Doc moved through the cave, following the muffled sound of Ann's footsteps. She was singing under her breath: a tune from Winnie the Pooh, but with some slightly different words.

"Oh, a wonderful thing is a ninja; a ninja's a wonderful thing. Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of – ouch!" That was accompanied by the faint smack of flesh on stone.

She sighed in the darkness, and then spoke. "If someone is following me, you might want to look away. I'm turning on a flashlight."

Doc slipped behind a boulder, watching the dim glow of the light come on and then move away through the cave. He followed, wondering if he should catch up and turn it off before she reached the cave mouth – but he didn't have to. As soon as the first stars came into view, she turned off the light and started moving faster, out over the dry riverbed, then into the grass and running easily.

He ran behind her, matching her pace. The stars glowed overhead, silent and perfect in their distant coldness. The faint flutter of the grass stems against her feet was the loudest sound: that and the sudden thrashing, creaking noise that seemed to erupt from their path. She jumped high; he saw her body outlined against the night sky for a moment. Then she landed on her feet, and kept running.

He detoured around the thrashing noise, then stopped and went back. It was a robot goat that appeared to driving its own chin into its side. It creaked and kicked, unable to move, somehow locked into a robot bow knot.

"What did she do to you?" he asked, and then backed off and started to run again, letting his longer legs eat up the space between them. But when he finally caught up to her, she had stopped. She was standing, dusky black coat straight to the ground, her re-masked face buried in her gloved hands, and little shivers radiating almost visibly from her.

He hoped she wasn't crying. She probably wasn't crying. What did she have to cry about? She was alive – for now. That is, if Mitzi hadn't poisoned the food.

Ann finally took her face out of her hands, and looked around a little wet-eyed. She stared at him for about ten seconds, squinting, before asking, "Is that you, Doctor? Sorry, my night vision's terrible."

"It's me," and she visibly relaxed.

"I – that was more stressful than I thought it would be. For a few minutes there it felt like dinner with my family." Ann's eyes were wide in the darkness, and he didn't think it was just from trying to see; she seemed to be looking at something terrible in her memories.

Maybe he should distract her, maybe that would help. "What did you do to that back there?" Doc asked, jerking his hand towards the trail to the cave and the thrashing robot goat still rolling around on it.

"The animals?" She waved her hand. "Magnets. Very expensive, very strong magnets. Crunched them up big-time, blew all their servos, threw off their balance."

"Magnets? Really?"

"Really. Good thing you didn't ask me to stand back-to-back with you, Doctor; I was carrying them on a string down my shirt, and we would have ended up stuck together. Very embarrassing."

She changed the subject. "So, that was the infamous McNinja family. You look like Mitzi, you know."

Nobody had ever said that to him. He wondered if that meant she thought he was good-looking, or not, and couldn't decide.

"Not in coloration," she went on thoughtfully. "You've definitely got that from your father. But you have her bone structure; so does your brother. The men must run to tall on her side of the family." She smiled up at his confusion. "So tell me, did I offend everyone hard enough that I won't be invited back?"

Doc suddenly felt relief wash over him. Ann Wales hadn't just been randomly flailing around to upset everyone; she'd had a plan after all.

"I think so," he allowed, a little cautious. Maybe he could convince Ann to – all he had to do is convince her to stay the hell away from his family, and from him, and everything would be hunky-dory.

"Well, I did my best," she sighed. "I threatened to eat your brother, after all. And just to make a mess of that dating rumor, I flirted with you, and your mom, and your dad-"

"My dad?"

She grinned. "He has very shapely knees."

Doc pictured Ann with one hand on his leg, and one hand on his Dad's – no, don't picture that!

He went to a slightly safer topic. "How would flirting with me make my Mom think we weren't dating?"

"Because if she thinks I'm just a flirt who makes passes at everyone, she won't take the rumors seriously." She shook out the folds of her coat. "Nice job flinching away, too. Anyway. Are you going to show me the way back, or do I need to work it out on my own?" She waved a hand in front of his face. "Hello?"

