QoH: eh… hope everybodys still reading this by now… --() I wont bore you with the messed up details of my life, save for the fact that my computer crashed SEVERAL months ago (TT) and getting down here to the library is rather difficult…. so yeah () uber-thanks to Macotee and Ja Rule for the recent reviews. they basically gave me a kick in the butt i needed to write in spite of everything sends hugs out to all her lovely readers thanks to all! 0

PS: by the way, Miho Washu's the same nurse as in my prequel, "Sacrifice." please read that, if you haven't already

Chapter 3: A Familiar Stranger

"Mama! Mama!"

Momo Tojigamori smiled and looked up as her four-year old son, Raimareo, fondly known as "Rai" for his boundless energy, came tearing across the lawn to the small garden in which she sat, weeding periwinkles. She set the small spade next to her and tugged her gloves off, laughing a little at the sight of her best friend, Miho, scrambling to keep up. "Yes, my little lightning bolt? Have you been terrorizing Washu-san and the rest of the neighborhood again?"

"Nuh-uh!" The little boy denied it vigorously and shoved his mop of thick white-blond hair out of his eyes with an impatient hand, "I found something! Come on!" He reached to try and pull her to her feet.

She stood and looked to Miho for clarification, who shrugged helplessly, "Gomen, but he lost me for a while. There wasn't enough time to find a phone booth and contact you. I know about as much as you do at this point."

Momo sighed, imagining that her child's penchant for unaccompanied exploring had, no doubt, driven her friend to the brink of insanity. She shook her head admonishingly at him, "You know better than to wander off like that, Raimareo. You could get hurt."

"I know…" he answered, looking uncharacteristically repentant. Of course, that only lasted for the span of two seconds, before he started yanking on her arm. "But somebody's hurt, Mama! I think it's bad! You've gotta come!"

This got their attention. He liked to play practical jokes on people as much as the next rambunctious youngster, he wasn't the sort to kid around about something like that. Miho knelt before him and took hold of his shoulders as Momo ran to put her gardening things in the nearby shed, "What did you see, Rai? Do you know what happened?"

He glanced at his mother, who was dashing back to them in record time, then at his unofficial babysitter, "Yeah, it was at the old center. I wasn't the only one there; this man I'd never seen before was there, too. I guess he saw me, 'cause he started after me, yelling something I couldn't hear real good. I heard this huge CRACK," he smacked his hands together for emphasis," and he fell!

"Rai…" Momo started, ready to scold him again for going down there. Everyone knew that place was dangerous, for more reasons than she cared to think about.

"Mama!" he cried insistently, hopping from foot to foot as he looked anxiously back the way he'd come.

Miho shrugged a bit, sending her a sympathetic glance as she whispered under her breath, "May as well hold off on the reprimand for now. It's not like he'll listen, anyway, as antsy as he is."

She gave a wry half smile and muttered back, "Does he ever?" Momo then turned back to her son, "All right, get in the car."

He probably couldn't have gotten to the back door of the dark red vehicle any quicker had he teleported. She blinked, thinking to herself. Wow. He really must be worried about this stranger. I've never seen him move so fast, and that's saying something.

Kiley groaned as he returned to consciousness and opened his eyes. He had to shut them immediately, though, as years of dust still drifted down on him after his fall. Attempting to shift his body in the hopes that all his limbs remained in good, working order, he had to grit his teeth when he realized his left arm felt like someone had taken a high-powered blowtorch to it from the inside out. He couldn't see it in the hazy darkness, but he assumed it was broken quite badly.

Well, scratch that about the frame. I have to get that floor fixed first, then the rest. Sitting up very, very slowly, he cradled his arm and tried to get a better look around. How in the world am I supposed to get out of here? Kiley got carefully to his feet, forcing the moment of panic down as he considered his options. He looked up at the large hole he'd tumbled through, and judged it to be about eleven or twelve feet out of his reach and happened to be his only source of light. Sighing in resignation, he turned his attention to stumbling blindly through the splintered boards and miscellaneous junk that littered the floor. When he finally reached the wall, he felt around with his good arm and prayed that he'd come in contact with a door, or even a hole big enough for him to crawl through.

After searching for what seemed to him like three eternities, despite his watch's glow-in-the-dark assertion that it'd only been ten minutes, he eventually found one. The remains of a doorway, that is. Now, it was merely a deteriorating gap in the wall and, as he discovered when he crouched down to inspect its actual size, only big enough for a dog or young child. Hardly viable material for an adult human's escape. Of course, what choice do I have? I need to get out of here and pronto, before I faint. This is most likely going to wreak havoc on my arm, but if I'm lucky, I might be able to wriggle through.

To Kiley's immense surprise, he made it through with only minimal amount of damage to his injury, even though it felt it taken at least five thousand years to do so. Thank Kami that I've learned patience! Getting to his feet again, he took in his new surroundings and laughed aloud for joy when he found a stairway across the room that, he presumed, led up to the level he'd been on previously. Holding his arm close against him in an effort to keep it from moving and sending even more painful jolts to his brain, he made his way as quickly as he could toward the fairly bright light.

