Lupe looked around. She hadn't seen the little cat-girl, Mia, for quite a while, and her maternal instincts were on alert. Had something happened to her?

She looked around the place, everywhere she could think of, and finally picked up her scent. But while she was concentrating on that, she picked up *another* scent, and that one seemed a bit more important at the time. As far as she knew, no one but her was looking for Mia, but everyone seemed to be looking for Kat.

She never felt comfortable following a scent in human form, so she changed into a wolf and went hunting.

The trail was stale, but still readable. As a wolf, Lupe was able to cover ground very quickly, but even so, Katherine had apparently had put quite a few miles between her and *civilization*. She found the spots where she had curled up to rest, and passed several remains of fire that had been thoroughly put out and the evidence scattered, but with her sensitive nose, still easily found. For a human, she had done a very good job of living off the land, and leaving very little trace behind of her passage.

But she was still human. Lupe was glad she was Immortal, because there were dangers to living rough. Fortunately, she had not gone toward the other side of the river, and only had wild animals to deal with. For Lupe, that was definitely the lesser of the two dangers, but her bias toward the animal kingdom did not cloud her judgment. Animals ate humans.

After many hours and miles, Lupe came to a spot where Katherine's trail had abruptly stopped, and then headed off in another direction. She sniffed the air, looking for any signs of something that would have suddenly caused her to stop following her chosen path. But all she smelled was the sea. Following her new trail, she came to the spot where Katherine had stopped, standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the waves crashing on the rocks below. Her trail was barely discernable now. Apparently several heavy rains had washed most of the scent away.

Had she jumped? Lupe stood, her paws on the edge, and closed her eyes. No, she didn't think so. For one thing, jumping would not have taken her into the sea; she would have landed on the rocks. And that was a lot of pain for someone who was definitely going to survive it. What good could come of going out to sea, even if she did make it straight into the water without painfully killing herself? Drowning? Again, it wasn't beheading. No, if Katherine had wanted to die, she would have gone to Sadaam.

She sniffed around, following the edge of the cliff. When she found just the faintest scent of her, along with a few broken branches from when Katherine had held onto a bush while scrambling down a steep section of the path, Lupe let out a howl of triumph and started to dash down the trail that eventually led to a lovely little cove hidden behind an outcrop of rocks that extended out into the sea. As she raced out onto the beach, Lupe's fur suddenly raised. There was another human with her!

But there was something oddly animal-scented about the other human. Should she stay in wolf form, or change back? She wasn't particularly embarrassed about being nude in front of strangers, but if this human - male, she could tell - was a danger, shouldn't she stay in a form that could best protect her quest? She would not be able to change back without using a great deal of her energy.

Deciding to stay as a wolf for the time being, Lupe sniffed around the beach. Katherine had made many trips back and forth to the water's edge. There was even a tide pool made by digging a hole in the sand and lining the edge with rocks. Inside of it, several fish splashed around, caught in Kat's trap by the receding tide. Most of the trails seem to lead back towards a pond located in a thick grove of trees, so that is where Lupe went. She hadn't gone very far before her sharp ears caught the sound of singing. And who ever the male was, he was echoing the words of the old French round, Frere Jacques.

She headed for the sound, coming upon Katherine and a man in a loincloth. He jumped to his feet when he saw her, and Lupe could tell that he was angry with himself for letting his guard down. Padding over, she sniffed him all over, including his groin, and then stepped back. After looking at Katherine and deciding the sex (for she could smell that they had had intercourse) had probably been consensual, she changed forms.

All during the time she had been checking him out, he had kept up a low growl deep in his chest, his hand on a wicked looking knife strapped to his thigh. But Katherine, thinking this particular wolf looked awfully familiar, had put her hand on his, steadying him.

"Hello Lupe," Katherine said with a happy smile. "I should have known that if anyone could find me, it would have been you." Looking at the man, she pointed to Lupe and smiled brightly. "Lupe. Friend."

He looked at the wolf-turned-woman, still growling. If he had hackles, they would have been raised. He was thoroughly unnerved. A wolf was one thing, but one that turned into a creature like him was another thing all together.

"Ooooh!" he grunted, pointing to her. "Lupe animal yes? Lupe woman yes? Which one? Johnny no understand," he growled.

