Cena walked to the motel door and kicked at it lightly...his arms were full of cans of soda and bottles of water from the vending machines at the end of the corridor. After a second, there was a sound of locks clicking, and Chavo opened the door, letting him inside, then immediately closing and locking it again.
After an hour of driving, they had happened across some small town called Pembroke and a tiny, one-story Travellers Inn motel, which Cena headed for and, while the others waited in the stolen SUV, he'd gone in and made arrangements for two adjoining rooms. The fact that he could see a small Wal-Mart from the parking lot, and had driven past a car rental place on the way in only sweetened the deal, as it made it easier for them to ditch the stolen ride and acquire supplies before making their next move. After dropping the others off, Josh headed back down the street and left the van a short distance away, then walked to the rental place and gotten a large, 10-seater van, returning to have it waiting for them whenever they were ready to move on.
While he'd been doing that, Cena and Johnny, temporarily borrowing Jeff's shirt to wear under his coat, had headed to the Wal-Mart to gather up supplies for them...changes of clothes, duffels and travel bags to keep them in, food, some cheap cell phones-since none of them had any-and first aid supplies. The hotel rooms had small kitchenettes, so they would be able to cook something for tonight. There were a few restaurants around, but they were closed at this time of night, and at any rate, they were all too exhausted and frankly didn't feel up to dealing with any potential discovery through any fans that might happen across them.
Jeff and Beth had finished cooking some TV dinners and microwave meals about the same time Josh had made it back with the new van, and they had all settled in to eat.
"Okay, here ya go, guys," he said, handing out the drinks. For the time being, they were all grouped into this room, even though the door to the next room was standing open at the back. Rey, still somewhat dazed, but functional enough by now to be able to eat on his own, was sitting in the middle of one bed, while Eddie sat next to him, keeping a hand on his shoulder as though for constant reassurance of the smaller man's solidity. Chavo made his way back from the door and sat down on the other side, the two of them rather like sentinels in their posture and location. Beth and Josh were sitting next to each other on the other bed, leaning against the headboard, while Jeff was sprawled across the end of the bed, and Morrison was sitting on the floor between the beds, leaning against the side of one with his feet propped on the other, working on activating and adding minutes to all the cell phones, handing them out as he did. Batista was sitting at a small round table near the bathroom, sorting through the bundle of papers, silently arranging them into order. He only barely looked up when Cena handed over an orange drink, murmuring a wordless thanks, a bowl of macaroni sitting almost forgotten next to him.
"Where do we go from here?" Beth asked finally, through a mouthful of chicken nugget.
"Well..." Cena sighed, leaning against the wall and opening his soda, gulping down about half of it in a couple of swallows. "For whatever reason they put their base in Canada...we're stuck here since we bailed out of the Raw taping without any of our stuff or paperwork-,"
"It was to hide..." Batista muttered, holding up a page.
"What? To hide?" Cena came over, taking the page and looking it over.
"Yeah. Whatever branch of the government it was knew they couldn't effectively hide stolen citizens on U.S. soil without heavy risk." He sighed, the next thing he said sounding rather like he'd heard it several times and was repeating it from memory rather than forming the thoughts himself. "Putting everything up here in the Canadian woods was to help minimize potential exposure and to be able to deny it in case somehow things were found out. They'd be able to try and say America had nothing to do with it, obviously it was the Canadian government, blah blah. Plus a degree of security with a situation like our's...not being able to get the citizens back across the border without their papers."
"Not in that many words, but yeah, that's what this says. 'Plausible deniability, isolation,' et cetera, so forth, so on." He handed the paper back to Batista, who went back to shuffling through the pages.
"This is why I don't vote," Josh muttered, shaking his head.
"You don't vote because you're a convicted felon," Eddie responded, taking a forkful of noodles from a bowl that he and Rey were splitting, looking on as Rey listlessly chewed at some.
Josh shrugged slightly, ignoring the curious looks from Morrison and Beth.
"The point he was making remains valid," Morrison finally said, lowering his head and brushing his hair back some, staring at the rice bowl he was working on. "Whatever government agency it is that's doing this is fucking us over."
"And royal," Cena said, shaking his head some. "Our best bet is going to be taking Rey and all those documents straight to the media. Blow the thing wide open, make everyone see what's there. Whoever's behind this won't dare touch us then."
