Alternate Universssusss

As promised, here is the elegant ending to the Daffodils of Destiny. <3

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Talia stood up, face red as she hid her dirty hand behind her pants. Rick came closer and shook his head as he noticed her embarassment and snatched her hidden hand away from her to examine it on front of his face. He wiped it clean with a rag he pulled out of his pants pocket and then sighed. "Talia....you‘re really..."

"Rick, what do you want?" Talia said, furiously, hiding her hand again from him.

"Look. I heard you went to your ex‘s house..and I wanted to say that I was sorry."

"How sorry?" Talia asked, with a glimmer of dismay buried in a bit of hope.

Rick reached over and brushed the hair from Talia‘s eyes and smiled. "I wanted to tell you sorry...,for awhile now. I never meant for you to get all angry about this, and I needed to get it off my chest before..."

Talia glanced up as Rick leaned in closer with a smile as genuine as she had hoped. "Talia, I really am sorry...if you forgive me..." This was the moment! As Rick came closer, her eyes widened for a quick second before she bit her lip and shook her mind free from thoughts. This is what she had wished for all this time...all this time! And it was finally here, this one perfect moment that she had secretly desired at this same very spot moments before dropping her precious coin and hope forever. Talia shut her eyes and held her breath as she felt Rick‘s face and scent get closer and





"Oh my gahhhhh!"

Talia‘s eyes flung open as a tall man in fancy spandex like material bounded from the sky and landed right smack in between the almost kissing pair. The stranger with glorious flowy blonde hair and goatee flipped his hair back and whipped Talia in the face, forcing her to step back with a mouth full of hair and landing on her bottom into the metal pipes of the sewer.

"Rick! What are you doing?!" The stranger asked, embracing Rick like a mother to her cub. "And who is this....this..." Blondie glared at Talia who stared back in agape. "This horrendous little pale child!" Blondie sniffled. "I can‘t believe you‘re cheating on me with this boy!"

Talia stood up, furiously, her pockets probably smelling like toilet water. "I am not a man!!!"

Blondie stuck his nose up in the air. "Then why were you in the sewer?"

"I - I - I wasn‘t - !" Talia turned red. "Rick! What is this?! Don‘t tell me this s what I think it is.."

Rick stepped forward. "I wanted to say sorry, remember? I said I wanted to apologize and get things off my chest."

"And?"

Rick smiled nervously. "Well...I wanted to let you know that..."

"Know what?"

"Tell ‘er, baby!" Proclaimed Blondie, who had now started a glaring contest with Talia.

"I‘m getting married to Bofart Huberderk tomorrow evening here in Little Italy. We‘re going to officially become the Huberderks tomorrow!"

Bofart beamed.

"You - you what?!" Talia said, her heart sinking. "But that‘s...that‘s..."

"Ah, Bofart, this is the girl who first took me to Iredoci‘s Icecream Parlor!" Rick said to his gay partner. "You should thank her!"

Talia felt like a dry dessert who had never seen water in about twenty years. That was her special place....with Rick....and he had taken this guy there when she had thought he was different...

Bofart beamed again. "Ah, darling! So it was her!" He smiled at Talia who felt like she was going to throw up. "Dahling, thank you so much! I love the strawberry supreme flavor! I always ask for extra whipping cream and share it with my bae!"

But....Talia had always did that with Rick.....but obviously the true colors shown.......

"Anyway, Talia we saw you drop that coin in the gutter. We figured we should help you get it back."

Talia shook her head. "Ah, no. That‘s - that‘s not necessary."

Bofart stepped forward. "No, I will return that favor, dahhhhhling!" And he used his long gleaming hair to whip around the coin at the bottom of the gutter and pull it out. He detached it, wiped it off of Talia, and then handed it back to her.

"T-t-thank you?!" Talia responded, frightfully.

Bofart turned to his bae. "Can I ask her, honey?"

"Sure, Bo!"

"Tah-lee-ay, will you be the best man at our wedding? I know you aint no man, but I aint got a best man. All of the bridesmaid spots are taken....so can yuh help us out and be the best man?"

Talia felt deflated, but felt cornered, so she reluctantly agreed. "Yeah. Of course!" She paused. "But Selena....and Zico, are they?"

"Oh, you didn‘t hear? They got in a car accident a few hours ago. They‘re not going to be at the wedding. Oh well. Nobody liked them anyway. They were no fun anyway. It‘s better that they both died off, wouldn‘t you say?" He and Bofart laughed.

They.........died?

