A/N:
SUPERMAN and all related characters, names and indicia are © & TM DC Comics, 2003.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 12
Later that night, Wes sat awake in the darkened front room of his and his mother's quarters. He sat at the computer desk - nearly the only light in the room was from the computer screen. He was so tired that he was in a sort of work trance, searching through all kinds of files on alien races which resembled humanoid children and finding nothing even vaguely matching the children of the Neverland. He searched through history files to find any recounting of children in a huge ship. He searched back twenty years, since the oldest aboard that ship was no more than eighteen as far as Worf's scan could tell. He found nothing. No documentation of any similar occurrences anywhere in any known sector of the galaxy. The Enterprise sure had a proficiency for seeking out new life and new civilizations. And boldly as all get-out, too.
Wes gave his fingers a rest. He sighed and leaned his chin in his palm, the words "Not Found" reflecting off the screen in his glazed eyes. He had pretty much given up. His tall frame was crumpled in a chair over the desk, and it was swiftly becoming a painful position. He leaned back over the chairback, stretched his arms over his head and straightened his legs under the desk. He was about to switch the whole stupid thing off and go to bed when the door chime twinkled.
For a second, Wes felt fear in the pit of his stomach, but then he remembered the security officer standing outside the door. It must be him. Or an officer or someone that wanted to talk to him. But his mother was asleep and he was supposed to be asleep. Who would know he was awake at this hour? Maybe Deanna Troi.
"Come in," he called, but not too loudly. His mother was sleeping in the next room.
Lynn Costa entered. Wesley leaped from his chair.
"Doctor Costa!" he shouted. "What are you doing here?"
Doctor Lynn Costa had been a scientist with the Microcontamination project onboard the Enterprise about six months ago. She was working late one night when something went wrong with one of her class zero pods. It emitted a lethal gas that killed her. It was later to be determined that she had been murdered. Wesley had worked very closely with Lynn and her husband Emil (especially with Emil), but when Emil became the prime suspect of Lynn's murder, Wesley had found himself in very serious trouble and even more serious danger. Regardless of how that all turned out, Lynn Costa was still dead. This had to be the creature.
"Wesley, I came to talk with you about the Microcontamination project. Emil tells me that he wants you to join us."
Wesley noted that suggestion had taken place after Lynn's death. Apparently, the creature had learned to be aware of things that happened after the death of the person whose form it took. And the creature already knew to allow people to touch it. Wes was attempting to step back from this, take it all logically, keep emotionally uninvolved. What he wouldn't give to be Vulcan right now.
"I've really decided to stay on the bridge, Doctor," Wesley hesitated, "they need me there."
"The bridge is no place for a mind like yours, Wesley," she stepped closer to him.
There's an element of truth to that, Wes thought while backing away from her.
"Come with me to deck 31 and I'll show you around the lab."
"I'm really more into outer space than inner space," Wesley was searching through this characterization of Lynn's personality for the flaw, the one oversight that would make her disappear.
"I've seen your work in the science lab!" Lynn was getting angry and Wesley tried to edge his way toward the door where the security officer was posted outside. How did Lynn even get in here with security outside? "I say that you don't belong on this ship at all!" She grabbed his arm. He tried to pull away from her, but she was just as strong as the imitation of his father had been. "Come with me. I know a place where your talents will be put to proper use! Where your mind will not be wasted with doldrums, where your spirit can soar beyond what you've dreamed yourself capable!"
"No!" Wes pulled and pulled, trying to get closer to the door. He couldn't budge. He tried something to make her disappear. "Lynn wouldn't have forced me into this!"
"I'm not forcing you to do anything you don't already want, Wesley! It's for your own self-betterment!"
Damn, she's way too close to right.
"Stop denying your talents! You belong in science, not command! You can grow in science. You must come with me to see what I mean! I won't force you to change your mind, just promise to come with me, then you can make up your own mind."
Wes was in a full-strength tug-of-war to get his arm back.
"If you don't come with me, I'll have someone lock you in a class zero pod again!"
Wes froze, eyes wide. He remembered that experience a little too well. It also took place after Lynn's death. Worf had assigned Wesley to tail two of the murder suspects. While eavesdropping in the clean room, he was discovered and shoved into one of the pods to wait for his air to run out.
