well hello again. Bet ya didn't expect to see me around here again did ya? What can I say? I got inspired. So, after asking permission from the original author of this story, I continued my one-shot-er. It is now 50 pages long and waiting to be published here on this website. Just let me explain one quick thing before you move onto the story. This isn't what really happens. This, in a sense, is a fanfiction. A fanfiction to a story that doesn't exisit in the world of recognized writing. but, who cares?! I continue this now at the urging of the people who sent me reviews. I hope you enjoy it.

-optional immortality

p.s. for full explination see my author page.

enjoy!

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Maura jogged steadily down the docks and came to a halt just before the gates to the hanger base. She leaned against the chain link fence to catch her breath. For several minutes she stood there, watching the ships land and take off. Scrubbing at her face furiously, she wiped all traces of tears away.

To Maura Benton’s utter chagrin and frustration, she was heart broken.

That guy, the one that she saw every day because he insisted on surprising her, was gone. Her personal stalker, had not made his usual appearance in four days. And now, Maura was sure he wasn’t coming back.

But, what ticked her off, was the fact she was actually sad about this. For reasons she couldn’t seem to grasp, she was left a broken mess at his absence.

“Come on, girl,” She chastised herself, “Get it together. You’ve got a five a.m. wake up tomorrow…”

She wiped her eyes once more, and then turned to go back the way she had come. Jogging a little faster now, she expertly weaved her way through the market streets. Pausing only to buy herself dinner at a familiar vendor’s cart, Maura kept her pace steady. That is until she came to a road block, surrounded by curious onlookers.

“What’s going on?”

Some one asked loudly, craning his neck trying to catch a glimpse of the closed off area.

“The Galactic Police have cornered a criminal. They’re saying we have to keep back for our own safety. He’s apparently an arms dealer of some sorts.”

Another person answered, she being a little closer to the heart of the fray. Maura shrugged it off, and looked for a way around the throng of people. Seeing none, she walked around the outer fringes, crossed the street and made for her apartment above the shop she worked at. Suddenly there was someone shouting to be let go. Maura turned, recognizing the voice.

The crowd parted, so that the GP could lead their newly acquired prisoner to the holding skimmer; and Maura got a look at the man being lead away.

It was her stalker.

He looked a good deal worse for the wear. Like he had been hiding out in the desert for a few days. His coat and clothes were dusty and his face and hands were covered in a thick layer of dirt. He thrashed violently in the grasp of his captors, unable to shake their grip. The police grimly held on as the maneuvered the man towards the skimmer. There were police fanning out now, moving the crowd back and back so that the holding skimmer had plenty of room to take off. Without even realizing it, Maura had moved forward and now stood front row center to the proceedings. There was a cop in front of her, he had his back to her, arms spread out, acting as a human barrier. As a result, he left himself, and his weapons completely undefended.

In the movies, everything slows down. But in real life, Maura realized, it’s not the same. It is more like your mind is suddenly kicked into overdrive, and it processes things much faster than before. Her eyes scanned her surroundings carefully. There were fourteen police officers present, three more manned vehicles. Ten were working on crowd control, securing the generous perimeter that now surrounded the holding skimmer, two police flyers, and a large portion of the street. The circle was backed up against the buildings on the right side of the street, exposing a clear alley way that Maura knew lead around the back of that apartment complex and to the parking garage there. Boarding off about six feet from the buildings, was an electric GP fence about five feet high.

Maura shook her head.

What was she thinking?!

“Let me go Damnit!! You’ve got the wrong person! Let me go!”

He struggled vainly, but it seemed to be the principal of the thing. His blue hair had been shaken loose from its tie and now whipped about as he threw his weight around, trying to free himself. Maura watched, unable to look away. There was a voice, a familiar, and comforting voice that began whispering in her mind. It felt like something out of her dreams…

“Always two hands, Jade. Hold with two hands. Use your right to hold the trigger and your left to steady the gun. Hold it level with your shoulders. Perfect!”

Maura had an unbidden image of a friendly red-head, demonstrating how to properly hold a gun for her. The image was foggy and unclear, but the red head leveled her weapon on a distant target and let loose a single blast. The coke can sitting on something in the distance was snapped off its perch with surprising force.

“Now, line up your sights, that’s it. Pull the trigger.”

Thank God the gun was set to stun.

Maura pulled the trigger of the gun she had easily slipped out of the holster in front of her. After that first shot, her brain didn’t give her a chance to catch up. She began firing off shots rapidly, some hit some didn’t, she really never had Jen’s accuracy.

Wait…who was Jen?

No time for that now. She trained her stolen weapon on the man’s captors and cleared the away by aiming for their legs. The four holding down her stalker, crumbled, taken totally by surprise. Instantly, their prisoner was shaking their hands loose and now was running towards her, waving his arms, telling her to stop.

