Claire and Jack were finally approaching the castle. From the looks of it, they were the first of the group to arrive, as mass chaos wasn't yet spotted. It wasn't as if Claire didn't trust those people, she just felt that they were infinitely weirder in her head than they were in real life.
"You think we made it before them?" Claire said, looking back at Jack who was slightly behind. Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I suppose we have got to go get some water. And then we have to storm the castle," Claire said, looking around for a source of water.
Jack saw her looking. "Umm… Claire, now if you were going to be melted by water, would you necessarily keep a river around?"
"Absolutely not. But it was worth a check. You know, if I really did have any control over this thing, I could go 'river' and I could get a whole bunch of water here," Claire said. Suddenly, a shot glass of water appeared by her feet.
"It's not exactly what you asked for, but maybe you are progressing a little," Jack said, "Maybe you need to get control before you can go back. He picked up the glass on the floor. "Can you try to get a top? I'm afraid it will spill if there is a fight."
"Top," Claire commanded, as a paper top (like the ones on the cups in hotel rooms) appeared on the shot glass. "It'll do," she shrugged.
They proceeded towards the castle, when they were stopped by a bunch of people who just so happened to be wearing wings.
"Hello Danielle," Jack said, slightly confused. "What are you doing here and why do you have wings?"
"We're the flying defense attorneys."
"Can you fly?" Claire asked. This whole hallucination was getting infinitely weirder.
"I'm not sure. We really haven't tried. Probably not though, I think the wings are just for show," Danielle replied, suddenly wondering if she could fly. That would be pretty fun, she thought to herself.
"Can we go by now? We have to get Abbie so Claire can go back to being alive," Jack said.
"Sure," Danielle said. She knew she wasn't supposed to, but she didn't want to be ordered around by Rey or Abbie anymore.
"Danielle, aren't we supposed to be stopping them from getting in, not just letting them go through," Sally Bell reminded Danielle.
"But I don't really want to. I'm just a little put off by that cop," Danielle said.
"Who?" Claire said, not knowing who else would be helping Abbie.
"What's his name?" Danielle said, pondering for a second. "Oh yeah, it's… Rey."
"Rey? Wait, Rey is with Abbie? That doesn't make any sense, now why would he do that?" Claire said, rather puzzled.
"I never did like him. Can't trust those cops," Jack mumbled.
"So, I guess we better get going, you know, melting your boss," Claire said, hinting at the fact that she wanted to get by.
"Hey, let's get this straight, we do NOT work for her. We are independent contractors," Ruthie Miller stepped forward and said.
"Well of course. Meaning you have no certain attachment, meaning I'm just going to go along now," Claire said, moving to the side and moving past the attorneys. Jack paused a moment, and then followed her.
The defense attorneys considered stopping them, but then decided against it. Shelly Kates yelled out a pathetic, "Hey, come back!" but she wasn't really that enthused.
"Hate to point this out, but… We were supposed to stop them. It's probably not good that we didn't," Sally Bell said, looking towards the two headed to the castle. "Abbie won't be happy." The defense attorneys stood looking at one another, realizing simultaneously that they were probably out of a job.
~~~
Serena slumped over a bit, sighing. "I have pretty pink high heels on and all this walking is damaging my feet," she whined.
"I'm perfectly happy to stop myself," Ben Stone mumbled, and as usual, was ignored. He just grumbled and kept on walking.
"We are almost there, I think," Lennie said. "That is the castle right?" He still felt a little bit out of the loop.
"Yeah, that's the castle… I think," Serena said, squinting. It still seemed far away to her.
They walked around for a bit longer, but they were still hesitant. They didn't pay attention to where they were going, so when they came to the still in place barricade of defense attorneys.
"Ahh! Lawyers!" Mike screamed.
"Ben, that is an absolutely ridiculous outfit," Shambala Green said. She had to refrain from laughing, but it was increasingly difficult.
Ben sighed. "I know, I know. Hey, why are you laughing at me when you have wings on?" He retaliated.
"Can we go past you now?" Lennie sighed.
"Yeah, sure," Danielle said. She figured as long as she was basically fired she should just give up on stopping people.
