Time: 12:36 PM here on the cloudy west coast.
Well, here is where our story takes a turn. I thought I might just throw this in...blah blah blah, just to mix it up a bit. :) Hope you guys like this turn of events. I did this instead of chemistry homework...soooo... yeah. Haha, please review. Because...well, just because. My mind is a whirl of strangeness, so bear with my crazy stories.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy.
When bad comes to worse, the best thing to do is hold your breath and hold tight to the one person you love more in the world. Well, here I was in that situation….not that I would ever admit it to Jimmy. Okay, I wasn't holding on to him…. More like a picture of him….with some blonde skinny chick. But he was holding onto me. That had to count for something right?
The sound of his voice was becoming a blur in my head, swirling in the back of my head. I was going home.
I felt the corner of my mouth pull up in a small, crooked smile. The feeling was so foreign to me; not having smiled in over a year. The muscles in my face hurt, the feeling of being strained and tight from underuse. I let my face fall back into its usual stance, and sighed to myself. But having my body relax was like torture as I felt all my tight muscles scream in pain of being let loose. I instantly tightened my muscles, the pain overwhelming.
"Okay Cindy, thirty more seconds," I heard his voice whisper in my ear as he leaned his head down close to my face. I felt my body tense up, and regretted it as it shot pains down my arms and legs. I bit my lip, feeling my face heat up from the closeness.
"Carl needs to locate our location and make the air soft around us. I'm not as advanced as you, so I can't just teleport in thin air whenever I feel like it." He smiled quirkily at me, reminding me of the boy genius I had met those nine long years ago.
Wait! He can teleport? How can he do that? That would mean that he would have to experiment on his own body…. Why would he do that?
I felt my eyes grow wide and look up at his face in pure confusion. But when my eyes looked at his face, I found him staring at something in front of him; something in the middle of the room. His eyes had grown hard, and piercing. His jaw was set hard, his teeth clenched together, and eyebrows furrowed dangerously.
Pain shooting down my neck, I turned it to see what Jimmy was staring at. When my eyes locked with that persons, my heart stopped. Literally.
She titled her head, her silky black hair I had come to hate, falling gracefully over her shoulder.
"Hello again Cindy," she said sweetly, her eyes flashing wickedly from behind her glasses.
I felt my body grow tense, and my mouth opened slightly, for once silent of smart remarks I was usually so good at firing off.
"Who are you?" Jimmy asked forcefully, and he took an instinctive step back.
"Shhh….." I hissed at him, and he looked at me with wild confusion and anger slipped over his face once again.
I looked back at the psychiatrist.
She smiled, her face almost a sick twisted version of the woman I knew.
"Seeing as you were leaving Cindy, I decided to come see you off." Her eyes shifted towards Jimmy and her eyes filled with something more, something dangerous.
"I see your white knight has finally come, something you never though would happen."
I breathed in, and sputtered our angrily, "You know absolutely nothing about me!"
She blinked and ran her eyes over Jimmy again, caressing his entire body. I felt his muscles holding under my body shudder and I found him becoming uncomfortable.
"Fifteen seconds," he whispered.
I needed to buy time.
But that wasn't something on her check list.
In less than a second, she had lifted her hand and fired at me.
I heard Jimmy yell and pain seared into the left side of my body. I moaned; the usual sound from me whenever pain interrupted my body. I never gave them the happiness to hear my scream. Not once in a whole year.
I felt the relief I felt as Jimmy pulled something from my side. "A dart," he whispered.
My eyelids were feeling heavy. I felt my head sway as I looked back lazily at my psychiatrist. She was smiling boldly at us, holding her side. My eyes watched as I saw the instant trickle of blood flow from her side. It came to me that Jimmy had shot her in a split second. I saw the gun in his hand, and looked back at the lady.
Opening my mouth, she answered my question for me.
"This is your final test Cindy. Your final torture. Something worse than you could ever imagine. Far worse pain. And the best part is; you won't even remember why it's so bad. The first things to go will be the ones you cherish most, followed by everything else, until there is nothing left."
I felt my eyelids close, and I forcefully opened them again. Her sicken-ly sweet laughter pierced the silent room. I heard Jimmy fire another shot and her body fall to the floor.
"Don't worry Cindy," he whispered in my ear, his hot breath on my neck, as he was close enough to me again to have a heart attack, "Whatever she did to you, I will fix you in a jiffy."
I felt a lazy small smile cross my face as darkness painted its way across my eyes. "I know," I heard my distant voice whisper and plunged into darkness.
Through it all, I faintly hear her voice ringing in the back of my head.
And you won't even remember…
I remember when I first offered to be a test subject; both of us seniors in high school. One day after track practice I had looked out the window of my bedroom window to see dark grey smoke billowing out of his clubhouse. It was kind of weird to see his clubhouse now, him being eighteen and all, and still going into a club house. I always had wondered why in the world he didn't tear it down and make it look a little more, I don't know, house-like? Eighteen year olds didn't play around in clubhouses anymore.
But the smoke caught my attention, and I rushed out my door and into the street, quickly dodging a car. The old woman driving honked and yelled, flipping me off. I returned the favor to her and rushed across the Neutron's yard. As I reached the door, it suddenly slammed open, and from it emerged a winded Jimmy, double over and coughing.
Without thinking, I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to fresh air.
He didn't seem to notice our closeness, considering that we hadn't talked much in the past couple of years. Off and on, but not to the point where we were best friends or anything.
Another cough racked his system.
"It's okay," he reassured me, "It's just a malfunction, not a fire. I was mixing some chemicals and a couple of bonds broke. Something I didn't expect." He looked up at me, his bright shining eyes laughing. I felt my heart skip a beat.
