Lisa pressed her ear against the solid cedar door and strained her ears as Jackson spoke in hushed tones on the other side of the wall. He'd been on the phone for well over an hour, and, after growing bored with trying to toss her cedar chest (everything in this stupid apartment was cedar!) out the window, Lisa attempted to listen in on Jackson's conversation. She was sure she'd heard her name a few minutes back and didn't want to miss a word. Just in case it regarded her. Just in case.

"…New York. Right. So you met Hart at the airport?" A pause. "Good. Just remember, think like the target. And the aid. Or, well, the hostage, whatever. Don't correct me. This girl's paranoia is key. Break her down, make her stop thinking like a female and get her to become more animalistic." He laughed. "Yeah, routines are a big part." A long, drawn-out sigh. Lisa adjusted her placement against the door ever so slightly so her pearl studs wouldn't keep digging into her ears. "Because, Rocher, you've seen it. After scouting the area for months, she's proven the only one effective. I don't care if she annoys you. She's too valuable for her family to lose, believe it or not, and the oldest one. We're not going to kidnap some fucking toddler, for Christ's sake. Anyway, she's smart, humanistic, logical, generally a loner. She'll probably feel that she's got nothing to live for." Another bothersome, aggravated break in the conversation. "Yes, because she'll be here a while. Unless they flat-out say no, in which case she dies. It's perfect. Yes. I'm sure. Don't question me, I told you already. Nolan. Mhmm. Okay. Yeah, it's fine. Bye."

Lisa stood with her chest heaving in waves of panic, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. She wasn't sure if Jackson had been talking about her or not, but it sure sounded like it. Airport? Hostage? Nolan? Lisa swallowed hard the golf ball in her throat and twisted open the door.

18F HAS A BOMB. Jackson cocked his head as she opened the door. Lisa reeled backwards in a combination of shock and fright and caught the rail of the bed to keep herself from somersaulting onto the mattress.

"Now, I thought I was only talking to one person," he mused, shutting the door with his heel. "Not two."

"You said you weren't going to kill me," she slurred nervously, ducking as he reached for her head. Jackson's eyes softened as they contorted I confusion and his hand fell from midair. He frowned.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he paused, biting his lip softly. "The phone call? How big is your head, Leese, ever consider that it might not be about you?"

Lisa felt her face redden. "Well, I…but…it was about me!" she hesitated, feeling more sheepish and less adamant in her conclusion by the minute. "Wasn't it?"

Jackson laughed, a low belly rumble that threatened to turn hysteric. "No, Lisa. It was not. I'm a manager, I organize jobs, and yours, believe it or not, is not the only one." Yours. Like I take credit for this.

She froze. "Then you're still kidnapping someone! A woman! Who?" I have full right to feel concern for whoever poor soul this is that will soon be in Jackson Rippner's satanic clutches.

"Ok, Leese, first and foremost, its none of your goddamned business to begin with. But since I doubt it would hurt for you to know…" he sighed. "I'm not kidnapping anybody. My…employee…is borrowing an invaluable civilian to partake in the assistance of this assignment. But she's hardly a woman yet. Girl. Well, no… 'young woman' would probably be more politically correct, mm? She's sixteen, I believe. Rachel Redford. And no, you don't know her."

"A girl?" Lisa croaked, nearly collapsing. These people…they'll stop at nothing, will they? A girl. A young girl. A teenaged girl. Hardly having lived her life yet and now it'll be ruined even if she manages to live.

"No, a boy," Jackson spat sardonically, rolling his eyes. "Now quit with the questions."

Lisa glared at him, her eyes practically spontaneously combusting with bottled-up fury. Don't hit him. Whatever you do, don't hit him. If you do, it'll only end badly. Painfully. Not just for you. MomDadDadDadDadMomMomDadMomMomDADMOM.

She fought words eager to spill from her lips and squeezed them together. She winced, as they were peeled and chapped from lack of water. Don't talk, either. You'll swear too much and just make an idiot out of yourself.

Lisa did the only thing that made sense at the moment and stomped into the connecting bathroom, slamming the door behind her. As she locked it, she half-expected Jackson to force it open and barge right in. Instead she heard only a low chuckle and became flustered at the thought that she'd given him humor despite her best efforts. You Neolithic asshole. Chauvinistic bastard. I'm not some silly little girl! She sat on the lidded toilet seat with her head on her elbows and tried to think.

