Case suddenly stood in a darkened hallway lit by burning torches. He shivered- there was a smell of the damp of centuries dripping from the walls. Vapour billowed from his mouth as he breathed out.
Where was he? Not the Manticore castle- this didn't feel the same. There was the sinister sense of foreboding, but it just wasn't the same.
Maybe it was just because Princess Tinga was fully-grown in the recent encounters. As odd as it was to see a beautiful woman savagely running a colossal beast through with a sword, you had more confidence in her than in her ten-year-old counterpart.
"Brin, why won't you let me out?" he heard a pleading voice beg. Case turned a corner praying that it was so...
Princess Brin was standing on her tiptoes on a small stool she'd propped in front of a cell door with a tiny barred window and was speaking to the cell's inhabitant. "Tinga, this is where you belong!" she protested weakly. "But you're sick... they told me, they said you'd contracted a disease from living with commoners so long, and... and..." It sounded like Brin was trying to convince herself as much as her sister.
"It's because they think I am the one destined to be supreme monarch of Wyominia, Brin! But I'm not, I know I'm not. I'm not strong enough," wailed Princess Tinga's voice. It sounded thin and exhausted.
"It is true..." said Princess Brin. "It is said a dark, strong woman of virtue and truth will reign over Wyominia and lead its captive aristocracy to safety from the Manticore Castle's depths." She shook her head and snapped, sounding again like the woman with the riding crop who'd commanded the soldiers in Portlandshire. "It's not TRUE! They wouldn't lie to us, Tinga!"
"How can you say that?" demanded Princess Tinga. "You say that they want to cure me of some disease. Can't you see that I am dying by their evil charms and poultices? You say I am the one meant to rule when you know the stars would not decree it that way? It be'th-"
Princess Brin looked angry. "Sister, I have tried to tolerate you, but you show my superiors disrespect!"
"Brin, look on me. I am not long for this world should I stay in this cursed place."
"No!" said Princess Brin. "Don't say that! You're not meant to die, sister! You're supposed to come back so you can be my sister again..." She sounded about to cry. Her voice became shrill.
"734!" barked a voice as a woman in a sorceress' robes marched down the hall, lifting her elegant skirts from the filth. The woman's hair was bleached-blonde and she smiled cruelly as Brin gave a yelp and tripped off the stool. "734, what are you doing?"
"Absolutely nothing, milady!" answered Princess Brin mechanically, picking herself up off the floor.
"Good. To your quarters, 734. I wish to speak to the prisoner alone," said the woman. Brin skittered past her in a fashion achingly reminiscent of the good, gentle, loyal Princess Brin of the Manticore royals' childhood.
Brin lingered at the end of the corridor as Case, horrified, ran at the blonde woman. "Let her out!" he yelled in rage. "Let the princess go!"
Nothing. There was no reaction from anyone in the corridor. Case caught on with horror that, like his first dreams about the Manticore Castle and the royals, nobody could hear or see him. He might as well have been a ghost.
A vindictive smile curled the edges of the woman's mouth. "Queen Tinga, you're dead," she hissed. "Wyominia is as good as mine. I'll have you know I've killed four of your family already- they were worthless. But you, my dear, fit all the requirements the stars foretold. A dark, strong woman indeed..."
"Who?" came Princess Tinga's weakened voice. "Which ones are dead?"
"We thought it was 798- the princess Jace," she continued, smiling broadly. "We were MOST vexed when she ran away. In my respect and that of my compatriots, she fitted the bill most splendidly. But no matter... you fit it so much better. And so you are going to die, Your Majesty."
She turned, looking mildly surprised at seeing Brin still standing there, having heard everything. Then the woman strode past Princess Brin with a snarl of, "And not a word to your king, 734."
There came a shriek from Princess Tinga's cell. "MY BROTHER AND SISTER WILL COME FOR ME!"
Princess Brin shook her head and slunk out.
"MY BROTHER AND SISTER WILL COME FOR ME!"
And before Case could look through the barred window, his location had changed yet again. He found himself inside a tiny room where Princess Brin, dressed in nightclothes, lay on her mattress on the floor. It was nighttime.
These were apparently her quarters inside the Manticore Castle. She had her arms folded over her chest like a person in their tomb, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be fighting a furious internal battle.
Suddenly, Brin sat up and crawled to her weapons chest in the corner of the room. She pulled out a small cauldron and some vials of coloured liquid, pouring the entire contents of each vial into the cauldron. Finally, she extracted from the chest a tiny red feather. Princess Brin blew on it and dropped it into the cauldron.
