I don't own The Incredible Hulk TV series.

I always wondered what happened to the little girl from the pilot, the one who ran from the Hulk and whose father was the first person thrown about by Lou Ferrigno's Hulk. How would a reunion between them go if they didn't know who it was they were meeting?

Unexpected Reunion.

Susie was beginning to regret coming to this city; not only was she miles from home, but she was separated by her father, and she needed to wait until she had access to a decent phone which didn't rely on coins that would run down after a few minutes. But it had been an opportunity for her to travel around North America so she could experience more of the world than she could have done back home.

And to escape from the memories of that green thing…

Susie closed her eyes, wondering if she could ever exorcise the memories of the green giant which had appeared from behind her when she had been fishing by that lake, to say nothing of how he had lost his temper when her father had shot him in the arm. Susie shuddered in remembrance as she recalled how the creatures' roars before it went for her dad, who had struggled to reload his rifle in time, he had admitted to her much later he had been scared and unnerved by the otherworldly thing running up to him, roaring and bellowing angrily like a charging grizzly bear, before he'd been thrown so incredibly far by the super-strong thing who'd shown he was capable just ripping up a dead tree and lifting it to use to catch her when she had fallen out of the boat she'd tried to use to escape.

Susie had never been able to forget it, especially when that nosy reporter had stuck his nose in and asked question after question. The National Register had never been her father's favourite paper, and it never would, but Jack McGee's story about this "Hulk," as he'd named the green giant had garnered a lot of interest in her, especially after he was reported being the murderer to two scientists, over at the nearby Culver Institute, and had been appearing at random in places all across the country, with a massive picture of him appearing in the middle of Time's Square in New York being one of his most prominent appearances.

It had been years since she had seen the Hulk, or the giant, as she'd called him, except in nightmares. She did not expect to ever encounter him again.

"I'm sorry, is this seat taken?" Susie looked up in surprise, snapping out of her thoughts instantly, and she looked up and found a man with brown hair and a kindly expression which said he smiled regularly, wearing a battered black jacket although she could see a blue button-up shirt underneath and jeans and boots. Everything about him spoke a weary traveller, but his eyes hinted at an exceptional intellect.

"Er no, not at all," Susie smiled back at him, instantly liking him, and she took off her own luggage and dropped it on the floor.

"Thanks," the stranger smiled, and he sat down next to her. Susie smiled back, but she noticed something quickly about the man; he seemed friendly enough, but he seemed to be pulling away from her as if he were afraid of her passing on some kind of disease to him.

Or him passing something on to her.

Susie was instantly curious about the man, but from the way he was sitting, it was obvious he was not really interested in making conversation. A part of her was offended by that, but she knew most travellers tended to prefer their own company after becoming used to it after a while. This one certainly fitted the mould, but at the same time, he seemed more withdrawn as if he didn't want to be near anybody unless he could help it, which was a shame since he had a nice smile, and she liked him for it seconds after meeting him.

Susie decided to try to make conversation, see what came out of it, and if he didn't want to speak with her, then she could live with that. "Passing through?" She asked with a cautious smile; she might like the man, but she didn't know how he'd react to her, or to her questions.

The man jolted in his seat. He clearly hadn't expected her to speak to him. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I asked if you were passing through?" Susie repeated, wondering to herself just how out of it the man was. If he was that unused to speaking to others, then what kind of life did he lead?

The man, however, smiled. "Pretty much."

"What, you don't have anywhere to go?"

"No." Susie's eyes widened a little at the admission, but what caught her by surprise the most was the sheer sadness in the man's voice, and the haunted expression he wore, and for the first time Susie caught on this man had been living a truly hard life - God only knew how long, but it had been hard going for him - and she felt sorry for him.

"I'm….sorry," Susie whispered after a moment of the part of her mind which went 'yeah, right - this is a scam' didn't flare up when she had thought it would for a second. "How do you cope, just moving about from one place to another?" She added hesitantly, unsure if she had this man's current lifestyle deduced accurately.

The man sighed. So far so good, she thought to herself, he doesn't seem annoyed with me for probing too deeply into his life.

"I don't," he muttered.

Susie frowned, wondering what he meant by that, but by his stiff posture and the look in his once expressive and friendly eyes, it was not a subject he really wanted to touch upon. "What, you mean you…. Have nobody?"

"No."

"How do you cope with that?" Susie felt as if she were back to basics, but she was so taken by surprise by the bleak tone in the man's voice, and she could see from the hollow look in his face he was a man who had suffered a great deal in a way nobody had foreseen.

"I don't."

Susie wondered if this man only knew how to speak in neutral tones. While he wasn't giving anything meaningful away now she was showing how curious she was about his past, she knew enough to know when to back off. "I'm sorry."

The man turned to look at her, a melancholic smile on his face which upset her. "It's not your fault."

The rest of the bus journey was one of uncomfortable silence, but one look at the man's face told Susie only she was the one who was uncomfortable with it. The man seemed to be finding the silence beyond blissful, and his very attitude made it clear he did not want to talk about himself, nor about his past.

When the two separated, neither of them knew what to say to each other, but what neither of them knew was they had met before, and they did not know the others' identities. It had happened when Susie was quite young when she and her father were down by the lake when they were happened upon by a green monster Jack McGee, journalist and nosy busy-body extraordinaire for the National Register would show his creativity by referring to the Hulk, and it was a creature Susie and her father had tried very hard to push to the backs of their minds. But it hadn't worked since both of them had suffered from nightmares over the years.

As for David Banner, the supposed victim of the Hulk in the fire which claimed the life of Dr Elaina Marks, he had no idea he had been sitting right next to the young woman who his alter ego had scared unintentionally. If they had known each other's identities, things might have gone differently.