Disclaimer: I do not own Lilo and Stitch.

Sorry for taking half of forever (literally), but I am having some serious writers block issues with the story, and I'm doing my best to wade through it. Please be patient, but feel free to PM me and scream at me for it. Although, I would kindly ask that you take into account my poor AP Physics grade before you do.

Chapter 21: Tamhewt

When Lilo woke up about two hours later to find herself back in the hotel, lying on one of the beds. Yawning quietly, she sat up and looked around for the others: Letho was nowhere to be seen, Stitch was gazing out the window, and someone was tied to a chair. As she looked again, she realized it was Tamhewt; it was the first time she had gotten a good look at him.

From what she could tell, Tamhewt looked like a giant otter. Standing about a head taller then Stitch, he was covered from the tip of his thick, heavy tail to the top of his head in a sleek, midnight-black fur. He had razor sharp teeth, and a short snout. Looking around under the laser-cuffs that bound him, she saw that he had two four-fingered paws with claws that were half an inch long. He appeared to be reasonably fit, and the curve of his muscles showed slightly through his fur. Altogether, she had to admit he looked kind of sexy; not as good as Stitch, but still pretty handsome.

"Where's Letho?" She asked.

Stitch turned around. "He went outside to make a phone call. You sleep well?"

Lilo nodded. "It was fine. I'm surprised that he's still out." Lilo said, pointing to Tamhewt.

Stitch hopped down from his perch. "From what I can tell, his skeletal structure isn't nearly as strong as mine. When the rest of that crap and I fell on top of his head, it gave him one hell of a headache and knocked him out cold; he's got a pretty nasty bump on the back of his head to prove it."

Lilo looked at him. "I see you have a nice bump on your head, also." Stitch ran his hand over it.

"It still stings a bit." He said.

"Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

Stitch smiled. "If that's the case, I think that fall hurt me in a few more spots."
"Really?" Lilo said. "Where."

Stitch put his arm around her. "Everywhere."

Lilo sighed, a smile playing across her lips. "Well, that would take a long time to kiss. I guess I'll just have to give you a bath to help you."

Stitch chuckled nervously. "Um… on second thought, everything but my head is ok."

"You sure? There's a bathtub right over there, and I have some soap and a brush." Lilo said. The door to their room opened, and Letho walked in.

"I have some friends that are going to come and pick him up later right before we have to head out for our plane." He said, putting his phone away.

Lilo looked up at him. "Don't we have a long way to drive to get back?"

Letho nodded. "Yes, so we'll be leaving in a couple hours."

"But the sun will be out."

Letho nodded. "My friends will also be bringing a sufficiently tinted car to allow us to drive through the day." He lay down on the bed, tossing his boots and cloak to one side. "If that… thing wakes up, then wake me up. Otherwise, I need some sleep." In a few moments, he was sound asleep.

"Let's call Jumba." Lilo suggested. They had to stay in the hotel room, so they moved to the far corner of the room and turned on the communicator. Surprisingly, even though it was the middle of the night, Jumba answered.

"Little girl! 626! I is glad to finally be talking to you again!" Jumba said joyfully.

"Hey Jumba." Stitch said. "Where are you?"

"Am about to be leaving for Seras' house. CIA man called earlier, and is very annoyed that you narrowly escaped him. He is taking someone with him down to see Seras as well, so I will be hitching ride with them."

Lilo sighed. "Have you heard from the Council Woman yet?"

Jumba nodded. "Gantu informed her of situation, and she is attempting to figure out course of action. Seems that other members of council are getting slightly perturbed that you have not reported in on experiments yet. Council Woman is trying to smooth things out, but is getting more and more difficult. By sounds of it."

"How's Nani holding up?"

Jumba shrugged. "Better then I would have thought. She seems to have agreed with your decision… mostly. She has been depressed, but she is trying to hold up. The experiments are all very worried about you. They think you abandoned them."

"WHY WOULD I DO THAT!!" Lilo said in a loud whisper.

"I told them story and showed them most of 626's transmission; they are unhappy, but they seem to be ok with it, though they all miss you."

Stitch took the communicator. "Why is Cobra after us so much? I've never seen him so… obsessed."

Jumba sighed. "Hard to explain. Part of it is because he worked hard to save this planet once, and now with you not with the experiments, it could give the Council reason to destroy planet."

"So he's afraid we're destroying all his work to save Earth." Stitch said. "But there's got to be more to it then that."

Jumba shrugged. "I know that there is personal connection between them, but any files about it were deleted long ago." He looked at his watch. "I have to be going now, but I will be at Seras' by tomorrow, and we can talk again then." He hung up, and Stitch turned off the communicator.

"So what now?" Lilo asked. "We have a few hours to kill." Off in the corner, Tamhewt moaned and began to stir.

