Disclaimer: I do not own "Lilo & Stitch" or any of the characters therein.

CHAPTER FIVE:

ABSENCE

For the rest of that day the household was silent. After a short while David went home and Nani went to work, leaving Lilo in Jumba's care. Stitch had gone out to the woods behind the house, apparently to be alone with his thoughts. Whenever he sought solitude, he could usually be found in the same small clearing where he had gone to wait for a family more than a year ago.

Jumba, unusually silent and subdued, went down to his lab - a large shed in the back yard which he had converted for his own deranged purposes. Some nights, when intense research or an exciting breakthrough caused him to forget the time, he slept there. Other times he, like his little experiment, just wanted to be alone, deeply immersed in his thoughts. Today was no exception. With the removal of Pleakley from his newfound family, and with the looming threat of the Kaizaxx in mind, Jumba had retreated into his lab, leaving Lilo in front of the TV to watch cartoons.

Lilo herself was also deep in thought; her blank expression as she stared unseeing at the TV screen was only a façade. She, like all the others, desperately wanted to know what the Kaizaxx wanted with Pleakley, but unlike all the others, she also wondered what she might be able to do about it. This time, however, she could not see herself doing anything even remotely useful for Pleakley's sake. This, of course, frustrated her, for even though she was used to feeling alienated and alone, she was not used to feeling so completely helpless in a situation. That, and the fact that Pleakley was family, now torn away by the threat of a danger that she believed they should all face together, continued to gnaw at her for the rest of the night.

* * * *

Several hours later Nani came home. Lilo, not wanting to face her sister for fear of having to carry on another meaningless conversation in Pleakley's absence, quickly slipped upstairs. On her way up, she could hear Nani hollering at Stitch for bringing home a live frog and letting it sit on the table while he tried to feed it peanut butter. Once upstairs, Lilo took a left and headed for Jumba and Pleakley's room. Without knocking she flung the door open, half expecting, for just a brief second, to find the one-eyed alien sitting on his bed playing solitaire or knitting himself a new shawl.

But of course the room was empty. Pleakley was gone, and so were most of his possessions. His side of the room was bare, a glaring contrast to Jumba's side, which always looked distinctly "lived in." Jumba himself was still down in his lab, and as late as it was getting, Lilo had the feeling that he would not be coming back up until morning. She didn't blame him from distancing himself from her and the others. She usually did the same thing herself during times like this, often distancing herself to the point of hurting her sister.

Tonight, however, there was adequate reason for her misery. Without turning the light on, Lilo closed the door to a crack, then followed the narrow beam of light from the hallway over to Pleakley's bed and climbed onto it. It was a narrow bed, a small twin-size no bigger than her own, and as she lay down on it, she could smell the rich floral scent of the fabric softener Pleakley loved. He used it unsparingly on everything, even clothing that wasn't his, whenever it was his turn to do the laundry. Somehow Nani's clothes in particular always came out smelling the strongest.

Lilo smiled, remembering how Stitch wasn't the only one to have a field day in the laundry room. She giggled to herself over the few times she had caught Pleakley rummaging through her sister's delicates for something that would flatter his matchstick body. She remembered, too, when he had crossed the line and started trying on her clothes. At the time, it hadn't been all that funny, especially since her dresses fit him a lot better than any of Nani's clothes, which were comically oversized in comparison.

Then she remembered the time that she and Stitch had decided to give Pleakley a makeover. Sure, it had all been great fun, (for her and Stitch, anyways), and she had a lot of great pictures on her wall to show for it, but now that he was gone, it felt to Lilo as though part of that joy had also been stolen from her. A small emptiness was eating away at her insides, and as it bubbled up toward the surface, it began to take the form of tears. Rolling over on her stomach, she buried her face into his pillow and screamed.

* * * *

It was just after midnight when Jumba returned from his lab. He was weary, though not quite tired enough to sleep. His brain was still buzzing madly with thoughts of the Kaizaxx and their mysterious connection with his friend. When he entered his room, he saw a small lump curled under the blankets on Pleakley's bed, but his mind did not register what he was seeing. Subconsciously he thought it was his roommate, so he disregarded the snoring lump as he undressed for bed.

He had just gotten his pajamas on when something snapped in his head, and he realized that the sleeping form in the next bed could not possibly be Pleakley. Stomping across the room, he pulled the blankets back to find Lilo, fast asleep with her pudgy arms wrapped around a small book. He sighed and shook his head. He didn't have the heart to wake her. Instead, he pulled the blankets back up over her body and gently tucked her in.

"Ah, Lilo. You miss him too, eh?" he whispered, smiling down at her. "I bet this very moment you are dreaming up a vay to help him." He reached down and fondly brushed a massive finger over her hair before turning to go to bed. "This time I hope you vill not leave your Uncle Jumba out. You try to take on far too much for a girl your size, even though I know you are more than capable of handling vhatever comes your vay. But you do not have to face the universe alone, and neither does Pleakley. Remember, ve are in this together."