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The Last Chance Garage
A couple of hours had passed since Izzy showed up at the Last Chance Garage and Charley was still trying to gather her thoughts from everything that happened. Izzy, for the time being, had gone back to the hotel she was currently staying in. Charley had been quite thankful for this, it gave her some time to figure out what to do next. At least until tonight when Izzy would return to the garage for dinner.
But she was unsure how to handle her sister-in-law being in town for a few days and dealing with the guys at the same time. To add another problem, she'd also promised to help Stoker fix his motorcycle and to take a look at this new spacecraft which, knowing Stoker, was probably in need of a check-up too.
Speaking of the guys, Charley had no clue where they currently were. After she'd said goodbye to Isabel, she'd immediately gone upstairs to her bedroom to check on them. However when she opened her bedroom door, there was no sign of any of them.
The only proof she could find of them having been in there, aside from the racket they had been making, was that her family photo had been moved from one side of the room to the other.
Charley knew she could not hide her friends from Isabel, no matter how much she wanted to. Even if she would ask them politely, aside from Modo and Throttle, she wasn't expecting Vinnie or Stoker to stay away from her sister-in-law.
Sam had known about them, not that they were from Mars, but he knew them by name. That they were her friends and they helped her out with the garage. Perhaps he'd mentioned it to Isabel at some point? If that was the case, it would make things a bit easier. As easy as it was seeing Martians for the first time who looked like human mice hybrids.
Charley utter a frustrating groan and headed to the garage, maybe having a look at Sam's motor cycle would help her gather her thoughts. When she got there she noticed the guys' motorcycles were still there. If they weren't upstairs and their bikes were still here, where could they be?
"One of the few times I'm actually looking for them and they aren't around." She sighed. This was turning out to be one of the most tiring days ever and seeing as she'd experienced some crazy things during the past two years that was saying something.
Without knowing what else to do, Charley pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the Thunderbird. The damage was extensive, but nothing that she couldn't fix. Dents, missing parts, chipped off paint and torn leather. She had her work cut out for her and even though she'd told Izzy she was unsure if she was going to fix the bike, seeing it up close now for the first time hurt her deeply.
If Sam hadn't died, if he had made it alive out of the accident, he would have probably asked her to help him fix it. She could only imagine what that would have been like.
Him and Isabel would have stayed over at her place, and whilst Isabel would take care of the house, Charley and Sam would argue over how to properly put the bike together in one piece. Then Isabel would come over and side with her while offering Sam food as a bribe, which would have probably worked. Once everything was fixed, Sam and Charley would ask Isabel to give the bike a touch up as she was quite skilled with an airbrush. But that was a dream that would never see the light of day.
"Charley ma'am?"
Modo's voice shook her out of her day dream and she turned her head. The guys had returned from wherever it was they'd run off to. They all gave her an apologetic look.
"You okay, sweetheart?" Vinnie asked, stepping closer and placing a hand on her shoulder. She reached out and placed her hand on top of his.
"I'll be fine." She said, which was the truth. Suddenly she noticed something, or rather lack of something.
"Where's Stoker?" Charley retracted her hand from Vinnie's and stood up.
The three mice looked at each other, silently signalling each other who was going to tell Charley where their coach had gone to.
Throttle stepped up, cleared his throat and ready to not tell Charley the truth. "He went back to his ship. To prep his ride and bring it over here."
Charley eyed Throttle with a bit of scepticism. "Why do I get the feeling this story has a tail to it?"
Vinnie snorted and Modo quickly grabbed him in a headlock to shut him up. Throttle scratched the back of his neck. "Well, he,-"
Charley didn't wait for Throttle to finish his story. If she remembered correctly, when she waved goodbye to Izzy, the car Stoker had 'borrowed' was still next to the garage. She got outside and immediately spotted the old car Stoker had conveniently smashed against her building.
If the car Stoker had used was still here, although from the look of it there was no way he could have used it again, and the others were here as well then how was he getting to his ship?
Her gut told her that the guys knew the answer. When she turned around, Vinnie, Modo and Throttle were already standing right behind her. She placed her hands on her hips and angrily tapped her foot.
The annoyance she was already feeling because of their earlier behaviour was resurfacing. If they kept going like this she was going to explode.
"Where is Stoker?" She asked for the second time, only this time all three mice knew exactly what she meant with this.
