Fourth of July- Fall Out Boy
We step into Zeke and Shauna's apartment, backpacks stuffed full on our backs. "You know exactly where you'll be staying." Zeke raises his eyebrows at Ty, and he nods knowingly.
He takes my hand, and pulls me along with him down a long hallway with wooden flooring. We turn into a room, and I take a look around.
It's very plain. The walls are a dark gray, like the rest of the house. There's a full or maybe a queen sized bed in the corner of the room, a small window above it, near the ceiling.
Next to the bed is a small wooden nightstand, which holds a small lamp. I turn, and see a small crib in the corner. Dylan sleeps silently in the crib.
Next to the crib, I see a rectangle section of mirrors. Ty places our backpacks over there, then pulls on a handle. The doors pull away from the wall, revealing a closet.
Silently, Ty pulls clothes off of hangers and throws them to the corner of the closet. He makes just enough room for our clothes, or current clothes in his sense.
"This used to be your room?" I ask as I look over the room once more. He nods.
"Yeah. Every single morning I'd wake up late and see Ashton running through that hallway, muttering curse words and brushing his teeth." He chuckles, and I smile.
He hangs our clothes, then lays our backpacks in the closet, on the clear floor. I sit on the edge of the bed, and he walks over to sit beside me.
"This is going to be the start of something horrible." I say, and Ty nods.
"We'll get through it." Ty says, and I know that, deep down, he doesn't even believe it himself. I lean into him, and kiss him. He allows an arm to move to my side, and I place my hands on his cheeks.
A door clicks, but I ignore it. It looks like Ty does as well.
"Seriously? C'mon guys, there's no time for this. You guys need to come with me." I hear a voice say. I pull my lips away from Ty's, and we both look up at Zeke.
"C'mon!" He says to us, so we stand up and follow him. We walk back down the long hallway, and back into the living room. We walk to the front door, wait for Zeke to tell Shauna goodbye, and then follow Zeke out.
>> Zeke
I walk back to Ty's room to tell him that I'm going to work at the control room. I hate working the night shift, but that is when things get interesting in Erudite. That's when they keep their lights on all night and perform some weird experiments.
So, in a sense, it's actually not that bad to work the night shift. I stop in front of their door and open it. The door clicks as I turn it, and I look inside, seeing Ty with his arm wrapped around Maddie, kissing her. They don't stop, so I let out a groan.
"Seriously? C'mon guys, there's no time for this, you guys need to come with me." I say. Maddie and Ty separate, and look at me like I'm insane. "C'mon!" I exclaim, and they stand, walking out the door and into the hallway with me.
I tell Shauna goodbye, and then walk out, Ty and Maddie right on my tail. "So we're coming with you because...?" I hear Maddie ask.
I turn around to face them. "Because at night Erudite gets interesting. All of the city lights shut off at midnight, but Erudite keeps theirs on. They start performing experiments after midnight, too." I explain, and Maddie nods. "It gets pretty weird, and Jordan is one of Jeanine's pawns. Just figured that out, too." I clasp my hands together, turning back around.
"Did you watch the footage that was on the flash drive?" Maddie asks me. I turn and see that her eyebrows are raised. I move to stand beside her, Ty on her other side.
"Yeah. That's why I sent it to you; because I wanted you guys to see the profiles and other stuff that Jeanine is doing." I shrug.
"Five people have died trying to pass the simulation that Jeanine wants us to go under. Five people, and that's only so far." Maddie says worriedly.
"Yes, but that's only because they aren't your match or Ty's match, brain composure wise. You won't die from the simulation unless she tests you for someone else. She mainly wants background information on Convergents. She needs you two, because your children are the only ones that are known." I explain what I think, and she nods.
"So what you're saying is that we should turn ourselves in?" Ty narrows his eyes at me, and I shake my head.
"No, because it's dangerous. Not necessarily with Jeanine, but Jordan—well, there's no way to beat around the bush. He wants you dead." I say, frowning.
"We could attack Erudite, but that would disrupt the entire faction system and would spark a rebellion, so that's out." Maddie says to Ty, and he nods as we arrive at the control room. I punch in a code and the door creaks open. We all step inside, and walk down the twists and turns of the underground tunnels, eventually arriving at a door.
I pull it open, and allow Maddie and Ty to walk in. The only other person in the room is Four. I hear Ty's breathing hitch, and Maddie takes his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
I smile, and then shut the door behind me. "FOUR!" I scream, and he stands up, yanking his headphones off in his haste. I laugh, and I can see Ty ease up a bit.
"ZEKE!" He screams back at me, and I laugh even harder. "Wait, why are they here?" He points at Maddie and Ty.
"They're with me. Literally. They're living with me." I say, raising my eyebrows and placing a file down next to my computer, which is directly next to Four's.
"What?" Four asks, his face voicing his confusion more than that of his voice. Maddie and Ty talk to each other off to the side of the room, and I turn back to Four.
"Jordan and Jeanine are after them at the moment, so they're staying at my place for the next week or two." I shrug, and Four nods.
"But why?" He asks, scratching the back of his neck, just above where his tattoo peaks out of his shirt collar.
"Why...?" I ask.
"Why is Jordan after them? What?" He asks. I wonder what's on his mind that's making him so confused.
"Jordan has alerted Jeanine about this whole Convergent thing, and now she's testing Divergents for Convergent stats that are based on Ty and Maddie. Five people have died from the simulation, and she's sending Jordan out to get Maddie and Ty because she wants 'real testing subjects' who have actual statistics!" I whisper. He nods.
"They're screwed. We need to keep them hidden until we can do something to Jordan." He says as he looks over at Maddie and Ty, who still babble on about Jordan and Hannah and Dylan and everything else that's been fucked up in their lives. I sigh.
