Little Lost Girl
by Aris Merquoni

Gargoyles and all related characters belong to Disney/Buena Vista. Not to
me. Emilie Vaughnan, on the other hand, *does* belong to me.

I'd like to thank... oh, Goddess, everyone I've thanked before, again. I'd
also like to thank the entire slam poetry community for existing, M. Pena
for sculpting really cool dragons, Turtledove for writing that really
good alternate universe stuff(you evil bastard, you killed Jager between
books instead of giving him a glorious funeral pyre, that man was a saint
you grumblemutterbastardmuttercurseevilmuttergrumble... too good, damn you)
... *ahem* ... I'd also like to thank Pete Abrams for creating Sluggy,
Captain Tractor for being one of the coolest bands in existence, Great Big
Sea for being one of the coolest bands in existance, The Waybacks for being
one of the coolest bands in existance, Alan Parsons for having made the Alan
Parsons Project, Cutex for making that great nail-polish-remover gel stuff,
SoBe for having such cool glass bottles, Pepsi for making Diet Pepsi, Whole
Foods for carrying zinc lozenges, Trader Joe's for carrying spanakopita...

...you know what I mean. I love the universe.

--------

o/~ From the bridge she hears the voices
Turn into a roar
Oh, life, she cries
There must be more
On the dock her soul is sinking
Though her spirit longs to soar
Oh, life, she cries
There must be more... o/~

     -- _Oh, Life_, Alan Parsons

--------

Maria Chavez looked up from the file folder as the door opened. "Good," she
said as the detectives walked in, "you're on time. Sit down."

Elisa Maza and Matt Bluestone traded a glance, then took the chairs across
the desk. "You had something for us, Captain?" Elisa said.

"Yes," she said. She shut the manila folder and handed it across the desk.
Matt grabbed it before Elisa could move and opened it. Then he whistled.

"What is it?" Elisa said.

"Her name is Emilie Vaughnan. She's an award-winning biochemist. She's 
also missing."

"She's also a world-class babe," Matt said, handing the file to Elisa. He
left the folder open, his eyes riveted to the picture.

Emily had dark blue eyes with a piercing gaze that the photographer had
managed to capture. Her features were classically flawless, with a straight
nose, heart-shaped face and delicate cheekbones. Her black hair lay in
waves that framed her face. Despite her professional dress and demeanor,
she could easily have captured any heart merely by smiling.

Matt jerked his eyes from Vaughnan's face to her records, and was just as
stunned. "Uh... wow," he said when he'd finished reading the list of PhD's
and other acronyms. "Bright. And she's *how* old?"

"Twenty-five," Chavez informed him. "She was working for a company in town
called 'Gen-U-Tech' when she vanished. She's been gone long enough to get
some prospective employers nervous. And you two are going to find her."

--

"I don't like this," Elisa said as they drove to Dr. Vaughnan's apartment.
"I mean, Chavez took us both off the Gargoyles Task Force to work on this."

"Well, we do our best work together," Matt said, distracted.

Elisa frowned. "You're still thinking about her picture, aren't you."

Matt jerked awake and turned to look at her. "What?"

Elisa shook her head. "Never mind. I don't see the big issue."

"Elisa, she's... she..."

"She's a pretty face. Men."

Matt shook his head and went back to staring out the window. "It's not just
that. There's something about her eyes..." Slowly, he realized that Elisa
didn't care. "Never mind."

She snorted. "You're infatuated."

"Am not. Besides, it's a job. Professional."

Elisa rolled her eyes and pulled into the parking lot. "All right. Here we
are. Hope the manager didn't throw her stuff out."

"It has been a while," Matt agreed.

--

"Of course I didn't throw her stuff out," the manager said as he opened the
door. "She's paid up for another month."

Matt looked over the apartment as Elisa asked the manager questions. It was
clean almost to the point of sterility, with only a few books piled on the
nightstand giving any indication that someone actually lived there. Matt
picked one up and smirked. "Lucifer's Hammer, by Niven and Pournelle."

Elisa shot him a glance. He shrugged and moved to the next book in the
stack, a Clancy novel. Idly opening it and thumbing through the pages, he
noticed several notes scrawled in the margins in a tidy cursive hand. Most
of them seemed to start with "Redneck."