"I think – yes, I'll get you to your car, of course, but you really should come back to my office for some bloodwork. And to have your stomach pumped."

Her eyes went huge. "And waste those lovely beets?"

Lovely? "If you think those beets were lovely, then there's no way you might detect any poison she-"

"Oh, that." Ann waved a hand. "Your mother didn't poison my food. She poisoned my plate."

"She did WHAT?" Of course, of course, the way Ann had carefully positioned every bite of food-

"She must have had a nice strong poison ready, but didn't want me keeling over in front of you. So she just wiped a ring of it around the edge of the plate. So long as I avoided that, I was safe." She pouted a little, barely visible through the mask. "She really shouldn't use oil as a medium – unless she usually poisons the salad? Because it leaves a distinctive sheen, you know."

"And how do you know what a poisoned plate looks like?"

"Let's just say that the same parents who poured boiling water into my mouth to punish me, also taught me how to recognize a poisoned plate. Doctor," she looked up at him, eyes mild, "it's over. Hopefully I'll never have to do anything like that again. So let me get back to my car. Or lead me back to my car. Please."

"Follow me," he invited, and actually got twenty steps before he turned and grinned helplessly at her.

"You got past Mitzi."

"Yes," she said, smiling.

"You – please, you have to tell me how you did it!"

"No," she said, smiling harder.

"Come on!" He was almost dancing from foot to foot with excitement.

"I'm not gonna tell," she sang. "You can't make me."

"Please?"

"No," she said, and whooped as she tripped over the edge of a tiny drop-off; Doc caught her by one arm and swung her upright.

"You really can't see anything out here, can you?" he asked.

"Blind as can be. And I'd rather not reveal my location by using the flashlight."

"You know," she started walked and he fell into step beside her, bending his head a little to speak softly close to her ear, "there are ninja tricks for improving your night vision."

"You don't say," she said, a little too flatly.

"I could teach you."

That made her stop and look at him. With quick strokes of her fingers she pulled off her headscarf and stared up at him, face pale in the starlight.

"I am not a ninja, doctor. I never will be. See? No mask. And I doubt your parents would approve of you sharing your training with a person like me."

They both had to shut up and concentrate as the mountainside grew steeper under their feet. Several times Ann slipped or slid, and Doc was always there to catch her, to guide her – and of course to ask, again and again, how did she get past Mitzi?

Ann's non-answers were getting more and more clipped by the time they actually got back to the road, where Doc immediately leaned against the door of Ann's car and refused to move until she told him what he wanted to know.

"Doctor," Ann crossed her arms and rolled her eyes to the sky, "I know that you're faster than me, so I can't dodge around you. And you're stronger than me, so I can't force my way past you. I don't suppose a bribe would work – no? Can't you just let me go home?"

"I'm thinking…Nope. If you could get past Mitzi, you can get past me." He tried to keep the grin out of his voice, and failed.

"Arrggh!" She ran the fingers of both hands through her hair. "How have you lived this long without someone strangling you?"

"Ninja," he replied along with her in perfect unison.

He went on, "If you just tell me, I'll let you go."

"You're being a dork, Doctor."

He winced, but stood his ground. She came closer to him, staring up with a bitter expression on her face. Not casually, she put one hand on the hood of her car. Her eyes looked grey in the moonlight, the cold grey of stone.

"Tell you what, Doctor. If you can promise me that I will never be invited to dinner again-"

"That should be-"

"Not finished yet."

"…Okay."

"If you can promise me that I will never see you again, and that you will never see me; that you will never stumble onto my property or under my car or into my shopping cart, and I will never break my arm or my neck and be brought to your office first; if you can absolutely swear that you and I will drive away from here and never, ever set eyes on each other again, then I will cry."

Her eyes actually seemed to well up with tears for an instant, and then she sniggered at his expression and the moment passed.

"And then I'll tell you how I got past Mitzi," she continued. "And you'll tell Mitzi how I did it. And then who knows? Maybe she is so impressed by my awesomeness that she leaves me alone. Or maybe not. Maybe she kills me. Maybe…I kill her."