Wes shook his head, clearing those thoughts. Obviously, he'd survived. Now was time to concentrate on surviving this situation. He was at a loss at how to get rid of her.
"It was all Emil and I ever hoped for you to join the science team!" she was furious and hurt at the same time. She had a double-fisted grip of Wes's forearm and he couldn't pry her fingers loose. "If you had joined the team, Emil and I would not have had to worry about whose hands the project would be in and we could have had a peaceful retirement, but no! You had to leave it all to chance for us!"
Wait. That was it! The loophole!
"That's not true!" Wesley cried, wondering why all this yelling had not alerted security or awakened his mother. "Lynn was about to leave Emil! She didn't want to be with him anymore at all! You weren't planning any kind of retirement!"
Lynn looked surprised, then dissipated into thin air. Wesley regained his arm.
For a second, Wes stood still, making sure it was gone.
"Security!" he shouted, and an officer burst through the door.
* * *
"Apparently," Picard addressed his graveyard shift crew assembled once again in the conference room, "the creature does not keep decent hours."
Or I don't keep decent hours, Wes thought guiltily. I should have been asleep.
"The creature has appeared again in Mister Crusher's quarters as Doctor Lynn Costa from the Microcontamination project," Picard finished. Deanna and Worf exchanged glances. They had been in charge of the investigation surrounding the murder of Dr. Costa.
"Ensign Crusher," Worf said, "did she discuss anything that took place after her death?"
Wesley nodded and described in detail his encounter and the exchange regarding their desiring him to work on the project with them, and his experience of being locked in the air-tight pod.
"It appears our creature is eliminating every possible way of getting rid of it," Picard observed.
"Captain," Deanna asked, "how did you get rid of the creature as Jack Crusher so easily? Perhaps we can find a pattern."
Picard blanched. "I... merely told it a secret between Jack and myself, of which it was evidently unaware. We shall have to keep finding things that it would not know. It's going to be more and more difficult each time, I suspect. Counselor, do you sense any presence on the ship now?"
"No, captain, not right now. And I would only have sensed it before if it were in a close enough proximity to awaken me. And if its emotions were powerful enough. My quarters are not close enough to the Crushers' for me to sense it while I'm sleeping."
"Well, it's certainly not possible for you to stay awake all the time and wander the ship looking for the creature. There must be some other way to know when it's coming," Picard narrowed his eyes.
Geordi lifted his chin. "Have you ever noticed that Clark Kent and Superman are never in the same place at the same time?"
"What?" Riker turned to Geordi in utter confusion.
Data supplied the background. "I believe I understand Geordi's statement, Commander. Clark Kent. A fictitious character in illustrated fiction beginning in the early 20th century of Earth. His dual identity was Superman. Clark Kent and Superman were never in the same place at the same time because they were the same person."
"Are you suggesting," Picard posed the question to Data, even though it had been Geordi's suggestion, "that the crew of the Neverland and the creature are never in contact with us at the same time because they are the same entity?"
"Or they're aware of each other's efforts," Geordi finished.
"Very possible," Picard said. "We had considered that briefly. They do seem to be working toward the same end."
"Could they be fighting over Mister Crusher?" Riker asked.
Wes resisted the urge to bang his head on the table.
"This is most unlikely," Data concluded, "since they both want him on the Neverland."
Wes's relief was minimal.
"It's my fault it came back, sir," Wes studied the well-polished top of the conference table. "I stayed up late. If I'd been asleep, it couldn't talk to me. Or if I hadn't let it come in--"
"It's not a vampire, Wes," Deanna plead on Wes's behalf. "I believe that if it wanted to come in and you had told it that it couldn't, it would have come in anyway. And if you'd been asleep, it probably would have awoken you."
All the color drained from Wes's face.
Deanna regretted her words. She's relieved his feelings of guilt, but replaced them with fear.
Woken me up? Fear settled like a ball of lead in the pit of Wesley's stomach. Come in anyway? Great, I'm going to have the ghosts of my father, Tasha and Lynn dancing around my bed at night. Whatever happened to harmless night fears like boogeymen? Although Wes remembered that boogeymen were not exactly harmless, either, especially when mixed with a holodeck program.
Picard asked, "Do you remember anything else that might be helpful, Mister Crusher?"
Wes thought aloud. "Well, just that she had incredible strength, just like my dad did -- or, when it imitated my dad, that is. And she got real angry, she was shouting at-- Hey, that's another thing! We were both practically screaming at each other, and it never woke up Mom, and it never alerted the guard outside the door or anything."
