Disclaimer: I do not own "Lilo & Stitch" or any of the characters therein, except, of course, for Vay, Leera, Le'Kruune and Mackayl.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR:
AFTERMATH

"Yes, Wendy, I'm fine. Really, I'm okay," Leera assured him for the fifth or sixth time in less than a minute. But Pleakley was not to be so easily convinced. What he had seen in that split second before his mother had shot Le'Kruune had been enough to make him snap and go as lolo as Le'Kruune himself. Several minutes had already passed since they had taken him down, and Pleakley hadn't so much as loosened his hold on his beloved Leera. Not that Leera minded. She was safe now, and after such a horrifying ordeal, she was grateful to return to the blissful warmth and security of her lover's arms.

"Wouldja mind letting go of me for a moment?" she asked him finally. "I've got an itch to scratch."

"Oh, no!" Pleakley replied. "I'm never letting go of you again! Not even for a second! Just tell me where it itches, and I'll scratch it for you."

Leera smirked at his suggestion. "I'd rather scratch it myself, if you don't mind."

"Unh-unh!" Pleakley said stubbornly. "Way too risky! Look what happened the last time I let go of you!"

"Okay, Wendy, now you're being ridiculous. I'm just going to scratch my patooki, then I'll be right back in your arms."

"Still too risky," Pleakley mumbled, nuzzling his face in her hair and kissing her neck.

Leera sighed exasperatedly. "Really! What could possibly happen between here and my patooki?"

"A lot!" he exclaimed, and kissed her again.

"She's right, you know," Vay told him, sitting on the bed behind Leera. "You're gonna hafta let go sooner or later."

"NO!" Pleakley shouted, sounding like a selfish child. Vay smiled and shook her head, then stood up and laid a hand on Leera's shoulder.

"Well, I'll just let you two sort this out on your own." She started toward the door.

"Wait!" Pleakley called out. "Where're you going?"

"To check on the grand councilwoman. See if I can help her. Don't worry, I'll be back in a flash."

"Don't forget to take a plasma cannon with you!" Leera said. "Le'Kruune's is still loaded and in his belt. Take it. You never know if you might need it."

"Good idea!" Vay found the belt on the floor and retrieved the weapon from it before heading out the door.

"Oh, and bring back a crowbar!"

"What for?"

"To pry your son off of me, of course!"

Vay laughed on her way out the door.

"So, where'd you get that other plasma cannon?" Leera asked Pleakley when she was gone. "The one you shot Le'Kruune with?"

"Oh, Mom found it out there," he replied, indicating the outer chamber of the suite. "She remembered that he used to conceal weapons in certain places, all over the ship, and she also happened to remember that there was a secret stash inside of a wall panel hidden behind a tapestry! Talk about luck, eh?"

Leera grunted in agreement.

"Of course, it wasn't easy finding the right panel behind all those tapestries. And then getting the panel open! By the time we got the cannon, I thought it would be too late to stop him from…" he trailed off, and made a small choking noise. Leera patted his back.

"But it wasn't," she told him, pulling away from him finally to look him in the eye. "You got here just in time, and you have no idea how grateful I am." She leaned forward again to brush his lips with her own. "My hero."

Pleakley blushed. "Well, actually, Mom's the one who did the shooting. I've never been good at handling firearms."

"You're still my hero," Leera whispered, smiling sweetly at him. Pleakley smiled back, still blushing, then glanced downward and blushed even deeper. He cleared his throat and mumbled something that Leera didn't quite catch. Glancing downward herself, she realized that her shirt was still open. She grinned at her ever-blushing fiancé and started to button it up.

"I thought you said he didn't hurt you," he said, sound a little suspicious as he watched her. He shot a furtive glance at her chest before looking her in the eye.

"He didn't," she assured him. "But he would have if you hadn't stopped him when you did."

"Then why is your shirt open?" he demanded, fear and anger evident in his voice. "And what are those marks?"

Hesitant at first, he reached out a hand and brushed gentle fingertips over one of her breasts, burning bright with embarrassment as he traced the marks in question. Not the least bit self-conscious, Leera relaxed under his touch, which was a very welcome change after the way she had been touched only minutes before.

"H-he did hurt you, didn't he?" Pleakley whispered, his voice sounding tiny and distant as he looked up at her.

"It's just a scratch," she told him, waving it off. "You know how sharp those claws of his are. It doesn't take much to leave a mark like that."

She continued to button up her shirt, but had to stop halfway because there were tears where Le'Kruune's eager claws had caught on the fabric in their haste to get it open. This left her still slightly exposed. Pleakley noticed this, and his anger grew.

"He touched you."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement. A fact. And he knew it. Realizing it, he cursed under his breath.

"It's no big deal," Leera reassured him, trying to sound bored with the whole conversation. He stared at her in shock.

"No big deal?! How can you say that? H-he may not have raped you, but he still violated you! So yes, it is a big deal!" he argued, loud and clearly upset. "I promised I wouldn't it happen, but it did! That means I failed, and you still got hurt, even if it wasn't that bad."

"Oh, Wendy…" Leera sighed. She reached a hand out to touch his face, but he turned away as if in shame. He spotted Le'Kruune's body out of the corner of his eye and frowned. Rage swept over him, and he growled.

"I almost wish he was still alive, just so I could kill him again!"

He got up off the bed and kicked the corpse in the side a couple of times, then hawked up a nice, ripe loogie and spat on it. Leera smirked at him as he returned to her arms.

"Well, now that you've got that out of your system, why don't we go out and -" her next words were cut off by the sound of her own scream as Le'Kruune, gory and disfigured, and still very much alive, rose up off the floor and lunged at them both.