#though okay there’s a handful of live tracks from something at Michigan state on the like pet sounds Big Bonus girl

[pebblezone]

Rise and shine babes I’m making this everyone’s problem 💞

[rhysismydaddy]

Felons pt. 1 (Nessian)

Nessian multichapter. Next part out probably Monday. As always, this one just sets up some stuff so it’s kinda boring. This one’s probably going to be long. And an emotional roller coaster. Just letting you know :) 

Lightly based off the book The Witness. I say lightly because I’ve actually never even read this book, but my mom told me about it. ALSO no offense to anyone who’s from/lives in Nebraska lol.

Cassian swiveled around in his chair and looked at his partner with raised brows. “She’s in Nebraska?”

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

Someone’s a little testy today. He ignores the tone and repeats, “But... Nebraska? What the hell is she doing there? And why did it take us so long to find her?”

Azriel gives him a tight look, and he realizes the reason for his pissy attitude. He’s annoyed it took him so long to track her down. 

Before he can tell his partner it isn’t his fault, he says, “She isn’t doing much. She’s completely off the grid. Which answers your second stupid question, too.”

“Okay... how off the grid are we talking?”

The woman had grown up in a penthouse, for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t imagine her living in the middle of nowhere without any of the comfort she’d lived with her entire life. 

“No cell phone or bank records for the last two years. The last time she was seen by any sort of traffic camera was before that, and it was in Atlanta.” He scrolls through something on his desktop with a frown. “From what I can tell, she took all her money out in cash and hoped on a bus.”

Nothing about that sounded like the woman he’d been reading about, but he wasn’t about to argue with Azriel in such a bad mood. “So she went straight to Nebraska?”

“I don’t know.”

His least favorite answer. “How’d you find her, anyway?”

“Well, I figured that unless she was sleeping under a bridge, she had to be paying rent somewhere. So I went state by state, looking at new property purchases under her known aliases.” Azriel sighs, running a hand through his dark hair. “But that didn’t pull up any results, so I looked at all the IDs on new renter’s insurance purchases until I matched one to her.”

His eyebrows rose. “That’s...”

“Tedious as shit.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why it took so damn long,” he mutters. “She’s been careful, Cass. I mean really, really careful.”

A laugh bubbled out of him at that. “Well, she should be. She’s a felon.”

~Nesta~

Nesta’s breath clouded in front of her as she ran up the hill, panting like crazy. Even though she’d taken up running after the move, she still fucking hated it. Especially when it was cold. 

Which, in Nebraska, was somehow year round.  

Even the summers here were cold compared to back home-

No. Not home. 

This was home now. 

California was slowly, painfully becoming a distant memory, and she had to constantly force herself to remember that Mackenzie Brooks had never lived there. She was born in Michigan. She has no family or friends. Her hobbies include reading and running (the last of which was a definite mistake to include). 

And she was her. 

God, it honestly was a miracle she hadn’t slipped up yet. 

Maybe it was still the fear that drove her. Maybe it was just that she knew she could never go back to her old life. No matter that she wanted to.

No matter that she’d picked up and left without a word.  No matter that her sisters probably thought she was dead. 

Thankfully, she made it to the top of the hill before she passed out or died, and she bent over, sucking down the freezing air. It was only October, but it was already cold enough to force her to wear three layers and a beanie. 

Despite being miserable and cold, she forced herself to go through her training course. 

Because it couldn’t just be enough to be fit enough to run away anymore. If the person chasing her was faster... 

Nesta punched her hand through the target, satisfied when the wood cracked down the middle. Her knuckles luckily had gotten used to the abuse, so when she ducked under the branch and struck again, another target went flying. 

By the time she was done, her hands and arms were tired and her body was aching for a bath. 

Or two hours on a warm, sunny beach. 

Since only one of those things was bound to actually happen, she trudged back to her cabin, praying the hot water would hold out long enough for a full bath. 

One thing about Blair, Nebraska was that somehow, the less than ten thousand people who lived here were always experiencing a water shortage. 

It rivaled the cold ass weather for her least favorite thing about the place as a very close second. 

Noticing who was parked in front of her small little house, she grimaced and amended her statement. Lack of hot water was actually third, second only to the one and only Sheriff Marks. 

He spun around when he finally heard her steps, smiling a big, ugly, fake smile. “Miss Brooks.”

“Marks.”

According to small-town social guidelines, she was being beyond rude for not calling him Sheriff. But he was a short, ugly, annoying man, and she didn’t hold an ounce of respect for him. 

And because she wasn’t completely fake, she didn’t bother hiding it. 

“What are you doing on my property?”

His smile dimmed as his eyes beady eyes narrowed slightly. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. You never come into town. And here in Blair, we take care of each other.”

That right there was the reason for her dislike; Sheriff Marks was an insatiably curious man. 

And ever since she’d shown up a year ago, he’d been trying to put together the puzzle of why a moderately attractive young woman would move to the middle of butt-fucking nowhere. 

“I’m fine.”

She wanted to walk by him and go inside, where she could blissfully lock him out, but she had a list of rules now, and not putting her back to people she didn’t know or like was at the top of it. 

“Okay, sure, but-”

“Listen, Marks. I appreciate this... gesture, but I moved here to be left alone. I’d appreciate it if you would respect that.” It was the most she’d ever said to him, and he looked a little shocked. “I think I’ve made it more than clear.”

His face went somehow even ruddier, and for a split second, she regretted the harsh words. 

She couldn’t have people caring about her, though. When people cared, they stopped by more and felt entitled to know your business. Neither of which were things she wanted. 

So she just raised a brow and shot a meaningful glance to his cruiser. 

“Yes. It’s perfectly clear exactly who you are.” 

She almost rolled her eyes at the attempted insult, thankful when he finally turned to leave. As he was pulling away, she united her muddy shoes and got her house key from her sock, grimacing at how tight her back was when she stood up. 

Inside, she went through and made sure every door and window was locked, a habit she’d picked up two years ago and hadn’t been able to shake. 

God apparently was looking out for her today, because when she finally made it upstairs, there was enough hot water to fill the tub. 

When she sunk down to her shoulders and closed her eyes, enjoying the moment of peace. But then images of her sisters’ faces, the ocean, and her old home popped up uninvited in her head. 

It was always quiet moments like these when she found it the hardest to shake the memories of who she used to be. And since Nebraska was always fucking quiet... 

Nesta reminded herself of why she was here; why it had been necessary to leave. She reminded herself that her family was safer with her gone, that she was safer. 

But the hole in her chest refused to listen and close up. 

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she was too tired to even brush it away and chastise herself. Because for the first time in twenty-five years, she admitted she was lonely. 

She’d been alone for most of her life, but there was a difference between alone and lonely. Even when she’d isolated herself from her family and friends, they’d still been there for her. 

But now... she had no one here. And she’d never felt so alone in her life. 

It was horrible enough to make her consider going back, despite the risks. 

This is home now, she told herself, dunking under the water to wash away the thoughts hounding her. You didn’t work your ass off to get safe just to bitch out after a year. 

Coming up and gasping for air, she went through her cover, just like she did every night. 

“My name is Mackenzie Brooks, nickname Mackie. I’m from Michigan, but I moved to Nebraska last year to start over. I like to read and run. I’m twenty-five.” Taking a deep breathe, she finished, “I don’t have any family.” 

No amount of time under the water could ebb the sting of those words, though.

~Cassian~

Cassian was honestly a little surprised he hadn’t gotten fired. 

He absolutely hated his orders, and he’d made that more than clear. They’d come straight from Command and “weren’t negotiable,” but that didn’t mean he hadn’t tried. 

Calling his boss a two-faced asshole might’ve been a bit much, but it felt justified in the moment.

Because in all the time he’d spent searching for Nesta Archeron, he’d always pictured the day he’d finally track her down and slap some cuffs on her wrists, haul her away to jail.

He’d never imagined he’d be given orders to find out what she knew first. 

And he’d also never imagined having to do so in fucking Nebraska. 

An hour in the state, and he already hated it. He was from Boston, so he didn’t mind the cold weather, but the lack of buildings over thirty feet was a shock to the system. 

That, alongside the fact that everyone here was wearing some form of plaid, only worsened his mood. 

It wasn’t like he cared about her or anything, but he’d never really liked undercover work. Deceiving a woman--no matter that she was a criminal--never felt right to him. 

But orders were orders. 

He had to find out why she’d run, what she knew about what had happened, and if she had any proof. The goal was to get it all recorded, so he had to carry around a stupid little tap recorder in his jacket pocket. 

Maybe she’d meet him and just spill her guts immediately. That’d be ideal, but it seemed pretty fucking unlikely. At the very least, he’d have to get her to trust him enough to talk about the events of two years ago.

He drove the crappy old truck Azriel had gotten him through the small town, gaining the eyes of pretty much every person he passed. 

Not a lot of new people, apparently.

Ignoring them, he drove to the address of a small house on the outskirts of town. Or home for however long it took him to get close to her. 

Gods, I hope she’s talkative, he thought, walking up the creaky stairs and shouldering the door open. 

Quiet and small, but at least it was clean. 

Throwing his bag down, Cassian grabbed his laptop and started to get to work. 

~

Three hours and a trip to the grocery store later, he’d learned absolutely nothing Nesta--or Mackenzie Brooks, rather. 

There had been nothing online, and no one in the store had much to say besides, “She moved here a year ago. Keeps to herself.”

Great. 

Luckily, he had a reason to go see her. They were neighbors. Kind of. 

Her house was further out of town than his, and she owned the land around it, so she didn’t actually have neighbors. But he lived within a two mile radius, so he counted it. 

Which is why he found himself sitting in her gravel driveway, eyebrows high on his forehead, staring at the place.

And for the first time, he questioned if Azriel was right. 

Because the woman he’d read about... she definitely didn’t seem the type to live here. 

The porch was missing floor boards, the roof was caving in on one side, and the paint on the outside of the house was peeling off. The only thing that looked somewhat new was the front door. 

It had three locks and seemed to be a little heavy duty compared to the house, which made it stand out in a pretty obvious way.

Stepping out of the car, he walked up to get a better look, avoiding the holes in the floor. The house was quiet, and he knocked on the door, finding it to be solid and heavy. 

No answer. 

He knocked again, waiting a few minutes. Then he decided to be nosy and peek in the window. 

A couch and dining table were all that was visible, furthering his opinion that she couldn’t actually live here. 

She’d grown up in one of the nicest apartment buildings in California. Her father had been a wealthy real-estate tycoon. She’d gone to private school and sailing camp, for Christ’s sake. 

There was no way she lived here. 

That theory was proven very soundly incorrect a second later when he felt something tap the back of his head. Repressing the jump that rose from not hearing anyone sneak up on him, he straightened and turned around. 

And found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun into the surprisingly beautiful, angry face of Nesta Archeron. 

“You have five seconds to get the hell off my porch.” 

Shock ran through his system like lightening. For a few reasons, the least of which was the gun. 

For starters, pictures didn’t at all do her justice, because she was probably the most attractive thing Cassian had ever laid eyes on. And that was with mud splattered on her face, hair in a ponytail, and athletic clothes covering her thin frame. 

Then there was the fact that Azriel had been completely correct. Nesta Archeron, pampered little trust fund princess, was living here. In Nebraska. Completely off the grid. By herself. 

The gun was also a surprise, but not as much as the way she was holding it. Her feet were squared, her shoulders lined up to absorb the kickback if she fired. She looked... she looked like she knew what she was doing. 

She raised a brow, reminding him of the fact that he still hadn’t spoken. 

And remembering who he was supposed to be, what he was supposed to do, he ignored the gun and smiled broadly. “Or what?”

“Or I will shoot you,” she responded calmly, hand pulling back the fore-end to load the gun with a snap. 

“You aren’t going to shoot me,” he assured her. “I brought you a pie.” He held up the baked good and grinned. It was from the grocery store, but it still counted, right? “It’s blueberry.”

“What? Who the fuck are you? And why are you here?”

Sticking out a hand that she ignored, he said, “Cassian. I’m here because I just moved in to the place about a mile from here, and I wanted to meet my neighbors. I gotta say, I’m loving the hospitality.”

Nesta ignored the joke and asked incredulously, “You moved here?”

He nodded. 

She just narrowed her eyes, not buying it apparently. 

Good God, “stand-off-ish” didn’t begin to cover it. 

He was having a difficult time wrapping his head around the fact that this was the same woman who’d gone to UC Santa Barbara, liked to surf, and had dated a movie star.

“But what about the-”

“I hate pie.”

He scoffed, leaning against the crumbling wall of her house like he was unbothered by the rejection in her voice. “No one hates pie.”

Nesta shrugged, jerking her chin towards his truck in a clear get the fuck out manner. 

“I’ll leave if you tell me your name,” he bargained, acting like he didn’t know who she was already.

There was a pause of silence, and a bit of sadness seeped into her bright blue eyes. “Mackenzie.”

Mackenzie Brooks, one of her aliases.  

“Pretty name.”

“Leave.”

“Sweetheart, I honestly can’t believe you’re trying so hard to get rid of me. I’m the best looking guy around here.”

That might very well be true, considering he hadn’t seen a single person under the age of fifty when he’d gone out earlier. 

“And what if I’m not looking for a man?”

“I have a female cousin you could date instead.”

Her lips twitched, and it made him a little too happy to see. “If I take the pie, will you leave?”

“Counteroffer. We split the pie, then I’ll leave.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Who the hell offers someone half a pie?”

“I was planning on giving you the whole pie, but I didn’t know you’d be so beautiful. And feisty.” He ran his eyes over her slowly. “A quality I never even knew I liked.”

“The urge to shoot you just increased.”

Cassian waggled his eyebrows. “So passionate.”

Nesta just sighed, finally lowering the gun. She engaged the safety and leaned it against the door, then snatched the pie from his hands and walked to the porch railing. 

He noticed she didn’t turn her back to him the entire time, and she she kept the gun in arm’s reach. 

What the hell had she been through?

His train of thought was cut off when he heard a splat. Nesta came back to him, one crumpled half of the pie lying upside down in the lid, the other in the original container. She shoved the crumpled half toward him. “Now leave.”

“How did you even cut it? Do you have a knife hidden between your breasts?”

It was a miracle she didn’t slap him for that one. She just narrowed her eyes again and said, “Yes.”

He honestly believed her. 

Cassian sighed, knowing he had to actually leave now. “Well, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll do. It was lovely to meet you, Mackenzie.”

“Please just leave.”

Ouch.

He laughed and walked to his truck, calling out, “I’ll see you soon, neighbor!”

Nesta frowned at that, but he ignored it and grinned back. 

She stood on the porch watching him drive away until he was a certain distance, then picked up her stuff and unlocked the door. 

Well, Azriel had definitely been right: she was being very, very careful. 

But why? 

Cassian had no idea, but he was definitely going to find out. 

_____________________________________________________

Part 2

@sjm-things​ @santas-dwynwen​ @thebitchupstairs​ @sayosdreams​ @perseusannabeth​ @cursebreaker29​ @a-bit-of-a-cactus​ @elriel4life​ @girl-who-reads-the-books​ @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln​ @highqueenofelfhame​ @tswaney17​ @rowanisahunk​ @superspiritfestival​ @studyliketate​ @over300books​ @justgiu12​ @maastrash​ @aesthetics-11​ @bamchickawowow​ @b00kworm​ @sleeping-and-books​ @musicmaam​ @hizqueen4life​ @maybekindasortaace​

[xoxo-nikki-xoxo]

Bad at love

New baby Mikaelson sister

Side note: Random idea I had gotten last night. Don’t know if I'll make her a new OC but here it goes. Imagine inspired by Bad at love by Hasley

Word count: 1,028

She has a heart for love like Rebekah, a thirst like Kol, Elijah's remorse/quilt, Klaus temper and jealousy, and hates being a vampire like Finn.

-----------------------------------------------------

Holding his body in her hands Rose cried; this can't keep happening to her. Not again. She had lost control to many times in her 1,000 plus years on this earth. It is the same exact pattern she tried not to fall in love, failed then her thirst got the best of her. The worst part is she knew exactly what she was doing. Every single second of the kill she remembers. Rose remembers everything about the kills. She remembers staying up late at night day dreaming about killing them, drinking their blood. It never starts out that way. She never craves their blood in the beginning, it’s a slow process that happens, but once it begins its downhill from there.  

Niklaus came up with a term to describe his sister. She's the one who inspired the name “Rippah”

But she doesn't antenatally kill her loved ones, but when she tastes their blood her brain goes into a frenzy. She can't stop intel she has drained them of their blood, and after she grieves. She has no red door like Elijah, she can't stop her grieving and because of this is the main reason why she gets daggered.

-----------------

Got a boy back home in Michigan And it tastes like Jack when I'm kissing him

When she killed Marcus it was late, her fantasies of killing him where getting worse. The craving for his blood was all she could think about. So, to keep him safe she ignored him hoping he would get the hint and leave her alone. She couldn't be around him no more. Foolish human though chased after the girl, for him it was his last jack. For her he was her next victim. What can she say, she is bad at love.

There's a guy that lives in a garden state

James he was arrogant for a wolf. After a fight with him her strength had gotten the best of herself. When Rose pushed him, he fell onto his head and never woke. More vividly his head went rolling on the floor.

------------------

The smell of blood could be smelled as soon as you entered the compound. Elijah was the first to arrive onto the scene. Rose was holding his body in her arms crying. She thought she had learned this time. She was resilient on letting him in. She wouldn’t let him love her because of this. But it didn’t work, she ended up loving him and killing him.

“Rose” Elijah says quietly as he asses what's going on. It’s not the first time he has this happen, and having a track record like her it wouldn’t be the last.

“This can’t keep happening to me! Please wake up my love, I'm so sorry... I-I couldn’t stop” Rose cried as the grief of her crime had racked her body

“Bloody hell it smells all the way to the ro-” Klaus says as he barges into my room “love, you were doing so good...” Klaus says sighing as he looked around the room. There was blood all over, on the ceiling the ways. Roses hands where holding his body together. Without them he would fall into pieces.

“Niklaus, call the rest of our siblings' home.” Elijah whispered to his brother as he squats down to Roses level trying to get poor Calebs head out of her hands

------------------

Got a girl with California eyes And I thought that she could really be the one this time But I never got the chance to make her mine Because she fell in love with little thin white lines

Rose had loved Maria with her whole being. The witch had enchanted Roses body and she loved her. But love couldn't stop her that morning when Maria had cut her finger while cooking breakfast. Rose tried her best but the whispers in her head had gotten the best of her. The veins in her eyes over coming as she attacked Maria in their home. Maria was a sweet loving girl, but she fell in love with the thin white line

London girl with an attitude We never told no one but we look so cute Both got way better things to do But I always think about it when I'm riding through

Kassidy was something else, London in 1960’s was crazy. Sex, Love, Drugs. It was nothing Rose has ever experienced with anyone else. Their love was as crazy as the 60’s. Smoking weed dancing they were each other's ride or die. Kassidy is the only one Rose didn’t kill, Rose actually turned Kassidy into a vampire. Whenever she thinks of London she always thinks of Kassidy, and wonders what she is doing now a days.

-------------------

“I can't take this any longer do it already Nik! End my misery pleasssee!” Rose screamed tears rolling down her face as she looked up to her older brother holding the dagger in his hands. Her hands pulling at her hair as the heightened emotions rack her body.

“I hate doing this to you sister” Nik says glancing at his baby sister as he was dipping the dagger into the ashes

“Rose its going to be okay, well wake you up in 10 years like always” Rebekah says

“I don’t want that It never works please just get this pain to stop” Rose cries

“Turn it off Rosie..” Kol whispers looking at his baby sister “Your bloody emotions just turn them off. You won't feel anything after that” Kol finshes

“It is okay sister” Elijah says stroking her hair nodding for Klaus to do it. “We well never leave you”

And as her face went blank Nik shoved the dagger into her heart with a single tear rolling down his face.

“rest easy baby sister, you well awaken again” Niklaus says as he picks her up, the rest of his siblings fallowing to put her into her coffin.

[ddixons-angel]

Fated: Season 1

Summary: Gloria Rhee narrowly escapes Atlanta with her brother as the outbreak reaches the city. Luckily, they find a camp outside the city and together, they fend through encounters with the living and undead.

Starts a little before Season 1 and then follows the main storyline of the show.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Glenn Sister!OC

Warnings: major TWD spoilers, language, violence (the typical TWD stuff)

A/N: I’m thinking of maybe posting this 2 times a week instead of just once, but I’m not sure. Any takers on this??? 

And...I’m not 100% sure what season the gif is from... might not be Season 1... but it fits so I’m using it still :D 

Chapter 3:

It had been a few days since Gloria helped Daryl with his injuries when he fell in the woods. The two haven’t talked much since then, Daryl seemed to be purposely avoiding her and keeping his distance from the campsite in general. He had already went out into the woods to hunt fresh meat for the group. Gloria was sitting around the unlit campfire with Carol as she looked after her daughter, Sophia, and Carl, a boy close to Sophia’s age. 

“So, how’s the end of the world treating you?” Gloria asks Carol, breaking the silence.

Carol smiles softly at her, “not too bad, we have a safe camp, and I have my daughter. What more could I ask for? What about you?”

“I’d like to think we’re pretty blessed, given the circumstances. Although... I do wish Glenn didn’t have to go into the city alone so often for supplies.” Gloria sighs, admitting her worry for her brother.

“He’s doing a very brave thing, your brother. We owe him a lot,” Carol pats Gloria’s back gently, “I also heard that they’re planning a big run with a few others into the city.” 

Gloria looks at Carol, her eyebrow raised, “Really?”

“Well, that’s what I heard from Dale.” Carol shrugs, she then looks up to see Lori, Carl’s mother, walking by, “Good morning, Lori.”

Carol’s call out to her makes Lori stop in her tracks and looks over to her and Gloria sitting there with the kids. She gives a forced smile then carries on her way into the woods. Gloria frowns slightly but then notices that someone else is lurking in the woods, seemingly waiting for Lori. 

Gloria turns to Carol and leans in to whisper to her so the kids don’t hear her, “what do you think she’s up to? I’ve seen her sneaking off quite a bit lately.”

Carol does the same and whispers back, “I can’t be completely certain, but I think I’ve seen her getting particularly close with Shane, I mean, they knew each other before I even met them.” 

“But... Shane isn’t Carl’s dad, right?” Gloria asks, she never wanted to pry into any of the other inhabitant’s private lives but her curiosity was getting the best of her.

Carol shakes her head, “No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Carl calling Shane dad, I think I heard that Lori lost her husband just before everything happened.”

“And she’s with another man already?” Gloria looks at Carol with a shocked look; she’s usually not one to judge another’s choices, but Lori really didn’t look the type to move on so fast.

“Well, who can really blame her? With everything that’s happened, I think she needs someone to lean on, I know I would. Not everyone is as strong as you are, Gloria.” Carol smiles at Gloria.

Gloria scoffs in embarrassment at Carol’s words and shakes her head, about to deny the older woman’s words until Sophia calls for her mother.

“Mommy, look!” Sophia excitedly exclaims, holding up a drawing she just created, “it’s me and you!”

Carol smiles lovingly at her daughter, “I love it, sweetie.”

Gloria leans her arms on her knees, leaning in while smiling at Sophia, “wow, you did that? It’s just as beautiful as your mom!” 

Sophia gleems at her words, giggling and looking back at her masterpiece, and then it’s Carl’s turn to want attention, “look at mine!” he says, holding up his drawing of a dinosaur.

“Is that a t-rex?!” Gloria asks excitedly, wanting to hype up the little boy.

Carl grins proudly and nods, “Yeah! Look at it’s sharp teeth! Isn’t it scary?”

“Yep, super scary. Oh man, I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight after seeing that, I might have nightmares!” Gloria pretends to cower back and shiver, causing the boy to laugh.

Carl holds the drawing out closer to Gloria and makes a growling noise and Gloria growls back playfully, Carol and Sophia laughing at the amusing scene in front of them. Carol’s laughter is cut short by her husband, Ed, as he calls out to her and Sophia to return back to their tent. She looks to Gloria apologetically and goes off with her daughter. Gloria shoots her a sympathetic look as she watches the two walk away; she felt that there was something off about Ed the first time she laid eyes on him, but she had no proof that anything was happening within the small family.

“Hey,” Glenn greets as he sits down where Carol was sitting previously, “we’re planning a group run into the city tomorrow.” 

Gloria nods, “I heard, Carol told me. Who’s going with you?”

“T-Dog, Andrea, Jacqui, Morales and... Merle.” Glenn sighs as he says the last name on the list.

“He’s going with you guys? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she frowns at the mention of Merle as well.

“I don’t like it either, but Dale says that we should give the guy a chance to prove himself or something.” Glenn explains, a look of worry still etched on his face.

“Well... I guess we shouldn’t really argue with Dale. Plus, there are more of you than him, if he does start anything, you guys can back each other up,” Gloria says, putting her arm around Glenn’s shoulders, “you should watch your back though, if he can’t get revenge on me, he might target you.” 

Glenn looks at her then nods, “I will.” he then turns his attention to Carl who’s adding more to his dinosaur drawing, “Hey buddy, is that a t-rex?!”

---

Later that day, Daryl had come back from a very successful hunting trip as he brought back a deer for the group. The others had helped him skin the animal and prepare for a nice feast that evening. The fire was lit and the inhabitants of the camp had taken their seats around the campfire, even both the Dixon brothers had decided to join them.

“I can’t believe that after all this time, we still don’t know anything about our new recruits!” Dale proclaimed as everyone was enjoying their dinner, “Glenn, Gloria, why don’t you two talk a bit about yourselves?” 

The siblings look at each other then the rest of the anticipating group, surprised and slightly embarrassed by the sudden attention. 

“What about them?” Gloria says, gesturing to the Dixon brothers, “They’re new too, technically, they’re newer than us.” 

“Nuh uh, ladies first.” Merle pipes up with a mocking grin on his face.

Daryl doesn’t say anything in protest, then Gloria looks to Glenn who shrugs and then gestures for her to start talking. Gloria scoffs at her brother and shoots him a playful glare.

“Alright then,” Gloria clears her throat, “where do I begin?” 