He put the book back in the stack and reached for the cabinet over the head
of the bed. The sliding panel was unlocked, so he pushed it open and
regarded the row of unlabeled books on the single shelf.

"Shouldn't you be using gloves?" came his partner's sardonic voice behind him.

Matt sighed. "Look. It's too clean around here for her to have been
kidnapped out of here. And if someone was good enough to straighten the
place up, they'd be good enough to wipe fingerprints, too." He pulled a
book out from the middle of the stack and flipped it open. "Hunh. Here are
her diaries."

"Great. Maybe they'll tell us why the hell she was working for Gen-U-Tech."
Elisa looked around the empty rooms. "I'll do a look-through, but I don't
think we'll find anything here."

Matt already had his nose in the first book. "Sure thing."

--

The box full of Emilie Vaughnan's diaries made a satisfyingly large thud on
Matt's floor as he dropped it next to his already-overflowing box of books.
Kicking aside a well-thumbed copy of Schrodinger's Cat, he sat down on his
bed and pulled out the first of the diaries.

"Get me for removing evidence later," he said as he switched on his reading
light and opened the book.

November 17, 1986
	Well, for my sweet 16th, my parents decided to give me a diary. Wonderful.
I wish they'd give me a ticket out of this hellhole instead.
	Calm down. Keep your professional demeanor.
	That's what they always tell me. Keep cool. Stay cool. Just keep your
cool, don't have a cow - oh, I hate it! I just wish sometimes that the
limits of justifiable homicide could be stretched.

Matt looked up and whistled. Not exactly the happy little homemaker, Emilie...

	I guess I'm just mad because it happened again at school today. The boys,
I mean. Just because I skipped a grade, all these stupid jerks think that...
	Check that. I don't know what they think. That I'm some sort of trophy? I
don't know. Ever since Bill Wiever, I'm not looking at any of them. Captain
of the Football team, outstanding citizen, yeah right.	
	I don't want to be any of that. I don't want to be any of *them*. I don't
want to be popular.
	Oh, yeah. Me. Aren't you always supposed to tell something about yourself
when you write in a diary?
	Well, okay. My name's Emilie Vaughnan and I just turned 16. I live in a
tiny pidgeonhole of a place in northern New York. I go to the lousiest high
school in the States, where I have to deal with guys who think that
anything with a skirt will leap into their arms. As soon as I can, I'm
going to leave for the city and get into university. I like science and
math and all those unfashionable things.
	I was raped by the captain of the football team when I was fifteen.

Matt put down the diary again and shook his head. What kind of place was
Emilie from?

What kind of person was he dealing with? He was starting to get the
impression that the black-haired bewitching bombshell he'd seen on the
report and this girl were Jekyll and Hyde sides of a personality.

He had to mentally hit himself, then. He was judging this woman on her
photograph, her reading pile, and six paragraphs in her diary. What was
wrong with him?

	... the authorities didn't do anything about it because one, I'd
technically said yes, and two, his dad's high up in City Council.
Upstanding citizenship and all that. I could throw up. Hell, I *did* throw
up. I'm just glad nothing else happened...

Matt kept reading.

April 8th, 1987
	Well, I got accepted to NYU. I'm already packed, and I'm leaving in an
hour... Sure, it's not reg. I'm just gonna dive in and take their summer
courses.

May 23, 1987
	I really, really like this place. The curriculum looks fascinating, and
the professors are nice enough. Even though some are a little biased
against me because of my age. At least, I think it's my age...

June 1, 1987
	I really, really, really hate men. I'm starting to think I'm a lesbian.

"That'd be a shame," Matt muttered to himself.

	I don't understand why all the guys I seem to meet are interested in one
thing - sex. With me, for some reason. I just want to curl up and hide in
my room. I want to do research, not go rampaging about the bedroom with a
guy I hardly know!
	I'm taking on some extra courses. Maybe having more work will keep my
roomie from begging me to go out with her...

May 14, 1990
	Well, I'm graduating. Can't say I'm too sad about it, because I get to
skip around and do grad work. I've managed to test out of a ridiculous
number of classes, though.
	The fencing classes are going well. I don't know if I'll ever get good,
especially if my instructors keep holding back on me...

Eyes closing, Matt finally drifted off to sleep.

