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ruffsficstuffplace · 7 years

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Reunions (Part 19): Four To Win The War (2 of 3)

8PM, New Hope.

Gareth was standing at the doors of the last bus back to Auradon City, Zelma fussing over him.

“Ya sure you don’t want to stay the night, here, Cap’n?” she asked. “Must be a real fright, having ta sleep in the same room as that man… might even be preferable to have an actual rabid dog than him...”

Gareth smiled as held a packed dinner from her. “Rest assured, Ms. Zelma, I’ve taken care of myself with far worse threats. Should he break his promise to Kalila and attempt to return, I can and will handle him.”

Zelma sighed. “Aye, I believe ye, but then again, that’s what everyone else done in by ‘im said soon before he did...” she muttered.

Gareth patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll be here tomorrow, Ms. Zelma, I promise.”

Zelma smiled ruefully. “I hope so! Would be a shame ta lose you so soon after we just got you...”

“Hey!” the bus driver called out, the door closed. “If you’re not getting on here any time soon, you mind looking for that tiny doctor guy? I’m not waiting here all night for him, and neither are they!” she said, pointing to the rest of the passengers already loaded up.

“Certainly, my good woman!” Gareth replied, before he turned back to Zelma. “Would you happen to have any idea where I might find him?”

Zelma sighed, and pointed behind her. “Probably still in the crap barge; Dave’s already back at the bar, gettin’ drunk and braggin’ about how lucky he is that Teddy let him quit early. Right shame I have to deal with that arse earlier than I usually have to...” she muttered.

“I’ll stay around longer to deal with him, if you need me to, but for now, I must be off to fetch the good doctor. Thank you for the information, Ms. Zelma,” he said, smiling.

“Any time!” Zelma said, smiling back.

Gareth made his way through the quiet bridges and docks of New Hope, saying hello to the few guards out on night duty. Save for Zelma’s brimming with the sounds of chatter and laughter, utensils scraping on plates, and drink glasses clinking and wooden tankards being banged on tables, the town was deathly quiet, now that after-hours restrictions had been instated in the wake of the fuel boat bombing. It was quieter still when he made it to the waste processing plant, only one guard on-duty to sign him in, and give him a much-needed air mask with fresh air filters, with gloves for good measure.

Gareth walked around and called out Ted’s name, until he passed by one of the compost pits and stopped as the surface burbled and moved. He watched as a particularly tiny muck monster with one glowing eye on the top of his head rose from the mess, before he wiped the rotting plant-matter off him and revealed himself to be Ted in a full-body, sealed suit.

“Do you require assistance getting out, Dr. Bearington?” Gareth asked.

“Ugh, that would be lovely, thank you…” Ted replied. “Pray tell, how long was I down there? That repair took far longer than I thought it would...”

“I don’t know, but I do know it’s far beyond time you were ready to board the bus with us and return to Auradon City,” Gareth said as he lifted him out, more fresh compost sloughing off him.

Ted sighed as he made his way to a drain with a hose nearby. “Then please tell the driver to go on without me; I am most certainly NOT returning home whilst smelling of ‘all natural fertilizer,’” he said, before he shuddered.

Gareth nodded, and was about to call one of the other guards by his radio. He stopped as he and Ted noticed the sound of someone slipping and falling to the ground, followed by a faint, muffled cry.

Gareth turned to Ted. “Is anyone else supposed to be here this late at night?” he asked quietly.

“Not by my knowledge, no...” Ted whispered back, frowning underneath his mask.

Gareth followed the noise, till he came upon a woman dressed up in an aquafarmer’s uniform. She hid her surprise well, especially with the mask on her face, but it didn’t take a particularly perceptive person to realize something was up.

He extended his hand, she instinctively crawled back. “Do you need help getting up?” Gareth asked.

“No, no, not at all, Captain!” she said as she quickly scrambled back up. “Just slipped on… something, I’m fine...”

Gareth nodded. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh! Well, this is embarrassing, but I’m looking for something valuable my friend might have left behind here earlier! Doesn’t seem to be this place, though, so I was just on my way out, actually!”

“I could look for it for you, you know,” Gareth replied.

“H-Hah...” she muttered, “yeah, I-I don’t think she wants to bother you with something so trivial...”

“You did mention it was ‘something valuable...’”

“Sentimentally! I meant sentimentally!” she added. “Look, I need to go, I’ve got curfew and all!” she paused. “You, uh… you won’t rat me out, will you Captain?”

“No, but please, let me see you to the door… you’ll have to surrender your mask there anyway, right?”

She paled, however slightly. “Sure, lead the way, Captain!”

Gareth marched her back to the entrance, where the guard at duty—Duncan of DunBroch—recognized her. “Emmie! What the hell are you doing in here?” he cried.

