Chapter 62
"Hey."
"Hey."
Fox heard a cute voice on the other end of his phone the following morning. "So do you still want me to come pick you up for school? Since you've got your own car and all, didn't know what you wanted to do and I forgot to ask you yesterday."
"You can come pick me up. I'll be ready in a few minutes. And don't forget, Slippy still has my car."
"Hey whoa whoa, I just got up. Don't you think it's a little early?" The clock said 7, school started at 8.
"Yeah but I wanna make sure I'm not late. What are you afraid of spending extra time with me?" Fox could feel that smug grin on the other end of the phone, he could also see how cute it was.
"I'll be there soon." Krystal hung up the phone knowing that despite Fox being behind her, she knew he was telling the truth.
"You're out earlier than usual. Going to get Krystal?"
Fox nodded to his mom. "I'm happy for you."
Fox laughed in response, "Me too."
"So today is her first day back?" Fox nodded."I'm glad she's back, I'm glad she's safe."
Fox breathed out heavily at hearing this. "Yeah…me too. She really had me going for a while, really scared me. Really feels like she was gone for so long, and that everything with her was so long ago."
"It must have been so scary, it was scary for us too you know."
He smiled at his mom once more. "Thanks mom, see you later." Fox grabbed his backpack and headed out the door to his car.
'Totally forgot about her car being at Slippy's place, guess we'll find out about that today.' He cruised down to Krystal's house and put the car in park. Moments later did she come running out and plopped down in the passenger seat.
"You look nice today." His smile looked almost shy. She was clad in a pink sweater with a plaid scarf around her neck, jeans with a few rips in them and her usual converse.
"I thought it turned out okay, not my best choice but can't try too hard on the first day right?" Fox rolled his eyes, he thought she looked great even if she thought her appearance was "okay".
"I heard that." She said as he rolled his eyes and laughed at what he thought about her opinion on her appearance.
"We'll talk to Slippy today about your car. I think he got into it yesterday but I forgot to ask him. Handy how he's such an engineer." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his collapsed visor. "Here, try this on." He expanded the visor and handed it to her.
She maneuvered it onto her head, unsure of how to properly do so since she wasn't used to using one of these. "Is it on right?" Krystal had a curious look on her face as she looked over at him, the visor was on properly.
"Yeah that looks great. You like it?" She nodded her head. "Slippy can make you one if you want, I'm sure he'd love to make you one. Plus they come in handy, I'm sure you won't have a hard time thinking of an example." Krystal let out a small laugh, remembering seeing the visor for the first time that fateful night.
"So how does it collapse?"
"There's a small button on the side, if you take it off you'll see it but it takes some getting used to for you to remember where it is without looking." She removed the visor from her head and inspected it for the button that Fox spoke of. She pressed it, and it collapsed so fast that she dropped it in the floorboard, causing Fox to laugh at her small handed it back to him as he stowed it in his pocket.
Her face was pressed against the window as she took in the spectacle that was this ordinary high school. "I missed this place." They both got out of the car and made their way towards the usual spot where the guys stayed. Krystal looked all around, taking everything back in since it seemed it had been so long.
"Weird, usually they're here- oh, right. We're here early. Explains why there are so many less people here."
"Usually you show up later?"
"Usually I wake up later, so yeah." He laughed a little in response to her. He leaned against the lockers where they usually stood and she followed suit.
"So when do you guys usually get here?" Fox looked at the clock on his phone.
"Not long from now, shouldn't be but a few minutes."
"So what do you guys usually do?"
"Just hang out, talk while we can. Usually we don't have but a few minutes but that's all we ask for."
"Cool, that's nice that you make time like that."
He had a small laugh on his face as he reached out and tapped the tip of her nose. "Always."
"Hey look, it's really her." Falco pointed at Krystal.
"It almost feels unreal, she's really back." The frog and bird approached the two of them as they leaned against the lockers and chatted. Fox noticed them and got off of the lockers and pointed back and waved.
"Hey guys!"
The bird and frog approached slowly.
"Hey guys, it's been a long time." She stepped forward to speak to her forgotten friends.
"Hey Krystal…it's been a while."
"Yeah, it's great to finally see you again."
Both the bird and frog couldn't believe it. Krystal reached out and hugged both of them, she had to see them to realize how much she really missed them too.
"It's great to see both of you."
"Good to have you back." They both smiled at her after she stepped back by Fox's side. As they were about to begin their small talk, the bell rang.
"Looks like it's time, what's your schedule?" Krystal unfolded her paper with all her classes and room numbers on it and began to read it out loud. "Cool, you've got first period with me." Falco put an arm around the vixen's shoulders as he directed her towards the room. He navigated her quickly and all she could do was turn her head towards Fox in an attempt to silently say goodbye to him. He smiled and waved to her.
She smiled back and turned forward, "This school's a lot bigger than I remember it being. Did they remodel or do any work over the break?"
The bird shook his head, "Nah, it's the same old same old. I figured I'd direct you around just in case you didn't remember the whole school's layout and all."
"Thanks Falco." She smiled over at the avian, Fox's friend, her friend.
They walked off for the first class, he could tell how eager and excited she was for her first day back to high school. "So what lunch do you have?" She pulled out her schedule to make sure she had that block of school right, lunch is a rough period if you're on your own.
"I have the first lunch, what about you?"
"Hmmmm, no I don't have that one. I have D lunch."
"Dang, that's too bad. But the good news is that you've got lunch with old Foxie. I'm sure you don't mind that." The vixen laughed a little at the bird's comment, and the truth behind it.
'Hey, what lunch do you have?' She texted him after she and Falco split up going to their next classes.
'D, what about you?'
'That's what I have too! Falco told me that he was pretty sure you had that one.'
