Whew... worked through this writer's block. And it only took two weeks :P ... Oh well. Thanks for being patience, you guys! You're beautiful. I just hope all of you come back for this chapter and the following. Don't leave me!

Sinjin pressed his ear to his bedroom door and frowned; he could still hear the muffled voices of Jade, Tori, and (who he assumed to be) Sikowitz just feet away in the living room. He had bolted last night when Jade went on her rampage only to sneak back in the early hours when he prayed she'd be in bed. He had tip-toed past the sleeping girl, pausing momentarily to bask in the angelic glow of Jade's beauty – she was so peaceful when she wasn't awake. He didn't linger long though, he knew that at any moment she could stir and that angel's façade could melt away to reveal a beast fueled by a white-hot fury. He knew better than to be around when the dragon woke up. He had barricaded himself in his room with plans to sleep until she left and then disappear again.

However, he hadn't counted on sleeping as late as he did, and he definitely didn't count on Jade spending practically all day at home. He was trapped – his bedroom windows were painted shut and the only exit was through the living-room and out the front door. If Jade saw him he … well… he didn't want to consider what would happen. So he sat against the door, listening to the muffled conversation going on behind him and anxiously checking his watch – he had missed his phone call with his contact last night. He only had a few more chances to redeem himself and it looked like it wasn't going to happen tonight either.

He heard heavy footfalls pass behind him and he tensed – it was Jade's stride. He dropped to his stomach and pressed his face to the ground, catching a glimpse of the scene before him through the sliver of a gap between the door and floor. How can people just sit around and talk? He thought to himself, drumming his fingers impatiently on the floor. He didn't understand the draw of human interaction; nothing productive ever came of it. People were messy, emotional, ruled too much by passion rather than logic. Interpersonal relations were doubly complicated and confusing. He needed them to get their chit-chats out now so he could catch the next phone call!

Jade paused before Sinjin and Robbie's room, drumming her ringed fingers against the mugs in her hands as she stared intently at the door. She hadn't seen Sinjin since he had bolted last night and there had been no sign of him in town. She wondered, briefly, if there was a chance he was hiding in there, listening to their conversation like the little weasel he was. She repositioned the glasses in her injured hand and reached for the knob – a quick look wouldn't hurt. "Jade?" Tori's voice snatched her attention. "Do you need help?"

"No, I've got it." The pale girl replied, quickly redistributing the weight to alleviate the strain on her shaking hand. "I'm coming." She breathed, glancing sideways at the door once more before walking away. She wasn't worried – she'd find him soon enough. She returned to the couch and passed off the drinks to Sikowitz and Tori, grateful to find the Latina had closed the gap between them while she was gone. The older man was doing a fantastic job at putting her better at ease and she knew he was providing invaluable information to fill in the blanks in Daniel's life that Jade couldn't.

The conversation seemed to have shifted since she left – they were currently discussing their recent fight. She shot the pair an apprehensive look as their attention settled on her. "I understand my arrival has caused significant friction between you two. I was just apologizing to Tori here."

"And I was about to tell him that it's nothing to do with his arrival… just how my girlfriend chose to go behind my back about it." Tori finished, squeezing Jade's knee just a bit more than was comfortable – the cyborg was obviously still harboring some hard feelings against her.

"You really ought to be more straightforward with the people you care about, Jadelyn." Sikowitz shook his head. "Lying? For shame."

The inventor gaped at both of them. She opened her mouth to retort in her typical angry fashion only to clamp it shut. "I've learned the error of my ways, Pa! Won't catch me lyin' again!" Sarcasm was better than anger, right?

"I don't talk like that!" Tori huffed, retracting her hand and crossing her arms.

"Oh, I don't know. It's exaggerated but there is a definite resemblance." Sikowitz mused absently, blowing the steam from the surface of his tea before taking a tentative sip. Jade had to avert her gaze to the ceiling to prevent herself from laughing.

The conversation ambled on well into the night before they wandered into dangerous territory. Surprisingly enough it was Tori that led them there, interrupting Sikowitz's anecdote about his final days with Daniel.

