Chapter 17
In Which Gerald and Helga Spend Some Quality Time Together…In Prison
"No? Ok fine. You'll let me know if anything else comes up right? Yeah I know. Yeah ok. Bye."
Simon hung up the phone and cursed loudly. Moria raised an eyebrow at him.
"Nothing?"
"No. No one's seen them. It's like they've been wiped off the face of the planet." He sat down heavily in a nearby chair and stared at the ground. "We may as well face facts. Someone was after them, and it looks like whoever it was found them."
Moria's eyes flashed. "Helga isn't easy to kill."
"She's only human Moria. Everyone has a weakness."
"Not her." Moria shook her head. "There has to be another explanation. Maybe she—"
"Has she ever gone this long without contacting you before?" He took her silence as his answer. "Neither has Johansson. They're gone Moria. We need to retrace our steps, regroup and figure out where to go from here."
"At least let's hold off on contacting their families," Moria pressed, "There's still a chance…" She trailed off.
Simon started to say something else, then stopped and nodded. "Ok. We'll give them a few more days. But that's it." He looked at his watch and got up to leave. "We'll go over this later. Anything on your plate tonight?"
"After six I'm free."
"We'll do dinner out then. See you tonight." He headed towards the door and turned to look at her again. "It never pays, you know," he told her in a softer tone, "You can't get attached to your agents. You can only protect them so much." Again he looked as if he wanted to add something more, but he didn't. Simon closed the door on his way out.
Moria waited a few minutes, then went to the window and looked out at the parking lot. She could just make out Simon going to his car below. Then she looked up at the sky.
"She's your responsibility, not mine. You're the only one who can do anything for her now." Then she took a deep breath, picked up her coat and left for her next meeting.
*****************
"…five hundred and twenty-three, five hundred and twenty-four…"
"…and fifty-seven, five hundred and fifty-eight, five hundred and fifty-nine stones. Helga?"
"Five hundred and thirty-two. Shoot."
"I win."
"Ceiling versus floor?"
"You're on." They started counting.
They were in a medium-sized stone cell leftover from some ruins near the campsite. From the inside, it looked like it had once been used for storage, possibly for grain of some kind. The section they were in was a rectangular offshoot of the main room, which was a sort of cylinder underground, like a well. A large wooden door with a tiny window in the top separated the two rooms, and a guard stood outside it, who was probably as bored as they were.
From the outside, the place didn't look like anything at all. It was only accessible from a rope ladder suspended in a hole in the ground, located inside a tent in the middle of the campsite. Gerald felt that the guard was totally unnecessary. There was simply no way out.
"This is boring," said Gerald as soon as he realized that there were far more stones in the ceiling than there were in the floor.
"You got a better idea, Geraldo?" Helga turned her head towards him and yawned. She was sprawled out on the floor while Gerald leaned against the wall near her.
"I dunno. Rock paper scissors?"
**************
"Rock crushes scissors. I win again. Two hundred and three to one hundred sixty-four."
"One more time." Gerald said.
**************
"I spy with my little eye something…gray."
"That rock over there."
"Nope."
"No, not that rock. That one."
"I said no Geraldo."
**************
"Are you alive?"
"Yes. 18."
"Are you male?"
"Yes. 17."
"Do you have a strange fascination with lemon pudding?"
"Shoot."
*************
"You're out!"
"No way! I'm on base!"
"We said that rock was first base, Geraldo!"
"No, we said that rock was first, that rock was second, and—"
"I thought that rock was second?"
**************
"Are you accident-prone?"
"Yes. 16."
"Are you male?"
"Yes. 15."
"Are you sure?"
*************
"…I'll see your shoe, and I'll raise you the other shoe."
"I'll call. What've you got?"
"Ha! Five rocks!"
"I still think you're cheating."
*************
"Are you evil and manipulative?"
"Yes. Last question."
"Curly?" asked Gerald.
"I said it was a girl."
"They're all evil and manipulative," Gerald grumbled.
************
"No way."
"Why not?"
"Because it's no contest," Gerald argued, "I've only been in two real relationships, and frankly I'm not even sure those count."
"That's it?" Helga looked shocked.
"Why, how many relationships have you been in?"
"Let me think."
Gerald waited. And waited.
"Helga?" he asked after a while.
"Hm, what?"
He was slightly annoyed. "I asked you how many relationships you've been in."
"And I said, 'Let me think.'"
"You're still thinking?"
"No, I'm still counting. Let's see where was I? Andrew for a while, then Randell…or was that Ryan? He was only one date anyway, don't know if that counts. Oliver, Nick, Lenny…wait, was Nick before or after—"
"How about just relationships starting in college then?"
"That's what I was doing."
"Ok, first year of college, how about that?"
"That's what I was—"
"Ok ok, I get the point." Gerald snapped. He sat down next to Helga and leaned against the wall again.
"What about current relationships?" suggested Helga.
"Non-existent."
"Yeah me too. Time elapsed since last one ended then?"
"I broke up with Ginger a few months ago. Right before I transferred to anti-terrorism."
"Well you've got me beat there. I dumped David on New Year's." Helga unfolded her legs from under her and stretched them out on the floor to keep them from falling asleep.
"You've gone that long without a guy? After that string of names from—"
"I decided to put romance on hold, that's all. I was just getting sick of it. I mean, why'd you break up with Ginger?"
He shrugged. "She needed to be on her own. We'd been together off and on since college, and I don't think she knew who she was anymore. It was like she was some kind of weird extension of me or something. She was driving me crazy." He noticed Helga was giving me an odd look. "What?"
"Well it's just that that was exactly the problem with David, only in reverse. He wanted my whole life to be about him."
