"I hope you're right about this one, Lester." Brad mutters after stopping his navy and red Phoenix. He had stopped back by the cabin, only to find Trevor gone and most of one of the walls destroyed… now he was outside the Lost MC campground, anxious about reuniting with Carly, Sam and Ashley.
Brad looked up and saw Terry, who had an idea why the allegedly dead ex bank robber was here.
"Last caravan at the end, just be careful not to scare her too much." Terry says, having been protective of Carly ever since Johnny first brought her to the Lost MC campground.
Brad nodded and drove into the campground, stopping at Johnny's caravan and shutting the Phoenix's engine off before putting the keys in his jeans pocket, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door, getting out of the car and closing the door.
Carly finished towel drying her shoulder length hair while scrunching it, tying her red bathrobe closed over her navy push up lace bra & hiphugger panties.
Carly was mad… mad at herself, mad at K8lynn and mad at Trevor… because she felt like she was being lied to and that K8lynn had a hand in helping Trevor go off the grid. If Trevor really was dead, Carly felt like K8lynn was enjoying making Carly and everyone else suffer… if Trevor was alive, Carly was pissed because she felt like Trevor was being a coward, running away from the damage he caused everyone for feeling like they betrayed and abandoned him.
"You and your family just had to run away from me and go and get Brad killed."
Those words hurt Carly worse than anything Trevor ever said to her… they made her seething mad.
"I was six years old! Six fucking years old when he was shot and killed in front of me! You want to go and blame me for that when I couldn't control it?! I hate you, Trevor! I HATE YOU!" Carly says, gradually getting louder until she was screaming out the rage that had built up inside of her for over a decade. She fell to the floor, sobbing violently even when she felt someone's arms wrap around her and moved closer to him, thinking it was Johnny.
"It's okay, kiddo. It wasn't your fault." Carly heard, opening her bluish violet eyes and looking up.
"B… Brad?!" Carly says, reaching out and resting her tiny left hand on his face, Brad lightly gripping it and kissing it.
"I'm right here, Carly Jade. I'm right here." Brad says softly as he helped her up, both of them hugging tightly.
"I missed you… I missed you so much." Carly says, sniffling.
"I never wanted to leave you, little one… I'm so sorry that I did." Brad says as tears ran down his own face, Carly burying her face into his torso like she used to when she was little.
Johnny walked into the caravan, not knowing it was Brad who was holding Carly at first and grab his AP pistol.
"John, drop it!" Carly says, Brad turning and Johnny seeing Brad's face.
"Sorry about that, Brad… wait, how are you still alive?" Johnny says, setting the gun down as Brad and Carly let go.
"Pure luck, unbelievably… bullet barely missed my brain. I woke up in a hospital just outside of North Yankton to find I was listed as a John Doe." Brad says, Carly noticing the scar left behind on Brad's right temple from the bullet.
"Well… why choose now to come back?" Johnny asks.
"Trevor survived that crash… I had him trapped in a cabin but when I went back, a whole wall was as missing as he was." Brad says, Carly closing her eyes for a few seconds.
"His girl went looking for him… she's barely older than me." Carly says, startling Brad.
"I can't imagine the bullshit he gave you two for being with each other. And all of what he said yesterday." Brad says.
"Doesn't really matter anymore… he and K8lynn can stay gone, have the life he claimed he wanted… good fucking riddance." Carly says bitterly, Brad lightly rubbing his hand up and down her back before Carly kissed Johnny and headed into the room to get ready for the day, getting dressed and applying her makeup, adding a little more concealer than usual to hide that she had been crying before applying bronzer to hide the paleness, light bronze eyeshadow and dark purple liquid eyeliner in her favored cat eye look before adding a light coat of mascara and a nude lip balm tint to her lips, closing it and putting the makeup away.
Carly snapped out of it when her phone rang, her looking at it and seeing that it was Ayumi calling.
"Hello… how did you know my number?" Carly asks after answering it, Ayumi noticing immediately that Carly's normally soft voice was croaky.
