Author's Note: Whew! That was a weird chapter! Anyways, this one's mostly written in normal P.O.V. Since I'm pinning down chapters so fast and this is such a new Fanfic; I still don't have any reviews. If you're reading this right now; hang on with me! I'm actually thinking about dragging Stanley Yelnats and Hector into the story farther along. But I think the Warden's coming in the next chapter-oonie. (Oh, and see! I'm making Linda such a star and she wasn't even on the main character's list.)

Linda stared at Kate with wide eyes. She slowly unraveled her clenched fist, reaching nervously to Kate's cheek.

She's not real, Linda thought persistently, she's dead! Dead! And I'm going insane…

Dead. Dead. Dead.

Linda's fingers barely touched Kate's cheek. Solid.

"You're alive," she whispered, stunned.

Kate again flashed a crooked smile. "Do you want me to be?"

"Alive?" Linda said.

"Yes," Kate replied, raising her eyebrows, making it seem as such an easy question to answer.

"Yes," Linda said. That was all she could say. "Yes."

Kate squinted, looking up into the sky.

"What?" Linda said. The silence made her feel anxious and uneasy. She still had questions to ask.

"Come on," Kate said, her fingers constricting around Linda's arm.

"Where?" Linda said. Both the girls sounded so confused; speaking only and near to only single words. "Where can we go?" Her hand flew up, presenting before them the vast desert.

"Up there, to the mountain," Kate nodded to a formation through the haze. Her hand was up, but she wasn't pointing. She was showing a plain "thumbs-up"; the shape of the mountain.

Linda held up Kate's hand to the thumb-formation. "You're right," she said shakily. "But why do you want to go there?" Looking into Kate's wild, almost ravenous eyes, she felt as if she was speaking to a curious two-year-old.

"It's Sam's Mountain. There's onions there; as pure and sweet as when we were young. The water flows up-hill," she repeated the glorious word: "water".

Linda and Kate exchanged glances and began to walk. Linda took small, unwilling steps that quickened to a jolt to try to keep up with Kate's long strides.

***LATER***

Tumbleweeds flowed, scraping their dead fingers along the dry ground. Sand swirled along the horizon, slapping across the girls' faces and dusting the lace below their skirts. The sound of boot heels clicking with every step slowed as the mountain's base was reached.

Linda sniffled and wiped her nose. "It's big." "Umm hmmm…" Kate said as she grasped a rock, pulling herself up a step.

Linda watched her, not sure whether or not to climb, too. She sighed and followed, clumsily slipping and sliding along the rugged terrain.

After a long while of climbing, disabled from bloody, scraped hands, Kate and Linda pulled themselves up to a flat ledge.

Linda thought for a while, thoughts swirling around in her mind like a tornado. Finally she held on to one, waiting for the right time. She cleared her throat, catching Kate's attention.

"H-how did you live?" Linda stuttered. "I mean, for years and years Greenlake gold minors have come back dead due to yellow spotted lizard bites. It's happened plenty of times and not a single one of them lived. I saw you; I watched you get bit. And you're still alive." Linda's face flushed and she peered down at the floral pattern on her dress. "I mean, not that I don't want you to be…

"Kate?" She heard no reply. The outlaw's face was grim, looking again at the sky. Her shoulders raised to a shrug. That was the answer.

Linda looked at her in curiously when her serious face turned a different mood. Her eyes squinted, looking around for something. She leaned up, now tossing her head in all directions.

"Wha-" Linda said. Kate hissed, holding her finger to her mouth.

"Water," she whispered.

Linda stopped, listening. She, too, heard water.

Kate stood, grabbing Linda's hand and pulling her up.

Through the middle of two leaning boulders, they saw water treading in a long, pure blue stream. Little white flowers --the tops of onions-- grew in a meadow along the banks. There, like when Linda was small, running with her teacher, Miss Katherine, the two girls ran, side by side, laughing, to Sam's old oasis.

Huh. Okay, I'll keep working. Bye, peoples!