Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Hahaha, sorry again... my computer was giving me SUCK ISSUES! I couldn't have too many programs running at once... and... it was just... URGH! But it's cool for now... sooo... HERE I GO!))

Cherokee took this news in silence. He stared off fixedly at a distant space, his normally so focused and intense gaze blurred with thoughts. After Enzo got up and began to pace he decided to speak:

"We'll find it." He said.

He didn't give any reassurance of finding it back at the alley or any logic that it had probably aleready been found. Either way, Cherokee knew they'd find it, whether by force or otherwise. This seemed reassurence enough in itself.

Cherokee then reached out with a large hand to grasp Enzo gently by a shoulder. "Relax. There is nothing we can do until morning. So, until then... chill." He then released him and turned towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow. Meet me in the morning."

He didn't need to give a place, they always met in the same place, and with that he gave his friend a nod and strode out the door.

When Cherokee made it home to his apartment (a slightly less dumpy place than Enzo's... with a lot more stray cats) he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep with dreams fuller than he remembered them ever being.

((WHEEEEEE... he likes kittens!())

((Wheee, Amma's happy! Yay! *dansu*))

Enzo forced himself to stop walking and nodded, giving Cherokee a half-hearted wave as he walked out the door, "Righto," He murmured, kicking his shoes off and stripped down to his boxers. The young man looked particularly emaciated; nothing but skin and bones, a bit of muscle if you looked hard enough. The crook of his left arm was bruised and red, as it always was. He looked tired, stressed, and weary. With a sigh, he flopped onto his sorry excuse for a bed and willed himself to try and sleep.




It was a few hours after dawn when Enzo woke up. A small beam of sunlight had managed to penetrate his dirty window and settle on his face. He squinted and sat up, looking tiredly at his wristwatch - the thing never left his wrist. He cursed quietly under his breath at what time it was and quickly rummaged about his belongings until he found a grey button-up shirt, a white tank top to wear underneath, and some worn blue jeans. The knees had long ago been blown out, but he didn't particularly care. Half-buttoning and half-tucking in his shirt, he grabbed a bagel and hurried out of his apartment, hardly bothering to lock it behind him. There was nothing worth stealing in there anyway.

The park was only a few blocks away, and on his walk, Enzo quickly ran his hands through his hair to rid it of the bed-head look and mindlessly downed the bagel. He arrived barely in time for their usual meeting, and sat heavily on a park bench. It was a crisp autumn morning, and at the very least, he felt somewhat refreshed. Maybe things would work out. After all, Cherokee said they would right? He'd find his phone, and all would be well.

His dark eyes scanned the area, looking for Cherokee, who oddly enough, seemed to be late. He DID however, spot Amma and gave a silent curse. Enzo hoped he wouldn't be noticed by her... And the same with Cherokee. Them meeting up in such a public area would be a murder waiting to happen.

((haha THAR!))

(( XD Haha oh my god...that's gonna make things interesting...*cackles*))

Amma took a huge drag of her cigarette, letting the nicotine calm her nerves. She had been frazzled all morning over emotions she couldn't understand. A bruise had formed on the right side of her cheek from where Darius had handled her and her left arm was sore. That was the story of her life though, fights and more fight, anger and more anger, depression and more depression.

Her cellphone burst out into song just as she heard two familiar voices, though it didn't register into her fuddled brain. The ring caused her to jump and spill her coffee all over the bench and on her half eaten brunch. "s**t!" she yelled somewhat loudly, a few mothers looking in her direction and giving her annoyed glares. She glared back and hurried to answer her phone.

"What?" she demanded, now extremely irritated and quickly trying to clean up her mess, some of it stinging her hands with the liquid's immense heat.

"Boss's lookin' for ya, says ya guyses gots stuff to dos." come a high pitched male voice.

"Joker. Why's he makin' you call me and not him?"

"After the fight last night he seems nervous to talk to you."

"Serves him damn right, beating me up over not doing what he says. Ahhh the coffee stained my sleeve."

"Yeah. So...what?"

"Tell him he needs to learn that he isn't my boss. I'm not doing ANYTHING today. I'm sitting here all day and mopping about, watching children do things I want to, wanted to as a kid."

"Aight Am. Talk to yous lateh'" Joker hung up, leaving Amma to shove the cell phone angrily in her pocket and finish dabbing the coffee up. Afterwards she took the cigarette out of her mouth and threw her brunch into the trash can, can't eat a soggy biscuit.

"Why are you so damn jumpy? Not like you..." A child starred at Amma curiously as the woman talked to herself.

"What? Do I have a pimple?" She asked, making the little boy laugh and hand her a ring that had fallen off her finger. "Oh...er..." She took the ring and patted his head nervously. "Thanks kid...now go off and play with your buddies." He did just that.