Somewhere in Chicago
Stoker slowly removed the cover he was currently lying under. He could see the sky with clouds slowly drifting by. Within his arms he was holding a helmet, one of the spare helmets Charley kept in the garage. This would come in handy in case he needed to hide his majestic physique from the crowd.
He glanced up at the rear panel of the truck and smirked. Perfectly hidden out of sight.
It hadn't been easy getting down from the rooftop and to the ground without the help of a bike. Physically climbing wasn't something he'd never done before, but his shoulder still hurt from the crash with the ship.
Stoker still wasn't sure why he was taking this risk. Getting back to his ship wasn't the reason, that much was obvious. If that had been the reason he would have asked Vinnie to bring him.
No, the reason of his absence was currently driving him through the city of Chicago. He knew with who he was going, he just wasn't sure where it was and how far away he would be from the actual location of the scoreboard nor the Last Chance Garage.
Isabel, or Izzy as Charley called her, had somehow managed to caught his attention and he was very eager to figure out why. From the moment she stepped out of her truck, he couldn't keep his eyes off her.
Perhaps it was because he hadn't been with a woman for very long or maybe it was because human females interested him greatly. He remembered when he first met Charley. His heart had actually skipped a beat.
But she was off limits, he could sense that from the moment he stepped into her aura. She belonged to somebody else. Somebody who was dumb enough not to go for it. Which reminded him, he should probably talk to said person about that now that was on Earth anyway.
The car suddenly stopped and Stoker braced himself from smashing against the side. He put the helmet on, quickly crawled backwards and waited for Isabel to open her door. At the exact same moment he jumped out of the truck, his movement hidden by the sounds Isabel was making.
He quietly dropped himself underneath the truck, hidden out of sight, as Isabel's legs walked past him. She halted at the back of the truck and climbed on it. Thank goodness Stoker had been smart enough to get out. If he hadn't, she would have surely caught him.
She was incredibly close, right on top of him. Stoker grinned at the thought. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. A hint of vanilla mixed with some type of flower hit him hard and his fur tingled.
One things was certain, he wanted to meet her. He had to. But how to approach it?
Apparently Isabel had no knowledge of Charley's friends. At least according to Vinnie, Modo and Throttle. Which made it rather difficult to introduce himself. Aside from the fact that he was from Mars and didn't exactly look like her species. He was currently not prepared to handle that.
Besides, he knew Charley would never forgive him for it if he took it upon himself to greet her friend. He sighed and waited impatiently for Isabel to move about. What was she doing up there anyway?
Finally the woman jumped back down right in front of Stoker's head and he quickly moved back a bit. Then she headed into the building behind them. Stoker waited for about a minute before making his way from underneath the truck.
He dusted himself off, as far as that was possible, and looked around at the parking lot of a small motel he was currently standing in. He'd overheard Charley and Isabel talk about how she was going to go back to a hotel.
Weren't hotel suppose to look different? Stoker wasn't sure, they didn't have hotels on Mars or motels for that matter. They had caves and some had small houses made from stone, though they looked nothing like the condos on Earth.
Stoker walked around the parking lot for a moment, eyeing the entire premise where Isabel was staying at. If he'd paid a bit more attention he might have noticed which door she'd gone through. Though it really didn't matter for now. He had to get back to the scoreboard, before Charley would figure out where he'd gone to.
The hazel mouse went back to the truck and peeked through the window out of curiosity. An air freshener shaped like a flower hung from the rear-view mirror, pink coloured. The seats were light grey, which Stoker thought was a dumb colour. What if you spilled stuff on it? You'd have to throw the whole thing out if you preferred clean seating.
Suddenly he picked up on a sound coming right behind him and he swiftly turned around. He froze for a moment as Isabel reappeared, closing one of the many doors. At least now he knew which one belonged to her.
The plan of getting out of there before she would spot him, had obviously failed. Her eyes fell on him and Stoker cursed himself for not having reacted fast enough to bolt away.
There was no point in running now, it would be too obvious that he was hiding something. Not that he was actually hiding something, aside from the fact he'd hidden himself in the back of her pickup truck without her knowledge.
"Ma'am." He nodded at her as she walked over to him. Stoker told himself to keep calm, but he was having trouble staying focused and he wasn't sure why.
"May I ask what you're doing to my truck?" She asked calm but firmly.