"Thanks, hun!" Bofart said, winking at her as he and Rick walked off, waving to her. "See you tomorrow, dearie!"

"Thanks so much, Talia! You‘re the best friend a guy could ever ask for!"

After they left, the coin the Talia was holding exploded, and epic Skillet Christian rock music was played passionately and violently with a quartet of violins and violas.

The Daffodils of Destiny [Part 3]

"Zico, hurry up! We have to find her!"

"Alright, alright. No need to rush."

I stopped and turned back to Zico whom I slugged in the arm. "No need to rush? Did you see how mad she was? She's going to do something really stupid and then come crying to the both of us!" When he didn't respond, I said, "At least do me a favor and call her boyfriend on stand by, will you?"

The clock chimed seven times. It wouldn't really start to get dark until around eight o'clock as the Summer season had just started, but just because it was getting dark didn't mean that it was getting any cooler. I wiped the sweat from my brow as Zico took of his hat, shook his hair out, and then replaced it before taking out his cellphone to dial Rick.

Zico kept up with me at a rapid pace, following close behind as we walked around the city center; everyone was either going out for dinner or going home, so there were plenty of people out and about trying to go their own ways.

"Yeah, we'll check at his house," I heard Zico say as I peered around the corner at Talia's favorite ice cream shop, hoping that she was there but finding it filled with other people instead. "You go search where you know best." Zico hung up as I sighed. "Rick says that he'll check where he thinks she could be. Let's go to that toolbag's house and see if she was there."

I put a finger to my lips and said with a warning. "You better be glad she wasn't here when you said that. She would have killed you."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I'd like to see that puny kid try. Gets hurt because Rick made a joke about not seeing her as a chick and she runs off to her ex's house. She's a piece of work alright."

I didn't know how to vouch for my friend's situation anymore, so I just grabbed Zico's arm and pulled him along. "Whatever, let's just go!"



The infamous Asia Buckyfield lived in an expansive apartment complex; to many people, it would be a house. But for his standards, it was most definitely an apartment. I dragged Zico to the front door of my friend's ex, and then I took a breath, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it without sounding weird. How exactly does one knock on the door of somebody else's ex and ask if they had been here prior myself?

Knock, Knock.

I turned to Zico, eyes wide in horror. "What are you doing?" I said between my clenched teeth. "I don't even know what to say yet!"

Zico shrugged. "What is there to say? Just say it."

"I can't! I don't know what to say, you idiot!"

"Well that sucks, doesn't it?"

"You stupid - "

The door flung open and a very tired looking Asia bundled out of it. He saw me and immediately said, "Ah, and the sheep arrive not long after. What do you want?"

"So she was here then? Talia was here?" I asked, without a moment to spare.

Asia sighed and looked at his nails."Yeah, what of it?"

"How long ago?"

"I don't know. I like to forget moments where uninvited people invite themselves over to my property." He used his forearm to push me back off his doorstep, to which Zico snapped and stepped forward.

"Hey, hands off you uneducated idiot!" Zico pushed me back so that he was standing face to face with Asia, who had just now noticed this newcomer on his doorstep. "Where're your manners?"

Asia widened his eyes. "Who are you?" And then he lowered his eyebrows and motioned to the both of us. "You her body guard?"

"I'm her boyfriend," Zico said with much confidence which made me turn as red as a beet.

"Yeah, well she did really good with you," Asia said, rolling his eyes. He looked over at me. "Where'd you get this kid? From the dump?"

Asia laughed at his own joke while looking at the Louis Vuitton wallet he had in his hand (to possibly show off his riches to us) until my supposed boyfriend said, "What, does your wallet tell jokes?"

Asia stopped laughing and stared at Zico blank faced. "I was laughing at you, you - "

"If laughter is the best medicine, then I guess your face is just curing the world."

Asia's face turned more red than mine, and I knew that it was on now. I had never expected today to be the day that Zico and Asia would be flinging sarcasm embodied crap at each other...especially not like this. But I wasn't going to lie; I really liked this show of sport. "Also," Zico added. "If you're going to be a smartass, you need to be smart first. Otherwise, you're just an ass."

"You wanna hear a real joke, you prick?" Asia said, moving towards us as Zico didn't move an inch.

"It's okay, you're already one yourself."

"You a comedian? 'Cuz you're not all that funny."

"I guess I'm a poet. Here's my latest work: Roses are red, violets are blue, I have five fingers, and the third one's for you." And with that, Zico in all of his confidence and glory flipped Asia off, and Asia immediately turned pale and seemed to have lost his breath.

