A/N - Believe it or not, this story is NOT dead. After much waiting, I present Chapter Five:
Harsh rain pounded against the withered lanes of Wilson Way. When the many overeager schoolkids and bewildered adults returned from their weekly professions, their anticipation for the two days and half of rest ahead of them was only further aided by the mellow specks of water in their dusty shoulders. It seemed to everyone, even the weather forecasters, that it would be just that. After all, a little rain has never killed anybody nor has it dampened the excitement of a brand-new weekend--especially not for the somewhat infamous "dramatis personae" that populated a certain Victorian-esque adoption home for imaginary friends.
Unfortunately, a little balloned into a fierce showerstorm; in fact, the fiercest the city was about to experience in many years. That fact alone was enough to make many of the unsuspecting visitors of Foster's Home that Friday afternoon to forget about the nasty incident they witnessed, opting to haul ass back to the safety of their homes and instead mope over their cancelled plans and shattered dreams. What they fail to realize is just how easy they had it compared to what the bespectacled residence was now enduring. Very, very easy.
The little girl named Goo Goo Gaga sat shyly in one of the front row seats of the crippled public bus, the back of her head lightly aching with the need to know what time it now was. The lone watch inside read a broken 00:00... her instincts believed that it's been over an hour since she ventured into the bus, and certainly at this point, the sun's rise wasn't too far off... or at least she hoped.
Her heart simply read an eternity.
She bent her head down, staring into the thick molass of crimson hair resting on her lap... much of it's fiery spark remained intact. So beautiful, she thought with more than a bit of sadness in her expression... almost like a fallen angel. Which was even with it being mucky and dripped in filth. Even within the dimly lit confines of the bus' interior and the unpleasant stench it currently manifested.
Even now, as she lurched desperately towards the girl's knees and cried bitterly.
Goo raised an index and steered it to attract the young woman's attention--but halted it halfway through. Instead, all other four fingers uncurled and allowed them to stroll across her hair for a few seconds. The girl bent over, spread her arms open and, with great caution, wrapped them around the figure's skinny frame. She then pulled herself within earshot and at last opened her mouth.
"There there, Frankie."
A few painful seconds paused before any sort of reaction arrived: the woman's upper side writhed slightly before releasing a high-pitched croak that was probably meant to be a sob.
"Goo..."
The girl could only smile faintly. "Yeah?"
"I... I'm..."
Frankie trailed off without finishing; Goo instead felt a unsettling quaking sensation as she latched onto the lady. She simply tugged her closer, her tone soft yet direct.
"...sorry?"
Frankie gave a pathetic whimper. "...yes..."
Goo didn't speak for a good long while. Instead, she continued clutching onto Frankie with increasing fierceness, while humming in suspenseful contemplation. Back and forth, back and forth... back and forth... Goo discovered that she was now rocking the traumatized woman's face in a soothing see-saw motion... her lips quivered in bitterly ironic laughter--just like how Mac had rocked her mere hours earlier.
She clamped her eyes shut, and hard... so hard, in fact, that instead of neverending darkness she saw a germ-like gulf carved into her psyche, which proverbially happened to be herself reaching deep into her eardrums and her mind, reflecting on everything the woman had just told her. At first, the pictures on her head seemed to be ridiculous. Some funny victorian rabbit scolding an incompetent 22-year-old girl... an ape with multicolored fur rocking out to Green Day... that same girl chasing after the ape with a leash as if she were Indiana Jones and failing miserably... and then getting blown off by her friend via a cellphone whose reception she clumsily configured so everybody could hear, and then slapped around by some old lady--
And just as Goo chuckled darkly, the true meaning of everything came to her: the rabbit was the young lady's supervisor, and she wasn't really incompetent but instead barely-conscious. The ape invaded her room and not only fiddled with her possessions, but stole her private undergarments to bring forth even more misery. Her attempt at chasing after the ape ended not miserably but almost disastrously: she tumbled down the house's central staircase, which was enough to instantly break anybody's neck and kill them. And the cellphone; it wasn't her who improperly configured but instead a certain blue figure she'd previously met, who changed the reception to be heard out loud... and set her ringtone to Black Eyed Peas. And that female friend, she'd made a mistake and likely wanted to apologize, but by then the redhead became maniacal at her plight, causing her to go crazy and unintentionally ruin their relationship. And that old lady--
Madame Foster. The matriarch of the house and the caretaker's grandmother. And that rabbit guy--
Mr. Herriman. President of Foster's and Madame's own imaginary friend. And that blue blob--
Blooregard Q. Kazoo. Mac's imaginary friend and the very reason why he frequently visited Foster's. And that ape--
Karoshi.
