Well, this is probably one of the longest chapters I've ever done. And without a doubt the most confusing ^^;

Just thrown another bunch of OCs in here, just because I can XD

This chapter probably doesnt make that much sense this early on, but it'll be explained later on.

But for now, just read on and review for me please!

Onwards...


Star date: 2258

Location: Earth

A dull pain thudded steadily through her head, keeping in perfect time with every beat of her heart. Her eyelids fluttered twice before opening fully, and she found herself laid in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, staring up at the ceiling. She tried to sit up, but the injuries that littered her small frame made her body scream in agonised protest and she fell heavily back down onto the soft mattress.

When she opened her eyes again, she realised she must've blacked out for a few moments because a blurry pair of dark brown eyes that hadn't been there before were now staring down at her. Recognition dawned instantly and a weak smile spread across her face.

"Spock…" She rasped, her voice burning her throat from lack of use. But she didn't care. She'd escaped, and she'd found him. That's all that mattered now. Ambassador Spock…

The eyes widened in confusion, then moved closer as their owner leaned forwards.

"Who's Spock?" A youthful voice asked. T'Amona frowned, blinking a few times to clear her vision. The eyes were indeed a rich chocolate colour, but a few shades lighter than the ones she knew. A face came into view, an obviously Terran child's pinkish skin with a smattering of freckles dusted across the nose and cheeks. Messy dark blond hair covered his scalp, stray tendrils hanging low in front of his eyes.

"Who are you, alien girl?" The human boy inquired, reaching out with one hand to touch the tip of T'Amona's pointed ears. T'Amona flinched and surged backwards to get away from his outstretched fingers, ignoring the overwhelming pain that wracked her body from the movement. The child stopped, frowning uncertainly.

"What's wrong? I'm not going to hurt you; I just wanted to touch your ears. They're so weird…"

He reached out again and this time T'Amona seized hold of his slim wrist, gripping tight enough for the boy to wince in discomfort. With her Vulcan strength she could easily snap the bone like a twig, so she was careful to hold back enough to make sure she didn't break his skinny arm.

"Don't touch me, Terran." She hissed with more panic than fury. The child's eyes had widened again, only this time in fear that the alien girl with weird ears might not be as delicate and harmless as she appeared. Hating seeing that look in his eyes, T'Amona averted her gaze from the boy, suddenly noticing that her hands were wrapped up tightly in bandages, only the pale green-tinted skin of her fingertips showing. Bile rose swiftly in her throat as she remembered exactly what had happened to her hands that made them need to be bandaged, and she released her grasp on the boy's arm to grab her stomach as it lurched.

"Don't throw up!" The boy cried out in alarm, stepping swiftly back out of projectile vomit range. T'Amona very nearly rolled her eyes at him in a very un-Vulcan way. Not that she was worthy of the Vulcan way, as some certain senile old bastards had so delicately pointed out… But that seemed like a lifetime ago. Although that didn't stop it from hurting her now just as much as it had done back on Vulcan.

"I won't." She assured him when her stomach settled. The boy looked relieved, but then he narrowed his eyes at her as though something had just occurred to him.

"And my name isn't Terran. I'm Damien." He pointed out, his chest thrust outwards proudly. T'Amona resisted the urge to swat the smartass child upside the head.

"I know your name isn't Terran. That's your race, moron." She sighed, and then mentally winced as she replayed her own words in her mind. Gods, she was even starting to talk like them now. As if she couldn't insult the impure blood that ran through her veins any more than she already had.

Damien's freckled cheeks flushed red and he glared at the pointy-eared alien girl laid on the bed before him. T'Amona guessed it was actually his bed she was laid on, judging by the small planets and spaceships that decorated the typically boyish dark blue pillows and quilt.

"I knew that." He insisted, his chin jutting out in defiance. T'Amona felt the corners of her lips quirk and a single tapered eyebrow lift slightly in amusement.

"So what's your name then, alien girl?" Damien said, not so subtly changing the subject.

"T'Amona."

"Tah Moaner?"

This time she couldn't hold back the eyeroll as she spelt her name out for him.

Damien mouthed the name a few times, then fell silent for a moment, his expression thoughtful.

"That's not a normal name." He spoke suddenly. T'Amona brushed her long tresses of pure black onyx back from her face, pointedly avoiding looking at her hands.

"I never said it was."

"You're not Terran, are you?"

"Well done." T'Amona deadpanned. The sarcasm didn't pass unnoticed by the young boy, and he scowled in response, sticking his tongue out at her in that obnoxious way that only children of all species and races under the age of ten could pull off so successfully.

"So what are you?"

"I'm Vulcan." 'Well, part of me is, anyway…'

"I've no idea what a Vulcan is. I'll ask my mom later. I'd ask you to tell me all about Vulcans now, but my mom told me not to disturb you."

'And yet you disturbed me anyway.' T'Amona thought wryly. Although that wasn't entirely true. He hadn't woken her up, and she supposed it was only natural for Terran children to play with whatever new toy was tossed their way. Damien was only curious, after all. An annoying smartass little brat, true, but curious. It was just her bad luck that she happened to be the new toy in question.

"Mom said you needed to recover. You were pretty messed up when we found you on our doorstep. What happened?"

T'Amona shut her eyes, casting her mind back. Her memory was dark and blurred, pain transferring through and blocking out most of the sight. She remembered gripping the controls of a small shuttle in her wounded hands… crash-landing into a hillside of lush green grass and rich brown soil… twisted metal all around her as she crawled from the wreckage… limping towards a lone house on the horizon, about a mile away… collapsing against the door, pounding at the solid wood with the last of her strength as she sunk to the dirt at her feet… everything fading to black…

And then waking to find herself somewhere unknown, bandaged and aching, with no-one but some obnoxious human kid for company. T'Amona's tapered eyebrows furrowed slightly in irritation before her eyes flickered open again.

"I don't remember." She lied smoothly, internally wincing as she did so. It was better to tell the boy that rather than the truth. It was a long story, and one that she didn't ever want to relive again as long as she breathed.

Damien looked disappointed at this, but thankfully he decided to drop it. T'Amona braced her arms on the mattress and tried to heave herself to her feet, but the room spun alarmingly and her weak legs struggled to hold her weight. She would've hurtled headfirst down onto the carpet if two small but surprisingly strong hands hadn't grabbed hold of her around the waist and steadied her until she regained some of her balance.

