Chapter update! This wasn't supposed to be chapter 6, but since I made my last chapter too long and had to subsequentially shorten it, I have continued it onto THIS. So, enjoy and stuff. AND MIND THE NUMBERS!

Jack let their arms stay linked as they left the mall. They walked across the parking lot in the cool air as dusk began to fall. He felt gratitude and a new appreciation for the girl on his arm. She had defended him publicly, and she had treated him like a friend. Jack felt himself grinning like a fool all the way to the jet. They piled all the bags in the back, climbed in and took off. Only when they were all the way up in the air did Jack allow himself to laugh out loud.

"That was great! Aw man, that was great! You got style, I'll give you that!" Jack praised.

"Tch. They were children. That should have been you pushing them in!" Wuya cried. "I could've taken care of them faster than you could blink." She grumbled.

"Well duh! Come on, Wuya, you're an evil Heylin witch. You can take care of almost anything if you had your body and your magic. Had that been the case, I'm sure those brats would've been a smoldering puddle of gore before they could take a breath to speak." Wuya smiled and preened under the praise. She drifted closer to Jack's ear and whispered, "I told you this was a good idea."

"No you didn't!" Jack shouted indignantly. "You said it was stupid and I'd never get it to work right!"

"What, the portal?" Ana asked. She had heard Wuya and was watching with amused interest as Jack argued with her.

"Yeah. It was supposed to be able to open a portal to wherever in the world a Shen-Gong-Wu was. All I'd have to do was figure out where it was. Wuya could pinpoint it; I open the portal and retrieve the Wu, then walk back through the portal and done!" Jack scowled at Wuya.

"Instead, you crossed dimensions and got me," Ana said. Jack perked up and smiled.

"So I came out better in the end. I got a kick-ass she-minion from a different dimension."

"Uh-huh. But it wouldn't be wise to do it again. You don't want a freak fanatic for Chack or some other non-canon pairing coming through, or someone for the Xiaolin, or anything that might screw us over." Ana advised. In her head, she added, 'More importantly, I don't need any competition. I CAN'T screw this up!' Jack nodded, oblivious to Ana's thoughts.

"Technically, he still failed. He didn't make it so he could retrieve Shen-Gong-Wu, the twit." Wuya pointed out.

"Wuya, I really think that a transdimensional portal is much more impressive than a regular portal." Jack reasoned.

"I don't think it counts. It was impressive, yes, and cool, but it was an accident. The machine didn't turn out how it was intended, so you'll either have to fix it or scrap it." Ana said. "If you still want to, that is." She added.

But Jack was thinking. Now that Ana had mentioned the portal…

The idea for the portal had hit him in the middle of the night while he was sleeping. He had shot straight up in bed and dashed downstairs to his lab to work. From the moment it struck, he had been distracted from working on other things, like JackBots and world domination. And after he received Wuya's puzzle box and released her, Shen-Gong-Wu were added to the list. Calculations, structures, plans, none of it would leave his head. It left him unfocused. During the few visits his mother made to the mansion, she had noticed his behavior and had talked to him about it. But he hadn't been able to concentrate even then. It had gotten better though. He'd worked on the machine as often as he could. The closer he got to finishing it, the better he began to feel, even though he was in a much bigger frenzy. No matter what, he couldn't delay it, or put it off; he couldn't quit. He absolutely had to get it done.

Until Ana had passed through the portal to him, his body had been zinging with anxious energy. And when she stepped through, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. As if it was meant to be.

Jack believed in magic. He had to; how else could he explain the mystical properties of the Shen-Gong-Wu? How else could he explain the showdowns? Maybe there was a Fate. Maybe he was meant to bring Ana here to this world? If that was true, then that would explain why none of the calculations or ideas would pop up in his head when he thought about fixing the portal. Whoever was in charge of Destiny didn't want Jack to send Ana away, or even have the ability to do so.

"Eh, I don't know. Something tells me it wouldn't work out." Jack admitted. Ana only shrugged in response. Silence filled the cabin. To Ana, who was used to peace and quiet, it was a content silence. But to Jack, who knew nothing about Ana's particular social intricacies, the silence was awkward.

Ana gazed out the window, lost in thought about nothing in particular. The jet zoomed over the landscape, hurtling towards home. Jack wracked his brain for something intelligent to say. He had the barest of vague senses about what Ana was like; that would have to change quickly if they were to be working together.

"So. What do you want to talk about?" 'Augh, God that was so lame!' Jack thought angrily to himself. Ana turned away from the window and shrugged.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. Jack wracked his brain again.

"Your parents." Ana blew a puff of air through her mouth and her brows knit together in thought.

