The following morning, when I woke up, Rapunzel was still sound asleep. She was sprawled all over the place, so I assumed she'd slept well. I chuckled to myself as I worked out from under her one flung out arm, without waking her.
Hallie started to huff, so as soon as I was standing, I hurried over to her and picked her up before she started a full-out cry. Merida was already up with Allie.
"Hey, do you mind watching Hallie while we take Jase to ride Maximus?" I asked Merida quietly.
She shook her head. "That'd be great. I'll bet that she'll be one excited little kiddo when she hears she'll be ridin' today!"
I nodded..and then I saw Jase sitting up. "Speak of the devil," I whispered jokingly before going over to her. "Good morning, Jase."
"Morning, Daddy!" She grinned up at me and stretched her arms out. I scooped her up in one arm and held Hallie in the other. "Can I ride today?"
Told you she'd been wanting to ride for, like, ever...according to her, anyway.
"We'll see." I gave an over-exaggerated wink at her and she gave me a toothy, dimpled grin that made my heart swell with adoration for my little girl. And speaking of adoration...I caught Rapunzel sitting up, finally awake. She saw me and smiled, standing up. I grinned at her and made my way over towards her, still carrying the girls. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek, and I winked at her.
"Did you tell Jase already?" She asked, sounding mysterious.
"Tell me what?" Jase asked, looking back and forth with wide eyes.
"Nope; I wanted to wait till you were up. You tell her," I said.
"What?" Jase whirled to look at her Momma. "What? What, what?"
She laughed. "You're going to go ride Maximus today."
Jase squealed. Allie whimpered.
"Sorry, aunt Merida!" She exclaimed, twisting in my arms to look at Merida, who said it was fine. "When? When can we go? Can we go now? Oh, thank you - thank you - thank you!" She flung her arms out at Rapunzel, and she took her from me and hugged her.
"Thank your Daddy. He was the one who found him," Rapunzel told her with a smile.
"If it was up to me, she wouldn't go on him, he's bad!" I exclaimed, referring to the time that Maximus dumped me.
"Says you," Rapunzel said. I reached to tickle her side, and when she giggled and tried to escape, I grabbed her close in a one-armed hug.
"So...Merida, you want me to take Hallie with me, right?" Rapunzel asked once her giggles subsided.
"No, I'll watch her. I'm sure you want to ride Maximus as well. You can watch Allie for me one day when I want to ride Angus, in return." She gave her a grin and I left my wife's side to give Hallie to Merida.
"Okay; well, thank you!" Rapunzel smiled and waved, hefting Jase up on her hip.
We left, starting to walk across the room. I'd found him clear across, by the window, so it would undoubtedly be a bit of a walk.
Rapunzel carried Jase, but halfways through our walk, I offered to take her.
"That's fine," she said; but I could tell her arms were getting tired. I took her from my wife's arms anyway, and tossed her up on my shoulders.
Then I looked teasingly over at Rapunzel and grinned. "Wanna race?"
She started laughing, and Jase squealed with delight.
I took off running, and Rapunzel yelled something. She was giggling the whole way, though; and Jase was shrieking with laughter and bouncing all over my shoulders.
Pretty soon, though, I heard a thud.
I stopped short, and Jase almost toppled over my head. She laughed over that!
But then I turned to see what had happened to my not-so-agile wife. (No offense, but she isn't very agile..)
I saw a Ken doll looming over her; she was laying on the floor. There was only one other male doll around this place that I knew of; and it would be Ray. Had he hit her? Knocked her down?
I started to walk over, but then I paused. I didn't want to get Jase into any hairy situations.
When Rapunzel stood slowly and gave me a 'help me' look, I started coming over. I overheard him asking if she was married, and she gave me a very frantic glance.
The second Jase caught sight of the guy, she clung frantically to my neck and buried her face in my head, hiding it, and pleading with me to not take her over there, but to save Momma.
Yup. Ray.
I stepped over towards them, and Ray noticed me.
"Hey, you were...Flynn, right? HB stopped to talk to you yesterday." Yeah, well, hadn't he heard me mouth off to her? He held his hand out to me as if to shake hands. I stared at him as I sidled over to put a protective arm around my wife.
"What'd you to do her?" I asked him. Rapunzel looked at me, wide-eyed.
"She ran into ME!" The guy laughed and smiled at my wife. She chuckled, too, but I could tell how fake it was.
"Heh, heh, yeah; Flynn, you know how clumsy I am." She said. Wow...so she's not the best in the faking-out department, either; which wasn't totally a bad thing!
"So...oh! Hi, Jasmine!" He turned his attention up to my daugher.
"I hate you!" She spit those three words out at him, and I almost fell down with surprise. Rapunzel snorted to herself and her eyes grew even wider in surprise.
"Oh, come on." He reached for her as if to take her from me, and I started to lean back, ready to take off with both of my girls if necessary. Jase kicked at his hand; missed, and ended up kicking my chest instead.
Ray explained that he and HB used to foster, and that he'd been engaged to HB, but she'd broken it off because she didn't want kids.
A thought wormed into my head. That was the third different reason we'd heard that he'd broken up with her...or she'd broken up with him...or whatever, depending on the story you listened to.
Rapunzel said that we'd better get going.
"Well, it was nice meeting you! And nice meeting you again, Flynn." Yup. Real wonderful meeting you, too, mister liar guy.
He held his hand towards Rapunzel, but she ignored it; which surprised me mildly. She usually attempted to be cordial, even if she was mad. Oh boy.