"I told you not to touch me." T'Amona ground out through teeth gritted against the unbearable sting of her wounds. Damien's hands tightened around her slim midriff and his head came into view from under her arm.

"It was either that or I let you fall and break your neck, alien girl." He growled in annoyance. T'Amona decided not to answer, fully aware that she was leaning against the boy for support. And it was then, as she glanced down at the shorter youth keeping her upright, that she suddenly realised that her traditional Vulcan robes had been replaced with an oversized black shirt that practically smothered her slight frame. But even though the shirt was many sizes too big, the hem only just ended a little past mid-thigh, and T'Amona had never felt so naked in her entire life.

'If the elders could see me now,' She thought, fighting to keep the green flush of embarrassment from tingeing her cheeks, 'They'd probably have a heart attack or something.'

"Where are my clothes?" T'Amona directed the question downwards to the boy whose arms were still clamped securely around her waist to prevent any chance of her taking another nosedive to the carpet. Her voice came out a little less composed than she would've liked, but apparently Damien didn't notice.

"Over there." He replied, removing one arm from her to point to a neatly folded pile of black material on the seat of a small mahogany chair by the foot of the bed. T'Amona nodded her thanks, and then paused expectantly for a moment. Neither of them moved. Obviously Damien hadn't got the message.

A few more beats of silence passed before T'Amona let an impatient noise leave her lips, and the clueless kid blinked up at her, frowning in confusion. The Vulcan girl stared coolly straight back at the Terran boy, raising a single eyebrow pointedly.

"What?" He demanded indignantly, but T'Amona didn't need to answer because comprehension suddenly dawned. "Oh… Well, why didn't you just say so?!"

Damien's expression was one of complete annoyance as he stomped off towards the door, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his faded jeans as he muttered under his breath about 'stupid Vulcan prudes' and 'How was I supposed to know? I'm not a goddamn mind reader'. The kid didn't realise just how lucky he was as he shut the door behind him, because T'Amona had been literally a second away from seizing hold of the first thing that came to hand and throwing it so hard at the irritating Terran brat that it would've undoubtedly separated his head from his shoulders.

Now that she was alone, T'Amona turned her back to the door and reached across the bed for her clothes. She knew that when she'd first arrived here, her high-necked, long-sleeved, floor-length robes had been torn in many places, splattered with blood, dirt and who knows what else. But now as she picked them up and unfolded them in her arms, she noticed that they looked as good as new. Better than new, even. Someone had washed and repaired her clothes for her while she'd been unconscious. That same someone who had also taken the damaged Vulcan stranger into their home, tended to her injuries and let her recover in one of their beds. T'Amona realised she had a lot of thanking to do to that someone. Unable to resist, T'Amona pressed her face into the fabric of her robes, breathing in and losing herself to the wonderful soothing scent of honeysuckle.

The unmistakable sound of a small fist pounding against solid oak on the other side of the door tore her swiftly back to reality, and she couldn't stop herself from glaring over at the door, even though she knew Damien couldn't see her through the wood.

"Are you done yet, alien girl?" He whined, giving one last thump to the door for good measure. T'Amona muttered a curse in Vulcan under her breath as she pulled the too-big t-shirt up and over her head, wobbling a little on her unsteady legs.

"No, I'm not." T'Amona responded sharply, thinking that if that kid opened the door right now when she was half-in, half-out of her clothes, she'd kick his scrawny ass straight into next year. And that wasn't just an empty threat either.

As she stepped into her robes, T'Amona noticed that her torso was also wrapped up tight in bandages, which meant that the deep wound that marred her back had been tended to as well as her hands. She was grateful for this, but she couldn't help feeling slightly nauseous at the fact that someone had actually seen her injuries. She'd been trying so hard to deny their existence from the moment she'd received them, but now somebody knew about them, it made it so much harder to hide them beneath the naïve little lies she'd been intending to tell.

"Vulcans can't lie, remember?" T'Amona whispered to herself, a spike of anger jolting through her chest as her nimble fingers worked the clasps of her clothing. "You're just proving those bastards right…"

Her fingertips brushed against the soft skin of her neck as she fastened the last few clasps. Her throat still burned horribly, and felt tender to the touch. And no wonder, thanks to the necklace of inky black bruises that encircled it. Luckily her clothing was high-necked enough to hide them from view, and the rest of her robes did an excellent job of concealing everything else, injured or not, beneath the folds of ebony material.

"I'm ready now." T'Amona called to the child sulking out in the hallway, and she smoothed the silky material of her long skirt with both hands as the door opened and Damien re-entered the room.

He narrowed his eyes as he cast his gaze over her whole body, starting from her feet and working upwards with a slight scowl on his youthful face as he took in her whole appearance.

"You look weird." He stated. Apparently the boy wasn't old enough to fully understand the wondrous skill that was tact.

"Thank you." T'Amona responded acidly, sweeping her long hair back over her shoulder in one fluidly graceful motion. Damien gave her another unnecessary look of appraisal and she noticed how his chocolate-coloured orbs lingered on her hands. Feeling strangely self-conscious, T'Amona tugged her sleeves down a little further to hide more of the bandages from his prying eyes, keeping her features as stoic as she could. Damien's frown deepened momentarily, then his brow cleared and he shrugged indifferently as though he couldn't care less.

"Those clothes make you look weird. You'd look pretty in jeans, I think." He continued, gesturing to her robes with distaste. Both of T'Amona's eyebrows rose up this time as she shot him a glare so cold that the young Terran actually took a hasty step backwards with his palms splayed out towards her in surrender.

"N-not that you aren't pretty now or anything!" He backtracked quickly, his brown eyes flashing with panic. "Because you are. Pretty, I mean. Well, for an alien, anyway."

T'Amona's glare grew colder still.

"Ok, ok! I'm sorry! You look great, all scary and sinister and just… just great." Damien beamed up at her hopefully, tugging nervously at a lock of his dark blond hair. T'Amona stared at him in silence for a while, watching him fidget under the intensity of her gaze. Eventually her features softened and her lips curled into a small smile.

"Thank you." She repeated, only this time the tone of her voice was lighter and could've almost been triumphant. Damien scowled and looked as though he was about to say something else, but obviously thought better of it and closed his mouth.

T'Amona's smile was now closer to a smirk than a smile.

"Where are your parents, kid?" T'Amona asked as the thought suddenly occurred to her. She still had her gratitude to give for their hospitality. Damien bristled a little at being called 'kid', much to T'Amona's amusement, but he jerked his thumb over his shoulder back towards the doorway.

