Disclaimer: I don't own Strange Days or any of the characters or plotlines.

Summary: Josie promised to work as a team, to find Pearadyne Labs with the others. But everyone breaks promises.

A/N: I just saw "Lost" and was amazed by the Josie/Vaughn interactions there. This is kind of a sequel to that episode where Josie goes back to Pearadyne with Vaughn and doesn't tell the others. By the way, I'd like to make it known that I have no idea if Vaughn's mother's body is still at Pearadyne or if it's buried in a grave somewhere, or what. I just made it up, so if you know then please forget about it for the duration of this fic. Thanks! R&R, no flames.

"Return To Pearadyne"

Josie ran through the thick brush, shoving aside branches and hopping over fallen trees. "It's just a little farther," she chanted. "Just a little farther." She pushed aside the branch of a fallen tree and stepped over it into the light. "There it is," she whispered.

A large building sat atop a hill in the middle of the wilderness surrounding Pearadyne Labs. From far away, it appeared to a normal person like an abandoned building. To Josie, it appeared like the answer to her prayers. For months, she'd been dreaming of this place, and somehow, in the back of her mind, she knew that she'd be here one day, looking up at the place she'd both longed for and tried to forget. For some unexpected reason, a tear came to her eye.

Vaughn stood behind her and wrapped a caring arm around her shoulders. "It's okay, Josie," he said. He set his eyes on the lab and breathed out slowly. "There it is," he repeated her words.

"I see it too," Josie whispered. "It's the answer to my dreams."

Vaughn nodded but didn't say anything about the emotional connection he felt now that he saw the lab. It was his mother's final resting place, it was where she died. Where his perfect life had ended and where this one with his father had begun. "Let's go," he heard himself say.

Josie stepped back as Vaughn ripped the branch off the tree with one powerful tear. He grabbed Josie's hand and pulled her toward the lab, eager to see what his father had done. It took about an hour and a half to reach the lab itself, and in that time Josie and Vaughn had an interesting discussion about life.

"Vaughn?"

Vaughn looked at Josie as he led her through the brush. "What?" he asked, feeling worried that she'd ask something about Pearadyne and his father.

"What's it like, having a father?"

Vaughn blinked slowly. "I am not exactly the authority on having a father. Mine's not really the paternal sort, if you catch my drift."

"I get it," Josie smiled sadly. "Same with my mother. Sometimes I just wish that I had the perfect family, you know? Loving mom and dad, house in the suburbs of some big city. Little brother or sister. Family dog."

Vaughn nodded. "I wish I had that too. But I guess our wishes don't always come true. In that case, it's just good that we have each other and our friends, right?"

"Yeah, life's not so boring with super jock," Josie grinned.

Vaughn held up a hand. "Hey, hey --- I could say more on your part but I won't!"

Josie laughed. "Hey, we're almost there, Vaughn. Look, it's Pearadyne!"

"Yeah, I've been here before," Vaughn said without thinking.

Josie whirled on him. "What?"

"Only once," Vaughn said quickly. "When I was six. I asked Dad if I could go see Mom's grave."

"And? You had to come here?" Josie asked accusingly.

"She's buried here," Vaughn said quietly. "They couldn't extract her body from the debris and so they left her. Dad didn't even try to get her out. There isn't even a tombstone."

Josie was horrified. "He just left her there? But don't they have crews that do that sort of thing?"

"Yeah, they do," Vaughn replied. "I guess he just didn't care enough."

Josie wrapped an arm around his waist and leaned her head against him. "Vaughn, your father probably has a very good reason for not burying your mom elsewhere. He does care. And you know that him not loving her enough is not true."

"Oh, but I do," Vaughn said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and walked forward towards the doors.

~*~*~

Meanwhile, Corrine Baxter walked into Professor Z's classroom, where she found Marshall Wheeler and Lucas Randall talking. "Hey guys," she greeted. "Have you seen Josie?"

They shook their heads. Corrine smiled. "That's okay. I'll go ask Vaughn."

"Corrine, that's a great idea --- now all you have to do is find Vaughn," Lucas said.

"Are they gone again?" Corrine asked.

Marshall nodded. "I have no idea where they went."

"I think I know," Lucas said. "Pearadyne."

Corrine shrugged. "Josie promised to go with all of us if she ever went again," she said. "Maybe they actually are on a date."

"Vaughn and Josie going out?" Marshall asked doubtfully. "That's too weird to think about!"

Lucas shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

~*~*~

Josie and Vaughn stepped into Pearadyne. It was all white and gray inside, exactly how Josie had pictured it. "Vaughn, what happened when you came here to see your mother?" Josie asked.