“You could start with where you were before all this started. What you were doing with your life, stuff like that.” Shane smirked at her, clearly knowing that she did not want to talk about yourself.

Gloria squints at him then sighs, “Well, Glenn and I were born and raised in Michigan. I decided I wanted to go to school at the Georgia State University..” 

“What did you major in?” Amy asks curiously. 

“I double majored in health sciences and music. My parents didn’t really want me to go into the musical field so I had to negotiate with them that if I study to become a doctor then they’d have to let me study music at the same time.” Gloria explains, “I was also interning as a nurse at a hospital just before this all started.” 

“We have a doctor amongst us!” Dale exclaims happily, raising his cup of his old liquor in joy.

The rest also raised their cups, expressing their thanks and happiness that they have a person with a medical background in their group. Gloria smiles shyly and looks to Glenn to take some of the attention away from her.

Glenn chuckles at her then clears his throat, “and while she was busy studying to be the first rockstar doctor, I’ve just been delivering pizzas all over the city.”

This information caused Merle to belt out a laugh, “so you’re just saying that you’re the blacksheep of the family? Letting yer sister do all the hard work while you’re just delivering pizzas?” 

“Well... I...” Glenn’s face blushes a deep red in embarrassment, unable to find words.

“He’s not a blacksheep or anything close to that, alright?” Gloria speaks up, angry that Glenn is being put down, “He could have gotten his own education, he’s smart enough to do that on his own, but do you know why he decided to come to Atlanta with me? He wanted to make sure I had everything provided for me, so he worked his ass off to pay for my education. I wouldn’t have been able to study to become a doctor if he hadn’t sacrificed his own education for mine!”

Glenn puts his hand on Gloria’s back to calm her down, “it’s okay, stop.” he whispers into her ear.

Merle rolls his eyes at Gloria’s rant, “and yet he still needs his baby sister to defend him.”

“Merle... jus’ shut it...” Daryl mutters quietly so that only his brother can hear; he’d stopped eating and was just looking down at his plate ever since Merle opened his mouth the first time.

“You know what? Why don’t you tell us about you and what you’ve accomplished then because I’m sure you aren’t the blacksheep of your family.” Glenn says angrily, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Now huffing with anger at Glenn’s words, Merle starts to lunge forward to him but Daryl catches him first before he reaches Glenn. Daryl holds him back then eventually pushes him back in the direction to the brothers’ tents.

“Merle, tha’s enough!” Daryl shouts, glaring at his brother. 

Merle, still panting angrily, finally storms off to his tent but not before shooting Daryl a glare that clearly said he’s going to get it later. 

Daryl sighs and sits back down, “Sorry ‘bout him, he never actually gets along wit’ anyone unless they’re drunk or high.” 

An awkward silence is evident around the campfire when Gloria tries to lighten up the mood, “hey, I don’t think we’ve thanked Daryl yet for the deer, this is probably the most any of us have eaten since the world ended.”

“That is true! Let’s drink to that, to Daryl and his deer!” Dale says happily, once again raising his cup.

The others follow suit, all thanking Daryl for the fresh meat as he shifts uncomfortably, not used to the positive attention. 

“Hey Daryl, do you have any hunting stories?” Carl asks excitedly, sitting in his mother’s lap.

“Uh...” Daryl hesitates then he catches Gloria’s eyes as she gives him an encouraging nod, “well, there was tha’ one time I was huntin’ for squirrels in the woods and I saw a chupacabra.” 

“A chupacabra? What’s that?” Carl asks, looking up at Shane like he had all the answers.

Shane grins and leans forward, “Chupacabra? It’s like a vampire-dog, or something like that.” 

This causes the rest of the group to start chuckling, making it obvious that they don’t believe Daryl’s story. 

He looks around and glares at the group laughing at him, “ya don’ believe me?” 

Trying to stifle his laughter, Dale responds, “well Daryl, you’re asking us to believe in a mythical creature.” 

“I know what I saw.” Daryl says firmly, still glaring at everyone laughing at him.

Gloria tilts her head, “you know, that actually reminds me of the time we went camping and I saw Bigfoot.” 

“Gloria, you did not see Bigfoot.” Glenn says as he facepalms in second hand embarrassment.

“Yes, I did. You, mom, dad, and Gena kept telling me it was a bear but I know what I saw, it was Bigfoot.” Gloria argues, the rest of the group now amused by the bickering of the two siblings.

“That’s because it was a bear! Gloria, you were 6, how would you know what you saw?” Glenn is adamant on his point.

“First of all, I was 7. Second, I showed you the footprints, they were this big,” Gloria holds her hands up and demonstrates that the footprint was close to 2 feet long, “no bear has this big a foot, but do you know what has a foot this big?”

Glenn is about to retort when Daryl beats him to it, “Bigfoot.” the others, including Gloria and Glenn, turn to look at him, “I believe ya.”

Gloria grins at him, “Thank you! I believe you too,” she raises her arm in expectation for a high five to which Daryl hesitantly but eventually reciprocates; the two of them share a look, hinting at a mutual trust towards one another. 

The rest of the night carries on with stories of Dale's past and Andrea and Amy's fishing trips. The group drink and dine until it gets late and the children are falling asleep in their parent's arms. 

---

In the morning, Glenn is getting the planned group prepared for the supply run into the city. The others who are not going on the run had given them a list of items to look out for. Glenn is looking over the map of the city, going over which places to search and where to avoid. Everyone going, including Merle, were listening to his instruction and taking mental notes. Gloria’s leaning by the RV listening as well, she figured that in case things went sideways, she’d at least know what places to go to start looking for the group. 

“Hey Gloria.” Daryl calls out as he walks towards the campsite, beckoning her to come over to him.

“What’s up?” Gloria says as she approaches him, “your wrist okay?”

Daryl hums and nods, not looking at her, “this ain’ ‘bout that. Are ya goin' on the run?”

“No, I’m not. Why? Is there anything you needed from the city? I can ask Glenn to-” she gets cut off by Daryl.

“Can ya go?” he finally looks up at her to see her blinking at him, looking confused at his request, “Merle’s goin’ with 'em, right?” Daryl confirms as she nods, “I need ya to go to keep him in check, make sure he don’ get himself or anyone else killed, ya know?”

Understanding what Daryl’s inferring, she nods, “You sure I can do that?”

“You’re the only one wit’ enough guts to kick his ass, so I’d say yeah, ya can.” Daryl smirks at her.

This earns a chuckle out of Gloria who finally agrees, “Alright fine, but I can’t guarantee your brother will be in one piece if he starts shit with anyone.”

Daryl scoffs and rolls his eyes, “just don’ kill him and we’ll be fine.” 

“No promises,” Gloria chuckles again, “but how come you don’t go yourself, you seem to be fine with keeping him in check.”

Daryl makes a face and shakes his head, “Nah, I was plannin’ to go huntin’, wanted to go out further in the woods, see if I can get another buck or somethin’. I’ll prolly be out for a day or two.” 

Understanding, Gloria nods, “Alright, you be careful out there though. Watch out for any creeks.” she teases with a smile.

Scoffing and rolling his eyes again, “yeah, whatever. Ya be careful too.” 

Daryl turns and makes his way back to his and his brother’s tents and Gloria goes to Glenn who had just finished explaining the plan to the other runners. 

“Glenn!” she calls out to her brother, making him turn around to face her, “what’s the plan, I’m going with you guys.”

Glenn frowns at this, “What? Why?” 

Gloria glances around her and then back at Glenn, she starts to speak in Korean in fear of Merle eavesdropping on the two, “the loud idiot is going with you, I don’t trust him going with you guys.”

“I thought we talked about this, we’ll be fine. I’ll watch my back along with the others.” Glenn responds back in Korean.

“His brother thinks I should go with you because I’m the only one who can kick his ass. He asked me to go and keep him in check, I already told him I would.” Gloria explains, again in their mother tongue.

Glenn stays silent for a bit, thinking to himself then finally nods, responding back in English,  “alright, fine, here’s the plan...”

Gloria listens intently to the plan Glenn had mapped out on the city map, taking in every detail to make sure as best she can that nothing goes sideways. The group gets into the truck and are about to head off into the city. Glenn makes it a very important point to not wander off alone and to keep as quiet as possible so as to not attract any unwanted attention, whether it be from walkers or other people. To put simple, the plan is to get in, get what they need, then get out. 

---

Next Chapter

So for this chapter, I really wanted to show a bit of bonding between Daryl and Gloria, and I also wanted to throw in come of Glenn and Gloria’s family background and culture there too, hope it all made sense! 

I would really appreciate any comments left for me! I’ll be replying to any comments in a new post because this is a sideblog! 

[shirtlesssammy]

8x01: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Then:

P U R G A T O R Y

Now:

100-Mile Wilderness, Maine

1 Year Later

A couple is sleeping peacefully in the forest when a bright light fills the sky, waking the woman.

The couple goes out to investigate when they hear rustling outside. It’s a deer! Close...it’s Dean! He’s looking more like a feral rat than a deer. I would not want to run into someone looking like Dean in the middle of nowhere, that’s for sure. He pulls his gun, asks where the road is, grabs a bag of their stuff, and skedaddles. Yikes. First, for anyone not caught up, let’s all collectively scream what we all thought on our first viewing: Where’s Cas??! Second, who the fuck hikes anywhere, let alone the 100 Mile Wilderness trail with that kind of gear?! Camp chairs? A lantern the size of a dining room chandelier? A tent that’s making Harry Potter quake? Anyway, I lol thinking this is the most unbelievable part of this scene, and not the dude who just got back from Purgatory. 

Clayton, Louisiana

4 Days Later

Cue up Styx “Man in the Wilderness”, and sit back and watch one of my favorite montages. Watching Dean walk down a road never gets old. He walks to a cemetery and digs up a grave. He chants an incantation over some bones, and voilà, he brings back to life a vampire! They embrace.

Wait, what? 

In Kermit, Texas, Sam’s ditching on a woman AND a dog. He drives to Rufus’s cabin in Montana, where a hiding Dean assaults him with all the monster tests. They both pass, and hug. Sam is shocked. “I guess standing too close to exploding dick, sends your ass straight to Purgatory.” Dean explains the situation with the first dick joke of the season. Sam has further questions, and Dean is vague on the details. Sam also wonders about Cas. Dean shuts down a little more and admits, “Yeah, Cas didn’t make it.” 

Sam presses the matter. “Something happened to him down there. Things got pretty hairy towards the end, and he... just let go,” Dean adds. So, he admits that Cas let go here, did he alter his memory after this? In any event, Dean’s really broken about it. 

Sam then admits that he got out of the life, tossed all his phones, etc. “Something happened to me this year, too.” Gah, like a complete breakdown and fugue state, but I will reserve my thoughts for my non-existent essay on the state of Sam’s mind when Dean and Cas were in Purgatory. That sends Dean into an anger spiral. (Natasha: LIMES)

He listens to all of Sam’s phone messages --the increasingly desperate and eventually disillusioned pleas for help from Kevin. 

He was their responsibility, and Sam just ditched him. Uh, because he was in complete mental failure! Sam hears something in the background of the last message and is able to isolate the sound to a bus station. They track him to Michigan, where his girlfriend, Channing, is attending college. 

Once at the motel, Dean sees two boys playing with their toy guns, which sends him into a memory spiral. He’s chasing a vamp in Purgatory and eventually catches him. “Where’s the angel?”

WhEreS tHe aNgEl?

W H E R E ‘ S  T H E  A N G E L?

??

?

(Don’t touch me.)

“You’re him. The human.” 

Like, excuse me? The monsters are all meeting up talking about the human wandering around Purgatory looking for that angel? LIKE PLEASE. No, please STOp. I can’t take it, even after all these years. 

Anyway, Dean keeps demanding to know where that goddamned angel is. The vamp refuses to say so Mr. Dramatic lops his head off set to a very elegant camera angle. 

Another monster attacks but Dean’s too far from his machete. Then ANOTHER monster attacks THAT monster. Spoiler: IT’S BENNY! 

Later, in the motel, Dean suggests moving on, but Sam thinks he should get some rest. Dean goes into another anger spiral --probably because he couldn’t sleep for a year and all Sam did was sleep due to his complete breakdown. Sam trying to ignore that he didn’t have control of his world isn’t helping him with Dean. Sam found “a girl.” Well, actually, she was a fully grown woman, but go on… Listen, I don't like the Amelia stuff as much as the next person, so I have a very elaborate headcanon of Sam’s mental break and the symbolic fantasy world he created while he barely existed at the cabin. 

Anyway, Sam asks Dean what Purgatory was like. “It was bloody. Messy. 31 flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Hell, most days felt like 360-degree combat. But there was something about being there.”

“It felt pure.”

It fElT PuRe

I T  F E L T  P U R E

Flashback to Purgatory, where Dean’s life is still saved by Benny, the vampire. Dean threatens to shiv him up the ass so...every friendship needs to start somewhere? The vampire knows an escape hatch out of Purgatory! But it’s only for humans. He’ll show him the portal as long as Dean smuggles his soul out of Purgatory. 

The first rule of Purgatory is you can’t trust anyone. Dean doesn’t trust Benny - not an inch. But he does need allies. He tells Benny that he’ll agree to that tenuous deal as long as they find “the angel” first.

At a college, the Winchesters interview Channing. She hasn’t heard a word from Kevin and furthermore, would spurn his love forever now that he’s no longer going to Princeton. Ouch! After they leave, Channing’s eyes go black and she slices her roommate's throat so she can make a phone call. DOUBLE OUCH! She reports that Kevin still hasn’t gotten in touch with her, but Dean Winchester is back.

Trying to get some work done amongst the students, Sam experiences his own mournful flashback. He hit a dog! He shouted at veterinary hospital employees! Damn it, this is an animal hospital!!! I hand you a bloody dog, you fix! Shouting helps things happen! 

Sam bby.

Dean arrives with a burger in hand, reunited with one of the loves of his life at least. Sam reports that he’s tracked Kevin to Iowa.

At a run down church in Iowa, the Winchesters pay a house call. Kevin immediately confronts them with a Borax-loaded supersoaker. Once he figures out they’re human, Kevin gives them the tour of his new digs. He’s learned how to ward against demons. And then while explaining his recent past, Kevin has his own flashback! Everyone gets one! 

In Kevin’s flashback, he’s been captured by Crowley who sits him down to work on another tablet. A DEMON tablet! Dun dun DUN! Kevin mines its secrets and tells Crowley that there’s a hell gate in Wisconsin. (Made out of cheese?) Demons gather ingredients for him and Kevin gets to have a MONTAGE of preparing a spell to open the gate. Only…

...Kevin was hoodwinking the demons the whole time. 

He’d found a demon bomb recipe and blasts away his guards while Crowley waits on a distant Wisconsin farm. 

Back in the present, Kevin’s stowed the tablet somewhere safe but before he did that, he made sure to memorize one more important spell from the tablet: a spell to close the gates of Hell...FOREVER. 

Dean and Sam head outside to the...second story church deck?...to chat. Sam’s disappointed that Kevin seems further into the hunting life than before. Dean’s proud of the kid - “he’s in it whether he likes it or not.” Oof. Dean, your Winchester is showing.

Sam heads down to the candle-lit church. He apologizes to Kevin for bugging out on him - and on everything hunting related. It’s definitely staged like a confession.

Kevin admits that he’s perturbed when he really stops and thinks about his life, post-prophet-revelation. Sam assures him that “it gets better.” Hmm RLY? Sam’s an optimist, and continues: if they can banish all the demons, Kevin might actually be free to live a good life. BRB weeping and shouting angrily at this show!

In Sam’s hazy flashback, he waits anxiously for the news from the vet. She reports that his dog will be okay. Sam corrects her - the dog isn’t his! She double barrel blasts him with sarcasm, implying that if he doesn’t take care of the dog he hit then he’s the worst person in the world. Which. Okay. I generally don’t mind Amelia though I think she demonstrably has terrible luck picking stable, healthy relationships. But this scene always has me rolling my eyes. It’s so normal to foist a dog on a stranger! Everyone has the means and time to care for a dog, not to mention a dog who has been seriously injured! A vet would not do this! Amelia, plz. 

Amelia puppy dog eyes Sam, and he’s toast. He’s spent so many years working on his offensive puppy eyed tactics, he never thought to work on his defense!

The church begins to shake and wood splits apart Kevin’s devil’s traps. A couple of demons arrive, armed with more swagger than weaponry. There’s a zappy flashy kicky fight and then Crowley and Channing arrive. Crowley demands the tablet for Channing’s life. He flashes Channing back into control for a moment as proof of life. Kevin offers himself up in exchange for Channing’s freedom and heads off to “pack up.” Then Kevin lures Crowley and Channing to a holy water trap.

As they’re being doused, the Winchesters and Kevin escape. While they drive away, Crowley orders the demon out of Channing and then kills her. Oof. 

Later, Dean gets a phone call as they stop for gas and snacks, and then passes it off as a wrong number. Kevin passes on donuts and beef jerky. He just saw his girlfriend die and that doesn’t lend itself well to gas station snacks. 

Dean offers up words of Winchester Solace™. “You’re in it now. Whether you like it or not you do what you gotta do.” Good talk, Dean! 

On Dean’s pee break, he furtively places a phone call. It’s Benny, the vampire from earlier! He’s lurking on the edges of a funeral in a not-at-all-suspicious way. He figured out cell phones! But not fashion.

Dean tells him that they shouldn’t talk for a while since they’re both adjusting to life. Benny wistfully tells Dean that Purgatory WAS pure and he should have appreciated it more while he was there. They both admonish each other to be good (and presumably not go on a murderous rampage). Good talk!

WHERE’RE THE QUOTES?

We made it, brother

I don't know whether to give you a hug or take a shower

Nothing says "family" quite like the whole family being dead

Where’s the angel?

Hey, the rules are simple, Sam. You don't take a joint from a guy named Don, and there's no dogs in the car!

So you're looking for a soul train

There's a demon in you, and you're going to your safety school

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[shitty-check-please-aus]

2020 Books Read So Far

Note: Most of these are audiobooks (listening to books counts as reading books and if you disagree I’d ask you to consider why you believe that), books I started and didn’t finish will be listed but not reviewed, and all my opinions are extremely subjective. I’m putting this on this blog because I want to and I think it’ll help me keep track of what I’ve read if I write it down in a couple places. 

Some notes:

I’m surprised that most of these are nonfiction! I don’t usually think of myself as a nonfiction reader. 

Having audiobooks has made me way more productive as a reader, since I can read while I’m doing repetitive tasks at work, when I have to stand on the bus, when I’m running, etc. 

Naked, by David Sedaris

3/5, the audiobook was “unabridged selections” which means “we didn’t edit the individual essays but you’re only getting half the book”– it would probably have been a 4/5 if it was a whole book. I liked that Amy Sedaris was reading parts of it, but that’s because I like her more than I like her brother. This is sort of an example of the difference between “comedic” and “humorous,” because it’s definitely the latter. 

Read it if: you want to read something pretty fucking weird. 

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

4/5, I saw this recommended a lot when Hamilton first came out so it’s been in the back of my mind for a good while. The book had a great cast, and having different people reading the historical quotes was an excellent touch! 

However, I think Vowell’s conversational style is a little jarring here sometimes. It’s like “wait, why are you talking about Bruce Springsteen, I’m not that familiar with his work but he definitely isn’t from Revolutionary War times.” I got her book Assassination Vacation at a used bookshop recently as well, and both books suffer from post-2016 hindsight, where she’ll say something about how incompetent and foolish the politicians of her time are, and I just have to snort to myself and say “Sarah, you’re going to lose your goddamn mind soon.” That’s a bit of an unfair reaction, but it’s hard to avoid having it.

I was also, maybe unfairly, expecting to learn more than I did. The problem is that I know a Lot about the Revolutionary War, and from the introduction I thought we’d hear more about Lafayette’s later life (my knowledge drops sharply after about 1810). The book basically ends after the Battle of Yorktown, though.

Read it if: you have not seen/listened to both Hamilton and 1776, or if you want to read a summary of the Revolutionary War with a focus on one French captain. 

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

3/5, honestly maybe a 2.5/5. Okay, so. Either I know a lot more about American History than I felt like I did or this is again a very surface level thing. Part of it is because she spends 123 pages on Abe Lincoln. There are 255 pages total. 2/3 of the states I’ve lived in are Indiana and Illinois, two states that fight about claiming Lincoln as their own, and I’ve been to D.C. 4 or 5 times, so I feel like I know enough about Lincoln. I know about John Wilkes Booth, and his brother Edwin who saved Lincoln’s son’s life, and the death train that took Lincoln’s body around the country. I did enjoy learning about the doctor who was probably conspiring with Booth and how he ended up saving tons of lives in prison when there was a yellow fever outbreak (also to be briefly unbearably nitpicky: I think she might have mixed up dengue and yellow fever? She calls yellow fever “breakbone” but I can only find instances online of people calling dengue fever that. Maybe they called them all breakbone in the late 1800s. If anyone reading this is an epidemiologist, let me know).

It was interesting to hear that Charles Guiteau, killer of President Garfield, was part of the Oneida cult. I’m trying to think of anything notable she said about Leon Czolgosz, killer of President McKinley. I guess she talks about how people assumed he was a foreigner because of his name, but I already listened to “The Ballad of Czolgosz” in Assassins, so I knew “Czolgosz, angry man, born in the middle of Michigan.”

This one is from 2005 so the politics stuff is a little more interesting, since at the time I was busy learning multiplication and spending one entire baseball season learning about baseball and following my team (they won the world series, I have excellent timing). I will say that in 2005 we did have Google, so I am again annoyed with some of her asides and personal anecdotes. Look, if you go to the Hemingway house and you don’t know there will be cats there, that’s on you if you don’t bring your Claritin. Hemingway is associated with only two good things, six-toed cats and Daiquiris. 

She also does not acknowledge that the parties basically switched platforms? Lincoln’s Republican party is not today’s Republican party, in fact kind of the opposite, so it’s weird that she starts the book with a dedication that’s like “to my lifelong Democrat grandpa, he’d be pissed I dedicated a book about 3 Republicans to him.” I guess she does sometimes say stuff like “how did Lincoln’s party become Reagan’s” (paraphrase), but she doesn’t actually get into it. 

Speaking of Democrats, she literally spends more time talking about Pablo Picasso than she spends talking about JFK. She doesn’t explain why she didn’t talk about JFK, but it seems bizarre to me to write a book about American assassinations and to leave out John Fucking Kennedy. Literally I’ve talked more about JFK in this section than she did in her assassin book. It’s not until page 253 that JFK gets a full paragraph. There are 255 pages total. Truly, if she’d taken a paragraph to be like “I’m focusing on the presidents who were elected before 1900″ or “the presidents whose immediate families aren’t still alive” or even “I didn’t want to travel to Dallas for research” or SOMETHING to explain why she left out JFK, I would have understood it more instead of flipping through the pages wondering what was going on. 

Read it if: You do not listen to too many history podcasts and you didn’t read the Wikipedia page for the musical Assassins. And I guess if you don’t want to acknowledge that JFK did also get assassinated and that was kind of a big deal. Actually just listen to Assassins instead. 

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

5/5 as a mystery, 0/5 for its original title (not gonna say it here but if you’ve ever googled the name of HP Lovecraft’s cat, it’s along those lines). Less than 6 hours, narrated by Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, fairly ideal as an audiobook. I am 95% sure I’ve already read this, because I spent the summer before I started high school reading every Agatha Christie book in the library (I do not have a list of all the Agatha Christie books in my library the summer of 2010, so there is some question). 

Read if: you want to hear the guy from Downton Abbey deliver the line “I’m not a complete fool!” in a tone that makes it sound like “I’m not a fucking moron!” Sidenote: Can anyone tell me if Brits say “solder” by pronouncing the L that I’ve always heard as a silent L? Or if Dan Stevens just fucked up that one word?

Over The Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, by Jonathan Van Ness

4.5/5

This was a super enjoyable audiobook! It’s a testament to JVN’s considerable charisma that this book is full of him giving people in his past who would rather be anonymous Russian names, and it doesn’t get grating (as a Marina, however, I was shocked to not hear my name at any point; most of the other Marina’s I’ve met in my life are Russian). JVN has had a wild ride in life, and it’s a really raw, honest story of how he became who he is. I will say that if you are interested in reading this, please look up the trigger warnings; there are a lot of things that could be triggering to people. 

I feel a little bad at how much more I liked this one compared to Tan France’s memoir, but I also feel like whoever was ghostwriting that one did a bad job at making Tan seem... not extremely defensive, cocky, and prickly (it seems that JVN did not use a ghostwriter; Tan’s on the other hand, let the phrase “I’m proud to be a petty bitch” make it into the final proof several times). Also JVN advocates going to therapy in his book, while Tan kind of says that you should only go to therapy if you have no friends or family or life partner to talk to, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t know. I also feel like, if I were to get a makeover from the Fab 5, Jonathan would love my hair (I have great hair) while Tan would say that I’m dressing too old for a 24 year old and then take me to fucking Lane Bryant or Torrid (I wear a size 16 US so IRL options are limited). 

Read if: You like Queer Eye or Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Medallion Status, by John Hodgman

4.5/5

I really like John Hodgman’s podcast, and I got to ask him a question at an event he did at the Field Museum and he was very nice, so I went into this inclined to enjoy it. 

And I did! I had a good time reading it. I read it the first week of January and now it’s the second week of February so I have already erased much of the book’s content from my mind, but he somehow made the perspective of being a formerly kinda famous person really interesting. I would also recommend Vacationland, particularly if anyone wants to write an au where Nursey, as a New Yorker, has a vacation home in Dex’s town in Maine. That’s right, I brought it back around to the topic of this blog. And that would be a fucking fantastic au. 

Read it if: you like memoirs! it’s a good one. 

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Gonna give this one a 3/5 for performance, because Dan Stevens (again, because I liked his narration in the other one) does a really annoying American accent for a few characters, and an extremely bad Italian accent for another. I’m starting this review only a few hours in, so if it turns out that the Italian man is not Italian, I’ll revoke my criticism. Still a 5/5 mystery, though. I did have to stop many times when they were talking about Istanbul to go over to Spotify and play “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants. 

