Happy joy!! I have another one done!

~*~*~

"Is there something bothering you Lis? You seem really off."

"I'm fine, just a little stressed out from work." She took a bite of her ravioli and looked her husband and children in the eye, "I'm fine." Her oldest, Mick, had insisted that they all take her out for lunch, to her favourite restaurant, of course.

"So what are you working on this time? Or can't you tell what you're doing in that white box?" Jay joked.

Lisa figured she would let a little slip; after all, it couldn't hurt to let them know a little bit. "We are investigating the possibility that another intelligent species inhabits this planet."

The people sitting around her met her announcement with dumbfounded silence. Then the stillness shattered.

"What?!"

"Really!?"

"Whaddayameanintellegentspecies?!"

"I mean, Jay, that there is a distinct possibility that there is another intelligent, reasoning species on this planet living undetected by us."

It was almost completely quiet except for a quiet "Wow." from Jac.

She took a sip of her lemonade and continued, "We have found enough proof to warrant a thorough investigation, so we are looking into the matter."

"Is that all you can say?" Jay asked.

"I'm afraid so, though something big is going to happen soon. I can feel it."

Mick raised his eyebrows. "Miss Clinical Investigator is going with a gut feeling? Watch out everyone, the sky must be falling!"

"And what about that time you refused to leave the store because you said it was going to rain? You saved us all a soaking, Mr. I-Don't-Believe-in-the-Paranormal."

Mick snorted and buried his face in his milkshake.

†

"What have you found out so far?" Alexandra asked.

"Ab-sol-ute-ly nothing." Lisa collapsed into a chair. She was dead tired and wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to keep looking."

Who gave her the right to sound cheery? I'm the one doing all the work. "Who's this 'we'? I'm the one doing all the looking." She snapped.

"This 'we' is the one who processes the information you gather and comes up with ideas." Alexandra replied snippily.

"If it weren't for me, you'd be stuck where you are with no hope!"

Alexandra's mouth opened but nothing came out, and her eyes filled with hurt.

Lisa spun on her heel and walked out, leaving the other woman standing behind the glass. Who does she think she is?! She has no right to demand information like that, I'm the one doing charity over here!

What you're doing is childish, go back and apologize! You're asking gold for chicken feathers. There is no way that she could do any more, and what she is doing is more than enough, for goodness' sake, she's guiding you through this thing with TREE, if it weren't for her you'd be blundering around blindly!

Guilt twisted through Lisa's gut as she listened. I can't go back now!! That would be too embarrassing!

You're afraid of a little embarrassment, when it could save one of the most important friendships you have? That's pathetic.

Lisa's legs swung around of their own accord and she found herself going back the way she came.

She got back to the room and hesitated. W-Wait!! Stop! What if... I don't want...

You don't want what? To repair your friendship?

No! I don't... Her legs took her up to the permaglass wall. "Alex?" There, now you can't get out of it! Apologize!

"Alex." The other woman twitched but didn't turn around. "Alex, I'm sorry. I was an ass."

Alexandra's shoulders started to shake and Lisa heard her chuckle. "That's one way to put it." She turned around and the redness around Alexandra's eyes made her want to crawl under the floor.

Lisa walked into the cell and faced her friend. "I'm sorry, I was demanding too much, there is no way you would be able to help me the way I wanted and I knew it, I just..."

"You needed to blow up, and I needed a meltdown. It's alright. This has been stressful for both of us. Hasn't it been nearly half a year since we first met?"

"Don't you mean since you last had me in a headlock?" Lisa joked.

Alexandra lightly slapped Lisa on the arm. "Oi, give me some credit, I didn't snap your neck."

†

Lisa's eyes snapped open and she lay in her bed staring at the ceiling that was invisible in the darkness. She had had that dream again.

She stood in a crowd of several thousand. It was cold, or cold to her. What was happening was so utterly wrong... And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was totally helpless.

There were several rumblings that shook the ground under her feet and she saw a white tower growing toward the sky, taller, taller, ever taller. Then her perspective changed when the bottom of the rocket came into view.

She lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell, and there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She was losing something important but she could not remember.

"Farewell, Lily." She murmured.

Lisa shivered and rubbed her arms. Rationally, it was nothing more than worries and subconscious ramblings coming to the surface, but she could not convince herself that that was the entire truth, or indeed, even a part of the truth. She feared that what she was seeing was reality.

†

There are many things that aren't understood by anyone, and there are things that need no explanation. There are things that don't seem logical at first, but fall into perfect order upon examination. Then there are those that make sense on the surface but if you look closer, you can see pure nonsensical chaos.

Alexandra Yemal watched the unchanging ceiling of her cell and asked herself which of those her situation was. It was one of the last two she was certain, though it made no sense no matter how she looked at it.

