Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from the book, that is all Diane Duane's, however everything else is mine - plot, a couple characters, etc. I'm not making any money off this, yaddah, yaddah, you know the drill…

Also: For anyone who wanted to know, this story is POST-Wizard's Dilemma, but PRE anything else… so that's why it doesn't follow anything from AWA and on… plus I think I got some timeline stuff mixed up while I was writing earlier stuff since I didn't have my books around while I was writing parts… safe to say the whole thing's gone rather AU, but I hope that won't keep ppl from reading it.

A/N: I realize its been INSANELY LONG since my last update -- my thanks to anyone who is still bothering to read my ramblings. I promise i'll get this wrapped up relatively soon. Probly within another four chapters. Hopefully it wont be another year before i update. anyways, shutting up now... plz review, as always! :) KS

( " " are spoken, italics are mindspeech, if the formatting holds... prays to the gods of MS word)

Chapter 20: There and Back Again

Dairine stopped in front of Kit's house. Electra looked at her. "Now what?" Dairine cast the wolfgirl a withering glare, then glanced around. The neighborhood was relatively empty. The only signs of life were an elderly woman attempting to trim her hedge and a fat cat sunning itself two porches over. Dairine muttered a few words under her breath, snapped her fingers, and walked up solidified air like a staircase to Kit's window. She paused at the casement and fiddled with the latch. Electra hung back until Dairine glared at her, and then she cautiously followed the young wizard into Kit's room.

Kit lay on the bed, sweat-soaked hair sticking up at odd angles. Ponch lay across his chest, the lab's broad black bulk softly moving as they breathed in sync. "He's stopped glowing," Electra observed.

"Apparently," Dairine said absently.

"Is that good?"

"I'm not sure." Dairine sat down on the bed beside Kit and Ponch. Spot hopped up beside her and she opened his screen and started tapping keys. "This would be so much easier if Ponch was awake," she grumbled. "What exactly did he say to you?"

"He said he was going to 'find Kit'…like he was lost or something."

"With Ponch, that could have any number of meanings, including the possibility of alternate dimensions. He'd just better not have landed his consciousness in some place I can't get to."

"There are places you can't get to?"

"Yes. Astounding as my abilities are, even I can't live in two dimensions," Dairine remarked dryly. "Or places with cyanide atmospheres, or numerous other conditions that make dimensions uninhabitable to humans. Some I can visit; some I can't. How much do you know about wizardry anyway?"

"Not much."

"How about this shapechanging business then? Don't you need wizardry for that?"

"You mean this?" Electra closed her eyes. Seconds later a large black wolf stood blinking its silver eyes where she had just been standing. My father used to talk about wizardry sometimes. He said my mother was a wizard. I never met her though. She died – along with most of my family and, according to my father, most of my kind. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I know there was a big disaster, and that it killed a lot of people. I know a wizard was responsible for it, and for the death of my mother; my father never had much good to say about wizards, except for mother. I'm not sure about much else. Sometimes he changes things or adds things – and now he's not around to tell it at all. Electra blinked and shook her head. In any case I don't know if wizardry has anything to do with my change. But I'm not a wizard – at least I don't think I am – so it couldn't be, could it?

Dairine frowned at Electra, and then tapped more of Spot's keys. "It would take a very powerful spell… I don't know if even I'd have the power levels needed for that kind of spell…to affect a whole race…I'm not even sure where to start – what exactly your change-spell was meant to do. May I?" she reached her hand toward the wolf's head.

Electra ducked the hand and stared at her warily. What are you going to do?

"I just want to see if there really is a wizardry that is tied to your wolf-shape. It might open some interesting possibilities." The wolf gave her a look. "I'm not going to hurt you," Dairine said acidly. "If I wanted to hurt you by now, you'd be in pain. I think – I think if there is some wizardry attached to your change, it could have interacted with Kit's wizardry without you knowing, especially if you're not a wizard. Finding out how yours works – if it is in fact a spell – might help with figuring out what's wrong with Kit and how to fix it."

Okay. Go ahead.

Dairine sank both hands into the thick fur of the black wolf's ruff and closed her eyes. The words of the interpretation spell she had chosen ran through her mind, and she tied her name to it and released it. Dairine hadn't been sure what kind of spell to use to try and understand another spell – at least she had assumed Electra's Change was the result of a spell – so she'd decided on a very basic interpretation spell. The wizardry flared, and both Electra, and Dairine's hands where she touched the wolf's fur, shone brightly with a fierce silver light. Dairine abruptly released Electra with a gasp and fell backward holding her head.