Books abandoned in 2020 (so far) (no real spoilers, I didn’t get more than a few chapters into any of them):

The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren

I got to a point where the main character was telling a lie that would put her newly accepted job into jeopardy, and it stressed me out so much as a relatively new hire that I stopped listening for the day and started another one, and then the week had passed and then the library took it back. I think I’d enjoy it more if I was reading it physically and I could control how fast I got through awkward parts (I am practically allergic to secondhand embarrassment). The performance was good and I did get a hankering for cheese curds. 

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

I had like three audiobooks checked out at the same time, and even though this was again an abridged version, I just didn’t have time for all of them. My mom has a physical copy, I’ll borrow that at some point. 

The Witch Elm, Tana French

This is one I may revisit someday. The main character is kind of an asshole, which is the point of his character I think, but it made it hard to get into the story. It’s also a 22 hour audiobook, which is kind of insanely long. Additionally, the narrator has a very slow way of talking, but if I tried to speed up the rate of playback I had trouble understanding his accent (I think I just have trouble processing really fast speech in general as well, but I would’ve had an easier time understanding someone with the same accent as me). Anyways, someone put a hold on it at the library and then I didn’t check it out again. 

[myheroaizawashota]

[Southern wives part 2??? Heck yes!! I think Toshinori would be the CUTEST with a small little southern lover. A small little five foot southern woman who’s a spitfire like Reba McEntire who can cook like Paula Dean and who’s got sex appeal like Dolly Parton! Haha someone who just grabs Yagis heart and makes him weak in the knees! Maybe we’ll finish the trend and do a Present Mic x Souther wife reader haha @heroes-r-us ]

America, a land of grest diversities. The country always appealed to Toshinori, even from a young age. Spending his glory years between the great states of America, he often found himself compelled with the culture. It always astounded him how vastly different each state was. He’d spent time in California and in states like Michigan. From New Hampshire to Texas, the man had traveled to just about every coast of the widely known country, praised for their blend of strong traditions. Though out of every region he’s visited, even the west coast, one of his favorites was the south. It held such a deep heritage and held some of the richest subculture. From the flavor driven foods, to the charming atmosphere each of the southern states held, the man was captivated. It was no shock that when he returned to Japan, he’d bought a little piece of the states back with him. It seemed like the culture of south wasn’t the only thing the Japanese hero had fallen in love with while visiting over seas. All those years ago, he fell in love with you.

You were patient and sweet as the pies you crafted while also being headstrong and as fierce as a coyote in a chicken coop. His love for you was passionate and wild, like driving 90 down the freeway with the top of your car down and the radio blasting. If you asked the symbol of hope and peace, he’d tell just about anyone he knew from the first time he met you that you were the girl he would marry. Even after all these years, it still made you blush. It was moments sweet like those that made everything you’ve gone through worth the while. Holding such a high price on his head, the number one pro hero always kept your love hidden away from everyone. ”I would never be able to forgive myself if a villain came after you because of who I am Y/N.“

You could understand your husbands protective nature. Being seen out with him would cause a far bigger problem in your relationship than anything, so you agreed to keep your love under wraps. You were understanding when the pro left home without his wedding band daily, and when the pro acted as if he was unattached to anyone romantically. It hurt, but you understood it was all only to protect you. Though when the keepers of fate wrapped their stings around your husband, claiming the entirety of his left side and an immense amount of his power, things began to change. Soon enough being All Might became a different face from being Toshinori Yagi. Unable to maintain a steady body weight from the devisteting wound to his body, the pro hero quickly became unnoticeable to the public while his quirk was dormant in his body. This man put you in constant worry every time he left the house. Knowing that his quirk ate a massive amount of energy, weakening his body and injuring him, you couldn’t help but worry constsntly.

You never just sat by with your hands under your rear waiting to know he was okay though. Hell even if you were as quirkless as a new born baby, it didn’t stop you from helping your husband out the best you could, supporting him on all fronts. You’d make sure he didn’t over push his limits and giving him one hell of an ass chewin’ when he did. In these days, you were his rock. Some days he couldn’t believe that you still loved him as much as you did. He was proud to have you as his partner. Long after his looks had faded, the face of all might being nothing more then a costume for the crowds, you remained. Well after his strength had left him, the little embers of his quirk fueling the short burst of power he could scrape up, you still stood by his side. You never stopped caring about that foolish reckless man, he was your husband after all.

That’s why when he was late to dinner, you couldn’t help but stand an inch away from a duck fit. “It is nearly seven at night, where in the lords good name is that man? He is really tryin’ my patience tonight” you mumble, undoing the apron around your waist and draping it casually over the back of your chair. You wandered your way over towards your phone, you giving his a ring.

After the thrid or so he picked up the phone, his tone soft and hushed. “I know i know I’m late for dinner, i lost track of time with Young Midoriya. He’s making great progress, I guess I kind of lost my head about how late it was getting.”

Pinching the bridge of your nose you gave a tested sigh “you are one blessed man Toshinori Yagi, you’re lucky I love that rump of yours. Hurry up and get yourself home, dinner is done. I made your favorite.”

You could all but hear the smile in his voice when he responded back with “chicken fried steak?”

You couldnt help the grin that tugged it’s way across your lips. “With all the fixings. Biscuits and gravy with tatters on the side.”

His stomach all but growled at the thought of that, well if he had one he was sure it’d be growling at the idea. He watched as midoriya continue to swing his leg out, winds tunneling around him from the strength of his kicks. He was proud of that boy, every day he worked harder to reach his goal. He’d make a fine hero one day. “I’ll wrap things up shortly dear, I’ll be home soon, I’ve got to before midoriya notices me on the phone.” He whispered quickly hanging up.

You rolled your eye. That man was something else. As time continued to roll past, it now seven thirty, your husband still wasn’t home. You were madder than a box of frogs. Huffing up a storm, you packaged the food up, setting it into three nicely kept bento boxes. “When I get down there, that man better be prayin’ to Jesus. He’s about ready to get my damn boot up his ass...” you grumbled as you gathered the food and left your home.

It wasn’t as if Toshi was near home training either. You dragged yourself all the way down to the beach, those typically sweet lips of yours pulled into one fierce pout. Lord help this man, for he was about to be begging for forgiveness. It was late at night, no one else was around but you your husband and his predecessor. Storming the beach, you couldn’t help the heat bubbling in your stomach. Never mess with a southern woman, and never be late for a meal. “I’m so mad with you right now I could chew up a whole box o’ nails and spit out a barbed fence.”

Toshinoris shoulders hunched as he slowly ran a hand through the messy strands of blond hair that stuck out at the back of his head. “I’m in a lot of trouble aren’t I?”

“Oh you bet your bottom dollar you are.” You looked fiercesome. Hell you looked madder then a wet hen. You had a look on your face that could scare even the rowliest of bulldogs. “Your fixin’ to find your rear end on the couch tonight. You’re lucky I love you so much, or I would let you starve” you huff handing the rail thin man a box of food. “Since y’all clearly won’t be done anytime soon, please don’t rush on my account.”

Toshinori couldn’t help but feel guilty. He knew dinner was an important part of the day as a family. It was were the two of spent time together discussing your days and enjoying each other’s company. He looked at the meal in his hands, those hollowed blue eyes of his apologetic as he stared back at you. He was about to say something when the child claimed by your husband as his successor spoke out, pulling the attention toward him. “all might- hey all might!” He shouted running his way closer from the distance, panic setting into his eyes when he saw you standing there. “uH UH IM JUST KIDDING THIS ISNT ALL MIGHT” he nervously laughed looking up at his mentor with large eyes begging for forgiveness.

“Kid, relax...its okay..” your husband sighed, his frail but large palm resting on the boys shoulder.

The small boy balled his fist, tucking them to his chest as he looked between you and your husband. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he sensed that you were someone his teacher knew. He listened and watched as you folder your arms across your chest, shifting your body weight as you glared your lover down. “You drive me up crazy some days ya know...I spend all day frettin’ over if your okay or not. If ya weren’t gonna be home for dinner you could have gave me a call. God went and gave ya ten fingers and two hands. Coulda’ used them to let me know you’d be running late.”

The boys eye went wide, his stomach dropping as shock spread across his features “all might do you know this woman?” He asked, teeth digging into his lip in anticipation. Was this all mights wife! He couldn’t believe it! An American girl, how long have they been married? Did they have kids! No he’d have known that, the world would have, but if he was married wouldn’t the world know that too? Midoriya babbled to himself, unaware his inner thoughts soon became outter thoughts. It wasn’t until his teacher slammed the side of his hand down on the top of his head that he stopped his frantic speaking. “Sorry....”

“Gez, we gotta work on that kid. That never gets any less creepy. I want you to listen closely to me Young Midoriya. What I am about to tell you can never be shared or repeated. As my successor, our lives are now connected as one. Much like the secret of our shared quirk, promise you will never speak this to anyone. It’s dire that you agree.” Now that toshinoris power was nearing its end, it was important more than ever that no body else know the knowledge that was about to be passed on to the child in front of him.

Lips pressed together, fist clenched now at his side, midoriya gave a solid nod in agreement. Toshinori could tell by the look in the boys eyes he was serious about this bond of trust, he releasing the breath he’d been unintentionally holding. Softly sliding his free hand into yours, he innertwined your finger together squeezing your hand softly. “Midoriya i would like you to meet my wife, Y/N.”

Shocked by your husbands full trust in the boy, you stood blinking for a moment. Never before had toshinori introduced you to anyone as his wife. It fluttered your chest. The small boy all but fell to the ground in shock, he bowing immediately “ITS VERY NICE TO MEET YOU IM SO SORRY I KEPT ALL MIGHT BUSY” He apologized, words flying past his lips at a million miles an hour.

He was a bit high strong, but he was cute. The passion in his eyes, the way he looked so determined. It reminded you a lot of your husband. You couldn’t help but give a soft laugh, shaking your head. ”Aw hell, I guess I can’t be too mad. It ain’t exactly your fault. Someone shoulda kept a check on that time, not that I’m gonna go throwin fingers at anyone.”

Toshinori couldn’t help but smile, eyes casting down at the floor as he rubbed at the back of his neck. You smiled and handed one of the remaining boxes over to Midoriya “now I ain’t to sure your gonna like it, but I figured with the way this one trains you’ve gotta be hungrier than a hippo right now. Why don’t you two take a break and we get our feed on. I hear quite a bit about you young man, but I think I’d like to know a lil more about you myself.”

The boys cheeks flushed red, as did his mentor, you giving a laugh. The three of you walked back towards a set of benches, eating as your husband explained how the two of you met, how you fell in love, and his reasons as to why you’ve been hidden from the public. The boy was inquisitive, his eyes bright as he learned more about his idol than he’d ever hoped to know. You watched as both boys scarfed their food down, toshinori giving you a soft kiss to the lips. “I won’t be out much later, I promise this time. Thank you for bringing us dinner.”

Midoriya face was red, as he pulled the brim of his shirt up past his nose. This was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. “Yeah yeah, don’t get all used to it. Next time I’m draggin’ your ass home by the ear if I gotta. Don’t y’all make me come back out here! It was nice meetin’ you Izuku. Don’t be a stranger, now that ya know the truth, feel free to drop on by and say hello! You’re always welcome at ours anytime. Maybe then I won’t have to drag dinner all the way to the beach” you laughed. “You two enjoy yourself now, ya hear? I’ll see you at home Toshi, I love you”

You made your way back to the car, humming at your lovers response, snickering to yourself. “I love you too....come on kid, let’s get back to work. We’ll go for a little while longer and then we should get you home or I’m going to get myself into trouble all over again...my couch isn’t comfortable.”

[myownsuperintendent]

New Fic: “Take Me to Your Leader” (Part Two)

It’s 2037, and Leslie Knope has just been sworn in as President of the United States, only to find her inaugural address followed by an alien invasion.  For help, she and Ben call on two experts–retired FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully–and the four team up to defeat the alien threat.  Parks and Recreation/The X-Files crossover, rated T.  Also here at Ao3.

This is my first crossover, my first Parks and Recreation fic, and one of my longest fics ever, and it’s been a lot of fun to write!  Tons of thanks to @emilysim for giving me the idea to focus on the colonization–you are the best and pushed me to actually write this.  Also tagging @how-i-met-your-mulder and @xv12 who have been very supportive of this story.

I’m splitting this into two posts because it’s long.  Part One is here.

.....

Scully climbed out of the car as soon as Mulder stopped it, hurrying to hug her son.  “Jackson!” she said.  “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad you guys are okay too,” he said, hugging her back.  He hugged Mulder too, once he got out of the car.  “And the kid?”

“She’s safe.  She’s at the White House,” Scully said.  “What are you doing here?  Why were you in a hole in the ground?”

“Oh, this is our secure space,” Jackson said.  “We’ve been working on it for a while.  In case something like this happened.”  The woman who’d appeared along with him came forward then, and Jackson took her hand.  “This is Marina.  I’ve told you about Marina, right?”

Scully had known that there was such a person as Marina, and that she was Jackson’s girlfriend, but that was about all she could say.   “Sure,” she said.  “It’s nice to meet you, Marina.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Marina said.  “Jackson’s told me a lot about you both.”  She looked around.  “We should probably get back underground right now.  We don’t know who could be coming, and the car’s not exactly unobtrusive.”

“We can’t stay very long,” Mulder said, even as the four of them started following Jackson and Marina back towards the hole.  “We’re on our way to Lake Michigan.  To try to develop a vaccine.”

“Just until the area clears out,” Jackson said.  “They won’t stay in one place too long.  Why’d you bring the president?”

“Well, we’re working together,” Scully said.  “Skinner told her about us, and she called us in for help.”

“Maybe the government’s dealing with this better than we thought they would,” Jackson said, grinning at her.

The hole had a ladder leaning down into it, and all of them climbed in quickly.  Scully didn’t know what she’d expected to find inside, but it certainly wasn’t what she saw, which was some odd combination of studio apartment (well-furnished living area), 1950s bomb shelter (large amount of canned food), and laboratory (set-up of advanced computers). Marina, the last down the ladder, pressed a button, and a cover slid into place over the hole.  “Welcome,” she said.

“This place is…” Scully said.  She wasn’t sure what to say.

“We’ve been working on it for a while,” Jackson said.  “I know it’s seemed safe, these past years, but with everything that happened before…I mean, you never know, right?  You guys get it.”

“You’ve done a good job,” Mulder said, looking around approvingly.   “I think he’s our kid, Scully.”  She could have rolled her eyes, but she just laughed, out of relief or surprise or adrenaline or a mix of them all.

“Really, Marina should get most of the credit,” Jackson said, putting his arm around her.

“We both had the idea,” Marina said.

“But you’re the one who really figured out how to do it,” Jackson said.  “She’s a lot more organized than I am.  Doesn’t take much.”  She grinned at him.

“Whoever put that food area together did a great job,” Leslie said, wandering back from examining the shelves.  “It’s a good selection.   Very nutritionally sound.  And there are good breakfast options.”  She held out a hand to Jackson.  “Hi.  I’m Leslie Knope.”

“Yeah, we got that,” Jackson said, shaking her hand.  “I’m Jackson.  Nice to meet you.”

“You too!” Leslie said, beaming.  “You’re Mulder and Scully’s son?”

“Yeah, basically,” Jackson said.  “Anyway, you should all feel free to crash here for a little bit.  We’ve got plenty of food.”

“And we’ve been tracking the aliens,” Marina said, gesturing to the computer, “and it’s like Jackson said.  They don’t stay in one place that long.  They tend to move on once they’ve…well, once enough people in the area are infected.  So you should be able to move on by the morning, anyway.  And we can help you figure out the best route to avoid them.”

“Thank you for this,” Leslie said.  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“It’s fine, really,” Jackson said.

As they settled in, exploring the shelter, Scully joined Marina, who was looking at something on the computer.  “This really is an incredible space,” she said.

“Thanks,” Marina said.  “We’ve worked hard on it.”

“Jackson hasn’t told us that much about you,” Scully said.  She felt she should try to get to know Marina, even if this was an odd situation to do it in.  “How did the two of you meet?”

“Oh, we met online,” Marina said.

“On a dating site?” Scully asked.  That didn’t really seem like Jackson’s thing.

“No, on a site for people who’ve had personal experience with the paranormal,” Marina said.  That made a lot more sense.  “We’d had some similar experiences, so we started talking.  Then we met up and…well, here we are.”

“How long have you been working on this place?” Scully asked.

“A couple of years,” Marina said.

Scully sighed.  “Jackson,” she called across the space, “why don’t you tell me and Mulder anything?”

“I tell you lots of things,” Jackson said.  “What things don’t I tell you?”

“Well, Marina tells me you’ve been together for some years now,” Scully said, “and you’ve barely told us anything about her.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“Flattering,” Marina said.

“Well, I figured you guys would meet sometime,” Jackson said, “and then Marina could tell you herself.  Like she’s doing, apparently.”  He turned back to showing Mulder some sort of water-filtration device.   Leslie and Ben were examining the canned food again.

“So…well, where are you from?” Scully asked.  She wished she could think of something less banal.

“Near LA, originally,” Marina said.  Then she smiled.  “Look, we could just talk about the aliens.  I know it’s what we’re both thinking about.”

Scully smiled back.  “Sure, we could do that.  You said you’re tracking them?”

“Yes,” Marina said, opening a page on the computer screen.  “I’ve got a system of alerts set up, for whenever they’re seen somewhere—so long as people report it, which they usually do, online or wherever.  And then it follows their progress.  It’s not as good as I would like it to be—I wish we could have some actual surveillance—but it’ll do for now.”

“No, this is great,” Scully said, looking at the computer.  “It’s going to be really helpful.”

“And we’ve got it so people can view it online,” Marina said.  “Hopefully it’ll keep some people safe, anyway.”

“What made you…how did you learn about the aliens?” Scully asked.  “If I can ask.”

“Sure, you can ask,” Marina said.  “I’m…well, I don’t know all the details, even though I’ve looked into it as much as I can.  But as far as I know, my biological mother, she was an abductee.  And I’m from one of the hybridization programs.  The one from the 90s.  So I’m…well…”   She flicked her ponytail to the side, briefly, and Scully caught a glimpse of a green blister on her neck.  “Well, I was always different. And I got curious about it and started looking into everything.”

Like Emily, then.  She didn’t know why this should surprise her, that Emily hadn’t been one of a kind.  Scully didn’t know how to feel; there was still anger, still sadness, when she thought about what had been done to her and to so many others.  But right now, looking at Marina, in this space that she had made with Scully’s son, there was a strange kind of joy too.

She hugged Marina, impulsively, and smiled sheepishly at the younger woman’s questioning look.  “Just glad we’re safe for now,” she said.

“Yeah,” Marina said, “me too.”

Jackson and Mulder came up to them then.  “Marina showed you the tracking system?” Jackson asked.

“Yes,” said Scully.  “It’s very impressive.”

“I think it should be all right by the morning,” Marina said, showing him something on the screen, “but they’re still around the local roads.  See?”

“Oh yeah,” Jackson said.  “You guys can stay here tonight.  You too,” he called to Leslie and Ben, who came over to look at the computer too.

“Thanks,” Leslie said.  “We’re sorry to trespass on your space.   You’re welcome to visit us, though.  Once this situation is more under control.”

“Yeah, I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” Jackson said.  “I always wanted to visit the White House.  Not the tourist parts.  So I could look for Lincoln’s ghost.  Have you seen him?”

“We just got there last week, so not yet,” Leslie said.  “But I bet we will.”

“I didn’t think he appeared to people,” Ben said.  “Just caused weird manifestations.  Didn’t Eleanor Roosevelt say Fala would bark at him?”

“Yes, she did,” Leslie said.  “I don’t know if he appears to a lot of people.  But I think he’ll appear to me, eventually.  At least by my second term.”

This led into a more general discussion of ghosts, which seemed to be a topic that interested everyone.  Maybe it was just that they didn’t want to talk about what was going on outside.  Even Scully found herself joining in.  It was easier to think about a threat that wasn’t real than a threat that very much was.

They broke into the canned food for dinner and by common consent decided to get to sleep early.  Jackson and Marina had a lot of sleeping bags and extra blankets, and they settled down throughout the hideout, saying good night in quiet voices.

Scully wanted to sleep, but it wasn’t happening.  She shifted in her sleeping bag next to Mulder.  “Are you asleep?” she whispered.  She was pretty sure he wasn’t, from his breathing.

“Nope,” he whispered back.  “You either?”

“I can’t,” she said.  “This is all so weird.”

“Tell me about it.”  He moved closer to her, wrapping an arm around her waist, comfortably.  That felt familiar, at least, even if the rest of this didn’t.  No, that wasn’t right.  It wasn’t that the situation felt entirely unfamiliar.  It felt all too familiar in some ways, a past she thought they’d shed.

“I thought we were done with this,” she told him.  “I thought we were finally done.”

“I know, Scully,” he said.  “I thought so too.”  They hadn’t had a chance to talk about this yet, with everything that had been happening. Of course, they’d barely had a chance to sleep either, and maybe they should be concentrating on that.  But right now, talking to him felt more important.

“And then…I didn’t know about all this,” Scully said.  “That Jackson had this whole place.  I had no idea.”

“Apparently paranoia doesn’t skip a generation,” Mulder said.

“Well, apparently it’s not paranoia, either,” she said.  “I’m kind of proud of him, actually.  Weirdly.  They’ve done a good job here.”

“They have,” Mulder said.  “We have a good kid, Scully.  Two good kids.”

She nodded.  “I hope Susanna’s…I hope she’s holding up okay.”

“She will be,” Mulder said, although she could tell from his voice that he was worried too, that he didn’t like being away from their daughter at a time like this.  “She’s strong.  Like her mom.”  He nuzzled her hair, and she pressed her cheek to his.  “Plus she’s got Pip.”

Scully smiled.  “That’s not nothing.”  They were quiet for a minute.  “Do you really think we’ll be able to stop this?”

“We have to,” he said.  That wasn’t really an answer to her question, but she knew he was right.

She squeezed his hand, under the blankets.  “We’re…we’re as prepared for this as anyone could be,” she said.  “That has to count for something, right?”

“Right,” Mulder said.

“We should try to get some sleep,” Scully said, half reluctantly.  “That can’t hurt either.”

“Right again,” Mulder said, and they huddled against each other and tried to rest.

.....

“Ben, are you asleep?” Leslie asked.  She tried to keep her voice down.  This underground hideout wasn’t especially large, and they were sharing it with people they hadn’t known all that long, so she thought it was important to be courteous.

“No,” Ben said.  “I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” Leslie said.  “You want to talk for a while?”

“Sure,” he said.  “What about?”  The light was very dim, but she could see his face looking up at her, sweet, sincere.  She thought about how much she loved him, not for the first time.  Alien invasions had a way of making you take stock.

“I’m kind of mad about this happening on my first day,” she said.  “I hope that doesn’t make me sound shallow.  It’s true, though.”

“No, you have the right to be mad,” Ben said.  “You didn’t sign up for this.”

“Well, I did,” Leslie said.  “That’s what happened when I took the oath of office.  I signed up for whatever was coming.  I just didn’t think it would be this big this soon.  And this…paranormal.”

“I don’t think anyone thought that,” Ben said.  “It’s not really something you could anticipate.”

“You did tell me that I had to fill you in if they briefed me on the aliens,” Leslie pointed out.

“True,” Ben said.  “Maybe I’m psychic.”

“It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened in the last few days,” Leslie said.  “It would be cool if you were psychic.  You could tell me what was going to happen on Game of Thrones.”

“No one can do that,” Ben said.  “Now that it’s so different from the books…”

“Good point,” Leslie said.  “Well, you could tell me how all this was going to turn out, then.  With the aliens.  If I’d be remembered as the president who presided over the demise of the human race.”  She didn’t want that, and not just because of concerns about her legacy.  She’d gone into government because she wanted to help people.  She didn’t want to think that this might be a situation where she couldn’t do that.

“You won’t,” Ben said.  “I know it.”

“How do you know?” Leslie asked.  “You’re not really psychic, are you?”

“For a couple reasons,” Ben said.  “First of all, there’s that thing they say.  About times getting the leaders they need.  This is a time that needs a great leader, and I think we’ve got one.”  He smiled at her, and she smiled back, sliding closer to him in their sleeping bags. “And whatever kind of time it is, you’re Leslie Knope.  You never met a crisis you couldn’t solve.”

“I never met a crisis this big,” Leslie said.

“How different can it be,” Ben asked, “from an unruly town meeting?   It’s just a lot of…beings…causing a ruckus because they can’t get what they want.”

She laughed.  “You’ve always been so excited about aliens and things.  And now you’re saying they’re no different from what we’re used to.”

“I guess I didn’t know what they’d be like,” Ben said, more soberly. “I’d just as soon do without them, now.  Not that some of it isn’t interesting.  Those stories Mulder was telling, when we were driving.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I gathered you were interested.”

“Well, it seems like the two of them know what to do,” Ben said.  “It’s good we found them.”

“And we’ll figure out what to do too,” Leslie said.  “The two of us.  I’m glad we’ve got your brains, Ben.  And your butt.”

“And my butt,” he said, smiling sleepily as she wrapped an arm around him, and she held him close until they both fell asleep.

They were up early in the morning, eating pre-packaged breakfast food;  it was a pale imitation of the real thing, but it was still better than nothing.  They took a plan for their route with them, based on Jackson and Marina’s tracking system.  Hopefully they’d be able to avoid aliens on the road.

Leslie studied the plan as they started driving.  “Hey,” she said.  “We go right by Pawnee with this.”

“That’s where you’re from?” Scully asked.

“Lived there all my life,” Leslie said.  “It’s the best town in the US.  You’d love it.  Have you spent any time in Indiana?”

“There were a couple of cases,” Scully said.

“That Cher concert,” Mulder said; he smiled at Scully, and she smiled back.  Leslie waited, but they didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.

“Should we stop off when we get there?” Leslie asked.

“It might be good to get the rest,” Ben said.

“I don’t mean we should stop for too long or anything,” Leslie said.  “Just to eat and stretch our legs.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mulder said.  “Scully?”

