moonie

The garden club began having sales in the spring.

The university had one of those big fancy industrial greenhouses, which had taken her by surprise upon her original move in date. She was one of a few that moved in site-unseen, but she had not been swayed by the fancy architectural archways, and the way the snow whisked around campus. New York City was always just New York city, and no amount of extravagant buildings could remove the distinct lodge in her throat caused by the hustle and bustle of the bodies of this disruptive city.

It did help a little though.

She did not feel welcome on campus, nor in her dorm, nor in the innards of the city. But she stuck it out because she couldn't swallow the look of disappointment her mother was bound to be affixed with if she lugged herself back home, overflowing suitcase and all, just to attend the community college a mere ten minutes down the road from her childhood home.

There was nothing wrong with the college, or the courses (yet). But something in her could not settle, and she had to think it was because of the man she had not even bothered to acknowledge until the garden club began selling roses by the half dozen come the end of the Spring semester.

With weeder courses done in the fall, and the lapse of her attention span after the holiday break, she should have been more concerned about her upcoming finals. But she found every library table full of chatting friends, and every corner of the hallways filled with her fellow suffering classmates. Empty classrooms no longer empty, as groups of more studious people stayed up for long hours cramming for their finals.

Her favorite table by the long framed windows in the library had been taken for a week now, and she did not take changes in her schedule lightly. She did not find much comfort in her shared dorm room, as her roommate seemed to simply disregard all her classes, making it impossible to be alone. The table, the library, and the light of the midday sun were the only time she felt a semblance of peace in this fast-paced environment, and it had been snatched away from her all week.

It was Monday that she noticed the table setup outside the grand library doors. A simple six dollars for six roses. She at first thought of her mother, and her farmers market flowers she would get from May to October during the season. How she would break the bouquet into multiple vases, one of them always finding a way into her room, either on her vanity or beside her bedside in the morning. She thought to do the same, but quickly shook the idea off. She had no vase, nor a bedside table. She barely had a desk to sit at in her room, and was too uncomfortable in the tiny space to even admire them.

She then thought of her ailing grandmother. The home she resided in in the inner city scared her. The trek in waned on her, too long and too crowded. The subway system confounded her, and the noise felt overwhelming. Her grandmother did not recognize her, but she did not figure she would. Only having seen her on the holiday cards her mother sent out growing up.

And the woman had dementia. But she could play a mean game of scrabble, when you visited her after her afternoon nap. Not that she would ever remember who she was playing against, but in the end she figured it didn't matter that much. She'd rather her grandmother not know that she's absolutely obliterating her granddaughter at a simple word game. She has no idea where the woman got her competitive drive, as it seemingly died generation by generation after her.

While the old woman was a hoot, she wasn't really ready for a visit this week. She always had to prepare herself each time she would make the hike through the inner city. That and mentally prepare for the whirlwind that was her grandmother. The older woman usually had more than a few questions about every thirty minutes for her now-a-days. Most consisted entirely of "where am I", "who are you", and "when is lunch", all within the same breath.

She also was unready for the look she would always get from her when she prepared to leave. How the older woman buttoned her coat up to the top, scolded her for her lack of scarf despite the warming weather these days, and the kiss she would lay upon her cheek when she motioned for her to bend at the waist to tuck strands of loose hair behind her ears. She always had to brace herself for that teary look, like the woman finally realized the significance of the child now standing in front of her. The spitting image of her son come to visit her again despite everything.

She always had to prepare for that look. Like her grandmother finally remembered her, but then forgot her the next. It was too painful, on top of the stress of her changing routine. She'd visit her again before she departed for the summer, but no sooner than that.

So she thought of visiting her dad. Rather reluctantly.

She'd have to wind her way through the city for that also, but she hadn't had the guts to visit him until now.

Her mother would get on her weekly calls in the beginning of her fall semester, shakily asking her if she had yet bothered to see the man at all. At the time she had every excuse not to, and she could tell every single one wounded her mother into a silent submission on the subject. All these months and she no longer asked about the task she had given her daughter almost six months ago.

If she couldn't be productive concerning school, she could at least check this off the laundry list of things she had to do before she flew home next month. That, and she could consciously erase that soured face her mother makes from her conscious.

So instead of lingering in the hallway and archway between the lecture hall and the library, she moved with purpose after her morning class that day. She had meticulously mapped out her path into the inner-city the day before, and had packed her bag incase she got lost (likely). The garden club was happy for her business, and the methodical podcast she had put on in her headphones soothed her into something that wasn't anxiety-attack territory anymore. Perhaps just hyper-awareness territory, as she boarded the train to take her further down the subway line.

The air was still rather brisk in March. It warranted her spring coat and long pants, but not much else when she knew the sun was imminent. Not that April was incredibly kind to New York either, she knew it was not. She just had a tendency to overheat between the bodies and the dark pavement. And she preferred a chill to any other feeling.

His grave was askew, weeds not quite trimmed, but headstone still completely intact. The permafrost was slowly melting off of everything in the city this month, the solitary stones being of no exception. It was cold here, slightly unkept, but not unwelcome. A tree loomed some distance down, it's shadow just forming in the morning sun. A glistening of morning dew covered everything, even the bench that resided some distance away along the path. Everything was bright, and frozen, and wet. It reminded her of those early morning recesses in elementary school. When they'd play in the grass and the schoolyard wood-chips before morning class started. If she listens hard enough, she thinks she can hear it.

Everything is wet, and she's disgruntled now. So she sits in that cold grass, parchment paper flowers folded into her lap. Eyes lingering on blades of grass rather than etched stone.

His name is imprinted there. It has been for the last fifteen years. Buried beneath the limited dirt and grass the city had to offer, her dad lay some several thousand miles away from the Midwest she and her mother called home for the majority of her life. His father is buried next to him, her grandfathers' grave only familiar to her by first and last name. She cannot conjure a picture or image of him.

A portrait of her father sits in the entry way of her childhood home. The entrance hall packed full of pictures of her growing up, and her mother slowly aging beside her. In between the chaos of their documented life, he sits inside it all. She used to stare, whenever he would catch her gaze in the entry way. His eyes set back, his brow line sharp, and facial hair trimmed.

She tries to imagine his voice, as she shifts her gaze to him now. Tries to imagine his smile, and the way his face may shift at the site of her. Tries to remember ever having remembered him at all. Passing glances in the hallway.

It feels like staring at a stranger. His name invokes nothing in her now. Only in some semblance of solace does she fit the flowers in front of his gravestone. Her backside is wet, jeans probably soaked through. The cold keeps her grounded as she traces her eyes along his name. Her reflection comes back at her in the dew.

A crunch breaks her careful meditation. A boy about her age edges the horizon line now, walking along the path through the cold just as she did. She refocuses back on the grave. Nothing inside her has changed. She continues to stare through stone.

The boy, in some weird twisted fate of things, breaks the path and walks briskly in her direction. She can sense him settling in next to her, his footsteps only hesitating when he finally lays eyes on her. Like he knew she was there, but didn't expect her to be despite it.

Her eyes never leave the stone, or the dew, or the grass. She does not see the boys’ shifting expression, or the way his shoulders un-tense as he settles in front of his own respective grave, only some several away from her fathers.

It is tidy. Tidier than hers. Past flowers wilt beside it, not in mistreatment but simply as a remembrance. Some only a day to a week old, tossed delicately to the side as he re-seats new flowers into the flowerpot in front of the grave. His hands linger while fixing them. Trying to elongate the time spent crouched in front of it. He seems to be saying something but nothing all at once. She only shifts her gaze when she hears him sniffle.

It is not a faux-pas to cry at a graveyard. It seems to be the most appropriate places to do so outside of a nightclub bathroom and most fast food chain restaurants at the right time at night. It's actually the place you'll probably encounter the most crying people. That and processions, crosses, and joggers.

It ruffles her though, and for the first time this morning she feels something besides the cold.

She wishes she could feel that innate connection. That she could be moved to outward love for a person she no longer remembered. That she didn't feel guilt for only coming out of an obligation to her mothers’ memory of a man she only ever shared blood with. It felt… unsettling. A deep pit of unwavering jealousy at the boys show of emotion.

It drives her from her wet backside to her knees, her hands skimming the top of her fathers grave as she departs. Backpack secured to her back she shifts her gaze to the boy again. He seems almost startled, his own face moving from stone to her. Like he forgot she was there when he was encased in emotion. The pit grumbles in her.

She nods her head to him, an acknowledgment that she knows he is there and that he is departing. Something in his expression changes, eyebrows quirking inwards and mouth pursed in question. On the tip of his tongue a "sorry" begs to escape, she knows.

She shakes her head, nudging her face to the wet bench in the distance. A signal that she was just going to sit, that it wasn't his fault she decided to move at all.

