Disclaimer: Me. Own. Nothing. Got it?

Zack's Penny

By Be Boring

Chapter 4: Something Kinda Funny Going On

*~* Penny

I am so sick and tired of this hospital bed. It's so depressing lying around on a hard bed with nothing to look at but white walls. My only happier moments are when Jesse comes by. I guess Miguel and Cindy aren't done with their alone time yet, so he's the only visitor I get. He's apologized profusely so many times that I almost feel bad for the poor guy. He's beating himself up about my injuries to the point where I'm starting to get sick of it. I've told him time and time again that I don't blame him, but it's like I'm talking to the wall. I tell him not to worry about it, and five minutes later he's back to saying how sorry he is.

There's one good thing that's come out of this. I haven't had to worry about staying at Jesse's place because I had to stay overnight at the hospital. It's only postponing it though, I'll be released today. The doctor was shocked at the improvement my body had made just over the night. According to him I'll be back to normal in just a few days, a week at the most. I asked him to tell Jesse that I just hadn't been hurt nearly has bad as they had thought, but there's no way he couldn't be suspicious about this. I'm just grateful that there haven't been any blood tests, there would be no way to explain that.

I smiled as Jesse entered my room, packed down with all the take-out he had gotten. He had gotten a huge pizza, it had to be over three inches thick, as well as Chinese food for me. It seems that he is capable of eating an entire pizza by himself. I'm guessing it would be a bad idea to tell him that I can do that too. I could just imagine the look on his face when he sees that. Of course, I don't plan on letting him know about my humungous appetite.

"Do you think you brought enough?"

He grinned and handed me the carton of Chinese food. "Nah, I think I could have gotten more. I just didn't want to look like a pig."

Coincidences, coincidences. "That food had to be heavy, why didn't you ask someone to help you?"

"I can handle it fine on my own. So, are you ready for all this?" I couldn't believe it when he pulled another Chinese carton from behind his back. Where had he been keeping that?

"Wow, you take a girl seriously when she says she's hungry!"

"I've learned from past experience not to take a girl lightly when she talks about food. Do you think you can eat all this?"

I couldn't help but grin. "I think I'll manage somehow."

*~* Zane

I can't help but watch Penny as she eats. I want to figure her out, she's just so secretive. There's lots of things I want to know: where she's from, what made her the way she is, and why she just can't seem to open up to anybody. She's done a great job of not letting anyone know those things so far, but I hope to change that.

Syl might be more up for the job than I am, but with the state she's in now I doubt we'll be getting much help from her. I've called her apartment a few times, but nobody's answering. I can take a hint. I could see it made Penny nervous when I informed her that she would have to stay at my place for at least one night. I don't know how long Syl's heat cycles are, but there's no way Penny will get out of staying with me. Any hope I had of getting further with her has been pretty much shattered; she's too keyed up about staying with me to be open to any suggestions. Damn the luck.

As I opened the pizza I had brought for myself, I looked down at my cell phone. Why hadn't Zack returned my call yet? I had called him a little earlier because I knew that it wouldn't be too much longer before he showed up, he always showed up around my sisters' heat cycles to make sure they didn't do something they'd regret, and there would be no way of keeping him from finding out about me living here. I decided it was better that he learn beforehand about what was going on, that way maybe the explosion would be less severe. I knew he checked his messages every day, so why hadn't he returned my call by now? This is something that would bring him charging, but there wasn't so much as a peep from him so far.

One thing occurred to me as I seriously dug into my pizza: what would Zack think about Penny? I remember his reaction to Tinga getting married, how would he feel about us letting a perfect stranger into our lives? It wasn't like she knew anything yet, but Zack would be sure to point out that the key word in that sentence was yet. He was instinctively untrusting of anything new, and Penny wouldn't be a very pleasant surprise for him. I just hoped we could convince him to let her stick around.

"What are you thinking about?" Penny's voice seemed to come out of nowhere. I realized that my pizza had stopped halfway to my mouth as I was wondering about Zack.

