Speedster
let out a pained groan as she tried to sit up, only to end up slumped back into
the groove she had left in the grass.
Luna
had been right, Robotnik wasn’t evil, he had suppressed that part of himself in
order to help people. She had no right to chase him around and cause him
trouble, because he had changed when he had Fused. She just had to accept that
he could change, there was nothing else to do.
She
just had to ignore the way the personality contamination from her Fusion was
trying to force her to keep watching. Ignore the way part of her mind was yelling
that there had to be something more going on.
As
she managed to get herself sitting and examined her surroundings, she realised
there was one bright side to realising she had been acting like an idiot and
allowing the personality contamination to control her thoughts and actions.
If
she wasn’t worrying all the time about what Robotnik was up to, she could
actually relax and enjoy the build up to Christmas. She hadn’t last year because
it hadn’t been long after they had all Fused and they had still been settling
the ground rules for the post-Fusion Club. The three days over Christmas itself
had been fine, since it had been agreed that there was to be no insane activity
over the Christmas period in order to allow people to enjoy time with their
families. But the build up had been stressful and she hadn’t enjoyed it in the
slightest.
This
year she could spend it having fun. There was only a week and a half left to go
after all.
She
staggered to her feet, wincing as she did so and trying to work out where she
was. She had been lucky when she had crashed in that there had been no one
between her and the wall in the middle of nowhere that had acted a break.
However since it was out in the middle of nowhere, there was no signs telling
her where she was or what was the closest city.
It
didn’t help she hadn’t been paying attention to the markers she had past as she
had sped by. As she headed down the road, convinced that she had to hit a town
or village soon, she pulled her phone out, grinning slightly when she realised
that it had signal.
“Hi
Luna?” She asked as her friend picked up the phone, wincing as her right foot
hit the floor and jarred her sore leg, “Yeah, I’m fine. Honest.” She chuckled
slightly when Luna started fussing at her, just as aware as Juliet that she
only ever used her phone when she absolutely needed to, “I just wondered if you
guys have access to the internet right now? Because I need you to google maps
something for me.” She explained as she reached a sign with the road name on
it. “Yeah, I got lost again.” She admitted, laughing at Luna’s frustrated huff,
“I have a road name this time if that helps. I’m on...”
She
gave her friend the road name and winced as Luna explained that she was about a
five hour drive from her house. Normally that wouldn’t be too bad, but with her
leg aching from the crash she wasn’t looking forward to using it to get home.
Still, run home she did, collapsing on the sofa with a bag of ice at the first opportunity
she had.
“Ouch.”
She grumbled as she took in the sight of bruising up her right leg and down her
side. “At least it should be gone in a week.” She commented out loud, the almost
empty house echoing the words back at her.
It
didn’t stay almost empty for long as within minutes of her texting Luna to tell
her she was home, her best friend had shot around to her house. Luna fussed at
her for the rest of the evening, babbling excitedly about the breakthroughs she
and the others had had on Dr. Styler and the project. Juliet wasn’t sure she
had the heart to tell her that she had gone and staked out the building,
stalked them home and then realised that she was being ridiculous. At least not
right now. Especially after she realised that Luna was deliberately keeping the
location of the lab a secret from her so she couldn’t shoot off and do exactly
what she had spent the afternoon doing.
The
following day, she had no choice but to admit what she had done. The others had
expected her to react badly when it was announced that some billionaire with
far too much money and who had sympathy for the plight of the people who needed
the treatment Dr Styler and his assistant were providing but couldn’t afford
it, was dropping a couple of million into a pot in order to pay for a large
chunk of people to have the experimental robosuit system equipped so they could
have a better quality of life.
When,
instead, she had seemed resigned but hadn’t actually gone out of her way to do
anything about it, the others had questioned her. Luna had been disappointed and
Mako had gotten cross, but both had admitted that they were relieved she had
already gone and done the recon without getting caught. They had expected her
to shoot off at any time to try and with her leg playing up, Luna had half
expected to be bailing her out of jail.
In
the week and a half leading up to Christmas, Juliet had to ignore the news of
thousands of people with physical disabilities streaming to the lab in order to
get the treatment. It wasn’t easy, but she managed it by distracting herself
with cleaning, followed up with decorating her house for the first time in a
couple of years and even making cookies between trips down to the tree house.
When
Luna’s parents came to pick them up for Christmas, she was glad to be out of
the city. The robosuited population was increasing steadily around the labs as
people in post treatment got used to their new forms, not that she had sped by
to check on the lines and make sure there wasn’t any trouble there at all, and
quite a few more ‘normal’ robots had come into the city itself, causing her a
few problems when she went out to do her rounds, only for a bot or three to get
in her way.
Ignoring
what was going on wasn’t easy and she kept having to remind herself that as
long as he wasn’t doing anything wrong, she had to stay away from the lab. Getting
out of the city and into a whole different environment helped.
Chew
Magna was peaceful and quiet in comparison to the busy city and Juliet found
herself unwinding as she hung out at the lakes. It was cold, but not as icy and
white, allowing her to zoom around and around the lakes when she wasn’t
shooting back up the country in order to do her job, enjoying the local
countryside, visiting Chedder Gorge, where they made the best cheesy chips
ever, or going with Luna to the local orchard to feed the pigs that were
allowed to live there.
It
was Christmas Eve before she found a real disadvantage to it and that was when
Luna’s horde of a family descended upon the small residence. Speedster found
she couldn’t really cope with the sheer amount of people in the tiny house very
well and as such took the opportunity to shoot over to her uncle’s place and
drop off the presents for the following day.
Her
uncle’s new wife was cross to see her, but her uncle was delighted that she had
made the time to rush over. While he knew her secret, he hadn’t expected her to
run over just to see him, not when it was so cold out. He dragged her into the
warm house, plying her with hot cocoa and mulled wine, while accepting her gift
of cookies and cake.
Her
father had left her a present with her Uncle, which she took back with her when
she headed back to Luna’s place where she arrived just in time for the family
to decide that she was coming with them to Midnight Mass. Despite both her insistence
that she couldn’t sing and Luna’s insistence that she didn’t normally get on in
Churches very well, Luna’s family insisted that it was a tradition and she had
no choice but to go.
It
wasn’t too bad a service and she enjoyed the hot chicken and mushroom soup
afterwards, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she could open one
present straight after it.
She
kept the one from her father, along with all her other particularly important
gifts, for later and opened the one from the Club for her. She was rather amused
to find that it was a cyan glass paperweight that was cut like a gem stone and
weighed a surprising amount. It reminded her of something she had seen in the
memories she had gained in the Fusion and she chuckled as she put it safely in
her backpack, glad that the cyan gem and the gems from her memories weren’t the
same thing. Her hand brushed fabric as she placed it in the main pocket and she
pulled out the item, becoming startled when she found that she still had her costume
from the film in there too.
“Note
to self, don’t forget to take this home.” Speedster commented to herself as she
hung up the costume and fished out the mask that went with it. Snap had asked them
all to take their costumes home after recording, since she had nowhere to store
it at her parents’ house over Christmas and didn’t want to leave the
complicated and slightly expensive outfits in her halls, just in case something
happened.
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