A/N: Ugh. I forgot thought speak didn't work so well on ffn. -sigh- Terribly inconvenient, you know. Anyway. "( )" means thought speak, of course.

Trying to think out how things happen. I'm doing this so backwards (backwards for me, anyway)--thinking of the action stuff before the romance. So strange. It all gets planned out eventually, but it's so creatively annoying not to be thinking about fictional smooching and love confessing.

I'm a romantic writer at heart. I can't help it.

Part 1- Priton

Chapter 1

Three years earlier…

(Are you crazy?)

(Quite possibly,) I answered, stuffing the last of my—well, Jenny's—clothes into the locker and closing it.

(What the hell do I need to know how to swim for? It's not like we're going to the beach anytime soon.) This was Jenny's attempt at convincing me that swimming lessons was not a good idea. She had been attempting this for the past four days, since I'd called the Y about them.

(What if I get sent to Leera? I locked the locker and started toward the doors that led out to the pool. (A person who can't swim would be an easy target out on a battlefield, you know.)

Jenny made a sound that sounded almost like a snort. I don't know how she does that. The things you learn when you can't control your actions, I guess. (They wouldn't send you to Leera.)

(Let's just say they did.)

(You wouldn't go.)

(Point taken. Still. We're doing this.) I pushed open the door and walked out onto the pool deck. (Besides, I already paid. And it's a private lesson. You won't even have to worry about the little kids making fun of you.)

(Funny, P. Really funny.)

A tall guy, about Jenny's age, came striding toward us, smiling and holding his hand out. "Are you Jenny?" I nodded. "I'm Nick. I'm your instructor."

I'm not sure what's worse about the memory of this moment. Knowing that, two years later, when I saw Jenny again, that she would recognize him? Knowing that right that moment I was looking at my future, and none of us could have foreseen it to stop it?

Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it.

We started in the shallow end. It was only three feet of water, but it made Jenny jumpy anyway, and that tended to make me jumpy. I glanced over the side of the pool apprehensively, wondering if I hadn't made a mistake in instancing on this. Not knowing how to swim wasn't really that big a deal, was it? Why freak out my host needlessly?

This was what I got for acting on whims. How many Yeerks went out of their way to try and alleviate their hosts' phobias? I couldn't think of a single one. It was the product of getting too close, and I knew it. And it was a sign that Jenny was herself getting too close that she wasn't putting up more of a fight about it.

Nick urged Jenny/me into the water, and I stood there, shivering in the cold water, mentally reminding myself of all the reasons why I should get out now.

We ended up floating on our back; though don't ask me how we got there. Nick's hand was under Jenny's back, holding us up at first.

(See? This isn't so bad, is it?)

Jenny was silent for a long moment. (I guess.)

When Nick took his hand away, I decided it was time to have a little fun. I released control, and just mentally sat back and watched.

Jenny didn't notice it right away. Which made it all the more funny, of course. (Hey, she said a moment later, we're doing this on our own.)

If I'd been in control, I would have smiled. (No. You're doing it on your own.)

(WHAT?) She jerked up in surprise, and then sank. Jenny popped back up, gasping and spitting out water. (You did that on purpose!)

(I'm not the one who needs the swimming lessons, you are. I know how to swim.)

Jenny rolled her eyes, then smiled when she realized what she had done. I lived for moments like that. After being a controller for a little over two years, it made her happy just to be able to do simple things like that. It made me feel guilty, though to let her go meant I could never see her again.

And I was too selfish to allow that.

Nick was talking. "That was a good start. Next time—"

I stopped paying attention after that. A long time later, I would let myself go back through Nick's memories and find this one, see it all as he must have seen it. I'd never seen mine and Jenny's interactions from another perspective before. It looked strange. But the look on her face looked wonderful.

I'm getting too sentimental now. Remembering days like that do that to me. Things were different then. We were past the point where she hated me. We hadn't quite reached the point where I hated myself.

Those were the days when we were falling in love. It was scary. How do you deal with something like that? Of all the instructions that we'd been given, we'd never been instructed on what to do if you fall in love with your host. The most anyone could tell me was "Don't ever do it."

I'm not even sure how it happened. I just know how it ended.

But I wish I could go back to moments like that. Silly as they were, I miss those moments.