~5 weeks earlier~

After Serena finished with her declaration of power, she glanced toward the other two members of the tech team who were usually posted in the computer hub to assist Kyle, Miranda, or the rest of flight crew. “Yeah, you two really aren’t needed anymore,” she stated simply, before glancing their way as they then each fell into an unconscious slump on the floor. “Now, for you,” she sighed as she glanced back at where Miranda was still seemingly frozen in place. “Guess that can’t be terribly comfortable,” she stated absently before moving to pose Miranda in Kyle’s old seat, and going about humming lightly as she strapped her firmly to that seat with excess wiring that had always been kept in the hub. “Ok, I’ll even let you talk if you promise to play nice,” she told Miranda after tying her to the chair, where she did allow Miranda at least enough freedom of motion to nod her head.

“How are you doing this?” Miranda finally breathed shakily once she again had any control at all over her body from the neck up, anyway.

“Gee, I thought that would’ve been my question for you and your little science team. At least, until I found out exactly what I could do, then I just didn’t care about the ‘how’ anymore. I had too many new toys to play with,” she smiled wryly.

“So…why are you doing this?” Miranda restated hoarsely.

“Other than, because I can?” Serena returned with a raised eyebrow, leaning apathetically back against Kyle’s former desk.

“So fine, I get that you want control of the ship, but what did you do to them, honestly?” Miranda continued with shaking voice.

“Which them?”

“The four people who are out there in space with no idea of what is happening here!” Miranda exclaimed with a combination of anger and despair.

“I didn’t really do anything to them. I just made it so they’ll sleep tight until we’re long gone, and then their little pod will shut down, and they’ll have a lovely new home for the rest of their pointless little lives. You know, assuming they can breathe, and like, nothing tears them to shreds down there. But hey, they signed up for that big unknown, just so they could be heroes. Can’t say they didn’t know the risks,” she shrugged with a lack of any sympathy.

“Why do that?” Miranda asked tearfully. “They’re not even on the ship anymore, and you’ve obviously got control here.”

“Yes, and I plan on keeping it. So, I don’t really need them to get any ideas about coming back at all, ever.”

Then Miranda narrowed her eyes. “And why would the four of them even matter to your big plan?”

“Are you implying something, Miranda?”

“So, I guess they’re all just innocent casualties, after all. Is that it?” Miranda returned with a biting tone to hide her sniffle.

“Innocent?” Serena raised her brow again. “Interesting choice of words...” Serena then scoffed with another apathetic grin. “Let’s start with Ian: His daddy’s dead, and I’m pretty sure that no one else up here is really gonna miss him. Hell, half the people here are pretty pissed off by his favorite humping and dumping pass-time…They may even thank me.”

Miranda just shook her head. “And what about the other three?”

“Well as for your precious little Lili, this ship is the only way you could ever have any hope of getting back to her ever again. So just in case you have any ideas about trying to regain control here, not that that would be very likely,” she scoffed. “Be assured that if anything were to ever happen to me…precautions have been taken and the ship would go straight down with me. I’m beyond wired in,” she told her with deadly seriousness.

“So Ian has nothing to do with this other than wrong place wrong time? And Lili is basically your insurance that I’ll behave if you ever let your guard down…So that still leaves us to wonder why it was that you really wanted to get rid of the other two so very badly,” Miranda told her coolly.

Serena scoffed again. “Whatever reasons you’ve cooked up in that little brain of yours it doesn’t change the fact that all four are long gone and now it’s my turn to decide exactly who will be the so-called hero of the human race, or is that heroine?” she allowed another wicked grin. “And I can assure you, it won’t be the four of them.”

“Don’t know how much of a hero you’ll be when they find out how you got that title,” Miranda growled back.

“Oh please. Sacrificing the few for the good of the many? I don’t even have to have been born on earth to know that’s exactly how things always worked there.”

“Yeah, you seem real concerned with the good of others,” Miranda scoffed.

“Actually, I couldn’t care less about who lives and who dies. But when I give all these pathetic people back their so-called hope when I ‘discover’ this new home for us, I know exactly what that’ll make me. And then they’ll all know it too. And no one anywhere, ever, will even think about challenging me. I really will be the most powerful girl in the whole wide world.”

~Present~

It was now nearly halfway through October and the days’ temperatures had begun cooling to the sixties, which was still pleasant but the nights in the fifties did make the four of them eager for the completion of a sturdier shelter. At this point though, it was actually semi-livable, with all four walls and a roof completed. They still had to finish the floors and any inner walls as well as find a sturdier type of door than their current practice of just propping the current one in the doorway. But all in all they had come far.