"Lennie, why was getting past the people we are supposed to be against easier than getting by you?" Mike inquired, slightly angry. Lennie shrugged.
~~~
Abbie paced around the room, distressed at the poor performance of her top guards. Rey was very afraid of her at the moment, so he tried to have her not hear him when he said, "That's what you get for hiring lawyers."
Unfortunately, he didn't do a very good job of it.
Abbie glared at Rey. "Not all lawyers are useless!" she yelled. "I take offense to that!"
"Sorry!" Rey cowered. "I didn't mean anything by it!"
"Oh, all my plans are out the window!" Abbie cried out in frustration. "What should we do, Rey?"
"We could kidnap them," Rey said, thinking quickly.
"Perfect idea! Go get them now," Abbie said, happiness suddenly returning to her.
"Oh great," he moaned, walking out the door and outside. He saw Jack and Claire walking towards the castle, and reluctantly walked up to them. "I've got to kidnap you."
"Rey, they told me you were here… But you can't kidnap us. Because I really have to go kill Abbie now," Claire said, trying to get past Rey and not succeeding.
"I'm really sorry about this Claire, but you know I have to do this," Rey said, taking them both by the hand and dragging them, kicking and screaming, down into the dungeon of the castle.
"Ugh! I hate this plot device, stupid subconscious!" Claire yelled at the ceiling.
"Haha, you cannot control me! I've got you!" Abbie said, dancing around. Rey sat by, head in his hands, sighing audibly.
"Claire, the water," Jack whispered in her ear. Abbie did not notice because she was dancing.
"I can't project that far, we will have to wait until she comes closer," Claire whispered back. "This isn't enough anyway."
"Wait, Claire, I have an idea."
~~~
"Umm… so I guess we are here now," Mike said as they moved past the defense attorneys and continued towards the castle.
"Oh… but where are they?" Serena said, looking around the area and seeing nothing.
"Whoops, guess we took the wrong turn. Better head back now," Ben said, turning around and attempting to walk away, but was stopped by Serena.
"Uh uh, we're going in there and finding them," Serena said, dragging him by the mane.
They all walked into the castle, but unfortunately they did not have the handy "guide" that Jack and Claire had going into the castle, so they got themselves hopelessly lost. Of course, they didn't know where they were going, so it was not exactly possible to get lost. But for all intensive purposes, they were wandering around in circles with no end in sight.
~~~
"Okay, are you ready?" Jack said, as Abbie seemed to be coming closer to the cage.
Claire nodded, and Abbie came up to the cage. "See, you'll never get out of this coma now!" she taunted, laughing wildly. Claire pulled the amazingly intact cup of water from behind her back and threw it at the hand that Abbie was holding the keys with. The hand promptly disappeared, and the keys fell to the floor. Jack knelt down and reached through the bars of the cage and picked up the keys. It seemed as if Claire's subconscious was finally on her side, but…
"Okay, so what are we supposed to do now?" Jack said, examining the keys.
"Well, we unlock the door…" Claire started to say.
"But the lock is on the outside, and we are on the inside," Jack said, trying to figure out a way to reach around without Abbie seeing.
Meanwhile, Abbie was nursing her hand, which was very slowly recorporializing itself. "Rey, look what they did!" she said, begging for sympathy.
Rey got a frightened look in his eyes. "Oh yes, horrible, horrible," he said, unconvincingly.
Now that they were occupied, Jack and Claire took the opportunity to make their escape. Jack reached out and attempted to reach far enough to get to the lock, but was not having much success.
"You have to hurry up, they eventually will notice!" Claire whispered urgently. As if on cue, Jack succeeded and the door unlocked. Claire fought the urge to walk out and yell, "I control you all! Go me!"
They walked out of the cage, and Abbie finally noticed something had gone awry. She turned around and gasped (sans colon). A bucket of water appeared at Claire's feet, Abbie and Claire both looked at it, slightly confused.
To add to the confusion, Serena, Lennie, Mike, and Ben burst into the room, magically unlost. They made a grand entrance, because they expected to have walked into a big battle. Unfortunately, everyone was just standing around staring.
"Well, is someone going to start with the melting already?" Lennie said, impatiently.
