Promise

By: Kenjaje

Chapter 2: Forgotten

Dear Diary,

I can't explain how I feel very well. The best way to describe it is... having the warmest heater next to you on the coldest day of winter, ripped away from you; letting you freeze to death. I miss him...I miss Stitch. I hated that this happened. I can't believe I lost him, and we just started talking to each other again. It was only a few days ago; we had talked to each other out on the hammock, declaring each other brother and sister. Stitch still hasn't found Angel.

Angel...she's troubled Stitch the last few days, but now I understand how he feels. I tried to help him; I even went and bought him a pendant in the market. The color was green, which stands for promise, and hope. He even sneaked out and got me a red one, I told him why I had picked his color, and asked him why he picked red. 'Determination...and ambition.' He told me, because no matter what he does, to him I always seem to pull him through whatever's going on in his mind. He said that I'm able to surface his feelings, even when he doesn't know what they are. I wish he could surface mine right now, I wish he could be here right now. If only that 625 hadn't come to get us, and if only I hadn't made Stitch break it...

Sounds of a good party were easily spotted; bright torches lit the sky all around so that the purple of the sun that had already set stayed in the sky for a little bit longer; music swept the ears and commanded everyone to dance even if they tried to resist it; the smell of food was too inviting for anyone to be polite, it simply begged to be eaten as hastily as possible.

Couples were strewn almost everywhere, every other second or so you'd see another pair. Some of them were young, little kids that had grown up too fast, had seen some trials of life they really shouldn't have, and tried to grow up as fast as they could to become adults.

Some were a bit older; tweens were more popular around the food and dance floors. Eating everything in sight, dancing with their dates or anyone they could get a hand of in their desperation to be cool or accepted. Some of them were pulling to the opposing walls where only boys or only girls sat and talked in a paranoid phobia to get out and find a person to talk to of the opposite sex.

More directed toward the beach, were the younger teens, older teens, and adults, separated into their own sections by undetermined boundaries. Some of them jumping into the blue sea next to the navy night; some staying on shore away from the torches to hide their faces as they locked together; some were in the moonlight, enjoying the sand between their feet and happily singing lowly against the music in the background, or staying silent all together and staring into each other's eyes.

But few couples, yet still some, were in the back of the party grounds. Near the nice and quiet trails that lead across babbling man-made streams meant to set the romantic mood of this lovely night's luau. Here was where the sound of music was just an echoing heartbeat, unnoticed unless intently listened for, droned out and put aside by the sound of the trickling water atop the loose pebbles that puttered and pattered through the streams.

A bench meant for two, was situated in the perfect spot. A light in the stream crossed the faces, of the two staring at each other. A fountain towered from a jet on the bottom of the rivulet, creating a soothing bubbling noise that enticed the two into speaking silently.

They sat with the blue light, glimmering against they're faces, as the sun went down from orange in the sky, to just a small purple band that wished everyone goodnight before crossing the horizon. The air smelled less salty here, than by the beach, almost fresh and clean like the water around the couple, sitting on the perfect bench.

The boy of the couple, held an embarrassed smile, and put his hand on top of the girl's. Bashfully touching the skin, pressing gently as though she was a paper maché doll. She smiled at his action, and tried not to laugh at his nobly bold move, that made him feel so embarrassed.

"You're almost seventeen, Lilo. Just a few more minutes until midnight." His voice softly proclaimed. "That'll make it ten years since we've been together." Lilo let out a small hefty laugh, slapping the boy's hand lightly to shoo him away from her.

"Kioni, you've done that every year," her voice stated, tenderly and fully, "don't you think you can do it without feeling like it's our first date all over again?" Kioni took the hand Lilo had shooed away, and ran it through his flat hair.

"I still think you spilled all that ice cream over me on purpose." They laughed at the incident in their past. The memory and look on Kioni's face, when four large scoops of half melted ice cream-along with Lilo herself-tripped and fell on top of him, staining his favorite shirt.

