Thea and Lieutenant Hawkins flagged down a coach after they left the scene at the bar, both of them secretly thankful to be leaving it behind (each for their own personal reasons). When the driver asked the Lieutenant where they were headed, Jim looked to Thea.

She hadn't dared tell him her actual street, let alone her real building number. Neither of those things were meant to be public knowledge, to the Interstellar Federation or anyone else, even if the toad-like drive did look rather simple.

So instead, Thea had given him the street and house number of a place a block away from her apartment. She had picked one out as a backup plan in case the need ever arose or if anyone ever asked. Not that many people casually asked her where she lived or that she invited many people over for tea and sweet cakes that often (never, actually), but members of rivaling gangs or vengeful victims of her thievery would think her home address a useful piece of information if they ever got their hands on it.

Even though the address she gave the driver wasn't hers, it was a part of the same neighborhood and she didn't fail to notice the Lieutenant's eyebrow raise in surprise when she quietly muttered to the driver, "Take us to the Ayvon District. Building 29…" And then with another look at the Lieutenant's sour face, she added a mumbled, "please".

The driver gave her a wide smile, complimented by a display of missing teeth. She smiled back quickly before rushing into the coach, wanting to procure a position as far away from her 'babysitter' as possible.

She pulled her hood up over her unruly hair the second she sat down, hoping, for both the Lieutenant's sake and hers, that he got the message of her wanted privacy.

Honestly, what had he expected? Did he think she spent all of her hard-earned money on a mansion out in the country? Or maybe he saw her better fitted to a life lived in a shack on the outskirts of the city. Certainly not. To both. One was too conspicuous, and the other, far too cliché.

If Thea knew anything about being a thief, and a successful one at that, knowing how to blend into one's surroundings was basically law. And living in a row of sensible apartments close to Mosli's biggest city was as close to blending in and being "normal" as she could manage without physically and mentally imploding. It was always harder to find something when it was hidden in plain sight. Or at least, that's something Spratt had always told her…

That bastard. She knocked her head against the glass of the window, not even caring to notice what kind of face the Lieutenant was giving her now.

Spratt had brought her to Mosli's capitol, Leeso, after her three-week journey aboard his ship. The voyage had been brutal, and she hated that it was one of the few things from her childhood that she could remember. After Spratt had given the order to his crew that no one was to lay a hand on her, no one had paid any attention to her at all. It was like they pretended a ten-year-old-girl hadn't snuck onto their ship and her unexpected appearance in their master's cabin had all been a dream. Being a child of barely ten years old, she had been scared out of her wits, too afraid to do anything but spend the long days and nights wide-awake within the confines of a closet in Spratt's quarters. Only he had made an effort to tolerate her presence, if one could call it that. He checked on her every day over their long journey to Mosli. He had made sure she ate and drank and that she hadn't died of shock.

Every time Spratt came to see her he demanded her name and every time she had given him the same answer.

"Tell me your name."

"I-I don't have one. I-I can't remember. I swear. Please, please let me out."

Every day it had been the same. Bread. Water. Demand.

"Tell me your name, girl."

"I can't!"

Days into their voyage, when Spratt came to see her, she had tried to attack him. He had demanded she tell him her name and then she had lunged for him, screaming and yelling at him, telling him she couldn't remember.

Something had snapped inside her when he had opened the door to the closet. Everything she couldn't remember had been nagging her for the past weeks and she couldn't take it anymore. She knew she knew her name, she had to, but she couldn't remember what it was, and it was tearing her mind apart.

Hot tears had been streaking down her dirty cheeks, and her fists had been hammering into Spratt's chest when the words had flashed bright in the shadows of her mind.

Thea.

My name is Thea.

She had ceased her beating of Spratt and breathed out her name and then collapsed.

She had spent the remainder of the voyage sound asleep on a couch in Spratt's private room. A major improvement as compared to being crammed between the miscellaneous items of the closet.

Not even an hour after they had docked, he had deposited her in the front room of an empty apartment. He had left her there alone saying that he would be back later that evening with everything she needed. She'd sat in front of the door for hours, waiting for him to come back and trying with all her might to remember anything else she could about before. She kept on repeating her name to herself, over and over again.