--

A few nights later, Elisa glanced up from a sheaf of papers as Matt
stumbled in. "Good evening. I was starting to think you wouldn't show."

"Yeah, yeah. Find anything interesting in Vaughnan's other stuff?"

"Not really," Elisa said. "She was indeed working for Gen-U-Tech. I've got
paycheck records all up to the end of August last year. However, I found
nothing to indicate what she was working on."

Matt shook his head. "Somehow, I don't think Xanatos would put an
award-winning biochemist in his accounting department."

"Exactly." Elisa stood and threw on her jacket. "I think we should take the
time to go ask him. Don't you?"

--

"What do you mean you don't *know* who was working under Sevarius?"

Xanatos spread his hands and looked up at the group assembled in his
office. Two gargoyles and two slightly miffed detectives made the room only
slightly crowded. "I didn't have direct control of the project. If you
recall, I didn't even know he'd already started testing on human subjects."

"'Already'?" Brooklyn asked, crossing his arms over his chest belligerently.

Xanatos shrugged. "It's no secret that I had assumed the mutagen would be
used. I expected the recipients to be volunteers, with an antidote on
hand." He tapped his fingers together. "By the way, if you *do* find her..."

"Did he keep personnel rosters?" Elisa said, cutting him off.

David frowned. "Likely. He probably also kept detailed background records
on all of them." He looked behind the assembled and raised his voice.
"Owen, do we have Sevarius' files from Gen-U-Tech and his little project?"

"Of course," Owen said. Goliath, Brooklyn, and Elisa whirled to face him.
Matt just rolled his eyes.

"Don't *do* that!" Brooklyn exclaimed.

Owen adjusted his glasses. "Of course. Sir, I'll have the files you need
copied to your computer right away."

"Can we have a copy of those to go over at the station?" Matt asked.

"I'll make you one immediately, detective. Sir." Owen nodded and took his
leave.

Brooklyn scratched his head. "Damn. Even though I know who he is, he still
gives me the creeps."

Xanatos had booted up his computer in the meantime. "Hmm. Well, yes, it
seems your Dr. Vaughnan was working for Sevarius... labwork, of course. And
she was highly involved in the mutate project." He looked up at them. "Owen
will send you a copy of this, but would you like a hard copy now?"

"Yes," Matt said, "And of the comments." Elisa gave him a glance, and he
shrugged.

"Right." The printer on his desk whirred, and he handed Matt a thick stack
of sizzling paper. Matt tapped the lasered sheets into a slightly more
square stack, folded them over, and shoved them in an inside pocket of his
trenchcoat. "If there's anything else I can do for you, detectives, all you
need to do is ask."

"Yeah. Thanks," Elisa said, a trace of bitterness in her voice. Matt just
nodded, very carefully giving Xanatos a gesture for 'debts owed'. No sense
in irritating a lot of people because of bad manners, after all.

Xanatos smirked and twitched his fingers in return. 'Don't worry about it.'

'Thanks'. Matt turned and followed his partner out the door.

--

"'Dr. Vaughnan is an excellent worker, displaying talents above the
mediocrity I have come to expect from the other scientists I have working
below me on the project. A competent enough biochemist, she follows orders
well enough, with enough creativity to produce results and not enough to
jeopardize my aims.'" Matt looked over the top of the printout. "Gee, I'm
beginning to see why you don't like the guy."

Elisa snorted. "Keep reading."

"'Her work on the mutagen has been precise. Absent are the comments about
ethics which caused the unfortunate removal of Dr. Laubren. I can only
assume that Dr. Vaughnan has been well-trained enough to realize that
ethics and morals can only get in the way of pure research, or has presence
of mind enough to keep quiet. Either way, she is a pleasure to work with
and a delightful find.'"

"That's all he says?"

"Well, it's a start. Maybe we should ask some of the mutates if they know
anything about her."

Elisa shrugged. "It's a long shot, but it's something. Have you looked
through her recent diary entries?"

"I tried. She coded it. It'll take a while to break."

"Damn."

"I'll just keep working forward. There might be a key to the code in there."

"All right. You look through those and the printouts tomorrow, and I'll go
talk with Derek. Okay?"

"Sure thing."