Not that he would ever know it was. Not that she ever cared to begin with. He'd continue to find fault in himself for her movements in life for the rest of the time they know each other. Which is awhile.

She sits on the bench for awhile, podcast droning in one ear and out the other. Chirping morning birds and honking cars signal the city waking. The sun draws higher now, and her podcast comes to a melodic close as the boy finally takes his leave of the gravestone. From the distance, she could not hear his sniffling any longer.

His eyes lift from his worn sneakers, hands deep in his pant pockets, fisted into the material. He makes his way to the bench beside her now, surprisingly. He is under no obligation to speak with the random girl on this random day, but something about his aunt and the girl and the environment itch at the back of his head. Social proceedings has him stuttering, affixing his gaze to her as she lifts her headphones from around her neck. She folds them, and tucks them into her dull but worn backpack. She appears to him very relaxed, something he never can be this close to any grave. Like none of it has any weight on her shoulders. Something he is jealous of indefinitely.

She is remarkable in the way the morning is. Everything always looks so sleepy in dull sunlight, but his enhanced eyes pick up her fluttering eyelashes and her pert smile. She has a very open face, despite her rather guarded imposition. Of course though, it feels beyond impolite to speak aloud in a graveyard. He still only has the heart to whisper to his aunt to this day. Despite a year having passed already between her burial and his disappearance from peoples memories.

She inclines her head to him. "Good morning," said causally. It is a simple morning on a weekday. Nothing of any remark has even come to pass today for the average person.

He finds it beyond funny. He has spent the last night fighting for his life, and ignoring most pinging messages he has set to Neds' social media. It is final season for college students, and his old friend is forever vocal about the schedule he and MJ maintain during that time.

But it has begun to ache. He is not jealous of having missed out. It is something more unexplainable that afflicts him these days. And he has spent the last 24 hours straight running from it. He was going to end said bender by visiting his Aunt, something he does almost religiously. Something that is the only stable part of his routine besides general avoidance.

It's a lapse in heart, that has his slumping on the bench, a polite smile pinching onto his face as he replies. He had only talked to the police and criminals in the last week or so, and thought it may be best to engage with the world within earshot of Aunt May. Just to sate her worry that he knows logically has her uncomfortable in her grave.

"Morning," he replies. His voice is what she imagined at the very least, rather light and airy. And the wisps of cold escape both their mouths.

"I'm sorry for your loss." She replies, her eyes flickering down and away from him. It's hard to say something you mean about something you don't quite understand.

"Thank you." He had taken a moment to reply, a breath and a sigh gulped down into him before he did. Like he had to remind himself. "I'm sorry for yours." He stutters, "yours as well."

"Thank you." She replies in turn. But in a polite simple way. Like accepting a coffee from a barista, or thanking the receptionist at the doctors office.

She looks to him again, the cold slipping noticeably onto his cheeks. They are red and beat, his eyes hold weight and the skin beneath them sagging. Handsome, not even despite it all. Perhaps partly because of it He looks very alive when his gaze flickers back to her again. His jaw locking on words in the back of his throat, like he means to say something not too important and has stopped himself. It bursts from him anyways.

"Do… do you want to get breakfast?" He pauses. "That, ugh, sorry— no you don't have to!"

The cold doesn't creep up upon him now, just embarrassment. His eyebrows get that pinched confused look to them again, his eyes widening beyond what she thought possible. A deer in headlights, a boy caught unaware by his own tired mouth.

She laughs, her body changing again. It is not a nervous laugh, and he can tell her heart rate remains much the same. Her neck bends in this awkward way, backwards almost completely. Like the laugh took her by surprise and she didn't want to direct it anywhere but up. Her eyes close and squint, and the smile no longe peaks and pinches on her face— but unrolls into something smoother.

She nods, and quickly asks. "Where to?"

The cafe they get breakfast at is nothing of remark, and incredibly close to the looming stones a few blocks away. The boy seems sure of himself, as he leads them both through the morning crowd, his graze shifting behind him ever so often to catch hers again. A pitched smile still edging his mouth.

The coffee is not completely burnt, but the toast she receives is. It is smothered in jam and she thinks nothing of it. The omelet is of higher praise at least, and the company of steady but not unwelcome conversation.

The boy does introduce himself, as it would be weird to walk into a breakfast without at least knowing your companions name. Peter is an even, middle-American name. A popular middle name, she remarks, and that he grumbles at. His head quirks at her own, his face easing. Like he's happy he doesn't recognize it. Or has never known anyone with it before.

He orders coffee and orange juice. A sickening combination, that she points out immediately.

He raises his eyebrows, again, smiling only slightly. "Didn't know I was with such judge-y company."

"How could you know," she scoffs. "We just met."

"Touche," he replies. "Let's attempt to remedy it."

"Why?" She asks, her hair sweeping one way as she tilts her head.

He takes more than a moment to reply, as even he is unsure until she asked. First it was exhaustion that had him sitting beside her, then Aunt May whispering in his ear to speak with her, and pure hunger driving him to the nearest diner. But it started just a hair before all that.

"Only a select few have ever seen me cry, I think." He pauses, watching her face morph into surprise. "And, I think, that that's of some importance."

Tony flashes through his head, uninvited. He had cried of relief, of frustration. He thinks of Aunt May, how he had bent at the waist and sobbed along her shoulder-line, a sense of comfort washing over him. Then he thinks of his friends, of Ned and of MJ. The way he curled in, made himself small, so they could make themselves large around him when he needed them to.

He thinks of the girl, the surprise at her sudden appearance. How the sun flickered over her shoulder-line and the way her gaze laid steady. The way her body turned to his on the bench and how her head flickered back and a laugh bloomed from her chest. How relaxed he felt, for the first time in awhile.

"Alight," she breaks his concentration. "Acceptable." She smiles along the ridge of her mug.

"Well, what about you?" He implores.

She hums, bringing a finger to her lips in animated thought. Shrugging, she smiles at him again. It leans into a facade he is uncomfortable with being present on her face.

"I need a distraction from finals." She confesses, digging into her breakfast in front of her.

He groans, leaning back into the chair. An air of sarcasm between them now.

"I tell you something so incredibly genuine," gesturing to his chest back to her he continues. "And that's all I get in return?"

They both laugh, something light though, as it's only nine in the morning.

"I can't be genuine anymore," she shakes her head and setting her fork down. "It's past nine now."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's past the best part of the day, Peter."

"Which is?"

"The morning, duh."

"That is such a grown up answer." He laughs, drinking the last of his orange juice. "Why is that the best part of the day?"

"It's quiet." She admits. "And cold."

"So, if I got this right, you don't like the heat and you don't like the noise?" He scoffs, "We are in, like, the biggest city in America. You do know that, right?"

She nods, still giggling. "I don't hate the heat and I don't hate the noise."

"I said specifically "like", not hate."

"Are we getting into semantics now?" She questions, head dipping to the side again.

He nods. "Yes, because you have a legit time that you are more genuine. Which is semantics within itself."

"Okay," she admits, hands pushing off the table. Her chair tipping back into the aisle. "Well, I just really like the morning. Especially in the fall and in the spring."

"Why?"

"It's quiet," she explains again, like it's not beyond him to understand. "And it's cold."

He sighs, a smile on his face despite her answer being the exact same. "So what time?"

"What?"

"What time do I have to see you for you to ever give me a straight answer?"

She turns his gaze directly to his eyes. Mirth swims between the both of them. She thinks it's the first time in awhile she's been stuck in a packed diner without thinking about anyone but one person. He thinks it's been a long time since he's slept, and a longer time since he's indulged in a routine that didn't involve violence and avoidance.

"Between five and eight in the morning."

"So I’ll just have to see you then." Finality in his words, a handsome quirk of his lips. No pitch, no peak to be found on his face. His eyes open. She thinks she's finally not staring straight through stone. Nor does she see herself in his reflection.

The topic of gender didn't arise until their little curious stowaway made himself rather comfortable in their medical bay.

Though, it was something Ryland considered… later. But in their general confusion they attracted and repelled back and forth around each other for several hours after he shook her awake all those days ago.

He was relieved, and wasn't afraid to admit that he shed a couple tears too, when he realized he at the very least wouldn't have to bury his other crew-mates completely alone. Or that he wouldn't have to eat ramen alone also, or figure out who he was either. Something in him sunk though, when he realized she woke much in the same condition he did several days prior—completely and utterly confused.

Luckily he was able to supply her with her own name, but not much else. Her belongings were the only one's he couldn't bring himself to crack open yet, something about her name scrawled on the baggage tag made him stutter. Something about her living and breathing still, eased something in him. He figured it was the loneliness that made him so eager for her to wake, and that it was deep, instilled, manners that stopped him from ripping open his only-living crew-mates belongings'.