Maura lowered the gun, the cop she had stolen the gun from had been her first victim, the man jumped over the fallen man, snatched her wrist up, and now was dragging Maura through the crowd, desperately trying to get away.

Again, suddenly, her body began acting for itself. It was kind of like an out of body experience. She was standing on the side lines, watching herself act, and not knowing who was working the controls. But it felt right, she felt more at home than she had in months.

Maura dug her heels in to the ground, forcing the man to look over her shoulder at her.

“The alley! It goes to a parking garage!”

Only a few seconds had passed, but the GP were recovering fast, they had to get to the alley before they had too much time. So Maura changed their direction, she pulled him along the side walk around the outer bands of the crowd like she had done earlier. They reached where the electric police fence had been set up next to the building, and jumped it. One GP officer had managed to recover enough to spot them, and leap in front of their path, arms forward to ward them back. He started to move forward, making to tackle her to the ground. Before the man could do anything in response, Maura had grabbed his wrist and turned. In her mind, there was that gentle voice again, walking her through the move step by step.

“This move is for when your opponent is in motion. You are going to use the momentum he has against him. Take his wrist, turn on your feet, and bend down to create a hurdle. Then pull down with all your might.”

Maura did just that. The officer went hurdling over her back and landed in an undignified heap on the ground. Maura stood in shock, completely taken aback. She had done that once before, on the guy currently taking her hand again and heading down the alley. Maura quickly recovered, deeming it wise to analyze these things when they weren’t running like they were.

Her stalker wasted no time. They quickly found a two seater skimmer in the parking garage. He dove into the open cab and under the pilot console. He ripped the cover off and yanked out a handful of wires. Out of his pocket came a multi-functional tool and he clipped two wires. He rummaged for a third blindly, trying to ignore the sound of the approaching pursuers. Maura jumped into the passenger seat, and watched him work. Before she could stop herself she had grabbed at the wad of wires and expertly extracted the needed third one.

“This one.”

She said. The stalker wasted no time, he clipped it, and then pushed all three together. There was a roar of the engine to reward their efforts. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean they could fly off just yet. From the projection computer sprang came the main menu image, with a password lock. The projection hung in mid air over their laps, taunting them. Her stalker groaned. He new next to nothing about computers.

Maura was different though. Just like with the red head, another foggy vision sprang forward. A guiding voice filled her ears as she placed her hands on the mid air keyboard and began typing.

“First things first! If you log on to a ship’s security computer in safe mode, which means there will be no flying going on, you don’t need a password. Once there, well…that’s where the fun starts.”

She had an image of a grinning black skinned girl rubbing her expert hands together. She spun wildly in a rolly chair and returned to her computer to demonstrate.

The screen changed, the stalker looked up in interest. But the engine died, suddenly, cut out completely. He paled visibly.

“Uh…Maura? What’re you doing?”

“Shhh…”

She whispered. She was following her mind, the voice as it guided her through the various menus. Without realizing it, she hacked the ship’s computer through the safe mode, and sent a manual command to start the engines. The engines answered in the affirmative. They got the message. Now to unlock the pilot controls.

“The cool thing that no one remembers these days, is that computers once started out with written commands. You had to manually write everything that you wanted them to do. Took FOR-ever. However. That’s not the point. The point is that computer today are based on computers from yesterday. Every single one comes with the DOS code ingrained in the programming. They can’t not. Even though DOS isn’t used anymore, a computer needs it, it’s its foundation. It isn’t how we talk to it that matters. What matters in hacking is how a computer talks to itself. DOS is the universal language of the computer. For you dear pilot of mine, you’ll need to know these…”

The guiding voice trailed off, and Maura suddenly remembered what she needed. The commands rose in her mind like air in water. Her fingers followed her mind, typing, intercepting the computer’s commands to itself and replacing them with her own. Just as the GP crested the level of the parking garage, the control clicked and slid forward into her stalker’s lap. To his credit he only was stunned for a moment, then he snatched up the controls and had them flying through the air only seconds later. Useless fire from the GP trying to follow.

They flew in silence for some time. He piloted the skimmer perfectly, sticking low to avoid radar, and sticking to back ways to keep from being spotted. He pulled over after reaching the Narrows. An area on the south side of the city, it was a troubled area to say the least, full of the homeless, the hopeless and the moneyless. Her stalker brought up the auto pilot menu and typed in the coordinates of the place the skimmer was last parked. He typed them in and then activated the auto pilot. There was a five second delay in which they both bailed out of the skimmer.

Maura had no choice but to follow her stalker as he lead the way through the dirty and grimy streets of the Narrows.

“Where are we going?”

She asked softly, watching the skimmer disappear from view.

