(*Author's note: " . . . and it was decreed that there would be a third chapter: a chapter three."

So, here is chapter three. I don't really have any special notes except to thank GoldAngel2 for beta reading this chapter and to thank everyone who reviewed so far (which include: Starlight16, Wolfwood11, Augusta, and GoldAngel2).

. . . I think that's it. Without further adeui, on with chapter 3! *)

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A Cathy walked out of the waiting room, she couldn't help but wonder what she'd done to deserve this. All she'd wanted out of life was for it to go smoothly and to be as normal as possible - and while her life hadn't been so smooth before tonight, this current bump in it was completely insane. Things like this did not happen to real people in real life and she certainly didn't remember signing up to be an extra in the Twilight Zone.

Well, no, she thought as she made her way though the hall, if this was an episode of the Twilight Zone, I'd be the star and Rod Serling would have shown up by now.

But it wasn't and she wasn't and he hadn't. She was just someone who was in over her head, who had found herself in a bazaar situation, and who had seen something so incredible that she was still having a hard time believing it. Jet Link was a cyborg and had saved her from certain death. If someone had told her that a day ago, she wouldn't have known which part was harder to believe.

Not that it really mattered how hard she found it to believe; it would still remain true no matter how much she deluded herself. No, she was simply going to have to accept that the world was completely and utterly insane and move on from there.

Easier said than done, of course. But, once every thing had settled down and she had time to think, she was confident that she'd be able to sort it out. At the moment, though, she had a payphone to find.

As if in answer to this thought, Cathy spotted the row of payphones and she sighed in relief. Finally. Reaching into her pockets, she pulled out her quarters and dropped the first one down the slot. She heard the dial tone and punched in Maria's number. The phone was a tad too loud and the ringing hurt her ears but she didn't want to waste time fiddling with the volume controls.

After four rings, Cathy started to worry. She didn't know what she'd do if Jimmy wasn't there - she didn't even have the first idea of where to look. All she knew was that Jimmy had gone with Jet to the hotel and after that . . .

"Please, let him be there," she whispered, hoping that God was interested in helping her out a second time tonight. It seemed, by the tenth ring, that He wasn't.

Cathy had been just about to hang up the phone and try calling Jet's apartment, just in case he'd gone there afterwards, when she heard the unmistakable click of a phone being picked up. "Hello." The voice sounded impossibly sick and weak.

Cathy smiled, recognizing it immediately. It was Maria's 'sick-old-lady' voice that she used on tele-marketers to guilt them into leaving her alone. She wasn't sure why Maria would be doing that this late at night, but then, Maria had always been strange. "Hi Maria."

"Cathy?" Maria's voice brightened instantly. "Are you all right, dear?" Usually Cathy couldn't stand it when Maria called her that, but, at the moment, Cathy was so glad that she actually got a hold of her that she didn't care.

"I'm fine. Is Jimmy there?"

Maria laughed. "Yes he is, and worried about his mom."

It felt like a great weight had been lifted off her chest and Cathy felt like she could breathe again. "Could you put him on please?"

There was silence for a second and then: "Mommy!"

Cathy wished that she was there so she could hug him, so she could see him. "Jimmy, are you okay, baby?"

"Yeah, but I'm not a baby!" He sounded indignant and Cathy laughed a little on the inside. Jimmy was just fine.

"I know, honey."

"I love you, Mom."

"I love you too." Cathy realized that she was crying and she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She wasn't sure why she was crying, but she had something she had to take care of before she broke down and she didn't want Maria to hear the tears in her voice. "Can you give the phone back to Maria?"

There was another moment of silence before Maria answered. "Here I am."

"Could you keep Jimmy for the rest of the night?"

Maria sounded concerned. "Is everything okay?"

Cathy took a deep breath to steady her voice. "Everything's fine. I just have some things I need to take care of."

"As long as you're sure . . ."

"I'm positive."

"All right," Maria didn't sound convinced, but she seemed willing to let the matter drop. "I'll bring him back around noon-ish. Is that good for you?"

"That would be fine."

"Good bye Cathy." In the background, she could just hear Jimmy yelling: "Goodbye, Mom."

Cathy swallowed hard. "Good bye," she whispered. The line went dead and she hung up the phone with a shaking hand. Of course, by that time, all of her was shaking, and she felt like she could collapse right then and there. She was so tired. But she wasn't going to do that - she had to get back to Jet and tell him that Jimmy was okay; he'd want to know.

First, she had to find the waiting room again. She wandered down the hall in a daze, not caring who saw her cry. Just thinking about Jimmy and how close she had come to never seeing him again brought fresh waves of tears to her eyes and it seemed like she could think of nothing else. She didn't even know why she was crying; she was alive and well and she would see Jimmy tomorrow and everything was going to be just fine.

It did no good. She just couldn't stop herself and by the time she made it back to the right waiting room, she knew that she was a mess. When she came back to where Jet was, she didn't even look at him as she sat down in the seat next to his. She was vaguely aware of Jet asking what was wrong and she wondered if the concern in his voice was for Jimmy or herself.

Either way, she hated to make him worry after what he'd done for her, but she just couldn't force the words out. Trying to talk made her cry harder. In the back of her mind, Cathy knew that if she wasn't so tired, she would have been absolutely mortified to be crying like this- especially since there wasn't anything wrong!

