Hey. Changed my penname. Also I was wondering if you guys actually like reading this. I was thinking about going back and doing a rewrite of the chapters, because I was reviewing them and I realised how shotty they actually are – but if you guys don't want to read it, then I have no problem just discontinuing the story because I have a few others I'm working on (Not sure if it'll be SP though… it is a possibility).

Here's a longer chapter, to make up for the fact that I'm being a lazy ass when it comes to updating.

Chapter Eleven: Plan – Part Two

We had been sitting on the spare sofa, opposite to the one that Jackie was now tied up to. It had been over an hour, and he still hadn't woken up. Every now and then, Dani went to check his vitals, but they were normal. Lester had gone out to get us coffee about fifteen minutes ago.

"Should we shake him?" Dani asked. "No, maybe we shouldn't. He's already been blasted with a stun gun, so shaking him wouldn't be good for his brain. Maybe if we poke him," she continued.

"In my experience, Dani, we should just let him be. He'll wake up in his own time," I said, adjusting myself on the seat. What was taking Lester so long with the coffee?

"But what if he doesn't? What if he has a strange side-effect from the electronics? What if he's in a coma and won't wake up for years?! I knew this was a stupid idea!" Dani said, throwing her hands up in the air. She stood up and walked to the chair Jackie was in, and poked him. Hard. "Wake-up! You can't go into a coma until you tell us what the hell you've been doing! Wake-up!" She yelled at him.

I shook my head.

Dani sat back down, glaring at Jackie. She crossed her arms over her chest, and slumped.

"I told you it wouldn't work. He has to do things in his own time. That's just Jackie's way."

"Then why did we do this? If he always does things in his own time, why didn't we just wait until he told us what he's been doing?" Dani looked at me, still slumped on the couch with a pout that put a spoilt child to shame.

I'm not a patient person, I'll be the first person to say that. I couldn't wait until Jackie told us. I was having a hard enough time not going over to slap him awake. But since I was the one who stun-gunned him, I was already afraid that I'd scrambled his brains enough. Most of the skips that I'd stun-gunned had always woken up at the most inconvenient times. Like just after I'd lugged them into the car, when it would have been easier to make them walk themselves to the car. Or when I was shackling their feet to the floor. Skips always had to be uncooperative. It was in their rule book.

"Because it has been enough time for us to be worried," I replied. Heavy on the 'lied' part. It had only been a month since he started disappearing to outerspace.

Dani only nodded, knowing it was a load of BS. It was a sort of valid excuse.

Jackie made a slight gurgling sound, and shuffled a little. We both looked at him expectedly. He shook his head a little, and then lolled back into unconsciousness. We both heaved sighs.

We were still staring at Jackie when Lester came back with a card-board holder carrying our coffee's.

"No movement?" he asked, settling himself on the arm of the couch Dani and I sat on.

"Nope," we replied.

I grabbed Dani's coffee from Lester and gave it to Dani, and then I grabbed mine and sipped on it. Lester joined in the staring game as we waited for Jackie to wake.

It had been at least ten more minutes before Jackie made another move. He started grunting and shuffling around even more than he had before. Then, he gave a great snort and shot up as far as the restraints would allow. His eyes were glassed over for a minute then cleared as he gained his surroundings.

"Uh... guys? What's going on?" He looked at the three of us, wide-eyed staring at him still.

Dani started, "We don't want you to be mad at us. We just want some information."

"We're not going to hurt you... much. We'll try to be gentle, but it will be easier if you just tell us what we want to know," I continued.

"Uh..." he exhaled again, "What is it exactly you want to know?" he gave a shifty look around the room.

Lester remained silent next to us, content to watch for now. I think he was enjoying the show.

Dani got up slowly from her seat, and shifted so she was directly in front of Jackie – in his face. She spoke in a low voice, "We just want to know... what you do on your weekends. What you do after you come into the office. And why you haven't told us."

I got a shiver down my back as she easily intimidated not only Jackie, but me. I swear, I would have spilled my guts, and she wasn't even asking me.

"Uh..." I mentally rolled my eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about?" he questioned, wondering a way out of it. I exhaled loud enough for him to hear.

"Not the right answer, bubs," I told him.

