Jesa walked slowly down the corridor, feeling uncertainty, amazement, and a myriad of other things in her chaotic being. Her world had just been turned upside down and reordered, all without Jesa's input. Her footsteps followed no discernable pattern as the utter unbelievably of this event settled in. There were only about five people left on the Isannah, as they would be the ones remaining aboard while the ship was moved out into dry-dock for the refit. The depressurization had been halted for an extra hour as some of the science and medical personnel were having trouble getting all the samples off the Isannah in that time.

The unreality of what had just happened put Jesa in some kind of disoriented state, replaying the scene over and over and over again, just to make sure it was real. But beyond it all, the simple truth shown clear... he was alive. So why was she so scared of losing him? Part of her was so confident, so strong, and the other was questioning if he would still be the same person who had begged her to stay with him--- not to leave him, and love him always.

She contemplated silently, examining his movements, his eyes, his touch... what was it... it wasn't in his eyes, where she had always looked for it, it was in his spirit, his soul, where she really did know him, and loved him. That was her reassurance that was what she needed to hold onto... because right now, he did need her... even if it was that he needed her to stay away.

Truth be told, she wasn't paying much attention at all to the corridor. She would have continued in that rather quasi-alert state except that she saw a flash of brown-haired movement ahead of her. Her head snapped up and caught sight of the last bit of a girl running... Jesa's eyebrow rose slightly when she realized, that the child, at least what looked like a child, was running right into her quarters.

She just stood there until the door slid shut again, then approached slowly. Jesa stopped at the door, just to one side of it, to see if she could hear any noise. From Jesa's own abilities, she knew that just because something looked like a child, it may not necessarily be a child. It could be any one of the many races which do not grow over one point five meters tall. It could be a shape-shifter or dna-shifter, who knew. Jesa grinned slightly, a result from her elation causing a brand new set of emotional instabilities. 'Then again, it might just be... a child.' she thought.

Finding no reason to put it off, Jesa triggered the door sensor, having left it unlocked after her belongings were transported away earlier in the evening. She saw no need to leave it otherwise... which seemed fortunate for this little rogue. The doors slid open quietly, allowing the light from the corridor to spill into the relative darkness of her quarters. She entered only far enough to allow the doors to shut again, plunging the quarters into darkness.

Stephi, for that was the girl's name, cowered as far under the bed as she could get as she could, after hearing someone enter the room. Jesa remained silent, listening for any sound in the room, and allowing her admittedly humanoid structured eyes to adjust to the darkness.

'Hm... it is quiet, whatever it is,' she thought silently to herself, then moved to one side. Tilting her head, she applied her rather unique skills akin to ventriloquism and let her voice be deflected so it would sound like it was still coming from the doorway area

"Hello? Is there someone in here?" She called, as would normally be expected by someone entering the room unaware, but her voice went unanswered in the darkness. Stephi curled into a little ball, shaking; trying to be quiet, as her tears begin to give way to sobs... remembering what happened to her family four years ago.

Then Jesa moved quietly around the room, looking suspiciously at any furniture that was left which was large enough to hide a being of that size. She heard crying... a child crying; Jesa's guard relaxed a little. As she moved past the open doorway to her bedroom, she thought she saw movement. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she approached in the darkness.

Upon closer inspection, she saw the slightest evidence of a shoe sticking out from under her bed... a rather small shoe. Jesa mentally added up the odds of what the being could be, and decided that it was safe enough for her to take a closer look. With a swift movement, she knelt on the floor and peered under the bed.

"Hello?" She questioned, trying to get a fix on the being in the darkness.

All Stephi could think was that this person was going to hurt her, just like those strange people who had hurt her family all those years ago, and reacted.

To Jesa's perception whatever it was didn't take kindly to her attempts at communication and flew from the bed with a gasp or cry of fright. Jesa jumped back instinctively, dropping into a defensive stance without thought. It flew the two or so meters from under the bed to Jesa's closet, the door shutting quickly behind it.

Jesa looked at the bed, then looked at the closet door... and simply sighed.

She sat gently on the bed and tapped her comm. badge.

"Callen to Johnson, halt the depressurization... I have found a little stowaway on this deck. Go down to engineering and run a scan of the ship. I want to make sure no one else is still aboard accidentally."

"A stowaway? What? Where?---- I mean, yes sir. I'll conduct the scan immediately"

"Good. Callen out."

Then she frowned a bit, thinking what she was going to do with a child in her closet. She walked over and touched the door coming in, locking it from the inside so the only place the child could go was back into the room if he or she chose to fly from the closet. The last thing she needed was to have security doing a full sweep of the ship for a child before depressurizing the ship. Then she touched the door to the closet and let the door swing open, only to be surprised with the amount of clothing left in her closet.

'I guess it's a good thing that I came back then...' She thought to herself, noting the form huddling in the bottom of the closet. 'In more ways than one...'

