A/N: As usual, I'm going to say this story is probably AU, though not especially intentionally so. It is set in season three, prior to the episode "You Posted What" (mainly because I hadn't seen that far into the series at the time this was written), so there may be/are spoilers for episodes up to that point. Also, as always, this story is completely written. As per usual, I will upload one chapter per day (Barring anything out of the ordinary. I will attempt to give readers a head's up via A/N). This was written for my entertainment, and is being published for yours. If you find yourself not enjoying it, then you should feel perfectly free to stop reading. Heap praise or criticism upon it, whichever may suit you best. Or say nothing about it at all, if you would prefer.

I rated this story K+ and I feel that is sufficient. However, there is a bit of mild violence (and potential violence), as well as some peril to characters, drinking and religion are discussed in passing and certain adult themes are referenced indirectly. If any of this bothers you, feel free not to read the story. If you encounter at any point something that you feel is not K+, please do feel free to inform me via message with or without your reason and I will up the rating to T.

Tuesday, Dec 23rd

Snow fell in wild flurries from the clouded sky. Icy wind blasted low between buildings, car tires slid alarmingly on the frosted road. Drivers were further hindered by rubberneckers who paused to gape at the side of a building, which seemed to have been torn open. Brickwork lay in uneven piles, some half-buried in the snow, the rest having landed in drifts and thus having disappeared utterly from view.

It was purely by chance that the street was empty when Chase sat up. He had been lying in one of the deeper drifts, which was almost to his shoulders even now that he was sitting up. He put a hand to his aching head and winced slightly before trying to look around. That was easier said than done. Doing so made him aware that more things than just his head hurt. He also didn't realize how cold he was until his snow crusted glove made contact with his skin.

He yelped and pulled his hand away, then moaned and seriously considered lying back down. His mission suit was designed to withstand temperatures far more severe than this, but much of the snow had found its way under his collar and melted there. He was not cold past endurance, but his joints were beginning to ache and he was shivering.

He had to get indoors, to someplace warmer.

Awkwardly, Chase staggered upright. The world spun and momentarily faded out, so he stood there swaying uncertainly, wondering if maybe he hadn't been better off unconscious. But then the world popped back into existence, though it still tilted sickeningly every time he moved.

Chase looked around. Nothing looked familiar. He tried to remember what had happened just before he passed out. He drew a blank. He didn't panic. He knew full well that sometimes you can't remember what happened just before having blacked out. When you blacked out, you weren't getting enough oxygen to your brain and so anything you remembered wouldn't necessarily be reliable anyway.

Having determined to the best of his ability that he was in no immediate danger, Chase set himself to trying to find the last thing he did remember. It was then that he panicked. This was because all that came back were jumbled images and fragments of memory. Not only couldn't he remember the events leading up to his current situation, he couldn't remember anything else either.

The faces of people he thought he knew came into view of his mind's eye, looking like worn out photographs. A tall boy with brown hair, a spitfire of a girl, another boy smaller than he was, a man with jet black hair, another man with tall hair, a woman, some kind of troll in square clothing... he didn't know how he related to any of them. He also had a list of names, but he wasn't sure who they belonged to. In fact, he was beginning to question his memory about his own name, which he had assumed was 'Chase' when he woke up.

"No," he told himself firmly, "my name is Chase. That much I do know."

There was a flickering behind his vision and the world got suddenly darker. Chase staggered like something heavy had hit him from behind. He nearly lost his balance and fell, but managed to recover.

Once the world was stable again, he looked around. He didn't know exactly who or what he was looking for, but he knew it was important. He felt like he shouldn't be alone here. There were others... three? Four? Only one or two? He wasn't sure. But he was sure that they should be right here alongside him. And if he was in trouble, then they must be too.

He checked his watch. The face of it was cracked and the tiny battery that powered it was obviously dying. It was bouncing back and forth between 07:37:05 and 07:37:06. That must have been when... he looked over at the hole in the wall... when something happened.

"Alright, don't panic. What's the last thing I do remember?" He asked himself this three times over before he realized that, not only wasn't he thinking of anything, he was also panicking.

He sat down on some of the wall debris and put his head in his hands. He tried to breathe deeply. He also tried to think. He couldn't even get his last name. It started with either a D or possibly a U, and he wasn't sure what letters (if any) followed. He decided to give up on that line of thinking.

Chase felt like he should be able to tell where he was just by asking himself where he was. He seemed to recall that he had a kind of internal GPS... or something odd like that. He put a hand on the back of his neck, trying to get a better grasp of what it was he should know. There was... something inside him. Or maybe he was something... the word that came to mind was 'bionic'.

He was human, but it wasn't as simple as that. He wasn't sure exactly what it was. But whatever it was, it wasn't working. All he was getting was the sound of static in his mind. He shook his head, trying to clear it. But all that did was make him dizzy. He tipped over and fell into the snow.

He got up again after a bit, dusted himself off and rubbed his arms to try and work some warmth into them. Then he tucked his hands under his arms. In spite of the fact that he was wearing gloves, he could only barely feel his fingers. He must have been lying in the snow for awhile.

He looked up at the sky, but couldn't hope to judge the time from that, even though the violent wind was whipping the frenzied clouds quickly across the sky, driving the storm away. Gazing fixedly upwards, Chase was eventually able to make out what he thought might be some stars.

