A/n: Been a while. My goal is to finish this by the end of the summer. Thanks for reading and sticking with it!
Chapter 5: Never Going Out Again
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
Rex stabbed the end call button with his thumb. "They said yes!"
"Alright!" Beverly cheered.
He set his hand up for an epic high five, which she enthusiastically gave.
"How'd you get my sister to say yes?" she asked in amazement.
"Well, I asked Six to ask her. If I can convince Six, I can convince her."
"Ah, noted," she murmured, looking very much like she was really making a mental note of the information.
That made him pause for a second and consider something. He and Beverly could be the perfect match for Six and Holiday, the extra push he needed to get more free time from them. Huh. Maybe he should offer her his own personal advice as well.
"The real trick, though," he added, "Is to ask them when they're distracted."
She thought about it a moment and nodded slowly with a grin when she saw how it worked. "Nice."
He grinned too. "Not causing any collateral damage to cities in a week or two also helps too." That was his own personal personal advice, but hey, whatever works.
"How much do you usually cause?"
"Not much, like a building or two or three." He shrugged. "Depends on the EVO really."
"What about that time you destroyed a whole town?" Bobo asked, suddenly standing in the doorway of their room.
"That was a ghost town, in the middle of the desert," Rex clarified. "And that doesn't count." The monkey was seriously cramping his style right now.
Bobo scratched his chin. "Did you get permission already?"
"Yeah."
He threw his hands up. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go. I don't even know why you had to ask."
"Um, because! Holiday would get mad. Have you seen her angry? She turns into a dragon. Not even Six gets in her way."
Rex turned to Beverly. "No offense, but your sister is totally scary when she gets angry."
She waved hand. "Oh no, I totally understand. A bit like our dad sometimes."
"Okay good." He relaxed, then squinted at her. "That's not like a genetic thing, though, right?
She smiled. "No, I'm cool."
"Good, 'cause I only hang with cool."
Bobo snorted. "Then by your rules, you shouldn't hang with us."
He felt the heat rush to his ears. Style cramp. Again.
"Very funny," he grumbled, and led the way out of room to hanger.
Beverly caught up to him though, and looped her arm around his. "Thanks so much for this, Rex. Seriously. My sister just wants me to rest. The mall was one thing, but a Trendbenders concert? This is fantastic."
Rex rubbed his neck and gave a small smile. "It's no problem really. The grownups all went to Italy, so I thought we should have some fun."
"If you ask me," Bobo interrupted, "We should have done something better. Like rearranging all the furniture in their rooms, reupholstering them with granny floral print, and painting the walls hideous colors."
Beverly whipped her head around. "You should totally do purple for my sister's room. She hates that color."
At the suggestion, the chimp grinned. "Miss Holiday, you are a bad girl. Tell me more."
Rex quickly put a hold on that plan. "Uh, let's not do anything that will get me grounded, alright?" he suggested, garnering a weird look from Beverly.
"Rebecca grounds you?"
"Yes," he admitted through gritted teeth. "But she doesn't take things away. She gives me things, like reading and essays."He remembered his last punishment: four boring-as-White-at-a-Monday-morning-meeting literature books, with accompanying critical essays. And Holiday has Noah give her samples of his writing so she knows he didn't write it for him.
She cringed. "Harsh."
"Yep. First thing you should know around here: Bad influence numero uno," he said, gesturing at Bobo.
Bobo shrugged. "I like to think of it as alternative influence."
"So how are we getting to the concert?" Beverly started. "It's in San Diego right? We're like in Arizona or New Mexico, or..."
"No place really," Rex finished for her. "HQ kind of sits in both states." It didn't really matter to him anyway. He just got on a jumpjet or the Keep, and if he kept himself busy long enough, they were on the other side of the world-usually China-now that he thought about it. More people, more EVOs, he supposed. "And, we're flying there."
"Nice," she said again.
