A/N: Okay so I'm changing all the names. Vera is Lena, Meb is Brandy. I'll change the previous chapters soonish probably. Also, haven't quite decided on Liz's new name. Either Mieli, Litri, or Esprit. Please help me decide which one is best. Anyway, this chapters really long, but the next one's really short.

Vera was bored. And tired. And Meb was asleep. Vera wanted him to 'get his eight hours', she really did. But... One of the things in her bag was a permanent marker. And she had never gotten him back for that one time... So, she would try to keep him sleeping, but in the meanwhile...

Meb awoke with a brand new handlebar mustache and a skillfully drawn monobrow. He didn't notice at first, but Vera's small smirk was suspicious.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. Usually he could feel it when he woke up, though, as Liz had been a fan of adding literal whipped cream and a cherry on top.

He excused himself to the restroom, Vera grinning widely. As he walked through the train, he heard a giggle from the right.

Liz realized at once that she had made a rather large mistake, and ran for it. It would be so much easier to do what she knew to be necessary if only Vera wasn't so similar to when they'd been friends. It hardly seemed like she'd changed at all, but Vera knew better. Even Meb had changed, just not nearly as his best friends.

A flash of red hair, and Meb whipped his head around. Nothing. No one. He looked up, and Vera waved.

"Wish I could stay, Mebirati, dear, but I've got a hectic day ahead of me. We should do tea sometime."

Meb opened his mouth but never got a word out as he was swiftly kicked in the head and knocked out. Vera was trying to open the door, Meb had been in the bathroom for awhile, even if he was trying to wash off the permanent marker.

The door was stuck, but as Lens kicked it one last time, she heard a faint "Ow", and outside Meb had rolled so Vera could get out.

There was a neon green sticky note on Meb's forehead, masterfully not covering up any of Vera's masterpieces.

"Sorry, Meb. Next time, don't find me." Vera read.

"I assume this is the infamous Liz?" she asked.

"The one and only," he replied, rubbing his aching head.

"So she was still on the train?"

"Sit down, we both know she could take you out without breaking a sweat."

Vera sank into her seat.

"But if she's still on the train- Vera started in protest, about as convincing to Meb as if she were telling him that he was able fly.

"No, we don't want you disappearing again."

"Then come with me."

Vera wanted to question Liz, very badly, and she knew perfectly well that she needed Meb in order to do so. She also knew he would never agree. He was the smart one. He knew it would cost them and he didn't want to lose anything, especially Vera. But most of all, he couldn't make himself confront Liz. Yes, he could feel a bump coming on his forehead, but she was still his friend, and he didn't know anything like the full story.

"Vera, we have to wait."

"No, I'll be back in ten minutes. If not, don't worry, I'll be fine."

"Don't... don't hurt Liz, okay?"

Vera left without a response. He knew he couldn't stop Vera if she really wanted to do something, and he knew Liz could take care of herself, of which she had constantly reminded him when they were younger. But still.

He followed after Vera.

"I'm not coming with you. I'm going to see what horrors you've unleashed upon my beautiful face."

Vera shook her head and smiled. She kept walking. Meb hadn't told her what Liz looked like, but something about her had to be blaringly obvious, or she would've stayed under Meb's radar. And perhaps Vera still retained some form of memory of her other best friend's face.

Liz saw her silver-eyed now-nemesis scanning everything and everyone as she walked through the train. Liz wanted to call out, and say, "Hey, it's me! Remember me. I may have made you forget, but I can't, won't undo it. You have to."

Liz knew she couldn't. It simply wasn't an option. So she kept her flaming-haired-head-hidden-under-a hat-down, and she passed for a stranger, the exact thing the two had hoped they'd never become.

Vera had never been so frustrated. Not when she couldn't pass P.E. because of the stupid twenty mile run, not when Meb refused to talk to her for a month when she ate his chocolate.

How could she not recognise Liz? Vera walked back, still searching for something, anything.

Where was she? Lena had to find her. But the thing was, Vera wouldn't find Liz until Liz chose to reveal herself.

As Vera resentfully opened the door to the compartment. She had an idea. She never let anyone touch her phone, not even Meb. So surely Liz would be in her contacts, left unable to delete herself?

Vera unlocked her phone, and typed in 'Liz' to search contacts. Sure enough, there was a match. Liz didn't have a last name, though. I guess I didn't have quite enough trust in the security of technology to put in something so important. Unsurprising, as I don't have mine or Meb's in either. Vera thought. Be as that may, Liz still should've had a phone number, or an e-mail, something. But she didn't.

Instead, there was a note at the bottom.

'Vera,' it read, ' I've figured out each of your passwords within a week every time you changed it for the last decade. Currently, it's 2968.'

"What the... " Vera trailed off.

"Do you know my password too?" Vera yelled at Meb, who had just entered, close to being mustache and monobrow free.

"Your... " Meb glanced at Vera's hands, knuckles white over her phone.

"Of course not. You always refused to tell me."

Meb looked rather resentful of this fact.

"Then why," Vera began, "Does Liz, even though I change it every other month?"

"Why, that little rat!"

"Continue."

