Hello all you lover-lies out there in fanfiction land! I have been writing
fanfiction for a while, in other series, but this is my first attempt at a
SR one. So, please keep that in mind and be nice with the reviews! But
please, do review!
And now, on with the angst! (This is the first chapter of many, and it will get better, I promise)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Trixie had to laugh at herself when she saw her reflection in one of the windows at the factory. She looked like hell, with her damp, sweaty hair and flushed face. It had been a hell of a day, as she had just returned from a long run with some of her cross country friends. The group of them had all run together in high school, and as almost all of them had stayed in town after graduation, they still continued to meet on a regular basis. Some of them even continued to race, but Trixie didn't. She just loved to run.
'Perhaps we over-did it a little bit' she thought with a laugh. 'Twelve miles in twenty-five degree weather, that was a bit much'. But it was a beautiful December day, and she couldn't pass up the opportunity to run this weekend. She was going to be away at a race with Speed all next week, and then next weekend was Christmas, so she didn't think she would get another opportunity like this for a while.
She moved towards the bathroom in order to wash her face, but when she rounded a corner she bumped right in to Pops Racer, who was so much bigger than she was that she stumbled and struggled to prevent herself from falling over. She hadn't seen who she had run in to at first, and she stammered out "I'm so sorry, sir" a couple of times before she heard some very deep chuckling.
"Better be careful who you run in to like that, not everyone is as cushy and elastic as I am! You could get hurt in such a collision!" Pops said in his usual domineering yet endearing voice. Trixie smiled up at him and laughed.
"Well, why else do you think I hang around here so much? And you're not cushy at all," she said, suddenly turning serious. She hoped her hesitation to deny his remark hadn't insulted him. But Pops was clearly not offended as he laughed even harder and put one of his enormous arms around her shoulders, leading her down the hall. Trixie really loved that guy sometimes.he was just too funny.
As the two walked, Pops asked her about her appearance, and she confirmed his suspicion that she had just come from a run. He chastised her a little bit for arriving without a sweater or jacket; it was very cold out, and he seemed to think that she was very susceptible to getting sick (which she wasn't-she never got sick). He vowed to give her a padded racing jumpsuit to wear on her walk home, which made Trixie want to laugh hysterically, but she kept it inside as she knew that Pops was being serious. The thought of her running home in a jumpsuit was completely ridiculous, but that was the way Pops was. He had some pretty ridiculous ideas at times.
He led her in to a conference room where Trixie saw that Speed, Sparky, and, to her surprise, Racer X were bent over a large collection of papers that lay spread out on the table. All three of them looked up and smiled when they saw her walk in to the room, breaking their conversation.
"Hey you," Speed said. Pops removed his arm from her shoulders, making her feel extremely light very suddenly, and she walked over to the table. She gazed down at the papers on the table, wondering what they were. Speed read her mind.
"We're looking at the layout and rules for that race I was telling you about, you know, the one in February?" he said.
"February? Aren't there more immediate races to be concerned with?" Trixie walked over and put his hands on Speed's shoulders, glancing at the papers without much interest.
"Nothing wrong with planning ahead, my dear!" Pops chimed in. Trixie looked up and laughed. Then she looked over at Racer X, who was still smiling at her, although he hadn't said a word since she arrived.
"So what brings you here?" she asked him.
He laughed at her. "Well, good evening to you to. So nice to see you on this fine winter night."
Trixie felt herself blushing. "Oh, no, I didn't mean that, it came out wrong."
Racer X put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'm only teasing you." Trixie couldn't help but notice, as she looked up at his cheerful face, that he was an incredibly handsome man, despite the fact that he always wore a mask. And she also couldn't help but notice that he looked incredibly familiar.she actually hadn't ever seen up this close before. But she didn't want to stare, so she just returned the smile and looked back down at Speed, who she discovered was looking up at Racer X's hand on her shoulder.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"God, we've been at this for two hours, can we give it a rest now?" Sparky groaned.
Speed was yawning, and Racer X appeared to be losing that iron-clad attentiveness that he seemingly always possessed. But Pops was still poring over the documents, giving every little detail his utmost attention and care.