He nodded in full agreement. "Yup. Working for a top secret organization definitely has its perks." Rex smiled to himself. Like impressing girls.
"But they don't pay you," she noted.
His smile faltered. Wow. She was hard to impress. Like really hard. Maybe, he suspected, it was because he was seeing the similarities she shared with her sister, like her intelligence. And the fact that she challenged everything he said. But like a good challenge. The kind that kept him on his toes.
"Well no, not like a salary or anything, but I get basically anything I want."
Bobo snickered. "That's if Six and Holiday say yes."
At the comment, Beverly looked thoughtful. "So, are Six and my sister are dating?" she asked slowly.
"Well, I don't know about that." Really, he didn't. He spent the longest time just trying to figure out if the man was a robot, let alone dating. But, Six and Holiday having a thing? Seems about right, now that he thought about it. He just never saw it because he always had a thing for Holiday. That was over now.
He glanced at Beverly for a moment. She was making him see new things now.
"They went on that date the other day when we went to the mall," he offered.
She glanced sidelong at him, skeptical. "C'mon, the first thing I saw after I was cured was her on top of him."
Rex grimaced, the image still fresh on his mind. "Really, trying to forget about that."
"Why's he called Six?"
His smile returned. There it was. The Question. And now he actually knew the answer.
"'Cuz he's the sixth most dangerous man in the world."
Her eyes widened. "And he's your guardian?"
Heh. "More like mentor-nanny-sidekick."
She whipped around to face him, walking backwards. "So does that mean you've got a rank too?"
"Yep. Numero Uno. Unofficially. One time, me and Six went back to back and took down Two through Five."
Beverly raised her eyebrows. "I'm impressed," she finally admitted with a smile, returning to a normal walking direction.
Rex gave himself a mental high five.
They reached the main hanger, and when he shivered at the severe change in temperature of the frigid base to desert air, he saw that she did too-definitely a good thing to know he wasn't the only one who did that. Six and Holiday trudged right on through like a rise of fifty degrees was nothing.
She ran ahead of them when the doors parted to the catwalk, stopping in the middle of it to gape at the fleet housed below. If she liked this, then she'd like that the main hanger only housed the main aerial fleet. There was still the auxillaries for ground vehicles, naval, and special ops, which they normally used. Oh yeah, and Cesar's lab, if he counted that too. He didn't think Bev was the kind of girl to be impressed by machines, but yeah. That was cool to know, since he was part machine.
When they reached the stairs at the end of the catwalk, she spotted the cherry-red roadster parked off to the side. "Why can't we take that?"
Rex raised his eyebrows in alarm. "Because that's Six's. And that would be pushing it." Sure he was all for impressing Bev and all, but he'd like to live and see his next unofficial birthday.
She made a noise that he wasn't sure was disappointment or agreement, but she glanced sidelong at him again and grinned. "I bet you he only takes my sister in it."
He'd have laughed if his mouth didn't drop in realization of her observation, because he did only take Holiday in it-usually for Mexican food.
Bobo released a guffaw that echoed in the hanger, and all the pilots lounging in it glanced in their direction.
He clapped Beverly on her shoulder, very amused.
"This girl sees everything. You should play poker with me and the grunts sometime."
While thinking about all the things that could go wrong with that plan-and the fact that Bobo never invited him to play-Rex scanned the hanger for a pilot. And speaking of grunts and poker, a few of them were in a corner playing near the jet refueling pumps. It looked like Williams, Singh, Highmore, and the new guy, Franklin. Or Franco. Francis. Francis?
"Francis!" he called out.
"What?" Francis called back.
Yep, got it. "Six gave us permission to go to the Trendbenders concert in San Diego. You down for being chauffer tonight?"
Francis conversed with the other pilots before answering. "What's in it for me?"
"Uh. Vacation?"
"That's what you said last time. I have double graveyard shift for two months."
Rex cringed and looked to Bobo for help.
Bobo rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yo, Frankie! I'll buy you in next four games, how's that?"
