This is my next installment. As I forgot to mention in the previous chapters, I don't own SeaQuest... technically. I own the first season

Lynnp: Yes, I do plan to include other members of the crew. Ortiz, O'Neil, and Lonnie Henderson make an appearance other than Ford, Bridger and Ben. Lucas and Wendy show up as well. I feel like bringing Katie in as well, with her ship that she took command in when she left at the end of first season. I hope to also bring about Kristin Westphalen.

Kate: Sorry that its sounding MarySue-ish. I did try to tone that part down. Any time I tried to fix it, it sounded worse to me. Dunno, maybe I should have tried again before putting it up. Then again, there are students that will harass a student in such a way, and worse, if the high school movies I've watched are any indication. I don't have experience with that degree of harassment, but I do know how it feels. Anyway, she's got only one more real encounter with the students, and I am going to look at that now to see if it's alright. I'm trying to reforge it away from MarySuedom. Thanks for letting me know. There's more explanation of the genetic engineering as the story goes along, mostly in the next chapter or two, and maybe some more later on. It's hard to think of where I put some of it when I'm shivering.

Robert: XD Nice to see your out and about. Go read some more of my stories now. Who cares if they're all American storylines. I'll let you know the back story if I have to.

to my anonymous reviewer: I have actually explained about how dying her hair won't work for more than a little while and neither will the contacts. And about the half and half calling him dad and Ben, its because of the fact that she's still trying to find herself and understand what's going on now that she actually has a caring parent, and doesn't have a lot of memories and stuff... but yeah. More explanations to come later.

"You said something about genetic engineering. Was there an accident in one of your experiments that caused your hair to do that? Is it permanent?" He asked.

"Yes, it's permanent. And I was the experiment. It's a long story. But, back then I guess they hadn't realized what the chemicals could do for my appearance, and thus, my hair and my eyes are so radically different. We don't know what effect it may have on my children, or if I can even have children. This thing you were asking about, I don't really know what it's for completely. All I know is it boosts my abilities. I don't think it controls my actions or anything. If it did, it can't now." I said.

"That's crazy. The only genetically engineered people I've heard of are people like Dagwood. And he's completely engineered." Lucas said.

"I'm not. I was completely human before, not necessarily normal mind you, but human. I was born of a real mother and father, as were my friends, and all the others they took." I replied.

"You mean your not now?" Lucas asked warily.

"I don't know what I am really. I'm not what I used to be, that's for sure. I'm the same person, but not the same being. I look relatively the same as I did when I was younger, except for eyes and hair. And a few modifications." I said.

"Like what?"

"Well, let's just say the first time Ben took me out into public for a swim at the beach, I scared the living daylights out of him. He was used to my appearance, and we had dyed my hair the day before, so others wouldn't shy away. But yeah, if you think now he's less self centered, you should have seen him then. You wouldn't have recognized him, he was worried, and terrified that I'd drowned." I said.

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked.

I smiled and pushed my rainbow hair out of the way, and showed him behind my ear, next to the device implanted there. I heard him make a strange sound. I turned back to him with my eyebrow raised.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"You're just like Tony. He's got gills too." Lucas said. "It shouldn't surprise me that you have them too, I mean, there are at least three other people out there with the same... attributes. Abalon was the first I thought to do such things. He's lived a long time too."

"From what I understand, he's got some decent psychic abilities." I said.

"Well, if you're into that kind of thing." Lucas said.

"I"ve heard of Abalon before. I don't know if he was the one that worked on my friends and I. From what I got from Ben, they had their gills on their lower back. Someone might have taken his idea, and done what they wanted with it." I said.

"Yeah, it wouldn't surprised me in the least. People around the world love to play God. Why would it be any different a hundred years in the past or future." Lucas muttered.

"I've a friend that could show you if it's the same a hundred years from now." I said.

He stared at me for a moment. I laughed and began to walk towardssea deck, trying to find the shortest route to Darwin's tank. I kept getting strange looks from officers and other people just bumped into me hard. I felt like I was being dragged down into quicksand. The implant beeped, and the increase in emotions around me was almost deafening. I heard voices like a dozen people in a small room talking loudly to be heard over the next person. I sank to the ground, covering my ears, trying to block it out.

"Deinera!" Lucas shouted.

I felt him grip my arms, felt the intense curiosity. It was beginning to drown out the frustration and other intense daily emotions of the SeaQuest crew. Then suddenly there was a blanket of peace. I closed my eyes, a blanket of white pervaded my mind and I sighed, relaxing once again. When I began to remember where I was, I felt someone stroking my hair and speaking softly to me. I opened my eyes and smiled.

"Thanks Ben." I said softly.

"No problem, it's what I'm here for." He said, messing up my hair. I stuck my tongue out at himand smoothed it.

