"Between Two Shadows"

chapter II :  Awakening

   A vivid blue, distinctly feminine eye fluttered open.

   ...Where am I...? Hmm, it's cold... Fei...?

   Elehaym Van Houten hoisted herself up from where she lay on a crumpled blue bed sheet, brushing back her golden locks with a dainty gesture as she looked around her sleepily.

   There was a masculine figure beneath the blanket beside her, rising and falling in a fashion of soft breathing. A smile touched her lips.

   "Good morning, Fei," she whispered softly, draping herself across his shoulders. "How was your---"

   She paused abruptly as her chest constricted. "Ohhhhh, God..."

   Her chin was resting against the cheek of a man who wasn't Fei...he had sun-bronzed skin, unruly blond locks that fell across his forehead, and an eyepatch over the left eye.

   It was Bart.

   "Ohhhh, God," Elly repeated, her face pale. "What have I...??"

   She looked down at herself, and found that she was wearing only ivory pants and a pair of ridiculously oversized panties. With a growl of frustration she turned onto her side and hopped quickly off the bed, dragging the wrinkled azure blanket behind her so that she could wrap it around herself.

   Oww...I have the WORST headache. WHAT HAPPENED?! What did I do?? Why don't I remember...? Oh God, oh God... maybe I was drunk last night...?

   She noticed then that there was something pressed against her left eye. When she touched a hand to it, she found she was wearing an eyepatch.

   "Wow," she breathed. "I musta been drunker than I thought." She pulled the black accessory from her head and blinked both eyes; the world was so much clearer.

   Tossing the eyepatch onto the bed, Elly draped the blanket around her shoulders and clutched it shut with one fist while the other held her pants at her waist, as she glided out the door.

   "Hey, you feeling better alrea---?!"

   The girl turned her head and watched silently as Billy Lee Black approached her, his words trailing off into a shocked silence.

   "...Whoa, who're you?!"

   Shaken though she was over what could have happened the night before, she forced a smile, trying to be all in good humor. "I'm the great Chu-Chu Mambo God. Good morning, Billy."

   The platinum-haired boy didn't reply. Instead, he appeared to be studying her intently, as if he had noticed something about Elly that he had not before.

   "Billy, stop that. I'm too old for you."

Billy's gaze snapped upwards. "I, I wasn't---who are you?!"

   Elly decided that for some odd reason, Billy was trying to pull some weird prank on her...but the bewildered expression on his face was almost credible.

   "You could be an actor, Billy," she laughed. Then, with a hint of playful sarcasm in her voice, she proceeded, "Well, let's see, my name is Elehaym Van Houten, and I'm from Solaris. Who are you?"

   "E...Elehaym...?" The young priest glanced down both ends of the Hallway, at a loss of what to do or say.

   The girl's expression suddenly hardened. "Listen, Billy...I'm sorry, but I'm not really in a joking mood. Can you tell me something...did I drink last night? I mean, heavily? And where's Fei...?"

   Billy raised an eyebrow. "...Huh??!"

   Elly gave an exasperated sigh and turned away from him. "Never mind...I'll go find him myself. Thanks, though, Billy..."

   He watched her go, baffled.

   Elly glanced over her shoulder slowly, wondering why Billy was looking at her so...strangely.

   Further down the hallway she heard Fei's voice, speaking softly, coming from behind a nearby door. Without hesitating Elly burst into the room, eager to explain that maybe she had been drunk the other night and had somehow ended up with the wrong man...

   "Fei!!"

   He jumped at the voice, then turned slowly around.

   Elly skidded up to him. "Fei! I wanted to"---she paused, crestfallen, suddenly noticing an unfamiliar, red-haired girl who had her arms wrapped around his neck---"...oh."

   The couple stared at her.

   "I...I see you've...found someone else...?"

   The red-haired girl continued to stare. "...Who are you?"

   Fei narrowed his eyes, looking straight into Elly's. "Do I---know you?"

   Elly was nonplussed. "That's a silly question," she said coldly. "Just because you're with another woman doesn't mean you have to pretend you don't know me..."

   Fei's girlfriend was silent with incredulous disbelief. "...Fei...? Does she mean that you were...??" The hurt expression then fell from her face and was replaced by one of rage, "You were...?? Behind my back?!?"

