One After Another

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

06/05/98:

My dreams were getting dangerous again. Not like before
though. This time I wasn't reliving memories that I never
knew I had. This time it was worse.

I was dreaming of Rhea.

She was still there, locked in the corner of my mind, away
from the rest of me. Every now and then she would rattle the
bars of her cage to get my attention.

She had presented herself to my in my dreams a dozen times
in the weeks sense I had woke up. Each time she changed a
bit more, moving from a normal lioness to a morph. In the
dream of this night she had finally become fully morphic, as
was quite clear in telling me what she wanted.

Control, she regarded my body as hers and is demanding that
I give it back to her. Nothing I can say makes her
understand that I was here first, or maybe she doesn't care.
Either way she wants it back and I'm not going to give it to
her.

Though I do wonder if she's seen how much she has changed
herself now that we are separated. When the dreams first
started she could not make any noise that wasn't normal for
a lioness, now see speaks english like a native. Expletives
and all.

Still though, I tried to push her out of my thoughts. Maybe
someday I could strike up a deal with her. Though not until
she understands that no matter the form it takes it is my
body and she's the one who's tried to take it from me.

This time though she had woke me up from my daily four hours
of sleep. Once up I didn't want to bother with trying to get
back to sleep. I was one of those people that when I got up,
I stayed up.

Going out of my room I started working my way though the new
house. I was finding that I missed having my own room, and
was now grateful to have one again. Not to mention a bed to
sleep on.

Wandering through the house I tried to see if anyone else
was home. The only person who was home was Naomi and she had
fallen asleep on her bed curled around a book.

I stopped just inside her bedroom door, leaning against the
jam to look at her. I was amazed to think that it had only
been six months sense I first saw her on that plague world.
She had grown sense then, she was now starting to look like
a twelve year old girl, at least if she was human she would
have been twelve.

It's strange, I never thought of myself as a father before
she came. Some how I never really liked the idea of having
children, adopted or not. Still though, I think that having
Newt around has helped me mature more then anything else in
my life.

I might be ready for my own children some day.

As quietly as I could I shut her door, slipping away deeper
into the house. My next stop as I wondered though the house
was a small room deep in the back, well away from were
anyone else would go.

Stepping inside the windowless room I turned on the overhead
lights. The small room was filled with stacks of boxes, a
bed, a desk and other assorted furniture. Becky's stuff from
the house. Some of it what I had packed away when I returned
back to the mutli-verse, the rest from the small room in the
cave under the old house.

Looking over the array of boxes I let out a small sigh. Some
day I needed to go through her things, sort out what I
wanted to keep of her, and do something with the rest. Not
today though, not yet, maybe not ever.

I was turning around to go back out of the room my eye was
draw to a spiral notebook that was balanced on top of one of
the boxes. I'm still not sure why, but I picked it up and
started to flip through the pages.

It had been Becky's journal, the pages were filled with
dates and notes and other things, all written in her small
and tight handwriting that I always found so hard to read.
About halfway through something fell from the pages,
fluttering to the floor.

Setting the journal aside, I wasn't really reading it
anyway, I picked up what had fallen. It was a small piece of
paper that had been torn from the journal then neatly folded
end over end.

Unfolding it I saw that was a word written on the page,
still in Becky's handwriting. She had written it large, and
it took up most of the room on the paper. 'Neverending'.

I had a sudden chill go down my spine. I wasn't sure what
the word meant, and I really didn't want to know. Somehow
though I knew this meant something, something very
important.

Taking a few shallow breaths I refolded the paper and
returned it to the journal, which I closed and returned to
the box it had been sitting on. I felt like I was now
treading someplace I wasn't suppose to be, and I made me
scared.

As I left the room I tried to put the feeling out of my
mind. There was no reason why something as simple as a word
on a piece of paper should spook me so badly. I didn't even
know what the word meant by itself like that.

Still though, it felt like I had just gotten a message from
the grave. This seemed like something that was important to
her, though I never knew about.

Then quite suddenly I was standing face to face with a
unicorn again. This time the animal was just inches away
from me, it's body cast from the light coming thorough the
window. We looked at each other for a minute, eye to eye.

This time though it did not go away with an eye blink. Just
like the first time, down in the caves, it appeared almost
to be real. Though even then I held no thoughts about
touching the beast.

It's body was massive, almost filling the hallway, yet still
sleek and graceful. It's back was almost head high to me, it
had to lower it's head for us to be at eye level. The horn
looked like ivory, if ivory had ever been a crystal, almost
a foot long the light played over it as it glowed brighter
then anything else.

"Who are you?" I finally whispered to it.

It blew a puff of air in my face, shaking it's head, sending
it's mane though the sunlight. The fine white hair acting
like a thousand prisms.

I felt a word burn into my ears. In a voice that sounded
almost like a thousand bells I heard "soon."

The unicorn looked at me, twitching one of her ears. I
wasn't quite sure how I knew she was a mare, I just suddenly
did. She nodded her head a bit then was gone just as quick
as she came.

I slumped back down to sit on the floor. I was shaken, first
Becky and now this. Ideally I wondered if they where somehow
connected. I doubted though, it seemed like the unicorn only
showed up when I needed it. First in the caves, then when I
had the sudden form shift to a fox, then when Romana had
saved my life.