Chavo nodded some. "A huge scandal like that, there's no way people won't cover it. We don't necessarily have to get back to the States to do it, we can call someone here and arrange it."
"What if they don't believe us?" Morrison asked. "If I worked for the press and someone called me claiming to be say, John Cena or Eddie Guerrero and ranting about the government kidnapping people who are dead except they're not dead, I couldn't hang up on them fast enough."
Chavo made a face, half-shrugging. "That would be the problem with something this out of the ordinary, I suppose."
"Then we'll bring them here some other way, or go to them, do something to draw their attention, then bombshell them." Cena nodded. "Bring down the whole thing."
The others were silent, but there was a tacit agreement that hung in the air from that statement. After a bit, though, Jeff, voice weary and muffled through the blankets, spoke up.
"I'm tired."
"Well, we're settled in real good...got some food in us," Cena said, straightening.
Beth rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, being the only chick, I'll take the couch in the next room. You burly men can argue over who's spooning who tonight." She hopped to her feet and reached back to unfasten her ring outfit and leave the shirt half hanging loose around her waist, wearing only a black bra. "What bag are the sleep clothes in?"
"Uh, those..." Josh stammered, looking down and covering his eyes as the others quickly took care to look elsewhere.
"Oh, grow up. Like you haven't all seen me in less clothes than this and like I can't go on the Internet and find pictures of all of you naked." She pulled out a green flannel nightgown, raising an eyebrow at it as she looked at Morrison. "This is what you guys picked out for me?"
"Hey, Cena picked it out. I was going to get you the Tweety Bird two-piece."
"Ugh. Well, Cena called it right because I'd rather wear this granny gown than anything with that son of a bitch bird on it." She stood and headed for the back room. "I'm getting a shower before bed. Someone leave me a blanket on the couch." She vanished through the door and into the bathroom, and they quite audibly heard the lock click.
Cena smirked faintly. "Told ya."
"Oh shut up." Morrison grunted and crawled to his feet, pulling Jeff up with him. "Jeff and I will split a bed. In fact, we're gonna go do so right now. The rest of you argue it out for yourselves." He and Jeff pulled a couple of sets of pajama bottoms out of the bags, and without a word headed into the other room to settle in.
After a while, they had all settled into their respective spots. Eddie and Rey in one bed, Chavo and Josh in another, and Cena and Batista deciding to take turns being on guard for the night, just in case. Batista finished putting away the papers into a small portable safe Cena had picked up for keeping the documentation safe, and he was curled up in bed while Cena settled into the chair to start pulling tags off the clothes and shoes and packing them into individual bags for everyone to be able to carry.
( )
The bedside alarm clock's lights said 2:27. In the A.M., obviously. And yet Morrison heard a soft voice in the dark.
"Jeff? Hey...Jeff?"
"He's asleep, Chavo," Morrison whispered. "And right now I'd prefer to leave him that way."
There was a moment of silence, and finally, Chavo whispered back to him.
"He's not holding up real well, is he?"
"I don't think any of us are holding up real well right now, Chavo. I mean, seriously."
"Not really what I meant." There was another long silence. "I mean...he's worrying about his brother, isn't he?"
"What do you mean?"
Chavo sighed softly, and Morrison heard the faint shift of the bed in the darkness. "Matt and Angie. And now...now we have Rey and...we're bringing him back. I mean...we're bringing Angie's husband back from the dead, basically. And she and Matt have been really serious for a while now."
There was yet another long silence. Finally, Morrison answered. "Yeah. He's been thinking about it."
"Maybe he shouldn't come with us...maybe we should...I don't know...send him back."
"Why exactly would we send him back, Chavo?" Morrison's voice had a faint edge to it.
"It's not anything bad. It's just that, well...Jeff and Matt are very loyal to each other..."
"What? You think he's gonna try and do something? Maybe fix it so that Rey stays dead or something? He'll be frantic to keep his big brother happy? What exactly are you implying, Guerrero?" There was a creak that seemed much louder than it was as Morrison sat up in the bed, and Chavo could see his vague silhouette against the window.
"I'm not implying something like that, John," Chavo said, sitting up as well. "But Jeff's gonna have more conflicting emotions about this than the rest of us..."