“Sure, we could do that,” she said.

“Great!” Leslie said.  She didn’t want to delay their mission, but she liked the thought of stopping in Pawnee more than she could say.   Going home…it would be something familiar in the midst of all that was so confusing and scary.

Of course, it might not be that familiar at this point.  The aliens might have been there already, in which case things would probably have changed.  And they’d probably changed the town motto to “Welcome, aliens!” by now.

Still, she liked the idea of showing her town to people.  When they finally drove in (they had, in fact, changed the motto to “Welcome, aliens!”, although the sign declaring it was still a mostly-cardboard work in progress), she pointed things out to Mulder and Scully.  “That’s Pawnee Commons,” she said.  “It’s a park I built.  And those people sitting on the grass are the Reasonablists.  They’re a cult that worships Zorp.”

“Zorp?” Scully asked.

“He’s a twenty-eight foot tall lizard alien,” Leslie said.  “He’s going to come and bring about the end of the world.”

“And melt people’s faces off, I think?” Ben added.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Leslie said.  “And they like to play wooden flutes.”

“This is fascinating,” Mulder said.  “Do you know how they developed this belief?”

“Yes, someone wrote a book about it and it caught on,” Leslie said.   “There used to be a lot of them.  They even took over the city for a couple of years in the 1970s.  But now they’re not as active.  They’re probably out today because of the invasion.”

“When we have a little more free time,” Mulder said, “I want to hear everything about this.  This is one of the weirdest cults I’ve ever heard about.  And I’ve encountered a lot of weird cults.”

“At least they sound relatively harmless,” Scully said.  “Right?”

“Yeah, they’re not so bad,” Leslie said.  “Just careless with the Port-a-Potties.”  She pointed out the window again.  “That’s Ron’s house.  We worked together for a long time.  He’s one of my best friends.”  She looked at the others.  “Maybe we could stop just for a minute?  To see how he’s doing?”  If there was anyone who’d be going on just as before, she thought, Ron would.  But she still wanted to see.

They pulled up in front of the house and got out of the car.  Leslie knocked on the door.  She knocked again.  And again.  But nobody answered.

Ben put an arm around her.  “They’ve probably gone for cover somewhere,” he said.  “Somewhere that’ll be safe.  You know how Ron is.”

“I know,” Leslie said, and she did.  Most of her believed that Ron was alright.  She hadn’t realized, though, how much she’d wanted to see him and to talk to him, to get the kind of advice that only he could give.  “I’m going to leave him a note,” she said, “for when he gets back.”

She had a notebook with her, and she wrote her note quickly.  Dear Ron, It’s Leslie.  We came through here on our way to try to stop the aliens.  Ben says you’ve probably taken cover somewhere safe, and I’m sure he’s right.  I wish I could have seen you, though.  We’ll have to see each other once the aliens are gone.  Love, Leslie.  She tore it out of the notebook and slid it under the front door.  “All right, I’m ready,” she said.  “We should keep going.  I know where we can go.”

Despite her words, Leslie was a bit nervous as she knocked on the door; she didn’t know what could have happened, and she didn’t want to face the thought of another friend gone who knows where.  But the door opened quickly.  “Leslie!  And Ben!  Oh, I’m so happy to see you guys!”

“We’re so happy to see you too,” Leslie said, returning Jerry’s hug. She really was, too.  Happier than she could have imagined being.   Another strange thing about the last couple of days.

“What Leslie said,” Ben added, hugging him in turn.  “You and Gayle are safe?”

“Oh, yeah, perfectly safe,” Jerry said.  “We watched the inauguration, Leslie.  Your speech was great!”

“You really thought so?  Thank you!” Leslie said.  “I didn’t think anyone would remember it by this point.  Because of the alien invasion.”

“Oh, no one paid any attention to that,” Jerry said.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“I think some people paid attention,” Leslie said.  “They’re kind of trying to colonize us now, actually.  I probably should worry.”

Jerry nodded.  “All right.  Just not too much.  Remember, you’re the president now.”

“That’s exactly why I should worry,” Leslie pointed out, but Jerry was already moving on to other topics.

“You should come inside, all of you.  Are these your secret service agents?” he asked, gesturing towards Mulder and Scully.

“No, these are Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,” Leslie said.  “They’re two former FBI agents who are helping us deal with the aliens.”

“Well, they should certainly come inside, in that case,” said Jerry. “Do you all want anything to eat?  I’ll tell Gayle you’re here.”   He ushered them into the living room.

Jerry returned with Gayle; Leslie could tell Ben was about to start muttering his astonishment at how the two of them had possibly gotten married.  She nudged him with her elbow, sternly.  “It’s great to see you, Gayle,” she said.  “You’re doing okay?”

“Well, the circumstances could be better, of course,” said Gayle.  “But we’re together and that’s all that matters.”

“Has there been any alien activity around here?” Mulder asked.

“Not yet,” Gayle said.  “At least not that we’ve noticed.”  Leslie wasn’t surprised.  If the aliens had been in Pawnee, Jerry would surely have been the first person to get abducted.  She meant it in the nicest possible way, but it was true.  “But we’ve been keeping up with everything on the news,” Gayle said.  “Do you want to watch?”

“Sure,” Leslie said.  She’d been checking in with her advisors on her phone, but it would be good for her to see some footage of what they were dealing with.

They sat down, and Gayle switched the news on.  “…Now, the story of this oil is, it’s black.”

It was good to be home.

.....

It was afternoon when they left the house to drive on towards Lake Michigan.  Mulder had been glad of the rest, and Jerry and Gayle had been very hospitable to them, even if he hadn’t found the local news particularly informative.  At least it seemed like there weren’t aliens in the area, which was something.  They couldn’t be sure what lay ahead, but they could only hope.

Leslie was taking her turn at the wheel now, and Mulder was in the backseat with Scully.  “I never expected to get driven around by a president,” he murmured to her.

She smiled, a little sleepily.  “Me neither.  But it’s not bad.”

“You tired, honey?” he asked her.

“A little.”

“You should sleep then,” he said.  “We’ll need you firing on all cylinders, when we get there.”

“Okay,” she said.  Their years on the road had served them well in this; they could sleep anywhere now.  She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her.  In just a few minutes, he could tell from her measured breathing that she was asleep.  She’d probably drool on him, not that he minded.  In fact, he minded so little that right now it seemed like one of the things he wanted to fight for: the continuation of a world in which Scully could drool on him.

“It’s going to be okay,” Leslie said softly, from the front seat.  He didn’t realize until she added, “For the two of you.  And for everyone,” that she was addressing him.

“I’ve been trying to tell myself that,” he said; he kept his voice quiet too, not wanting to wake up Scully.  “It’s just that…we’ve been through a lot because of this.  The aliens, I mean, and the people who were working with them.  And we thought it was over.  This time we honestly did.  And I’m not complaining or anything, because I know it’s a lot bigger than just us, and I really—I want to stop this.  But I’m wondering, now, if it’ll ever be over.  I really wanted it to be.”  He didn’t want to get back into this, to go back to the way he’d been in the past—to the things that had hurt him and the people he loved, to the things that had torn him and Scully apart too many times.  He wouldn’t let that happen again—never—but he couldn’t help being afraid of what might become of them.

“I don’t blame you for being upset,” Leslie said.  “I hope you’re not…well, angry that I dragged you into this.”

“No, of course not,” he said.  “I wouldn’t have felt right, just sitting back.  And I know that goes for Scully too.”

“This isn’t something I ever expected to happen,” Leslie said.  “I’ve wanted to be president since I was a kid.  So I could help people.  And I know that…Ben and I were talking, last night, about hard times demanding great leaders.  But I just hope I can be that leader.  Right now, I’m not…I’m not one hundred percent sure.”  She almost laughed.   “Sorry.  I shouldn’t say that.  Not very reassuring.”

“Well, it’s refreshing, anyway,” Mulder said.  “You rarely hear a politician admit they don’t have all the answers.”  She was silent, and he went on.  “And it’s pretty unusual, too, for a president to personally drive across the country to defeat aliens.  I’d say you’re doing all right, under the circumstances.”

“Thanks,” Leslie said.

“Speaking of driving,” he said, “let me know if you want to switch.”

“I’m still good for now,” Leslie said.  She glanced over towards the passenger seat.  “And Ben and Scully are asleep, anyway.  We might as well let them keep resting.”

“Might as well,” he said, and they sat in silence as they drove on.

He must have dozed off himself; he started awake when the car stopped.  Next to him, Scully murmured, “Mulder…what…where…”

“We’re in the car,” he told her.  “Going to Lake Michigan, remember?  Leslie, why are we stopping?”

“Because we’re here,” Leslie said.  She was shaking Ben awake.

It was dim outside by now, but Mulder saw that she was right; the waters of Lake Michigan gleamed under the last rays of the sun.  “We should start looking,” he said.  “I’ll get the files out.”

“And I’ve got masks,” Scully said.  “We should put them on.  There’s nothing to protect against the oil completely, of course, but it could help.”

“And I’ve got flashlights in the trunk,” Leslie said.  “You shouldn’t go out in the dark without flashlights.”

“We couldn’t agree more,” Scully said.

“Also I have a bag of candy,�� Leslie said, handing them the flashlights.  “Should I bring that too?  Or will it attract the aliens?”

“I don’t think aliens are really into candy,” Ben said.  “Or are they?  To be frank, I’m beginning to think that most things I thought I knew about aliens are lies.”

“No, they’re not into candy,” Scully said.  “That part’s not a lie, anyway.”

“I’ll bring it, then,” Leslie said.  “Let’s get going.”

They started walking along the shore, Scully training her flashlight on the files Mulder was carrying.  “We don’t have exact coordinates,” he said, trying to read and walk at the same time.  “Only some landmarks. There were reports of strange things happening next to a certain dock. It’s got a little footbridge leading up to it…and there are sand dunes…”

“That could be a lot of places,” Ben said, gesturing towards the shore.  “Is there anything more specific?”

“I’m checking,” said Mulder.  “Yes.  On one of the dunes there’s a tree that’s bent over.  So it looks like there’s a hole in the trunk.   One of the eyewitnesses…he said he thought it was a bad omen.  We should look for that.”

They moved their flashlights in the dark, scanning the landscape, looking for the tree that was mentioned in the files.  It was just a tree, Mulder knew—in this case, he didn’t really think it was a bad omen—but somehow everything felt more threatening, with the sun almost entirely gone now.  The masks on everyone’s faces didn’t help.

“Is that it?” Ben asked suddenly.  A tree was caught in the beam of his flashlight, a hole in the trunk illuminated.  Mulder squinted into the light; he was about to answer, but Scully spoke first.

“That’s it,” she said, and something in her voice made Mulder look down, into the beam of her own flashlight.  It was trained downwards, and he could see something moving along the ground.  Creeping?  Oozing? The oil, he realized.  The oil.

“Okay,” he said.  “We should…let’s be careful.  Especially the two of you,” he said, gesturing to Leslie and Ben.  “You haven’t been exposed to this before.  Scully, what do you need?”

“I’m going to get a sample,” she said, sliding on rubber gloves, taking a vial from a pocket.  He’d seen her like this a million times.   It had never felt more important.  “You guys just…keep watch for me, okay?”

“Of course,” he said; he saw Leslie and Ben nodding, their faces solemn above their masks in the glare of the flashlights.  He squinted into the dark again.  There was the tree.  There was the shore.  There was Scully, stooping down with her vial.  There was…there was a face looking back at him, coming out of the darkness towards them.  Advancing on Scully.

Mulder moved before he could think about it, running to head the figure off: he wasn’t sure, at this distance, if it was an alien or a human, but he could tell that it meant trouble.  But when it reached out and grabbed for him, he could tell.  An alien, and its grip was strong, forcing him back, and he wasn’t at the right angle, he couldn’t shoot for the back of the neck…He thought he heard Scully calling his name, thought he saw her rising out of the corner of his eye, but the alien was grabbing his neck now and his vision was blurry…

And then it released him, suddenly, falling to the ground.  His eyes were stinging—he knew this feeling, it was what happened when you came in contact with that green blood, and the masks didn’t seem to be doing much to stop it—but he wasn’t choking any more, for which he was grateful.  Next to the fallen alien stood Ben, holding a sharpened stick, wearing an expression that was equal parts proud, stunned, and extremely teary.

“I remembered…what you told us…” he choked out.  “Did I…just kill an alien?”

“Looks like you did,” Mulder said.

“So proud of you, babe,” Leslie said.  She was teary-eyed too, but she managed an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“Oh my God,” Ben said.  “This really stings.”

“Yeah, we told you about it, right?” Mulder said.  “They have green blood…and they release it, when you kill them.”

“Yeah, you told us,” Ben said.  “But I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“It’s really bad,” Leslie added, nodding.  “But it’s okay.  You killed an alien.  You can tell the kids about it, when we get back.”

The idea seemed to mollify Ben somewhat, despite his continued choking noises, and in a moment Scully stood up.  “I’ve got a sample,” she said.  “And I think we should get out of here.  We’re too exposed, and we don’t know if there are more of them coming…”  She looked over her shoulder.  “Scratch that.  There are.  Let’s run.”

“We shouldn’t…?”  Ben brandished his stick vaguely.

“No,” Scully said.  “We should run.”  Mulder looked towards the trees—it was still dim, but he could see at least five aliens coming, and he took off along with Scully.  Ben seemed to see the wisdom of her words—flight over fight—because he and Leslie were right at their heels.

They used to do this all the time, Mulder remembered, on every case, and he wondered how they had managed it.  For now, the adrenaline was buoying him as he sprinted towards the car, but he knew that he couldn’t keep up this speed forever and that he was definitely going to feel this later.  Fortunately, the car wasn’t very far away; they each dove for the closest door, Ben ending up in the driver’s seat.  “Should I—?”

“Drive!” Scully yelled; she was somewhere on the floor of the backseat at the moment, tangled around Mulder’s legs.  And they sped down the road, not exactly in what Mulder would call a straight line.

“Don’t hit that tree!” Leslie shouted.

“Sorry!”  Ben swerved abruptly, and they all jolted.  That was Scully’s elbow in his eye, Mulder was pretty sure; his face was already swollen, of course, but this really didn’t help.  “I can’t see very well.  My eyes are still stinging.”

Mulder did his best to look out the back window of the car—it was dark, but he thought he could still see movement behind them.  “Well, keep going anyway,” he said.  “Maybe turn somewhere.”

“If there’s an actual turn,” Scully added; she was still half on the floor, and Mulder pulled her up onto the seat.  “No more of these swerves, if possible.”

“I said I was sorry,” Ben said.

“Shit, I dropped the candy,” Leslie said.  “Do you still have the sample?  I hope it didn’t go flying somewhere.  I’d just as soon not go back there, if we can help it.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Scully said, holding out the vial.  “Hold it for me while I do my seatbelt?” she asked Mulder, and he nodded, taking it gingerly.

“So where to now?” Leslie asked.  “Once we shake the aliens.”

“We need to get somewhere that has a lab I can use,” Scully said.   “And somewhere we can stay for the night.  I’ll stay up and work on this, but there’s no reason the rest of you shouldn’t get some sleep.”

“Is there anything we can do about our eyes?” Ben asked.

“Not really,” Mulder said.  “You just have to wait for it to pass.”

“This’ll teach you to wantonly kill aliens,” Leslie said.  “Violence obviously isn’t the answer.”

“You said you were proud of me!” Ben said.

“I am proud of you,” Leslie said.  “But now that you’ve killed one alien, you don’t need to do it again.  How different can it be, killing one alien versus another?”  She looked into the backseat, as if she expected Mulder and Scully to provide an answer.

“Um…not that different,” Mulder said.

“See, Mulder says it’s not that different,” Leslie told Ben.  “And he ought to know.  See any more aliens coming?”

“I don’t think so,” Mulder said.  “We might have outdriven them, for now anyway.”

“It was probably all that swerving,” Leslie said.  “Still proud of you, babe.”

“Thanks,” Ben said.  “Where should we go to find a lab?”

Mulder looked on his phone; there was a research hospital in the next town over, one that Scully knew by reputation and said would have what she needed.  “There’s not much else in that town, though,” she said.  “I hope we can find somewhere to stay.”

They did, eventually, after a lot of driving around: a small motel near the hospital.  They all looked a little the worse for wear as they walked into the building, but the woman at the desk didn’t react.  “We’d like two rooms for the next few nights, please,” said Leslie.

“There’s only one room,” the woman said.  “Place is full up.”

“What?” Leslie asked.  “The country’s in the middle of an alien invasion and people are choosing this time to go on vacation?”

“Yeah, well, I think they wrecked some people’s houses or something,” the woman said.  “Besides, who are you to talk?  You’re trying to stay here too.”

“That’s different,” Leslie said.  “We’re here on important business.”

“Good for you,” the woman said.  “We still only have one room.”

“Should I pull rank?” Leslie asked, turning to the rest of them.

“Doesn’t matter what your rank is,” the woman said.  “Unless your rank involves conjuring up additional rooms.”

“Look, it’s fine,” Scully said.  “I won’t even be here most of the time.”

“Yeah, we’ve done this before,” Mulder added.  “Not a big deal.”  He turned to the woman.  “We’ll take it.”

The room was clean enough, and the bed was good-sized, at least.  “I think…I’ll take a very fast shower,” Scully said, glancing at the clock.  “And then I’ll head over to the hospital.”

Mulder sank into a chair.  When he next became aware of his surroundings, it was almost three in the morning; Leslie and Ben were lying on the bed, asleep.  He stretched—the chair hadn’t been the most comfortable place to sleep in—and headed for the door, passing by the front desk.  “Anywhere you can get food at this hour?” he asked the woman.

“Yeah,” she said.  “Diner next door.  Open all night.”

“Thanks,” Mulder said, giving her a nod and leaving the motel.

It didn’t take him long to get what he wanted—the diner wasn’t especially crowded at this hour—and he left the diner carrying sandwiches in a paper bag.  It only took a little longer to navigate his way through the hospital; he had to stop once and ask for directions, but he soon found the lab where Scully was working.  He tapped on the door.  She looked up.

“Hey,” she said.  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”  Her smile, though, said that she was glad he was there.

He shrugged.  “I woke up.  And I brought you a BLT.  Do you want it now or…?”

“I’ll come out,” she said.  “It’s probably not a good idea to get bacon near the samples.”

“Probably not,” he agreed.  He kissed her cheek as she came into the outer room and waited while she washed her hands.  Then they perched side by side on chairs in the waiting area, eating their sandwiches.

“Where are Leslie and Ben?” Scully asked him.

“Still at the motel,” Mulder said.  “Asleep.”

“That’s good,” Scully said.  “You were all asleep when I left.  Did you sleep through until now or…?”

“Yeah, I did,” Mulder said.  “Don’t worry about me, Scully.  If I wanted to go back to sleep, I would.  I’d rather be here with you.”

She smiled again.  “I’d rather that too, Mulder.  If you’re really not tired.”

“I’m really not,” he said.  “Besides, there’s not much space to sleep anyway.  Even if I wanted to.  That chair was killing me.”

“I think we’re a little past our peak days,” Scully said, “for running around and sleeping anywhere.  I had such a crick in my neck from sleeping in the car.  And my feet are tired.”

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

“You already helped,” Scully said, waving what remained of her sandwich.  “And just having you here.  That’s good too.”

“How’s it coming?” he asked—he wasn’t sure about alluding to the subject, but he figured they’d have to talk about it soon enough, anyway.  “You making any progress?”

“I think so,” she said.  “Starting to get there, anyway.  I thought I’d get in touch with Leslie—we’ll need a way to distribute the vaccine, once I’ve figured it out.  She seems like the best person to coordinate that.”

“Sounds like something she can handle,” Mulder agreed.  “You want me to take a message back to her?”

“Sure,” Scully said.  “And then…come back here, okay?”

“Of course,” he said.

Leslie and Ben were still asleep when Mulder got back to the hotel, but they were only moderately grouchy and disoriented when he shook them awake.  “What?” Leslie said.  “What?”

“Do we have to kill more aliens?” Ben asked.  “Please no.”  His eyes still looked a little swollen, but maybe that was just because he’d been asleep.

“No more aliens,” Mulder said.

“Ever?” Ben asked.

“In this room,” Mulder said.  “Scully wanted me to give you a message, Leslie.”

“Okay,” Leslie said.  “Just a second.”  She fumbled for a pad of paper and a pen.  “Okay.  I’m ready.”

“She’s making some progress with the vaccine,” Mulder said.  “So she wants you to start setting up a way to distribute it, once it’s finished.  Obviously as broadly and as quickly as possible—”

“Pssh, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Leslie said.  “I know how public health works, thanks.”  She was writing rapidly on the pad.  “Okay.   First I’ll call the Department of Health.  We’ll need to start setting up clinics.  Ben, are you fully awake now?  Can you work on this with me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ben said.  “You want me to get your health binder?”

“You know what I like,” Leslie said.

Ben headed for the desk, upon which Leslie had placed a large stack of binders.  “Let’s get to work then,” he said, retrieving the correct one.  “You can sleep on the bed for a while if you want, Mulder.”

“Thanks,” Mulder said, “but I’m heading back to the hospital.  Scully’s…well, I want to be with her while she’s working.”

“Understood,” Ben said, smiling at him.  “Tell her we’re rooting for her.”

“Of course,” Mulder said.

Scully was still working when he got back to the hospital.  She nodded to the chair next to hers, without speaking; he could tell she was on the trail of something.  So he sat down beside her, not speaking either, just wanting to be there.

The hours went by, and this chair wasn’t any more comfortable than the one in the hotel room—less, actually, since it didn’t have any cushioning.  He stayed anyway, though, only getting up briefly—to go to the bathroom or to find them more food.  “Just us again,” Scully said at one point, when they were grabbing a snack in the hallway.

“Just us again,” he agreed.  “Eating weird things at weirder hours.”

“Always,” she said, and she smiled at him, and he felt more hopeful, even if it was for no concrete reason.

He’d lost track of the time completely—the clock in the lab only had one working hand—when Scully turned to him, a look of anticipation on her face.  “I think…I have it,” she said.  Her voice was quiet, maybe calm if you didn’t know her well.  But he did know her well.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“As sure as I can be, now,” Scully said.  “We’ll have to see how well it works, obviously.  But I’m almost positive.”

He picked her up then, from her seat into his arms; she giggled.   “You’re brilliant,” he said, his mouth against her hair.  “Have I told you you’re brilliant?”

“I don’t mind hearing it,” Scully said.  She kissed him quickly, then slid down to her feet.  “We’ll have to pick this up later, though.   There’s more work to be done.”

“You mean we don’t get to canoodle in a lab?” Mulder asked, following her as she gathered up her things, placing the vaccine carefully in an insulated box.  “It’s been years since we’ve canoodled in a lab.”

“You make a good point,” Scully said; they were out the door now, walking towards the elevator.  “We should plan on that, once we get home.  But right now, we need to work on producing more vaccine and on distributing it as quickly as possible.”

Leslie and Ben were intent on a pile of papers, but they looked up as Mulder and Scully came into the motel room.  “What’s the news?” Leslie asked.

“I think I’ve developed a working vaccine,” Scully said.

“You’re finished?” Leslie asked.  “This quickly?”  She was grinning from ear to ear even before Scully nodded.  “Scully, you’re brilliant and you’re beautiful!” she declared.

“That’s what I told her,” Mulder said, putting an arm around Scully, who was blushing.  “How’s it coming with the distribution plans?”

“We’re making good progress,” Leslie said.  “I’ve organized this kind of thing before—not on such a large scale, of course, and probably not quite this urgent, but it’s a start.  I’d think we should be able to start getting this out in the morning.”

“And we also worked on some ideas for quarantine,” Ben said, “for people who have already been infected.  We want you to check them over, of course—we don’t know how this virus works quite as well as you do.   But I tried to remember everything you told us earlier.”  He pointed to a document on his computer screen.

Mulder leaned in to read it, Scully looking over his shoulder.  “These are really good suggestions,” he said.

“Yes,” said Scully.  “I like this one especially, about repurposing existing facilities.”

Ben was the one who was blushing now.  “Well,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure I understood what the virus was like.  So I could do the best job possible.”

“Killing aliens and healing their victims,” Leslie said.  “Still proud of you.”  She yawned.  “I barely even know what time it is any more.  But it’s okay.  You two should have the bed.  We used it already.  For sleeping.”

“Thank you,” Scully said, heading for the bed and flopping down without further ado.

Mulder followed her.  “Do you want to take your shoes off?” he asked.  No answer.  “Do you want me to take your shoes off?”  Still no answer.  She was asleep already.

“She’s been up so long,” he whispered to Leslie and Ben.  “I’ll just take her shoes off.”  Having done so, he lay down on the bed as well; Scully had sprawled across a large portion of it, but he managed to find room.  By now, it wasn’t difficult to fall asleep.

.....

“Does my appearance,” Leslie asked him, “say, ‘Presidential, in-charge, successful against all threats from this planet or any other, but also thoughtful and concerned about ordinary Americans and the struggles they are still facing in rebuilding?’”

“Yeah,” Ben said.  “That was exactly what I thought, when I first looked at you.”

“Good!” Leslie said.  “We’re ready for the press conference, then?”

“Whenever you say the word,” Ben told her, and they walked into the press room.

Instantly, they were besieged with questions.  “President Knope, can you tell us more about the successful creation of the black oil vaccine?”

“Is the defeat of the aliens due to the army?”

“What should people do to be prepared against the future return of the aliens?”

“Now, these aliens, would you say they came from space?”

“One at a time, one at a time,” Leslie said.  The reporters quieted down, at least somewhat, and Leslie took her place at the podium.  “As I’ve always said—during my campaign and throughout my political career—there are two secrets to good government.  One is putting the people first.  And the other is having a strong team.  During the recent alien colonization crisis, I was very fortunate to have that.”  She smiled.  “When I was preparing for office, I of course did my due diligence on plans for extraterrestrial contact, but this turned out to be unlike anything I expected.  So I’d first like to extend my thanks to FBI director Walter Skinner, who recommended that I get in touch with retired agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.  Their help was absolutely invaluable in providing us with ways to deal with and combat the aliens, not to mention developing the vaccine that protected so many of our people against the black oil.  Without them, we might not be here right now.”