Finally she put the cancer stick back into her mouth, letting it dangle from her lips. Looking at her red pumas she began back to the bench, her fingers twitching. She was about to sit down when she caught something out of the corner of her eye and she almost fell off the bench, but "gracefully" collapsed on the damp wooden structure in a heap of nerves. "Well isn't this just great." She muttered to herself. He'd see her like this, strung up, anxious, and beaten up. "I should go home then." Nodding to herself turned away slowly in the other direction and started moving towards her car...until the fact a child was him registered and she turned around, glarring. He had a KID? So he was married? What was she to him then? Of course, a jealousy tool, to make his wife jealous because of a fight they had. Ooooh that always worked, always did with her parents.

She kept her calm though, hissed, turned around and tripped over the same boy that had given her the ring back. She fell face first into a pile of sand, destroying said boy's sandcastle.

((haha...sorry...that was longer than it should have been. D: *is gone*))

((Hahaha, mmmm'yessssss... :9))

Cherokee might have smiled as Enzo took Emily into his lap, but had then shoved his hands in his pockets and was rather expressionless just as fast. Emily was quite pleased by this action and gave a little 'wheeee' sound as she was lifted down from her father's height to Enzo's lap.

She giggled as he tapped her nose and she pushed his hands away with her smaller ones. "Chief got me a HAPPY MEAL." She said of the question about her state of being and showed him the little cardboard box. "I dunno about the toy..." She said thoughtfully, her lower lip pulled into a thoughtful pout, but when he began going through her happy meal she gave a little yowling: "Noooooo!" though was still smiling as she tried to tug his hands from her lunch.

Cherokee glanced at Enzo at his remarks. "Yeah." Was his easy response, and shrugged. "But I don't really mind so much... I don't get to see her otherwise." And that was perfectly true, but it didn't change the fact he shouldn't be taking her with him at all.

"Are you talking about MEEEE?" Emily wanted to know.

Cherokee's mouth twitched and he tugged on one of her curls, but said nothing. Though, he perked up again at 'she's here'. He looked up at insantly found this 'she's here'. He glanced at Enzo briefly before striding over to where Amma had done a rather graceless face plant into a boy's sand castle. Emily turned to watch her father for a moment, but then returned to her happy meal, at to which she extracted her prize. She frowned though and handed it to Enzo.

"That's doofy, Uncle Enz... It's a little pony. I wanted the hot wheels." She said of it, and patted him on the side of his face. "I'll let you have it." And she wore the expression of a benevolent queen who had thusly bestowed cake onto her people. ((HAHAHAHA. I dunno WHYYY that's funny XDDD;; ))

The boy who's sand castle Amma had fallen in seemed to find what had just occurred very funny indeed, and was laughing at her. Though, the boy stopped laughing when Cherokee had stepped up, in fact he seemed to pale a little and then scurried away to find his mother.

Cherokee's eyes flickered after the boy for a moment before he knelt down beside the fallen woman. "Hey." He said and gently eased her into an upright position. "Real smooth." He remarked of her sandy features, with a joking smile flashing across his features.

((TA DAH! READY GO!))

((DUN DUN DUUUN!... Go Cherokee GOES! *leaps about*))

Cherokee looked rather confused by her expression and the fact that she seemed to shy away from his smile. It vanished in an instant. He raised a hand briefly before dropping it again, and his eyes searched her face as though he might be able to read her troubles from looking at her. He felt a rage grip him at the sight of bruises on her face. Cherokee felt his jaw clench, and his large hands form into fists.

"Who did that to you?" He asked with a bit of edge to his tone.

She seemed very insistent on leaving however and turned around to leave him there. He watched her shaking hands and wished to steady them as they were placed into her pockets. He continued to watch after her as she ran for her car, but not for long. He was on her in mere moments with his long legs and pulled to a halt in front of her, gripping her arms losely and his intense gaze fixed on her face.

"You don't have to stay..." He said quietly in a tone that betrayed his expressionless face. He wanted her to stay, but was still to frustrated with this need to say it out loud. He didn't understand why someone who had been so glad to be with him before could suddenly not stand to even look at him. It made it hard for him to breathe.

He shook his head, eyes still on her's demanding they return his gaze. "but tell me... please tell me, who did that to your face." He cupped her chin briefly with a hard look on his face. "I wanna beat the s**t out of them. If someone's hurting you..." He trailed off, bending down so he was more at her level. "I want to know... and who they are, and where they live, and how you want me to off 'em."

((hahaha, he's so protective and CONFUSED!)))

((Hahaha, Cherokee is very sweet o.O A GENTLE GIANT!... Who loves KITTEHS. That's the kinda man all women looks for!... 'Cept the dumb ones that look for the idiots who treat them bad. SOME WOMEN ARE SO STUPID! *rant rant rant!... posts!*))

Cherokee was quiet as she spoke, looking intently at her face. Not for a moment did he believe her about her falling, but he made no remark of it. It was easy to tell she was lying. She wouldn't look at him, and her voice had a catch to it, but he did not ask why she would lie, for some reason he felt as though he knew who might have done it, a mounting dread that had formed in the pit of his stomach.