She awoke confused, but clung to him for a good thirty minutes despite that. While he didn't struggle at all initially to move up and down the sleep-compartment ladder or through the cockpit, she seemed to struggle with the centrifugal fake-gravity the ship created. She had decided to wake while he excessively took stock of the laboratory for the upteenth time in his confusion and withering panic.

Her feet pained her, her muscles slightly atrophied from the years-long coma, but she insisted on taking meticulous inventory of each nook-and-cranny of the ship, like she knew it better than she knew herself. Which, ironically, she seemed to. As she made careful inspections of the interior of the craft from ceiling to floor (or was it just floor to floor?). She listed insightful information regarding the storage of the craft, limping all the while as he took in the sound of someone else for the first time in days.

But, her hunched form had him concerned, even if her warm-hands along his right arm and shoulder were world-shatteringly reassuring at the moment. She probably already knew of the feature on the ship, seeing as it seems she had her own hand in building Mary, but he figured she'd still get a kick out of it. She had yet to even acknowledge their fake-gravity at the moment, probably too caught up in being awake for the first time in years. That or, she wasn't an astronaut. Something he had an itching suspicion that he wasn't either.

He brought her to the cockpit and watched her face crack into something entirely human. The fascination was palpable. She grew even giddier when he flipped those switches and turned off the nauseating spinning.

She flew from space to space in the ship then, her spine elongating and her unkept hair flying. He wished he could have been as awe-struck as she was when he awoke, but he swallowed his jealousy in favor of living a little in between his usual dread.

They were stuck like glue, for about two-hours. Until that same dread caught up to her also. Confirming his hypothesis about her. She was no astronaut. Neither was he.

He had knowledge of space, an aptitude for it really. Knew of star-chasing and planet atmospheric chemical-make-ups. Knew biological systems and micro-chemistry like the back of his hand. He was… okay at math. Mediocre, at best. He always needed to write it down.

She was great at math, knew physics better than most. Or what he believed to be… "most". What's a good point-of-reference when you don't remember much of anything?

So, she was better at physics than him. Math too. She knew molecular material-science, but strayed when it came to the biological. She was a builder, knew electronics and metals and everything in-between. She knew of space travel, of projectile maps and time-dilation.

Decidedly though, neither of them were astronauts.

They couldn't place why they would be here though. Which was the real mystery.

They separated after, like a town-hall meeting commenced and completed. She fled to the holo-room, her luggage banging along the walls as she floated to the compartment. She was going to take stock of who she was, and he didn't invite himself along. Just brought himself back to his white board, scrawling out her name and a question mark somewhere along the margins of the growing list of questions he had about himself.

Because the stranger in the other room was oddly familiar to him. Though he could not place the significance yet.

Ryland was embarrassed by the half-hazard living he was doing until she awoke. He tried to hide the more erratic parts of himself from her, and thanked some god every day she couldn't hear the ever-cycling chaotic dialogue of his mind day in-and-out.

She was tidier than him, which he could admit. He took to taking her orders like someone who was used to them.

She dictated food, dictated the time, dictated the organization of what they had labeled "common" spaces between them also. She found solace towards to front of the ship, by the medical bay and cockpit. He felt most comfortable in the lab, and dragged his mattress to the back room quickly after she set guidelines on space. Something she took seriously, and something he nodded along in agreement to.

Because she was rather distracting.

It all went belly-up when Rocky invited himself in and she didn't have the heart to protest. They had been back and forth for days, communicating and building a relationship with the arthropod-like alien in hopes of finding an answer to the ever pressing mystery of a darkening space. When somewhere during week two their new friend became their new roommate.

And so the lines she had hastily drawn were skewed in favor of making room for their pushy new friend.

"Why sleep here. Question." Echoed behind him as Rocky observed his spotty whiteboard math.

"What?"

"Why sleep here. Why not sleep next to each other. Question."

"I sleep back here, and she sleeps closer to the cockpit. Just in-case something happens, she knows the controls better than me." He answers, tapping his marker against the board.

"Does not explain. Why back here, why not up by her. Question." How can a computer sound so judgemental?

He sighs, hands finding his waist. "Humans don't… sleep close together. Like you guys do."

"Oh." Rocky isn't quiet for long. "Why not. Question. Eridians protect each other when sleep. Why don't you protect. Question."

Ryland flings his hands out, Rocky copies. Almost like he's mocking him.

"Because, she doesn't want to sleep near me."

Rocky jumps at that, something excited in his computerized voice as he scampers through his tunneling system to the front of the ship.

"I ask why." The Eridian replies, from rooms away. Grace doesn't have the energy to follow. She could entertain him for a while, at least until he's done with this projectile math needed to get closer to their destination.

She stomps in within what he presumes is thirty minutes. Something he can sparse from the clock she stuck to the wall in the laboratory. An arbitrary time chosen by her and the ship system. It's almost dinner-time.

She's wearing something casual, which always upsets his chest. A sense of domesticity to it almost. Like the gray sweats and big sweater don't swallow her whole. Her hair is mused on one side, evidence of her dozing off at the med-bay desk again. Something he caught her doing from time to time when he snuck into her space. It took real willpower to not tuck her frizzy hair behind her ear.

Her eyes narrowed at him, something unserious about the whole situation had him giggling at her rather than trembling. It only brought her further into the room, her hand smacking against the table next to him as she found balance in front of him again.

She still struggled with the gravity, from time to time. Long-term affects they both figured.

His hand reaches forward, long fingers curling around her back as he continues to sit in his stool. His eyes find hers, his glasses crooked at the bottom of his nose. Giggling still, he tries to ignore the bashful look she sends his way.

"What is Rocky nagging me about?"

Her hand finds his, uncurling his fingers from her warm hitched-waist he pushes his stool a little bit back. Folding his arms across his chest he shakes his head.

"He's going on about how I sleep back here. He had a billion questions about it."

"Why?"

Grace sighs, standing to level with her. "The hell if I know?" He shrugs, shooting a smile towards her. She reaches to rub the sleep from her eyes.

Rocky interrupts, rolling into the room rather sloppily in his makeshift hamster ball that he still has yet to get the hang of.

"Why run. Question."

She scoffs, eyebrows raising as she turns to crouch in front of the curious alien.

"I did not run!"

"You did. Statement."

"Rude."

"Don't understand. Ignore questions. Why no let Grace protect. Question."

She stands, cocking her head to face him again. "What is he talking about? I think I'm missing at least half of a conversation."

He turns away from her, looking back to the whiteboard again. She was too distracting with that look on her face. He hides his smile behind a hand, and pretends to be busy with the not-so-complex math scrawled on his board.

"It's about the sleeping arrangements, I told you." He laughs, his shoulders shaking.

She crouches in front of the alien again, "Rocky, I sleep up front so I'm closer to the cockpit. I explained what the cockpit was, remember? It's like your ships control-room. Just in case we need to move the ship."

Rocky gets frustrated, running around in his ball, his computerized voice unable to translate the aliens hemming and hawing. She sighs, settling on the floor to ease the weight off her hips. Rocky settles in front of her again, but quickly makes his way over to excessively ram himself into his shins. He makes his way over to her, settling on the floor next to her to be lectured at by the alien.

"You no answer. Know why she sleep by control-room. Safety of ship. Why not safety of her. Question."

"What?" Her brows furrow, and she groans as she unfolds her legs out in front of her, rubbing at her knees. He doesn't think much of it as he reaches over to soothe the ache in her joints, his fingers rubbing above her knee.

"Eridians watch over each other when they sleep. They are very vulnerable when they sleep, so they take shifts."

She sighs, her shoulders drooping as she hums out a sound of relief. "I've not seen Rocky sleep?"

"No sleep as often as humans." Rocky interrupts. "Not as squishy." He reasons, nodding his head.

Her hand meets his along her knees, fingers frozen over his forearm. "But what does that have to do with us, Rocky?"

"Protect." Rocky answers. She cocks her head again, turning her gaze to Grace again. He's unsure when he became the Rocky-whisper-er, but her curiosity may kill him. So will that damn look.

Ryland sighs. "Rocky… watches us sleep."

She seems less confused by this, "Okay?"

"Okay. Statement." He interrupts again. "Lot of work!" The Eridian exaggerates, running around the room in his ball. "Not close. Be closer. Less work for Rocky."

Her shoulders sag. She levels a look back at him, deep eyes exhausted, but utterly amused by the alien. She seemed more alive, to him, when she gave-way to the pushiness of their new roommate. She didn't seem the type to usually bend to another commands, but she usually did for Rocky.

It was endearing, at the very least.

She nodded her head up, and he shot to his feet, quickly extending his hands to help her to her own. Hands trailing from her forearms to her back to steady her. Her hands curling around his biceps, trails of warmth left in their wake.