"Yeah, Pops, come on, this is getting redundant. And I think I'm finally agreeing with Trixie; this race is two months away, you know." Speed said. Trixie looked over at him and glared, giving him a silent look that said, 'Oh, NOW he agrees with me.'
Racer X let out a yawn himself. "And I'm going to third that opinion, Pops."
Trixie looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows. His choice of words clearly was a bit unorthodox, for she didn't believe that Racer X knew Pops well enough to be using such an endearing term. However, she tried to shrug it off as she saw that no one else cared about his speech.
"Oh, you amateurs, you don't care at all about the future! Just acting impulsively.getting tired, so you just want to quit. We have do much more that we could be doing!"
Everyone else laughed, and Racer X stood up. He bent over backwards slightly, working the cracks out of his spine. He looked as though he was going to leave, so Speed spoke up.
"You leaving?" he asked.
"No, I don't want to do anything impulsive" he said, making fun of Pops. "I'm just going to get a drink of water." And with that, he moved to the door and exited, smiling and winking at Trixie as he left.
"So, in all seriousness Pops, can we quit now? I'm exhausted." Speed said, yawning at the same time.
Pops sighed and began to pull the papers in to a pile, signaling to every one else that the work was finished for the day. The four of them sat there for a minute, no one really saying anything, because everyone was tired. Speed moved over to sit by Trixie, smiling at her and pulling one of her hands in to his own. She smiled back at him, then yawned herself. That long run was finally beginning to catch up with her, and Speed knew it too.
"How far did you run today?" he asked.
"Twelve miles."
"Wow, what was the pace?"
"Nine miles an hour for the majority, although there was this monster hill right smack in the middle that we just couldn't summit at that speed."
Speed laughed, saying "Aw, you wusses.and you call yourselves athletes." He was clearly joking, as he was a pretty good runner himself, but he had never been equal to her level. Twelve miles at a nine mile pace would land him a one-way trip to the emergency room.
"You look beat, though. I hope you won't get sick, being out in the freezing cold." He said, with a considerable amount of concern in his voice.
"Yeah, Trix, you really should wear a little more when you go running. You could get pneumonia." Sparky chimed in.
"I know, I know.you guys always give me this lecture." She yawned again, then slowly got to her feet. "I'm going to go to the bathroom, I want to wash my face. I look like hell right now!"
"No you don't; you look great. In fact, I just thought of another reason why I want you to wear more on your runs." Speed cracked. "I think it is colder than you think, and those Nike tops don't give much warmth to your torso, if you catch my drift."
Trixie blushed furiously and hit him playfully. She didn't like him saying things like that in front of other people, his father especially. But the other men just laughed as she walked over to the door.
She stepped out in to the hallway, stretching as she walked. 'Now, where is the ladies room in this place?' the new office building of Pops' Motors was huge, and she still hadn't figured everything out.
Taking a guess, she turned left at the nearby corner and walked for a bit, checking the labels on each other doors. Most of them were random offices, some were conference rooms, and one was a janitorial closet. No ladies room, and she rounded the next corner, just about ready to turn around and go back the way she came. However, she stopped dead in her tracks as she caught a glimpse of Racer X leaning over a water fountain, cupping his hand to grab some water and then splashing it on his uncovered face.
Trixie was absolutely frozen in place. She didn't know what to do, and whether or not she should let him know that she had seen his face, or whether she should silently turn and walk away. His eyes were closed as he splashed his face, so he had no idea that she was there, and she was very grateful of that fact as she experienced an epiphany so strong that she felt a sudden urge to vomit.
She had seen those cheekbones, that jawline, every other contour of his face.in each of the other racers. And his large frame was almost an exact cross between the enormous build of Pops and the muscularity of Speed. When he finally opened his eyes, she couldn't see them dead on, but the chocolate color was exactly the same color as Mrs. Racer's.
He dried his hands on a paper towel, the sight of which told Trixie that he was getting ready to head back to the conference room. She backed up slowly, taking great care not to make a sound, and when she rounded the first corner, she broke out in to a run. Racer X had not known that she had been there at all, but he was walking back to the room as she ran. She burst through the doors out of breath, surprising the three men who had been left there.
