Hey, another update! Trip plots out some plans, and makes underhanded deals.
Beta'ed by the wonderful WtchCool.
- o – o -
Chapter two: Wishing, Watching, Waiting
Trip sat at the breakfast table early the next morning, browsing through the paper as he nursed a mug of coffee. After passing out last night in front of the specter of his mother, the night had been wonderfully stress-free. Hell, even Orwell hadn't called to bother him about missing his patrol. He had discovered the reason why when he woke up the next morning and stumbled blearily out of the room he was sleeping in.
The former vigilante had spent time in some weird places, but nothing compared to this. Still in the first stages of waking up, he'd assumed that some psycho had figured out his identity and recreated the apartment he'd lived in for three years. It had only been when he'd attempted to get Tylenol out of the cabinet behind the mirror over the sink that he'd discovered something else.
He'd shrunk. And not just shrunk, but apparently he was nine again. Trip had splashed copious amounts of cold water on his face in an attempt to wake himself up from the nightmare. It hadn't worked. His second attempt had been brewing a pot of coffee, which was now sitting in front of him on the table.
Trip sighed, folding the paper back to the sports section. God, the Pilots had really tanked in the past few years, hadn't they? Well…past few years, subjectively speaking. To his mind, it had been a few years. According to the paper, it was 2011. The vigilante sighed and took another gulp of his coffee, wondering if the rumors about coffee stunting one's growth were true. (If that was the case, he should definitely indulge. While he didn't mind being tall, being almost six and a half feet tall had some serious disadvantages. Gymnastics hadn't come so easily after his last growth spurt.)
"Morning Trip."
The nine-year-old looked up from his perusal of the Morning Arrow (his mother's preferred paper, due to the large legal section), a quizzical look on his face. That was something else he was going to have to get used to: His mother. After she'd married Hall—that bastard—she'd…drifted. Or he had. But whatever, Trip thought with a mental shrug; their relationship had really soured. This time around, he was going to make things better.
"Morning mom," Trip replied, taking a sip of his coffee. "I made coffee." His mother stared at him, and Trip cursed inwardly. He hadn't started drinking coffee until he was sixteen, and that had only been an attempt to stave off growing any taller (an effort that had failed miserably after six feet). At ten… Hadn't he thought only dinosaurs drank it, at that age?
"Are you…drinking coffee?" Dana asked, a quizzical look on her face. When Trip nodded, the widow sighed. "It is too early for this; I'm going back to bed." With that, the red-head turned on her heel and walked back down the hallway to her bedroom.
"That went well," Trip commented to the empty room. He stuck the paper under his arm, grabbed the coffee pot with his free hand, and stalked back to his room. If he was going to make any plans, he needed information first—and that meant finding out if the Cape had been sighted yet.
As he booted up his computer, Trip half-wondered if Liz had come back. Oh god. That would be horrifying…
- o – o -
It was nearly lunchtime when Trip finally emerged from his room. The coffee pot was empty, and had been for an hour. The nine-year-old was in a bad mood, due to his search turning up nothing of interest. In a desperate bid to find his mother something other than the public defender's office, he'd even gone trawling for the firm Jack Kirchner worked at. He'd nearly put his fist through the wall when he remembered that, one) Kirchner had been a founding partner and two) the firm had yet to be built. It had not been a good morning.
Trip's bad mood evaporated as soon as he stepped into the apartment's kitchen. Okay, so he hadn't found Kirchner. So what? He still had four months before anything major came up—if he remembered that year correctly, anyways. (Four months to plan what he was going to do to his father if the man didn't reveal his secret identity to mom as soon as possible; four months to find Jack Kirchner if the first didn't work out.)
"Hey sweetie," Dana said, smiling at her son. The nine-year-old smiled back at her, although Dana wondered if there was something hidden behind that smile. He hadn't smiled much since the…accident. This new, sly, puckish smile was worrisome. She brushed the feeling aside and busied herself with making lunch.
