A/N: Ola!! Okay… so this story was seriously screwed up so I have decided to revamp it in the hopes that all this effort will spur me into actually putting up some more and hopefully finishing it at long last. I had almost written this story off as a white elephant but I'd feel pretty much awful if I did that so I'm pulling it up out of the darkness of its near-indefinite hold. This version will be more chapters in a less huffed-up, patchwork, squished-Frankenstein's-monster and more structured and orderly sort of way.

Disclaimer: yes, some dude actually flew by on his golden-winged piggy and gave me the rights to Maximum Ride... uh huh… and then Alice and I had tea in the queen of hearts' garden with the man from the moon who brought some of it's cheese to have on toast.

XxX

MN: woohoo we're on Chapter 2!!!.

Ata::O.O is it just me, or has MN been rhyming?

Merla: yeah… O.o it's creepy. I wonder if she's drugged?

Ata::watches MN read through chapter happily:: I don't think so… she just seems really hap-py. O.O

Merla::pales:: oh kami! Midnite! Who did you kill?!

MN::jumps in shock:: NANI?!?! What are you on about now?!

Ata::shakes head::

Merla: well, you're never this happy unless you're fighting or… oh… your mate is back isn't he?

MN::smirks::

Merla: ah… um.. nevermind… on with chapter two.

XxXxXxX

Carpe' Noctem

Chapter Two

When Dyllan came back up about half an hour later, he found the bar empty. At first he was struck with a wave of worry, -Had she left? Why?- but then he heard footsteps upstairs. He grinned and shook his head. /typical/ he thought in amusement and went upstairs into his apartment. He should have known that she'd come up here. He'd offered to let her stay here last night when Gavin had brought her to him, pale and shaking, but she'd refused, asking him to just give her a ride to a friends house. When hr got to the top of the stairs he saw that the spare room's door was almost closed and presuming that that's where she was, he went inside.

Tori had just undone the last clip in her wig when she heard the crash and the yelp of pain coming from Dyllan's spare room. She had left Stefan there to get some sleep after he'd nearly passed out when she'd told him who she was. Well most of it anyway. He'd gone white as an albino cat that had just run into a Doberman when she'd told him about her father and the meeting with the Erasers, that's what he'd said they were called when she'd said 'wolf-thingy's'. Then she'd brought him up here, told him to take a shower (she'd leant him some of Dyllan's clothes) and get some sleep.

The wig dropped from her fingers and she was out the door before it hit the floor. She got to the room in time to see Stefan leap to his feet and pin Dyllan to the wall, his eyes wild and his hand at his throat. Dyllan's feet weren't on the ground and Stefan's knuckles were white with tension, she knew that with his strength he could easily kill Dyllan. She didn't think, she didn't have time. She stepped to where they were, crouched and swung round with her one foot extended, knocking Stefan's feet out from under him and jumped back up to catch Dyllan as he collapsed in shock. She had stepped back and sat him on the bed before Stefan had finished falling. She slowed her movements to a normal rate and tried to control her temper that had suddenly flared.

"What the hell happened?" she demanded, and was met with blank stares. She looked from Dyllan to Stefan and back again. Dyllan, being the adult, recovered first.

"Came in. Saw." He glanced at Stefan. "Sleeping. Thought you. Tried to wake. Pinned to wall. Here." /Talk about concise./ She thought dryly. She looked pointedly at Stefan. His answer wasn't much better.

"Sleeping. Erasers. " He blushed slightly and lowered his eyes "Chasing. Hand. Panicked. Didn't know." He paused "Sorry." Her anger evaporated at the look of shock and fear in his eyes.

She sighed and held out her hand to help him up. When he was on his feet she turned back to Dyllan who was looking at her in confusion.

"Um, Dyllan, this is Stefan, he's a friend of mine." She saw recognition dawn on his face.

"Oh," he nodded, "this is the guy the paperwork's for."

"Yeah." She looked back at Stefan who looked supremely worried.

"Paperwork?" he croaked.

"Um, Fake ID, Passports." This earned her an indignant snort from Dyllan.

"You make me sound like a criminal!"

"You are a criminal. Deal with it." He huffed and tried to fold his arms but winced in pain. "Are you okay?"

"I think your buddy sprained my wrist when he nearly pulled my arm out its socket."

"Let me see." She moved over to him and inspected his wrist. He was right, it was sprained, he was lucky it wasn't broken. She chewed her lip in thought. She could heal it, it was a minor injury and would take only a few seconds. But could she trust him? Would he freak out? She had to know before she tried. She looked up into his eyes and beyond them, into his thoughts. After a few seconds she knew enough to know that he wouldn't tell anyone. "Dyllan, do you trust me?" she asked quietly. She knew he did, but she had to hear it.

"Yes." He said instantly.

"Sure?"

