Lilo sat on the floor in the living room, Scrump in one hand, the remote in the other, watching a video tape of Elvis on the television. She was so immersed in watching that she almost missed Nani as she crossed the hall behind and opened the front door.

'Hey…' said Lilo, turning around after realising Nani was there, 'why do you look pretty?'

She was referring to Nani's extra jewellery and the dress that she only wore for special occasions. Stitch rounded a corner and sat at Nani's feet as she replied, 'We're going on a date.'

There was a pause, in which Lilo looked from Nani to Stitch and back again in confusion. 'You're… going on a date?'

'With David at the luau,' she completed. 'Your experiments wanted to come along too, and I said they could as long as they don't cause a scene or draw attention to the fact that they sit at the table.'

Stitch finished picking something out of his ear and called out, 'Buchibu? Chimeto!'

'Coming!' yelled a voice, and Demon scampered into the room. With a little effort, she pulled her extra limbs and alien appendages, and sat on the floor, wagging her tail slightly.

'Ooh, can I come?' said Lilo enthusiastically, standing up and clasping her hands together. 'Pleeeeeeeeeeease?'

Nani rolled her eyes. 'Oh, all right… since you can help keep our "dogs" in check… but you have to share a table with them and try to keep them out of our hair.'

'No problem!' grinned Lilo, 'I guarantee your hair will stay experiment-free! Come on, guys,' she motioned to the "dogs" and they followed her out of the door.

They walked briskly along the streets on the way there, the evening air was a little cold, but comforting all the same. Along the town streets, people were closing their shops and preparing to go home, and a few who knew Nani waved as they walked past. They didn't care if the two animals travelling with them looked like mutant koalas, and when Nani and Lilo waved back, Demon thought that she'd never felt more accepted, and there was no other place in the universe she could. This town, on a small island on a virtually unknown planet, was a true home. She never wanted to leave.

When they reached the luau at last, the humans went in quite happily, but Demon stopped. She looked at the place – wooden beams and flaming torches all around, and many people… wouldn't it be fun to see them all running for cover, screaming…?

Demon was scared. The kind of atmosphere this place held was very close to her original programming. In her mind the wood she could see all around was meant to be destroyed, one way or another – although she didn't know it, this was the same way Stitch had felt on his visit to Honolulu.

'Gaba isa?' Stitch placed a paw on her shoulder. 'It's reminding you of your programming?'

'Naga choota,' she said irritably, but regretted snapping at him. 'Soka.'

''S okay,' said Stitch brightly. He knew she was designed for being wild and angry… he understood her so well. She smiled warmly for his quick forgiveness.

Stitch could see that she was still afraid… with all the temptation around, she was scared of herself… how could he help her? When he looked at her now, he could sense a difference. Something about her had changed since the encounter with Angel, something in her self-confidence. A spark that had once glowed in her eyes had died. It was as if a part of her had been extinguished after her heartbreak, and a space was left for something less naïve, less reckless, and more mature and understanding. She had learned some of life's largest lessons in a short amount of time. But with the loss of her innocence, came control. And Stitch knew she was ready to control herself and her powers, like he did, and be ready to face anything.

'So,' Stitch began, motioning that he was about to go after Nani and Lilo, 'will Demon follow Stitch?'

Demon smiled again, and concern was lifted from her face. 'Stitch, I'd go with you to hell and back.'

They walked through the luau side by side, joining Lilo at her table.

'So guys, what do you feel like having?' Lilo asked while browsing a menu.

'Erm…' the two experiments exchanged a glance, 'cake.'

Lilo laughed. 'I should have known…'

Nani had joined David at another table not far away and they seemed to be getting along well. They chatted over their food, and the whole scene looked very romantic in the firelight of the tiki torches.

At Lilo's table, away from the eyes of the adults, all three of them had ordered nothing but cakes and they were wolfing them down happily.

From across the luau, a small orange creature who was obviously an experiment to anyone who knew what one was, waved to Lilo and Stitch.

'Cousin?' questioned Demon, who had finished eating and had taken to looking around.

'Yeah,' Lilo answered through her cake, 'that's Splodyhead. They keep him around here to use his plasma abilities to light the torches.' Demon was heartened to know that another cousin had found their place and had been accepted.

Past a few tables where other couples and families were happily eating and talking, a new band began to play. They had replaced the traditional Hawaiian band that had been quietly playing, and now struck up a beautiful symphony on foreign classical instruments to add some variety to the evening.

'Wow,' said Lilo, who had finally cleared her plate and turned in her seat to enjoy the music. 'Hey Demon, that's really…' she looked for the experiment, but she had gone.