"I heard nothing, and the door never opened," answered the large, blue-skinned Antarean guard who was sitting down toward the end of the table.
"Neither did I," Beverly glanced back and forth between her son and the guard.
"At this point, it seems that it's a personal attack on a member of my command crew. Since we cannot even identify, let alone confront, the attacker, I seem to have no other choice but to put Mister Crusher under constant guard."
"What?" Wes said, a little too loudly, "Basically... I'd be a prisoner?"
Picard blinked. "I'm aware that it will be a great sacrifice to you, Mister Crusher, but at this point I have no other means with which to protect you. Unless someone can suggest something."
"We could leave a comm link open from Crusher's quarters to the bridge," Riker suggested.
"It'd probably just go down when the creature appeared," Geordi said.
"But then we'd know it was there," Riker countered.
"Yes, but to have every sound of our living quarters broadcast constantly to the bridge?" Beverly was scandalized.
"That's out of the question," Picard said.
"That didn't occur to me," Riker shrugged.
Deanna addressed Beverly, "Would you object to making me your houseguest for a bit?"
Beverly raised her eyebrows in acknowledgment and looked to Picard.
"You're certain the arrival of the creature would wake you in such proximity?"
"Yes, Captain."
Picard stared hard at Ensign Crusher, who began to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny. At length, he decided. "Make it so." The captain glanced at each of his officers. "Now all of you get some sleep. I need you all to be sharp, and I can't have any of you dragging about because you haven't slept. Understood?"
* * *
"I'm like this big magnet for psychos, ever since we came aboard this ship!" Wes vented his frustration to his mother and Deanna on the way back to their quarters. "There's got to be hundreds of kids on this ship! And if you want to get technical, I'm eighteen. I'm not a kid. Why me? I mean, look at my track record. Q kills me and Commander Riker brings me back to life and changes me into an adult. A sterile planet kidnaps me to perpetuate their race. I trap Mom in a shrinking warp bubble and this weird alien shows up and pulls me out of my space-time continuum to save you. I fall on some flowers on a paradise planet and get sentenced to death. Every time we set the Enterprise for self-destruct -- which has been pretty often, if you ask me -- I'm at Helm ready to die, rather than escaping in the saucer section. Every girl I've ever loved has either been such a klutz she's broken every bone in my body or been a shape-changing alien that could have broken every bone in my body. And now, some little girl with a really big ship is gonna blow up the Enterprise unless she gets me! And she's sending ghosts of everyone I've ever cared about to convince me! This is more stress than someone my age should have to handle. Why don't they go haunt someone else?"
"I don't know, Wes," Beverly sighed wearily. She knew he didn't want an answer. He knew she didn't have one. He was just using her as a sounding board, and God knows he needed to vent. "I just hope this creature has to sleep sometime."
"Are you both sure you don't mind me spending the night?" Deanna asked.
"No, of course not, Deanna," Beverly laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm glad we're not putting Wes under 24-hour surveillance."
"Yeah, me too!" Wes couldn't keep the frustration from his voice.
Without being asked, both Beverly and Wesley left the doors to their bedrooms open that night. Before turning in, though, Beverly mentioned offhand that it was in case Deanna needed her for some reason.
* * *
The alien did not hold it against the boy that he had called him strange, and to be honest, he did have a lot of strange things happen to him in his four years on the Enterprise.
But the boy did not realize yet that the alien did not take him out of his time. The boy took himself out. As soon as he acknowledged that, he would be ready to come with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Responses to Reviews:
Bishoen Huntress: Thanks, sis ;) Love you too. And I'm working on yours, really I am. I started out backwards and got all confused, so I have to start over without the ADID (Attention Deficit Impatience Disorder ;D ). And OY! Brianna means "strong"! BREENA means "Fairy Palace!" *frown, pout, folds arms, feels all misrepresented*
Kristy Marie: Thank you very much :) I was of two minds on how to get Jack out of there, and I still think I trod dangerously close to Cheese Whiz territory, but I'm glad it didn't throw you! The Cheese Whiz, I assure you, is on its way. ;P ~and~ Ooh, the neice of a professional. hrm. maybe I fold ;) And as for what happens with Wes and the ladies, well. you'll see.