She's laughing almost the entire time, her shoulders stuttering and that amused breathy laugh escaping her distracting mouth. She's the first to step out of his loose embrace, turning to face their roommate again.

"Alight Rocky." She hums, trailing a hand along the top of his enclosure, like a pat on the head. Not that Rocky understood the intricacies of human contact. Not that Grace was jealous.

She meanders to his white board, examining his work. Corrects a calculation and plants herself back in front of him to hand off the whiteboard marker.

"Dinner is soon, okay?" She hums again, smile crinkling the edges of her eyes. "When you're done with the pathway go ahead and bring it upfront, I'll need it for charting."

He nods, bringing his hands to his pockets. Hiding away fingers that wish to creep along the edge-line of her hair.

Her face flushes, that bashful look again. He balls up his hands inside his pockets.

"And bring your bed back to the med-bay."

She leaves quickly, her voice ringing as she calls for Rocky.

"Need your help with something!" She yells, and is gone from site in the next. Her warmth taken with her.

Rocky seems almost cocky as he turns to Grace.

"I help." He nods his head, arms waving around him, before pointing at him. "You are welcome, Grace."

How can a computer sound so smug?

After Rocky's insistence on sharing at least a bedroom, a lot more of their things seemed to become jumbled together.

They both of course seemed to have come with very minimal things. A box of mismatched shirts and pants each, along with minimal pictures and knick-knacks. Their previous crew-mates seemed to have packed more.

Grace remembers his lodgings back on Earth, from before. Remembers the crampt space on that research boat, remembers Stratt and the mismatched quilt his mother made him that followed him all the way out to that desolate boat and his minimal quarters.

The quilt came with him to space, also. He must have dictated it as important enough to shove in the small storage compartiment they alloted for each person onboard. It took up the majority of his space, along with several t-shirts that followed him from his teaching days to now. And several pairs of beloved lounge-pants he brought from the research ship to here also.

He must not have had a lot of time to decide what to bring, so most of his luggage was clothing.

It seemed she had the opposite problem. He has seen her cycle through approximately three pairs of shirts, two sweaters, and two pairs of pants- in their time together. It seems he shoved his entire closet in his compartment.

She spent a lot of time half-in half-out of their orange maintenance suits. Something that caught him off-guard the first time he saw her bent and working at a bench with the suit on, like he had seen her dressed similarly before.

There are little things, little blips of his memory that resurfaces from time to time, and he makes an effort to log it.

He is a teacher— middle school. He has a doctorate, a well-worn bike, and an empty apartment in Cleveland. He remembers Stratt and the research and, obviously, what their mission is. He remembers meeting Olyesya and Yao, but not many details of the people individually.

And he remembers her, her intrusion into his laboratory from time to time, how she made space on the back bench to work on odd PCB's she would shrug off and never explain. How she usually brought along random books to read, and how he would chatter the day away, and how he never really expected her to respond.

He remembers enjoying the company.

He remembers he knew her, knew her well. Knew about her, knew the overarching picture of her. Her mothers name, an old friends picture hung on her rooms' wall. The old watch her father gave her loose on her wrist.

He can't quite remember if they ever inhabited the same room to sleep together, though.

The med-bay spaces had overhanging beds—like bunk beds. To conserve space they built up rather than out. Or she built it up rather than out.

Now though, Rocky protested the ladders, and had once again bruised his shins with his insistence that they both ensure they were on what was dictated as the "ground level" when the gravity was activated. She took the ground bunk, and he put his badly-padded twin mattress on the floor somewhat close to her. Chivalrous of him, and he had boasted as such to her also. It at least amused her.

She slept rather erratically, but hard. A slight snore caught in the back of her throat at times. He would adjust a pillow below her neck and pretend he didn't thread his fingers through her hair about every other night.

Again, heavy sleeper.

In sharing closer quarters, his intrusive self finally discovered what was in her luggage he didn't have the heart to break into before. Minimal pieces of clothing, a scattering of pictures, and lots of books.

She seemed to not have a favorite genre either. He's spotted her with classics— Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Seen her with romance novels he couldn't place past the questionable covers they had. Mysteries and crime novels. Two huge textbooks with huge citation sections. She guarded each, and rarely went a day without cracking one open. She tended to read before bed. Something to settle her mind and heart, and she would doze off with them still folded open on her chest.

It was incredibly cute.

Rocky had his usual list of questions when it came to "books". He understood the logging of history, although it seemed his language was best translated by pictures rather than an alphabet, as he emphasized with his markings etched upon his limbs. They had oral stories and songs for entertainment, so a whole textbook with knowledge of complex subjects excited the alien. She'd read to him often, when things came into a lull, and then would answer his questions along the way. She in turn would inquire about some of Rocky's cultural stories also, asking for more details along the way. Speaking of their own respective homes soothed everyone.

Grace thinks she would have made a good teacher. If she was one.

He remembers her being around, but not who or what she did at the research facility. He figures it must have been important if she was here with him. He remembers her coming to him, but never him to her. So it was hard to place her, when she simply etched herself into his day to day. Hard to remember much about her, when all of his memories simply seemed to include her. He'd turn, and she'd be there.

She did the same now, wandering from her own space back into his lab from time to time. It became more frequent as of recent, especially with their proximity and boundary lines interweaving now.

He made an observation as of recent. A hypothesis— a scientific jump in conclusion, really. That she tended to linger longer when his arms were exposed.

He tested it out, wore his shirts with jackets some days, and would change things up midday by discarding his jacket and claiming he simply became too warm. Even though at times it was freezing.

He set a control, testing out the longevity of her prescense at the edge of the room when he has his cardigan on. The frumpy thing hides all of him, but he has a growing feeling that she used to steal it from him. When she could.

She enters and exits the lab for no real reason, just like she always used to. But she doesn't linger like she used to in those fractured memories he carries around of her. Something sad and wistful in her furrowed brow. Like she knows something, but is always wondering if he may still be there when she turns and leaves again. So she darts around the ship, exercising her weary muscles and hovering for approximately four minutes and forty three seconds— on average. When he's wearing that stupid cardigan.

When he isn't she stays for much longer, which he prefers. He's always performed best with a student leering over his shoulder, like he has something to prove. Rocky is said student, of course, but she's the principal perched in back of his classroom. A checklist in hand and an easy observation on her tongue. She settles the class and disrupts every nerve he can even begin to grasp. But he's reminded of some distinct part of his humanity when she's there. He feel more him.

So, yes, he is essentially selling himself out for a smidge of some comfort. A hint of his past that must have excited him at some point. The excitment being her, of course. She feels like the orbital point in every room.

She changes the tide of this silent war one random "morning". His shirt found it's way into her limited rotation, and it sent him stuttering.

"Uhhhh…" Short-circuiting, reeling really, he full on faces her as she meanders in through the door-way.

She seems self-assured, her face gets all fixed and calculated as she cocks an eyebrow at him. Her hips naturally falling in that crooked way as she stands before him. A question in her eyes, that he knows if he answers she'll… win. Whatever this turned into.

He can't think of anything intelligent, though he feels he rarely does when she enters his stratosphere. Just extends his hand, almost to bridge the distance, only to rethink it as nothing but nonsense flies through his head.

"Mine…", he finally concludes.

It has her face blooming, cracking into that so-human way that reminds him of sunrise. Unassuming and beautiful.

Unfortunatly, dusk quickly follows, as she flies back out of the room in the direction she entered.

Rocky chirps, his language not translating with the current minimal words he has entered into the computer-translator. He sighs, positioning himself back infront of the computer to translate Rocky's words in to a concise translation in the program.

Idiot.

"Get over here Grace."

"Why the hell are we even out here."

The lanky, accident-ridden scientist she had become close with was stumbling behind her, the gravel path wet beneath them. They didn't usually take walks for lunch, tending to find themselves at the edge of every room. The brisk air shocked her as she tugged the scientist outside, quickly concluding she would need at least one of the many layers Grace seemed to always have on.

His cardigan sleeves hang from her arms, her boots slipping on her feet as she makes her way from the path into a wet, green field. The research center crests into view as she makes her way back to it.

"Did we come out just for a walk? It's a little cold for that." Grace questions behind her, his breath heavy in the cool air.

"You needed a break." She answers. He had been bent over calculations and test-tubes and gadgets for so long now, she didn't know him to do much else. As the clock dwindled down to launch-day her doctor had become quieter in the last few weeks, more contemplative. It scared her, as she had never known him to be quiet— ever. She figured he came out the womb with a full vocabulary, the way he ran through lectures on the daily.