"More running, Trixie? Haven't you gotten enough for today?" Sparky joked. Trixie had absolutely no sense of humor right now, and she looked at him as if he had three heads, clearly not comprehending what he had just said. He made a face at her, then laughed as her expression became even more confused.
The door opened behind her, and Racer X walked in, his face in the mask once again. He smiled at her when he first entered the room, but then looked at her with confusion as she didn't smile back. She just stared intensely at him.
"I think this little one has had enough for one day." Racer X said, putting an arm around her shoulders as he joked. Trixie couldn't believe it.even his arm around her felt like Pops'.
Racer X walked back over to the other men, who started some random conversation that Trixie didn't listen to. She just sat down in a chair and continued to stare, except now her eyes went back and forth between Racer X, Pops, and Speed as everything she saw before her confirmed her suspicions. The three of them were so alike in countenance that she almost felt foolish for not seeing it before.
It couldn't last forever. After a while, Speed's eyes returned to the papers in front of him, and as he looked down, he saw in his peripheral vision that something was very off with Trixie. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked up at her, confused as to why she was looking at the rest of them like that. Actually, something very oddly was telling him that she was mostly just staring at Racer X, for as Speed looked at her, she didn't appear to recognize that he was doing so, nor did she realize when Sparky looked up at her, and finally when Pops did so as well. Racer X was the last one to realize what was going on.
An eerie silence crept over the room as everyone looked at Trixie, and then at each other, with confusion on their faces. Sparky actually began to chuckle a little bit, as Trixie's expression reminded him exactly of one time at a party when she.well, when she saw some rather unorthodox things occurring in front of her. But the other men just looked right back at her, not knowing exactly what was going on or what they should say. But finally, Speed was the one to speak up.
"Um, Trixie, are you alright?"
Trixie didn't respond to the question; she just continued to stare right at Racer X. His eyes met hers, but he had no idea what was going on inside of her head. Although she had never looked at him this way before, and something told him that her expression did not have good implications. Sparky only started to laugh harder at her silence, and Pops' face went from a look of confusion and concern to a look of annoyance. One of his pet peeves (and he had a lot of them) was that he hated it when conversation and progress halted, even when the conversation was totally pointless, and he was not privy to the reason why.
"Trixie, what is the matter with you? We have work to do here, you know." Pops said gruffly.
Racer X looked over at Pops as he was speaking, then looked back at Trixie, and his face then twisted with alarm. He saw that she was not in fact staring directly at him, but her gaze was quickly moving back and forth between himself, Speed and Pops. And when he put this together with what he had said prior to her sudden silence, the realization came to him. He looked right back at her, straight in to her eyes. His face almost mirrored hers, except that while she was horrified and awed, Racer X was horrified and angered.
But before Racer X could say anything to her, before he could send her any subliminal messages, Trixie practically rocketed to her feet. Her abrupt movement had knocked all of her papers, along with a glass of water that had rested on the table, to the floor. The trance that had engulfed her as she finally realized the truth was broken as she looked down at the mess she had made, and she scrambled to pick everything up. She could hear Speed sigh in the background, and he moved on to the floor to help her pick everything up, but Pops, Racer X, and Sparky did not move.
"I'm.I'm s-s-sorry." she stammed out to Speed. She noticed that he looked far from pleased with her, and he didn't look up to meet her gaze.
"It's okay," he grumbled, clearly not in earnest. "What is with you today, Trixie?"
"Yeah, you look like you've just seen a ghost. And here I thought Halloween was almost two months ago!" Sparky said with a laugh. He had meant it as a joke, but the irony of his words 'You look like you've just seen a ghost' was not lost on either Trixie, who froze in mid-movement, or on Racer X, whose face became even more serious looking.
