AN: This arc had me backed in to a corner, it's still not cooperating but my goodness I was getting concerned! I missed this arc.


Doc had never expected to actually be tired of driving but over four hours round trip after nearly a week of chauffeuring the kid around and he didn't want to see that steering wheel for a while. So he'd handed the keys to Sally immediately upon returning to the home he'd grown up in and told her to take over.

"He hasn't shut up about everything he wants to show you, get him out of my hair."

"Thanks, Doc. I missed you too." She deadpanned even as she took the keys.

"You flatter me, Sally."

She grinned and watched him take the steps up in to the house two at a time before turning back toward the Escalade.

Lightning wasn't wrong, though, she adored the town. It wasn't Radiator Springs, but where the flashing neon was absent from main street, it was made up for with turn of the century buildings. Another town stuck in time, a different time than Radiator Springs by far, but still well enough away from the hustle and bustle of modern day society that made her comfortable. It made her feel at home even after just arriving.

What she might have loved more than the charming setting itself, was her guide's overwhelming excitement to show her everything. Sally hadn't seen him this animated in a long time, eyes bright as he rattled off whatever he could remember of a specific landmark or building even down to the most mundane detail. She had no idea who or what he was talking about half of the time of their outing but was in love with the cadence of his voice and how in just a short amount of time he seemed to become a fixture of the very place himself.

"I think I was making Doc feel like a relic, I've never even seen a barbershop before. He said that one's been there as long as he can remember. Same as the old grocery across the street. I guess that's been in the same family since it was opened."

Sally glanced at the building in question before checking the intersection and starting out again. "Do you ever wonder if you were born in the wrong era?"

He seemed to consider the question a moment before replying. "I have, actually." He looked away from the window and back at her as she continued to drive. "But I doubt I would have appreciated it the same way I do now, you know?"

She stopped at the red light and looked at him again before grinning. "Yeah, I do."

Sally fixed her sunglasses and pulled the visor down as they turned toward the sun, oblivious to the fond look directed at her and the silly grin on his face.


Smokey was still having a hard time reconciling this...person...that had suddenly reappeared after so many years in obscurity. He had searched and searched and searched for traces of that twenty-four year old kid he'd last seen back in 1954.

Had they really been that young...

He'd convinced himself (sometime in the seventies?) that Hud, Hollywood, The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, Jesse, was dead. It was easier to handle somehow, believing that he was the only surviving family member, than to think that he'd been abandoned by the kid he'd watched rise to the top and hit rock bottom in the span of four years.

That tiebreaker race had been surprising in more ways than one.

He'd been tempted to shut the television off. If he'd still been young and stupid he probably would have yanked the auxiliary cords right out of the system.

Instead he'd denied the announcers' comments, it couldn't possibly be his (deceased) younger brother, who's name was mentioned very rarely in town as the generations had moved up through the years. The close up of the pit crew had proven him wrong and he'd nearly dropped whatever had been in his hand.

He didn't remember what he'd been holding, only that he'd almost dropped it.

Smokey hadn't been struck speechless in decades, but he'd spent the rest of the afternoon completely silent. One of the others, he couldn't remember which, had pointed out that he seemed to be pulling a play from Hud's own book with his sudden sullenness.

The look they'd gotten for their efforts had only confirmed it.

So with startling force, he'd been made aware that Hud, Hollywood, The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, (how many names did the kid need in a single lifetime anyway?) was indeed alive and apparently well.

So he had been abandoned.

So when Doc (another name, Jesse, really?) had shown up at home, (because it was still his home) Smokey had held off his own misgivings and waited to see what would play out.

There were still moments of tension, but he'd had his say only hours after they'd met face to face after so long. He wasn't going to bring it up again, as much as he might have wanted to.

Because he really wanted to.

Even as they conversed amiably, sitting on the back porch, he wanted to just let him have it. Because how could he? How could he leave his family and never contact them again for fifty years?

Did he only send that first letter because he knew they'd seen the race...

Smokey didn't think he'd ever know. He doubted he'd ever ask. Because what did it matter in the grand scheme of things. His brother was there, alive, and as snarky as he remembered. If he put aside his own resentment he could almost piece together memories that weren't even real.

It would just take some time...


Smokey wasn't the only one struggling. Even in the comfortable silences, Doc knew there were questions his brother would never ask. There were answers he'd never be able to give.

Skipping town as an angry, resentful, twenty-something, had been the most rash decision of his life. In his efforts to leave the racing world behind, he'd left more than just a handful of people who would wonder what had happened. He'd left his name, his identity, his failures, experiences and life lessons that had driven him across the country. He'd left the people who had been present in his most formative years without so much as a goodbye.

He'd left them.

He'd found a town that was different enough that he could start over. He found a new circle of people that allowed him to live in anonymity (but really how could you be a doctor and a judge in one lifetime and expect to remain anonymous).

He'd traded one name for another. Like trading in a car when you wanted an upgrade.

Like trading for a new driver when the previous was history. He'd learned more than just driving skills in Piston Cup.

The moments of tension between them didn't go unnoticed, either. He'd just been perfecting the tactic of avoidance since he'd been in his twenties. It came easier to him. For coming from a place and group of people that prided themselves on their straight forward natures, he sure knew how to leave certain things unsaid.

He had no idea what his brother might have been thinking while he was mulling over his own misgivings but was surprised to hear him begin laughing lowly. Doc glanced toward him with a raised brow from what he'd once considered his 'unspoken for but definitely claimed' place at the back porch table. Old habits died hard.

Smokey only shook his head. "You can't make this stuff up."

He thought about it a moment before he was forced to agree, grinning vaguely. "No, I guess you can't."

If either one of them had a knack for writing it would have been a best seller.

What started out as an underdog story, turned to heartbreak, resentments, drama, you name it. Throw the kid in to that mix and it was a regular daytime soap opera.

Smokey was still laughing, and once upon a time, his younger brother would have suddenly been offended, hot headed and ready to quarrel.

It really wasn't worth it anymore.

Now Doc only shook his head in faint amusement, looking out across the almost foreign yet familiar landscape and down the dirt driveway as the Escalade returned.