Disclaimer: Remus and Sirius belong to J.K. Rowling. But I really wish I owned them. Maybe I'll steal them someday…I so did not just say that.
A/N: I love this story. I really do. It's so much fun. This chapter sort of turns into an It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World kinda thing. How many other people have seen that movie? It's so great!
Zymurgy: It's coming! The end is near! Only one more chapter, I promise. Actually I didn't fall prey so much to rabid squirrels as to rabid homework.
Laughing Dragoness: Thanks! Wow, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, people recommend my story…or they did back when I updated more than every six months.
Pequenino: Thanks. I did finish Children of the Mind, but I'm not quite sure what First Meetings is. Tell me quick so I can read it!
Valleri: Nope, sorry, never seen 1776. Just enjoy the name "Rubicon."
NeVa: Thank you! I love this story, but sometimes I just have trouble with it, I don't know why. The plot ended up going in all kinds of weird directions…but it's almost over now. *sniff*
insane werewolf luva: Cool name. But Remus is mine. :) I agree, rabid squirrels do rock. Except when you're within twenty feet of them, then not so much.
DavidCamp: I like the chapter titles myself. I thought I was running out of ideas but apparently not.
Itnikki: Yes, the second chapter is my personal favorite. I wrote it at about midnight, which explained some of it. Glad you liked the last one.
Sorrow Floats: I don't know what made me think of Murgatroyd, but it is the best name. Only every time I think about it I think of this little fuzzy alien creature in a Bruce Coville book…
Rayne-Jelly: I'm so sorry. Rabid squirrels at three in the morning tend to make many people hysterical. I know, because I wrote it at three in the morning.
Forgive me if I didn't reply to your review, but I will in the next chapter. Which should come soon (and for once I mean it!). And it'll be the last chapter too…
Dog-Eat-Dog World
Remus woke up with a huge bump on his head and no idea where he was. He decided after a few seconds of introductory pain and dizziness that he didn't really want to know where he was, but it was too late by then.
He remembered everything. The fight with Sirius, falling asleep, and the squirrels. Especially the squirrels.
Suddenly gripped by an irrational terror of rodents, Remus sat bolt upright and stared wildly around him. Mercifully, it was daytime. At least he wouldn't have to worry about strange animals—now that he was fully awake, he absolutely refused to admit that he had been scared by stories of rabid squirrels. No doubt there had been truly dangerous animals in the woods and his caution had been justified.
But still…squirrels…
[First priority is getting home before Sirius,] Remus reminded himself. [Think about getting home.] Right. Home.
Remus wondered which way was home.
"This is not good," he told a sparrow. The sparrow chirped at him, but didn't seem inclined to be sympathetic. Remus considered catching it somehow and eating it for breakfast.
Okay. There had to be landmarks of some kind that he could use to figure out which way to go. Aha! He remembered that tree over there from last night. He definitely remembered it. It had distinctive leaves. There was no way he could possibly mistake that tree.
Glad to have found some point of reference, Remus tried to position himself the way he had been the night before. Hmm…he thought he had seen it from this angle…
There was another one.
Remus paused in confusion. Another tree…? But that one was unique! Still, there was no denying that he now noticed at least ten almost identical trees in the woods immediately around him.
[This is ridiculous,] Remus thought in fury. He was certainly no woodsman, but this seemed excessively unlucky even for him. Obviously, some hostile force was responsible for this.
"Sirius?" he called, a thought suddenly striking him. As he had learned from long and hard experience, anything was possible with Sirius Black, up to and including rearranging the trees in a forest. "Are you out there?"
He hadn't seriously expected any answer—after all, if Sirius were out there working against him, would he tell him? Still, it made him feel a little better to know that he was considering all the possibilities. Life might have dealt him some hard blows, but he was still as sharp as ever.
"Right," he muttered to himself. The first thing was to get on his way to somewhere. From somewhere, he was pretty sure he could find his way home. And once he got home, he would lock all his doors and forget about Sirius and this whole adventure. Maybe even run himself a hot bubble bath.
After twenty minutes of walking, Remus stumbled upon a road. Maybe his luck wasn't as bad as it seemed. Throwing away his last shreds of dignity, he began jumping up and down and waving at passing cars. They ignored him.
Feeling rather desperate, Remus looked around for anything that would attract people's attention. What he wouldn't give for a couple of Dungbombs…Unfortunately, no Dungbombs seemed to be forthcoming. Plenty of rocks, but Remus suspected that throwing rocks at cars would be more likely to get him a lawsuit than a ride.
Defeated for the moment, Remus sat down and watched the cars go by. He could make a sign!…No, wait, he didn't have any paper or ink. Unable to think of anything else, he got up for another round of useless waving at people.
Of course! Remus smacked himself on the forehead, unable to believe that he hadn't thought of it before. Now he would just have to wait…As the nearest car approached, Remus watched it like a hawk, gauging the right moment. Then, when he judged the time was right, he sprang in front of the car.
The car stopped with a very satisfying screech of brakes, very nearly causing a pileup as all the cars behind it scrambled to turn into other lanes or pass it somehow. Remus smiled cheerfully at the driver, a middle-aged woman, and her three children.
The woman glared balefully at him, but Remus approached cautiously and tapped on her window. "Can you give me a ride?" he asked loudly.
For the next thirty seconds, he was treated to a discourse on why she most certainly would not give him a ride. Who did he think he was, jumping right in front of her car? He could have been run over! Remus noted with some concern that this last possibility didn't seem to horrify her as much as he would have liked.