She could not take any more of this; she needed to go somewhere quiet, where she could be alone, and could think about everything. She tried to stand up from her crouched position, but she hadn't realized her position under the table, and she bumped her head on the corner. Pain raced across her forehead, and she could feel warm liquid start to ooze out of a fresh cut. Speed stopped what he was doing and looked up with concern as Trixie appeared to have just given herself a rather nasty cut on her head. His prior annoyance forgotten, Pops also suddenly rushed over to her side to inspect the cut on her head. Sparky only stood up, but he was definitely not laughing anymore; the situation had become too uncomfortable for humor. Racer X was the only one who had not moved at all.
"Whoa, Trix, hold it, hold it," Speed reached an arm out and put one of his hands on her shoulder as he brought her head closer to his eyes. He couldn't believe it, but Trixie was actually shaking, and if he didn't know any better, he would say that she had suddenly become terrified of something in that very room.
"Hey," he said in a much quieter and gentler voice, "Seriously, sweetie, what's the matter?" he looked at her cut with concern; he thought it might have been big enough to require a stitch or two, but his first priority was claming her down.
"Jesus, you really hurt yourself, kid." Pops said as he finally got a closer look at Trixie's head. He grabbed a napkin off of the table and began to blot her injury, and looked over at Sparky and Racer X. "I think we may need to leave the rest of this until later; she may need to go to the hospital to get this looked at."
Trixie had been temporarily stunned when she hurt herself, but she started to come back to reality. She pulled out of Speed's hold and away from Pops' hand across her forehead, attempting to say something, but it all came out as incomprehensible banter. Speed, Pops, and Sparky all now moved towards her, wondering exactly what it was she was trying to do. Speed couldn't ever remember seeing her looking so, well, afraid.
She swallowed hard and forced herself to say something audible. "No, I'm fine, I'm sorry, I'm really alright." She sounded absolutely panic stricken. Speed was really starting to get worried, and he moved a little more aggressively towards her, pulling her in to a hug. He didn't say anything, but he didn't like the wild look in her eyes on bit. His concern grew tenfold when he felt her, for the first time ever since they had met, struggle against his embrace. Before he could react, she roughly pulled herself out of it.
"I'm alright, I'm alright.I just need to go home and get some ice on it." she said, still sounding wild as tears came in to her eyes. And with that, she turned and literally ran out the door. Speed moved to follow her, but he jumped in surprise as the form of Racer X raced past him and chased after her.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
And now, on with the angst! (This is the first chapter of many, and it will get better, I promise)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Trixie had to laugh at herself when she saw her reflection in one of the windows at the factory. She looked like hell, with her damp, sweaty hair and flushed face. It had been a hell of a day, as she had just returned from a long run with some of her cross country friends. The group of them had all run together in high school, and as almost all of them had stayed in town after graduation, they still continued to meet on a regular basis. Some of them even continued to race, but Trixie didn't. She just loved to run.
'Perhaps we over-did it a little bit' she thought with a laugh. 'Twelve miles in twenty-five degree weather, that was a bit much'. But it was a beautiful December day, and she couldn't pass up the opportunity to run this weekend. She was going to be away at a race with Speed all next week, and then next weekend was Christmas, so she didn't think she would get another opportunity like this for a while.
She moved towards the bathroom in order to wash her face, but when she rounded a corner she bumped right in to Pops Racer, who was so much bigger than she was that she stumbled and struggled to prevent herself from falling over. She hadn't seen who she had run in to at first, and she stammered out "I'm so sorry, sir" a couple of times before she heard some very deep chuckling.
"Better be careful who you run in to like that, not everyone is as cushy and elastic as I am! You could get hurt in such a collision!" Pops said in his usual domineering yet endearing voice. Trixie smiled up at him and laughed.
"Well, why else do you think I hang around here so much? And you're not cushy at all," she said, suddenly turning serious. She hoped her hesitation to deny his remark hadn't insulted him. But Pops was clearly not offended as he laughed even harder and put one of his enormous arms around her shoulders, leading her down the hall. Trixie really loved that guy sometimes.he was just too funny.
As the two walked, Pops asked her about her appearance, and she confirmed his suspicion that she had just come from a run. He chastised her a little bit for arriving without a sweater or jacket; it was very cold out, and he seemed to think that she was very susceptible to getting sick (which she wasn't-she never got sick). He vowed to give her a padded racing jumpsuit to wear on her walk home, which made Trixie want to laugh hysterically, but she kept it inside as she knew that Pops was being serious. The thought of her running home in a jumpsuit was completely ridiculous, but that was the way Pops was. He had some pretty ridiculous ideas at times.