"Really, Jackie? All we want to know is what is so important that you had to keep it a secret, a secret, from your best friends," Dani stressed out. She had moved slowly around Jackie until she was behind him and he couldn't see her. I internally grinned, she was doing the interrogation techniques we had seen on TV while Jackie was off at God knows where.

"I swear, I don't know!" Jackie tried to swivel to see his friend.

"You don't know where you've been for ages?" I asked him, still sitting next to Lester. "That's original, I'll give you that. But also very unlikely." Unless he didn't know because the aliens were doing some kind of mind-trick on him. I have no clue where that thought came from.

"Ungh!" Jackie grunted from the slap on the back of his head – courtesy of Dani. "I'll never tell you!" he exclaimed.

"Really, Jackie?" Dani grinned from behind him. "Because I can think of a few reasons you should."

Jackie looked at me, a scared expression over his face. I simply shrugged, keeping a straight face. This was Dani's gig. I was only here for support when needed. I'd also help with the torture. It was my kind of torture – it didn't involve hitting someone with a maglight. That – wasn't my kind of torture, as I found out first hand. It also didn't involve branding irons – also wasn't my kind of torture, again, I found out first hand. I could go on about all the different kinds of torture that weren't my type.

"Now, Jackie, one last chance before your torture begins. Where have you been?" Dani repeated Jackie's name – another form of intimidation we saw on TV.

Jackie shook his head stubbornly. Inside, I was chuckling so hard the mental me was trying to catch its breath. I felt like Dani should be doing the insane evil laughter, like "Mwahaha, you have fallen into my trap!"

Dani grinned, bringing a slightly squished pink feather from her back jeans pocket. She dangled the feather in front of Jackie. With a confused face he looked at me.

"What's that going to do?" he asked me.

"I think you know what it's going to do," I grinned. "Since you won't tell us this, we're going to use another one of your secrets against you."

He looked at the feather for a second ant then started straining against his bons.

"No, no, no, no, no guys! Don't do this! You can't do this to me!" Dani moved the feather to his straining neck. His most vulnerable ticklish spot. He whimpered through a closed mouth.

Dani leaned into Jackie's ear, "All you have to do is tell us." She started rubbing the feather backwards and forwards along the front of his neck.

Jackie whimpered again, but kept his mouth shut. His face was turning red with strain as he tried not to move.

With a disappointed sigh Dani shrugged and motioned me over.

"Could you hold up his hair?" She asked me. Jackie was wearing black hair extensions that passed his shoulders. I gathered his hair in my hands and pulled is off his back. Jackie shifted in his chair and his eyes widened to the size of a sauce pan.

Not bothering to pose the question again, Dani ran the feather along the back of his neck and continued to where she could read around the front. Silently, she got more feathers front her front pockets. Jackie didn't know that she had more than one, so when Dani ran a handful of feathers along his neck he gave a large squeak and started squirming in earnest.

I used one hand to keep his hair up and used the other to hold his back to the chair.

Dani kept the torture up, but Jackie's lips were still sealed. I rolled my eyes and leaned into his ear, "You know, if this doesn't work, we're moving on to your feet."

Jackie let out a little squeal, and doubled his efforts to get away. I frowned as he kept bucking my hand off of his chest.

"Hey Lester, can you help?" I asked, looking over at him. He had a shit-eating grin, staring at our spectacle. I rolled my eyes again.

"Sure beautiful, as long as I get some photos," I rolled my eyes so hard I felt something become loose. He brought his phone out, and snapped a few photos. Dani and I posed for some of them; striking Charlies Angel poses each side of Jackie, and smiling innocently. After the photo-op, Lester held Jackie back.

"Come on Jackie. Please, just tell us." I was sitting on the couch again, staring at him and realising why Lester had been grinning. It was a fucking hilarious situation when viewed from outside.

"Nope. Never." Jackie said in stocky sentence form. He was still struggling, though he was looking thoughtfully at Lester's hands on him whenever Dani gave him a reprieve. I grinned internally. Jackie would like the situation if Dani and I weren't there, I was almost sure of it.

I went over again, and kneeled in front of Jackie. I hummed the Mission Impossible theme song under my breath and I untied Jackie's shoe laces.

"You know guys; maybe we should have brought honey." It was such a random suggestion, it threw me for a loop.