'Lilo!' Stitch cried frantically. 'Aba lucha!' He pointed over to the band, where, to their surprise, Demon seemed to be considering the musicians while standing right in front of them.

Lilo motioned for Stitch to copy her and she dropped to the floor, then began making her way around to the band, weaving between tables and trying to stay out of sight. Stitch did the same.

When they finally got to the row just in front of the band, they stopped and hid at the side of a nearby table. Demon was, once again, nowhere to be seen. Then she reappeared from behind a disorganised pile of the musician's instrument cases, carrying what looked like a violin.

Lilo tried to surreptitiously grab the experiment's attention and get her to stop, but Demon took no notice.

After regarding the band one final time, Demon leapt into their midst, lifted the fiddle to her chin, placed the bow on it, and joined in.

Lilo's fear melted away when she realised the experiment was actually good. She played her violin flawlessly, imitating yet ornamenting the melody being performed. She continued to give a scintillating and heated rendition, executing complicated harmonies and breath-taking descants. Her claws curved perfectly to reach each string without clashing with another.

Suddenly the band stopped playing – they had all noticed the appearance of their extra member. Lilo became anxious and thought they were all done for, but at that point, Demon took it upon herself to play a riveting solo. But it wasn't a solo for very long – all of a sudden Stitch was right next to her, holding a ukulele he had unearthed from somewhere. In a flash he joined in, showing off his mastery of his particular instrument and they continued in a wonderful and spell-binding duet.

A few bars later, with smiles on their faces, the rest of the band joined back in.

----------

Eventually the piece came to an end, the musicians bowed, and Stitch and Demon put their instruments aside to rejoin Lilo.

'You guys…' said Lilo is an exasperated way, shaking her head but grinning, 'I was worried. What are we going to do with you?'

The experiments just looked sheepish. Lilo went to go back to the table and Stitch grabbed Demon's paw, leading her back. Behind them, the band was packing up. It was time for a different sort of entertainment.

As Lilo made sure the experiments were back in their seats, she found her big sister coming to check on her.

'Did I just see what I thought I saw?' Nani asked ominously.

'Err… yes?' replied Lilo, trying to think of a way to not get into trouble. 'Well… it all worked out, didn't it?' She gave a pleading smile, then noticed something. 'Hey Nani… where's David?'

Nani jerked her head towards the main stage, at the most prominent place in the luau. Lilo understood and settled back into her chair. The constant buzzing chatter around them calmed down and became a murmur of anticipation as the audience realised something was about to happen.

Lilo, Stitch and Demon sat in their seats, watching expectantly and intently.

With a yell, a spotlight appeared on the stage, and David materialised into it, as if from nowhere. He held two long batons into the air, and fireballs shot towards them, igniting each of the ends – Splodyhead's responsibility. Then with a whoop, he took one flaming stick in each hand, and twirled them around, spreading the fire through the air while the beating of drums accompanied his every move. He span the batons with complete confidence, never doubting his abilities, never showing fear at the burning ends which danced through that air at his command.

Stitch watched as he had done a few times before, feeling entertained. Demon watched the show as if mesmerised.

David moved his own body around the spinning fire, dancing about it playfully, pretending to his audience that he was invincible. Then, for his final move, he span the sticks in the air horizontally as he lay on his back. He took a quick drink from his nearby flask, keeping the contents in his mouth, then stood up and blew right into the flames. The fire billowed out enormously into the air, drawing that surprised gasp from the audience he always loved to hear. The accompanying drums stopped abruptly, and David held his sticks out and took a bow. The audience applauded.

Lilo clapped enthusiastically, even though she'd seen the same show dozens of time before. 'I think David's getting better,' she said as she sank back down into her seat after straining to see over the heads in the crowd. 'He didn't even set anything on fire this time.'

Stitch was looking at her and pointing towards the stage where David had been a few moments ago. Lilo gasped.

Demon was standing in the spotlight that was still on the stage, looking around her in wonder. Slowly, the attention of the audience shifted onto her as the expectation of another show grew.

Lilo was making frantic hand motions and trying to whisper, 'Get down!' but to no avail. Demon had either forgotten to continue concealing her extraterrestrial appendages or had taken them out on purpose, because she was fully formed on the stage – Lilo hoped nobody would notice.

As soon as a sufficient amount of the audience had their attention fixed on her, Demon started to move. She inhaled deeply, concentrated, and breathed out flames into her four open palms. The audience didn't know what to make of this, until Demon stopped breathing fire and appeared to be holding a fireball in each hand. Then, slowly and cautiously, she began to juggle them.

It was slow at first, and she concentrated on trying not to let one fall. But soon she found a rhythm to the catching, throwing and falling, and the pace of the act accelerated. All of a sudden the drum players who had been performing alongside David came back in again, helping her find a reliable metronome to work with.