"Oh, a guy I used to work with wants me to go back and help him close up shop." Well, that wasn't really a lie, Randy had called me. I had worked in an auto mechanics shop with him, but since I had come to get Syl's and Krit's asses out of trouble I had had to leave him behind. Now the place was dead broke and he wanted me to come back and tie up loose ends. After all, I had been the owner of the place.

The answer seemed to satisfy her, but I almost wished I could tell her about Zack. I'll get over it when Syl's out of heat. I think it's just that I don't have any other X5s to talk with about how nervous I am about Zack. Once Syl and Krit are free to talk again, I'll feel much better. Hey, wait a second! I'll call Tinga! I don't know why that didn't occur to me before. I had found the number for Tinga's place in Syl's apartment. Tinga would be sure to listen.

"I'll be right back," I muttered quickly to Penny. I could feel her eyes on my back as I left the room, but I was so set on talking to Tinga that I didn't care. It took me about a minute to remember Tinga's number, but the moment I remembered I grabbed the nearest payphone.

I couldn't help but bounce a little bit on my feet as the phone started ringing on the other end. "Hello?" a male voice asked. That had to be Charlie. What was Tinga's married name again? I glanced back toward Penny's room and it hit me, Tinga's alias was Penny as well.

"Hi, is Penny there?"

"Hold on just a second."

I couldn't help but smile as I heard the ruckus that immediately followed his reply. I could hear a young boy saying "I'll give the phone to Mommy!" while Charlie obviously tried to ignore him. I heard the tinkle of glass breaking, then Tinga's sweet voice snapping "Case, get away from that! I don't want you cutting yourself. Hello?" She had finally managed to reach the phone.

"Tinga? It's Zane."

I grinned as I heard her muffled squeal. As always, she was so excited that she had pressed a hand over her mouth to suppress the squeal that would undoubtedly escape. "God, Zane, it's so good to hear your voice! It's been so long!"

"Too long," I agreed.

"What's going on, little brother?" Damn, she always did know when something was up.

"Have you heard from Zack by any chance?" I hoped that if I didn't sound too anxious, then she wouldn't get worried. Trouble is, that never works with big sisters.

"No, have you? I called him a week ago to tell him Jondy's living just down the street. You'd think that would get his attention, but we haven't gotten so much as a phone call. This isn't like him."

I smiled again. It seems I wasn't the only one that had decided to try and get closer to my siblings once Zack had turned his back for a moment. "I called him in the middle of the night to tell him I was living near Syl with Krit."

"Wait, near Syl, with Krit? Aren't they living together anymore?"

"It's kind of complicated. They're not separated, don't worry about that. Anyways, I figured it would be better if I let Zack know about my living arrangements since normally he would come around this time anyway. Syl's in heat right now, and I know he always comes around at that time, which means he would have found out about all this anyway. I just don't get why he hasn't at least called."

To my surprise, Tinga didn't seem that upset by this. "That's not too strange. He doesn't show up around my heat cycles either because I have Charlie around. Maybe he figures Syl has Krit so she doesn't need him checking up on her around that time."

Ok, that sounded plausible. Krit was more than capable of keeping Syl safe when she was so out of control, but that just didn't seem like Zack. He at least should have called me back. Suddenly, there was another tinkling of glass from the other end of the line. "Case, get away from there right now! Sorry, but I have to go. A kid with a genetically enhanced mother tends to be more rambunctious than your average child. Talk to ya later, little brother."

"Yeah, later old girl." I heard an indignant but playful "hmmph!" from Tinga's end, then the click as she hung up. I had to admit that I felt a little better. Tinga usually had that effect on people.

*~* Penny

I know Jesse keeps saying there's nothing wrong, but he looks so worried. He seemed a little better after he came back and resumed eating his pizza, but there was still something troubling him, I'm sure of it. The only good thing about that was he didn't notice that I'd eaten every last bit of my Chinese food. Come on, I'm depressed. I'm allowed to eat a little extra.