--

	Twenty-three, and I have my first PhD. Halfway to my next one. My profs
are worried that I'm pressing myself too hard, and I'm sure I am. But
studies seem to be preferable to work. I don't know why I thought I could
trust Dr. Sheffield, but I did, and I'll probably be regretting *that*
mistake for the rest of my life.
	I could use a boss who's more interested in my brains than my ass.

Matt reluctantly put down the diary and picked up Sevarius' reports again.
His partner had planned well, leaving him to field Chavez' questions while
she got to visit her brother. Sly of her.

He read through Sevarius' day-to-day reports on the processing of the
mutagen until he couldn't take it any longer, then picked up the diary
again. He flipped to the end of '94, then picked up the most recent volume.

The last six entries or so were in some sort of code, but there were a
number at the beginning that were legible. He picked one at random and
struck gold.

	August 10, 1995
	Started working today. I was assigned to work under an award-winning
geneticist named Anton Sevarius. I swear, the man is a genius.

"A lot of things I'd call him besides that," Matt muttered.

	I've never had the occasion to work on a project like this, and it's
exciting. This isn't the staid routine I was going through in school, and
it isn't the dry formula work I was doing as an intern. This is new,
brilliant work in a field that's only now being explored, and Dr. Sevarius
is ahead of the pack. I'm not allowed to disclose what we're working on,

"I'll just bet you're not," Matt said as he flipped the page.

	But it's astounding work in gene reconstruction and splicing. Even from
what little I've been able to do today, I'm excited.
	And he didn't even *try* to look at my breasts. I'm amazed.

Matt flipped ahead a few pages to the end of the week.

	It's amazing. The work is challenging. I feel like I'm finally being
pushed to my limits, and beyond them.
	Sevarius is a perfect gentleman. That, or he's so preoccupied with what
we're working on that he doesn't notice me. It's damned refreshing. I feel
really safe working here. Maybe that's why I've put in so many extra
hours... speaking of which, I'm going in early tomorrow, and it's late.

The handwriting trailed off, but Matt had seen enough. Closing the book, he
sat back and thought.

Elisa thought that Sevarius had used the mutagen on Vaughnan. It was a good
enough explanation. It would explain why she'd vanished. Of course, it
almost certainly eliminated the possibility of ever closing the case.

But somehow... Matt looked at the diary on his desk. Somehow, it didn't
seem to fit. Why would Sevarius use the mutagen on a doctor so fanatically
loyal to him? And if he didn't... what had happened to her?

Maybe it was completely unrelated to her work. But it was the only lead
they had- the apartment was, like he said, too clean. And the woman did
nothing outside of work.

Matt shook his head. Maybe it was just a fluke, and Emily Vaughnan had just
been picked up by a rapist on the way to the office. Maybe they were just
barking up the wrong tree.

"Find anything interesting?"

Matt looked up to see his partner lean on his desk, moving some of the
stacks of paper out of the way. "Well, she liked Sevarius."

Elisa snorted and shook her head. "I didn't think that was possible."

"Yeah. What did you learn?"

"Well, they remember her. Everyone except Derek, of course." At Matt's
affirmative nod, she continued, "And they say she disappeared shortly after
the mutagen was used on them. But they don't think Sevarius would have used
her as a test subject."

"I came to the same conclusion myself." Matt sighed and stood up,
stretching. "I'm gonna hit the men's room. There's some interesting stuff
in her last diary before she garbles it, if you're so inclined."

"Sure, sure." Elisa traded places with him, and he caught a glimpse of her
burying her head in Sevarius' reports as he pushed down the hall.

Coming out of the restroom, Matt lingered in the hallway awhile in thought.
For some reason, he was *sure* that Emilie's disappearance had something to
do with the mutagen. But he couldn't figure out how. Or why.

He got out just as the graveyard shift started to file in. He picked up a
couple of the diaries and nodded to his partner. "Time to head out?"

"Yeah." Elisa stood up and picked up her jacket. "I'm tempted to ask Chavez
for a couple nights of walking a beat, just to get a break from this."

"What for?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "I
mean, this..."

Elisa gave him a look. "You're still thinking about that picture," she said
in a 'ha ha, only serious' tone of voice. "I'm going to take some
well-deserved rest. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Matt frowned, then looked down at the diaries in his hand. "Sure we will,
partner," he said softly as he shoved them in his pocket. "Sure we will."

