Larry shifted in the driver's seat, palms gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. His passenger eyed his hands, smirking a little at how white his knuckles were. Seeing this, he relaxed his fingers but his whole body remained tense. Arriving at his apartment building, Larry was relieved to get out of such proximity with his new house guest, who hadn't said a word the entire time. She had barely looked at him. In fact, Larry noticed that she looked just about everywhere but at him. Except for that one smirk that reminded him so much of the girl's mother. He shuddered, not wanting to be living with a second version of his sister. Throwing open the car door, he reached inside the backseat, finding the box, but no tablet. His search became more frantic.
I know it was in here, I put it right there, it has to be in the car it was leaning against the box. It couldn't have fallen out when I met Emma at the park, that's impossible. Is it?
"This is a pretty spiffy plaque you have here, Uncle Larry."
Her voice made him jump, and he hit his head on the ceiling of his car. Rubbing his head, he turned around, only to flinch as he saw his niece standing two feet behind him.
Shaking his head, he asked, "Is it really necessary for you to stand so close? You're in my space."
"No, it's not."
"So are you going to back up a little?"
"If you ask nicely."
Larry rolled his eyes. "Well, at least one thing's settled," he told her, picking up the tiny crate and making his way around his niece.
Shutting the car door behind him, she followed her uncle towards the apartment building, tablet in hand.
"And what's that, Uncle Larry?"
"You're definitely related to my sister."
That only made her grin even wider.
-----
Larry showed his niece to the guest bedroom, and left her to try to get settled for a few minutes. He went over to were the exhibits were, their box resting on the glass table right in front of the couch. Sitting down, he let his chin rest on his palm as he stared at the wooden crate, wishing that it was already sunset.
"Someone must be extremely interested boxes."
Larry snapped out of his daze, cringing at how close her voice was again. He turned in his seat to find her grinning, leaning on the back of the sofa. He stood up, taking her in warily.
He sighed. "It's not the box. It's what in the box."
"And what's in the box?" she asked, imitating his emphasis.
Larry sighed, knowing that he'd have to read her into what was happening. I guess now is as good a time as any.
Lifting the lid off, he smiled down at the contents inside. Without a word, he waved his hand, motioning for his niece to come around the front of the couch. She obliged, coming to rest her elbows on the opposite side of the coffee table. Larry leaned back, nodding at the box as an invitation for her to examine the contents. She smiled and peered over the edge of the crate. When she saw the treasures inside, she gasped, her eyes widening.
"Why is there a stuffed monkey in here? And two action figures. Please tell me these aren't toys."
Larry shook his head.
"No, they're not toys. They're my friends."
His niece looked up from Dexter, who she was fingering gently as she looked the capuchin over. She had raised her eyebrows in response to Larry's statement.
"You're not serious."
He nodded, and she said, "Are you sure? Because that's even lamer than them being toys. No offense."
Larry shook his head, knowing that she wouldn't understand, nor would she believe him. Not yet anyway, and he didn't have time to explain at the moment. He needed to get to Paris as soon as possible.
"Look, just trust me, I'll explain on the flight."
He stood up, moving to grab his coat, a backpack, and some extra clothes from his own room. His niece furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, gently setting Dexter back in his place, and sliding the lid back on. She crossed the room to her uncle's doorway, watching him rush around.
"Where are we going?" she inquired.
He didn't look up, but answered, "Paris."
"What? Do you even have plane tickets?"
Larry still didn't stop packing as he replied, "What? Tickets? I...uh...I thought we'd get them at the airport."
His niece rolled her eyes. "You can't just buy tickets to Paris."
"Why not?"
"I doubt you'll have enough money to get two tickets and pay for a hotel room. I bet you don't even have reservations."
Larry finally stopped, grasping his backpack lightly.
"I have some left over from when I was an inventor..."
"Don't waste that on a trip. Are you serious? Why are we even going to Paris?"
"To save my friends."
"What, there are more monkeys?"
Larry shook his head. "No, other exhibits. There actually is another monkey, Abel."
"What? You stole these museum exhibits from where you work? And why is 'Abel' in France?" his niece was starting to run her sentences together, so Larry said the one thing that he thought would end her ranting.
"The exhibits...my friends, they come to life every night."
She stood there for a moment wondering if her uncle was crazy.
She sighed. "Okay, lets pretend I don't think you're insane. Enlighten me, Uncle Larry."
"Abel isn't in France, he's in...he's in DC," Larry told her, looking at the ground as he finished his sentence.
For a few seconds, she didn't say anything in response, but just watched him as he stared sullenly at the ground.
"You have a good 'friend' in DC? If we're sticking with the theme of museums, I'm guessing he's in the Smithsonian."
"She."
"What?"
"You said he. My 'good friend' is a she."
His niece grinned. Larry finally looked up from the ground, realizing what he'd just said. He opened his mouth to correct it, but his niece cut him off.
"Oh, so not just any old friend. A girlfriend."
Larry didn't say anything, but brushed by her, walking out to the living room. He went over to the box again, suddenly engrossed in the side of the wood. His niece smirked, leaning against the door frame.
"What's her name?"
"Amelia."
"Wait...Amelia Earhart?"
"That's the one."
His niece laughed, startling Larry. He turned away from the box to find her shaking her head.
"This is so ridiculous."
Larry looked at the nearest wall, but said, "I know, but it's true."
She laughed again, but went to her room to fill a backpack of her own. When she returned, the gold tablet was in her hands and a blue backpack was slung around her shoulders.
"Okay, I'll play along. Let's go, you can fill me in on the way."
