Title: Perfect Mess

Author: Eternal Afterglow

Rating: T/M-

Summary: When a young civilian is brought onto the base everyone starts to realize what a perfect mess they have made. AU season 9

This perfect mess has everybody singing for something, someone, sometimes...

Prologue

A solitary figure stood in a small ring of light, head bowed lightly, small hands clasped behind its back.

"A verdict has been reached!" a single voice echoed around the emptiness of the large, dark room, "Loki, you have been found guilty of illegally experimenting on a human subject. From here on out, you are banned from operating your own ship and you have been forbidden from furthering your research without the supervision of another qualified scientist. Should you defy these regulations your punishment will be far more severe. Your human specimen is to be relocated to another human inhabited world."

Three Years Later

Kaylee shivered as her eerily black eyes flickered across the scenery passing by. This would be the sixteenth foster home that she would live in. What was so wrong with her? Why couldn't anyone keep her for more than a few months? 'Oh yeah' she thought to herself, 'They all think I am crazy.'

"Kaylee," The soft voice of her social worker broke the silence inside the car, "we are almost there, hun"

The nine-year-old nodded distractedly, still absorbed in her thoughts and the frozen countryside outside her window. 'I'm going to stay here. I will be good. I won't say anything. I won't be a burden. They will keep me. I am going to stay' she vowed silently to herself.

Kaylee sighed as she collapsed into bed. It had been almost a year since she arrived at the Brown's home. She had kept her promise, she didn't talk about aliens anymore, she stayed out of way, she said please and thank you, she made her bed and kept her room clean.

She closed her eyes thinking about the events that had transpired that day. She wouldn't be staying here for long now…

/flashback/

Kaylee took a deep breath and pushed the heavy door to the front office open. Glancing at the crumpled note in her hand she stepped farther into the room.

"May I help you?" a friendly looking woman with auburn hair asked. Kaylee silently handed her note to the lady and looked down, studying her familiar shoes..

"Ah! Kaylee, I was waiting for you! My name is Allison Smith, let's go to my office and chat for a while?" the lady said as she usurered the girl towards one of the many doors lining the walls of the room.

Kaylee sat silently in the offered chair.

"Do you know what confidential means?" Allison asked. Kaylee nodded.

"Okay, now I've noticed, and so have some other students, that you've been rather quiet this year. Has anything been bothering you?"

Kaylee's gaze flashed over the women sitting in front of her, "not really."

"Have you been having problems at home?"

Kaylee shook her head negatively.

"Are you worried about having to leave this foster home? Or worried about what the other kids think of you not always living in the same place? Did something happen in a past foster home that you're worried about happening again?"

The girl blinked in surprise, "um… Maybe?"

Allison just raised her eyebrow, "Does it have something to do with the Thompsons, your first foster parents?"

'What? Why is she asking about this…' Kaylee thought. "Not really." She stated simply.

Kaylee's eyes closed momentarily, before she shivered. She had been in this situation too many times to count. And nothing good ever came from the doctors' interrogations before.

"Are you sure?" Alison went on flipping though a manila folder. "According to your chart that's when you started moving around a bunch."

"I'm just a bad kid." Kaylee looked down at her shoes wishing she could be anywhere but here.

"You don't seem bad; you get good grades you don't ever get in fights." Alison's voice was comforting, but it didn't matter to Kaylee, she just wanted to leave.

"I'm better now."

"What changed that?" Alison closed the folder and looked at the girl's worried face.

"I'm not sure. Maybe I just grew up." she looked into Alison's eyes. 'Why can't everyone just leave me be?'

"Do you think you 'grew up' differently from everyone else; For lack of a better term, normal?" Alison questioned.

/"Why can't you be normal like everybody else? What's wrong with you? No one can ever love a crazy person! What is all this talk about aliens... HUH? No one will ever want you!"/

"No…" Kaylee whispered back, a far off look on her face.

"No what?" said Alison sitting up straighter and paying more attention to the now frightened looking girl.