"Hi mom," Trip replied, sitting down at the table. "So, I had this dream last night…" He trailed off as he saw his mother's back tense. "Oh. Yeah," he muttered under his breath. Ten years had worn the rough edges off his memories of his dad's first "death". "Dad was trying to tell me something," he hurried on, brushing away the lingering guilt. "And…"
The feelings of guilt evaporated as soon as his mother's arms enclosed him in a tight, bone-crushing hug. Alright, he'd figure something out—what to tell his mother, what to do… Anything as long as he never had to give this up again.
After a few minutes, Trip felt his mother let go. The clanking of dishes told him that she'd gone back to making lunch; the light sniffing told him that she was holding back tears, too. This time around—if this didn't turn out to be some weird dream that Ruvi'd stuck him in—she was going to be a lot happier.
If he had anything to say about it, his dad wouldn't end up getting shot by ARK troops either.
- o – o -
Trip was playing pong for the umpteenth round on his computer when a thought hit him. Hadn't Raoul also been caught in that blast? (Alright, she'd started it. Maybe. His recollection of events was a little fuzzy at the moment—nothing a decent bit of meditation on the roof wouldn't cure.) He sighed and resisted the urge to beat his forehead against the desk.
Even if she hadn't come back, he was going to have to help Raoul out, too. She'd gone…kooky after her father's murder. If she hadn't come back, well… Raoul was still a little kid at this point. He was obligated to help her, even if he didn't like the fact that he'd have to help Scales too.
Wouldn't dad be so pleased? Trip thought sardonically as he opened up a new search page, pong forgotten for the moment.
This was just going to end badly. He opened up his e-mail anyways and sent a message.
- o – o -
By nature, Elizabeth Raoul was not a very trusting person. She could count on one hand the number of people she trusted implicitly, and two of them were dead. One of them had only gotten a position of trust in her life due to the amount of blackmail they had on each other—including the unfortunate incident from a few years ago (a few years, relatively speaking).
So, when she saw an e-mail from the effing Cape appear in her inbox, she was naturally intrigued. Alright, learning his secret identity had been accidental. How was she supposed to know his mask would slip off like that? (It made trying to kill him so much harder, honestly.) Last night's escapade had led to some interesting fever dreams, and now it appeared one of them was permanent.
If she was going to be stuck here, why not imagine the Cape as well? At least he was funny—although she'd never admit it out loud.
Coffee is still the nectar of the gods. Of course he'd send a cryptic message, Liz thought with a grimace. He had that sense of humor, the evil little todger. She smirked as she composed a reply, and sat back to wait for a reply.
There were too many odd things to consider these days. She knew three things for certain, though: One) ARK had created something that exploded and produced extremely realistic hallucinations. Two) She now appeared to be almost ten years in the past, in her childhood bedroom. Three) She really had to burn all of the poofy pink princess dresses she'd worn as a child. Why had she ever worn anything that…saccharine?
The reply popped up almost immediately.
Bite me. You can get a cup.
She was half-surprised that the tit hadn't included a raspberry in the message, but supposed there was a limit even to his childishness. Well, if she was stuck in a fever dream, she might as well have fun. And Trip was definitely a riot to be around.
Now she just needed to figure out how to blackmail her father. Getting to know her future contacts at this age was a better prospect than trying to retrieve all of the blackmail for a second time. (Besides, if this was really time-travel, there was no guarantee that those situations would happen again.)
She wondered if Trip would help her with the blackmail.
- o – o -
By evening, Trip and Liz had hammered out the barest bones of a plan. Raoul had done so reluctantly, owing to her primary nature as a criminal. Helping the hero wasn't exactly her forte. Helping a criminal wasn't Trip's forte either, but they had to make due.
Their first step was meeting up somehow. Trip's mother was far more easy-going than the employees who kept an eye on Elizabeth Raoul, which had Trip snickering for several minutes. By the time he turned his computer off for the night, the former vigilante was feeling carefully optimistic about the whole thing.
Now he just needed to make sure his mother never got within five hundred feet of Travis bloody Hall…
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Wondering why Trip hates Travis so much? Drop a line and let me know!