"So what? He's here, isn't he? He jumped at the call to action same as you and me and Beth, and he stole a damn chainsaw from the back of a production truck on the way. Don't you think he could've put a stop to us already with that fucking thing if he'd wanted to? Jeff's not like that, Chavo. He's upset about this, yes, and he's upset that what he's doing, he knows is going to tear his family to pieces. But he's here and he's doing it because it's the right thing to do, so you take your little accusations and you go fuck yourself with them!"
"I wasn't accusing anyone of anything!"
"Well then maybe you need to shut your damn mouth!"
"Maybe you both need to shut your damn mouths because people are trying to sleep in here," Josh's annoyed voice broke in from the other side of Chavo's bed.
"Seconded with great prejudice and an vague notion of fingernails to the scrotums if I get woken up again," came Beth's voice from the vicinity of the couch.
There was a moment of silence, and then Morrison and Chavo both scooted back under their respective covers and got comfortable, no more words exchanged for the time being. As they fell into quiet, though, Morrison felt a hand reaching down, taking hold of his, and he squeezed it lightly. Jeff scooted a little closer, and Morrison squeezed his hand again, knowing that would be enough for now, and they both were asleep again in minutes.
( )
Cena leaned back in his chair, feet propped up on the table, admiring the new sneakers he'd picked out. Obviously he wasn't able to get his usual high-tops from a small-town Wal-Mart, but there were still some pretty decent choices there.
Eddie and Rey were all but cuddled together in the bed furtherest from the door, but he could tell Rey's sleep was fitful. He whimpered once in a while and shifted and flailed often. Every time he wriggled and squirmed, Eddie opened his eyes some, but he just held Rey a little closer until he settled back down, then Eddie was back to sleep with him.
Batista was in the other bed, and dozing, but he didn't seem to be having a particularly restful sleep either. Cena tapped his chin slightly, turning his head when there was a sound from the back room like angry whispers, but it all stopped quickly enough, so he figured it was just the others talking.
It was probably getting pretty late, and as much as things had been keeping them all running and in states of high stress, he knew he probably should wake Dave up anyway and take his turn at sleeping, but he wasn't really tired. He wasn't sure if it was just adrenaline still in his system, or if he was just too keyed up. Maybe just a little exercise would help.
Cena got to his feet, moving as quietly as he could to the door, and slipped outside. He hissed involuntarily at the bitter cold of the Canadian night, but just gritted his teeth against it, moving down a couple of doors before putting a foot against the wall and starting to try and stretch out a little. He figured he'd do a few quick power lunges, sprints, whatever it took, get the last little bit of energy used up before he went back in and kicked Batista out of the bed.
After a few runs up and down the sidewalk outside the hotel, Cena was breathing a little quicker, so he turned to stretch again, working on slowing himself down, getting back to a normal rate. His throat felt a little dry from the chill, so he was trying to hurry along, but he knew he couldn't rush his cooldown, regardless-
"Excuse me, young man?"
Cena blinked and swirled around quickly, and there was a borderline elderly man standing there. Something about him reminded Cena of pictures he'd seen of Albert Einstein, if he were wearing steel-framed glasses. Well, not necessarily Einstein. Freud, maybe? Cena wasn't certain, but the guy's appearance was definitely in the realm of some sort of famous scientist or psychologist or something like that he'd seen before. He was in slacks, a vest, and a heavy black dress coat, his longish gray hair frazzled and blowing in the wind.
"Uh...help you, mister?" Cena said hesitantly, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, I didn't want to bother you, but I'm having some problems with my car around the other side," he said, a smile of faint embarrassment on his face. "I have a flat tire and I'm afraid I can't get the spare on, I'm not quite able to get the lugnuts off. You seem strong, do you think I could bother you to help me?"
Cena shifted his gaze to the door of the hotel room a minute, but a sweep of the parking lot revealed nothing. Their van and a green car at the other end, probably belonging to the desk clerk, were the only vehicles there. He nodded, shrugging a bit and immediately flashing a friendly grin. "Sure thing, buddy, I can take care of that for you. Where's it at?"
"Just around here, in the back," the man said, turning and starting around the building, towards the parking lot that connected with the Wal-Mart. Cena shrugged and followed after him, figuring that changing a tire would be just what he'd need to get him nice and tired before bed.