He led her in to a conference room where Trixie saw that Speed, Sparky, and, to her surprise, Racer X were bent over a large collection of papers that lay spread out on the table. All three of them looked up and smiled when they saw her walk in to the room, breaking their conversation.
"Hey you," Speed said. Pops removed his arm from her shoulders, making her feel extremely light very suddenly, and she walked over to the table. She gazed down at the papers on the table, wondering what they were. Speed read her mind.
"We're looking at the layout and rules for that race I was telling you about, you know, the one in February?" he said.
"February? Aren't there more immediate races to be concerned with?" Trixie walked over and put his hands on Speed's shoulders, glancing at the papers without much interest.
"Nothing wrong with planning ahead, my dear!" Pops chimed in. Trixie looked up and laughed. Then she looked over at Racer X, who was still smiling at her, although he hadn't said a word since she arrived.
"So what brings you here?" she asked him.
He laughed at her. "Well, good evening to you to. So nice to see you on this fine winter night."
Trixie felt herself blushing. "Oh, no, I didn't mean that, it came out wrong."
Racer X put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'm only teasing you." Trixie couldn't help but notice, as she looked up at his cheerful face, that he was an incredibly handsome man, despite the fact that he always wore a mask. And she also couldn't help but notice that he looked incredibly familiar.she actually hadn't ever seen up this close before. But she didn't want to stare, so she just returned the smile and looked back down at Speed, who she discovered was looking up at Racer X's hand on her shoulder.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"God, we've been at this for two hours, can we give it a rest now?" Sparky groaned.
Speed was yawning, and Racer X appeared to be losing that iron-clad attentiveness that he seemingly always possessed. But Pops was still poring over the documents, giving every little detail his utmost attention and care.
"Yeah, Pops, come on, this is getting redundant. And I think I'm finally agreeing with Trixie; this race is two months away, you know." Speed said. Trixie looked over at him and glared, giving him a silent look that said, 'Oh, NOW he agrees with me.'
Racer X let out a yawn himself. "And I'm going to third that opinion, Pops."
Trixie looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows. His choice of words clearly was a bit unorthodox, for she didn't believe that Racer X knew Pops well enough to be using such an endearing term. However, she tried to shrug it off as she saw that no one else cared about his speech.
"Oh, you amateurs, you don't care at all about the future! Just acting impulsively.getting tired, so you just want to quit. We have do much more that we could be doing!"
Everyone else laughed, and Racer X stood up. He bent over backwards slightly, working the cracks out of his spine. He looked as though he was going to leave, so Speed spoke up.
"You leaving?" he asked.
"No, I don't want to do anything impulsive" he said, making fun of Pops. "I'm just going to get a drink of water." And with that, he moved to the door and exited, smiling and winking at Trixie as he left.
"So, in all seriousness Pops, can we quit now? I'm exhausted." Speed said, yawning at the same time.
Pops sighed and began to pull the papers in to a pile, signaling to every one else that the work was finished for the day. The four of them sat there for a minute, no one really saying anything, because everyone was tired. Speed moved over to sit by Trixie, smiling at her and pulling one of her hands in to his own. She smiled back at him, then yawned herself. That long run was finally beginning to catch up with her, and Speed knew it too.
"How far did you run today?" he asked.
"Twelve miles."
"Wow, what was the pace?"
"Nine miles an hour for the majority, although there was this monster hill right smack in the middle that we just couldn't summit at that speed."
Speed laughed, saying "Aw, you wusses.and you call yourselves athletes." He was clearly joking, as he was a pretty good runner himself, but he had never been equal to her level. Twelve miles at a nine mile pace would land him a one-way trip to the emergency room.
"You look beat, though. I hope you won't get sick, being out in the freezing cold." He said, with a considerable amount of concern in his voice.
"Yeah, Trix, you really should wear a little more when you go running. You could get pneumonia." Sparky chimed in.
