a/n: Not sure where this one really came from. I was talking to my husband about random things and it suddenly popped in my head and wouldn't leave me alone. I wasn't going to start a new story because I am already writing a long one, but this idea came to me and wouldn't let me write the other one until I got it out of my head.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Megamind other than my DVD, my soundtrack and my obsession! Nods to Dreamworks for this excellent addition to my collection.

Summary: Pre-movie AU. Something goes horribly wrong with one of Megamind's battle suits and he and Roxanne wind up stranded in the middle of a desert with nothing but each other to aid in their survival. Will they make it?

Stranded

Chapter One: Endless

Roxanne Ritchi slowly picked her head up from the hot bed of sand lying beneath her sprawled form after she awoke from the chemically-induced black out. Confusion was prevalent in her expression when she opened her eyes to the setting sun. She pushed herself up and maneuvered her legs into a sitting position, brushing the sand off of her clothes and face with her hands. Of course, her hands were covered in sand too so she wasn't making much progress. After giving up her futile attempt to clean herself up, she looked around herself to ascertain where exactly she was.

Everywhere she looked, as far as she could see, there was nothing but rocky grey sand dotted with ugly grey bushes of nasty looking twigs and a red and orange sky with streaks of dark purple clouds. The stark grey color of the sand in the waning light in contrast with the vibrant colors in the sky was striking. More striking was the black figure hunched several feet away from her, drawing in the sand with his finger. She was less confused about her location with his presence there. He hadn't acknowledged that she was awake yet. Before she had moved enough to garner his attention, she heard him muttering to himself.

His shadow was long as the sun sank to dip below the horizon. She stood and approached him cautiously. Unsure of how they had gotten into this predicament, she wanted to question him. He jumped almost a meter in the air when she touched his arm. Apparently he had been entirely lost in his own thoughts and had not seen her approach.

He was breathing heavily and had his hand over his chest as he looked at her with evident remorse in his eyes. "Oh! Miss Ritchi. You startled me!" His breathing slowed as she removed her hand from his arm and started looking around.

"Megamind, where are we?" she tried to sound cautiously curious and not pass judgment without the entire picture. She didn't entirely succeed as her question came out with more force than she'd intended.

"In the middle of the desert, obviously," his temper was evidently short. She recoiled a little at his intensity although she was not deterred from her line of questioning.

"But where?"

"I have no idea." That surprised her. He should have had at general idea of where they were.

"Ok, so how did we get out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"That's a long story. One we don't have time for at present," he stood and started pacing in a little oval, obviously annoyed by her incessant questions.

She realized that getting mad at him now would likely not help their situation, so she chose to just go with whatever he said for the time being, because, if nothing else, he was an expert in surviving. "I guess you're right. It's going to start cooling off drastically once the sun goes down, right, so what do we do about that? I've read that it can get pretty cold in the desert at night." He paused and looked at her for a moment.

"We need to find water and shelter." He turned to continue pacing as he had an uncomfortable thought, "Until Minion finds us, which is highly unlikely given the fact that we don't have a homing beacon anymore, we need to focus on keeping ourselves alive." She shuffled her feet as she absorbed what he'd said. She was hoping they'd at least have a homing beacon – of all things to forget! "We need to get to work on the water first."

"What about shelter? It's getting dark pretty fast," she questioned him but all she wanted was reassurance that he had a plan.

"I can survive for a week without water. You can't. Besides, there are other options for enough shelter to live through the night, if need be." Well, it was a very basic plan and not one with much hope because it had no direction, but at least it showed that he was thinking. And, what was that concern for her life again? He was becoming more of a puzzle to her and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Oh, really?"

He didn't respond to her inquiry as he started to walk to the top of the nearest dune. She followed along behind him silently. As they crested the sandy hill, they were disappointed to see nothing but more dunes. She rotated herself in a circle so she could survey more of the desert. They were most certainly somewhere in the middle because even from this higher vantage point, she could still see nothing but sand and sky. She let out a frustrated sigh which elicited a withering glare from him.

He started walking in one direction and didn't look to see if she was following. His determined stride was making it hard for her to catch up with him. The sun was nearly set and she could feel that the temperature was milder than it had been not 20 minutes before. That rapid of a temperature decrease was not a good sign for later that night, especially if they couldn't find shelter. Even then, they would have to hope to find something that was flammable to keep them warm enough to survive the night.

She was glad that she had dressed sensibly for this kidnapping, not that that's what she was trying to do when she'd gotten dressed that morning, but that had been the result. She was wearing a pair of jeans with her running shoes and a three-quarter sleeve-length button-down blouse in a light yellow color with a fitted but loose cut. It wasn't going to be enough if the temperature got much below 50 F, but it was all she had.