Disclaimer: I don't own Earth: Final Conflict or any of its characters. Just my poor widdle plot.

A/N: Argggg! I've had this done for almost a week and could never find time to type and post it. Thanks for the poke to get this chapter out pleading fan. Also thanks to Bronny, Aki, and Lady of the Dawn for reviewing the last chapter. And ……on with the show!

At the Fair

"Where is the brat!" growled Doors. "He thinks too much of his position if he thinks he can lightly dismiss a scheduled meeting with the leader of the Liberation!"

"Jonathan, his schedule is at the mercy of both Sandoval and Da'an. Who knows what kind of last minute tasks they could set him up for? He'll be here the second he can escape," Lili assured her boss. She had been working under Doors for years now, since the arrival of the Taelons, and never had she seen Doors express such aggression and distaste towards someone that wasn't an enemy like he did towards Liam. It was getting harder to keep Liam off Door's enemy list and she was getting worried.

"That hybrid still needs a lesson in humility, one of many traits he doesn't seems to possess," Doors replied, his disgust quite obvious. Lily reflected that her opinion of anything nonhuman used to be very similar to Jonathan's. Before Liam.

No, it was earlier than that. Boone had served the Liberation and Da'an, just as Liam did now, had in fact worked to show Da'an that humans were more then the Taelons believe them to be. At the same time he showed Da'an what it meant to be human, he'd shown her there was more to the Taelons then just alien deception. She missed him so much.

Boone opened both their eyes. Not only that, but he had made a place in Lily's heart and Da'an's beliefs for Liam.

her relationship with the young hybrid was quite confusing. On the surface, he was coworker and comrade. They worked together for Da'an protecting him and sharing viewpoints of their respective species to create understanding. They were also Liberation spies, fighting to protect humanity and expose the Taelon's true agenda on Earth. Personally, it became even more dichotic.

He was her friend, best friend at times, and sometimes she forgot he wasn't only that. She knew he saw her as some mixture of aunt and older sister. In the panicked edges of her mind she could sometimes admit she was one of the precious few maternal figures in his life and the only one he had any regular contact with. Dr. Parks was too involved in the Liberation for Liam to see too often. He only saw her for his monthly checkups. Even while his mother was alive, it had always been too dangerous for Liam to make any kind of personal connection.

Lily knew she didn't do a good job on her promise to watch over Beckett's son. She'd made that promise, along with Augur in a rare moment of sympathetic maternal compassion. That little boy had tugged on her heart and it didn't matter that he wasn't fully human. His body grew into that of an adult in minutes, but that connection to the little boy inside was still there. He was special.

Only sometimes, when a look she didn't understand came over his features did his Kimera heritage cause her unease.

Within such a short amount of time, Liam became very self-sufficient for the most part. It was to Lily's guilt that she left him to his own devices so often. She recalled his first weeks with fondness. In private, he would blurt out the most obvious things and didn't screen his words at all. She Augur had been often left speechless with astonishment or embarrassment. More often though it had been breathless with shared laughter. When Liam was finally no longer confused with daily human life, Lily had justified her withdrawal as a natural separation; her boy had grown inside to match his physical age. He wouldn't want her hovering around him and it could in fact endanger Liam.

It was only recently, since his mother's death, that she saw how wrong she'd been. He still acted the adult in public and for the most part in private. That was how he had fooled her. Now though, she could see the bewilderment, the aching loss in his eyes. It made her want to hold him tight and whisper comforting platitudes into his adult ears, to reach and comfort the child inside. She hadn't been able to yet. The distance she'd placed between them in treating him as an adult, instead of the man-child he was, kept him from her. Her goal now, aside from protecting him for Doors and the Taelons (enough in its own right), was to somehow get back her earlier relationship. That goal was both hers and Augur's; they'd talked about their pseudo foster son and agreed that they'd both messed up somewhere. In fear, she and Augur had backed away from the unexpected responsibility of raising an alien hybrid. That and the powered emotions he engendered in them. Now it was time to take that responsibility and emotion firmly in hand.

Her global rang, interrupting the silence that had sprung up as Lily though over her relationship with Liam. Doors looked up from his paperwork impatiently.

"Answer it. It had better be him." No need to ask who.

Lily opened the global and held back a frown. It was an emergency beacon from Liam, one of the several set up for those in undercover positions for the Liberation. This one meant help but that the one sending the signal was not yet in mortal danger. Lily mentally snorted. With Liam it was almost always mortal danger.

"It's a beacon from Liam. He needs help but doesn't seem to be in immediate trouble."

"Everyone is busy, getting ready to act on the information he was supposed to be here to provide. You're going to have to go drag him back here captain alone. We need that information on the security system."

Lily just nodded, not trusting herself to not make a comment. She knew Liam hadn't been able to get much. It was almost as if Doors had set Liam up to fail. Anyway, it was time to see what trouble Liam had got into now.

It was strange, Liam thought. It didn't seem to matter where you were, whether it was Ireland, the islands, or Washington DC. You could always spot a rabbit in the clouds if you waited long enough. Of all the things he could have suspected his parents would have in common, cloud watching wasn't one of them.

More childhood memories from his parents were trickling into his conscious mind. It probably had to do with his current age, but Liam was too content to care. The majority of his inherited memories came to the surface only to help him survive. He'd 'known' about his mother's rock-climbing hobby because it was her way of relieving stress, something that in his life he needed. Memories from his parents were needed knowledge or skill. Sometimes they were a type of advise, showing how his mother or father handled a situation similar to whatever was his current problem. Never though were his inherited memories there for pure comfort or fun. Now though, that was their purpose, leaving Liam basking in he new thoughts.

Liam didn't know how long he laid behind the bushes staring into the clouds when Ms. Garrison's loud irritating voice brought him out of his daydreams and into a new nightmare.

"Boy! Li, if that's your name! Where are you? Several people saw you headed this way." Frantically, Liam looked for cover to sneak away in, but there was nothing.

"Come out now or it'll be worse for you. I've checked the lists of all the participating schools and the orphanage, and there isn't a 'Li' on them. I knew you didn't look properly appreciative to Da'an. Now, show yourself this instant!"