20:47; November 12, 2065

Neil swore he could stand to wait another couple of minutes. In his mind, this wasn’t right. He’d gotten back late, but that was to be expected. For as long as he could remember knowing her, Jane had never been late unless something was wrong. She should have been there already.

He stood and glanced around his quarters, trying to remember if there was anything he was missing. He had a plan. It was a dangerous endeavor any day, and normally he’d never think of such a thing. Tonight was special though, something he didn’t want to miss.

The door slid open, signaling Jane’s arrival. Neil’s first impulse was to look as angry and hurt as he could, but he couldn’t hold it long enough to make much of an effect.

"Yeah, right," Jane shook her head, "You’ve got nothing compared to what I’ve been through today." She silently promised herself not to go to any of the lounges for the next six months. A hangover was bad enough, but one lasting through Patrol and through a health examination…. Not to mention how her physician tried to diagnose said hangover.

"I might have," Neil looked her over. She did look tired, and he knew she was right. But, hey, why back down? "If you’d have got here any later, you might have ruined it."

"Might give me a little more incentive if I knew what ‘it’ was," Jane stated, although she didn’t really need any more incentive. Neil had made such a big deal of something and managed to keep it quite secretive at the same time, and it was enough to get her curious. Not that she’d admit it, of course….

Neil grinned, prompting Jane to smile in turn. He could almost forget everything bad that was happening in moments like this. ‘Almost’ because of the glow that Jane seemed permanently engulfed in. He loved that glow, it meant she was happy, confident, and over all in a good mood. He hated that glow, because of what caused it. They’d been together long enough for him to know how it seemed to intensify after every mission, and how it would fade between them. How it seemed especially profound after the really dangerous ones, the ones that nearly cost her life. It terrified him.

He could forget that too, sometimes, while caught in the moment… with her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips softly pressed to his. This was his life, his reason for living. It was what he fought for everyday.

"So?" Neil blinked in confusion. Jane smirked in mirth, "What do you want to show me so damn badly?"

Neil had to think for a minute before he remembered. His triumphant grin returned, "You’re gonna love it, but we’ve gotta go now unless you’re up for waitin’ another thirty years."

"You could just tell me," Jane said, getting all the more inquisitive. She straightened her shirt when Neil pulled away and watched absently as he gave his room one last stare down.

"Nope," he said, satisfied that everything was in order, "let’s go."

They left, Neil quietly calculating how much time he had. It would take about an hour to get to the sub-levels, and less than fifteen minutes to get to the place… that was if there weren’t any Phantoms about.

He hoped desperately that there weren’t.
 
 

21:42; November, 12, 2065

The sound of their footsteps echoed through the abandoned streets, shattering the dense silence and making them feel unwelcome. Neither said a word, as though in an attempt to prevent further irreverence to the dead city.

It was safe out here, or so the media claimed. There had been no Phantoms within three miles of the city, the living city, in almost as many weeks. Although few would talk about it openly, and the Council was hesitant to comment, there were high hopes that this was permanent; that the aliens were in decline and the tide of war was turning for the better. Some of the more optimistic hopes were that brief, unescorted outings would again be possible in the not so distant future.

Whether or not this dream was possible, Neil had decided early in planning that it would be better to be prepared than to trust luck. So far in life, luck had been on his side. He’d lived through early childhood, when there were no Barriers and the Phantoms were rapidly spreading throughout the world. He’d survived the following years with ease, until military service took over his life. Four years of hell suddenly seemed worth it when he’d met Jane while serving his first missions with the Zodiac, before he lost her for three years. Those three years made a chance reunion all that much sweeter, and with a little good fortune they were assigned together.

Which was why that, when he thought about it, he decided he really didn’t want to be nearby when luck felt it was time to start calling in favors. After all, good things could only hold out for so long.

So, when he found a reason to take advantage of the Phantoms’ absence, he formulated a plan with as many variables taken into account as possible. Some things he couldn’t guess, such as the actions of other people.

The private guarding the ground level access gate had been completely terrified of the armed soldiers that accosted her at her post. One of them flashed a permit and ordered the poor woman to open the hatchway, which she quickly did. Only later did it occur to her the inanity of the scene: two soldiers, wearing neither armor nor uniform but rather marked clothes and armed with assault rifles and visual equipment. On retrospect, the private decided it would be best to call it in.

Neil hadn’t worried about the girl; she’d been amenable enough. Jane, on the other hand, was starting to worry him. Like he’d expected, she had fought against the idea of going outside until he’d made it clear he would go whether she came or not. Once out there, she’d got the ‘permit’ away from him and learned that it was just a carefully folded, blank piece of paper, and he thought she might have gotten mad at him. Now she was quiet as she followed him further out, which could have meant good or bad.

He understood why she didn’t want to be out here. No sensible creature would. He had almost given up the idea several times himself when the rational part of his mind tried to talk him out of it. One of the few things that prevented him from turning back now was the notion that Jane would make him wish he were dead for dragging her on a dangerous excursion that seemed to have no point to it. She had been increasingly touchy for the past week, and for no reason did he want her cross with him.

So he smiled at her. To his immense relief, it seemed to have a positive affect, and he saw the hint of a smile returned. It wasn’t that far out anyway, less than half a mile. That left over a two-mile buffer between them and any Phantom sighted in the last eighteen days. And he wasn’t that foolish in this endeavor; they were armed, they had scopes, and he had a scanner clipped to his belt. They were prepared, they knew what they were doing, they’d spent much longer outside before… so why did he feel so uneasy?

He’d memorized the way from maps. The old bridge was suspended over the water, which meant clear on all sides, and easy to defend. They would easily be able to see anything threatening before it came close enough to harm them. Once there, he stopped to make absolutely sure there was nothing out on it already, and then dashed out onto it. A minute later he came to the broken edge of concrete and steel at the end of the bridge, and he peered down into the dark, foreboding water so far below.

Jane approached silently and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. Neil had been transfixed, staring at the river and jumped at the touch. For an instant, he thought he’d seen a dull flicker of red through the blue lens. When he looked again, there was nothing there. He tried to calm down a little. He didn’t see any more red, a quick look at the scanner showed nothing, and chances were that if there was a Phantom in the water that it wouldn’t be able to get to them easily.

Neil took Jane’s hand from his shoulder and led her back a few steps from the edge of the broken bridge. He sat down in the middle of the street and tried to pull her down with him, not completely without success. She knelt by him and looked around warily. Both their weapons were within arm’s reach if they were required, but she felt having them in hand would be better.

He wrapped his arm around her neck and slipped his fingers between her face and the scope she wore. With a delicate movement he removed the piece of equipment, displacing a few strands of her hair in the process. She grabbed his hand and held it strongly, not sure why and a little angry that he would blind her to possible and very likely threat.

"Trust me," he pleaded with a disarming smile. He felt her loosen her grip a little, and he rested his head on her shoulder and examined the sky. The moon was setting, and he wondered how long it had taken for them to cross the city. He became aware of Jane gently caressing his fingers, and responded similarly by lightly kissing her neck.

"All right," she laughed quietly, startling him at first but soon gladdening him "Why are we out here?"

"‘Cause no one’s been out here for a very long time," Neil replied, "And I thought it’d be fun to do somethin’ daring."

"Is that all?"

"Nah," Neil said calmly, "Look up,"

She did as she was told, and soon stared in awe as streaks of color lit up the cloudless sky. They would appear, fade, and be replaced by others as new meteors struck the atmosphere. Dozens of lines hued in pink, purple, and blue crisscrossed the starry heavens.

The leonid meteor shower, heightened by the change in atmosphere over the years, appeared as it had for centuries, unaware of the changes of the world below.

"See? I told you it’d be worth it, didn’t I?" Neil declared, observing her reaction, "And you didn’t even wanna leave the city." He looked around quickly to ensure that the Phantoms hadn’t made a sudden appearance out of his line of sight and then gazed up at the display above.

"It’s very pretty," Jane said evenly. The natural display was pretty. She took a deep breath. The sky, the quiet… it was all very pleasant. The only drawback was the threat of death that kept it that way.

They sat together in silence for a while; until she abruptly announced, "We need to go." Something, not in tone but maybe in the way she said it, made Neil turn his head. There was something…. His smile faded and he let go of her hand.

"Alright," he relented, "Let’s go." He delicately caught her before she could stand and moved to kiss her, "I didn’t mean-" He stopped. She was tense, looking at him without seeing him. He felt a prickling sensation as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Yeah, there was definitely something wrong. He let her stand and collected his gun as she did hers.

There was a sound, a barely audible, low howl carried on the wind. But the earth’s children were already running back the way they had come. A sudden, neutral beep stopped them near the end of the bridge. Not simply the beep, but also the silhouettes, barely visible through blue-lenses, that crept along the ground towards them. The pair backed away from the pack of Phantoms, and Jane leveled her rifle defensively.

"There aren’t that many," Neil mumbled. This was not part of the plan! He examined the scanner carefully. Every Phantom blocking their way was marked on its iridescent screen, and there couldn’t have been more than ten. Ten of what one of was something to be feared. Only if they got too close.

"How many aren’t many?"

"Ah, ten," the technician let the piece of equipment fall back to its place. He was still in control. Well, almost.

"Alright. We run after this," Jane asserted. She didn’t worry that he might not listen to her. At the time, it wasn’t important. She would worry after this if she had to. She carefully selected her targets, and let her mind wander to more pleasant things. Only a week ago she’d stood in one of the world’s last forests. It was so green and alive… and safe.

The calmness of the past helped soothe the tension of the present. She knew what was happening, of course. She could see that Neil joined her in a fusillade against the alien creatures before them. She noticed with pride how well he preformed, marking his seven phantoms against her ten. Wait….

"Um, Jane? They… I don’t think they’re thinning out at all."

Shortly after one would be shot and killed would one appear and take its place. The asymmetrical, human-sized creatures crept closer, causing the soldiers to fall back a few steps at a time. It soon became obvious that this wasn’t going to work.

In a moment of insight, Neil saw a second option. The Phantoms had come closer together, especially some of the replacements. There was a gap on one side. It was not enough to get off the bridge on the road, but maybe to climb down to the river and get away. He tugged on Jane’s sleeve, and tried to explain this quickly. When she didn’t understand immediately, he decided to demonstrate. He ignored her cry of protest as he ran.

He did his best to avoid the aliens and got to the shore’s edge of the bridge unhindered, and was glad to find that she had followed him.

"Climb down here," he instructed quietly, watching the Phantoms nervously, "Please." It felt like forever before she did so. He followed as soon as he knew she was on her way down. It was a hard descent, especially when he wanted to keep his weapon.

As he was clinging to the metal frame, he found himself staring at the creature nestled in the supports. It moved suddenly, and he reflexively leaned to one side to avoid the deadly reddish creature’s arm. Despite the effort, he felt warmth brush against the side of his head and dreaded it. Had it touched him? He decided that it must have. In sudden desperation to get away, he let go of the support and dropped the remaining distance to the ground. It was farther than he might have liked, given a choice.

He landed, finding the ground softer than he expected. The muddy water that he’d landed in softened his fall, but it proved detrimental to his equipment. Jane landed beside him suddenly but surely, having let go at a much shorter distance to the ground. They recovered fast and continued on along the riverside, albeit without Neil’s ruined weapon and the broken scanner. They traveled for some time, eventually pausing to rest their battered selves.

They stayed there for an eternity, pressed together against the steep slope. Neil tried to ignore the feeling of sickness that came from fear. Like what comes the moment of realization that something is irreplaceably broken, such as a life. Torn suddenly…. He tried not to think about it and forced himself to smile.

Aware of her friend’s agitation, though not of the full cause of it, Jane decided it was time to move. She would allow herself the privilege of worry once they were safe again. She abandoned her weapon and began clambering up the embankment, only stopping long enough to ensure that Neil followed.

They climbed quickly, and as they neared the top a sudden burst of light and noise startled both. A Phantom, unnoticed until it burst and became visible from a pulse of energy, tumbled down the hillside towards the river. Jane didn’t have time to think about how close it had been before she was being dragged up over the ridge by gloved hands. Human hands, she barely noticed.

Relief flooded her senses. The armored group that surrounded her appeared almost inhuman themselves, but even in their protective gear they were a familiar and welcome sight.

"Who the hell are these people?" one of the soldiers asked, sounding surprised and, at the same time, angry. Very angry… "Who are you and what are you doing out here?" he demanded, looking first at Jane and then at Neil being helped up by his men. When neither offered an explanation, he continued, "Don’t you people realize how dangerous it is out here?"

"It’s very dangerous, sir," Neil answered quickly, recovering his sense of balance. He wrapped his arm protectively around Jane, as if it were needed, "In fact, I can imagine the only other most dangerous place right ‘bout now’s my captain’s office."

"All right, then, you’re coming with us," the officer decided, ignoring the statement and signaling his people that it was time to leave. "What?" he asked when he saw Neil’s horrified expression.

"You were jus’ gonna leave us out here?" the technician asked anxiously.

"What?" the officer demanded, more confused now than he was at finding these people. Of course he wasn’t going to… "Of course not, what do you mean?"

"Huh?" Neil blinked, "Nothin’, never mind."
 
 

23:35; November, 12, 2065

Neil fully expected… something… to happen when he stepped up to the scanner. He didn’t know what, exactly, because he never saw anyone with a Phantom infection, let alone a person like that go through the sensory equipment. For all he knew, the demonic device killed the carrier and the alien upon detection. He’d never taken much of an interest in the things.

He could imagine the look on Jane’s face when she found out that he was infected. He didn’t want to, but it was just there. He didn’t look at her, not wanting to see that, and instead closed his eyes as the freezing heat passed through his body. He waited for the inescapable announcement…

"Next, please."

