"Someday I fear I will be rescued from the boredom line. With lack of memory I fail to question why." - Perfect Teeth by Motion City Soundtrack.
As Jake and Angie entered the movie store, they seperated while Angie looked for the video she wanted to watch. Jake sighed, he wasn't looking forward to lying to her for the next month. He hated to admit, but T-Bone was right, having a she-cat was going to be different. They weren't gonna be able to fly when ever they wanted, training would be difficult. And Angie didn't know anyone in the city, she'd most likely be home a lot.Well then again she was an attractive she-cat, it would only be a matter of time before she became social with the cats around the city. Once the thought processed he grimaced, would Matt want his daughter running around Mega Kat city with people she hardly knew? He shrugged as he began to dial T-Bones number, he had to tell him to land the Turbo kat before Angie came back with her choice of movie.
"Chance, I got Angie out of the house. You're safe to land buddy." Jake said in low tone, huddling his hand over his mouth and phone so no one overheard their conversation.
"Roger that, I'm turning around." Chance said.
"You need to make sure you lock down the hangar, the last thing we want is for Angie to stumble across it by accident." Jake said.
"Stumble across what by accident?" Angie approached him from behind with two movies in her hand, Jake jumped.
"What!" Jake shouted, he was startled.
"What am I going to stumble across by accident?" Angie asked.
"Stumble across... that... that the new movie... Love Between the Cats. It just came out, and we don't really wanna watch it." Jake tried to recover.
"Smooth." Chance chuckled on the phone.
"Shut up." Jake snapped into the phone.
"Umm... I don't do romance films. Your choice is between Rosemarys Kitten or Hair Raiser 2." She lifted both.
"Go with Rosemarys Kitten, Mia Furrow is in it." Chance said eagerly over hearing their conversation.
"Chance says, Rosemary's kitten." Jake voiced. Angie nodded.
"Good choice." Angie smiled, and then added, "Are we still gonna stop and get something to eat? What does Chance want?"
"I'm not hungry," Jake said, and then he bid goodbye to Chance and began to hang up his phone. Angie looked at him strangely, then seemed to shrug it off.
"Um... do you have a rental card?" Angie asked. Jake opened his wallet and looked through each slit, nothing.
"No." Jake looked up. Angie crossed her arms.
"Okay, what is your glitch?" she asked.
"What?" Jake asked confused.
"First, you go pick up a sparkplug and come back with no sparkplug, then you say want to eat, and now your not hungry. THEN you say you want to rent a movie, and now you have no rental card, what's the deal?" Angie asked.
"There is no deal, I'm just not thinking straight." Jake explained.
"Alright fine, I have mine, now I gotta pay the rental fee on Claws the Revenge." Angie grumbled. Jake rubbed his eyes in frustration. She was already suspicious. Already. How on earth was he going to keep this a secret?
"Great." he mumbled then he looked up. Much to his disgust, Angie leaned on the front counter, she was playfully tossing her hair and smiling at the young cat worker behind the counter. And he was buying into it as he smiled back showing off his two rows of perfect teeth. He handed her the change and the bag with the movie in it. Jake casually passed by and tugged at her sleeve to keep her moving. She winked and waved goodbye to her male friend. "If you're gonna be staying with me, you can't do that."
"Do what?" Angie asked innocently as they made their way to the junk yard truck parked in the far corner of the lot.
"You know what." Jake said.
"No, I don't... did you mean I can't talk to people?" Angie asked.
"You were flirting with that guy." Jake snapped.
"And he gave us a free bag of popcorn." Angie held up the white bag, "and I didn't have to pay my rental fees."
"All I'm asking is that you don't bat your eyelashes and smile at boys while I'm around, I'm your uncle. I don't want to see that." Jake explained as he unlocked the truck and they both hopped in.
"Blah, blah, blah... dad was right. You are bad with teenage she-cats." Angie said as she rolled down the window and placed her arm down and watched as the wind blew back her fur.
Angie jumped out of the truck with the video bag. Chance opened up the door as the two cats approached the house. Angie flung her arms around his neck and hugged him, "Hey Chance, it's great to see you again. How have you been?"
"I've been great, how have you been doing?" Chance asked.
"Awesome. We'll watch the movie later, I gotta go get settled in. Hope you're in the mood for a scary movie, muahaha!" Angie said in a creepy dramatic voice and then she ran in, Chance smirked at Jake. Jake hated horror movies.
"Isn't she a bundle of energy?" Chance grinned. Jake grimaced.
"I know. She's always been crazy, should have seen her when she was 4. The girl has no boundries. She just flirted with the video guy in front of me." Jake scoffed. Chance didn't help his bad mood by chuckling, Jake made a face, "It's not funny."