"Mom and dad are in the front room. They were arguing about you when I came in here to check on you, so I bet they're still at it now."

T'Amona blinked, inclining her head at him in confusion.

"Arguing about me?"

"Yeah," Damien nodded, grimacing slightly. "They're sort of… well, you'll find out when we get there."

The kid turned to go, glancing back at T'Amona to see if she was following him. Swallowing thickly, T'Amona tested her weight on her legs and made to step forwards but her knees once again caved, and once again Damien had to rush to grab her before she fell.

"Why can't I walk?!" T'Amona snarled angrily at herself as she clutched at Damien like a lifeline. Damien's hands held her securely by the waist as they had done before, and she felt him shrug against her arm.

"Mom said you'll be weak for a while until you're well enough to move around on your own. She said you should stay in bed for as long as possible, but somehow I don't think you will. Do you want me to help you, or am I still not allowed to touch you?"

"I'd… appreciate your help, Damien." T'Amona replied, putting her arm around his shoulder to lean on him. Damien smiled up at her, a wide genuine smile that made unexpected warmth build up a little in her chest as they made their way slowly but surely towards the door.

"They're sort of… well, you'll find out when we get there."

That hadn't sounded very optimistic to T'Amona from the very second the words had left the boy's mouth, but she let him patiently lead her through the door, across a hallway and down a staircase. T'Amona was curious as to her whereabouts, and she'd intended to take in as much of her surroundings as she possibly could, but she couldn't concentrate on anything other than how much pain she was in. Her legs trembled uncontrollably beneath her and her hands throbbed beneath their bandages. Her back felt like a hundred heated blades had been stabbed simultaneously up the entire length of her spine, and her left shoulder seared painfully whenever she moved it, but she knew that was from when she'd slammed the dislocated limb back into its socket herself a few moments after her shuttle's collision into the Terran hillside.

"Hey, are you ok?" Damien spoke up suddenly, trying to peer up into the delicate Vulcan features shaded by the perfectly straight jet-black fringe hanging low in front of her eyes as T'Amona kept her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. She looked up, smiling briefly at him, noticing the worried expression on his youthful face.

"I'm fine. Just sore, is all." She assured him. Damien frowned sceptically, and that frown only deepened when his hand accidentally pressed a little too hard against her back and she had to bite back a groan of pain. The boy opened his mouth to pry further, but she just shook her head once, dipping her face back down to stare at the floor again.

Damien helped her down the last few stairs, heading towards the first door on the left, which was wide open and T'Amona's pointed ears pricked up beneath her hair, her sharper-than-human hearing picking up the heated murmuring of two voices, a man and a woman, obviously deep in hushed argument.

"…We have no idea where she came from or how she ended up here, Sophie." The man hissed angrily in a deep cultured tenor.

"We know exactly where she came from, Kyle. She's Vulcan, for God's sake! Where else could she come from?! And she's injured, so she's staying here with us until she recovers." The woman retorted, her voice somehow managing to sound soft and musical even when strained with fury. T'Amona and Damien came to a halt by the doorway, not yet stepping into view of his parents. T'Amona glanced at the young human and he shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'I told you so', before they both leaned forwards to peer around the doorframe.

A Terran couple stood in the middle of the room in front of the fire that danced and crackled in the hearth. The man was tall and lean, with a severe expression on his pale face. His hair was a light brown colour flecked with grey and was long, pulled back from his face in a loose ponytail. The flames were reflected in his narrow hazel eyes as he glared down at his wife, a small slender woman with shoulder-length blond curls and eyes of a rich chocolate brown. Obviously Damien's looks were inherited more from his mother's side than his father's.

"Are you out of your mind?! She can't stay here! We've barely got enough for the three of us without another mouth to feed!"

"We can't just throw her out! She's little more than a child!"

"She's not our responsibility."

"Oh yes, she damn well is! You weren't here earlier when I found that poor child unconscious and bleeding on our doorstep! You didn't see the state she was in! That girl's been through a living hell, and she's not leaving this house until she's back to full health. I won't stand by and watch you force a wounded child from our home just because we can't afford to look after her."

"So you'd rather we starve, just to keep some Vulcan alive?!" Damien's father's anger was no longer quiet as his enraged shout echoed throughout the entire house. T'Amona and Damien stayed completely silent, exchanging quick looks with each other. The kid's face was stark white, his brown orbs impossibly wide in his head. He was trembling beside her and his eyes glistened wetly, and T'Amona acted without thinking or hesitating, draping her arms around him and drawing him close to her body where he hugged her tightly, his hands gripping fistfuls of her black robes.

"What's the point?! It's not like she's got anything to live for!"

"Kyle!" The woman gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth at the shock of her husbands vicious words.

"It's true!" He raged on, his face flushed red with fury. "Her planet's been destroyed! Most of her people are dead! That girl is part of a dying race, Sophie, so you tell me what the hell she's got left to live for!!"

"Vulcan is… gone?"

Both humans jerked in surprise and their heads whipped around simultaneously to stare wide-eyed at the source of the new voice that had just spoken, carrying easily across the room despite being barely louder than a whisper. The Vulcan girl stood in the doorway, the Terran child still clinging to her, although now she knew he was staring at her just like his parents were. T'Amona's eyes stared straight back at them, but she saw nothing. All her previous pain was swiftly washed away by the feeling of pure numbness spreading through her limbs. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true! Vulcan can't be… gone

The Terran couple seemed frozen to the spot, their expressions of shock and horror perfectly identical. The silence hung thick and heavy in the room, and T'Amona felt as though she were drowning in it. It was clogging up her airway, blocking her throat, suffocating her. She swayed unsteadily, her hands coming swiftly up to cradle her head as her mind reeled from the onslaught of mental anguish, darkness creeping inwards from the corners of her vision. She didn't realise she was falling until two pairs of hands caught her this time, a familiar small pair gripping her waist so tightly that she grimaced from the pain, and a new pair clasped securely around the tops of her arms.

"Are you alright?" The woman asked, and the scent of honeysuckle once again caught T'Amona's nose. One pink Terran hand moved up from T'Amona's shoulder and brushed back the sleek black fringe, pressing the palm flat against the hot greenish skin of her forehead. The emotional transference from the contact of the human skin against hers made a rush of guilt and concern jolt through her body from the woman holding her.

"Whoa, you're burning up, honey. You shouldn't be out of bed so soon, let me help you back upstairs."