That never came. Incredulous, Neil stepped down from the machine and it reset itself. He was clean! Well, in a relative sense, anyway, seeing as he was still plastered in mud and dirt. He didn’t know what to think or feel; he only knew that he felt very pleased. He smiled.

Jane was next, and the operant-technician squinted sharply at the readout.

"Hold on, ma’am," the man said, and Neil nearly panicked, "Never mind, sorry. You’re clean, congratulations. Next."

Jane stepped down, looking thoroughly bored with the whole process. Neil’s relief was limitless. So the little field trip didn’t go as well as planned…. They were okay. And it was fun, although he could have done without the Phantoms.

He pulled her close, and kissed her, and laughed at her expression… Something between amused and annoyed. She looked over her shoulder at the group of strangers, most of which were still parted from them by the glass wall. Only two of them were watching them with any interest. She ruffled Neil’s hair lightly, undauntedly betraying her play of indifference while caught up in the euphoria of being alive.

1:17; November, 13, 2065

"Yes, sir," Captain Edwards answered the officer before him. He barely registered the questions anymore, wishing only to get the process done and over with. He should have known that the early disappearance of a certain pair of soldiers under his command would be a bad sign. He shot an angry glance in the enlisted in questions’ direction before turning to answer another of the major’s statements, "No, sir."

Across the room, Neil fidgeted in his chair. Okay, so things could have gone a little bit better.

"He’s gonna kill us," the technician discerned, "They called him to his office and he was in his room with a girl, and they called him up here and now he’s gonna kill us when that guy leaves."

Exponentially calmer, Jane looked up from her hands to her commander, "What? What makes you say that?" She didn’t see anything abnormal, just a very angry man. Maybe Neil was right, but… who cared?

"I mean, maybe it wasn’t a girl but…"

"When’s the last time you were on the ground?" Jane asked suddenly before Neil could fully answer her first question, "Before tonight, I mean." She wasn’t entirely sure that they weren’t out of their superiors’ hearing range.

"I dunno," Neil answered, barely noticing the change of subject, "Flagstaff, I think."

"What was that? Last year?"

"Earlier. Why?"

"Nothing," the woman said softly, "You did well tonight was all."

He stared at her, slightly dazed by the statement. She had praised him. She said that he had done well. The words sunk in, and he beamed as he reclined in the chair. He might have pursued it further, had the sound of the door not caught his attention. They both stood as Gray did, and Neil stammered on the brink of an excuse.

"Save it," Gray snapped, his smoldering rage contained by his will alone, "Because I don’t want to know. I am sick and tired of having to cover for you every time I turn around."

"I don’t want to hear it," he reasserted, interrupting Neil’s second attempt at an explanation, "At this point, I’m seriously thinking of getting one of you transferred so I don’t have to deal with this anymore."

Jane hated this. She felt bad as he continued so vehemently, wondering if Gray fully knew what he was going through at times like this, or if he simply went with it like she used to. She slipped her hand into Neil’s while staring across the room, silently asking for help from the only source she would ever allow. And the sympathetic peacemaker wouldn’t ignore it.

"Captain,"

"What?" Gray demanded. The sergeant that had been waiting quietly in the corner simply nodded towards Neil. The tech, for all his effort to endure, was visibly shaken. The captain’s anger faded into irritation and slight remorse. How did they always make him feel so bad about this? He took a deep breath.

"Get out of here," he ordered coldly, "I don’t want to see, or hear anything from either of you again tonight, understand? Not if you’re sick, not if you’re dying, nothing." His soldiers assented and he escorted them out the door. As they started down the hall, he added, "Separate quarters tonight, you’re assigned them for a reason." He closed the door before he could hear either of them protest, and returned to his chair.

"Ouch," Ryan chuckled, advancing on the desk and picking up the electronic pad, "A little extreme?"

"They aren’t going to listen," Gray yawned, "And you know it."

Ryan remained silent, starting to read the fresh report. Surprised at what he saw, he looked at his friend curiously, "Did you even take a look at this?"

1:46; November, 13, 2065

Jane made a mental note regarding estimation and abilities as she skidded to a stop.

"I win," Neil huffed, leaning heavily against the door to her room and looking all too pleased with himself. He nearly fell inwards when Jane opened the door. Light flooded the hallway… she realized that she hadn’t turned them off.

Tired, battered, and still not feeling well, she sank onto her bunk and removed her saturated boots, paying little attention as Neil prowled around the room and furtively made his way to the bathroom. She noted with slight dolor that she would probably have to get new footwear. She dropped them to the side and began peeling off her similarly neglected jacket.

It was in this time of weakness, when she was unsuspecting and her arms were still stuck in sleeves, that Neil, armed with a damp washcloth, decided was good to attack.

"Hey!" the protesting exclamation went unheeded as he managed to pin her down on the bed. With the washcloth, he began cleaning her face gently but persistently. He made some progress in his endeavor, although in some places he merely spread the dust and grit around further.

Jane managed to free one arm from the coat. She grabbed his hand and pulled it, along with the cold, wet textile, away from her head, "What the hell?"

His explanation was simple, "You’re all dirty."

Yeah… and? She stared at him, a little confused. "Well, so are you," she countered poorly, trying to free her right arm, "Get offa me." The tone was threatening, and, after a minute’s hesitation, her adversary let her have the washcloth and crawled over her to the far side of the bed.

Neil sat against the wall as he watched her pull her arm from her coat and angrily throw it across the room. Suddenly self-conscious, he removed his own boots, and leaned forward to place them on the floor.

"Neil," he sat up and looked at her, and she stared at him without expression, "About tonight," she thought for a minute, trying to find the right words with which to express her entreaty. Without them, she improvised, "If you ever do something that stupid again, I’ll…." She didn’t have a warning, and in her silence, Neil smiled.

"That doesn’t sound like much of a threat," he remarked, trying to hide his dejection. She hadn’t liked it.

"Yeah, well, you won’t like it," she finished, unable to come up with anything.

"It was a dumb idea anyway," Neil said, sullen, "You won’t have to worry ‘bout it."

Jane sighed, moving to sit beside him. "It wasn’t a bad idea," she started, placing her arm around his shoulders, "It was a nice idea. It’s a bad time, that’s all."

"What if there isn’t anythin’ else?" he asked, crossing his arms, "This stupid war could go on forever. What if it’s the only thing that’s ever happened or ever will happen?"

"If it is," the woman considered, "Then I don’t know. I guess you’d just have to make the most of it." Neil almost brightened, but Jane smirked and squeezed the washcloth for all it was worth, and the technician leapt forward with a yelp as water ran down his neck.
 
 

4:55; November, 13, 2065

Tired wasn’t a strong enough word for what Jane was. Two minutes after waking up, she knew second day of her review was going to be absolute hell. Staying up the night before was a bad idea. She’d known it then, but now she knew; and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

She groaned as she got up, and nearly fell as dizziness hit. By the time she’d made it to the bathroom mirror she’d forgotten how she got there. She peered at the bed through the door before turning to face the reflection.

What is wrong with you?

5:36, November, 13, 2065

Neil didn’t want to wake up and face the wondrous world of PT; so he chose not to. The Military wasn’t going to do a damned thing about it, since they needed him, regardless.

…Or the captain would cover for him. Whichever it always was.

Twenty minutes later, he pushed himself up, and was surprised at the amount of grit that itched its way through his clothes. He ran his fingers through his hair, and a cascade of sand fell about him; the grains rained down onto the blankets as he surveyed the dried mud that decorated the floor, and certain parts of the walls, and… well, a lot of places.

He smiled at nothing; and stretched his arms behind his head.

12:51, November, 13, 2065

"Well, then maybe she doesn’t know," Ryan finished his argument, continuing to play with the ‘meal’ set before him. If he squinted hard enough, it looked like the ocean. He admired his work before starting to devour a whale-shaped leaf of steamed kelp, "Come to think of it, if she knew, Neil’d know, right?"

"Probably," Gray was trying not to think, but his friend was leading his mind whether he liked it or not. Where lack of sleep hadn’t affected him at first, now his consciousness was slowly becoming alike to melted putty. He lifted his head to look at the man across the table, in a ‘so?’ gaze.

"If he knew, he’d probably tell us."

"Unless she didn’t want anyone to know," Ryan scoffed at his captains reasoning. Now they were running in circles.

"It’s not that bad a thing," the sergeant paused to lance a starfish shaped something or other, "If you want to know, just as…" the sentence fell into a whistle, which, in turn, became a rendition of a classical music piece. Gray huffed and glared over his shoulder. The momentary subject of all that tormented him stared back at him unfazed.

"Fine, I’ll sit somewhere else," Jane said flatly.

"No…" Ryan grabbed for her as she tried to walk by, and managed to seize the cloth of her shirt, "Captain Edwards wants to ask you something important; isn’t that right sir?" He pulled her back towards the benched table and moved himself over a bit to make room.

She sat down where he had been – across from Gray. The captain was spending the minute to send mental death threats in Ryan’s music-filled direction. Ryan stopped whistling and smiled pleasantly as he locked eyes and matched wills with the other man, "Go on."

Jane was observing them both without expression. Gray sighed again and turned his attention to her, "Are you all right?"

She stared at him, not seeing the sergeant beside her slap his forehead with the his palm, "How do you mean?"

"From last night or… or anything else," He noticed Ryan’s gesture from the corner of his eye with a triumph. You ask next time, if you’re so curious! "Are you; all right?"

"Are you?"

"That depends on the situation…"

"So what is the situation?" Jane watched carefully as her superior grit his teeth. For a brief instant she thought she heard what could have been bone grinding upon bone, but shrugged it off as imagination.

"Forget it," He didn’t know why he tried anymore, but… "If you find out anything’s wrong… just… please tell me."

"Okay," What’s he asking for? She glanced around the under-crowded dining hall, looking for a reason not to be where she was. Not finding a viable reason to move, she dug through the contents of the tray before her and half listened to the half a conversation on politics the next table over. She looked back to Gray, only to find he’d fallen asleep.

"What was that about?" She asked Ryan quietly.

"He worries about you guys," Her friend stated simply.

"I know but…" The woman couldn’t complete the sentence. Something was bothersome and she wasn’t sure what it was.

"Don’t worry about it," Ryan’s smile was reassuring, but Jane still felt that creepiness crawling along, "I’m sure everything’s fine. We’re going to Underground tonight, you want to come?"

"No," Jane snapped, earning a very amused chuckle from her friend.

"C’mon… You can beat the truth out of him, see what he’s up to…."

21:07, November, 13, 2065

The lounges were unmonitored establishments where rank held no sway. As long as it didn’t carry heavily into the outside world, it was allowed. It was open to and staffed by military personnel, and didn’t exist to the rest of the world. While evolved from more primitive social establishments, each had developed distinct cultures of their own.

This history passed Jane by as she stood over her captain. The rules of the game were simple – to stay within the circle, to remain conscious and at least relatively unharmed, and to not give up. Everyone had varying tactics to win; and one of hers was to prolong the fight as much as possible.

She wiped her eyes, and blinked over the spectators. She felt lightheaded, and her sight lingered over the stairs; a moment later the view blurred as the world fell around her. Uncertain at first, she was relieved to feel sudden pain in her knees as she twisted to catch herself on the floor. She wasn’t fainting; it was only Gray that kicked her. She would have pushed herself back up, had she not noticed how the tips of three fingers of her right hand crossed the thinly drawn white line of the boundary. She slumped there; even as Gray tried to help her up, she shrugged him off. It’s just a bad couple of days…

She pushed herself up suddenly, trying to get away from the circle. She ran across the floor, towards the staircase and the platform above… to where Neil was. He stood alone against the wall, his hands behind his back; and was quite near to the door. She stopped close to him, but dared not touch him; and he smiled – something that broke through the gloom of the days.

"The old man kicked your ass," he may have only teased, but the comment stung.

"He wouldn’t have if I hadn’t seen you," she accused; but it made him grin.

"Yeah?" He turned his head and scanned the floor below. She shrugged in response, but he missed it. He shifted his position to free a hand, and reached out to hold onto the railing… something that was too far away from his grasp, "Can we go home?"

While she didn’t feel like being there either, she thought the tone behind the request was strange, "Sure." She took hold of his still outstretched hand, and was surprised at the sheer tension it contained. Nevertheless, she brought it back to them. "Neil?" concern struck hard, even as he stared elsewhere, but she shoved it back, "Are you okay?"

"No; can we go?" Choked, he may have been, by some force she couldn’t see and couldn’t feel but for that.

"Of course," She slipped her arm around his shoulders to lead him away, since he seemed to have no impulse of his own; and he clung to her.
 
 

9:26, November, 14, 2065

Between the times of action, times of reaction, and times of inaction, there were often times where time didn’t seem to exist.

So it seemed, Jane mused, as the clock on the desk marked another minute passing into the next. Sixty seconds that droned on forever until the minute counter ticked again. She let her mind drift to far less pleasant times… and sorely wished Neil would quit with whatever he was doing to her hand, it was getting to be a distraction from the mental void she was trying to fall into.

Neil failed to notice as he trudged through his report, and continued his examination of Jane’s hand. He imagined beneath the skin, blood bone sinew and nerves connecting perfectly to follow electric impulses; and gaining that electricity by innate bioetherics… natural machinery.

"… So Adam got transferred to one hundred’ thirty three, and… I’m still here," he finished. Somehow it seemed more than that. Lives didn’t change so rapidly so frequently… or at least they didn’t used to. Or maybe it was just that his never had.

Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. Not so much the change, but the cause behind it. He didn’t have auxiliary work anymore, because five of the six he worked with on such occasions were dead. People he liked; heralded the best Deep Eyes in the entire assembly; and they just didn’t exist anymore.