"Let's talk to our guest." Stitch said. "Let's figure out exactly what he was up to." When he finally finished coming around, he instantly started attempting to break out of the ropes that held him.

"Cool it." Stitch said. "We don't want to hurt you."

"Untie me and let's see who hurts who." He growled. However, he did quit squirming. "Who are you guys?"

"Long story." Lilo said. "But I'm Lilo, he's Stitch, and the guy sleeping on the bed is Letho. We want to know what you were doing following Cobra."

"If you know I was following Cobra, then you must have some idea why I was doing it." Tamhewt said. Lilo had the feeling it was going to be a pain getting a straight answer from him.

"We have a theory, but we want to know the truth of it all." Stitch said.

Tamhewt looked around the room. "I've been meeting his… colleagues over the past few years and dealing with them."

"You killed them."

"I merely helped them move from this world to the next." He responded.

Lilo glanced at Stitch. "And Cobra was next in line."

Tamhewt nodded. "Next and last; took some time to get through the line without arousing too much suspicion. I did a pretty good job about it, too."

"Cobra didn't even see you coming." Lilo said.

"What I want to know is how you did. I was pretty meticulous about covering my tracks and making most of the stuff look like an accident."

Stitch shrugged. "Mostly luck. Seras and I were talking about one of her experiments, which she based off of your original programming."

Tamhewt looked at him. "You mean the perfect assassin."

Stitch nodded. "Exactly. She had tried tracking you after you escaped from the CIA facility in Chicago, but she lost you after DC."

Tamhewt nodded. "So I actually did a decent job then." He looked at Stitch. "You another one of their creations? Sent out to bring me back?"

"No." Stitch said shaking his head. "I am a genetic experiment, but I'm from… a completely different galaxy."

"You're an alien?"

"Yep. And there's over six hundred others sitting down in Kauai."

Tamhewt whistled. "That's a lot of alien experiments."

Lilo sat down in a chair across from Tamhewt and looked at him. "So you were going to kill Cobra?"

"It is what I'm programmed to do." He answered.

"And yet they tortured you simply because you wouldn't kill."

"All they had to do was leave me alone, but they decided to torture me instead to get me to do what they wanted."

"How long were they doing it?"

"Torturing me? For a few years; I've even got a few scars left over from it if you want to see them later. I'd show them off now, but I'm a little tied up at the moment."

"They were torturing you because you wouldn't kill, and yet, after you escaped, you started killing."

He sighed. "After what they did to me, I decide to show them exactly what they had made. It was the only way to make sure that they wouldn't try it again anytime soon. Cobra was the last one in that line."

Lilo looked down at her feet. "If you had done your research, you would have seen that he was kicked off your project for trying to break you out."

Tamhewt looked at Stitch. "Is that right?" Stitch nodded. He thought for a moment. "I guess… maybe he's ok after all."

Lilo looked up at him. "So where are you going to go now? Did you actually make any plans for after you were done?"

He nodded. "Oh yeah. I was going to go steal a fighter jet and fly into a mountain."

"I'm being serious; what were you going to do?"

He looked away. "I'm being serious as well." He looked back. "See, I like to be around people a lot. Kind of weird for an assassin, but that's just how I am. I hate being alone, and with my… appearance, I'm going to be a complete outcast, and I don't want that. So, I decided that after my little revenge trip, I was going to go get rid of myself. Also, I figured that the CIA was going to tail me everywhere I went when they finally figured out that I was still alive, and I really didn't want to live on the run forever."

"Well, maybe if you're good, we could get you down to Kauai: you'd blend in with all of Stitch's cousins."

"Really?"

Lilo glanced back at Letho. "I'm sure I could manage that. What's one more genetic creation?" She yawned. "I think I'm going to go back to bed." Stitch nodded his agreement, and pulled two of the pillows to the floor. He glanced back at Tamhewt.

"Don't worry." Tamhewt told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

Five Hours Later

Stitch yawned and opened his eyes slowly against the sunlight that was sneaking in-between the blinds on the window. Sitting up, he noted that the other two were still asleep, and Tamhewt… was gone? Blinking twice, he looked again, and the chair was still empty with the ropes sitting broken on the floor. He groaned, and decided to wake up Lilo first before telling Letho about it.

"Um… Lilo?" He gently shook her.

"Yeah?" She yawned, not opening her eyes.

"Tamhewt's gone."

"That's nice." She whispered. A moment later, she shot up, suddenly wide awake. "He's gone!"

Stitch nodded and pointed at the chair where he had sat. "What're we going to do?"

"We'll have to go out and find him if we can." Letho spoke from the other bed, sitting up. "We don't have much time before we have to go, but we'll do what we can."

