On the twelfth day, the gods did decree that there shall be a sixth chapter. And a sixth chapter there was. And, lo, the angels burst into song. And the drunks poured more shots. And the author, incapable of writing anything entirely original, drowned her lack of self-worth in a bottle of Black Velvet. But the gods forgave the author because she was born with a blood-alcohol level. The kids can't help what they're born to do. Unless they write fan fiction, in which case they make the stars of their favorite shows do all the bad things for them.
NK
"You should grab your biker jacket while you're here," Chance shot Jake a concerned look as the smaller kat shoved his paws into his pockets to keep them warm. Jake shook his head and climbed out of the truck.
"You're really kind of a she-kat sometimes, Chance." Jake teased, pausing outside the door. It felt strange being home, even if it was only for a few hours.
"You going inside? Or were you planning on staying out here in the cold all day?" Chance teased, putting a reassuring paw on Jake's shoulder.
Claire looked up from the remedial work Chance was making her do. "Lo, the psycho-kat returns from his asylum," she teased.
Jake merely studied her for a few seconds and then silently went up the stairs. "How's this working out? I've seen the news. You've been a busy kat."
Chance closed the door behind him. "Honestly? She's either completely oblivious or really disinterested, I haven't decided which one yet. You ready to do this?"
Jake shot him an uneasy look. "Not entirely."
"Where do you want to meet her?"
Jake let out a sigh. It had to be somewhere secluded. A chill ran down his spine as he thought about a place nobody ever goes to. And it would give him plenty of time to get there before she did. He grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down an address.
Chance took the paper, his eyes narrowing in surprise. "You sure about that, bud?"
Jake nodded silently.
"You make the call." Chance handed Jake the cordless house phone and he poised his own paw above the business line that led up to the kitchen.
Claire paused as the shop phone rang. She started to answer it but by the time she got to it, the ringing had ceased. Chance must have picked it up in the house. She shrugged and went back to work. Just as she got back to stripping down a totaled Mercedes of anything still usable, Chance came down the stairs.
"Hey Claire? You mind taking a call for me? I'd do it but Jake's here."
Claire shot him an annoyed look, then sighed. "Fine." She slammed her paw down on the car.
"I owe you one."
"You bet your tail you do." She glared and got the keys. "Where am I going?"
Chance handed her the address. "Said his car wouldn't start. You know where to go?"
"Not really..." Claire studied the address. Chance explained how to get there, wondering if he should gear up and follow Razor, just in case.
Razor held his breath as he barreled down the dirt road out into the middle of nowhere. He hadn't been down this road in years. Not since joining the academy. As he slowed to a stop in front of the charred remains of a home, he heard a deafening roar over his head. Razor looked up as the Turbokat disappeared behind the ruins, landing in an overgrown, abandoned farm field, vanishing from his line of sight. He rested the cyclotron beside the remains of the house and ghosted a paw over a charred, dangling shutter.
"I can't believe it's been ten years." T-Bone walked up beside his partner.
Razor swallowed against the tight feeling burning in his throat. "I... I hear the truck. You should probably... you know..."
T-Bone patted him on the shoulder and walked away.
Claire put the truck in park and stared out the window at the burned down house. "Didn't he say to take a left?" She got out of the truck and pulled paper with the directions out of her pocket. "This has got to be a joke. Nobody lives here." She chuckled. "You know what," she said out loud. "Fuck this." Claire reached inside her pocket for the little container she kept the powder in. Just as she was about to open the lid, a gloved paw grabbed her shoulder.
"Son of a bitch!" Claire jerked away, turning around simultaneously. Her eyes widened as she took in the vigilante, looking just as startled from her outburst. Her shock turned to malice. "What the fuck do you want?"
"We need to talk."
"I already talked to your friend. I have nothing to say to you!" She started to reach for the truck door but he moved in front of it.
"Please," Razor practically whispered. "Just hear me out, okay?"
Claire crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
"I don't know what T-Bone told you, but I'm sure it was the truth." Razor fought the urge to look at the ground. It was a struggle to maintain eye contact. "What happened to your mother," he licked his lips. "I... I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Claire chuckled. "You're sorry." She shook her head and threw her paws up. "Five years of misery and that's all you have to say is that you're fucking sorry? What did you think that would do? Bring her back?"
"No," Razor defended. "I just..."
"You just what? You can't fix this."
"I know that, but I..."
"Let me guess? For years you've been beating yourself up over this, and now," She couldn't seem to stop the laughter. "You want absolution."
