2 June 2004

Memory recompile [Y/N]? [Y] You selected Yes...please stand by and enter [Y] when asked to save

Written by Tegan

OOC:
Title from: Complete rip off of some lines from Piers Anthony's Question Quest... Read if you have not.

Priss, Sabre & Mouse

Priss settled herself near the head of the sleeping pallet as Sabre laid Mouse gently down on it. The black haired cat moved to the other end and sat in an easy crouch as Priss put both of her hands to either side of Mouse's head. The girl breathed quietly and deeply, eyes closed in sleep and face relaxed as Sabre put his hands on her feet and massaged them softly.

"Ready to begin, sis?"

"Verily."

The two closed their eyes and entered the girl's mind. Sliding down, down to the earliest memories...

"Mamamama!" Fuzzy world above Jane's eyes as her hands grabbed for the soft brown hair hanging near her face.

"She's lively today," Dada laughed, fingers tickling Jane's foot, making her giggle and squirm.

"Hush, now Jane my love. Quiet now. Here, you're hungry, my baby girl? My baby, my wonder..."

Kisses and then she were being fed, sucking hungrily and drinking milk from Mama. Soft humming from Mama, happiness enfolding her and making her mind laze in glorious pleasure from her parents as they looked at each other over the downy soft hair of their child with love.

"We leave this..." Priss murmured to Sabre.

"We have to leave. I can't do this anymore. What if one time, one day, one of us dies? What if we both die?"

Jane squirmed and fretted at the fear radiating off her mother.

"You're scaring the little one, Sammy. Shh, now, Jane..."

"We can just go. Let's go. Let's leave now. Please, darling. I can't do this anymore. And besides, what about Jane? How long until Craig decides that he wants to use her as well? We can't do that to her and I won't let it happen. She's so perfect and innocent...not like us. I never want to see her kill someone because someone told her to, like we have. We have to leave before that happens."

"You're right. We'll leave tonight."

"Thank you, thank you...oh god, we'll just get our car and drive away. Leave everything here. So he thinks we'll be back. We'll just take Jane..."

"Quiet now, we don't want him to know...don't even think about it. He can hear you, you know that."

"I know, I know. Oh god...I'm so frightened, Robert."

"I love you."

"Love you..."

Jane wriggled and cooed as her mother came back in and picked her up, hugging her tightly.

"Oh my baby, our precious little girl...such things we do for you and you will never know."

Sabre and Priss flicked through the memories of the next three years, mostly happy childhood memories. Lots of new houses....house after house after house...new paint, new colours

A cat.

They both felt faintly pleased at that discovery.

Jane was four and a half. She played om the backyard and babbled to herself in English. Robert and Samantha had decided that they wouldn't teach hre how to use her powers and they wouldn't use theirs either. Just to try so desperately to cut down on a chance that they could be found.

"Kitty!"

She got up from the sandbox and walked over carefully to the rake thin cat which eyed her carefully before brushing up against her with a welcoming buzz.

**Sweet child...**

"Oh..."

Jane sat down heavily and petted her new friend, mind sliding easily in to find out what was going on. The little girl with brown hair cut in a bob, fringe falling over her eyes, in faded overalls and a pink t-shirt, cuddled the motherly cat to her and bonded with her, minds rejoicing in the easy communication.

She never told her parents, assuming everyone could do it.

"The question is, how much do we leave, and how much remove?" Priss murmured.

"Leave most, methinks. She would be o'erchanged did we otherwise."

Five years old. Eating breakfast and kicking her feet while babbling happily. She was going to go to school. Robert's eyes were tight with worry as he smiled at her and Jane soothed it while Missy wandered around the kitchen.

And then everything changed.

**Did you think you would escape me? You know no one ever leaves my service.**

Instant action as Samantha swept Jane into her arms and then pushed her out the kitchen door.

"Go to your room, now, Jane."

"Mom..."

She stumbled slightly, eyes wide in the fear that her parents were reflecting.

"So, you found us at last, Craig..." Robert said, turning around slightly.

**Any last requests?**

"You wouldn't listen to us anyway," Samantha said quietly.

"Just don't hurt her. Please."

**Oh, I won't kill her...**

Soon enough, Robert was driving, mind controlled by Craig as his still wife sat next to him stiffly in the passenger seat. Jane hiccuped and cried as Craig brought her awareness to focus on her parents.