"My mother. Her name is Valerie. She got pregnant when she was 19. She wasn't married to my Dad, but I think they were engaged, or at least planning on getting married. But when she told him, he left her. He just broke it off, just like that." Ana snapped her fingers. Jack nodded, glad to be able to listen, though somwhat surprised at how fast Ana had launched into it.

"I remember her telling me about how she told her parents. Her parents were divorced. She told Amma first."

"Amma? What's an Amma?"

"It's Icelandic for grandmother. I've called her Amma my whole life. Half the family on my mother's side is from Iceland." Ana explained.

"Mom told Amma she was pregnant. Amma was happy and excited."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Her mother was happy she was pregnant?"

"You'd understand if you met my family. Icelanders view things a lot differently than Americans. And Amma loves kids. She's been everyone's grandma. When Mom was growing up, Amma's house was kind of like a shelter for kids. If you had a fight with your parents, you went to Dee and Don.(1) If you had no place to live, you could at least crash at Amma's. Mom used to have all her friends stay over at the same time. Girls AND boys."

"Wow." Jack said.

"They're family people. They take in strays. The only real rules were to be home by dark, no alcohol, no sex, and if you smoked, you smoked outside. That's why everyone loved Amma. She's fun and understanding."

"Sounds cool. Big house?"

"Kinda. It seemed bigger when I was small. Amma told me that there were times when Afi would come home from work and have to tip-toe around sleeping bags in almost every room of the house. There were a lot of kids."

"Yikes," Jack muttered. He could feel the awkwardness wearing away.

"So yeah. Mom told Amma, Amma was happy, they started to prepare list and blah, blah, blah, all that junk. Mom sent a letter to her Dad instead of telling him face-to-face. She was terrified of how he'd react."

"And?"

"He was a little offended that she'd sent a letter instead of calling him, but he was fine."

"Huh. Neat grandparents."

"Yeah. So Anyway, Mom had me when she was 20. Her birthday is October 18th. Mine is December 8th, 1993."

"1993?" Jack did a quick calculation in his head. "That would mean you're 11!"

"It's 2004 here. In my world, it's 2011. I'm 7 years ahead."

"How do you know what year it is?" Jack asked.

"I remember some stuff from the show, is all."

"Huh" was all Jack said in response.

"So anyway, I'm 17 going on 18 in December."

"Damn. I'm 16." Jack stated. "I was born in May."

"What month is it now?" Ana asked.

"June."

"Damn." Ana muttered. "Oh well, I should be used to it. I'm always older than everyone. Friends, boyfriends, siblings—"

"I remember you saying something about siblings before." Jack interrupted. "How many do you have?"

"Six." Jack turned to Ana wide-eyed. "Six?" he asked. "How does that worked out?"

"After I was born, Mom was single for a while. Then she got married to a man named Kurt. He eventually got her preggers. Around the same time, my Dad got some chick named Christy preggers, too."

"Please don't call it that. It's disturbing." Jack intervened.

"I'll call it whatever I damn well please." Ana said. Then she continued on without stopping, "Christy had my brother Dakota on April 1st. Then Mom had my stupid brother Dustin," she hissed the name. "On June 13th. Couple years later, Mom divorces Kurt. She lived with Amma for a while, then started dating Rob. Eventually they got married, so Rob is my step-dad. Dad got with Gina. Gina already had two kids of her own, from previous marriages. My sister Alexis and my brother Landon."

"Don't you mean 'step'?" Jack asked. Ana shook her head.

"I consider them my real family. They're my real siblings to me." Jack nodded his head in understanding. But not really.

"Even before they got married, Dad and Gina had my little brother Christopher. After that, they had my youngest sister Bethany. When they finally got married, Dakota, Alexis, Landon, Christopher, Bethany, and I all participated in their wedding. Chris was the ring-bearer, Landon and Dakota were best men I think, and we girls were all flower girls. I sang a few songs at their weddings, because back then that was what I thought I was gonna be; a singer. For me, the order of my siblings goes me, Dakota, Dustin, Alexis, Landon, Christopher, and Bethany."

Ana sighed. "Things are different now. I didn't have to live in fear of my life. I had to live in fear of not making it in the big bad world. It's a real change from how it was back then…"

"Sounds like a long story." Jack said. Ana nodded. "It is," she said.

"So tell us the short version," Wuya prompted.

"I can't." Ana was silent for a time, collecting her thoughts.

"My childhood was a disaster. I was completely and utterly miserable. I was a little girl, I didn't understand why the world had to be so cruel and mean to me. It seemed like everyone hated me. My step-dad was really strict. He was harsh and callous and mean. He hated me and my brother, but he hated me the most. I always thought that my Mother would eventually see the truth and take us away from the cruel man in our house. She said she divorced Kurt because he was abusive and he beat us, but I have no memories of this. I remember always being happy with the only older sister I ever had. Her name was Brittany, but she hasn't been a part of my family for a long time. I was too young to remember much from that other house we lived in. All I had were the terrible memories from the current man living with us in our new house.

