Misfits Invade the UK

Part 3

A Death in the Family

By Nick Maro

Harvey Gabor finished buttoning his shirt while standing in his doctor's examination room. "Hank, thanks for getting me in so soon. Your father would be very proud."

Hank chuckled. "Yeah, I know Dad would've been. Dr. Hank McCoy, the eternal screw up, takes over his practice and doubles the patients. Do know how many wise cracks I get now? Little smartassed teens saying, 'Let me guess, you're a doctor not a forklift.' Or they'll ask me why I don't have blue fur like in that comic book X-Men."

Laughing while he adjusted his tie, Harvey checked his appearance in the mirror. "Well, let me say you're doing a damn fine job. I'll have to get my kids in for a checkup. Heaven knows when the last time any of them have actually have been to the doctor."

"I still can't believe David is back. When they get back from Scotland, give my nurse a call and I'll squeeze them in. Oh, by the way, everything looks to be in perfect working order. You might want to cut down on the greasy foods. Other than that it's the usual, eat right, exercise and avoid stress," the young doctor told his father's college friend.

"In my line of work avoiding stress would be a miracle and especially when you have a daughter like my Phyllis. Then again, she really hasn't gotten into too much trouble since her brother has come back. He's been a very positive influence on her. Thanks again, Hank." He shook his hand then pulled two tickets out of his coat pocket, "These are for you. Skybox seats to the next Lakers game. Eat and drink what you want. It's all on me."

"Harvey, I can't take these," Hank replied looking at the tickets knowing he wanted them. Harvey gave him an insisting look. "Oh, all right. I've been planning a guy's night out anyway. Bill will shit himself when I show him these. Thanks, Harvey. Now go make a million or two." Harvey chuckled and walked out to the lobby. He checked with Hank's nurse that his insurance papers were in order. After doing so, he went to his waiting car and went back to his office.

The gentle breeze blew across a strand of hair and tickled Kimber's nose waking her. She looked around bewildered and slightly panicked. She was in the middle of a field with flowers appearing in random blooms. She could feel the breeze blow on her face. The air smelled sweet from the foliage. "Hello, Sweetie," a familiar voice came from her right. She looked up and jerked in place.

"D-daddy?" she asked nervously making Emmett Benton smiled. "Daddy, where am I? Last thing I remember is that I was shot. Oh no, that must mean I'm dead." She looked at her father again who helped her up and gave her a tight, fatherly hug.

"No, you're not dead. Not dead at all. I'm just here to tell you it's not your time yet. It won't be for a very long while." She sobbed in joy and sadness against her father's chest. "Kimber, listen, I'm very proud of you. You're growing up just fine. Jerrica and everyone at Starlight House are doing just fine. However you can't stay here, honey. You have to be stronger than this, like I know you are."

"But, Daddy, why can I see you?" Kimber asked through her tears.

"Because you choose to."

An overview of the hospital room appeared in a shimmering sort of ghostly window before her and her father. Kimber saw doctors and nurses trying desperately to revive her. "What's this? What's going on?" she asked quietly.

"That is what's going on right now. You have to go back because you can't stay. Not yet," her father said softly. "When the time comes I'll be here waiting for you as will your mother."

Kimber ran up to her father and hugged him tightly. "I never got to say it the last time but I love you and I miss you. Good bye, Daddy," she said very softly.

Emmett hugged her back just as tight. "I love you and miss you too, baby. Tell Jerrica I love her and miss her as well. I miss everyone in the Starlight House. Good bye, Kimber." He kissed her softly on the cheek as Kimber started to slowly fade from his arms.

"…AGAIN! ONE – TWO – THREE! BREATHE!" yelled a doctor pushing on Kimber's chest. "Nothing, try again. ONE – TWO – THREE! BREATHE! Dammit, still nothing."

"That's enough. She's gone," said another doctor softly putting a hand on the one performing the chest compressions. "Let's call it at three fift—" She was cut off as Kimber's heart monitor began beeping weakly but quickly built in strength. Kimber sucked in a breath and started breathing steadily. "Cancel that! Inform the family she's alive and slowly becoming stable!" The doctor let out a held breath and visibly relaxed. "First round is on me!"