"I was seven, and clumsy." She assured him, "and besides, I was more embarrassed then you. How do you think it feels when you have everyone suspecting you used a 'trip' as a means to kiss a boy on a first date?" She traced her lips as she spoke.

"I have to admit though, whether you meant to kiss me or not, you played it very well." She screamed his name in a joking disgust, bopping his head. She laughed as he struggled to keep his balance on the bench, and tried to push him off all the way, but then found her face staring past him as he threatened to drag her along with his fall. They calmed their mockingly hateful feud and quietly sat again next to each other.

"You know, I wonder where I would be now, if that moment hadn't occurred and changed us both."

"By 'change' you mean made us fall in love?"

"Yeah. After grandpa passed away, I felt so horrible...and then you came along and asked me on a date. Since then, life's been a blur."

"Man...I remember grandpa Jookiba. He was always teaching me about, mathematics and science, things I wasn't that interested in. That is until he told me all about how science is involved with everything, even some things I didn't know about. Like skateboarding for instance."

"I only remember a few choice moments," Lilo said with a reflecting smile, "the way he used to put me on his lap and tell me those odd stories. He even told me that a friend of mine gave me this pendant, and that I should never let it go. Since then, I've kept it around my neck, hoping to figure out who that 'friend' was."

"When was this?" Kioni asked, not able to recall her telling him this story before.

"A little while...before our first date." She told him, looking up at the sky. The party had died down a great deal, and now just the few couples that bid each other farewell were staying for a few more moments. Lilo looked at the sky, pitch black against the twinkling stars, and the array of blazing and dying torches.

"It's past midnight, I'm seventeen." She told him, solemnly and happily.

"Happy birthday." He whispered to her, and kissed her cheek. She smiled and blushed as she turned her head.

"I love you, I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight." Lilo said, kissing him, and getting up.

"I love you too, goodnight." Kioni said waving to her. He watched as she walked on down the path, just a few minutes to her home. "Her sister's gonna be mad." He thought to himself, He sat for a bit longer on the bench, then later proceeded to his own house.

As Lilo walked along the path, her dress waving under her feet against the gentle breeze, and her pendant chirping as it banged against itself and her skin. As she strolled, she saw a large object coming from the sky. With blue jets, a red and white ship blasted through a fireball, and landed with a loud crash behind her quiet home.

She gazed with sudden surprise and amazement at this unreal phenomenon. She quickly ran up the blue wooden stairs, and tried the door.

"Nani, David, is anyone home?" She cried inside, but no response. She gave up calling for her guardians, thought for a second, and decided to run out back to see just what she had witnessed. She ran around the patio and went into the backyard forest, where she hadn't been in a long time.

Sprinting for three or four minutes, she came upon a leafy meadow, with a small hill that she recognized. Atop the leaves, halfway into the meadow, was the red and white vessel; the very one she caught cascading to earth.

The door on the ship was apparently open, and small footprints that could be seen from her far away perch lead her to the hill that she felt was so familiar. They took her up, and over the hill, past a dead, withering tree, to the other side, where there she saw a small figure, about the size of a child.

"He-hello?" She called out to it, getting its attention. The small figure turned around, to reveal its wide black eyes; to flutter its long blue ears; and to gaze at her in a seemingly surprised yet relieved stance. Its arms were out to the side, at an angle, and its mouth slowly opened ajar in a grin, as if it knew her, and couldn't believe its eyes. She stared at the figure, not knowing whom it was-or rather what it was-but still with the feeling that she had seen this thing before. "Do I...know you?"

The creature seemed to tense with an uproar of excitement and joy, it smiled with its wide, and let tears stream down the back of its cheeks. The creature ran toward Lilo, as if greeting her after coming back from a long journey, and tackled her. Though she wanted to run back to the house, something inside her told her not to run.