"Then point out the banister... I'll break it in two. Shoot it up a little." He said instead, and tried to catch her eyes, but she instead said he was acting... lying, pretending he cared. Cherokee looked rather thrown, his mouth partly open. He didn't know just what to say to that and continued to not know just what to say as she she shoved passed him.

He watched her as she fumbled about with her keys, his face rather unreadable. He didn't flinch as she punched her car, or look on with pity or confusion with her sudden words. Instead he took a step forward, then another while kneeling down upon the black top next to her, and wordlessly he pulled her into an embrace.

"I'll go. Just say it. I'll leave." He said in a low voice, gazing off into the distance. "But I can't promise I won't think about you, and I can't promise I won't sometimes call and hang up... and I can't promise that I'll feel like I missed something worth having." He paused, his mouth searching for words, "I don't have any proof that I'm telling the truth... and you have no reason to trust me, but if you tell me to go, I'll leave." He finished.

((... hahaha, awwww... that made me... awwwwwwwwwwwww'ssss... CHEROKEE WHY ARE YOUN SUCH A BIG OL' SOFTIE?! *rubs his head*))

((Haha holy crackers... I missed a lot. O.o Haha well... *attempts to catch up, WOO!*))

There were many times in Enzo's life where looking back, he'd done some stupid things. At the moment, he was quite sure this was one of them. He'd mentioned Amma. How Cherokee hadn't noticed her before, he wasn't sure, but the fact was, the tall man was over next to the woman, all thought about anything else gone from mind.

Giving a bit of a sigh, Enzo leaned back, half-watching Emily dig through her meal. He suddenly wanted a nap. It was the insistant prodding by a little finger on his shoulder that made him come to, and a bright pink pony with rainbow hair was held in front of his nose. He blinked a few times to focus on the eyesore of a toy and gave a confused little sound at just how she'd bestowed said gift upon him. "Why THANK you, Emily." He plucked it from her little fingers and dropped it into his shirt pocket, where its bright head barely poked out of the top. "Care to share a fry too?" He looked hopeful. Bagels just didn't fill him up in the morning.

Enzo glanced over to where Cherokee had gone and frowned. Amma seemed to be having quite a rough time (even worse than Enzo had been the previous night, or in a while for that matter), and Cherokee and his big heart couldn't leave her like that. Even when it was obvious there was something wrong with her... And the fact that Cherokee was there.

Watching the two from the corner of his eye, he summed up that Amma felt betrayed by his friend. And really, it made him mad. Cherokee meant nothing but good towards most people, and despite the goings on of the previous night, Amma was trying, and trying hard to get away from him. It was confusing, and took a few minutes for Enzo to realize that it might have been Emily's presence that caused it.

He looked down to the bright little girl, giving a smile. She'd dug right into her meal, quite happily sitting in his lap and enjoying the crisp morning air. The little girl probably had no idea what was going on... And for that, he envied her. "Such a nice morning, isn't it?" He said, a note of sarcasm clutching to the edges of his words.

When Amma took a run for her car, both she and Cherokee disappeared from view; a determined number of shrubs stood between the bench and the parking lot. Enzo took this as a hint to stop watching them and instead he carefully lifted Emily from his lap and stood up, hoisting her so she was sitting on his shoulders. "Let's go for a bit of a walk, hmm?" He tugged on her feet, "Uncle Enz wants to stretch his legs. So, you lead the way, alright? Let's see where we go." All he wanted to do was take a walk, really. Get away from it all and clear his mind to think.

He hadn't realized just how attached Cherokee was to Amma. He'd known her for less than twenty-four hours, and already he cared deeply for her... Enzo knew his friend well enough to decipher that. "He's too soft-hearted sometimes..."

It could be seen as either a good thing, or an unfortunate instance that Emily brought Enzo around the foot path only once before she pointed him to the parking lot where Cherokee and Amma were sitting by her car, the woman crying into his arms, which were a blanket of comfort around her shaking form. Seeing that, Enzo felt a pang of guilt hit him in the guts. The fact that them being even in remotely the same area was a horrible danger... The fact his phone was missing... It all disappeared. Maybe he'd been jealous... Or moreso, worried about his friend. But he really truely cared for this woman he'd barely met... So much that it was almost painful to watch.

But the cool logic of Enzo's brain kicked in, and before he realized it, his mouth had started talking, "Cherokee, you guys can't just sit there, hugging and crying... Not in public. There are some important matters to attend to right now, yeah? I really think we need to get moving..." he looked around, suddenly expecting Darius to show up out of nowhere and start shooting. "What about you, Emily? Want to go on a quest with Uncle Enz and Chief?"

((haha I HADDA PUT MYSELF IN THERE SOMEWHERE! >.>))