He probably wasn’t required to recount the story, but he felt better doing it. Even if Gray already knew, or it was what he was reading intermittently. He wanted to be responsible for any small something he could.

9:49, November, 14, 2065

The empty hallway had little but convenience to offer, and the promise that it, as unpleasant as it was, would get done with quickly with the threat that it would last long enough to be observed. Bearing in mind that observation was a definite threat, Jane swallowed her unease and acted.

The first step was to stop the motion, and the second was to confront the problem. The first was easy, the second wasn’t. So she tried simple.

"Are you okay?"

Confusion fell to defensiveness, "Happens to people a lot, I guess, so-"

"Not people, Neil," She hated the heartlessness of it, but she couldn’t get herself to care about the statistic, "Are you okay?"

"I’m scared," It was an honest answer, whether there was no way out or whether he didn’t want to try anymore, "But I can imagine there’re a lot worse of things that could have happened, so I’m okay."

She scrutinized him carefully, as though to determine the sincerity of the statement. Where he was was a place she’d been before – a cold and uncaring little place that held no remorse for those who would stumble into it unknowingly. She almost wished he’d had the same type of misfortune before to make things easier so that it wasn’t a simpler matter of see how it feels?

He fidgeted, but smiled as she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Albeit he was suddenly envious of that wall…
 

How long they stood in such the stand off was difficult to tell on retrospect; but it didn’t feel so long as it must have been. Nothing broke through the silence until the cheerful, "Good morning," which was verily ignored.

And the sudden, snap that shattered the universe.

"Hey, kids, that kind of thing is what closets are for," Ryan explained over his shoulder as he went ahead on his way.

Neil tried very hard not to giggle like he did.

"Walk," Jane directed, pushing him in the direction in which they were initially moving.

14:10, November, 15, 2065

She watched quietly… contentedly, as another bit of metal was added to the growing mass. From her place she could see perfectly how the spoon bent under the serene heat of the soldering iron; to eventually lose its original shape and be reformed to something unrecognizable and plastered to the strength of the whole… whatever it was.

The thing was basically a lump of various metals, with hollow points, spires, and other odd distinguishing features. She didn’t quite understand it, but it had its own charm. If nothing better, she knew to where the cutlery was disappearing.

It sat on a table, usually covered by an old article of clothing unless it needed to cool, or Neil was working on it as he was then.

The simple familiarity of the minor obsession was soothing. The peculiar few days… more of a week or so when she thought of it, had been unsettling. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but she didn’t like the feeling, whatever it was; and it felt good that the Sunday had fallen into a form of normality. She even felt better, despite things.

Jane itched the bridge of her nose on her wrist, before again resting her head on the pillow, this time facing the wall.

She felt better, but so tired. It was taking conscious effort to keep her eyes open. She barely noticed when sleep finally won.

17:22, November, 15, 2065

Neil switched off the device, replacing it to its holder to let cool. With the security of having destroyed all evidence of the bits of metal he had procured earlier in the day, he stood and pushed the chair under the table.

He knew Jane was asleep before he confirmed the fact, but he didn’t feel like joining her. He wasn’t usually partial to napping. Not when he wasn’t tired, anyway. Since he wasn’t, and he needed something to keep his mind busy, he found his shoes and sneaked out.

While he didn’t have anywhere appealing to go to, he had a whole city to wander through. He could have gone anywhere within the barrier, and potentially outside it. But he figured it realistically; that it would be better to keep it simple and generic.

…His manner of simple and generic.

20:03, November, 15, 2065

Jane woke abruptly through no force of her own. The mild stimulation to the waking world definitely came from the light jostling about her left shoulder. She lifted her head in the direction of the disturbance, before remembering to open her eyes. She blinked at Neil, but her sight reflexively followed the tapping noise to the glass jar he held out in front of them.

Something in the container moved suddenly, and she jumped in a similarly constrained manner. The provoking thing… things, were removed from her sight; and Neil let go. She rolled enough to sit up, and took the seemingly long silence to stare as Neil pulled the single chair he owned from its small table. He balanced one knee on the furniture, and examined jar under the lamp light. With no explanation forthcoming, she sought one.

"Where did they come from?" she asked somberly, brushing as much hair as would stay behind her ears.

"I found them."

"Found them, where?" While she didn’t discount that he could have found the creatures in a completely innocent fashion, but she had a feeling…

"In the labs."

On what she wished had been a different subject altogether, Jane groaned, "Was anyone around when you ‘found’ them?"

"I hope not."

"And were they in a cage of some sort?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"So… you just stole a bunch of lab rats?"

"Liberated," he corrected, returning to the bed and sitting down, "Lab mice."

"Whatever," she mumbled, morbidly watching him tip the container, and the contents as the little white creatures scrambled for secure footing. When he caught one in hand he turned the glass upright slowly, and the remaining mice slid back to the bottom. He placed them on the floor, dropped the tiny rodent in Jane’s inert hand, and watched the result.

She lifted her hand enough so it wouldn’t run off, though that seemed unlikely. Whether it was by fear or by indifference, the mouse pup simply perched there staring at the world beyond its comprehension.

The woman, on the other hand, stared meaningfully and with a lack of patience at the man beside her.

"C’mon; look at him! He’s just a baby," Neil pleaded admirably, "And he’s so cute!"

She looked back to the mouse, and found that it was kind of adorable… in a sleepy-eyed, mouse-like, rodent way.

This was going to be trouble… but she gave in anyway.

22:45, November, 15, 2065

I’m going to kill him, Gray determined as the scientist explained the predicament. However, another part of himself begged to differ, No, you’re not going to kill him. Not until I’m done with him, first.

"Again, I’m sorry to disturb…" The captain waved the man silent.

"That’s all right, I’m used to this," He smiled reassuringly, yet felt wholly irate. The idea that this particular scientist had come to him a few times before on similar business only made him all the more upset. And he got a similar impression from the man. Hell, he should have been accustomed to it by now, too.

He counted the unmarked doors, and stopped at the one he was looking for. He knocked on it, producing a hollow wood sound. Old building, old door, old patience… he counted as many old things he could think of as he waited. Although he could have admitted himself freely without the wait, the old trauma from using that method before kept him from ever trying again.

But the door opened before long, and the woman behind it watched him expressionlessly. He gestured for her to move, which she did, and so paid her little more attention as she seated herself by the table to watch the course of action.

"Neil, where are these…?" He looked to the scientist, who quietly provided him with the title of the missing property, "Where are the mice?"

"I’m sorry, sir?"

The tone was too familiar, and the barely suppressed smile … the simple audacity was driving him further into regions of wrath far unknown to man, where his soul would forever be lost to the torments….

Whatever sympathy Gray had anytime before was now gone, but he checked himself to a resigned calm. Not here, not now…probably never….

He looked to Jane, who hadn’t moved; and to the scientist, who had recovered a glass container but nothing more than that of his missing property. Quite slowly, he turned his attention back to Neil, but a shrill snarling brought it elsewhere. Specifically, to the younger man’s pocket, which seemed to be moving with its own force of life.

The movement stopped, and started again; and by then, the pockets were the focus of everyone in the room.

"I think my pants have been infected by a Phantom," Neil said nervously, sounding surprised and impressively genuine, "I really, probably should get this looked at; if you’ll excuse me."

Gray marked the convincing acting, but didn’t waver as his subordinate tried to slip past him in an attempt at the still open door. He seized Neil’s arm with more pressure than was necessary, and glared quite fearsomely. The manner was not to be messed with; regardless, the dead composure was something neither expected.

Gray reached for the pocket; but, before he had opened it, something small and white charged out and up his arm lighting fast. Surprised, he let go of Neil as it made a leap for more solid ‘ground.’ The mouse landed on his chest, probably a more vertical surface than it had wanted, and grasped at the threads of his shirt for holy existence.

He sympathized with the creature’s plight.
 

Once the mice were returned to the scientist, and everything was settled, Gray purposefully took the private moment to think of the most painful, spiteful, murderous fashion in which to reprimand his soldiers.

Which, in the end, he didn’t follow through with.

Instead, he pointed a finger of warning in Neil’s direction, and spoke a single word of command to Jane.

"Control."

Without waiting for a reply, he left swiftly and closed the door behind him; thereby managing to miss how Neil stuck out his tongue in the boldest gesture of defiance he was willing.

Jane observed, not quite amused, but not far from it.

"I’m going back to sleep in half a minute," She announced suddenly, breaking the reticence. "I think it’d be smartest if you did, too," She added with a mild edge as he went for his shoes.

"Yeah, okay…" He mumbled in response, dropping as the footwear, as well his plans of war.
 
 

13:20, November, 17, 2065

"Why, does it look like we’re doing anything?" the younger man asked, although he might have come up with a more intelligent answer. Especially since he could have sworn that Gray seemed more and more inclined towards the heartless side of emotion, and suddenly it appeared that he had developed a solely conscious way of taking out all aggression on them; petty revenge, really.

How was one supposed to do nothing when there was always someone intent on him doing every most arduous task that came up?

The captain stared at them, as though trying to decide how to best ruin the peaceful afternoon. That demonically thoughtful look gave Neil the utmost sinking feeling.

"Do me a favor, then, would you?"

And he winced at that word, favor. If Edwards was going to make them do it anyway, he didn’t need to dress up the commands… especially since it wasn’t going to be a favor at all!

"I was wondering…"

You are not! Neil stifled a groan, forsaking the visage of the grim, clipboard-wielding commanding officer for something more pleasing to his mind. With his free hand, he worried free a few strands of Jane’s hair, only to brush it back behind her ear.

"…if you’d do some stock work," Gray dropped the clipboard within easy reach of the pair, not missing one fragment of contempt mirrored by Neil’s movements, even as the technician tried to hide it. And, while the captain understood in theory, he wished they would co-operate with him once in a while. It wasn’t like he was doing this deed to be intentionally fiendish; if he wanted to be wicked he’d have done much worse more often. It wasn’t helping his mood how, lately, he didn’t have the heart to seek them out for anything.

But things had to be done, and he had to maintain a semblance of activity – even if he hadn’t picked up anything particularly valiant in the past week…. Who were they to complain?

15:02, November 17, 2065

"Why did you say we’d do it?" Neil smiled deceptively at a passer by as they stalked the subbasement, "I don’t want to do it."

"Then don’t. I said, ‘I’ would, not ‘we,’" Jane replied bluntly. She slid the hatchway open before looking up at him, "Besides, it has to get done."

"Why doesn’t he do it?" But he asked too late, for the woman had already disappeared down the ladder. No answer, though he knew there was a good chance she heard him. The sublevel passages were shallow – the ladder itself was mostly only a convenience. He followed languidly, but obediently. Though he complained, he wasn’t about to let Jane take on the most boring job ever by herself. His hand slipped, and he fell from the apical rung, but the distance was negligible to begin with and he landed safely on his feet.

"Close the hatch," she reminded him when he hit solid ground, forcing him to climb the last three steps to comfortably reach the portal. By then, she was already far down the corridor.

"So, what d’you suppose would happen if we got lost down here?" he called after her. It had always been a secret little terror of his to be trapped in the city’s underside. It was a still, quiet place, and was disconcerting in the way all the passages looked the same. Though he never did get lost before, he always made it a point to spend as little time as possible down there when he didn’t have a reason.

She slowed her pace as he caught up, and glanced sidelong at him, "You didn’t notice the maps everywhere?"

Only then did he recognize the first of many brightly colored charts affixed to the wall.

"What happens if they’re out’a date?"

He slid one arm around her shoulders, not intimidated by Jane’s mildly annoyed, "knock it off," expression. He kissed her anyway, and was pleased when she did lean against him as they walked. He lifted his arm straight and his fingers brushed the ceiling; he glimpsed up, and a new horror revealed itself in his mind.

"What if the fl-"

She muffled the query with her hand, "Stop it." She had already given him the choice to leave, what more could she do? Besides, danger, real or imagined, was something they encountered anyway; when it wasn’t obligatory, usually it was in a recreational pursuit… most of which were his ideas to begin with.

He mumbled something that she wasn’t interested in hearing anyway, so her hand stayed where it was as they walked through the death-still halls. Eventually, she let go, but only because they had reached the warehouse; and he stood behind while she made use of the key-card in the door scanner.

Unlike the small and narrow halls, the sub-level storage facilities were huge; three stories high and *. There were many of them, every one used for all sorts of equipment and commodities; all stored upon massive shelves that touched the arched doming above.

In order to conserve as much space as possible, the walkways between the extensive framework were small – allowing for two normal-sized people to pass each other comfortably. Usually, the storehouses were only managed by one individual at any given time. Most hours, one with this task didn’t stay in the place longer than a few hours. Everything was meticulously catalogued and ordered, and access was limited. It had been set up so that it didn’t need to be monitored.

The only authorized personnel there now were Neil and Jane – sent to fill, file, and apportion an order. It wasn’t close to either’s primary duty, but, with the mortality rate, the workload had to be distributed somehow. Manual labor was easiest to supply.

"What do we need?" Jane asked, following the general alphabetized listings on the shelves. Textiles, she remembered, but of what kind she didn’t. Clothes, blankets… hell, it could have been stage curtains for all she knew.

Finding the correct row, and ignoring the ladder, she clambered one step up the shelf, and turned, impatiently, back to Neil.

"Well?"

"What?"

"What do we need?" She squinted in sudden realization, "Where’s the clipboard?"

"I dunno," he glanced around, but not particularly enthusiastically.

"Didn’t you have it?"

"Yeah… I guess it should be around here somewhere."