The liquids erupted into flame and became again liquid, bubbling violently toward the brim of the cauldron, where they simmered. The potion became first blood red, then a venomous green and faded to a dreamy opaque.
"Show me Tinga," demanded the princess in her warlike tones, which softened as she next spoke. "Show me my sister as I do remember her."
The potion suddenly bloomed raven in the centre of the liquid and boiled black. Then Case saw what Princess Brin had wanted to see...
In the surface of the potion was a picture of a swarm of very young children jostling to see out of a slit window to a courtyard below.
"Hold me up, T'nga!" bleated a tiny Asian girl as she stood on tiptoes. "Wha's happening to our pa'ents?"
"They're leading them to th' block, Brinny," said the biggest child, a black girl of about five years old. She spoke in the same strained, affected tones. Her voice was very young. "Be patient!"
"Is my mommy gon' die?" whispered a boy.
"Shh, ev'ryone!" said the oldest boy, who was blonde and big for his age. It was Prince Zack. "Nom'lies might hear us!"
At his words there was a sudden rumbling and the children- there was about ten or twenty of them- looked afraid. In particular they stared now not out the window at their parents' assumed execution, but at a portrait of a Hispanic-looking lady in rich furs who held two babies (somewhat resembling Princess Max and Prince Krit) in her lap. It jolted and vibrated on the wall as if somebody was hitting the wall on the other side with a baseball bat.
"NOM'LIE!" screamed a girl, taking a smaller boy by the hand. "RUUUUUN!"
The children went sprinting away as a Nomaly guard came crashing through the stone. The tiny Asian girl tripped and held out a hand, clutching at her ankle as the Nomaly sniffed the air. "T'nga!" she shrieked as her pseudosister chivvied the younger ones along. "Please don' leave me!"
The older girl (who Case knew suddenly was Princess Tinga) turned back without a second thought and helped up Little Brin. Both began to run...
The image vanished and another took its place. This was of the princesses Tinga and Brin climbing onto the roof of the Home Tower via the rope in the dead of night. Clouds curled the horizon and blotted out the stars. Both wore ripped nightdresses and Brin (who was nine or barely ten) rubbed at her eyes a lot, yawning.
"Pray, sister, might I lie down whilst you beseech thy wish unto the Blue Faerie?"
"T'will be freezing, sister," said Princess Tinga thickly, for she had her fingers in her mouth and seemed to be wiggling a loose tooth free. "But yea, you might. It's... private, what the Faerie and myself must discuss."
The younger girl looked mildly offended. "Private from me, sister, what thou wilt discuss?"
"Of course not, Brinny. But the others might break thy resolve and know. There is nothing I have private from thee."
Brin made a small noise of dissent and curled up on the slats while her sister dithered about, and when Princess Brin seemed to be asleep the older girl knelt before the Blue Faerie, putting a bloody tooth on her shrine.
"Ma'am, I beg of thee, I don't know what to do. I have these strange feelings... hardly feelings, more an affliction... for Prince Ben. I don't know what they are, but the texts King Lydecker ordered burnt inform me I'm doing something called 'in love'. I know it's bad, ma'am, and..."
Case winced as he remembered the special smiles ten-year-old Tinga had given only Ben. So that was what they were.
One could see quite plainly that Young Brin's eyes were open, and she had a look of shock upon her young face. She sat up suddenly, startling Princess Tinga.
"How much did you hear, sister?"
"Of what?" asked Princess Brin, playing dumb.
"Of... what I was saying," explained Princess Tinga.
Brin raised her eyebrows. "I was asleep, sister. I am ready to sleep now in my bed, doest thou object to being left alone? I wish to repair now to the tower room."
"Not at all, baby sister," Tinga breathed, sighing. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
Brin scrambled down the rope and through the window, almost falling onto Max and Jondy, who were shaking with silent laughter.
"WERE you asleep, sister Brin?" giggled Princess Max. "Oh, your luck hath run afoul if that be so!"
"Tinga in love!" chortled Jondy. "We hath read more of the texts that she, WE know its meaning fully! With Ben, no less!"
With a fearful look upward, Princess Brin advanced on the two giggly princesses, fists raised. They looked surprised at this show of spunk from their usually timid sister.
