionally laughing at whatever fake conversation we were making as we meandered down the streets. You wouldn't have even thought of him as a toughened soldier on a serious mission if you didn't know him. We just looked like a couple of close friends, probably dating, that had just gotten off of work and were heading to our favorite hangout. The type that you might smile at for a moment, happy to see that someone found happiness in this miserable world, and then forget about five minutes later. The best place to hide, after all, is in the largest crowd possible.
I felt Zack prepare to move before he actually did. His arm around me tensed even though his expression didn't change from the friendly affable one he had painted on. He then laughed and swung me around so that we were off of the main sidewalk and my back was now against the side of a building. Zack's face was close to mine so that an outside observer would swear that he was kissing me, but he wasn't. He glanced once at the sidewalk and my eyes followed his.
And then I saw.oh God.I saw.no mistaking.oh my God anyone but that.
