The morning brought more surprises to her as she woke to find Jim leaning over her bed and staring into her face with an amused expression. Once her eyes opened however, he jumped back, his own eyes wide as she screamed bloody murder.
"What in the 'Verse did you think you were doing?!" Arcadia exclaimed, clutching the sheets around her body.
Jim looked as shocked as she did, "We-well I was....d-did you know you talk in your sleep?" Jim said and successfully switched topics.
She looked at him with a blank look, "Say what?"
His lopsided grin crept onto his face, "You talk in your sleep. Something about 'Protean Armada cads' and Mr. Bloody Arrow?"
She blushed, "Erm, well, that's a story for another time." Then she remembered what had woken her up, "Wait! What are you even doing in my room in the first place?!"
Jim blushed this time, "Your uh, door was well...open..."
Arcadia glanced to the door to find that the shoe she had tossed off last night was indeed blocking the door from closing, "Yes...well...that's entirely my fault I suppose..." she muttered, looking to the floor. Seeing the large shadows formed on the floor she looked up at him again, "Just what time is it right now?"
"Almost three in the afternoon." Jim said with an amused look.
She groaned and slapped her hand to her face. "I need to get my sleeping schedule back on track..." She sighed and slid out of the bed and began walking to the shower, "Well, I'm up already, and unless you feel the need to watch me walk around in a towel, and to have me punch your lights out again, I suggest you vacate my room."
"I'll get right on that." Jim said with a smirk as he walked out of the room, pushing the boot and closing the door behind him.
An hour long shower later and Arcadia was downstairs eating an early dinner with the rest of Sarah's happy hour crowd. She ordered a light Farlian Salad with a side of sourdough bread and butter and happily ate her light meal. Near to finishing her meal however, she found herself staring at the open front door with her mouth agape.
Two robotic police officers had Jim between them, looking glum and annoyed.
"Jim!" Sarah cried from across the room. She even dropped the tub of dishes she was carrying.
She rushed to the front door and after speaking with the cops, and some dog humanoid, the cops left, leaving Jim standing there and scowling after them. Jim picked up the discarded dishes from the floor and began carrying them to the kitchens, Sarah following closely.
" Jim? Jim, look at me. It's been hard enough keeping this place...afloat by myself without you going—" Sarah was saying, but Jim interrupted her.
" Mom, it's no big deal. There was nobody around. Those cops just won't get off my—Forget it." He said after seeing the disappointed look on his mother's face.
Sarah looked at her son, taking in his sad expression, "I just don't want to see you...throw away your entire future."
Jim looked back at her ruefully, "What future?"
Arcadia watched as he walked into the kitchens and did the dishes, as Sarah stood, looking heartbroken.
Dia sighed as she sat, suddenly not interested in finishing her salad, she went to an unoccupied booth and looked outside, where the weather had gotten drastically gloomier. It looked as though it was about to rain.
"I really don't know how you manage it, Sarah. Trying to run a business while raising a felon like--felon...fellow...fellow like Jim." The dog humanoid who was known as Delbert said to Sarah, appearing as an old friend of the family.
"Way to be subtle about how you feel about Jim..." Dia muttered, angry at the alien for saying such words.
"Managing it? I'm at the end of my rope." Sarah said. She had finished bussing the tables and now she sat down across from Delbert. "Ever since his father left, well, Jim's just never recovered And you know how smart he is! He built his first solar surfer when he was eight! And yet, he's failing at school he is constantly in trouble and when I talk to him...he's like a stranger to me I don't know. Delbert I've tried everything—" She sighed and looked down at the table before changing the window's settings to a cheery flower filled field, "Thanks for listening, Delbert...it helps."
Dia watched the woman as she seemed to age before her eyes. Jim was causing her so much hurt just by wanting to prove himself and just have fun.
"It's going to be OK. You'll see." Delbert said, trying to comfort the poor woman.
"I keep dreaming one day I'll open that door...and there he'll be just the way he was." She pulled out a small hologram locket, opening it to show a young Jim playing with various things. "A smiling, happy little boy, holding a new pet...and begging me to let him keep it."
Suddenly Jim burst through the front door, dripping rain off of him and an old reptilian slouched on his shoulders.
"James Pleiades Hawkins!" Sarah exclaimed from shock.
"Pleiades?" Dia muttered to herself. 'Who names a kid that?!' She thought as she rushed over to Jim and the reptile as the latter collapsed to the floor.
"Mom! He's hurt..." He paused to look down at the lizard, "Bad!"
"Move Jim." Dia said as she drew closer. Jim moved back from her as she knelt by the lizard, carefully prodding parts of his huge body.
"Me chest, lad." He managed to get Jim's panicked attention and Jim pushed a medium sized chest to the elder. He reached out with a clawed hand and pressed in a combination on the lock and it popped open, revealing a cloth wrapped around something round.