'That's great! :D Wolf has lunch with me too, I'm sure he'll be glad to see you.'
She didn't think about that. Are Fox and Wolf friends now? She didn't expect that, they seemed so bitter last time she saw them.
'But that was a long time ago' She thought to herself. She shook that thought from her head and texted him back before walking into her next classroom.
'Sounds great, see you guys then :D'
'She sure sounds happy.' Fox thought as he sat down in his next class.
'Hey, I'll meet you outside the main office and we can go to lunch together.'
'Yeah that sounds great!' He made his way over to the front office awaiting her. He looked around a little shortly after arrival and saw her headed down the hall coming from his right. He smiled upon seeing her and waved, she returned the same gesture.
"So how's today been?"
"It's so great to be back!" He laughed at how excited she was to be back at Corneria City High School. The two of them walked down towards the lunchroom to prepare their midday meal.
"Weird, Wolf was here today in first period. Must have had to leave later." He shrugged his shoulders as he invited her to sit down.
"So, what are you thinking?"
He asked her after a few moments of silent lunch eating. "I'm sure you know what I'm thinking, considering you can read my mind. So I figured I would ask you." He laughed a small bit as he waited for her to answer.
She swallowed the mouthful of apple sauce she had and took a moment to think. "I'm thinking… that I'm glad to be back. Back here at the school, back with all of your- I mean our friends. It's so good to see everyone and everything again." She felt the warmth radiating from his smile, and he felt hers.
"We all missed you, we just tried not to talk about you sometimes just because we knew it would hurt, since we didn't know what was going on."
"Why did you never come by? I mean my house, you always knew where I lived so why didn't you just come by to say something?"
The fox shook his head. "One time I did, there were no signs of anyone at home, no car, no lights on except for a lamp. I just considered that maybe…maybe something was telling me that I shouldn't come by. That maybe…" He didn't want to finish the thought, until he looked up at what sat across from him.
"That maybe you were supposed to leave us. But it looks like I was wrong about that, I've never been so happy to be wrong."
She reached across the tabled and laced her fingers with his.
"I just thought that life would have to go on, one way or another. That's why the other night when I was hanging out with Fara and Sydney I uh… I guess I tried to go on with life." She laughed at his slight embarrassment of mentioning his latest introduction.
He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand at the mention. "But I have a different idea of life going on." The vixen raised an eyebrow at this idea.
"Oh? And what kind of idea is that?" He shook his head and laughed a little as he picked up both of their emptied lunch trays and stood up.
"In due time sweetheart. We gotta make it through the rest of the day so we can get your car from Slippy. He said they fixed it up." She smiled, standing up with him and strapping on her backpack, preparing for the rest of the day.
'Ugh, where is he?' She looked at the clock on her phone after school, it had been a few minutes since she made it outside.
'I bet she's steamed that I'm late, guess I forgot to tell her I had to talk to a teacher.' He jogged his way out the front door, looking left and right trying to find her. He took a step down the front stairs onto the sidewalk and caught her glance as her head snapped back to him.
"Hey!" He yelled, waving to get her attention as he jogged over to her.
"You're late."
"Yeah, and you're steamed. I can tell because you look cute when you're steamed. Well really you always look cute, but especially when you're mad."
She tried to resist the mood change his compliment was intended to make, but that resistance was a perpetual failure. He saw a small few strands of hair come undone as he took his hand and brushed them back behind in place.
He saw a small blush on her face after finishing fixing her hair, he just laughed mentally at her small embarrassment. She heard it, she's a telepath after all.
"Come on beautiful, we have a car to go get."
He ran his thumb across her cheek as he fixed her hair and led her towards the car.
"Hey guys! It's in the garage, I'll open the door for you." The frog sped towards his garage to open the door for the two foxes. A moment later they heard the door opening and the frog came back out.
"We even washed it for you, had a spare alternator too. Luckily this is a really common model car so we had one in pretty good shape for you." The vixen looked at how shiny the paint looked, opened the passenger seat door and placed her books and backpack inside it.
"Thanks Slippy, you're the best!"
The frog just scratched the back of his head, not used to such genuine compliments, those weren't common when Falco was around.
"Aw gee, it was nothing. I'm just glad we have you back." He turned over to Fox. "I'll be inside getting everything ready." Slippy turned around and went back inside.
Krystal turned back towards Fox with a look of confusion. "What's all that about?"
"We were just gonna hang out a little bit, play some games, work on some tech."She wasn't surprised.
"That makes sense, so you're just gonna blow off little old me?" She poked out her bottom lip trying to look like she was pouting.
Fox laughed a small bit before answering, "Yep, I sure am."
She only turned her head and rolled her eyes at his idea of a joke. Her attention quickly came back as she felt his arms wrap around her lower back he elevated her up into an elevated hug. She let out a small squeal of surprise as well as excitement while wrapping her arms around his neck to steady herself.
He rested his head in the crook of her neck and closed his eyes as he felt her rest her head on his. "Yep, blowing you off entirely. For today." He hugged her for a bit and then put her down.
"Don't wanna keep Marty waiting."
He told her as she plopped into the driver's seat. She rolled her eyes again as she started the car up, no problem at all just like Slippy said.
"See you tomorrow?" He asked her.
She reached out and tapped the tip of his nose "Always."
She replied with a smile as he reached in the car and one more time ran his thumb across her cheek.
"Drive safe."
He shut the door for her before she started backing out. He followed the car out and waved her goodbye when she took off from Slippy's house.
He stood there until the car disappeared from his sight.
Hit a scary dose of writer's block for this chapter, hope it turned out satisfactory to everyone. Landed a job at a pizza joint this weekend so updates may be a little spread out but I'll try to at least get one chapter a week if I get strapped for time. Hope everyone's enjoying it all and is doing well.