"Not a WORD!" she hissed. "No word to any about what has transpired! A fine way to repay Tinga for all she hath done for you! She is our mother, sister, avenger and you would make sport of her? For shame!"
Glaring, young Princess Brin pushed past the shamefaced Princess Jondy and Princess Max.
Case looked at her adult counterpart and saw in surprise that tears slid down her cheeks, falling into the water and marring its surface.
A final scene. Underneath a stone bridge and again in the night, a tiny lamp bore a flame for the sisters Tinga and Brin. Both were dressed as peasant girls- they had long since escaped. Rain spattered onto the black river, chilling them.
Crawling on all fours came Tinga, her splendid long hair coiled into a messy topknot. Underneath a burlap sack Princess Brin was curled up, freezing water on her pale face.
Princess Tinga, who looked deathly worried for her best friend, forced a smile. "Baby, are you feeling better?"
"I'm so cold, Tinga," whispered Princess Brin.
Tinga moved the lamp closer. "Got us six dollars pickpocketing in the town hall, sister dear. We can have breakfast tomorrow."
"Am I going to die?" murmured Brin.
"No," said Tinga, rubbing her hands and blowing on them to try at make them warm. She smoothed Brin's hair. "Of course you're not going to die. You are a Wyominia royal." She tried to make Brin laugh. "We're not ALLOWED to die!"
Case couldn't help but smile. What a great little girl.
"Want a lullaby, baby?"
Little Brin seemed about to protest. but her face softened. "What one?"
"It's silly, sister. Ben wrote it for me once, the night you accidentally shot me in the shoulder-"
A grimace took Princess Brin's features. "I don't want to remember that."
"He wrote it to make me feel better, sister. He made the words, Eva made the music. It'll make thee better too."
"All right."
Tinga curled up behind her sister, winding Brin's hair through her fingers. "I call it 'Ben and Eva's Lullaby'. They called it 'Troubles'," whispered Princess Tinga.
"I want to hear it."
"Feels like the world is closin' on me. Feels like my dreams will never come to me. I keep on slippin' deeper into myself and I'm scared, so scared..."
Brin coughed.
"If you're troubled, you just gotta let it go. If you're worried, baby, you just gotta let it go. This journey ain't for nothing, you just gotta take it slow, and when you need me, baby, all you do is let me know."
"It's sad," said Princess Brin, watching rainwater splatter onto the dark water. A tear pricked at her young eye. "I miss them."
"Shh," commanded Tinga. "It's not finished."
"I apologise."
"Why does it feel that my mind is constantly trying to pull me down? I can't seem to get away. Continuous mistakes I know I've made before... how long will I feel so out of place?" sang Princess Tinga as Brin's eyes closed.
"I'm too old for lullabies," murmured Princess Brin.
"Of course you are," said Tinga, and continued. "Feels like the world is closin' on me. Feels like my dreams will never come to me. I keep on slippin' deeper into myself and I'm scared, so scared- If you're troubled, you just gotta let it go. If you're worried, baby, you just gotta let it go. This journey ain't for nothing, you just gotta take it slow, and when you need me, baby, all you do is let me know..."
Brin was asleep. "Love you," said Tinga, smiling.
And the final memory faded as well.
Brin tipped the contents of the cauldron out of her window. She placed the tiny cauldron on the floor beside her and stared at the night. As Case Smith knelt still on the bricks, Princess Brin began to cry.
"Tinga..." she called. "Tinga..."
Case only stared.
"By the Faerie... why did I let you die?" she sobbed, and Case felt like someone had slammed a huge weight onto him.
Tinga?
Dead?
Case awoke for real this time, and had never felt so sad and lonely.
Because he knew for real now. Princess Tinga and Penny Smith were one and the same.
And he had lost both again.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to James Cameron and Fox. The song 'Troubles' belongs to Alicia Keys (I changed a couple of words and added a couple) and her record company. Not me. So don't sue.
NOTE: Nope, this still ain't the last chapter of the story. I hope you all liked it. Are there any unresolved issues you'd like discussed? Because NOW is the time to tell me.
The whole CrushingOnBen!Tinga thing is a reference to 'Named By Nature', which is one of my Tinga fics where she remembers her childhood. I'm sorry if I made Jondy and Maxie sound like bitches, but they're CHILDREN. They're supposed to find the idea of love hilarious. Plus they (particularly Jondy) sometimes sound like the kind of kids who do whatever they're not supposed to.
