"He catches you with those, you'll be walking back to town."

Lightning set the sunglasses back on the table and slid them to where they'd previously been resting before looking up to the calm expression in Ruth Hudson's gaze. He wasn't sure what to say. They'd been formally introduced, but he'd yet to speak to her one on one. He'd never expected to meet her, there was no reason to ever expect to meet her before all of this. She was a story, a figure in his mentor's previous life, and here she was politely berating him for touching something that wasn't his.

She wasn't exactly what he had expected, though once again, it wasn't like he had much information to go by. He'd always just imagined a feminine version of Jesse Hudson, rough, and rowdy, and loud.

She was quiet, more prone to observing than taking part in any antics that went on. Every move she made seemed like it had been planned well in advance. She took her time to do anything, he'd already heard her mutter something similar to; if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

She was nearly a polar opposite of Doc, well at least this Doc, who jumped at the first underhanded remark and from what Lightning could tell, was the ring leader of sorts.

The Doc he knew had taken on more of his twin's qualities as he'd aged.

They were definitely twins, he couldn't argue that, and there were a thousand questions he wanted to ask but was afraid of possibly offending either of them.

So instead he nudged the glasses further toward the middle of the table, clearing his throat awkwardly as he crossed his arms and rested his elbows on the table.

"I uh-...sorry to intrude..."

"You're not intruding." She shook her head as she crossed the kitchen floor and started a burner on the stove. Moving the kettle to where she wanted it, she glanced in his direction briefly.

"You want to get in to running shine..."

"Just to experience it."

"You're a Piston Cup fan." She stated matter-of-factly, pulling a small box from a cabinet and setting up mugs to make tea.

"I am."

Ruth turned toward him and leaned back against the counter, pointing a spoon in his direction. "You're either an extremely intense fan, or you're working with someone in Wilmington. Which is it?"

He could feel the color drain from his face. "What?"

"We may look like a bunch of country bumpkins, Mr. Mcqueen, but we're not oblivious."

Lightning paused in his rebuttal, wrinkling his nose and leaning back in his chair. "What does that even mean?"

Ok, maybe she was more like her twin...she flipped the burner off on the stove and went about her task with obvious forced patience. Filling the mugs with hot water, she let the spoons clank against the ceramic mugs for effect to get her point across. "You've got nearly five years on Henry, you come in to town out of nowhere, knowing exactly where to go and who to speak to to get involved in this little operation-"

"I'm not sure it's so lit-"

"I'm not finished." She eyed him sternly as she set a mug down in front of him.

Lightning blinked, staring at the mug and then up at the formerly mild-mannered girl. "Should I be afraid of this being poisoned?"

"Not my style." She deadpanned as she returned to finish preparing her own cup.

He grinned before sighing quietly. "You weren't finished."

"No. I wasn't." She sat across from him, watching him in the dimly lit kitchen as the clock in the living room ticked loud enough to fill the silence that had fallen over the first floor of the house. Ruth tapped her fingers against her mug. "We don't trust you."

"What? But I was-"

She raised a brow. "Why do you think you're here?"

"So that the-...so you can all keep an eye on me..."

She grinned, tilting her head and shrugging a shoulder as if in apology.

"Well I'm not working with anyone...I'm just-" He hesitated, unsure how to phrase it. "A fan...a really avid fan, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Best I can do."

She regarded him a moment, tapping the mug with her nails again before huffing lowly and pushing her chair back. "All I can ask...I guess." She smirked faintly at that before continuing. "Henry got you a blanket and pillow?"

"He did, thanks."

"Don't mention it." She stood and offered a good night in parting.

"You're not even going t-..?" He gestured to the cup in her hands.

"Oh." She glanced down at the steam that continued to rise. "It's not for me."

He nodded in understanding, she was certainly the nurturing type.

When he was alone once more, he glanced up at the clock to see that it was well past midnight. He'd heard murmured conversation upstairs but that was definitely none of his business. They weren't comfortable with him to begin with, listening in on their conversations wouldn't earn him any points.

As much as he might have wanted to.

He yawned, debating on calling it a night and idly wondered where the light switch might be as he absent-mindedly twisted the arm of the sunglasses on the table in front of him.

