Chapter Text
NED WAS HIDING. He hid in Aaron Tyler’s room from Aaron Tyler’s parents, who had doted and fussed over him through breakfast, commenting on his disheveled appearance, asking about his haircut and where he’d been last night. Ned, uncomfortable with familial attentions of any sort thanks to a deadbeat dad and the untimely death of his mother, had privately squirmed and told them a less rambly version of what he had said to the blonde woman (presumably Sharon, who he was apparently supposed to be ignoring). They didn’t seem quite satisfied, but had dropped the subject, and Ned fled to find Aaron’s room and hunker down not long after.
Ned steeled himself, calming his breathing and trying to think rationally. First things first, he would call home, and check on Chuck. Second things second, he would call Emerson and beg for some sort of extradition from wherever he was.
He picked up the phone and dialed the operator. A dry, older woman picked up. “How can I help you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Uh. Transfer me to the Klondike exchange station please?” Ned asked, wrapping a cord absently around his fingers.
“The what.” Still not a question.
“... Klondike exchange station?” Ned said tentatively. “Papen County’s?”
“History joke. Real funny, kid.” The woman didn’t sound like it was funny at all. “But you have better things to do than crank call the operator. If you don’t, that’s kind of pathetic.”
Ned blinked in slight shock. “O-oh. Okay. I’m sorry. Can you look up a number for me?”
The woman sighed. “What is it?”
Ned gave his name and address. The woman was silent for several moments. “Nothing under that listing. You sure you got it right?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” It was his own name, after all. “Uh… what about Emerson Cod?” He gave emerson’s address as well, but got the same negatory response. “Olive Snook,” he said, desperation creeping into his voice. Nope. “Lily and Vivian Charles!” he cried, desperation having now taken his voice by the throat and shaken it like a dog shakes a rabbit. It cracked.
“... Nope, nothing for them either. You okay, kiddo?” This time it was a question.
“No. But thank you for your help.” Ned hung up. He was suddenly very, very tired. Tired of everything. He didn’t know why he couldn’t reach his friends by phone… but he did see Aaron tyler’s wallet looking back at him from the desk. He reached over and grabbed it. Initially he just guiltily checked for cash as a plan began to form in his mind, but then he saw the corner of a driver’s license. He pulled it out and his mouth dropped open. Staring back at him from the plastic card was… him. Or, he supposed, Aaron Tyler. The hair was different and so was the birthday, but it was unmistakably Ned’s face looking back at him.
Okay, this was officially too weird. A plan crystallized in Ned’s mind. He left the house, stopping a pedestrian and asking the general direction of the bus station. As he walked, he tucked Aaron Tyler’s wallet into his back pocket. If he couldn’t call home, he’d just have to go there.
#
“LET IT GO,” a stuffed chameleon snapped at Jaye, who held a fly swatter hovering over a stray cockroach.
“Why?” she hissed at it, keeping her voice too low for her customers to hear. “It’s filthy and disease riddled and annoying.”
Jaye worked in Wonderfalls, a Niagara Falls gift shop in a riverside shopping center. And the souvenirs were chatty. As far as Jaye knew, she was the only one who could hear them, But they copped an attitude and told her to do things. Things that she generally did, if only to get a short respite from their cryptic messages.
“Let it go,” the chameleon purred, seeming very confident that she would do as it told her.
Jaye thought about smooshing the bug out of spite, but shook her head and walked away. “Fine. How much harm could one little roach do anyways?” she muttered, retreating behind the counter to help the lengthening line.
The roach, taking its cue from some unknown director, shot off across the floor, making a beeline for a heavyset woman with her arms full of collectable snowglobes. The woman saw the bug coming and shrieked, hurriedly backing away. In her haste, she tripped on a water pistol, discarded by a rambunctious child, and fell, with all the accuracy of a wrecking ball, into a section of bare drywall. Which crumbled beneath her not because of her weight, but because it had been hollowed out and infested. By hundreds and hundreds of cockroaches. They cascaded out of the hole in the wall, scuttling and skittering over the prone woman, who lay there too scared to scream. Some roaches took to the air in order to flee the intruder.