He swallowed visibly before saying it again. "Yes. I trust you. Always have. You know that better than anyone."

"Okay. Hold still, this might hurt." She didn't know if it hurt other people or not, but she knew that it hurt her when the wound was touchy, like a broken bone, that hurt like hell. She focused on his hand and felt heat spread down her arm, through her fingers, into his hand. The damage was worse than just a sprained wrist, she realised as she 'felt' tendons tighten and muscle tears heal. She described it as 'feel' because she didn't know what exactly it was. It was like she could sense the wounds healing, see the muscle knitting itself together. It was really freaky at first, but she had gotten used to it over time. It took about ten seconds to heal properly and when she was done he just blinked at her.

"What?" she asked apprehensively.

"You're not normal, you know that? You make this whole big scene and then hold my hand for ten seconds." Now it was her turn to blink.

"Huh?" Didn't he notice? "Move your hand." She said in a small voice.

"I know you healed it, I'm not daft. And I am grateful, but you didn't have to make such a scene about it. I've known you were special for a long time. Since just after we started dating actually."

"Oh." It was the only thing she could think of to say.

/Are you feeling okay?/ the thought from Stefan startled her back to life.

/I'm fine./ she told him/just a little startled, that's all. This wasn't the reaction I expected./ his mental voice chuckled.

/I gathered as much./

/Very funny. You try healing your boyfriend and have him tell you that he's always thought you were weird./ she huffed./well girlfriend in your case./

/He was your boyfriend?/

/Yeah. A year and a bit. We broke up about a month back. Still friends though./

/Lucky. Most don't stay friends./

She couldn't help herself. /How do you know?/

He stayed silent. Damn, she'd gone too far.

She realised that the room was no longer silent and that Stefan and Dyllan were talking. And were in the middle of a conversation. Okay, that just wasn't normal. Stefan had been talking to her and to Dyllan at the same time? Not fair.

"-into the system and add you into the registry. It sounds fairly simple but if I get caught then I'm fried." Dyllan was saying. "but enough of my secrets. When did you two meet?" he asked curiously.

"This afternoon." Stefan said calmly.

"You're joking." When he realised he wasn't he let out his breath in a whistle. "but Terri came in here this afternoon with a picture of you and everything…" Stefan looked up sharply at Tori with cold eyes and raised eyebrows and he trailed off. "Oops." Stefan didn't have to say anything. The question was clear as day in his cold blue eyes.

"I found them in my father's study." Almost true. "There was other data but it was encrypted so I can't understand it."

"Let me see."

She hesitated, then got up and went to fetch them. Stefan felt his heartbeat quicken. How much did she know. Did she know about him? His DNA? His wings?

Tori debated for about a split second whether or not she should show him the stuff about her before deciding not to. She'd keep it to herself until she knew what it meant.

Dyllan cleared his throat when Tori reluctantly left the room and Stefan turned to face him.

"So, if you've never met before, how do you know each other? I mean, Tori seems to trust you a lot for someone she just met."

"I don't…" Stefan began, but then a thought struck him. "Hey, you just called her Tori, but earlier you called her Terri, why?"

Dyllan looked slightly amused by the question.

"Oh, I've known her real name for ages, I don't get involved with anyone without doing background research on them first. Paranoia comes standard in my line of work. I didn't tell her cause I figured that she just wanted to get away from who she was."

"Oh. What is your line of work?"

"You mean other than running a club?" Dyllan joked. "I'm an encryption and decryption specialist. Or in other words: a hacker." He didn't know why he was telling him this, but for some reason he trusted the guy.

"cool." Stefan breathed. If he'd had a normal childhood he would have realised that he sounded like a kid that'd just seen Santa, but he hadn't so he didn't. "Erm…" he continued, "When you did the search on her, did you ever go into what her father did?"

"Yes. I did. I didn't go very far, but I know that he does genetic research for some organisation. Some place called 'The School'.

Tori walked through the door, just in time to hear the words 'The School' coming from Dyllan's lips. And not at all in a questioning tone. Her hackles were once again instantly raised and the 'deer-caught-in-headlights' look that Dyllan was wearing did very little to bring them down.

"Dyllan," she started, in a voice so cold she almost expected to feel ice growing around her, "how and what do you know about the school?"

For a second Dyllan seemed to have frozen in time, except you could almost hear his brain working, then he seemed to come to a conclusion and visibly relaxed and when he spoke, his voice had taken on it's usual 'nothing surprises me' tone.

"Not very much, it's a genetic research facility, didn't go much further than that. Uses government encryption codes, so I didn't figure it was worth prison if I got caught spying. So I backed out before they noticed I was ever there." He said it so matter-of–factly, that she was left standing there with her mouth open, wanting to just smack him. //Tori, Calm down.// Stefan's mental voice was soothing, and with it came a feeling of comfort. She instantly calmed down.

