Author's Note: Oh, look at that! The fifteenth chapter is finally here! Isn't that such an odd thing? I suspect that it's been about a week or two… maybe more; I'm not that good with time. Sorry, Yaarp16 for taking so long, but I had a severe case of writer's block… Actually, I had all things planned out, but none of the earlier drafts really got out what I wanted. And then I wrote this one, which I hope you guys think is as good as I do! Well… Okay, it's not wonderful, but I'm satisfied with it! And, Bridgie, nice to meet the biggest Quasimodo ZDFG out there! I think I might be somewhere in the teens in that category… But anyway, you know the drill. Read and review!

Chapter 15

"And… we're finished!"

"Finally!" Lilo exclaimed, leaning over Quasimodo's shoulder as his hands pulled away from the final knot. "That took a lot longer than I thought it would."

"Well, a lot happened today," Quasimodo suggested, looking over their creation, a satisfied smile creeping onto his deformed face. "I had my chores, like I always do, and that took a lot of time out of it."

"Plus we had to look for half the things we needed," Lilo added. "That took a long time, too."

Quasimodo laughed gently, nodding his head in agreement.

"Yes, it did," he concurred. "But it was all worth it, don't you think?"

"Yup," Lilo said, nodding, stepping to stand beside the hunchback, her eyes wandering over the many glass shards that were laid artistically disorganized upon the bell tower floor. "Too bad we didn't get it done before it turned night, huh?"

The hunchback nodded in reply, his attention making its way upward to an open window, through which the dark-blue ether of night sky and its many twinkling stars could be discerned. It had taken them quite a while. The sun, he believed, should be still somewhat lingering at the hilly horizon, a mere sliver of fiery red barely maintaining its spot in the sky. They had hoped to have completed the piece before the sun was in setting, when the rays of the gold would shine through the wide windows and cast the diamonds of light that he and Lilo had imagined. But, drilling the small holes into the many shards had been a meticulous task, and threading them with string and wire, though easier to accomplish, took almost as good an eye as the former undertaking.

They had fashioned several different mobiles instead of the one that they had originally planned on creating, the larger pieces tied off to the side with rope other than metal wire or thread. The different sets were placed along the floor, adjacent to the miniature's table, taking up quite a bit of space as they ran along the wall, side to side. If one thought of it, the fact that the two had finished the whole of it in a single afternoon seemed something of a miracle! Perhaps, eagerness and friendship were their impetuses. Whatever it was, Quasimodo found himself thanking it profusely. Though he did feel a sort of disappointment for losing out on the most recent opportunity to see his creation at work, he was pleased that he wouldn't have to wait more than a day to see it.

"Are we going to put it up now?" Lilo asked excitedly, an enthusiastic grin spread across her face.

"Sure," Quasimodo answered, coming up off his knees and dusting off his hands. "I think I have some time to do it before I have to ring the evening mass."

"Alright!" Lilo exclaimed, jumping up into the air ecstatically.

Chuckling, Quasimodo patted the little girl on the head and went to pick up the first mobile. Lilo rushed after him, all smiles.

"I wanna help!" She said, reaching for one of the metal rods that would support the hanging fixture.

"I don't think that you should do that, Lilo," Quasimodo said, alarmed, reaching across to claim the black iron that the little girl was holding.

"Don't worry, I won't get hurt," Lilo replied, only half recognizing what Quasimodo was saying. She lifted up the support, the glass shards colliding dangerously into one another with her less-than-gentle movement.

"Lilo, really, I don't think that you should…"

"Where are we going to put it?" She interrupted, smiling widely.

Quasimodo sighed quietly, shaking his head but smiling all the while. She was so ridiculous sometimes, he thought. He figured that it wouldn't be such a good idea if Lilo were to do anything with the mobiles. He knew that she loved them a lot, being the main coordinator of their creation, but it might be dangerous if they fell and broke more, not to mention their undeniable fragility. He wanted her to be safe. But, being the person he was, he didn't want to hurt her feelings and just tell her to leave… what was he supposed to do? He didn't want her to stop smiling… not at the moment, not that she was happy again, after the day before and the morning's events.