Goo winced... her original imaginary friend.
Without knowing, the little girl released her vice hold on the woman, and leant directly against the chair, it's chilliness easily penetrating her thin clothing and stinging her skin... her eyes twitched in horror. These four people--two of which were supposed to be the ones closest to the woman, another whom was her best friend's imaginary partner, and the last of which was her own creation--all of which whom were supposed to be decent people, all of which she had at one point or another thought of in a good light--
And they all were the reason why Frances Foster was now left to weep in a little girl's lap, mentally fractured and emotionally crippled.
Tears welled at the aftershock of this rude awakening... so dismaying, so upsetting, so, so... self-fulfilling.
The girl began to recall her own life... she was innocent and pure while all the cool girls were extremely self-absorbed and cynical--so naturally, she was prone to teasing and even physical harm. She played with homemade animal plushies while they all decorated their bodies with the latest in make-up and fashion. She had an ape as a friend while they huddled to their macho, "bad to the bone" boyfriends, shunning the very concept of imaginary friends. She wanted to be Minnie Mouse on Halloween, but couldn't because everybody else wanted to be like Paris Hilton and Ashlee Simpson. And while they all stuffed their mouths with fruitcake and dreamed over their latest material possessions, all Goo wanted for last Christmas was to see better days.
This girl happened to be none other than herself: lonely and friendless, a loser with nobody that cared for except her relatives; an outcast her entire life, which despite having only lasted a third of what now lay next to her--
Goo dropped her eyes back on the woman--and forgot pretty much everything. That she abruptly shoved her out of the house and tried to ban her and Mac. That she was very unkind to her beforehand. That she utterly cracked, disowned everybody and gave her the worst verbal insult she'd witnessed her entire life. That she was temperamental, snarky and volatile. Normally, such traits would make for a horrible human being--but now that she's heard the full story, what really happened, she was certain that the very figure now wrapped around her was not evil, but simply broken.
Just as broken as her.
Her weary mind raced back into the last few hours with a sigh. Mac... she once again those particular words she had told him at the guest room: "That me and Frankie have a bit in common." Upon further thinking and realization, Goo was absolutely certain that she and Frankie did NOT have "a bit in common". No, no, no, she and Frankie--
They were kindred spirits.
It was time.
Goo tapped at the redhead's shoulder. "Fra-Frankie."
And at last, Frankie pried herself from the girl's sleeve, wiping her tears and taking a heavy sniff. "Yeah?"
"I..." she began nervously. "I've been wondering, and you--well, are you feeling any..."
The words trailed off like sudden gusts of warmth in the depths of the north pole. It was at this time that Frankie at last corked herself straight and exposed her face to the girl. It was still pale and it was still withered--but it's wrinkles now carried a sincere yet frightened genuinity. And she rest a hand on the girl's shoulder with a weak but kind smile.
"Better?"
Goo nodded. "Are you?"
Frankie suddenly hoisted herself closer to the girl, showing hints of breaking into a grin. "Somewhat, now that I've cried so damn much." she chuckled--and then her smile evaporated completely. "Uhhh, Goo; everything I told you and all... you think you're any ready to, uhhh--"
"Talk about it?"
A few seconds passed before the woman simply leant against the bus' side, nodding blankly. "Yeah..."
It would be minutes before either of them would speak again. With Frankie against the window and Goo sitting near the seat's edge; the two females uniformly gazed onto each other's seethingly crimson eyes, neither of them really knowing what to say or how to do say... as both of them thought, this wasn't going to be easy.
...but it had to be done.
With a sharp sigh, Frankie opened her mouth to speak--
But felt a firm hand land on it, and it was Goo who would get to utter the first word.
"Look, Frankie--I forgive you."
There would be another brief delay in the woman's reaction; but the results would be multifold.
Frankie--her lips quietly unglued from Goo's moist hand; her head awkwardly jerking to chest level and both arms flailing upwards, curling around her neck--and then her entire body crumbled weightlessly onto the not-so-wide gap between the two rigid seats.
Goo--with eyes ablaze in panic, she dropped to the filthy floor and was just barely able to squeeze herself right next to the fallen lady, peering right into her face: quivering, contorting, maniacal, flat-out indecipherable... she arched back upwards, examining the woman's sudden baffling behavior... it was almost as if she were having a--
Before she could finish the most horrible of thoughts, two arms quickly clenched around her tummy, sparking a sudden rush of weight across her small body which tackled her squat into the floor. Not angrily, nor viciously.