Jerrica clung to David's side tightly while they waited to hear about her younger sister's condition. The nurse had told them to go back to the waiting room and to wait there. After ten agonizing minutes the door opened and they jolted from their seats. "Doctor, finally, how is she?" Jerrica was able to ask through her tears.

The doctor sat in a chair facing them with a kind look on his face. He motioned for them to take a seat as well. "Ms. Benton is stable, but it was very touch and go for a while. She came back just as we were ready to call the time of death. I really don't like using the term miracle but it was the closest thing to one I've ever witnessed," he explained in a soft and comforting voice. "When she flat lined it seemed she lost the will to fight to live. But now she's stabilized. We've upgraded her condition from critical but stable to just stable. It's safe to say she'll pull through."

David and Jerrica both sighed heavily and hugged each other. "I know it was a gunshot wound but were there any other complications?" Jerrica asked.

"The bullet grazed her left lung and she's suffered massive blood loss. But it seems you've got a tough little sister there. Normally this isn't allowed this soon but I'll let it slide this once, you both can go see her but don't wake her. She must wake on her own."

He guided them back to Kimber's room where they found that the heart monitor was beeping stronger and much louder. Her breathing also seemed to be a lot stronger. David walked up to her and rubbed her hand with his fingertips. "I love you, Kimber," he said quietly while Jerrica walked up beside him to hold his hand. He squeezed it reassuringly.

A nurse brought in two chairs for them where they sat and talked quietly in anticipation. David eventually fell asleep from exhaustion of the past day's event and excitement. Jerrica was reading a magazine while he slept and waited for Kimber to wake up. She was reading the same line over and over and wasn't able to concentrate, it was then when she heard Kimber moan and stir. She quickly woke David up. They rushed to the side of the bed as Kimber's eyes fluttered open.

She saw Jerrica and David standing over her looking down at her in a mixture of relief and fear. "daddy says he loves you, jerrica," Kimber said quietly and weakly her voice still raspy.

Jerrica laughed past her tears as they fell on Kimber's cheek. "Try not to speak, just rest." Kimber smiled at David who could only smile back at her through his own tears.

After hearing the news of Kimber's shooting Harvey Gabor had booked a penthouse suite at an exclusive London hotel. Jetta stood out on the balcony of suite where she leaned over the railing and looked at the night time skyline. She placed the bottle of whiskey to her lips and took another quick drink. With the wind blowing her hair behind her Jetta heard someone coming toward her. "Leav'me 'lone," she mumbled without looking back.

Roxy came up beside her and leaned with her back against the railing facing the British woman. "Sorry, can't do that. Can't let my drinking buddy stay depressed and get drunk without me," she said trying to cheer up the British woman next to her.

"I kill'd a man. I think it was in self defense but I'm not sure," Jetta said somewhat somberly. "John said I was in the clear. No charges are bein' brought against me." She looked at Roxy and frowned. "If I'm in the clear then why do I feel so fuckin' guilty?"

Roxy gently grabbed the bottle from Jetta and took a drink herself. She wrapped an arm around her friend and guided her back into the penthouse. "Let's talk inside, hon," she said softly. Jetta reluctantly followed and sat on the couch while Roxy grabbed two glasses. She sat down next to her and put the glasses on the table in front of them. She then set down a bottle of brandy she had found in a cabinet. "This is much better and more expensive," she said making Jetta softly laugh. After pouring a glass for each of them, Roxy looked at Jetta. "You do know I said you were my best friend, right?"

Jetta shook her head no and then took a sip of her drink. "Why would you say a silly thing like that," she asked confused. "You hate me don't you? You always have."

Sipping her drink Roxy remained silent and then spoke slowly at first. "No I don't. I was just jealous and scared that someone else was getting more attention than me. I've learned a lot about myself." Roxy quietly looked at her glass. "These past few weeks I've learned a lot about you also. I have fun talking with you." Jetta listened and put her arm around her friend. "When you left me at that pub in Scotland it felt like I was losing my best friend. I had to come after you. You're not a bad person for killing Eddie either. David says he was going to shoot Kimber again. You were just protecting her."