“What about the Battle of the Smithsonian?” one of the reporters asked.  “Why did you choose to attack the aliens in that location?”

“Because of its great strategic advantage,” Leslie replied smoothly; that sounded more presidential, Ben guessed, than because that happened to be where they parked their spaceship. “Incidentally, you’ll be glad to know that we are already working on plans to reopen the exhibits.  As soon as the air is determined to be fully nontoxic again.”

“What made the air so toxic in the first place?” a reporter asked.

“It’s what happens when you kill the aliens,” Leslie explained.  Ben watched her, marveling; only a few weeks ago, this would have been something out of a fantasy for him, something that he would never have believed could actually be real.  And now Leslie was talking about it like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.  “They release a green substance.  I have first-hand experience with it, I’m afraid.  I was present when Ben killed one of the aliens.”  She shot him a grin.  “He was another invaluable member of our team during this crisis.”

“Do you believe the aliens will come back?”

“No, I think we’ve shown that our planet is not amenable to the idea of being colonized,” said Leslie.  “However, we will of course continue to monitor the situation.”

“What message would you send to people who have come in contact with the black oil?”

“Hang in there,” Leslie said, “and it’ll get better soon.  Most people who were infected are already healing.”

“What are you planning to do next, President Knope?”

“I’m looking forward to acting on my campaign promises,” Leslie said.  “The more terrestrial ones.”

“What can you tell us about tonight’s celebration of the crisis resolution?”

“It should be a fun night!” Leslie said.  “We just arranged everything that we were originally planning for the inaugural ball.   Since that was cancelled.  Due to aliens.”  The reporters took frantic notes.

“You know, I didn’t know if I’d get to wear this,” Leslie said, examining her dress in the mirror as they were getting ready for the celebration that night.  “I thought the whole human race might be wiped out.”  Her tone was light, but Ben knew she wasn’t entirely joking.

“Well, we weren’t,” he said.  “And a lot of that’s thanks to you.”   He kissed her lightly.  “You were giving everyone else the credit earlier today.  But you deserve credit too.”

“Thank you,” she said, kissing him back.  They were quiet for a few minutes, as they finished dressing.  Ben was thinking about what they’d just been through, how excited he was to be seeing friends at the celebration tonight, when he’d thought just recently that he might not see those people again.

“I can’t wait to see everyone,” Leslie said—it wasn’t the first time their thoughts had been in sync, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.   “I’m just glad—we’ve been lucky.  That we’re all okay.”  He nodded, taking her hand, and then they went downstairs.  Sonia, Stephen, and Wesley were waiting for them in the entryway, all dressed up as well.   “Come on, everyone!” Leslie said, beaming, and they headed for the car.

The celebration was crowded already when they got there—everyone wanted to celebrate the defeat of the aliens, and Leslie never had the heart to refuse anyone an invitation.  They soon saw Mulder, Scully, and their kids, though.  “Hi!” Leslie said, moving through the crowd towards them.  “I’m so glad you could all make it.”

“We wouldn’t have missed it,” Mulder said.  “Never thought we’d get invited to a ball.  Or actually be in favor with government officials.   Right, Scully?”

“Right,” Scully said.  “Thank you so much for inviting us.”

“Yes, thank you,” Susanna added, blushing; she still seemed a bit tongue-tied around Leslie, although she’d become fast friends with the triplets during her brief stay at the White House.

“So what do the two of you have planned?” Ben asked.  “Now that we’ve saved the world and all.”

“Back to retirement,” Mulder said.

“And praying it’ll stick this time,” Scully added.

“Well, I’ll certainly miss having your advice,” Leslie said, “but I understand.  And I know we’ll stay friends—oh my God, there’s Ann.”  She abruptly pushed past Scully, as well as several people who were standing behind her, and rushed towards the door, where Ann was just coming in.

“Don’t take it personally,” Ben told Mulder and Scully.  “She’s like this with everyone, when Ann shows up.”  He wanted to say hello to Ann too, but he figured he’d let Leslie have her moment first.  “So,” he asked Mulder and Scully instead, “what eventually happened in that town with the vampires?”  He would have thought that what they’d been through would have cured his interest in paranormal adventures.  But somehow, he was finding, it hadn’t.

Ben and Leslie hadn’t really had a peaceful moment since the inauguration—even after the aliens were gone, they’d been concentrating on dealing with the aftermath—so tonight was especially welcome.  They spent time talking to old friends, of whom there were many; even Ron, who’d just emerged from the cabin in the woods where he’d holed up against the aliens, had agreed to make an appearance.  “Don’t think I’m not still against these large government functions,” he told Ben.  “But it’s Leslie.  You understand.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed.  “It’s Leslie.”

“And,” Ron added, “there’s breakfast food.”  He gestured complacently to his plate.  Ben hadn’t been sure that breakfast food was traditional for this kind of celebration, but Leslie had pointed out that she liked breakfast food and that most people found it very comforting, which was sorely needed in times like these.  He hadn’t been able to argue with that one.

There was dancing too, and Ben held Leslie tightly as they moved among the other couples; he could see Mulder and Scully, dancing nearby, and he gave them a quick wave.  They waved back.  Then he turned back to Leslie.  “Defeated an alien threat,” he said, “and threw a kick-ass celebration.  Not bad for your first month on the job.”

“Not what I originally had planned,” Leslie said, “but I agree, not bad.”

“It’ll really give you something to talk about,” he said, “in your State of the Union.”

She laughed.  “Too true.  But for now—let’s just dance.”

So they did.

[wrongfullythinking]

And then there were five...

The numbers say 20.  Or maybe 21.  It’s hard to tell.  But in reality, I think we’re down to five.  Five’s a good number, the same amount you can fit on a basketball floor and really know who is out there.  Let’s face it, nobody but the most die-hard fan knows who bats 8th and plays left.  Five?  Five’s a number we can deal with.  And looking at the state of things, we’re down to five realistic candidates.  Maybe some of the other 15 or 16 will get a nice mike-drop moment, and maybe they’ll get a chance to advocate for a cause they believe in.  But if your party is so oddly out that you need to use the presidential nomination as a way to get your ideas across... well, it worked for the Bern, but rarely do imitators have the same success as the original.

In this piece, I’m going to give brief thoughts on the five candidates, and then assign my own completely arbitrary “chance-of-winning-the-nomination” percentages.

The Frontrunner: Biden (50%) At this point, [5/2/2019], preliminary voters are presented with a choice: Joe Biden, or somebody else?  It is very much Biden vs. the Pack, and if Biden is the nominee, he’ll make it very clear that it is actually TheObamaLegacy vs. EverythingNotObama.  Without an Obama endorsement, that’s a tough one to pull off.  Frankly, I don’t think Joe Biden is the strongest candidate, and I don’t think he will make a great president.  But he’s also not going to go away until the very end of this, and if he loses, it will be because everybody else decides to unite behind another candidate.

There’s this fiction that Biden is the most “electable” candidate.  He’s not, he’s the third-most electable.  The second-most electable is Michelle Obama.  She is a sure-fire nominee and general election winner, pulling southern states, the female vote, Florida and Michigan away from Republicans and guaranteeing there is no red path to 270.  Does Biden do any of that?  Probably not.  He’s not Bill Clinton, with charisma to go with midwestern history.  He’s not Obama himself, with a genuine melancholy and a realist outlook.  He’s a meme more than a politician since 2008.

But let’s get straight what matters about Biden and what doesn’t.  Nobody really cares about what he said to Anita Hill or his tough-on-crimes stance in the 90s.  The media will keep dredging up these issues, and the fact that they’re having to dig this deep to find some pretty thin soil tells you a lot about Biden.  He’s pretty hard to object to, and Trump is very easy to object to.  There is no doubt that Biden will garner the vote of everybody who hates Trump.  But can you win an election with just “Not-Trump?”  Apparently not, if I remember the 2016 final tally.  [But let’s not get started into how Democrats can bungle this thing, if they don’t learn from their “ignore the whites and the heartland, whine incessantly about the other guy, and then say that we should thank them for raising taxes” plan from 2016, they’re hopeless anyways.]

How can Biden win the nomination? The longer everybody else stays in, the more likely Biden wins.  Let’s be clear: Biden is going to be the “least objectionable” candidate in both the Primary and the General.  Biden’s chances also go up every time somebody else goes low, but his years of experience as Washington and his long, long list of friends, combined with strong association with Obama, make him the most resilient and easily-forgiven of the candidates.

How does Biden lose the nomination? The rest of the field unites behind one or two other candidates who pound Biden with policy expertise, passionate speeches, and a presidential air.  Or, frankly, Biden himself disengages.  The more time Biden has to prepare (and hire the best speech-writers), the more Biden is likely to be president.  The more time the media spends showing his off-the-cuff gaffes (and there will be plenty), and we could see a Howard Dean scenario emerge, provided there is another strong candidate.  The other danger to Biden is that the young vote deserts him in favor of another candidate, and the older generation stays apathetic for the days of Obama.

What to expect from a Biden presidency: First, a lot less headlines.  Wouldn’t it be nice to open CNN on any day and see that the webpage’s headline was not about the President?  That’s not a ringing endorsement of Biden, nor will it excite the often-raving-horde of young politicos.  But let’s be honest... young politicos have always been a bit of a raving horde, and this generation really isn’t different.  They just tweet instead of march and browse webpages instead of newspapers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden establish a legacy as the “infrastructure President.”  And that’d be fine with most Americans.  I certainly would love to see some high-speed rails, because **** the airline companies.  They’re terrible.  The American Highway System is a wonder of the modern world, and improving it with a series of electrical refueling stations and solar-powered rest stops couldn’t hurt.  Infrastructure is an easy win, and Biden’s going to take easy wins.  As he should.

The Rabble Rouser: Bernie Sanders, 15% The Bern seems to be a better candidate on paper than he actually is; right now, he’s benefitting from the same early-momentum wave that carried Hillary to the Chair of the Anointed One at the Democratic Convention.  Bernie’s always had bad timing though, and I’m not convinced this is any different.  Had Biden stayed out of the race, I’d put Bernie’s chances at 30 or 40%.  But with Biden in, I’m not sure there are enough Obama-era democrats who actually prefer the Bern.  Sure, the young/gay/urban/unemployed/coastal [pick two] crowd who wants to reshape the country into a Scandinavian one loves him.  But how many of us want to weigh our trash and be charged 6$ for each pound of it the garbage guy has to pick up?  How many of us want to be told by a bank that they can’t offer us a loan, because we didn’t attend a prestigious enough university [coastal degrees only for investment bankers]?  Let’s not even start on 55% tax rates for the middle class or subsidizing a 29-year-old’s NYC apartment as he trucks through a medieval literature degree one-course-at-a-time.  This is obvious hyperbole, but “democratic socialism” starts with “democratic,” and that means “the beliefs of the people” are synonyms with “the will of the people.”  Could some of the Bern’s policies work in America.  Sure.  But there’s no evidence that he can convince any except his already die-hard advocates that they all can, and a policy doesn’t make a system.  I’m not convinced Americans, be they blue or red or the purple-murky-middle, are really excited about this sort of sea change.

How to Sanders win/lose the nomination? If the “woke” wing of the party fails to find a demographic-win in Harris or Buttigieg, and decides to yell loud enough to keep the Obama-era democrats from crowning Biden, or if Biden drops out as well as Harris/Buttigieg, Sanders could end up engaged in a rhetorical battle with Warren that neither of them want, but the country might need.  At that point, it’s a coin-flip and a nasty convention, and lines in the sand may become tracks on the ground, separating the haves-and-have-nots in the Democratic party.  Still, Sanders could emerge in such a scenario with a win, though I’d tip my hand towards Warren.

What to expect from a Sanders presidency: There’s a small chance we get a lot of everything, and a large chance we get absolutely nothing, depending on how Congress plays out.  It is always amusing to me to watch candidates at this stage talk policy, because, you know... the President doesn’t write policy.  Okay, he [or soon-to-be “she”] does, but not really.  You’ve got to go back to the 70s/80s to find Presidents who were really able to institutionalize their policies in statute, and unless Sanders picks up a majority in both Houses, and even then, it is tough to see most of his ideas actually making it into law.  I’ve critiqued Obama before as being “the Toothless President,” because his “signature accomplishment” of the AHCA is already mostly dust-in-the-wind, and it wasn’t even much of a victory to start with [he didn’t even get a government-based option!].  Sanders’ ideas are likely too big for any political reality, and remember, he’s been in the Senate for a LONG time.  How much of his work do you see in your daily life?

The Best: Elizabeth Warren, 30% One of the strangest (and most chilling) realities of this election cycle is how dismal Warren is polling.  What we’re seeing here is what I call “The Hillary Effect,” where an unlikable-older-white-woman is conjuring up all our memories of nasty assistant principals and that mean piano teacher who kept whacking our fingers.  Warren is neither of those things, but her image is not, at this point, helping her.  Warren needs the rest of the electorate to come to Warren-land, where what matters is your policy chops, and it remains to be seen if the Democratic party (no racism, no slander, no ableism!) allows itself to move past her white-and-rich appearance.

So, let’s have that experiment.  Let’s get past the appearance and the fact that she listed herself as 25% Native American in order to get a law school scholarship.  What do you have left?  What you have left is a woman who can be President.  She’s been a far more successful politician than either Sanders or Biden, and she’s the candidate with the best touch to the realities of the parties from coast-to-coast.  Warren’s policies, although a bit left-of-center, are clearly centered around the groups she wants to elevate: small businesses, Americans with children, and all of us who are willing to work for a living but want to be able to live like we want if we do.  Warren’s the president who believes in exchange: you put in your time with her, and you feel like she’ll give you something back.  That’s a big difference from the Hillary Clinton campaign.  Look at the Clinton slogan: “I’m with her.”  Compare that to Trump’s slogan (Make America Great Again), and we know which one won.  On a slogan level, the second one SHOULD win.  You want a president who is about making the country great.  Warren’s the politician who gets that, and understands how Trump is appealing to people’s needs, rather than setting out for a list of “the world should be like this.”  The fact that her policies are so well-defined and solidly based in the needs of Americans is what sets her so far apart from the rest of the crowd.  I have no qualms in saying that of the current pack, I would much rather have Warren as my president than any other candidate, and it isn’t close.

How does Warren win/lose the nomination? Warren’s path to victory starts by convincing Obama-era democrats that she is more Obama than Biden is.  That’s a tough sell, because she looks more like Hillary... who, let’s not forget, lost a nomination to Obama before she lost to Trump.  Warren needs to separate herself from Hillary and align herself with Obama.  Frankly, an Obama endorsement might be the thing that lands the race in her lap.  Warren also needs the conversation to revolve around policy.  She’s the best at that, and she needs to convince people that she can get her policies not just in front of Congress, but through it.  The less talk is about policy, and the more it is about nebulous ideas or demographics or social media or broad philosophical stances, the worse Warren will do.

What to expect from a Warren presidency. We might get some high-speed rails, but we’ll likely see taxes go up on the rich, stay stagnant on the middle class, and see some supplement for popular welfare-type programs (college aid, family aid, etc.).  I’m not convinced Warren can make a difference in healthcare, and I’m fine if she doesn’t; we’ve wasted 12 years on the topic now and it just may not be the window.  But there are so many other issues that Warren can tackle that would make a difference to Americans.  I’d love a tax credit for putting solar power on a roof, and Warren’s the one I see making that happen, not Sanders.  I’d like to see university students get some more support federally [good job on Summer Pell!] and that is most likely to come from Warren.  Generally, I think we’ll see the “B” versions of her stump-speech policies become realities.  The middle-50% of Americans will pay 20-30% in taxes, not 15, and the highest-1% will pay 40%, not 50 or 70.  Small businesses will get their health care burden for employees subsidized, but won’t be able to write off all debts for a decade.  Farmers may again be able to make a profit off a cow, though we may all pay an extra 25c per gallon for milk and an extra 30c per pound of beef.

((My wish list for Warren: rein in credit card companies and payday loans.  Nobody but a bank should be able to give you a credit card, let’s stop all this “Sears Card, Best Buy Card, Kohls Card” nonsense that keeps American families in debt from their late-teens to retirement.  And banks need transparent policies about awarding credit cards and loans, and be forced to stick with them, not making nebulous decisions about eligibility based on who-the-lending-officer-is and the skin color of their applicant.  /rant end))

Bernie 2.0 or Trump 2.0???: Buttigieg, 3% Buttigieg may have the most energy, but the primary process may be the most damaging to him.  I mean, it let him get into the race in first place, and he does look a bit like a Kennedy, doesn’t he?  And his charisma is first-rate, his qualifications trump Trump’s at this point in the last election cycle [low bar, right?] and he’s just non-white enough [because he has sex with men, so that counts] to keep some of the Democrat’s own bloodhounds off his back.  The weaknesses are also glaring: he doesn’t have the policy of Warren, the political capital of Biden, or the funds and the rabid fans of Bernie.  But he is from a Midwestern state, and the Democrats could do worse than considering that.  The trouble here is that no one really sees the energy lasting for another year.  But hey, it worked for Trump, right?

The trouble is that Buttigieg needs a Trump-like groundswell of support to carry him to the nomination, and right now, that base is going Sanders, and may squash any non-Sanders candidate who should appeal to them simply by virtue of them already having Sanders bumper stickers.  To get it, Buttigeig may have to be the one who starts to go low, and he’s shown a reticience to do so.  At some point, Buttigieg will need to argue that he’s the Midwestern candidate, and the Democrats need the Midwest.  How he makes that argument, who he convinces, and if anybody can be convinced, will all dictate how long Buttigieg stays relevant.

How does Buttigieg win/lose the nomination? Frankly, I don’t see this happening without Sanders dropping out the race, and that likely means a Sanders health problem.  That’s not an exciting prospect for anybody, but if Sanders drops out and then endorses Buttigieg, we could see a late-term surge for him past the other remaining candidates.  He has to raise enough money to be in it for that long, and he’s got to continue to have great town halls and debates, which are two areas where he shines.  I think Buttigieg is going to be a player in the democratic party for years to come, but I don’t think this is his race.

The Californian: Harris, 10% Harris is not likable.  She wants to be Michelle, and she’s not.  Oh yeah, earlier, when I said that Michelle Obama was the second-most electable person in America?  That’s because she’s behind Beyonce.  And let’s be clear, Harris is NOT Beyonce.  That’s not a dig against either of them, it is a reality of the situation: there are a number of high-powered black women easily in the public eye (in addition to the above two, let’s not forget Oprah, Whoopi, and Stacy Abrams), and Harris is less-likeable than all of them.  She comes across brusque, aggressive, and well... a little bit like Trump.  That’s not what we want, right?  Right?  The point is, the Democratic party vilifies unlikeable women, and if Warren is struggling with this, Harris is absolutely going to drown in it.  We can talk about feminism and compare waves all we want, but people are going to pay lip-service to that in public, and in private, quietly mark ballots for Biden.  That’s always a concern of the Democratic party, and I’m not sure Harris is the one that cures it.  I am sure that Harris does not carry the female vote away from Biden, Sanders, or Warren.  She’s not a woman’s candidate.

What’s really difficult for Harris is that she’s not anyone’s candidate.  California?  Sure, why not, but any democrat carries California against Trump.  Who cares?  The black vote?  Last I checked, it was what, roughly 8% of America and not enough to carry Pennsylvania or Michigan?  Nor any of the Deep South (that Obama won) against a Trump campaign.  The nice part of this is that Harris has the potential to make in-roads with a lot of groups.  She’s a professional, she has a presidential air, and she has a prosecutor’s wit.  She’s unashamedly intelligent and not afraid of a big moment, like we saw with the 13,500-to-teachers announcement or the recent Barr hearings.  She’s less good in-the-moment, where she comes across as a lawyer and not a politician, appealing to the paper rather than the audience.  And there’s not a good sound-byte here yet.  But Harris could be all those things.  Maybe.

How does Harris win/lose the nomination? Harris gets 10% here because she may be the one with the most obvious route past Biden, if Sanders and Warren get out of her way.  She needs to improve her on-stage performances (that Town Hall was dismal) and she needs to make sure her focus is where it needs to be, and not get caught talking about things like medical care or Yang’s tech-policies that are clearly not her wheelhouse.  It is a matter of sticking to her lane, and then including as many people as possible in her car.  She wants to pull people towards her, and the better she can do that, and avoid her lawyer’s instinct of defining boundaries of “Yes” and “No,” the better she’ll do.  Harris has the real potential to use this race to grow up from prosecutor to politician, and if she does that, she could be a force.  I don’t see her as a serious challenge to Warren or Sanders if it comes down to them as the final two, but I do see her challenging Biden if it ends up with the two of them.  Harris needs to stay in the race, keep practicing her presence, and start avoiding troublesome questions like a politician, while maintaining a few key clear policies that people can tie to her name.  The bump-for-teachers was a great start, and if she could become “the education candidate,” we might really have something here.

The Rest: 2% I feel like the rest of the field isn’t trying to be President, they’re trying to use the nomination process to make money/crusade-a-cause or just stir up feelings.  I’m disappointed this is happening to democrats, because it keeps the five real potential candidates from offering powerful distinctions.  Does the party want to move towards Bernie-socialism?  Can we believe in Farmers?  Do Democrats actually value the MIdwest (according to Hillary, no... does Biden change that narrative)?  What is the role of the US internationally, specifically with regards to China and a post-Brexit UK?  Was is the reasonable path towards renewable energy, and how does it help me lower my energy bill next January?  Will I be able to claim Social Security, and if the system is poor, how do we fix it [or incentivize workers and companies to start doing a better job with retirement plans]?  What does a rising interest mean for American home-buyers, and do we want Americans to buy homes?  There are so many questions that the candidates differ on, and I worry that we won’t be able to hear from the important candidates on them, because we’ll be hearing somebody’s own hot take on Putin or how Universal Basic Income is something we should pretend to care about for the next 12 minutes.  That’s a disservice to the party and the voters, and I hope the debate moderators, pundits, and press over the next 12 months give us a clear view of where the candidates stand and the differences between then.

The afterthought: AOC. Well, we’ve got to talk about her, right?  The thing is, we don’t.  She’s not a political force, she’s a social one.  So, let’s get the obvious out of the way: she’s not eligible to run for President now, though she might be in four years (I’m actually not clear on where her birthday lines up with inauguration day, and I don’t think she’s important enough to check).  The very real flaw here is that AOC is not representative.  No person is.  Yes, I get that she’s non-white and female.  Guess what, our country is about 50% male and somewhere around 50% white.  So by virtue of being not, it is impossible to argue that someone is.  However, the real problem with “representative” is that AOC is coastal and urban, and her perspectives are entirely based on those realities.  This is a shame, because for all that people can tout her LatinX heritage, she is very much out-of-tune with high-LatinX states like New Mexico, Texas, and even the non-coastal parts of California.  Does that matter in an electoral college world?  Maybe not... no Democrat is expected to carry Texas, and no Democrat will fail to carry California.  But she’s not a candidate (like Harris, or Obama) who can expect to pull a huge amount of votes simply based on her demographic information.  That math has never worked out as well as pundits want it to... remember the Palin experiment?  That certainly didn’t persuade the female vote to go Red.  And this is one place where I think the American electorate is sadly underestimated; it is assumed we vote for people who look like us, and I find American voters quite a bit more savvy than that.  AOC doesn’t pull the LatinX vote as a block, and she certainly doesn’t carry Texas.  Alongside the coastal-based policies and city-only mentality she carries, there is no reason to nominate AOC in four years.

[thiswildekitkat]

BAD AT LOVE

TAGGING: Kitty Wilde with mentions of Finn Hudson, Mason McCarthy( @wayoutmason ), and random relationships in high school

LOCATION: Fresno ; Stage Two, Act Two

DATE: September 2018

NOTES: Kitty and a fan sing Bad at Love while Kitty reflects on her love life.

It had been a super energetic second night of tour and Kitty couldn’t have been more proud of the time that she has had. The faces in the crowd singing her songs made her heart swell with joy - this is what she loved about being an artist. 

“Okay, guys I’m sad to say that this is the last song of the night,” Kitty said as she walked the front of the stage, the boos coming from the crowd made her smile. She didn’t want this night to end either, but she figured she would make it the best ending. The blonde stopped in the middle of the stage and down to a girl that had caught her eye from the beginning of the show.

“So, I figured that I would change things up a bit. Bad at Love has always been one of my favorite songs and well, I think I’m going to invite one of my friends on stage with me tonight.” Kneeling down, she held her hand out to the girl that had caught her attention. “Would you want to sing this song with me?”

The light in the girls face only made Kitty that much happier as the other girl nodded her head and rushed to the side of the stage where security helped her onto the stage. Kitty rushed to the other girl and gave her a huge hug. 

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

The other girl smiled and Kitty could see the nerves inside her. “It’s Claire.” 

“That’s such a great name, Claire. You ready to sing with me?”

Claire nodded her head and the start of the music played as Kitty let her fingers run through her hair, the mic in her other hand. 

Got a boy back home in Michigan And it tastes like Jack when I'm kissing him So I told him that I never really liked his friends Now he's gone and he's calling me a bitch again

Those lyrics were about her first boyfriend, James. They dated their freshman year in high school and he was strangely addicted to the taste of Jack and Kitty was too good for that; plus she was still a good christian girl. They were from opposite sides of the track and James hated that about her; they never clicked in the way that they should have and he would often call her a bitch if she commented on his friends, who were assholes to her. Their relationship lasted a month before it was over.

There's a guy that lives in a garden state And he told me that we make it 'til we graduate So I told him the music would be worth the wait But he wants me in the kitchen with a dinner plate

Her final high school boyfriend was, who she thought at the time, the love of her life. At least while it lasted, but she was writing and posting music on YouTube and he had different plans. He was a member of the church and his parents were good friends with hers so that’s how they ended up on their first date. And that leads to more and soon they were dating for a year. Until he assumed that they were going to move in together and he would work while she stayed home and did her “womanly” duties. He was stuck in the traditional ways that they were used to being around and Kitty was never considered traditional. After graduation, the two split for the better.