//Okay, I'm calm, but damn, I'm sick of people hiding things from me.//

//just stay calm and hear him out. He may be able to help us…//

//hmmph, you should be more worried about this than me. You grew up in that hell-hole. They tortured you and treated you like dirt, ran tests on you. They… they…// Tori stopped at the look on his face. It was a mixture between fear and anger. She knew instantly that the anger was directed at The School, but the fear was directed at her. He was scared that she knew something he wasn't ready to share. She purposefully blocked him out of her thoughts. If he wasn't ready then she wouldn't pry. He would tell her when he was. She gathered all her willpower and sent him one thought //they tried to kill you.// she knew that her mental voice sounded small and strained with her concentration and trying to keep thought and emotion separate and she pretended not to notice the flicker of relief that crossed his face as he took the shaking in her voice for fear. She cleared her throat and looked back at Dyllan after firmly giving Stefan a look that meant 'I want to drop the subject'

"Sorry. It's just a touchy subject." She walked across to them and handed Stefan the sheet of paper, then turned to Dyllan again. Stefan had said that he may be able to help…

"It's okay Tori. I would've reacted pretty much the same." He shrugged and looked at her questioningly, trying to figure out if she was going to kill him or something.

"'s okay" she mumbled. "I kinda knew you'd look me up, I mean, I honestly didn't think you'd get me the documents without checking that I wasn't bait or something."

"oh."

She glanced over at Stefan who was looking at the sheet of paper in his hand but not really even seeing it.

"Um," she said quietly to Dyllan, "can I talk to you alone for a sec? I need to ask you something."

"Sure." He said instantly. He would do pretty much anything for her, even though she was clearly in some bad trouble. Stefan didn't even look up as they left. He knew they left, but he was too lost in his past to acknowledge it. Besides, he trusted Tori, and knew instinctively that she just needed to talk to Dyllan on her own.

Tori walked into Dyllan's room and went straight to her bag and took out the folder, then stopped. She stood for a moment, playing with the folder in her hands, the question clear in her eyes.

"It's okay Tori. I promise that whatever gets said stays in this room. You know you can trust me. You know that I never have and never will hurt you. At least not intentionally." he added. Tori blinked, it always surprised her to see how much he cared for her, even though they both knew that they weren't meant for each other they still cared for each other very deeply, almost like siblings.

"Thanks. I guess I needed to hear that. Okay." She took a deep breath and mentally braced herself. "I need to know if you can crack this encryption." she said handing him the file. She watched his eyes widen as he saw her picture, then narrow in confusion as he began to read. As his gaze travelled down the page his face grew pale and his lips began to form a thin line of rage.

"What the hell did they do to you?" he said almost to himself, his voice was so quiet she nearly didn't hear him.

"I don't know." She replied, "That's what I need you to find out."

"This encryption doesn't look too complex, it might take me a couple of hours." He got up and headed towards the door, then paused and looked back "I'll be downstairs at the computer. If you need anything, come down and find me, otherwise, you know where everything is." He started to turn when she nodded then stopped and looked back at her with a strange look and a lopsided smile on his face. In a few quick steps he'd crossed the room to where she was leaning against the wall. He leant in, gave her a quick hug and pressed his lips against her temple, and then he was out the door and down to the basement, leaving her smiling slightly at the sweet gesture. She stood still for a moment, lost in memories of the many times she'd come here after a fight with her father and fell into his arms crying. He'd held her and whispered to her until she'd fallen asleep in his arms. He was safety to her. She knew that she could come to him if she needed help. He'd always been there for her, he was like home. The place she came to for everything.

She sighed and moved away from the wall. Time to see how Stefan was handling this.

When she walked into the room she noticed two things. All the doors leading to the balcony were open, and Stefan was nowhere to be seen. //oh, shite!!!! STEFAN!!!//she yelled as loud as her mental voice would allow. "no no no no no!"

Tori heard a yelp from above her followed by a large shadow hitting the balcony outside. She tensed for a moment then, feeling Stefan's familiar presence, ran out onto the balcony to find what looked like a groaning pile of feathers lying on the tiles. It took her a few seconds to realise that the pile of feathers had limbs sticking out of it. Limbs wearing familiar clothes. The feathery heap groaned again and moved, rolling so that she could see a head. Stefan's head. "What the-?" her voice stopped working as Stefan suddenly leapt to his feet revealing an impressive set of wings and a nasty cut on his forehead. He stood for a second looking petrified before all colour drained from his face and with a final "Oh shit" promptly sank back to the floor.

Tori caught Stefan just in time to stop him hitting his head on the floor, picked him up(not very easy considering his size and the fact that he was unconscious) and carried him inside, laying him carefully on the bed. She moved his wings to make sure they wouldn't get hurt and began to search for injuries. She began with his wings, letting her consciousness flow through them searching for irregularities.