Jetta gulped down the brandy and looked at Roxy with new eyes. "You're me best friend too, Yank," she said after a while with a grin. "Cheers!" She held up her glass and Roxy did the same. After taking a sip they hugged each other. "So, what do you think of that detective?" Jetta asked changing the subject a bit.

"He's gay," Roxy said simply and could tell that wasn't what Jetta was expecting to hear. "While we waited for David in the car we talked. I asked if he had a girlfriend or a wife. He said neither but he has a boyfriend. I think my face turned the same red shade of Kimber's hair." Jetta laughed and emptied her glass.

"That's enough for me. It's late, I'm tired and me brain is fried," Jetta said heading to the bedroom.

"Wait up. I'll join you," Roxy said after finishing the rest of her drink. "Oh stop looking at me like that! Damn pervert." She smiled when Jetta threw her head back and laughed a little too loudly and drunkenly.

Detective John Thomas pulled the brick loose and looked inside with the flashlight. The jewels sat right where Jetta had said it would be. It was thirty kilos of the finest cocaine. "Down here!" he shouted to the other agents. He started pulling the watertight packages out and handing them to his partner carefully. "Here Denise, take care of these. The captain will have my head wrapped in my entrails if anything happens to this lot."

"What is gonna to happen to the girl who hid all o' this?" Denise asked loading each package into the sack carefully.

"Nothing. Officially she should be in so much trouble that it would take five lifetimes to work off. But she has a very high ranking friend helping her out, of course, there's me too," he smiled over his shoulder at his brunette partner.

"Gee John, feed that ego much? Seems a bit hungry," she grinned John while tied off and lifted the sack. "Seriously though, she's lucky not to be dead like her friend Stevie."

"I think she is very lucky to have the friends like she has. C'mon I want to get this back to the Yard," John said while following his partner up the slope. They put the sack of cocaine into the armored truck and watched it pull away. John paused before getting into his car he looked down the slope and at the support pillar of the London Bridge in the morning light. Very clever place, Sheila, very clever.

The phone rang waking Pizzazz with a start. "He-hello?" she asked groggily. "Okay, I'll be right down to get it." Hanging up the phone she checked the clock. It was just after seven thirty in the morning. She groaned while she got dressed. It may have been the penthouse suite but she still had to share her room. Careful not to wake Clash or Stormer she slowly opened the door and walked out quietly. She then checked on Jetta and Roxy's room. Both women were passed out in separate beds. She checked on Techrat who was asleep on the floor.

Pizzazz pressed the button for the elevator then boarded the waiting car and went down to the lobby. Once the doors opened she went to the reception desk. "Hi, package for Phyllis Gabor, you just called." She was obviously still tired. The receptionist handed her the plain manila folder with a well rehearsed smile. Pizzazz looked at it, shrugged and made her way back to the elevator.

She was almost there when she heard someone call from behind. "Phyllis! Wait up!" David did a half walk and half run to meet her. He looked like he hadn't slept very well nor had anything to eat in at least a day. "The Terrible Benton Sisters kicked me out of hospital. Kimber said I needed a shower and change of clothes."

Pizzazz hugged her twin brother with a chuckle. "I agree with her. You stink. So she's fine?"

"Well it's a long story. She flat lined around three fifteen this morning and the doctors almost declared her dead," he started explaining on the trip up the elevator. "About an hour ago she regained consciousness. She told me that she was okay now and then kicked me out of the room. I'm not to be let back in until I shower and had at least eight hours of sleep." David looked at his sister to find she was asleep leaning against the elevator wall. He shook her gently awake. "Hey, get up. We're at our floor."

As they exited Pizzazz opened the envelope. "Sorry about that I had just fallen asleep when the front desk called. Tell me about it again later. Haven't slept that well since we got here, been too worried about Kimber. Also I've been talking with Mary about new album ideas. We might go with a concept album." She let out a soft gasp when she saw what was in the envelope. "holy shit. This is the original copy of Jetta's Scotland Yard criminal record."