"No…" T'Amona murmured, not even bothering to point out that Vulcans naturally had a higher body temperature than humans, and that if she weren't burning up right now, then there was something seriously wrong.

"Ok, now you just breathe for a minute. You'll be ok. You'll be fine."

"Thank you…" T'Amona panted softly, the darkness starting to slowly recede from her eyesight. "…But please… don't touch me…"

Damien's mother's eyes shone with momentary hurt before she understood what the girl meant. Vulcans avoided physical contact as much as they possibly could. Being touch-telepaths, it was understandable. Or rather, it was logical. Of course it was logical. Everything Vulcan was logical.

The hand swiftly left her forehead and the emotions that had accompanied it vanished along with it, much to T'Amona's internal relief. She absently noted that Damien was still clutching her around the waist, but he'd loosened his death-grip a little so his hold was a little more comfortable than before. Illogically, she made no move to remove him from her.

The Terran woman stepped back, giving T'Amona some space.

"I'm Sophie." She introduced herself with a kind smile, then gestured behind her to her husband who still stood by the fireplace, his features pinched and his mouth pressed into a thin line. His expression was a strange mixture of anger, embarrassment and guilt, his hazel eyes fixed firmly on the injured stranger. "And this is my husband, Kyle. You've already met Damien, obviously. Even though I told him not to disturb you."

The last part of that sentence was aimed at her young son, paired with a stern frown to hit the point home. T'Amona felt Damien wince against her side as he untangled his arms completely from around her and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, a red flush dusting his freckled cheeks. He looked ready to protest his innocence to his chastising mother, but no words left his lips when an unexpected bandaged hand gently touched his shoulder.

"My name is T'Amona. Please do not blame the boy; he did not disturb me. I was already awake when he made his presence known to me." T'Amona addressed his parents respectfully, her voice returning gracefully into the soft cultured tones that were expected of her as one of her race. She made sure that her face gave away absolutely no emotion whatsoever and let go of Damien's shoulder to fold her hands demurely in front of her. A picture of poise and diplomacy, the perfect example of a typical Vulcan female.

Damien immediately noticed the difference and gawped up at her in bewilderment, but she ignored his gaze, staring straight ahead. Both Sophie and Kyle looked a little taken aback from been spoken to so courteously by someone much younger than themselves.

"Vulcan is gone?" T'Amona inquired again, her cool exterior giving nothing away of the horrible pain and dread consuming her from inside except of the almost imperceptible trembling of her hands. Sophie and Kyle had the grace to look ashamed.

"I'm so sorry, honey…" Sophie started sympathetically, confirming T'Amona's worst fears.

'Gone… the whole planet… everyone I know is dead…' T'Amona's breath hitched in her throat as she desperately fought the tears that were threatening to overflow. 'No… my mother… my mother was… is… no…'

"How?" T'Amona demanded icily, cutting across the woman to instead direct the question to her husband. She didn't want condolences. She didn't want to break down and sob in front of this Terran family. She didn't want their pity, their kind words, their comforting hands. She wanted answers, and she wanted to be able to grieve the loss of her planet and her mother alone.

"It was destroyed a little over a week ago." Kyle replied with obvious reluctance, shifting his weight slightly as his eyes looked anywhere but into hers. "We don't know exactly how it happened, but it was reported that a Romulan named Nero was responsible."

T'Amona inhaled sharply through her nose, her spine stiffening so abruptly that several vertebrae cracked loudly in protest, the unpleasant noise echoing through her entire body. Nero… Of course he was the destroyer of Vulcan. Never had there been such a man driven by so much bitterness and rage, craving revenge enough to wipe out almost an entire race. Maybe he actually had succeeded in total genocide. Maybe T'Amona was the only one of her kind left in existence. Ambassador Spock was still missing. She hadn't been able to find him. Had he returned to his home planet somehow and perished along with the rest of Vulcan? Was T'Amona truly alone now?

"T'Amona?" A voice spoke softly from about a metre away from her, the sound slicing through the thick mist that had shrouded her mind as effectively as any blade. Before she could react, a small hand reached out and gently took hold of one of her bandaged hands. T'Amona glanced downwards in surprise and saw a pair of rich chocolate-coloured eyes staring remorsefully back up at her from beneath stray locks of dark blond hair.

And it was at that moment she realised she felt nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

There should've been the rush of emotional transference pouring from the young boy into her, the slight tingling feeling they should've both received from the skin-to-skin contact. There should've even been some unintentional misplaced pleasure since Vulcan hands were one of the most major erogenous parts of their anatomy. But there was none of any of that. All she could feel was the pressure of his hand in hers, nothing more. Her hands were more damaged than she'd originally thought. Her hands were dead.

No… they weren't dead.

They were human.

T'Amona tore her hand away from Damien's so fast that she nearly overbalanced on her still unsteady legs. The responding flash of hurt that burned in his eyes made T'Amona feel as though he'd just stuck his hand into her chest and squeezed her heart in a steely vice-like grip, although she knew that was both physically impossible and illogical to even consider. She had to turn away from him.

"I wish to thank you and your family for your generous hospitality." She told Damien's parents, who had remained silent throughout the previous exchange. They were stood side by side now, but T'Amona couldn't remember noticing them move. Sophie and Kyle nodded congenially back at her, Sophie with a kind yet sad smile and Kyle with an unreadable expression on his stern features.

"I am eternally indebted to you, and should we ever meet again, I would be honoured to repay the favour in whatever way I can." T'Amona continued, brushing her fingertips together lightly and once again feeling nothing. "I am sorry for intruding in your house for so long, and I believe I have outstayed my welcome, so I will take my leave now."

"Now?" Sophie blurted out in surprise, glancing over at the large window set in the wall to her far left. T'Amona followed her gaze and stared through the transparent glass, out into the darkness of night that blackened the horizon.

"You don't have to leave right now, T'Amona. And you haven't outstayed your welcome at all. You've barely been here for three hours, you still need more time to recover." Sophie smiled warmly at her. "Stay the night. It's much safer here than wondering around alone at this time of night. Especially for someone in your condition, honey. We don't want to let you go until we know for sure that you're well enough."

T'Amona considered the suggestion for a moment.

"That is logical." She agreed, inclining her head towards the blonde Terran woman graciously. Sophie looked delighted as she clapped her hands together once as she made her way back towards T'Amona.

