Author's Note: Please read, review, and most of all, enjoy...

Bubbles watched as Him ate the last bite of the meal and then turned away from her, shame written in his dark features. He could not remember his past, how all but three girls would tremble at the sight of him, but certainly, enough of his personality remained that he felt appalled by his own helplessness.

Where he once weilded the power of a god, now he had to be fed by a mere slip of a girl.

Him scowled. Buttercup had been right to call him Bubbles's pet.

Bubbles watched as Him huddled into himself, hunched like a pouting child on the backyard patio. She frowned to see him so miserable, but what could she do? For all of her powers and talent, she knew that she would be useless in trying to restore his memories. There was nothing any of them could do for Him, but if given enough time, perhaps he would find himself happier not knowing what a monster he had once been.

The thought surprised her, but then Bubbles had her own thoughts regarding their new houseguest. If Him forgot all that he'd been in the past and chose instead to move forward as a force for good, then he would be the proof that there was hope for every villain, every theif in Townsville.

Was she so wrong to want Him to be good rather than return to his old mischeivous self?

She wasn't sure, but it wouldn't be her decision to make in the end.

Bubbles picked up the plate and reached out to touch him, laying her hand on his clothed shoulder. Even under the shirt, she could feel how unnaturally warm his skin was. "I'll come back in a few minutes," she told him.

Him did not respond, he kept his eyes focused out to the dark space of the backyard.

"It won't be this way forever," she tried again, and again, he was silent.

Him listened as Bubbles opened and closed the sliding glass door and returned to her family. He didn't wish to be so sour toward her, but how to make her understand how difficult this ordeal was for him? He tried, desperately, to recall a time when he had been this weak, this helpless and this miserable.

And he was miserable, for he could feel his full memory hovering nearby but just out of reach. The tiny pieces he could recall were doing him no good. What use was it to remember his true name when it could never be pronounced by a human tongue? What good did it do him to remember the power of his past when there was no recollection of how to control it?

It was tortue!

But...it wasn't their fault.

The sisters and the Professor, they had taken him in when they could have just as easily ignored him when they'd spied him in the park earlier that day. There was something inside these people that made them do these things, things that Him could not fathom doing himself.

He flexed his tail, wondering what he could do.

Nothing, he realized. I can do nothing until my memory returns and I am myself again. There is nothing I can do until that time comes.

Resigning himself to his fate, Him sighed lightly. When choice was removed, there was only one thing to do: abandon defiance and allow time to do its work.

But once he remembered, what then?

The Professor looked up from the microwave as Bubbles reentered the kitchen. "Bubbles, where were you?" He asked.

"I was in the backyard with Him." She said. Both of her sisters glanced up from their fortune cookies to regard her.

"Oh, is he all right?" The Professor asked.

Bubbles nodded. "He is now, and he'll stay all right if someone doesn't tease him."

Buttercup caught what she was saying. "Oh, fine. But Him had just better know that if this all turns out to be another one of his mind games, I'll yank off his pointy tail and make him eat it!"

Blossom whistled. "Jeez, Buttercup."

Buttercup raised her brows, "Too much?"

Bubbles threw up her hands, frustrated with Buttercup's aggression. "If you're going to threaten Him all night, I'll just take him to my room and draw his picture."

"Why would you want to draw a picture of that stupid demon anyway?"

Blossom tightened her fist. "Buttercup, for the time being that 'stupid demon' is our guest."

"Yes, Buttercup, I'm no fan of Him but even I've had enough of your comments." The Professor told her, irritated. "I know you don't trust him but until he proves himself guilty, we have to presume that he's innocent for the time being."

Faced with the disapproval of both her sisters and the Professor, Buttercup relented. "Fine, I'll be nice. But only until he remembers what it was that kicked his butt. Deal?"

Blossom, Bubbles and the Professor shrugged, figuring that this was as close as they were going to get with Buttercup.

"Deal."

Bubbles went back outside to try coaxing Him to come back into the house.

"Him?"

He turned around. "Yes, Bubbles?"

"We're going to watch a movie. It's sort of a Saturday tradition, if you'd care to join us."

Him hesitated, clearly still feeling too much like an outsider to join the family that had taken him into their home. He didn't want to answer any more of Blossom's questions or see any more of Buttercup's infamous glares. He just wanted his life back, that was all.