"I don't understand you, either, ape man," Lupe said. "Why are you human, yet speak the language of the Gorilla?"

"He was raised by the great apes after his human parents died," Katherine said softly her hand on his scarred shoulder. Lupe studied the man. He had quite a few of those scars. Apparently he had done battle with a large cat and had somehow survived.

"Ape Tarzan mother," he grunted in the language he had learned from the gorillas. He then opened a locket hanging from his neck. "This Johnny mother. She die," he made a throat slashing motion. "Then ape mother. Ape animal, Tarzan animal. Now Johnny man." He paused his nostrils flaring. "Kat mother too," he said patting the petite immortal’s still flat stomach. He sniffed again. "Lupe mother?" he asked, pointing to her belly.

"He's just learning to communicate," Katherine explained. "Do you understand his ape talk?"

"Some of it," Lupe admitted. "I had a friend who was ape." She said it so matter of factly, it didn't sound half as silly as it should have. "But I haven't seen her for at least three thousand years. My ape is rusty." Turning to Johnny, she asked, "How's your leopard?"

He started a low, half purr, half growl deep in his chest that seemed to gradually raise in intensity. Then with a loud snarl that made Kat jump, he answered her question.

It didn't seem to bother Lupe, of course, and she nodded, responding in the same "language."

He walked up to her, still talking, brushing his body against hers, as if he was a cat meeting another one. Then abruptly, he changed to his ape language and shot up a nearby tree. He swung away, still making excited noises. "He will be back," Katherine said in an amused tone. "I think he goes into some type of information overload, and he has to go work some of the steam off. His name is John Clayton, by the way, grandson of the Earl of Greystoke. But he told me his name was Tarzan. Not the way he pronounced it of course," she chuckled.

"Tarzan is his animal name," Lupe nodded. "How did you get his human name? He would not have known it."

"I found his father's journal in the tree house I am living in," she said sadly. "I was Jack's governess when he was a boy back in Scotland."

Lupe nodded. "Ah, so you're familiar with the family, then." She studied the little empath and said, "You do know he considers you his mate."

She blushed. "It does seem that way," she admitted. "He was so alone when I showed up. Apparently one moment he was with his ape family, the next he was here. The only thing that came with him was the tree house. He must have been in it when he crossed over to Edan."

"Interesting. I don't smell any apes in the area. They may not be indigenous to this area. In that case, you're his only family."

Katherine opened the locket she wore around her own neck. In it was a picture of her and Connor. "This sealed that impression, I'm afraid. I showed it to him, trying to explain that Connor and I had been mates, but he seems to think that is a picture of him." Up above their heads, the leaves rustled. Johnny had returned and was squatted down on a branch. When they looked up at him, he showered them with a torrent of multicolored flower petals, making them both laugh.

Lupe called up to him in leopard, and when he jumped down to be with them again, she went to him and rubbed against him, marking him and letting him mark her. Turning to Kat, she explained, "He just welcomed me. I had to show him that we were friends now, that I was not a threat."

"Good," Katherine said with a sigh of relief. "He is extremely protective of me. He is very strong. I asked him how he got all those scars, and although I couldn't understand it all, he apparently killed a big cat in a fight."

Lupe turned to him and began licking the scars as she purred and growled in "leopard". Johnny responded in the same tongue. Lupe's eyes grew golder as he "spoke", and she looked away.

Kat looked at them curiously, but chose not to ask what information had transpired. "Are you hungry Lupe? I have a roasted bird cooking. It looked kinda like a wild turkey, but it had different plumage. Very nice tasting though."

"Does he like his meat cooked?"

"He does now," she giggled. "He tried to feed me some raw meat when he first came. I threw up. My stomach is still pretty queasy about some things. But once I got him to taste my cooking, he decided he liked it!"

"Okay," Lupe said. If given the choice, she ate raw.

Johnny had been listening carefully. Without warning, he dashed up a tree again, and quickly disappeared. Katherine shrugged, leading the way to the tree house. "Home sweet home," she said, pointing to it. "It has a ramp type of stairway up the side of the tree. So when I get bigger, I still won't have any difficulty getting up into it."

"So, you are planning to stay here," Lupe inquired. She'd have no trouble getting into the tree. All she had to do was shift to panther.