The Brin Accidentally Shooting Tinga thing comes from my fic 'Try So Hard'. Laters, all!
Where was he? Not the Manticore castle- this didn't feel the same. There was the sinister sense of foreboding, but it just wasn't the same.
Maybe it was just because Princess Tinga was fully-grown in the recent encounters. As odd as it was to see a beautiful woman savagely running a colossal beast through with a sword, you had more confidence in her than in her ten-year-old counterpart.
"Brin, why won't you let me out?" he heard a pleading voice beg. Case turned a corner praying that it was so...
Princess Brin was standing on her tiptoes on a small stool she'd propped in front of a cell door with a tiny barred window and was speaking to the cell's inhabitant. "Tinga, this is where you belong!" she protested weakly. "But you're sick... they told me, they said you'd contracted a disease from living with commoners so long, and... and..." It sounded like Brin was trying to convince herself as much as her sister.
"It's because they think I am the one destined to be supreme monarch of Wyominia, Brin! But I'm not, I know I'm not. I'm not strong enough," wailed Princess Tinga's voice. It sounded thin and exhausted.
"It is true..." said Princess Brin. "It is said a dark, strong woman of virtue and truth will reign over Wyominia and lead its captive aristocracy to safety from the Manticore Castle's depths." She shook her head and snapped, sounding again like the woman with the riding crop who'd commanded the soldiers in Portlandshire. "It's not TRUE! They wouldn't lie to us, Tinga!"
"How can you say that?" demanded Princess Tinga. "You say that they want to cure me of some disease. Can't you see that I am dying by their evil charms and poultices? You say I am the one meant to rule when you know the stars would not decree it that way? It be'th-"
Princess Brin looked angry. "Sister, I have tried to tolerate you, but you show my superiors disrespect!"
"Brin, look on me. I am not long for this world should I stay in this cursed place."
"No!" said Princess Brin. "Don't say that! You're not meant to die, sister! You're supposed to come back so you can be my sister again..." She sounded about to cry. Her voice became shrill.
"734!" barked a voice as a woman in a sorceress' robes marched down the hall, lifting her elegant skirts from the filth. The woman's hair was bleached-blonde and she smiled cruelly as Brin gave a yelp and tripped off the stool. "734, what are you doing?"
"Absolutely nothing, milady!" answered Princess Brin mechanically, picking herself up off the floor.
"Good. To your quarters, 734. I wish to speak to the prisoner alone," said the woman. Brin skittered past her in a fashion achingly reminiscent of the good, gentle, loyal Princess Brin of the Manticore royals' childhood.
Brin lingered at the end of the corridor as Case, horrified, ran at the blonde woman. "Let her out!" he yelled in rage. "Let the princess go!"
Nothing. There was no reaction from anyone in the corridor. Case caught on with horror that, like his first dreams about the Manticore Castle and the royals, nobody could hear or see him. He might as well have been a ghost.
A vindictive smile curled the edges of the woman's mouth. "Queen Tinga, you're dead," she hissed. "Wyominia is as good as mine. I'll have you know I've killed four of your family already- they were worthless. But you, my dear, fit all the requirements the stars foretold. A dark, strong woman indeed..."
"Who?" came Princess Tinga's weakened voice. "Which ones are dead?"
"We thought it was 798- the princess Jace," she continued, smiling broadly. "We were MOST vexed when she ran away. In my respect and that of my compatriots, she fitted the bill most splendidly. But no matter... you fit it so much better. And so you are going to die, Your Majesty."
She turned, looking mildly surprised at seeing Brin still standing there, having heard everything. Then the woman strode past Princess Brin with a snarl of, "And not a word to your king, 734."
There came a shriek from Princess Tinga's cell. "MY BROTHER AND SISTER WILL COME FOR ME!"
Princess Brin shook her head and slunk out.
"MY BROTHER AND SISTER WILL COME FOR ME!"
And before Case could look through the barred window, his location had changed yet again. He found himself inside a tiny room where Princess Brin, dressed in nightclothes, lay on her mattress on the floor. It was nighttime.
These were apparently her quarters inside the Manticore Castle. She had her arms folded over her chest like a person in their tomb, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be fighting a furious internal battle.
Suddenly, Brin sat up and crawled to her weapons chest in the corner of the room. She pulled out a small cauldron and some vials of coloured liquid, pouring the entire contents of each vial into the cauldron. Finally, she extracted from the chest a tiny red feather. Princess Brin blew on it and dropped it into the cauldron.