But lovingly.
All Goo felt were two moist lines erratically pecking all around her face for some good seconds, during which her mind drew the numbest of all blanks. But Frankie's face, when she at last halted and bored straightly into the girl--
Instead of a blank, it brimmed and surged with newfound affection. "Oh, Goo," she cooed kindly. "Thank you. Thank you..."
She leant right onto the girl, this time wrapping her arms around her neck, hoisting herself within earshot--and allowing her own smile to unfurl.
"Forget everything horrible I said." she sniffed. "Because, Goo, the fact of the matter is--I love you."
And she tightened her hold with complete ferocity.
"Fr-- Fra..."
Goo did not bring herself to finish the woman's name. Instead, her eyes gazed absently into the bus' internal roof, growing wider and wider as her clutch became tighter--until a massive numbing sensation momentarily claimed her entire body. She failed to note her constricting lungs, feel neither her ribs ache or the rush of blood to her tiny body's upper side, and was completely ignorant to the fact that she was laying splat on a damaged bus and that the thin puddle trickling across her back was mucky and not-so-clean. And she didn't care.
She didn't realize, at the moment anyway, that her mouth curled into a giant smile and that her right arm soothly rubbed the messy crimson hair and patted the upper back. What she did realize was her heart was showered in the thing she'd been direly longing for since conception. At last. And the woman's feelings--
It was mutual.
- - -
The exact time that elapsed since one left the mansion to meet the other would forever remain unknown to them. However, once they found themselves resting back on the seat, the rain was reduced to aftercourse specks and shades of genuine light at last crept up from the distance.
Sunrise.
The two females' perspectives on the impending Saturday morning were opposites: Frankie stared wholesale through the window, while Goo's eyes were hardly open and barely able to peer over the edge--not so much focused with getting a good view as she was with contently snuggling against the woman's midsection and savoring the tight yet warm and loving hold of her two arms.
Soon enough, one of those two arms would detach and poke gently at Goo's neck. With a yawn, she craned her head upwards--
And saw a vulnerable yet kind smile plastered on Frankie's messy face. "Hey sleepyhead, you finally ready to actually talk about it?"
"Talk 'bout wha..." was her slurred response--when it dawned on her.
When she sprang wide awake to look at the woman, her happiness faded once again.
"Goo..."
Frankie detached completely from the girl and hunched herself flatly against the bus' structure, resting mostly against the seat but allowing her left leg to slunk weightlessly into the gap. With head hunched down, her untied concentration of red hair had curled and dropped all over her face; but even with that, Goo could tell the sudden rush of sorrow and pity in her expression.
Goo inched in, carefully swept away the strands blocking her face, and indeed: both of Frankie's eyes loomed squarely towards the floor, now afraid to meet the girl's gaze.
"Well, what?" she chimed perkily, resting her left hand against Frankie's.
The woman drew in a deep sigh, simultaneously savoring and dreading the girl's growing presence. "I hope that, by know, you've realized... Goo--I do not hate grandma, or Mr. H, or anybody else for that matter."
Goo smiled. "I know."
The 22-year-old crossed her arms and puffed. "I'm frustrated with them, yeah, but I don't hate them. The truth is, I-- well, I..."
Just seconds as Frankie trailed off, Goo raised her hand and instead placed it on the woman's shoulder.
"You love them, don't you?"
Frankie nodded glumly. "Oh yes, indeed. I--"
"And you want them to love you in return."
Frankie's eyes blazed open in outright shock.
"How...?"
Goo's expression grew dead solemn as Frankie's face began to semi-contort. She could easily tell, all the stress and all the traumatic memories harked back to her; culminating in a fresh batch of tears streaming down her puffy eyes--
As quickly as she could, Goo quickly latched on the woman and hugged her as tight as possible.
"Frankie--" don't cry was about to escape her lips, but too late--the lady broke into yet another uncontrollable weeping fit. She flung her arms around the girl, pressed her face against her and sooner than later, Goo felt her shoulder moisten greatly.
Goo looked on with great dismay. Not again... she wrapped her own arms around the redhead, now becoming her turn to cradle somebody. After a half-minute, she felt Frankie's unintelligible whimpers and moans tickling her skin.
She prodded gently. "What is it?"
Frankie pried herself a few inches with a harsh sob. "I..."