Her voice was different from Charley. There was some type of lilt in the way she spoke. She had an accent, something he hadn't expected. Stoker gave her a quick look over as this was as close as he'd yet been to her.
Her light honey blond hair was tide back into a ponytail and wasn't much longer than his own hair. She had a beauty mark on her right cheek, but below that was something that caught him off guard.
It was probably because he'd been on top of a roof that he had missed it. The picture he'd seen of her in Charley's bedroom was obviously no longer accurate. It began near her right ear and went all the way down towards her chin, following the line of her jaw. A pink scar.
It actually looked quite charming even though a mark like that usually meant the story behind it wasn't a pretty one.
Throttle had told him as much as he could about Sam's accident. But now that he thought about it, hadn't Modo also mentioned something about Sam's wife being in the accident? After he'd shown them the picture?
:::::::...:::::::
"I found her." Modo said holding something in his hand.
Stoker and Vinnie jumped at the same time and ungracefully made their way to Modo. Tripping over each other, pushing each other, anything to get there first. Vinnie tripped and hit Modo as Stoker did the same only he crashed onto the floor right in front of them. They could hear Throttle groan behind them. "For crying out loud."
Stoker quickly got back on his feet as Modo showed them the picture. "This here is Charley girl's brother, Sam."
Stoker took a good long look at the man in the picture. The same auburn hair, same eyes, they looked quite alike. He nodded. "I see, so she was married to him?" He asked.
"Gotta be her. That makes her Charley's sister-law." Modo replied.
"Must be difficult for Charley to see her after what happened." Vinnie said taking the frame from Modo and looking at it closely. "Charley looks great though, doesn't she look great?"
Throttle sighed and took the picture from him. "Alright, best do what Charley asked us and leave. I'm sure they heard you two crashing and making a racket to take a look at this." He waved the frame with his hand and tossed it on the bed.
"Didn't you say there were two people in the accident?" Stoker asked the tanned mouse. But it was Modo who answered his question.
"There were and the survivor is currently sitting in Charley's kitchen."
:::::::...…:::::::
Of course Stoker had no idea if the long scar on Isabel's face was from the accident, but it hadn't been in the picture. Stoker had many scars of his own, both internal as external. He bit his bottom lip feeling like a complete jackass for the way he was behaving.
In front of him stood a woman he didn't even know, who'd lost her husband in a fatal accident in which she herself was involved, but had managed to survive. And here he was, someone who knew what it felt like to lose people you care about and all he could think of was what she smelled like.
"I'm sorry, am I boring you?" She crossed her arms and looked extremely agitated at this tall man standing next to her truck.
She hadn't actually really caught him doing anything weird besides standing a bit too close to her car. But the way he reacted when she stared back at him proved to her that he was at least guilty of something.
Stoker cleared his throat. "Just admiring your ride, lady."
He quickly stepped aside, making sure to hide his back from Isabel. He'd curled his tail up as tightly as he could, which was rather difficult considering his tail wasn't made of flesh no more. He'd tucked it under his jacket, but the bulge would be quite obvious if she got a good look of his back.
"I didn't mean no harm." He added.
"I should hope not." She replied. "I'm quite fond of this truck."
One thing was certain, Stoker had to get the hell out of here. This wasn't what he had planned. He would simply hide away, then get out once the car had stopped and make his way back to the scoreboard. Which, as it turned out, was a bad idea because he had no idea how far away the scoreboard was. It couldn't be very far, they'd been driving for not even ten minutes.
"You wouldn't happen to know the direction towards the stadium?" Stoker asked. Not knowing how well Isabel knew this city, but he could try.
Also it gave him an excuse to look at her just a bit longer, though his mind was telling him to get out now before things got out of hand.
"You're not from around here, are you?" She frowned. Stoker chuckled. She had no idea how right she was about that.
"Not at all. You might say I'm from another planet." Shut up, Stoke old boy.
But Isabel smiled at his comment. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. "That makes two of us then." She replied.
Stoker wasn't sure what she meant with that. She was human, right? He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Helmet bothering you?" She nodded at him.
Okay, now it was definitely time for Stoker to leave. He raised his hand and stepped back.
"No, no. It's fine. Thanks for the directions, ma'am." He slipped away to the other side of Isabel's truck and made a run for it. Completely forgetting that she hadn't given him any directions at all.
And that's it for the third chapter :)
Hope you all enjoyed!
Have a great day and until next time!