"I'm… fully Bluetooth enabled, phone numbers can easily be found when the Bluetooth is left on. Are you okay?" Ayumi says.
"Trevor… crashed his truck yesterday. Would've been easier to handle if he was actually dead." Carly says, Ayumi knowing that Carly didn't mean that and was speaking out of the hurt and anger she was feeling. "Is Sam at your house?" She asks, hearing Sam's voice in the background… or who she thought was Sam.
"Her twin sister… Rey, don't break anything." Ayumi says.
"I'm just looking at your time machine, that's all!" Rey says, taking Carly by surprise.
"Time machine?" Carly says, playing with a loose string on her denim shorts as Johnny walked into the room, lightly massaging Carly's shoulders.
"It's experimental, Immy designed the theory of how time could be travelled through. Basically, the thing moves time around itself… very complicated. Time has a very slight trace, almost like a track. The machine is like everything else, travelling on the track, except it can accelerate and reverse, if that's easier to understand." Ayumi says.
Carly nodded, grunting a bit when Johnny accidentally massaged her upper back too hard, trying to get rid of a knot in Carly's upper back.
"Hey, Sam said be careful with your tiny girl!" Ayumi says once on speaker.
"Speaking of Sam, have you seen her at all? She, along with Ash, Clint and their friends, left early this morning." Johnny says.
"They're off on some kind of job, told me they didn't call you into it as they thought you could use some recovery time-" Ayumi says before Carly and Johnny heard her jolt and Rey quickly stepping back. "Don't… don't touch the implants… they're delicate." She says.
"Are you alright?! What the hell is she doing?!" Carly asks.
"Trying to mess with the experimental things that that crazy scientist did to me!" Ayumi says.
"Rey, I'm gonna kick your crazy ass if you don't back off of Ayumi!" Carly says, Rey chuckling a bit.
"Awfully hostile for someone so tiny, ain't she?" Rey says.
"Makes up for a completely not scary appearance." Ayumi says.
"We're gonna head over towards your place… want to see this time machine for ourselves." Johnny says.
"Careful, cops are all over the areas surrounding the Great Ocean highway, doing car searches and looking for Trevor." Ayumi says.
"Who in their sane mind would actually help that psycho bastard?" Carly asks as she and Johnny walk into the living room, finding Brad and Jack talking.
"You're telling me you met Carly after she lost her memory?" Brad asks.
"Yep, my psycho brother did it to her. She ran off when I first met her, she was still terrified and didn't remember anything but she remembered afterwards and tracked me down." Jack says.
"Then things got crazier… hey, you two up to meeting someone new? Sam introduced Ayumi to me yesterday… well, sort of. Ayumi managed to control a crazy family therapy session." Carly says, Jack seeing the bite mark on Carly's right shoulder.
"Madam Godzilla gets crazier every day." Jack says, Brad a bit confused. "Amanda." He says, Brad's eyes widening in shock.
"Yeah. The abusive, respectless swinger." Ayumi says after Carly tapped the phone onto speaker.
"Ayumi, right?" Brad asks.
"Yeah, that's me." Ayumi says.
"Not a regular name." Brad says.
"It's Japanese." Jack says, Ayumi nodding.
"Yeah, Mr Mercenary. Or as Carly and Johnny's future children will call you, Uncle Idiot." Ayumi says.
"Uncle Idiot?! Seriously?!" Jack says.
"Sounds about right." Johnny says.
"Makes me wonder, what my parents would've thought of me now." Jack says.
"Me too… if I remembered them. I don't remember any of my family." Ayumi says.
"Implants damage your brain?" Jack asks.
"No… I was captured by some IAA agents, they wanted information on my origins and how I became what I am… I protected the people in the only way I could. I deleted every memory I had of anyone." Ayumi says.
Carly looked up when the door swung open, seeing Franklin.
"Fuck. I didn't get the chance to tell you and Lamar yet." Carly mutters.
