Chapter Text
Years of waking up at the crack of dawn threw endless unexpected events at Lexa. The first morning run she went on after moving into her new apartment, one following a perfectly mapped out map through a residential neighborhood and looping near a wooded park, she wound up with a side mirror rammed into her upper thigh that left a bruise so defined, she could have gone to any mechanic and have them identity the make, model, and year of the car that hit her. She didn’t need to go that far, as the suburban mom climbing out of a minivan tipped her off. Lexa sat there, listening to the woman ranting between sips of the Starbucks cup clenched in her hands; Lexa was to blame for little Steven being late to morning soccer practice, how dare she have the audacity to run on the sidewalk while wearing a neon green tank top and running shoes that even the astronauts on the International Space Station could see, did Lexa even understand how long it would take to realign her side mirror and how long she’d be stuck unable to see what was on the road next to her? By the time Lexa made it back to the apartment, she vowed to wake up two hours earlier the next time she set out for a run, before she wound up the hood ornament on that woman’s car again.
There had been advantages to the mornings, when she wasn’t picking gravel out of the palms of her hands and icing her leg for a full week. Mornings usually meant free time for grad students, most of the classes being held late in the afternoons or at night to help out those working through internships or trying to scrape together tuition money from miscellaneous day jobs. For Lexa, she settled into a TA position with Professor Nyko; he mentored her through her undergrad years, finding Lexa in nearly all of his upper level sociology courses, and wrote her recommendation letter for the graduate counseling program. Whenever exams rolled around for his Intro to Sociology class, he left Lexa in charge for the session, trusting her to keep the hundred or so students in line. While the students wandered in, expecting a sleep deprived grad student to be sitting at the front of the class with a box for them to toss their exams in, they pulled out their less than subtle cheating methods: chapter reviews from the textbook on the floor covered by their backpacks, water bottles with definitions written on the inside of the label, diagrams drawn on the desk in light pencil. Instead, they faced Lexa, wide awake as she circled the room; ten minutes into the first exam of the semester, she caught one student with the answers written on his hip. He might have gotten away with it had he written them on his arm or ankle; instead he spent the exam tugging his pants away from his waist and staring at his crotch. She let the guy go on for a while before walking over, ripping his exam in half, and sending him out the door.
“Bit of overkill, wasn’t it?” Nyko asked, seeing the torn exam at the top of the pile.
“I call it setting an example for the rest of the semester.”
But near hit and runs and crotch glimpsing cheaters hadn’t prepared Lexa for Anya barreling into Lexa’s room before sunlight even started creeping through the curtains on her windows; getting hit by a car might have been less painful than Anya jumping on top of her still sleeping body, grasping Lexa by the shoulders and shaking her until she woke up, screaming “Where’s Lincoln?” inches from her face. Between Lexa shoving Anya off of her and trying to get back to sleep, she got the full story from Anya; Anya heard Lincoln on the phone with someone when she came back from her shift at four that morning, next thing she knows Lincoln’s sneaking out of the apartment with a suitcase in hand, climbing into a car parked outside with some girl in the driver’s seat. As many skills as Lexa prided herself on having, from intimidating people with one look to being able to take down a man twice her size, keeping tabs on either of her siblings in her sleep wasn’t one of them. Anya was the cop of the family, she was more qualified to track him down and answer her own question than Lexa was.
Lexa listed every rational step they should take to find Lincoln; call the police and get one of Anya’s colleagues to put out a search for him, wait for Lincoln to come back home, or better yet, call Lincoln and ask where he went. Anya shot down every idea: Lincoln hadn’t been missing long enough to be reported, plus she didn’t get any details on the car except that it was “black and might have been a Honda or a Toyota”, he might have been kidnapped and would never come home because his body was floating down the Potomac while this girl had all his belongings, and that Anya started calling him the minute the car drove off, but he hadn’t answered. Anya’s only solution was to try to follow Lincoln and the mystery driver; Lexa objected, begged, even considered calling the police on Anya herself and forcing them to give her a psych evaluation, only to have a bag packed with her own clothes shoved into her arms and Anya leading her out of the apartment.