"Ah, but I wasn't run over," he inserted when she paused for breath. "And I still need a ride." Being annoyingly persistent always seemed to work in Muggle movies.
It didn't work here. With a yell, Remus jumped out of the way just in time as the driver floored the accelerator pedal and zoomed off into the distance. "People these days," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Absolutely no consideration at all."
Amazingly enough, Remus' brush with death was followed by almost instant success. After about a minute, a faded blue sedan pulled over. "Hey buddy, need a ride?" a college-age boy asked, leaning out of the window.
This was almost too good to be true. "Yeah," Remus said gratefully, hopping into the backseat. "Thanks."
He was so gratified at his good luck that it was a few moments before he remembered to ask which way they were going. "Surrey, mate," the boy said cheerfully. Remus groaned inwardly and wondered whether he would ever get home.
As the car obligingly pulled over so he could get out, Remus' attention was attracted by a truck going the other way. A perfectly ordinary pickup truck, except for one thing…the large black dog in the bed of the truck. A very familiar dog. A dog who seemed to be laughing silently at Remus…
[Sirius…?] he thought. Then: "Follow that truck!" he bellowed, jumping back into the car. The kid, who had always secretly wished that something exciting and mysterious like this would happen to him, gave Remus a somewhat awed look and didn't argue. That was just fine with Remus.
With much squealing and screeching, the car made a U-turn in the middle of the road. Remus clenched his teeth and held on to the seat in front of him. "What are you—be careful!" he shrieked as the car nearly avoided colliding with several motorcycles.
"This is so cool!" the kid enthused. He actually turned around in his seat while keeping his foot on the accelerator, much to Remus' horror, and offered his hand. "I'm Steve, Steve Hamilton. You on the run or something?" The thought obviously excited him immensely.
"Or something," Remus muttered, his eyes fixed on the road. Maybe, just maybe he would survive this…but he didn't quite see how. It was a little late to get out of the car, though.
"Wow," Steve said happily, an idiotic grin plastered across his face. "You know, this is really neat. Are you a spy?" Remus gritted his teeth. "Oh, I get it! If you tell me, you'll have to kill me, right? Huh, right?"
That was certainly an appealing thought. "So do you have secret documents or something? What about—"
"Steve?" Remus interrupted.
"Yeah?"
"Shut up and drive."
"Okay," Steve said equably. He was now gaining on the truck, and Remus could see Sirius grinning at him—unmistakably a grin, though a very canine one—and generally looking satisfied with himself.
Remus peered at the speedometer. Not fast enough. "Faster," he told Steve. Steve was only too happy to oblige.
At this point Remus realized something sobering. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do, now that he had almost caught up with Sirius. He couldn't just stay behind him the whole way back home, even assuming that was where they were heading. What was he going to do?
The question was academic. Looking up again, Remus saw with a shock that the bed of the pickup was empty. Sirius had made his escape sometime in the last ten seconds.
Remus felt an unexpected wash of gratitude toward his friend. Unwittingly, Sirius had provided him with the perfect means of escape from Steve.
"Pull over!" he ordered suddenly. Steve did so, and Remus could hear an ominous rattling from the depths of the chassis. He hadn't made his escape a moment too soon.
"Thanks a bunch," he said insincerely, throwing himself out of the car before Steve could start another conversation about secret agents. As an afterthought, he called to Steve, "Drive more safely, young man, or they'll revoke your license."
"Whaaaaaaat liiiiiceeeense?" Steve yelled back as he zoomed out of sight. Remus groaned and suddenly felt rather sick to his stomach.
After looking around for a moment, he set off determinedly, heading for a clump of large bushes—or small trees, he couldn't be sure which. At any rate, there was nowhere else for Sirius to hide. He was going to come to terms with his problems now if it was the last thing he did.
That phrase bothered him. The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him, the more he thought about it, the more it…[Get control of yourself, man,] he thought sternly. [Sirius is not going to hurt you. If anything, it'll be the other way around.] That was a tempting thought, but he didn't have the time to indulge in daydreams at the moment.
"Sirius?" he called. Hesitantly, he stepped into the bushes and peered around. There was no answer, but then he hadn't seriously expected one. Right. Plan B.
Except he didn't have a Plan B. What was he going to do? How was he going to get out of this mess, get home, and get back to his relatively normal life?
And suddenly he knew. He knew exactly what he had to do, distasteful though it was, and he determined to get it over with. There was no help for it.
"Sirius!" he shouted again. Something rustled nearby. "Sirius? Look, I realize the past few days have been a little…hectic…" That didn't quite cover it. "And tempers have gotten out of hand. But don't you think it's time we resolved our differences?"
He waited. At last Sirius spoke, his voice a little muffled. "In English, please."
"I don't know my way home and I bet you don't either," Remus said flatly. "But if we work together we may make it back before we starve."
There was a considering silence. Then: "A truce?" Sirius asked.
Remus took a deep breath. "Truce," he said firmly. He hoped he wouldn't regret this.
A/N: Yeah. It's been a looooooong time since I updated. Sorry about that. Nobody can assign projects like my geometry teacher. Believe me. But once it's over I'll probably celebrate by staying up all night writing. I just can't wait until the end of May…free time, here I come. Please review and I'll see how soon I can write the last chapter! *dun dun DUN*