This was the first time she had shown up just to present
herself to me. Unless she was keeping me from something, but
that just didn't seem to ring true. I think that my first
idea had been right. She was showing me herself for some
reason. As to what the reason was I didn't have a clue.

Standing back up I started walking against towards the main
room. I was going to need to sit down and think before I did
anything else. I didn't get much of a chance to though, I
soon as I stepped past the front room of the house there
came a knock on the front door.

Turning mid stride I walked over to the door and peaked out.
Ken was standing on the other side, looking around the front
of the house.

I opened the door. "Hey," I said.

He snapped his head forward and smiled. "Hey yourself Fox.
Looks like you have yourself a nice place here."

I nodded, steeping away from the door. "Come on inside," I
offered.

He stepped past me. "Oh, and guess who I meet on the way
here." He said.

Looking outside I was pleasantly surprised to find Rachel
standing a few feet back from the door. I smiled to her as
well. "Come on in yourself!"

She smiled back and came inside herself, the tip of her tail
brushing against my legs as she entered. "Where have you
been?" I asked as I closed the door. "Last time I saw you
was a week before my curse." I frowned after I said that. It
had become a natural point from which to measure time, but I
didn't think she understood what I meant by it.

She nodded. "I went back home for a while, to visit my
family and some old friends. I just got back a few days
ago." She wrinkled her nose a bit. "Ken told me what
happened to you. I wish I could have been here to help."

I shrugged, placing a arm over her shoulder and leading both
her and Ken into the living room a few feet away. "I'm not
sure if it would have helped, but thank you for saying
that."

Reaching down she lifting the pendant from where it hung
against my chest. Looking at she closely she commented,
"it's amazing that something this small can do so much for
you."

I nodded, sitting down on the couch, Rachel still at my
side. "Amazing it maybe, but it's also inconvenient to keep
it close enough so as not to turn it off."

She nodded.

Ken reached down carefully then, taking it from her fingers.
"If it's all right Fox, I would like to add a spell to
this."

I raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"It will phase your clothing out when you turn back into a
lioness." He explained, "The change will be sudden, you
don't need to be ripping out of them."

I nodded. "That's good then, thank you."

He didn't commented, he just bent down close to the pendant
and seemed to tap at it with one foreclaw. I looked over his
head at Rachel. "So, any plans for the future?"

She shook her head. "Nothing right away. I'm to well know to
get a public job. The same goes for something small like a
secretary."

"You may just have to take a few years vacation and just go
have some fun." I commented.

She laughed. "I could do that someday, but not just yet. I
was thinking that I could enroll in one of the universities
here on Prid."

"Won't that have the same problem?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, but I don't think it will last very long.
I'm no longer involved with the Council, and sense it's
school I can't be used as a figure head for something else."

I smiled, it sounded like it could work.

"Oh, the reason why I came to see you," She said, reaching
into one of her pockets and extracting a trio of PADDs. "I
wanted to give you these."

"What are on them?"

She held up the first one. "This is a list of all the things
from Grasion's book that the Council wants you to get for
them. It has all the locations and information you need."

Setting it down she raised up the second PADD. "This is my
record of the events about the HammerHeads. Though I'm not
sure why you want it."

I smiled. "I'm putting together a history about it, and all
of my little adventures sense I returned from Exile. It
keeps people from bugging me about it. Which reminds me, Ken
you still need to do yours."

He grumbled a slight reply that sounded like "just wait a
few days," or something close.

"Having some trouble getting all the accounts?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Some, Steven and Ken are the only one's left,
everyone else has gotten them to me."

She nodded, holding up the last PADD. "Guess what this is?"

I shrugged again. "No idea."

"The most complete information about Page on Prid." She
answered with a smirk. "All three pages of it."

I frowned. "That little?"

"Yes," she said, handing the PADD over to me. "She's hidden
herself well."

I scanned over the data on the small screen. It mostly
contained a series of information trails that led to
different aliases, and a partial medical report from fours
years back. The last note was that she had no records on file
for access to use a portal control, yet was still cleared to
do so.

I frowned. "We still know nothing about her." I said.

"No, we know something." Rachel answered, "we know that she
appeared out of the blue four years ago. She did not come
through any customs agent on Prid either. All of her records
just begin, no history at all, and most with nothing else.
She also seems to have ways around any new security system
before it gets installed."

I shook my head. "That still amounts to nothing."

Ken sat back up, letting the pendant drop back against my
chest. "That's done," he commented, "I'll get that narrative
to you in a week or so, if you can wait that long."

I nodded. "Ya, waiting isn't a very big deal."

He smiled at me then bowed a bit with his wings. "I have an
appointment to meet, so I had better take off. If that
doesn't work tell me, I'll try to get it fixed as soon as I
can."

"Ok."

He chuckled himself and left on his own.

"So," Rachel commented, "how was your day?"

"I just got up, but it's already been interesting." I
answered her.

She smiled to me, then leaned forward a bit and whispered a
suggestion into my ear that amounted to going back to bed. I
took her up on it.

-----

This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.