I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe That we're meant to be But jealousy, jealousy, jealousy, jealousy Get the best of me Look, I don't mean to frustrate, but I Always make the same mistakes, yeah I Always make the same mistakes 'cause I’m bad at love

There was something about the way that Kitty loved that was always a little off. Maybe it was the messed up childhood that she had or the way that her body and mind was shaped to act for years upon years at home, but she could never get it right. Her jealous tendencies would get the best of her and that would often cause fights with the boys that she dated. Even if they did not give her a reason to, she would always find a way to pull back before she really got hurt. And sometimes that worked - and other times it didn’t.

But you can't blame me for tryin' You know I'd be lyin' sayin' You were the one (ooh-ooh) That could finally fix me Lookin' at my history I'm bad at love

And out of nowhere, Finn came along and maybe, just maybe he could be the one to fix her relationship woes. He seemed good and although they were just newly dating, maybe he would be the one to fix the way that she thought about herself and the relationships that she had in the past. Who was she kidding, though? Nobody could fix her even if they were a Prince. She was stuck in her ways and there was no denying that she was not a relationship type of girl even though she has tried her hardest to be.

I know that you're afraid I'm gonna walk away Each time the feeling fades Each time the feeling fades I know that you're afraid I'm gonna walk away Each time the feeling fades

Mason McCarthy. Kitty never knew if Mason was afraid for her to walk away from him - the many times that she walked away from him and stopped their friends with benefits over and over again. Of him believing that she was not good enough for him and to leave - this is why she always left before he could hurt her. Maybe one day they will walk away from each other for good, but she hopes that it never comes to that. Her feelings for Mason run deep and complicated, but with him she never felt more alive. If she was being honest, she was always afraid of him leaving her.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Registered Republicans In Utah

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How Many Registered Republicans In Utah

Your Voice Your Vote Your Future

In Conservative Utah, Many Mormon Voters Distrust Trump

We believe that change happens at the local level. Thats why were working with 200+ YWCAs across 46 states to help build political power in our communities.

Were an official Voterise partner to get 20,000 potential women voters in Utah registered to vote on issues that impact their lives and their families. Learn more about Women Registering Women and sign up.

Get Started;

Register to vote! Dont forget if you had a name change or change of address you must update your registration.

Get your friends and family registered. That friend who just isnt into politics? Your cousin who just turned 18? Help them see the value in showing up to the polls.

Lend your support locally. Whether its volunteering to plan or participate in a voter registration drive, helping with a candidates forum or with voter education events, or simply lifting up efforts through social media we can each play a role in empowering our community.

Host your own voter registration drive! Whether its at your school, place of worship, office, or a sporting event, it is quick and easy to set up and a great way to make registering easy for people in your community. and hand out pledge cards and get going!

SHOW UP ON ELECTION DAY AND VOTE.

Find more information about tracking your ballot and see your specific voter information at vote.utah.gov.

Voter Registration And State Political Control

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

The state Democratic or Republican Party controls the governorship, the state legislative houses, and U.S. Senate representation. Nebraska’s legislature is unicameral, i.e., it has only one legislative house and is officially non-partisan, though party affiliation still has an unofficial influence on the legislative process.

The simplest measure of party strength in a state voting population is the affiliation totals from voter registration for the 30 states and the District of Columbia as of 2019 that allow registered voters to indicate a party preference when registering to vote. 20 states do not include party preference with voter registration: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. The party affiliations in the party control table are obtained from state party registration figures where indicated. Only Wyoming has a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Republicans; two states have a majority of registered voters identifying themselves as Democrats: and Kentucky .

Chart 1 And Table : Nationwide Party Registration Trends Since 2000

Since 2000, the nationwide proportion of registered Democratic and Republican voters in party registration states have both gone down, while the percentage of registered independents has steadily grown. The latter has nearly reached the nationwide percentage of registered Republicans, which has long been second nationally to the Democrats. Altogether, the combined number of registered Democrats and Republicans, which was 77% in October 2000, is now down to 69%, while the proportion of registered independents over the same period has increased from 22% to 28%.

Note: Based on active registered voters in states where the number of active and inactive registrants is listed. In the election-eve 2000, 2008, and 2016 entries, Independents include a comparatively small number of registered miscellaneous voters who do not fit into a particular category. Percentages do not add to 100 since the small percentage of registered third party voters is not included.

Richard Wingers monthly newsletter, Ballot Access News, for election-eve party registration numbers in 2000, 2008, and 2016; the websites of state election offices for July 2018.

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Huntsman At Risk Of Shocking Defeat In Utah

After a decade away from Utah politics and a weeks-long fight with the coronavirus, the former governor is locked in a tight race for his old job.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

06/29/2020 07:19 PM EDT

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When former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman launched a bid for his old job last November, his entry to the race elicited one immediate question: Why?

Now, on the eve of the state’s Republican primary, many GOP voters are asking that very question. Huntsman, despite once owning 90 percent approval ratings as governor and a surname thats legendary in Utah, is struggling to fend off Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox for the GOP nomination.

Back in 2009, just a few months after he was reelected to a second term with nearly 80 percent of the vote, Huntsman left Utah to serve as ambassador to China under then-President Barack Obama before fleeing Beijing abruptly in 2011 for an ill-fated presidential campaign against the man who appointed him.

Then Donald Trump, in need of a credible ambassador in Moscow after Russia’s interference in the election, tapped the experienced Huntsman for the job even though the former governor had called on him to drop out after the “Access Hollywood” tape.

“This race is kind of Huntsman versus Huntsman,” said Doug Foxley, a political strategist and senior adviser to the Huntsman campaign. “Some of these people have feelings about Jon and they’re either voting for him, or they’re voting against him.”

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Political Party Strength In Us States

Political party strength in U.S. states is the level of representation of the various political parties in the United States in each statewide elective office providing legislators to the state and to the U.S. Congress and electing the executives at the state ” rel=”nofollow”>U.S. state governor) and national level.

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Y Identification Party Registration And Unaffiliated Voters

Only 26% of unaffiliated voters also identify as independents. The remaining unaffiliated voters split evenly between Republicans and Democrats . In other words, its probably okay to confuse registered Republicans with self-identified Republicans , but unaffiliated voters are not always independents.

This analysis was performed by Zach Smith, a student research fellow at;;, in collaboration with CSED faculty.; The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to Quin Monson.

Even though they sound alike, party registration and party identification are conceptually different.; In Utah and many other states, when you register to vote you can also register with a specific political party or as unaffiliated. This registration status can be changed online. Formal party registration is technically different from party identificationthe psychological attachment or sense of identity that a voter has for a political party.; Party identification is usually measured on a survey with a question something like, Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?

Party identification is also typically separated into seven categories so that partisan identifiers can express the strength of their identity.; Independents are typically allowed to lean toward one party or the other .2

How And When To Return Your Ballot:

; Your ballot;MUST;be postmarked no later than the Monday before the election, in order for it to be counted. ;

Drop Box; Secure Ballot Drop Boxes will be available at;the following;locations:

Millard County Clerks Office; 765 S Hwy 99, Ste. 6, Fillmore, Utah during business hours, through the Monday before each election and from 7:00 a.m. through 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Public Safety Building; 765 S Hwy 99, Fillmore, Utah 24 hours up to 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Millard County Satellite Offices; 71 S 200 W, Delta, Utah 24 hours up to 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Millard County Offices; 50 South Main Street, Fillmore, Utah 24 hours up to 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Drop Boxes allow voters to drop their voted ballot, sealed in the signed envelope, at any one of the locations without having to put a stamp on the envelope.; ;Ballots dropped at drop boxes are regularly retrieved by election staff and delivered to the Clerks Office for counting on Election Day.

Polling Locations Election Day Two vote centers will be available on Election Day and during Early Voting, for those who may require assistance, or may have issues with their ballot, i.e.: spoiled, torn or damaged, or did not receive a ballot, need to make name and/or address changes, missed the deadline to register to vote, etc., or simply wish to hand deliver their voted ballot.

Voters needing assistance are encouraged to contact the Clerks Office and/or come in person during early voting or on Election Day.

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A Group Of Friends And A Few Acquaintances Were Having A Politic Many Of You Guys Can Add It Up In One Minute So Please Tell Me:

Eric rauchway, professor of american history at the university of democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: There were nine new senators and a minimum of 89 new representatives , as well as one new delegate at the start of its first session. During this time, african americans were largely disenfranchised. Get more help from chegg. The us political parties, now called democrats and republicans, switched platform planks, ideologies, and members many although what happened is complex, in many cases there was no clean sudden shift, and some voter bases and factions never switched, you can see evidence of the. How many new democrats are there? Voter registration is the requirement that a person eligible to vote registers on an electoral roll before that person is entitled or permitted to vote. Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the us government to provide fair representation. Republicans who worked with democrats were traitors in the war for seats in congress. Ive seen a lot where it says theyre a registered democrat . A group of friends and a few acquaintances were having a politic many of you guys can add it up in one minute, so please tell me: Republicans and democrats after the civil war. In the others, such as virginia, voters register without.

Nearly 100000 Voters Registered As Republicans Before The Primary But Most Of Those Were Independents Not Democrats

In Battleground States, Newly Registered Democrats Are Outnumbering Newly Registered Republicans

Then-Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, former House Speaker Greg Hughes and former Gov. Jon Huntsman participate in the Utah governor primary debate at the PBS Utah studio at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, June 1, 2020. A new study says voters switching parties had a minimal effect on the outcome of the race, which Cox won by just over 6,300 votes.

There has been much hand-wringing among Utah Republicans even legislation over the potential of Democrats changing their party affiliation to vote in and potentially disrupt GOP primary elections.

But, a new study concludes Democrats didnt have much of an impact on last years Republican primary despite a concerted effort to get voters of all stripes to register with the GOP.

The report from the Princeton University Electoral Innovation Lab says while the number of Utah voters who were registered as Republicans surged ahead of the June primary election, most of those were unaffiliated voters becoming Republicans rather than Democrats switching parties.

Spencer Cox edged out Jon Huntsman for the GOP nomination, winning just 36.15% of the vote in the four-way race in June. Huntsmans campaign encouraged unaffiliated voters who usually vote for Republicans in the general election to register with the GOP for the primary.

And a couple of prominent Democrats also urged members of their party to switch before the primary.

Courtesy Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton University

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The 2018 Midterm Elections

The 2018 midterm elections held many historic firsts Congress will have more women of color serving at the same time than ever before, and nationally women made unprecedented wins! We congratulate all of this years winners, and applaud first-time candidates, voters, and organizers for getting involved.

The Increasingly Republican Pandemic

Increasingly, it’s a Republican pandemic.

The Associated Pressreported last week that of the 18,000 American COVID-19 deaths in May, only 150 involved fully vaccinated people and that “breakthrough” infections of vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of the 853,000 COVID-related hospitalizations during the month. Those low numbers suggest the pandemic death rate “could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine,” the news service concluded.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of vaccine holdouts. As David Leonhardt points out today at TheNew York Times, the refusers are trending Republican: The average county that voted for Donald Trump is just 34 percent vaccinated; the number is 45 percent for counties that went for Joe Biden. And unsurprisingly, the counties that have a low proportion of vaccinations have higher rates of new cases.

It’s here where you have to consider if Tucker Carlson holds the power of life and death or, at least, good health or ill over his nearly 3 million conservative viewers.

But Carlson can use his influence for good. During the first, terrifying days of the pandemic last March, he reportedly was a pivotal figure who helped convince then-President Trump to finally start taking the coronavirus seriously. “I felt I had a moral obligation to be useful in whatever small way I could,” Carlson toldVanity Fair in March 2020.

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Political Party Strength In Illinois

Illinois is a Democratic stronghold in presidential elections and one of the âbig threeâ Democratic strongholds alongside and New York. It is one of the most Democratic states in the nation with all state executive offices and both state legislative branches held by Democrats. For most of its history, Illinois was widely considered to be a swing state, voting for the winner of all but two presidential elections in the 20th century. Political party strength in Illinois is highly dependent upon Cook County, and the stateâs reputation as a blue state rests upon the fact that the majority of its population and political power is concentrated in , Cook County, and the Chicago metropolitan area. Outside of Chicago, the suburban collar counties continue trending Democratic while downstate Illinois can be considered more conservative with some moderate regions, particularly suburban St. Louis.

Illinoisâs electoral college votes have gone towards the Democratic presidential candidate for the past eight elections, and its congressional makeup tilts heavily Democratic. However, it has a long history of competitive statewide elections and has elected a small number of Republicans in recent years, including Governors Jim Edgar, George Ryan, and Bruce Rauner, Senators Peter Fitzgerald/

William Lee D. Ewing 94R, 83D

Special Exceptions And Processes

If you are incarcerated for a misdemeanor, or if you are a person in pre trial-detention, you are still eligible to vote.

If you are currently incarcerated for a felony conviction, you are NOT eligible to vote.

Convicted felons voting rights are automatically restored upon receiving parole or probation, or being released from incarceration.

Youths ages 16 and 17 may preregister to vote online or by submitting a State of Utah Voter Registration Form. Voting in primary elections is permitted for 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election.

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How The Primary Works

A primary election is an election in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political partyâs candidate for elected office to run in the general election. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders. Primaries are state-level and local-level elections that take place prior to a general election. Illinois uses an open primary system. Voters do not have to register with a party, but they do have to choose, publicly, which partyâs ballot they will vote on at the primary election.

Actors Who Are Republican

Hollywood looks like a haven for the liberal-leaning Democrat supporters but if you look beyond the surface youll find there are actually quite a few who lean the other way. From superheroes to comedians the list of actors who are Republicans may surprise you.

1. Laura Prepon

You know her from That 70s Show and Orange Is the New Black, Laura Prepon is known for playing quite liberal-leaning roles but off-screen shes a proud Republican having famously supported Bush during his election.

2. Christian Bale

Though it hasnt been confirmed officially it would appear that former Batman Christian Bale is Republican. Many point to his attendance of actor and political activist Charlton Hestons funeral as proof. Christian Bale is thought to be one of the very few actors who attended.3. Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler lets his money do the talking, he quite notably donated a substantial sum of money to support Rudy Giulianis Presidential campaign during the 2012 election.

4. Peyton Manning

Star Quarterback Peyton Manning is known for showing his support for the Republican party by writing checks. Hes donated over $20,000 to Senators and Presidential hopefuls through the years. Most recently he supported Jeb Bushs Presidential run with $2,700, the most a single person can donate to an election.

5. Heather Locklear

The former Superman openly backed Mitt Romneys Presidential bid during the 2012 election and hes a regular guest on Fox News.

7. James Earl Jones

8. Tom Selleck

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Record 22 Million Californians Registered To Vote Heading Into General Election

SACRAMENTO, CA Secretary of State Alex Padilla released the final statewide Report of Registration ahead of the;November 3, 2020, General Election. As of October 19, 2020, a record 22,047,448 Californians were registered to vote. This represents an increase of 2,635,677 registered voters since the last Report of Registration at a similar point in a presidential election cycle .

87.87% of eligible Californians are registered to vote.;This is the highest percentage of eligible citizens registered to vote heading into a General Election in the past;80 years.

For the first time, California;now;has more than 22 million registered voters, said;Secretary of State Alex Padilla. There are more voters registered in California than the number of people in the state of Florida!;Record;registration and a historic election points towards a big;voter turnout, which could also;mean longer lines and wait times on Election Day. If you havent voted yet, I;highly recommend that;you;consider voting early.

If you missed the voter registration deadline, you still have to opportunity to vote using Same Day Registration. 2020 marks the first year that voters can complete the Same Day voter registration process and cast their ballot at any in-person voting location in the county;or the county elections office, Padilla added.

Trends in Statewide Voter Registration 1996 2020

22,047,448

Registration Comparison October 19, 2020 Report vs. October 24, 2016 Report

Political Party

[1989dreamer]

Cover and Chapter 1 of: Looking for a Place to Call Home

Links at bottom of page.

                                                                                                                          -----

The raccoon has been dead for the better part of a week, but it’s food. Derek crunches through the body quickly, forcing it down to settle in his belly. When he’s done eating as much as he can, he pads off the road and into the underbrush.

It is worrisome to him that he didn’t even drag his find away from danger before making himself vulnerable while he ate. It’s even more worrisome that he barely makes it ten feet before he starts vomiting. Okay, apparently week-old raccoon is too much even for a wolf’s digestive system.

Derek manages another ten feet before he collapses, burrowing under a pile of leaves and twigs. He knows if there are hunters in the area, tracking things like him, they will find him. He doesn’t have the energy to haul himself upright, to lay a false trail, or to find a more defensible resting area.

He takes comfort in the fact that he’s nearly home, that he is more likely to be sniffed out by a member of his own pack than to be found by a hunter. He closes his eyes, breathing deeply despite the lingering odor of his sick,

He doesn’t feel safe, hasn’t for three years, but his overtaxed body doesn’t care, and he slips off to sleep quickly. He dreams of raccoons that taste like chicken, each of them taunting him with her voice, telling him just how good of a boy he really is.

Derek wakes up on his back, limbs splayed, his cover disturbed. He pants heavily, still trying to shake his half-dream. Fingers and toes curl as he takes stock of his body. It’s been days since he last shifted, his human form too dangerous to travel as. He’s already seen a few posters with his thirteen-year-old face plastered all over them.

He spends a couple more minutes calming his breathing and making sure his cramping, roiling guts aren’t going to kill him yet. Eventually, he’s sure. There has to be something wrong when he can eat three whole deer off the side of I-5 and not be comatose from too much food.

Once he’s satisfied he’s in full control of his body, and thankfully still alone, he shifts back into his wolf form. Rolling over and standing up is another problem, one he didn’t think he could handle in human form.

He makes it up, shaky and stumbling, tripping over his too-large paws and almost falling every other step. Derek finds a rhythm soon enough—plod three steps, stop to rest for a breath, plod three more steps, rest, rinse, and repeat until his whole body feels numb.

It’s worrisome—“Again, worry, you’ll get gray hairs, Derek, sweetie,” she taunts—that he can’t smell any other wolves. He’s in California—he knows he is, his bones ache with homesickness and the air is soothing it a bit, easing back the tension tight in his muscles. But, he hasn’t come across even another pack. He’d grown up with stories of the trouble-making Teller pack that lived northeast of Hale territory.

Derek has been angling more west than south, but a few spots in the underbrush, yellowed from repeated urination, are too old for him to get a clear scent.

Or, he thinks, heart pounding painfully in his chest, his nose is whacked out, done sniffing mundane trivialities. After all, the only reason he ate the raccoon earlier was because he could smell it.

Derek keeps moving, chewing the fact that he can’t trust his nose at all quickly, like he did the raccoon, praying it doesn’t come back to hurt him more. He is aware that he’s at his limit. He is too tired to protect himself beyond basic measures; hell, he hasn’t even been laying a false trail since he passed through Michigan.

Picking his way through foliage is tougher than he can handle, and after sprawling one too many times from a branch he tried climbing over, he rolls out of the brush and onto the road. The gravel digs into his paws, but he ignores it in favor of pressing on, his path unhindered now. His sense of smell might be diminished but his hearing and sight are just fine…when he can manage to lift his head. Derek knows he’s dying. In either form, his stomach is swollen even when he doesn’t eat. He can barely support himself on four legs, much less two,

He hasn’t started hallucinating yet, but her voice is a constant murmur in his ear and it’s getting harder to ignore it.

Just keep moving, he thinks to himself. His walk isn’t a straight line anymore, his body listing side to side as he weaves all over the road. He barely hears the approaching vehicle over his rough pants, tongue dry and swelled too fat for his mouth. It takes precious seconds for him to realize that the vehicle is coming from behind him, and it takes everything, all of his energy and concentration, to move to the side of the road.

The vehicle passes slowly. Derek stares unseeing, not realizing that it has stopped and is just sitting there. He wavers on his feet, tipping too far forward as he strains to listen for any more motors, but he’s gone deaf now too, ears ringing. He isn’t aware of the ground smashing into his face when he falls: he’s already unconscious.

                                                                                                                        ~ * ~

Deputy Stiles Stilinski has seen a lot of weird and dangerous things in his ten years on the force—many of them related to drunk people; Marie’s Apple Pie Fiasco still ranks a top five—but he’s never seen an emaciated wolf sitting in the middle of a little-used access road. It gets weirder when the wolf stumbles out of his cruiser’s path only to immediately collapse on its face.

Well, he can’t in good conscience leave an endangered animal, especially one that hasn’t been in this state since at least the 1960s, out here to die alone. A wolf deserves more dignity than that.

Stiles sighs. His father is going to really love this story at their weekly lunch. His father always sighs, rubs his face like it physically hurts him, and mutters, “Aw crap, kid.”

It never deters Stiles, his father’s words, because John Stilinski always says, “I’m proud of you, son,” before Stiles goes back to work. Stiles can count on one hand the number of times he didn’t say it, and that is because those are the times Stiles says it first. What? Just because his dad is retired now and raises award-winning roses doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to have love and pride too.

Stiles sighs, rubs his face (though it doesn’t hurt…yet), and mutters, “Aw crap,” before grabbing his CB radio’s mic.

“Dispatch, this is Unit 5, do you copy?”

“Copy, Unit 5, this is Dispatch. Go ahead.”

“Dispatch, I’m out on Access Road 17, and I’m gonna need Animal Control. I’ve got a severely underweight canine-type. I’ve got a muzzle with me but I don’t wanna hurt her any more than she’s already been.”

“10-4, Unit 5. Animal Control has been contacted, ETA is 15 minutes. Just sit tight, Stiles.”

“God bless, Marie,” he says before cradling his mic.

He tries to stay in the car the whole time. Really, he does. But the poor wolf, conked out by the road where anyone could attack while she’s vulnerable, hurts his heart so much that before he knows it, he’s kneeling next to her head, muzzle dangling from his fingers while he strokes the soft fur around her ears.

The wolf huffs a breath but doesn’t wake. Unusual, Stiles thinks. His great-aunt Sarah used to breed dogs, and when he was a child visiting her, he would sneak up on many of the sleeping pooches. None of them slept through a petting like this wolf is doing. It makes Stiles more concerned for her health.

“Poor baby,” he murmurs, carding through her fur again. “We’ll take care of you, make sure nothing else bad happens to you.”

At his words, the wolf’s eyes spring open, blazing electric blue. Stiles inhales sharply, and the wolf snaps her gaze to him. They stare silently for a long moment before the wolf bows her head and bares her neck.

Submission, Stiles thinks. Angered, he wonders if someone tried (and maybe succeeded) to tame this wild creature. He notices her eyes aren’t blue anymore. Curious.

Of course, when he’s got his hand on the wolf’s neck, leaning down for a better look at her now-hazel eyes, fingers splayed wide to convey no harm meant, Animal Control finally shows up, five minutes late.

Isaac Lahey and V. Boyd, two former classmates of Stiles, saunter up to him, Boyd holding a giant dog crate while Lahey wields a noose on a stick. Under Stiles’ hand, the wolf tenses.

“What the hell, Stilinski?” Lahey demands as both he and Boyd stop a few yards away. Stiles is pretty sure he can hit them with a wad of spit if he tries.

Instead, he does the more mature thing and flips them off. Lahey flips him off in return.

“First,” Boyd says, calmly Stiles thinks until he sees the tic in his eyelid, a sure sign that he’s pissed and someone’s about to get it. Since Stiles is the one he’s looking at, Stiles feels optimistic about being the target of V. Boyd’s wrath. “That is not a dog; that is a wolf. Second, you were told to stay in your vehicle until we arrived.”

“First,” Stiles counters, “I said canine-type. Last I checked, wolves were part of the canine family. And second, I was told to sit tight, not where to sit.” He grins, smug, at Boyd’s annoyed frown.

“You gonna let us do our job or what?” Lahey snaps, and the wolf growls lowly. Stiles pets her until she calms enough to stop.

“Just don’t come at her with the lyncher,” he says.

“Lyncher?” Lahey repeats, looking at his weapon with a hurt expression. “It’s called a catcher-pole.”

“Just put the dog carrier down and I’ll get her in it.” Stiles rolls his eyes when Lahey and Boyd refuse. “Look, you can come at her with the lyncher and maybe get bitten, or you can let someone she obviously trusts get her into the carrier without any injuries.”

Boyd glares and drops the carrier. “Come on, Isaac,” he says. “Let’s go check on that coyote den we found the other day.”

“Should we at least make sure the wolf doesn’t eat him?” Lahey asks. “I really don’t want to miss Stilinski getting a bite taken out of him.” Stiles does not like the thoughtful look Boyd gives Lahey.

“I’m not going to be bitten,” he says. He pets the wolf again, running his hand down her spine, cooing softly when she rumbles under his palm. He doesn’t count the knobs of her spine. “Okay,” he says, one last pat to the wolf’s head, “come on, girl. Let’s get you in the carrier so we can take you somewhere safe.”

The wolf growls at him before huffing, almost sighing, and struggling upright to pad, unsteadily, to the carrier. Stiles opens the door, latching it shut behind her. She drops down almost immediately.

“Hey, Stilinski,” Lahey says, and Stiles doesn’t jump at the suddenness of him popping up by his elbow.

“What?” he grinds out, taking in Lahey’s smug face.

“You, uh, you sure this canine-type’s a little lady?” Lahey sounds like he’s about to burst out laughing. From the carrier, the wolf growls again.

“Sure,” Stiles says, shrugging. “She’s small, more like a female than a male. Even emaciated as she is, a male would be bigger.”

“So, how do you explain her balls?” Lahey doubles over, chortling wildly. Stiles scowls at him, then he looks to Boyd to tell him to control his partner only to find Boyd’s got his hands on his knees laughing silently.

“Fine,” Stiles huffs. :The wolf has balls. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. You gonna help me get him to the vet’s office for a check-up?”

Boyd straightens and nods, serious again. Scary how he can reign in his emotions like that.

“Isaac,” Boyd says, kicking at his partner as he passes him. He double-checks the latch of the carrier. “We’ll have McCall tranq him when we get there. He’ll better know what dose to use.”

Together, Lahey and Boyd get the carrier secured into the back of Animal Control’s van. Before they can drive off, Stiles reaches through the bars of the door, ignoring Boyd’s worried, Stilinski,” and pets the wolf’s muzzle. She—he—whines, nudging at and licking his fingers.