"Oh, I don't know… It doesn't seem right. I can't kill her, she didn't even consciously try to kill me, I mean, keeping me from waking up is not really killing, is it?" Claire said, staring at the bucket. "Besides, you know how I feel about this sort of thing…"
"Oh, please don't tell me this is some sort of big metaphor," Jack groaned. "Just melt her, please!"
"Jack, you said yourself I had some things to work out! Maybe this is just part of it. Maybe I will get back by not melting her!" Claire said accusingly.
"She locked us in a cage!" Jack said, getting quite irritated.
Suddenly, Adam came in. Not through a door of course, for he was the DA of One Hogan Place. No, it was more like teleportation. "That was nifty!" he said.
"Adam! What are you doing here?" Claire said, hoping to stall her task.
"Giving you an escape," he said, and turned towards Abbie. "Oh, Abbie. You are really giving me a headache. But I can't bear to see you melt. I'm afraid you can't stay here, but I think I have the perfect place for you." Adam waved his hand and Abbie disappeared. Jack grumbled. "Don't worry, Jack. Her punishment will be more than adequate."
"So, are you going to send me back now?" Claire said, slightly impatiently. Now that this matter was taken care of, she wanted to take care of this whole coma thing.
"No." Adam once again teleported away.
Claire sighed exasperatedly. Everyone else continued to stand around confused until Claire looked over to Serena, glaring expectantly. "Oh!" said Serena. "What's the line?" she pondered. "Umm… what did we learn?" She put on another fake smile.
"Ummm… That being in a coma is really no fun, watch out for drunk drivers, keep Jack away from bars," Claire listed out, as Serena tapped her foot and rolled her eyes. "Oh, you mean important lessons… How about, don't let Jack's WRONG opinions get in the way of our relationship because I love him even though he is WRONG!" Jack harrumphed.
"Good enough. Click your heels together three times and all that jazz."
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home," Claire clicked her heels together three times simultaneously.
~~~
Abbie woke up, she assumed she had been put in some kind of prison. She walked up to the doors of the jail and looked out at the silhouetted figure of her guard.
"Abigail, did I ever tell you about the time my friend back in Georgia found himself in a particularly sticky situation? Well, you see…" Arthur Branch began to speak.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"You think we made it before them?" Claire said, looking back at Jack who was slightly behind. Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I suppose we have got to go get some water. And then we have to storm the castle," Claire said, looking around for a source of water.
Jack saw her looking. "Umm… Claire, now if you were going to be melted by water, would you necessarily keep a river around?"
"Absolutely not. But it was worth a check. You know, if I really did have any control over this thing, I could go 'river' and I could get a whole bunch of water here," Claire said. Suddenly, a shot glass of water appeared by her feet.
"It's not exactly what you asked for, but maybe you are progressing a little," Jack said, "Maybe you need to get control before you can go back. He picked up the glass on the floor. "Can you try to get a top? I'm afraid it will spill if there is a fight."
"Top," Claire commanded, as a paper top (like the ones on the cups in hotel rooms) appeared on the shot glass. "It'll do," she shrugged.
They proceeded towards the castle, when they were stopped by a bunch of people who just so happened to be wearing wings.
"Hello Danielle," Jack said, slightly confused. "What are you doing here and why do you have wings?"
"We're the flying defense attorneys."
"Can you fly?" Claire asked. This whole hallucination was getting infinitely weirder.
"I'm not sure. We really haven't tried. Probably not though, I think the wings are just for show," Danielle replied, suddenly wondering if she could fly. That would be pretty fun, she thought to herself.
"Can we go by now? We have to get Abbie so Claire can go back to being alive," Jack said.
"Sure," Danielle said. She knew she wasn't supposed to, but she didn't want to be ordered around by Rey or Abbie anymore.
"Danielle, aren't we supposed to be stopping them from getting in, not just letting them go through," Sally Bell reminded Danielle.
"But I don't really want to. I'm just a little put off by that cop," Danielle said.
"Who?" Claire said, not knowing who else would be helping Abbie.
"What's his name?" Danielle said, pondering for a second. "Oh yeah, it's… Rey."
"Rey? Wait, Rey is with Abbie? That doesn't make any sense, now why would he do that?" Claire said, rather puzzled.