**Goodbye. It's a pity. You were two of the finest operatives I had.**

A beautiful arc over the edge of the bridge as the car dwindled towards the river below. Robert and Samantha closed their eyes as Craig left them back in control.

"I love you."

"Love you too. We love you, Janey honey."

**NOOOO!**

The car hit and flames exploded as the two adults screamed once, faces blistering in the heat before they died, hands wrapped around each others. Jane wailed and curled into a foetal ball under the kitchen table. Missy nudged her urgently with her head, mewing at her to get up.

No one came looking for her for three days. Three days, while she couldn't move out from under the table, shaking with empathic overload and the cat tried vainly to make her eat or drink. She was nearly dead when the health services found her.

"Though I dislike it, we must leave this," Priss sighed.

"It is too much of her," Sabre agreed.

Lost among a sea of uncaring faces, Jane cried silently and hopelessly as the American fosterage system swung into action. She was settled with a family, and she lost the cat, Missy.

The thin feline was taken to the SPCA shelter and later destroyed.

Sabre and Priss moved steadily through the years in fosterage, for the most part leaving them. Sabre was carefully taking pictures and names of the ones who had hurt Mouse, especially the foster father in home number 6 who had put out his cigarettes on her back. He would hunt them down, and hurt them badly.

"Restrain for the moment, thy impulses," Priss murmured.

"Just for now..."

LA. Mouse walked down the streets, sneakers slapping the pavement faintly as Fafnir ghosted along in the shadows. She turned as a voice came out of the darkness.

"Hello, pretty..."

**RUN!**

Mouse fled, amber burning eyes following her running form and chuckled faintly at the wolf before the vampire moved on. An imprint of ridged face and elongated canines stayed in her memories.

They browsed through her memories of Tulsa, before Sabre stopped.

"Here."

"I concur."

Mouse's nightmare at the Hanson house. A little judicious memory tweaking and Taylor's position as kind older male, very firmly stuck in the friend category was assured. The episode where the Folk tried to matchmake her and Taylor was completely cut out. That was replaced with a day of hunting and playfighting with Fafnir, an easy subsititution. Any thought that came up of Taylor's attractiveness was put into a file that said, 'Impossible, do not think about it.' Her friendship with the entire family was played up.

Priss rolled her eyes as Sabre fiddled with her memories of the conference.

"I see thou wishes her to remember thee kindly."

"Well, why not?"

"It does serve a purpose."

"Exactly. If she's flirting with the immensely attractive man I am, even if I'm a cat, she's not worrying about that limp wristed Yank."

"Ouch."

"He annoys me."

"Thou annoyed him also."

Valentines day and the night before were quickly dealt with, leabing Mouse with faintly wistful memories that maybe something more could have happened.

"A little less anger at what Mam did would be nice."

"One agrees."


Priss & Sabre

"And yet ever onwards we proceed," Priss murmured.

"Romance in a Yank? Unheard of," Sabre said, perusing the date with Mouse.

"We better leave in that she knows that bloke though."

"Steel? Yes, I think it would be wise."

"Ah, I remember this. Fantiastic fight."

"As I remember, Mouse burnt the warehouse down. See, yes she did."

Priss moved on rapidly with Sabre, changing romantic words to promises of friendship, fierce head over heels love to simply strong platonic leanings. A downgrading of Taylor's relationship in the Pack from alpha to pack mate. In the end, it was rather easy.

Taylor, to Mouse's mind, had always been a friend and nothing more.

The unfortunate incidence on the night of the blood rain was softened to two friends getting drunk then sleeping together. A mistake, but not a fatal one. Taylor's insanity was played up, leading Mouse's fear for her child to grow, making it all perfect sense in her mind why she left with Sabre and Priss to go to New Orleans. The growing child in her womb and her fears for its safety around Taylor were enough.

Christian was not entirely wiped, rather...glossed over. As a rather embarrassing incident where when she thought he was Taylor, he tried to grope her. Taryn's harm to her ideas of Taylor was minimised, but not forgotten. Comments were changed to fit this new world of memories Mouse had. Her night with Zac dimmed in importance. The tearul conversation with Taylor was entirely cut out.

Soon enough, they were done.

The cats left the room, both white and shaking from the effort of what they had done.

Mouse slept on.

June
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