Jane stifled an aggravated sigh. He wasn’t making this very easy, "Then go find it, please."

She turned back to climbing the frame, but didn’t get that far as Neil slid his arm around her waist.

"Wha-!" Surprise turned to anger, especially when he refused to release her, "You’re going to make me fall."

"You’re not high up," he justified, "I’m right here; let go."

She complied, sensing what an extreme waste of time taking him along was. Not only had he lost the register, he was being highly troublesome, and to her of all people.

"Damn it, Neil; I want to get this done sometime before the end of the day."

"But I don’t wanna work," He explained, tightening his grip; she gave up. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have made him stop, it was that she probably would have hurt him if she tried, which she didn’t want.

"Hey!" she did, however, draw the line when Neil started playing with the buttons of her uniform, "Bad idea," she hissed, suddenly all the more self-conscious.

"Why?"

She twisted her neck so she could stare directly at him.

"Because," she matched his tone and added her own dramatic pause – if he wanted to play these stupid games, she was determined to win every time, "Gray’s right around the corner."

"What? How’d…" Neil was interrupted, and startled out of his wits, by the sound of a throat clearing. His grip loosened and Jane pulled away, spending a few seconds to fix the misplaced buttons before turning to face the officer.

"You forgot this," Gray stated promptly, waving the clipboard before dropping it on a nearby crate and leaving directly. He honestly didn’t care anymore.

Nothing happened for about a minute and a half, at which point Jane scrambled quickly up the shelf, not stopping until she was well out of reach. Neil watched, mildly amused.

"How’d you know it was him?" he called, finally retrieving the clipboard and resigning to fate.

"Lucky guess," Jane called back, not entirely sure herself. If she had known it was him, she never would have called the officer by his given name, "Besides, I remembered where you left the clipboard."

17:39, November 17, 2065

The building was new, built for the sole purpose it was used – a refuge for children whose parents were dead or otherwise unable to care for them. It provided adequate nutrition, attention, education, as well as other, minor things lacking in the predecessors of pre-modern orphanages… but, beneath the seemingly benevolent nature of the shelter, it had a sordid secondary purpose. Every child admitted there, and many were, was automatically slated for enlistment.

As contemptible as this seemed, this and other odd methods of obtaining resources had become common practice. In order to win this war, the human race needed food, metal, cloth, weapons, energy – and the manpower to fulfil such everyday tasks as maintenance; or such monumental attempts as a full-scale assault on the enemy that so refused to die.

No one questioned it, and if they had been, they might have only shook their heads. If asked about choice, any of the children might have replied, "What choice?"

Jane arrived in the late afternoon, with Neil in pursuit and ‘helping,’ in his way, to fulfil the assignment set to her. The heavy crates that they had hauled from below the city were for this place, a three-month supply of all the necessities that made life in the small, sheltered habitat.

It was no surprise when Neil disappeared, as he did he last time they had come here. That occasion had been with Gray… about a year prior, before anything was as strongly set as it had become – personally or professionally.

The woman snorted – at least last time she had… more so had been, help. It didn’t mean she couldn’t do it by herself, as she did, but it would have been easier if there was someone. By the time the curator did arrive to assist, Jane had already finished the brunt of her work.

It was probably better for the curator that she did – the wan, paternal man with the sunken eyes and the dark, shaggy hair probably couldn’t have aided her as he would have liked to. But he watched her with interest as she finished up, as she checked and doubled checked crate labels to the clipboard she kept an unusually tight grip on.

He had an honest reason to hate these people, the ones that periodically took his children away. He wasn’t about to take this hostility out on her, of course, since he didn’t see her as the problem. She turned his attention to him, and he smiled; it was a gesture that she didn’t return.

"You know where to sign these things?" she asked, presenting the notepad to him. He nodded mindfully, taking the list from her and swiftly initialing the papers he was required to. He sneaked a glimpse of the paper below, only slightly relieved at the shortness of the slate this time around.

"Now what do I need to do?"

The man squinted at her, recognition turning to confusion, "Haven’t you been here before?"

"Once," the woman replied, looking up at him, "But I don’t do*… Or normally I don’t, anyway."

The man considered for a second. If she didn’t know, then she didn’t have to, and he could keep his foundlings that much longer. Even as he imagined it, he knew he couldn’t; he didn’t want to get her in trouble, as he would be, and he was conditioned to conform as well as any other soldier.

"This way, ma’am," he gestured her forward, and followed at an uncomfortably close distance, "Right ahead."

The room he directed her to was spacious – reflective of the eminent appearance of the building’s exterior. It seemed to have many uses; chairs and tables were piled up in the corners; bookshelves and terminal desks marked their permanent spots near nondescript walls and windows; there was imagery everywhere.

Jane quirked an eyebrow at the commotion in the cleared out center of the room. She crossed her arms, letting the clipboard dangle from her fingertips.

The center of the disturbance was Neil, entertaining… well, wrestling with… rather, being downed by a mob of riotous children. Some of the older youngsters, too mature to participate in the childish game, stood by wistfully and watched the silly man make a fool of himself.

One of these, a blithe mid-teen, was on the verge of joining in before he caught sight of Jane. He remained impassive, if only to show off to true authority that he could – as though it would improve his life then and there.

Jane, meanwhile, observed the activity, somewhat enthralled as Neil was gradually pulled down by the dozen or so exuberant juveniles. She intentionally paused before attempting to rescue him, hoping he’d waste some of the energy that had been driving her insane lately.

"Neil…" she raised her voice to be heard above the turmoil, but it cut through easily, "What are you doing?"

"I’m…" came the feeble response, "Help?"

So she did, and the children scattered as she approached. As soon as he was freed, Neil rolled off his back, and Jane helped him to his feet.

"What was that, hmm?" she scoffed, but not without a tinge of affection, "They’re only half your size and you need support?"

He shushed at her, and turned to the rabble.

"What?" he smiled, and pointed at a random teenager, "Go get him." It worked; after a few moments hesitation, the adolescents tackled their older, slightly surprised sibling; and Neil grinned at his lady, "Are we done?"

"Almost," she grunted in surprise when he leaned his full weight against her, "Yeah; thanks for all the help." She kept him balanced, and he did his part to stay on his feet.

"Then can we go soon?" The juvenility caught her off guard, but she had to smile.

"Of course; just let me finish this."

Despite the plan, they spent the moment staring, oblivious to the odd looks they were getting from the adolescence around them.
 
 

5:32, November 18, 2065

If Jane was sick, then there was no way in hell he was leaving her alone. That was the way it was, as she sat curled against wall on the corner the bed. He was already worried enough to be sick right along with her. She didn’t insist she was all right, like she should have, and he didn’t ask, since she obviously wasn’t. Instead, he sat as close as he dared, at the edge of the mattress, and listened to every deep, controlled breath from either of them.

He couldn’t take this much longer. He reached for her, his fingers coming a hairsbreadth from her neck before the chime sounded.

She lifted her head sharply, turning in time to see him leap for the door. Was it her imagination, or had she fallen asleep? She stretched wearily, while Neil confronted the postman.

"This has been in your mail slot since last week," the intruder explained, perhaps piqued by such disrespect to his profession. He handed Neil the letter, and left grumbling under his breath. Neil flipped it over, and again, examining the small, plain envelope for all that it was worth.

"Do I look like you to you?" he asked, returning to the woman’s side.

"What?" Not particularly amused, she stared at him in a half-daze.

"Mail," he held out the letter to her, but the explanation didn’t make much sense to her.

"I don’t get mail," but still he held it out to her, tilting it so the designation showed. She looked from it to him.

"Would you like me to read it to you?" he broke the short silence, and that got her attention.

"No; give it," he smiled and handed it to her, and she tore the cover enough to get the papers out.

"It’s from Jake," she announced with the first bit of vigor she felt all day, reading the signature first before the rest. If he hadn’t already been paying complete attention, he would have been at that.

"Who’s Jake?" he demanded, bristling slightly at the mere mention of a masculine name.

"You know Jake," she replied, and glared right back at him when recognition didn’t kick in at first, "Jacob." She was in no way feeling up to a jealousy fit. Sometimes they could be amusing; sometimes not; but definitely not now.

"Oh," the response was meek, and he inched away slightly abashed. When he looked back, she suddenly seemed upset, and he was glad just a bit that the ire wasn’t aimed at him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah… fine," she examined the letter another few seconds, before refolding it into the envelope, "I gotta go."

"What?" a little more than slight worry, he stared in shock, "No… uh, no?" Watching as she prepared for the outside world, he broke through the daze and formed a more solid protest.

"Jane. You’re…" Okay, so he didn’t have the exact words for his protest, but he had her attention.

"I’ll be okay," she smiled, but not genuinely at all.

"Well… You want me to come along?"

"No," and that hurt, "I’d rather you didn’t."

"Don’t worry," she added, "It’s nothing serious. I’ll see you later, okay?"

He nodded, barely comprehending. But she did take the few steps back to him, to ruffle his hair, to reassure really – to reassure them both.

7:56, November 18, 2065

If she had been paying attention, Jane might have noticed the man following her onto the rail car. As it was, she only noticed Gray when he sat next to her. She gave him befitting attention, and only stayed for politeness’ sake.

"Let’s talk," he chirped eventually, and as pleasantly as he could. It still didn’t sound much better than a croak. Why, oh why, didn’t he swindle someone else into doing this?

"About what?" she asked cautiously; meanwhile wondering which wrong thing that, in his mind, she had been a part of this time.

"Body chemistry," he blurted, after a minute’s struggle, through which the woman only stared.

"Body chemistry?" she echoed, and he nodded mutely, "What do you mean?"

"You know," he explained poorly, and not at all, "Don’t you?"

"…No?"

He certainly seemed more distressed than she had known him to be in quite some time; so she sat, somewhere between amused and apprehensive, sincerely trying to figure out exactly what he was babbling about… only to fail completely in the end. With the slight pleading prevailing, she gave it a wild guess.

"Captain, really," she replied wearily, casting a furtive glance around the car, "If you’re having trouble with your… body chemistry, I suggest you see a physician about it."

"No, it’s not…" by the time he looked up, she had disappeared.

He cursed, loudly enough to draw the attention of the nearby passengers. Unaware of this, and of Jane watching him from within the outer crowd, he cradled his head in his hands.

8:28, November 18, 2065

The sergeant’s room was comforting in a way hers could never be. There was something appealing to it, and his friendship, where she didn’t have to worry about overbearing concern.

Ryan, while he was concerned, wasn’t the type to push things he knew he shouldn’t. He stood by watching her over the back of the chair, ready to be attentive to whatever she needed… provided she asked for it. Still, he frowned a little, and reached over the backing to touch her shoulder gently.

The doorbell chimed, and Ryan smiled softly when Jane looked up to him.

"Bad things happen, I know," he said, ignoring the bell momentarily, "But you’re going to be okay with this, right?"

She nodded mutely, and he attended to the door on the other side of the small study that was half of his allotted quarters. The door sounded again before he opened it; and when he did there was Gray, haggard and stern in appearance.

"I lost… you." Ryan looked over his shoulder where the captain’s gaze had moved – to where Jane has sneaked up behind him.

"Look, you… just…" Gray sighed, aggravated, "Next time I’m trying to talk to you, would you…?" He finally saw her, as she stared at her feet, to look up only when he faltered, "Are you okay?"

"Why do people keep asking that?" she crossed her arms, and he felt a strong surge of guilt, "If I look that bad, then yes, I guess it is."

"You told her?" the officer inquired skeptically, did she tell you? Is that what all this is about?

"Told me what?"

"No; I really don’t think she knows."

"Knows what?"

That was it – Gray was determined to end this now, "Do you know?" he asked her, and she grimaced at him.

"What?" she asked bluntly; but, instead of an answer, Gray started sputtering nonsense again. Lucky for them both, Ryan came to the rescue.

"Jane," he smiled, genuinely happy for her, "Let me be the first to say ‘congratulations.’"

She shifted her confused glare to him, "What for?"

"On your pregnancy," Gray finally managed to squeak.

"What…" Jane took a defensive step back, "Are you talking about?"

Ryan shifted his stance, a mix of giddy and nervous, but couldn’t stop smirking "We found out in an odd way, but… again, congratulations…"

"Very funny," she managed to chuckle, but the men didn’t back up her joke theory immediately… or at all.

"It’s been showing up every time you get scanned, they just thought you knew," Ryan explained soberly, since Gray seemed to have lost his voice, "We thought you knew, so… uh…"

"No," Jane asserted, turning to look around the room for anything that might help what she knew, "This can’t be for real." Wisps of paranoia floated through her mind, and she pushed them away.

"You do know where-"

"It’s not possible," she cut him off, facing them again. Whether she needed to reassure herself or explain it to them, she smiled, "Because we never…"

But her smile faltered, and she inhaled sharply at the sudden recollection.

"Oh F…"
 
 

17:50, November 20, 2065

She’d been avoiding him. He hadn’t seen her in three days, and worried was fast becoming an understatement. He checked her room periodically, and she wasn’t there from noon to midnight. He’d checked elsewhere, on lists and agenda, with no result. He asked around, with no luck. He felt closer to the wall of sheer panic than he remembered ever being.

Because he knew she was avoiding him; that she had to be. It was too coincidental that she was nowhere to be found the one time when he had to actively seek her out.

It just so happened that when he stopped looking was when he saw her.

He was speaking with Ryan and a young specialist named Anton on one of the many terraces overlooking the city. This particular one, less used than the rest, was a place to relax – a closed in park of sorts. Glass representations of flora were planted around the square; the shimmering flowers had been carefully and individually created to ensure their uniqueness.