--

	August 19, 1995
	I had that dream again where I'm making love to Dr. Sevarius on the lab
tables. I don't know whether to be disgusted or worried. I'm not attracted
to him, and thank God he's not attracted to me, either.
	I can't stand New York. I got whistled at about six times just on the way
to work. I can't afford a car, not until I pay off some debts, and I can't
take a taxi after what happened last time.
	I want...
	I want somebody to protect me, suddenly. But nobody who'll demand
anything. God, I don't want demands. I don't want to have to trade anything
for security, ever again.
	I want to be able to protect myself.

Matt tossed the diary on the bed and resumed pacing. The sun was starting
to peek through the windows, giving him serious doubts as to his sanity. It
was laaaaaate, and he was tired. But he couldn't get the case off his mind.
He couldn't get *her* off his mind.

Emilie Vaughnan hadn't disappeared for no reason. She knew how to defend
herself. Something had happened to her.

In sudden annoyance, he flipped on the radio. Out of habit, he had it on
the local college station. "... one from our friends north of the border,
_The Rose Bowl Song_ by a group called Captain Tractor. Love those crazy
Canadians." Music started, a series of mournful guitar chords that picked
up a drum accompaniment and a singer after a few seconds.

Matt let the music run in the background as he stared out the window. What
could possibly have happened...

And then, suddenly, it hit him. So simple and perfectly reasonable an
explanation that he wondered why it had waited until seven A.M. to hit him
in the back of the head. Heart thudding in sudden excitement, he reached
for his phone to call up Elisa right away...

And paused. It was seven in the morning. Elisa was either asleep or trying
to get that way. She wouldn't appreciate her partner calling her up and
rambling about the case, even if he did have a theory on solving it.

Reluctantly turning from the phone, Matt considered his options. He could,
of course, do the sensible thing and get some sleep. In all probability, a
few more hours wouldn't make any difference, and he could confer with his
partner before doing anything rash.

Matt looked at his bed for a fleeting second, then grabbed his trenchcoat
and headed out to his car.

--

Parking spaces were a lot harder to find at the station than they were at
night, but Matt managed to find one of the elusive beasts and trap it under
his wheels. He nearly ran over Morgan in his haste to get up the stairs.

"Hey, Bluestone! What are you doing down here in daylight?"

Matt gave him a grimace and a headshake. "Checking up on something. Insomnia."

Morgan laughed. "Sure, sure. See you later."

Matt met no further resistance as he pushed through the halls, ignoring the
scents of stale coffee, free doughnuts, and random illegal substances being
confiscated and-or traded. Slipping out of the way, he found the hallway he
was looking for, and opened the door on the right.

While most of the station had been fixed up since the bombing, the clock
tower itself still needed major renovation. Matt pulled down the
overhanging ladder in the closet to a shower of dust and gravel. Coughing,
he started climbing.

Second floor, library. The shelves were decimated, copies of the immortal
works of the English language strewn about like dead flies on the world's
largest windowsill. Matt got off the ladder and took the normal stairs up
to the top of the tower, avoiding the largest pieces of broken glass and
dangling timbers. Sunlight filtered through the smashed windows, lighting
up the dust and making the whole place look like a Michael Whelan book
jacket illustration.

The climb to the clock tower took a while. Any carpeting had been ripped
off by the sheer force of the explosion. Tacks and splinters crunched under
his boots, and as he ascended into the final few spirals, the sunlight gave
out and left him feeling his way along broken and splintered wood to find
the final trapdoor.

The trapdoor itself had been blasted open. Matt pushed the panel off the
stairs and climbed into the ruined clock innards. Gears had been
permanently tumbled out of place, and the former living space had been
completely decimated.

And yet... there were signs someone had been back. A niche, in one corner,
and a salvaged cooking stove. The straightening of some of the worst
damage, clearing away of the most dangerous clutter.

A movement, almost too faint to recognize, caught Matt's eye. He avoided
the impulse to look into the shadow where it had originated, instead turned
and walked out onto the balcony.

The balcony was relatively undamaged, except for most of the railing being
blown away or at least twisted off because of the explosion. Matt looked
out over the city, then turned back inside to the shadows. "Smog's thick
today, hmm?"

A start of movement, off to his right. He nodded. "You can come out.
Promise I won't do anything."

