On their way home, Ellie and Dee had joined Darryl, who was renewing the fence that kept the sheep out of the orchard. Dee soon excused herself and returned to the house, sensing that Ellie needed to talk to Darryl privately. They had become very close over the years, ever since they had come to the Techno island. He had been there for her when her relationship with Jack had crumbled, had left the Mall with her, and had helped bring up Murron, whom he loved like his own child. Sometimes it seemed hard to define what they were to each other – friends or more than that. A few years ago, just after they had come back to the Mall, Ellie had sought solace in his arms when everything became too much, but it had been an empty sort of feeling, and she had soon put a bit of distance between them again, going back to an easy sort of friendship that thankfully enough wasn't marred by the fact that they had seen each other naked once or twice. Occasionally, Ellie saw him looking at her with longing in his eyes, but he never spoke about his feelings, and she was glad about it.

After Dee had left, he leaned his back against the fence, absent-mindedly chewing on a blade of grass, while Ellie sat on the top bar and stared out over the trees towards the house.

Somewhere in or around that house, Luke would probably be waiting to talk to her – she knew he wouldn't have left, not after going through the trouble of coming all the way to see her. She couldn't avoid him forever, but she still had no idea how to break to him that the child he had met last night was his own daughter – and for the most part, she still didn't want to. She didn't want to share her flesh and blood with Luke, no matter that it was his flesh and blood too. It wasn't so much that she was still angry at him – although she had at first shouted at him to leave, deep in her heart she knew that he had left her because he thought it had been the right thing to do. She knew that he had been trying to spare her the pain and humiliation of being an outcast's girlfriend, and that he couldn't have known what had been lying in store for her. Rationally, she knew that, in a twisted way, he had left her because he had loved her – loved her too much to want to inflict his life on her. Her heart told a different story though – even though the years had dulled the pain of having been left by him, she still resented him for leaving without having given her a choice in the matter. She couldn't hate him for having left her pregnant, because Murron was the joy of her life, but at the same time she sort of did, because she had had to bear all the hardships of pregnancy without him. She didn't want to share her daughter's love with anyone else – it was hard enough sometimes to know that Murron loved Darryl almost as much as she loved her mother. The thought that she might have to share Murron with Luke too was almost unbearable.

The silence stretched out between them as Ellie contemplated all this, and Darryl let her be. He knew her well enough that she would talk when she was done thinking. And so she did.

"Darryl?"

"Mmmh?"

"Do you remember when we came to the Techno island?"

"Yeah. Pretty messed up."

"Do you remember how we found Cloe?"

"Hell yeah. Like yesterday."

They both fell silent again for a while, remembering the bizarre situation that had presented itself to them on that island.

It had been filled with cages – and the cages had been filled with prisoners. The Techno guards had left them caged when they had deserted the island, and the Mall Rats had spent a whole day opening doors and releasing half-starved prisoners. It was lucky that the Technos had left some food stores, but it was clear that they couldn't survive on them for long.

Cloe had been in one of the last cages they had got to, sitting in a corner and holding what looked like a bundle of rags. It had been Salene who found her, and who had led the dazed girl back to her fellow Mall Rats in triumph, rags and all. Only when the bundle of rags had started to cry the friends had realized that there was a baby inside.

"Cloe! You had a baby?" was the shout that echoed around.

She had stared around with wide eyes which finally settled on Ellie. "Of course not. Don't you recognize your own daughter, Ellie?"

All eyes turned towards the surprised blonde – shock, disbelief, and in Jack's case, outrage, were on all their faces.

It was Jack, too, who first regained his powers of speech. "You had a baby with that bastard, and you never told me?" He turned on his heel and walked away.

That roused Ellie out of her state of petrification. "You've got to be kidding, right Cloe? Got a bit too much sun in those cages, didn't you?"

Cloe had bristled in the old way. "I've got to be kidding? YOU've got to be kidding when you're telling me that you don't remember your own child, after all the trouble you went through to have her!"

"Cloe, what the hell are you talking about? I've never had a child!"

"Oh really? So I must have imagined me and Alice helping you give birth to her in that cage! And I must have imagined the Techno guards who took you away from her and left her here with me, and both of you kicking and screaming all the way?"