Lincoln’s Jeep, Anya decided, was the best option for their mission. Lexa’s Cobalt pushed it driving the few miles from the apartment to campus most days. Lincoln called it a barely rolling curse; Lexa had already gone through two batteries, a radiator, a new windshield, and an antenna held straight by electrical tape and a coat hanger in the six short years she owned it, but she’d be damned if she got rid of it. Lexa eyed Anya’s perfectly fine Prius sitting in the parking spot next to her car. Anya refused, claiming she wasn’t about to put that many miles on the car when it still had a new car smell to it. Saying “that many miles” implied a manhunt spanning who knows how many days, days Lexa didn’t want to imagine being cooped up with a hell bent Anya relying on the Find My iPhone app to track Lincoln down.
The pair set out, following the blip of Lincoln’s phone out of Dc and out towards Alexandria.
“That doesn’t sound right,” Lexa said as the engine revved for three straight minutes once they hit the highway heading south of DC. Any second she expected a belt in the engine to snap, or smoke to start pouring from the hood. Anya pushing the speed limit didn’t help. “There’s probably a reason Lincoln didn’t take the Jeep wherever he went.” Anya ignored Lexa’s comments until Jeep shuddered and shifted gears, nearly sending Anya face first into the steering wheel. She turned towards Lexa in the passenger seat, knocking the smug smirk off Lexa’s face with a slap to the back of her head.
Anya remained determined, standing outside the Jeep with the hood propped open; maybe years of hanging around the motor pool at the police station when she wasn’t responding to a call taught her a thing or two about vehicle maintenance. Lexa waited, keeping an eye on the app still tracking Lincoln. The pinpoint on the map sat near the National Harbor. He wasn’t being held hostage or kidnapped or any of the other imminent threat scenarios Anya imagined; he was out with a friend near the beach, not needing Lexa or Anya to be getting involved in. His Jeep breaking was the sign they needed to back off, go home, and take a break for once in their lives. Summer was supposed to mean no classes for Lexa, Anya on two weeks paid vacation she saved all year, just a quiet time that their brother would eventually join them on.
“Can’t we just call the police?” Lexa leaned out the window as she spoke. Anya stepped to the side to get a better look at her.
“I am the police.” She answered. Lexa caught the smug look on her face before Anya turned back to the engine. A highly qualified police officer that was staring at a pitch black engine in near darkness without a flashlight, dragging her only sister around on a wild goose chase for a brother riding in a car that’s license plate she couldn’t remember and a driver Anya had absolutely no visual on except that she had long hair.
“Well, how about you give one of your fellow officers a chance to be a hero. Probably wouldn’t kill the morale at the station if one of them did you a favor.”
“I don’t trust them enough when one of my siblings’ lives is on the line.” Anya walks over to the passenger’s side. The usual snark in Anya’s voice dropped. She’s protective to a fault over Lincoln and Lexa; years of being the one to raise them both, making sure they got to school on time, always had a roof over their heads, and food in the kitchen, justified some of her actions. If there had been any indication that Lincoln was being dragged into something like an organ harvesting ring, Lexa would have been all for Anya’s quick step into action. But when it came down to background checks on their friends or significant others, asking her buddies on patrol to keep an eye out for the cars they rode in on nights out, keeping her own curfew set for them in her mind, she pushed things. Whatever reason Lincoln had for sneaking off without telling them might have solely been to keep Anya from hounding him or whoever he left with. He’ll probably wish he had left a note or called once Anya gets her hands on him.
“Besides, you and I are more than capable of finding him on our own.” Anya hollered as she walked back to the hood, continuing her attempt to find the damage to the Jeep. Lexa leaned forward in her seat, resting her chin on her arms placed atop the dashboard. The faint light of morning began creeping up the horizon. No city buildings blocked the view of the sky from this part of the highway, just the dark stretches of the sky meeting the ground. If one good thing had come out of the morning so far, it was the view of the dim stars not blocked by skyscrapers littering the downtown blocks. For one second, Lexa felt calm enough to fall back asleep, even if only for a few minutes.