"Do you want me to help you back upstairs, honey?" She asked. T'Amona shook her head and cast her eyes down to the floor almost humbly, ignoring the fact that she could feel three pairs of Terran eyes drilling into her slender form, two in front and one from behind.

"I would like some privacy. I need to be alone for a while. To mourn the loss of my people, if you please."

"Of course, of course. Oh, there's a wonderful little spot out back. It's a few minutes walk from here just up the hillside. Its nice and quiet, and you'll find that the view of the city below is just spectacular." Sophie told her, gesturing the direction to go with her delicate hands. "It's the perfect place to just sit and think, to clear your head, so to speak. Very relaxing. Though it might be a little cold out there tonight. Will you be alright in those clothes or would you like to borrow a coat?"

"I will be fine like this, thank you."

Without another word, T'Amona turned and walked briskly across the room, heading towards the door that led out back. As she opened the door and stepped outside, the sharp chill of the night air attacked her instantly, stinging her face and sending her long ebony tresses and her similar coloured robes flaring out behind her in the breeze as she began to walk up the hillside.

'How could I have lost so much so quickly?' T'Amona thought in despair, lifting her face towards the starlit sky and gazing out into space beyond. 'Mother… Vulcan… And I still don't know if Ambassador Spock is still alive. The Terran was right. I don't have anything left to live for. All I can do now is grieve.'

Her vision burned, then turned blurry. T'Amona blinked, and the first of many tears fell down to the earth at her feet.


The Terran family watched as the young Vulcan stranger left their house, and Damien continued to stare after her until long after her slender form had been completely swallowed by the darkness. He couldn't explain it, but for some reason he felt drawn to the strange alien girl. She was mysterious and she confused the hell out of him, and yet that only made him more curious about her. Obviously she'd been through something really bad to get so hurt, and then to find out that her planet and her people have been completely wiped out… She must be totally broken. Damien knew he would be in the same situation. Only what he couldn't understand is why she didn't show any of it. In his bedroom when he'd been talking to her, he thought he'd been getting to know her. But then when she'd spoken to his parents downstairs, she'd been a different person entirely. And Damien wasn't sure which one of the two was the real T'Amona. He hoped it was the first one. The other was just too… cold.

Damien's mother sighed suddenly, and Damien tore his gaze away from the place he'd last seen T'Amona to instead stare up at her questioningly.

"That poor girl." Sophie murmured as she crossed the room and gently closed the door that T'Amona had forgotten to shut behind her. "And to find out about her planet in that way… we could've handled that with a little bit more tact."

She shot a spiteful glare of blame at her husband. Kyle didn't respond to the glare or his wife's words, probably because he hadn't been paying attention. The expression on his face was unreadable as he too stared after their newest houseguest just like his son had.

"There's something not right about that Vulcan." He said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as his hazel eyes narrowed. Sophie looked like she wanted to slap him.

"For God's sake, Kyle! Haven't you caused enough damage already?!" She shouted, making both Kyle and Damien jump at the unexpected outburst. Twin pink spots of rage stood out vividly on the blonde woman's fair cheeks. Damien had never seen her so angry.

Kyle bristled in irritation, throwing his wife a dirty scowl.

"I didn't mean it like that!" He hissed heatedly. "It's just that… well, it's her eyes. They're not normal."

"Of course they're not normal to us, you idiot!"

"No, I mean they're not normal for a Vulcan."

Sophie put her hands on her hips, shaking her head in agitation, sending her blond curls bouncing around her face and shoulders.

"And just how do you know what's 'normal' for a Vulcan?" Sophie growled.

"I've met my fair share of Vulcans over the years, Sophie. Trust me when I say that our eyes are more Vulcan than hers." Kyle paused for a moment, turning his intense unreadable gaze back to the window before continuing on in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. "That girl is more than she pretends to be."

A heavy silence fell over them, only the crackling of the fire in the hearth breaking through the hush. Sophie looked about as confused as Damien felt, but before she could ask her husband what the hell he was talking about, Damien moved beside his mother and gently tugged her skirt to divert her attention down to him.

Sophie glanced down and met her son's gaze, her dark brown orbs softening slightly as most of the anger left her features. She patted his hand tenderly in reassurance.

"I like her." Damien said, unashamed at admitting it. "I want her to stay here with us. Can we keep her?"

Sophie smiled sadly.

"I like her too, sweetie. But you know we can't keep her. She's not a pet, Damien."

"I know she's not a pet, but why can't she stay with us? She hasn't got anyone else now. T'Amona needs someone to love and care for her. Without us, she'll have nobody."

Sophie's brow creased as she frowned slightly, and Damien knew she'd been thinking along the same lines. She sighed, leaning forwards and placing her hands lightly on her son's small shoulders. She opened her mouth to answer him but Kyle cut across her with a disdainful snort.

"That girl doesn't need love and care. All she needs is her precious logic, and the rest be damned. Don't you go getting mixed up with people like her, my son." His father warned him sternly. He cast his gaze one last time in the direction of the window, then pointedly turned his back on it. Damien realised that he was also turning his back on T'Amona.

"The sooner she leaves, the better. For all of us."


James Tiberius Kirk was proud of himself. Not because he was the youngest Captain ever in Starfleet history, or because the ship he captained was none other than the flagship of the 'Fleet, the USS Enterprise itself, or even because of his immediate rise to fame swiftly after the defeated of the Romulan Captain Nero and his ship the Narada, and ultimately saving the galaxy little over a week ago.

No. At that moment, he was proud of himself because for what was probably the first time in his life, he had left a bar on his own two feet, rather than staggering out, leaning heavily on his best friend and chief medical officer Leonard 'Bones' McCoy's shoulders after having the living daylights beat out of him in a vicious bar fight. Hell, today there hadn't even been a bar fight. And that was progress, as far as he was concerned.

And that progress, he'd decided, was cause to celebrate. So after leaving one bar, he proceeded straight into the next, dragging several members of the Enterprise's crew with him. And now Jim was celebrating in the best way he knew how: Drinking as much as he could and getting completely plastered.

"Whoa, slow down there, Jim." Bones warned, moving the bottle that the curvaceous Orion barmaid had just placed before the Captain well out of his reach. Jim was so busy ogling the hypnotic swaying of the barmaid's hips as she walked away that he didn't even realise his drink had gone until his hand closed around nothing but thin air.

"Hey, where's my…" He muttered, staring in cross-eyed confusion at the place where the bottle had previously been. Bones rolled his eyes and Uhura laughed from where she sat beside him, taking a sip from the glass of alcohol in her hands.