Jesa knelt down, searching for the girl's face in the mass of uniforms that were in Jesa's closet. Then she saw a single hazel eye watching her intently, but look in the child's face was like a frightened animal's.

Searching Jesa's face Stephi thought to herself 'She... doesn't look like the others'

"Hello?" Jesa said quietly "Who are you?" She asked, trying to read this child's body language to see what the best approach would be to handle this situation

Jesa reached out to hold the uniforms aside, but the girl started suddenly and moved way, so Jesa stopped and just squatted down looking at the girl, holding her arms about her legs, adopting a childish posture herself.

She just looked at the girl and thought a moment, studying her features and running scenarios through her mind about how such a child could have come aboard, and who she belonged to. But the most pressing concern was how she was going to get her calm enough to actually find out who she was. Then she sat down and crossed her legs, appearing to almost have forgotten about the child, at least not staring directly at her anymore.

"I understand you're frightened... and you don't know who I am." Jesa began, trying to be soothing "But I'm not going to hurt you... in fact, I just kind of wanted to know why you were in my room, and how I can help you."

Stephi just looked at her trying to decide whether to speak or stay silent. Jesa peered at the girl, her words didn't seem to soothe her any; she thought she'd try a different approach.

"I know what it's like to be lost and afraid on a big ship..." she said, just trying to seem non-threatening and distant. But the truth was she watched this girl carefully "When I was just five... I was lost on a big station; there were so many people... I didn't know which way to turn. I'd never seen so many people before, and all I wanted was some food..." It was a lie, of course, but it was the role she had taken.

Stephi relaxed a little, still intently staring at this strange lady in front of her, carefully searching for signs that she was going to hurt her. But Jesa continued with only half attention to the girl, so as not to frighten her. "... but when I got some, I was caught by this really tall red-haired lady. She grabbed me by the arm. I was so scared..."

"What happened?" Stephi quietly whispered.

Jesa smiled slightly at the girl's comment, thankful to finally get a spoken reaction of some sort.

"Well... It turned out that I was in her plant-growing bay, and I knew her for a very long time after that... I had no parents; she and her husband ended up adopting me. She became my mother." Jesa smiled over at the child, part of herself still thinking about the past.

"Was she nice?" Stephi asked with only a small hint of hesitation, her body relaxing a bit.

Jesa smiled slightly in memory.

"She was... a little rough around the edges, kind of stern, she didn't always let me have ice cream... but yes... she was nice." Jesa paused for a moment. "I know you're scared... I won't try to come closer to you, but could you tell me your name?"

"My name is Stephanie Moss, but my parents used to call me Stephi, I like that name better." She said with a slight smile on her face and a sigh of relief

Jesa returned Stephi's smile kindly, glad the child was relaxing somewhat. She still didn't move from the place she was sitting, however.

"Well, Stephi. Welcome aboard the ship." Jesa smiled "But right now... we need to leave because everyone is leaving the ship, it's going to be rebuilt." 'Simple language, Jesa, simple language.' Jesa reminded herself. "Will you come with me? I promise I won't let any harm come to you. You'll be quite safe."

At first the girl looked like she would start to cry again as she peered at Jesa with those large dark eyes. Then she softly nodded, "Yeah..."

Jesa smiled. "Alright then." She gestured at the closet, "I seem to have forgotten to take my clothes with me, would you give me a hand folding them?" Jesa thought maybe if she got Stephi involved in thinking of something else than her fear it might help her feel more comfortable.

"Okay," Stephi said, unfolding herself from her seated position in the closet. Jesa slowly stood and pulled one of her uniforms out of the closet, handing it to Stephi, then taking another herself. A few minutes later, they had a stack of folded uniforms on the floor. Jesa slowly stood up and spoke, "I'm going to get a bag for these, I'll just be in the other room for a minute."

Stephi nodded her understanding, Jesa moved slowly to the replicator, which miraculously was still working and ordered two collapsible cases, of the largest ones she could get without going to the larger scale replicators on deck seventeen.

As Jesa turned around she realized Stephi was watching her through the doorway. Jesa smiled softly at the girl and handed her one of boxes. "Would you put my uniforms in that please?" she asked softly. Stephi got to work, seeming a lot calmer now than she was before. Jesa opened the other container and started carefully folding her dresses into it, watching Stephi without seeming to out of the corner of her eye.

Jesa wondered what the child had gone through to make her so suspicious of people. The changeling chuckled internally, thinking she had never really needed a reason to be suspicious of people. "I'm done," Stephi said, her eyes meeting Jesa's for approval. "Thank you," Jesa said, smiling. "I'll just be a minute and we can go."

The girl nodded and flopped onto the bed, swinging her feet as she waited. As she finished packing, Jesa just hoped this girl could be found a home where she could heal. Not unlike what Jesa had needed... and found.

Loaded: 04.05.2004