What? What happened? Are you okay? Electra dodged behind Dairine to keep her from hitting her head on the floor.

"Don't….talk…too loud…can't stop it now…" Dairine managed. A barrage of fractured images flew through her mind – a burning world, a war of magic, a malevolent shape surrounded by shadows with dripping bloody fangs, a surge of hope, a bright star in the heavens, pages of a book, a fusing of magics, a girl with silver-streaked black hair who morphed into a black wolf, a final explosion of light – and then the pressure abruptly left her mind and Electra's worried voice faded back in.

What the HELL just happened? the wolf demanded.

"I … I'm not sure. I've never really tried that before. I saw a lot of stuff, but I'm not really sure what any of it meant."

Will any of it help Kit?

"I don't know. What I do know is that your Change, if nothing else, is definitely a Wizard's spell, but I don't believe it directly had any effect on Kit's condition."

So where does that leave us?

"I don't know." Dairine sat up slowly and returned to tapping on Spot's keyboard. Electra paced nervously, and several moments later Dairine straightened. "I think I've got something."

Electra glanced at her hopefully.

"I'm gonna try a seeking spell with an anchor spell –" Dairine began, but was interrupted by a flash of green light from Kit's bed and a sudden flurry of motion. A furry black ball sprang up from its position on Kit's chest and abruptly threw itself across the room, knocking Spot across the room in the process. The laptop clicked and churred angrily at the dog before retreating to a safe position under Kit's computer desk. Ponch bounced around the room several more times, smashing bodily into Electra and Dairine before finally landing back on Kit's bed, where he stood over Kit as the groggy boy sat up dizzily and ran a hand through his hair.

KIT!! the black wolf exclaimed joyfully as she joined Ponch on the bed.

"Owww… gerroff," Kit moaned, pushing them aside and falling back on his pillow. "I feel hungover or something. Powers, my head!" He took a look around then. "Dairine? What are you doing here?"

"Electra brought me," the young wizard replied. "She was afraid you'd gone and died or something. Speaking of which, you mind explaining what the bloody hell you were up to with this charade?"

"Love to, but I really don't know. Wasn't it just a nightmare? I mean, I was asleep… isn't that what usually happens when you sleep?"

"Uh, no. You were like, comatose. And glowing green."

I couldn't find you. Ponch added solemnly.

"Green…that was in my dream," Kit mused. "Maybe you can make some sense of it, Dair. I dreamed… I dreamed everything was green… and spinning. Ponch came with me. The world kept turning over and over and I couldn't think, couldn't focus… someone was trying to talk to me, I think, but I couldn't hear 'cuz they were mumbling, and there was too much green. I was so dizzy…then everything went dark and I woke up."

She calls you. But she is too strong. Make you lost too.

"What? What do you mean?" Kit demanded, grabbing ahold of Ponch's ruff and looking the dog directly in his liquid brown eyes. "Who is 'calling' me? And how?"

Her. Ponch insisted. Boss's lady.

"Nita?"

Ponch nodded.

"How is she calling me? I tried to get her through our telepathy – I couldn't reach her at all. And what did you mean she made me lost? How did you 'find' me then?"

I went to the Elsewhere she called you to, and tried to bring you home, but the call was too strong. Not clear but strong. Much power but little focus. Couldn't break away – the call broke first.

"Is she ok? Is she hurt? Why was she calling me?"

Ponch looked away. Don't know. Too far away. Can't hear. Sounded sad-scared.

"Does she need help?"

Ponch didn't answer.

"Well?"

Ponch shifted uncomfortably on his paws. Don't know. he replied finally.

Kit released him and Ponch slipped off the bed as his master leaned back against the wall and sighed. "Dairine? Any thoughts? Have you heard from Nita lately?"

"No…I thought you just got back from seeing her?"

"Yeah I did…. Dammit. I think I need to go back. I have a bad feeling about all of this."

"But what about …?" Dairine trailed off and cast pointed glances.

"It doesn't matter. Nita is my partner. Not that I don't trust Ronan to take care of her, but … well, I don't trust him to take care of her. I can't leave her. Even if he's supposed to be her partner for this, even if she never wants to talk to me again, if something's wrong, if she's hurt or if anything's happened to her… I need to be with her. I need to help her." He sighed heavily.

Dairine gave a satisfied nod. "Good. Go. I'll hold the fort here. I'm set up already. And I'll hang onto wolfy here for you." She cast a do-not-argue-with-me glance at both Kit and Electra.