This time Francis didn't consult with the other grunts, and Rex could see him smile from across the hanger.
"Dust off in five," he agreed, gesturing to the jet they were going to use.
Bobo started walking ahead of them. "You owe me big time," he muttered.
Rex ducked his head. "I know, I know! Thanks, man." He turned to smile apologetically at Beverly. They did just have that discussion about no salary and all.
"Heh, sorry about that. That doesn't usually happen." Well, not normally usually.
She brushed it off with a shrug. "Why don't you just learn how to fly? Seems simpler."
"Never needed to. Got my own set of wings, remember?"
"Oh yeah, that's right," she murmured and fell into silence.
There was a moment when her expression fell into confusion, and it bothered him with the implications.
"Um, sorry about that. I'm still catching up to everything."
"Yeah, don't worry about it."
There was an awkward silence now, and every second of it made him feel terrible, because there was a time when he felt like she did; confused, embarrassed, struggling.
He still felt like that.
Just yesterday, he had breakfast with Cesar, and it was uncomfortable. His brother made him his favorite meal-he knew it was his favorite because Cesar had said so-but he had to figure out for himself, with Six and Holiday years ago, that fried rice with chorizos and eggs sunny-side up, were his favorite. Cesar talked all about Papi and their days on the ranch. He just quietly shoveled eggs into his mouth hoping it would help him remember, and really, that was all he really wanted. He just wanted to contribute to a conversation for once without stopping it and gaining polite smiles from people.
It occurred to him that, for once, he actually had a chance to help Beverly in a way he couldn't with other people. He knew exactly how she felt, everything, and he knew how she would feel. The best thing right now, would be to get her talking about something she knew about.
"Your sister can though," Rex blurted.
Beverly looked up quizzically at him. "What?"
"Uh, fly a jet, that is," he clarified, both of them having reach the ramp to the jumpjet already.
Her face lit up, and Rex found himself smiling broadly too.
"I know! She's had her pilot's license since she was thirteen."
He stopped at the top of ramp. "Thirteen?"
"Yep. Dad's insistence." She pushed past him, chose a seat, and started with her safety harness. Rex chose one across from her.
"I would have had mine, too," she continued. "I had like two months to go until I turned into a giant spider."
"Hey," he smiled across from her, "Don't worry about it. You were an awesome giant spider. Before you know it, you'll be an awesome pilot."
Beverly grinned. "Then we don't have to have a chauffeur."
The trip to San Diego only took them twenty minutes, and Francis dropped them off in the basketball court in the park across from Biggie's Fries and Shakes. It was kind of his unofficial drop zone. Biggie didn't seem to mind—he was his best customer, after all. As they exited the jet, Rex saw Noah waiting on a picnic table for them and he waved vigorously from across the distance.
"Hey," Noah called out casually as they drew knew near.
"Hey," Rex echoed. "This is Bev," he introduced.
With a smile, Noah offered her his hand. "We met before. You tried to kill me once."
Beverly cringed slightly, but Rex saw it was lighthearted. "Yeah," she drew out. "Sorry about that."
Noah shrugged it off. "No worries. I was an EVO once, too. I caused six hundred thousand dollars of collateral damage to New York City." He looked almost proud.
Her face lit up. "Yeah? Can't say I've done that much."
"It's a gift."
She squinted between the two boys. "Hey is that like a requirement you have to do for Providence? Collateral damage?"
"Like a daily quota. I brought a bat for you."
Bobo rolled eyes. "And people say I'm the negative influence."
Rex patted her back. "See, I told you you guys would get along."
"Okay," Bobo barked, pushing in between the three of them. "So now that we all know each other, let's get something to eat!"
"You in the mood for some fries and shakes?" Rex asked Beverly.
She raised her eyebrows eagerly. "As long as it's not Providence cafeteria food," she said.
Noah frowned. "Hey, c'mon it's not that bad. You guys get some pretty good chow. What the officers and scientists get is totally different from the slop in basic."