David quickly looked through the file. It wasn't a thick folder, only a handful of pages. "It says here she was a student at Oxford University on a scholarship. This is just about her entire life." He tiredly looked up at his sister. "I'm going to take a hot shower and think about how to ask her about this." He lowered his voice and handed it back to her. "Phyllis, keep this to yourself for now, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Do you trust Jetta?" she asked with concern in her voice making David stop before he left.

He gave her a disarming smile. "With my life. Just keep that folder under wraps. Give me a half hour to wash and wake up a bit. I'm running on fumes here." He stopped and looked at the closed bedroom doors. "Uhhh, which room are my clothes in?" Pizzazz opened the door she was staying in and he grabbed a new set of clothes then disappeared into the bathroom to take a much needed shower.

A half hour later David emerged from the bathroom, he tossed his clothes into his suitcase. Stormer and Clash were finishing up breakfast while Pizzazz was in the shower in her room. "About damn time you got out," Clash said after swallowing a mouthful of waffle. She stood up and hugged him gently. "It's great to see you. How's Kimber? Pizzazz said she fell asleep while you explained it. That exciting, huh?"

Stormer pushed Clash out of the way with an annoyed look. "Lay off, okay," she hugged and kissed her half-brother on the cheek. "Clash is just being her usual obnoxious self." Clash stuck her tongue out at Stormer. "I'm happy to see you though."

David sat at the table and picked at some of the leftover food. "Kimber is going to pull through." He explained everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. Pizzazz came in at the point where she originally fell asleep. David had moved to the couch after eating. "It sure doesn't seem like twelve hours, more like twelve days." He looked at the door to Jetta's room. "I better go talk to her." He started to stand up when Pizzazz stopped him.

"No, don't. You don't have to be the therapist all the time. Kimber told you to relax. Dammit I'm making sure you relax," Pizzazz told him pushing him back on the couch. "Now watch TV, read a book, take a nap or throw paper balls at Clash. I don't care what you do. Just relax and don't try to solve problems or be a pain in the ass."

"Oh sure, I'm the one you choose to throw the paper balls at," Clash mumbled as she chewed on a piece of bacon.

Jetta woke up to Pizzazz sitting on her mattress. "Wot time is it?" she asked without opening her eyes and still sleepy. She groaned and looked at the alarm clock. It was nine seventeen. "fuck. Wake me at noon, 'zazz. Roxy and I didn't get to sleep till four." She put her head back on the pillow when she felt Pizzazz put something by her hand. Jetta sat up and looked at the folder then up at Pizzazz in bewilderment.

"Ian sent it for you. He called in a few favors and got your whole criminal record erased. This is the hard copy of that file," Pizzazz explained quietly not wanting to wake Roxy. "As far as the police and Scotland Yard are concerned you're a model citizen."

Now wide awake Jetta flipped through the folder. "How much do you know?" she asked quietly.

"All of it. I'm a little hurt that you couldn't trust us but it's okay. You'll tell us the rest when you feel the time is right," Pizzazz said softly with an understanding smile. "David read the file as well and asked that you tell us everything. We're your friends, Sheila. It's time to start trusting us like we trust you."

"I will, Pizzazz. I promise," Jetta said quietly while flipping through the papers again. She looked up at Pizzazz with a worried look. "You're not angry are you? I mean that I never told you."

Pizzazz let out a slow breath. "No, I'm not. I don't really know how I really feel right now. Guess I'm still in a bit of shock. I'm making it seem worse than it really is." She began to leave then turned around and sighed. "David wanted to talk to you but I felt I should've been the one. I consider you family. So do the rest of The Misfits." She shut the door behind her after giving another understanding smile.

Jetta sat up on the mattress, pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She rested her head on her knees and stared at the wall behind the sleeping Roxy. She decided to tell her friends the whole truth tonight.

"So what did want with us, Jetta?" Stormer asked with the rest of the Misfits sitting in the main room of the penthouse. David had gone back to the hospital to visit Kimber.