All of those scenarios tumbled through Doc's mind, spinning and gleaming like flying shuriken.

"So, in the interests of saving my own neck, I can't tell you. Ever. Sorry." She patted him apologetically on the shoulder. "But it's not all bad news, because I'll give you some hints."

"Hints?"

"Sure! Let's see, I did not permanently damage the structure of the cave – I didn't make my own entrance, in other words. I didn't damage Mitzi – no drugs, no hypnosis. And, hmmm, here's a bonus fact: no tachyon bursts were released."

"Tachyon whats?"

"I didn't travel in time to get around her," she answered, rolling her eyes as though to say that's-so-obvious.

"Oh."

"But on the positive side, the method I use is not for sale. To anyone, at any price. And it can't be taken from me, and I can't do it for someone else against my will. So, really, unless you invite me to dinner again, we should be right as rain." She made a brushing-off gesture with her hands. "I gave you breakfast, you gave me dinner, we're done."

There was a rustling noise from beside them, and they both looked and saw two narrow furry faces looking at them from under the guard rail. "Rabbits," Doc said, dismissing them with a wave and turning his attention back to Ann.

"Hmm. Do rabbits – do that, usually?"

Doc looked again, and felt himself flush with anger. One of the rabbits had just rolled onto its back, and the second rabbit had assumed a hunched posture over it. They ground against each other in a fairly obvious fashion, and both of the rabbits were definitely grinning.

"Sean, that is NOT FUNNY!" Doc shouted, and Ann bent over, giggling hysterically.

"Oh, that is perfect," she finally gasped, straightening and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "If he only had some birds that could do that on cue, I just came up with the best idea to liven up a boring business meeting." She stepped closer to Doc, close enough that he could feel the press of her body against him, and murmured in his ear, "And if you don't let me into my car right now, I'm going to start humping your leg."

He froze for a long moment.

"Those robots probably have recording capabilities; that is, if your brother isn't watching all this live…along with your parents."

"Fine. Fine," he said, slipping away from her and around to the driver's side of his own car. He opened the door and stared across the roof at her.

"I will find out," he said, slipping inside, slamming the door, fastening his seat belt. As he grimly watched Ann get into her car, his cell phone rang.

It was Gordito, and he sounded tired. "Doc, you must be outside or you wouldn't answer. When are you getting back?"

"I'm just leaving now," he said, fishing the keys out of his pocket.

"Judy's still awake, the stomach pump is all set-"

"We won't need it."

Gordito audibly swallowed. "She didn't make it through the cave?"

"She – made it. And made it back out. She's fine."

"She BEAT MITZI!"

"She – I don't know what she did. She got past Mitzi. Somehow. And didn't get poisoned." Doc started the car, and Gordito said something he didn't catch over the motor.

"What?"

"I said is she coming back with you?"

"No, of course not. She's fine. She doesn't need to come back with me."

"Oh." Did Gordito sound disappointed? "Well, I'll see you soon, then."

"Right." He pulled out of the parking space and paused for a long moment, meeting Ann's crisp gaze through his side window. Then he turned his attention back to the road, and drove away.

"Damn, but that is a complicated man," Ann said to herself, watching the Doctor's car drive out of the turnaround in front of her. She wished she could reach into his mind and figure out what the hell he was thinking right now-

A sleepy yip interrupted her train of thought.

"Ghost," she whispered, mindful of ninja ears, "I told you to go home!"

The little white dog blinked up at her from the passenger side floor space.

"And keep down," she added. "He'll think that I left you in the car all this time."

Another yip, and Ghost put his nose back on his paws and appeared to sleep.

She watched the Honda's taillights fade away around the corner of the mountain, and for a single instant she let her mind fill with what might be. Then she took those thoughts, locked them into a very small part of her mind, and put the key out of her reach.

"It's a good thing it's his brother that I'm really after," she muttered, starting the engine and flicking on the headlights. She made a rude gesture to the rabbits that were still posturing under the guard rail, and drove away.