A moment later, Lisa heard the bedroom door creak open and Jackson's footsteps faded.

The heavy pressure of the last few days finally cracked open on her shoulders and she slumped over, falling to the ground as she sobbed. I have to get myself out of this. I can't let Jackson win, can't let him do this to me! To Keefe, to Mom, to Dad! This isn't fair! I won't let this happen. I can't let him play me like his prize chess pawn. I will escape. I will…I think I can. I can do this. I think I can…

Lisa giggled quietly at her slight delusional thoughts. The Little Engine That Could. That was her.

"Only I don't have a caboose," she murmured softly to herself. "But I can still do this. I can beat this."

Wondering vaguely why she was suddenly feeling so light, Lisa drifted off into a dream oddly unplagued by paperback images of a tiny chugging train.

xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX xX

Rachel wasn't breathing well as Alec took a firm grip on her sleeved arm in the bustling Albany airport. Get away from me. Don't touch me. You. Bastard. She tried frantically to meet the eyes of the other people traveling and working but they all seemed to look away. Help me, please. I can't let this happen! I can't let him get me on a plane, where I'll be miles above any chance of escape…confined in a little tiny claustrophobic bubble.

"Relax," he murmured. "This whole thing will all be over before you know it." What? The airport? The flight? My tenure as a HOSTAGE?

Tickets in hand, he led her directly to their gate. She glanced numbly at the tired-looking attendant as she processed them and gave a quick smile.

"So nice to see normal looking couples traveling together," she said with a sigh. "Couple days ago, my last Fresh Air flight was from Dallas to Miami and some insane girlfriend stabbed her guy in the throat with a ballpoint. So now I'm on ticket duty. Can't say I miss that routine." Normal couple. Whatever. Grab the opposite of both those words and you have the exact definition of what we are.

Alec fed her a charming middle-class grin. "Hope things start going better for you," he glanced at her nametag. "Alysia. The flight industry can't afford to keep hiring wonderful young women like yourself. After all, there are only just so many perky women in the world to supply the pretzels!" Ugh, get a room.

Alysia blushed and looked shyly at Rachel. "Don't let this one go!"

"As soon as my uncle says I can," Rachel forced an unhappy smile as Alec tugged her away.

"Watch yourself, Rachel," Alec hissed in her ear as he led her forcibly down the aisle. "You think things are bad now? I can make your life a living hell."

"You know, Alec, I have a feeling that you're bark is worse than your bite," Rachel spat back. I'm not afraid of this bastard. He wants to brag about what he can do, try to scare me, but I know he can't.

He spun around to face her. "Try me. I'm ready when you are."

Rachel felt the eyes of a little boy nearby fixed on her. "Gee, Alec, I'm looking forward to it, but why don't you wait? Because if you're really that worried about attracting unnecessary attention to ourselves, why don't you take a leaf out of your own book and get us to our fucking seats."

Alec drew back, and she read the mild shock on his face. "Well-put. Come on." And now…he's not angry? God, this guy is the pure Wikipedia definition of bipolar.

Alec stepped into the aisle to let her sit on the inside and she stopped dead in her tracks, shaking her head with her arms across her chest. "I'm not sitting on the inside. I hate window seats."

"Because I'm really going to let you sit here on the outside and continue to make a scene? Get in before I change my mind about Christopher," he rolled his eyes. Rachel clenched her jaw and threw herself into the plane seat.

Movement that Rachel detected out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn her head and look slightly past Alec. Her breath caught in her throat as she spotted a tall, lanky college-age boy with dark skin and spiky black hair laugh as he put his luggage above him.

It's not him, Rachel. He's dead.

He looked past Alec. Right into her eyes. His were brown. Just like his. Rachel felt a small tear form in the corner of her eye and it slid to her lip. He smiled at her.

Stop it. He's dead. He's dead. He's going to stay dead. There's nothing you can do about it.

She quickly looked away out the window.

"Rachel," Alec snapped.

She looked up. "What?"

"Listen to me, for fuck's sake. Jesus."

She wiped quickly at her brown eyes. "What did you want?"

