Time: 5:17 PM

Meh. I feel like such a failure for this story. :P

Disclaimer: Me no own JN. That is all.


It was certainly difficult to get alone time with Jimmy working across the lab from me. For some reason, I felt afraid to open the journal in his presence. One, if he found it in my possession, he would know I was snooping around the lab. And two, this journal held things from my past life-well, my supposed life- and it felt weird to be reading about myself in the presence of someone else. Even if that someone else was a hunk of a muffin scientist with piercing blue eyes.

So, all I had succeeded in was shoving the burning book under the chair when his back was turned, to afraid to crack it open anymore, even though my eyes ached to roam over the loopy writing and search for the answers I so desperately needed. But…no such luck. Story of my life huh?

I must have fallen asleep out of boredom, since I was jolted away from a knocking on the metal lab door. Jimmy was rubbing his hands on a torn, ratty cloth, as if he had been working on an engine and was attempting to rub the grease off. He glanced at me, his face neutral, but still lingering on my form.

"There's our dinner," he said matter-of-factly.

I didn't have a response, so I didn't say anything.

He opened the door, and the woman named Libby stuck her head in, two trays of food, one balanced on each arm. He smiled as she handed them to Jimmy, but when her eyes glanced at me, the smile fell from her face, and she looked at me sadly, and sheepishly. I turned my head away.

Jimmy sunk down into a fold out chair he had drug over, and handed me a tray of food. I set it on my lap, and stared at it, suddenly feeling self conscious. We had barely spoken all day, and now he expects to just sit together and eat? This was weird.

He started munching on broccoli and I could feel his gaze on me. I looked up through my tattered and choppy hair.

He stopped chewing, and stared at me, as if afraid to chew any more. I didn't blame him, I probably looked evil enough to skin a cow with my eyes alone. He finally swallowed and then opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to the punch.

"What was I like as a kid?"

His eyes grew wider momentarily, and then he cleared his throat and chuckled to himself. "Why the sudden interest?"

I shrugged and picked up a limp piece of broccoli for myself, and shoved in my mouth, speaking while I continued to chew. "I've lost my memory, can you blame me?"

He was silent for a few more minutes, and then set his plate aside while I continued to chew absentmindedly.

"You…." He started, and then rubbed the back of his neck, a confused look on his face, as if trying to find the right words. "You were a brilliant, thick-headed, stubborn scrap of a girl."

My mouth flew open, and I felt the urge to punch him.

Before I could get the words out, he held up his hands, "Hey, you asked, I'm just answering!" He then looked back at the tray. "But we had some good times together, all of us. You, Sheen, Libby, Carl, and I."

His eyes fell to the floor then, his mind seeming to shut itself off from the world, lost in memories I could only wish to have again.

"Sheen?" I asked carefully, trying to sound aloof. I needed to know what was going on between the two of them, and maybe Jimmy knew.

He looked at me carefully. "He was one of my best friends," he replied. "Sure he was hyperactive, in love with a superhero, and all around annoying, but he was there to defend me, and a genuine friend. He apparently was also a great boyfriend, from what Libby tells me." At this, he smiled a little, as if almost painful.

I pushed farther, desperately wanting answers. "And Libby is…?"

He ran a hand through his thick hair. "Is the woman who brought us our dinner. Was your best friend. Never stopped." He looked me directly in the eye when he said all of this, as if he was blaming me for forgetting. And it was working, since I was feeling guilty. I looked down at my food and started cutting my meat.

"And what happened to them?"

There was silence for a while, as I chewed, the only sound in the room was of the food being ground between my molars.

"There was an accident." His voice was low, almost inaudible. "Sheen went missing while I was trying to save my own life. I ended up losing two people close to me that day." He raised his eyes to lock with mine and I knew who the other person was. Me. That was the day I had been captured.

The look on Jimmy's face was so genuine, and lost I wanted to tell him that Sheen was okay and alive and well. Well, as well as he could be, with all those scars and evil looks. Not to mention the fact that he claimed he wanted to kill Jimmy. But…Jimmy wasn't harboring any ill feelings towards Sheen, which created a complicated problem. Why was Sheen so angry at Jimmy, when Jimmy wasn't with Sheen?

"Tell me about that day," I whispered, barely moving my lips.

He licked his lips and gave me a long stare. "It's probably better if I don't, just yet," he said slowly, and carefully, as if any word would set off the ticking time bomb I was.

I glanced over at the clock. 8:39.

This teleporting thing better work. But I needed to get Jimmy away first, in case I needed to practice, or something went horribly wrong.