She didn't mind at first, and then quickly came to crave his voice. Though she would never admit that to him. Unsure if he would become cocky concerning her admission, or if he may flush in that confrontational way he does when he has to speak during meetings. She didn't want to chance it, even if she figured it was a 50/50 shot.

He was quiet now, quiet during meals, and quiet during work. Quiet when she would visit, and gave rather clipped answers to her questions these days. It unsettled her.

"I do not." Grace interjects, his hand shooting out to pull her arm. She turned to face the man now. His face flushed from the walk and the air, his hair a mess from the costal wind.

"You do." She answers again, something final in her. He accepts this with ease, his fingers finding her own now. He nods, pulling her closer.

He sighs again, his shoulders drooping, his glasses slipping. She reaches forward, pressing the heavy spectacles back up his arched nose.

"I'm just." He pauses, considering. "Just having a hard time wrapping my head around…"

"Around?"

"Around this." He throws his hands up, emphasizing where they stand. "Around this mission. Around this deadline. Around…" He points his hands again, his gaze coming back to her. "Around all of it."

She knew what he meant. Upon her first introduction to Grace he had protested the… finality… of the mission. Although the name was fitting, he struggled to accept the "one-way-ness" of the mission they both had their hands in creating.

He felt a real moral obligation to prove himself to the colleagues that did not believe in him, of course. But he also wanted to truly help Earth, something Stratt had emphasized every time Grace teetered on the edge of hesitation.

But death was death, even if everyone but him could see the benefits outweighed the costs.

Meeting the astronauts didn't help him, nor did the doom of a two-week impending timeline they were currently locked into. Mary would launch in less than fourteen days, and Grace felt a genuine sense of distress when it came to the technical end of three people's lives.

Partially, she figured, because they had a hand in doing it.

She never thought of the moral-ness of it. Never considered anything but the time left on this ticking Earth coming to a tragic and frightful end— unless she helped. So she did.

She appreciated Grace's opposition, none the less. Enjoyed his softness, his contemplative consideration for others. Something she felt she lacked at the best of times. But she had some real contention with the way it sat on his shoulders and dug into his mind every day now. She wished he knew how important he was, how brave it was despite everything, to go against what his heart may be telling him at the moment.

She wished he knew.

She stops, squeezing his hand in her own. She reaches into her pants pockets, pulling out a compact digital camera. There was a reason she pulled him out here. To immortalize this time together with him, even if he didn't think what they were doing should ever see the light of day. It could take years for all their work to unfold and prove fruitful, that is, if this half-hazard mission garnered any success to begin with.

She wanted to remember this, for what it was at the time. Capture them in the moment in hopes they could one day look back on it fondly.

Or at least, so she could.

"For the history books." She hummed, a glint in her eyes. Something hidden between her intent.

He sighs, flinging his arm casually behind her back and pulling her closer. His yellow coat crumpling under her hand as she fixes her face to the camera held out in front of her.

The only room that she could escape to from time to time now was the holo-room. Projections of Earth cycle through a loop— a never ending feeling of nostalgia hits her when she enters here, now.

The pictures of Earth hurt her much less than the memories folded and crumpled into her hands now. Pictures of a life gone, one she catches in glimpses.

All the best parts seem to be at the end, anyways.

There is a peace in the growing doom of it all, and she can tell it upsets Grace more. Not that she could ever fault anyone for being fearful of an end.

She remembers his apprehension well, his furrowed brow and the wind in his hair. He had been frightful then, of other's impending doom. Afraid of the hand they both played in it, and the consquences if their last-ditch-effort proved for naught.

She remembers breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Remembers his close-quarters and his students’ drawings strewn along his desktop. Remembers their bickering, his reluctance and quick acceptance, and his wind-kissed lips.

He had been all of Earth to her, wrapped into one. The piece of a puzzle she dreamed of until he stumbled into her life. She had found comfort in their shared crime to help humanity, and imagined making herself comfortable in any corner of the world her doctor decided to flee too. She'd follow him anywhere.

Even to space, it seems. Even though she doesn't remember him ever volunteering for the task to begin with.

It's the last memory to the puzzle of them in her mind. Even though her doctor lagged behind, she knew he'd soon remember her jumbled figure in all of his memories leading up to now. Didn't feel like overwhelming the man as they both scrambled to make peace in their floating casket she had conviently made for them.

Her memory is most hazzy in the last moments, flashes of Stratt plague her mind, of meetings she passes notes with Grace at, of kicking her feet upon his lap as they lounge about in his room. A quick flash of an explosion, edging along that foggy horizon-line.

She can't reason it out, can't see her doctor ever willingly stepping foot off of Earth. His eyes blurry in her memory, his shaking hands reaching for her as he pled— pled for something.

No, he wouldn't have. Can't imagine, can't reason his death. Even now it seems to be the hardest thing to swallow.

He better not have been chasing after her, of all people.

"Rocky help. Question."

The alien surprises her, mainly because he's never been this quiet before. The little transporter-communicator she has tapped into the translator computer crackles on her belt. The aliens computerlized voice has her shoulders drooping.

Sniffling, she rearranges her face to look at her new friend. "Hello, pal."

"Rocky help. Why wet. Question."

She sniffles again, reaching out to the creatures hamster-like enclosure. Her hand runs around it's edges, centering her mind back to the present.

"I'm just upset is all, Rocky. I'm sorry, but I don't think theres anything you can do."

"Rocky try." She giggles, facing the alien now.

Their new roommate was admittidly the best part of their one-way trip. His insightfulness and knowledge was of course a plus, but his prescense was also a balm on her growing uneasiness. Everyday they got closer to a solution, they got closer to the end.

And she was selfish. She wanted more time. More time with Rocky, and more time with her doctor.

"Rocky doesn't need to," she interrupts the aliens melodic humming, "him being here is enough."

The alien seems relieved by this, his curious nature taking hold.

"What that. Question." His ball rolls forward, nudging her thigh and hands.

Her hands uncrumple, the photo lined and folded several times. Well loved and traveled, she had kept the photo close since opening her luggage in this very room. The significance escaped her, but it made her breath hitch then. Just as it does now.

"It's us, pal." A picture of her and Grace unfolds in her hands, the research facility blurry in the backround.

The alien chirps again, the translator unable to decipher the deeper meaning of her friends words. She imagines it to be a word, one untranslatable. Like those languages on Earth that have those very distinct feelings tied to one big word.

She hums then too, looking back at the photo she wishes she could go back in time to adjust.

March, 1988

The snow piled up faster than a reasonable person could work to move it. Unfortunately for her, Stanley was the least reasonable person she had ever met. But she figured he needed… space. Something neither of them could afford, the shack in all it's entirety suddenly felt too suffocating to him, rather than welcoming warmness that would fill him with her usual evening arrival after work.

It was all jumbled up, in his head now. And he always paced and shuffled when he tried to make room for himself. He stormed out the house when he realized she took up all parts of it. She was everywhere in that house, everything bright and good, and he was all hung up on the last three weeks of cold shoulders and her disappointed looks.

It brings all of him back to February.

He thinks of her shuttering breath - the desperation in her eyes and the wavering of her voice. She had been so afraid. So afraid of telling him. His mind wanders further back, to her in that door way, her soaked snow covered clothes and her damp hair. And those eyes, as she pleaded to see Ford. He didn't know her then. He wonders if he knows her now.

Why hadn't she said anything sooner?

He knows he's not entitled to her mind, although he'd swim in a sea of her ramblings any day. But he thinks she would have trusted him by now. All the tucked corners of blankets over her at night. All the movies they laughed over. All those shopping trips and all those dinners. He'd do anything with her.

It was far from a facade for him, anymore. She was the only real person he knew anymore. He lies, sure, but he never lies to her. Never has too, because she knows him. Tied together by circumstance, but knotted together by their infatuation with each-other. But he wasn't sure anymore where his doubts began and his longing stopped.

So, he began to make a means of a way out, for her. So she knew that he didn't mean to make her feel trapped in this… dance with him. Just because circumstances make if feel necessary. She didn't have to stay.

If she… didn't want to.

So he found ways to give her outs.

He begins leaving slips of windows open again, to let the cool in. He didn't want to suffocate her with the heat of him. A new lock on her door, so she could put up that wall some nights if she needed. To keep him out of her bed. He insists now, that she call him by his real name. He can just be Stan to her, if that's the kind of distance she needs. He can stop dialoguing her departure from room to room also- because he knows how it began to annoy her.

He knows that she doesn't have to tell him everything. It's only human to hide what you think are the worst parts of you.

He thinks of Ford and his silence. Thinks about how she didn't even know he existed. How his mother is the only one to call. Thinks about his fathers lingering absence at his funeral.

He thinks of her soft lips and the heat of her on top of him. Of her shattered expression in the kitchen after he unlaced her boots and slammed the kitchen door that night. He'd done the same almost every night since.

