Arizona Desert, Three Hours Later

Diana had decided to take her car Athena out for a drive to work through her thoughts about everything that had happened that day.

As they cruised down Highway 38, Diana was strangely silent for once. Usually when she was just driving like this, she was usually humming Aria, her favorite Yanni song. But now she wasn't even doing that. Athena was curious as to what was wrong so she finally asked her driver, "Di what's wrong?"

"Dad's dead," Diana whispered. "He won't be at the wedding after all."

"Oh, no..." Athena whispered. Then she suddenly became all business when she said, "We got an incoming message...it's Jake."

Diana sighed and said, "Put it through."

The image of Jake Schuyller appeared on Athena's viewscreen. "Di, we need you back here now. Kyle's here and he heard about everything."

Diana smiled at the mention of Kyle Stewart, leader of team one and her boyfriend of the last six months. "Okay tell him we're on our way back."


SkyTwoA

Diana climbed out of Athena's drivers seat and said, "Hey, Dante," to the white Ford Expedition parked across the garage.

"Hello, Diana," Dante replied. "Listen, I'm really sorry about..."

"Thanks," Diana said, cutting him off. "Where's Kyle?"

"Strategy room waiting for you with Michael, Xandra, and Erica," Dante replied. Diana ran off without acknowledging him. "Gee thanks," Dante said to himself.

Diana entered the strategy room and looked around. "Hi," she said quietly.

"Hey sweetheart," Kyle said. "C'mere..." Diana sat down in his lap and started to cry. "It isn't fair," she managed to say. "He was gonna be at the wedding..."

"Listen, Diana," Erica West said. "It wasn't your fault."

"Sure feels like it," Diana sniffled.

Kyle said, "Okay you told us about how you adopted Yanni as the big brother you never had, but what about the rest of the story?"

"Oh from when I moved to Annapolis on?" Diana said. Kyle nodded and said, "Yeah."

Diana sighed and said, "Well, okay...here goes..." she took a deep breath, looked at Xandra Harrison and Michael MacCallister, and began her story in a shaky voice.


Annapolis - 1984

Fourteen-year-old Diana was homesick. She missed her life in Athens, and especially her best girl friend Thalassa.

"Diana?" It was her father David. "We gotta go get you registered for school, sweetheart."

"I don't wanna go," Diana muttered.

David understood and came in and sat down on his daughter's bed. "Diana, I know you miss your friends. But they can come visit during the summer and stuff."

Diana wiped the tears away from her eyes and said, "Promise?"

"Promise." David gave Diana a hug and said, "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Diana said, grabbing her favorite leather jacket that Yanni's mother Felitsa had given her for Christmas two years earlier. "C'mon, Dad, let's go already!"


"You know," Xandra said. "I still can't believe you've known him for as long as you have."

"I know, isn't it cool, though?" Diana said, smiling for the first time since she got the news of her father's death. "If you ever want backstage passes to one of his concerts, you can always ask me."

"Yeah, but I'm more into Madonna and that sort of stuff," Erica said. Diana nodded and said, "Hey, that's fine, Erica. But at least let me..."

"Speaking of Yanni," Kyle interrupted. "What about that vacation to Albany in June?"

"Oh yeah," Diana said. "He's giving Jeanette that night off and letting me take over." Taking in Erica, Mike, and Xandra's puzzled expressions, she explained. "Yanni promised me a long time ago that if I ever wanted a chance onstage just ask. It took me long enough to...I was sixteen when he said that to me."

"Anyway, what about the rest of the story?" Erica said suddenly. Diana nodded and said, "Okay...here's the rest of it..."