"Yeah it is, I don't even know how you're gonna survive a month of this." Chance grinned. Jake snorted and entered the living room. He opened up a can of milk and dank down most of it. Jake relaxed his head against the back of the couch and watched David Litterman un-interupted. He soon fell fast asleep.
Jake's head snapped up, he looked around. Some new program had came on, and when he looked out the window he could see night had fallen. How did he fall asleep for so long? He jumped to his feet and opened up the garage, Chance was on a skateboard underneath a car.
"Chance?" Jake called. Chance rolled out from underneath and smirked.
"Rise and shine buddy." Chance sang as he rolled back under with a wrench.
"How long was I out?" Jake asked.
"A couple hours," Chance answered, all Jake had to look at were his boots.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" Jake asked.
"Eh, it's been slow all day, nothing I can't handle, and besides you looked so cute. Fell asleep with your mouth wide open and everything." Chance peeked out and grinned at him. Jake had a feeling that having Angie around would only increase Chance teasing him.
"Shut up." Jake chucked a rag at him, so he could wipe some of the oil smeared all over his face. Jake walked out of the garage, his stomach growled and he opened the fridge. He groaned as he noticed nothing staring back at him. It was too late to go to the store. They'd have to order take out. He ran the idea past Chance, who agreed whole heartedly. Then Jake remembered, Angie was here. She had been quiet for a while. He walked down the hall to the guest room and stopped at the door. Jake knocked on the door twice. No answer. He knocked another two times, more rapidly. Should he just go in? Jake sighed and remembered all the times his parents had just burst into his room without knocking, most the times they walked in on something they were not meant to see.
"Angie?" He called. No respnse.
"I'm coming in okay?" Jake called once more. Still nothing. He sighed and opened up the door. Either expecting her to turn around and scream at him or worse, she wouldn't be there and there would be an open window blowing the curtain in that old time cliche. But Angie surprised him. She was indeed there. She laid out on her bed her back to the door, she was dressed in a big grey T-shirt and black shorts. Her fur and hair looked damp, she must have taken a shower in the time he was asleep. She was on her stomach with her feet crossed in the air, she was reading a book. He was almost ready to yell at her for not answering him, but then he noticed the white headphones in her ears and realized she probably hadn't heard him. He lightly tapped her shoulder, she didn't jump or anything like most would when they thought they were alone. She simply removed the headphones and looked up, closing the book with her book mark on the page she was reading.
"Hey you enjoy your nap?" Angie asked.
"Uh yeah... How can you read and listen to music at the same time?" Jake asked. It was a one or the other choice for him.
"It's just a skill I've developed. Just wait until I start singing along and reading. It drives my dad crazy. What's going on?" Angie asked.
"Nothing really, are you hungry? We're gonna order take out." Jake looked around the room, Angie had made herself comfortable, Jake groaned when he noticed the stereo she had brought along.
"Yum. Put onions on anything and I'll eat it." Angie said as she sat up and put her book on the desk and stretched.
"Alright then, uh... I'm sorry I just kinda came in... I knocked you must not have heard..." Jake babbled an apology.
"Oh the door was closed? I must have forgot to open it after I took the shower. I hardly ever shut my door, it's a habit. Just tell me if I'm being too loud, then I'll close it." Angie said as she stretched her arms behind her back and then added "Do you wanna watch that movie while were waiting for the food or after we get it?"
"Oh uh whatever." Jake said, he wasn't looking forward to watching the movie. He had hated horror movies ever since he was a kid. He couldn't help it, whenever he was in the dark after seeing them he couldn't help but fall into the paranoia that the killer or monster or vampire was waiting in the shadows to come in and choke him to death. He shuttered and sat down on Angie's bed. It felt abnormally soft and smelled nicely. He had to ask, "Did you wash the comforter?"
"Yeah, I did some of my laundry, and I threw in the comforter, sheets, and the pillow case... No offense but they smelled a little weird dude." Angie smiled. Jake returned the smile.
"None taken. This is salvage, everything smells weird." Jake said.
"Yeah I noticed. I'll make this place liveable by the end of the month." Angie said and punched him playfully in the arm. Jake grinned and looked down. The rug looked clean too, there were horizontal lines, most likely from vacuuming. He looked over, the oak desk was shiny too, most likely from wood polish. Where was Angie getting these cleaning supplies from? Did they even have a vacuum? And he was also sure they had ran out of laundry detergent weeks ago. Jake sighed. It really was going to be different living with a she-cat.
"Good luck with that." Jake smirked.
"Okay, well, I'm going to ask Chance if he wants to watch the movie before or after the food. Indecisiveness must run through our family." Angie said, with that she skipped out of the room gracefully. Jake stood up and followed. He sat down on the couch. The news was flashing. There was a bank robbery... hostages... the Enforcers were handling it. Sure. He quickly just turned it off. Remove the temptation, he thought bitterly. Angie bounded into the room and sat next to her uncle, she put her feet on the coffee table and crossed her ankles.
