SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW
A/N: Much thanks goes to Capemaynuts who is a New Jersey native and has helped me out with a lot of information about her home state! Thanks so much for all your assistance! Chapter Forty Five After eating and resting awhile, the three of them decided to head back out to look for a library. They asked one of the women working the cash register and were relieved to hear that the library was only a few blocks away. The three of them donned their rucksacks and headed towards it. “Hey, guys, no offense or nothing since this is your trip, but isn’t traveling I-95 a bit dangerous? I mean, it’s a busy interstate and you could get hit or picked up by the cops. Shouldn’t you try to find a safer way down to Florida?” Awinita said. “What do you suggest?” “Well, when I came to New York, we went by route 1 and route 9. It’s over near the coast away from the turnpike. It’s got a lot of pretty scenery along the way and I think route 1 goes all the way to Florida.” Alan glanced at Rose. “What’d ya think?” “I think it sounds sensible. I hate walking along the motorway and she’s right. We need to go somewhere where we’re less likely to get nabbed by the police. If route 1 still goes into Florida, then maybe we should follow that instead.” Alan shrugged. “Just as long as it gets us to where we’re going, I don’t mind,” he said. “It’ll be quite a walk to get to it, but hey, we have all the time in the world at the moment.” “Do you guys have road maps or something?” “We have an atlas we’ve been checking.” “Oh good, at least you’re following that and not just wandering around all over the place,” Awinita said. “Nah, we’re nuts, but we’re not that nuts. We do want to actually go across the country and not just move around in circles while we scratch our heads.” They found the library and went inside, after getting temporary passes for the computer lab; they sat down next to each other at three separate computers. Rose and Awinita went online while Alan watched Rose’s monitor. “You still want an email account?” Rose asked. “If you wanna help me, sure.” Rose talked him though it and in no time Alan was registered as Vashta-Nerada on Yahoo. He stared at his empty inbox. “Now what?” he asked. She giggled. “Hold on, I’ll send you an email before we leave,” she said. She checked her inbox. “Yup, I was right, mum emailed me.” Alan leaned in as she clicked on it. Rose, Where are you at? I swear to God, this is just like when you traveled with the Doctor. You have a phone and you never use it! When you get this, give me a call. Pete needs to ask you something. I hope you both are alright. Please keep yourselves safe and tell Alan hi. Love and kisses, Mum. Rose switched to Google and looked up info on New Jersey while she called Jackie. The phone picked up on the forth ring. “Hello?” “Mum?” “There you are! At last! I swear, Rose, when are ya gonna start using that mobile of yours?” Alan, who could hear everything, rolled his eyes. “We’ve been busy mum,” she said as she clicked on a site about New Jersey. “Well, your dad’s been trying to get a hold of ya. He wants to know if you’re still going to go through China.” Rose glanced at Alan. “Alan, mum said…” “I heard her and yes, I would like to go through China eventually.” “Yeah, we are,” she said as Awinita looked at him and said, “China? Cool!” “Well, since you worked with UNIT, Pete and Jake can contact the Chinese branch and ask them to speak to the government and get you unrestricted passage through the country. That way you don’t have to check in with the government and give them your itinerary so they can keep an eye on you.” “Brilliant!” Alan said as Rose smiled and nodded. “Yeah, tell dad that I think we’ll definitely go through China after we get done with Japan.” “Good, he’s been waiting on you to get my email so you’ll call.” “I’m sorry, mum, Alan and I have been having a lot of fun and we’ve just been so tired at the end of the day that none of us felt like doing much of anything, let alone call you.” “Well, I just hope you two stay safe while you’re doing this. I still think it’s bonkers.” “We’re perfectly fine. Nothing has happened to us,” she said, deciding not to tell her about the mugging. “Well, good, you wanna talk to your little brother? He’s running around my legs yelling at the top of his lungs.” Rose laughed. “Yeah, I can hear him, let me talk to him.” There was a pause. “Sissy?” “Hey, sweetie, how are you?” “Where Awan?” Alan snickered as Rose’s mouth dropped open. “Fine, don’t talk to me then, ya little pest,” she said as Alan bent over the table laughing. “I wuv you, Sissy!” She smiled. “I love you too, Tony. You wanna talk to Alan?” “YES!” Alan laughed as Rose jerked the phone away from her ear. “Who’s that?” Awinita asked. “My pesky little brother. He’s only two,” she said, handing Alan the mobile. “Ugh, lucky you,” she said, making a face. “My brother’s sixteen and he’s a butthole.” “Yup, so’s mine,” Rose said. She took the opportunity to surf the net while Alan talked to Tony. “Awan, where you at? I miss you!” Rose giggled as she reached into her rucksack for a pad of paper and pen. “Well, I miss you too.” “When you come back?” “Never.” He jerked the phone away when Tony screamed, “NOOOOOOOOO!” Rose and Awinita bent over laughing as Alan slowly put the phone back on his ear. “Don’t freak out, Tony. We’ll be back soon…sorta, kinda, but we’ll be back someday, I