She found a few bruises and two badly pulled muscles, but no serious injuries in his wings. She moved down to his feet and found that he'd twisted his right ankle in the fall. As she moved up toward his head she found a lot of old scar tissue some of it was fixable and she repaired as much as she could then she got to his head. No fractures, just a nasty bump. Probably a fair concussion. She healed the cut and bruising but left the concussion, she was too tired to try and mend his brain. He'd have one hell of a headache when he woke up. She moved across his arms and stopped abruptly when she found something that was definitely not supposed to be there. It was small and metallic. It felt like… a micro chip. It was imbedded inside his muscle layer. She pulled out quickly and stared into his sleeping face. This couldn't be good.

She sat for a while and thought about why a micro chip would be inside Stefan. Maybe she should ask… that was it! She'd ask Dyllan. He'd know what to do.

She didn't quite break the land speed record getting down the stairs and to the basement, but when she got to the basement door she stopped. In all the time she'd known Dyllan, this was the first time she'd ever been allowed to go down here and it made her feel like a five year old again, having to go into father's study on a dare, his study was his private place a place where not even mommy went. That was how she felt now, her hand poised to open the door to the basement. She took a deep breath and opened the door. Nothing happened, the earth was still there, no demons or monsters come to get her. She let out the breath again and shook her head at herself. She went down the dozen or so stairs at a fairly brisk pace and gasped as she got to the bottom.

The whole room was covered from ceiling to floor in computer equipment. There were monitors set into one wall, some showing text, others datastreams and a few showed various areas of the club. She'd never seen any cameras in the club. She recognised very few pieces of equipment. A scanner, printer, telephone line. And there, sitting in the middle of all this was Dyllan, typing so fast on a keyboard that his fingers were almost a blur. She stood there with her mouth hanging open waiting for him to acknowledge her and staring at his fingers as if hypnotised. How the heck did anyone type that fast? As she was standing there she realised that there was music playing. It was a piano piece. She listened to it playing, sometimes like a trickling stream and others like a heavy crash of water, but all the time flowing with a beautiful grace.

"It's called Nocturne." Her eyes flew open at the sound of Dyllan's voice. She hadn't even realised she'd closed them. "It was written by a man named Chopin."

"It's beautiful."

"That it is. It helps me think." He looked at her as if waiting for her to say something, and for a few moments she just stood there blinking at him with a blank expression on her face. Then she remembered why she was here.

"I wanted to ask you a question," she began "how much do you know about micro chips?"

"I know a fair amount about them." His brow furrowed in thought "why?"

Tori looked down at the floor, suddenly unsure of what to say.

"I wanted to know what they'd be used for, if they were implanted into an animal, or a human."

"Well, they usually use them in pets, as identification… other than that, I guess they could be used as data storage, although if you get technical then identification chips are a form of data storage… the only other thing I can think of is a tracer chip. They use them in wildlife research… Tori? You still with me? You look very pale."

Tori looked at Dyllan, her fear written all over her face. Her eyes had become haunted and her skin had gone the colour of sour cream.

"They… they… chip… him… ohgod." She took a deep steadying breath, shut her eyes and counter to ten. "Can they be disabled?"

"Most of them, yes. Tori, what's happened?"

"I think I just found a micro chip in Stefan's arm." She said flatly. "I don't know. I need you to take a look at it. Can you?"

"O-okay."

"If it's a tracer chip then I'll need to get rid of it, but if it's not, then I need to know what's on it."

"Okay. Can you bring him down here so I can take a look?"

"Uh… that might be a bit difficult." She said sheepishly.

"Tori… what did you do?"

"I, um, that is, IthinkImayhaveconcussedhimslightly."

"Concussed him?!" Dyllan asked, shock and disbelief written across his face.

"It was an accident!" Dyllan shook his head and gave her a look that clearly stated he didn't even want to know.

"Well, then we'll just have to wait till he wakes up." He eyed her critically "you better get some rest too, you look tired."

Tori's protest died in her throat as she became aware that she was actually very tired. Healing took energy. And she'd had to do a lot of it in the past twenty-four hours.

"Okay, I'll see you later then."

At his surprised nod she turned and headed upstairs. She didn't see what he was so surprised about. It wasn't like she NEVER did what others told her to.

XxXxXxX

Ata::glances at MN:: I'm seeing some large similarities.

Merla: XD yeah. Me too.

MN::halo:: Nani?! I do what I'm told... sometimes.

Ata::rolls eyes:: oh yeah? And when last did you willingly do what someone asked you to?

Merla::smirks:: that wasn't life or death.

MN: uh… eh he he… -.-' I'm gonna go… train! Please R+R people! Ja ne:ITs::