"I don't know," Vaughn said. "I don't remember anything but seeing my mother's body under a pile of stuff."

Josie frowned. "Well, she had died many years before. Did your dad at least cover her body?" she asked.

"Yeah," Vaughn said. "But I knew it was her under the blanket. I could tell."

Josie didn't ask how he knew. She knew how he knew that it was his mother's body. He could just tell. She felt the same way about her mother when she was nearby. "So, you don't know your way around this place?" she asked.

"Not a clue," Vaughn replied, leading her down a hall of doors. "Which one?"

"I'll take this one," Josie said, reaching for a door handle. "You take that one."

Vaughn shook his head vehemently. "No way! We go together, remember? That was the deal with me taking you to Pearadyne. Besides, we don't know what's behind any of the doors!"

Josie nodded and took Vaughn's hand again. "All right. Don't let go, okay?"

Vaughn smiled reassuringly. "Wherever you go, I'm going with you."

Josie smiled back nervously and opened the door. She and Vaughn stepped into an empty white room that reminded her of a hospital room --- except there were no beds or tables or flowers to brighten up the swift gray shade of the walls.

"This is weird," Vaughn said, "but what if there is no big secret here?"

Josie lifted an eyebrow. "There has to be. This place is behind all the weird stuff that goes on at Black Hole High."

"This place and my father," Vaughn muttered accusingly.

Josie sighed. "I didn't mean that," she said, accidentally letting go of his hand. "This lab --- the explosion --- it had something to do with the strange happenings at our school!"

Vaughn grabbed her hand again. "Josie -" he began, but was abruptly cut off when a powerful arm swept over Josie's shoulders and pulled her back.

Vaughn sprung into action. Using the muscles born of his athletic training, he grabbed hold of Josie's hands and pulled her away from the arm that had, strangely enough, come out of the wall.

Josie collapsed onto Vaughn and he wrapped his arms around her. "What was that?" she panted.

"I have no idea," he said. "But let's get out of here."

"I agree," Josie said, and the two ran out of the room.

~*~*~

"That's not possible," Marshall said. "Vaughn and Josie are not dating. They're at Pearadyne, I'll bet you anything."

"You're probably right," Lucas said. "We have to find them!"

Corrine nodded and said, "I'll go get some stuff for hiking. Meet me at your room in ten minutes, ready to go. Oh, and Marshall?"

"Yeah?"

Corrine grinned slyly. "Don't forget your sticks!"

"Aye, aye, Captain," Marshall saluted.

Corrine grinned and ran upstairs to gather the necessities.

~*~*~

Vaughn and Josie leaned against the wall of the hallway surrounding the room they had exited. "Whoa, that was weird," Josie said.

"Something really is wrong with this place," Vaughn thought aloud. "All right, let's try another door. What exactly are we looking for?"

"I'm not sure," Josie said. "I'll know when I see it."

Vaughn laughed. "That helps a lot," he said dryly. "Okay, let's go."

"Which door?"

Vaughn opened a random door opposite the room they'd just come out of. "This one," he said, walking into a room that looked exactly like the previous. "Stay away from the walls," he told Josie, and the two stuck close in the middle of the room. "See anything?"

"No," she replied. "Let's get out of here!"

"I'm all for that," Vaughn said, pulling Josie out of the door.

When they were outside, he said again, "Do you have any idea of what you're looking for?"

She shook her head. "In my dream, your father is standing there and a worker is pulling his helmet off."

"And?"

Josie looked at Vaughn. "That's when I wake up."

"Can you tell where the scene takes place?" Vaughn asked.

"Outside the school."

"Then why are we here?" he asked.

Josie shrugged. "I have no idea. I felt somewhat compelled to come here. I really want to know what's going on with Victor Pearson and Blake Holsey High. I thought that coming here would trigger something --- like a memory or a realization or something. But it didn't."

Vaughn sighed. "It's not easy having Victor Pearson as your father, Josie. He expects way too much from you and you feel pressured whenever he even looks at you. But he's still my father."

"I know," Josie said apologetically. "And we're all sorry that we accuse him of everything. But you have to admit, him always hanging around the school and him owning Pearadyne --- which I'm sure is connected to the weird stuff somehow --- does seem a little weird."

Vaughn closed his eyes. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"Remember the day the school disappeared?"

"How could I forget?" Josie grinned.

Vaughn raised his eyebrows and lowered them again. "Anyway, at the exact moment --- 5:00 --- that the school disappeared, I was in my father's office, watching him having a meeting with a bunch of old guys. He was demonstrating some machine that made things disappear and he was saying how it was going to be the return of Pearadyne. He made a trophy disappear at the same second that the school disappeared."