"Where did you go?"

"Nature calls," was the answer I got. Now, there is no way a need for the bathroom upset him that much. There had to be more to it.

"Oh, I didn't mention it before, but as soon as I'm finished eating I can take you home. Unless of course you want to stay here."

"Oh hell no!" I had no plans of staying there one second longer than I had to. At least my reaction brought a slight smile to his face.

Nearly a half hour later I was collapsing onto Jess's couch. The elevator had been broken, so we had to climb the stairs. I was completely exhausted. My injuries were healing quickly, but the healing process was taking a lot out of my body. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.

"Oh, come on Zack! Just this once?"

"No, I'm not risking anything happening to you."

"But you do it all the time, why can't I?"

"I've had a lot more experience than you. Besides, the first time can go pretty rough. I don't want you getting hurt."

"I won't, not if I'm with you. You're gonna have to give me some better reasons."

"You're too young," came Zack's grumbling reply.

"You were even younger when you started. Come on, I'm really curious. We'll take it slow the first time, okay?"

"No! Besides, there's too many people around. We'd need more privacy for this."

"Then we'll go somewhere quiet."

"I don't think you understand how fast things could get out of control, even I might not be able to stop anything from happening. There's dangerous consequences if we're not careful."

"Then we'll take every precaution. I just want to do it so bad!"

I could see the debate going on in his mind, then he rolled his eyes. "Is there any good reason why I should agree to this?"

"Oh come on! Are you going to be my C.O. or my brother?"

"Fine, I'll drive into the country and give you driving lessons. Are you happy?"

I nearly screamed I was so happy. "You have no idea! I swear I won't go over ten miles an hour."

He finally smiled at that. "Well, I think you can go a little faster."

*~* Zane

"Randy, you have no idea how busy I am right now. I have a lot to worry about without having to come back and help you sell the place. You have more business sense than I do! If you can't find a buyer, then ditch the place! I'm sure the homeless people of LA would appreciate it."

Randy took a deep breath, which I had no doubt was to launch into another argument to get me to come back to LA. "You don't understand. I got The Car."

"You got the car? What are you talking about?"

"Not the car. The Car!!"

"Oh shit, you don't mean..."

"That's exactly what I mean. Old Jake got into a major crash with it, and he's depending on me to fix it up! I can't do this on my own, but you know what he'll do if I don't get it done right!"

Unfortunately, I did know what he meant. Old Jake was practically the neighborhood mafia grandfather, and his car was dubbed The Car. No fancy name, just The Car. You couldn't forget to put in the capitals, because that was how Jake always said it. There was always a lot of emphasis on it, like it was the only car in the world. Jake tended to have a nasty reputation for making life miserable for those who didn't do something just right for him. I didn't want to go back to LA, but I also didn't want Randy getting his head blown off just because he was too incompetent to do this job right.

"Fine, I'm coming back. Are you happy?"

"Oh man, you have no idea!"

I groaned as I hung up the phone and slouched down onto my bed. With Zack being a no-show and Penny injured without a place to go, I wasn't too happy with my choices. She can't go stay with Syl until Syl is out of heat, but I can't wait that long to go back. I'll have to take Penny with me. That pretty much decided it. We would most likely leave in the morning.

I walked out into the living room to share the news with Penny, but I couldn't see her. Panicked, I started towards my open window, then caught her reflection in the glass. I turned and let out a gasp of relief, she had fallen asleep on my couch. I walked over and grabbed blanket from my closet to put over her. It was a pleasant surprise to see her smiling in her sleep, at least she was having good dreams. It might just have been because it had felt so natural back at the hospital, but for whatever reason I sat down next to where she was sleeping in a sitting position and pulled her over to lean on my shoulder. I then covered us both with the blanket. It felt more natural than anything else in the world.

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A/N: Sorry this took so long. I just finished semester exams! I should be able to see what I got on them tomorrow, I'm not sure if I should be scared or excited. :P