He throws the shovel, rips off his glove and examines his shaking red hands. He was so angry. He didn't think he could ever be so angry with her.

She had told him… everything that evening. Everything about the dreams and the death that followed her in almost each one. How she'd wake up shaking, breathless and suffocated. How she dreams of a future, and children that remind her of him. How they slip through her fingers almost every night, as she frantically tries to save them. How they just appeared to her in the middle of the road and disappeared a moment later in a flash.

Sure it was… a unique situation she described. Sure the thought of these children struck him sideways. But it was all really digestible to him. Not as fantastical of a thought now that they both knew what they knew about this place. The creatures Ford writes about are real, his icy trip in the lake proved as much. Dimensional travel also exists— according to whatever the hell Ford was doing in that basement. And according to her, most importantly. Her bent form flashes through his mind, a new pair of reading glasses perched on her nose as she scribbles in the margins of Ford's book.

Time travel to him wasn't that "far out" of the realm they currently resided in— fucked up as it may be to the normal persons psyche. He knew that, and he knows she knows that. Takes it in stride in an adorable fashion, usually. So why was she so frightened to tell him?

He's unreasonably angry. She was in so much pain, so much misery each time she'd go to bed, thinking a dream may just creep up into the edges of her mind that night. She'd beg with her eyes each night, beckon him in to sleep beside her. Her eyes lingering in corners, looking for something— almost every night. Too subtle for him to notice until she told him, and it makes him so angry. He couldn't tell that she was unsettled. That she was in pain.

His fist clenches. He needs to fucking hit something. He'd hit himself, if his face and arm weren't stiff. He wishes he could hurt, wishes it'd take away that look in her eyes. That fear.

His fists clench into his hat and into his hair. Pulling and dragging the offending piece over his eyes and off his head. His head rings. She shouldn't have to hide that from him. There are no bad parts of her to hide.

There's no part of her that could ever be worse than all the parts of him.

—

She is shackled by the biggest regret of her life. Of confiding in that godforsaken man.

She had been so afraid of the distance it may create. That he may be perturbed that she dreams of the future. Of their apparent future. Of those… children. That they appeared in front of her only hours prior when she rolled herself over onto him and confessed to her waking nightmares.

Now this, was her nightmare.

Sleeping was a solace in comparison to the sudden coldness of most of her encounters with Stanley now— with Stan now.

It left a bitterness curl in the back of her throat, a uselessness deep in her gut began to grow. She didn't know where this bitterness started and her aching for him ended. He was infuriating and… hurtful, as of recent.

The snippets of kindness were a blessing in the beginning. A balm to the burn of her confession. He still woke to make her coffee, still laced her snow boots to the top each morning, still laughed beside her during their Friday movie nights. But he was slightly… removed now.

First it was small. He filled the spaces between her usual ramblings less. More grunts and one word answers. A dying conversation usually fizzled out around them now. She hasn't had a constructive conversation in weeks, and it's because he does not allow it to continue. Like her voice unsettles and pinches his ears now.

Then it was the coolness of the house. The increase of lap blankets and the absence of his heat. He sits on the farther end of the couch now, instead of the dead center of it, like he used to. A cool draft in through the windows he forgets to close makes her back rigid and attitude clipped.

Then the lock on her door. It reminds her of a time when they'd sleep separate. How he ran through her doorway one night to crawl upon her bedside and wake her from some other reality she conjured up to torture herself. It was a sour taste in her mouth, and she slept alone for the first time in months the night he put it on. She woke to the sun, undisturbed, but chilly. Her eyes drug up and over to the godforsaken lock on her door. She's never once turned it, she's unsure if it even works. Unsure of the purpose of it's placement on her bedroom door. She'd eyed the hatchets at the general store just a few days ago, imagining taking one to the wood and ripping it from the hinges.

The final straw for her waning heart was his insistence on being called… Stan.

Even when it's just them.

Because it's her. He knows, right? It's just her, she's the same fucking girl. The same stupid girl that needed him still.

Because she was cold.

But she was also angry.

Angry at his silence. Angry at the distance. Angry with… herself.

She gave over everything she had to him. Not because she felt it was necessary for the arrangement. Perhaps, in the beginning, it was embedding in some of the actions she took. Some of the moves she made. It'd be easier to live with a friend then a stranger she had figured. But now she wondered if it'd be easier to live with a stranger rather than a lover.

She was afraid of what may happen between them. With the kiss and, also with the confession. She didn't want to be looked at with pity, didn't want to be tip-toed around, didn't want to feel odd or misshaped by it. But she was going crazy, thinking about it all again.

He had been warm between her legs, his chin and stubble ran over her cheeks and bridged over to her ear. The way she moved over his lap, the release of air he let out into her ear. The groan.

It's the only thing that kept her company at night anymore, the memory of him. And it made her angry how distant he was now and how much of it settled on her shoulders odd and how she was cold in her once-warm home and of how much she still wanted him.

The back door slams open and boots stomp through the mudroom hard and noisy. Wet snow piling on the entry way rug. If she turns over her right shoulder she'll see him there in the hallway. But she hasn't turned to look him in the eyes for the past five days. And it might make her explode if he even entertains breathing in the same room as her at the moment.

He does not get the memo, apparently.

"I want you." His voice breaks the air, cracking in that low way it always does when he hasn't spoken in a while.

"Excuse me?"

She regrets it instantly, when she turns to look at him. Her eyes map his figure. She thinks of his frame in that kitchen light, before she knew him. How he struck her dumb for a moment. How his expression never wavered, except for that brow and the twitch of his lips downward. He looked like he was going to cry, back then.

He wears the same expression now.

His voice doesn't falter, and he doesn't repeat his last statement. She doesn't know if he actually said it all. Couldn't connect the words back to his face. Another hallucination, a slip of the mind. He barrels on ahead, ignoring the deep creases of her brows. The shadows on her face deepening.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner."

She scoffs. Her shoulders slump, her breath held tight to her chest. She answers him with silence.

He moves closer, boot's tipping over the invisible line between the hallway and the kitchen. They squeak and sop onto the tile. Her eyes never once leaving his face.

"Why didn't you?"

Her stomach turns. "I don't owe you that. I don't owe you anything, Stan." Shut up.

And she didn't. It was a miracle it had left her mouth to begin with. She had tossed around the idea of it for months. Had thought about it longer than she ever thought about kissing him. That was just… instinct.

He knows that, knows that there was something more to it all that she wasn't telling him. That wasn't meant for him, yet. But he was so blinded by the mess of it all. A tangle of string he wanted to unwind. He needed a beginning and an end, a sense of control. Only so that he could protect her from these things, only so he could shield her from all this hurt.

But how do you protect someone from… their own mind?

It twists something in his gut, frustrates him beyond any logical words. And he has none.

His fingers dig into his chest, a warmth accumulating around his neck now as he tries to swallow angry words. Tries to meet half way.

"I'm your husband." He grind out, heat flooding his eyes. "But I'm also your friend." His voice cracks, anger still present in his voice.

He was her friend. Her only friend, now. She thinks back to high-school. Thinks of drunken nights in corn-fields and shitty girl-gossip in the bathroom. Of brushing and braiding hair and shared lipstick.

Thinks of Ford.

He was… her only real friend. May be the only person who knows her as she is now. Unrecognizable perhaps, but still the same scared little girl. Still scared, even now.

"I was a-afraid." Her voice shakes, but her conviction does not. Anger still seeped into her shoulder blades, her head ringing as Stan steps closer.

"Afraid of what?" His voice grows, his boots slip from the carpet to the kitchen floor, his height leering over her slightly now.

She doesn't cower away. Her mind flashes to her grandfather and his half-gone porch drinks. Thinks of his deteriorating mind as he calls her his daughters' name. His mind slipping from one reality to another. From one dream to another.

What if it was all in her head? What if she was… slipping?

It's what she was most afraid of. Of imagining a life that could never be real. Of not being able to wake up from it.

But it was hard to admit to a person who was meant to be her rock that she thought he may be a figment of her own imagination. That the concept of him giving a shit about her scared her so deeply it was easier to swallow thinking she was crazy, rather then ever confirming it. Because if she was crazy… was hallucinating children and adventures and kissing him in cars and dates that never happened then she'd rather it stay that way. Stay locked away deep in her mind, and they would never have to speak of it again. She'd turn that key, keep all the thoughtful looks and impending future to herself. It'd let her breath easier day to day, if he stayed this intrinsic part of her.

She'd curl up that infernal, no good, heart of hers. Hide away all the things that made her hurt. All the parts that were too grim to shine. She'd take care of him forever, even when she was full of malice. Even when it felt easier to shut the door and lock it behind him when he stormed from room to room to escape her. She'd be a shadow in every room, be smaller and take less pictures if he didn't want to hang them with her. She'd swallow it. She had before.