Kit looked away. "Dairine –"

"No. I'm putting my foot down on this one."

"But-"

Dairine pointed to her face, "Resolve face. Don't even try. Now. Get. Going."

Kit looked at Electra, but she didn't offer any argument or insist on coming along. He looked back at Dairine. "Alright, alright. You win. Take good care of her ok, spitfire?" he ruffled Dairine's dark hair. "I have a feeling we're going to need her later."

"Roger that," Dairine replied sourly, trying to reorganize her hair. And then just as he turned away and stepped out the window, she grabbed his arm, "Be careful?" Kit just smiled and nodded, and stepped down onto a solid air step above the front lawn.

Down on the lawn, Kit used his beam-me-up-scotty spell to transport himself to the edge of the park, where materials from his previous transport spell were still set up. He was halfway through preparations for another transport spell to Ireland when a wet nose snuffled its way into the back of his shirt. "Ahhh!" he spun around. "Ponch?! What are you doing here?"

Coming with you. the dog replied amiably.

"No, you're not! Go home before someone misses you!"

Coming. It was not a question.

"You didn't want to come before. What's going on, Ponch?" Kit asked suspiciously.

Just coming. Boss might need help.

Kit gave up and wrote his dog's name into the nearly finished spell and signed his own name. "Alright," he told the unrepentant animal. "But if you try anything funny and I'm sending you back. Now, hold on."

Ronan sat in the hall outside Nita's room. He couldn't face the dining room table with its piles of books and parchments without Nita's help. Neither could he sit in Nita's room and look at her, locked up inside a time-stopping spell. And he wasn't any help with Aunt Annie's research; she was downstairs in the kitchen pouring through books on medical care for wizards, and older tomes, certainly of Old Magic, as well as calling anyone she knew that could possibly help. So far she hadn't had any luck with any of the higher up wizards. Any high ranking wizards of any power were all out dealing with the ongoing outbreaks of mythical creatures. The isolated incidents had become regular occurrences and now required the full attention of most active wizards. The ones that weren't involved in cleanup task forces weren't any help either, being preoccupied with research, or unfamiliar with any spells that would help. It was the worst feeling – to be so useless. He had helped to power the spell that was keeping Nita in stasis, but it would not last forever. And he wasn't even sure how much longer he'd be around. The incident with the banshee weighed on the back of his mind. Ronan's indecision was abruptly interrupted by an insistent ringing of the doorbell. He was downstairs and had the door open before he'd even really noticed what he was doing.

"Where's Nita?" Kit burst out, before Ronan could get a word out. Ronan just moved out of the doorway and pointed mutely upstairs. Kit pushed past him and took the stairs two at a time with Ponch a black shadow at his heels. He burst into Nita's room and approached the bed carefully, feeling the weight of wizardry in the air surrounding her. "What's wrong with her?" Kit didn't even bother to glance behind him at the doorway where he knew Ronan was standing.

"We don't know. She just stopped breathing. We barely had time to hold her in this state. Aunt Annie's trying to figure out what happened to her. We think she might have been trying to work some of the Old Magic… but we're not sure what happened to her."

"I happened," Kit said softly, barely audibly. He reached over and took her hand. It felt wrong; cold and lifeless, frozen in a moment – but more than that. It lacked some vital essence that was Nita, that was always present even when she was sleeping or unconscious – an essence that was currently absent from the Nita he saw before him. "I did this. Great Powers, Nita. Where did I send you? How can I get you back?"

Ronan stood behind Kit and silently put his hand on the other's shoulder, sharing their common grief and putting aside petty jealousies and rivalry in their united wish to see Nita recovered. Kit squeezed his eyes shut, but even that could not stop a few silver tears from tracing their way down his face before landing on a green stone on the floor. Swiping his shirt sleeve over his face, Kit attempted to get his emotions under control.

"Can't you… can't you try and talk to her?" Kit turned to stare at Ronan. "I know that you can talk mind to mind," the other went on. "She'd get all spacey in the middle of whatever we were doing, and she never really said much, but I knew she was talking to you. Can't you reach her? Wherever she's gone? Can't you bring her back? You're her partner, aren't you?"