The audience seemed pleased.

Demon looked about and smiled. Apparently this wasn't enough for her – she started blowing fire upwards, creating more balls in mid-air and continuing to juggle them. The speed at which she could keep all the hot balls of flame going had to increase, so at last she decided to stop and threw all the balls high above her head. As they dropped back to earth, she opened her mouth and seemed to swallow every one.

The watching crowd whooped and cheered, and this only spurred her on. She blew a continuous ring of fire into the air and leapt back and forth through it. She took spare tiki torches, lit the ends, and span them about while executing acrobatic moves, such as hand-stands. She was becoming bolder, and Lilo started to worry that the heat and excitement might get to her, and cause a programming relapse.

Stitch had no such concerns. He still fully believed that she would be able to control her own powers. Lilo hadn't felt the same warm flood of emotion they did when they were together. These feelings, if of a specific magnitude, triggered the reaction which led to light emitting from their antennae. And it was those feelings of love, thought and consciousness which told Stitch that he was forever safe from having to listen to his original programming again, and the same for her. They could think for themselves, act for themselves, and make their own decisions. They were ruled by no destiny, and free to choose their own future.

Stitch knew what he wanted his future to be. On the stage, Demon was truly enjoying herself, using her own powers but limiting them, delighting in the fire around her that also seemed to be a part of herself. Everything about her seemed to be filled with heat and passion, even her fluid movements reminded Stitch of a burning flame. She was confident, she was trusting her abilities, she was true to herself. And with the firelight flickering on her face, her rich colours, and the way she moved as if part of the fire itself… she was beautiful. Something that, until this moment, Stitch hadn't fully recognised. It wasn't an obvious sort of beauty that anybody could see right away. It was beauty that came from within, from being true and being herself, that matched with the fierce beauty of the fire she wielded. It was a sort of beauty that had to be revealed to you, but once it was found, its brilliance was as clear as day.

Stitch knew that his future was to be with her.

While the crowd continued to clap and applaud, Demon decided she'd had enough. For a final move, she copied David, and stood right at the front of the stage. She took a deep breath, and blasted a cloud of fire directly over the heads of the viewers. In unison the onlookers gasped, much like they had after David's finale, but this time it sounded more terrified than impressed. Demon could hear the change and froze, trying to look through the smoke and see what had happened.

Her final blast had been bigger, hotter and closer than David's… what if something had gone wrong? All the self-confidence and recklessness that had just been coursing through her vanished immediately. Passion and excitement died down, leaving her duller and less secure.

The smoke cleared away, showing that every person in the audience was perfectly fine, if a little shocked. Then they all stood up as one, and clapped louder than they had all evening.

Having already dropped from the stage, Demon made her way back to her own table. She was filled with relief, but exhausted and thrilled nonetheless.

As she approached the table, Stitch ran up and hugged her. She did nothing to resist.

'Well, that was… fun,' said Lilo, cautiously. 'But…'

She stopped as she saw Nani's shadow looming over the three of them. Lilo prepared herself for what was known as 'the worst' from her sister, but another voice interrupted them.

'Nani? Is this your dog?' The man who ran the luau was standing in front of them, He had once employed Nani as a waitress.

'Well… y-yes… but…' Nani stuttered, 'I apologise, sir, this shouldn't have…'

'She's quite the little entertainer!' he said, with an unexpected note of jollity in his voice. 'A spectacular show, playing little tunes and performing death-defying fire tricks!' he laughed.

'Um… sir?' Nani was taken aback.

'If it's alright with you, I'd like your… friend… to be the luau's star performer! Think of it – the world's only fiddle-playing, fire-breathing dog… we'll be the most popular tourist spot on the whole island!'

Nani just smiled and nodded.

'Great!' he smiled, backing away to sort out some sort of contract agreement, 'and we might even squeeze in a double act…'

As he left, David strode up to Nani. 'What was that about?' he asked. 'Is everything okay?'

'It's… fine,' Nani replied, sounding not a little relieved. 'He wants to put our… "dog" up as a regular performer here.'

'Ah, great!' David grinned, kneeling down to pet Demon. 'I sure could use someone to help me out in my act.'

'Bark, bark,' said Demon.

David laughed, 'Your alien friends sure are interesting, Lilo. And they're mean surfers, too. Sometimes it's hard to think what the island would be like without them,' he sighed. 'And sometimes I wish I had a friend like you do, Lilo.'

Many glances were exchanged.

'Hey, David…' Lilo began, 'why don't you take care of Demon? She needs a home… and if she's gonna be working here, it'll be even better if you two team up. I bet you can put on the best show ever!'