SUPERMAN and all related characters, names and indicia are © & TM DC Comics, 2003.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 12
Later that night, Wes sat awake in the darkened front room of his and his mother's quarters. He sat at the computer desk - nearly the only light in the room was from the computer screen. He was so tired that he was in a sort of work trance, searching through all kinds of files on alien races which resembled humanoid children and finding nothing even vaguely matching the children of the Neverland. He searched through history files to find any recounting of children in a huge ship. He searched back twenty years, since the oldest aboard that ship was no more than eighteen as far as Worf's scan could tell. He found nothing. No documentation of any similar occurrences anywhere in any known sector of the galaxy. The Enterprise sure had a proficiency for seeking out new life and new civilizations. And boldly as all get-out, too.
Wes gave his fingers a rest. He sighed and leaned his chin in his palm, the words "Not Found" reflecting off the screen in his glazed eyes. He had pretty much given up. His tall frame was crumpled in a chair over the desk, and it was swiftly becoming a painful position. He leaned back over the chairback, stretched his arms over his head and straightened his legs under the desk. He was about to switch the whole stupid thing off and go to bed when the door chime twinkled.
For a second, Wes felt fear in the pit of his stomach, but then he remembered the security officer standing outside the door. It must be him. Or an officer or someone that wanted to talk to him. But his mother was asleep and he was supposed to be asleep. Who would know he was awake at this hour? Maybe Deanna Troi.
"Come in," he called, but not too loudly. His mother was sleeping in the next room.
Lynn Costa entered. Wesley leaped from his chair.
"Doctor Costa!" he shouted. "What are you doing here?"
Doctor Lynn Costa had been a scientist with the Microcontamination project onboard the Enterprise about six months ago. She was working late one night when something went wrong with one of her class zero pods. It emitted a lethal gas that killed her. It was later to be determined that she had been murdered. Wesley had worked very closely with Lynn and her husband Emil (especially with Emil), but when Emil became the prime suspect of Lynn's murder, Wesley had found himself in very serious trouble and even more serious danger. Regardless of how that all turned out, Lynn Costa was still dead. This had to be the creature.
"Wesley, I came to talk with you about the Microcontamination project. Emil tells me that he wants you to join us."
Wesley noted that suggestion had taken place after Lynn's death. Apparently, the creature had learned to be aware of things that happened after the death of the person whose form it took. And the creature already knew to allow people to touch it. Wes was attempting to step back from this, take it all logically, keep emotionally uninvolved. What he wouldn't give to be Vulcan right now.
"I've really decided to stay on the bridge, Doctor," Wesley hesitated, "they need me there."
"The bridge is no place for a mind like yours, Wesley," she stepped closer to him.
There's an element of truth to that, Wes thought while backing away from her.
"Come with me to deck 31 and I'll show you around the lab."
"I'm really more into outer space than inner space," Wesley was searching through this characterization of Lynn's personality for the flaw, the one oversight that would make her disappear.
"I've seen your work in the science lab!" Lynn was getting angry and Wesley tried to edge his way toward the door where the security officer was posted outside. How did Lynn even get in here with security outside? "I say that you don't belong on this ship at all!" She grabbed his arm. He tried to pull away from her, but she was just as strong as the imitation of his father had been. "Come with me. I know a place where your talents will be put to proper use! Where your mind will not be wasted with doldrums, where your spirit can soar beyond what you've dreamed yourself capable!"
"No!" Wes pulled and pulled, trying to get closer to the door. He couldn't budge. He tried something to make her disappear. "Lynn wouldn't have forced me into this!"
"I'm not forcing you to do anything you don't already want, Wesley! It's for your own self-betterment!"
Damn, she's way too close to right.
"Stop denying your talents! You belong in science, not command! You can grow in science. You must come with me to see what I mean! I won't force you to change your mind, just promise to come with me, then you can make up your own mind."
Wes was in a full-strength tug-of-war to get his arm back.
"If you don't come with me, I'll have someone lock you in a class zero pod again!"
Wes froze, eyes wide. He remembered that experience a little too well. It also took place after Lynn's death. Worf had assigned Wesley to tail two of the murder suspects. While eavesdropping in the clean room, he was discovered and shoved into one of the pods to wait for his air to run out.
Wes shook his head, clearing those thoughts. Obviously, he'd survived. Now was time to concentrate on surviving this situation. He was at a loss at how to get rid of her.