“My apartment. Though we can’t stay there long.”

Maura had nothing to say to that, so she continued to follow him. A few minutes, and a bunch of shady looks later, they were walking up the steps to a broken down building that had seem much better days. Windows were boarded up with the traditional fogged plastic, and the door that he pushed open with some difficulty looked read to crash off its hinges.

After a terrifying rid on a falling apart lift, her stalker unlocked a door on the top floor, and then held it open for her. The apartment was one room, with a single window with the fogged plastic.

She pointed to the window.

“You do know that that plastic means this building is condemned, right?”

The man smiled.

“Of course.”

He had moved to a corner of the room with a rickety desk. On it sat an ancient computer, it actually came with a screen for god’s sake. None the less he sat behind it and used a projection keyboard to log onto the internet. The rest of the room had no other furniture in it. The bed, was a pallet of blankets in the corner. There was a faucet head with a bucket sitting under it, and a leather satchel next to the bed that had clothes and other belongings leaking out of it. Other than that, the rest of the room was occupied by dust bunnies and dirt. Light came from a single dim glow strip in the ceiling.

“So now what?”

She asked, carefully. She had lost the confidence that had come with the foggy images and gentle voices. She was worried that she was going crazy. Hearing voices was never a good sign.

“Well, first, I have to try and clean up this mess you’ve made. Then I’m afraid I’ll have to lay low for-”

“I’m sorry.”

Maura interrupted, agitated.

“The mess I made? I don’t recall me being the one who got caught by the GP. And I saved your ass!”

The man turned to face her, his face livid. Maura actually took a step back in surprise.

“You don’t get it, Maura! I’m expendable. You are not. Now you’ve gotten yourself on the GP hot list. AGAIN. There won’t be any pretty memory wipe this time. If they think for one nano second that you’ve managed to recover your memories. They’ll ice your ass. And you just went and alerted to them that you at least feel some connection to me. “

Maura was taken aback. Her anger rose up in her, biting at the back of her throat, begging to be released.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?! You’ve been jumping out of dumpsters at me for the past four months and suddenly you DON’T want me to remember?! What kind of crap is that!? You make no sense!”

He closer to her now, but she wasn’t backing down. He towered over her, she noticed dimly that in his boots he was a near head taller than her.

“Damn it! Of course I want you to remember! More than anything in this god damn universe, I want you to remember what we meant to each other! But NOT at the risk to you or Jen or Hyper! Look! The point is, if the wrong people get wind of your stunt today, you will be picked up faster than you can say crescent socket wrench!! We have to get your and Jen’s and Hyper’s memories back pronto. But we’ll never get close if the GP finds out what we’re trying to do! So shut up and help me with the computer will you?!”

He shouted the last bit with a frustrated wave at the computer. He had no knowledge in the area of hacking. But, as Maura had demonstrated, she seemed to have picked up some.

Maura on the other hand was again surprised by him. She had a feeling he was the only person she knew that could go from ranting at her to asking for help in the same breath. She nodded and made her way over to the computer. She sat down, and he looked over her shoulder. She became all to aware of his close proximity, but to her surprise, she wasn’t bothered by it. In fact it was the opposite. She was comforted by it. But again, she pushed these thoughts away for later time.

She had recognized the urgency in his voice. He was completely serious. Part of her felt the regular indignation and disbelief well up in her mind. The logical part of her brain was analyzing his words, they made no sense. What memory wipe? Who were Jen and Hyper? She cross referenced it with what she knew. None of this made any sense. Any of it.

But that didn’t matter. Her body moved, again of its own accord and raised her hands to rest on the projected keyboard. Her mind tried to explain to her that she needed to leave, to just go home. But she forced herself to acknowledge the fact that while she didn’t understand why she did it. She had aided and abetted a criminal. She was tied to this man, no matter what convoluted stories he believed.

“What are we doing?”

The man leaned forward, close enough for Maura to smell his scent. At first whiff, it stank. Come on, he had been running around for four days. He stank. Something like trash, sweat, and four day old fear that was rotting. However, nothing is as it appears.

“We are going to hack the GP commutations system and replace the information they gather about you with someone else.”

Maura winced.

“Sounds complicated. I have no idea of how to go about that.”

The man frowned.

“But you hacked the skimmer.”

She looked at him and rolled her eyes.

“That was a ship. I know everything about ships. I know nothing about commutations. That was always-”

She froze, the man watched her intently, silently encouraging her. Maura blinked, the sentence had cut itself off, the thought that fueled it had vanished.

“What was I saying?”

She asked, looking at him with wide eyes. His face dropped, his disappointment and sadness clearly showing.

“You were saying that we are, in short, screwed. We have to figure out a way to get your name off the GP comm lines. Now.”