My name is Thea. Thea. That's my name.

She had memorized all the grooves and nicks on the back of the door by the time Spratt had come back with a throng of burly men, all of them together carrying enough furniture to fill the little apartment comfortably.

The apartment she and the Lieutenant were headed to now was the same one she had been dropped off at almost eleven years ago. Not much of it had changed since then. Some of her favorite sketches and paintings she had done now lined sections of the walls, and she had built a bookshelf a few years back to help keep track of some of the hundreds of books she owned, but other than that most of it remained. The support beams that ran down the middle of the apartment had nicks, scratches, and dents telling of her many ventings over the years. The blue quilt on her the bed looked identical to the day it was laid there by Spratt, save for some pattern that had been worn off at the edges. The plain kitchen table sat in the same spot with its lonely, single seat. The door was the same except it now bore a tick for every day since her past had become a mystery and everything that had disappeared with it.

Her parents. Her family. Her childhood. Her home. Her life.

Thea had grown up fast, Spratt had made sure of that. He had trained her himself, and by the time she was fourteen years old, she knew one-hundred-and-one ways to use a knife, and how to pick a person's pocket while looking them straight in the eye. He had shaped her into a demon of deception and trickery.

Just a few hours earlier she had felt privileged to be his protégé, his legacy, but now, after all the anger and fury, all she wanted to do was hide from this world he had shaped her for and never come back.

He had almost done her a favor. He had freed her from her contract and his gang and the life that she had never wanted, but in the process of granting her her freedom, he had condemned her to criminal confinement. How ironic.

Concentrating on the glass of the window, Thea saw the reflection of sad, pathetic, green eyed girl staring back at her. This golden-skinned, freckle-faced girl had no past and no future. Looking farther out, past the reflection, she saw the place she called home. The crowded streets, packed with people of every different race and species; the sounds of people yelling at one another, both friendly and vicious; They pass by tthe art shop where she had stolen her first set of oil paints. All of them had been a part of a past that she actually could remember.

This place had been home to her for all of her memorable existence, and everything about the imminent goodbye felt wrong.

She didn't deserve to leave, at least not like this.

Her mind wandered from the vision of the oversaturated streets before her to the image her mind rendered of sterilized confinement of her future prison cell on Ream Keo. Thinking of it felt like pinpricks on her skin reaching down to the core of her bones.

She had to find a way out of this. She deserved to be free. Free from Thelonious Spratt and free from all charges against her. Free to figure out who she really was without someone telling her who she was supposed to be.

Her eyes drifted from the buildings that were flashing by to meet the gaze of the Lieutenant who was staring at her intently.

"Holy Stars, would you quit that!?"

"I just can't seem to figure you out." He said, leaning in close, placing his elbows on his knees.

"I don't need figuring out, thank you very much." She crossed her arms and looked back out the window. "You just stick with what you know and I'll stick with what I know and we'll call it even."

"How about let's not?" In one fluid motion, he hopped from his seat across from her to the one directly next to her.

Completely startled, Thea scooted as close to the window as she could, her eyes wide. "This is my side!" She blurted out. "That's your side over there. Go back to your side!" She motioned frantically to the seat he had been sitting at only moments ago.

"But you won't be able to avoid me so easily if I'm right next to you."

"Aren't you still mad at me? I stole from you. I punched you in the face!" She tried to think of any excuse to get him back to the other side of the coach. She'd never been one for being in close proximity to other people, especially attractive young men that she had so happened to have assaulted. She had also never been one to back down or say no to a challenge, especially when she knew she has had the upper hand, but at this moment in time, the cards were no longer being dealt with her in mind.

"Of course, I'm still mad." He touched his splotchy cheek gingerly. "But, I have a lot of questions for you." He inched closer.

"Well, I probably don't have any answers. So sorry."

Thea rushed over to the other side of the coach, leaving Lieutenant Hawkins leaning over an empty space by the opposite window.

"How'd you meet Thelonious Spratt?" He asked.

"Cutting right to the chase aren't ya?"