"I never did like him. Can't trust those cops," Jack mumbled.
"So, I guess we better get going, you know, melting your boss," Claire said, hinting at the fact that she wanted to get by.
"Hey, let's get this straight, we do NOT work for her. We are independent contractors," Ruthie Miller stepped forward and said.
"Well of course. Meaning you have no certain attachment, meaning I'm just going to go along now," Claire said, moving to the side and moving past the attorneys. Jack paused a moment, and then followed her.
The defense attorneys considered stopping them, but then decided against it. Shelly Kates yelled out a pathetic, "Hey, come back!" but she wasn't really that enthused.
"Hate to point this out, but… We were supposed to stop them. It's probably not good that we didn't," Sally Bell said, looking towards the two headed to the castle. "Abbie won't be happy." The defense attorneys stood looking at one another, realizing simultaneously that they were probably out of a job.
~~~
Serena slumped over a bit, sighing. "I have pretty pink high heels on and all this walking is damaging my feet," she whined.
"I'm perfectly happy to stop myself," Ben Stone mumbled, and as usual, was ignored. He just grumbled and kept on walking.
"We are almost there, I think," Lennie said. "That is the castle right?" He still felt a little bit out of the loop.
"Yeah, that's the castle… I think," Serena said, squinting. It still seemed far away to her.
They walked around for a bit longer, but they were still hesitant. They didn't pay attention to where they were going, so when they came to the still in place barricade of defense attorneys.
"Ahh! Lawyers!" Mike screamed.
"Ben, that is an absolutely ridiculous outfit," Shambala Green said. She had to refrain from laughing, but it was increasingly difficult.
Ben sighed. "I know, I know. Hey, why are you laughing at me when you have wings on?" He retaliated.
"Can we go past you now?" Lennie sighed.
"Yeah, sure," Danielle said. She figured as long as she was basically fired she should just give up on stopping people.
"Lennie, why was getting past the people we are supposed to be against easier than getting by you?" Mike inquired, slightly angry. Lennie shrugged.
~~~
Abbie paced around the room, distressed at the poor performance of her top guards. Rey was very afraid of her at the moment, so he tried to have her not hear him when he said, "That's what you get for hiring lawyers."
Unfortunately, he didn't do a very good job of it.
Abbie glared at Rey. "Not all lawyers are useless!" she yelled. "I take offense to that!"
"Sorry!" Rey cowered. "I didn't mean anything by it!"
"Oh, all my plans are out the window!" Abbie cried out in frustration. "What should we do, Rey?"
"We could kidnap them," Rey said, thinking quickly.
"Perfect idea! Go get them now," Abbie said, happiness suddenly returning to her.
"Oh great," he moaned, walking out the door and outside. He saw Jack and Claire walking towards the castle, and reluctantly walked up to them. "I've got to kidnap you."
"Rey, they told me you were here… But you can't kidnap us. Because I really have to go kill Abbie now," Claire said, trying to get past Rey and not succeeding.
"I'm really sorry about this Claire, but you know I have to do this," Rey said, taking them both by the hand and dragging them, kicking and screaming, down into the dungeon of the castle.
"Ugh! I hate this plot device, stupid subconscious!" Claire yelled at the ceiling.
"Haha, you cannot control me! I've got you!" Abbie said, dancing around. Rey sat by, head in his hands, sighing audibly.
"Claire, the water," Jack whispered in her ear. Abbie did not notice because she was dancing.
"I can't project that far, we will have to wait until she comes closer," Claire whispered back. "This isn't enough anyway."
"Wait, Claire, I have an idea."
~~~
"Umm… so I guess we are here now," Mike said as they moved past the defense attorneys and continued towards the castle.
"Oh… but where are they?" Serena said, looking around the area and seeing nothing.
"Whoops, guess we took the wrong turn. Better head back now," Ben said, turning around and attempting to walk away, but was stopped by Serena.
"Uh uh, we're going in there and finding them," Serena said, dragging him by the mane.
They all walked into the castle, but unfortunately they did not have the handy "guide" that Jack and Claire had going into the castle, so they got themselves hopelessly lost. Of course, they didn't know where they were going, so it was not exactly possible to get lost. But for all intensive purposes, they were wandering around in circles with no end in sight.