As soon as Ray was out of earshot, she turned to me and started questioning me. If I really thought he'd hurt her, how he knew me, etc. After the whole story had been picked from my brain, we walked in silence for a few moments.
Suddenly, Rapunzel stopped in her tracks so quickly that I kept walking and didn't even notice at first. "Wait. If he was with HB..."
I turned and came hurrying back to her.
"If he was with HB...then my theory is correct!"
I met her wide-eyed, scared stare with one of my own. "Should we go back and tell Merida?"
She nodded, and glanced back towards the bookshelf. I followed her glance, and saw Ray was hurrying for the bookshelf.
Before I could stop her, she started running.
Oh no.
"Rapunzel, no! NO! Get back here! Take Jase! Get back here! You can't fend him off yourself! You and Merida can't! You'll get hurt! Or-"
I broke off my shouting. I lunged forward and grabbed at her arm, but she was too fast.
"Momma! No, Momma, come back!" Jase screamed.
I froze, unsure of what to do. I couldn't do anything when I had Jase, for her safety. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate or something.
I saw her run for a pile of junk by Tangled Fan's closet, and by then, she was merely a speck of color from the distance - just eight feet to us dolls is like a mile to you humans, mind. I saw Ray follow her.
She disappeared into the bottom shelf.
Within seconds, I saw what must have been Merida taking off from the bookshelf. But no Rapunzel. I saw Ray storm into the bookshelf, and my knees almost buckled. I started to run for the shelf with Jase.
I caught up with Merida, who was running as fast as she could with a baby in either arm.
I grabbed her by the elbow and stopped her.
"Merida. Take Jase, please. Here, go into there, and hide with the kids. Where's Rapunzel?"
"She...she's still in there! Oh, gosh. She's.." I'd never seen tough Merida cry, but she burst into tears as she realized her best friend was in the bookshelf with Ray.
I ran them over to behind a bunch of boxes, and then I took off.
I saw Rapunzel racing towards me, at hyper-fast-speed. I took it up a notch and ran as fast as I could, hoping and praying I could catch her before he did, but we weren't fast enough. Ray grabbed her from behind and started to drag her off. I froze, trying to see where they were headed for. I was closer to the bed when I stopped. They were heading around by the guinea pig cage, several feet away at the other side of the room.
The shelving unit!
I ran for them, but he was too quick, and so my impromptu ambush plan was worthless. Good grief, was this doll part cheetah or something? I can run at a decent pace, but he was wayyy too fast.
He dragged her up at least three feet, on top of a bin and several boxes.
She headbutted him, kicking. I heard her screams, and they clawed at my heart.
He dropped her. She crouched to catch her balance on the corner of the box.
Standing, she turned towards me with a victorious expression on her face. I saw her stumble, and then wave her arms and bob in a frantic attempt to regain balance. I started to run. I was halfway across the room from her.
I saw her start to fall. I was three feet away from her.
"Rapunzel!" I screamed. "Grab something! Hold on, honey, hold on!"
She scrabbled for the edge of a box or something, anything, but she didn't catch onto anything. At this rate, I was hoping she'd at least hit onto a box or something, so she wasn't plummeting as fast as she was, when she hit the ground.
I saw her hit the floor on her right side. Her head smacked off the floor so hard it bounced up again, before thumping down again. And then she went limp.
I screamed her name, but she didn't stir. I ran as fast as I could to her, but it seemed like I was running through a ton of peanut butter or syrup or something. Ray glanced down at her, and then made a run for it.
I tripped over my own feet and then I fell, just a foot away from her. I frantically crawled on my hands and knees until I got to my wife.
Was she...gone?
"No, no, no..Rapunzel? Oh....Oh, I'm so sorry, baby...no...you can't be.." I cried to her incoherently. I scooped her up into my arms and stared at her face for a moment, willing her to be okay. And then I slung her over my shoulder and ran to try to find Tangled Fan.
Thankfully, she came through the door minutes later.
"What on earth-"
"Tangled Fan." I gulped out. She looked down at me and gasped.
"What happened?"
Between desperate sobs that made me feel like an idiot, I explained what had happened. She took her from me and went off to check over her.
My legs were suddenly like limp noodles. I dropped to the floor and finally succumbed to the tears. I hate to cry, it makes me feel so weak. I only cried for a few moments, though, because then I realized I needed to make sure the kids and Merida were okay.
I jumped up and ran off to get them again.
Merida took one look at my face. "Oh, no. Is-"
"I don't know. Sh-she fell. Over there. I don't know, Merida. I don't know. She was trying so hard to get away...and she got away...and then she..she fell." I willed the tears to go away.
She looked at me in horror, shaking her head and gasping.
"Take the girls, please. I hate to make you watch them right now, but I can't have Jase around when Tangled Fan comes back..if...you know..."
She nodded. "Of course, Flynn." She gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then went back to gather the kids.
I walked back to stand on the floor by Tangled Fan's bed, waiting for her to come back, and thought.
She can't be gone. What will I do? What will I tell Jase? How will she take it? What will happen? Will the girls be taken away from me if she...is gone? She can't be gone. I haven't told her - I didn't even tell her I loved her today and, and I didn't even get to say goodbye or that I was sorry or anything! She can't, she just can't be gone. Why couldn't it have been me that fell? Why couldn't she have just made it down okay? Why couldn't I have been just a bit faster? She was almost there...She-
The door opened.
I felt as if I'd pass out. There was something wrapped in a cloth, in Tangled Fan's hand.
Oh no.
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