Hesitation. Then, smoothly, she stepped into the light.

Elisa had mentioned werepanthers. But she hadn't mentioned onyx-hued fur
broken only by startlingly deep blue eyes. All-too-human eyes, ones that
regarded him with all-too-human suspicion. And hair, that for some reason,
had turned blonde.

She was dressed in her labcoat, cinched tight around her waist, and
underneath a pair of loose blue jeans. Her wings were hidden under the
coat, but the ribbing was visible under the light fabric. Fingers tapped
impatiently on arms that looked strong enough to break one of his in two.

"Dr. Vaughnan?" he asked, keeping his voice calm. "I'm detective Matt
Bluestone. I've been assigned to find you."

"You managed," Vaughnan said in a voice that was for some reason throatier
than he'd expected. "May I ask how?"

He shrugged. "To tell you the truth, it was a lucky guess. That or
intuition. Where would be better to hide than a place nobody could live?"

"I suppose." She regarded him coldly. "What do you want?"

"I don't know, really." He shrugged. "I can't really tell my chief that I
found you, because obviously I won't be able to offer proof. I'd offer to
introduce you to the other mutates, but..."

"I already know them, and they're not too fond of me," she said sardonically.

"I could talk to Xanatos about getting you another job. Hell, he already
owes you some kind of severance pay."

She blinked at that, then chuckled. "I suppose. I never actually *did* ask
who owned Gen-U-Tech. I should have."

Matt shrugged. "I guess... I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity. I wanted
to know you were all right."

Vaughnan stared at him. "Why should you care?"

"Because... hell, I don't know. Because I thought I could understand.
Sympathize."

"With *what?*"

"With being an outcast," he said quietly. "Sure, I never had your kind of
problems. But I was completely and utterly paranoid all through school.
Thought 'They' were out to get me. Consequently, I made no friends and a
number of enemies. I managed to get thrown out of the FBI, and with nothing
on my record like being the best criminal profiler in the business, I had
no recourse but to swallow it and join the force. Sure, I don't know how it
feels to be date-raped at fifteen-"

"How the hell did you get your hands on-" she interrupted him, then sighed.
"Of course. Police evidence. Go on."

Matt shook his head. "Go on to what? I don't know what to say."

"Is that the only reason you came here?" Her eyes met his. "Just... to say
you sympathize?"

"Not really." He pointed at the mess in the tower. "They're starting
reconstruction in a little under a month. There's no way you can stay here
while that's happening."

Emilie looked back at her safe haven and sighed. "I'll find somewhere else."

"Look." Matt pulled out a piece of paper from one pocket, and a pen from
another. "Let me give you my address, and my partner's. We're both used to
weird stuff happening. If you need a place to crash..."

"Who's your partner?" Emilie asked darkly.

"Elisa Maza. She'll understand. Trust me." He glanced up. "Her brother used
to work for Xanatos, before Sevarius accidentally hit him with the mutagen.
Now he runs a homeless shelter downtown."

Emilie shook her head, but took the addresses. "Interesting. And you?"

He grinned. "Me? I'm the paranoid one. Just ask Elisa." He shook his head.
"Anyway, it's up to you. But the offer is open."

"Wait." She stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. "Why are you..."

Matt looked down into the deepest blue eyes he'd ever seen. "Because we
can't catch all the jerks and assholes in the world, as much as we'd like
to," he said. "And because... hell, I have to apologize for the Y
chromosome *some* way."

Emilie chuckled and let go of his arm. Matt gave her a grin, then headed
for the stairs down.

--

Matt woke up the next evening fuzzy and feeling wrung out. He staggered to
his feet, not seeing much beyond his retinas, and stumbled to the bathroom
for a shower.

After getting a dash of cold hard reality and hot water limitations, he
stumbled back to his bedroom, changed, and headed out to the kitchen for
some coffee, absently wiping cat hair off the sofa. Why Cagney's hair
hadn't come out after that many months he didn't know-

... wait a minute. Cagney was grey, not black.

Matt looked up from the cat hair on his fingers to see Emilie Vaughnan
curled up in one of his two chairs, a glass of water on the table in front
of her and his copy of The Illuminatus Trilogy balanced on her knees. She
was making marks in the margins with a pencil as he watched, and he had to
grin at the expression on her face as she flipped back a few pages, then
forward again.