"Uh...uh..." I grabbed Zico's arm and dragged him away from the house as the two gorillas continued to throw insults and curse at each other until we were out of sight.



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"What were you doing, you idiot? We didn't even get to ask him which way Talia went!"

"What difference would it have made, really? Wisen up, Selena. He wouldn't have told us the truth even if I threatened to throw him under the bus."

"Like you'd have the guts to do that...."

"There has to be buses still running around, so I'll go back and get 'im."

I laughed as the two of us walked side by side on the sidewalk next to the grand bridge overpass with vehicles driving past underneath us. I realized then that my hand was still firmly grasped onto his forearm and let go almost immediately. Zico noticed and immediately grabbed my arm before I quickly shook it free.

Bumbling with embarassment, I said, "Let's hurry it up! Go find Talia before it gets late! You know the city's not too good at night."

Zico groaned. "Forget her. Rick will come to her rescue."

"You don't know that. You boys are all the same," I said as we walked past the third lamp post on the bridge. "No plan, just action. I swear..."

"Put a little faith in us," he said, unscathed. "You'll be amazed. It'll take days, no- months, maybe years off the wrinkly face of yours."

I glared at him. "Oh really?"

"Really. You need a vacation." He smirked.

"And what about you, Mr. Know-It-All?" I inquired as we stopped walking. "Maybe you should just take a vacation from worrying about what I look like for once and look in your own ugly refl-"

Zico reached for my shoulders, pinned my waist against the railing of the bridge, bent down forward and kissed me. It would have been a nice kiss, if I hadn't been so confused and running wild in my own mind at the time. But still, a kiss with a kiss, and his soft lips left on my own about ten seconds later, revealing my face probably to be just as embarrass as my mind made it out to be.

"That was nice," Zico said, a charming grin on plastered on his perfect face. "Let's do it again. It seems like my technique has already started to take some aging off your face."

"You -!" I hit his shoulder playfully, feeling a cross between embarrassment, anger, and happiness.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" And then he reached forward to tussle my hair and pull me into a warm hug. "St- Stop it already!" I said, turning red. "We don't have time to be playing around, we have to go find Talia first!" But I do admit that he smelled good and a part of me didn't want him to stop holding me. "Not in public....like this..." I grumbled.

"Fine," he mumbled into my ear. "Go find Talia."

"By myself?" I said, my voice in a squeak. "What about you?"

"I wanna go on a date..."

I slugged him in the arm really hard this time. "We can do all that later, you idiot! Now is not the time!"

He broke free from me to sent me a malicious grin. "So you said it then. You said you would go on a date with me."

"I - I - Oh, whatever! Let's just GO!"


And then Zico, leading the way this time with much more enthusiasm, dragged me off the bridge back into City Center.


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Talia stood in the plaza of Little Italy, her head down, picking her fingers as she stared at the plaza's infamous fountain. It was the fountain of lovers; sculpted by an Italian artist and sculptor in the 1800's, a marbled man and a woman stood together with their hands clasped leaning on each other for support. Amidst the water of the fountain stood hundreds of little pennies and nickels on the tile. Whenever Talia came here, she always felt a little better; Each time, she made sure to toss a coin into the water would it would usually sink to the bottom and she would make a wish. It was said that wishes here worked best with another person. And that would explain why each time she made a wish (by herself) it most definitely never worked.

The absentminded girl reached into her purse to pull her out her coin purse and dug in it....only to find it absent of pennies and nickels, and instead a half dollar coin. Maybe this time it was worth....giving it her all and trying?

Talia sighed and and closed her eyes, ready to make a wish. "Please...please..." Please help me to find somebody to be happy with...Please help me find the one...Please help me - 

Someone ran past and knocked Talia over and she fell on her hands and knees, her eyes widening in surprise. A little kid about nine years old looked baffled, bowed his head in apology and ran off after his older sister who taunted him to keep up. Talia smiled at the boy before he ran off before realizing that her half dollar coin was missing. In alarm, she got up and looked all around her surroundings until she realized....

Clink! Clink! CLINK!

Talia peered down into the sewer hole with had metal bars to prevented anyone from getting past it. "My half dollar!" Talia screeched as a couple of people turned heads to give her looks. But she didn't care, that was a whole fifty cents! Fifty cents that could have been used to buy an ice cream cone here in Little Italy. It seemed that today had not been her day after all. Talia wrinkled her nose and tried to stick her hand in between the bars of the metal covering, but was met with no avail. She could not even get her hand between the bars and groaned when she withdrew her hand, without her valued coin. "Today sucks," she grumbled. "First Rick, then stupid Asia and his daft bimbo girlfriend, and now this! Today sucks!" she proclaimed a little louder this time.