"You two are still considering the cyborg surgery, aren't you?" Jade glanced sharply at her, blue eyes widening anxiously. Tori stared back unwaveringly – the pair had successfully danced around the issue all day and she wanted the truth. Jade wasn't going to pull one over on her again.

"It's… well. Yeah. I'd really like to explore my options, Tori." Jade admitted. "But I don't plan on following through with any treatment without your input." She picked at her nails intently to avoid eye contact. "It's not like I plan on going out back and chopping my hand off with the axe, though at this point at least I wouldn't only have to suffer with the stump."

"I think it's safe to say that we want to make Jade as comfortable as we can while avoiding any unnecessary dangers. Surgery is definitely an option, but only one of them. I'm sure you've done some research… since you're day we've developed alternatives to amputation." Sikowitz to the rescue. "I don't fully understand the tension with the issue, and it's not my place to pry, but I encourage you to take into consideration that I'm not just some quack… this is actually my specialty." He smiled hopefully, his sincerity ultimately causing Tori to reciprocate.

Tori tapped her index and middle fingers against her mug, the action producing a faint clinking sound that drew everyone's attention. She trusted what she knew of Sikowitz, but due to Jade's dishonesty the surgery issue was now one that made her pause. Maybe, though, with the older man involved she could feel more at ease with the situation. She knew he'd be honest with her. "I'm open to the options." She finally agreed, forcing a smile she knew everyone could tell was artificial. "As long as there aren't any more secrets about it."

"Of course! No more secrets! Not a one." His eyes flashed mischievously and he smiled at Jade. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously in response. "Since we're laying it all out on the table, did Jadelyn ever tell you of that time she brought home a dog and thought she could keep it from her father?"

"Oh hell – we're not telling that story again." Jade snapped.

"She had him fooled for all of 15 minutes, but Daniel let her believe she'd gotten away with it for almost a week. Every day he'd come in and tell me the story as it developed."

"Sikowitz!" She warned.

"To explain the urine smell in her room, she told him – "

"THAT'S IT. Out of my house!" She jumped to her feet and pointed to the door. He continued on unfazed, speaking intently and animatedly to Tori by this point. She made mood to scowl and stomp away but Tori grabbed her arm, dragging her back to the couch .At each passing second her flush deepened and she pinched the bridge of her nose as he continued on. "I hate you both." She muttered.

Sikowitz didn't leave until well after dark, and only because Jade literally forced him out of the door. "One too many cutesy stories, funny man." She huffed, throwing his scarf in his face as he fumbled with the buttons on his coat.

"I think she enjoyed them." Sikowitz beamed, waving to the cyborg behind her. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Tori. I'll be around to see you both soon!" He accepted the gloves she offered, pocketing them rather than tugging them on. "Stop being so cranky. It's nice to wander down memory lane every so often."

"I didn't get a chance to wander. You dragged me down it by my hair." She replied flatly, shutting the door in his face. With the older man gone she exhaled and leaned heavily against the wood, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling as she adjusted to the silence. She loved the older man, but he had been there all afternoon. It was emotionally draining to be an extrovert, to engage someone like him in conversation for hours on end.

"I like him." Tori yawned, rising to her feet and stretching her arms above her head. "He's so funny."

"Har har."

"You're just cranky because he exposed the fact that you used to be such a nice little girl… who would have ever guessed that the big bad West used to have a Chinchilla named Bubblegum?"

Pale blue eyes snapped open and focused sharply on the Latina, narrowing when she saw the smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You used to have a kitten named Princess."

"I look like the type to have a kitten named Princess. You look like the type to eat a kitten named Princess." She could no longer hide her amusement and her face split into a broad grin. "I can just see little Jadelyn running around with Bubblegum in her backpack."

"No way. Bubblegum had her own… nevermind."