promise you.” “I miss you, Awan!” Alan giggled. He bent over slightly and watched while Rose copied some information off a website. He grabbed the pen from her, wrote I’m a sexy stud at the top of the paper and gave it back to her, waggling his eyebrows when Rose shot him a look. “Um, I miss you too, my little pollywog, but I promise we’ll be back and we’ll have presents for ya! Do you wanna talk to your sissy now?” “What for?” Alan snickered when Rose gave him a shocked look. “Because she’s your sister,” Alan said, trying not to laugh. “I guess so,” Tony said sadly. He handed the mobile to Rose. “What do ya mean, what for? I’m your sister, ya git,” Rose said as Alan silently laughed. He smiled at Awinita. “I haven’t been with her family for very long, but apparently her kid brother has already begun to favor me over her,” he told her. He looked over her notes while Rose tried to get Tony to give the phone back to her mother. “Insectropolis Bug Museum? You wanna go to a bug museum, Rose?” he said, pointing to the information on the paper. “I was just writing down ideas,” Rose muttered to him. “She wants to go to a bug museum, Awinita.” “Wow, can’t wait to see that!” she said, rolling her eyes. Rose gave them both exasperated looks while they giggled. “Oh great, now you’re gonna side with him,” she said to Awinita. “It’s just something I found, doesn’t mean we have to go to it.” “Oh, come on, Awinita, might be fun spending a day eyeing earwigs and gaping at grasshoppers.” They laughed as Rose sighed. “They’re making fun of me, mum because we’re here at the library and I’m on the internet looking for things to do in New Jersey and I found a bug museum.” “They? Is someone else with you?” “Yeah, we just met a girl named Awinita who’s hiking back to her family in North Carolina. We told her she could come with us so she wouldn’t have to walk by herself.” “You’re picking up strangers now?” “It’s fine, mum. She’s not gonna kill us.” Awinita mouthed, “Mother?” to her, Rose nodded. “How do you know that?” Jackie said. “I don’t, mum…but she’s sitting here listening to me and if she had plans of killing us, I’m sure she’s gonna abandon them now since we’re on to her.” Awinita giggled at that. “Well, just be careful, would you please? I don’t want to turn on the news and hear my daughter got her throat slit by some strange woman.” “She won’t and we will, alright? Now we’ve gotta go, we need to get moving.” “Yeah, because the bug museum is coming up and we can’t wait to get to that!” Alan said. Rose smacked Alan in the head as he and Awinita laughed hysterically. “Can I talk to him please?” Jackie said. “Sure, mum.” She held the phone out to Alan. He rolled his eyes and took it from her. “Jawohl, mein Furher,” he said to her. There was a short silence. Alan gave Rose a look of innocence when she shot him a look. “Yeah, that’s really funny, Alan,” Jackie finally said. “What’s this I hear about you picking up a strange woman now?” “We didn’t pick her up, she sat down next to us in McDonalds, introduced herself, we talked, exchanged phone numbers and blood and tissue samples and after running her fingerprints through the FBI database, we deemed her worthy of traveling with us.” “Yeah, you’re a real comedian, you are,” she said, as Rose and Awinita giggled. “Listen, I don’t want my daughter ending up dead somewhere because you’re playing Doctor and picking up random strangers now.” “She is not a threat, Jackie, alright? We’re fine. No one is going to murder anyone as long as I’m around. The only deaths we’ll suffer are the ones caused by boredom when we go to the bug museum.” He shielded himself when Rose tried to swat at his head again. “Just…behave yourself and keep an eye on that woman.” “I am and I will, now can we please hang up? We wanna get going now.” “Just let me talk to Rose one more time.” “Alright, here she is.” He sighed and mimed choking someone as Rose finished up the conversation. After saying her goodbyes, she hung up and grabbed the pad and pen. “You guys ready?” “I’m ready if you are,” Alan said. He winked at Awinita. “How ‘bout you, America’s most wanted?” She laughed. “I’m ready to go.” Rose put her pad and pen back in her rucksack. Suddenly, she had a thought. “Wait a tic,” she said. She made Alan look the other way, brought up her email account and quickly wrote something to him. She sent it and made him look at her again. “Check your email, you may have a message,” she said. “Oooo…” She showed him how to refresh the screen and he smiled when he saw one email in his inbox with the heading, “Wotcha!” in big bold letters. He clicked on it. Hi there, This is guess who sending you a little email telling you how much I love you and how happy I am that you’re here with me. Now let’s go so we don’t miss the bug museum ;) Love always, Amotiri. “Spelled that wrong,” he said, pointing to her pet name. There’s an apostrophe after the O. But other than that, thanks so much for sending me this. I’ll treasure it always!” Rose kissed him. She noticed Awinita’s confusion. “He’s just learning the internet,” she said. “He’s never had an email account before so I just helped him set one up.” “Oh, okay, cool. Welcome to the wonderful world of cyberspace then,” she said to him. “Thanks. And thank you for the email. And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time for us to head out into the wilds of New Jersey.”
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