"Hmm. Maybe we should set them up when we get back."
Helga laughed, then sobered quickly. She traced the stone blocks on the floor with her finger.
"You know we're probably not going to get out of this."
Gerald wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just sat there in silence. What if she's right? He didn't want to think about it. Well Gerald, you knew the risk when you started this game. You just didn't know you were going to lose. He stared out the little window at the back of the guard's blonde head. He really needs a better hairstyle.
After a few minutes of staring into space, he suddenly realized that he was hearing something. Refocusing his eyes, he saw that Helga was digging at the mortar between the stones with her fingernails.
"What're you doing?"
"Getting out of here. I don't know about you, Geraldo, but I for one am not going to die underground."
"I don't think we have much of a choice here Helga."
She pounded viciously at the floor, but her efforts barely raised a few clouds of concrete dust. She seemed not to notice this however, and went at it again with renewed energy.
"Don't just sit there, help me!"
"Helga cimon, you're not doing anything. You can't dig out of here with your bare hands."
She stopped at looked at him. "I know that Geraldo," she growled and turned back to her work.
Gerald was going to just let her continue, figuring that she needed to work her aggression out somehow, but then he saw the red streaks where her fingers rubbed on the stone. He grabbed her hands reflexively.
"You're only hurting yourself. Look at this." He ripped off part of his sleeve and wiped the blood from her fingertips. "Save your energy. Listen, someone will have to come down and get us sometime. Use your anger on them, not yourself." He looked up from her hands and saw with surprise that she was crying.
Gerald had never been good with tears. He sat there awkwardly wondering what he should do. Would Helga slug him if he tried to give her a hug? Should he just turn around and pretend he hadn't seen? Or I could always sit here holding her hands like an idiot. Good choice, Gerald.
Just as he was about to let go of her hands, however, Helga tried to pull them away. Without thinking Gerald grabbed her wrist tightly.
"Let go," said Helga through gritted teeth.
"No," Gerald replied, though he wasn't quite sure why.
"Let go!" Helga pulled back a little, prompting Gerald to grab her other wrist as well.
"Gerald!" She looked up at him in frustration. But suddenly all Gerald could see was how blue her eyes were when they had been crying. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to want to stop those tears. And what better way to do that than…his lips were touching hers, just brushing them really, asking permission to continue. He heard her draw a quick breath and realized he had closed his eyes. He panicked slightly. What am I doing? Then she was kissing him, and nothing else mattered. The stone beneath him had disappeared, as had the wall beside him…heck the whole cell was gone…and the camp…and the jungle… He let go of her wrists and reached up to cup her face in his hands. But villains always have perfect timing.
"How sweet. A last kiss."
Helga jerked away from Gerald and they both looked towards the door. It was Phil. Well, at least they assumed it was him. It was rather hard to tell, surrounded by heavily armed guards as he was. He stepped forward slightly so that they could see him and cocked his head in thought.
"You know, Johansson, you could probably sue her for sexual harassment. She is still your boss, you haven't been terminated at Ical yet as far as I know." He narrowed his eyes. "Of course, that's not the termination you should be worrying about at this point."
There was silence for a moment. Then, Helga snorted. "That's the best you can do? You've had all this time to plan on what to say to us, and you come up with that?"
Phil seemed a bit ruffled. "Well I wasn't expecting…fine." He drew himself up and glared at them. "I was looking forward to a bit of a chat, but since you've decided to be anti-social I'll just tell you what I came here for."
"Could you hurry it up? We were kind of busy." put in Gerald. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Helga blush lightly.
"Yes. I caught that." Helga blushed a bit deeper. Gerald didn't think he'd ever seen her embarrassed before. "I'll make it quick. I just wanted to let you know that you have about three hours left to live. Just enough time for us to pack up camp and move out."
"What's wrong with right now?" bluffed Gerald.
Phil looked at him with understanding in his eyes. "Rather die than deal with having kissed the Pink Nazi, eh Johansson?" Helga was tomato red by this time, but Gerald thought it was probably anger, not embarrassment now. "You'll get your chance soon enough. But I am not without my sadistic side, and I've found it's a lot more fun to kill people who know it's coming. Besides I just got here. I want to get my bearings, maybe take a hot bath before I kill you. To do it now would be uncivilized." He grinned and motioned to his guards.
"Three hours, you two. Enjoy." And he was gone.
A/N: If the kiss seemed a bit hokey, I apologize. I needed a good bridge there and that was the only thing that seemed to work, but I don't think I wrote it as well as it should have been written. Oy. As I've mentioned, Real Life is being a Real Pain right now, so my writing is slower than usual. So I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out, sorry. But I think it's going to be rather long. Oh, and so far we're on schedule – 2 more chapters and an epilogue to go. ~PJ
Poison Ivory: Glad to see you're back writing again! I've never seen On the Lam, but I love the other two, yes. I think April Fool's Day and Geek Party are hilarious too…but then I'm a bit crazy about Curly which explains the last one.
Snow Lane: Well obviously the camp knew they were coming…the real question is, how?
Sennical: I haven't giving hints about Syl/El because I think I've done that enough in the story…actually she wasn't supposed to be the big mystery, although I'm amused that it's turned out that way. There are a few other intentional gaps that might be more worth pursuing… Heh, and Arnie's and Lila's kid…is going to take some thought. But I think I may put 'em in yet.
TaDah: Thanks again!
pogo: ::gives a Good Guess award:: cliffhangers are good…
DropsofJupiter: Lol, my fanfiction is spawning AU fanfiction spin-offs! grin, well that would be one way to end the story…
Luvya: Course you know I don't answer plot questions…but yes there'll be a sequel…and up to two other books after that, depending.