Kit slowly shook his head. "She broke our connection. I can't find her anymore. I can't hear her… its all just empty space. Like someone not only hung up the phone but cut the powerlines. And our partnership… the manual… when we were listed for this assignment. It's all a mess! I – its all my fault!" he cursed violently in Spanish and then turned back and buried his face in Nita's pillow. "It's my fault she's like this – it happened when she broke our connection! She saw me, she was me…just for a few seconds but I guess that was enough. I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"

A muffled thump sounded beside him, and Kit looked up into Ronan's face. "Look at me," Ronan grabbed Kit's shoulders and shook him. "We do not have time for apologies and pity parties. You screwed up. That sucks. But its in the past now, and no matter how much I'd like to take your face off for being a part of hurting Nita – " Ronan's eyes flashed and his jaw clenched, his grip on Kit's shoulders tightening. He paused several seconds before continuing, "as much as I'd like to, I won't. Because there's more important things going on here than my personal agenda. Things that are bigger and more important than your issues, more than your partnership, more than my issues. The world is at stake. Literally. The galaxy is at stake! More lives than I could ever imagine! More than I want to imagine because if I could, I'd be too terrified by the responsibility and weight of it all to do anything at all! But we have to. We're the only ones who can, the only ones who know enough. The powers chose us – us! To act. Here. Now. And we need her. She's the key. I don't know exactly what parts we're all supposed to play in this, and I have a feeling you're gonna be involved too, but we're all here now and we're here for a reason and its gonna take all of us to get out alive, and I'll be damned if I sit here and watch it all fall to pieces now. You're her partner. You'd be her lover if you weren't blind, and such a bloody idiot. Get it together, do what you must, but bring her back. I don't care how, or what you need to do. If you need my help, it's yours for the asking, but get her back."

Kit's black eyes meet Ronan's grey ones with a look of steely resolve. "We'll get her back." Ronan held out his right hand, and Kit gripped it.

"Truce?" the former asked.

The question was met with a firm nod. Ronan stood and moved to pull Kit to his feet. "Wait," Kit said suddenly, catching sight of the jade on the floor. "What?" Ronan inquired, kneeling back down on the floor beside Kit.

"What is this?" Kit reached over to pick up the stone, but the second his hand seized it, he dropped it like it was on fire. His hands went to his head and he screamed before slumping senseless to the floor. Ronan caught him before his head hit the floor, and reached over with his other hand to pick up the jade from the floor. Still holding the unconscious Kit, he turned it over in his hand. "By all the Powers… what in the nine hells is this thing?"

She didn't know how long she had been waiting in the darkness. Time didn't exist here. And then, a green flame burst to life in the darkness and Nita's heart leaped with joy. "Oh thank the Powers!" She immediately poured all her long hours? – Days? Weeks? – of waiting into that faint light, sending out desperate telepathic messages, trying to send her thoughts, words, power, anything, everything; channeling it all towards that one flicker of hope. She reached out towards it with everything she had, and was abruptly abandoned as the light was once again extinguished.
Kit opened his eyes and sat up, then groaned as his head pounded and his eyes swam. He tried to stay upright but finally sank back down on the couch.

"You're awake." Ronan's voice.

"More or less," Kit grimaced, gingerly making a second attempt at sitting up, this one much slower.

"What happened?"

"I don't – I don't really know. I saw that green rock on the floor and went to pick it up, but when I touched it my head … exploded."

"Looks intact to me," the other boy remarked dryly.

"I mean telepathically." Kit's brow furrowed. "It was like getting hit with a – a thought bomb? For lack of a better term… Just… a million thoughts and images. Too many to decipher any one of them, but I got a sort of overwhelming sense of … loneliness. And green…" He sat a few more minutes, contemplating, and then looked at Ronan with a wild gleam in his eye. "Where did you put that rock?"

"It's right here. I tried to figure out what had knocked you out, but it didn't do anything when I picked it up – Hey! Where are you going with that?"

Kit snatched the jade from his hand and raced back upstairs. He burst into Nita's room, and carefully opening her hand, he placed the jade in it, and closed his own hand over top, enclosing the stone between their hands. Nita! Nita, can you hear me? If there is a God out there, please please please let her hear me…Powers, please let this work! Nita!

Nothing.

NITA!

Nothing.

Neets? Please? I – I need you… please… answer me!

Very very faintly, as though across a very far distance, and faintly blurred as though coming through water or some other thick medium, Kit? Is that you?

Kit sighed in relief and offered up thanks to whatever deity had answered his fervent prayers. Nita it's me! Great powers its good to hear your voice! What's happened to you? Where are you? Can you get back?

I – I don't know where I am. It's dark. And cold. And I don't know how to get back. I'm lost, Kit! So lost! Can you bring me back? I want to come home!

He could feel her fear and longing and ached to do something about it. Just hang on! We'll find some way to get you back! I promise!

Wait! Don't leave me!

Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere Kit sent waves of comfort and assurance through the faint link, unsure of how much of it would reach her, but desperate to do something to alleviate the edge of desperation in her voice at the thought that he would leave.

Kit opened his eyes and saw Ronan in the doorway. "Well?" he asked.

"I've got her."

Ronan's eyes brightened. "And?"

"She's alone and she's scared and she doesn't know how to get back. But all I can do is talk to her! I don't know how to bring her back!"

That is my work. A black shadow pushed past Ronan and made its way across the room, leaping up on 'top of the bed and laying down on Nita's chest.

"Ponch? What are you doing?" Kit went to pull his dog off Nita, but the lab pushed his hands away.

I will fetch her back.

"How - ?" Kit wanted to know, but Ponch only shook his head and settled himself, touching his nose to the green jade still clasped between Kit and Nita's hands.

Wait here. Back soon. Ponch closed his eyes and Kit sat down on the bed, holding Nita's hand and wondering what would happen next. He didn't have to wait long.

The wards surrounding Nita broke with an audible snap; the floorboards cracking along the lines of Aunt Annie's diagrams, causing a whirling storm of wizardly energy. The power leaking from the broken lock made the whole house shudder with the violence with which it escaped, and for a moment everything was light and sound. Kit threw himself over Ponch and Nita's inert forms as the whole room shook with all the frightening intensity of a severe earthquake. Finally, the house settled and Kit rose to a sitting position, coughing on air thick with dust and power. He was vaguely aware of Ronan, who was still standing in the doorway and also bent over and coughing, but his attention was swiftly stolen by Ponch, who opened his eyes and gave Kit a lazy smile before jumping off the bed.

She is fetched. Head and heart and body together again. Good? Yes?

"What – ?" Kit began, but then he felt Nita's fingers squeeze his own, and his heart fluttered. "Neets?" he asked aloud, "Are you with us?"

"Kit?" was her response.

You did good, Ponch. Really good. Kit praised his dog, who looked very pleased with himself, and then returned his attention to Nita. "Neets! Powers, I'm glad you're back!" He crushed her to his chest and hid his face in her hair, then pulled back and held her at arms length just to assure himself she was really there before hugging her close again. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it; I didn't mean for this to happen! Can you ever forgive me?"

"Kit! Kit," Nita returned his hug and then put her hands on his chest and pushed him back enough so she could see his face. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm back now. And… I forgive you."

Kit's whole form relaxed in relief. "You do? Really? Honestly?"

"Of course. You're my partner. And my best friend. And you came to get me – or sent Ponch at least. You didn't leave me to get swallowed up by the darkness."

"But Electra – "

"What about her?"

"She – I – what you saw, when you were in my mind… I know you saw, well, everything. I just want you to know… it meant nothing to me. She isn't what I want, she isn't…" he shook his head in frustration. "It's you, Neets. It's always been you. I always meant to tell you and then I never did, and now, now I almost lost you and it scared me out of my wits! We do this every day – this big wizardry stuff – and the thought that one day I'd lose you, that I'd have to go on without you, and even worse, that something had happened to you and it was my fault… I couldn't bear it. I guess what I'm trying to say is… I – I love you." He looked down, but felt Nita's hands on either side of his face and raised his gaze to meet hers.

"Kit," Nita said softly, slowly, "I thought I'd never hear you say that. But I'm glad you did. I love you too. I always have. And I'm sorry for scaring you." Impulsively, Nita pressed her lips to his forehead. Kit responded by tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her lips down to meet his. Pleasantly surprised, Nita sank into his kiss, only to be interrupted by a cough from the doorway.

"Um, should I leave now? Or shall we get back to saving the world?"

"Ronan!" Nita exclaimed.

Ronan entered the room, running a shaking hand though his hair and making it stand on end in messy spikes. He stood shifting his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot at the side of Nita's bed, before finally reaching between her and Kit to give her a swift hug and then stepped back again. "I'm glad you're back."

"Thanks."

"Are you alright?" he asked roughly.

"Okay, I think. Better, now that I'm not in the dark and cold. And that I can feel myself again." She flexed her hands and stared at them contemplatively. "It was so weird… being lost in my own mind," Nita hugged her legs to her chest, sitting back on the bed. "I never want to feel like that again." She stared vacantly into space for several long minutes before shaking her head, as if to rid it of lingering thoughts. "Now then, I think we still had some more research to do?" Ronan nodded an affirmative, and Nita gave Kit a questioning look.

"Don't look at me; I'm not leaving you til this is all over. Lets go save the world."