"Elisa kick you out?" he asked.

She looked up, and gave him a fang-filled grin that was radiant in a feline
way. "We talked for a few hours. I decided to take you up on the offer.
Besides," she shrugged, "If you're not a perfect gentleman, I can
electrocute you and leave you for your landlady to find."

"This is happening all too fast." He stared at the cat hair in his hand,
then took the chair across from her. "I didn't really expect..."

"Even if you hoped..." Emilie looked up and caught the surprise on his
face. "Oh, come on. I can tell." She looked down and chuckled. "You know...
I decided to change myself because I was sick of being beautiful. I wanted
to lose the look."

"In my humble opinion, you failed miserably," Matt said in a voice that was
ringing oddly in his ears.

She met his eyes again, startled. "Come on," she said. "I didn't know you
had a fur fetish."

"Neither did I," he said ironically. "But... hell. Look, this is coming out
wrong. I only saw one picture of you, right? Everything else I know about
you is in your diaries and official reports that I read. You're sick of men
lusting after your figure? I didn't even get a glimpse until..." he glanced
at the clock, "eight hours ago."

"So you're saying you love me for my mind?" she asked dryly.

"I'm saying that you can throw me onto the couch and I'll stay there, if
you want. I'm saying that you've already become the most important thing in
my life, so giving you a place to stay, arranging you a job, whatever - I
won't regret any of it."

Emilie stared at him for a few seconds, then started chuckling. "Elisa was
right. You *are* obsessed about me."

Matt listened to her laugh, shook his head and chuckled himself. "I guess.
Hell, likely. How else can you explain the fact that I went through all
your stuff?"

Emilie kept laughing, gesturing helplessly with a free hand. "And I know
almost nothing about you."

"I'll tell you. Anything you want to know. Go through my bookshelf..." he
gestured helplessly at the book in her hand. "Well, the rest of it. Ask me
questions. Interrogate me about my past. Tie me down and torture me with an
ice pencil, I don't care."

Emilie quirked an eyebrow. "Well, that last sounds kinda interesting. A fur
fetish *and* a sub mindset?"

"Hey, I was joking!" he yelped.

She chuckled again. "All right, all right. Can we just make a deal, though?"

"Anything," he said.

"I do need a place to stay, to keep out of trouble. I'll stay here, with
you. You can have-"

"Your company, Emilie," Matt overrode her. "Anything else is your choice. I
just want to *talk* to you."

Emilie sat back and blinked at him. "You mean, you weren't tacitly asking
me for sex?"

Matt sighed. "Look. I'm not going to lie to you and say I don't want you.
But I don't want to... I'm not like that. I just want to know you better."

She stared at him, then finally said, "Really?"

"Really."

"This isn't a plot to lure me-"

"Emilie, I couldn't lure you *anywhere* you didn't want to go. You're
smarter than I am, right now you're a hell of a whole lot stronger than I
am, and you probably have better reflexes. The only real difference between
us is that I trust you, and you don't know whether or not you can trust me."

She took a deep breath. "I think..." she expelled it in a disbelieving
laugh. "I think I trust you. Matt. I can't explain it. Where the hell did
you learn respect for women?"

He laughed darkly. "When Elisa kicked my ass in unarmed combat practice.
Speaking of which, we need a good reason to drop this case. Lack of
evidence will probably do it."

"If you think that's the best." She suddenly yawned, showing off her fangs
again. "Sorry. Mrr. I don't think I actually got any sleep last night."

Matt made a gesture back at his bedroom. "Go ahead. Knock yourself out. I
need to get ready for work."

She nodded, put the book down, and stood up to stretch. He sat there with
his hands drumming on the table, shaking his head in wonder.

Emilie paused in the doorway for a moment. "Matt?"

"Yeah?" He turned around halfway to meet her eyes.

She considered him for a few moments, then whispered, "Thank you."  Then
she stepped behind the doorway and out of sight.

--------

o/~ But the past it pulls
On your dark puppet strings
And you're stuck in an opera where nobody sings
You try to fly
But your Icarus wings
Melt into nothing when you stop believing
You were always so wrong
Got lost in the hallways
But always so wrong... o/~

     -- _Icarus Wings_, Captain Tractor