"Do you eat it every day though?"
"Good point."
"Well, Fridays are the good days anyways," Rex told her. "Family dinner. Six usually cooks, or we get authentic takeout."
"Yeah. It's pretty awesome," Noah added.
Rex smiled at her. "And now that you're here, it'll be awesomer."
Despite it being a few hours after lunch, right before everyone got off work and school and wanted some chow, there wasn't much of a line at the snack shack.
Bobo made it his job to help Beverly with her order. "The nachos'll give 'ya bad heartburn. So will the teriyaki. The double-double is good though. Wash it down with a strawberry shake and…"
Noah yanked him aside. "You do really have tickets for this thing, right? You're not just going to try to impress your way in like usual?"
"Yeah, don't worry. We pick them up at willcall."
"You're sure?"
"Totally."
"Okay," Noah sang, not entirely believing.
"Noah, c'mon. Don't worry about it. I. Got. This."
It was his turn to order and he got a Double-double. Alright, a double Double-double with a vanilla shake and some chili fries. He was mucho hungry. They all chose a bench under the shade of the shack's tin roof.
"So, Beverly," Noah started, in between bites,"Whatcha been catching up on since you've been cured? How much time have you missed? I mean, if you're cool talking about it."
Beverly put down her burger. "No, no! It's cool." She sipped her shake. "Um, like five years?"
"Whoa, five years?"
"Yeah, it doesn't seem like a long time though, to me. My sister says I've missed a lot. Like school, and history. Rex fills me in on all the fun things though; Star Wars eight and nine, Incredibles 2, like three Trendbender albums, a whole bunch of things."
"Do you like Rhythm Pirates?"
"Is that the one with like Jude Treltas and he's like a dancer in a team and they compete for fame or something?"
"Yeah that's the one! Rhythm Pirates 4 comes out next week. We should all watch it."
"Cool, but I haven't even seen the first one."
Rex stopped chewing mid-sentence. "You've never seen Rhythm Pirates?"
"I was a giant spider, remember?"she tossed back at him.
"Oh yeah! Sorry." He ducked his head. "I'm pretty forgetful too, like all the time. But hey," he added, pausing to swallow, "When we get back to HQ, we're gonna watch one to three. We can watch 'em in the big viewing room too. Surround sound, 3D, plush seats."
Beverly seemed to like that. "Definitely!"
"Dude, no way. No way."
Rex grinned. "I know."
"No way." Noah peered down the railing. They were on the Grand Tier in a private luxury box, with tv screens if they wanted a closer look. "I can't believe we've got like the best seats in the house."
They really were. He wasn't kidding when he said he had tickets. Actually, he had tickets to every event that was hosted in the Mission Concert House. Plays, concerts, conventions, you name it. All courtesy of the Garcia family that owned it; it was their gratitude to him for curing their daughter. Now, he didn't go to everything—some of it was adult boring gala stuff, but maybe he might go to more things, for Bev's sake. And he'd take Six and Holi along too, so they wouldn't get fussy.
"I'm gonna get some snacks," Bobo announced. "Gonna make sure I milk this arrangement for all it's worth."
"I don't think snacks are part of the deal, man," Noah said.
"They are," Rex added. "Grab me some jellybeans and gummi bears please?" He turned to Beverly. "You want anything?"
She shrugged. "M&Ms? Or, no, wait. A slushie?"
"Alright, candy for fatso, and a slushie for the lovely lady. Whatchyou want blondie?"
"Uh, not sure. What do they have?"
Bobo rolled his eyes. "Do I look like I work behind the counter?" he grumbled.
Noah looked scandalized. "My bad. I'll just go with you and pick something out."
The two left and Beverly glanced over at him.
"So I guess working for Providence, really does have it perks," she grinned.
"Helping people has its perks." He smiled softly, elbows resting on the railing next to her. "And I don't do it just for the perks. I really do like helping people. I'm the only one who can."