The liquids erupted into flame and became again liquid, bubbling violently toward the brim of the cauldron, where they simmered. The potion became first blood red, then a venomous green and faded to a dreamy opaque.
"Show me Tinga," demanded the princess in her warlike tones, which softened as she next spoke. "Show me my sister as I do remember her."
The potion suddenly bloomed raven in the centre of the liquid and boiled black. Then Case saw what Princess Brin had wanted to see...
In the surface of the potion was a picture of a swarm of very young children jostling to see out of a slit window to a courtyard below.
"Hold me up, T'nga!" bleated a tiny Asian girl as she stood on tiptoes. "Wha's happening to our pa'ents?"
"They're leading them to th' block, Brinny," said the biggest child, a black girl of about five years old. She spoke in the same strained, affected tones. Her voice was very young. "Be patient!"
"Is my mommy gon' die?" whispered a boy.
"Shh, ev'ryone!" said the oldest boy, who was blonde and big for his age. It was Prince Zack. "Nom'lies might hear us!"
At his words there was a sudden rumbling and the children- there was about ten or twenty of them- looked afraid. In particular they stared now not out the window at their parents' assumed execution, but at a portrait of a Hispanic-looking lady in rich furs who held two babies (somewhat resembling Princess Max and Prince Krit) in her lap. It jolted and vibrated on the wall as if somebody was hitting the wall on the other side with a baseball bat.
"NOM'LIE!" screamed a girl, taking a smaller boy by the hand. "RUUUUUN!"
The children went sprinting away as a Nomaly guard came crashing through the stone. The tiny Asian girl tripped and held out a hand, clutching at her ankle as the Nomaly sniffed the air. "T'nga!" she shrieked as her pseudosister chivvied the younger ones along. "Please don' leave me!"
The older girl (who Case knew suddenly was Princess Tinga) turned back without a second thought and helped up Little Brin. Both began to run...
The image vanished and another took its place. This was of the princesses Tinga and Brin climbing onto the roof of the Home Tower via the rope in the dead of night. Clouds curled the horizon and blotted out the stars. Both wore ripped nightdresses and Brin (who was nine or barely ten) rubbed at her eyes a lot, yawning.
"Pray, sister, might I lie down whilst you beseech thy wish unto the Blue Faerie?"
"T'will be freezing, sister," said Princess Tinga thickly, for she had her fingers in her mouth and seemed to be wiggling a loose tooth free. "But yea, you might. It's... private, what the Faerie and myself must discuss."
The younger girl looked mildly offended. "Private from me, sister, what thou wilt discuss?"
"Of course not, Brinny. But the others might break thy resolve and know. There is nothing I have private from thee."
Brin made a small noise of dissent and curled up on the slats while her sister dithered about, and when Princess Brin seemed to be asleep the older girl knelt before the Blue Faerie, putting a bloody tooth on her shrine.
"Ma'am, I beg of thee, I don't know what to do. I have these strange feelings... hardly feelings, more an affliction... for Prince Ben. I don't know what they are, but the texts King Lydecker ordered burnt inform me I'm doing something called 'in love'. I know it's bad, ma'am, and..."
Case winced as he remembered the special smiles ten-year-old Tinga had given only Ben. So that was what they were.
One could see quite plainly that Young Brin's eyes were open, and she had a look of shock upon her young face. She sat up suddenly, startling Princess Tinga.
"How much did you hear, sister?"
"Of what?" asked Princess Brin, playing dumb.
"Of... what I was saying," explained Princess Tinga.
Brin raised her eyebrows. "I was asleep, sister. I am ready to sleep now in my bed, doest thou object to being left alone? I wish to repair now to the tower room."
"Not at all, baby sister," Tinga breathed, sighing. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
Brin scrambled down the rope and through the window, almost falling onto Max and Jondy, who were shaking with silent laughter.
"WERE you asleep, sister Brin?" giggled Princess Max. "Oh, your luck hath run afoul if that be so!"
"Tinga in love!" chortled Jondy. "We hath read more of the texts that she, WE know its meaning fully! With Ben, no less!"
With a fearful look upward, Princess Brin advanced on the two giggly princesses, fists raised. They looked surprised at this show of spunk from their usually timid sister.
"Not a WORD!" she hissed. "No word to any about what has transpired! A fine way to repay Tinga for all she hath done for you! She is our mother, sister, avenger and you would make sport of her? For shame!"