"You have a habit of messing with things that aren't yours?"

He nearly dropped the mirrored aviators, fumbling with them a moment before they did hit the floor. It wasn't the roughened voice he was used to but it was still unmistakably Doc, and Lightning felt himself cringe the same way he had when he'd been found in a garage he shouldn't have been in how many years ago...

"Sorry..." He scratched at the back of his head self consciously. He was making all kinds of great impressions, wasn't he.

"Don't be sorry." Jesse replied impatiently as he stalked to the table to snatch the glasses back. "Just don't touch things that aren't yours."

He would have laughed, any other time he would have laughed at how the item in question was apparently going to be kept safe from him, propped on the kid's head, indoors, at one in the morning.

"I didn't realize they were that special."

"They are."

It was a short answer, and apparently all he was going to get.

He'd forgotten how frustrating this was.

"Did you just dump out that tea?" Lightning frowned, watching the other standing at the sink.

"She always means well...but I'm not a tea drinker."

Lightning watched as he instead set about making half a pot of coffee.

That was familiar, and if he pictured a smaller kitchen, with a slightly different layout, he could convince himself it was any other time he'd sat a table over coffee talking till one in the morning. Just trade out the dark hair for graying...aviators for reading glasses, the watch for a graduating class ring, and he'd be there. Right there. Maybe he should have chosen another time, another date, one where he didn't have to be such a stranger. He'd wanted so badly to talk to Doc, to see Doc again that he originally hadn't cared about the where or when.

Now he just wanted to at least be recognized.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when a new cup was set in front of him, and his vision blurred briefly when he glanced at the contents and could tell, that somehow, it had been made exactly how he drank it.

Clearing his throat roughly, he muttered a thanks. "How...?"

"You look the type."

Lightning could only huff lowly, and could tell he was being scrutinized by the other.

"You alright?"

"Yeah." He answered quickly before his nod turned in to a gesture of denial. "No...not really." He had to look like an idiot, a total stranger, having some kind of breakdown, in his former father figure's kitchen, in the 1950s.

It just sounded ridiculous.

"Sorry." He shook his head and pulled the coffee cup closer, still feeling the weight of the other's gaze across the table. "Um...my- my dad and I used to sit like this." He raked a hand through his hair. "It's been a while, and uh...the last time we talked over coffee was, well, the hospital-"

Jesse's expression had sobered and he looked away briefly before turning his attention back on him, muttering lowly. "I'm sorry."

Lightning let out a sharp sound, he couldn't tell what it was. "Yeah." He met Jesse's eyes. "He said that too."

A heavy silence fell over the kitchen and Lightning scrubbed his hands roughly over his face in exhaustion, physical and emotional. When he sat upright again, massaging his temples with his fingers, he caught a familiar, pensive, look.

"You ever feel you've failed..."

He stared at the coffee cup, then glanced at the half empty tea cup beside it. He took the coffee cup without thinking, as if leaving it untouched would be an insult of some kind and wrapped his hands around it.

"I think I've failed a lot of times, I mean there're times-"

"I mean people."

Lightning stared across the table, studying this Piston Cup legend who couldn't be any more than twenty-one if he was lucky. Carrying a sport on his shoulders and paving the way for future generations to follow. How many times had he heard the same comments, how they wanted to meet him, wanted to be him, if only to know what it felt like to be so talented, so successful. To be The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, living the dream without a care in the world.

Lightning could see it, at twenty-one, that kid already had too many things to care about.

He bit his lip, afraid he might bite hard enough to bleed before nodding faintly. "Yeah-" He choked. "I'm pretty sure I have..."

Letting his comment hang for a moment, Lightning realized he wasn't going to get much out of this younger version of Doc, who was just as tight lipped as he was when Lightning originally met him. He attempted to push the conversation forward, even adding the personal detail of his own in hopes of getting him to talk.

"My biggest fear was failing him...what about you?"

In the pause that followed, he was sure, sure, that he'd get something more than the brush off. There was hesitation before the door slammed shut again.

"I dunno." Jesse got up and dumped the cold coffee in the sink. "Neither of my folk were around long enough to fail them.