Abby and the blonde cheerleader had been walking around the fields for quite some time with no luck at finding Emily or Jim.  Although they realized that the campus was a very big place, even for tall folks, they pressed on and spent the better part of the day searching the place up and down, trying to find the two missing people, hoping that Jim was alright. 

As the two of them were strolling down one of the fields, passing the cafeteria building the blonde decided that she needed to start up conversation with Abby.  The two of them had been dead silent for hours and their search was going nowhere fast.  A little conversation between the two of them might be what they needed to help speed up their search and not feel like they’d been searching for the two of them all day, even if they had been searching all day.

“Abby, may I ask you something?”

Abby turned at hearing the question coming from her current travel companion as they walks.  Looking at her, she tilted her head a little, confused at how she’d worded her statement.  Everyone around campus knew how open she was, and she didn’t understand why they would ask for permission to ask a question.  After thinking about it for a moment, she nodded back to them, approving their request to ask a question.

“Of course, umm…”

The cheerleader softly smiled as Abby struggled to remember her name.  Although she’d seen Abby around a lot, the two of them hadn’t really talked much.  Abby was normally busy, running errands around campus, and didn’t seem to have time to stop and say hello to her.  She put her hand on Abby’s shoulder, patting her for a moment, before telling her what her name was.  “Helen.  My name’s Helen.”

“Oh!  Well, Helen…of course you can ask me something.  What’s on your mind?”

Trying to keep up her smile, Helen took her hand off Abby’s shoulder and looked forward as they continued walking and searching for the two friends that had gone missing.  She took a deep breath and began to ask Abby something that she’d been wondering about ever since she’d explained the situation about the man she called “Jim”. 

“Abby, tell me about Jim, if you don’t mind.  Since we’re searching for both him and Emily, I’d like to know a little about him, so he’s not a complete stranger when we end up finding him.”

Abby blinked in response to Helen’s question.  She expected her to have a lot on her mind, but she never imagined that she’d be asking her to talk about Jim.  They were searching for the people, and she wanted to know about the one she didn’t know?  Abby didn’t quite understand the logic in this question, but, holding true to her word, she began to respond to her question.

“Well, Helen…today was Jim’s first day of working here on campus.  He’s going to be working in the Cafeteria, kind of like an aide for me and my work there.  The two of us met just this morning, and I had to take him around campus for awhile, to show him around for a little while, and to help him adjust to how things work here.”

Helen became a little confused when Abby talked about helping Jim adjust to ‘how things work’ around the campus.  Curiosity overtaking her, she began to inquire Abby about it before she could get a chance to go on with her explanation of the man.  “How things work?  What do you mean, Abby?”

“Well, Helen,” replied Abby, realizing she wasn’t comprehending what she’d meant with her previous statement, “Jim seems a little new to what this university does, in the aspect of Larges and Minors both going to school together and interacting with one another.  When I’d first met him, he was very nervous around me.  I think I was the first tall person he’d ever interacted with in his life.  So, I took it upon myself to carry him around and help him get used to my size.”

“Oh, well that was nice of you, Abby.  Was he alright with you carrying him around today?” asked Helen, thinking that Abby’s gesture towards Jim sounded a little cute.  In her mind, she imagined Abby, being as kind and friendly as she was, carrying around a Minor in her hands, showing them around.  It seemed a little out of the ordinary to her, though.  Of all the times she’d seen Abby around campus, the girl had never been carrying around any of the smaller people.  She was always walking around by herself.

“He was a little nervous at first, but he got used to my stature pretty quickly.  We sat down in one of the fields and talked about one another for quite awhile, and he really started to get comfortable and talked with me about a lot of stuff.  It was nice to have him, the nervous guy from before, so comfy and normal around me.  I thought his change in attitude and thoughts towards me were really cute.”

Helen began to make a wide grin upon her face as she listened to what Abby said and started to get an idea of where she was coming from.  The girl had not interacted with many Minors, to the point of actually touching and spending time with them, for many years.  She’d heard the horror stories of what happened when Abby had first come to the University.  The tragedy of the three young girls and the AL terrorist group in the city was well known, although few people dared to speak of it.  It brought a smile to Helen’s face to know Abby was opening up to the smaller folks again.

