Disclaimer: Well, these characters aren't mine. They belong to Metz, Katims and co. No suing--I'm just a poor college student, so all you'll get is my computer and my Roswell tapes. Do you really want those?

This is the beginning of a series that is currently in the works from me. The basic permise is that Tess was found before Nasedo showed up, and she grew up in an orphange--with Alex Whitman.

It was dark.

The darkness seemed to be all consuming, filling her vision with blackness. The stars were shadowed and the moon was hidden from sight. No wind stirred the still air of the desert, and even in the utter blackness of midnight, you could still taste the heat as it rose from the slowly cooling sand. In the distance, a coyote howled, the lonely sound echoing through the still desert, bouncing off the cliffs and jutting rock structures, to disappear into the night air.

But the small golden child who crept through the darkness like a fallen angel didn’t know what it was. Something shot through her, making her shake all over. One day she would recognize the emotion to be fear, but for now, all she knew of it was that it made her tremble and her stomach to drop to her feet and water to roll down her face from her eyes.

Her skin prickled, and, acting on instinct alone, she crossed her arms over her body, trying to warm herself. It helped, but only a little bit. Her toes and her feet and her legs and her stomach and her face were still cold, and the heat from the sand did very little to help her.

The girl child turned in a wide circle, trying to figure out where she was, and how she had gotten here. Nothing made sense. All she could make out where shapes pressed up against the blackness, shadowed by the lack of light and impossible to understand to the frightened child. The darkness was so complete she couldn’t even see her hand when she lifted it up in front of her face.

Before she even realized what she was doing, her feet where carrying her across the soft sand. The coyote seemed to have found its way home, because it was suddenly as quite as a tomb in the desert, no sound cutting through the all compassing silence. Even the dull thud of her tiny feet hitting the sand was muted as it danced through the darkness.

Just as she was beginning to believe that darkness was all there was, light cut through the blackness in two round circles. She slowed to a stop, mesmerized by the golden beams as they danced around her. Now, when she looked down, she could see her tiny hands, and she could watch her fingers curl and uncurl. She did for a long moment, the tiny digits stretching to their full length before clenching tightly back into a fist.

By this time, whatever had been making the golden light slowed to a stop, and someone had gotten out of the car. Looking up, the golden child was terrified by what she saw. Someone, someone who had hands like she did but was so very much bigger then she, was moving toward her, her hands held out toward the child. The same quaky, sickening feeling grabbed the little girl’s insides, and she spun around, intent upon fleeing.

However, the woman got to her sooner, catching her and lifting her off the ground. The sickness in her stomach grew until she was nearly choked on it. More water poured down her face, in fast torrents as she failed her little legs, and tried to squirm out of the iron grasp that held her.

Before she really knew what was happening, the little girl was forced into the backseat of the light-maker and it was no longer silent or dark in her world. Something loud and oddly beautiful assaulted her ears, and she put her hands up to protect them. Light flooded her from all sides, making it hard for her to see. She scrunched her eyes up until they were half closed, and that made it easier for her to see where she was.

The noise continued to pour through the air, but it seemed softer, almost bearable now. Slowly, the little girl lowered her hands and let the strange sounds flow over her. Whatever it was, it touched a chord in her, and took away the yucky feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Where she was sitting vibrated and hummed, and the air inside the car was a great deal warmer then it had been outside. She wasn’t shivering any more, and the sounds pouring through the air were helping making her stomach feel like it could stay in one place now.

However, then the soothing noise disappeared, and the fear returned to her stomach in a heartbeat. New noises, these not nearly as pretty as the others, filled her ears and she couldn’t make heads or tails out of what this noise meant either. But it didn’t touch her the way the other did—instead, this just scared her, and made her wrap her arms around herself and try to hide from the big person in the front of the car.

After a little longer, the scary sounds stopped, and the better sounds came back on, filling the little girl with what might have been happiness and taking away the awful bite of fear that raced through her.

The golden child’s eyes were just slipping shut under their own power when the soft humming of the car stopped as did the soothing sounds that bleed through her ears. Her eyes popped back open, and the side of the warm place opened and the woman from before was back.

She picked the little girl up and wrapped her in something that was smooth and hard and soft against her skin. It kept her warm when the woman pulled her out of the warm place, and carried her through the dark and toward a different light. This light seemed to be everywhere, not like the other place where it was just in one little place.

The woman carried her into the light, and then left her their, patting her on the head as more people bustled over the little girl, blocking the light and scaring her with their moments and their loud noise and the curious fingers that poked and poked and poked at her, as something soft was pulled into place over her body.

And then she was alone in the dark again, sitting in the middle of something that was soft and smooth but not hard like what the woman had wrapped her in. Tears began to roll down her face, and she hugged herself, even though she was not cold now.

Suddenly, her ears heard something that sounded like the sweet sounds that had been in the first warm place. Jumping off the bed, the little girl walked through the darkness, letting her feet and her ears guide her to the source of the noise. Up and down the dark hallway she walked, desperate to find the sweet sound that made her stomach feel better and the tears to stop rolling down her face.

She finally found it, carefully hidden behind a large wood door. Putting her little hands on the door, she pushed, and it swung open, revealing a little boy sitting in the middle of a bed. His dark hair was short, and his eyes were staring out the window as the soothing music came out of his mouth.

The golden child stood in his door, and felt her lips turn upward in happiness as she let the sound pass over her. This was even better then the noise in the car.

After a while, the little boy finally realized she was standing her. He looked at her in confusion for a moment, before letting his lips turn up at the corners as well. He held out a hand toward her, and the little girl walked forward, no afraid of this beautiful noise maker. Carefully, she scrambled up on the bed beside of him and asked him with her eyes to keep making the beautiful noise.

He seemed to understand, and he began to sing softly, filling her to the very brink with his song. He didn’t stop singing until long after she was asleep, the beautiful sound filling her new found dreams with happiness and warmth and light.