Orisha's Dilemma Part 1

by LJ

During the ride home, Jack noticed how quiet Orisha was. She hadn't spoken a word to him since leaving the funeral. Normally, she was trying to talk his ear off and laughing, but now, she was eerily quiet.

"Oris' are you ok?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Just dandy, just peachy." came her smart mouthed reply. She didn't even look at him.

Jack gripped the steering wheel, and said nothing. He knew why Orisha was giving him the cold shoulder and he couldn't blame her really. He had embarrassed her in front of her friends and had them thinking negatively of the company she kept. Orisha tended to take things very personally and with the way she was feeling right now, he'd be lucky to get home without Orisha punching his lights out. He had seen Orisha fight before, she could throw a mean punch when she put her mind to it.

Then, there were his partners on the Lightning Team, the Tasker sisters.

Jack groaned inwardly. "This is gonna be a long day." He thought.

They pulled into a food market to gas up the car. While Jack pumped gas, Orisha put on her long black leather coat to head inside the store to get some junk food and to mainly, to get away from him. The sliding doors to the mini-market opened, allowing the young woman to enter, her black leather high heeled boots clicking on the hard waxed floor. She grabbed a small bag of potato chips and a can of soda, just for herself, she couldn't care less what Jack wanted.

She was heading to the check out counter to pay for her food when she noticed the sound of excessive giggling coming from a group of teenage girls. Orisha was wondering what was the big deal 'til she saw what they were pointing and looking at through the store's window.

"Why am I not surprised?" she muttered.

The object of their drooling was Jack. They were watching him gas up his car.

"Oooo, he's so kawaii!" One of them exclaimed to her friends.

"Yeah, he's hot!" Said another, giggling. "I would love to get with him!"

"Oh, brother." Orisha mumbled to herself. "Can it with the fan worship, chick, it doesn't become you."

Luckily, Jack had a credit card so he didn't have to go inside to pay. This was a blessing because those teenybopper airheads would have surrounded him, asking for his autograph like they always do. Strangely, it had never really bothered Orisha before, seeing fangirls swooning excitedly over Jack like this, but now all this idiotic fan worship was going a bit too far. It was affecting his personality, for Orisha was seeing bad changes in her friend and she didn't like what she saw.

Jack was glorrying in his too cool, strong, silent type image, seeming to assume he was the most cool, the most together man around, and that everyone thought he had his rightful place, just a bit above them all.

It really came to a head when Indy and LJ voiced their views on him. This bothered Orisha greatly.

Right now, the fangirls were still gushing over him and they had blocked her path to the counter, much to her dismay.

"Excuse me, please, I need to get by." she told them, resisting the urge to jump kick them to the side.

They heard her, but decided to ignore her, like all fangirls tended to do toward her, a big mistake on their part.

She gritted her teeth in frustration. "Well, I tried to be nice." And with that, she shoved a couple of them out of the way.

"Hey! What's the big idea?" One of them exclaimed, giving her a dirty look.

"Learn some manners!" The other chimed in.

Orisha snorted at them in disgust. "You should learn to take your own advice, sweetheart. I did kindly ask for you to move, but no, you didn't and decided to ignore me so I did it for you. You were so busy gawking at my friend that you failed to realize that people are waiting in line to pay for their purchases in this store. What do you think this is, some teenybopper hangout or something? Don't you groupies have better things to do besides oggle after men who are zoid pilots, huh? There's more to life than that, you know. Stop being obsessive morons without a clue and grow the heck up!"

The store owner nodded in agreement with her while the girls just looked at Orisha, not saying a word. The other people standing in line, clapped.

And with that, Orisha paid for her items and stormed out of the store.

"Those imbeciles!" she said, trying her darnest not to curse. She opened the door to the car, slamming the door so hard, it made the small vehicle vibrate.

"What the hell...?!" Jack started to Exclaim, then stopped himself. For some reason, he decided it was best not to say anything more at this time.

Orisha had pulled the coat's hood over her head with her arms folded across her chest.

"Hmp." came his reply. Jack could tell Orisha was even more ticked off but decided it would be in his best interest to keep his mouth shut, for now. He had enough sense to know that. He started the car's ignition and drove on home.

Chris and Kelly Tasker were cooking dinner when they heard the sound of car doors slamming from outside.

"Hey, they're back." said Kelly.

Chris rushed over to open the door for her friends when they came up the walkway.

"Hey, Orisha...?" Chris stopped in mid sentence as Orisha walked quickly past her without saying a word.

Orisha headed for the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

"Damn. I hope the funeral didn't upset her." Chris looked at her sister Kelly who was still in the kitchen, slicing up tomatoes for the garden salad she was making.

"Probably so. She still hasn't gotten over the memories of her own mother passing away years ago." Kelly replied. "I really feel for her."

Jack came in soon afterwards and sat on the sofa, not saying a word.

Chris shut the door and came up to him. "Don't tell me it affected you, too?" she said. She remembered Jack telling her how he lost his family when he was just a boy. "Are you gonna be ok, Sisco?"

Jack said nothing, sitting slightly hunched over, staring at the items on the glass table in front of him.

Chris sighed. "I'm gonna check on Orisha and see if she's alright."

Kelly nodded at her, while wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing.

While Chris went down the hallway, Kelly couldn't help but notice how on edge Jack appeared to be, as if he was nervous about something that was getting ready to happen.

Chris knocked on the bathroom door, asking for Orisha to let her in. After a few tries, the door opened and Chris went inside to talk to her friend.