Neil only took half a second to glance away from the conversation, but his attention was immediately stolen away by the familiar woman strolling through the garden. He could only stare as Jane disappeared through an archway leading to the next plaza, but he wasn’t long in picking himself up and following.

"Hey!"

She hadn’t noticed him until he spoke, and when she recognized his voice she froze. She turned halfway, enough to see his reflection in the pane of glass that separated the conjunction walkway from the harsh atmosphere of the upper city. He didn’t volunteer another word, and she ultimately turned her head and spoke.

"What do you want?"

Said with such indifference… no, but it leaned towards annoyance, or maybe… whatever the tone, the words alone couldn’t help but hurt. Did he need a reason to want to see her? To speak, to spend time, to lose an hour for a fond memory of what might not last past the next day? He’d known the answer before, but now, not for the life of him could he express that….

"Where did you go?" so he settled for simple. A question with a question without results; Jane turned away again, and Neil dashed after her.

"Wait!" His voice echoed through the hall, and she did… when he caught her arm. She whirled to face him, and he almost fell into her from the momentum.

"Jane…" what was he supposed to say? He didn’t know… "What’d I do?" Unmoved, she stared at him, and he couldn’t help being afraid, "I’m sorry…"

"Leave me alone," brusque… it was a command he took no heed of.

"You can’t not tell me what I’ve done," it was a statement, but he wasn’t finished – he wanted a quick resolution, but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to bring it about. All he knew for certain was that it was his fault and she wouldn’t tell him what. "You can’t disappear and avoid me forever, and you really, definitely can’t jus…"

He trailed off, as she had drawn her hand back at a dangerous angle. Now he was scared, not of the physical but the potential of the gesture. He didn’t notice her confusion, as he might have when she saw it too. He only saw what didn’t make sense.

"Oh, you going to hit me now?" Anyone else might have had the common sense to leave it there, but it was far too much, "Go on. I dare you."

So he shouldn’t have been so surprised when she backhanded him. Nor should she have been, as she continued on her way.

He hadn’t been expecting that. Unbalanced, he fell back, to be caught by Ryan as the sergeant strolled up to take stock of the situation.

"Ow…" realization struck, as the unusual experience became a part of reality, "She hit me!"

"You said the magic word," Ryan quipped, steadying the technician as he regained his balance.

But that didn’t help. It still hurt, deeper than the superficial discoloration taking form on his cheek. He looked up at his friend, not even sure where to begin.

"Go talk to her," Ryan suggested, a little dubiously, but it was all he could think of. He neglected to mention that she’d spent the last few days sleeping, resting, or pacing around in his quarters. In part he was glad she had finally found her way back to the rest of the world.

21:23, November 20, 2065

The door had been left open for him; the genetic lock was set so that wouldn’t work for anyone except Jane… and him. Although, with something like that, that he didn’t need recognized access… but it was reassuring that she hadn’t completely blocked him from her life. It added a little heart to what he’d spent the last few hours building up for this.

Inside was lit softly; his eyes adjusted easily. And Jane was there, on her bed. She didn’t move, only sat there with the wall for comfort. He pushed whatever misgivings he had to one side and approached, coming to kneel in front of her. He crossed his arms across her knees, and reached up to caress her cheek.

But she opened her eyes first, and pushed his hand away with the back of hers. He stared in shock… or was that fear creeping upon his mind?

"I did that, huh?" she asked bluntly, and brushed her thumb against the pale bruise that accented her vice, soothed somewhat that he didn’t flinch under the touch, "I’m sorry."

That was fast. She was so distant; he still couldn’t believe it was entirely her fault. Besides….

"But you didn’t mean it," Neil scoffed, smirking at the memory that now seemed ludicrous.

"How do you know?" That he would assume made her angry.

"Because, last I knew, Jane Proudfoot wasn’t so… uh… s… gentle when she wanted to hurt someone," he smiled brightly, and in return she only stared, "and, you said you were sorry."

"Yeah, I suppose." His reasoning may have been sound, but she wasn’t happy, or cheerful, or even wanting to be. She was where she wanted to be – wallowing in self-pity over something she should have had the common sense to avoid.

"You can hit me again, if it would make you feel better."

"It wouldn’t," she scowled darkly. That he could mistake something that made her feel so guilty and embarrassed for … or perhaps he didn’t see, like she didn’t want to see his humor.

"Whatever you say," he mumbled, climbing onto the bed beside her; and she still didn’t move, "But… hey; talk to me. We’re in this ‘life’ thing together, right?"

"Not this."

Not what he desired to hear, or believe; but he wasn’t in a position to force anything from her, whether or not he wanted to.

"If you say so," he scratched his head – more a gesture of nervousness than of physical discomfort. He knew what he should say, but it was difficult for him to visualize, "D’you… um," almost there, despite his inner protest, "Do you want me to leave you alone now?"

She shook her head – a small gesture, one that he might have missed had she not been the center of his world. He felt confident enough to breathe again. Now, if only he could remember how…

He pulled her closer, and she leaned against him; slipping until she rested across his lap. From the vantage point of his right knee, she stared across the room and into space.

"Hey…"

"Hmm?"

"I betch’a I can make you laugh…"

"Hmm…" Jane agreed, closing her eyes to the world.

"With one word."

"Oh really," it was only a mumble, but Neil grinned anyway.

"Watercolor."

Jane snorted, ignoring the ‘bet’ completely, "What brought that up?" she twisted to look up at him, smiling for the first time in days. Granted, Gray’s expression had been priceless… but it was such an odd memory to come out of nowhere.

Neil shrugged, "I dunno; I thought it was funny."

"I love you," the frank admission caught her off guard. She settled back against his leg and tried to suppress the shudder she felt building up. Guilt, fear… a cascade of pain over a simple sentence….

"Yeah," she agreed, slightly despondent as she knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It may have been a joke in public, but here… she knew he wanted more than that…

…And she couldn’t bring herself to give it to him. Her insides twisted; she dared not cry over his disappointment, just because it was focused on her….

After a few minutes he moved, gently settling her onto the bed as he rose. She listened as he left her alone, straining her ears until the faintest sound of his gait was gone. She curled tightly into the already disturbed bedclothes.

23:29, November 20, 2065

Alone was a scary thing. He stared at the swirling patterns in the darkness, an illusion caused by his eyes as they endeavored to pick up as much light as possible in the dim room.

Boldly trying to figure out alone, he rolled onto his side, and blinked at the dark, almost unfamiliar surface of the close wall. Before the past two nights, he’d spent an equal number of years without thinking of it at all. But that wasn’t true – he had, from time to time… but not like this, or for this reason. There were times he had been worried, but now he faced an unexpected new facet of worry.

Suppose she didn’t love him at all… Or ne-

He tried to snip the thought away, but it came unbidden. If she never loved him, he mulled over the possibility, if it had all been his doing and she just went along with it….

Even before, if she’d died under the Phantom curse, he’d have known she did love him; as selfish as it was, at least he wouldn’t have felt so… so…

Hated, whatever he’d done, that’s what it came down to, She hates you.

A gentle click roused him by his deeper thoughts, only to be swallowed by the darkness. He lifted his head, again blinking at the wall. Either it had been an illusion, or…

There was a pressure on the bed, near his feet. It took a few long moments for his tired mind to resister, but it was real, at the very least as the shadow that crept stealthily up between him and the wall.

"Next time, tell me you don’t plan on coming back."

"You started it," he scowled in the gloom, inching back a bit to give room as the woman slumped beside him.

"Neil?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Neil snorted, mildly annoyed, but delighted nonetheless. Maybe he’d been worrying on nothing. After all, if she didn’t love him there was no reason for her to be here… right?

"Make me."

Her hand brushed against his chin before raising slightly higher to settle over his mouth.

"You can’t do that all night," he asserted… or tried to; it came out slightly more muffled than he’d intended.

"Yes," she yawned, stretching the words unintentionally, "I can."

Another set of muffled syllables, and she sighed.

"I know…." Her free arm found its way around his back, and he smiled, returning the embrace tenderly; his fears dissolved as her steady heartbeat lulled him into the world of dreams.
 
 

11:30, November 21, 2065

She roamed his apartment, but he was glad to know she was calmer now. A lot calmer than four days earlier…

"Why did he have to say it?" Sudden – aggravated. Ryan laced his fingers together, and stared at her through the gaps between them.

"Si’down, would you? You’re making me dizzy…" he yawned as she dropped gracelessly to the floor. This was a bit worse than he’d imagined last week – somehow, he thought helping the population increase was a good thing, "I have chairs, you know? So… who; and said what?"

"Captain Edwards…" Jane pouted, "He told me not to do anything ‘illegal.’"

"Sound advice," the woman glared, and the sergeant stared innocently back, "Isn’t it?"

"I hadn’t thought of it ‘til he said it, but…"

"Jane," he sighed, thinking of good wording, "I know we couldn’t… I wouldn’t stop you if you decided to… do… something severe, but I wouldn’t want to see you in any danger ‘cause of it."

"I wouldn’t anyway," like anyone of the time, she had too much respect for life’s plight. She shook her head slowly, "I wouldn’t…

"I just don’t know what to do."

"I don’t understand," Jane rested her head in her hand as she stared up at him. Ryan frowned. She was composed, but it was difficult, and must have taken all her energy to keep the wall in place. She never recovered, after all… The sudden insight didn’t make him feel well, "If you don’t want to take care of the kid, why not give it to a shelter"

"I couldn’t do that," the dull drone of her voice betrayed that she’d considered it, or was still considering it, and trying to convince herself she could, "They’re horrible."

"Hey, I grew up in one; they aren’t all that bad," he smirked, but he understood her concern perfectly.

"Yeah," the woman breathed, "But I’d prefer… it," she had an inkling to the nature of the zygote, but didn’t want to acknowledge that just yet, "has a choice of its life."

Ryan nodded, trying to think of anything that would help.

"What does Neil think?"

"I, uh… I haven’t told him," she was terrified to think, "I’m actually a little afraid of what he might say."

"Well, you can’t hide it forever. Sooner or later, you’ll start to get heavy…." Ryan chuckled, "Though, knowing Neil, he might just miss that."

"He wouldn’t," Jane smirked a little, somehow amused at the thought of Neil being totally oblivious throughout her pregnancy. Hell, if that were the case, she could wait a little longer surprise him with a giftwrapped toddler for next Christmas. That is, if he’s even interested, her smile faded, and she sat up straight, "Nah… but… I’m scared, Serge."

"Jane, if you don’t find a way you like; I’ll take care of the kid."

"I couldn’t ask you to do that."

"You wouldn’t have to, I just offered."

"And what would you tell it?" she snapped, not even wanting the option, "About me? Would you lie, or let it know I was the one that was careless, that abandoned it, and let it think I hate it?"

"You really do care, don’t you?"

"…I’m not sure; I mean," she was taken aback, as though she hadn’t already thought about it, "Babies are ugly, you know? And they grow into brats, which grow into total pains in the ass. So, no, I don’t really care about the baby," she admitted, "but it’s a powerful feeling, being… this is…" she bowed her head, hoping the jumbled words would fall into place, "Yeah."

13:13, November 22, 2065

"Jane?"

She ignored it. It was a distraction, promising nothing.

"Where the hell are you going?"

She slid under the broken window, into the crumbled foundation of the decayed building. The closed-in space was dangerous, and enticing for just that reason.

The cement crumbled ominously behind her, and she whirled to face the one following her.

"We’re done here; where are you going?" Was that right?

"What about Nelbe’s group? We can help them."

She needed this. Why couldn’t Gray understand that?

"They’re doing fine," he replied, "They don’t need us."

"Captain," Jane felt her body chill, "There…"

Gray couldn’t help but notice that there something odd to her voice. A kind of energy… a thrill, he realized, as he turned… and consequently stumbled back as his helmet’s display registered the alien life pattern behind the wall. For a moment he thought they might have been able to get back out the way they came… until the thing moved.

"Let’s go," the captain whispered, backing up. She didn’t follow.

"Jane…"

"But I want to kill it," she mumbled vacantly, leveling her weapon and waiting for the sluggish Phantom to come at them through the wall.

Gray huffed; sure, they could have been on the way home by now. To one side, something moved.

"Lookout!"

The Phantom died under Gray’s cautious fire, and that one was now the least of their problems. They had stumbled into a nest, and it was waking up as a whole.

"We’re leaving – now," she hesitated a moment before following him, and the entity in the wall lunged at her as they retreated through the no longer silent sub-level of the office building.

It was almost a maze, and made deadly by the enemy creatures prowling it.

"Do you know where we’re going?" Jane asked dubiously as they had to backtrack out of a dead-end or a storage closet.

"No," Gray sighed, "Come on," he tried to keep along the outer edge of the building – to find a way back up into the street. They had been there for too long… they already ran the risk of being left behind, and it increased sharply as long as they were down there.

"Wait, sir, I have an idea…"

"I’m listening," he growled, hoping it wasn’t, let’s go back and face the Phantoms, as he imagined. He could only handle so many stupid risks in one day…

"We passed a stairwell a couple of turns ago – we might be able to get up top through the first floor."

"Show me," sure, she sounded sane enough, but the little voice in the back of his mind was telling him the horror stories he’d heard of pregnant women… And Jane had already proven herself certifiably insane on numerous occasions.

He was relieved to find she was telling the truth, but the pain of the situation presented itself in a new way. The door to the first floor was blocked by debris, which left going back down… or continuing up.

"Keep going," Gray commanded as Jane hesitated by the stairs. She did, and he trailed slowly, keeping a sharp watch behind them.

The second floor didn’t have a recognizable door. The third was locked, with something barring it shut from the other side… and it opened outward. The fourth doorframe existed – a portal to a preserved point under time. It was here that they made a path through the grisly, tomb-like rooms, leaving a trail of upturned dust in their wake. It didn’t take long to find a window, but it opened into a cluttered alleyway; the landing would be questionable.