“You know her?” Gareth asked.

“We go back a ways, Captain...” Duncan grumbled. “Don’t burden yerself, I’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you,” Gareth said. “And if you don’t mind, please have someone tell the bus to go on without me, or Dr. Bearington.”

“Will do, sir; I’ll ask around for someone willing to take you two home, too.”

“That would be much appreciated, Duncan,” Gareth said, before he headed back inside.

He turned rounded a corner, discretely peered back and saw Duncan looking at Emmie sternly as he talked on his radio. Satisfied, he headed back Ted, escorted him to the showers, and waited until he was done.

“May I ask what that disturbance earlier was, Captain?” Ted asked as he dried his hair, the dark curls popping back out to their usual, out-of-control appearance.

“Someone sneaking about looking for something, allegedly,” Gareth replied. “Might be nothing to worry about, but with recent events, every little bit of mischief can’t help but attract great interest.”

“Oh I don’t know about that, I’m sure it’s something completely innocent, or no crime of note,” Ted said. “And in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m being sarcastic,” he said as he threw his used towel into the used bin.

Gareth frowned. “I never got that, sarcasm,” he said as he and Ted started walking out. “Why would you ever speak the opposite of what you mean for emphasis?”

“Because human beings are complex, irrational creatures who do a lot of strange, unproductive, to outright self-destructive things, Captain,” Ted replied.

Gareth nodded. “Onto more pressing matters: would you like a security detail, Doctor? I fear this will only be the first incident, if you continue working by yourself late at night.”

“I’d rather not, honestly,” Ted replied. “You forget, Captain, I’ve been living on the same Isle as you have for the past 20 years. My first defenses may be my wits and over-developed sense of self-preservation, but worst comes to worst, I can run and hide with the best of them.

“For now, let’s step away from the hypotheticals, and onto facts: we don’t have a way back to Auradon City, unless you want to try to make a two-hour drive on foot.”

“I can help with that,” a third voice said.

Ted and Gareth stopped near the entrance of the waste treatment plant, Lt. Rajei standing just outside.

“Captain Gareth, Dr. Bearington,” she said with a nod of her head.

“Lieutenant Rajei,” Gareth said with a salute. “What are you doing here, if I may ask?”

“I overheard that you two needed a ride back to Auradon City,” Rajei said as she walked over to them. “Think of it as my apology for my behaviour, and the tip of the olive branch to you, Gareth. I realize if we’re going to be working together for as long as this project is running, it would be best if are civil with one another,” she said as she extended a hand.

Gareth nodded, smiling as he took it and shook. “Agreed, Lieutenant, and I appreciate the gesture. Any objections, Dr. Bearington?”

Ted looked uneasily at Rajei, then back at Gareth. He did a quick debate in his head, before he shrugged. “I suppose a ride home’s a ride home…” he said.

Rajei hummed. “Meet me at the entrance, then—the only squad car here always needs digging out of the mud, for how long it goes between uses,” she said as she turned around and left.

“Understood,” Gareth said. “Oh, and Lieutenant?”

Rajei turned around. “What is it?”

“What would you happen to know about an aquafarmer called ‘Emmie’?”

“Ermingrad of the Isle? Brown hair, calm disposition that cracks quickly under pressure, constantly scurrying about where she shouldn’t be?”

“Yes, her exactly.”

Rajei sighed. “She’s a nuisance of mine. Smuggler BGU, ‘requisitions officer’ for Maleficent AGU, and now she helps facilitate this town’s contraband market as a courier. Unfortunately, she doesn’t deal in anything more serious than cigarettes, pornography, and the odd recreational drug, which is why Lady Evie refuses to let me evict her.

“Why do you ask?”

“I found her scurrying about inside earlier, and left her with Duncan after I walked her out,” Gareth replied.

Rajei’s eyes widened in alarm, before groaned. “I’m letting this go for now because I haven’t had time to brief you yet, but the next time you surrender one of my headaches to the guard she bribes to look the other way? I won’t be as merciful, Gareth.”

Gareth hung his head. “My apologies, Lieutenant.”

“Just don’t let it happen again, Captain,” Rajei growled, before she turned around, and stalked off.

Some time later, they were on the road back to Auradon in the New Hope Guard’s jeep, Rajei driving, Ted in the passenger seat, and Gareth taking up most of the back. For a while, it was quiet but for the sound of the cicadas buzzing and the radio’s quiet hum as it attempted to pick up official guard transmissions, until Gareth broke the silence.

“Lieutenant?” he asked.

Rajei didn’t look back. “Yes, Gareth?”

“May I ask how the investigation of the fuel boat explosion is going?”