"I know, I know.you guys always give me this lecture." She yawned again, then slowly got to her feet. "I'm going to go to the bathroom, I want to wash my face. I look like hell right now!"
"No you don't; you look great. In fact, I just thought of another reason why I want you to wear more on your runs." Speed cracked. "I think it is colder than you think, and those Nike tops don't give much warmth to your torso, if you catch my drift."
Trixie blushed furiously and hit him playfully. She didn't like him saying things like that in front of other people, his father especially. But the other men just laughed as she walked over to the door.
She stepped out in to the hallway, stretching as she walked. 'Now, where is the ladies room in this place?' the new office building of Pops' Motors was huge, and she still hadn't figured everything out.
Taking a guess, she turned left at the nearby corner and walked for a bit, checking the labels on each other doors. Most of them were random offices, some were conference rooms, and one was a janitorial closet. No ladies room, and she rounded the next corner, just about ready to turn around and go back the way she came. However, she stopped dead in her tracks as she caught a glimpse of Racer X leaning over a water fountain, cupping his hand to grab some water and then splashing it on his uncovered face.
Trixie was absolutely frozen in place. She didn't know what to do, and whether or not she should let him know that she had seen his face, or whether she should silently turn and walk away. His eyes were closed as he splashed his face, so he had no idea that she was there, and she was very grateful of that fact as she experienced an epiphany so strong that she felt a sudden urge to vomit.
She had seen those cheekbones, that jawline, every other contour of his face.in each of the other racers. And his large frame was almost an exact cross between the enormous build of Pops and the muscularity of Speed. When he finally opened his eyes, she couldn't see them dead on, but the chocolate color was exactly the same color as Mrs. Racer's.
He dried his hands on a paper towel, the sight of which told Trixie that he was getting ready to head back to the conference room. She backed up slowly, taking great care not to make a sound, and when she rounded the first corner, she broke out in to a run. Racer X had not known that she had been there at all, but he was walking back to the room as she ran. She burst through the doors out of breath, surprising the three men who had been left there.
"More running, Trixie? Haven't you gotten enough for today?" Sparky joked. Trixie had absolutely no sense of humor right now, and she looked at him as if he had three heads, clearly not comprehending what he had just said. He made a face at her, then laughed as her expression became even more confused.
The door opened behind her, and Racer X walked in, his face in the mask once again. He smiled at her when he first entered the room, but then looked at her with confusion as she didn't smile back. She just stared intensely at him.
"I think this little one has had enough for one day." Racer X said, putting an arm around her shoulders as he joked. Trixie couldn't believe it.even his arm around her felt like Pops'.
Racer X walked back over to the other men, who started some random conversation that Trixie didn't listen to. She just sat down in a chair and continued to stare, except now her eyes went back and forth between Racer X, Pops, and Speed as everything she saw before her confirmed her suspicions. The three of them were so alike in countenance that she almost felt foolish for not seeing it before.
It couldn't last forever. After a while, Speed's eyes returned to the papers in front of him, and as he looked down, he saw in his peripheral vision that something was very off with Trixie. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked up at her, confused as to why she was looking at the rest of them like that. Actually, something very oddly was telling him that she was mostly just staring at Racer X, for as Speed looked at her, she didn't appear to recognize that he was doing so, nor did she realize when Sparky looked up at her, and finally when Pops did so as well. Racer X was the last one to realize what was going on.
An eerie silence crept over the room as everyone looked at Trixie, and then at each other, with confusion on their faces. Sparky actually began to chuckle a little bit, as Trixie's expression reminded him exactly of one time at a party when she.well, when she saw some rather unorthodox things occurring in front of her. But the other men just looked right back at her, not knowing exactly what was going on or what they should say. But finally, Speed was the one to speak up.
"Um, Trixie, are you alright?"
Trixie didn't respond to the question; she just continued to stare right at Racer X. His eyes met hers, but he had no idea what was going on inside of her head. Although she had never looked at him this way before, and something told him that her expression did not have good implications. Sparky only started to laugh harder at her silence, and Pops' face went from a look of confusion and concern to a look of annoyance. One of his pet peeves (and he had a lot of them) was that he hated it when conversation and progress halted, even when the conversation was totally pointless, and he was not privy to the reason why.