Goo tightened her hold. "'I' what?"
"That... Goo, you're right: they don't appreciate me."
The girl frowned. "And..."
"And after yesterday," she sniffed. "They'll probably hate me for the rest of my sorry ass life."
"Actually--" Goo was about to finish when those last few words fully harked to her. Instead, she inched right into the woman's ear and spoke with a deep frown. "Huh, what do you mean?"
Frankie moped. "I'm nothing. Never was, never will be. They're right about me--hell, I was right on one thing: I am the biggest bitch to walk this planet."
"Frankie--"
Goo was cut off by a high pitched wheeze, before she limped herself away from the girl and onto the still freezing windowpane. For a while, the girl looked on at the figure before her with regret: crying bitterly against the stone cold glass with her face completely exposed, her arms instead slunking guiltily towards the seat's chasm, physically trancing like a lost child and uttering things that were not only self-loathing but also suicidal... and soon, Goo's dismay evolved into flat-out disdain.
She's seen enough.
The girl carefully but unhesitantly dove towards Frankie; which she predictably tried to shoo off with a swift jerk of the arm--however, instead of surrendering, Goo just puffed stubbornly and firmly lodged herself right next to the redhead's neck--
Before Frankie had a chance, Goo grabbed both of her arms and wrestled them to the seat's hull. With another puff, she sprang herself right within the side.
"Uhhhhh, 'sorry ass life'?" she scoffed. "Frankie, if I may borrow from your personal vocabulary: fucking bullshit."
"What--" Frankie corked her head impatiently--but barely opened her mouth when the last two words came crashing to her. Instead, her eyes widened in shock. "Goo, what did you just say?"
"'Fucking' and 'Bullshit'." Goo smiled. "Which is what your relentless self-loathing is."
"You--"
Frankie was cut off by the girl's two arms wrapping themselves tightly but tenderly across her neck. With this, she just lazily rest her head on the woman's shoulder and pulled herself right within earshot.
"You may think you're nothing more than a piece of shit--see, there's me using your vocabulary again, somebody call the censors!" she giggled. "But seriously, Frankie; to me, you're worth far more than that. You think you have no friends? You honestly think everybody hates you?"
Frankie's head slightly swung up and down in a nod--
TWACK. And then bobbled sideways, her facial skin burning furiously.
The girl's tone became accusing. "Well, how 'bout me?"
Frankie went pallid. "Wha..."
Shortly afterwards, Goo's small yet thrivingly wet lips hurried towards Frankie's throbbing left cheek, soothing the aching sensation; followed by her tightening the hold around the neck area.
"...so you don't hate me?" the woman sobbed. "Even after I--"
"Tried to ban me and Mac, went crazy on everybody and called me retarded."
Frankie craned around to eye the girl--and saw that her smile only broadened.
"I know, I know," she giggled. "And I already forgave you. And you already hugged and kissed me in reaction. Yet you insist--"
"I dunno, it's pretty easy to forgive somebody who only verbally hurt your feelings." Frankie snapped all of a sudden; and then her tone went fatally grave. "...not so easy to forgive somebody who punched a monocle through your eye, or slapped an old lady who happens to be my grandmother."
Goo opened her mouth to speak, but nothing arose. Detaching her iron hold, she grimly realized she just made a very valid point--
And like a brand new lightbulb, an even wider smile developed on her face.
As Frankie curled herself back to her crying session, Goo once again rest a gentle hand on the woman's. "...so you think Mr. Herriman and Madame Foster hate you, huh?"
Frankie delayed a little before huffing stubbornly. "Rightly."
The girl puffed and hummed in what appeared to be contemplation--before letting loose with a very, very triumpant smile.
"Well then," she beamed. "I'll just have you know that I overheard the two of them as I left to look for you."
A few silent seconds went by before those words would have the girl's desired effect: Frankie simply turned around, backed against the bus' glass window and let her bloodcurled eyes grow wide open in sudden disbelief.
"Herriman and grandma?" her face went even more blank. "...you overheard them?"
Goo bent her head slightly low and once again sat herself next to the scrawny woman. "It was only for a few minutes. They didn't see me, of course; they were at the foyer, I was right outside the house looking from one of the windows."
And after a swift yet gentle motion, she once again found herself hugging at the woman's neck, mouth hovering mere inches away from her ear. And at last, her smile turned into an utter frown.
"They're concerned about you."