“No, Gareth, and no amount of wheedling or begging is going to make me change my mind,” Rajei replied. “For one, you’re not trained in the proper protocols of an investigation, two, you’re not authorized to make an arrest unless you catch someone right in the middle in the act, like actually trying to set fire to a fuel tank, and three, unlike the Isle, and we here at Auradon are very insistent the rules are followed during the pursuit of justice.

“As a former knight yourself, I’d have expected you to understand that last one. Or has twenty years on the Isle eroded all your training?” she said, looking at Gareth through the rearview mirror.

The air grew tense for a moment, Ted quietly slunk further down in his spacious seat, bringing his head below the level of Rajei’s shoulders.

Rajei turned back to the road, Gareth sighed. “I will admit I am more than rusty, especially with so much of Auradon being alien to me…” he said. “… But still, I remember that sometimes, to enforce the law, protect the peace, and defend the people, you have to break the rules.”

Rajei’s driving slowed. “Dr. Bearington, watch the road for me, please,” she said. Ted reluctantly sat up and looked out at the deserted dirt road in front of them and the lights of Auradon City in the distance, as she looked in the rear-view mirror.

“Did any of the other guards tell you how I got stationed in New Hope?” Rajei asked.

Gareth shook his head. “No, they mentioned it was a topic to avoid with you, unless you yourself bring it up.”

“Well, good to see some of my orders are being followed!” Rajei said, before her face turned serious once more. “I was just like you, Gareth, before I was stationed here. Cocky, passionate about my job, raring to go at the slightest hint of wrongdoing, dreaming of busting down doors, and busting the crimes going down behind them.

“I thought that protocol was only slowing us all down, that the Royal Guard is struggling so much because we sweat and bleed over paperwork more often than we do in the field. That when it really came down to it, I’d make like one of the heroes of old and bust a major crime, crack a mystery, unveil an insidious plot and unravel it before it could reach its deadly fruition.

“Then I learned that bravado without brains, disrespecting the rules, and thinking that fate chose you for some divine mission is the surest way for all your achievements to go down the drain, turning you from a notable fresh graduate rising through Agrabah’s ranks to a disgrace in charge of a smelly swamp somewhere out near Auradon City.

“Do you really want to help me, solve this mystery, and find your terrorist, Gareth?

“Then keep out of trouble, see what you can dig up using legal methods, and above all, follow the rules. The villagers seem to like you more than they ever did me, so why don’t you go befriend some of them, see what sort of information they might share with you?

“If nothing else, you can take their pettier concerns from me, and let me focus on keeping New Hope floating, literally and figuratively.”

Gareth turned his eyes down, and nodded. “I understand, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, Gareth,” Rajei replied, her face still stern as always as she turned back to the road.

“… Err, Lieutenant?” Ted asked.

“Yes, Dr. Bearington?” Rajei replied flatly.

“Since you two were going on about the issues plaguing the town, may I throw my own onto the pile?”

“Is it a matter of that security system Lady Evie wants you to build?”

“No, but it came about as I was attempting to lay down the foundations for it with Dave, and discovered that most of the town’s infrastructure is falling apart.”

Rajei gritted her teeth. “Write a report at your soonest convenience, Dr. Bearington, and I’ll make sure it gets sent to Lady Evie.”

“How bad is it?” Gareth asked.

“Let me put it this way: if hadn’t met the man, seen him in action, and had consistent accounts of his lackluster work ethic from every single one of the townsfolk I’ve met, I’d start raising the probability of intentional sabotage.”

Rajei shook her head. “Typical Dave… some unsolicited advice for the both of you: start looking for new jobs. Lady Evie has been keen to keep the numbers to herself, but with replacing the fuel boat and all the gas inside, the materials and the work for Bearington’s security system, and fixing up Dave’s fuck-ups, the government grants and investments are probably going to start thinking of cutting their losses and pulling out the next time she sends them a financial report.”

“But what of her grade, her Sustainable Castle Planning class?” Gareth asked.

“Then she fails, what else?” Rajei replied. “Not every project and endeavour makes it to completion, Gareth.”

“Had failures not been as many as they are, we would not sing so much praise about the few that succeed...” Ted muttered.

“Exactly,” Rajei said.

Gareth looked over his shoulder, at the untamed mangroves they were leaving behind, the blinking light of New Hope’s one cell tower peaking out through the canopy like a lighthouse.

Would he lose his new home, so soon after he arrived…?

He turned back to the road, a look of grim determination on his face. He’d already lost two homes to forces beyond his control—first, there was his birthplace, all because he had been blinded by his passion and sworn loyalty to the Evil Queen, second, when his faith in her had amounted to nothing but personal ruin and a daughter he could not see, could not speak to, could not had known he even was her father until now.

New Hope was not going to be his third—not while he had anything to say about it.

#reunions #descendants #fanfic

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