trans_9 | Memory Lane's Got Some Potholes... [locked]

"The last time we played charades your mom came down on us for our 'frankly irresponsible' misuse of living room furniture. Plus it's no fun if Paco can't do interpretive dance." She tilted her head a little, curiously. "No cards on the meatship? We could rope Brainy and Supergirl into Euchre."

There was no way that the Sub-Visser would be able to trick anyone into releasing him with these two around. Especially after the attempt with Brenda.

The Sub-Visser glowered at them both, working Paco's jaw silently behind the muzzle.

"Nah, I think if we tried to play cards with them, they'd whine about how human card games are beneath their alien intellects."

There's an indignant sniff from Brainy, over where he's busy, when Jaime says that, and it only makes Jaime's grin widen.

"Maybe we can have a sing-a-long. We can pick songs Paco likes so he can sing along in his head."

Brenda ponders this, rubbing her chin as she studies The Sub-Visser's cold expression on Paco's face.

"The question is are the songs Paco likes best appropriate for public hearing. Maybe we should regale him with happy tales of our misspent youth instead. Surely happy children would piss off yerks, right?"

The Sub-Visser rolled his eyes at them both. "Yes, yes, I'm sure we'll all be very entertained by the inane adventures that Francisco shared with you nitwits. And maybe I'll share with you some of the thoughts he's kept to himself all these years."

"Thoughts he's kept to himself?" Jaime says with a mock exaggerated alarm. "Oh no, Brenda, how will we be able to stand stuff that is probably all lies anyway? After all, we don't know our friend at all, and we have the self esteem and insecurity of junior high school girls!"

Brenda puts her hands on her cheeks with a mock expression of horror.

"Woe is us! We'll just have to believe everything he says! Maybe Paco has deep dark secret misgivings about the Lunchroom Incident from third grade!"

Lie to them all you want, dipstick, Paco said smugly. They're not going to believe a word you say.

They can talk all they like. I can make you relive the memories you least want to.

But only for the next few hours, Paco countered. Then you're going to die. I lived through those the first time, and all the other times you've made me go through them again. Bring it.

"Are you sure he didn't call? No text messages? Do you remember the last conversation you had with him?" asks the police officer. Paco's sisters are outside the door, listening in, no doubt, even if they're doing it silently, and Paco and his mother sit at the kitchen table as the two police officers ask their questions.

It's been a week since Jaime disappeared. You see, because of the Crisis. Normally, they wait 48 hours, but there's so much mass chaos out there, so much strange phenomenon. It took a week of Bianca Reyes throwing her verbal weight around to finally get them to start searching for their son.

Jaime never would go missing a whole week by choice.

No officer, I totally forgot that my best friend called me to say that he hasn't been kidnapped or vaporized, is what Paco didn't say. He didn't exactly want to get arrested, and he wanted his mom to kill him even less.

"No phone calls, no texts," he said, shaking his head. "And the last thing we talked about was who could beat who in Halo."

Come on, it wasn't like Jaime would have run away from home. Why aren't they out there looking for him?!

"Do you know if Jaime ever got into any trouble? Maybe drugs?"

"No!" Paco said. "Jaime would never do anything like that. A) He's Jaime, and B) his mom would kill him, raise him from the dead, and then kill him again."

The one cop snickers, mainly because he's talk to Bianca Reyes, and yes, she probably would.

The other, however, says, "Look, from all we've seen, he's a good kid. No one's saying he isn't. But a kid like that, straight A student, babysitting his sister--sometimes kids like that look elsewhere for something to keep them going all the time. And it means they can fall in with a bad crowd, can meet people that might hurt them--are you sure he wasn't on anything? Did he ever ditch you and your other friend to go somewhere alone? You ever see him talking to anyone suspicious?"

"He isn't on anything," Paco said, hitting the present tense pointedly. "He's my best friend. I've known him forever, I'd know if he was on drugs."

He ran a hand through his hair, thinking hard. Jaime had been acting a little weird lately. He'd been kind of jumpy, and there was the whole thing with the weird dreams and the waking up in the middle of the night speaking Klingon or whatever.

"We found this weird beetle rock a few days before he disappeared," Paco said. "He took it home with him and lost it somewhere, but he started talking about waking up in the middle of the night speaking some kind of weird language, and having weird dreams. And he completely vanished for a few minutes at school, and he was spooked when he reappeared."