He just shrugged. "Being direct works pretty well for me."

Thea shot him a condescending look. "Psh, yeah I'm sure it does."

He tried to move over to her side again, but she put a foot up to block his path.

"I'll talk if you stay over there."

He settled back into the seat. "Fine, so-"

"But!" She lifted up a finger, shutting him up, "I have questions too. How about a question for question?"

He stuck out his right hand. "Deal." He said as she grabbed his hand hesitantly. They shook on it.

"My question first.." He said. "So how did you get involved with Spratt?."

Thea rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever. But it's not that great of a story."

He listened intently, though, like it was. She told him of how she met Spratt in the not-most-pleasant of situations. After he had "saved" her life, he had locked her in his quarters, not allowing her to speak to any of the crew. She spent most of her time in a closet and he had barely even talked to her, except when he had tried to ask her questions about who she was. She had hated Spratt since the beginning, a loathing that came out of childish fear, like how a normal child would feel towards the monster that lived under their bed. After she had attacked Spratt and had remembered her name, she had slept for three days straight, not remembering much besides the softness of velvet cushions and the warmth of a blanket cocooned around her. One of the first good memories she could recall.

"And you don't remember anything before that?" Lieutenant Hawkins asked, looking a little concerned.

"Not a thing except for my name. Everything before that is all blank."

"That –," he paused, "that's awful."

"Yeah, but once you've lived without a past for so long, it doesn't really matter anymore." She traced the stitching along the cushions of the seat so she didn't have to meet his gaze. Besides, she knew what it looked like; piteous. And she didn't want his pity.

"Does it really not matter anymore?" He asked, a worried tone lacing his clear voice.

"Nope." She answered more out of habit than as an actual response. She wanted to tell him differently. She wanted to tell someone, even if that someone was Lieutenant Hawkins of the Interstellar Federation, how much it did matter that the first part of her life was a complete mystery to her, but she couldn't tell him that.

So instead she saidays, "Okay, that's two questions I've answered for you, now it's my turn."

"I'm an open book." He provideds haughtily, placing his hands behind his head, looking completely relaxed.

"Where are you from?"

"Montressor."

"Would you like to elaborate?"

"Nope. You have to learn to ask better questions." He settleds deeper into his seat and closeds his eyes as if he was's about to take a nap. Cocky.

She decideds to probe a little deeper. "What was your childhood like?" She had never really talked to someone about their childhood before. She wanted to have a hint as to what hers may have been like, or maybe what hers wasn't like.

His eyes opened instantly and he didn't look as relaxed anymore.

"Was that a better question?" She asked.

He gave a weary smile, "A question with a more complex answer maybe, but not necessarily better."

"Yeah, yeah, same thing. So, go on."

He told her he was born and raised on Montressor at the inn that his mother owned. No siblings, but there had been the occasional pet whenever his mom had let him keep some wild thing that he had found while he had been wandering around.

"Half the time they were dangerous, and the other half of the time my mom let them go when I was off at school."

A small smile took over his face whenever he talked about his mom and his eyes lit up a little bit when he mentioned her.

"Are you and your mom close?" Thea leaned in, shrinking the space between them.

"I haven't seen her in a while, but, yeah, we're pretty close. After my dad left, it was just her and me. She kept us, and the inn, from completely falling apart, and me, being a stupid kid, didn't make it a very easy job for her." His expression became unfocused like he was thinking of a specific situation where this had proved true.

"What does that mean?" Thea questioned.

He snapped out of it. "Uh-uh, it's my turn now."

He shifted in his seat, leaning in for a second, and she unintentionally smelled him. He smelled clean, probably due to his Federation-grade uniform, but it was accompanied by the sweet tang of sweat, compliments of the hot Mosli atmosphere, and a sort of musky aroma she guessed was all him.

She settled back into her chair noticing, as her head passed the window, how close they are were to her neighborhood. Her heart pounded in her chest.

"What was the first thing you ever stole?"

Dun, dun, dun!

What could Thea have done to brand her as such a notorious thief and scoundrel? You'll just have to wait and read.

Legless Legolass