"How did you know to do that Ben?" Lucas asked.

"It's happened before. There was a spike in the implant she has, and it made everything people are feeling and thinking super loud. The only way to bring her out of it is to clear your mind, and hold on until she relaxes. It's almost like having a seizure." Ben said.

"Hard to believe you can clear your mind for more than a minute." Lucas said.

"Yeah, it was hard at first, but I worked on it. We both did, right Deinera?" He asked. I smiled.

"Yeah. it saves a lot of trouble, that's for sure." I said.

"You two get on your way. I've got to go talk to the captain about some of those kids." Ben said, and walked off.

"Ben's a great father, I wish everyone here could see that." I said softly.

"Most of them see the man they knew four years ago. A lot of people can't change in such a short time." Lucas said, turning back to me.

"Having a kid dropped on you does wonders to a person." I said.

"Yeah, finding them half drowned on the beach has gotta be bad too." Lucas said.

I smiled sadly, and nodded. I didn't remember much about that day, but I did remember seeing Ben's face, the first thing I remembered after a long period of darkness, and strange dream like memories that got little clearer as they progressed. Most were of my two friends, they were from Germany, Michael and Ortwin. I had met one in school at some point, and befriended his best friend later on when we met again. I don't know how many years we spent at the labs, but we were young going in. I was sure that I had been in my early twenties, as well as my two friends, before the accident. And I was just as sure that their ages had regressed as well when the accident had happened that sent us, or at least me, where we were. I think there was some side affect of the chemicals and time bending that did that to us.

We began to walk towards the pool again, to speak with Darwin. I did not speak much; Lucas spent most of the time talking about Darwin, the SeaQuest, or what he knew of Ben. What he had known and learned of Ben was before my arrival. He also spoke a little of having been taken by aliens to another planet. If I had been any other person, I would have thought he was trying to joke with me. It had been roughly five years since his first tour with SeaQuest, all tours lasting thirteen months, with a few in between each tour, along with the time it took to rebuild and refit the SeaQuest after Captain Bridger had sent it into a lake of lava.

I spoke little of Ben as my father after Lucas became quiet. I prodded him into speaking at least a little of his own father, and his mother even. I had feelings, almost memories I thought, of my birth parents, more over, the people who created me. Within those feelings I felt from Lucas, something familiar touched me. It stirred those feelings within me. Deep down I knew my parents had been similar. Not caring much for me, doing what they could to get me off their hands, arguing to the point where they separated, and something that seemed like a memory told me that one of them had sold me off to the people that had captured me, helped to lay the trap that caught me, and had caught my friends. I was surprised to feel similar to Lucas, and so very sad about it.

"But you have the Captain; he is much more a father to you than anything, Lucas." I said.

"Yeah. I guess I do. He's wonderful, strict, but the best father I've had." Lucas said.

"I know it sounds strange, but although I do not remember my parents, I feel that Ben is infinitely better than they ever could have been as a set. He is only one, and has done a wonderful job putting up with such a child as me." I said.

"You're not that bad." Lucas said.

"It's not just the way I act; I acted little like other kids my age. It was my unnatural abilities, as you saw before; he had to learn how to help me when things went wrong. He had to reprimand me when I did something wrong using those powers. And he had to help me understand that no matter what, I was more important to him than anyone or anything and that should be all that matters." I said.

"He's right. Don't pay attention to those other people that came with you. It's not worth the effort." He said.

"I'd have thought you'd be all over getting to know them." I said.

"I love the fact that there are more kids my age here, but I've spent so much time around adults, especially military adults, that they seem… pretty superficial." Lucas said.

"That they are." I said with a laugh.

We sat there talking to one another, about little things, and talking to Darwin as well. It was very nice to be able to talk to someone who didn't think of me as nothing more than a freak, or just someone that needed special help. He talked to me like I was an equal. Ben did sometimes, but he spoke to me on a father-daughter level most of the time I was very sorry to have to go back to my room, although Wendy was a wonderful person to talk to as well. We had dinner together, and I knew that sooner or later, I would see Lucas again. I spent much of the rest of that week avoiding my father's charges, and sadly ended up avoiding him as well.

I didn't get the chance to see Lucas much that week either. They were preparing for the Captain and Commander Ford to go to dry land for some sort of conference with their CO about their disappearance months before. We would pretty much have the run of the boat, even though there would be an officer left in command. It was more a research vessel even now, and we were glad that we didn't have to put up with any of the annoyances of a purely military ship.

alright, Kate I hope thats a bit better. I think the parts it seems most MarySue-ish is where I was having troubles connecting the parts of the story together. I knew what I wanted, just had a little trouble connecting some of the dots.

Damn... editing this makes me want a mango. sigh I was eating a mango in the last parts of writing this.