"You have to believe that it was an accident." Razor clenched his fists. He wasn't armed, unless you counted the Cyclotron.
"She's dead! Accident or not, she's dead and your stupid apologies can't change it!" Claire spat in his face.
Razor clenched his jaw as he struggled to keep his emotions in check. "Don't you think I know that?" He growled. "You think you're alone in this? I am not a violent kat!"
"You're obviously a coward!" Claire replied sharply. "What have you been doing the past five years? Watching to see what I did? Waiting for me to fuck up my life so you'd have a reason to feel sorry for it?"
"I didn't even know where to find you until now!" Razor shouted. "I can't imagine what this has done to you," he softened. "And you don't have a clue what it's done to me." He shook his head. "You wanna know what I've been doing for the past five years? I've been drowning, that's what! Don't you think that if I could give my life to bring her back, I would? I've been over it a hundred thousand times."
"I'm sure you have," Claire turned her back on him so that he wouldn't see her eyes cloud with tears. "She was just a stranger to you. How could you possibly understand my pain?"
Razor squeezed his eyes shut. "You aren't the only kat to ever lose your mother." He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and twitched his ear, listening for any sound of T-Bone. Claire didn't respond. "And don't you think she'd be upset to see you now? You're carrying an eight ball on you right now. I know that much."
"Fuck you," she turned back around. "Maybe you know how it feels to lose your mom, but you don't know what it feels like to find out she got her head chopped off in a freak accident!"
"And that's exactly what it was!" Razor snapped. "A freak fucking accident! I don't know what else to say to you! I'm trying my damnedest to fix this, to move past it so that I can move on! And you just want to use every excuse you can find to lay around, stoned out of your mind all day!" His voice cracked. "You don't see it, but we're both the same!"
"We're not the fucking same!" Claire's hurt also broke through her voice.
"How many times have you looked at what you were doing to yourself and wondered how much more you had to do to end it?" Razor's whispered darkly.
"You're fucking crazy," she turned away.
"How many times, Claire? How many times have you ran what happened that day through your head and thrown in different 'what if' scenarios? Things that could've happened to fix it? Why didn't I use a different weapon? Why didn't I fire just a little bit later or a little bit sooner? Why wasn't I there? Why couldn't I save them?" He clamped his mouth shut, realizing his brain was starting to go into a different direction. "... her?" He corrected.
"Why couldn't I stop her?" Claire repeated. "I was at school!" She shouted. "I was doing what I was supposed to be doing! If she wasn't such a damn workaholic, she would've evacuated like everyone else!"
Razor shook his head and slid down the side of the truck until he was sitting in the dirt.
"You okay, buddy?" T-Bone's voice buzzed quietly in his ear. He sounded confused.
"And I was doing what I was supposed to be doing." Razor whispered. "Trying to save the fucking city." He shook his head. "Who am I kidding?" He snorted as something his mother had said to him once, when he was a kitten. "Anyone will listen to reason when they're face down in the dirt."
"You really are nuts, aren't you?" Claire took a step backwards. "I mean, your friend, he said you lost it, but you're not even making sense."
Razor could barely feel his claws sinking into his palms. "You're just not listening. T-Bone said he thought he got through to you, but you play a good game. And your mask is almost harder to see through than mine." His voice was low and raw. "He gave you a chance, an opening. And you're walking on him. And the only reason he hasn't called you on it is because he's trying to fix me. Do you think any of your friends, any of your... your dealers would do that for you? This isn't the first time he's had to hold me back when I had one foot over the ledge. But you... you're practically tap dancing on it, daring yourself to fall."
"You tried, Razor." T-Bone buzzed in his ear again. "I'm coming out."
Razor retracted his claws, feeling the blood soak through his gloves. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm just... I'm sorry."
Claire looked from Razor to T-Bone as he walked around the truck. "What are you doing here?"
"I wasn't going to let him do this without back up." He looked down at his friend. "You don't see how hard this is for him? If you can't, then you're blind."
Claire looked away. She knew she was being unreasonable, but here she was, face to face with the kat that had, whether wittingly or not, taken her mother's life. "What do you want me to do? Forgive him? I can't save him!"
T-Bone sighed. "I'm not so blind as to see that this isn't the only thing eating at him. But hearing him talk to you today has cleared a lot up for me. He hasn't said that much to me in one sitting since this happened. You, however, are missing a lot here. You have no idea how much you both have in common and how badly he thinks you're the one that needs to be saved."