Customers. Lost. Their minds . Mothers were grabbing their children, fathers were shrilling in high pitched voices, old people were trampling youths in the midst of the mass exodus.
And Assistant Manager Mouthbreather was glaring like it was all her fault. Jaye glared accusatory at the chameleon. It grinned back and shrugged.
“Don’t miss your bus!” a stuffed bear suddenly cried.
“What?” Jaye snapped, not caring that Mouthbreather and Roach Lady could hear and see her.
“ Don’t miss your bus! ” The bear and the chameleon chorused.
Jaye’s mouth fell open slightly. “The nerve,” she growled, stalking out of the ruined shop and snatching the bear on her way. “Fine. But you’re coming with.”
“Jaye! Just where do you think you’re going?” Mouthbreather called, trying his damndest to sound semi-assertive.
“I can’t miss my bus,” Jaye called back. And she left.
#
NED LOOKED AROUND NERVOUSLY as he paid for his ticket. Papen County, one way, all cash, with only two transfers. Once he was home, he would wrap Chuck in a blanket so he could wrap her in his arms and, together again, they could figure out why this had happened to him and who was to blame.
She must be going out of her mind with worry, Ned thought morosely to himself as he settled down on a bench. He rubbed his hands together to ward off against the sight chill.
“Which bus?” Ned heard a woman ask, angrily. “Come on, there are a hundred busses here! Which bus, goddammit? Which bus?” And then, a familiar string of words that made Ned’s heart sink. “Oh my god… Aaron?”
He tried to ignore her, but Jaye Tyler came around the bench to glare at him. A teddy bear dangled from her left fist. “What are you doing here?”
“What? Nowhere. I mean - nothing,” ned said automatically, trying to scowl. He wasn’t very good at it. His madly twitching eye didn’t help.
“You’re at a bus station. You don’t come to a bus station to go nowhere or do nothing. Gimme that.” She snatched the ticket from him before he could possibly protest. Ned glared as the young woman read it and her eyes widened. “Papen County? On the other side of the country? What would possibly possess you to get a one way ticket to nowheresville twenty five hundred miles away?” She peered at him incredulously. “Are you having a ‘sode? Is that what this is?”
Ned didn’t know what a ‘sode was, and therefore elected to keep quiet.
“Oh my god. I’m taking you home. Come on.” Jaye held out a hand. Ned sighed and reluctantly took it, unwilling to cause a scene in the busy bus terminal. Jaye kept a semi-gentle, fully exasperated grip on him all the way back to the car. He got in and sat, looking hard at his knees. Jaye started driving. All was quiet for a few minutes, until, “Is this something I should be telling Mom and Dad about?”
“ No.” Ned’s eyes were wide, apparently even more startled by his volume than Jaye, who twitched a little. “No, no. It’s fine. I’m fine. Peachy keen.”
Jaye eyed him, clearly disbelieving the piemaker’s assertions. “Okay… Can you tell me what’s going on, at least? You’re allowed to be concerned for me, can’t I be a little concerned for you when you go all freaky and off the rails on me?”
“I’m not being freaky,” Ned said sullenly. “I have… a lot on my mind.”
“A lot on your mind,” Jaye repeated. “Must be a big lot, to make you try to flee the state.”
“It is a big lot,” Ned admitted. “But I can’t exactly say what’s in the lot. It’s… it’s another mixture. God, why is it always a mixture?” The last sentence was little more than a plaintive groan as he peered up at the darkening skies.
Jaye gave him a very definitive side-eye as she drove him back to her trailer. “You can sleep here again,” she said, matter-of-factly as they got out of the car. “If I send you back to Mom and Dad like this, they’ll just make you go see Doctor Ron.”
Ned nodded like he know what she was talking about. He didn’t.
“You hungry?” Jaye asked. “I can nuke something.”
Ned shook his head. He was.
But rather than talking to the strange girl named Jaye, he just laid down on the bench. He offered her an awkward, apologetic little smile. She sighed.
“I’ll drop you at home after Mom and Dad leave. You’ve been wearing the same clothes for like two days, and they’ll just chew you out.”
Ned nodded. “Thank you, Jaye.”
She shrugged. “No biggie. Uh… Night, I guess.”
“Night.”