Disclaimer: I do not own the characters to this story they are owned by their prospective creators.

Chapter 1

A girl of about eleven sat in front of a girl of about twelve, the two of them taking turns doing each other's hair before school. One girl had pink hair and the other had light brown hair.

"Aelita, can you not make me look like a little kid?" the brunette girl complained. "I may be a little fifth grader at the academy but I don't always want to be known as the little Hopper baby."

"Why would you be called the Hopper baby? Tell me who has been calling you names, Ashley," the older girl demanded.

"I don't know! Maybe because I have been really emotional this past year with Mamma dying and all the problems with Daddy. Do you think he will be able to keep his job at the academy?"

"Ashley, why would you say that?" Aelita demanded, looking strictly at her sister.

"Last week, during the faculty meeting while you were out hanging with Chris Morales, I was spying on some of the teachers during their break and they were saying that Daddy was losing his touch," Ashley confessed. Knowing that she was about to get in a lot of trouble, she put her head down.

"Ashley, who told you you could spy on the teachers? You were supposed to be out in the yard with me, or was that the time you ran in to use the bathrooms?"

"It was that time. I swear I only listened for a short while."

"I am sure the teachers meant something else, and what did Mom always tell us about eavesdropping?" Aelita looked at her sister and set the brush down. "Come on, Ash, I don't want to be late, I promised Chris I would join him for breakfast at the academy so we could study for that big history test this afternoon."

Walking downstairs, they grabbed their bikes off of the porch and rode to school like they had for the whole year since Ashley had become old enough to attend Kadic.

On the way into school, Ashley looked at her exam schedule, "Oh no! Aelita, can you give me some pointers in basic algebra? My exam for that class is today."

Looking at the time for the class, Aelita sighed. "Ashley, I told you, you should've studied more last weekend. You know algebra is not your strong point. But yes, I can help you during lunch."

"Oh, thank you, Aelita, you're the best big sis ever. I know now I should've studied but the Delmas baby is just so cute and Mrs. Delmas is paying me to help her." Ashley grinned as she remember fondly of the little two year old who was just a ball of fire.

"I can't believe it, the last day of school. This is going to be the most perfect summer ever because once again we are in the same school with similar circles of friends," Ashley squealed at her sister a year later. However, the excitement from each of their faces faded when they walked inside and their father, who always had last period off, was sitting at the kitchen table instead of playing his usual on the piano.

Aelita walked over to her father and proceeded to massage his shoulders, which she knew he loved. "Daddy, is something wrong?"

"No, nothing that can't be fixed is wrong. However, I have made my mind up that one of you is going to live with your aunt in the United States. I have a plane ticket for next week."

The sudden news shocked both of the girls hard. They ran up to their shared room and huddled on the bottom bunk, scared and disbelieving. Ashley whimpered, "I wonder which one of us is leaving?" She cried before hugging her sister, "Oh, Aelita, I don't know what I would do without you helping me with my schoolwork."

"Don't worry, Ashley," Aelita consoled her sister. She frowned, and said, "I'm s ure Daddy is just stressed and maybe after a few days of summer break he'll come to his senses and change his mind."

By the end of the week they still had not heard which one of them were leaving. They began to think that their father had come around and the whole thing was over with until Aelita noticed a plane ticket stuck to the refrigerator.

Ashley cried herself to sleep that night. "I bet it's me! Have you noticed Daddy has been distancing himself from me the last week? When we came up here for bed he didn't even say "I love you, angel" to me."

"No, Ashley, if he's sending anyone away it is me because I look a lot like Mommy and I thought he was going to send me away right after the funeral. I just never told you." Aelita comforted her sister.

The next morning was the day the flight was marked to leave. Both girls went to go say goodbye to their friends, as they still didn't know which one of them were leaving. When they came back all, of Ashley's clothes and personal items were in three suitcases sitting on the porch. Sitting down, she bawled her eyes out until her father brought the car around.

"Aelita, I need you to go pack a bag with some clothes. Mr. Delmas has agreed to let you stay with them for a few days while I drop your sister off with your aunt." He grabbed Ashley's hand. "Come on now, Ashley. Wipe the tears off your face, it will be much better for you with your aunt."

Andros woke up to find himself being tossed out of bed. At first he thought the Megaship had encountered some turbulence, sleepily remembering that he and Ashley and Carlos were on tour to promote peace to a prospective new member of the Kerovian alliance.

Then he realized the ship was still and it was Ashley, his wife of a year and a half, tossing in bed. She never did that and he woke up a little more, a little bit worried. She mumbled in a language that he didn't recognize—not Kerovian and definitely not English, but he couldn't place it.

He tried to shake her awake, but she just started yelling and showed no signs of waking. Andros stood up and slipped on his uniform. On the bridge he found Carlos sitting watch, even though it wasn't necesssary.

"Old habits die hard, I see. Take you off the Megaship for a few years and you still act the way you did when we were at war."

"I just couldn't sleep, what about you?" Carlos replied.

"I was sleeping until I got tossed out of bed by my sweetheart tossing and uttering words I have never heard her speak before," Andros said. He frowned, struck by a sudden memory. "Actually, come to think of it… She did this once last year, but she wasn't nearly this upset."

"Well, I have a pretty good guess as to the language she was speaking," Carlos offered. "But I've only known her since she moved Angel Grove, so I don't know too much more than that, though. My guess was she was screaming in French. But don't ask me any more then that because once she became more confident in her English—after sixth grade, she was almost silent that year—she hardly ever spoke in French, much less talked about her past," he explained as he thought back to when he had first met Ashley.

He was sitting in his sixth grade classroom and Mrs. Drame was walking around the room learning each of the kids names. It was a welcome distraction when the door opened and a young girl wearing a yellow shirt and her hair to the side walked in with a teacher's aide. After talking quietly to the teacher, the aide introduced herself as Mrs. Meilstrup and the girl with her as Ashley. She explained to the class that she would be with them for a good part of the year, seeing as Ashley knew very little English.

He knew that when she talked for the first part of the year it was with her translator and it always seemed to refer to her school work. It wasn't till seventh grade that he really heard her speak English confidently to another person and come out of her shell but even then it was limited. Once her English got better he never heard her speak French in public; in fact, when he officially became his friend in eighth grade, her French accent was fading and she spoke entirely in English. Better than he spoke it, even.

"Something must really be bothering her, because after I became a real friend of hers when we were in the eighth grade I once asked her to teach me some French. She told me that she knew enough English to never again speak it. To this day, I haven't heard her speak one word of French," Carlos said, coming out of his daydream of when he had first met Ashley.

Andros sighed, wondering if there was anything that could be done for Ashley. He knew that if this was going to be anything like last year, she would wake up in the morning and insist everything was alright and never speak of it. "I'm going to surprise her with a trip to France," he decided. "Maybe going back to her home country would convince her to talk about her nightmares."

He thought for another minute, and then nodded. "I'm turning the ship around, we are ahead of schedule and I have been wanting a vacation with Ashley so we are going to get one."

"Be careful, Andros," Carlos warned him. "I have no idea about how she would react to a surprise trip to France, seeing how reluctant she is to talk about her life there."

"I know what I am doing." Andros grinned. "Have you ever seen Ashley stay mad at me for more then a few moments?"