"Trixie, what is the matter with you? We have work to do here, you know." Pops said gruffly.
Racer X looked over at Pops as he was speaking, then looked back at Trixie, and his face then twisted with alarm. He saw that she was not in fact staring directly at him, but her gaze was quickly moving back and forth between himself, Speed and Pops. And when he put this together with what he had said prior to her sudden silence, the realization came to him. He looked right back at her, straight in to her eyes. His face almost mirrored hers, except that while she was horrified and awed, Racer X was horrified and angered.
But before Racer X could say anything to her, before he could send her any subliminal messages, Trixie practically rocketed to her feet. Her abrupt movement had knocked all of her papers, along with a glass of water that had rested on the table, to the floor. The trance that had engulfed her as she finally realized the truth was broken as she looked down at the mess she had made, and she scrambled to pick everything up. She could hear Speed sigh in the background, and he moved on to the floor to help her pick everything up, but Pops, Racer X, and Sparky did not move.
"I'm.I'm s-s-sorry." she stammed out to Speed. She noticed that he looked far from pleased with her, and he didn't look up to meet her gaze.
"It's okay," he grumbled, clearly not in earnest. "What is with you today, Trixie?"
"Yeah, you look like you've just seen a ghost. And here I thought Halloween was almost two months ago!" Sparky said with a laugh. He had meant it as a joke, but the irony of his words 'You look like you've just seen a ghost' was not lost on either Trixie, who froze in mid-movement, or on Racer X, whose face became even more serious looking.
She could not take any more of this; she needed to go somewhere quiet, where she could be alone, and could think about everything. She tried to stand up from her crouched position, but she hadn't realized her position under the table, and she bumped her head on the corner. Pain raced across her forehead, and she could feel warm liquid start to ooze out of a fresh cut. Speed stopped what he was doing and looked up with concern as Trixie appeared to have just given herself a rather nasty cut on her head. His prior annoyance forgotten, Pops also suddenly rushed over to her side to inspect the cut on her head. Sparky only stood up, but he was definitely not laughing anymore; the situation had become too uncomfortable for humor. Racer X was the only one who had not moved at all.
"Whoa, Trix, hold it, hold it," Speed reached an arm out and put one of his hands on her shoulder as he brought her head closer to his eyes. He couldn't believe it, but Trixie was actually shaking, and if he didn't know any better, he would say that she had suddenly become terrified of something in that very room.
"Hey," he said in a much quieter and gentler voice, "Seriously, sweetie, what's the matter?" he looked at her cut with concern; he thought it might have been big enough to require a stitch or two, but his first priority was claming her down.
"Jesus, you really hurt yourself, kid." Pops said as he finally got a closer look at Trixie's head. He grabbed a napkin off of the table and began to blot her injury, and looked over at Sparky and Racer X. "I think we may need to leave the rest of this until later; she may need to go to the hospital to get this looked at."
Trixie had been temporarily stunned when she hurt herself, but she started to come back to reality. She pulled out of Speed's hold and away from Pops' hand across her forehead, attempting to say something, but it all came out as incomprehensible banter. Speed, Pops, and Sparky all now moved towards her, wondering exactly what it was she was trying to do. Speed couldn't ever remember seeing her looking so, well, afraid.
She swallowed hard and forced herself to say something audible. "No, I'm fine, I'm sorry, I'm really alright." She sounded absolutely panic stricken. Speed was really starting to get worried, and he moved a little more aggressively towards her, pulling her in to a hug. He didn't say anything, but he didn't like the wild look in her eyes on bit. His concern grew tenfold when he felt her, for the first time ever since they had met, struggle against his embrace. Before he could react, she roughly pulled herself out of it.
"I'm alright, I'm alright.I just need to go home and get some ice on it." she said, still sounding wild as tears came in to her eyes. And with that, she turned and literally ran out the door. Speed moved to follow her, but he jumped in surprise as the form of Racer X raced past him and chased after her.
* * * * * * * * * * * *