"Immy told me… you ain't holding up so well, are ya?" Franklin says.
"Not really… I'll tell you later. We've gotta get going." Carly says before she, Johnny, Jack and Brad leave.
Ayumi opened the door, Rey's eyes widening when she saw just how tiny Carly is.
"102 pounds you said, right?" Rey asks as the four walk in, Ayumi closing the door.
"Just slightly over, yeah." Ayumi says.
"So where… is this time machine?" Carly asks, wishing she had drank some coffee before leaving as she was still tired.
"Were you up most of the night, half pint?" Jack asks, concerned because lack of sleep made Carly behave erratically sometimes.
"In the basement. If you're gonna go look at it, don't touch the panels, every button does something." Ayumi says.
Everyone walked downstairs, Carly tilting her head to the side when she saw the time machine. She thought it looked like a mix of a Tardis and a Star Trek warp core.
"What do you guys think of it?" Carly asks Johnny, Jack and Brad.
"It's like mixing Dr. Who with Star Trek." Jack says.
"You guys thinking of any time you want to visit?" Ayumi asks.
"Well… I've wondered what the 2030s look like." Carly says.
"Now, I thought she would've wanted to visit the 1970s." Rey says, Ayumi typing in 2/17/2030, New Zealand.
"Wait, why New Zealand?" Brad asks.
Ayumi just grabbed him and dragged him into the machine, the others following.
"Damn, you're strong!" Brad says, Ayumi closing the doors.
"Comes with solid steel bones." Ayumi says, walking over to the smaller panel next to the large blue core in the middle of the room, pushing forward one of the few physical levers in the room. The core lit up bright blue, whiter lights shooting upwards through it.
2030…
Trevor jumped back as the time machine landed a few feet away, seeing everyone exit it.
"Damn thing rattled my brain!" Jack shouts, Trevor looking at the group in a confused manner.
"One of the magnetic interlocks ruptured… oh… hello, Trevor." Ayumi says, everyone turning to Trevor. He was much cleaner than they remembered, with a full head of hair which was just starting to turn grey, but they still knew it was him from the neck tattoo which they noticed, had now been altered, the 'cut here' now reading 'always here'.
"The fuck are you all doing here?!" Trevor yelled, angry to see them.
"Time travel from when you left." Ayumi says.
"Which I did for a reason!" Trevor shouts.
"Why are you shouting, Daddy?" Everyone heard, Trevor turning around and crouching down so he was level with the small boy who looked no older than 5.
"Daddy's just seen some people he doesn't want to. Go inside, tell Mommy I'll be there in a minute." Trevor says, the little boy nodding before running across the large grassland towards a large sized house facing towards the seemingly endless ocean. "That's Andrew, the youngest. Middle, there's twins Amber and Yasmine and the one K8 has when we left is Matt." He says after turning back to everyone.
"Nice to see that you had a nice life. We'll leave you to it." Carly says before turning back towards the time machine, Trevor stopping her. "Get out of my way." She says.
"I thought you'd want to meet them all… since it seems you haven't in the 15 years since we left." Trevor says.
"You made me think you were dead. Before the second time, you made me feel responsible for what was out of my control. You can forget it. Rot in hell when you actually die." Carly says, Trevor noticing something he hadn't seen since Carly was 6 years old… hurt, rage and blame for herself, him and feeling like he never really cared about her.
"Carly… I only blamed Michael, which I don't anymore because I see what he wanted now, and that was the only way to get it. And as for the crash, I didn't mean to and I was gonna let you know I was alive until Brad locked me in there and made me feel like none of you wanted me around… all I really did was, accidentally, the same thing your family did." Trevor says.
Carly stormed past him and to the time machine, not wanting to hear any more… Trevor's angry words still rang in her mind before the crash.
"You and your family had to go and run away and get Brad killed… that's what you said… I thought those would be the last words I'd ever hear from you. You made me feel… like every hurtful thing you ever did since you returned was my fault." Carly says, trying not to break down again.