"I don't think I should-"

Bubbles understood his hesitance, but she would not allow Him to isolate himself. It would be good for him to be with people and just forget his trouble for a little while; if she left him outside to obsess, then she knew he would only drive himself crazy.

No.

Best to have him come inside to relax and lose himself in some simple comfort. She stepped toward him, shaking her head, refusing whatever excuse he planned to use against her. "Nonsense, you can't stay out here all by yourself. It's a comedy film and the Professor always makes a big bowl of popcorn for us to share." Bubbles coaxed. "Come on, Him. I'll even keep my sisters from bothering you."

She could tell that he was tempted, but it wasn't enough. More was needed.

Bubbles came closer to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Him shivered from the contact. Clearly, he wasn't used to being touched.

She smiled at him, offering her friendship.

He hesitated a moment longer, but then placed his claw into her hand.

The film was an old, black and white comedy from the 1950s, and so needless to say, Him was entirely lost when the Professor and the girls laughed at the image of a man slipping on a banana peel or having a pie thrown in his face. This brand of humor was lost on one such as he, whose thought of entertainment was spying into the mortal realm and causing mischief.

Still, he sat on the sofa with Bubbles at his side. She laughed along with her family as the figures on the screen errupted into song and dance, only further confusing Him as he tried to understand the film.

His eyes roamed the room, lighting on the Professor, then on Blossom, then to Buttercup. Both of the young women were very pretty, but Him could sense their suspicion, hidden just beneath their forced smiles. He looked to Bubbles. He liked her, and counted himself as lucky to know that she had come to like him as well.

No one else would have come out to speak with him, concerned for his hurt feelings. None of them would have fed him, and though he was appalled at his own weakness, there was a piece of him that had been genuinely touched that she had cared enough to ensure he hadn't gone hungry over his stubborn pride.

Him stiffened in surprise as Bubbles moved back to lean against him. She glanced up in concern, asking him quietly, "Am I hurting you?"

He cleared his throat. "No, I- this is fine."

Bubbles turned her attention back to the film, satisfied that her slight weight wasn't uncomfortable to him. For his part, Him was unsure what he should do or why Bubbles was touching him in such a way, but after a few moments, he decided that none of it mattered. Bubbles was warm against him, her very presence was calming. He tilted his head and caught a faint whiff of vanilla from her hair.

He could feel himself relaxing, his breathing a match in time to her own, his every concern slipping away.

Where is he?

Why did he leave?

Come back…come back…

Buttercup stood over Him with her arms crossed, watching him sleep, his clawed arm wrapped around the waist of her sister. Bubbles was awake, but had made no move away from the demon since the film had ended. Buttercup didn't like this, not one bit. "You really are starting to treat Him like he's a pet or something."

Beside her, Blossom crossed her arms as well, making mental notes to begin studying Him while he slept. If she was going to break ground in Demonology, she had to pay attention to her unwitting subject.

"Bubbles, you shouldn't be getting so close to Him like this. He's still dangerous." Blossom glanced at Buttercup, "I've been curious about Him's heritage for years. What he is, where he came from…and more importantly, where he gets his power."

Careful not to wake Him, Bubbles moved to stand beside her sisters though a large part of her would have been perfectly content to remain with him. He was warm and solid, truly he made a great pillow. She frowned at her sisters, "You'd rather I was either insulting him all the time or studying him like he was a bug in a jar? So far I'm the only one's who's been nice to him."

Blossom raised her brows, "I've been...studying him like a bug in a jar, haven't I?"

Bubbles crossed her arms. "Yes. I know you're curious but he can't answer any of your questions now and I think it makes him feel bad."

"What are you, Him's buddy now?" Buttercup asked.

Bubbles threw up her arms, "He needs a friend right now, so yes! Yes, I'm Him's friend, which is more than I can say for either of you - if he doesn't remember being our enemy, then we have the opportunity to make him into our friend."

"That would be a great thing if Him could his use his power to fight with us instead of against us," Buttercup relented. "I just don't think you're being smart to trust Him so quickly. It hasn't even been a full day and you're already cuddled up on the sofa!"

Bubbles shrugged, "I didn't plan that, look I believe that he really can't remember. I don't think this has all been his plan to get to us."