She's reminded of her grandmother then. Thinks of warm breakfasts and packed lunches. Of warm bedsheets. Thinks of that empty chair at her graduation. Of those scattered walls absent of her.

Taking care of her was never synonymous with… actually caring for her. It was always an undercut, an obligation. Her grandmothers' name signed on her documents but her presence faded in her memory.

She thinks of her again. Her visage bent over the kitchen sink as she sobbed into a dirty dishrag. How she begged her, begged her to never ask her again about her devotion, about her love. To never question her care again. How her guilt turned to grief turned to rage.

"Afraid of you seeing me different." Afraid of being different.

Something in Stanley's eyes crack, a slip of a tear along his waterline. His dark eyes wavering. She thinks they may be more alike then she'd care to admit, her husband and her grandmother.

That they may care in the same way. And she may be too blind to see it in her own anger. How everyone at fault was too dumb to take a step back to breath. How they spoke less when it mattered most. How it tore her up not to meet his rage with some of her own. She was tired of missing him.

His hands find purchase on his hips, his wet jeans cling to him in odd places. The snow, dirty and melted, seeps onto the floor. He sighs, bending his head so his chin meets his broad chest. Another breath and his eyes lift to hers again. They still look blurry in the yellow kitchen light.

She's rooted to the spot by the look. His bent form shakes her resolve.

"I could never see you more clearly than I do now." He nods his head. Like his sentence didn't drudge up more questions than answers for her.

Her hesitation brings him closer still. His shoes squeak along the floor as he steps forward. His hands reaching for her. Something he has not done for weeks.

He is out of practice, he realizes. His hands stutter to her arms and rush to the tops of her shoulders. They are warmer than she remembers them. Rougher too, more than likely caused by his excessive shoveling for the past few days.

His hands reach for her cheeks, tilting her head to meet his own. Her eyes pitch upwards to connect with his own shimmering dark eyes.

"I don't think I'll ever look at you any different, honey." Conviction in his voice, his lips wobbly as he relays his most honest truth.

She tries not to think of the cold in parallel to all his heat. Thinks of locks and slammed doors. About his broad shoulders and back as he races from any room that may contain any of her.

"Why then?" She drives forward. "Why pull away from me?"

He sighs, his thumb tracing the outer corner of her lips. Like a flood-gate opening his eyes finally water to the point of downpour.

"Just in-case," he admits. "Just in-case, you needed a window."

A crack, a light, and a breeze for her to drift out of. A way to leave. He gave her an out. The only way he knows how.

She shakes her head between his warm hands, her own hands run up his forearms to fold over his fingers. An almost exhausted smile flickers onto her face.

"I don't need that Stanley." She breaths. "This is my home."

"Y-you don't?"

"No."

She remembers car doors opening and buckles snapped shut. His hands in her hair as he leans over the couch to whisper into her ear, like they aren't the only two people in the room. His hunched figure over the kitchen sink, a drying towel flung over his broad shoulder as he sings along to the crackling local radio-station.

Thinks of that camera from the thrift-store. Of the picture of them folded away in the top drawer of their nightstand. She needs a frame.

"You are my home."

His shoulders drag down, his frame leaning closer to her. His dark eyes flicker to her mouth. She recognizes that look from her dreams. From the car. The heat of him makes her mind hazy and her body loose. He's too handsome to be looking at anyone but her like that, she decides.

She's not too far gone to remember the cold that left her rigid for the last few weeks, though. Her brow furrows, but she can't erase the amusement from her face. Her hand curls up his chest now, pushing his heat away.

"I'm still rather mad at you Stanley."

He smirks, like he got his way anyways.

"Understood, honey."

— — — — — — — —

Taglist:

This was her typical Friday, at least her typical Friday as of the last few months. She’d meet with the med resident at the bar each Thursday night, they’d bitch and hash things out– discussing anything from assholes they’d encountered during their week to their recurring dreams and fleeting crushes. 

Recently, Shoko has been speaking about her friends’ love life– the disintegrating one that is. 

Shoko hadn’t supplied intimate details such as distinct names or appearances, but they had dissected every other detail. Down to the current text-chain interaction Shoko currently is having with each side of the argument. 

A modern Sherlock and Holmes. The two of them fumbling through clues in a dank bar. 

Because see, they still didn’t know why the couple was at odds. 

From what she could shake from her friends, there was something decided by one partner without consulting the other. 

And that decision? Apparently life changing. 

They had hashed it out for several weeks now. Could it be an upcoming move? A career change? A secret love-child?

They couldn’t say for sure. Not enough clues to piece the entire mess together. 

Which is why her head was pounding a little more than usual for a Friday, due to the extra drinks Shoko provided last night as they wallowed near another dead end in their investigation. 

She was just glad to be rather far removed from the scene of the drama. She loved hearing of it, but didn’t know if she’d survive such stress in actuality at the moment. 

Mainly because her head was still pounding at one in the afternoon. And these kids were always unruly on a Friday. 

The first graders had split up from their individual desks. She’d given them an activity that requires them to get up and move and interact. All in hopes of tiring them out after their lunch and break so that she could do quiet class reading time for the last hour at two. 

She just needed to survive the next hour of their shuffling and murmuring and giggles.

The kids would swell in volume, laughing and interacting with new friends, until she’d raise her head and tip her head back to peer upon the crowd, they’d hush and shoosh one another once again, willing to bend to her usual request for the room not to grow into a dull roar. A smile would curl around her lips, her shoulders relaxing back from the hunch of the top of her spine. She enjoyed the authority, but also didn’t mind the giggles as they’d shush one another, quiet joy at “not being caught” by her. 

Everyone had gotten up and shifted to a friend in the room, a printed cross-word of this weeks vocabulary being completed by pairs upon pairs of students. 

There was only one who hadn’t moved yet, his dark head tipped down and staring at his worksheet, was her newest student as of some three months ago. 

She remembers picking up the quiet boy from the front office that early morning, his guardian long-gone as the boy sat alone in those old plastic chairs that sat in the hallway across from the school secretary. 

He had sat primly, his blue backpack worn and full of empty notebooks with pictures in the margins. 

He had looked so very lonely, there in the quiet. He seemed used to it though, indifferent at best. 

She was loathed to admit he had wormed out a small little corner of her heart. She wasn’t supposed to have favorites… but it couldn’t be helped at this point. She just tried to not make it so terribly apparent. 

He stayed quiet, he spoke it even and clear tones when forced, but he preferred solitude above all. She thought to let him be that day, but grew frustrated as she watched his dark eyes squint at the cross word, his eraser poised to blot out another wrong answer on the sheet. 

He didn’t typically ask for help either, she noticed, instead opting to struggle through most anything alone. It made her ache at times, which she hated, and in her usual attempt to help her squash down her feelings she just drew herself in tighter to him. 

Shaking her head, chin poised in her hand, she called his name. 

“Fushiguro.” 

His dark head rises, quirking to the side. He gathers the assigned paper and his pencil and eraser to bring over to her desk. In hand, he brings his supplies to the lone chair that resided next to her growing pile of paperwork. 

Giggles arise from the very back of the room, but a quick twist of her head had them dispersing back to a dull lull of quiet conversation and snickering whispers. 

Megumi gets comfortable in the chair next to her. His brow is less furrowed now than  before as he elects to point at a spot on the sheet and turn his inquisitive eyes to her. Unspoken candor between them. She smiles, nudging his finger away as she begins to reread the prompt to him. 

The hour is up in due time, and Megumi completes the crossword in his neat handwriting in also. At times going back to erase slightly slanted letters, just to put all his focus back into ensuring that they are perfect. Something she made note of a while ago. His insistence on a form of perfection for himself. 

She’s no expert, but she has a nack for spotting an undiagnosed anxious child. Someone looking for praise in the form of perfect A’s. Which she has no problem giving him, as he routinely performed above average. Something she feared just festered his drive farther. 

She was hesitant to discuss it with Shoko. She had been tossing the idea around for the last month, confiding in her about this one particular student. But it felt… too intimate at times. She didn’t want to tie herself too intrinsically to the situation, but she feared how to approach it with the young boy’s parents. 

Not that she had even met them, unsurprisingly. 

They were the busy type. She knew that at least. She had plenty of students with salaryman fathers and household driven mothers. At the end of the day she tried not to hold judgement on them, especially as she acknowledged a lot of the parents' younger ages, some her own age. At the best of times she can barely take care of herself, she can’t imagine a child in the mix. 

Some children would linger after school though, the promise of their parents' presence coming to get them would have the children playing outside, sometimes lingering near her desk, looking for attention they don’t routinely get anywhere else. 

