By: RedSwift
Chapter 11
As Darice entered the room with the hostages, she saw the APD giving them drinks and food. She saw Adrian and Rex doing the same, and went to help them. The hostages were all homeless, and probably seen better days. *Seems like somewhere she’d be,* she thought to herself, a look of disgust crossing her face. She continued on her errands, helping whenever she was needed.
Darice was bringing over some food to one person and looked down at the small frail form. “YOU!!!” she roared down at the huddled form, “I’m not surprised to find you here!”
The form looked up at her, showing a haggard mouse. If it weren’t for her ragged teeth and caked on mud, she could have been pretty. “So Darice, you’ve finally come looking for your old mother, eh?”
“I’d never come looking for you,” she said icicly, “my mother died five years ago.”
“Well, I’m still here now, ain’t I?”
“If you want to call this pitiful experience that, then ya, you are.”
“See, you can still be civil.”
“So, you still hitting the rat poison these days?”
Darice’s mother looked crestfallen at this change of subject, “Not as much as when I was still with your father, I hope to go back to him soon.”
“He’ll never take you in, he’s still bitter over you just abandoning us.”
Darice’s mother stood up at this and poked her finger into Darice’s chest, “I had no choice! I never wanted to tell my family that I was an addicted user. I left for your own good!”
“Oh, we all knew mother,” she scoffeed, “you weren’t very good at it. It hurt Dad more that you never told him than when you left. He trusted you and feels that you betrayed that trust.”
“I never meant to hurt him or any of you kids, you must believe me.”
“Mother, where the hell have you been the last few years. You missed me graduate, Tommy’s first girlfriend and first days of high school; hell, you even missed Linda’s first steps. You missed you own baby’s goddamned first steps. It’ll be hard for any of us to speak to you, let alone forgive you.”
“I know it’ll be a hard road, but I really want to become a part of your lives, I just need a little more time to get myself over this.”
Darice throws her hands up in the air at this, “Jesus Christ mother, you’ve had five f*****’ years. How much more time do you f*****’ need?”
Darice looked into her mother’s hazed eyes and saw them change, change into the loving eyes she remembered as a child, “Young lady, I never want to hear you to say those words to me again. I raised you better than that.”
Darice become confused at this point, this was the mother she remembered, but how could she forgive her for the past five years? She broke down into tears and threw herself into her mother’s arms, glad to feel their warmth once more. “Mom, I’m so sorry, its just so great to see you again,” she sobbed.
“I know, I know dear,” she replied, embracing her child and patting her on the back. “I can understand your feelings, believe me I can. I really want to make up these past five years to you. I don’t know how I will, but I will,” she whispered.
Støy watched all this silently from a few feet away. He walked off outside into the daylight. He shielded his eyes as he got outside.
“Damn sun,” he grumbled to himself. He leaned himself against a wall and rolled a cigarette. Just as he was about to light up, the Ranger Plane landed with Monty at the controls and Dale in the copilot’s seat, the wind from the aircraft blowing out his match. Once it landed, the two Rangers jumped out and started over towards him. He just stayed where he was and took another match and lit his cigarette.
“Welcome back to the touching reunion,” he said sarcastically as they approached.
Monty and Dale were confused by this and looked at each other, shrugging their shoulders.
“Never mind. Everyone’s inside helping out, I just came out for a smoke.”
“Well, OK mate,” Monty replied, “we’re headin’ in for a bit to help out, then we’ll take you blokes home and get back to the hospital.”
“Sounds fine to me, I’ll catch up with you later,” and with that Støy left his spot on the wall and walked towards the corner of the building.
Monty and Dale stared after him, “Strange bloke, ain’t he?” Monty asked Dale.
“Yeah, you get used to it after awhile,” Dale answered, “let’s just go in and see what we can do.”
“Right-o mate, let’s get crackin’ on it,” and the two walked inside.
Once coming into the room they had fought in, they saw various APD officers helping out the residents and one or two interrogating a few on what had happened. They saw Adrian and Rex bringing water and food to some. Dale looked for Darice, and finally saw her sitting in a corner laying in the lap of a rather dirty looking female mouse. Both had tears in their eyes. Dale decided to let them go and went to join Monty with passing out drinks.
It eventually got dark and the APD began packing up. Monty and Dale each prepped the aircraft as Dale’s friends all began heading out, Darice still had the dirty looking mouse with her.
“Who ya got there luv?” Monty asked her.
“Oh, this is my mother, Valerie, Mom, this is Monty and Dale of the Rescue Rangers, and over there is Rex, Adrian, and Støy. They’re all in my band along with me and Dale.”
“Nice to meet you all,” Valerie said meekly as Darice led her to the Ranger Plane. Her friends all followed her into the Plane. Monty took the wing back to the hospital while Dale flew them home to Darice’s. It was a pretty tight fit, but no one complained.
Dale dropped them off, and went to the hospital himself. He got there and jumped out, running in to check Chip’s condition. Last he’d known before leaving with Monty was that the doctors had taken his best friend in for some extensive surgery. The needle hit had been very lucky for Chip. It hadn’t hit any major blood vessels or nerves in his shoulder. It had gone in between two bones and grated against them, causing him great pain until the needle was removed. He had gone into surgery to get it removed without causing him major internal damage.
Dale found Chip’s room, and quietly made his way inside. He sighed in relief as he saw Chip there sitting up, dressed in his fedora and jacket, talking with Gadget, who sat next to his bed. Monty stood in a corner of the room with Zipper on his shoulder, just watching over them.
“Heya Chip, feeling better?” he asked, trying to hide his joy.
“Yeah, actually we were just waiting for you before we went home, the doc gave me a clean bill of health, I just have to come back in a week to get the bandage off,” he said, sliding his jacket shoulder down revealing a large bandage covering most of his shoulder.
As Chip filled out all his paperwork to be discharged, Monty and Gadget went to get their aircraft ready. Dale waited patiently for Chip to finish up, and the two walked towards the roof, talking about stuff to do tomorrow and whatnot.
Once arriving back home, no one wanted to stay up after their long day, and everyone went off to bed for what was hoped to be a good night’s sleep.
The Rangers, and Foxglove, are Copyright Disney. Used without permission but with the utmost respect. Darice, Rex, Adrian, Støy and the APD are figments of my imagination trying to get out. You may post this story in any way, so long as you don’t modify my words or gain profit from it. (Boy, isn’t all this legal mumbo jumbo fun?)