"Whenever Mom was gone, at work or hanging out with her girlfriends, we were stuck at home with him. We were always terrified. Every time he walked past us, we flinched. He yelled at us and hit us and threw us around and forced us to work. We were in elementary school and I didn't even feel safe there, away from home.

"I don't know how it was for Dustin. All I knew was my own misery. I was beaten and bullied at school. I was mentally tortured. No one liked me. Everyone hated me. By third grade, all the teachers had an idea about who I was. I could be found in the girl's bathroom everyday, crying and hiding from everyone else. By fourth grade, I hated all counselors, because the one at the elementary school did absolutely nothing to help me. He was useless. I had been in depression for a while, but I didn't know back then. School was hell for me; it's no wonder I was failing. No one had ever taken the time to explain things for me; I was just thrown in and expected to know what to do already."

Ana sighed. "My childhood wasn't happy at all. Things didn't start looking up until I was held back in 7th grade. Once out of that particular group of peers and stuck in with a nicer generation, I picked up friends and allies, my grades stared rising, my depression wasn't as bad… But things were still terrible at home.

"The rest of this story can be condensed and shortened. Basically, my Mother was a bitch. No one wanted me or my problems, except for a few select adults and peers. But even in recent times, things haven't been so well. I haven't slipped back into my depression for a long time, or thought about suicide. I realized just how stupid and superficial, cold and corrupted, and cruel the real world is. My father did drugs and drank alcohol. He'd spent lots of time in jail, gotten into fights with Gina in front of the kids constantly. He and Gina were in the middle of a divorce when my Daddy committed suicide."

Jack shook a little. Ana's voice had taken on a sad and mournful tone. Her story was bitter, but Ana spoke with resignation to her past. Jack couldn't understand how someone with such miserable memories could be so happy. Then again, he had allowed her to get away from that world...

"I couldn't trust my friends. As we got older, a lot of them fell prey to the real world. The group fell apart. I used to have two trusted best friends, but one turned into a selfish slutty bitch with no regard for other people or her self-dignity. The other doesn't really know how to control her heart. She dated two of my ex-boyfriends directly after I broke up with them, and managed to lure one of them away from me while I was still dating him. But I can't drop her because we're like sisters and I love her.

"And finally, I felt trapped in my life. I felt like it was speeding away from me and yet going nowhere. It used to be as if everything was just taking it's time and going really slow. Then everything sped up, like someone was holding down the fast forward button. I felt like I was suffocating and I couldn't stand it. So I took possibly the best and only way out: your portal. When I say that you saved me, I mean it; You saved my life. You saved me."

Jack blushed at Ana's heartfelt words. He'd never felt very important, but Ana was doing a good job of changing that.

Jack saw the mansion coming up and he began their descent.

"Ooo, we're home!" Ana chirped enthusiastically. Jack stared at her. Her mood had changed really fast!

When they landed and were in the bunker, Ana and Jack removed all the bags from the back and together they trekked upstairs. Jack dumped the bags on Ana's bed and went to leave the room.

"I'll be downstairs if you need me. You got that JackBot; it can show where to go if you get lost, okay?" Jack said.

"Yep." Jack went downstairs.

Ana started going through the bags of putting stuff away. She hung them up slowly, removing her original clothes from the front of the closet and moving them to the side.

When she was done, she found herself at a loss for what to do.

"This is kinda awkward," Ana mused aloud. A cynical voice inside her head spoke up. 'So do something. Set out clothes, go eat, explore, do something! It gets boring when you just sit around and do nothing. Start making plans. Go see Jack. I'm sure he'll have something to do. And you'll need to practice, too. Do you honestly thing you'll be able to go up against the monks?'

Ana rolled her eyes and took down the black dress-like cami shirt from her closet. She tossed it on her bed and set about looking for a pair of shorts. When she found a pair, she held them up.

They were black and they looked comfortable to wear. The fabric was soft, but not thin and frail like some of the other pairs. They weren't as short as her jean shorts and they were stretchy, without being skintight, but were looser at the ends.

She took both articles of clothing of their hangers and draped them across the back of the armchair in the corner of her room. Then she left the room to wander the halls. If she was going to be living here, it would be best to know where everything was.

She realized she was being followed shortly after she had found her way into the second floor entertainment area. She turned.

Her JackBot floated a few feet behind her. Ana jumped and almost shrieked before she realized what it was.

"Oh, it's just you," Ana said, put a hand to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding. She didn't like sudden scares like that. "Do you have a name?" she asked the robot.

"I am called JB-0127" it answered. Ana put her finger on her chin and propped up the arm with the other.