"Buckle up."

The boy smiled at her again. Rachel faded.

Alec sighed and irritably reached over, snapping Rachel's belt into the latch.

She pushed his hand away as it grazed her waist on its journey. "Don't touch me."

"Then listen to me for once."

"I will if you don't touch me."

He rolled his eyes as Rachel glanced over him again. Now the boy was sitting in his seat with a laptop on his table. He was typing furiously, brows knitted as he worked.

Like the writer. The Pie. Writing the Pie in the Sky.

She couldn't help the tear that came from her eye again. This time, though, Alec noticed and looked at her.

"What's wrong now?"

She met his eyes for a brief second, then balked and quickly snapped her gaze back to the window. Don't even look in that direction. You can look at the in-flight movie, you can look out the window, you can look at the back of your eyelids, but whatever you do, don't look to your left.

As the flight attendant disinterestedly rambled off instructions over the intercom, Rachel zoned. It was still the twenty-second of December, she realized. Late. Was her family looking for her? Were there search notices out yet?

"Rachel."

"What?"

"Turn your phone off." Alec smirked and Rachel saw in his face that he was waiting for her laugh. Silence.

"You're damn lucky they haven't put out search notices yet," she snapped.

Alec apathetically pulled out his monogrammed wallet and flipped it open to reveal his ID.

"Congratulations, you can legally buy alcohol," Rachel rolled her eyes and returned to looking out the icy glass as the plane began galloping down the runway. Alec gripped her wrist to the armrest and she turned back angrily.

"Ow, let me-"

When she saw the card he pulled out from underneath it, shocked wasn't word enough to describe her feeling at that precise moment. 'Near-comatose' would have just been a mild understatement.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, her eyes now too wide to produce tears.

Her own face was peering back up at her from that stiff card. She recognized it as a picture she'd had taken at a family party a few months ago. Next to it listed a name: Chloe Christina Rocher. Supposedly, she was a twenty-year old female from Orlando, Florida.

He's framed this all. He won't get caught for anything. He could kill me and nobody would ever find me!

Growing panicky, she reached for her seatbelt with one hand and began clawing nervously at Alec's grip on her other one. "Let go of me, let the fuck go!" she screeched. "Stop doing this to me, all of this!"

"Chloe," Alec spoke calmly, crisply, decisively. Pointedly. "Stop for a minute and calm down. Think about Christopher. Sh…its all right," Alec's hand wrapped tightly around her waist and before she could push him away he'd injected something sharp into her side.

"-sick bastard, let me…." Rachel's now-heavy eyelids began to fall together and a nauseating inky blackness veiled her eyes. As she slumped against the window she heard a seatbelt sign dinging off, the high heels of a flight attendant strolling down the aisle.

Clack clack clackclack….CLACK. Clackclackclack. Snap. ClackclacKclaCKclACKcLACKCLACK…

Stop the noise! Every puncture on the sound realm seemed to puncture Rachel's aching skull. Stop the fucking racket!

It stopped. "She okay?" a whisper.

"Just fine," Alec's calm voice. His fake side. "Just a little whacked-out on allergy meds, that's all."

I like medicine. Very light feeling. Floating.

She giggled quietly, delusional as she drifted off. Silly Alec. How'd you know I have allergies? Silly me. Silly Alec. Alec knows everything, silly goose.

"She'll be fine with rest. Some water might help when she wakes up, though. Or some juice, even."

"Milk, possibly?"

"Soy. She's allergic to milk."

"Of course. Just say the word." More heels. Clack clack. I love heels. Especially when they're black. Or yellow. Or green. Or red or purple or pink or blue or gray or teal or…

As she sunk even further into sleep, she felt a palm brush against her head, down to her shoulders. Dan, you're finally back. Now we can go back to the Dwelling. The Dwelling. The only place I'll ever love, the only one I'll ever love. But I love you.

"Sleep tight, Rach." And she was out.

A/N-And the tension rises! This was a very long chapter, and I hoped you enjoyed it. There'll be more explanation later of 'Dan' and all the other Imaginations of Rachel. As for LJ, the next chapter will be a very…interesting one, I hope. I have it planned out. Enjoy and please review. They go 'ding' when I open them.