Jason Low
presents
a Project HEARD fanfic

GOLD DIGGER MINUS 18
 (plus or minus a few months)

{Author's note: Actually, from information in various books, I think this is
more like "GD-15" (based upon what Gina said about Peeper in issue 24). I'll
bet you can figure it out for yourself, though..}

12:24AM

 "Daddy?"
 Theodore Diggers was shocked awake by the sound; disoriented, he had to
remember where he was--at home, in bed--what time it was--very late, much later
than the time any young ones should've been up--and what he'd been trying to
do--sleep, in a cold and empty bed.
 A bed that should have someone else in it besides him.
 But it hadn't, not for the past six weeks, when.. when..
 Theo turned over and saw his two daughters at the door, still calling out to
him. "I'm awake," he told them, "I'm awake."
 "So are we," Gina said in a quiet, almost apologetic voice. "We can't sleep."
 <I know. You haven't been able to since that night.> "Come on up, then." He
pushed the covers back, exposing the empty half of the bed, allowing Gina and
Britanny to climb into Julia's side.
 "What would you like to do?" he asked, hoping it wouldn't be the same thing
that they'd asked for the past six weeks: let's go find Mom. After a pause,
when it became obvious to him that that was exactly what they were thinking, he
said: "How about a story?"
 "A story?" Britanny said.
 "Uh-huh," he nodded, sitting up. "A tale of .. of.." His eyes roamed about the
room, searching for something to make up a story about.
 "Of.."
 His eyes returned to the bed and rested upon his children.
 "Of two young ladies," he said, trying not to speak faster than his mind was
making all this up. "Much like yourselves.. girls that your mom and I knew when
we lived in Jade."
 Brit and Gina sat up, their attention gathered up and firmly held.
 "Tell us, daddy," Gina prompted urgently.

 "Well, once upon a time, as all stories go, there were two young ladies who
lived in a house with their mom and dad, in Snoo."
 "Snoo?" Britanny blurted out.
 "Yes, Snoo," Theo nodded.
 "What's Snoo?" Gina asked.
 Theodore smiled. "I don't know, what's Snoo with you?"
 Britanny and Gina giggled.
 "Anyway, they were happy in Snoo, living together and doing things any other
family would. They--"
 "Did they have picnics?" Britanny asked.
 "They did," Theo said, nodding again.
 "Did they go out camping and sightseeing and that sort of stuff?" Gina added.
 "That, too."
 "Did they--"
 "Do you want to hear the rest of the story?"
 Both girls clammed up. "Sorry," Britanny peeped after a second.
 "It's okay," Theodore smiled. "Anyway. Snoo was in the eastern part of Jade,
the same part that your mom came from, the same part that she and I met in. In
fact, their whole family was a lot like ours."
 "D'ya mean the little sister was adopted?" Gina asked. Britanny shot her a
look.
 "No, not like that," Theodore countered. "I mean, the dad was a mage, and the
mom was an adventurer. But she hadn't always been an adventurer; before she
started looking for fun places to explore and that kind of thing, the mom was a
warrior."
 "You mean like a soldier?"
 "Sort of," Theo answered Gina. "But she wasn't in anyone's army, like soldiers
here on Earth are.. she just went where she was needed. Anyw--"
 "They call people like her mercenaries, right, daddy?"
 He sighed and looked down at Gina. He didn't dare scold her for interrupting,
seeing as how the story seemed to be working so well at taking her mind off her
own mother's disappearance. "Some people do, sweetie. Now let me finish."
 He paused to remember where he stopped, and to come up with the next part.
"The girls, they did what little girls everywhere do. They played together, ate
together.. they did EVERYTHING together. They even wanted to both be just like
their mom."
 Theo realized he'd composed the beginning and end of the story, but not the
middle. Despite the fact he was an expert mage, panic took him over for a few
seconds while he tried not to let the girls realize he'd stumbled. "And.. er,
and because of what their mother did for a living, she was gone a lot."
 <Nice catch,> he told himself. <Messy, and not exactly what I wanted, but..>
 "And though she was gone a lot, every time she came back, the little girls
were always very happy to see her." <Okay, time to regroup and try another
approach; it's not going to be the same thing I'd originally planned on, but
it'll work.>
 Unconsciously, his voice became a whisper. "Until one day, she went away for a
very long time, very suddenly.. and nobody, not the little girls, not even
their daddy, knew if she would be coming back."
 "Did she go to a war, daddy?"
 "Something like that, Gina," Theo nodded. "But the daddy and the girls kept on
hoping, and believing, that the mother would one day come back home. And the
girls, although they cried, and knew that crying was okay to do at a time like
this, they were very strong and very brave, and they knew that their mother
would want them to be that way if she didn't make it home."
 "But they didn't give up," he added. "They never forgot her, and always tried
whatever they could think of to help her get home, because they knew that if
they were just-plain-happy when she came home after a week or two away, they'd
be jumping for joy when she came home this time around."
 Theo looked down. Gina was on her back, head on the pillow, trying to keep her
eyes open; Britanny was curled up further down the bed, fast asleep.
 "I think that's enough for now," he smiled.
 "Is there more?" Gina wanted to know.
 "Perhaps someday," her father said in a whisper. He nodded towards Britanny.
"Right now, you need to get some rest; you've both got school in the morning."
 "Okay," Gina whispered back, climbing out of the bed.
 Theo picked up his adopted daughter in his arms; she wriggled about a bit as
he carried her back to her room and put her to bed.
 "Daddy?" Gina asked when he was tucking her in.
 "Yes, Gina?"
 "If you ever can't sleep 'cause you're thinking of Mom, you can come to us and
we'll make up a bedtime story for you, too."
 Theodore looked away, then shook his head and smiled. "Thanks for the offer,
sweetheart. Now you need to get some sleep, okay?"
 "Okay," she answered again, closing her eyes.
 He stood and watched his daughters for a moment as they drifted off to sleep,
then went back to his own bedroom, thinking of Jade and getting an idea.