"Bubblegum had her own… Oh my God. She had her own tote, didn't she?" Jade stormed past Tori and snatched up their mugs, stomping into the kitchen before the older girl could recover from her giggling fit. She threw them into the sink so roughly they almost shattered, cursing softly to herself as she turned on the hot water. "Don't be so mad, Jade." The cyborg's footsteps had been buried under the sound of the running tap, and Jade jumped lightly when a pair of arms slipped around her waist from behind.

"Those are stories I would have obviously like to have kept in the past." She grabbed a rag and set about scrubbing a dish that had been placed there earlier.

"I don't see what it hurts. It was only the three of us, it's not like it's going to damage your bad-girl reputation."

"That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

Silence. Jade finished cleaning the plate and rinsed it before placing it in the strainer. She picked up one of the recently deposited mugs and began work on it. "Jade." She whispered, resting her chin on the other girl's pale shoulder.

"It's not like I decided to be like this on a whim, Tori." She replied after a moment, scratching a particularly stubborn stain with a chipped green nail. "My childhood was great… up to a point. Once those memories start being dragged up they don't just remind me of 'the good old days.' They remind me that things used to be good and bad things changed them."

Tori frowned; she had never considered it that way. The difference between young Jade and Jade now was like day and night. Of course something would have had to ignite the fire the caused such a dramatic transition. The pair stood quietly for a moment, the silence only interrupted by the clinking of the china as Jade stacked it in the strainer. "I don't really know what that's like." Tori admitted.

"How can you not?" Jade replied. "You had the accident… do you not look back and get sad?"

Tori sighed. "Yes and no, I guess… When I think about my life before my parents died, before the surgery, it brings me down a little bit. But not so much that I want to shut the door to that part of my life forever. Those are good memories… those are moments in my life I wouldn't give up for anything. Instead I just try to not think about that huge rough patch."

"Guess I'm just not there yet." She muttered. Tori could detect bitterness in her response.

"Maybe one day you will be… I don't know all the bumps you've hit in your life, but I know you've learned to cope with them in your own way. What helped me deal with losing mom and dad was talking to people about them. Not talking about the accident, but talking about them. Family holidays. Vacations. Birthdays. Even just talking about the little things. It helps separate them from only the bad memories I used to associate them with. They aren't just my dead parents," her voice cracked as she forced the words out. They tasted awful. "They're my parents… that passed away. They live in my memories now. If I shut the door on those memories I shut the door on them." Tori noticed that Jade had finished all the dishes at this point, and was idly polishing a spoon as she stared out the window that overlooked the back porch. "It sounded like Daniel tried really, really hard to give you a wonderful childhood… I'd really hate for you to lose those memories because something happened that took that life away from you."

She stared at Jade's reflection in the window. Her eyes were glazed over, she was obviously lost in thought. Tori wondered if she was considering her words or reliving the memories she had shut away for so long. Her expression gave no indication as to how she was feeling. "I'm not saying you have to talk to me if you don't want to… Or anyone. Maybe you could write everything down. I hear that helps too." She offered, releasing her grip on Jade's waist and stepping back.

Tori assumed Jade needed some time to herself and intended to retreat upstairs. She had only just made it to the kitchen door when she heard the other girl clear her throat. "Dad let me keep that dog I snuck into the house. It was a Catahoula mutt… he named it Rocky. He tried for the longest time to pretend he couldn't stand him, but I always found them napping together on the couch on the days he didn't work. Both of them would be snoring."

Tori smiled lopsidedly when Jade turned, surprised to see the typically dour girl mirror the action. "And he used to talk to him all the time in this weird Yogi Bear voice… I always teased him for it." Her eyes glazed again, but this time with tears. "He even tried to convince me that it was my idea to throw a birthday party for the stupid dog." She sniffled before releasing a thick chuckle. "He went so far as to help me bake a cake for him! Rocky hated it… it was horrible."

