Chapter 6

Visitors

Part 1

Author's Note: Lookie lookie, a new chapter is up! And it's the one I've been telling you would be the big one. Bad thing is I have to chop it up so it won't drag on forever. So what took me so long to post a new chapter? Japanese class. My summer Japanese class crammed 6 months of material into 6 weeks and I had to cancel two classes, cancel volunteering for a month, skipped taiko, and stopped exercising to study for this class. Yeah, it was that hard. Now I have a six week break and I've discovered that I want to be a writer professionally (hopefully!) and I will be writing a lot more. So part 2 will be going up tomorrow, and there will be three parts total.

I found this while searching for ideas on what Melissa and Emmie would be wearing to the club. I thought this girl (of course she's not really Emmie) would look very similar to how I see Emmie looking.

Emmie picture: .

AJ really didn't know if he loved the apartment or hated it. After being on the run for years the respite was welcomed. Having a roof over his head and plenty of food was relaxing. Not worrying so much about being seen or caught by humans, especially MNU guards, was also welcomed. But there was something not quite satisfying about staying in the apartment day in, day out and having the humans come by only for about an hour or so before they went to Emmie's apartment. He thought that since it was only temporary, he would revel in it. He slept in, played with Edwin and tried to answer all his questions, watched TV, ate as much as he wanted and tried to walk around to keep his frame strong. In the evening Melissa and Emmie would return and talk about different thing, while trying to understand what he was saying. Of course having them flip through their translator book and asking him to say the same word over and over again was frustrating. They were picking up some of the language, but it felt like they were learning at a snail's pace. Then again, when he was young and was in District 9 he had to learn what the guards meant quick. It was the difference from getting shoved around or pistol whipped.

Amazingly Edwin did not only understand English, he was learning to speak it. Sometimes when Melissa and Emmie were trying to understand what AJ said Edwin took up translating in a high pitched, clicking sort of voice.

As the days wore AJ was getting bored. He felt restless, torn between the security of his current situation and his desire to be free outside. But until he could properly run again he was stuck.

Two weeks passed before anything changed, before AJ met his rival. That evening Emmie and Melissa went out to celebrate Melissa's full recovery and ability to run again. Emmie wore a sleeveless black shirt with a collar that wrapped around her neck to the top of her shirt in the front. She wore a ruffled short skirt, three inch heels and dark makeup to stand out in the darkness of the club. Her hair was curled and clipped up, some of her hair falling onto the front of her shoulders. Melissa wore skintight jeans, a purple satin shirt where the sleeves were clipped together, and a zipper in the front. The zipper lifted up to reveal a set of well toned abs. Melissa wore one inch heels that gave her no addition to her height and earned sarcasm from Emmie. They met up with a coworker outside the apartment… his names was James or something.

Later that night AJ was asleep, laying on his left side, his face in the cushion of the couch and his feet hanging over open space. His knees were bent so the couch could accommodate his height. He didn't think much of what the humans were doing. Drinking, music, dancing? It was something he never saw, so it was something he wouldn't have thought about. But at 330 in the morning the after effects of the club came crashing through the door. The door opened with a click of the lock and three people came bursting in. They were talking, yelling, irritation and concern.

"Emmie, how much did you drink?" Melissa asked.

AJ listened and didn't move, he felt annoyed about his sleep being interrupted by the stupid argument or celebration or whatever the humans were doing. Couldn't they be quiet?

"One of you need to pay for the cleaning bill for my car."

Emmie slumped up against the wall and slid to a sitting position. Melissa knelt down. "Emmie, how much did you drink?"

"Um, drank….. drank. A margarita, two beers…"

"And? That won't get you this drunk."

"And? Uh…. An iced tea, and a coke…"

"see? She'll be fine. I gotta go."

"James! I wanted to drive my car since I knew Emmie would be throwing up. You insisted on driving us because you wanted me to be in the front seat."

James grunted, he drove because had Melissa driven in her car he would have been stuck in the back seat.

"Emmie, do you mean a long island iced tea?"

"Yeah, that iced tea, and morgan and coke." She hiccupped and then whimpered. Emmie then started scooting over. "I'm… sick!"

James hoisted her up by an arm and took her to the toilet where she threw up.

Melissa's phone rang. "Fuck!" she opened the phone and said, "hi mother." Melissa went out the front door into the front of the apartment. Her mother, Dr. Amanda Etheridge asked how she was settling in and expressed concern about the charges that were on her credit card from the accident Melissa had in the rental vehicle. Melissa told her she had been very tired from flying, moving, and orientation at work and the sleep deprivation had caught up to her. Amanda expressed concern about her daughter's health and told her to get as much sleep as possible. "I know, I'm getting as much as possible." Melissa assured her. Then Amanda told her that she was enroute to South Africa and her plane would be landing in Johannesburg at 9AM. "Mother, why did you wait until you were on the plane to tell me?"