"Lilo," Quasimodo began, thinking as he spoke, "you know how tomorrow you're going to leave in the morning?"

"Ugh," the Hawaiian groaned, grimacing momentarily at the thought. "Yeah… I remember."

"My master… he's a very meticulous person," Quasimodo continued. "He'd look hard for you, if he thought you were here."

"That's why I'm leaving, right?"

"I guess… but, what I'm trying to say is… Well, no matter how kind my master is, he's also very passionate on his beliefs… You saw that this morning. But… What I'm saying is, if ever he found a trace of you, well…"

"He'd get mad, and you'd get in trouble again," Lilo finished for him, a guilty look on her face.

"Yes… I was just thinking that maybe… maybe you should get all of your things and pack them… so that neither of us would get in trouble," Quasimodo finished. Looking at Lilo's face, he was half-regretting having said all that. She wasn't smiling anymore, her expression now worried and guilty.

"Of course I'll do it!" Lilo answered, replacing the rod on the ground. "I'll get it done now, okay? I don't want you to get in trouble again!"

And, with that, she rushed off to get her bag.

Quasimodo smiled, picking up the main support of one of the mobiles with the greatest of care. He climbed up onto the table, making sure not to step onto any of the models that he had carved, and, reaching up with his free hand, he grabbed the beam that ran above him. He swung himself on top of the timber, taking care not to jar any of the glass pieces as he made the arc onto the wood. Pulling the mobile slowly up with him, he made his way up to a slightly higher support, tying the mobile onto it with a length of rope attached to the iron rod. He hoped that he could get this done before Lilo came back or he had to do the evening mass… whatever came first.

Lucky for Quasimodo, Lilo had scattered her things all over the bell tower and strove to gather the items away from the main area. Her packing wasn't that difficult, though. She had been able to get most of the objects that she had taken into the world, from her blankets to her potato chips, and was just picking up a stack of doodles that she had created just a day ago when she came across an impediment.

"Hey… where's Red?" She asked, shuffling through her box of Crayolas. Her most used crayon, her dearest Red, was gone.

"Where'd he go?" Lilo inquired aloud, casting scrutinizing glances about her. "I could've sworn that he was here a minute ago…"

Finally, a second after her search had began, she saw her red crayon, lying several meters to the side with its blunted tip and ripped wrapping. Sighing with relief, she stomped toward the cylinder of wax, a false frown on her face.

"If I didn't like you so much I'd abandon you right now," she said, shaking a finger at the poor red crayon. "It's not nice to go running off like that!"

Deciding that Red had been chastised enough, she bent down to pluck the crayon off the floor. But, once her hand had barely touched him, Red, having seemingly different ideas, bounded away, stopping just on top of a knot in the floorboards that opened to the levels below.

"Stupid crayon," Lilo muttered bitterly, rather cross with Red but fond of him enough not to want him to plummet. Dropping her bag onto the floor with an undeniable attitude, she readied herself, tiptoeing a predatory circle around the crayon. She hissed, baring her teeth as if she were some sort of wild animal.

"The lioness circles her prey quietly, the thought of dinner on her mind," Lilo narrated, continuing the ring around Red, a fierce glint in her brown eyes. "What's on the menu tonight? Red Meat." She licked her chops for emphasis, crouching into a pouncing position. "She waits for the right moment… if she misses, her prey will disappear and probably will never be seen again, even if she did want to go under those moldy old floors and look for him. Her only chance for survival is to catch him…NOW!"

And, with an extraordinary war cry mixed with a disdainful hiss, she leapt, stretching her arms forward to where Red was resting. With an unpleasant thump, she landed, groaning with impact, her fingers knocking the wax cylinder, sending it flying in a small arc in the air. She muttered vehemently in irritation, making a clumsy attempt to regain her equilibrium and stand as she watched the crayon land and continue to roll. Once she had finally achieved her posture, Red had bounded off into oblivion and was nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd he go?" Lilo asked incredulously, brushing off her dress as she finally got to her feet. The disappearance of the Crayola was indeed rather bewildering, not to mention eerie… it was there a second ago… She had been keeping as good an eye on it as she possibly could as she was tripping over her dress. But there was nothing. Red had made his grand escape.