"How do you not expect me to think of you as a boy?" somebody's voice called from somewhere else. Talia looked up to find Rick a few feet away, his hands in his pockets, staring at her from afar. "Especially when you're searching through the sewers."

Daffodils of Destiny [Part 2]

Knock, Knock, Knock.

Talia waited outside of Asia's house with an eager heart but an even more anxious soul. After going to the flower shop, she had ran here unconditionally with the hopes that Asa would take her back. She had felt great about the idea at first, but as her steps took her nearer and nearer to her ex's house, she started to feel a lump form in her throat.

Talia took another deep breath and knocked again.

Knock, Knock, Knock. 

She looked down upon her converse sneakers and picked at her nails. A breeze swept past, and she shivered in her short sleeved blouse and capris. Somewhere from afar, the trees rustled and birds flew off into the sky. Talia, raising her fist again, prepared to meet the door once more just as the door swung open, her breath having disappeared once more.

But it wasn‘t Asia.

Some girl wearing a long men‘s shirt that went past her knees yawned and stretched before greeting Talia. "Whaddaya want?"

"I‘m - I‘m looking for Asia," Talia said, feeling a bit out of place now. "Is he here?" Talia picked at her nails once more, a pit starting to form at the bottom of her stomach.

The girl scrunched up her eyebrows at Talia before flipping her blonde hair back and saying, "Why? What for?"

"I need to speak with him," Talia said, just as a familiar looking someone came down the stairs and greeted the blonde.

"Meredith, who is it..." Asia stopped at the foot of the door, a soda in his hand and froze when he saw his ex at the door. "Oh, uh, hey Talia. What‘s up?"

Talia immediately put two and two together and turned beet red. She felt incredibly angry and betrayed as she stared back at Asia and his new girlfriend, who she now realized, through closer observation, that the men‘s shirt that she had on was the same exact shirt that she had bought for Asia for his birthday last year in April. She balled up her fist in anger. "How- how could you do this to me?" She trembled with anger, pinching her wrist to stop the tears from slipping. "How- how could you -"

Meredith clung onto Asia, sent Talia a disgusted look and said, "Who is she, babe? What does she want from you?"

Asia widened his eyes, turned to Meredith and said, "Go back inside, Meri. I‘ll be back in a sec, babe."

Asia‘s "babe" shrugged, pecked a kiss on his cheek, sent Talia a scathing "HA" look and then turned on her heel to go back into the house. Asia stepped out and shut the door behind him as Talia stepped forward, even more angry than usual."Who was that? Is she your new girlfriend?" Talia swallowed. "You moved on already?"

"And you didn‘t?" Asia shrugged. "I‘m a person too. I have feelings, I need love. We all do."

"But that was my shirt that I bought for you!"

"It‘s none of your business what I do with my things," he snapped back. "Besides, it‘s over." He took a deep breath. "What do you want, Talia?"

"And....and you called her babe," Talia‘s throat grew dry. "You don‘t say babe, that‘s not something you‘ve ever said! It‘s not you, it‘s.....who are you?"

"What do you want?" Asia said through his teeth as his eyes darted back and forth to random strangers that passed by in the background. "Tell me what you want, and then leave. You‘re making a scene."

Talia felt her face go red. "Oh, I‘m making a scene when I‘m not the one pretending to be what I‘m not, am I?" Talia bit her lip. "You might as well be in a movie right now, acting in a scene yourself!"

Asia held up his hand. "You know what? Hold on a second." Asia turned around and went back into the house, leaving Talia at his door step. Talia fumed angrily, in disbelief. How could Asia get over her so fast and end up with such a bimbo? It was preposterous....plus she was wearing the shirt that she had bought with her own birthday money from her parents last January!

At this point, Talia could not even recall what she was here for.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Asia returned with the shirt that Talia had seen the other girl wearing. He tossed it back at Talia, who caught it, a bit taken back. "Take it back, take it all back!" He said, aggrivated. "And don‘t you dare show up again at my doorstep. I won‘t answer it anymore. Forget it."

And then he slammed the door in Talia‘s face, leaving her to stare at the front of a door that she used to be welcome in. And the tears started as Talia turned and walked past the gate, the mixed scent of passion and betrayal intermixed on the shirt that both Asa and Meredith had worn.