Until they got around to finishing the inside of the abode, the four of them decided to simply stretch the tents between the outer walls to form the inner walls for the moment. With the two teens gathering more materials Ian was left with Lili to help him tie up the tents between the existing walls.

The two finished that task without too many words being spoken between them until it was complete. They then stepped back to glance at their work and Ian finally spoke up from their place inside one of the outer walls. “Well it ain’t a mansion, but it’s a bit sturdier than just hiding out in those tents for the winter.”

“Great,” Lili sighed the words rather than spoke them, which simply caused Ian to look over at her questioningly.

“And you’re displaying such enthusiasm here,” he chided.

“Two months. Over two months,” was her simple response.

“Sorry built it as fast as I could, hon,” he smirked as he moved to organize his own bedding in the corner of the shack.

“I wasn’t talking about that,” she mumbled.

“Oh sorry, were we having different conversations?” he teased as he looked back at her briefly before continuing to place the blankets and pillow.

“All right, last time…I’m just gonna ask,” she sighed as he glanced back towards her once more. “Do you want to or not, honestly?”

“Want to…what?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She just scoffed. “Like you don’t know.”

Ian let out a slight chuckle as he moved to tilt his head to catch her eyes. “You’re not actually asking me if I wanna have sex with you, are you?” he added with a bit of curiosity on his face.

“Considering you’ve been making out with me, among a few other slightly more intense activities for two months now, gee why would I ask that?” she returned sarcastically.

“So that is what you’re asking me?”

“Oh would you stop with the shocked routine?” she scoffed again.

“Well, it is a bit of an odd question considering it is you asking me.”

“How’s that?” she retorted with further impatience.

“Well I spent ten years telling you in several subtle as well as…less subtle ways,” he smirked, “that that is exactly what I wanted to do with you,” a slight pause. “So yeah, it’s an odd question.”

“Oh, so I’m the one who’s being odd?” she returned huffily.

“Quite,” was his simple response, which only caused another look of disbelief in her. “Oh come on Lil, I did spend ten years telling you I wanted to do naughty, naughty things to you…and you spent ten years pushing me away,” he shrugged slightly. “So, you asking me if I want to…yeah, odd.”

Lili just shook her head, trying to find words for quite a long moment. “So, me making out with you, among other things, for the last two months, that’s not enough of a hint that things have changed, then?”

“Well, they’ve changed, to a degree.”

“A degree?” she returned with her own crease of the brow.

“Well come on, if I just assume that a girl who said no for ten years, suddenly would say yes, just because she’s now let me share other, slightly less intimate activities…Hey you know what they say, no means no.”

She tossed him yet another look of disbelief. “So, does that mean that I’m never allowed to change my answer, either?”

“You’re the only one that knows that,” he told her in a whisper, though wore a slight smile as he did.

“Oh my god,” she just shook her head once more, “That’s what this is about? You want me to flat out tell you that I want to? That’s what this is really all about?” she exclaimed once more.

“Well if you do want to, then why would that be so difficult?” Ian smirked again.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yet you’re still here. Good thing I refuse to let myself read anything into that, huh?” he teased.

“You are truly impossible,” she returned, forcing down a smile at his wry grin.

“Really? I thought I was pretty damn easy. That’s the rumor, anyway,” he had to add.

Another deep sigh as she glanced around at the abandoned shack. “So seriously, if I told you right here and now that I did wanna just do it and do it right now, that’s all it would take, huh?”

“Is that what you’re telling me then?” he grinned as he moved closer to wrap his arms around her waist and place a few brief kisses over her neck as he did.

“You really want me to say it, don’t you?” she mumbled, her own fingers reaching up to tangle in his ever lengthening locks.

“The question is, can you say it?” he breathed against her neck, pulling her closer as he gently nipped at the skin of her neck.

“And I’m supposed to be able to think with you doing that?” she breathed heavier as he continued his attentions.

“I really doubt thinking has much to do with it at this point,” he teased as his hands slid up under the back of her shirt while his lips continued tasting the pale skin which had gotten only slightly more sun-touched since their arrival there.

Lili held him tighter as her breaths got shorter. “Oh god fine, just make love to me already,” she whispered at last.

“All you had to do was ask,” he teased one last time before immediately moving to begin pulling her clothes away with an eagerness that had been a decade in the making despite all his previous airs of self-control, which he now tossed away as if they had never truly existed, at all.