Understandably curious, Lilo made her way to the shadows where the crayon had disappeared to in order to investigate. It was only a moment or so before she realized what had happened.

There in the floor, on a floorboard a few feet away from the original, there was a large gnarl in the wood that opened up into a dark, obscure place. Unlike the other, there wasn't a trace of visible floor beneath, so, Lilo, being the smart girl that she was, concluded that there must be another beam or something that it caught on.

"You're lucky Red," she said into the knot, wiping her hand on the lap of her dress and wriggling her fingers. "If it weren't for that beam, I wouldn't even be trying to get you!"

The hole appeared large enough for one of her fisted hands to fit through, luckily enough. She was planning to put her hand down the knot and search for her red crayon, and if she was fortunate enough, salvage him.

"This is going to be gross," Lilo said, cringing as she plunged her hand into the darkness. Immediately, she felt the dust of years and the clinging gossamers of spider webs, hopefully abandoned. She wrinkled her nose, sticking her tongue out in utter disgust, but continued, nevertheless, to search for Red.

For the first few minutes, she came across nothing but mustiness and, in one horrifying instance, a supposed rat.

"Where are you, you stupid crayon?" She asked in frustration. It was then that her hand met with something quite unusual. It was dusty, of course, but it wasn't a spider, or a rat, or anything like that. It had more of a solid feel to it, and, she noted with an added touch, a metallic cold to it. Curious as ever, the five-year-old snatched the object as best she could and pulled her hand slowly out of the hole.

What first greeted her was undeniable disgusting at first, an accumulation of dust and cobwebs, mold and whatever else may have come to start growing on it. She had tossed it away from her with a startled scream upon first sight. But, later on, with renewed courage (and an old rag she had insightfully packed in her bag), she picked up the unknown item and slowly removed the layered grime.

Once she had cleared away a patch of the filth, she saw a dull color of tarnished gold. There were lumps and indentations scratched into the surface of whatever it was, and she continued on with her cleaning, her curiosity returning.

When she had finished, she had in her hands and newly sullied cloth, a disk of stained metal, either brass or gold. It was something of a large coin, marked with pictures of smiling suns and moons, weird symbols and letters etched into its sides. Whatever it all meant, she wasn't sure, but it certainly was a pretty thing to have.

"I wonder if it's Quasimodo's," Lilo mused aloud, examining the coin with interest. "Maybe he lost it a long time ago and doesn't know where it is."

If it were hers, she thought, she would be very upset if she lost it. It was a really pretty thing, whatever it was, and she probably would keep it in a box so it wouldn't get stolen or something like that.

"But, he probably forgot all about it, if it was his," she considered, a half-buried feeling of selfishness rising in her stomach. "Yeah, he probably did. I wonder if that means I can keep it?"

Lilo spent several minutes of deliberation to think this whole thing over, taking into account Quasimodo's reactions if he knew she had it, and his reactions if he didn't, and all sorts of things like that. In the end, Lilo decided that she would keep it, supposing that it Quasi wouldn't mind. And, in case he did, she made sure he didn't know she had it.

Though obviously considered by most the very wrong thing to do, Lilo had a very odd feeling that it would come in handy sometime. She wasn't usually so selfish, and she almost always did the right thing… when it came to stealing. But, nevertheless, she slipped the talisman into a corner of her bag and went to finish off her packing, abandoning Red to the musty loneliness of the shadows.

Experiment 626 leaned against the worn, wooden wheel spokes of his "master's" wagon, running an irritated claw through his ornamented hair. Before him, several feet away, Old Matthias stood conferring with another of his tribe, every once and a while sending a glance Stitch's way. The "rabbit" would just sigh, look away for a moment with an angry expression, but then slowly bring his gaze back to the aged gypsy. The day hadn't been one that was too enjoyable for the both of them (something that Matthias blamed on the "king"), and Stitch just wasn't feeling too cooperative.