"Alright," Claire folded her arms across her chest. "Tell me, Swat Kat. What exactly do we have in common? Besides this fucking mess?"
"You see this lovely barbecued house behind me?" T-Bone pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "Razor's parents were in there when it burned down. And, strangely enough, what was left after they put the flames out is buried just a few plots down from your mother."
Razor made a strangled, muffled sound behind him.
"When he says he knows what tragedy feels like, he ain't lying." T-Bone kept his voice even. "When I met him, I made it my personal duty to protect him. And I pushed him through it. Clearly, I pushed him a little harder than I should have because I was under the impression that he was past it, but I still got him through it. And I'll be damned if I don't get him through this! He wanted to do this a long time ago but he couldn't find you. And then when he did, he was already too fucked up to bring himself to do it. Now he's face down in the dirt, like he said, and he's doing what he should've done and the only thing he can think of to get back up and you're acting like he should just be executed right here."
Claire sighed. "I can't exactly just walk away from this, you know. It's not that easy." She looked at the Swat Kats. T-Bone was strong and held together while Razor was beyond falling apart. "Christ," she muttered. "And to think we rely on you to save the city."
Razor visibly winced.
"No, you don't." T-Bone corrected. "In spite of everything, he's responsible enough to know when his mind isn't in the right place to fight. I'd kind of like to have him back, though." He pointed at Claire. "And I really don't think that's going to happen until you make some changes because he's just going to keep beating himself up over it."
Claire was visibly flustered.
"Come on, Razor." T-Bone turned and held out his paw. Razor shot him a gracious look as he grasped the extended appendage and pulled himself to his feet.
Claire stood rooted to the ground until the Turbokat lifted into the air and was gone. Snarling with anger, she slammed her fist into the door of the truck and sank to her knees and cried.
Jake silently followed Chance back up the stairs, nearly running into him when he stopped suddenly and turned around. He looked up, meeting his friend's concerned blue eyes.
"How do you feel?" Chance gently gripped his arms.
"Chance, I..." Jake trailed off and looked away. "Thanks." He sounded strained. "I know I've been saying that a lot lately. But I've been thinking a lot about... well not just this whole Claire thing and sometimes I don't even know why I'm still here."
"Jake," Chance gave him a stern look that quickly dissolved into concern as he pulled Jake into a tight brotherly hug. "Please stop talking like that."
Jake returned the embrace just until he felt the edges of his restraint start to fray. Then he pulled himself away. "I.. uh," he cleared his throat. "Would you mind if I caught a nap before Claire gets back and I have to, you know, leave again?"
Chance could hear the silent plea to be left alone and nodded. "Just, you know, remember that your stuff is in my room."
Jake nodded and walked down the hall.
Claire returned an hour later, her eyes puffy and red and her fur a mess. "Whoa..." Chance blinked. "What happened to you?"
"From now on, you're going on wild goose chases for broke down cars that aren't even really there." She dropped the keys to the tow truck in his paw and dug her own out of her pocket. "I'm going out."
"Hey what's got into you?" Chance feigned ignorance.
"I don't want to talk about it," she snarled and slammed the door on her way out.
He looked at the clock on the wall and sighed. He needed to get Jake back before he broke curfew.
Chance knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open. He expected Jake to really be awake, so he was a little shocked to find his friend sprawled out on his stomach across his bed. Chance shook his head and started to get him some warmer clothes out of the closet. First and foremost, he dug out the heavy black biker jacket. Then he spotted an old duffel bag on the floor near their shoes, and pulled that out as well.
"Jake," Chance knelt in front of him and shook him gently. "You're gonna be late."
A pair of exhausted amber eyes opened slowly and fixed him with a lost expression. "Late for what?"
"Getting back to the clinic..."
"Oh..." Jake closed his eyes. Then reopened them sharply. "Shit!" He hadn't actually meant to fall asleep.
Chance held up the bag he'd packed and the fleece lined coat. "Come on, sleeping beauty. Before you turn into a pumpkin."
Jake shook his head and took the coat. "I think you got your fairy tale wires crossed."
"Whatever," Chance shrugged. "You wanna grab some burgers on the way?"
"Now that you mention it," Jake smirked. "I am kind of hungry."
Chance paused mid-step. "Seriously? I was expecting to have to beg you to eat something like always."
"I'll save that for the next time, when I don't feel like I'm starving to death."
"I thought you said you were only 'kind of hungry'." Chance returned the smirk.
Jake shrugged. "Aren't they the same thing?"
Chance shook his head and locked the door behind them.