There would be no immediate reaction. Frankie continued to curl against the seat's hull, arms crossed and legs locked, yet with eyes spaciously open to allow the new batch of tears to stream down her face. But even that didn't stop two certain figures from swirling in her mind and across her psyche: a stuffy anthropomorphic rabbit and a short old lady clad in a green sweatshirt... last afternoon, and all the other moments flashed painfully before her... and then she felt a shattering sensation deep inside her chest--something she swore resembled her very heart--
Two things, however:
Even though she still centered on that ill-fated last afternoon, the memories that flashed before her weren't negative, or traumatizing. Indeed, this time, she thought of all the good moments and memories. And as she sift through them--and as they sift through her like band-aids to a wound or fresh water to thirsty lips--she soon realized that her life wasn't as rotten as she sometimes liked to believe. In fact, those very words caused a rare sincere smile to form across her withered features... and then realized--
What shattered was actually imaginary grey buildup, thickly encrusted around a red slab that happened to be her real heart. A little girl's heart. Genuine, carefree, loving--and embittered by the curse of adulthood and the fact that she was caretaker of a mansion that housed over a thousand non-human beings while girls far younger than her reaped the benefits of life, without experiencing even a fraction of the misery she'd endured--
But that didn't matter to her now.
"...concerned about you..."
Those words convinced Frankie to halt her crying to glance at the girl--and the frailty of what lay before her eyes was enough to ignite unrest in her newly-awakened heart. So kind, so innocent, so pure and yet; she sat solemly on the seat's edge, her untied hair now scrawled across her face--effectively covering the sorrow that now governed her once-obnoxiously cheery soul.
"They care about you, Frankie." she said with more than a twinge of sadness in her expression. "I'm not lying. They even started thinking that you might be... well... dead."
Without speaking, Frankie straightened herself right next to the girl and gently swept away the strands blocking her face--and saw that her eyes were growing moist.
"All the imaginary friends; they have to care about you, because you're the one who's looking after them. They'd be in utter chaos without you." she sniffed. "And Mac--he definitely cares about you. He views you like a big sister. He's the one who convinced me to go look for you."
The 22-year-old delicatedly fiddled with the teary lines streaked across the girl's face. "Yeah, I always thought Mac--" she was cut off by two small arms locking tightly around her midsection, and for nearly a half minute. When she pulled off, make no mistake about it: it was once again Goo's turn to cry.
"...I care about you."
Things between the two would lapse into silence yet again, with Goo tugging and sobbing harshly against Frankie's filthy emerald jacket--and the redhaired woman looking on with a wilted face. She could only politely caress the back of her head for a few minutes before the little girl spoke again.
"Frankie..." she began. "I... I don't have any friends."
And she pressed as thickly as she could against the woman's body, crying even further. More minutes would uneasily pass, in which Goo was now dreading the woman's response--and before she knew it, her mind was knee-deep in a sea of sour self-loathing. Stupid, stupid, stupid--oh, she blew it now. With the weak way she worded I don't have any friends, clearly Frankie won't be so convinced now. She prepared for the worst as the woman's shadow finally engulfed her, forcibly detaching from her hold on her tummy--
And was surprised when she saw the woman carrying a straight-up smile.
"I guess that explains why you created over seven-hundred imaginary friends."
...huh?
Those words were followed by a nice, hearty chuckle--which Goo interpreted as being a stingingly sarcastic putdown. Upon seeing the sudden grievous flush in her expression, Frankie hurried towards the girl and locked her in a fresh embrace, her face sad but still twinkling.
"So this is what it's all about, Goo?" she said stately. "Let's see if I have this right: in your desire to find some sort of company, you wound up negatively affecting somebody who, in ways that you didn't know until now, is quite similar to you."
It took only a few seconds of mind processing for Goo to realize what Frankie meant--and literally nothing afterwards before she continued to speak.
"But now, as I lurch here crying, I realize that my only glimmer of redemption..." she laid a very sincere stare on the girl's eyes. "...is the same person that I treated harshly and even insulted. Or, to put it in a single word--"
And she pulled herself right next to Goo's ear, beaming broadly.
"Soulmates."
More tense seconds crossed; though, this time, they passed by as normal without feeling wretchedly long. When Frankie straightened herself back into the seat, Goo wasn't really surprised but rather a little shellshocked.
"That's what Mac said... well, actually--"
She never finished as the woman's raspy voice rose again. "You suggested to him that you and me might have something in common, huh?"
Goo's eyes shot Frankie a very accusing glare.
"Know-it-all."