"So you're just a regular kid who's also a superhero."
He chuckled. "Something like that. But regular kids go to school and have parents, and memories. I've got a leading scientist for a tutor and doctor, a talking monkey for a roommate, and a ninja."
"Regular kids aren't monsters for five years, either," she said evenly, and he couldn't tell if she was serious, joking, or both.
"That leading scientist is pretty good, you know. She'll have you back to being regular in no time."
That seemed to lighten her mood, because she smiled for a moment. "Well, Rebecca's my sister. She's going to want to make everything how it was before, but…"
"But, you don't think it'll feel right?"
"Yeah. Like…it'll be weird trying to go back to what my life was like before I changed." Beverly chewed her lip. "I haven't seen them yet, but my sister says my parents are different. My dad's, uh, got some scars from my transition, and my mother only sees adult patients now."
As much as he wanted to remember who he was, he didn't think he'd ever want to go back to it. He couldn't. His parents were gone, his brother was a stranger. He's already made this life at Providence—he couldn't just drop it all and forget it ever happened.
"I'm sure they'll just be glad you're back."
"Yeah." She looked to the clamor of the audience below them. "I know that's not something any family of an incurable can say."
"Not yet," he encouraged. "Your sister's done what every scientist in the world has been trying to do for a long time."
She looked at him seriously. "Do you suppose I can help the people she cures?"
"Yeah. I mean, why not? Who else would understand better than you?"
Beverly smiled at him, and suddenly the noise level shot through the roof, and the lights dimmed and she exclaimed, "They're starting the first set!"
She jeered and whistled, a tremendous grin on her face. Rex knew they wouldn't really talk about anything else for the rest of the night. Although he could tell this was something that weighed heavily on her mind. If she wanted to, they could talk more back at HQ. For some reason, he still wanted to stay on the subject, as serious as it was, like something he'd discuss with Holi. He wondered if he was as focused as Beverly was when Six first found him. Considering all the time she was an EVO, she was adjusting really well compared to other people he'd seen who only transitioned for a week. She was very…logical. Er, practical? Yeah. Six would say practical—that's how he described Holi.
He laughed. He wondered how the two new lovebirds were doing on the other side of the world at their fancy operation? Probably not having as much fun as they were.
The opening band was pretty good, enough to want to listen to their album. Nice bass lines and drums. Maybe he'd convince Noah to buy it and he'd borrow it from him. He and Bobo came back just in time, snacks in tow, to hear their third song, which definitely was worth listening to. When the song ended, the lead singer finally said the magic words.
"How're you all doing tonight?"
"Whoo!" Their cheers filled the luxury box.
"Give it up for the TrendBenders!"
Rex turned to Beverly to offer her some jellybeans, but instead of the excitement of earlier, she clutched her temple, rubbing her eyes.
"Hey, you okay?"
She shook her head, wavering slightly.
"Guys!" he called to Noah and Bobo. "She's not feeling well."
Noah took her drink, and Bobo asked, "You wanna sit down, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," she said weakly.
Rex moved to place his hand on her back and guide her to a chair, but the moment he touched her, there was a spark in the air, and he felt like he could not let her go. A burn shot up his arm for an instant, and she fell limp. He was unprepared for either, and they both nearly dropped to the floor, if Bobo hadn't taken much of Beverly's weight.
He felt like he'd taken a sucker punch to his stomach. Six is gonna be pissed, and Holiday! Ohgodwhatwouldshesay? He was afraid to touch her again, but he lightly tapped her cheek a few times. "Bev! Beverly!"
It was Noah who did anything first. He shook Rex's shoulder, jolting him.
"Rex! We need to get her back to HQ,' he yelled in his ear.
HQ. Right. Hesitantly, he scooped her up—she was so light— and did what he knew best. He built his wings, pushed off the railing, and flew up into the warm evening sky.
A/N:
-What's happened to Beverly?
-And what would Holiday say?