Ben excused himself from breakfast cleanup and was practically dancing with excitement as he closed his office door, punching in Yen Sid’s number.
“Hey, there,” his ex-girlfriend’s voice flowed through the line, “I hope you got things straightened out for Jane’s mom.”
“We did!” his voice squeaked in surprise, “I-I’m sorry, I guess I miss you so much I pushed your number. I-I meant to call Yen Sid.”
“Nice try.” she laughed, “But my phone doesn’t work on the Isle, remember? I stopped by to apologize for everything.”
“Uh, uh,” he stammered, “I’ll have to fix that—about your phone, I mean. Um, ah, you don’t have to apologize.”
“Well, not you.” her voice hardened, “but I did need to apologize to Yen Sid.” She paused for a moment to let the dagger sink in, “And, as for my phone, don’t bother. Ihear you’ll be back before too long anyways.”
“Uh, well, yeah,” he laughed nervously, suddenly feeling like a captured villain, “I was just calling to hammer out the details.”
“Ben, you can’t do this!” she suddenly exploded, “You don’t know what might happen!”
“Well, actually,” he countered gently, “I-I think I do. I mean—I’ve been over there twice now, right? Got captured once, got in a street fight last night.”
“Have you run it by the council yet?” Her voice was caustic.
“Well, no.” he chuckled slightly, feeling the villain venom in her voice, “We’re meeting this afternoon. I’m wanna have the plan in place before I talk to them.”
“Got your thinking cap, huh?”
“Well, yeah…” He heard a slight scuffle.
“Hello, your majesty,” Yen Sid had pried Mal’s fingers off the phone, “Do you mind if I join your conversation?”
“No, no, not at all.” Ben swallowed his regret, sorry that it couldn’t be a three-way conversation.
“You know what? You’re right.” Mal huffed, giving the Sorcerer a daggered look before spinning around, “I oughta get outta here anyways. Jay and Carlos shouldn’t have to wrangle Cruella’s coats and Uma’s crew at the same time.” She snorted with laughter, “Or Evie with Gil, for that matter.” She turned at the door, giving the room one last look, “See ya.”
*o*o*0*o*o*
“How about finishing your story now?” a pirate whined in frustration, as he struggled to wring out a sopping wet fur.
“Now? What happened to chillin’?” Jay quipped, not missing Carlos’ wordless glare as his eyes danced with mirth, “All you guys need is a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.”
“In case you’ve forgotten,” Uma retorted, “they don’t send sugar over here.”
“Actually,” Carlos quickly intervened, “I think I should tell the next part of the story.”
“You?” the pirate scoffed, “What kind of stories do you know? There no way that crazy lady upstairs ever told—”
“You’re kidding, right?” Carlos shot him a look as he wrung out a coat, “I always needed a good story to tell the puppies when I house sat for Pongo and Perdita.”
“That’s true. He’s really great!” Jay vouched, “You guys oughta to give him a chance.”
“Let him talk then.” Uma glanced at the door, nervous about the crazy lady.
“Well, it better be good…”
“No sweat,” Carlos grinned, “I know just the one Jay was telling so I’ll tell the next part. See, the geek, as Jay so aptly put it, was really quite the wizard with technology. Almost as good as Yen Sid!” He cracked up “In fact, if it weren’t for him, his friends wouldn’t have made it through the first night!”
Jay snorted.
“See,” Carlos cut his friend a grin, “When they tried to steal the sorceress’ staff, some idiot set off the alarm…but the geek hacked into the security system and turned it off so they didn’t get caught.”
“Bravo, bravo,” Harry clapped sarcastically, “Taking out a security system is child’s play.”
“Admittedly, his confidence in himself was pretty low when they first left their homeland, ” Carlos ignored him, “but after saving his friends’ butts, his confidence really grew and he started finding ways to help mainlanders with his techo knowledge. He made a lot of great friends that way, including a cute little pooch.” Doing a quick scan of the room, he suddenly changed the subject, “Alright, enough story for now. Let’s hang these coats to dry and get going on the car.”
His words ended all conversation as everyone scrambled to get outside but once things settled down again, Uma came up to talk.
“You know, you guys don’t fool me,” she said, dumping a pile of buckets, brushes, rags, and soap on the ground to sort it by hand, “I know you’re talking about yourselves in Auradon.”
“What makes you say that?” Jay’s heart skipped a beat.
She gave him a look, “Do I look like I was born yesterday?”
“Okay, look,” Jay hastily checked for eavesdroppers, “Let’s just wash the car right now, go have lunch together, finish up whatever we need to do today, then we can talk at the slumber party. I’ll explain—”
The green-clad girl snorted, ready to call him out for all the hypocrisy, but a noise behind them made her whip around.
“Guys!” her eyes bulged at the sight, “we’re supposed to be washing that thing! Not tearing it apart!” Her eyes flashed as she yanked Harry’s hook out of his hand, “If anything goes missing, I’ll let the old lady have this, got it?”
“Great goblins!” the black and white-clad boy’s eyes bulged too, “Do you guys know what mom would do to us if something happened to this car?”
“Throw us in the closet with the bear traps?” Harry looked hopeful.
“No, stupid!” Jay snapped, “She’ll dump us in the bay!”
“So what? We’re pirates,” Harry shrugged, “We can swim.”