"Captain?" a voice from farther away, from full across the transmitter in his ear, "That’s you up there, right?"

Gray cursed. "Who else would it be?"

"A suicidal businessman, but I’d say we’re a little too late for him," the shadows detached from the gray walls below to become more the visible bluish human forms of his teammates.

"Or Jane," Ryan reasoned.

"Or Jane, yeah."

"She’s here, too," Gray said, unnecessarily as the woman leaned out the window next to him, "I thought I told you to go back to the transport."

"So?" the dual answered sounded almost like an echo, and Gray grimaced behind his helmet.

"You never told us when to go back to the transport, so we fig-"

"Okay, I get it; just… clear us a landing zone, would you?"

"Sure thing."

While they waited, Gray measured the situation a little more carefully.

"You think we can make it in one jump?" he asked, prompting Jane to take another evaluation of the alleyway.

"If we’re careful," she considered cautiously. It would be a risk, but it was possible, "Probably."

"Well, Better safe than…" Gray shuddered at the ghastly wail that emanated through the deceptively empty place, and Jane froze beside him.

"Better safe," she mumbled as it faded.

"All clear."

Not soon enough, the captain thought, "Let’s go, ready?"

"Always am," Jane nodded, her reply betraying her hidden smile.

Within the minute, they were airborne. The gel-pac that exploded in the seconds before they reached the ground was harder than it should have been. Gray hit the edge, and the vaporizing green goo flowed outward under his weight.

"Let’s get out of here," he grumbled, crudely regaining his feet. Behind him, something moved.

There was no warning, as Jane scrambled by him, opening fire on the Phantom, and crippling rather than killing it. She watched with a fascination as it writhed, taking a guiltless pleasure in its enraged squeal. And something more dangerous flickered through her mind – how easy it would be to step, ‘accidentally,’ on the periphery of that disintegrating mass of still living cells…. What would that feel like?

"Happy, now?" Gray demanded.

The answer was wavering, but genuine.

"Very."
 
 

13:57, November 22, 2065

"How you doin’?"

A simple question with so many answers… so many correct, honest ones.

"Good," and acknowledged with a lie.

"Good…" he echoed, "Me too."

He was smiling again. She used to like that – it was something she could recognize, know, and mimic; it made her feel a little of the pleasant world she knew existed, but somehow couldn’t access alone.

"Neil…" apologies were never so hard, even though she knew what she was trying for. She wondered if he understood or would even care if she didn’t. He seemed to have put the past in the past, so why couldn’t she?

"What?"

"I’m glad."

"Okay," He grinned, a mite confused; but she had definitely sounded cute. And it was… it sounded like good confession.

Tell him now, she willed of her tongue. Spontaneous had always been strength, now all she needed to do was blurt – one clue, one lead so she wouldn’t feel so alone again. He’s smart, he could guess, tell him now.

It didn’t come, and she studied her hands.

Neil tapped her shoulder, earning a metallically plastic plink off her armor, but not her attention. He pushed her a little, and secured no definite response. He tried a little harder, which resulted in sudden and a full-scale pushing competition between them lasting until Jane slipped off the bench. She huffed, staring above as Neil clambered down beside her.

"Sorry, I didn-"

He stalled as the transport shuddered under abrupt turbulence, and hissed in pain as his head struck the metal edge of the bench.

"You deserved that," Jane winced, but couldn’t bother herself to move.

"Yeah, I know I did…"

14:13, November 22, 2065

"Does she know what she wants, yet?" Gray shrugged into his shirt, pleased to off the field. The mission had gone well, but Jane’s had to run off and worry him like that.

"I don’t think she’s even accepted it completely," his friend answered, collecting his bits and pieces of armor and carefully laying them in their place in his locker, "Give it a little time."

Gray followed suit with his equipment, "I’ll talk to her."

"I thought you already did."

"Yeah, well," the captain yawned, holding his hand over his mouth, "I’ll try again,"

"I’d be careful if I were you. She’s not warming up to the idea very fast."

Ryan’s glanced to where the pair were, and chuckled as he witnessed Jane trying to get dressed while Neil was determined to ‘help.’

Jane scowled as Neil buttoned up her pants. She’d managed to get her shirts done by herself, but she lost the battle of the pants. She’d told him before, even demonstrated, but he never seemed to understand,

"I can dress myself, you know."

"Yeah, I know," the tech replied simply, pulling her boots from under the bench.

"Then why’re you…?" she sighed, giving up, "Give me one of those."

"Because I like to," He complied, handing her the left boot. She slid it on and lifted her foot unto the seat as Neil worked with the other boot on the floor. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she buckled the straps.

"Why do I suddenly get the feeling you owned dolls when you were a kid?"

The man shrugged, and he neither confirmed nor denied the question.

"You… didn’t; did you?"

She didn’t get an answer, as Gray strolled past them with the cheerful announcement,

"Decontamination’s ready for us."

20:18, November 22, 2065

The Lounge was under its full capacity, but that didn’t dissuade a plentiful crowd from engaging in its sport. The majority of them crowded around the battle circles, while a few engaged in other activities, or sat alone.

Gray’s group sat on the edge of the crowd. Close enough to easily observe the fights, but far enough away to be comfortable in their own company.

Gray kept to himself, keeping half an ear on his friends and the rest of his attention on the data-readout in front of him. Ryan and Jane watched the fights with rapt attention, and slight dejection as one ring, containing two excellent combatants, was vacated under a mutual refrain.

"Too bad," the sergeant sighed, but smiled at Jane, "You wanna go?"

"Yeah," the woman chirped, rousing Neil from her shoulder. He blinked, and drowsily rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand as he was redistributed to his own balance.

"Are you sure that’s a good idea?" Gray asked, breaking from his reverie, but in vain. They were already on their way.

"I’ll be gentle," Ryan called over his shoulder; Jane only laughed.

Over the hour, they fought four times before Ryan gave in for the evening. Jane might have followed him back, but she was enjoying the activity far too much. It was feeling – and the free release of feeling. Pent up anger and frustration, held in so long it hurt, started to dissipate as match after match, eventually measured in hours, went by. Fatigue was nothing; it only added an extra level to the release.

The onlookers discerned there was a difference here than normal – Jane wasn’t a stranger here – but they weren’t interested in interfering. It was only entertainment, after all; no one was hurt seriously.

And the fights were extraordinary; each was becoming shorter, and more intense than the last.

"She’s going to kill somebody before she stops," fully awake now, Neil glanced sidelong at Ryan. The nonchalance of the statement struck against how true it seemed, and it worried him. Gray, on inspection, watched indifferently. Every minute that went by heightened his awareness of the fact that either Jane would take a life, or eventually collapse from absolute exhaustion.

He didn’t like either conclusion, but neither of the others seemed interested in anything but watching. So, if they were to not do anything at all, he would have to do something on his own.

Neil slipped away from the table, intent on not being seen. It worked until it didn’t matter, as Gray caught sight of him beyond reach in the crowd.

"Oh God, what’s he doing now?" Gray drawled, and Ryan only shrugged.

"You should have asked that before he left." Still, despite the flippancy, the pair exchanged a discreet glance before simultaneously moving closer to the circle.

Meanwhile, Neil had already reached the makeshift arena. He stepped over the narrow white line almost without heed of it, and certainly without reservation. It was a thin layer of pain on cement, nothing to intimidate.

Jane’s smile faltered as she become aware of him.

"Hey; You look… hot," her skin had taken on a reddish hue from exertion, oxygen, natural body temperature and the heat from the lights above. Sweat clung to her skin sporadically, concentrated in small droplets not yet heavy enough to fall to the already speckled floor. Alike to a small child, scared that its parents would take away its favorite plaything, she stared at him in with suspicion. "Why not give it a rest for now, huh?"

"No," a guttural response. For a brief moment, he somehow thought she’d said, "Yes."

"Why not?" he stood close, and she closed her eyes when he touched her arm. He kissed her, ignoring the people around them – right now, they didn’t exist, as far as he was concerned – and watching… willing for any response. A lone bead of moisture slid down her cheek, and for a moment he confused the perspiration for a tear. He shook off the fleeting alarm fast enough to be pushed away without losing balance.

"I’m having fun," she stated, almost daring him to take it from her.

"You’re ah… still mad at me," the idea dawned on him… accompanied by a sinking feeling, "Aren’t you?"

"Yes," half-true – that she was mad again would have been more appropriate, but here it didn’t matter what he thought.

"Oh," he hurriedly stifled his disappointment.

He stepped back, glancing down at the edge of the ring, and then at the remainder of the spectators. Some were confused, some were amused, and some were in on the circumstance. He paid them little attention, focusing on the plan forming in his mind. If she was angry, then maybe, and he reminded himself with cautious confidence that it was only a maybe, would he be able to provide a little relief for it.

"All right," he smiled, letting the giddy feeling take over his mind as he faced her. Two more little words were all he needed, and they were almost as easy to voice as the last…

"Let’s go."
 
 

23:25, November 22, 2065

He faced her without flinching, and she stared at him in apathy.

"I’m not going to fight you," Jane said, quietly, but entirely audibly. Neil smiled lightly, but he didn’t relax much.

"Then c’mon; let’s go home…" he held out his hand, which she only stared at in contempt. It made him wonder what his hand ever did wrong….

"You can’t keep beating people senseless; or sooner or later no one’s going to want to play anymore," her scowl darkened, but he continued with little attention, "Besides, you don’t want to hurt the nice people, right? Just me…" he winced, but if it was the truth, well… he could handle the truth, "Right?"

He stepped forward again, hoping a second attempt would be successful. He’d been in the ring for a couple of minutes now, and she hadn’t attacked him, which had to be a good sign; or so he thought until he found himself inexplicably on the floor.

It was going to be a long ordeal. It had to be, for his plan to work the way it was supposed to. So he controlled it. It was his fight, but he only defended his body, and then only when he had to in order to keep it going… he was fully contented to let her have the undivided aggressive side of it. Not that she seemed to notice…

When it came to it, he knew the safest place was on the ground. If he needed rest, or to strategize the best way not to get pushed out of bounds, that was where he sat. She didn’t attack floored opponents. But then, he hadn’t expected her to attack him without warning, like she did in the first place. Eventually, he found himself floored, yet again. In this, one of the few times not entirely of his choice, he took the opportunity to move inward from the white edge defining, to his thoughts, his inner goal. He came to rest beside a bare foot, and blinked up dazedly. He smiled, trying to ignore the agonizing-now-don’t-even-imagine-tomorrow pain that had been slowly spreading through bruises and scrapes to his already pained core.

But he smiled, managing to push a sentence through his throat and sound closer to cheerful,

"We havin’ fun yet?"

Jane felt chilled. All she had wanted him to do was to go away – to give up and leave her alone for a while. As it was, he wasn’t leaving and he sure as hell wasn’t helping at all….

She kicked him – once, savagely, and the mental repercussion came back instantly as he fell back off balance and stayed there.

It was her fault for not being able to control what she felt when it came; and the decided lack of emotion when she… no, when others needed it had to be somewhat related. Every time, Neil had to be there to make up an excuse or… whatever he typically did. It forced her to feel guilt for every one of her minor indiscretions, for which it was always her fault…

No, she imagined, This one’s his damned fault for not leaving me alone.

Shaking none to gently as she fought to control her fury, made the only decision her mind seemed willing to be tricked into.

Neil was anticipating pain. Not that the anticipation made it any less worse, but at least it wasn’t totally surprising. Although, that was as far as his reasoning went; he couldn’t tell why being surprised would be worse than knowing he was going to hurt.

But he was surprised, as the voices around him picked up again. There was a part of him that was mildly amused that people were still watching.

So things had become a bit slow. He lifted his head, not seeing any part of Jane up close, as he expected, but strangers’ boots far off. Slightly unnerved, he glanced over his shoulder as he readjusted himself to sit. From the ring to around the large room, he searched, finding no trace of what he was looking for.

His mind was briefly stalled by the clock.

The indicator read midnight. They had been fighting for just over half an hour. Neil scanned the crowd a last time as the pieces gathered together in his mind.

He had won the match by default; Jane had left and was nowhere to be seen.

00:20, November 23, 2065

It was practical to let the on staff medics do their thing; especially since he had already lost Jane. For once, Neil relented himself to proper, ‘sane’ judgement. It only took a couple of minutes, so he supposed it wasn’t a complete waste of time to be regarded as healthy, though injured… But it was simply, "bruised," and nothing permanent. Even if he could have told them that…

Afterward, really just before Gray could catch up with him, he slipped away from the resumed bustle of the establishment. It wouldn’t have been to be alone, if only there was someone he’d rather spend time with… who would want to spend time with him, in turn.

And the list was a short one.

Since he didn’t know where Jane was, and because anyone else he could think of didn’t live under the New York Barrier, he was out of luck.

He took to the shadows, touring the city structure without much thought as to where he was going or how long he took to get there. He was nestled into a bundle of thought that was running circles around him, closing tighter with each circuit. Something was wrong with his life; imperative to fixing it was to know how it came about; to know how it came about, he needed to talk to Jane; to talk to Jane, she had to stop being mad at him; for him to know how to make her stop being mad at him, he needed to know what was wrong… to know what was wrong, he had to…

As for Jane, he doubted she’d have gone home, since that would be far too conspicuous. Although, if she knew it would be considered too conspicuous, she might have figured it’d be the best place to hide… unless she knew he’d think that… and his reasoning fell back to the beginning.

Too many circles, combined with a lack of proper sleep, were making him dizzy.