I've never been much for praying, well, at least I don't think so. But I was praying right now for something miraculous to happen to make Jimmy leave the lab, and soon. 9 o'clock came and went, and so did 10. I pretended I was asleep (and careful not to actually fall asleep!), and yet here Neutron was, still puttering around the lab.

When I would peak out from underneath my eyelashes to watch him, I would catch him staring sadly at the images of my brain plastered on the walls screen, his head in his hand, his back rigid and looking as if it would snap any moment.

It was then, at 11:15 that I began to become really worried. He was once again staring at the wall screen, when I saw him lower his arms to the table, and place his head on his arms, face down.

My breath caught, and I managed to control myself into not making a sound. After ten minutes of making sure he was asleep, I quietly pulled the journal out from the chair cushion, and flipped open to a random page, all the while, my eyes still cautiously flickering up to check on Neutron.

February 28, XXXX

Libby told me something today. She said Sheen and she had been talking a lot about marriage. While I was happy for her, I was sort of jealous. I mean, she is beautiful, stylish, and not to mention so very popular, and the nicest of people. I always wondered why she hung out with me, since I decided to quit the popular crowd, and instead hole up in my room and study all day. But she is a true friend through and through.

Anyways, they are talking of getting married. She told me not to tell anyone yet, because Sheen hadn't asked her officially…but I could see the pure happiness in her eyes. Oh, how I long to feel that way. If Neutron eventually doesn't end up killing me, maybe I have a chance at love somewhere…sometime. Right?

My heart was unnaturally beating fast now. And my face was heating up. This didn't sound like the Cindy Vortex that Neutron had described me as.

I glanced at the clock. 11:33. I needed to figure this teleporting thing out, and quick!

Quietly standing up, I swallowed the lump in my throat, my hands gripping the journal tightly, and cracked my neck. Here goes nothing.

I closed my eyes, and tried to concentrate. My mind was blank, and I didn't feel any different than usual. Crinkling up my nose, I squeezed my eyes tighter. Come on, please work. Please.

Opening my eyes, I looked down at my thin metal bracelets encompassing my wrists. They should have been suppressing my other ability, not the teleporting.

Why wasn't it working?

I was becoming frustrated now. How was I supposed to get this to work? I felt my anger start to take place, and the familiar feeling of a ticking muscle of the right side of my temple began to throb. If I didn't get to the cockpit by 11:47, Sheen was going to come aboard himself and kill us all. I couldn't risk that. And it was just that much better that the person who is supposed to save them all is braindead, well mostly, since she can't seem to remember anything!

I gripped the journal even tighter now, ready to chuck it across the room. There was an itching on the inside of my palm, and that was beginning to add to my frustrations.

And suddenly, I remembered something the journal had said.

I needed to picture the place. But the only problem was, I didn't know what the ship that Sheen was in looked like. I held back a growl of anger and instead looked around me, more specifically at Neutron. I wished more than ever now that I could ask for his help. I could imagine him saying something angrily to me.

Think Vortex, think! You can pick out key pieces from the transmission that Sheen had sent you. Try to remember all the details. Remember anything about the background? That's all you need. Just a little something to anchor you to that site and you are good to go.

Surprising myself by thinking that, I tried to shove it to the back of my mind, and instead focused on trying to remember if I had seen anything in the background. There was Sheen, very close to the camera, and a large open space behind him…with computers and dark, gloomy lighting. There was a large machine to the right of him….

I felt a pull on my body, and started to panic. I tried to open my eyes, but the heavy force of something unknown to me was keeping me from opening my lids. Or opening my mouth for a scream for that matter. A sharp stabbing pain ripped through my body, as if thousands of needles were piercing my skin, and I longed to scream as loud as I could and release all the pain. It felt like everything was being compressed into my body, all the while it felt like it was being ripped apart at a million miles an hour.

Everything hurt.

Time went on like this, for what seemed like eons. Finally, I felt my body come back together, and my feet gained feeling in them again, but apparently my body couldn't handle the pressure of being put back together, and my legs gave out from under me.

I crashed to the floor, muscles aching, brain spinning, and head bouncing roughly against the cool metal floor. I sighed in relief as my hot, burning up face soaked in the cool gentle healing of the floor, transferring the coolness to by body.

My breathing was ragged and heavy, but my breath stopped altogether when I heard the close sound of thick, heavy boots step on the metal beside me.

Tiredly, I pried open my eyelids to glimpse up at the figure before me. It was dark, wherever I was, and it made it that much more difficult to tell what exactly was in front of me, looming over my tormented and beaten body.

But the evilly grinning voice gave it all away, and I knew I had successfully teleported over to Sheen's ship to meet my fate.

"Hello Cindy, we haven't been able to meet face to face like this in quite a while."