"She told me she was going to put a tiny camera in your fake glasses. I thought she was kidding! Why do you wear those?" he added as an afterthought.

"She did what?!"

Vera was freaking out. Sure, she had left said glasses at the last house, but what if Liz had planted more cameras, and microphones, too? What if she was watching them at that very moment?

Seeing his panic stricken friend, Meb tried to calm her down.

"Vera, take a breath. It was just for fun, and we were what? Six?"

"She's still doing it! And she knows my password!"

"Change the password. Vera's smart, always has been. Why is this a surprise. We know this."

"No," Vera told him.

"No?"

"You know. I don't."

"That's not my fault."

"No," she agreed. "But what else haven't you told me?"

"How do you expect me to retell everything that happened in over a decade?"

"I don't know. Try. Tell me a story."

Meb leaned back in his seat, and thought for a minute. Then he pulled out his phone, which I had grabbed for him on our way out of the house.

"You were weird kids."

He showed her a photo, two lumps in two buckets, covered by two towels. By the size of the buckets, the oldest she could have been was seven or eight. Meb was quite right in saying the pair was odd.

"What on earth were we doing?"

Meb shook his head.

"You two wanted to play with water, but not with a hose or water balloons like normal people. No, instead, you dragged out the biggest plastic buckets you could find from that garage."

He pointed to the run-down garage with large, green, grimy doors.

"Why didn't you join-"

"I don't like water, Vera."

"Right, sorry. Go on."

"You filled them up with the hose, 'accidentally' drenching me in the process. You sat down in the bigger one, perfectly content, but she got stuck with smaller one, and couldn't fit, so you traded. Say, you were much nicer when we were little, weren't you?"

"Shut up, and continue."

"My, how contradictory," Meb teased.

Vera glared daggers.

"Seeing as you want something from me, my point exactly."

With an even deadlier look from the blue-haired girl, he followed her command. Half of it, at least.

"After a few minutes you got cold. You somehow convinced me to fetch you towels, instead of moving. You and Liz stayed there for hours. Yes, hours."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Lena's mouth.

"When's her birthday?" Vera asked, curious.

"December nineteenth. Tomorrow, actually. You always did have to lord it over us, especially her, that you were the oldest."

"Her birthday is tomorrow? If we're sixteen days apart... " Vera cursed under her breath. "I didn't know I missed my birthday."

Meb shrugged.

"Sorry."

Vera shrugged off her own missed birthday.

"How would we be celebrating her birthday? If we were back in the Program?"

"Vera, maybe-"

Vera cut him off. She knew what he was going to say.

"Don't. Don't tell me it's a bad idea. Don't say it's stupid. I know it is, but I want to know. I need more information."

Meb wasn't cracking.

"You know we don't do birthdays in the Program."

"We do."

"Fine. She loves red velvet with cream cheese frosting, so we would always sneak out and get her a cupcake, and a candle. Happy?"

Mebirati may have thought this was all out of curiosity, which it partially was, but it was also what Vera wanted him to think. She needed more information. She knew Meb was incredibly reluctant to go after Liz, and she understood why, but that didn't change the fact that Vera had no such qualms.

Perhaps knowing what flavor cake Liz liked could help in the long run, but she still needed to find an inconspicuous way to get more useful information, such as weaknesses and strengths. Vera knew already that Liz was far stronger than her- she kicked Meb out cold! So how could she be beaten? After all, everything and everyone could be defeated. There's always the one thing they didn't plan for, the one chink in their armour, and Vera would thrust her sword into that chink, and twist. She knew she should feel somewhat bad about this plan, but she didn't. If Liz had wanted something different, then she never should have stolen anyone's memories.

Memories had always been Lena's most prized possession. They were the only thing she knew she would always have. And now she didn't even have that. And if Meb knew that, which he did, so would Liz, who had stolen the only thing Vera ever really had. And for that, as Liz surely knew as well, Vera could never forgive her.

_________________________________________________________________

Vera walked up to the breakfast bar, and asked if they had any cupcakes.

"Yes, we have," the girl, Lyn, looked at the menu, and away from the familiar face, "chocolate, vanilla, and oreo."

Seeing her customer's face fall, Vera about to walk away, Lyn said, "Wait. We do have those flavors, and more, in cake."

"Oh!" Vera instantly brightened.

"Carrot, cheesecake, red vel-"

"Red velvet, please! Thank you!"

"If you really want, I can make you a red velvet cupcake for you. It would be sent to your room in an hour."

"Really? Thank you so much!"

Lyn smiled, glad to help the rather desperate girl out, wondering how Vera didn't recognize her. She would have said something, but the Program had told her that if they saw Vera Panahon, they were not to make contact. They also said to say her last name, and contact the Program, but Lyn couldn't see Vera as the mole and made the decision to be quiet the minute she heard the news if she were ever to see her again. Unwittingly, the Program had told her something- the reason they were told to never reveal their surnames was because they held some kind of power. Obviously not if the owner of the name said it, for Lyn had whispered "Blesk" to herself many a time since then. She turn her attention back to the silver-eyed girl in front of her.

"It will be charged to your compartment. How many would you like?"

"One," Vera grinned. "Just one."