"Why are we staring at a blank TV?" Angie asked.
"Here," Jake passed her the remote. Angie took it, and the news came back on. Anne Gore was going into the specifics of the situation, 3 cats had gone in and there were 12 hosteges inside. Jake had to bite down hard when she asked about the Swat Kats absence. He prayed for the love of God Angie would just change the channel. Angie shook her head and as if she heard his thoughts began to surf through the channels.
"I hate the news, nothing but crimes and natural disasters, sometimes the Swat Kats, but all in all, its just depressing to watch." Angie placed her elbows on the arm rest and balled her paw into a fist as she pressed her head against it. Eventually she settled on a ScaredyKat cartoon. Chance's favorite. It would only be a matter of time before he came running in, most likely after he heard the theme song. Jake took this time to order the food. He grimaced at the total, no wonder they hardly ever ordered take out. Chance came out about 10 minutes later, appalled at the fact Jake didn't come get him knowing that ScaredyKat cartoons were on. Jake couldn't take much more of sitting in silence he stood up and left the room, mumbling something about going to wait for the food outside. Chance and Angie didn't make much of it as they stayed and watched TV. Jake opened up the hangar, the alarm was blaring, if the door wasn't so thick this could have posed a major problem. Jake was surprised, he had been subconsciencly telling himself the Enforcers could handle the situation. He quickly answered the phone.
"Hello?" Jake answered.
"Hello?! Finally! Razor, I've been trying to contact you guys for the past 20 minutes. The bank situation is out of control, the Enforcers won't..." Callie started to ramble the situation.
"Miss. Briggs... for the next month or so... our service is going to be... limited." Jake said, the words were like a knife in his chest. He was struggling with them.
"Limited? Limited how?" Callie asked. Jake sighed.
"Limited to incredibly serious situations, the kind that involve Dark Kat, or anyone to that extent of danger." Jake said.
"Why?" Callie breathed.
"I know that it may not seem like it some times... but even the Swat Kats can have their personal problems." Jake sighed.
"I'm sorry. Is it serious?" Callie asked. Jake was surprised, Callie was talking to him as if he wasn't a Swat Kat, like he was just another friend with a problem. Chance would get a kick out of this, Jake could tell he was begining to think Callie really was all work and no play.
"No... but Miss. Briggs, it's of great importance no one finds this out. If any enemies we're to discover the Swat Kats be in the sky at any given time..." Jake started.
"Complete anarchy." Callie finished, she sighed, "Okay Razor, what ever issues you have. Please try to work through them quickly.This city depends on the Swat Kats just as much as they depend on the Enforcers."
"Don't remind me. Goodbye Miss. Briggs." Jake said gloomily, he hung up before she had a chance to say goodbye. The Swat Kats never turned down a call from Callie Briggs before. He felt a pang of resentment towards Angie, why wouldn't she just spend the month with her mother like rest of her siblings? But he knew it was his own fault. He could have told Matt no when he asked. But he just couldn't say no to his big brother. Matt had gone out of his way to protect his kitten brother back in the day. When he was younger he had been very annoyed by it. But as he got older he appreciated it more. Matt had looked out for him in return Jake looked after Matt's kids. Angie and his three nephews, Hyde, Aidan, and Jasper. From what Jake could tell Angie and Aidan both didn't get along with their mother. Matt told him that it was unnecassary to take Aidan, but the reason Angie needed another place to stay was because Matt was afraid the way things were turning between her and her mother an actual fist fight would break out. Jake sighed and locked down the hangar and headed back to the living room. The food hadn't arrived yet, so this time he really did go outside and wait for the delivery boy. Pretty soon Angie came through the door and sat down on the steps with her uncle.
"You seem bummed." Angie commented. Jake sighed, how did she always know?
"I'm alright. How are you getting settled?" Jake asked.
"Great. Do you want to go into the city tomorrow? We can buy some food and cleaning supplies." Angie smiled, she was trying to cheer him up.
"Sure we can." Jake said.
"Okay. Then I'll make you guys a real dinner." Angie patted his back.
"You cook?" Jake chuckled in amusement.
"Yes. I live with 4 dudes, they can't turn on the stove without lighting themselves on fire. If it weren't for me they'd live off Hot pockets and potato chips." Angie explained. Jake chuckled again at the image of Matt trying to cook.
"You should go back inside. It's cold out here." he pointed out Angie's black shorts.
"I'm fine." Angie nodded.
"It wasn't really a question." Jake informed her.
"Okay." Angie gave in, she patted his shoulder and stood up, and headed bak inside. Jake smiled. It only took a few more minutes before the food arrived. He took the food inside and mentally prepared himself for the horror movie he knew he was about to be roped into watching.