"It was all Emil and I ever hoped for you to join the science team!" she was furious and hurt at the same time. She had a double-fisted grip of Wes's forearm and he couldn't pry her fingers loose. "If you had joined the team, Emil and I would not have had to worry about whose hands the project would be in and we could have had a peaceful retirement, but no! You had to leave it all to chance for us!"
Wait. That was it! The loophole!
"That's not true!" Wesley cried, wondering why all this yelling had not alerted security or awakened his mother. "Lynn was about to leave Emil! She didn't want to be with him anymore at all! You weren't planning any kind of retirement!"
Lynn looked surprised, then dissipated into thin air. Wesley regained his arm.
For a second, Wes stood still, making sure it was gone.
"Security!" he shouted, and an officer burst through the door.
* * *
"Apparently," Picard addressed his graveyard shift crew assembled once again in the conference room, "the creature does not keep decent hours."
Or I don't keep decent hours, Wes thought guiltily. I should have been asleep.
"The creature has appeared again in Mister Crusher's quarters as Doctor Lynn Costa from the Microcontamination project," Picard finished. Deanna and Worf exchanged glances. They had been in charge of the investigation surrounding the murder of Dr. Costa.
"Ensign Crusher," Worf said, "did she discuss anything that took place after her death?"
Wesley nodded and described in detail his encounter and the exchange regarding their desiring him to work on the project with them, and his experience of being locked in the air-tight pod.
"It appears our creature is eliminating every possible way of getting rid of it," Picard observed.
"Captain," Deanna asked, "how did you get rid of the creature as Jack Crusher so easily? Perhaps we can find a pattern."
Picard blanched. "I... merely told it a secret between Jack and myself, of which it was evidently unaware. We shall have to keep finding things that it would not know. It's going to be more and more difficult each time, I suspect. Counselor, do you sense any presence on the ship now?"
"No, captain, not right now. And I would only have sensed it before if it were in a close enough proximity to awaken me. And if its emotions were powerful enough. My quarters are not close enough to the Crushers' for me to sense it while I'm sleeping."
"Well, it's certainly not possible for you to stay awake all the time and wander the ship looking for the creature. There must be some other way to know when it's coming," Picard narrowed his eyes.
Geordi lifted his chin. "Have you ever noticed that Clark Kent and Superman are never in the same place at the same time?"
"What?" Riker turned to Geordi in utter confusion.
Data supplied the background. "I believe I understand Geordi's statement, Commander. Clark Kent. A fictitious character in illustrated fiction beginning in the early 20th century of Earth. His dual identity was Superman. Clark Kent and Superman were never in the same place at the same time because they were the same person."
"Are you suggesting," Picard posed the question to Data, even though it had been Geordi's suggestion, "that the crew of the Neverland and the creature are never in contact with us at the same time because they are the same entity?"
"Or they're aware of each other's efforts," Geordi finished.
"Very possible," Picard said. "We had considered that briefly. They do seem to be working toward the same end."
"Could they be fighting over Mister Crusher?" Riker asked.
Wes resisted the urge to bang his head on the table.
"This is most unlikely," Data concluded, "since they both want him on the Neverland."
Wes's relief was minimal.
"It's my fault it came back, sir," Wes studied the well-polished top of the conference table. "I stayed up late. If I'd been asleep, it couldn't talk to me. Or if I hadn't let it come in--"
"It's not a vampire, Wes," Deanna plead on Wes's behalf. "I believe that if it wanted to come in and you had told it that it couldn't, it would have come in anyway. And if you'd been asleep, it probably would have awoken you."
All the color drained from Wes's face.
Deanna regretted her words. She's relieved his feelings of guilt, but replaced them with fear.
Woken me up? Fear settled like a ball of lead in the pit of Wesley's stomach. Come in anyway? Great, I'm going to have the ghosts of my father, Tasha and Lynn dancing around my bed at night. Whatever happened to harmless night fears like boogeymen? Although Wes remembered that boogeymen were not exactly harmless, either, especially when mixed with a holodeck program.
Picard asked, "Do you remember anything else that might be helpful, Mister Crusher?"
Wes thought aloud. "Well, just that she had incredible strength, just like my dad did -- or, when it imitated my dad, that is. And she got real angry, she was shouting at-- Hey, that's another thing! We were both practically screaming at each other, and it never woke up Mom, and it never alerted the guard outside the door or anything."