Jetta took a sip of water before telling the rest of the Misfits her story. "As you all know I was once a member of the Azure Blades. The Blades were once a huge criminal organization in London. They were into everythin'; Drugs, prostitution, embezzlin' money, protection rackets, everythin'. When I became a member I was still in uni. I was attending Oxford University. I had scammed me way in on a bogus scholarship. Don't get me wrong I was smart enough to get in I just didn't have the money.

"Well, one night I was at a local bar. It was open mic night and I was playin' me sax when I met Stevie. She was a member of the Azure Blades. She and I became great friends. After a while she asked me to join and I was dumb enough to do it. I never touched the drugs or got involved with their prostitution rings. I helped run their money launderin' ring with Stevie as my right hand girl. Things were goin' well for about a year when things got weird. The Azure Blades leader Louie was killed in a coup.

"That was when Eddie took over. He was a right bastard. He pushed all of the departments of the Blades to their absolute limits. When he didn't get his way or when someone couldn't meet his demands they were killed as an example. This is when Stevie and me got scared. We decided to rabbit and get away from the lunatic Eddie. We had planned to take a day's worth of money that was bein' laundered. We really should've gotten out earlier. My department was averagin' about fifty thousand pounds a day. So we came up with another plan.

"Stevie was sleepin' with one of the women in the drug ring who got away with thirty kilos of pure cocaine. We hid that in a support pillar of the London Bridge that was used as a drop spot. We each split the fortyfive thousand pounds I was able to grab and split up. I joined the band The Tinkerbillies and left for the States. I then changed my name to Jetta and toured the country where I met the Misfits shortly after." Jetta finished the rest of the water and sat back.

"But Ian said the Azure Blades were moving into Edinburgh. Doesn't that mean they're still big?" Clash asked breaking the heavy silence that hung in the room.

"No," Jetta said sitting forward again. "Eddie was stupid enough to tell me his plans. He wanted the jewels that Stevie and I stole. Jewels were the codename we had for cocaine. He was goin' to sell the coke to some Colombians or somethin' stupid like that. I wasn't really listen' that much to him. But he was going to use that money to make a new base in Scotland. He also claimed to have killed Angus. I think its bullshit meself."

"I-I-I asked Ian about that," Stormer said obviously uncomfortable about the subject. "He said Angus did die in a car crash. But Angus suffered a heart attack while driving. The car went out of control and went off a cliff into the sea. He was on his way into Edinburgh from Bo'ness. I talked with John and he said that Eddie was hiding in Bo'ness from Scotland Yard at the same time. So it was just a weird coincidence that everything happened like it did."

Jetta poured another glass of water. "Just our luck, huh?" She sipped it and cleared her throat. "By the way, why did you sign the castle to the town?"

"Because they deserved it," she said simply. "Angus meant a lot to them, so I gave them a reminder of that kind man. Do you really think I could afford the upkeep on it?" She winked and giggled with the rest joining in slowly.

Jetta smiled to herself, she had finally found a group of friends that she could confide in, a group of friends who she loved and thought of as family. She smiled when Roxy put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

As the week went by, David and Jerrica stayed with Kimber to help her through recovery. She was healing faster than expected causing the doctors to release her early and put her on antibiotics. She was instructed to rest and to take things easy. Two days after her release everyone flew back to L.A.

The members of Pulsar were still staying at the Gabor Estate when David walked through the door with Kimber. They greeted her with a small surprise party. David insisted that she stay at the Gabor Estate until she was fully healed.

It was a week after she had returned when Pizzazz went into her father's room to wake him for breakfast. "Daddy," she whispered while she shook him gently, "time to get up." He didn't respond. She shook him harder. "Daddy! Get up! Please, Daddy!" Fear gripped her heart. Nervously she felt his neck for his pulse with shaking hands. His skin was cold and there was no heartbeat. "No!" Pizzazz cried and fell to the side of the bed sobbing. Hitomi came into the room and asked if anything was wrong. "He's dead," Pizzazz sobbed as she looked up at the stunned Japanese woman. "Daddy is dead."

TO BE CONTINUED IN "FALLING STARS"

PART 1 OF "FALL OF THE MISFITS"