"I've never even been on this island!" The two were shouting by now. The other Mall Rats and a good number of ex-prisoners had gathered around them, watching the fights with their heads turning from one to the other as if it were a tennis match.

Amber had finally recovered enough from the shock of Cloe's sudden announcement to try and separate the two. "WILL YOU TWO CALM DOWN? Let's figure this out like normal people."

"I'll tell you what happened!" came a voice from the back – followed by a wave of people who were plowed out of the way by none other than...

"Alice!" Ellie had breathed – and collapsed.

She had awoken a while later with her head on Alice's lap, Cloe with the baby next to her, and the rest of her tribe around her.

"You all right there, kiddo?" her sister had asked.

"What happened?"

"I think we'd all like to know THAT." Amber had said.

"Isn't it obvious that all this was a little much for Ellie?" Ruby had called out. "First this weird story about this kid you say is hers"

"It is!" Cloe butted in.

Ruby ignored her. "And then her sister turns up that she hasn't seen in a year?"

"That'd knock anyone out if you ask me" was Trudy's simple reply.

"So Alice – care to enlighten us?" Amber probed again.

Alice began to explain: "When Ellie was brought here – after the Technos sent her away from the city for trying to kill Ebony - "

"Ha! Ebony had snorted. "Damn near managed too, didn't she?"

They all had chorused "Shut up, Ebony!" and Alice had resumed her story.

"When she got here, she was already pregnant, but she didn't know yet. She got stuck in the same cage as me, and we figured it out together, when this little one started showing pretty obviously. Cloe turned up a while later, and we were both there for the birth. It went off well, without any complications."

"Alice, are you seriously trying to tell me that I had a baby? How the hell am I supposed to have forgotten that?"

"I'll tell you how, those damn Technos, that's what happened! When this one was a couple of weeks old, the guards came and dragged you and me out of the cage we were in, but they wouldn't let you keep the baby – they just left her with Cloe. You kicked and screamed until they stunned you with one of those laser guns they used to have, and the next thing I saw of you was you being loaded into a ship, looking like a vegetable. I don't know if they did some sort of brainwashing on you or if that was some sort of natural defense mechanism that kicked in when they tore that baby out of your hands, but at any rate, you didn't look like you remembered there ever was such a thing as babies."

"I don't even remember being here!" Ellie called out. "I remember being loaded into a Techno car to be taken out of the city, and the next thing I know is being back in the city, dazed and disoriented and not recognizing a thing!"

"Well, there you go. Mystery solved. Now, can we get some grub?" Lex had called. Amber had rolled her eyes, but in the end, hunger had won out over curiosity. Most had wandered off to raid the food stores, but Alice, Ellie and Cloe remained where they were, sitting in the sand.

"I really don't remember a thing! How can I have forgotten that?" Ellie mumbled.

"We did a lot of experimenting on this island. Technos can do nearly anything with the brain." Ram had rejoined the group without anyone noticing. "But I think it's just as possible that your mind just shut out all memories of this when they took you away from her – the brain is funny like that, it tries to protect you from trauma." He sat down next to them.

Cloe was cooing to the baby and rocking her in her arms. After a while, she looked back up to Ellie. "I'm sorry I shouted at you. I had no idea."

"It's all right." Ellie smiled faintly. "Neither had I."

"Don't you want to hold her?"

"Can I?"

Cloe laughed. "Of course! She's all yours!"

Slowly, Ellie reached out to the little creature that was lying peacefully in the other girl's arms. The child was asleep, and didn't notice the transfer at all. For a while they all were silent, watching the little chest rise and sink and the little hand curling around Ellie's finger.

"What's her name, anyways?" Ram asked.

"Murron." Ellie replied.

"And then you remembered." Darryl mused.

"Yeah. Then I remembered. Everything." Ellie sighed. The memories had come flooding back to her – the island, the pregnancy, the moment Murron had been torn from her arms. The knowledge of the missing time had nearly taken her breath away. Images flashed through her mind's eye while her real eyes stung with tears at the thought that she had missed more than half a year of her child's life without even knowing.