“You’re positive they would recognize me? I’m a pretty non-descript person. Never been in any kind of trouble with the law…”

The man looked at her blankly. A full ten seconds passed before the man burst out laughing. Not just some gently chuckling noise, no. He clutched his stomach and actually lost his balance. He sat with a thump on the floor and laughed a full belly-laugh. Despite the fact he was laughing at her, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight. His face lost years, suddenly he looked seventeen and fresh. With his face lit up in laughter, the dirt faded from notice. His blue hair stood out starkly, and his purple navy eyes were glittering. The small loop of metal in his eyebrow took on a new sheen, and the three piercings in his left ear looked fresh from the box shiny. His thinness, and the shadows under his eyes vanished. His hands were no longer cracked, dried and dirty, she could actually see the long tapered form of his fingers.

And just as innocent as the image started, it turned into something different. Suddenly, he wasn’t rolling on the floor, dirty, disheveled, and laughing. He was laying on the ground, beautiful and bleeding. In her double vision, the man on the floor was calming, breathing in huge gulps of air; the man on the ground was reaching a hand to her, his eyes fixed on her. Those eyes, in the space of a heartbeat, she saw a thousand variation of those eyes. How they looked when their owner was laughing, smiling, smirking, grinning, crying, talking, walking, shouting, yelling, arguing, haggling, running, wishing, whispering, wondering, thinking, dreaming, hoping, respecting, and…loving.

When she was able to focus on the present again. He was kneeling next to her, level with her face. He was watching her worried, and hopeful at the same time. Hoping for what? She asked herself sadly. She met his eyes and instantly knew it was a mistake. This again, sent her into another reel of images. These more clearer, more detailed. Everything was sharper than before. She had the odd sensation of floating.

Stars were spinning, zipping by at amazing speeds. The sand was scorching the pads of her feet. The water that fell from the sky tasted like forgiveness. The blood on his jacket smelled like metal, like the belly of her ship.

Her ship?

Yea…

Black. Cold. Hers.

Him. Him. Him. Him. Him. Him.

He was right there, and he wasn’t. Kneeling there, watching her…his eyes so hopeful. And he wasn’t there, no he was just out of reach. He stood there, leaning against the wall of a sandy building holding his hand out to her. There were others. Other people, faded. Only he was sharp. In focus. The need to just fall into his arms was overwhelming. The want to fall into his arms was overwhelming.

Maura fell forward, her hands coming forward to grasp the sides of his face to hold him steady. She sank to her knees on the floor in front of him in an easy, fluid movement. His eyes widened in shock.

“What is your name?”

She asked in a whisper, her voice crawling with emotions she didn’t know she had. Before he could answer, her lips covered his. The movement was done by her body, while her mind raged with burning questions. There was such desperation in that kiss. His arms welcomed her, welcomed her like it was her home. Why did it feel like home? She felt her hands find familiar places on his body. Deep in his hair and around his shoulders. Old haunts. Suddenly it hit her. He smelled like the ocean. The salt of the air and the sweet of the dune grasses. The wet and gray. Under the smell of his past four days, he smelled of an ocean she had never seen. Or had she?

He made a noise. And it broke her heart. It was the sound of hopelessness. He yanked away, suddenly. Like the courage to do so had to be snatched at while it lasted. He then skittered away, backing up until there was several feet between them and he was up against the wall. Maura reached up and touched her lips, then her cheeks.

They were wet. So were his.

But who had been crying?

She slumped over to the side, gripping the chair for support. He was against the wall, gasping for breath like what they had just done had come close to killing him. In some ways it had.

Her mind was blank. All her misgivings, all her confusion, all her images, the voices - all of it was gone. Like the still surface of a pool. And in that moment of stillness, that quiet moment after a storm has ravaged the land, something floated to the surface.

“Tenchi.”

She mumbled. The word fell past her lips with ease. It too, was an old friend. She noticed he blinked at the sound. So she said it again, louder.

“Tenchi.”

His breathing slowed to non-existent now. So she said it again. She tasted it, letting it roll off her tongue and out of her mouth, she concentrated on it. And she memorized it, the way it felt, the way it moved, the way she could tell it belonged to her, just as much as it belonged to him. She wrapped it up and tucked it against her very soul, hoping, hoping so much that it would be safe there.

“Tenchi.”

He was moving, a hand came up and covered his eyes. For a moment Maura was afraid she had somehow broken him. But, he spoke, with his hand still over his eyes.

“Yea…That’s my name…don’t…don’t wear it out.”

He finished brokenly. His hand fell away, and Maura realized they both were crying. She touched the saline tears, and inside herself she felt a sudden awareness come into being. There was something laying, waiting out there. A fragmented world that she would have to conquer.

“Tenchi.”

She said one last time, just for good measure.

It was a start.