"Please...I promise I'll be good! Give me one more chance..." Kaylee blinked and her eyes began to refocus.

"Okay," Alison sounded concerned, "one more chance at what exactly?"

'Oh crap…' "I... I'll talk to people.. I'll be normal. Just don't send me away again."

"What do you mean by that?" Alison raised her eyebrows, she had read about her being committed before, but she had supposedly never mentioned it again, dancing around the subject.

"You called me in here... because I'm different. I can be normal... just let me try!" Kaylee was beginning to hyperventilate.

"No, I didn't. I called you in here to see if anything was wrong." She watched Kaylee's face intently as the girl looked around the office. "Just calm down okay?"

The words Alison was saying didn't penetrate Kaylee's concentration. 'I'm going to stay here. I will be good. I won't say anything. I won't be a burden. They will keep me. I am going to stay' "I can't be normal can I?" She questioned making eye contact with Alison.

Allison almost staggered backwards at the intensity of the girl's inky black gaze.

Alison stood up a walked to the phone on her desk; Kaylee began to fidget in her seat. "Kate? Could you send the kids to Joe this afternoon, thanks." She set the phone down with a loud click. "Kaylee?" She asked concerned at the blank expression on the girl face.

"You think I am crazy, don't' you?" Kaylee asked quietly fearing the answer.

"What?" she almost yelled, and then calmly asked. "What led you to that idea?"

"The way you look at me... it's the same way that they did…" As the sentence went on her voice faded.

"They who?"

"The doctors." Her breathing started to pick up once again. "They would always talk to me… then send me to another home... they would look at me like I was a hopeless case."

"Kaylee, just calm down, okay?" a comforting hand landed on Kaylee quivering shoulders.

"You are going to send me away again... just like they did-" Her voice was barley auditable.

Alison gently griped her arm to bring her back to the present as her gaze drifted off. "No, I'm not."

"-Because I am crazy," Kaylee continued as if she didn't hear Mrs. Smith.

"What makes you think that? Have some of the kids been calling you names?"

"…You don't think I'm crazy yet, because I haven't told you anything. You don't know me. When you do, you will send me away... they did..." Kaylee whispered as she stood up and began pacing the length of the room.

"Who were they?" Her eyes fallowed the girl's movements.

"All of them."

"All of whom?"

"All of the people who have taken care of me... they called me crazy… because I told them things... that they didn't believe" Alison began to flip though the manila folder on her lap once more.

"Why didn't they believe you?" Alison looked up genuinely interested in what the girl had to say.

"They weren't real they said... that it was all in my head. That I was a freak"

"Okay, well you want to sit down and explain to me?"

"No… you will send me away too"

"Your file says something about aliens…"

Kaylee stopped dead. "Please don't send me away." She was on the verge of tears

"Take some deep breaths okay?"

Kaylee backed into the far wall, "Don't send me away like them! I said I would change, that I would be good, why don't you believe me? Why can't anyone believe me?"

Alison stood up and walked towards her. "Just acting like something is right, doesn't make it right."

Kaylee was mumbling to herself, she slide down the wall all the way to the floor and hugged her knees rocking slightly.

'Oh, I hope she doesn't end up like Damien, that was horrible, he hasn't recovered and still isn't off the meds.' Alison thought to herself.

Kaylee's head snapped up.

Alison walked over and knelt at her side and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"You do think I am crazy." Kaylee stated, lifting her head to look at the woman in front of her.

'Oh god, she's just like him, withdrawn and jumpy and unpredictable. Damnit!'

Kaylee backed up as much as she could to the corner of the room. "Please… please…"

"Just calm down, okay?" Alison was eyeing the phone.

Kaylee tried desperately to control her frantic breathing.

"That's it, deep easy breaths." 'God, I hope I don't ever have to call that number again. Please don't make me Kaylee. Please.'

Kaylee started to mutter once again 'I haven't even said anything about the aliens and she still thinks I am crazy…' "What's wrong with me?"