"It wasn't." Carly heard Trevor say from the door. "None of it was because of you… I just couldn't see that." He says.
"You never wanted to… you just wanted her to come back." Carly says, Trevor knowing who she was referring to. Her younger self. Carly lightly pressed the button and made the time machine doors open, disappearing into it as Johnny, Brad, Jack and Rey followed her, Trevor looking at Ayumi.
"You know what I'm gonna say." Trevor says. Ayumi simply nodded before following into the time machine, pushing the lever again and going to the main panel.
"We're being expected." Ayumi says.
"By… who?" Rey asks. The machine stopped moments later, Ayumi nodding towards the door.
"What's out there?" Carly asks.
"The end." Ayumi says.
Carly opened the door, being followed by everyone else as she stepped out into an open room which had a desk to one end of it.
"Carly Jade?" Everyone hears. The voice was old, but the accent was easily recognisable. They entered one of the rooms, Carly's eyes widening.
"Caroline?" Carly says, the woman nodding. Like Carly, Caroline had a slight North Yankton accent. "But… I thought that… you were killed in the middle of World War two." She says.
"Faked that, actually… Michael was about a little younger than you when I died." Caroline says.
"Wait… died?" Carly says, confused.
"I said the magnetic interlock ruptured… we've fallen out of logical time… there is no time here. Everything is beginning and ending at the same time." Ayumi says.
Caroline walked over and rested her hand on Carly's left shoulder.
"We're never gonna get back to our own time…" Carly says, feeling like her hopes for a life with Johnny were fading away.
"This place is called the Void… to me, at least. No start, no end… this is the world you go to when you imagine things. It's whatever you want it to be." Caroline says.
Carly looked down when she felt two tiny arms wrap around her, seeing a toddler with light brown hair and green eyes.
"Hey, buddy. How did you end up here?" Carly says, picking the boy up in her arms.
"Here? We're at home, Mommy." The toddler says, Carly looking up, suddenly in a large house overlooking the ocean.
"Mommy?" Carly says in slight shock. Here she was, holding a child she thought Trevor wouldn't let be born.
"Yeah, Mommy." Carly heard, the toddler suddenly gone from her arms… because he was stood behind her as a 12 year old. "Daddy… why does Mommy look like she's been crying?" The boy asks.
"Mommy's just had a rough day, son." Johnny says as a girl who looked exactly like Ashley and Clint ran over to them, looking about 14.
"Jason, what have I said about running off?" The girl asks.
"You're not the boss of me, Malia!" The boy says, reminding Carly of how she and Ashley acted sometimes when they were kids.
"Jason… your middle name would be Riley, right?" Carly says.
"Caroline, why is she so confused?" Jason asks.
"She's from a time before you were born, Jason… she didn't think Trevor would let her have a family of her own." Caroline says.
"Ah… just one more… there we go." Malia says as she and Ayumi fixed the magnetic interlock.
"I hope that holds until I can fix it completely. Alright, the people from 2015, get back in, we're going home." Ayumi says before Rey, Jack, Brad, Carly and Johnny got in, Ayumi turning to Malia. "Thank you. Hey, how did you know what to fix?" She says.
"I'm going to be a mechanic when I finish school. Now head on home." Malia says before Ayumi gets in, the doors closing and Ayumi pulling on the lever.
2015…
"Did it work? Are we back?" Carly asks as the doors open, everyone walking upstairs into Ayumi's house and finding Ashley and Sam.
"Where the hell have you all been?!" Sam asks as she and Rey hug.
"Can't exactly explain that…" Brad says as he and Ashley hug. "I missed you too, kiddo." He says.
"You asshole! I thought you were dead!" Ashley yelled.
"I thought that too until I woke up. Sorry about everything, Ash." Brad says as they let go, Ashley smiling a bit but noticed how quiet Carly was being.
"Uh oh… that kind of day?" Ashley asks, Carly nodding. "I don't even think I wanna know about it." She says.