"For awhile," she said. "It would just cause trouble for me to be back in Edan. I don't want to make either Methos or Duncan feel obligated to be more than they wanted to be with me."

"If they didn't want to be with be before they found out, why would they now? It would only make them resent me in the long run. Me doing it on my own is not going to be easy, I know. I won't keep the child from them, I just don't want them to feel they have to do the *right thing*. Besides, Johnny wanted me before he knew I was carrying a child."

"Methos sees love very differently than some people, having loved and lost many," said Lupe.

"I know," she sighed. "I know." The tree limbs rustled again, and Johnny lightly swung down onto the porch. Attached to his loincloth was a freshly killed rabbit type of animal. He grunted, handing it to Lupe.

Her eyes glowed and she smiled. Then she rose on the balls of her feet and "kissed" him, as an animal would, licking him. Settling back, she had an almost overwhelmed look of happiness on her face.

"He seems to accepted you as part of the family," Katherine chuckled. "But if you two are going to eat that raw, I would appreciate you doing it outside." She was turning a little green at the thought, and sensing that, Johnny immediate went to her side, nuzzling her face, and patting her head with his hand.

Lupe was still choked as she rose and nodded. The gesture would have been lost if she had let Kat cook it. The whole point was that Johnny sensed her need for fresh meat.

She smiled at them both and went over to drink some water. "I think I need to lay down for a bit," she said. "Why don't you and Johnny go explore the cove?"

Lupe nodded again, and Johnny did a few soft, "ooh, oohs" as if asking if Kat was all right.

"Tired," she said, making the almost universal sign for sleeping. As she crawled onto the bed, he covered her with her blanket, and then with a few more "ooh ooh" sounds, motioned for Lupe to follow him.

They went down by the beach, where Lupe changed forms before devouring the rabbit.

The jungleman squatted down, watching the process with obvious curiosity. Somehow he had know that the transformation back to human had tired her out, and that raw meat would help build up her strength quickly.

Lupe's panther looked up at him and gave a loud cat-scream. Then she settled to clean the blood off her paws. When she was done, she rolled onto her side and offered her belly to him.

He went over to her, and a moment later, they were wrestling around like two kittens. Katherine had been right. For a human, he was amazingly strong.

But he fought like an animal. And he seemed to sense how far he could go with her, and when not to push it. When they finished rolling about, she sat up and licked his face again, before lying back down, panting with the need to rest.

He jumped up, and a moment later, returned with a tortoise shell filled with fresh water from the stream and sitting down beside her, scooped up a handful for himself as she drank her fill.

Her eyes were half closed but she didn't have the energy to shift back, not until she slept.

While she drifted off to sleep, Johnny took up a position where he could watch both her, and the tree house. Lupe purred in approval. He really was a good mate for the pregnant immortal.

Content that Katherine was safe in his hands, she slept until she was ready, and then returned to her female shape when she woke.

Katherine was awake as well, eating some fruit and roasted bird. "Lupe, are you going to tell them where I am?" she asked. She was concerned about Johnny. He wasn't ready to face other people just yet.

"Do you want me to?"

"You can tell them I'm safe, and being well cared for," she said with a smile at Johnny, who was swinging from his knees from a branch just outside the tree house.

"You will have to deal with them eventually," Lupe said flatly. "You may find they feel differently about you now."

"Maybe," she said with a wistful smile. "Come back anytime you wish," she said. "It's good to see you again, it really is."

"I will try. But the trip strained me." She patted her flat stomach. "We think there may be three."

"Wonderful!" Katherine said, beaming with joy at the news. "Then I don't want you to take the risk. I'll be ok, I really will. Would you like Johnny to go part of the way back with you?"

"Only until I feel strong enough to shift again," she said. "Traveling is so tiresome in human form." She indicated her lack of clothing.

"I can take care of that," she said, opening up a sea chest and taking out a man's shirt. "Johnny can bring it back with him once you shift."

Lupe took it and nodded. "As long as I don't ruin it. Clothing is . . . hard to come by here."

"I know," Kat chuckled. "Who knows, we might all end up wearing loincloths like Johnny!" They both laughed at the mental picture that presented, and after giving Kat a hug, Lupe started on her journey home.