'He has internal bleeding...he's not going to make it...' Arcadia thought to herself as she stopped her ministrations to watch as the old lizard pulled out the cloaked item.
"He'll be comin' soon...Can't let them find this." He gasped out.
"Who's coming?" Jim asked, voicing what they all wished to ask.
"The cyborg! Beware the cyborg!" He used the last of his strength to push the hidden round object into Jim's hands before his last breath left him.
Next thing anyone knew a large ship was floating down next to the house, illuminating the building with its search lights.
"Oh!" Sarah gasped, watching the ship through the sun roof windows.
Jim ran to the window and adjusted the shade, looking out as a man with a cyborg arm led a group of pirates to their door.
"Quick! We've gotta go!" Jim called out and leapt to his mother. He grabbed her hand and proceeded to lead her shocked form up the stairs.
"Couldn't agree more, Jim!" Dia called out. "Dogbert! Whatever your name is, go ahead of me!" She said as she pushed the baffled Delbert to the stairs.
"No, you go first! You're a lady and should—" He was cut off as a small charge laser cannon blasted through the front door, narrowly missing Delbert as Dia slid to one side to avoid being hit. "Let's do it your way!" He rushed up the stairs and to the second story with Dia following right on his heels.
They rushed over to the room at the end of the long hallway and opened it hurriedly, rushing to the huge round window at the end of the room.
"Delilah! Hallelujah!" Delbert exclaimed, seeing his faithful...creature there with his carriage in tow.
Jim stood in the doorway with Dia as she kept her eye on the stairwell. Soon shadows appeared amongst the shouts of the pirates, showing that they were coming up the stairway.
Dia turned to Jim with a hard look, "Go to your mother and Delbert!"
Jim looked at her like she was crazy, "Are you insane?! I'm not leaving you."
Dia kept her cold purple gaze locked on him, "Jim, I've fought in battles with bleaker outlooks than this. Your job is to get your mother and that dog out of here. Now go!" She said and pushed him closer to his mother and Delbert.
Dia looked at the pair and saw that they were going to jump into something, with a glance back at the stairwell she decided they were taking too long.
"OFF WE GO!" Dia screamed as she sprinted to the three on the window sill. The pirates began shooting their pistols as Dia reached them and pushed with all her strength to get them all out the window.
"AHHH!" The three yelled, Dia just trying to get upright, since her body had twisted where she'd land on her head.
The three landed in the carriage. Not a beat later Dia landed on them, sitting on Jim's lap with her torso over Sarah and her legs across Delbert's shocked form. He was quick to react, however, and picked the reigns up in his hands and got Delilah to start running at full speed.
The carriage began to speed away as Sarah looked back at her beloved inn, just in time to watch as flames ate at its wooden form.
"Ow..." Dia said as she sat upright in Jim's lap. Her hand moved to her shoulder that had taken a graze from one of the shots fired at them. Blood was seeping from the wound and she just looked at it with a raised brow. "Well that's going to be a fun one to tell to Mr. Arrow..."
The other three looked at her as though she were mental.
"Doesn't that hurt a lot?" Jim asked incredulously.
"Uh...not really..." she said as everything started spinning around her, "The adrenaline is keeping the pain away...although the blood loss is always a trip." She said as she looked around as stars blinked in and out of her vision.
"She's gone crazy." Delbert said as he steered Delilah to his house. "We should take her to a hospital."
"I'll be fine." Dia said as she scooted off Jim to land between him and his mother, squishing everyone to the sides. "As long as you have some fishing line, a needle, and some whiskey I'll be a-okay."
Sarah couldn't find herself able to look at any of them at the moment as she thought of her inn.
They soon reached Delbert's mansion of a home and he rushed off to get the things he had mentioned along with some clean towels and a blanket for Sarah.
Jim led Arcadia over to a chair in the massive living room and left her to make sure his mother was alright.
"I got everything you said, but what's the whiskey for?" Delbert asked as he sat the items on a table.
Dia looked at him blankly before taking the bottle of whiskey in one hand, popping the top off with her thumb and knocking back a shot.
"For a painkiller." She said, then took a deep breath before pouring the whiskey into her shoulder wound and hissing as it soaked in. "And as a disinfectant."
Delbert's mouth was hanging open as he watched her in horror before fainting onto the carpeted floor.
Dia laughed as she took a towel to wipe away excess blood and took the threaded needle in hand. She knotted the end of the fishing line with difficulty before bringing it to her shoulder and taking another deep breath.
Jim walked in the room at that moment with his mother wrapped in a towel just in time to see Arcadia run the needle through her own flesh to begin sewing the wound shut.
"GOD DAMN." Dia couldn't help herself as the words left her mouth. She finished one stitch, panting at the pain.
"Arcadia!" Jim and Sarah both exclaimed, watching the woman who was no older than Jim put herself through so much pain.