“You’re a good boy,” he says. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. You’re going to love where you’re going—water, food, a warm bed.” The wolf licks his palm and then shuffles away to curl in a ball at the back of the carrier. Stiles wants to cry: there’s a chance the wolf will be deemed too far gone for rehabilitation and will be put down.

“Hey, Stilinski,” Lahey says, clapping his shoulder in comfort, like he knows what Stiles is thinking about, “we’ll take care of him. I promise.”

“Well, let’s go then.” Stiles wipes his eyes (even though they’re dry) and heads to his cruiser. He waits for Boyd to crank the ignition while Lahey closes the back doors of the van from the inside. At least the wolf will have company on the short ride.

He follows the van as it heads for Beacon Hills Vet Clinic near the edge of town.

                                                                                                                       ~ * ~

Cover created using Microsoft Word® and Paintbox®

Images Used in Cover:

Black Wolf

Animal Control Van

Cora Hale (Adelaide Kane)

Laura Hale (Haley Roe Murphy)

Lydia Martin (Holland Roden)

Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin)

Allison Argent (Crystal Reed)

Beacon Hills County Sheriff’s Car

Beacon Hills Animal Clinic

Roscoe

Dr. Alan Deaton (Seth Gilliam)

Scott McCall (Tyler Posey)

Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien)

Erica Reyes (Gage Golightly)

John Stilinski (Linden Ashby)

Triskelion

Vernon Boyd (Sinqua Walls)

Isaac Lahey (Daniel Sharman)

Kate Argent (Jill Wagner)

MP, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

[wheaterz]

Testing Maintenance: Chapter 21

This could not have been more typical.

“You know...” Virgil began with a sigh. “I'm not sure you're familiar with Murphy's Law. Do you know Murphy's Law?”

Mel shook her head. The red-haired woman looked pretty fed up.

“Its the concept that if something can go wrong it will go wrong. I think that about sums our luck up pretty well, right?”

She agreed with him wholeheartedly.

They were stranded. Virgil and Mel were currently bumming around on top of the car, Mel laying on her back on the roof while Virgil sat on the engine hood looking out over the miles of land that they had not, and apparently would not, cover. After a miraculous three full hours of driving they had run out of gas. Some of it Virgil suspected was on fumes alone and he also suspected that the fuel they had used may not have been your average gasoline. There was no possible way they would have been able to make three hours on what they'd found alone if Aperture hadn't messed with it, but eventually their car couldn't take it anymore and slowed to a stop. Nothing else was wrong with it. The engine was fine. The tires were fine. The brakes were fine. They had just run out of gas.

The sun had fully set and it was completely dark out now. Crickets could be heard chirping on the side of the road and at one point there had been coyotes howling in the far distance, something that had made Virgil jump initially until Mel explained to him what they had been. They sounded less like animals and more like screaming banshees, in his opinion. Virgil had really thought that by now they would have found something. Anything. This mission that they had been so passionate about and really felt they were making progress in had come to a total halt and they were both downtrodden for it. This had been the worst possible scenario.

Virgil and Mel each wanted to ask the other what they would do next, but neither spoke up because they knew the other did not have a clue. They might as well have been on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. No, that would have even been better than this. Islands provided their own resources. Humans weren't birds, she couldn't just eat the seeds off of the crops for the rest of her life. Mel thought that they would have maybe seen a car. If they stayed put another vehicle could come their way, but then she thought about how this road led to a dead end. If there were humans still around other than inside Aperture they would have put up a sign saying that this highway lead absolutely nowhere. She remembered that the land Aperture was built on was private property and absolutely confidential, but three hours should have given them more than enough space between the labs and civilization. What had happened up here? Every farm house they passed looked rundown and abandoned, so they hadn't bothered stopping to see if anyone was still living inside. They all looked as hopeless as her barn had been.

So it was just the two people. A human and a robot, and a car full of limited supplies for the one half of them that couldn't just live off of sitting under the sun for a few minutes.

“This is awful.” Virgil grumbled, his arms rested on top if his knees and digging his chin into them. He didn't want to feel like the better option would have been for Mel to stay in Aperture, but the urge to was surfacing again. He would never say it out loud, and he suspected he didn't need to. Mel was an intelligent individual, despite some of her odd quirks, and she would have been going over every possible solution in her head. What a good puzzle solver, but there was no puzzle out here for her. Just wheat. The one time Virgil was able to leave the laboratories and the only thing they'd been able to see was basically just dying grass that you could make bread out of. Figures.

Mel wrote him a note and arched her arm backwards and down the window for him to grab whenever he noticed it. He was usually prepared to grab a note from her whenever he heard the pen scribbling. It was dark out but he could read perfectly well with the illumination of his own eyes and   pseudo night vision installed in his head.

I have to walk. There's no other way around this.

“Yeah... Yeah, I know.” Virgil felt something catch in his throat that made his voice raspy. Things he knew weren't there and may have just been memories. “There's no going back from here. We've driven too far. I mean, we must be half way across Michigan by now. We may not even be IN Michigan anymore. We might have just wandered into a different state entirely and what is humanity's obsession with wheat?!”

This is nothing. You should see Kansas.

“I feel like I already have. There's no way this is normal. I've seen pictures of Michigan. Isn't there a lake or something around here we should have hit? Aren't there cities we should have been passing? Mountains? At the very least we should have seen something else growing. Where is everyone?!”

Maybe some of it is barley and oats too.

“Yeah, very funny...” Virgil ran his hands through his hair, knocking his goggles askew. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his knees, trying to calm down. He felt Mel give him a pat on the shoulder from above, but with how quick it had she clearly wanted his attention. When Virgil looked over at her the human pointed upwards. He followed her finger to the sky and his eyes hung on the millions of little twinkling lights above them. The moon was only on the horizon and was a dim orange, meaning that it left the center of the sky as dark as it could be with the milky way at its brightest potential. Virgil had seen pictures of space. There were the planets in Nigel's testing track, and he was aware of those. He was aware of how they were giant compared to Earth, but he was once again taken by the sheer scale he found himself under. Its one thing to look at photos, it was another to see a star that he clearly new to be Jupiter and to see how small it was from the distance that was between them. He could see Venus, as well, and she was the second brightest thing in the night sky next to the moon.

Mel lay back against the car roof with her hands folded on her stomach. She let out a long, calming breath of air and was smiling. Despite the reality of survival slipping away from the human's grasp, she was being mellow and it really was something Virgil still could not get a clear concept of. He followed her lead, though, and he lay back to look up at the sky. Hopefully he wasn't heavy enough to break the car window, but it seemed to hold him up okay. A meteor flashed across the sky and burnt away in the atmosphere within a second and Virgil's eyes widened. “Oh... that's pretty neat. It does this every night?”

Mel nodded.

“I can see why you wanted to get back up here so badly. I'm just sorry this hasn't been working out.”

I'm not giving up. We can try again tomorrow.

“Right...” Virgil tried to imagine it, but to him it was all very illogical. Nearly impossible. No, just impossible. She was recovering from surgery. This was something that should absolutely, under no circumstances, be happening. All of that work up until now and the pay off seemed to be that Mel was going to just perish on the side of the road somewhere. If that happened, in an odd, slanted reality Aperture had won. The facility kept Mel under lock and key and released her into a post-apocalyptic world. What a sick joke. She seemed to be steadfast and fearless through it all, so he had to wonder.

“Are you scared?”

He didn't have to wait long for Mel to reply.

I've been scared since you woke me up.

“You sure hide it well.” Virgil wished he had that same kind of restraint. “I have to admit, though. I know that situation right now is a little tense, but its kind of nice not having to worry about constant danger. I mean even when it was just me alone in my repair room there was a threat of the area shifting or that I'd fall off my rail again. Here we're just... is there a word for what we're doing right now?”

Stargazing.

He laughed, feeling stupid for asking. “Oh, right. That makes sense, doesn't it? But look at what I mean. I'm about to do something that is absolutely insane.” Virgil sat forward, cupped his hands around his mouth, and at the top of his voice byte he shouted into the night air. “GLADOS! IS! AN! INGRATE!”

There wasn't even an echo to answer him back with how flat the land was and he turned around to grin triumphantly at Mel. “Eh? See that? Couldn't get away with that inside Aperture's walls, could you? She can't hear us. She can't see us. She can't touch us. Same with the Mainframe now, I suppose.” He still hadn't decided if they were one and the same.

Mel had started applauding from where she lay for his performance. The woman stared back up at the stars, taking a breath of the cold night air but coughed a little at how dry it had been and it hurt her lungs. She'd gotten too used to Aperture's musty, recycled air already. She shivered at how chilly it had gotten, rubbing her hands against her arm to tame the goose bumps she'd gained. Still, she could have fallen asleep there staring up at the sky. On many nights in her barn she had done just that. Then she remembered the night that she was pulled into Aperture by Atlas and P-body. She had been stargazing over a rising moon just like this, though it had been a few days and it was no longer full. A sad thought struck her when she gazed at the moon, now growing paler in color the higher it reached for the sky. She handed her thoughts down to Virgil.

I wanted to see humans make it to space, but I missed it.

Virgil scratched at the hair on the back of his neck as he read the note. That was truly something to feel down about missing. “Yeah, by only a few years. NASA launched a rocket to go to the moon in... in...” He thought about it a moment and searched his files. There used to be a way that he could pull it up, but the data was no longer in there and he frowned. “Uh, sorry. I guess I don't have that information. In any case, you guys made it up there.”

The clouds from earlier that had dotted the sky were piling on heavier the more time passed, the wind picking up and sending some to block the sky out. The moon on the horizon was the first to disappear, now only a faint halo of light behind the thick clumps of water. It was a minor detail, but it bothered Virgil that he didn't have all of his files on hand and it felt like a chunk of his brain had been stored away somewhere completely different from his head. It was not at all a comfortable feeling and he shivered at how empty it felt. Where there was supposed to be a year on the moon landing was just a blank slate.

Mel lightly tapped the Maintenance Core and handed him one last note for the evening.

I'm going to get some sleep. Good night, Virgil.

“Oh, okay.” Virgil blinked, being pulled out of his thoughts and grinning at her as she sat up and slid off the roof of the car and to the ground. “Night, Mel.”

He had no need for sleep, so it was going to be a very long night. Virgil watched the human crawl back into the car and attempt to make herself a comfortable sleeping space between the two chairs, but the inside of the car was rather cramped and wasn't suited for lounging. Mel took her boots off and placed them in the back where the food was and tried to stretch her legs from the passenger seat to the driver's side.

Humans needed a warm and comfortable space in order to get rest, right? Virgil checked the temperature. Approximately 6 degrees Celsius and on the other side of the scale 42 degrees Fahrenheit. That was cold, right? Virgil sat up and turned around to look in through the window at her. He deftly tapped the glass. “Hey, Mel? I can't tell, but is it cold in there? Do you want my jacket?”

She looked up at him and nodded, mouthing a 'thank you' in response. Virgil started to slip his jacket off, the vest underneath covered fully in tropical floral patterns with long, white sleeves with a few holes in them. Virgil frowned at how out of shape they looked when compared to his jacket and just decided to roll them up to his elbows so they wouldn't get caught on anything. As he was moving his jacket off, one of the pink sticky notes from the pocket fell out. He was quick to react and grabbed it out of the air. Realizing he should probably grab the other one, he stuffed the first of the notes into the pocket of his pants and searched his jacket for the other.

He read the second note off before putting it away and rolled his eyes. Oh, right. This one was the 'dumb' note. He wondered why he even hung onto this one other than he was being passive aggressive towards Mel at the time. However, as he looked at the pink sticky note a thought struck him, one that should have been clear to him much sooner than now. Virgil got off the hood of the car and went around to the passenger window where Mel was trying to get comfortable and handed her his jacket. “Here you go. Sorry about any oil stains on it.”

She didn't mind and was just happy to have something to wrap around her shoulders and arms as she drifted off. Virgil walked away and paced around the road for a bit while she fell asleep. His thoughts ran away from him and went in all kinds of crazy directions. He thought about things along the lines of 'this is ludicrous' and 'I'm out of my processor'. It was funny that when he did not have company he could talk to himself for hours, but now that he had someone else with him and she was sleeping he knew very well to keep his big trap shut. So many things had gone wrong that he was only asking for disaster at this point. While Virgil was stressing, Mel had fallen asleep, unaware of her friend's inner turmoil just beyond the car. When he'd done a good ten minutes of pacing, Virgil walked back to the window to see if Mel was still awake. She was not, so it was now or never.

Virgil planted the sticky note on the car wheel with Mel's hand writing. The stunt he was about to pull would make him an enormous hypocrite, but he was at least getting a better understanding of Mel's thought process when she'd initially made the note. He stood in front of the car, the long run of black tar stretching through bare fields into the sky. Fields that had crickets, crows, coyotes and possibly other things starting with C that they had not yet seen that could have been hiding from them. Crocodiles? No, those needed water, didn't they? He was pretty sure they were on the wrong part of the map for those, anyway, but he couldn't find that file either. This was beginning to get mildly annoying.

“Oh boy...” He attempted to psyche himself up for the long walk he was about to take. “Okay, here we go. Just going to put one foot in front of the other and not look back. See if there's something over that rise. That's not too far, right? Mel, she just keeps going and going. She doesn't stop and she's got muscles. Those get tired. I don't have muscles and I don't get tired so it should all just be...fine. It'll all be fine.”

So much for trying not to talk to one's self so the human didn't wake up. Thankfully, Mel had been sleeping like a stone and it gave Virgil the perfect gate to start heading off without a single word out of her in protest. Because she would have been against this, and for probably a very good reasons. He just didn't want to think about what those reasons were.

Virgil shook himself out, squared himself up, stiffened his chin, and walked.

At first, being alone on the road wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. It was not much different from his management rail. Back in Aperture he could go for very long periods of time without speaking to anyone and did nothing but ride along his rail, following it wherever it decided he should go while he searched for parts for his workshop. The basic concept was there. He was alone, walking a straight line to a location, it was dark, and he was searching for something. Even though there was a clock that told him the time at all hours, and was 100% accurate to his region, Virgil had no real concept of how it passed. That was how it used to be, anyway. He had grown so used to having Mel to talk to over the past few days that a task he was usually able to do without a hindrance now seemed to be taking ages. He could have started talking to himself again, but he didn't feel like it.

The coyotes started howling again, but they no longer bothered him and he realized that even if they wanted to attack him his assist droid body was made of metal and wouldn't have been fun for them to digest. If Virgil was able to look up anything on them at all he would have known that they did not normally attack people and were hardly bigger than a small house dog, but in his current state of mind he could not pull the information up. He wondered if he was losing his mind, and realized that may as well have been it. Some of what made him so intelligent was that he had access to all kinds of information fed to him and the other cores throughout Aperture whenever they needed it, and he was one of the few that new how to utilize it correctly, or even cared to. He had to ask himself if what was happening was dangerous, and decided that it wasn't. It was just embarrassing. He'd be more scatterbrained than usual.

Hours had passed and the crickets chirping began to die. The clouds had fully rolled in and completely covered the sky, turning from black to a blue-gray the closer the morning came. Virgil would stop every now and then to do a 360 turn around, making sure that he wasn't being followed or if he'd missed catching any other forms of life. He'd been startled by a flock of black birds that flew out of the field from right beside him and he jumped away with a shout, taking the hint to keep walking. The wind had picked up and was knocking his hair around, sweeping it to the side and managing to get a shiver out of Virgil by how strange it felt, rather than the temperature. It would not be the strangest sensation, however. When the morning had lightened up and turned the world around him silver with low clouds, a light spray of water showered down.

Virgil stopped dead in his tracks, raising his arms over his head and shielding himself from the light drizzle that was coming down and protesting loudly. “Oh come ON!”

He was waterproof, as long as he wasn't absolutely submerged, but having soggy clothes was still terrible. The android had been walking for hours and was fed up with this new mishap, kicking a stone clear off the road and upsetting some birds in the field to go flying away. He raised his head to the sky and yelled at it. He'd gotten into the habit of yelling at astronomical, mighty forces of power recently and it was one he didn't seem ready to break out of any time soon.

“There anything else you want to throw at me?! I can stand it! Try me! Just try it! You want to fight me, nature? I'll win! There's nothing you could give that I can't take! I have a human stuck in a car in the middle of nowhere with waning rations but SURE! Lets make water fall from the sky on ol' Virgil and make it even harder on him to find help! Right! It’s not like I was keeping an eye out for air crafts or anything useful like that!”

He grit his teeth, then flinched when he got a droplet in his eye. He grumbled something nasty under his breath and grabbed a hold of his goggles, pulling them down over his eyes so that he wasn't getting at least part of his face rained on. He was just about ready to continue his walk, but the sensation of the water had been tingly and he stayed in one place to focus on it. In his anger he had failed to realize that this was water that was falling out of the sky at him without any other resource. The sky didn't just spring a leak from a pipe or anything structural like that. It was simply just coming out of the clouds. Virgil blinked a few times as he slowly calmed down and continued to stare at it.

“Huh.”

There was a flash somewhere in the distance and he looked up. Far away over the flat fields where the mist obscured the horizon and you could see the dark underbellies of storm clouds, bright light pulsed and flickered for a fleeting moment and disappeared. Virgil stood by to see if it would happen again, but the follow up was a low, faint rumble. As fascinating as he considered his first real experience with thunder and lightning, Virgil decided that this was not the place to be stopping. “Oop. Time to go.”

He quickened his pace. Actually, come to think of it, what exactly was stopping him from just running? Absolutely nothing, he'd try that.

-----

Mel would have slept longer if she had been somewhere comfortable. Unfortunately, the combination of light coming in through the windows and the thinly cushioned seats of the mobile sardine can didn't beg for a five star rating in luxury. The woman had been very stiff sitting up and the first thing she did was stretch the soreness away. Mel was all for having herself a good breakfast, bag up the food into an old backpack she'd found in the car, and then get straight to their hike away from the broken down vehicle. She patted her hands against the jacket she had used for a blanket and smiled, ready to give it back to its owner. Mel was about to get out of the car when she realized it had been lightly drizzling since at least the early morning hours and had to wonder why it was Virgil had not retreated inside. In fact, it was a miracle he hadn't woken her up about it, especially since she could hear a trace of thunder in the distance.

Using the jacket over her head as a shield from the rain, Mel opened the car door and went out to see if he was walking around outside to check on the weather, but after doing a full circle around the car there was no trace of him. Feeling panic raise a knot in her injured stomach, Mel looked around the inside of the car again to see if he'd somehow managed to squeeze into the back, but she had no luck finding him there either. It wasn't until she'd done looked back into the car that she caught a glance at the pink piece of paper pasted to the steering wheel. It had been one of her's, and obviously worn from being folded and stuffed somewhere. She read the text in her handwriting and remembered Virgil had pocketed it. She assumed it was because she had said something that amused him, but this was far from funny anymore.

'I'll go. You stay.'

Mel dropped the note on the damp ground and threw the jacket back into the car through the open window. She circled around a few more times, looking for any sign of Virgil in the fields or if he'd made some kind of imprint in the wheat. When she didn't see him on the road Mel climbed onto the car and stood up on the roof, scanning the horizon for however further of a scope that little extra height had given her. She didn't see him on the highway anywhere. He was just gone.

A hand went to Mel's stomach, a sharp pain causing her to grip the fabric of her jumpsuit. Her knuckles turned white at how tightly she held the suit between her fingers and she doubled over. Despite the deep belief that it would not work, Mel opened her mouth and attempted to call him. She forced air from her lungs and through her throat, moving her lips to form Virgil's name but the only sound out of her were some gasps and a choked up, strain of a whimper. She eventually stopped when she'd tried calling so hard that she'd gagged, folding into herself and sinking to sit on top of the roof. She hugged her arms around her waist.

Any number of things could happen, and every one of them occurred to her in that moment. They raced through her head in flashes of horrible imagery from the android finding himself hopelessly lost to fully breaking down and not being able to function. She thought about how she had gone to sleep the night before in the company of one of the few things she still had as a constant and how he'd walked away. Had things been different between them, she would have suspected he went back the other way towards Aperture. She knew this wasn't true, even though she hoped that had been the case. She felt he might have had a better chance if he just retraced his steps and found his way back. She knew, though, that he'd gone forward and was looking for help on her behalf.

What could she do? He could have taken off the moment she was asleep, giving him hours of an advantage ahead of her and he did not grow tired. And he'd asked her to stay there. What if he found help and she wandered off where he couldn't find her? Either way she thought about it, his condition would remain unknown to her unless they got really lucky. Mel felt the cold spray against her back, but she stayed huddled on the roof of the car until she'd started to shake violently. She wiped the moister from her brow, droplets collecting on her eyelashes. She wasn't helping anything to stay out there and catch a cold, so she reluctantly slid back off the roof and into the passenger's seat of the car. Mel rolled the windows up and curled folded under the warmth of the jacket that had been left behind. She'd have some food and she would look out at the rain, but all she could do for now was wait and hope that everything was going to be okay.

Time passed, and so did the storm. Mel was relieved that it had never rained too hard or that the lightning had gotten too close. She didn't know how Virgil would have fared walking around in full downpour. She wondered if he could act as a lightning rod, and she added the possibility to her list of worries. The day went by without a glimpse of the android, hours passing over her with the sun until the sky could be seen through the clouds again. The sky turned pink with the setting sun and the darkness of night returned, only Mel did not feel like going out and watching the stars like the night before. She felt like she may not enjoy it the same way that she used to ever again after having one night to show it to someone that had never seen the sky before. She had been isolated before, and as much as it had bothered her then, she knew that anyone she cared about was already long gone. The situation had shifted so that she had something to actually lose this time.

Mel had her dinner and threw the can of tuna out of the car window and onto the pavement, hearing it clatter and startle an animal in the field close by. She sat up to see over the rim of the window, watching two glowing, green eyes catch the moonlight and disappear. She guessed it to be a fox out hunting field mice. She starting to get sleepy again, realizing it was most likely drawing close to the same time that she'd gone to bed the night before. She didn't want to sleep. It didn't feel right to, but she had nothing else to do but sit there and feel horrible.  Eventually, whether Mel had wanted to or not, she drifted off in the tiny, car sized haven in the center of the wilderness full of food and warmth, if not the most comfortable seats. Time had passed by so slowly that day and she felt ill. As much as she had not wanted to fall asleep, her body was relieved for all of the extra rest it was finally being rewarded with after so much physical turmoil and she slipped into it deep.

Another day went by without a word from Virgil, and the day after had been just as uneventful. Mel had nothing to occupy her time with other than getting out to walk around and stretch when the Gremlin became too cramped for her to sit in any longer. She had to restrain herself from eating too much of the canned food and had limited herself to two per day. One in the morning and one in the evening. At one point Mel tried walking a distance until she got a raised view in the surrounding land, but it made no difference. There wasn't anything to see. When she'd returned to the car she passed some more of her time by plucking a few stocks of wheat and took the seeds out to throw on the road for a couple of mourning doves that had dropped in for a rest. When they'd lost interest in being fed any longer, Mel slid back into the car once again and started drawing on her sticky notes, pasting her doodles up along the inside of the car as decoration. Drawings of things she'd remembered from her childhood, such as animals at the zoo or more current characters like the robots she had seen going through Aperture. She drew the singing turrets, adding little music notes up beside them. When she decided that was enough wasted paper for one afternoon Mel did a whole great amount of nothing at all.

She almost preferred being harassed by mordant, murderous machines over this.

Again, night fell for the third time since they had escaped without much of anything happening. The cans of food she'd brought were already half gone and she began to wonder if she had made the right decision by leaving a few back in Aperture. It seemed to be more of an emotional decision rather than actually using her brain. Her head probably would have told her that this scenario was a possibility and to take everything you can. All the cans that you can. Like background noise that one may only pay attention to selectively, the worry she held for Virgil came back and disrupted any peace she may have formed for herself over the past few hours. The woman lay back and folded her arm over her eyes, evening out her breathing and calming her nerves, but with shallow success.

“We've got this.”

She repeated those words to herself a few times, spinning them through her head and making the effort to believe them. They got this. Against all odds, this was only just another bump in the road for two very stubborn people. Mel had no other choice but to eventually fall asleep, again with the fear of isolation to disturb her dreams. Through the darkness she could feel the draft whistling through Aperture's greatly spacious areas like the testing droid repair station that hung over a pit into the center of the earth and the loud hum of factory machines building cubes, turrets, and whatever else the facility called for. She saw the burning red glow of the robots that had been shut down by the mainframe and how the darkness was thick enough to suffocate.

Mel opened her eyes. The dim light of dawn was the first thing to welcome and comfort her, and the woman relaxed, tightening the jacket over her shoulders from the freezing, crisp air coming in through cracks in the car's sides. When Mel closed her eyes to try and fall back asleep for a couple more hours, she realized that the hum of Aperture that had been in her dreams was something she was currently hearing while she was awake as well. There was the distinct, grated churning of an engine and Mel sat up to look out over the road from the window shield. Coming down the highway towards her car was a faded blue pickup truck with chipped paint and rust along the edges. It looked to be in no better shape than Mel's car, but it was running and coming right towards her.

The red-head flung the car door open and stepped out onto the road, waving her arms into the air to flag the truck down. From where she stood she began to make out a shape past the window of the vehicle. The driver was a woman, but she seemed to be the only visible passenger. However, once they were close enough, a figure leaned over the side from the back of the truck, his spikey head of brown hair whipping around in the breeze as he waved at her excitedly. Virgil cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and hollered at Mel as they came down the road. He looked so very proud of himself. “Hey, Mel! Look what I found!”

Mel was overjoyed. She stood by, only just barely managing to wait for the truck to slow down and come to a stop. The driver remained in her truck once it was parked, but Virgil jumped out of the back to meet Mel on the road the second they had stopped and the whole car rocked under his weight as he bounced off of it. Mel, barefoot on a road that was damp and chilled from the morning condensation, ran straight for Virgil and flung her arms around him in the tightest hug she could physically give him. Virgil had nearly been knocked over at the velocity she'd taken in just that small distance, but he straightened himself out and returned the gesture. “I know I said I was going to stop scaring you. Sorry about this.”