Blossom nodded in agreement. "I don't think it's been a plan either, but we still shouldn't drop our gaurd. Him is still dangerous and just in case, we need to learn all we can- what is that noise?"

The three sisters looked back into the living room, to where the creature was still curled, sleeping on the sofa. Him had begun to mutter as he slept, but his words were like nothing they had ever heard before - some kind of foreign language shot through with his own snarls and hissing.

Bubbles stepped into the living room and approached Him. "Is he...talking in his sleep?"

From just beside her, Buttercup shrugged. "Maybe that's how they talk where he comes from."

Despite her wish to study Him and learn about where he'd come from, Blossom shuddered at his hissing and ferocious snarls. "It sounds horrible. Wake him up!"

Bubbles immediately pointed to her raven-haired sister. "I volunteer Buttercup!"

"Fine, fine. You both get on me about teasing him but you're afraid of waking him up…" Buttercup grumbled.

She reached down and grasped his shoulder, intent to gently shake him until he woke up. She had barely laid her hand on him when he twisted and almost took her head off with a wild blast of energy from his eyes, which left a burning hole in the ceiling.

Buttercup didn't waste a moment in grabbing Him by the shirt and drawing back her fist.

Thinking fast, Him raised his claws, "Oh! I'm sorry, it was a reflex."

When Buttercup didn't loosen her grip on his shirt collar, Blossom stepped in and put a hand on her tense sister's shoulder. "That's ok, Him. We still do that when we have nightmares. Did you have a bad dream?"

Relenting, Buttercup let go of him and took a step back. Him shook his head, cradling his face with bandaged claws. "I don't dream the way that you do. It's different. I could hear my children missing me, though thankfully it didn't sound like anyone was hurting them."

Blossom raised her brows in shock, "Children?"

Buttercup smiled awkwardly. "Um, congratulations."

Bubbles looked at Him with sympathy. "What were they saying?"

Him thought for a moment, not realizing what a bomb he'd dropped on the sisters with his admission of children. "They weren't being hurt, of that I'm sure. They only sounded confused. I'm starting to...it will take time before I can remember…" He said before sitting back on the sofa, defeat hanging over him like a veil.

The three sisters stood, at a loss, but sympathy wove through them for the demon who had once haunted their dreams. Finally, one sister stepped forward to sit beside him on the sofa, even going so far as to put a comforting hand on his knee.

"A family should never be separated. We'll try to help you get home, Him. And we'll help you find whoever did this to you."

That it was Buttercup who gave Him this reassurance made the promise all the more final.

"The Professor said it was all right for you to sleep in the study," Bubbles reassured Him as she brought in an extra pillow later that night.

He'd been standing in the center of the small room, absorbing the space. There were several bookshelves lining the far wall, each of them crammed full of books on physics, literature, biology and there were even a few fiction novels tossed into the mix.

He could smell a faint sweet scent in the air, and spied a scented candle burning on an end table. A cherrywood desk held a laptop computer, a stack of Post-It notes, a cup of pens and a personalized coffee cup declaring the Professor as 'The World's Best Dad!'. A potted fern rested on a small shelf drilled into the wall just above the desk.

Bubbles watched as Him moved to peek out the window; the view looked out over the driveway. He shivered slightly before turning to face her. "Thank you, Bubbles."

"Do you need anything?"

He gave her a weak smile. "You wouldn't happen to be holding my memory, would you?"

Bubbles smiled sadly back at Him. It was clear that he was confused and feeling helpless, even more so now that he'd heard his children calling out for him. His children; it was so strange to learn such a thing, and so ironic that, now that they had time to spend together, Him couldn't tell her anything for his lost memory.

"I'm afraid not. Him…Buttercup was right. A family shouldn't be separated, and we'll do what we can to help you."

Him nodded, seeming to understand. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? For what?"

"You have been kind to me when I've done nothing to deserve it in the past."

Bubbles raised her brows at his apology. "Are you starting to remember?"

"It's coming in bits and pieces. A flash over a word, a scent. But the whole picture? No. Not yet." Him sighed and sank into the low sofa.

Bubbles moved to sit beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

There was nothing she could say to comfort him, but perhaps just by being there, being his friend, could be enough.