Did that help? Come on, that had to help.

One cop looks skeptical. The other looks thoughtful. There's been a lot of weird stuff going on, after all, but in the end, skepticism rules the day.

"Look, if you think of anything else, here's my card."

And that's it. They'd asked all their questions. No leads.

Paco sprawled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

No leads, since the cops dismissed the beetle rock. Jaime could have been freaking--

No. Jaime wasn't dead. He wasn't even going to think that.

"Rrrrgh," he growled, grabbing his pillow and holding it over his face. He pulled it away when his phone tweedled Brenda's ringtone at him.

"Hey chica," he said, trying to sound less depressed about this whole situation than he was.

Her voice is hoarse over the line, and her hand trembles even though all she's doing is holding the phone beside her ear.

"Paco? I need a favour..."

It's their common code by now. Same favor every time. She's grateful she doesn't have to explain, especially not right now when her jaw hurts and she'd rather not move it much. She thinks she's bleeding but she doesn't want to get up and check.

She's not sure she can.

"Can you pick me up? Soon? Dad went out."

'I don't want to be here when he gets back.' Is left unsaid.

Paco sat up so fast he almost fell off his bed.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be right over," he said, grabbing his shoes and putting them on one-handed.

One day, he's going to do...something to that bastard. He's going to make sure that he never puts a hand on her again.

"I'll be right there," he said again, grabbing his keys and dodging around Soledad. "Heading out the door now."

Brenda makes a weak little noise as she nods, keeping the phone by her ear until she hears the roar of his truck starting up.

She waits to hear it again before trying to get to her feet. As she pushes up from the floor, just with one arm because it hurts to move the other one, she looks down at the tile underneath her and oh yeah, she's DEFINETELY bleeding. It's everywhere. She must have cut her head. Those wounds bleed a lot even when they're not serious, right?

Her left ankle won't take her weight so she hobbles, leaning on the wall and the door, dizziness sweeping her as soon as she's upright. The world feels blurry and slow.

The truck's headlights flood the porch as she cracks the door open. She doesn't bother with getting her things, she feels to awful to pack right now. She just wants to be in the truck and gone.

Trying to hop over the little ledge of the stoop is the first mistake, the second is putting out the broken arm to catch herself. She hits the porch with a wet smack of flesh on concrete and her vision doubles up for a moment.

Vaugely she thinks that this might be beyond fixing with tylenol and sleep.

"BRENDA!"

Paco didn't actually remember getting out of his truck or getting from the driveway to the porch, but he suddenly found himself at her side, not even sure he ought to touch her.

"Dios te salve, Maria, Brenda--"

Brenda's eyes roll back dangerously far as she tries to shift onto her back. She's aware that she's in agony but beyond really feeling it which is probably for the better. Her face feels wet and she's not sure if she's crying or bleeding still.

The look on Paco's face hurts worse than any of it.

She grasps for his hand, vision dimming steadily.

"M'sorry... I don't feel well. Can we just go home?"

Paco squeeze her hand gently, fumbling around for his phone with his other hand.

"I got a better plan," he said, hitting the speed-dial for the hospital that his mom had insisted that he program into his phone. "Stay with me, chica, gonna get you to the truck and the we're going to the hospital."

Jesus, he can't lose her too.

Her eyes widen for a second at the sound of those words.

"What? N-no. I just want to go home. He'll be madder if you take me to the hospital..."

Brenda tries to move. She wants to sit up and insist that she's okay, panic steeling her... Then the coughing starts and it makes her sides scream. She tastes blood and feels consciousness weave away from her.

For the first time she's genuinely scared by it.

Paco bit his tongue hard to keep from shouting. This wasn't Brenda's fault, she was scared, and he was going to kill that jackass, and why wasn't the hospital picking up their goddamned phone?!

"Gonna be just fine, we're gonna get you patched up and you're gonna be just fine," he told her. Please please please let her be okay.

"Stay with me, Brenda."

Brenda wants to but she's so sleepy. Cold and so tired and Paco is looking down at her with the worst expression. It's an awful mix of fear and anger and...

She's not sure why she says it, and a second later when her eyes close she won't remember saying it at all.

Memory Lane's Got Some Potholes... [locked]

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