"That's exactly what we've all been trying to do." I say. "But there's not much we can do without getting ourselves killed or disrupting the entire city." I shrug. He merely nods.
>> Maddie
"I've got the perfect idea." I whisper to Ty as we stand off to the side of the control room. My father and Zeke talk to each other across the room from us.
"Hm?" Ty asks as he ties his shoe laces. When he's finished, he leans his body against the wall, staring directly into my eyes.
"We find a way to get into Erudite and we sneak a serum of some sort into the food that Jeanine and Jordan and all of their henchmen will eat. The serum will erase only some of their memories, a.k.a. all of the Convergent stats and records of our kidnapping, along with anything that has to do with our Divergence or Hannah and Dylan. Our source—Caleb." I shrug when I finish speaking.
Ty slings an arm around me and slams our lips together. He pulls away, grinning. "Maddie, that's, that's brilliant!" He hugs me, spinning me around before kissing me once more.
"What's all the noise over there for?" My father asks. Ty only grins at him, pulling me with him to where my father and Zeke stand. "What?" My father asks, annoyed.
"Maddie here has a brilliant plan." Ty slings an arm around my shoulder, the grin not leaving his face.
"Well, Maddie? What's the plan?" Zeke asks softly.
I look from Ty to Zeke to my father, and then launch into the details of the plan. "We sneak into Erudite and put some sort of a memory erasing serum into the food that Jeanine, Jordan and their henchmen will eat, that will erase all of the memories of the Convergent affair, our kidnapping, anything hat has to do with our Divergence, and Hannah and Dylan. Then one or both of you will erase all of the testing data from the database and we're done." I grin when I close my statement.
"It still needs to be worked out, but I'd say it's a good bare bone plan." I shrug. Zeke, along with my father both nod, impressed.
"I think we can run with this, Four." Zeke looks down from his spot where he sits on the table to my father, who sits in a desk chair. My father nods.
"I am, indeed, very impressed." My father raises his eyebrows, "Good work."
>>
Later that night, Ty and I lay on his bed in his room, Dylan peacefully asleep in his crib, and Hannah asleep across the hall.
Ty's bed is against the wall, and Ty is on the side closest to the wall. I lay directly in front of him, and we both face the door, which is parallel to the bed.
Ty kisses my neck, and then wraps his arm around my stomach. "Goodnight Maddie," he whispers huskily in my ear. I turn slightly and press a kiss to his lips. "I love you."
I smile. "I love you too." I lay back down in our original position, and whisper to Ty, "Goodnight, Ty."
>> Zeke
I walk through the house, and then turn to Ty's door. It still seems so surreal that they're here, twenty four seven, and it's not just Shauna and I anymore. The door is cracked open the slightest bit, so I push it open, and see Maddie laying on the bed, Ty behind her, his arm wrapped around her stomach.
I can see why Ty wouldn't want to be in Four's house every day and night for two straight weeks. Four would probably have them in separate rooms.
I let a slight chuckle emit from my throat. I step into their room cautiously and turn the lamp off, then walk to the bedroom after making sure that the front door is locked.
Shauna waits for me there, her eyes halfway closed. I turn the light off. I smile down at her and lay down, pulling the comforter up to cover my body, and then kiss her forehead.
"Goodnight, babe." She whispers to me, and I grin. "Goodnight, Shauna." I kiss her lips, and wrap an arm around her build, closing my eyes.
In this moment, I allow all of the worries of my world to slip away, and let sleep overtake me.
>> Maddie
I open my eyes to a dark room. I hear a slight whimpering off to the side of the room. Ty sleeps soundly beside me, his arm still wrapped around my stomach. I slowly remove his arm from my stomach, and push myself off of the bed.
The whimper becomes louder, and I rush over to Dylan's crib. His tiny body writhes around in the crib, his tiny fingers fisting at the air. His mouth is wide open and his eyes are as well. I slip off my shirt and pick Dylan up. He gurgles as I line him up, then cradle him once he latches on.
He closes his eyes soon, and I watch as his little red fingers grasp at my skin, his legs curling around my side. Ty is still asleep; he hasn't moved at all.
I turn back and look at Dylan. He looks so much like Ty. Dylan has a small tuft of dark brown hair, a slender nose, and little plump lips just like Ty.
I gently rock him back and forth, humming a small bit to him as he closes his eyes. I smile down at him, then dip down to kiss Dylan's little forehead.
After a few more minutes, he loses the latch and whimpers, finished. I place him down in his crib and pull my shirt back on. When I'm finished pulling my shirt on, I reach over and grab a small rag out of Ty's backpack, then place it over my shoulder.
I pick Dylan up once more, yawning, and pat his back for a few minutes. He lets out a nearly inaudible burp, then gurgles. I bounce him up and down on my hip, then kiss him.
"Wah!" His voice echoes in the room, along with Ty's snoring.
Dylan baby babbles on, then I lay him down. "Night night, Dylan." I say as I kiss his cheek. He smiles, and I do as well.
I turn around and walk back over to our bed. I lay down once more, and place Ty's arm around my stomach again.
I hear Dylan's breathing steady after a few minutes, and I know that he's asleep. I smile, turning slightly to kiss Ty's slightly stubble covered cheek, and then allow sleep to overtake me.
a/n: that's just a giraffe I drew over the weekend. :) So, tomorrow I have to perform two scenes in my theatre class with my partners. We're going to be on the actual stage and they're going to be students, I'm going to be a teacher. I have to be like a doormat and they walk all over me and finally I break and just let it all out and get mad at them. It's going to be weird. Oh well, wish me luck because I hate going up in front of the class. 'Kay bye ☄