The cyborg stepped forward and took Jade's hands in her own. "Mom wanted a dog really bad once. She took me to get a little spaniel and when dad found out we told her that Trina whined and begged for one while we were at the mall and she ultimately just caved in… To this day, Trina has no idea." She nodded, doing the only thing she knew to encourage Jade to continue speaking. Daniel was their strongest connection. Despite this, Jade rarely spoke about him. She instead listened with rapt interest whenever Tori spoke of him but never shared any of her own stories. She wanted her to continue for both of their sakes – Jade needed to learn to be more comfortable talking about her life pre-Armageddon, and Tori desperately wanted to hear of their life together before the world went to hell. She could look up facts and statistics about her little man, read all the newspaper articles she wanted on him… none of that mattered to her, none of it told her who he really was, not even Sikowitz could tell her all she wanted. All that information was locked up tight inside of Jade and, for the first time, Tori felt like those old rusted hinges were beginning to groan, that the door to her past was beginning to inch open.

"Dad actually told her about that when I was eight." Jade laughed when Tori's brows perked. "I'm guessing you told him at some point?"

"Yeah… I did. I just can't believe he remembered it after all those years." The soft grip on her hands tightened before vanishing all together and Jade cautiously, tensely, tucked herself against the cyborg's body, as if she feared rejection. Tori wrapped her arms around the hips she knew so well and they melted together as they had so many times before.

"Are you kidding me? He remembered everything about you. He talked about you all the time." Jade replied as she rested her head in the crook of Tori's neck. "You consisted of the majority of my bedtime stories… the great and wonderful Tori Vega, the cyborg girl."

Tori swallowed back tears and shook her head. "Okay… those sound pretty lame. I'm sorry you had to suffer through them."

Though Jade barely heard her she smiled. If only she knew how wrong she was. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing the gentle perfume from Tori's clothes, allowing her mind to drift back through the years. Those nights were some of her favorite memories as a child, a routine she could rely on. She'd sit up and wait for her dad to take his place in the chair opposite her bed, exciting awaiting whatever tale he would tell that night. She knew at some point long ago he had probably run out of stories and was making them up as he went along. It never bothered her though, as a child she was easily infected by his enthusiasm and immediately drawn into the world he had created for her. Just for her.

"They weren't that bad, I guess. You kind of live up to the reputation… sort of. I was expecting more Terminator." She finally replied.

"If you want I can start speaking with an accent."

"I'll leave you if you do."

"Hasta la vista, baby." Tori did her best Schwarzenegger impression, puffing out her chest and flexing her grip around the woman in her arms.

"Yeah, bye." Jade pulled away from the cyborg and started briskly from the kitchen, only to have a metal hand grab the back of her shirt and stop her in her tracks.

"I'm done, I'm done. Don't skulk off." Tori spun the pale girl and pulled her back into her arms, her pale hands coming to a rest against her chest as a studded brow climbed up her forehead. "It's getting late… do you want to come upstairs and regale me with some stories of the great and wonderful Tori Vega, the cyborg girl?"

"I really don't think we need to inflate your ego anymore. It's in danger of bursting."

"You're one to talk."

"My ego is perfectly well proportioned. It might even be a little flat."

Tori leaned in swiftly and pecked her on the lips, surprising her younger companion. Her blue eyes flashed with confusion. "What was that for?"

"Bringing your ego back to the right size." She stepped back and, taking Jade's hand securely in her own, led her towards the stairs.

"Well, if you really want to inflate it…" She squeezed her hand suggestively.

"Is there a time you're not horny? Can't I just hold you tonight? It's been a rough few days for us, Jade, I've missed just having you near me." Despite her exasperation a smile still threatened to claim her face.

"A little heavy petting?" Jade smirked. Tori rolled her eyes in response. "At least let me grab your boob."

"You're impossible."

"Love me anyway?"

"…It's impossible not to."

"You don't need a make-up bag. It's going to be a three day trip, max." Lara tossed the heavy blue bag onto the sofa before zipping up her bag.

"Exactly – I could run into a lot of people in three days!" Lillie swatted her hands away and yanked the bag back open before returning the makeup to its original position.

"We're going to be in the truck! In the woods!" The younger sister huffed, throwing her hands up and stepping back. "You're impossible."