"Lilo, Stitch is finally home!" He cried with joy and relief, as he cried on her shoulder with white glistening tears against the light of the moon. Though awkward she felt, something comforted her, and made her embrace this creature back. "Stitch finally home again." The creature said to her.

"I'm glad you are, Stitch...but one thing bothers me," she replied to him, "how do you know my name...who are you?"

Drifting Timestream

The morning sun glimmered through the window of Lilo's room; she had not slept all night. Her eye's bloodshot and her head matted. She sat up to the sun; now realizing she had not slept but been in daze all this time. Her mouth felt dry and coarse, her throat raspy and cold. As she took a deep breath in, the back of her nose stung with pain, she tried to swallow hoping that would sooth her passages, but it seemed like the dry saliva only made it worse.

With her efforts she shat up under the covers, and stared down at Stitch's mattress that lay right below her. She deeply remembered the past month; everything that had happened to them seemed so long ago now. Not moving, for a good long while, Lilo recalled every moment of the fight with Akibaba Kino that she could see through her blurry vision.

She recalled, before that event, how she had seen Angel fleeing from the backyard brush, away from the meadow of fallen leaves. How Stitch tried to hide that incident, when he came down the stairs and tried to act as if nothing happened. She remembered the look on his face when she had told him he saw Angel running, and how he still had her pink fur on his shoulder. She stopped recalling her memories, and quickly went out of her room into the hall, proceeding toward Jumba's room.

"Jumba?" She asked, knocking on the door.

"Come in little girl." He told her. Lilo opened the door, and stepped in. Jumba was on the far side of the room, bent over the make-shift dehydration machine he had made.

"Is it almost ready?" She asked meekly.

"Actually yes, is dehydrating as we speak, and I have sent message." He told her, in an announcing way. "626 should be arriving on earth right about now...well not now but ten year's from now...eh...you know what I'm meaning to say." Lilo chuckled a bit.

The dehydration machine chimed to tell them it was done. Jumba pushed a small button near the bottom, and a small door opened to reveal a blue capsule. Jumba took the capsule in his hand, and turned to Lilo, who stared at him. He walked to Lilo, and handed her the small blue capsule.

"Hurry, is not much time left before this time stream ends." Lilo nodded to Jumba, and left the room, heading down the hall, and back to hers. She sighed heavily and clasped the pendant around her neck, holding up to her eye. It was large, on a black string, with a realistic looking ruby surrounded by fake golden sides.

"I hope you find this Stitch." She told herself, hiding the capsule containing the time machine. She let the pendant drop on her chest and thought about what would happen. "Jumba said in the past we have to do something different. We have to change something, during the fight with 625." She pondered for a long time, thinking of what they could do, it was possible she could tell Stitch in her diary.

"That's it, I've got it!" She exclaimed to herself, recalling the battle fully. She wasted no time, running for her diary, and clasping a pen in her trembling hand, she rushed to scribble down a note to Stitch. As she wrote, the world about her disappeared into blackness; the time stream they were in was breaking off from the main time stream. Though fear took Lilo, she hastily wrote her message, telling Stitch what she had figured out, but was not quick enough. Before the entire message was frantically written, her hand disappeared, along with the pen, and finally her whole figure.

Main Time Stream

Lilo inspected Stitch very carefully; panning over his small, plump, blue, fuzzy body; matching to his large black-pearl oyster-eyes and white gleaming pupil; turning his chin with her hand to the left, looking at his cheeks, his mouth, his nose, his hair, his ears, his teeth, his claws, feet, hands, toes, tentacles, and quills. Still, she could only recognize the familiarity of his form, and not recollect just who exactly he was.

"I just can't put my finger on it..." She pondered, as Stitch sat on the green couch in the living room. "You say your name is...Stitch, right?" She questioned.