"Something tells me he won't be walking out of this bar." She grinned. Glancing past the inebriated Captain, she winced and took another drink. "And it looks like someone's going to have to carry Chekov."

Unsurprisingly, no one volunteered. Pavel Chekov looked mere seconds away from throwing up his guts.

Giving up on locating his missing drink, Jim blearily looked around his fellow drinking buddies. As this was their last night on Earth and they were due to set off for their first official mission under Captain Kirk's command tomorrow morning, Jim figured that they should all go and unwind at some local earth boozer. Bones had reluctantly agreed to accompany him, probably because he knew Jim would only get hurt without him, and had brought along his trusty tricorder and several hyposprays just in case. Scotty had boasted that he wouldn't be a true Scotsman if he declined a good stiff drink, and Sulu came along because Chekov had asked him to. Jim was fairly surprised that Uhura had turned up, and he was even more surprised that by some miracle she'd managed to drag Spock along with her. He hadn't looked impressed, if that one raised eyebrow was anything to go by, but he hadn't exactly complained either. Probably because of his Vulcan pride or something.

The Vulcan in question lifted his gaze up from the full glass of alcohol that he hadn't touched and found himself being stared at by Captain Kirk. Jim grinned at him blearily and watched as one perfectly tapered eyebrow lifted slightly in response. God, it was unbelievable just how many emotions that one raised eyebrow could convey. Especially towards Jim. He always seemed to be the one of the receiving end of Spock's eyebrow quirking. Probably because Spock was always thinking how James T. Kirk was the most illogical human he'd ever met. Not that Jim ever denied that.

"Hey Spoooock." Jim slurred, absently reaching behind him to steal Chekov's abandoned drink. He took a large gulp that made his throat burn and he winced. Straight Vodka. No wonder the kid was practically comatose. How the Hell had the seventeen-year-old Russian managed to get served here anyway?

"Yes, Captain?" Spock inquired, his face giving away absolutely nothing, as usual. But even then, Jim could tell that Spock was irritated. Uhura must've done some pretty smooth talking to get the uptight Vulcan down here. Had she threatened him? Or had she seduced him? Knowing Uhura, probably a combination of the two. Poor Spock. Jim almost felt sorry for him every now and then.

"I can't re…remen… remember seeing you at my Cap'n ceremony th…thing today." He told him, pouting at the half Vulcan. The sentence had sounded perfectly understandable to Jim, but Spock's brows furrowed ever so slightly into an almost imperceptible frown as he tried to make sense of the Captain's inebriated words.

"I did not think it would be prudent for me to attend, Captain." Spock replied. Jim took that to be Spock-Speak for "Well, I don't like you, so why should I have turned up just to watch you get promoted to the position what was supposed to be mine?"

"Aww, why? You're my first ossifer… no you're not; you're my fist officer, I mean. Y'shoulda been th…there." Jim whined, sounding like a drunken bratty five-year-old.

"Indeed." Spock answered, and left it at that. Obviously that conversation was over. And if Jim hadn't got the message, Spock pointedly turned away from him, returning to a conversation with Scotty and Uhura which he'd been previously interrupted from.

Jim blinked at Spock's back, swirling the odourless, colourless liquid around in the glass he held thoughtfully. He went to take another drink, but unfortunately for the blond Captain, Bones suddenly noticed that Jim had somehow gotten his hands on some more alcohol.

"Dammit Jim, enough with the drink!" He spluttered as he wrestled the glass away from him.

"Relax Bones, y'gonna jab me with a hangover hypersprain in the morn'n anyways." Jim pointed out, trying to reach around Bones, but the older man kept him at arms length as he scowled at him

"If I even knew what a hypersprain was…" Bones muttered in annoyance, forcing Jim back down onto his barstool. "Now sit there and shut up before I do hypospray you, and it won't be for hangovers neither."

Even in his drunken state, Jim understood that Bones was deadly serious and did as he was told without a fight, keeping both his hands clamped around his neck just in case the good doctor decided to hypospray him just for the fun of it. Bones's most preferred method of torture was those evil hyposprays, and his most preferred victim was, without a doubt, Jim Kirk. Jim wondered if Bones got some kind of sadistic pleasure every time he jabbed one into the Captain's poor unsuspecting neck. He did seem to enjoy it maybe a little bit too much.

It wasn't too long after that when Chekov passed out onto Sulu's lap and it was a pretty much unanimous decision to leave, much to the loud objections of Captain Kirk, of course. But he shut up pretty damn quick when Bones actually took a hypospray from his pocket and Jim nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to escape.

As the Enterprise crew made their way to the exit, Jim was determined to leave this bar by himself just to prove Uhura wrong, but when he stumbled out of the doorway, someone caught his elbow to stop the young Captain falling flat on his handsome face. Annoyed, Jim slapped the hand away.

"Dammit, Bones, I can walk y'know." He growled, and was surprised when it wasn't Bones's voice that answered him.

"Um, I'm not Dr McCoy, laddie." Scotty said, remarkably steady on his feet after God knows how much Scotch he'd downed in the last few hours.

'Scotty, I want your liver.' Jim thought, but didn't say it aloud as not to humiliate himself even more than he already had. He nodded to the chief engineer in thanks and pulled away from him, trying as hard as he could to walk in a straight line and ignoring the fact that Bones hovered less than a foot away from him, ready to catch him if he fell. Behind him, he could hear Sulu panting and muttering under his breath as he supported the gently snoring Chekov, and the hushed voices of Spock and Uhura as they spoke to each other. It didn't even sound English to Jim's ears, so he guessed they were conversing in Vulcan or some other of the fifty billion languages they knew between them.

Suddenly they fell silent.

"Spock?" Uhura asked in English this time, her voice carrying easily through the night. Jim threw on the brakes instantly at the amount of concern he heard in Uhura's words.

"Captain." Spock said quietly, but to Jim it felt as though he'd shouted. He turned around as swiftly as he could without losing his balance.

Spock could've been mistaken for a Vulcan statue. His back was impossibly straight and his features looked as though they'd been carved out of stone. Uhura stood beside him, gazing up at him anxiously with her hand on his forearm. Spock was facing in the opposite direction from where they'd been walking, so all Jim could see was half his face and one delicately pointed ear.

"Spock? What's wrong?"