"Maybe. Not always; I was fooled by Goofball, after all." Frankie's smile only broadened. "And man oh man--Goo, you think you're Little Miss Hyperactive Loony? That's amateur hour. Wait until the next time grandma bakes those one-of-a-kind cookies."
"Hyper--"
Frankie's face contorted goofily.
"COOKIES! COOKIES! COOKIES! COOKIES, BAH GAWD! IF I CAN HAVE COOKIE, AND YOU CAN HAVE COOKIE, THEN WE CAN ALL HAVE COOKIES! BECAUSE COOKIES ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL THAT IS NOBLE AND SACRED! FORGET 42 AND FORGET CHUCK NORRIS, COOKIES ARE THE REAL MEANING OF LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING! EVERYBODY FEARS AND RESPECTS COOKIES--IF YOU'RE NOT WITH COOKIES, THEN YOU'RE MY ENEMY! AND I WILL MAKE SURE THAT I'LL HAVE MINE, EVEN IF IT MEANS FIGHTING TO THE DEATH! BECAUSE WITH THE UTTERMOST SINCERITY OF MY BLEEDING RED HEART, I LOVE COOKIE! YOU LOVE COOKIE! ME LOVE COOKIE! THEY LOVE COOKIE! WE ALL LOVE COOKIE! ALL WORSHIP COOKIES!"
And as the echoes began to vanish, Frankie moved towards the girl with a slightly nervous smile.
"Just a, uhhh, sampler." she said. "Be honest, how was it?"
Goo could hardly talk as she found herself knee-deep in uncontrollable laughter.
"Wow, Frankie..." she settled herself down and stiffled some remaining giggles. "I guess Mac--well, I was right then."
Goo was barely able to conceal the sudden crimson flush in her face, feeling the shadow of Frankie's body consume her and feeling her mouth morph into an all-out grin against her cheeks.
"Can I be your friend then?"
Those words--they surged across her psyche, overwhelming her train of thought and numbing her small but growing body-- and when she regained control, she found herself clutching towards the 22-year-old woman as if it were for dear life.
They were what her heart longed to hear. "Oh yes, please..."
Frankie let a few seconds cross before speaking again. "Goo, I guess that solves things; between us anyway. But I want to be sure," she tugged the girl's face to arch straight upwards to her's. "You still forgive me for being a bastard to you?"
"You aren--" Goo was about to counter Frankie's claim when she noted the deep pleading sincerity in her puffy eyes. She simply sighed and then smiled. "Yes, Frankie, I forgive you."
And Frankie locked Goo in perhaps her tightest embrace yet. "And for creating so many imaginary friends--and for stealing from my vocabulary--I forgive you"
By now, the dessert specks of water have been reduced to moisty microscopic mists; which rapidly vanished in the presence of the growing early morning sun. Automobiles soon swooped past the street with increasing frequency, some of them slowing down to stare and balk at how banged up the Foster residence's public bus was--but thankfully, without noticing the two shopworn females.
And neither did they notice the incoming traffic. They were too busy embroiled in their loving clutch on one another, before eventually detaching themselves to instead stare each other down, both of their faces beaming and joyful. This would last for a few minutes--
When the little girl was suddenly thunderstruck.
"Oh, Frankie..." she stammered, but trailed off.
Frankie simply ruffled her hair. "What's on your mind, pal?"
A brief pause would pass before Goo would speak again; in which her face twitched with renewed fright. "You know..." and she stared towards the woman again, but this time with seething lament. "Karoshi."
Karoshi. Those seven letters were more than enough to wipe all joy from Frankie's face, and replace it with weariness. "One of your imaginary friends, huh?" she said blankly to the girl.
"Not just one of my imaginary friends," Goo said--and then sniffed. "My first."
Frankie grabbed Goo's left arm and rubbed it thoughtfully. "Your original?".
She nodded. "I've had him for a few years. He's the only friend I've had, and even he..."
The girl stalled briefly, her already brittle voice crushed like a bug and her eyes narrowing.
"He..."
Goo could not bring herself to finish that sentence. In it's place would arrive swirls of stark maroon accompanied by misty emerald mists tinted with an all-emcompassing parasitic grey; memories of times she thought she was about to abandon forever. Memories she never ever wanted to remember again.
Memories that were about to return anyway.
"Come on, Goldy, this will be timeless! Silvia, Candice and the rest of these hags will never know what hit them!"
"What? WHAT? I'm sorry, you've gone too far this time!"