"You love me anyway."

"Don't press your luck, Adonis." Lara grabbed the map off the kitchen table and retraced their route for the umpteenth time. "You said the mountain pass was blocked. You're sure?"

"Just double-checked. Heavy snow in the area… it'll probably be a few more days before it's clear."

"Lower roads it is, then. Are you ready?"

"Which jacket should I bring? The Carhartt is more practical but my rabbit fur one is so much cuter." Lillie held up the two coats and examined them closely.

"Isn't that my Carhartt?" Lara squinted in the fading light.

"We're sisters. We share. I lose track." She tossed the rabbit fur coat behind her absently as she slipped on the heavier jacket, frowning as she swung her arms. "Makes me look frumpy."

"You're gorgeous. You done? Let's go."

"Oh, wait! Don't you need to make a phone call? See if you can't track down that Van Cleef kid?"

Lara sighed. It had been two days since she'd made contact with him, and since she'd made her decision to retrieve the cyborg herself she given up on ever reestablishing communications. Still, though, she supposed she should try. If nothing else perhaps he could provide a feel for the city. It had been years since she'd left Sanctum, she worried she'd be walking into a trap… at the very least she'd be walking in blind. It wasn't exactly an ideal situation, one she wanted to avoid if possible.

She checked her watch – they were already late leaving. She'd give him three rings maybe before she wrote her liaison off entirely. She picked up the ancient receiver and punched in the number she'd long before memorized, fluffing her bangs in the mirror as she waited for the call to go through.

One.

Tw-

"Hello?" She recognized his voice immediately and was surprised by how frantic he sounded. "It's you, right? Tell me it's you."

"Where the hell have you been?" She snapped, hair forgotten as she spun to face her sister. She pointed to the phone before clenching her hand into a fist angrily.

"It's a long, long story."

"Well we don't have time for it. We're coming to Sanctum to retrieve the cyborg – we need details on the city."

"You're coming for me too, right? I get to come back with you?"

Lara had to bite her tongue to stifle a laugh. "… Yeah. Of course. If you can help us successfully get her out of the city we'll bring you both back." She lied, rolling her eyes. He hadn't proven himself reliable enough for her to want to include him among her ranks. She ran a tight ship, everything and everyone had to run smoothly. He began prattling on excitedly and she had to tear the phone away from her ear and bang it on the table to silence him. "I said if! Do you think you can manage to meet us outside the city tomorrow at dawn? "

"Definitely! … But how will I be able to find you?"

"Just head out the main gate and start walking, Van Cleef. We'll be looking for you. See you tomorrow." She disconnected the call before he could waste anymore of her time, tossing the phone to the side. "Well I think that just made things a little bit easier for us." The pale woman sighed as she zipped up her coat and made move to grab her bag.

"You really expect him to find us?" Lillie asked, slinging her own backpack over her shoulder.

"I hope so. He sounded determined enough. Hopefully nothing else will hold him up."

"Then we will be meeting people. And you told me not to bring my makeup."

Lara chucked her bag in the back of their old Bronco and checked the magazine on her pistol before sliding it into the holster, questioning once more how she could possibly be related to the blonde climbing into the passenger seat. "Well at least we avoided that crisis. Let's hope that's the only one through which we have to persevere. You've got everything you need, right? Makeup, rope, pistol?"

"Check, check, and check! Let's go! Roadtrip time!" Lillie cheered, pumping her fist into the air. "Gonna go steal us a cyborg. I'm stoked."

Lara found herself smiling broadly as she shifted the truck into gear, spitting gravel as they peeled away from their home. They'd reach their destination well after nightfall, and she hoped that her patience with her sister wouldn't be worn through by then. It'd been a long time since they were cooped up together like this. Focus on the prize, Lara. She was so close she could hardly stand it. In a few hours she'd have the cyborg she'd sought after for years.

And then the real fun will begin.

Because every chapter needs a little fluff here or there to take a break from the big plot :3 ... aww.

Night, lovelies!