   "What do you mean?" Elly wondered out loud. "'Behind your back'??..." In the brief, tense hush that occurred, Fei looked from one girl to the other in bewilderment.

   "I, ahh, umm---"

   "YOU WERE CHEATING ON ME!?!" Elly screeched at him.

   Fei teetered, his ears ringing. "I---I didn't---!!"

   "There, that's her over there."

   All three of them turned towards the doorway at the sound of Billy's urgent tone. He stood beside Margie, directing her gaze at Elly with a pointing finger. "Margie, do you know her?"

   Elly raised an eyebrow, wondering why Billy was so into the joke that he had to go and drag Margie into this, and use that serious tone of voice. "Oh, uhm, hi, Billy, Margie..."

   Margie must have been part of it too, because the bewildered expression on her face when she looked at Elly was pretty convincing. "No...no, I don't know her. But if what you told me is right, I think I know who would..."

   Margie turned and stepped into the hallway long enough to summon her cousin: "BAAARTYY!! Get down here!" When she was finished, she returned inside the room and faced Elly again. "Who are you? What's your name?" she queried.

   Elly gritted her teeth. Why was everyone being so serious about the dumb joke? "God!! What the HELL is everyone's problem---?!"

   "Hey, I think I'm cured from that fever I had last night...what is it, Margie?"

   The girl in question swiveled around to face a drowsy-looking Bart, who entered the room tugging the hem of a white shirt over his stomach.

   "Bart, you owe us an expla---"

   "Whoa," the blue-eyed youth interrupted, with a hint of a grin on his face, "who's that girl over there?"

   Margie pursed her lips and exhaled in exasperation, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at her cousin. "You tell me. I know you know her, Bart. Billy said she was in your room."

   "What?" Bart studied Margie's expression. "She was in my room?! What are you talking about??"

   Elly felt her face flush insanely hot. "I CAN EXPLAIN!!" she blurted suddenly at Fei, who jumped at her abrupt action. "It wasn't MY fault! HE told me to drink all those Bartweisers!!"

   "Huh...?" Billy looked at her, creasing his forehead.

   "WHAT?!" Bart stared at her similarly.

   "A-and, and...Bart, whatever I said or did or...uh, wanted last night, I honestly didn't mean it, okay?!" she continued, panicked.

   Margie raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "What did you do last night?"

   Elly recognized the dangerous calm in Margie's voice. "Uhmm, I, ahh, I really have to go to the Little Girls' room now. Bye, everyone---!!"

   Without another word, she dashed outside the room and down the hallway, leaving behind a very confused Xeno cast.

   In the silence, Fei, his girlfriend, Bart, and Billy all exchanged glances while Margie sat herself down on a chair, seething.

   "What was she doing in your room last night, Bartholomew?" Margie queried icily.

   "I dunno," Bart replied, rubbing the back of his head nervously. "I don't even know her."

   "You liar! Just because I spent all those years in the castle with Shakhan doesn't mean I forgot what you're like!"

   "What if you have, 'Great Mother of Nisan'?!"

   "Don't call me that, 'King of Aveh'!!"

   "I'm not the King anymore," he grinned triumphantly. "Remember? Gave up the monarchy for the Republic of Aveh."

   "Ahem," Billy cleared his throat and began to speak, before Margie could throw back a counter, "you know, Fei...when I first saw her in the hallway, I asked who she was, and she said her name was Elehaym...Van Houten."

   Fei's red-haired girlfriend looked perplexed. "Hmmm, we've got the same exact name."

   Bart looked at the door she had exited. "And she's got one helluvan imagination,"

   "There's something about her, though," Billy admitted as he studied the ground. "I mean, the way she spoke, the way she moved, she was so much like you, Elly."

   "What do you mean?" Elly, the red-haired girl, asked.

   "You know, her hair color sort of looks like Bart's," Fei stated.

   "I still don't know what she meant by 'last night'," Margie turned in her chair to glare at her cousin. "And why aren't we doing anything to stop her? We don't know her, we've never seen her before, but we're just letting her go?"

   "Then I think we should follow her," suggested Fei as he headed toward the open door, "and maybe when the...'confusion' dies down a bit, we could talk to her..."