THE NEXT MORNING

 Theo saw the kids off to school, making sure they were actually inside the
building before he turned away; they hadn't skipped yet, but they were both of
the age when they figured they knew everything, and especially during these
rough times, he wouldn't put it past them.
 Still, they didn't reemerge, even after he'd hidden himself away with a spell
of cloaking, so he turned away and set out to complete his tasks for the day.
 The first item on the list was to build a dimension-door. He did that in a
nearby alley, stepping through the door and closing it behind him.

 The wonders of Jade surrounded him, enveloped him, and welcomed him. The sun
was just rising, and long shadows were being cast across everything in the
land.
 The shadow that had covered Theodore Diggers' heart for the past month-and-a-
half, however, was shattered into a million pieces by the force of a sudden
realization.
 <I was RIGHT!> he exulted in his mind, which was reeling from the effects of
having something returned to it that had been gone for so long. <She's HERE,
somewhere..>
 The feeling was faint, but at least it was there. And it made sense, in a
roundabout sort of way.
 <Dad's spell was tailored to my aura,> Theo thought, while looking around to
figure out what part of Jade he'd ended up in. <Had it hit me, it certainly
would have discorporated me, as he put it.>
 He saw a small hill nearby and walked towards it. <But its effects on Julia
were unexpected; I could see it in the bits of coal that had been his eyes. She
didn't disintegrate, she was just knocked free of Earth's realm. And it only
makes sense, in some perverted way, that if she ceased to exist on Earth, that
she'd end up back here.>
 He crested the hill and got a surprise of his own. In the valley below, south
of his position, was the village of Naga--the place where Julia was born.

 Theodore searched and searched; her family's home was long gone, as it had
been for some time, destroyed in the last Great Flood. No one had seen her
since she went off with him years before, they said.
 He carried on southwards, trying to divine her location magically on the way,
but something was wrong--it wouldn't work. <Maybe she--she's died,> it occurred
to him, <and all I'm sensing are her re--her remai-->
 Theo couldn't finish the sentence, even in his thoughts; it was too traumatic
an image to bear.
 He continued south, hoping he wasn't hallucinating the fact that the feeling
was getting minutely stronger as he trudged on.

 Five hours, five towns, and five long treks in between later, he still came up
empty. He could definitely still feel her, but finding her seemed to be the
ultimate impossible task.
 He--and she--knew people in Ashley, Tanmoor, Tessa, Mirth, and Marson, but as
in Naga, no one had heard from or seen Julia since she had been through with
Theo (just before they'd moved to Earth). Everyone wished him the best of luck
in finding her, and even offered their help if it was possible, but no one had
any 'leads' of any sort to offer.
 He regarded the sun shining brightly down upon him, checking its position in
the sky. He had to make sure he was back in Atlanta well before three o'clock
their time, so that the girls wouldn't be stranded at school. He chuckled to
himself despite his emotions. <Most single parents don't go on errands like
this, I'll bet.>
 Nearly six hours after arriving in Jade, Theo's hopes and wishes were salvaged
as he passed through Main Guard. It was a long shot, but some of Julia's old
students that resided in the oceanside town remembered hearing about a new
adventurer that was taking the south by storm, they said. The woman was gaining
a reputation of being very intense when on an adventure, and always working
alone, although she had been known in the past while to be in the presence of
some of the more prominent adventurers and warriors of the land.
 And the period of time that had elapsed since she'd become a hot topic?
Roughly five weeks.
 Theo hurried southwards again, hoping he could resolve all this in the very
little time he had remaining before he had to return to Earth.

THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR LATER
KALA, NEAR THE DRAGON WOOD

 Theo pushed open the door of the Screamin' Demon Tavern. He wasn't normally
one to drink, especially in a rowdy place such as this, but his spirits had
fallen so far from when he'd arrived on Jade that he felt the need to introduce
some other types of spirits in order to boost his own.
 <Don't forget the girls,> he told himself. <They're still at the school, and
need to be picked up in a half-hour.> So, he realized, enough time to allow
himself one drink, and then he had to be off.
 <Julia.. where ARE you?> he wondered inside his head. <I know you're here in
Jade somewhere.. but I can't find you!>
 He was standing at the bar, about to take a pull of the ale that had been set
before him, when he heard a voice across the room, over the cacophony of noise
and other voices of the pub. It was a familiar voice, one that made his heart
skip a few beats, and if you haven't realized who it was by now, shame on you.
 Theodore turned and sought out the individual among the hundred or so other
patrons. It didn't take long. Dressed in an adventurer's outfit, a sword at her
side, there Julia was, sitting at a table with a tall brown-haired man and an
even taller, much larger black-haired one, both adventurers as well.
 Theo tried to even out his breathing. He forced himself to not just rush over
and butt in, although he so desperately wanted to; there were far too many
people in the tavern to allow the two of them to reunite properly. Besides,
there was something about her aura that didn't seem right. He'd have to find a
way to get her outside.
 He settled for just staring at her; it took a few minutes, but she eventually
did look towards the bar for one reason or another, and the look on her face on
the double-take told him that she had indeed seen him.
 Without changing his own expression from that of neutrality, he silently and
slowly slipped to the front door and went outside.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

 Theo stood outside the town, watching the road that led towards him from the
area of the Tavern. He stood in a wonderful, rolling meadow, the green grass
swaying back and forth in the gentle breeze, which carried dozens of brilliant
monarch butterflies to and fro.
 The colorful scene was made even more so in a moment by the sudden appearance
of a red-haired head as its owner climbed the small hill separating the meadow
from the road.
 Julia gasped when she saw Theo there.
 She ran for him, and he set himself to welcome her, but as they met, something
unexpected happened--Julia passed right through him, her embrace failing to
take hold.
 They both turned around and regarded one another. Julia reached out her hand,
and Theo did the same; they tried to press their palms together, but they were
intangible to one another, as if she was a ghost.
 "Theo.." she said hesitantly, a quavering in her voice.
 "Julia," he answered her. "I'm here; I can see you."
 "You just can't touch me," she said flatly.
 He shook his head no. "I take it this isn't new?"
 "No, it is," she said. She kicked at the grass for a demonstration, tearing a
tuft of it out with her boot and sending it aloft. "It has to be related to.."
 "To what my father has done," Theo finished, nodding. "I understand. I don't
know what's happened--I.. I.. until I saw you in the tavern, I thought you'd
been destroyed by the spell.. I couldn't FEEL you any more, until I thought to
come here.."
 She smiled the smile of someone who was trying not to cry. "I awoke in the
Observatory," she told him, nodding to the tower to the east. "I didn't realize
it at the time, until I looked up and saw the starfield above me. I tried to
find a mage that could help me, but.. they all said that they couldn't..
couldn't tell, without knowing exactly what the original spell was.."
 "Easy.. easy.." Theo said. He reached out to pull his wife to him and hug her,
to comfort her with a pat on the back; he was briefly startled when his hand
passed right through her back, until he remembered.
 "So.. what now, then?" she said. "If you can't touch me.. I assume you can't
cast any.. anything, that can, um, affect me.."
 He shook his head. "It's doubtful." He turned and opened a dimension-door
again. "But we can try, just for the sake of knowing. This leads directly
home."
 She walked up, slowly, and tentatively stuck her hand inside. After a moment,
she took another two steps forward, first blending in with the dimension-door's
swirl of color, then emerging from the other side intact.
 She turned and looked at Theo, tears in her eyes, as he closed the door.
 "I'm banished," she blurted out. "I'm to stay here forever."
 "No, you're not," he said, coming close again. "Don't write it off so easily.
I WILL find a way for us to all be together again. Even if the solution is to
pick up and move here to Jade, I will SOLVE this."
 She blinked. "Not that way," she said determinedly, shaking her head. "The
girls need to grow up on Earth, not on Jade. This would be too much for them.
And seeing me like this?" She lifted a hand and swiped it right through Theo's
shoulder and upper arm. "I just can't imagine what it'd do to them."
 Theo nodded. "I understand. It was just an idea." He looked down, then up
again, and took several moments to find his voice. "Speaking of the girls.. I
need to go get them.. it's almost time for school to let out.."
 Julia looked surprised, as if someone had just punched her in the stomach.
They'd just found one another, and now he had to leave..
 He read her expression perfectly. "I'll come back tomorrow," he added quietly.
"After they're back in school for the day. I came here today on a hunch, and
they don't know that I've done this. And I don't feel like telling them quite
yet.. for the same reasons you have for not wanting them to see you as you are
today."
 She nodded. "I'll wait right here," she said, the tears again flowing.
 "Then this is where I'll come," he said, his even tone breaking as well.
 They reached out to each other, then remembered at the same time; they let
their hands fall to their sides again, just looking at one another.
 A dimension-door opened behind Theo.
 "I won't ever stop trying," he said. "I'll find a way, somehow. I'll get you
home."
 She nodded again and smiled a feeble smile, waving as he stepped backwards
through the spinning vortex.
 It closed, and she was alone, standing there in the meadow.

				      END