Some ash and what looked like grease was smeared on his face. It suddenly became aware to me that I still had feelings for him. I had tried so hard these past few years to date other guys, which never worked more than a couple weeks at most. But the person who haunted my dreams was none other than James Neutron.
I gulped, but made myself smile, just like my old sarcastic self.
"The bonds exploded didn't they?" I asked slyly. I saw his eyes grow brighter at the mention of science.
"Yeah. Good thing I didn't have anyone else in the lab at the time, I would have been tempted to experiment on myself."
I pulled away from him as he brushed himself off.
"Experiment on yourself?" I asked curiously, "Just what are you planning to do?"
He ran his hand though his short hair and chuckled.
"I'm trying to do the impossible; create matter. You know how John Dalton said that neither matter can be created or destroyed. Yeah, well I'm trying to do just that." His wry grin stretched across his face and made my heart patter louder. I sure hoped he couldn't hear it.
I thought for a moment, "But I thought you could create matter and destroy it. At least that's what they do with nuclear chemistry."
He put a warm hand on my shoulder, "Yeah, but I'm not using nuclear methods. I'm trying to do it out of regular elements."
I caught on to what he was saying. I smiled back at him mischievously. From that point on, I became his lab partner and experiment. I offered myself, never went to college. Instead, he taught me what he knew, and I learned from his by helping with experiments.
At that point in time, and from then onward, nothing mattered more than Jimmy Neutron. I fell in love deeper than I ever though Cindy Vortex could love someone. I became more powerful than Neutron, and I loved the power I wield. He had given me two wonderful gifts, and yet never the gift of love. I was nothing more than a lab partner and experiment, but the closeness I had with him was the thing I cherished most in the world.
…Starting with the things you cherish the most…..
I woke up, my eyes fluttering open. I lay in darkness, except for a light in the corner of the room, which was dim as it already was. Shifting my body, I realized I didn't feel anything. Anything….
I must have been fed some pain relievers. How sweet.
I had the vague feeling that there was something more I needed to remember. Okay, I was in pain. I was captured and tortured for holding information on someone's whereabouts, and now I was rescued from that rotten place. What else?
I suddenly heard footsteps racing on metal flooring, coming towards this room. I sure hoped they were good guys.
A heavy door to my room swung open and a figure emerged. I was startled by how gorgeous he was. His blue piercing eyes were enchanting as he smiled, his face lighting up. I noticed dark circled painted under his eyes and vaguely wondered why he hadn't been getting any sleep. The captain of this ship really should look after their crew members.
He leaned back out the door, giving me a look at his strong jaw line and nice toned body. Since when had I ever noticed a guy's body? Well, since ever Cindy. You love guys! Well, mainly one guy.
I blinked, taken back by my own thoughts, but that fell away like dust as the guy's husky voice called down the hallway.
"She's awake! Come on guys!"
More scurrying. Feet came into view followed by full bodies.
"Girl!" The dark skinned woman smiled and fell at my bedside.
I remembered her from years ago.
"Libby?" I asked curiously, and strangely found small tears welling in my eyes.
"Of course Cindy," She answered happily, her face beaming with the look that I knew of so well from our childhood days.
"I can't believe this!" I said, the tears making stains on my face, "When you left for college, I thought I was going to lose everything! I missed my best friend in the whole world."
She leaned over the bed and hugged my shoulders tightly, "I'm so glad I got to join this mission! When Jimmy called me up, saying that he had recruited Carl and a few others to come and find you, I jumped right on the bandwagon."
"Carl's here?" I asked, high on wonderful emotions, "As is Carl Weezer?"
She grinned, her eyes crinkling in the corners a little, "Of course, Jimmy hunted him down. Carl, come on in, let Cindy see you!"
I felt my mouth drop as I saw the thin guy that didn't resemble the Carl I had known in early high school. I felt my mouth laugh. Sure, Carl had gotten a bit thinner in high school, but he wasn't buff like this. I felt tears of laughter falling down on the bedside as I laughed.
"It's so good to see you!" I cried.
I felt a hand come out of nowhere and hand me a tissue. I looked up to see the tall, handsome man that had first come into my room. I gladly accepted the tissue, although it was awkward that he would be smiling softly down at me, his eyes twinkling. Maybe it was my imagination.
Libby placed one of her hands on arm.
"Girl, I'm so sorry you had to go though all that. Jimmy had been searching for you for months when he finally locked on your coordinates." She glanced her eyes up towards the tall stranger that had retreated to the back of the room, leaning on the wall, his arms crossed, a small smile playing on his lips.
I blinked my eyes.
"What do you mean Libs?"
Libby's eyes locked on mine fiercely. "What do you mean 'what do you mean'?"
My eyes glanced at her, and Carl and finally the man on the opposite side of the room.
"I mean," I said defensively, "You keep talking about this Jimmy guy. I have no idea what you are talking about."
The room fell very silent. Deathly silent.
The man froze against the wall, his face in horror; all the blood draining from his face.
Libby's eyes widened wider than I could ever remember them being.
Carl stepped forward, looking down at me. He no longer had glasses, having transferred over to contacts I presumed. He looked me straight in the eye.
"Don't kid us Cindy, it's not funny. Jimmy has been worried sick about where you have been this whole year, not knowing if you were alive or not. He was ready to travel back in time and disrupt everything if we had found you dead. That's how much this mission was worth."
I stared straight into Carl's eyes, and then Libby's.
"I-I don't know what you are t-talking about," I heard myself stutter.
I looked over to the man who had taken a few shaky steps forward, his blue eyes having lost their shine. He looked defeated, fallen. His expression was pained as he looked at me, as if hoping….hoping something…. Hoping what?
…Staring with the things you cherish most…..