Larry had shrugged on his light jacket, and held he box against his side, with his backpack on his opposite shoulder.
"On the way to where? You just proved to me that I can't just hop on a jet to Paris."
An excited smile graced her features as she headed out the door. "No, but you can drive a car to DC."
"What?"
"Your girlfriend can fly us, Uncle Larry."
"Hey," Larry yelled, running out of his apartment to catch up with her, "she's not my girlfriend! And will you stop calling me 'Uncle Larry'? It makes me feel old. I don't walk around calling you 'Niece Lauren'!"
"No one says that."
"Well, that's because not everyone has a niece named Lauren!"
-----
After spending close to five and a half hours in the car and lunch with Lauren, he found it easy to see that though his niece had inherited some of her mother's mannerisms, they had polar opposite personalities. Where Emma was always thinking business, logic, and had no problem sitting behind a desk, Lauren was always looking for something to do, had quite the imagination, and promised her uncle that she would never end up like her mother.
In other words, not behind a desk.
"Okay," Larry said, as they both got back in the car after lunch, "what if you had the chance to be a rich CEO, then would you sit in an office?"
Her answer was instant, and it was clear that she had already thought about this.
"No, I don't care how much money I'd be getting. I refuse to sit at a desk or a cubicle all day."
"Well, if you're making good money, who cares?"
"I do. I'd rather be doing something fun and exciting! I don't get why else people do anything."
Larry smiled at her declaration, thinking back to a night so long ago.
"Déjà vu," he whispered.
Lauren glanced at him quizzically, but chose to say nothing on the matter. For the next few hours, the pair just walked around in the museums, choosing to wait two hours to sunset before going down the Federal Archives. After stopping for dinner, Larry checked his watch. It was a quarter past six.
"You ready?" Lauren asked.
Larry could only nod. He had been waiting for this night for over a year. Striding over to the Archives entrance, Larry pulled out the ID he had never returned to Brandon. They slipped inside unnoticed, and he found himself tracing the steps he had taken so long ago into the guards' locker room. Miraculously, it was empty. He found himself an outfit, holding a petite one out to Lauren in question. She rolled her eyes.
"Right, because they'll believe that a fifteen year old girl is working here."
He shook his head, wondering what he had been thinking. As he got changed, Lauren went over to the row of flashlights hanging up on the wall.
"Cool flashlights," she said, reaching out to grab one.
Larry said nothing as he joined her, taking one from its position off the wall as well. He looked at it with a smile in his eyes before holstering it at his side. Lauren looked at hers, then down at her jeans.
"Hey Uncle, sorry, just uh, Larry, is there another one of those key chain things I can borrow for my flashlight?"
He nodded and threw one to her, and she silently slid her flashlight into the metal loop.
Looking back up at him, she grinned.
"Let's do this."
He nodded but when Lauren reached the door handle, he kept his palm against the door, not letting her open it. She glanced up at him with question in her eyes.
Larry took a deep breath. "Are you sure you want to do this? If you walk out this door and down the stairs, there's no going back. Anything that happens after that...you can't say I didn't warn you."
She scoffed. "What are you doing, making some liability claim? Calm down. It's part of the adventure."
He was taken aback briefly at how confident she was, and how much she reminded him of an old friend.
"It could be dangerous."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
He rolled his eyes and let her open the door as she grinned at him.
-----
"Wow, this place is huge."
Larry smiled nervously as he walked around, patting the large crate that held the giant squid.
"Yeah, it is, isn't it?"
They kept moving, Larry remembering exactly where he had seen her exhibit. As they walked, he kept fidgeting, his nerves growing as it got closer and closer to sundown. His eyes jumped from crate to crate, shelf to shelf, not wanting to miss her. As he flexed his fingers again, Lauren sighed loudly, stopping to lean against a large crate.
"I think we should just wait here."
Larry didn't turn to look at his niece.
"No, no, we need to find her exhibit, or else...okay it'll just be easier if we're there when she comes to life."
"Which is why we're stopping here."
Larry finally spun around. "What?"
Picking absentmindedly at her nails, Lauren nodded her head to the exhibit in front of her.
"You walked by your girlfriend, you were so nervous."
He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't help himself as he looked in the direction that Lauren had gestured. The sight that met his eyes made him stop all attempts of speaking as he took in his old friend.
Looking down at his watch, he smiled.
"It's time."
Lauren straightened up, clearly not wanting to miss anything. Larry looked back at her once, then turned the center tile of the tablet so that it completed the puzzle. A glow shot throughout the golden plaque, lighting up the area around Larry. He wasn't paying attention to it though, rather he was staring at the exhibit in front of him.
Slowly, she started to move the slightest bit, life coursing through her limbs. Suddenly the texture was visible in the pilot garments she wore, and the gleam of the tablet glinted off the goggles that sat snugly on her cap. Her tight reddish blond curls bounced a little as the life reached her face. Waxy and pale skin had become visibly softer, and a faint blush was noticeable in her cheeks. Her lips changed from a tan skin color to a light, natural pink.
The light reached her deep, large blue eyes, and Larry locked gazes with her, the twinkle in her eyes matched his. She beamed at him, showing off two rows of perfect white teeth.
It was her, she was really there. He wasn't dreaming.
For the first time in twelve months, Larry genuinely grinned.
A/N: I know I said Amelia would be in this one, and well, she was. I understand if anyone's ticked at me for not really having dialogue with her, but as an author, I felt that this was a good place to end it. She'll actually speak in the next one, I promise!
Please review!