"How? They dipped you in the boy's toilets, forced you to eat worms and ruined your prized Sailor Moon dolls; we haven't gone anywhere near enough as far we're concerned--"
"Karoshi, NO. I refuse to sink to your level!"
"But how--pardon me for a minute... my level?"
"I, I, I-- I'm sorry, I meant their level. Slip of the tongue, I swear!"
"So they're right? You do think I'm nothing more than scum?"
"I didn't mean--"
"After all this time? You imagined me, Goldy. You brought me to life. I'm supposed to be your friend, your guardian, your eyes when you're blind; and you just reject my help like that?"
"Karoshi--"
"For the love of god, I've achieved what oh-so-many others before me have failed to do! This is my magnum opus, my Sgt. Exile's, my fifth! Already cooked and ready to serve! AND YOU WON'T EVEN TAKE A SMALL BITE?"
"I don't mean--"
"So you will? Will you? Pretty please, with salt and rice on top. We can get even. We can be on top of the world. Please take my hand."
"I, I-- I..."
"You don't want to? Too sweet and moral to do so, eh? Well, fine. But guess what: THEY'RE RIGHT. Nice girls like you finish last; this is a world where only assertive people triumph. And you don't have one goddamn assertive bone in your body. No, you had to drag me to that Herbie movie instead of seeing the new Batman. You'd rather listen to that crappy Disney CD when you could be rocking out to Guns N' Roses alongside me. You'd rather ogle that stupid outdated poster of Leonardo DiCRAPio when you should have your own freaking boyfriend by now. That's your life, isn't it? Your motto, eh? To drift around, and be pushed around like some stupid piece of crap?"
"I--my parents are coming, hide!"
"Hide? HIDE? Why should I take that order, you sniveling little bitch? You're not my friend anymore."
"Goo? GOO!"
Frankie's fright literally fell on deaf ears. Goo lurched blankly against the redhead, her vision becoming wet and moist before blurring into one nauseating swirl, her heart like an iron fist anew and the bowel of her lungs hiccuping like a demon wanting to escape in the worst way possible-- and just as she burst out, she felt the woman's arms wrap fiercely yet affectionately across her small frame, pulling her into the filthy but welcoming lap.
It would be a minute before Frankie gained the courage to speak once more. "Hmmmmm. The guy who invaded my room, stole my panties, knocked me down the main stairway and lied to grandma so I could get into trouble." she said scornfully. "I bet he's really eating away at you, huh."
"He--"
"Goo..." Frankie sighed. "Karoshi is a real pain in the neck to take care of, and--I'm sorry, I'm not going to lie to you--he is really a huge jerk--"
"Jerk?" she interrupted suddenly.
"Goo--"
"How about 'completely worthless'."
Frankie cringed upon hearing those last few words. "...completely worthless?"
Goo chuckled coldly. "And an asshole."
What? The woman's face flushed in awkward tepidity as she allowed the nastiness of those choice words overtake her. She definitely had a bit of a ungrinded axe with that particular ape, but Goo... this certainly wasn't like her at all.
"Goo, what..."
"You wonder the real reason why me and my parents came here in the first place?" she inquired.
Frankie had no immediate response; that was a very good question... she knew there was this weird new girl in town, and she was meeting with the mansion's residents--before her imagination went into overdrive and everything afterwards became history. She saw very little of her before she noticed the main halls flooded with friends and forcibly kicked her out of the house.
Soon after though, the multicolored ape's fur swirled around her head, and the answer became seethingly obvious. With a six-feet deep grimace, she bore directly into the girl's eyes.
"...to put him up for adoption."
Goo wheezed in affirmation. "And, to adopt a new one."
"Well--" Frankie was left a little awed by the girl's choice of words. "Adopt a new one?" she balked. "No offense, Goo, but why did you--"
"Create so many imaginary friends then?" she completed for Frankie, both scowling and saddened. "The friends I met were so wonderful and kind that I was inspired to create my own; partly because I'm just a little girl and sometimes don't know better..." Goo corked her head towards the woman with a deep, softly pleading stare. "Also because my last encounter with Karoshi left me somewhat insane."
To further describe Frankie's--and indeed, Goo's--expressions of disbelief at this point would only complement the most broken of all clocks. "...insane?"
Goo nodded and crossed her arms, resting her head's chin at the top. "That girl whom you saw a week ago was a different me. I am joyful and even somewhat annoying; but I am not as bluntly reckless as you originally saw me. Usually, I'm that quiet girl at school, and I only try to display my playful side at home. But Karoshi... well..."
