Disclaimer: I don't own the movie or any of its characters, but I do own the plot.
Stitch watched as the men buried the box where Lilo was sleeping. He didn't understand. She was going to be scared when she woke up. He looked up at all the people around him, staring at the box, their faces wet. Their eyes were leaking. It was something Stitch learned that humans did when they were sad. But why would they be so sad about Lilo being buried in a box? Did they know she'd be scared, too? Then why weren't they saying anything to stop it?
"Why are they burying Lilo?" he asked, looking up at Nani. Why was she letting this happen?
The woman looked down at the little blue alien sadly. "It's because she's… she's dead, Stitch."
"What's 'dead'?" he asked, tilting his head in confusion, with one ear up and one ear down.
"It's when…" Nani's eyes started leaking faster, and her voice got quieter. "It's when someone leaves, and they can't come back…"
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Stitch was following Lilo on her way back from the store when it happened. A car turned the corner, moving erratically from right to left and back again. They were crossing the street while it was coming, but Lilo didn't notice. Stitch wasn't worrying, because they were on a short path called a 'crosswalk', and cars had to stop if someone was using the crosswalk.
But this one didn't.
It hit them head on, making Stitch groan. He was indestructible, but it still hurt to get run over. He pulled himself up and scuttled over to Lilo on all fours. The car had chosen now to stop, and they driver got out. He couldn't walk in a straight line as he also tried to approach the girl.
Stitch poked Lilo with a claw. "Lilo? Lilo, wake up." But she didn't, confusing the alien. The man was babbling words that the experiment couldn't understand. He knew the language well enough, but this man was slurring his words too heavily to make anything out. A large white vehicle arrived quickly, with flashing red lights. People got out of the vehicle, rolling a small table on wheels toward them. They lifted the little girl onto the table and put her in the vehicle. One of the people that had come out of it pulled out a small device that Stitch could now identify as a cell phone. Words were spoken, but Stitch wasn't paying attention. His eyes were on Lilo. What were these people going to do with her?
The last person got in the vehicle, and as it started up, Stitch latched himself to the bottom of it, being driven to a very large building. He crawled quickly behind the people with the table Lilo was on, but the doors shut in his face. He growled, but Lilo had taught him to be good, so he resisted his strong instinct to tear the doors off their hinges.
Moments later, Nani arrived. "Where is she?" Stitch pointed to the front door of the large building, and she dashed inside, leaving the alien all alone to wait.
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Stitch watched as the people that buried Lilo filled the hole up with dirt. The people that had watched the box slowly started to leave, leaving only Nani and Stitch left in the end. Finally, Nani sighed. "Stitch, we need to go home."
"Must stay here," Stitch said, shaking his head. He refused to leave Lilo alone while she slept. Once she woke up, she'd need someone to get her out.
Nani looked at the stone that marked where Lilo had been buried. Maybe someone had put it there so they'd remember where they put her and come back later to get her. Was it all just some weird game? Did Lilo know? "Stitch…"
"Lilo needs me to get her out when she wakes up," Stitch told the woman.
Nani's eyes began leaking again. "She doesn't need help… She's gone."
Stitch shook his head and pointed at the earth under which his friend was buried. "No, she there."
"Her body's there, but her mind… It's in a better place. She's with our parents, now."
Stitch tilted his head, confused again. "Stitch staying," he said adamantly. The woman realized that nothing she said was going to move the little alien. "Just be home soon," she told him before she left.
Stitch sat in front of the stone for hours. While it was true he only pretended to be a dog, he'd picked up certain traits of the furry creatures, such as their loyalty. He refused to leave until Lilo woke up so that they could go back together. After the fifth hour of waiting, his stomach growled. Reluctantly, he stood. "Stitch come back," he promised, leaving for home to get something in his system.
When he arrived, there was an air of sadness, the same sadness that had surrounded everyone earlier. The first person—well, not really a person, per se—he saw was Pleakley.
"Pleakley?" he asked, looking up at the yellow, one-eyed alien.
"Yes…?" Pleakley asked, wiping his eye. Even though he was an alien, the ex-Federation agent also leaked from the eyes when he was sad, as did Stitch's creator, Jumba. Only Stitch was the one that never leaked.
"What does 'dead' mean?" he asked, earning a strange sound from Pleakley. Experiment 626 had heard it a few times before. It came with the leaking when someone was especially sad.
"Dead is when… Dead is when people leave… and they never come back."
Stitch frowned. That was exactly what Nani told him, but it still didn't make any sense. Lilo wasn't gone, she was just asleep, in a box that people had buried. He shook his head and walked away. He'd have to ask someone else.
He found David next, who held Nani in that comforting embrace known as a hug. His eyes weren't leaking, but they looked like they were about to.
"What's 'dead'?" he asked the human male.
David looked at the little alien with sad eyes. "Dead is when people are gone, Stitch. People go away, and they can't come back."
"That what Pleakley said," Stitch said, annoyed. He pointed a claw in the direction of the box. "Lilo still here."
"Alright, um… It's when people fall asleep and they never wake up."
Never wake up? But everyone had to wake up sometime. Stitch shook his head, leaving. Why could no one explain the meaning of the word to him? There was only one member of their ohana left to turn to. The Experiment climbed up the wall, and darted up the stairs and into the room that Jumba used as a bedroom/lab.
"Hello, 626," the four-eyed alien told his creation as Stitch sat in front of him. He seemed to be calm, but Stitch had come to know the scientist well enough to see that he was hurting inside. Even he had become attached to Lilo. But why was everyone getting so sad? "What are you needing?"
"What is 'dead'?" Stitch asked, repeating his question for the fourth time that day. "Everyone say it means someone gone, but…" He pointed out the window. "Lilo's not gone."
Jumba sighed, thinking. It looked like he was trying to think of a better way to explain it than the others had. "Death is… Is like when you break toy, yes?"
Stitch cocked his head, showing his confusion.
"When toy is broken," Jumba explained, "it can't work. When person dies, their heart stops beating." He poked Stitch in the chest. "This is where heart is. Heart controls body, so when heart stops working, person dies. Dead person is like broken toy, only… Is no fixing dead person…"
Stitch stared up at his creator. He finally understood what 'death' meant. Lilo wasn't going to wake up. He wasn't going to be able to go and get her, and bring her home. The instant he realized this, his ears lay flat. A pain filled his chest. "It hurts," he told Jumba. "Here." He touched his chest.
"Is called 'mourning'," the purple-ish alien explained. "You miss little girl." Stitch nodded. "Is okay. I miss her too, 626."
The Experiment dashed to the elevator and rode it up to their room. Once he was there, he hopped up on Lilo's bed, and allowed himself to return to his true form. All four arms wrapped around Scrump, the doll he knew Lilo had worked so hard to make. She had made it before he'd landed on Earth, but she was so proud of it, and it, along with the picture of her parents, were among her most prized possessions.
Stitch buried his face in the head of the doll. When he finally pulled his head away, he noticed tiny wet spots.
His eyes were leaking.
Alright, love it? Hate it? I enjoyed writing this, though it was really sad. I mean, I can see Stitch as not really understanding what death really is. Jumba created him a monster of destruction, so he didn't program the little alien with an understanding of death, because it might make Stitch second-guess what he was doing, and make him reject his original purpose (though he did that anyway).