This is what you do when you're bored!

AN: It's been over a year and a half since I did ANYTHING on this story…and now I bring it to you and its short. I'm a horrible author I should be punished or something. I got a really long review that requested I update and she did it in such a way as to load me up with heaps of compliments (in the future this is totally the way to get me to do things for you). So I'm updating. At first I was like "eh. I haven't done anything in ages and ages with that story." Then I did some re-reading and I was like "hey, not a bad story." So here we are now. I'm getting back into the swing of things…but truth is I wouldn't have done anything with it if I hadn't been trying to cannibalize Jondy for an original piece I'm trying to write and hopefully publish someday. You guys would buy a book with Jondy in it wouldn't you?

and to the reviewers who are still with me despite everything, you're awesome i love you and wow coolness. and i stole a little something from a past review in this...

Anyways, I have a livejournal account and a DeviantArt account (links in my info page) come visit me. I like people, really, I do.

Remember the Days

Chapter 3: A lover's interlude

Do I dare
disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
-T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Jondy tiptoed into the room that Mary had given to Zane, her own just one door down the hall. No lights were on but she could still see, partly because the excellent night vision and partly because the moon hung low and almost full outside the open window. A lump running the length of the bed had to be Zane she reasoned, as she made her way over crumpled pants and a shirt and then a mass of fur that was a sleeping Sasha.

Sasha's head came up with a jingle of her collar and Jondy reached down to give her a quick scratch behind the ear before she climbed slowly onto the bed to kneel down next to the lump's midsection.

"Hey," she said softly and waited.

Nothing happened.

So slowly, deliberately, she poked the lump in the approximate area of the shoulder with one finger. "Hey." Once again nothing, so she poked harder. This time there was a groan, muffled by the covers.

She jabbed what she was sure was the shoulder now. A plaintive "stop it," followed after.

"Zane," she poked him a little gentler now.

"Go 'way."

THWAP. Jondy nailed the patch of dark hair sticking out from the covers with an open handed slap. "Ow!" Zane bolted up right and glared at her. "What the—"

She made her eyes wide and round. "Did I wake you up?"

"Of course not, I was just lying there pretending to be sleeping soundly." He narrowed his eyes at her and huffed a bit. "I was also pretending to have a dream about a deserted island with a super model."

Jondy stuck her bottom lip out and sniffed, "I just…sorry." Her shoulders sagged and she started to slide of the bed.

"Come back here," Zane growled and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back into bed.

"No, you were having naughty dreams about other women!" Jondy wiggled against him trying to get out of his grasp but he wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. "Let go perv!" She whispered furiously, trying not to wake anyone else in the house up.

"No you're mine."

"I belong to the world!"

"Nope, mine." She stopped struggling and he placed a kiss against her ear and grinned. "Given up?"

She sighed loudly. "Only because I'm sleepy and I wanted to curl up and go to bed with you."

"You can't now," he said gently as he loosed his hold enough to let her turn to face him.

"And why not?"

"You woke me up," he wiggled his eyebrows. "You must now pay the consequence."

"Which is?"

"Ten thousand kisses."

"All tonight? Cause, though not impossible, would result in no sleep whatsoever and possibly us still being in this bed two days from now."

"Strangely I don't find myself disliking that idea." He gave her a crooked grin and kissed the edge of her lip gently, the ghost of a whispered touch.

She found herself sitting with her knees touching each of his hips and her calves against his thighs, her fingers tangled in his shirt as he ran the knuckles of one hand down her spine. He wrapped his arms loosely around her waist, fingertips against the small of her back having worked their way under her shirt to the skin below like a cage spun of gossamer and moonlight and she shivered at the sensation. It was a new and frightening thing, this being able to touch Zane however she wanted, he kissed her jaw line, and she liked it. Jondy leaned in and pressed her lips against his, it was slow and hesitant and so gentle she thought she dreamed the pressure.

Zane tangled his fingers into her hair and she groaned softly before breaking off the kiss. Jondy burrowed her head between his shoulder and jaw putting her forehead to the crook of his neck and sighed. "What is it?" he asked softly as he concentrated on slowing his breathing.

"He seems like he's been happy here, doesn't he?" It was obvious whom she was talking about.

"Yeah, Buddy and Mary seem to care about him."

"A little restless but happy overall."

"Jondy—"

"He's got plenty of space to roam free and chase rabbits and help herd the cows and hehas little danger of being hit by a car..." he felt her smile against his skin and shook his head.

"Stop talking about Zack like he's a dog."

"Oh come on, its so obvious he's got an inner rottie."

"Say what?"

"He's totally like a rottweiler. Their big and stocky, solid blocks of muscle." She lifted her head to make some vague motions with her hands that seemed to indicate 'big' or 'circle.' "They're territorial and loyal and they'll tear out anyone's throat that threatens one of their people." She was grinning now. "They look scary but really they're great big balls of gooey-furry-cuteness—" she broke down into strange noises much like adults did when they were talking to babies, she was also moving her hands like she was pinching cheeks.

"You terrify me."

She stopped. "Sorry." He pulled her back to him so that she rested her head on his shoulder again. Her voice had gone back to being soft and hesitant. "So, yeah, he was happy before we came."

"What are you—?"

"What we're doing here is right, isn't it? I mean, he's not bad off here and he's…"

"It's right," he said firmly and ran a hand through her hair absently, a soothing gesture for both of them.

"Are you sure? You're not just saying that?" Her voice came out in a rush and she sat up again. "He's got the chance to be normal, we'd kill for that. Wouldn't' we? He doesn't have to know he's not human— that he's an experiment."

"And what about the danger?"

"We can set up a watch over the farm, come by every couple of weeks or something. He did it for us, we can do it for him!"

"But if he doesn't remember what he is he won't—"

"He doesn't have to remember me!" Her voice was frantic. "I can live with it if I know he's happy. It's not important—it is, but…if we left tomorrow we can stop it and the damage will be minimal. He'll pass it off and be like 'Oh crazy lady.' He'll be totally right too and he won't remember!"

Zane shushed her softly and cupped her face in his hands. Her eyes were wide, a glowing azure in the darkness as silver light fell on them. 'Haunted eyes' he thought 'hunted and heartbreaking.' "He wouldn't want it." Zane swallowed and his thumbs stroked her cheeks. "Zack would want to remember you. No matter what. Zack didn't take care of us because he had to. No one was making him come after us after we got out of Manticore. He did it because he loved us. He wouldn't trade the memory of us for the chance at a normal life, he wouldn't."

She bit her lip looking lost, "promise?"

"I promise."

"I miss him so much but I feel like we're cheating him out of something."

"If we don't give him the chance to remember we'll be cheating him out of something then too." He kissed her forehead and tugged her arm. "Come on." She let him guide her to lay next to him her body touching the length of his. She threw a leg over his and buried her head in his chest.

"Sweet dreams," she whispered.

"You too." Then they went quiet listening to the night settle around them.