"Jack was pretty mad, wasn't he?" Darryl interrupted her thoughts.

"Yeah. Amber explained to him what happened, but of course he was pretty pissed off. Can't blame him, can I? He knew that Murron wasn't his daughter, we had never done it before I was taken away."

"I figured." He let himself glide down the fence until he was sitting in the grass. Ellie climbed off the top bar and sat down next to him. "What makes you think about that now? You never talk about the past."

"Luke."

"Isn't that the guy who got you pregnant? What about him?"

"He's the stranger who arrived yesterday."

Darryl's head shot up. "WHAT?" His face turned an ugly shade of red. "Are you telling me that the piece of scum that knocked you up and left you on your own is IN OUR HOUSE? You let him STAY?" He was shouting now.

"What was I supposed to do? Throw him out, into the night?"

"Hell yeah! What else does he deserve after what he did to you?"

"Darryl, he doesn't know. He had no idea I was pregnant when he left, you know yourself that I didn't even know at that time."

"Who cares? He left you! He left you eight years ago and now he comes crawling back and you just let him in?"

"Every traveller that comes through here gets a bed, it's our rule, Darryl! He came from god knows where to find me, and the least I could do is offer him shelter."

"Yeah, I bet. Did you warm his bed for him, too? Why don't you just hand him Murron and be done with it?"

Ellie saw red. Before she knew it, Darryl was looking at her in shock, a bright red handprint on his cheek where she had slapped him. "Don't you dare talk to me that way. I haven't shared a bed with Luke in eight years, and even if I had, it wouldn't be any of your business. Murron is my daughter, and I'm not handing her over to anyone."

Darryl opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. Finally, he mumbled: "She's my daughter, too, you know. Or as good as."

She softened immediately. "I know. And you have no idea how grateful I am that you took care of her with me all these years."

"But now you're going to go off with Luke and leave me behind."

"Darryl, I'm not going anywhere. I don't even know if I should really tell him that she's his daughter. And as for leaving... why should I?"

"Because you love him."

"Don't be silly! Darryl, I was fifteen back then, how much did you know of love at fifteen? That was a thousand years ago! Do you honestly think I'm going to ride off into the sunset with Luke just because he so happens to have fathered my child?"

"Then why let him stay?"

"I told you, I didn't want to toss him out into the night. Don't think I didn't think about it, but I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"For heaven's sake, Darryl, he's Murron's father! I don't love him, but I owe him the most important person in my life!"

"But you said you didn't want to tell him about her."

"I'd rather not. I don't want to share her with anyone else, especially not with someone who has such a huge claim on her."

"What claim? He only contributed a single sperm cell. You've given nearly eight years of your life to Murron! Even I've been more of a father to her than he ever has."

"I know. But he can't help it, can he? He didn't know, it's not as if he left her behind knowingly. And I don't feel like I have the right to keep her from him. She's his child, for heaven's sake!"

"That doesn't give him any rights to her!"

"It's not like I'm planning on letting him have her! Nobody is ever going to take her away from me again. But he deserves to at least know."

"Bullshit. Ignorance is bliss."

"Don't be an idiot. If I don't tell him, he'll figure it out as soon as he sees her in daylight, you know yourself that she looks exactly like me. He's no fool. And if he finds out on his own instead of from me, this whole mess is probably going to blow up in my face."

She made to get up, but Darryl grabbed her hand, stopping her. "Don't tell him. Send him off, and we can go back to our old life."

Ellie shook her head. "I can't. Believe me, I don't want anything to change, but I can't keep that from him."

He pulled her close. "Don't leave me."

She looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Because I need you." He took her hand.

She smiled faintly. "Darryl, you're my best friend. But you know I don't..."

"I know you don't love me. But I can't bear the thought of you being with someone else."

"Don't you think that's up to me?" The look of despair in his eyes made her continue hastily. "I don't have any plans on getting back with Luke. I'm a different person now, and I bet he is, too. Whatever was between us is in the past now. But I can't promise you anything, Darryl. I'm twenty-three now, who knows what will happen in the rest of my life?"

He sighed deeply. "I guess that will have to do for me." He gave her a little push. "Go on, go see him. Get it over with."