Disclaimer: Stop!!! Don't Sue!!! Sliders and it's characters belongs to me in no way shape or form. They are the creation of the wonderfully talented Tracy Torme who Fox didn't appreciate and the Sci-Fi channel butchered, causing me and others to want to fix it (grumble grumble), well never mind. Anyway, I do not intend any infringement.

Author's notes: I wanted to show a bit of what the episode Genesis might have been like had Sabrina Lloyd not left the show (making me very sad as Wade is favorite character...obviously!). I'm going to stick to the main plotline, (i.e., Kromaggs take over Earth Prime (well...maybe it's Earth Prime, you'll see wink wink) and Wade will get captured. However, the difference is going to be the ending and that we will actually see what Wade experiences at the hands of the evil apes. Maggie's going to have human feelings...and Quinn won't be such an emotionally wooden doll. Send any feedback to Pamburger@aol.com

How long how long will I slide
She's gone...my life
I don't
I don't believe in love
Slit my throat
She's all I ever had
Pour my life into scattered tears
The lies are done and I'm spilling my guts
She wants to know how could I forget
I've got to face it
Scarlet streaks and she's in my head
A candidate for my soul mate bled
Break my soul...make it end
I've got to face it

&emdash; My Filk, Love's Unreality, adapted from Otherside by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Prolouge

Wade sat alone in a small corner table of a bar called the Lamplighter. It was late afternoon, and the bar had not yet opened for business. On the table before her lay her two most treasured items: her diary and a small silver necklace that Quinn, the man she had traveled through dimensions with for three years, the man she had loved, had given to her. She fingered her necklace briefly and regarded the blank page that lay before her. Then she bent over the book and began to write.

"Dear Diary,

It's been two months now and I'm starting to believe that I might never see Quinn again. It makes coming home a bittersweet joy. Of course I was ecstatic to see my family...but over the last three years what I never realized is I'd gained another family. And Quinn was the at it's heart. And what's the good of being home diary, when the man you love isn't there to share it with you? When he's clearly chosen someone else..." Wade took a deep breath and continued to write.

"Somehow, even though we hadn't been as close in the last few months we were together, I always had a picture in my mind of my future, my home with Quinn. Without him? Everything seems paler somehow. I don't know how Marta and Remmie put up with me sometimes. They've been my support system...my lifeline that things will somehow be alright. I know I should let go. I mean, he made his choice. He chose Maggie. But somehow I can't help hoping that someday he'll find his way home...to me."

With a regretful sigh, Wade put down her pen and closed the well-worn book. Then she turned to the pretty blond woman who was cleaning the bar counter.

"Marta!" she called. "Can I get some coffee? I need something to get me moving before we open."

"Sure thing sweetie," Marta replied. "Is Remmie coming in tonight?"

"Yeah," said Wade as she watched Marta pour 2 cups of coffee. "He said he had to stop somewhere before he came in." She regarded her watch. "Actually he should be here any second now."

Marta walked over to Wade and sat next to her. They slowly sipped the coffee. "Not moping again were you?" teased Marta. "You better watch it or you might just find 5 sugars in your cup again."

Wade laughed at the friendly admonishment. "I'm fi..." she started to say when the sound of screaming outside brought her heart to a standstill.

"What is that?" she said nervously. The noise was growing louder by the second. She ran to the door and peered outside.

The sight that greeted her horrified eyes was hauntingly familiar. "No! No! No!" she screamed. Thousands of manta ships covered the sky, raining deadly fire at people who were screaming and running in terror.

"Oh my god!" said Wade, clutching the doorway for support. "Remmie was walking here tonight!" She gazed frantically down the fiery street, hoping to see a sign of him. "Remmie!" she shouted in terror.

"Wade!" she heard, and saying a silent prayer, saw Remmie a hundred feet away, trying to get to her and the precarious shelter of the Lamplighter.

But as he moved, a laser beam shot out from behind him and hit him in the back. He crumpled to the floor.

"Noooo!!!! Remmie!!!" screamed Wade tears flowing from her eyes. Not caring about the danger she was putting herself in, she rushed to the side of her friend.

She rolled him over and felt for a pulse. "Thank god!" she said. "He's alive." She started to try and pull him out of the line of fire.

She failed to notice that they were surrounded by Kromagg soldiers until it was too late.

There was only silence for company when Marta pulled herself from the elevator shaft where she'd hidden during the Kromagg attack. She was shaking in complete shock. The terrible events that had happened to her had completely blown her mind. Slowly, she surveyed the rubble that remained in the room. Then a glimpse of silver caught her eye. She bent down and saw, half-buried in the rubble a tattered book and a silver cubed necklace.

Marta carefully picked up the two objects. Tears streamed down her face as she pondered the fate of her friend...and the fate of her world.

Part 1

Quinn Mallory had once goal: He had to get home. Not only because now he knew he could, but because there were people at home who thought the wrong thing. Friends who thought he'd left them behind. And that was something Quinn could never do. But he knew that going home was the only way to prove it. Furiously he worked on the device he held in his hands. Why wouldn't the damn tracking device work? So consumed was he in his task, he barely noticed Maggie pulling him along by the sleeve.

"C'mon Quinn!" she said, glancing anxiously over her shoulder.

"Just a few seconds," he said through clenched teeth. Damn, damn damn! He bit his lip in frustration.

"Yeah well, tell that to them" said Maggie, indicating a group of leather-clad bikers who looked very angry and were not too far away. "I'm sure they'll understand that it was your double who busted one of their bikes."

"There!" said Quinn in triumph. He'd finally gotten the tracking device online. "We can track Wade and Remmie's photon trail! I can go home!"

"Great," thought Maggie. Home was all he ever thought about. After he'd kissed her by the cliff she'd thought things would change...but she was coming to believe that she would never be first in Quinn Mallory's heart. Not in a romantic sense anyway. Not with the way his eyes lit up when he talked about seeing Wade and Remmie again. It was obvious (at least to her) that he was still carrying a torch for Wade despite what had happened. Maggie sighed. Maybe it was better that way. He wanted to go home, and she would have to leave anyway. She couldn't breathe on his world.

"OK genius boy let's get you home," she said as Quinn opened the vortex, and the familiar rip in the cosmos greeted her vision. Without a backward glance at their pursuers she jumped in. Quinn looked cheekily at the bikers who were staring at the wormhole with open mouths.

"By the way," he said with a saucy grin. "Harleys suck!" And with that he dove into the wormhole.

"Quinn?" she began.

Quinn had not yet looked up from the timer. "Yes!" he shouted in triumph. But as he looked up his voice faltered. "The coordinates match." came out in a whisper.

"What happened?" he said despairingly. Maggie went to take his arm but stopped. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breathe.

She began to choke, but managed to say between gasps, "Quinn....I ....I...can't breathe...world"

"Oh crap!" said Quinn, seeing Maggie in evident distress. "C'mon, we've got to get you to a hospital!" Swiftly he picked her up and began to run frantically among the ruins. "Help!" he shouted. "I need a doctor!"

Strangely enough, after a few minutes of this Maggie realized it was getting easier to breathe. The choking had stopped.

"Quinn," she said.

"I'm hurrying Maggie. Just hold on."

"Quinn." she tried again.

He stopped running. "What?"

"I'm OK," she said. And then she added playfully, "Unless you prefer to carry me oh caveman Quinn?"

Quinn smiled. "Amazing!" he said, putting her down. "Your lungs must have adapted from all the sliding."

"Whatever," Maggie, said rolling her eyes.

Quinn's look turned serious again. "We have to find Wade and Remmie." He shut his eyes for a moment. "i just hope they're OK."

Part 3

She was being hauled roughly from her cell to yet another interrogation. Only 4 weeks here...4 weeks that felt like an eternity stretched in hell. They'd played with her mind so much she barely knew what was real anymore. What was worse was that she barely even cared.

"Please..." came a half whisper from her dried cracked lips. Denying the prisoners water was one of the Kromaggs' favorite punishments.

"Silence human slave!" came the harsh guttural reply. "WE will choose when it is time for you to speak!"

The two guards that were hauling her by her bruised arms strapped her roughly into the interrogation chair. Wade's mind raced in fear. She knew the pain that was coming next.

Tears wet her cheeks. "Please!" she cried out to the empty room. "Please I don't know anything!"

A rumbling sound from underneath the chair was her only answer. She watched, terrified, as one of the Kromaggs stepped into the interrogation room brandishing a large needle, and a table with menacing instruments arose next to her.

"Oh god! Quinn! Please help me!" was her last cry before the pain...and the blessed blackness.

Quinn's sleep was restless that night. They'd been on Earth Prime for two days, and there was still no hide or hair of Remmy, Wade or anybody for that matter. Luckily for himself and Maggie, the Chandler was still standing. They'd managed to camp out in one of the rooms.

He got up from the floor, and walked to the window. He stared out the window at the desecrated and deserted city below him.

"God," he whispered sadly. "They weren't kidding when they said you could never go home again were they?" His mind wandered to the fate of his friends...to the fate of Wade. He'd promised to get her home...and look what it had done! She was gone!

"How can I ever live with the choices I made?" he said sadly. "Knowing that my decisions...my thoughtlessness may have..." he thought, but couldn't bring himself to say the word "killed." He took a shuddery breath and continued. "May have hurt my friends? May have hurt Wade? I told her I'd always be there for her!" Tears glistened in his eyes.

A sudden noise startled him out of his reverie and he spun around. It woke Maggie from her slumber too, and she quickly leapt into a fighting stance.

"I heard you just now," said the tough looking, yet pretty blond. "You must be Quinn." She let her eyes survey Maggie, rather disdainfully. "And you're Maggie I suppose."

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Maggie.

"Marta's the name. This is my turf. No 'Maggs dare to get within a hundred yards of here." She casually brandished a shotgun in front of them.

"You know how to work that little toy?" said Maggie scornfully. She didn't think much of this woman already.

Marta cocked the gun in answer.

"How do you know who we are?" asked Quinn, hoping that the shotgun wasn't going to end up pointed at him.

Marta stared at him meaningfully and said, "I'm a friend of Wade's."

Part 4

"Wade!" Quinn nearly shouted. He rushed to Marta's side. "Where is she? I've been looking...Do you know Rembrandt too?" The words came tumbling out of his mouth a mile a minute. He could barely contain the desperation and worry that had built up in the last 2 days.

"Sit," said Marta shortly.

Reluctantly, Quinn did.

Marta sighed, and her tough exterior seemed to melt a bit. "Yeah I know Rem too," she said. Her eyes were faraway for a moment. Then the coldness came back. "Both of them were capture by the 'Maggs last month," she said.

"No..." said Quinn, his face white, his mind finally registering the word 'Maggs. "The Kromaggs attacked? Here?" He clutched the side of the bed like he was holding it for support.

Maggie, concerned, stood behind him and put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"Well, smart boy, what did YOU think caused this mess?" Marta snapped.

Quinn put his head in his hands, and didn't respond.

Maggie was irritated now. "Look, we don't need the attitude," she said fiercely. "We need to know how we can find our friends."

"Maggie," said Marta. "You ought to know a lot about attitude. Wade always said you were a first class bitch."

Maggie nodded, unconcerned. "I'm sure she did. We didn't always get along. But that doesn't mean I want to see her in the hands of whatever caused this." She gestured around the debilitated room. "What the hell are Kromaggs anyway?"

"Freaking ape creatures that want to enslave mankind that's what," marta retorted sharply.

Quinn nodded in agreement.

"Well then," said Maggie, hands on her hips. "We're just going to have to kick a little Kromagg ass."

Marta looked at Maggie with a measure of respect. "Okay," she said. She eyed Quinn, who still had his head in his hands. "I have something he may want. I'll be back in a minute."

Maggie nodded. "Whatever," she said.

She sat down on the bed next to Quinn, and put a hand on his back. "We'll find them," she said soothingly. With an inward shock she realized he was crying silently. She could feel the sobs. She'd never seen him cry before...and it scared her. "Quinn, talk to me," she said.

Quinn looked up. His face was tear stained and miserable. "I thought I was sending them home," he said quietly.

"Quinn you couldn't have known," Maggie said. She felt helpless. She wasn't the best at dealing with emotion...she could barely handle her own for god's sake.

"We have to find them Maggie," Quinn said tensely. "I'm not gonna rest 'till we find them."

His mind flashed to a memory of a few months before. Wade. She'd been so vulnerable, so scared, and he'd been too afraid to really tell her what he felt. Instead he cloaked it with their usual guise of friendship.

"I felt like I belonged. Like I wasn't alone," she'd said.

"You aren't alone! You have us." he'd said, surprised that she felt that way. Sure he'd been going through hell after the Professor died, but he'd thought she knew how much she meant to him &emdash; how much she would always mean to him.

"Do I?" she'd said, and it had nearly broken his heart. He loved her. How could she not know that?

"Always," he'd said. "I'm sorry if haven't made that clear lately." Then he'd kissed her on the forehead, afraid to confront his own feelings. Afraid to aell her that he wanted to be there for her forever &emdash; that he never wanted to come so close to losing her again.

Quinn shook his head. "Too late," he whispered softly. "I'm too late."

Marta entered the room again. She noticied the tears on Quinn's face, but didn't comment. Instead she laid the diary and necklace she kept so carefully in his lap. "Wade's," she said shortly.

Maggie sucked in her breath. Quinn needed some time alone, she could feel it. "Marta, is there a way we can track down our friends?"

Marta looked dubious. "If anyone can find 'em, Skipster can. He's the best hacker we've got. But what are you planning to do about it? You can't just break 'em out of a Kromagg jail."

Maggie smiled. This woman didn't know her very well. "We'll see about that. C'mon." She turned to Quinn, who was preparing to follow her. "You just sit tight for a minute. We'll be back as soon as I have any word."

Quinn looked like he was going to protest, but Maggie walked out the door before he could.

"Dear Diary,

It's been two months now and I'm starting to believe that I might never see Quinn again. It makes coming home a bittersweet joy. Of course I was ecstatic to see my family...but over the last three years what I never realized is I'd gained another family. And Quinn was the at it's heart. And what's the good of being home diary, when the man you love isn't there to share it with you? When he's clearly chosen someone else...

Somehow, even though we hadn't been as close in the last few months we were together, I always had a picture in my mind of my future, my home with Quinn. Without him? Everything seems paler somehow. I don't know how Marta and Remmie put up with me sometimes. They've been my support system...my lifeline that things will somehow be alright. I know I should let go. I mean, he made his choice. He chose Maggie. But somehow I can't help hoping that someday he'll find his way home...to me."

Shocked beyond measure, Quinn closed the book. Wade loved him! "How could I have been so blind?" he said fiercely. He clutched the silver necklace in his hand tightly.

"I'm gonna find you angel," he said softly. "I swear it. Even if I have to die trying."

To be continued...