"I feel like I could use a drink." Carly says, Ashley carefully hugging her and Carly grimacing a bit as her injured shoulder brushed against Ashley's shirt.
"I found some vodka." Brad says, holding the bottle up.
"Well what are you waiting for? Bring it over." Ashley says.
Brad opened it and poured some vodka into three glasses, Carly guzzling her glass down until it was empty not even a minute later, startling Brad.
"Jeez Carly. Where'd you learn to drink like that?" Brad says.
"Not learnt. Instinctive, Uncle Brad." Carly says, Brad seeing a bit of the younger Michael that he saw back in the 80s.
"She really has had a crappy day." Sam says.
"You don't know the half of it, twin." Rey says, startling Clint.
"Twin?! Ash, would you be okay with Tommy digging more into the Philips family tree?" Clint asks.
"Well, I am curious about how many are there. We should seek them out now that the old bastard's dropped off the grid." Ashley says.
Carly walked outside, Sam following her.
"Sam… never repeat what I'm gonna tell you. Okay?" Carly says, Sam nodding. "We were 15 years in the future… and he tried to get me to believe that he's changed." She says.
"And you still don't?" Sam asks.
"I don't know what to believe from Trevor anymore… and I hope I never have to see his face again. Him saying what he said felt like he was sticking a knife into my heart and twisting it." Carly says, Sam pulling her into a hug.
Meanwhile…
"Are you happy now?!" Trevor heard, looked up and saw Ayumi step out of her machine, the 19 year old beyond pissed off.
"Go back to LS in that fancy machine of yours! I don't care what my future self said to that tiny bitch!" Trevor growled.
"You don't get it, do you?! You didn't feel bad about what you did and Carly damn well knew it, she saw right through you, you hateful bastard!" Ayumi says angrily after slapping Trevor.
"Was that really called for?!" Trevor asks, the slap feeling more like a punch to him as he rubbed his face.
"She tried to leave when you said you wish you hadn't seen her or the others but no, you just had to twist the knife in her heart one more time, had to make her feel like she never mattered to you!" Ayumi says, angering Trevor.
"You want the truth?! I only loved Carly Jade Townley! Not Carly Jade De Santa and certainly never Carly Jade Klebitz or any mistakes she and that bald prick will have!" Trevor shouts.
"That would've been easier for her to hear before you and K8 ran off, making her feel like you were justified because Carly and her family supposedly abandoned you first." Ayumi says before leaving in her time machine.
At the same time, Carly was drinking her pain away at the Yellow Jack Inn.
"I tell you, Diamond… I wish he had never come back. I wish the bastard died in Ludendorff!" Carly says after downing her beer, Diamond lightly rubbing Carly's unharmed shoulder.
"We're closing up! Go away!" Diamond says when she heard the door open.
"Now that ain't nice." Carly heard, looked and saw Ivory.
"Piss off, you limey bastard!" Carly growled, grabbing a second beer and drinking it.
"You're in a foul mood. What, regretting how you-" Ivory says.
"I will break this bottle and shove a jagged piece in your remaining natural eye if you don't turn around and fuck off!" Carly yelled, startling Ivory.
"Look mister, I'm going to make this very loud and clear. We're closing up!" Diamond says.
"Lady, this doesn't-" Ivory says, Carly breaking the bottle and lunging at Ivory, slicing him a few times as they fought for the shard of glass, Diamond managing to pull Carly off of Ivory.
"You want to die, Ivory?! Keep on how you're acting because I'll take every bit of enjoyment in making you die slowly and painfully!" Carly shouts as Ivory runs out the door, Diamond managing to disarm Carly and pulling the now sobbing violet eyed brunette close to her, rubbing her hand up and down Carly's back.
"It's alright, it's okay." Diamond says softly.
"It never stops… I just wish he never came back because all he did was hurt me." Carly chokes out, Diamond picking Carly up and taking her outside as Johnny drove up in Sam's Ruiner, getting out and running over to them.