~~~
"Okay, are you ready?" Jack said, as Abbie seemed to be coming closer to the cage.
Claire nodded, and Abbie came up to the cage. "See, you'll never get out of this coma now!" she taunted, laughing wildly. Claire pulled the amazingly intact cup of water from behind her back and threw it at the hand that Abbie was holding the keys with. The hand promptly disappeared, and the keys fell to the floor. Jack knelt down and reached through the bars of the cage and picked up the keys. It seemed as if Claire's subconscious was finally on her side, but…
"Okay, so what are we supposed to do now?" Jack said, examining the keys.
"Well, we unlock the door…" Claire started to say.
"But the lock is on the outside, and we are on the inside," Jack said, trying to figure out a way to reach around without Abbie seeing.
Meanwhile, Abbie was nursing her hand, which was very slowly recorporializing itself. "Rey, look what they did!" she said, begging for sympathy.
Rey got a frightened look in his eyes. "Oh yes, horrible, horrible," he said, unconvincingly.
Now that they were occupied, Jack and Claire took the opportunity to make their escape. Jack reached out and attempted to reach far enough to get to the lock, but was not having much success.
"You have to hurry up, they eventually will notice!" Claire whispered urgently. As if on cue, Jack succeeded and the door unlocked. Claire fought the urge to walk out and yell, "I control you all! Go me!"
They walked out of the cage, and Abbie finally noticed something had gone awry. She turned around and gasped (sans colon). A bucket of water appeared at Claire's feet, Abbie and Claire both looked at it, slightly confused.
To add to the confusion, Serena, Lennie, Mike, and Ben burst into the room, magically unlost. They made a grand entrance, because they expected to have walked into a big battle. Unfortunately, everyone was just standing around staring.
"Well, is someone going to start with the melting already?" Lennie said, impatiently.
"Oh, I don't know… It doesn't seem right. I can't kill her, she didn't even consciously try to kill me, I mean, keeping me from waking up is not really killing, is it?" Claire said, staring at the bucket. "Besides, you know how I feel about this sort of thing…"
"Oh, please don't tell me this is some sort of big metaphor," Jack groaned. "Just melt her, please!"
"Jack, you said yourself I had some things to work out! Maybe this is just part of it. Maybe I will get back by not melting her!" Claire said accusingly.
"She locked us in a cage!" Jack said, getting quite irritated.
Suddenly, Adam came in. Not through a door of course, for he was the DA of One Hogan Place. No, it was more like teleportation. "That was nifty!" he said.
"Adam! What are you doing here?" Claire said, hoping to stall her task.
"Giving you an escape," he said, and turned towards Abbie. "Oh, Abbie. You are really giving me a headache. But I can't bear to see you melt. I'm afraid you can't stay here, but I think I have the perfect place for you." Adam waved his hand and Abbie disappeared. Jack grumbled. "Don't worry, Jack. Her punishment will be more than adequate."
"So, are you going to send me back now?" Claire said, slightly impatiently. Now that this matter was taken care of, she wanted to take care of this whole coma thing.
"No." Adam once again teleported away.
Claire sighed exasperatedly. Everyone else continued to stand around confused until Claire looked over to Serena, glaring expectantly. "Oh!" said Serena. "What's the line?" she pondered. "Umm… what did we learn?" She put on another fake smile.
"Ummm… That being in a coma is really no fun, watch out for drunk drivers, keep Jack away from bars," Claire listed out, as Serena tapped her foot and rolled her eyes. "Oh, you mean important lessons… How about, don't let Jack's WRONG opinions get in the way of our relationship because I love him even though he is WRONG!" Jack harrumphed.
"Good enough. Click your heels together three times and all that jazz."
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home," Claire clicked her heels together three times simultaneously.
~~~
Abbie woke up, she assumed she had been put in some kind of prison. She walked up to the doors of the jail and looked out at the silhouetted figure of her guard.
"Abigail, did I ever tell you about the time my friend back in Georgia found himself in a particularly sticky situation? Well, you see…" Arthur Branch began to speak.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"