Before she realized what was happening, Jet had his arms around her. It was an awkward hug (like he wasn't sure of what he was doing) and the arms of the chair dug into her ribs a little as she cried into his shoulder, but she welcomed it anyway. She couldn't remember the last time that someone had just held her this way.

He didn't smell very good - all smoke and sweat, but he was warm and she could hear the steady thumping of his heart. It was comforting and she felt tired, so very tired . . .

* * *

Jet stared down at the sleeping woman in his arms in faint disbelief. If someone had told him this morning that he'd have Cathy Jenkins, the president of the 'Jet Link Hate Club,' sleeping in his arms, he would have laughed his head off. Now that she was, the last thing he felt like doing was laughing.

Despite the tear trails still on her face, she looked peaceful; Jet wished that he could feel so at ease. She hadn't told him what was wrong but he had a good idea. He didn't know much about Cathy - the closest they had come to a civilized conversation before tonight had consisted of Cathy sniping at him - but he knew enough to know that there was only one thing that could make her so upset: something must have happened to Jimmy.

Jet liked 'Jimmy-the-Kid' a lot more than he was comfortable admitting. If he hadn't, he would have stopped hanging out with the kid after the first time his mother yelled at him. He'd said a few times, in private, that while he liked the kid, he wasn't worth that kind of aggravation, but had never really meant it. Something about Jimmy had made him willing to stick it out and Jet wasn't really sure what it was.

Most people said they liked children because they reminded them of themselves. Jimmy wasn't anything like Jet had been when he'd been that age - by that time, Jet had seen enough of the world to know that trust was dangerous and that very few people had any goodness in them at all. Thanks to Cathy, Jimmy had been spared those lessons. So it wasn't that . . .

He shrugged to himself. Maybe he just liked seeing the kid's eyes light up when he told him stories. What difference did it make? All that mattered was that he did care about the kid and that he wanted to know if something had happened.

Jet focused his attention on Cathy, intent on waking her up, and hesitated. He had to know if Jimmy was all right, but he didn't want to wake her. She looked like she could use the rest and . . . he kind of liked holding her. Well, not the actual 'holding her' part, his back would have a serious crick in it if he sat this way too much longer, but the feeling that he got from being so close to her. He wasn't sure where this feeling was coming from- this warm feeling, like he got when he watched TV with Jimmy earlier (although, what he was feeling now was a bit different than that) - but he thought he liked it . . .

Jet shook his head, slightly disgusted with himself. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about stuff like this. "Cathy?" When that didn't wake her up, he gave her a little shake.

Cathy opened her eyes and stared at him. For a second, she looked confused before realizing where she was. She pulled away from him, looking a bit embarrassed. Jet tried not to let that bother him.

"Are you okay now?"

She nodded and gave him a small smile. "I'm fine. And Jimmy's fine too."

Jet couldn't deny that it was a relief to hear that Jimmy was all right. It didn't explain what Cathy's crying jag had been about; he was curious but he decided not to pry- it was really her business, not his. She didn't seem to want to talk about it anyway.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes and Jet tried to find away to ask her if she had any ideas about what they should do without upsetting her. Just as he'd been about to speak, he was interrupted by the arrival of a somewhat familiar face.

"You're still here!"

Jet turned his attention to the girl, noticing in the corner of his eye that Cathy was wiping self-consciously at her eyes. Maybe his good Samaritan would be willing to help them again; he didn't really have any good ideas about how to get out of here and, right now, he figured that listening to what she had to say wouldn't hurt. "Yeah, we're kind of stuck."

The girl looked intrigued. "Oh?" She sat in the chair across from him, smiling. "What's the problem? Maybe I can help."

Jet briefly described their problem and the girl nodded thoughtfully for a second before snapping her fingers. "You wait here for a minute; I've got just the thing!" She was gone before he could even start asking what she meant.

He turned to Cathy who had an amused look on her face. "002 really is a hit with children, isn't he?"

Jet opened his mouth but shut it when he couldn't think of a good come back for that. Looking at her expression, he guessed that it was worth getting a little egg on his face to see her smile. It wasn't like he wasn't used to getting picked on; he got quite a lot of that aboard the Dolphin . . .

He pushed his thoughts away from Dolphin and its crew. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about his former comrades in arms; thinking of them brought up a whole mess of emotions that he didn't have the time (or the desire) to sift through at the moment.

"Here we are." The girl had returned and she was pushing a cheap looking wheelchair. She stopped in front of them and smiled expectantly. "Well, what do you think?"

Cathy spoke first, sounding hesitant. "It's not a bad idea, but are they really just going to let us walk out of here with one of those?"

"Noooo. They're just gonna let you roll out." When the girl realized her joke had fallen flat, she spoke seriously. "They'll just think it's yours - the kids around here do it all the time - steal wheelchairs, I mean."

"I don't know . . . " Cathy still sounded a bit hesitant, but she seemed to be warming up to the idea.

The girl shrugged. "If you start feeling guilty about it, you could always return it; say you found it in the parking lot or something - it's more than what the kids do when they steal them. And this is for a good cause." She gestured to the wheelchair. "So, what'll it be?"

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To be continued . . .