"We'll go now." Lilo said, pointing to herself and Stitch. "You can start after you finish waking up." She jumped out of bed and went into the bathroom to change clothes.

"And I thought he was good." Lilo said through the door. An image of her without her muumuu on flashed through Stitch's head, and he immediately smacked himself for it; he shouldn't be thinking about her like that.

"I thought he was good too." Stitch replied, smacking himself once more. The door opened after another moment and Lilo stepped out in her green and white muumuu.

"Well, let's go." She opened the hotel door. "We need to find ourselves a creep." She turned to go out the door, but was unable to due to the fact that someone was already standing there.

The someone in question was carrying a box and had a strawberry donut in his teeth. Taking it out with his free hand, he looked between them. "Something wrong?" Tamhewt asked.

"We thought you had run off." Letho called from the bathroom, which he had occupied after Lilo had left.

Tamhewt walked in and closed the door behind him. "I got hungry, and decided to make a breakfast run. Figured you guys could use the sleep, so I didn't wake any of you up. Of course, with the way that guy snores" he pointed at the bathroom "I doubt any of you could have heard me attempt to wake you."

"Very funny." Letho called. "I'm still not sure what we're doing with you when we have to go."

"You can't let me go merrily on my way?" Tamhewt asked, flopping down on the bed.

"Go where?" Lilo asked. "Last I heard, you were going to fly into a mountain."

"I believe a change of destination is called for now." Tamhewt said. "I heard Kauai was nice this time of year."

"I'd hate to tell you," Letho said, coming out of the bathroom, "but I'm still not entirely convinced that you're intentions are good. When I get that car from my friends in a few minutes, then we're going to send you back with them until I'm sure you're not going to kill anyone."

"Can he get in if he isn't a vampire?" Stitch asked.

Letho nodded. "There are one or two entrances that are not vampire-only that he can be taken through, and it won't be too much of a delay. Besides: the others will want to have a look at him and see how he ticks."
Tamhewt looked over at him, propping himself on his elbows. "I'd love it if you wouldn't talk about me like I wasn't here."

"It's nothing personal." Lilo assured him. "I think." A knock sounded on the door, and Letho glanced out the window.

"It's them." He said. Opening the door, there was a large woman dressed in a large black cloak. She was about medium build, almost six feet tall. Her pitch black hair almost touched the ground, and her emerald eyes were constantly moving. She had quite a bit of makeup on, and she almost looked like a normal human. Next to her stood a man dressed in a blue cloak. His hair touched the collar of his cloak, and his sapphire eyes were fixed on his master.

"Wow." Tamhewt said, looking at the heavily make-upped face of the woman. "I didn't know the freak show was in town this week."

"Excuse me?" The woman asked.

Tamhewt stood up. "Sorry, but I guess you haven't heard that Halloween is still a few months away, or you wouldn't have put that hideous mask on."

Letho sighed. "Enough Tamhewt." He turned to the Lilo and Stitch. "Guys, this is Kiru and her servant, Tarn." He turned to the others. "This is Lilo and Stitch, whom you've no doubt already heard about."

Lilo looked Kiru up and down. Apart from the mountain of make-up she had on her, she looked fine. However, somewhere deep down, she had this feeling of loathing and hatred for the woman. Pushing it aside, she shuffled a little closer to Stitch.

"Letho." Kiru said. "We have the car waiting out front for you."

Letho nodded. "And you will be taking Tamhewt with you."

"We need a word in private." Kiru continued. "Without any ears around."

Letho nodded. "You guys go out to the car, Tamhewt wait with them, and I'll be there in a minute or two."

Walking out to the car, Lilo was glad that the sun was behind a cloud at the moment; it hurt just walking in a few of the rays. They jumped in the car and closed it behind them, while Tamhewt stood outside. Lilo cracked the window open, and Tamhewt looked inside.

"They're talking about you two." He said.

"Really? What are they saying?" Lilo asked.

He shushed her. "I'll summarize in a sec." After waiting a few minutes in silence, he turned back to them. "Ok, so Kiru said something about Xukir claiming Lilo had the potential to be able to use magic, and that she should be kept in her company. Letho said that he trusts her about as long as he can stay in the sunlight; while he agrees that you have a high potential to use magic, he says he'll never let her train you. Other then that, it's mostly the 'uh-huh' and 'nuh-uh' kid stuff." Letho came up behind him.

"Time to go. Tamhewt, we'll see you when we get back to the Caverns." He slipped into the driver seat. "It should only take a few days."
Tamhewt nodded. "I have a feeling I'm going to hate that woman." He said, walking away. As they began to drive Lilo looked out the window at his retreating form.

"So do I." She said in a whisper: a whisper that did not go unheard by Stitch or Letho.