"Up on the hill, Captain." The Vulcan hybrid answered, his usual emotionless rich baritone sounding a little more strained that it should. Confused, Jim scanned the landscape behind his first officer, his blue eyes trailing over several hillsides before he immediately spotted what Spock was talking about.

An unnatural orange glow flickered and danced around a lone house atop one of the hills, the entire building consumed with vicious flames. Thick plumes of smoke were barely visible in the night sky. Jim felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

"Shit!" He swore, a sudden rush of adrenaline pulsing through his veins, eating its way into and through his drunken stupor. "Uhura, call for help! Scotty, you stay here with Chekov! Spock, Sulu, Bones, come with me! There might be people still in there!"

Jim took off into a sprint towards the house, feeling more sober with every step he took as adrenaline overtook his body. The rhythmical pounding of boots against tarmac told him the Spock and Bones weren't too far behind him, and Sulu was swiftly catching up after dumping Chekov with Scotty and Uhura.

They could only hope that they weren't too late.


"Kid!!" T'Amona shouted, choking on the thick black smoke that clogged the air, blocking her furiously straining lungs as she sprinted up the stairs, dodging the flames that licked at her ankles. The heat was unbearable, even for her. The entire house was ablaze, chunks of debris falling from the ceiling and crumbling away under her feet.

Green blood that wasn't hers stained the bandages of her hands, but she tried her best to ignore it as she fought her way up the staircase, lurching and gripping onto the banister as one of the wooden roof supports came crashing down, landing inches away from where her head had just been less than a second before.

"Damien!!" T'Amona screamed. Her eyes were streaming tears down her face, leaving slick tracks snaking their way down her cheeks that were black with ash. She was limping heavily, her left thigh burning far more intense than the flames that surrounded her as dark green blood seeped through her robes. This time the blood was hers.

"DAMIEN!!"

"T'A…mona…" A weak voice called out, so quiet that T'Amona had to furiously strain her ears to hear it over the ferocious snarling of the blaze. Her head snapped quickly in the direction she assumed the kid had responded from and she threw herself bodily against a door completely consumed by fire. Patches of her robes burned away and the flames ate into the green skin beneath. T'Amona grit her teeth against the pain, covering her mouth with her sleeve as she staggered into the bedroom, her eyes frantically scanning every inch for a familiar mop of dark blond hair or pale pink Terran skin.

"Where are you, kid?!" She cried. She was so close to becoming hysterical. She'd never felt so out of control in her life.

"T'Amona… Over here…" Damien wheezed feebly. In her peripheral vision, T'Amona caught sight of something small shifting slightly by the bed, and a pair of fearful chocolate brown eyes met hers.

She stumbled across the room as quickly as her wounded leg would let her, heading straight for the human boy. Damien had curled himself up into a ball in a corner, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs, sobbing into his knees. He looked so scared and helpless that despite all the chaos and fire all around them, T'Amona dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him. The relief that the kid was still alive filled T'Amona up with a new resolve. A few minutes ago she'd been fully prepared to just lay down and burn with the rest of the house, but now she was fiercely determined to get Damien to safety before the roof came crashing down on their heads.

"T'Amona… my mom… my dad… they're…" Damien wept into her chest, his tears soaking through her clothes.

"Shh… just hold on to me now, Damien. I'm going to get us out of here. Don't let go, whatever happens." T'Amona told him, picking her up in her arms as she rose unsteadily to her feet. Damien locked his legs around her waist and coiled his arms tightly around her neck, still sobbing gently with his face pressed into her collarbone as T'Amona set off in a hobbling run back into the hallway, making for whatever was left of the stairs.

A loud creaking noise from above them made Damien unbury his head and look up. T'Amona ignored the sound, totally focused on trying not to trip down the ruined staircase.

"Look out!!" Damien shouted. T'Amona flung her head up just in time to watch a large section of the roof splinter and plummet down towards them. Thinking quickly, T'Amona threw herself sideways over the banister, keeping Damien clutched tightly to her chest to protect him from getting hurt.

But she'd moved a second too late and an explosion of white-hot agony ripped through her shoulder as another wooden roof support clipped her arm. T'Amona howled like a wounded animal as her left arm hung limply by her side. She knew it was dislocated again, just like it had been before.

T'Amona landed miraculously on her feet, feeling her anklebones crunch as the impact made twin sharp bolts of pain shoot up her legs, but she wasn't even going to let shattered ankles keep her from getting the Terran child and herself out of that burning house if it was the last thing she ever did.

Damien's head lolled against her undamaged shoulder in such a way that made T'Amona glance sharply down at him, fear freezing her lungs. For a brief second, she thought she'd lost him, that he'd also been hit by the falling debris and been killed, but then she realised she could feel his soft even breathing against her throat, and his heart thumping in his chest. Damien wasn't dead, just unconscious. T'Amona started to breathe again, but then she noticed a nasty gash had suddenly appeared and crimson liquid started oozing through his blond locks, staining T'Amona's bandaged hand at the back of his head with even more blood that wasn't hers.

"No, don't you do this to me, Damien!" T'Amona growled as she sprinted through the house, looking for a way out, "Don't you dare die on me, Terran!"

The house wasn't going to last much longer, the damage from the fire just too great for the structure to handle. The air was so thick with ash that T'Amona could barely see where she was going, stumbling from room to room, a nasty feeling of panic and defeat starting to spread through her body, slowing her limbs and her mind.

'No! I won't give up! I can't give up!' T'Amona thought angrily to herself, trying to keep her focus. Her energy was totally spent now, and she was running on pure adrenaline. When that too eventually ran out, they were both dead.

She found herself back in the room she'd been less than an hour ago. The fireplace was still burning, as was the rest of the house. Flames were attacking her from all sides now, so aggressively determined to scorch the skin off her bones. Three bodies lay on the floor, now no more than blackened corpses; their charred remains completely unidentifiable. But T'Amona knew exactly who they were. And she was eternally grateful that the boy in her arms was unconscious. No child should ever have to see their parents like that.

T'Amona's heart literally skipped a beat when she came to an abrupt halt in front of the last door. Blazing wreckage blocked the only remaining exit, and although T'Amona was strong enough to heave the obstruction aside, there wasn't enough time. She and Damien had mere seconds before they were buried under a mountain of rubble, another two bodies to join the three that had already perished.

T'Amona wanted to drop to her knees and cry. A panicked haze was blurring her logic, cutting off all other thoughts and senses until nothing but pain and despair remained. Despair for all the Vulcans who were lost along with the planet, despair for the Terran family who had died before the fire had even broken out, and despair for herself… because even in her last moments, she hadn't been able to do anything right.