Frankie's fingers fiddled tenderly with the girl's messy strands of hair. "Is it safe to assume that you're back to "normal" again?"
"Mmmhmm," she affirmed. "All thanks to Mac. He was the one who showed me the way. I was waiting outside this bus when I saw him come out. He was really mad at me and, well, finally told me what he really thought about my antics. And that did it. I ran into the house upset and crying, my life flashing before me again..."
"...and he eventually apologized to you, right?"
"Yup. I told him that I fixed his backpack... and that I only created so many friends because I was lonely and a loser. As it turns out, Mac doesn't have any friends at school either."
Frankie hummed a little. "Huh? Really, Mac's so--"
She was cut off by the tightening of her tummy and a trademark smile returning on Goo's face. "And it looks like you're lonely as well."
Frankie could only chuckle heartily at that. "I guess. To be honest, I actually fared pretty well in elementary. I wasn't the most popular, mind you, but the other students liked me, and even found my heritage to be very cool."
"That's nice to hear." Goo perked--albeit a bit sourly.
Noting the twinge of bitterness in the girl's tone, Frankie tugged tightly at her neck, drawing her attention. "But that was before the dark times... before the internet." she giggled for a few seconds before her voice went completely south. "Oh man, you do not want to hear my high school experiences."
Goo allowed herself to lean snuggly against the redhead. "They treated you like trash, huh."
"No, worse. Much worse." and with a somewhat exaggerated puff, she pulled the girl mere inches away from her. "Uhhh, Goo, about Karoshi and what he did..."
"Frankie, I--"
"I don't blame you for what he did to me, nor do I blame you for how you currently feel. And that's final."
And she threw her arms around the girl, pulling her into a warm bearhug that would last for over a minute. When they finally pulled off, Goo's timid smile was lost amidst how red her face went.
"So you don't...?"
Frankie laughed. "No, Goo, why? Why would I hold a child responsible for what their imaginary friend did? Poor Mac would be dead if I applied that kind of logic."
The two broke into a nice hearty chuckle--when glimpses of a azure door-shaped blob crashed into Goo's mind. After which, the girl's mouth simply hissed in sedated disbelief.
"Oh yeah. Bloo. He seemed pretty cool when I first met, but that was probably only because he was just as looney as I was when I first came..." she sighed wearily. "He's mean as well."
Goo lowered her head from Frankie's gaze to stare unto the bus floor for a while, not wanting to see her face's reaction; but if the woman's polite body motions were any indication, she really didn't have much room to disagree. For a while, the rising sun cast a shadow of Frankie over her body, whose figure became more and more apparent against the internal side hull structure; not to mention convenient... a little too much. In fact...
Her face blared in numb shock. She dashed herself back towards Frankie and her mouth sprang wide open.
"Hey, Frankie."
"Yeah?" she smiled accordingly.
"Don't you..."
By the second word, Goo realized that this was pretty much a huge mistake. Her frail psyche drowned in stinging regret and self-loathing, completely and utterly hijacking her desire to continue on. It was going to be a question, but not just a question--the question, the one to spark the shatterpoint to this encounter, end the turnaround crying between the two of them and bring things to the next level. She direly wanted to ask that question for once and for all... but she couldn't. She was still a little girl. She'd seen enough emotional turmoil for the last few hours. The grand outburst that would inevitably ensue if she were to ask this, right now--
She simply couldn't. At least, not right now.
Without ever completing her sentence, she simply slid down the chair with an exhausted yet sincere smile.
"Frankie..." she restarted kindly, her eyes now darting hopefully towards the now-full on sunset--her body still quivering a little from the leftover chill and her lips smacking dryly. "Can we return to Foster's now?"
- - -
A/N - Again, I'm really sorry about the long wait for my next update. I was partly busy with real life matters--and I actually had a radically different version of Chapter Five finished weeks ago, but I deleted most of it and started anew because it went on a entirely different direction than I intended the story to go. I promise--and hope--that Chapter Six won't take as long to be written and posted. This will be the last Goo/Frankie bus chapter, as things will indeed return to the famed house.
And I have an important announcement regarding the storyline: ignore the whole "bastard stepchild" bit in Chapter 4. Because in my story, Frankie is NOT one; it was simply a state-of-mind thing that went too far, and I'm sorry for the confusion I caused. I've edited that part to alter the reference so that future readers don't get the wrong idea.
See you next chapter!