Matthias had finally made the decision to train his "rabbit", as he had at first planned. He had tried to get Stitch to follow a whole amount of things, but Stitch, feeling the intermingled forces caused by the pressures of his coming deadline and his longing for Lilo, was too unresponsive toward the exercises to put an honest effort into what he was doing. Matthias, after ten minutes or so of attempting to get his new pet to do as he instructed, gave up and sought the assistance of another Gypsy, one more experienced in the way of training animals.

It was who he was talking to now, in fact. He seemed to be a disciplinarian, Stitch noted. He had a gaunt face, grave and unmoving as Matthias continued to explain his problems with the experiment. Stitch cast a stare in his direction, feeling an instant dislike of the man. He would prefer to deal with Matthias other than this scrawny stranger.

The gypsy turned his face to the blue creature after Matthias had gestured to him, looking Stitch over with a meticulous eye. The experiment, feeling angry and uncomfortable at the moment, bared his yellow teeth, hissing and growling, showing the sharpened blue nails that were set into his paws. The man started for a second, but then shook his head, said something to Matthias that seemed to upset the old gypsy, and moved away with a speed caused by an unknown impetus.

Matthias sighed, exasperated and exhausted, and turned back to enter his caravan, sending a disdainful look at the experiment as he passed. Stitch just rolled his eyes at this, then slumped back down onto the cobbles.

He felt a sort of futility in what he was doing. There was no way he could possibly find Lilo now, left with only one and one-quarter days to complete his task and no access to the outside world if he wasn't on the leash of an old man. He had to face the music. Unless he found a way to get Matthias to let him out, Lilo was gone forever, and Nani and the rest of the ohana would have to suffer.

He released a plaintive sigh. He couldn't imagine it, not at all. A life without Lilo, that little girl, his only real friend, would not be a life at all. Only an empty existence, paved with painful remembrances and guilty regrets. He would die without her, he knew he would. Nani would have to learn how to move on, haunted by the unknown circumstances of her sister's disappearance, forever wishing she had a chance to know what had happened, forever blaming herself for Lilo leaving. Jumba and Pleakley would be the same.

Now that he thought of it, the future and emotional welfare of his family were resting on his shoulders. He had to get Lilo back, or he would doom his ohana to the despondent future he had just moments before pondered over. He had to help.

Getting up from his spot, a new determination set in his heart, he made his way to the closed door of the caravan, and knocked violently. He would figure out a way to get out of this hole in the ground. Even if it meant letting go of his dignity.

A/N: Kay. Done! How is it? TELL ME! Well… if you know, I might've switched back and forth between writing styles during the writing (whoa… redundant), but still… More Frollo in about three chapters, Fallen Wraith! If you loved me, you would wait… smile Nevermind. Read and Review, alright?

Fun fact #3

In the version with Quasimodo as a child, he was originally supposed to have a major crush on her! I'm not sure if I accidentally imbued some of this into this version of the Hawaiian and the Hunchback, but there was a sweet little sequence between the two of them when they were looking up at the stars. It was a lot of thinking, and Quasimodo was blushing half the time (while Lilo, being who she was, sat completely oblivious to the side, talking about the stars). My favorite part of the scene happens to be the corniest.

"I love the stars, don't you?" Lilo asked the young man, staring up at the twinkling heavens above, a sweet little grin taking her face.

"I suppose," Quasimodo answered, unsure of what his response was to be. Lilo glanced at him curiously, her eyebrow lifted upward.

"You sound like you don't know," Lilo told him. "How could you be unsure?"

"How do you love the stars, Lilo?" Quasimodo asked, embarrassed. "I just don't understand…"

"How could I not?" Lilo asked incredulously. "Look at them! They're beautiful, they're bright, and they just make you want to smile sometimes… wouldn't you love them?"

"They're beautiful, bright, and they make you want to smile…" the hunchback echoed with a preoccupied voice, his eyes shifting from the stars above to the young girl beside him, a deep and caring shimmer glittering in their green depths. An unusual smile crept upon his face and his cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. "I would love them," he said finally. " I would love them very much."

If you don't understand what I was going at when I wrote that, don't worry. Neither did my sister. I guess I'm just not good at little cuddly scenes. But hey, I could write them if I tried harder! Probably…