Dia smirked, finding the situation humorous as she let the needle hang from the thread as she reached over for another shot of whiskey. Sarah hurried over to her side, leaving Jim in his state of shock in the doorway.
"Dear, what are you doing!?" She asked as Arcadia reached for the needle again.
"I have...to stitch this closed or I'll lose quite...a lot of blood..." She chuckled lightly, before hissing as she pulled the needle through again, "Usually...I have Amelia do...this, but she's not...exactly here at the moment..."
"Here, let me." Sarah said, taking the needle from Arcadia.
Dia offered the woman an amused grin, "You know what you're doing?"
"Not at all." Sarah answered truthfully, and began copying the stitches she had seen Arcadia do.
Dia groaned, holding back a scream as Sarah continued, "Well, you're not doing too bad..."
Delbert started coming to and Jim rushed over to help the man.
"Jim! I could've sworn I saw that girl—" he stopped himself as he turned back to see Sarah finishing the last stitch. "Oh my..." Before he could faint again, Jim took him by the arm and led him over to the large fireplace, where both men worked on starting a fire.
"Arcadia, I'm so sorry about everything that's—" Sarah was cut off as Dia stood from the chair, the fishing line knotted off and cut from the needle.
"Sarah, there was nothing that could be helped. Jim did the right thing by bringing in that injured lizard, how were any of us to know that he was being pursued by pirates?" Dia stumbled her way passed the forgotten soup and over to the rug in front of the fire.
Jim had moved over to a table where the round object had been discarded. He unwrapped the ball of cloth, revealing a medium sized golden orb inside. He was drawn to the object but looked away when he heard a loud thump from where Dia had been standing.
She was now lying down in front of the fireplace, face down on the carpet. "I'mma just take a nap now? Kay? Kay."
Jim found himself smirking at her as Delbert rushed over to investigate the orb and Sarah took a seat in a chair that was next to the fireplace.
Later Dia woke to Delbert talking to Sarah apologetically, "I just spoke with the constabulary. Those blaggard pirates have fled without a trace I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm afraid the old Benbow Inn has burned to the ground." Sarah sighed and held her head in her hands. "Ahem. Well, certainly a lot of trouble...over that odd little sphere." He gestured over to where Jim was toying with the golden orb, "Those markings baffle me. It's unlike anything I've ever encountered. Even with my vast experience and superior intellect it would take me years to unlock its—" He was cut off as Jim pressed a series of buttons before spinning it in odd directions. He had somehow managed to unlock it as lights spread all over the room, creating a grid of lights and dots, "Hey!"
Dia stood with little difficulty and furrowed her brows at the odd occurrence. She walked over to Jim, placing her hand on his shoulder as he gazed around him in wonder. At her touch he turned his head to her with an excited grin.
"Why, it's a map! Wait. Wait, wait, wait!" Delbert stopped his excited movements as he pointed to a particular planet, "This is us, the planet Montressor." He gasped when, after he touched the planet, the planets and stars began to swarm passed them.
"That's the Magellanic Cloud!" Arcadia said, pointing to a large grouping of stars, "The Coral Galaxy...That's the Cygnus Cross and that's the Kerian Abyss." Arcadia said, pointing to the places as they went passed. The map closed in on one planet that had two rings orbiting in an X formation. "I...I don't know what that is..." Arcadia said as she pointed to it.
The planets around it began to disappear as the map focused solely on that planet.
"That's Treasure Planet!" Jim exclaimed excitedly.
"No!" Delbert cried, not believing Jim.
"Treasure Planet?! Really?!" Arcadia exclaimed, walking closer to it and looking at it carefully.
"Flint's trove? The loot of a thousand worlds? You know what this means?" Delbert cried, his voice raising an octave.
"It means," Jim said, moving closer as well, "All that treasure is only a boat ride away!"
"Whoever brings it back would hold an eternal place...atop the pantheon of explorers! He'd be able to experience—" He was cut off as Jim closed the map, holding it and staring at it in wonder. "Whoo! What just happened?"
"Mom, this is it. This is the answer to all our problems." Jim said, walking up to her.
Dia had a feeling this was going to turn into a personal conversation so she moved back. She found herself next to one of the many desks in the room. She searched for a blank piece of paper and pen, soon finding her quarry. She bent over the desk, scribbling on the paper for a while. After the paper was half filled she went up to Delbert.
"We'll begin preparations at once. Jim, my boy, soon we'll be off to the spaceport." He said, looking out the window towards the crescent shaped port.
Dia smirked at him. She held her paper forward, "Here's a list of crews and captains that would be safe to hire. Although, I don't know if any of them are near the area." She handed the list over and he took it gratefully. "As for myself and my captain, I can't speak for both of us, but I'd love to go on this adventure with you."
"Ah, yes, well, it'd be a pleasure to have you, should your Captain accept the offer!" Delbert said with a wide grin. Arcadia didn't think anything in the world could bring him down at the moment.