"Why's that?" Lester asked, having no trouble holding Jackie. He was simply leaning to one side and into Jackie with his arms locked.

"Well, if he ends up not telling us, we could have poured it on him and stuck feathers to him." I thought about it, and it didn't seem that bad of a plan.

"What if we used mayonnaise? Do you think that would work?" I asked.

"It might. I think we have some in the fridge downstairs," she said thoughtfully. "What do you think Lester?"

We both looked at Lester, and realized he had a red face. Finally, he cracked, and started laughing loudly. I looked at Dani who did the same, and back at Lester. He was laughing so hard he had trouble holding Jackie back. Jackie decided to use this chance to try and jump – in his chair – towards the door. I grabbed the foot I was still holding, and stopped him, but he had too much momentum from jumping the chair and he landed with a flop on his side. Still attached to the chair.

"You guys are actually, seriously thinking of doing that?" Lester asked, effortlessly hoisting Jackie up again. Jackie, meanwhile looked a little dazed, and I imagined little cartoon birdies flying around his head. He'd given it a good whack against the hard floor when he fell. We ignored him, but kept a steady hand.

"Why not? Seems like a workable plan to me," I said, and Dani nodded along.

"It's just… I've never actually had someone wanting, or more correctly, willing to chicken someone," he chortled.

"Well, there's a first time for everything, yeah? Besides, I think it would be a suitable punishment. I mean, would you like to be chickened and left to walk home? Because, we'd steal his car of course," Dani continued. I looked at Jackie, who still hadn't come back to the land of the coherent. He was looking around, grinning like a little kid on smack.

"Um guys…?" I asked, but they ignored me.

"No, I suppose not. But I'm not sure mayonnaise would work. Do you think it's sticky enough?" Lester asked.

"Mmm, maybe you're right. I think we may have some other stuff in the fridge. I'll have to check."

"Guys?!" They continued to ignore me. Jackie still hadn't snapped out of it. I think he may have hit his head too hard.

"I hear that Aloe Vera would work okay, it's pretty sticky. Got any of that stuff in the fridge?"

"Hm, I think we may have an Aloe Vera plant in the potted plants out front."

"GUYS!" I shouted, and pointed at Jackie. "I don't think he's supposed to look like that."

They both looked at him, and Dani cocked her head to the side.

"Does he seem a little…?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it…"

"Yeah…"

They both looked at me in askance.

"He hit his head. I think something got shook loose." I explained. I looked at Jackie, worried. We might have hurt something vital… like his ability to think.

"Should we shake him?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said, snapping a finger in front of Jackie's eyes. He looked at me with a dopey smile. I sighed, shoulders slumping. "I think we should take him to the hospital." God knows how many times I have been there. I could find my way there with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back.

"Sure. Dani, go warm up my car," Lester tossed her the keys, "Help me get him back downstairs, Steph." I shook my head, but gave up with the name thing.

Jackie made a gurgle sound as we lifted him up after untying him, then slurred some syllables. I frowned, wondering what he was trying to do. Next thing I know, he's trying to lift a hand to pat Lester's shoulder.

"You know, you've got much prettier hair than Jamie," he said, but it came out as almost a jumble. I took a minute to decipher what he said, but Lester beat me to the punch.

"That's nice Jackie, thanks for the compliment," he said rolling his eyes.

"And nicer eyes that Jamie too," he said, rolling his eyes to see Lester. "But I love Jamie. Jamie's good to Jackie. Mhm, he sure is." Jackie grunted a few times as we hoisted him into the elevator.

"Who's Jamie?" I whispered at Lester. He gave a shrug that said 'no clue'.

"You know, it's funny. We only met a month ago, but we are just so…" Jackie trailed off, "y'know?" he asked after some grumbling.

"Yes, we sure do Jackie," Lester said as we dragged an unresponsive Jackie across the floor.

"Jackie?" he gave an indecisive grunt. "Who is Jamie?"

"Jamie is… Jamie is…" grumble, "Jamie is…" hiccough, "Jamie is… my boyfriend."

I gasped. That's it! That's his secret! I grinned triumphantly. Even though it was inadvertently, Dani's and my plan did work… in the end. Now, I just had to tell Dani that Jackie's got a new boyfriend.