"Oh, well, I forgot you were in Johannesburg until about halfway into the fight."

"Why are you coming here?"

"Oh, I'm about to retire and I'm thinking about giving voluntary medical aid to Africans. There is a conference this week that I can use to get information and establish contacts with. Could you pick me up and let me stay at your place today until I can book a room for the rest of the week?"

"Yeah… what's the flight number?"

As soon as Melissa hung up her heart rate skyrocketed. Emmie was very drunk and would have a hangover from hell, there was an alien in her living room and her mother was coming over to visit. She needed to pretend that Emmie's apartment was her apartment while her mother was visiting, and that would require clean up and the rearrangement of furniture to convince her, and she only had hours to do it.

Melissa thought… would she need help? Could she ask James to help her? Perhaps she could pull this off on her own. She would have to get Emmie to her place, bring some pictures, comforters and other items and then clean the apartment up until it looked like her own place, and then hope that her mother wouldn't notice. There was a chance that she would notice it was Emmie's apartment since the two families had grown so close over the past five years, but it was likely that she wouldn't bring it up and would just go to her hotel room without even asking. The problem was she had so little time and a lot of cleaning to do. Amanda knew Melissa kept her place impeccably clean and to see the apartment in disarray would instantly signal something was amiss. Melissa needed help but would James go along with it?

Emmie was sitting on the bathroom floor, her head tilted to the side and tears were streaming down her cheek. James knelt down and handed her a piece of tissue to wipe her mouth with. "It feels like all my insides want to come out." James looked at her eyes, took her pulse and debated on taking her to the emergency room. Melissa came back in and James told her he was concerned about Emmie.

"She will be okay as long as she gets a lot of rest." Melissa replied. Melissa paused, wondering how she could gain James' assistance. "James, um, could you do me a big favor?"

"Ask me and I'll think about it."

Dammit, no matter what she's going to have to pay him back! She thought… maybe she could say she was staying at Emmie's house because her apartment was damaged! No, she would have already said that over the phone for that excuse to work. Maybe she could take AJ and Edwin to Emmie's place? No, she couldn't risk them getting sighted. Maybe she could clean it in a few hours… no she couldn't, the scrubbing would take too long.

"Look, my mom is coming in on a plane at 9am. I need to get to Emmie's apartment, clean it and pretend that Emmie's place is my place while she's here."

"Why don't you just bring her here?"

Melissa sighed. She placed her hand on her forehead. She muttered, "There's a Poleepkwa in my living room."

"Huh? What's in your living room?" James looked at the shadowy cavernous space from the lighted hallway they were standing in. He turned on a light that revealed the secret Melissa was muttering about.

"There's a fucking Prawn in your living room!" James jumped back behind Melissa.

AJ had been listening to them whining, arguing and crying for the past few minutes and was waiting for them to leave. He just wanted them to go away, and let him sleep. But when the living room was bathed in incandescent brilliance he jumped up, put full weight on both legs and then started yelling obscenities in his own language.

"Why is there a prawn in your living room!" James yelled.

"I hit him and injured his leg a few weeks ago. I'm keeping him here until he heals."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"That's why I've been staying at Emmie's for the past few weeks."

"How are his injuries healing?"

"It will be a few more weeks. Are you going to help me?"

"Why should I not report this?" James folded his arms and looked at Melissa. As he waited his phone started ringing the theme song of Star War's Darth Vader. James groaned and answered it, "How can your loving big brother serve you?" A pause, a muffled voice talking.

"9am? Flight 9370? You owe me dinner!" He laughed and then hung up.

"Who was that?"

"Melissa, my younger sister, the pride of the family."

"Did you say flight 9370?"

"Yeah?"

"My mom's on that fight! Wait, it sounds like there's a bit of friction between your sister and yourself."

"Long story short… my dad is the general in charge of the US army, and my sister is a star pilot in the Air Force. My family has been serving in the military since the Civil War and I've broke the tradition and became a doctor. My father is not so happy with the choice of occupation."

Emmie let out a whine since she was being ignored.

"Your father is the General of the US Army!"

"I want 24 hours."

"HUH?"

"24 hours of your time for me helping your with your deception and not reporting your friend."

"Pervert!"

"Okay, 12. Take it or leave it. I don't have time for you to think about it."

Melissa shivered visibly, but her options were slim. "Fine, help me get Emmie in the car and let's go to her place.

The humans gently picked Emmie up and hauled her out of the apartment. They turned out the lights and let him get back to sleep. He didn't know what just happened, but all AJ wanted was more sleep.

End Notes: James is the son of a general? Oh, that's only the beginning! His sister, Miranda, has some Top Secret secrets that will be revealed in part 3! Oh, and will Melissa be able to fool her mother? Stay tuned! Oh, and I must have reviews! Leave one and tell me how happy you are to see me back!