She was good at that, giving them her full attention. 

Routinely though, it almost always seemed to be Megumi left behind. 

Again, she tried not to judge. Emphasis on tried. But it was hard. She played favorites in that way. Especially when he looked down trodden every Friday after school, waiting for someone to come. 

The headache wasn’t the worst part of her Fridays. No, it was that little boy’s face of disappointment. 

She’d walk him to the high school where his father worked, the only information she’s ever received from him. And only because he needed to, because she refused to leave him alone on Fridays. Not that he had even called the man father either. Just that he was there, if her memory serves her right. His eyes flickering across the street to the high school. 

Other kids seemed to race out the door for the weekends, but something in the boy’s face spelled dread. She tried not to think the worst of the situation she was sending the boy home to. 

So, like every Friday for the last three months, when the class was dismissed Megumi didn’t move a muscle out of his seat, his head downturned to a beginners chapter book she had suggested to him some weeks ago. 

Sighing, she shuffles the papers on her desk, interrupting the silence of the room that's been present for the last thirty minutes. Her gaze lingers on the boy in his seat, his lips downturned into that same disappointed demeanor. 

Her hands itched. She had to speak with Shoko. 

~ 3 months prior ~

He was too small in that chair out in the hallway. Shoes dangling off the seat, nowhere near grazing the floor. She wondered how he even got up there, imagining him climbing up there onto the seats usually reserved for visiting parents waiting on a tour, or to pick up their sick kids. 

She remembered his name, it's scrawled now on the bottom of her pre-printed attendance sheet, his name written in pencil. Just in case. 

His gaze was centered to the floor, tracing the indent of the tile in the hallway. The only thing that gave away the young boy's unease was the grip he kept on his backpack straps– dangerously tight. 

“Fushiguro?”

His head shifts to her– like it always does now. His face neutral, but she can see the flushing of embarrassment and nervousness bloom against the bridge of his nose. He sighs, like he’s preparing for the onslaught of company. He climbs off the chair, much like she imagined he got up there. 

He stands stock still straight, before bending at the waist. And addressing her appropriately. Polite. Very polite. Face value wise, anyways. 

“Hello.” He said in an even tone. Bending back upwards and leaning his head back to look her directly in the eyes. Sizing her up, like he wasn’t sure of her yet. It seemed fair. But he was incredibly cautious for such a young age. She was too used to the misplaced trust of children, their innocence driving them to tell her just the darndest of things. 

Things that she probably shouldn’t know. Intricate details of home life and pets. Their best friends and favorite colors and their least favorite foods. They'd go into detail about playground games and fights they have had with their siblings. 

Megumi was not like that. The opposite, in fact. That ease that children usually found with her, that they entrusted with her, was not there with him. And it ruffled her feathers how distinctly he drew the line between his head, his mouth and her open ears. 

She looked at him like he had learned a hard lesson before, and was not ready to relive being honest with anyone ever again. 

Not that he lied. Sizing him up as he was now, she knew he didn’t have the heart for that, at least. Nor the face. Although he could school an impression like a well-paid lawyer, his round cheeks always gave him away. She appreciated at least his body would tell her the truth, if it was ever needed. 

She nods her head in greeting, a smile flickering across her face. She begins to walk away, nodding her head along to urge him to follow. She starts filling the silence between them, her words meaningless as she explains the layout of the school, when the lunch hour breaks, and discussing the current class schedule. 

He saddles up to her side, his backpack too big for his small shoulders, it slipping down his side. 

She instinctually adjusts it, and his head turns back to look over at her. Something softening about him, his hands drifting away from the grip he has on his pants. 

“Have you considered extensive therapy?” 

The woman occupying the seat next to her at the bar shrugs her shoulders, her short brown hair tussled over the dip of her neck. Her eyes tired, and screwed to the bottom of the drink she nursed. 

“Nah.” Dipping her fingers against the rim of the cup. “I prefer talking to you.” 

“Hmm.” A subpar response at best. Followed by a scribble into her worn journal. The swipe of her pen rocking Shoko into a hypnotic ease. It was always easy to sit next to the girl. 

Visually, the girl looks much the same age as she is, give or take a few years. Old enough to drag herself up, work day in and day out, and to seek the solace of her own company while nursing whatever wine she could get her hands on. But young enough to still hesitate to speak as if she's anything other than competent. Intelligent, Shoko figured, the kind that perhaps knew books more than people. 

Different, Shoko prayed, looking at the dark rims around the girl's eyes. She looked like another worn boy she knew, one that Shoko discussed on a weekly basis recently. Never with anyone else, but always with the girl in the dark bar that looked too homely to exist in the setting this comfortably. 

So Shoko was back again today, hashing out the same business from the last couple weeks to the girl she encountered half a year ago in the same bar. Because that's what they did, what they fell into. She drug herself here for their usual Thursday “session” after her stress-inducing shift in the E.R., hoping to get the usual blunt answers to all the world's problems. Blunt almost to a fault, a breath of fresh air to Shoko, after the grime of society. 

Shoko continues. 

“I’ve thrown my hands up with them I fucking swear.” 

The lie draws a faint smile to the corner of the girl's mouth. 

“Perhaps physically you’ve given up. But, they are usually the point of tension for the rest of you. Including that head of yours.” 

“Ya.” Shoko huffs. “They annoy the fuck out of me.” 

“But?” 

“But, I love them.” 

“I can tell. Though, I can’t see why. They seem to cause you a lot of trouble.” 

“The trouble is worth it. And I feel…” She moves her hands back to the nap of her neck, an indifference in her candore. Like she’s already reasoned it all out in her head. “Responsible.” 

“Why?” The girl quirks her head, eyes flicking up to Shoko’s face for a moment. 

“Something happened between them before, and I just… never wanna see that again.” 

“I can’t see how a rift between them could be solely your responsibility.” 

Shoko dodges an explanation, which the girl accepts. Some things are still unexplainable between them. She may know Shoko’s favorite color and her string of lovers, but it didn’t mean either of them ever had to disclose anything that they were still uncomfortable with. There was never any push between them, just a whole lot of give. 

Shoko breaths. “Everything just like-” She moved her arms wide, her shoulders falling back, “-blew up.” 

“I know the feeling.” A slip of silence and agreement between the two. There always seemed to be something at least comparable between them when it came to vague explanations at times. 

Shoko figures the girl would know– can see explosives twisted into her too– something ticking from years ago had blown her up too. 

The E.R resident had stumbled into this particular downtown bar a total of six months ago. 

Shoko had found the inconspicuous bar on one of her many wandering nights. Didn’t think twice about pushing through the dark entrance and finding a spot at the bar, towards the back with the dim yellow overhead lighting and a girl that screamed for help silently while bent over a moleskin journal packed full of notes and creased pages. 

They had made a habit, the two of them, of coming back to each other over the next six months. They knew intimate details of each other's lives without a solid disclosure of last names and ages between them. Which seemed to be the preferred interaction between the two. Solid walls turned to dewy moss between them– as the girl discussed the dislodging loneliness of her recent move– from country hills to sprawling city. And Shoko discussed too-bright E.R. hallways during her ongoing residency and her dear friends love-life. Something, it sounds like, had Shoko on edge the last few weeks. A recent development and a spat between high school sweethearts that had her shook up, because they haven’t fought like this since that fateful fall at seventeen. 

The girl, unfortunately, was no couples therapist. Just a simple elementary school teacher. Though Shoko still confided in her despite knowing her new friend wouldn’t be of any help– she didn’t expect her to have any blunt answers for her now, only a shoulder to lean on and doodles to share. Because, truthfully, the girl was young in spirit, it seemed, despite them both being close to the same age (Shoko guessed). Wrinkles crinkled around her eyes when she turned her gaze to others now, and indents of dimples and smile lines faded under the girl's child-like cheeks still. That and, Shoko knew, that the girl had never loved like this before– she had admitted it to her during their first few months and meetings. 

Shoko was no stranger to love, though she struggled to find reasons to stay at times. She understood connections between humans, and had seen the preciousness of life first hand day after day. Shoko figured the girl at least had an understanding of that, if their matching shadowed eyes spelled out the dawning connection between the two. That each understood the duality of life.

She looks up and away from her warming drink now, condensation from the glass catching her eyes before they move to the girl beside her. She’s looking up at her for once, a budge in her reassuring smile and a drifting of her hand to encircle Shoko's wrist. Rarely did they touch, only ever looking for reassurance with words between the two. 

Shoko didn’t shake off the touch, her shoulders relaxing as the girls steady gaze calmed her, like usual. Like a spell. 

She turned back to the bartender, her hand shot up to grab their attention. She turns her head to the tired, stressed out teacher beside her. There was one thing that would distract them, one thing that would ensure the girl slept tonight.