Another piece of the ceiling collapsed a few feet from where she stood, still holding Damien close to her body even though there was nothing she could do that would protect him from suffering the same fate as his parents. T'Amona raised her head slowly up to the sky, her final thoughts of nothing but her mother and Ambassador Spock…

And she saw stars.


Perspiration soaked Captain Kirk's clothes to his skin, his breath coming out in harsh pants from the uphill sprint. Spock could see how he was struggling to keep going at a swift rate, but was surprised at how long the blond-haired man had managed to last. Kirk was inebriated. Very inebriated, judging by the sheer amount of alcohol he had consumed within the last few hours. And yet his pace not yet faltered even the slightest.

Spock had to admit that he was not entirely comfortable. He did not like running. And he did not like Kirk. In the week that had passed since the defeat of Nero, he and the Captain had discovered a grudging respect and trust for each other, but despite what his older self had told him earlier today (during Kirk's 'Captain ceremony thing' that he had not attended), a friendship between them had not progressed. Every time he and Kirk locked eyes, he still felt a heated annoyance towards the Captain that seemed to come from nowhere. He couldn't see himself befriending a man like James T. Kirk. But even now, Spock had to admire the man's determination. Kirk was acting like a true Captain, despite his being under the influence.

"Jim!" Doctor McCoy shouted, finding it a little more difficult to keep up with the three younger men as he lagged quite far behind, "Jim, don't play the hero!"

Spock didn't understand what the Doctor meant by that, but when he cast his gaze over Kirk, he realised the man was still running with no intention of stopping a safe distance away from the raging inferno that surrounded the house.

"The building isn't going to last much longer!" Sulu yelled.

"Captain, we have exactly two point three five minutes." Spock said, working out the calculations quickly with his superior Vulcan intellect.

"There could be someone still in there!" Kirk roared back, speeding up now that he knew time was against them. Spock couldn't think of anything logical to say or do to deter the Captain from his current course, so he prepared himself to run after him into a burning building. Before the Nero incident, Spock wouldn't have followed James Kirk anywhere, not even if his existence depended on it. But now Spock knew that however illogical or unorthodox the blond Captains methods may be, they usually bore the best results. Spock could only hope that today was not going to be any different, and Kirk was not about to lead them both to a swift fiery demise.

Suddenly one of the downstairs windows shattered as a humanoid figure launched itself through it in a final bid to escape the flame-consumed building.

"Over there!" Sulu called out, and Kirk quickly changed direction, sprinting for the survivor. Even from afar, Spock could tell that the figure slight and had the slender body proportions of a young woman. She was wearing long black robes that were torn, bloody and burnt, and it looked like she was carrying something in her arms as she staggered away from the house, limping heavily.

"Bones! Get over here!" Kirk yelled over his shoulder as he and Spock closed the distance between them and the woman. She was struggling to walk, and suddenly she faltered, collapsing facedown into the grass. Her arms fell open and another figure fell out of them, a small child sent sprawling alongside her.

Kirk threw himself straight down onto his knees beside them, reaching out to the nearest body.

"No… don't touch me… save the… boy…" The female coughed, weakly pushing Kirk's arm away from her and towards the child. Spock immediately noticed how both her hands were wrapped up tightly in bloodstained bandages.

"Captain, we are almost out of time." Spock warned the blond-haired man as Kirk scooped the unconscious boy up in his arms. The Captain glanced back towards the house, then lurched to his feet, setting off into run back towards Doctor McCoy and Sulu, the child's scrawny arms hanging limply around his body as he ran.

"Grab her!" Kirk shouted back to Spock. The Vulcan hesitated for only the briefest moment before lifting the girl easily up in his arms bridal style, following Kirk. Spock could feel the emotional transference from where his hands unwillingly touched the bared patches of skin where the flames had burnt holes in her clothing. There was so much pain and despair coming in thick waves from the girl that Spock actually winced from the mental assault, the emotions almost unbearable as they completely consumed his mind. His own feelings of despair at losing his planet and his mother were surfacing from where he had buried them so deep down inside himself, reaching out and combining with the young woman's, making the grief and agony so overpowering that Spock nearly faltered himself, losing his footing slightly on a patch of grass as he and the Captain retreated from the blaze, their arms full of injured humans.

Once they were more than a safe distance away, Kirk gently laid the boy down on the grass and Doctor McCoy was there instantly, whipping his tricorder out and scanning every inch of the Terran child to discover the extent his injuries. Kirk was watching anxiously as Doctor McCoy fussed over the young human, and Sulu glanced up just as Spock drew close. His brown eyes grew wide as he stared, his mouth dropping open almost comically. But no one was in a laughing mood.

"Spock, she's one of…" He trailed off before he could complete the sentence, but the tone of his voice made both Doctor McCoy and Kirk turn their attentions on the Vulcan half-breed as Spock looked sharply down at the still figure in his arms.

And the sight rendered him completely speechless for at least a minute. The girl had long sleek black hair that framed a face that was very aesthetically pleasing, but what immediately caught Spock's undivided attention were the perfectly tapered eyebrows and the warmer-than-human green-tinted skin. Spock could not believe his eyes. This girl was Vulcan.

Unexpectedly, the Vulcan stranger stirred, and her eyelids flickered a few times before sliding fully open. And once again, Spock found himself unable to say a single word as she stared up at him through unfocused eyes.

Unfocused eyes that were an unnatural sparkling sapphire blue.

The twin cerulean orbs narrowed, then suddenly widened with recognition. One trembling bandaged hand came up to Spock's face.

"I… found… you…" She whispered hoarsely, her lips spreading into a small smile. Spock could not take his eyes off her, all his logic and reasoning screaming at him in dumbstruck disbelief.

The hand fell as the house exploded.


Confused? I am XD

Ok, I'm kidding, I know exactly what's going on here. Yeah, I make a bunch of OCs up, and kill most of them in the same chapter. And Damien is kinda modelled personality-wise on my little brother, so its a lot of fun writing him. :D

Oh, and by the by, there were THREE bodies people dearest, I didn't make a typo mistake. (Which is a surprise, because I usually make typo mistakes but meh. Whatever.) But oooooh who was the third???? Heh heh, wait and see ;p

Let me know what you think!

(ps: I hate writing drunk Jim. In fact, I hate writing drunk anyone. I just can't do it! I fail, oh so epically... )

See ya next time!