“You want your hook back?” Uma held the trump card, swinging it on her finger.
“Ooo, alright,” Hook’s son deflated, giving the rest of the crew an evil eye, “Nobody steals anything, got it?. Capt’n says.”
“Well, I just wanna thank everybody again.” Carlos hesitantly resumed the conversation a little while later as everyone scrubbed, “I know we haven’t always gotten along so it was great of you guys to come out and help me like this.”
“You’re halfway to Auradon, if you ask me.” Jay added, the relief evident in his voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry stopped working.
“Oh, well, ah…” Jay’s face reddened, “Nothing, I guess. Never mind.”
“He picked you,” Harry grumbled, “Not us. What’s the use?”
“Well, we came back.” Carlos shrugged, “Knowing Ben, he’ll probably pick more to replace us.” He grinned, trying to ignore the alarm in Jay’s face.
“And you think he’d pick us?” a pirate snorted, “After last night?”
“Ben is a pretty forgiving sort. You never know…” Jay gave him an encouraging little smile, “In fact, he’s the most forgiving person I’ve ever met.”
Carlos snorted with laughter and suddenly everyone suddenly joined in.
“Come on, guys,” Uma finally turned away as the job was winding down, “Let’s get back to mom’s for lunch. I’m hungry.”
“You guys go on.” Carlos shrugged, “I gotta stay for mom’s inspection.”
“I’m staying too.” Jay said.
“No.” Uma shook her head, “I’ll stay with him. You and Harry take the crew and head over for lunch.”
“What? No way!”
“Yes, way!” Uma implored, “How would it look if my crew and I showed up without you guys?”
“We’d kiss ever seeing Auradon goodbye.” a pirate answered, grumbling.
*o*o*0*o*o*
After leaving Dragon Hall, Mal set a course for the Chip Shop, judging that she was both too far away from Hell Hall to be of any help and suddenly feeling lonely for her best friend.
“What’s up with you?” Evie asked, raised her eyebrows as the purple-clad girl strolled through the batwing doors, “How’d it go at Yen Sid’s?”
“Questions, all these questions,” Mal laughed, guiding her blue-clad friend out onto the sidewalk, “Now, don’t freak out or anything,” she hissed, after a quick check for eavesdroppers, “But my Benny Bo is planning to come to the next Anti-Heroes meeting.”
“What?” Evie clamped a hand over her mouth. “No!”
“Seems like they schemed it up while we were at Dragon Hall.” the purple-clad girl scowled, her eyes flashing with worry, “He called to hash out the details with Yen Sid while I was there or I wouldn’t have even known.”
“But how?” Evie was ashen, “Why?”
“They kicked me out without details.” Mal shook her head, rolling her eyes, ““But I’m gonna stop this tonight. I don’t quite know how yet, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll tap into Uma’s magic and make it so he can’t come back!”
“Noo, Mal,” regret washed into Evie’s face, “Don’t— Not after last night. This morning— Oh, you’d ruin everything.”
“Let’s just go in and help Gil for now.” the purple-clad girl gave her a meaningful look, “Just act like you don’t know anything. I can take Uma’s wrath, but you have a reputation to keep up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not gonna let the Isle’s only good girl go bad.” Mal squeezed her wrist, smiling lightly.
“No one on the Isle is good.” Evie gave her a look.
“Yeah, but you’re an Auradonian.” the purple-clad girl shook her head, “You even said so when you came back—”
Suddenly, Gil stepped through the doors, ending the conversation, “Hey, Evie? I’m gonna go get my brothers so they’ll be here when you give me the kiss.”
“Did you finish cleaning up?” She sucked in a deep breath and tried to look normal.
“Yes!”
“Go on then.” she smiled sadly as he tore off down the street, wondering if everything was still going to crash in on her, “I never realized how nice he is.”
“Ignorance is bliss.” Mal snorted.
*o*o*0*o*o*
Jay walked on eggshells as he trudged next to Harry, self-consciously nodding hellos at the villains and VKs who glared at him.
“What’s wrong, Jay?” Harry sneered, “You don’t want to be seen with the bad crowd anymore?”
“It’s not that…” Jay shot him a look, “I’m just not used to all this…” He shrugged, “You know, hanging out with you guys.” He suddenly smirked, “Apparently, no one is used to us hanging out.”
“You said this is what you do in Auradon.”
“No, I said they help each other.” Jay shook his head, “I mean, I’m not saying they won’t acknowledge you in the street, but heroes and heroines have their chics too.”
“So what do you think about us being equals now?” Harry changed the subject slightly.
Jay shrugged again, “It’s cool. I’ve got nothing against you guys. E wants it.” He shrugged again, looking more unsure, “I-I think Mal is okay.”
“I mean, sure,” he continued when Hook’s son remained silent, “we were rivals when it came to stealing stuff, but that was just a game. That wasn’t where we got our kicks. We both love our friends.” He grinned at Harry’s deadpan look.
“Hey guys!” Gil suddenly dashed by, waving excitedly.
“You’re supposed to be—” Harry caught his arm, startled back to his senses.
“I know!” Gil’s eyes danced happily, “but she told me to go get my brothers so they can watch our kiss! She never did it last night so she’s going to after lunch.”
He peeled away and took off again, leaving Jay and the pirates to stare in disbelief.