"Your father made the school disappear?" Josie asked incredulously.

"I think so," he replied. "I mean, I'm not totally sure if he meant to make the school disappear --- actually, I don't think he even knows that it did. I'm really worried that something really bad is going to happen --- that he's going to make something bad happen and it'll be all because of him and Pearadyne and his stupid refusals to give up on his scientific obsessions."

Josie gave Vaughn a reassuring smile. "It's all going to be all right, Vaughn. We won't let him do something bad. We'll have to stop him before he makes the whole world infatuated with his labs and Blake Holsey High is crawling with tourists and researchers. We can't let that happen."

"Then let's get out of here first," Vaughn said. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Do you want to stop by and see your mother first?" Josie asked quietly.

"No," Vaughn replied automatically. His tone was very final.

"Okay," Josie replied carefully, filing a mental note not to mention his mother again and grabbing Vaughn's hand as to not get split up. "Let's go!"

~*~*~

Marshall, Corrine, and Lucas were standing at the bottom of the hill atop of which Pearadyne stood. "There it is," Corrine said.

"Yup," Lucas replied. "So, do we go?"

Marshall shrugged. "Maybe we should just wait for them to come back. If Josie broke her promise to us for us all to go, I'm sure she has a good reason. Maybe she just wanted Vaughn to go because his father owns the place. I don't know."

As the three of them stood there contemplating the next step, Josie and Vaughn came up to them. "Guys, what are you doing here?"

Lucas wheeled around and faced Josie, all decorum forgotten. "Maybe we should ask you the same question. You lied to us! You told us that we'd all go next time you came here."

As Josie was saying that it was something she had to do, Corrine and Marshall noticed her and Vaughn's tightly clasped hands and gave each other a look.

Lucas was still pretty angry. "So you had to do it because you're still having that dream about Pearadyne? Why is Vaughn the one accompanying you? Why not all of us?"

"For one," Josie began, "we're more mobile that way. Two, Vaughn's father is the man behind all the weird stuff. Three, he's been there before. Four, he came with me the first time."

Corrine cleared her throat at Josie, who noticed her pointedly staring at the two's hands. She sighed. "Corrine, it's so we don't get separated. You never know what could happen."

Vaughn nodded. "Last time, Josie took a step and ended up in some empty field. She took another step and ended up back where she was before. We decided it would be safer if we held hands so we didn't get lost without the other."

Corrine nodded. "Okay," she replied. "So, what did you find there?"

"At Pearadyne?" Vaughn asked. "Nothing. But we didn't look everywhere --- we realized that Josie's dream took place at the school and didn't involve the actual labs themselves. So we were heading back to investigate more. I'm not standing for this anymore." He told the group about his father and the trophy.

"Wow," Lucas said. "Your dad's behind it all?"

"We don't know," Josie said quickly as she felt Vaughn's hand go stiff with suppressed rage. "He might be, or it could be a coincidence. I just know that he's in my dream, and I have to find out who the worker is."

Marshall asked, "How are you going to do that?"

"I really have no idea," Josie said. "I know now that going to Pearadyne didn't help me."

Corrine cleared her throat. "This open and honest confession thing is great, but shall we --- uh --- get out of here? This place kind of freaks me out."

"Likewise," Josie said. "Come on, guys. This is the way back."

"Let's avoid the dams this time, okay?" Vaughn said, recalling his past experience.

Lucas laughed. "Yeah!"

~*~*~

The five finally got back to Blake Holsey and told Professor Z everything. Vaughn and Josie left out the part about the arm that had grabbed her in the room. Vaughn didn't know why he didn't tell anyone --- Josie didn't seem to want to either, and it was something that they had no explanation for. Getting one would probably involve returning to the lab --- something Vaughn didn't want to do.

Going there would eventually involve seeing his mother's body there. He couldn't handle that anymore. The first time he went there, he was in therapy for six months afterward, trying to get the image of the lumpy blanket out of his mind. He didn't want it in there anymore.

"Vaughn?" Professor Z asked. "Is that it?"

Vaughn didn't answer.

"Did anything else happen at Pearadyne? Is that all?" Professor Z asked again.

Josie exchanged a sharp look with Vaughn that he could clearly read. "Yes, Professor --- that's all," he verified.

~*~*~

A/N: Don't ask where that came from, I just started writing it and was like, "Okay then!" So R&R, no flames please. Thanks. I might write a sequel, you never know. Probably next week after I see Strange Days again. I might not, though, because that might ruin the mystery of Pearadyne. Lol!!