"Eh. Miga Stitch, ju Lilo." She looked at him again; still amazed at the fact that he had four arms, quills, and the two tentacles on his head that resembled the reeds in a swamp. Stitch gazed at Lilo, the older Lilo, and tried to see what had changed about her. He noticed her hair was a lot softer, her eyes were narrower, her neck was smaller, and her voice was patient, yet sounded as though she was in a hurry. Inside, Stitch's heart knotted at the sound of her voice; he wanted to hear her old voice, her charismatic chime that he always heard as she taught him something of earthen culture.

Lilo slumped back against the oak chair and cocked her head back in frustration of what was going on. Stitch drooped his head at her sigh and sat in his obedient dog position; his hands tucked into his feet and his head looked down at his toes. What bothered him the most was that he was almost completely omniscient to the whole situation. He hadn't forgotten what Jumba had told him; find the time machine. This meant he would have to either search the house for it-which he didn't want to do right now-or he would have to try to jog the teenaged Lilo's memories. Both scenarios were not to his liking, however, and he knew he had to hurry.

He didn't talk to Lilo at all since she had taken him back to the home from outside. While in the leaf filled meadow, after tackling her with joy, and thinking he would finally be able to correct the time flux continuum. Lilo surprised him to his disdain however, for apparent to him, she has forgotten who he was entirely. He remained silent unless spoken to; he wanted to let Lilo do the talking so that he could build on what she was thinking.

"I still don't understand it." Lilo began. "I'm walking home from my date with Kioni, and I see your ship coming from the sky and landing in my backyard. I think I'm going lolo." She clasped her hands together, looking at Stitch, trying to make him disappear from her imagination. She sighed again, got up, and headed toward the kitchen. "So, who's hungry?" She spoke rhetorically trying to keep her mind off of the events taking place, opening cabinets and pantries looking for something to whip up. "Ravioli? David says nothing beats amnesia like a can of Ravioli."

"David?" Stitch repeated to himself. "Does that mean Nani is here as well? And Jumba, and Pleakley!" His hopes rose at the realizing that Jumba could still be around. "Lilo?" He asked lowly, while she prepared the microwave bowl and can opener. "Lilo?" He tried again to get her attention, and failed as she turned her back. He jumped off the couch and quickly shuffled his way into the blue painted kitchen, hopped upon the shelves near where Lilo was. She was busy putting the can of Ravioli into the blender out of sheer determination to elude the thoughts of her going insane. Stitch walked over casually as the blender whirred and whipped the meat and tomato juice around, and calmly tapped the button to turn the blender off.

"Lilo, where is Jumba?" He asked, with a serious, straight, and calm face.

"Who are you? This has to be some kind of prank." She said fiercely. Stitch's face instantly went from serious to fearful and sheepish at the way Lilo snapped back at him.

"Naga!" He said highly as Lilo began to take the hose from the sink and drench Stitch with a jet of water. As this commotion occurred, Nani and David arrived at the front door. They walked in laughing after having a great time at the post-luau dinner, and abruptly stopped there joy when they found Lilo, armed with the sink hose, assaulting Stitch-who looked to them like a life-imbued plush doll. Lilo looked over at Nani in relief and ran over to her.

"Nani, do you see that?" She asked, pointing to Stitch.

"Yeah, I see it, it's an oversized plush toy, what about it?"

"I think it knows me." Lilo whispered, Nani double took at Stitch shrugged her shoulders; something told her this was going to be a long night.

Dear diary,

I can't sleep at all, it's 1 a.m. and I'm not able to close my eyes. This is the latest I've ever stayed up before. I'm not so worried anymore, about Stitch and everything, Jumba thinks that he's probably landed on earth and looking for the time machine already. Jumba won't tell me anything about the time machine, but what's strange is, he's going to dehydrate it. He's going to put it into a capsule, and I'm going to hide it; I know exactly where to put it, and I'll write it down here tomorrow.

At first we thought it was the real 625, but later we found out that he came from the future. According to Jumba, when he came the time stream was snipped right about when he arrived, but it split into three different directions sometime when we were on the spire yesterday. We failed to stop him from corrupting the time stream, that's why Stitch has to go back, so that we can have a second chance at stopping the stream from splitting. I'm going to try to get some sleep, I know Stitch will able to fix things up this time around, but I'm going to think about what we can do differently at the spire, something's gotta change at that point.