"I heard nothing, and the door never opened," answered the large, blue-skinned Antarean guard who was sitting down toward the end of the table.
"Neither did I," Beverly glanced back and forth between her son and the guard.
"At this point, it seems that it's a personal attack on a member of my command crew. Since we cannot even identify, let alone confront, the attacker, I seem to have no other choice but to put Mister Crusher under constant guard."
"What?" Wes said, a little too loudly, "Basically... I'd be a prisoner?"
Picard blinked. "I'm aware that it will be a great sacrifice to you, Mister Crusher, but at this point I have no other means with which to protect you. Unless someone can suggest something."
"We could leave a comm link open from Crusher's quarters to the bridge," Riker suggested.
"It'd probably just go down when the creature appeared," Geordi said.
"But then we'd know it was there," Riker countered.
"Yes, but to have every sound of our living quarters broadcast constantly to the bridge?" Beverly was scandalized.
"That's out of the question," Picard said.
"That didn't occur to me," Riker shrugged.
Deanna addressed Beverly, "Would you object to making me your houseguest for a bit?"
Beverly raised her eyebrows in acknowledgment and looked to Picard.
"You're certain the arrival of the creature would wake you in such proximity?"
"Yes, Captain."
Picard stared hard at Ensign Crusher, who began to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny. At length, he decided. "Make it so." The captain glanced at each of his officers. "Now all of you get some sleep. I need you all to be sharp, and I can't have any of you dragging about because you haven't slept. Understood?"
* * *
"I'm like this big magnet for psychos, ever since we came aboard this ship!" Wes vented his frustration to his mother and Deanna on the way back to their quarters. "There's got to be hundreds of kids on this ship! And if you want to get technical, I'm eighteen. I'm not a kid. Why me? I mean, look at my track record. Q kills me and Commander Riker brings me back to life and changes me into an adult. A sterile planet kidnaps me to perpetuate their race. I trap Mom in a shrinking warp bubble and this weird alien shows up and pulls me out of my space-time continuum to save you. I fall on some flowers on a paradise planet and get sentenced to death. Every time we set the Enterprise for self-destruct -- which has been pretty often, if you ask me -- I'm at Helm ready to die, rather than escaping in the saucer section. Every girl I've ever loved has either been such a klutz she's broken every bone in my body or been a shape-changing alien that could have broken every bone in my body. And now, some little girl with a really big ship is gonna blow up the Enterprise unless she gets me! And she's sending ghosts of everyone I've ever cared about to convince me! This is more stress than someone my age should have to handle. Why don't they go haunt someone else?"
"I don't know, Wes," Beverly sighed wearily. She knew he didn't want an answer. He knew she didn't have one. He was just using her as a sounding board, and God knows he needed to vent. "I just hope this creature has to sleep sometime."
"Are you both sure you don't mind me spending the night?" Deanna asked.
"No, of course not, Deanna," Beverly laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm glad we're not putting Wes under 24-hour surveillance."
"Yeah, me too!" Wes couldn't keep the frustration from his voice.
Without being asked, both Beverly and Wesley left the doors to their bedrooms open that night. Before turning in, though, Beverly mentioned offhand that it was in case Deanna needed her for some reason.
* * *
The alien did not hold it against the boy that he had called him strange, and to be honest, he did have a lot of strange things happen to him in his four years on the Enterprise.
But the boy did not realize yet that the alien did not take him out of his time. The boy took himself out. As soon as he acknowledged that, he would be ready to come with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Responses to Reviews:
Bishoen Huntress: Thanks, sis ;) Love you too. And I'm working on yours, really I am. I started out backwards and got all confused, so I have to start over without the ADID (Attention Deficit Impatience Disorder ;D ). And OY! Brianna means "strong"! BREENA means "Fairy Palace!" *frown, pout, folds arms, feels all misrepresented*
Kristy Marie: Thank you very much :) I was of two minds on how to get Jack out of there, and I still think I trod dangerously close to Cheese Whiz territory, but I'm glad it didn't throw you! The Cheese Whiz, I assure you, is on its way. ;P ~and~ Ooh, the neice of a professional. hrm. maybe I fold ;) And as for what happens with Wes and the ladies, well. you'll see.