Author's Note: Yes, there will be Fillmore/Ingrid with nice hintings of Anza/Tehama. Did everyone really think this was in the romance section by mistake or something? Also, pardon the late update, I was busy for a bit. College has started up, so, well, you know…

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Sel's golden eyes went wide, but she didn't pull away.

When their lips parted, she leaned her head against his chest, eyeing their intertwined hands thoughtfully. She caressed his hands with her thumbs as she breathed in slowly, looking a million miles away. Looking over his glasses, into his stormy gray eyes, she seemed to be at a loss for words. The silence was deafening. The moment seemed to stretch on forever. For a while, they simply stood there, each lost in their own whirlwind of thoughts. Fillmore felt his mind shut down, his cheeks going red as he realized what he had just done. Whatever happened to subtlety, he wondered to himself, watching her closely.

"Bad idea," she said at last. "You, me. Me. Killed a man, Fillmore. Not right inside." She sighed. "Want to be. Want to be back to normal. But–"

"Saeryonim," he firmly said, pronouncing her name slowly and carefully, "It's okay. We're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. I promise. I'm here for you, okay? We're gonna get through this."

"Then what?" Sel replied softly. "Can't stay forever. Father would notice eventually. Would go back to Los Barros. Be alone. In danger. Everyone corrupted. Back with street trash, where I belong. You would be with Patrol. Friends. Family that loves you. New life. No room for extra burdens."

"You're not a burden," he murmured, kissing her on the cheek. Her eyes closed, and he gingerly kissed her on the bridge of her nose, where she was scarred. Sel's expression turned into one of bliss as she squeezed his hands. Pleased, he planted a series of small kisses along the dual lines across her face. "You're special. To me. I need you. Ever since I've met you, we've had this connection, this bond, and that means a lot to me. I know we might make a weird couple, but some things are worth working at, y'know?"

"Mmm." She titled her head upward to allow him easier access to her upper face. "Answer question. After this, what then? Can't live here forever. Can't stay. What then? Would you leave me?"

He paused, partly because it was one of a handful of times she'd ever used the word me, and partly because a pit of guilt was twisting in his stomach. Was this karma? Was this God paying him out for abandoning Ingrid, never speaking to her and being a jerk for so long? So this was fate, then. This was what life was giving him, a second chance to be a man for once and do the responsible thing. Maybe that was what his subconscious was telling him in the dream, that on some level he knew he'd leave her and then she'd be all alone all over again. In Los Barros. A phantom image of the shadows suffocating and engulfing her made him shudder. No, he decided internally, he wouldn't leave her. Not ever.

"I could transfer to your school. I could save yours after you saved mine. Serving the spring semester at another school would look good on my permanent record," he told her as her eyes snapped open in shock and disbelief. "Your school accepts a lot of transfers. It could work. You wouldn't be alone. I'd be there every day, for you. We'd be okay, girl. So long as we got each other, we're doing better every day."

"Where would you live?" Sel asked curiously. "No family there. Not Mexican or white."

"True, but you got a couch, so," he shrugged, "We'd make it work."

"You don't know me," she muttered, closing her eyes as if in pain. "Not worth it. Not worth it at all."

And Fillmore shook his head, but not wanting to ruin the moment, he kissed her on the bridge of her nose again. She didn't pull away.

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Breaking into a heavily guarded building takes a specific kind of mindset.

The people who are capable of such a thing ar either running scared, arrogant, or have a cause that's worth it to them. An ordinary person would be nervous, sick to their stomach, scared, uneasy, or at the very least shaky. But people like Fillmore aren't ordinary. Experience soothed the jittery part of his mind. Planning soothed him. Sel soothed him. The very thought that weeks of planning and plotting had gone into this drove the fear from his mind. He knew with every step he took that Sel was with him all the way, carefully planning out his route. There was no fear, no worry, only dedication and trust.

And on the other side of the cell phones that had replaced their old walkie talkies, Ingrid was shaking. This wasn't right. She was in too deep, way over her head. She had called in favors from people. She'd spent two weeks planning this. She'd kissed Fillmore. Burying her head in her hands, she tried to focus, to only live in this moment. If she let this overwhelm her, she feared she wasn't going to be able to handle it. She'd cry, or blurt out even more personal things he wasn't meant to know, or, more painful still, go into detail about what happened – she had to pull it together. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak, voice stoic, calm and reassuring, because that's who Sel was and, for better or worse, Ingrid was stuck playing that role right now.

Her backpack lay on his bed, slightly open. Rummaging through it for the last set of blueprints she needed, her hands hit metal and she froze. "That's where it went to," she muttered, pulling out what appeared to be a metal binder full of drawings. She flipped through them, briefly, allowing herself a small moment of distraction. Creeping shadows, nightmarish demons, twisted and rotting landscape – but then again, when she considered who the artist was, it was to be expected. She frowned. I'll never get to tease Dib about his bad artwork again… And suddenly, she found she no longer wanted to look at the binder. Shoving it in the backpack, Sel quickly pulled out the blueprint, cringing at her own stupidity. She shouldn't have let herself get distracted.

Kicking the backpack across the room, she angrily turned back to the computer, grabbing her cellphone and flipping it open angrily. If she could focus for five seconds, then it was an easy enough task to guide Fillmore through this. She had maps she could watch to literally keep up with him foot by foot, step by step. In fact, this was what she had to do, narrating his moves very closely for several tense minutes.

"Duck behind the green trashcan. See the security? He goes in circles. Wait until he's around the corner. Go, go, go – duck into the girls bathroom. Door always unlocked – remember that. Run to the stairs. Now, grab onto the railing and swing over to the other side. Hold on and duck low. When that officer's gone, pull yourself back up. Go up. Now, listen to me carefully, keep going onto the third floor. There's no security there. You can walk straight to the stairs above the main office. You can, but you won't. Open locker 335. It's unlocked. Now, take the tennis ball from it and throw it down the far stairs, then run like crazy back to the stairs for the main office."

Judging by the shrieks and howls of indignant security guards, her distraction plan had worked. She heard Fillmore snort once with laughter before pressing on. He saw the office, of course, and he could unlock the door himself. Slipping in like a ghost, he made his way to the large drawers that held the personal files.

"Parnassus has his under the name Leonard Riker," Sel informed him. "It's because people in the past have tried to get it. Easy ruse to see through, though. Name sounds fake."

"Says a girl named Sel," Fillmore muttered under his breath. "Aha! Got it. Write this down: 1121 Oak Avenue, in the suburb of Opportunity. Got it?"

"Got it. Now get out. Go to the Greek Mythology room, there's a low slanting roof you can climb onto. Dropping to the ground from there is safe."

"I'm on it."

Something was wrong. That was too easy, she thought to herself. Planning or not, there should've been one guard who noticed the opened door, the slightly opened drawers, the messy files, the tennis ball's obvious purpose. Biting her lip, she waited for Fillmore to call in that he'd been caught, that something had gone wrong. Instead, however, she heard dead silence, and froze. The static on the other end died, and she froze as a dull dial tone rang in her ears.

He was gone.