Momo entered carefully after her son, whom she held tightly to, should he feel the urge to dart off, and eyed the dreary front room. What in the world could anyone, besides Rai, possibly want with this old place?

Miho edged in after her and gave the building the same dubious once-over that she had. Nodding at the gaping hole in the floor a few feet away, she set her nurse's bag next to the door, "That's probably where he fell."

"Do you think he's still down there?" Momo wondered, staring down into what could've been a bottomless pit, for all she knew.

"I can't imagine how he'd be able to get out," she shrugged and inched forward in an effort to see something without, quite literally, landing in the same situation. "He's probably injured rather seriously, so simply climbing up is out of the question."

Momo nodded and knelt next to Raimareo, putting her arm around him, "I want you to stay right here by the door while we figure out what to do, okay? Will you do that for Mama?"

He glanced uneasily toward where his second favorite person in the world was making her way around what he'd deemed "the bad place." He looked back at his mother and held tight to her, his deep brown eyes even darker with worry, "I don't want you to get hurt, too, all 'cause of me."

"We'll be fine, aiji," she smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. When that didn't convince him, she tickled him lightly on the back of his neck until he squirmed and giggled. Asking him again to sit next to the door, she wiggled her fingers in front of his nose in a playful threat.

Rai grinned and nodded, living up to his namesake as usual, "'Kay, I'll stay here."

She gave him a gentle push to the door where the medical bag still sat, "Hey, you know what? You can be Washu-san's assistant. Would you like that?"

"Yeah!" he plopped himself down on the threshold and opened it, ready to hand stuff out, "I'll be like a nurse, too, huh?"

Momo laughed softly at her child's enthusiasm for all new things, "That's right. When we say we need something, you can hand it to us. Now, you'll have to be quick, just like the people on TV, all right? We don't know what expect here."

"Uh huh," he tilted his head curiously, as though he'd just thought of something, "Did you call an ambulance?"

"Yes, I did," she looked out the door as she stood, hoping to see the boxy vehicle blaring its way down the street, "but they might be far away right now, so we need to help if we can."

"I've found him!" Miho called from across the room and she turned, tightening her high ponytail in preparation what would most likely be a nasty job.

She blinked when she saw her friend supporting a tall being who seemed to be made entirely of dirt, from the sight of him, "So you have. Is he conscious?"

The redhead hitched his arm up over her shoulder so she could hold him more securely, "Just barely. He somehow managed to climb through a ruined doorway into this next room and was stumbling up the stairs when I spotted him. I don't even want to think of what that had to have taken out of him."

With a glance to make sure Rai was doing as he was told, she edged along the wall until she got to their sides. She shuddered when she saw the jagged bone protruding from the arm hanging limply at his side and had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked to Miho, "Can you tell if there's anything else wrong with him?"

She shook her head and looked him over again worriedly, "No, but I can't say anything about internal injuries. I think we need to get him to your car immediately, Momo."

The dust-covered stranger stirred slightly, evidently hearing snatches of their conversation. Attempting to lift his weak head from Miho's shoulder and pried his eyes open to look into hers, he croaked out a faint whisper that seemed to hold more depths of pain in it than she'd ever encountered, "Momo…?"

The women glanced at each other cluelessly and shrugged a little, chalking it up to delirium setting in.

He seemed to comprehend that they didn't know what he meant, so he tried again, obviously fighting the urge to slip into the relative comfort of oblivion, "It's really you… Kitten…" With that, his body gave in and he slid to the floor, despite Miho's efforts to keep him upright.

The nurse bent over him and situated his body so he wouldn't do any more damage to his arm, "What do you think he meant by that? Kitten? I've never heard anyone call you that before. Does he know you from somewhere?"

"It's not… possible…"

Miho raised her confused gaze to her friend, who appeared frozen to the spot, "Anou… care to enlighten me here?"

The question seemed to break her sudden paralysis, as Momo quickly got to her knees on the man's other side. Brushing away some of the grime from his hair revealed familiar dark strands and, when she applied a gentler form of the treatment to his face, she found the very same features that had haunted her regret-filled dreams for years. Sitting back on her heels with a shocked thump, she stared down at the inert form lying between them.

"Am I talking to a wall, or what?" Miho gestured in frustration as she looked over at Rai, who looked equally stumped by his mother's odd behavior. Noticing that he was itching to come over and see what all the fuss was about, she sent a silent message for him to remain where he was. Naturally unhappy about this, the curious boy sat back down, ready to dive into the black bag for whatever they might need. She turned back to Momo and waved her hand in front of her face, "Is anyone home in there?"

She came back to herself in what looked like slow motion. Even her blink seemed to take far longer than necessary as she finally answered, "It's… Kiley."

QoH: some translation Momo's son's name means "rare trust" (i like him he's modeled after a young friend of mine: Collin. they even look alike, 'cept Collin has blue eyes lol)

rai- trust, lightning, thunder

mareo- rare, uncommon

aiji- beloved child

anou- err, um, etc. basically, the sound you make when you're uncertain about something