'Really? No kidding?' David seemed delighted. 'I actually get a little alien pet of my own!'

----------

'Hey guys!' said Lilo, on their way back home. Nani was keeping an eye on her while she walked behind with the two experiments, since it had become dark.

'There was something I forgot to tell you,' Lilo said to Demon and Stitch. 'Something happened when I took Bonnie and Clyde back to the police station.'

'Gaba?' Stitch questioned.

'Well, when I took them back in, the police guys wanted to know why I'd wanted them. So I told them all about how they helped us solve a "crime"' here she used finger quotes, 'and something had been "stolen", and we were able to track down the person who did it because Bonnie and Clyde have "great criminal minds"… the guys at the station were so impressed, they decided to take the experiments out of their cell, and put them to work trying to solve crimes for them! Isn't that great?'

'Bootifa!' Stitch agreed.

'If they do it well, I bet they'll get let out sooner… but I think this is probably going to be their one true place, isn't it? I didn't like the idea of the experiments being in jail… sure, they tricked us, but it's not their fault they were created to steal things. It's like I told Gantu, remember?' she stroked Stitch's head as she walked. 'Experiments don't have to be ruled by their primary function. They're free to do… whatever they want.' She smiled and ran back ahead to Nani.

When they reached the house, Lilo was told to go straight to bed, and Nani went to find out how much damage Jumba and Pleakley had managed to do to the house in their absence. Stitch and Demon escaped out to the back yard, and climbed the wooden steps up to the hammock. They both climbed up into it, a place that had been the birth of so many events.

'So…' said Demon quietly, rocking slightly in the hammock, 'I guess I'll be going to David's tomorrow…'

'…Ih,' Stitch agreed slowly.

Demon sighed and looked at the house. 'I'll miss living here…'

'I'll… miss… you…' said Stitch. Demon just looked at him lovingly. 'I'll miss… just hearing your voice, all the time,' his effort at pronouncing the words correctly was obvious. 'And when you sang… so much more beautifully than Angel.'

The mention of the name had a momentary effect, but Demon seemed to force herself to ignore it.

'Angel made me believe in love,' said Stitch, wanting to put the matter to rest at last, 'but you're the one… who really showed me what it means.'

Feeling overcome, Demon pulled him tightly into a hug. They held each other for a few moments in silence, then Demon started to sing,

'Aloha 'oe,

Aloha 'oe,

E ke onaona noho

I ka lipo,

One fond embrace…'

She stopped, and seemed unable to continue. Stitch was still holding her, in awe of how beautiful the sound was, and now he nuzzled his face against her neck. Then he reached up to lick her cheek.

'Until we meet again,' she finished.

The warm, familiar, welcoming light was emanating from the antennae on their heads, as they had come to expect, amplifying the moment.

'I'm not really going to be gone,' she tried to justify, 'I won't be far away… we'll see each other often enough. Everything's going to be okay.'

Stitch said nothing.

'And if you and Lilo go out experiment hunting, and find one of our cousins, and you need any help… don't hesitate to let me know,' she said, trying to suppress the emotion threatening to show in her voice, 'and I'll come straight away…'

Stitch looked at her, then he pushed his nose softly against hers.

'Or, I could visit every day,' she continued, 'I'm sure David won't mind…'

Stitch placed his hands on her shoulders, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. At first Demon was shocked and bewildered, but after discovering how pleasant the sensation was, she returned it as best she could.

A few moments later, they broke apart.

'What,' asked Demon, 'was that?'

'It's something people do on Earth to show affection for each other,' Stitch replied, although his vocabulary wasn't large enough to explain in English. 'I sometimes see them doing it, but I never had a chance to try it until now.'

'Can we do it again?' said Demon hopefully. Stitch gave a little laugh and they shared another kiss.

They lay on the hammock, side by side, watching the night sky and all the glimmers of light that had found a home in it. They felt immensely happy that they were not up there, in the infinite black spaces of the universe, but on a small little-known planet mostly covered with water, where they had found, against all odds, their one true place – with people who accepted them, and with each other.

That moment was perfect - the most profound sense of belonging a being could comprehend, and their one hope was that things should stay the same, now and for as long as possible. And somewhere, in the infinite reaches of space above them, a shooting star answered that wish.

'Cause your kisses lift me higher,

Like the sweet song of a choir,

You light my morning sky,

With burning love.

--------------------------------------------------

Well, that's it. The story's over. Thank you so much for reading it. There should be a new chapter up on my lookup for you to view, especially for the ending.
I didn't really expect anyone to understand my little "naga choota" joke, but if anyone did, then that's good. :)

Any feedback at all you can give is appreciated.

Thanks again.