“I have no idea what I’m looking for in here.” Anya yelled as she slammed the hood and climbed back in the car. Lexa jolted awake, back into full blown “never forgiving Anya for this stunt for the rest of their lives and any reincarnations they might experience” mode. Anya sat in silence for a second, giving Lexa enough time to get her thudding heart back to a normal pace.
Anya had called their usual mechanic, a guy named Wick that mostly knew what he was doing. Lexa found him competent enough at what he did; he was the one responsible for keeping her beloved Cobalt held together with more than just duct tape and a lot of hopefulness. If anyone was going to get Lincoln’s Jeep started again, it was him. Wick comes out, starts the Jeep, they go back home and reevaluate how ridiculous the whole idea was. Maybe Lincoln would be back by then, sitting in the living room of the apartment watching TV, wondering what possessed his sisters to steal his vehicle and take off. Anya could take the fall for it, and Lexa could go back to her It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia marathon.
Anya kept the phone tight to her ear, her ego no doubt shot by her inability to fix whatever thing in the engine she blew up just by glaring at it long enough. Lexa caught the muffled “Mecha Station Auto, you blow it, we tow it,” as Wick answered. Anya rattled off the symptoms of the break down, conveniently leaving out that it started when she decided to floor it on the freeway. If Lincoln’s Jeep had been outfitted like Anya’s police cruiser, they’d have reached him in five minutes, sirens blaring with him and the girl cuffed in the back seat. Probably kick up some déjà vu for everyone, not being the first time one of Lincoln’s friends wound up handcuffed and in a cop car thanks to Anya; the last one, an ex-girlfriend named Luna, made the mistake of coming by the apartment early for a date, Lincoln still showering in the bathroom. Luna waited in the living room with Anya; Lexa walked out of her room to refill her bowl of Cap’n Crunch, only to be met with Luna curled in the corner of a chair with Anya holding a flashlight to her face asking her questions that probably wouldn’t be legal in a real interrogation. Lincoln only found out when Lexa banged on the bathroom door, yelling that Anya handcuffed Luna and had her sitting in the squad car outside because of a “suspicious mark on her driving record.” Whatever Anya had planned once she got her hands on the girl who “kidnapped” her brother probably involved worse things, like police issues Tasers.
Thirty minutes after the phone call, things started to become clear. Anya refused to give up on her relentless tracking of Lincoln, even though the app still showed him around National Harbor. Anya managed to weasel her way into his bank account, partly thanks to Lexa.
“What was mom’s maiden name?”
“Darrow.” Lexa answered, unaware of Anya typing the answer into her phone. Leave it to Anya to make Lexa remember the mildly important details of their family history.
“Name of Lincoln’s first pet?” Anya paused, eyebrows furrowed. “Wasn’t it that little gecko thing he caught in the yard?”
“You mean Abe?”
“Our brother, the genius.” Anya mumbled, turning back to the phone. Within seconds she had access to his account, noting all the charges made to his account: his gym membership being paid at the beginning of the month, his share of the rent being withdrawn two weeks before, and the most recent charge for less than ten dollars at a gas station a few hours earlier, right after he went missing. Anya made sure to have a way back into the account that didn’t require Lexa to remember any more trivia from their childhoods, changing Lincoln’s password to NatronaLincoln105.
Lexa thought salvation arrived as a car pulled over behind them on the side of the road. All hope disappeared as she realized two things: One, Mecha Station Auto didn’t use a Honda Element as a tow truck. Two, the brunette woman in a red leather jacket getting out of the car was not Wick, fixer of all vehicles the Woods family managed to destroy. And three, the blonde woman in the grey t-shirt that climbed out of the car next was also not Wick. The two walked around the passenger side of the Jeep, faint bits of their conversation heard through the open window. The brunette propped an arm against the open window, the other lifting a small toolbox into Anya and Lexa’s view.