"JB-0127, I need you to escort me to the kitchen. I believe I am hungry and you need a new name."

The automaton gave an affirmative and did as it was asked.

When Ana got to the kitchen, she stood in awe of how big it was. 'This is Mom and Rob's dream kitchen!' she thought excitedly. She rooted around in the fridge and in the surrounding cabinets and cupboards until she had managed to scrape together some ingredients for a decent meal. Mainly, hotdogs and Mac-'n-Cheese. After her quick meal, Ana set up another meal and found a tray.

"Are there any other JackBots lurking around here?" she called. Two floating robots appeared from around the corner. "Ah! Good. Please take this to Jack and tell him I said he has to eat. Okay?" She handed it off the one of the robots and watched him leave. She turned to JB-0127.

"Alright, mister. Time to get you a new name. She sat at the kitchen island and pulled out the little name book. After debating in her head for a while she addressed the automaton once again.

"Alright. JB-0127, I want you to negate your name. From now on, your full name is Roger Ambrose Alistair. I'll call you Roger most of the time. Got it?" The android nodded.

"Yes, Miss Ana." it said.

"Alright, now that's taken care of. I noticed that Jack doesn't keep a lot of healthy foods around. There's plenty of stuff for baking, but most of it is junk food. Is that all that Jack eats?"

"Master Jack mostly feeds on snacks. Chips, pretzels, fries, pudding, cookies, that sort of thing. He eats PB&J sandwiches every now and again as well." Roger answered. Ana thought on this.

In her old home, her parents always wrote up a menu for the week so they could plan ahead for what to buy at the store. She had learned to cook using a myriad of different foods, mostly without recipes. Though, she was more comfortable having written instructions to go by. All her life, Ana had eaten healthy foods and she was strong. 'Maybe I can get Jack strong too, if I just feed him the right stuff.'

"How does Jack usually get food stuffs here?"

"He or his Mother places an order over the phone and they have it sent here overnight."

"Is his mother home often enough to have any influence over what Jack eats?"

"No. Both Mr. and Mrs. Spicer work away from home. Mrs. Spicer visits about once every other week, to make sure Jack is okay."

"And I already know that Jack's Dad is an archeologist and almost never comes home."

"Mr. Spicer visits every 6 months and stays for about 2 weeks."

"When does he come home next?" Ana asked, curious.

"Sometime in December. He visited last month, and a couple weeks after he left Jack received a gift from the dig."

"Wuya's puzzle box. Alright, I think I've heard enough. Roger, be a darling and get me some paper and a pencil, please." The android produced the items requested and Ana began writing. When she was done, she handed to note to Roger.

"Order everything written on that list. Have it here and put away by tomorrow morning, got it?"

"Yes, Miss Ana. Right away." Then android went away, presumably to make the call to order.

Ana watched it as it left. She went back upstairs to her room and stripped before pulling on an old oversized Whirlpool T-shirt she'd had since second grade and a pair of tacky pink shorts. Barefoot and sufficiently ready for bed, Ana opened her blinds so that she'd wake up with the sun. But she wasn't quite ready.

She ventured downstairs and found the basement door.

Jack was in the basement, cleaning up his mess of plans from the portal. He had already eaten the food that Ana had sent down to him, and his stomach felt full and content. He heard the soft padding of bare feet hitting the steps at the front of the lair.

"Is that you Ana?" he called without turning.

"Yeah, it's me." She answered. Jack turned and did a double take. Why was she dressed like that?

"I'm going to bed, Jack. Did you eat the food?"

"Uh, yeah." Jack said, finding his voice. He tried not to stare but failed.

"It's 11. You should probably go to bed too. Just in case we have to go Wu hunting early tomorrow."

"Okay. Is that all you're wearing?" Jack asked, pointing. It looked as if she was wearing just an over-size shirt.

"What, this? I always sleep in a shirt and shorts." She lifted the edge of the shirt to reveal pink shorts underneath.

"Ah. Okay. I'll get ready in a few minutes; I gotta finish cleaning up. Go back upstairs. I'm sleeping down here tonight."

Ana paused. "Wait, you really sleep down here? I thought the show was exaggerating."

"I have a room upstairs too, but I figure it's useless since I spend all my time down here."

"Okay then. Suit yourself. G'night Jack, Wuya." Ana said, turning. Jack answered with the same call.

Ana climbed into bed, sighing. Hopefully, she thought, the food stuffs would be there in the morning. She planned on cooking breakfast for a change, instead of heating a bagel. She smiled in anticipation. And with her mind beginning to diffuse into tired, jumbled, little pieces, scattering like leaves in the winds, Ana pulled the blankets up high and settled in to sleep.

She didn't remember her dreams.

Awesome. A relatively shorter chapter, but you see now why I had to to split these two chapters. Not many numbers below: