GIG HARBOR, Wash. (AP) — Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher convicted for having sex with a sixth-grade student, was released from prison Wednesday, and her 21-year-old victim quickly sought to get back together with her.

Vili Fualaau is challenging a court order that bars Letourneau from contacting him as part of her child rape sentence. He says he is an adult and can pick his own friends, especially the mother of his two children.

"He is now an adult and, as an adult, is requesting that the court allow him to associate with other adults of his own choosing, specifically Mary K. Letourneau," his court motion says.

Letourneau, 42, slipped out of prison quietly after midnight and was met by a crowd that included dozens of media outlets and a group of rowdy teenage boys waving signs that said "I'm 18, Baby!" and "Take Me Home."

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Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in suburban Des Moines and an unhappily married mother of four in 1996, when she began having sex with the sixth-grader.

At a 2002 civil trial, Fualaau testified, "We had sex in the gym, we had sex in the girl's bathroom and we had sex in her classroom."

When Letourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with Fualaau's daughter. Though she professed her love for the boy, a judge sentenced her to six months in jail for second-degree child rape, and ordered her to stay away from him.

A month after Letourneau was released, she was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car. She was sent to prison for 7 1/2 years, and gave birth to Fualaau's second daughter behind bars.

Letourneau's two daughters with Fualaau are now 6 and 7. They have been raised by Fualaau's mother, and visited Letourneau in prison about twice a month. Her four older children live in Alaska with her ex-husband, and visited a few times a year.

The sentencing order has allowed Letourneau to have contact with her children by Fualaau. Letourneau has said she would consider having more children with him.

"If we are so blessed to continue a relationship and if that's what he wants, for him I would," Letourneau told Seattle's KOMO-TV. But she kept mum on her plans for a reunion, saying only, "I'm not allowing myself to think about being with him. We had a beautiful relationship, and I value it for what it was."

While at the state prison for women near Gig Harbor, Letourneau sang in a choir and recorded books for the blind -- and served time in solitary for attempting to contact Fualaau.

"Nothing could have kept the two of them apart," said Seattle attorney Anne Bremner, who struck up a friendship with Letourneau in 2002 and spoke to her recently by phone. "She's always said this love is eternal and endless, and I think she stands by that."

The King County prosecutor's office is reviewing Fualaau's motion to see Letourneau again, spokesman Dan Donohoe said, and had not yet decided whether to agree to it or request a hearing before a judge.

Under terms of her release, Letourneau was required to register as a sex offender, and did so at the King County Courthouse Wednesday afternoon.

That Fualaau and Letourneau would want to get together was no surprise to some who know her well.

"She has a personal need to get back together with him to prove to the world this is a love story and not a crime story," said Gregg Olsen, who wrote a book about Letourneau's case. "Part of Mary Letourneau will never let go of this love."

Fualaau told People magazine recently that he would like to reunite with Letourneau, but wants to take things slowly. A high school dropout, he is unemployed and told the magazine he is working on his GED.

"I don't know what my feelings are right now," Fualaau told KING-TV in Seattle on Tuesday, acknowledging he was "kind of nervous."

"But I know that I do love her," he said.

Letourneau may also want to tell her own story. A state appeals court ruled in 2000 that Letourneau may sell and profit from her story.