"What happened, Diamond?!" Johnny asks, holding Carly close to him.
"Some silver haired bastard showed up, started taunting Carly until she snapped." Diamond says, Johnny turning Carly away from him and holding her hair back as she threw up.
Carly took several deep breaths after she emptied the alcohol out of her body, sniffling a bit as Diamond carefully hugged her.
Johnny and Carly returned to the Lost MC campground, Sam waiting for them.
"Uh, how much did she drink? And did she throw up in my car?" Sam asks.
"No she threw up outside the Yellow Jack Inn." Johnny says.
Johnny helped Carly out of the car, Carly stumbling a bit as she walked over to Sam.
"Sam… it's all been too much… it never ends." Carly says, Sam lightly rubbing Carly's arms.
"It's gonna be okay, Carly. We'll never have to see either of them again." Sam says, her and Johnny helping Carly into the caravan and helping her lie down, a strawberry blonde woman looking a bit worried when she saw the drunken brunette.
"Is she alright?" The woman asks as Johnny puts Carly on the couch, laying her on her side.
"Yeah, she's just had a bit too much to drink, Zero. That's all." Sam says.
"Have we met before?" Zero asks.
"Well, not officially but I know you're a notorious gangster from Vice City. A female version of Tommy Vercetti is what they called you." Sam says, Zero smiling a bit.
"Yeah that's pretty much me." Zero says.
Carly grunted in her sleep, Zero walking over and lightly brushing Carly's hair out of her face.
"Trevor… you should've… stayed gone." Carly mumbles angrily.
"Should I be worried? Because I've heard that tiny people are the scariest things." Zero says.
"Trevor's long gone, fucked off to some unknown location." Sam says as Ashley and Brad walk in.
"Hi." Zero says.
"Hello. Oh, man. Is she still alive?" Brad says, seeing Carly and noticing the strong scent of alcohol.
"Yeah. Gonna have one bad hangover in the morning." Zero says.
"Yeah, as small as she is." Brad says.
Carly groaned as she opened her eyes the next morning, Zero setting a bottle of water nearby two tablets of Aleve.
"Did I do anything crazy last night?" Carly mumbles as she sits up, lightly grabbing the medicine and swallowing it.
"I don't think so." Zero says, cracking the bottle of water open and handing it to Carly, who slowly drank it until it was empty.
"Last time I got fucked up… Scott dared me to try to throw Jake off the roof of the Yellow Jack Inn." Carly says as Scott and Jake walk in.
"Seriously? You dared a tiny girl to throw one of you off the roof of a bar?" Zero says to the two.
"We were drunk out of our minds. Weren't thinking straight." Scott says.
Carly ran her fingers through her hair, Zero seeing the bite mark on Carly's shoulder.
"Trevor?!" Zero says.
"No… mother from hell bit me during a family therapy session." Carly says.
"That's fucking terrible!" Zero says angrily.
"Yeah, it is. My older sister Tracey tried to bash Amanda's head in after Amanda slapped her." Carly says, Zero trying not to laugh.
"I'm glad that I ran away." Zero says.
"One of your parents was abusive too?" Carly asks.
"Actually, Dad abandoned me, step father tried to attack me… my mom tried to protect me but…" Zero says, Carly figuring it out.
Carly rubbed her hands over her face, Zero lightly rubbing the small 18 year old's back.
"This Trevor guy was horrible to you, wasn't he?" Zero asks.
"Not when I was little… it was when he came back last year that I should've realised that Uncle T was never there to begin with." Carly says, Zero lightly hugging her.
At the same time, Trevor was walking around outside the house he and K8lynn bought in New Zealand, thinking about what he said to Ayumi about Carly.
All he got was an automated message saying that Carly's number had been disconnected, Trevor hanging up...
"Well, what was really gonna happen?" Trevor mutters to himself... he was really starting to regret going off and blaming Carly for the aftermath of the Ludendorff bank job.
But now she wouldn't even answer her phone... and that hurt Trevor.