"I honestly don't know, but if you help me we can get to the bottom of it"

Kaylee kept her eyes on her shoes, praying this was all a dream.

Alison bowed her head to her chest in deep thought 'Damnit, I really don't want to send her to mental heath, it might be worse for her, okay pull yourself together, you can get her though this. You did with Damien' She looked back up at Kaylee. "Do you want to tell me about the aliens?"

Kaylee began to panic "hey, clam down alright?"

"I'M NOT LIKE DAMIEN! STOP SAYING I AM! You think I am schizophrenic... just like him… the other doctors said that too… but they didn't find anything. Just read the file!" She pulled her knees closer.

Alison walked over to the phone and started to dial.

"NO! DON'T TELL ANYONE! Please…"

"Just calm down!"

"Please... pleas...e" Kaylee was breaking down right before her eyes, the tight grip the girl had on her knees slackened, and she slouched the floor and lay on her side. Alison set the phone down and walked over and began to rub her back offering comforting words. Kaylee's only response was flinching away at every touch.

Alison gave up and made her way back to the phone on her desk.

She didn't expect what she heard next.

"You're right." Allison spun around to face the child.

The desperation was completely gone from her ebony eyes, replaced with a bitter acceptance. Allison could see that the child was trying to mask the conflicting emotions flashing through her eyes. Kaylee took a deep breath and broke eye contact. Suddenly she looked like nothing was wrong, the morbid resignation she displayed just moments ago was gone.

Allison resumed dialing the phone.

Kaylee jumped up and lunged for the door. She fumbled with the door before it finally gave way and sprinted out of the building. Alison dropped the phone as a "Hello, El Paso county mental health." echoed from the other end.

"Kaylee NO!" she sprinted after the girl as a bewildered janitor watched. By the time Alison made it to the front door Kaylee was almost off campus. That would not look good on a report.

/end flashback/

Kaylee sat on her bed hugging her knees; she had run out of things to keep her busy. Her room and bathroom we're spotless, she had done the laundry, packed her bag and was waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Brown get home from work, and then for her life to change once again, new home, new 'parents', new room, new everything.

She heard the door downstairs open and the dog ran out of the room to greet Mr. Brown, her only safety line had just left her to free fall.

She didn't leave her bed, not wanting to make the situation worse for herself, she just sat there praying that the next home, she could act 'normal' and not get in this mess.

Three hours later, Kaylee was getting ready for bed, hoping that having not heard anything from Mr. or Mrs. Brown meant that they weren't getting rid of her, when she heard someone coming up the stairs.

Mr. Brown burst into the room. Kaylee could smell the alcohol in his breath from her bed. "I didn't mean to! I'm sorry! Please…" she begged. He just walked over to the bed and slapped her. She sat in stunned silence.

"That's for being a stupid, good for nothing orphan. You can't keep your damn mouth shut can you?" He drew his hand back again and Kaylee just tucked into a ball waiting for the impact. "The money they pay us for you isn't even worth it!" Kaylee felt the fist coiled with her side as she whimpered in pain another blow came then another and another.

Once the beatings let up for a moment she ran out of the room and outside. She didn't pay attention to the fact that the beatings had detained do to the fact the Mr. Brown was unconscious on the floor, she just ran for her life.

As the girl's bare feet slapped the cold March ground she didn't even feel the gravel biting into her soft flesh, nor the massive pain in her side. She just ran towards the mountains. 'Half a mile' she thought to herself 'half a mile and they shouldn't be able to find me among the trees.'

After running that half a mile she quickly realized she would have to go further into the mountains due to the lack of leaves on the trees. After running for another hour she was too exhausted to go on, and collapsed at the base of a tree. Her breathing didn't ease up it just got worse, she soon realized how much trouble she was in. her feet we're covered in dirt and blood and her cramps in her side weren't fading.

As black began to fill her vision and she slid down the base of the tree, she heard the crunch of the soft gravel beside her, and then the world was gone.

A/N: Please review.