“Aww, that’s cute, Abby.  Maybe you’re so worried about this little guy because…you’ve got a crush on him?” said Helen, raising her eyebrow, peering over into Abby’s eyes. 

Abby immediately started blushing at the thought of having a crush on little Jim and immediately shook her head, nervousness settling into her head.  “N-no!  Of course not!  Don’t be silly, Helen.  I just met the guy!  We’re just friends.  I don’t have a crush on him, or anything weird like that!”

Helen giggled a little at Abby’s nervousness and looked forward to see that the sun was starting to set.  “I thought so, Abby.”  She was about to continue her statement when she looked ahead and saw someone limping their way through the field ahead of them.  Helen looked more closely and saw the sun shining down on the girl’s crimson-red hair.  Immediately stopping the conversation, she ran forward, calling out Emily’s name.

Helen and Abby both ran up to Emily, who had been limping her way across campus for several minutes.  She had a lot of pain in her ankle, but she was trying to push it back, hoping to find someone to talk to about what happened to her small friend, Jim.  When she heard a familiar voice calling out her name, she stopped and looked forward, seeing Helen, the leader of the cheering squad, running towards her with some other woman she’d never seen before.

Helen reached Emily and tried to hold her up, having seen the limp in her walk, something obviously wrong with one of her ankles.  Looking into her face, she could see a lot of stress and worry in it.  Something had happened to her that had generally spooked her.  Holding the girl up, off her bad ankle, she began to whisper to her, trying to find out what happened.

“Emily, are you okay?  What happened to you?”

Losing some of her strength from the stress of walking on her bad ankle, she let out a weakened response, only one thing on her mind.  “J-Jim.  I have to…help Jim.”  Upon hearing the name, Abby realized that Emily had not been completely unaware of Jim’s presence.  She’d somehow either found him or he made himself apparent to her.  Running up to her, she looked the worn out girl in the eyes, inquiring her.

“Jim’s in trouble?!  Where is he?” Abby asked, getting slow reactions out of the girl, who was obviously worn out and under a lot of stress from her injury.  She rose her head up and looked at Abby, then over at Helen, who was holding the girl up the best she could.  She looked over at Helen, and began to talk about Jim, talking about how he’d helped her when she got hurt, and eventually got to how he was taken from her.

“A girl…in all-black…yelling at him…saying she loved him…took him away…took him…home.”  As Emily finished the last statement, her strength gave in from the stress of agitating her injury and fell unconscious, still being held up by Helen.  Helen, who seemed genuinely worried for Jim, looked over at Abby and asked her if she knew what she was talking about.

Abby, who had a cold chill having run up her body, knew exactly what happened.  She wasn’t there, and she didn’t have to be.  The description the girl had given, along with the way the person had acted towards Jim, screamed only one thing to her: Fran.  Looking back at Helen, she slowly nodded her head, preparing to explain.

“I know who took him.  It was Fran, the one who’d lost him in the first place.  She must have gotten attached to him and gotten jealous when he saw him and Emily together.  She’s a sweet girl, but when she gets jealous, she’s a force to be dealt with.  If she’s taking him home, then…we need to try to catch up with her before she gets there.  If she’s in a jealous rage, she might accidentally hurt him.”

Helen took a deep breath as she listened to what Abby had told her.  She knew that she was right, and that Abby knew exactly what she was talking about.  The serious tone in her voice just screamed that she knew exactly what was happening.  Looking over at Emily, she realized that the poor girl had somehow gotten hurt today, and would need to be taken home as well. 

“Alright, Abby.  I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you, if you’re chasing after Fran.  It’s getting late, and Emily needs to be taken home.  It looks like our search is over.  You know where Fran lives, so you go after her and try to find your little friend, and I’ll take this girl home and get her taken care of.”

Abby nodded to her and the two parted ways, one heading forward down the street once reaching the school gates, and the other dashing to the side, heading for the Large district that was just outside the city, where Fran lived…