But, I just hope that what 625 said...wasn't true...

"Stitch, correct?" Nani asked.

"Eh. My name Stitch." He replied to her, holding back his impatience. He was once again on the green couch, David sat next to him, Lilo sat in another chair off to the side, and Nani was in front of the couch looking at the little blue experiment.

"And you know Lilo, or so you claim?" Nani chimed.

"Eh. Stitch know Lilo. Stitch know Lilo well."

"Ok then, what's your association with her?"

"Lilo ta miga achie-babas, miga rachuba tatoe nomishara." He replied in Turan. Nani looked at him with somewhat wide eyes, trying to figure out what Stitch just said.

"I'm sorry, can you speak English? I don't speak gibbereish." She told him, rudely. Stitch shook his head and began to tell Nani again in English, but Lilo interrupted him.

"He said that we were friends a long time ago...and that he just came back from a long journey."

"Eh." Stitch said to confirm what Lilo told the group.

"You understood what he just said?" Nani asked Lilo in surprise.

"I don't know why, but I could understand exactly what he said..."

"OK!" Nani screamed toward Stitch, "You're starting to scare me, I've known Lilo all my life and I don't remember you at all, there's something you're not telling us. I want to know where you came from." She said sternly.

"Miga togasha achuba-"

"In English!" Nani said lowly. Stitch lowered his ears and looked at his feet. Nani hadn't changed at all, she still yelled. He took a deep breath in, and tried his best to explain the situation.

"Stitch and Lilo friends long ago, but Stitch was launched in a shuttle and gone for a long time. Now Stitch back, ten years later though..." Nani sat down on a chair near David, whom had now fallen asleep, and looked at Stitch. She contemplated what he told her.

"So, ten years ago is when you knew Lilo?" She asked. Stitch nodded his head. "Do you remember him?" She asked toward her sister.

"I don't remember anything from that long ago, but for some reason he looks familiar. Do you think what he's saying is true?" Stitch looked at Nani, barely able to see her in the dim light.

"He does look familiar..." She trailed, "Maybe he is telling the truth." She slumped back in her chair and sighed. "I don't know what to say, it's not often that I come home to find an alien in my house."

"Should we let him stay?" Lilo asked, as if Stitch wasn't in the room to listen.

"As much as I wish I could say no, I don't think I have much of a choice. We'll let him sleep out back near the hammock. Get a rope, Lilo, we're going to tie him to the tree." With a small disapproving 'tsk' Lilo stood up and walked to the closet to get a long rope. Minutes later, Stitch was collared around the neck, and tied to the trunk of a large tree near orange hammock. He didn't growl once, and after Lilo left him saying goodnight, he praised himself for his good behavior.

It took a while for Stitch to fall asleep, the collar was uncomfortably gagging his neck along with his pendant, and the night air was chilly. Until now, he had tried not to think about the past, but slowly memories returned. However, he as much as he tried, he couldn't recall anything that happened during the past week; the last thing he remembered was falling asleep on the ground under the hammock outside. He remembered the hospital, Achie-baba Kino, and the talk that he had with Lilo, before they slept outside, but anything after that was just blotted out. As if that time period never existed. He knew exactly what happened during that time, everything from the meadow to the spire, but he couldn't envision any images of those moments in his mind.

Sadness coated him; he stopped trying to recall those moments and tried to focus on what to do next. He had to find the time machine, but that was going to be hard. He didn't know what it looked like, it could be disguised, it could be small, it could be hidden, or out in the open, too many possibilities.

"I'll ask Jumba." He thought, "He'll definitely know where it is, I just hope he remembers too..." Stitch took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and curled up into a ball. With a small hope for tomorrow, he was able to find slumber, and quickly dozed off into a dreamless sleep.