Kelly was tossing the salad when she heard her sister exclaim loudly.

"HE DID WHAT?!" which was soon followed by a long line of obscenities. "I CAN'T BELIEVE HE DID THAT!! That man! Wait 'til I get my hands on him!"

Jack moaned inwardly. "Ah, crap. Here it comes..."

Kelly blinked at him in puzzlement, not understanding what he meant. The bathroom door flew open, and Chris came storming into the living room, her face red with rage.

She marched over to where Jack was sitting, grabbing a newspaper that was lying on the kitchen counter. "YOU ARROGANT JERK!!" She growled in his face. "Just what the hell were you thinking MAN?!! Acting like some hot shot...AT A FUNERAL, OF ALL PLACES?!! And to think, I was feeling sorry for you just a few minutes ago but after hearing the way you were acting, I wanna smack the holy crap outta ya! You idiot!" Chris Rolled up the newspaper and wacked Jack upside the head several times with it. "How can you disrespect the family of Orisha's friend like that? No wonder Orisha is ticked!!"

Jack tried to protect himself from Chris' attack but to no avail. "Ooouu!! Ooouuu!! I told her I was sorry, Chris!! Like lay off, already!"

"I'll lay off when I'm good and ready. Now, shut up and take your beating like a man!"

By this time, Kelly and Orisha were standing nearby. Kelly had just been filled in on what had happened at the funeral.

"I can't believe this!" Kelly exclaimed. she shook her head. "Jack, you have done some low down dirty things but this really takes the cake."

"Orisha, Kelly, don't just stand there, help me out will ya?" He pleaded to them both.

Kelly shook her head. Orisha just stood there and said nothing.

"Like damn, I told them I was sorry!"

Chris suddenly grabbed Jack by his shirt collar, managing to pull him up. She got in his face and snarled. "Not good enough! Listen here, Sisco! You're gonna write a letter of apology to LJ's family and

"You're not serious..." Jack retorted, staring at her in disbelief.

But Chris wasn't finished yet. "Plus, you're gonna set things right with her friends!"

"Hey, I never did anything to upset her friends. It was just that one friend of hers who's had it in for me since the first time we met."

Orisha tcked. "Oh, please!! Indy wasn't the only one ticked off by you, don't tell me you didn't notice Robbie Colins's reaction! I saw the look on his face when he left your table, he was floored!"

Chris continued. "And while you're chewing on that, why don't you get it through your thick skull not all women are gonna fall down on their knees and worship the ground you walk on, tough guy? Of all the stupid, hair brained, inconsiderate, loud mouthed logic of yours...AARRGGHHH!!" With that, She let go of him, threw the newspaper at him in disgust, and walked away to cool off.

Jack looked in the direction where Chris went, thankful to be alive. "Sheesh, Chris is peeved..."

Kelly frowned at him. "She's not the only one. I wish I could have been at that funeral so I could have grabbed you by the ear and taken you out of there before you caused even more trouble then you already were. I tell ya, you can be an ass when you put your mind to it. I'm very disappointed in you." She came up to him and wagged her finger in his face. "You should have known better."

Jack sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I really messed up this time."

Kelly snorted. "Ain't that the truth." Then she walked off to the kitchen. She put the salad in the refrigerator. She had a feeling no one would be in the mood for much eating tonight so the food would be saved for another day.

Jack looked at his friend, who was still standing nearby, saying nothing. "Oris?" She had been mouse quiet all this time.

Orisha finally spoke to him. "Well, I warned ya this was gonna happen. And now, thanks to you, people are under the misconception that I'm one of your idol worshippers when that's not the case." Jack could hear her voice trembling. "Thanks a lot, Jack." she said sadly.

Jack tried to defend himself and stop her worrying about other people at the same time. "Why should you care what Indy thinks of you when she's the only woman besides you guys who's gotten mad at me? Interesting...She was probably..."

"Probably what, Jack?" Orisha challenged.

"Oh, nothing...Forget it."

"Too emotional, is that what you were going to say?" Orisha glared at him.

"You said it, not me." Jack retorted.

Orisha tcked.

"Well, PMS then, whatever, I never tried to get her mad at me all right?"

Orisha was at her wit's end now. "When did you get to be such a jerk, Jack? and just so you know, I'm not impressed with you either! I don't know what ever made me think of you as a friend! You oughta look around at the real world and see how many people besides your stupid groupies actually give a care what you are and what you think! The sun doesn't rise and set by you, and your attitude toward people, especially women and emotions, stinks! I don't know you any more, Jack, maybe I never did!" Orisha burst into tears and slammed out of the house.

A few moments after she ran out of the house in tears, he > went after her but it was too late. Orisha had driven off in her car with > Jack calling out to her but to no avail. He watched helplessly as the vehicle > turned and disappeared from sight. He wondered in his mind would that be the > last time seeing her. Disheartened, he went back inside, closing the front door behind him."

Sitting alone in the front room now, Jack sighed wearily and pondered over his actions.

"I didn't mean to hurt her, but..." He thought to himself, "Its the fault of that over sensitive friend of her's, Indianna. She's had it in for me right from the beginning, though I never did anything to her and it was bad enough that other friend of Orisha's, LJ, yelled at me at the funeral. At least I can understand LJ doing that, besides,its not like I was the only person she yelled at. But that Indianna means trouble...Well, we'll see about that, hmh. Nobody treats me like that and gets away with it, and all the others taking up for her - what the hell's up with that?" he fumed inwardly.