Looking up was making him feel a little ill, so he stopped doing that. At the same time, he heard the ear shattering squeal of car brakes being severely abused and rubber skidding across rough ice. He put his hands over his ears with a pained yelp, but looked around for the car.

Half a block down, a car had hit the brakes too hard. It went sailing across a fortunately empty intersection. A little less than halfway between Chase and the car sat a big fluffy cat. It was sitting in the road, twitching its tail irritably and eying the oncoming vehicle with disdain.

Chase didn't think. It was pure reflex. He ran towards the cat, leaping onto the icy road and sliding the last few feet. His left arm swept up the cat and pinned it to his chest, while his right arm went up in what he thought was a defensive action. To his horror, the car careened off the road in response to the movement of his hand. It jumped the curb and sailed towards a series of closed shops.

Quickly, Chase altered its trajectory and it slid off the sidewalk and swept harmlessly past where Chase and the cat were lying. As soon as it was back on the road, Chase made himself let go of it. He wasn't sure how he'd done that, or what exactly he'd done. The driver kept going, and seemed to think the wild ride had been a result of ice and braking too hard.

Shakily, Chase got to his feet, still holding onto the cat, which had begun to yowl. As he made it to the sidewalk, the creature aimed a sharp-clawed swipe at his face and dug three deep furrows in his right cheek. Chase didn't do it intentionally, but he dropped the cat with a startled cry.

It wasn't because the cat had scratched him, though that stung too. It was because he'd had a sudden, vivid memory. There was an orange cat. It meowed a lot. It had... it had a name...

"Mr. Whiskers?" Chase wondered.

"Fluffles, actually."

Chase jumped, thinking at first that the cat had spoken. But then his eyes found a girl in a gray pea coat. She knelt down and picked up the great ball of gray fur. It looked over its shoulder with daggers in its lemon colored eyes, regarding Chase with absolutely loathing.

"What?" Chase asked, trying to keep pace with current events, and failing miserably.

"My cat. His name is Fluffles," the girl, maybe slightly older than Chase felt himself to be, repeated, "Do you have a cat named Mr. Whiskers?"

"Me? No. At least.. I mean... I don't think so," Chase stammered.

"Well," the girl said, "thanks for saving Fluffles. He never gets out except when a storm is coming. And then he just goes and sits in the road like he's waiting for a bus to take him away."

"I think you mean when a storm is going," Chase said, indicating the rapidly dispersing clouds.

"No," the girl said firmly, "a storm is coming, no matter what the weather report says."

Chase had no idea what the weather report said, and so didn't comment on that.

"Fluffles knows. He always has. There will be a storm. Probably tomorrow. I hope they don't shut down the airlines. My brother is supposed to on his way home from a business trip. If he doesn't make it, then I'll have to spend Christmas with just Fluffles and daddy for company. Again. Anyway, thanks for saving him. Goodbye."

She turned abruptly and trotted up the sidewalk. She paused at the crosswalk, checked both ways, then crossed the street to an apartment building. She trotted up the front stairs and then turned back. Since Chase was still standing there, she freed one hand to wave while the other struggled under the weight of the enormously fluffy cat. Then she went inside and Chase found himself alone on the street.

The driver of the car had already turned a corner and driven out of sight.

Now the cat and the girl were gone, Chase felt even more alone and confused than before.

With a heavy sigh, he turned and walked back to where he'd started. He knew you should always stay where you were if you were lost. But would anyone be able to find him? Was anyone even looking?

"I can't believe you guys left Chase behind," Mr. Davenport chastised, "he could be really hurt."

"He could be hurt?" Bree spat, "what about us? I was so dizzy I couldn't even see!"

"And I thought that blast turned Chase into a bug," Adam said, opening his hands to reveal the cockroach he'd carefully brought home, "Guess you'll need another name, little guy. Chase is already taken," he put the roach in a glass jar and set it on the desk.

"You're not keeping that," Bree told him.

When she'd realized they had left Chase behind, Bree had turned on Adam. He had innocently showed her the bug and told her he had bad news about Chase. Bree had promptly leaped up onto the desk and screamed loud enough to be heard at Mission Creek High.

Mr. Davenport had taken great pains to explain to Adam that the roach wasn't Chase and they would have to go back and look for him. But before they could do that, he needed to take care of them first. They were glitching all over the place to the point that it wasn't safe to be in the room with them.

"Alright. Into your capsules, both of you," Mr. Davenport said, "I'll start up the debugging program, which will take about an hour to run. I would leave Leo here to make sure nothing goes wrong, but frankly I think we'd all be safer if I took him with me to look for Chase."

"Leo..." Adam said, looking up from his roach, which had flipped onto its back and was now flailing its legs wildly, "is that your wife?"

"What? NO!" Davenport was aghast that Adam would suggest such a thing.

"Girlfriend?"

"Adam!" Bree hit his arm, then turned to Mr. Davenport, "he's your cousin, right?"

"Oh no," Davenport said, "the glitches are affecting your memory, and your abilities. It's worse than I thought. I can't just leave," he sat down heavily in his chair, biting his lower lip.

He had to make a decision. Chase, or Adam and Bree. He knew what he had to do. He had to take care of Adam and Bree first. One, because he knew where they were. Two, because what he learned fixing them would help with Chase, who was going to be worse off by the time they found him.

For the time being at least, Chase would have to fend for himself.