She tried to look at it from another point of view. If I had discovered a new species, I would want to know everything about it. I would want to know what it ate and what its habits were, what roles it played in the world. That made sense. I would want to know how many there were, where they came from and if it had any special abilities.

What she couldn't understand was how, even after she had proven she was just as 'human', for lack of a better word, as they were, they still kept her locked in here. They didn't even know what she ate, or at least the part of her diet that mattered, so there was no real reason for them to keep her here. Perhaps they were afraid of the backlash that would follow. But these were the greatest minds that this planet had produced, they had to have figured out that there was no way she could tell anyone about what had happened. People would eventually ask, 'Why did they put her in there to begin with?' and then there would be too many people investigating for them to go undiscovered. Sort of.

They had to know that. But even so, why did they continue to keep her contained?

Alexandra amused herself by imagining the looks that she imagined certain people would wear if they knew everything, and laughed.

†

Jac gazed over at his wife of thirty years—or was it thirty-one now?—and wondered what had been going on for the past two months. She had become much more withdrawn and rarely laughed anymore, and she was still saying that everything was all right? He wanted to help her however he could, but the thing was, he didn't know what he could do besides try to make her comfortable. He needed to know what was making her this way.

There were a few things he could do, but he knew that she wouldn't appreciate it if he looked through her files on her computer at work. Not to mention that he would do some serious time if they caught him.

He decided that he would see if he could convince Lisa to let him in on the pretext that he had left his ID in her office when he brought her lunch a few days ago. It would be his best chance if he were going to try his wild scheme at all.

†

Lisa wanted to know what was going on. Joseph was avoiding her calls today and it wasn't just the ordinary avoidance, she couldn't even get his dog of a receptionist to answer, and not for lack of trying, she had just finished hissing, quietly, some things into the receiver that she knew no one could ignore. Oh, it was nothing compromising, just really insulting.

She switched off the receiver and looked over at the woman behind the glass wall. Alexandra was frustrated as well; Lisa left on the two-way comm link by 'accident' so she could listen and perhaps catch something that Lisa missed.

Alexandra looked at her, vaguely impressed. "I believe that was the most unusual way of stringing together those particular words that I have ever heard. I admire your creativity." Lisa glared at her. "No luck then, huh?" It was obviously a rhetorical question and Lisa didn't bother to answer.

"I have a bad feeling, and I can't help wondering which bucket of shit is going to hit the fan. Jacob's lack of availability is only confirming things."

Alexandra flipped a strand of her strange silver-gold hair out of her face and exhaled loudly. "I would love to say that you are being oversensitive, but I've been feeling the same lately. I think we may be right in the middle of it and there isn't a good way for us not to hit the fan as well, as you put it."

"I just wish there was away to know what was going to happen beyond bad feelings."

Alexandra's eyes glinted with amusement. "That is a highly un-scientific statement coming from you"

Lisa stuck out her tongue. "Knowing the future would be very convenient about now." Lisa eyed her friend, and asked playfully, "Who do you think is going to come through the door next?"

"I think you're going to be the next person through that door."

"You think you're that unpopular? Let me tell you, I was lucky to be one of the people who was allowed to see you. There are absolutely uncountable numbers of people that would kill to be sitting where I am right now."

Alexandra looked at her, unconvinced. "Uh huh, sure. Then where are those people lined up outside the door right now?"

"They have their own work to do, believe it or not. There is a clever system in place, actually. Whenever something really interesting comes up, there suddenly is this rush of busywork that, suddenly, they cannot put off any longer. Only a few people are considered for delicate (and interesting) projects."

"And you are one of those people."

"Happily, yes."

† the next day...

Her phone rang during a particularly busy time of the day and, irritated, she picked it up. "What!"

Jac sounded slightly taken aback at her tone. "Uh, sorry, Lis, is this a bad time? I just wanted to ask you something."

Lis sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snarl, it's been really busy around here and I feel like I don't even have time to sneeze."

"Sorry to hear it, I wanted to know if you could let me into your office? I think I forgot a piece of paper that I need when I brought you lunch the other day."

Lisa looked around her messy office and decided that it wouldn't hurt to let him look for his own paper since she no longer knew which paper was what anymore. "Oh, no, it's not a problem, I'm leaving around five o'clock. Just be sure to be there before then."

"I will."

"Bye, love you."

"Love you too, bye."

***End Chapter 10***

You probably can't see it, but things are starting to move. In a few chapters we'll get to the scene that she... (I can't tell you that, woops!) Well, a bit after that we'll get to Abel's POV!! Yippie!!

Oh, and the new title thingy is over. I did manage to think of one.