He was going to be sorry. Mel quickly let go of him, frowning furiously at the robot, and despite having hands too soft and frail to really do anything to his plated robot body, she began to whale on him. Virgil shrank away from her, surprised by the sudden switch in attitude and brought his arm up to protect himself. “Ow! OW! I can feel that you know—OW! Okay, okay! I said I'm sorry! Look, I got a truck and everything so it worked, didn't it? Ouch! Quit hitting me!”

The woman in the truck watched them curiously, leaning silently against the front wheel to observe them from the car window, but did not bother to get out of the truck to interrupt their moment.

Mel stopped, if only because her hands were starting to get sore, but her eyes were red with stress and water was collecting along the bottom lids. She'd been trying to stay mad at him with a stiff lip, but it quivered and broke the illusion that she was as angry as she wanted to let on. It was exactly like when he'd dropped off his rail to get away from Atlas and P-body, only that time he had been a pathetic, beaten up ball of metal and it felt wrong giving him a good smack. Here he was alive, happy, and perfectly stable. She could be as mad at him as she wanted to be and not feel bad about it. The woman took up a note.

That was stupid of you!

“I'm not going to even try arguing that.” Virgil's mouth pulled into a wry, lopsided frown. “It was completely stupid. I even got rained on. And boring. It was tremendously boring. But look!” He held an arm out in the direction of the truck, the woman in the driver's seat waving at them when she realized she was being addressed. “I found a town not too far from here! Its not much, but its a town. Everything's a little worn out and I might have tried, um... I might have tried stealing this truck.”

Mel raised perplexed brow at him and pointed to the running vehicle.

“Yeah. That one. I tried to hijack it to bring it out here, but then got caught by the owner—that nice lady over there in the front seat, yes. Her. She was ready to toss me up and down the place until I explained our situation and she was surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing, considering how insane it must sound from an outsider's point of view. She offered to drive me out here to get you, on the condition that I ride in the back, and even got some extra gas packed for our car.”

Why didn't you just ask someone to begin with?

“Um...” Virgil looked behind him at the truck, the lady in the driver's seat still very patiently waiting for them while they spoke. “I got a little nervous. I mean, look at me. I have visible joints, a broken eye, and what looks to be a headlight in the cavity of my chest from a human's perspective. I'm clearly suspicious.”

Mel shrugged, but nodded. She could agree with that. He was deceptively human in many ways, but not enough to warrant immediate trust.

“Hey, why don't you two get acquainted while I fill the Gremlin up. You still have my jacket, right?” Virgil thumbed over his shoulder at the human in the truck and jogged up behind the running vehicle to climb into the back and grab for the canisters of gas they had brought. He was going to have to make a couple of trips, but once they were beside the car, Virgil leaned into the passenger window and grabbed his jacket out of the seat to slip back on. He felt weird walking around without it. It was nice to have pockets to stuff his hands into when he wasn't doing anything with them, and it had driven him crazy the whole walk.

Mel watched Virgil make himself busy, and while he was filling the Gremlin up she glanced at the woman at the front of the truck. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore a denim jacket over a black shirt. Mel walked up to the window of the passenger door to look in at her, not yet bold enough to approach the driver's side. She observed the other woman like she'd been a whole other species and Mel subconsciously checked for glowing eyes or the same seams that Virgil had around the neck and his wrists. She hadn't meant to be cautious, but the woman didn't seem to take any offense to it. They looked to be about the same age, or physically, at least. Mel believed herself to be a perfectly aged bottle of wine by now.

The driver then spoke up, her tone even and diligent. The woman had a stern, steeliness about her eyes that commanded attention, partnered in contrast with the warm understanding in her voice. “Can you talk?”

Mel was a little startled by the question. She shook her head.

“But you used to be able to, right?”

Mel nodded.

“Its fine, then. We'll get you fixed up once we're back. Are you injured anywhere else?”

The red-head's hand went to her stomach where the bullet had been. Though it had been removed and the wound had healed up for the most part, she still had a stabbing pain from her core if she moved around too much, so she nodded. She'd also noticed that she'd earned herself a slight limp when she walked, but she hoped that it was only temporary.

The woman in the truck kept her hands to the wheel, her slate gray eyes shifting from Mel to the window in front of her and she nodded out over the road at Virgil. “It's done filling the car.”

Mel was a little thrown off by the pronoun used for the android, at first, but when she realized she had been talking about Virgil she looked over to see that he had finished emptying the last of the gas into the Gremlin. Now that her head had cleared and she could think straight, Mel found it strange that they needed to fill the gas tank at all. It would have been more efficient to simply ride in the truck with the other human and abandon the other car altogether rather than riding along behind her. Mel studied her friend, her fingers curling into an anxious fist and relaxed again when she decided to approach him. As she walked she took a note from the thinning cube in her pocket.

Virgil closed off the clasp over the gas tank and smiled up at Mel as if nothing in the world was wrong. However, his enthusiasm thinned when he saw that she was not sharing the same energetic high that he was. “Is... something wrong? I know that other human seems a little cold, but...”

Are you leaving?

Virgil had been avoiding the subject so that they could share this victory. They had finally triumphed and it should be cause for celebration. It wasn't meant to last, though, and he knew he'd be the cause of it. She stood before him, her eyes demanding a straight answer out of the core. He wouldn't side step her. He was once able to beat around negative details when she had been in Aperture her first time through, but it seemed that it was no longer part of is nature. At least not with her.

“I had a lot of time to think while I was walking. As amazing as this place is and as happy for you as I am that you finally made it here, its not for me. I've lost a chunk of myself leaving Aperture behind. I have files that I can no longer access, just as an example. That's not even an important detail, but it made me realize how out of place I am. I'm just not... I'm not supposed to be out here, Mel. I need to be back there where I can do what I was made for. I don't expect you to understand why, because I don't fully get it either.”

Mel looked as if she would melt where she stood. Every feature of her sunk and her bright blue eyes shaded over. She reached out and grabbed for his hand hurriedly and tugged at it in the direction of the truck desperately. When he didn't budge she pulled another note out on him. He didn't stop her like he had before and let her get it out the best way she could.

I can help you live here. We can work through it.

“Mel...”

He fell silent again since the woman was already on to her next note.

You don't have to go back there.

“Mel.”

We worked so hard.

You can find purpose out here.

You deserve this just as much as I do.

I can't lose anyone else. Please, don't do this.

“Melanie.”

She had already been half way through her next protest, but the mention of her full name caused her to freeze up. Mel's hands quaked and they dropped the pen and paper. Virgil reached out for her and drew her in, wrapping his arms around the human and keeping her close. She slowly raised her hands and returned the embrace, feeling as though she had been tricked into thinking that her heart could not break anymore, but this had hurt too much. She wanted to ask him to stay with her own words and question his reasoning, but if all she could offer were small pieces of paper with writing than she could barely get an argument out. She wasn't sure that if she could speak he'd be any easier to convince. The only thing she could do to keep him longer was to stay like that.

“I'm sorry...” The ghost sensation had returned. That pressure that built up in his chest and to his forehead that he could not relieve. On pure reflex he ran a thumb under his cheek from where his head was bowed over Mel's shoulder, and in doing so he realized what it was that was bothering him. However, his cheek had been dry when he'd checked. “I have no excuses, but I am sorry. I'm going to be fine but you're going to be great. You get to leave and conquer. You... heheh. You're getting me worked up. I didn't even think that was possible.”

He pulled back, wiping his hands under his eyes again but they remained dry. He laughed at how ridiculous he must have looked. “We're a pretty good team, right? We shut down AEGIS and faced off against GLADOS head on. We beat the Mainframe, which is basically like fighting Aperture itself. Not bad for a simple Maintenance Core.”

She shook her head. He'd gotten her to smile again, if only briefly. As Mel had smiled, though, his own disappeared. This could very well be the last time they ever saw each other and he didn't want her to leave with just a few frail pieces of paper and a pen. Virgil patted himself down, searching for something he could offer her. He remembered waking up to seeing his friend had taken his goggles off in order to put them on herself and he reached for his head for them. “Uh, here. You can have these. They look better on you, anyway. Just something of me to... to keep with you. Its not all of me but its something.”

Mel accepted the goggles, running her thumb over the lens fondly. She fixed them over her bun so that they rested on top of her head in the same way Virgil wore them when they weren't being utilized. Mel mouthed to him 'thank you' and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his cheek before pulling him in for one last hug. Virgil was a little dazed by the kiss he'd gotten. It had been a new sensation, but not at all a bad one. It didn't stop him from returning the hug.

“Take care of yourself, Mel.”

Neither of them wanted to let go, but Mel was still aware there was a very kind person waiting on them to bring her back to the town. When she separated herself from Virgil, Mel held onto his hands and bobbed them up and down, giving him one last, misty smile. There were so many things she wanted to say to him. There was so much she'd wanted to share and talk about, but they had never been given the opportunity to talk like normal people. Mel couldn't, at the very least, and it had made the short time they'd spent together even briefer. When she'd collapsed and Virgil had found her food, Mel had been perfectly content with just getting to talk with him. No danger, or any good reason to run from it up until GLaDOS intervened. They just spoke for the longest time in the isolation of that ruined lobby deep in the depths of the earth. She picked up her pen from the floor, and instead of writing on the paper she used the palm of her left hand, holding it up to him with the blue ink smudging slightly, but the message was clear.

See you later, Virgil.

“Heheh... Yeah, see ya.”

She felt good about being able to return the goodbye this time, whether she could speak or not. Virgil waved to her as the human turned around to head for the truck. She opened the passenger door and situated herself into the front seat, the woman beside her reminding her to fasten her seat belt. The android stood on the road, waving until the truck had backed up and turned around, his last glimpse of Mel seen through the rear view mirror on the side and she was still waving back to him until he was too small for her to make out his face. He watched them go for a long time. The sun had finally come up over the horizon, drastically changing the sky from pink to orange and setting the fields on fire with color.

“She's out.” Virgil mumbled to himself. “She is out...Good job, Mel. Hopefully, you'll get to enjoy it this time around.” He'd never felt so conflicted, a mass of remorse and relief at odds with one another, but above it all was fulfillment. He was allowed to feel good about it, as well as sorry. Perhaps, bittersweet was the word he'd been searching for. He'd really been out of his own head, recently. It was time to head back home now that their Champion had been escorted out of the stadium.

This was a triumph.

[roxysbeachlife]

These Are the Strangest Laws in All 50 US States

Laws are usually passed for a reason. Too many car accidents? You probably need some traffic laws. Is a particular animal species dying out? Make it illegal to kill them. But because it’s often easier to pass a law than it is to remove it, some obsolete laws simply stand as evidence that something bizarre and horrible must have happened once upon a time. After all, how else do you explain a rule against catching fish in your mouth? There has got to be an amazing backstory behind that. Here are the weirdest, most hilarious laws in all 50 U.S. states.

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The 50 Weirdest Laws

Alabama: Going to church? Take off that ridiculous fake mustache if you do — unless, of course, you don’t intend to cause laughter. In that case, it’s all good.

Alaska: In Fairbanks, Alaska, it’s illegal to serve alcohol to a moose. Which seems reasonable, but why did they have to make a law?

Arizona: Your donkey has to sleep somewhere, but it’s not allowed in the bathtub. This dates back to a tub-sleeping donkey who was washed away in a flood in 1924 (he survived, but they passed the law anyway).

Arkansas: You’ll need a permit to feed your garbage to any pigs you happen to meet out in the world. If they’re your own pigs, go for it.

California: If your frog dies during a frog-jumping competition, you’ll obviously be distraught. The good news is that it’s illegal for any of your rivals to eat your late amphibian.

Colorado: A porch might look inviting, but don’t put a couch out there. This law was put in place to prevent college students from lighting couch bonfires.

Connecticut: There’s not technically a law stating that pickles must be able to bounce in Connecticut, but a high-profile case of pickle fraud in 1948 revealed that the Food and Drug commissioner used the bounce test to test fake pickles.

Delaware: Cat shavers beware: You will not be able to sell your ill-gotten fur in the state of Delaware.

Florida: Most places, a “Beware of Dog” sign is just a fair warning and a crime deterrent. But in Florida, you can hang a “Bad Dog” sign in your yard and be absolved of any responsibility for canine attacks.

Georgia: Sort of like those Floridian dogs, Georgian llamas have carte blanche to wreak as much havoc as they care to. With very few exceptions, anyone who “engages in a llama activity” forfeits any liability on the part of the llama owner for injuries they might sustain as a result.

Hawaii: It might be a little unusual, but we’re going to come right out and say the Hawaiian laws against billboards are a pretty good idea. Nothing kills the tropical vibes like a gaudy advertisement.

Idaho: Again under the banner of laws we aren’t sure they needed to put into writing, Idaho wants you to know in no uncertain terms that cannibalism is against the law, except “under extreme life-threatening conditions as the only apparent means of survival.” Maybe it’s weirder that this is the only state that does outlaw it.

Illinois: Illinois is (mostly) landlocked, but it still has a problem with excessive fish and amphibian ownership. No one may own more than $600 worth of aquatic creatures — that’s about 75 salamanders, if you’re curious.

Indiana: In French Lick Springs, Indiana, a 1939 ordinance decreed that all black cats must wear bells on any Friday the 13th. It isn’t clear if the law is still on the books or not, but this might trump the time an Indiana man tried to legally redefine pi as 3.2.

Iowa: The pride of every Iowa State Fair is the one and only butter cow(and its attendant butter statues). So it’s not surprising that they take butter fraud very seriously. If you’re spreading margarine or oleo, you’d better not claim to have the real deal.

Kansas: Despite the fact that the law explicitly outlaws the throwing of snowballs, Topeka mayor Bill Bunten made international headlines in 2005 when he declared his intention to overthrow the ban in a hail of powdery projectiles.

Kentucky: Some places have a tradition of selling artificially dyed chicks and baby bunnies around Easter, but not Kentucky. At least, not if you’re selling less than six at a time.

Louisiana: When you’re down in the Big Easy, nothing hits the spot like a big bowl of jambalaya. Word to the wise, though: If prepared “in the traditional manner for public consumption,” the dish is not bound to follow certain sanitation codes.

Maine: If you’re playing beano in Maine (not that Beano; it’s a game not unlike bingo), you should feel free to take all of the bathroom breaks you need. The beano conductor will play your hand for you unless you’re playing high-stakes beano.

Maryland: Pottymouths should watch themselves the next time they’re on the Eastern seaboard. In Rockville, Maryland, they’ll face a $100 fine for cursing on a sidewalk or road.

Massachusetts: You know how everywhere “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played, a dance party breaks out? Not in Massachusetts, where it is strictly forbidden to dance to the national anthem.

Michigan: Some states put down strict laws about when and where you can sell alcoholic beverages and other controlled substances, but in Michigan, it’s cars that can’t be sold on Sundays.

Minnesota: It might sound like a lot of fun, but oiled-pig catching contests are absolutely not allowed in Minnesota. The same law outlaws turkey scrambles, when the unfortunate bird is thrown into the air and players rush to catch it.

Mississippi: Okay, this is a very bizarre law (and one made specifically to make a political point). In 2013, governor Phil Bryant signed into law a declaration that no one could ever restrict the size of a cup for sugary drinks.

Missouri: If a bull or ram of a certain age is able to roam free for three days or more, at least three townsfolk report it, and the owner does not claim it, then anyone can feel free to capture and castrate it without facing liability for damages.

Montana: Our favorite laws are the ones that offer a glimpse of what life was like in eras past. Apparently, in Montana’s past, train jackers stopping a locomotive with a herd of grazing animals was a major problem.

Nebraska: To be perfectly frank, this law seems illegal, immoral, and hard to enforce. But if you’re following the letter of the law, then anyone with a sexually transmitted disease is forbidden to get married.

Nevada: Back before we wrapped our minds around how dangerous radiation could be, every shoe store was outfitted with an X-ray-based fitting machine. But you won’t find any in Nevada — they’ve been outlawed since 1960.

New Hampshire: In New Hampshire, the seaweed that washes onshore can be collected and turned into fertilizer for a profit. But if you’re thinking of heading out to the beach in the early hours before the crowds, think again — you can’t collect seaweed at night.

New Jersey: Bulletproof vests are legal in New Jersey unless you’re wearing one while committing a crime. In other words, bank robbery is super illegal, but it’s even more illegal if you have body armor on.

New Mexico: Indecent exposure is illegal to some degree almost everywhere, but in New Mexico, the law specifically mentions every body part that counts as indecent — and if you want to walk around with your butt hanging out, then go right ahead.

New York: Despite facing many legal challenges since being written into law in 1845, New York’s regulations against wearing masks in public is still in place. You get special dispensation for costume parties.

North Carolina: Remember that episode of “The Simpsons” when Bart and Homer stole a bunch of grease from local kitchens? It might have been hilarious in cartoon form, but it was a serious problem in North Carolina until stricter penalties for grease theft were written into the books in 2012.

North Dakota: We couldn’t quite track down this law in the legislature, but it’s one of the most cited “weird laws” online: Allegedly, it’s illegal to lay down in public and fall asleep without taking your shoes off first.

Ohio: Despite what you might have read elsewhere, it is legal to get a fish drunk in Ohio. But don’t worry, these lawyers have plenty of other weird ordinances, like how you need a license to kill a fly within 160 feet of a church.

Oklahoma: Here’s a blast from the past. In Oklahoma, the Cold War is still being waged in a state statute that claims that “there exists an International Communist conspiracy which is committed to the overthrow of the government of the United States.”

Oregon: Apparently, at some point there was an issue with people heading into graveyards and cemeteries with a kind of deadly intent. In Oregon, it’s illegal to go hunting in a cemetery.

Pennsylvania: The world is full of laws that say you can’t buy, sell, or exchange a human being. But in Pennsylvania, they had to put the icing on the cake: You can’t barter with a baby. The “good” news? It’s only a misdemeanor.

Rhode Island: If you bite off the limb of a friend or family member, you could face between one and 20 years in jail — assuming you did so intentionally and with malice.

South Carolina: Pinball might not seem like the most serious offense the vice squad investigates, but you’ve got to be 18 or older to take a spin in the state of South Carolina.

South Dakota: The strangest law we could find in South Dakota was an ordinance allowing farmers to launch fireworks as pest control, but it was recently repealed. The strangest law we couldn’t find any confirmation for at all was the oddly specific forbiddance against threatening a pacifist to change their beliefs by challenging them to arm-wrestling.

Tennessee: You know how you and all your friends share one account for Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu? Not if you live in Tennessee, you don’t.

Texas: Apparently, in order to run for political office without facing a religious test, a politician has to affirm their belief in a “Supreme Being.”Sounds just a smidge unconstitutional.

Utah: We’re not sure what was happening to bus drivers in Utah in 1999, but they apparently faced the not-insignificant threat of having things hurled at them at bus stops. Now, only security officers and officers of the peace are allowed to chuck stuff at buses.

Vermont: If you think you’re going to pass legislation outlawing the use of clotheslines in Vermont, then you’d better think twice. The solar powered dryers are here to stay.

Virginia: They say that Virginia is for lovers, but the law books don’t back that up. Fornication — that is, having sex outside of marriage — is illegal and punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor.

Washington: In Skamania County, Washington, you could be in big trouble if you shoot a sasquatch. Not just because of the $1,000 fine levied by human officials, either — presumably, you’ll have to stand trial in sasquatch court as well.

West Virginia: West Virginia lawmakers have some very specific ideas about the right way to go hunting. For example, you’re not allowed to use drones or ferrets whether you’re hunting birds or anything else.

Wisconsin: Here’s a fun trick. Search for the phrase “highly pleasing” on the Wisconsin State Legislature website. You’ll find there are many types of Wisconsin cheeses that must meet that standard to bear the name — and this cheese-loving Wisconsinite agrees.

Wyoming: The next time you find yourself purchasing junk metals, rubber, rags, or paper in Wyoming, lean in to smell the peddler’s breath. You could be unknowingly committing the offense of buying junk from an intoxicated person.

  Written by Reuben Westmaas

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[krissysbookshelf]

Enjoy An Exclusive Sneek Peek of: It's Not Like It's a Secret by Misa Sugiura!

  Sixteen-year-old Sana Kiyohara has too many secrets. Some are small, some are big, and then there's the one that she can barely even admit to herself. When Sana and her family move to California, she begins to wonder if it's finally time for some honesty, especially after she meets Jamie Ramirez. Jamie is beautiful and smart and unlike anyone Sana's ever known. Sana always figured that the hardest thing would be to tell people that she wants to date a girl, but as she quickly learns, telling the truth is easy...what comes after it, though, is a whole lot more complicated.  

LEARN MORE

  1

“SANA, CHOTTO. . . HANASHI GA ARUN-YA-KEDO.”

Uh-oh.

Something big is about to go down.

It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re almost ready to leave the beach at Lake Michigan, where I’ve begged Mom to take me for my birthday. It’s just the two of us because Dad is away on business—he’s always away on business—and I’m crouched at the edge of the water, collecting sea glass. I’ve decided I’m not leaving the beach until I’ve found sixteen pieces, one for each year. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, but at least I’ll have a handful of magic in my pocket. Sixteen surprises. Sixteen secret treasures I’ve found in the sand.

And now this: hanashi ga arun’.

Mom never asks if I want to “chat” unless she’s actually gearing up for a Serious Discussion. She walks over and stands next to me, but I’m too anxious to look up, so I continue picking through the sand as possible Serious Discussion Topics scroll through my head:

She’s pregnant.

She has cancer.

She’s making me go to Japan for the summer.

“It’s about Dad,” she says.

Dad’s leaving us.

He’s dying.

He—

“Dad got a new job with start-up company in California.”

—what?

“It’s the company called GoBotX,” she says. “They make the robots for hospital surgery.”

I don’t care what the company makes.

“Did you say California?”

When I say Serious Discussion, I suppose I should really say Big Announcement Followed by Brief and Unhelpful Q&A Before Mom Closes Topic:

“How long have you known?”

“Dad applied last month. He signed contract today.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“No need.”

“What do you mean, no need?”

She shrugs. “No need. Not your decision.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“‘Fair’ doesn’t matter.”

“But—”

“Complaining doesn’t do any good.”

“Are we all moving? When?”

“Dad will go in two weeks, at end of May. He will find a house to live, and we will go at end of June.”

She doesn’t know the answers to the rest of my questions: Where will we live, where will I go to school, what am I supposed to do all summer all by myself. Then she says, “No more questions. It is decided, so nothing we can do. Clean the sand off your feet before we get in the car.”

We don’t talk on the way home. Mom’s not the type to apologize or ask questions like, “How does that make you feel?” My own unanswered questions swim in circles around the silence like giant schools of fish, chased by the most important question of all—the only one I can’t ask.

When we get home, I go to my room to finish some homework. But before I start, I take out a lacquer box that Mom and Dad bought for me when we visited Japan seven years ago. It’s a deep, rich orange red, and it has three cherry blossoms painted on it in real gold. Inside, I keep my pearl earrings, a picture of me with my best friend, Trish Campbell, when we were six, all the sea glass I’ve collected from trips to Lake Michigan, and a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

I pour in my new sea glass, take out the piece of paper, and stare at the numbers. They start with a San Francisco area code. Could this be the real reason we’re moving?

The paper is small and narrow, almost like something I might pull out of a fortune cookie. Like if I turn it over, I’ll find my fortune—my family’s fortune—on the other side: Yes, these numbers are important. No, these numbers are meaningless. But of course the back of the paper is as blank as ever. I bury the phone number under the other things, put the box away, and lie down on my bed to think.

A few minutes later, Mom comes in and frowns when she sees me lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Mom is the most practical person I know. She doesn’t sugarcoat things, and she doesn’t look for a bright side. Which is okay right now, because a fake spiel about exciting new experiences, great weather, and new friends would just piss me off.

“I am sorry that you have to leave your friends,” she says, not looking one bit sorry, “ but the pouting doesn’t make your life better. It just prevents you from doing your homeworks.”

Then again, it probably wouldn’t kill her to show a little sympathy. Also, she’s totally off base about what’s upsetting me. But since correcting her is out of the question, I just turn and face the wall.

“Jibun no koto bakkari kangaen’no yame-nasai. Chanto henji shina-sai.”

I don’t think I’m being selfish. But since “AAAGGGGH-HHH! I’M NOT BEING SELFISH!” is probably not the “proper reply” she’s looking for, I just say, “I’m not pouting. I’m thinking.”

“There is nothing to think about. If you want to think, you can think of being grateful for a father who works so hard to get the good job.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful—”

“Ever since he was teenager,” she continues, “Dad dreamed of working for the Silicon Valley start-up. That’s why he came to United States.”

“But what about me? Don’t my dreams count?” Okay, maybe now I’m being a little selfish. Especially since the truth is that I don’t actually have what might be called dreams. What I have are more like hopes: Straight As. A love life. A crowd of real friends to hang out with. But it’s also true that if I did have dreams, they wouldn’t count anyway. Not to Mom.

“You are too young for the dream,” she says. (See?)

I want to remind her that she just said Dad’s start-up job was a teenage dream. But she has a conveniently short memory about things she’s just said that contradict other things she’s just said, so instead, I switch tracks. “What about your dreams?”

“My dream is not important.”

“Ugh. Come on, Mom.”

She crosses her arms. “My dream is to make the good family. I can do that in Wisconsin or California.”

“Mom, why do you say stuff like that? Like, ‘Oh, our lives are just going to change forever, no big deal.’ It is a big deal! It’s a huge deal!” I can hear myself getting screechy, but I can’t help it. Dad changes our lives around without consulting anyone— well, without consulting me—and Mom just . . . lets it happen. It would make anyone screechy. “

Shikkari shinasai,” she snaps.

But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that: gather myself into a tight little bundle with everything in its place— shikkari—like she wants. I put my head under my pillow.

She’s quiet for so long that I begin to wonder if she’s left the room. When I peek out from under the pillow, she’s waiting for me, her face softer, even a little sad. “Gaman shinasai,” she says, and walks away. Gaman. Endure. Bear it without complaining.

Her life’s motto and my life’s bane.

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