Glaring, young Princess Brin pushed past the shamefaced Princess Jondy and Princess Max.
Case looked at her adult counterpart and saw in surprise that tears slid down her cheeks, falling into the water and marring its surface.
A final scene. Underneath a stone bridge and again in the night, a tiny lamp bore a flame for the sisters Tinga and Brin. Both were dressed as peasant girls- they had long since escaped. Rain spattered onto the black river, chilling them.
Crawling on all fours came Tinga, her splendid long hair coiled into a messy topknot. Underneath a burlap sack Princess Brin was curled up, freezing water on her pale face.
Princess Tinga, who looked deathly worried for her best friend, forced a smile. "Baby, are you feeling better?"
"I'm so cold, Tinga," whispered Princess Brin.
Tinga moved the lamp closer. "Got us six dollars pickpocketing in the town hall, sister dear. We can have breakfast tomorrow."
"Am I going to die?" murmured Brin.
"No," said Tinga, rubbing her hands and blowing on them to try at make them warm. She smoothed Brin's hair. "Of course you're not going to die. You are a Wyominia royal." She tried to make Brin laugh. "We're not ALLOWED to die!"
Case couldn't help but smile. What a great little girl.
"Want a lullaby, baby?"
Little Brin seemed about to protest. but her face softened. "What one?"
"It's silly, sister. Ben wrote it for me once, the night you accidentally shot me in the shoulder-"
A grimace took Princess Brin's features. "I don't want to remember that."
"He wrote it to make me feel better, sister. He made the words, Eva made the music. It'll make thee better too."
"All right."
Tinga curled up behind her sister, winding Brin's hair through her fingers. "I call it 'Ben and Eva's Lullaby'. They called it 'Troubles'," whispered Princess Tinga.
"I want to hear it."
"Feels like the world is closin' on me. Feels like my dreams will never come to me. I keep on slippin' deeper into myself and I'm scared, so scared..."
Brin coughed.
"If you're troubled, you just gotta let it go. If you're worried, baby, you just gotta let it go. This journey ain't for nothing, you just gotta take it slow, and when you need me, baby, all you do is let me know."
"It's sad," said Princess Brin, watching rainwater splatter onto the dark water. A tear pricked at her young eye. "I miss them."
"Shh," commanded Tinga. "It's not finished."
"I apologise."
"Why does it feel that my mind is constantly trying to pull me down? I can't seem to get away. Continuous mistakes I know I've made before... how long will I feel so out of place?" sang Princess Tinga as Brin's eyes closed.
"I'm too old for lullabies," murmured Princess Brin.
"Of course you are," said Tinga, and continued. "Feels like the world is closin' on me. Feels like my dreams will never come to me. I keep on slippin' deeper into myself and I'm scared, so scared- If you're troubled, you just gotta let it go. If you're worried, baby, you just gotta let it go. This journey ain't for nothing, you just gotta take it slow, and when you need me, baby, all you do is let me know..."
Brin was asleep. "Love you," said Tinga, smiling.
And the final memory faded as well.
Brin tipped the contents of the cauldron out of her window. She placed the tiny cauldron on the floor beside her and stared at the night. As Case Smith knelt still on the bricks, Princess Brin began to cry.
"Tinga..." she called. "Tinga..."
Case only stared.
"By the Faerie... why did I let you die?" she sobbed, and Case felt like someone had slammed a huge weight onto him.
Tinga?
Dead?
Case awoke for real this time, and had never felt so sad and lonely.
Because he knew for real now. Princess Tinga and Penny Smith were one and the same.
And he had lost both again.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to James Cameron and Fox. The song 'Troubles' belongs to Alicia Keys (I changed a couple of words and added a couple) and her record company. Not me. So don't sue.
NOTE: Nope, this still ain't the last chapter of the story. I hope you all liked it. Are there any unresolved issues you'd like discussed? Because NOW is the time to tell me.
The whole CrushingOnBen!Tinga thing is a reference to 'Named By Nature', which is one of my Tinga fics where she remembers her childhood. I'm sorry if I made Jondy and Maxie sound like bitches, but they're CHILDREN. They're supposed to find the idea of love hilarious. Plus they (particularly Jondy) sometimes sound like the kind of kids who do whatever they're not supposed to.
The Brin Accidentally Shooting Tinga thing comes from my fic 'Try So Hard'. Laters, all!