The figure before him shifted slightly; Tommy craned his neck just a little bit more, finally able to glimpse his captor's face. "Trini?" he blurted, disbelieving. The voice had sounded familiar, but Trini was supposed to be participating in a student exchange program somewhere in Europe right now. Or so he had thought.

Her eyes went wide for a moment before she could regain her composure, the only sign that he had surprised her at all. "How do you know my name?" she demanded, her tone uncharacteristically harsh. "Are you a spy? I'll let you die quickly if you tell me the truth."

"I'm not a spy!" he protested frantically. "Do I look like a spy? Trini, what's going on here? Is this some kind of game?"

"How do you know my name?" she reiterated, raising her voice slightly in emphasis.

"What do you mean? Don't you remember me?"

The hard look in her eyes told him that no, she did not.

Of all the ways he had ever thought he might die – being hit by a car, falling to his death in some sort of freak skydiving accident, being blown up in the middle of a battle against aliens bent on destroying the Earth – being shot in the face by Trini was not a possibility that he had ever seriously considered. She had always been the one person he could count on to be calm and rational, no matter what was going on. Not so much, now.

When she made no move to point that weapon of hers away from him, panic started to set in. If Trini wanted to kill him, really wanted to kill him, he was dead meat. And he suddenly had no doubt that she would not hesitate to end his life if he didn't think fast. "Look," he said, trying to come up with something on the fly. "I must be mistaken. You're obviously not the Trini I know. This is all just some sort of misunderstanding. There's no need for violence."

That seemed to reach her... for all of a second.

"Why should I believe you?"

"I'm not armed," he pointed out. "And until a few seconds ago, I was unconscious. And I have no idea where on earth I am." As he spoke, he realized that he really didn't know where he was, nor how he had ended up there in the first place. The last thing he remembered was... pain shot through his head as soon as he tried to dredge up concrete details from before the last few minutes. He almost wished she would just shoot him already and get it over with.

"You are not a slaver, then?" she asked, finally relaxing enough to lower the gun.

"Slaves? What are you talking about?"

Her weapon went right back to where it had started, pointing right at his face. "Which of the raider lords pays you to spy for him?"

"None of them," he said with a sigh, glad he hadn't got his hopes up. There was absolutely no way this conversation was going to end well. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

She scowled mercilessly.

"I'm telling the truth!" he insisted. "You have to believe me!"

She glanced around quickly, obviously looking for some sort of proof that he wasn't what he said. Well, he thought, at least she wouldn't find anything like that. At least, he hoped she wouldn't.

"How did you get here?" she asked after a moment. Her tone was softer than it had been a minute ago; maybe that was a good sign. "And why are you dressed so strangely?"

"I haven't the foggiest," he answered honestly, wishing that she would point that gun away from him and keep it that way.

"The only footprints here are mine," she observed. She looked seriously confused, even a little bit scared. "So you can't have walked here. And if there had been an airship or a glider, I'd have seen it. Or heard reports of it."

"I don't remember an airship," he pointed out helpfully, though the casual mention made him curious. Why not just say 'plane'? It was pretty obvious that he had no parachute or other landing gear. "Actually, I don't remember much of anything from before you woke me up."

"You knew me."

"I, uh, I used to know someone that resembled you."

"And just happened to have my name."

"Look, I can't explain it, okay? But yes, I knew a girl named Trini and she looked an awful lot like you." He looked at her hard, trying to find any definitive physical differences between this Trini and the one he knew... and failing miserably. As far as he could tell, and despite her insistence to the contrary, this was Trini. The Trini he knew was a lot less mean, though.

"You can't expect me to just believe that this is all a big coincidence," she said.

"But it is!"

"You are the worst spy I have ever met."

"That's because I'm not a spy!"

It seemed like it might finally be sinking in. "I almost believe you."

He groaned and let his eyes drift shut, wishing that she would either get this over with or at least give him a chance to get up and fight.

But it seemed luck was with him today, kind of. If he ignored the fact that he had woken up in the middle of a desert with no idea where he was, staring down the muzzle of a gun.

"I don't know if you're telling me the truth, but I can't just leave you out here to stir up more trouble. If I let you up, will you cooperate?"

He nodded slowly, hardly believing the sudden change of heart.

"I sent a signal as soon as I saw you. My partner will be along any moment now. If you try anything funny, you'll just be caught again," she warned. "And my partner won't be nearly as gentle as me."

"Got it," he assured her. He had no intention of failing to cooperate with her, not when it looked like she would be all too happy to blow his brains out at the slightest provocation. And especially not when she called this 'gentle'.

"Good. Then get up and start walking. We've got a lot of ground to cover before nightfall, and she," he got the impression that she meant the partner she had mentioned earlier, "won't be pleased if we're late getting to the designated campsite."

He was so relieved that he didn't even complain when she insisted on tying his hands and leading him like a prisoner. "You're not going to kill me then?"

She smiled grimly. "Not yet."