Across the city, light from the barrier filtered down from above. As he wasn’t very high, there were patches of darkness clinging to the buildings and trees around him. The intelligent citizens were asleep, with exceptions in those who had to work during the night.

He leaned over a railing, staring into the darkness below the walkway. Resisting the compulsion to find something to drop, or, similarly, spit into the pit, he looked up to stare at the roots of the tree adjacent to his walkway… as well as the barely distinctive gray-clothed figure huddled in its roots.

Isn’t that luck, Neil barely blinked at the recognition, instead trying to decide if it’d be better to run and hide or… well… stay.

Of course, his curiosity had to intervene.

"How the heck did you get over there?" Jane didn’t move, so he assumed she knew he was there before he’d seen her.

"Guess," sweet sourness that he’d begun to expect recently; but he examined the railing, and the tree’s support structure thinly wired to it with grown over steel beams.

He clambered over the railing, grimacing at the depth below, and inched along the metal until coming to the intersection of tree-wire and handrail. The trickiest part was getting up onto the tree’s supports, as they were almost twice higher than he was tall, but he managed it with small difficulty. Once there, he just had to ignore the sense of vertigo and crawl across to the damn tree itself. Simple stuff… until he found that the way down was higher on this side.

"How di’jou get down?"

"I jumped,"

Instructional enough; so did he, and he had to scramble not to fall off the sloped surface of makeshift ground. Nevertheless, he chirped, "Hi," once he wasn’t in explicit danger of plummeting to an early demise. She refused to answer him; didn’t even look at him as he sat on the other side of her root.

"Are you okay?" It was a stupid question; a bluntly roundabout way of asking what he really wanted to know. But it broke through the silence, even if it started with her staring at him like he was a moron.

"What do you think?"

"I think I like it better when your calmer like this," although he may have liked it better like this, he much preferred her happy and calm. Or even better: happy, in the ‘I want to boulder that skyscraper for the hell of it,’ mentality that so supplemented his love of borderline, sometimes outright rascality.

"When I’m not trying to kill you, you mean," Jane scoffed, and Neil forced a weak smile.

"You wouldn’t kill me," so it was more of a nervous blurt than a carefully measured retort… he hoped that she wouldn’t catch that but rather take it as something good.

"How do you know?" she felt angry again, but it was so far away – like a reflection or projection of someone else’s emotion. For herself, she couldn’t feel a damned thing.

"Well… I trust you."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"It… uh," he needed leverage. Proof. Hypnotic suggestion. Anything, "sounded good at the time."

…Maybe something an itsy bit stronger…

She stopped listening, or pretended to. She could still hear him as he sighed, and could almost hear his thought process as it sped back and forth with his eyes; as he fidgeted and tried to take visual cues from anything that managed to catch his attention for more than a second.

His gaze came to rest on the branches above them, and the needles… evergreen; he fought to remember what that meant.

Tree. He couldn’t figure out what his mind wanted out of that. He needed a clue, so he could get back to Jane… Wait… Jane, tree… She likes trees, doesn’t she?

"You wanna go back to Montreal next week?"

"No," she shook her head, and he bit his tongue. Worth a try, at least…

"Look," she sighed at length, breaking his concentrated effort of picking at the dirt between his feet, "I’m sorry – I’ve had a lot to deal with recently, and every time I turn around you’re right there, and always end up in my way.

"And," she continued, cutting him off. She held out her trembling hand pronate, to emphasize her point, "It’s gotten that bad."

"What can…" her hand retreated as he reached for it, but it didn’t stall him long, "How can I help?"

"You can’t," she snapped.

"Yeah, whatever…" Disgust could go both ways. He pulled himself together, using the tree’s trunk to help him stand. To his surprise, so did she.

"Why would you’d care, anyway?" Oh, she was good at that… especially to the unsuspecting.

"You want to know why I’d care?" Luckily for him, he’d had enough exposure to know ways around it, and quick thinking was a bonus. He took her arm carefully in one hand, raising it in display despite the irked glare she planted on him. He smiled; granted, it was at his own ‘cleverness,’ but it could have helped…

"This here," he gently pinched a patch of skin, "This is mine."

"Under here," he let go of her arm, crouching slightly to reach behind her leg, and tapped behind her knee, "That’s mine."

"And this right here," he pulled himself up by her shoulder, and traced an area between it and her neck, "is mine."

"And here," he placed his fingers to her bottom lip and fought back a smile. Moments passed, and Jane’s barely detained impatience didn’t.

"Let me guess," she grumbled, "Yours?"

"If you say so," his smile broke for a split-second, and he kissed her to mark his newfound territory – and he was pleased that she wasn’t… well, not completely unresponsive to the gesture.

"Not funny," she mumbled, much to his amusement and sometime after the fact…

"Liar," he caught her; she knew it. The game was his… for a little time longer.

If it lasted past when he could get some decent sleep, it would be even better. So Neil’s sight wandered back across the gap, and so did his tired mind.

"So how do we get back over there?"

"How should I know?"

Unfortunately for him, his mind didn’t make it back.

"You wanna sleep here tonight?"

"Yeah, sure…"

And Jane was as drowsy and exhausted as he was.
 
 

11:15, November 26, 2065

It was one of those moments. Joy regardless of danger, surrounding, composed of relief and a love of life, along with recall of every minute detail. Hours after the fact, they were still laughing about it, though drunkenly now, and much to the confusion of their friends.

"What happened out there, anyway?" Neil asked, looking to Gray for an answer, since, playing his public role of supervisor, he was the only one of the three who wasn’t in complete hysterics over the event.

"I was trying to get that stupid module," the captain shrugged, "I didn’t see it."

"Hey, what happened? All I heard was a lot of shouting and a burst of static."

"That wasn’t static; that was me. I sneezed," Jane grinned, "And it killed the Phantom."

"What Phantom?" Neil felt a momentary burst of panic, but squashed it easily; there were no Phantoms here.

"The one that got this close," the woman held her fingers a short span apart, "’Fore I sneezed and killed it."

"No, I killed the Phantom," Ryan snorted, finally catching the all too elusive conversation, "But I’ll say, I never saw you run so fast. Ever."

"I didn’t run!" Jane snapped in defense, the rosy tint her skin had developed deepening as embarrassment was added to the mix of inebriation and that natural element Neil hated so much, "I slipped. That hill was steep, you know, I could’a fallen right over." As though to demonstrate, she flicked one of the empty glasses, then pushed it over when it refused to fall at the gentler tap. She watched, transfixed, as it rolled to a circular stop, and followed it carefully as Neil snatched it and righted it away from her. Before she could try again, he had her hands securely under the table.

"You ran," the sergeant scoffed, "I saw you do it, too; no one slips that fast."

"I did!" Jane insisted, "I did slip. Tell him captain!"

"I wasn’t watching," Gray reiterated distantly. He leaned back in his chair as though to say, ‘I’m done with this.’

"I slipped," she sniffed, half smirking as though that would assure the statement.

"You ran…"

"I slipped!"

"Next time," Neil interrupted, "next time, if the situation comes up again, just run, okay?" He faltered as she scowled at him. He swallowed apprehension, and improvised, "Look, it’ll save on the arguing later, see?" She seemed to understand that, not entirely in the nuance but in the twisted way it was meant to sound. Even so, she squirmed away from him, leaning heavy on the table and staring at the glass she’d toppled.

With that, the table fell silent. The Lounge itself was near empty, and the murmurs of the conversations abound reached the Deep Eyes clearly. Eventually, and untold minutes later, Gray broke the silence with the announcement he hadn’t been sure how to bring up. Easiest was really to stop procrastinating, after that it would be simple; or so he thought.

"There’s this… uh, thing…" he started, unsure and with the full and sudden attention of the painfully sullen table.

"Really?" Ryan asked, coherent to a fault, "What kind thing?"

"A morality thing, social something or other. I have to go…"

"Good for you," Jane mumbled. She yawned, and blinked at him without realizing he was staring at her.

"…And if I have to go, I’m dragging you all." the captain sighed, watching and waiting for the inevitable, "It’s a Class A event, so…"

"No," the woman replied flatly after a moment’s stunned silence.

"Yes."

"C’mon," Neil tried to hide, if not suppress, his grin, "Class As look so cute…"

"Then you wear it," Jane snapped, "I’ll wear yours, you can wear mine… and I’ll wear yours."

"Okay," Neil agreed eagerly, hoping that she was either not serious or too intoxicated to remember the promise by the morning… or day of… or ever.

"No!" or that the captain would stand up for him, which worked, too, "None of that. She wears her clothes; you wear your clothes; that’s how it works."

Of course, that Jane looked about to jump the table and attack wasn’t a good sign. Neil readily decided that it was as good as ever to leave, and tried to modestly drag the inebriated woman with him. No easy feat, but he managed to get her out the door without an incident… or not one that anyone else noticed; which, as an afterthought, he was extremely glad for. But the trick would be getting home.

11:47, November 26, 2065

"Because you’re drunk."

"And you’re sweet, but I don’t go ‘round telling the world."

"Um; right," somehow, the lucidity that came with drunken rambling escaped him, or he was absorbing it second-hand, because he couldn’t remember half the conversation already. Luckily, it didn’t seem to matter.

She stumbled; he was there to catch her. It waylaid their pace, and neither noticed.

"See, I told you," she asserted, the tone slightly scornful.

"Yeah…" he agreed, "Come on, we’re almost there."

In actuality, they were already there… outside his door – home. It was now a simple matter of getting inside for the night… a partial success.

Once he left the room for a quick drink of water, and she was gone when he came back. A quick dash down the hallway proved faster than she could move as she was, so he caught up easily. Getting her back proved the more problematic part.

"No," she protested, "I need to find my blanket."

"I have blankets, Jane," he sighed, "They’re on the bed; you don’t have to worry about it."

"Not mine," she insisted, and he, for the sake of not waking everyone on the floor (possibly the building), gave in instantly.

"Okay; look; I’ll get it, but you stay here, understand?"

He pushed her back to the room, despite lacking her complete cooperation. He doubted he could have done it if she were sober, but that she wasn’t came in useful for the first time that night. Of course, if she were sober, this problem probably wouldn’t have been so bad.

Or it might have been worse.

No, no, no! Neil reprimanded the thought as he fought to keep the door closed and manipulate its locking mechanism at the same time. Things weren’t going to get any worse. They just… weren’t; couldn’t.

Now, with the door finally locked, two new possibilities made themselves known to him. It was conceivable that Jane was sober enough or would become so to operate the lock, or smashed to the point of passing out in a drunken mess. Neil quickly decided he didn’t like his mind; that he should have been on the other side.

Too late now. He snapped the covering off the lock, easily removing its power cell and slipping it into his pocket. Although, the door was rather flimsy… if she really wanted to, she could probably have broken it easily.

Neil decided that he really didn’t like his mind.

"Just… stay," he snapped, aware that he was talking to inanimate wood and metal and not really caring as he hurried off to fix the problem of the moment before another or two or fifty found their way to the surface.

00:09, November 27, 2065

The mystery blanket couldn’t have been any of the ones on her bed. They were identical to every bedspread ever issued throughout the service. So it came to storage.

So he’d seen the superficial layer of her closet before – a couple of uniforms for different occasions; a number of mismatched, many worn BDUs; dress shoes; a plain shirt; a box; and a ruined pair of boots. He’d never seen beyond that, which proved much more fascinating. Of course, he didn’t have time to investigate, but that didn’t stop him from making a mental list of questions to ask later.

Despite his doubt, he came upon what he must have been looking for, unfolding the cloth enough to get a feeling of its dimensions and insure that it was a blanket, and snorted.

"You’ve got to be kidding…"

At the very least – it was pink.

00:28, Nov. 27, 2065

The door was still intact, which was a good omen. The lock was easily reparable, which was also good, because carrying a such a thing as he happened to be was bad enough, but being seen taking it home would be detrimental to anyone’s social standing. He didn’t want to think over its physical qualities any more than he had to. It was pink; it was frilly; he already knew far too much.

The lights were off, as they’d been when he left, so he changed that, and set them low just to see by, before he remembered it would be a good idea to close the door.

Jane was in his bed, but not asleep; she fidgeted under the light, and the accursed pink thing disappeared quickly from where he placed it. He pretended not to see as she pillowed it between her arm and her head. He intended to pretend a lot about that blanket – like that it didn’t exist. So instead of granting any more focus to a thing that didn’t exist, he went about tending to his floor, and collected together bitterly the mysteriously shed and abandoned clothes, that Jane wouldn’t worry later. Or maybe she wouldn’t anyway, he didn’t know…. He folded the garments anyway, placing them on his chair with careful attention.

Getting to sleep would prove to be a more difficult task. Even after he’d managed to climb safely over the restless woman, he had to deal with the relentless squirming. Despite trying to simply live with it, there came a point where it had to stop or he had to find a new place to sleep for the night. The next time she moved, within seconds of the decision, he caught her close.

"Stop," that was all, "Calm. Relax. Please?"

It worked, or seemed to. Neil managed to doze a moment before another shift startled him back aware. Then again, it could have just been one pink, frilly, quilted nightmare….
 
 

03:49, November 27, 2065

Sleep was sporadic, at best. Every time Neil managed to doze, he was carried right back to reality by frequent, often painful jabs. Several times he considered encamping the floor, letting Jane keep the bed… but the thought tended to go unfinished, as he wasn’t particularly motivated.

If he were awake or was just woken up, he couldn’t tell. He was suddenly aware was what he realized, whether that was for good or bad….

Bad, he quickly decided. Beside him, Jane was choking, and it took very little reasoning to figure out why. He roused her best he could, or at least well enough to sit her up. Between frightful pauses were short, clipped breaths as the woman fought the hangover. Neil noticed that, due to a lack of foresight, the trashbin was out of reach… probably somewhere near the desk on the other side of the room. He dismissed it as inevitable, mentally equating the mindset of better luck next time.

"Don’t do that; it’s disgusting," he coaxed, earning only a faint whine in response. She swallowed again and he grimaced, "I know how you’re feelin’, okay? You’ll feel better if you… um…." Unable to find a proper euphemism for the word ‘vomit,’ Neil nearly rejoiced when he didn’t have to, as Jane had already spit up the chemical remains of the prior night’s binge over the side of the bed.

It took several seconds for Jane to finally open her eyes, and she decided she’d rather go back to sleep. It didn’t last long; moments after she’d settled down again, she decided she’d rather leave.

As Neil watched her go, it slowly dawned on him that sleep was not to be.

04:13, November 27, 2065

Over the railing was a whole city, and she couldn’t quite fathom what that meant. The balustrade was cold against her bare belly, and she pitied anyone on the lower levels if she were to suddenly feel queasy again. As it was, her head hurt, as did her stomach, and her throat was dry… she didn’t think there was enough fluid left in her, but she wasn’t going to be compassionate if she felt the need to throw up again

And Neil… she heard him coming before she took any notice. The only way she knew it was him was the way he stopped every few inches while approaching… waiting for acknowledgement; she was glad it was him, because anyone else she might have killed on the spot. She felt guilty that she had let herself get that bad.

"What?" she asked, leaning back from the edge a little. She regretted the movement when the world demonstrated it could be equally unstable.

"I thought," came instantly. The rest was a bit difficult, "You might, um…" so instead he held up the clothes and waited, "here."

She didn’t look to him right away, and when she did she brushed it off, "What about them?"

"I thought that you’d…" delicate wording was necessary; or at least speediness, "maybe not want to be seen outside in your underwear?"

She only stared at him, leaning back against the railing and suddenly reminded of how cold the metal was. And another thing; he hadn’t considered weathering, he’d considered whether or not she’d be seen…

"I mean, do you really want to risk being booted ‘cause you … wear…. ‘Cause… you’re not wearing regulation… issued underwear?" Neil whimpered, not quite wanting to state the reasons said underthings didn’t fit regulation.

No luck, it seemed. Jane simply stared.

"Okay, please; take it as I’m being jealous or that I’m tryin’ t’ help, but please get dressed."

The last desperate attempt he needed, as she took the clothes did as he asked… albeit slowly, since the world was still reeling at the smallest jolt.

"Um…"

"What?" and it seemed some small jolts were larger than others.

"Did… you want shoes, too?"

"I don’t care," he didn’t have her shoes, anyway.

"Okay; did you want to go back now…? Or, ma-"

"I want to take a shower," Jane growled, taking a few shaky steps away from the railing. She felt revolting. Down from how Neil looked in the hellish morning way he did at the moment, at least he didn’t seem to notice. Worse – he grinned.

"Well, we can situate that; we do live, after all, in an advanced civilization that…"

"Neil, shut up," he did, pouting slightly.

Jane didn’t notice. She was too distracted fighting a dizzy spell. She found it kind of fun if she ignored the ground rushing to meet her and the painful rush of blood through her head.

Okay, okay, she thought desperately, no more and I promise this time. Concurrently, the ground stopped about an arm’s length away, and her vision cleared of the sudden black haze.

05:45, November 27, 2065

Gray had knocked, which added to his decency rating. Neil’s tired admission on how he was looking quite bland this morning could no longer be termed accurate. At the moment, he seemed to be a little more on the shocked side.

"What is that?" he asked nervously. Neil lifted his head far enough off the pillow to follow the captain’s line of sight and groaned.

"That’s a blanket."

"It’s… pink."

"Yep," Neil reached for the thing, and it unfolded as he dragged it closer for inspection, "It’s pink; drown in lace; with quilted patches; and it’s stitched with thes’ little flower things."

"Should I ask?" Gray wondered. Neil shrugged, noticing something he hadn’t before. He unfolded the blanket, and scrutinized the embroidery.

"‘For Jane, Be Good, Love Mom,’" the tech read aloud, "So there you go."

"Ah huh," Gray twitched. Some things were better left alone, "Speaking of, where is she?"

"Who; Jane’s mom?"

"Jane," and sometimes anger management came in handy….

"She’s been in the shower for," Neil sat up, both to see the time and since Gray seemed to be taking his time visiting, "Almost an hour an a half." It had him a little worried, since it was a little longer than a usual six minutes, but….

"Is she all right?"

"Hasn’t been all morning," the younger man chirped pleasantly, "Why do you think we didn’t check in?"

"Because you have a record of not checking in for less moral reasons," Gray growled, with no effect.

"So?"

"The Media’s little show is on the first at 19:30," he wasn’t interested in pushing anymore. It never got him anywhere, "I want Jane in her room, in a skirt, and ready an hour early."

"You know," Neil stopped him as he began to leave, "I could take that very personally."

"And just what are you going to do about it?" Gray snorted returning to his way.

"Just saying is all!" Neil called after him.

"Saying what?" he jumped, having not expected Jane to be… well, right there.

"Um, Gray said he wanted you to become a breeder," and suddenly, he felt compelled to run. The woman had darkened considerably. But he couldn’t up and leave it at that, so instead he grinned "He said he wanted you. In a dress, too, apparently. So I told him otherwise."

"Uh huh…" Jane grumbled, carefully sitting down at the desk. She set the wastebasket within easy reach as ‘just in case.’ She didn’t feel compelled to taint Neil’s floor two times in the same day.

"Do me a favor?" Neil attempted to change the subject, "Would you please bring this back with you, next time you’re going to pick something up; or… whatever?" He held out the offensive blanket, and she took it but glared.

"What’s wrong with it?" she demanded, and he was back on the defensive.

"Nothing! It’s… very nice," he insisted, both hands up in peace, "It’s just that I’m allergic to pink." Jane didn’t look convinced.

"Why?"

Neil felt very cornered, but if he had to tell someone, it may as well have been her.

"For the longest time, my mother thought I was a girl," Jane smirked, so he added, "I’m serious. And my dad thought it was hilarious, so he refused to help at all. I swore I’d never put any kid through that."

"What if the kid was a girl?" for a moment, Neil looked confused.

"Maybe… red?" he guessed, " It’s close, but not so bad… you all right? You’re lookin’ kind’a pale again."

"I’m hungry," the woman admitted, "but it doesn’t matter."

"Yeah it does…" the technician tried to remember the last time he had seen her eat, "but we can fix it." He stretched for his boots, eventually having to get up anyway, "Lemme go find something."

After he left, Jane doubled over in the chair, vowing over and over again the same desperate base fact,

Never again.
 
 

05:22, November 30, 2065

It would take some getting used to, if it kept up as it was.

He just didn’t understand how Jane wasn’t bored. He was bored, at least half the time, and that was when it was his job. Although, he did enjoy having someone to talk to while he worked. The rest of the time it wasn’t so bad, either, but for that he couldn’t comprehend the change. If it was her way of trying to make him feel guilty, it was working, even though he didn’t know what he was to blame for.

And whatever the reason, it was beginning to crawl under his skin.

He couldn’t ask anyone, because Jane was there every second. He couldn’t ask her, because, well… because was the best he could come up with, the same he used for why he couldn’t tell her to go away.

Five minutes was all he needed… a little time to think; the reprieve came in a form he hadn’t imagined – a public restroom in a government building. It wasn’t the idyllic bastion that would have made a true romanticist giddy, but he wasn’t going to deny the refuge. However, as he found to his dismay once he was finally apart, his mind seemed not to focus on a solution to the problem; he couldn’t bring up anything at all.

A shoe passed him, scuffed along the heel in a familiar way. It didn’t notice him, on its way out, but the only person he knew to wear such shoes was an answer to whatever prayer had made it out of his mental impediment. He wasn’t going to let it get away.

Unbeknownst to the fact, the wearer passed the man crumpled between the basin setup and a motionless, yet translocated, garbage bin. The hapless individual, prey to the sudden weight on his leg, looked down and stared with an expression befitting the incident.

"Neil; get the hell off me before I kill you," not spoken in a convincing tone, it proved it didn’t have to be – the threat instantly caused the desired reaction. Neil fell back under his hiding place, triumphant in the attempt for notice. Ryan only maintained his own confusion, "What are you doing?"

"I’m hiding," desperate to explain his problem so that he might get the solution in return, Neil recited a biased account of his recent life, ending with a second-old assumption that he failed considered before.

"She doesn’t hate you," Ryan scoffed, unable to imagine the contrary to what he was used to. The shred of hope he instilled faded briefly to the cool of insight.

"Prove it."

"I don’t have to," Ryan said, though it must have been unconvincing, as he found himself tack on, "She’s loved you for longer than I’ve known her."

"Then why’s she scaring me?"

Close to coughing up a most valid reason, Ryan instead took to the safer alternate route, "Well, let’s go ask her, shall we?"

"But she’s right outside!" Neil cried, not daunting the sergeant in the least, and following closely despite the protest. He stopped at the door, as Ryan ever so boldly stepped out of the niche and surveyed the chamber. With great anxiety did the technician dare to peer around the corner, "Where’d she go?"

"Like I’d… hold it!" Ryan snapped, catching the younger man as he dove forward at a run, "Now where’re you of to?"

The plaintive whine, something he was not expecting, left him as confused as when the strange encounter began.

"Why’d she leave without me?"

"Maybe she got bored…" the sergeant grumbled, letting go before risking hurt to either of them – be it by accident or by intention via irritation.

"I gotta find her!" the quick justification and the scampering off ended Ryan’s resolve to even try. He had more important things to do with his life, anyway.

06:03, November 30, 2065

Random discoveries could make a day bright, despite times as a whole. Finding a survivor of the old days, forgotten until the sudden recognition brought life back to the memory, wasn’t an event to be ignored.

Captain Hallows, only once the second lieutenant Jane knew him to be, had changed drastically; it might have been to her surprise that he saw the same discrepancy in her. It had been a long time.

"I heard about the Rochester event; you must have had fun with that."

"If you call being crushed fun, then yeah, I guess so," the slight defense didn’t hold long, as Jane grinned, "I got a new eye out of the deal, though."

"Really? Let me see," Hallows examined the woman critically, "It’s the right, isn’t it? Optrics sure didn’t do a very good job…"

"It’s the left, actually," Jane corrected, smirking superficially at the mistake. There was no depending on his left or hers; she knew which he was looking at.

"Er… like I said: it’s truly a flawless replication."

"As long as it works like the old one, it doesn’t bother me," the corporal determined, "So far it has, and I can’t complain."

A hint of recognition appeared in the captain’s smile, similar to that she had recognized him by in the first place. She didn’t catch it in time to not be ambushed as Neil caught up to her on the bustling streetside, but she managed to keep her composure and balance under the sudden and unexpected weight.

"Good morning," Jane mumbled, not surprised so much as startled, neither a reaction that she would have entertained for longer than the brief seconds it took to be aware. Just because he could sneak up on her didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend otherwise.

"Hello," Neil snipped over her shoulder, exceptionally reserved in a familiar, if troublesome, way.

Determined to keep her old friend safe from the impending tantrum, Jane condensed a goodbye as she shrugged off the overbearing technician and followed the street. No destination in mind, she chose a direction randomly, waiting for the inevitable. It took a couple of second for Neil, suddenly unsure, to spring after her, avoiding the brief wave that could have been intended towards either of them.

"Who was that?" he demanded, and earned little more than a roll of the shoulders for his effort.

"You should remember him," Jane said, simply enough to shock him into stopping.

"I should?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Neil glanced over his shoulder, only to find that the stranger had disappeared, along with any trace of who he might have been to have been memorable.

17:30, December 01, 2065

The uniform drove her insane, but it wasn’t the horror she was officially obligated to wear. Unofficially, she had spoken to Gray about it; his rushed turnabout ended that he didn’t care what she wore, if anything at all, so long as she arrived for publicity’s sake. Fortune favored him that she wasn’t feeling particularly vindictive.

The green Class A jacket didn’t completely match the complimentarily colored trousers. The differentiation between them was slight, in color tone and style, but she didn’t care. For a moment, she had considered the alternate – all her own clothes of a lesser class, say… battle dress; not just for shock value, but to give certain officers another lame reason to complain about ethics.

The entire stratagem was driven from her mind as the glint of her reflection in mirror demanded attention. A full inset into the closet door, it depicted the room in opposite; the light, dim enough to see by, brought forth an illusion that couldn’t rightfully be ignored. She tugged her undershirt, slightly revealing the nothing that she hadn’t expected. Nothing new… not even the old scars she had once expected graced the pale skin beneath the white vestment – it seemed science was a wonderful thing in restoring the human body.

"Aren’t you done yet?" oblivious, Neil inched around the door, obscuring the view of the mirror in the effort.

"Yeah…"

"You don’t look done," he snorted, earning a not-quite-blithe glare in return. Within half a minute, the woman had re-tucked the shirt and was finishing the last of the coat buttons.

"Happy?" Jane asked, displaying her hands in a show of conclusion. Neil remained unconvinced.

"I could’a done it faster,"

She stared, at him as he was in her way. He didn’t move; she didn’t make him as she pinned her hair to the back of her neck.
 

She felt detached, as they finally left. The room, one half of home, seemed sad.

18:07, December 01, 2065

Publicity for publicity’s sake was a dangerous tactic, but it was among the last available without a full military state. The Phantoms seemed content, only attacking when there was a venture into their territory. The only problem was that Phantom territory blanketed the Earth, except for those few pockets of humanity left.

The effort of publicity lauded the efforts of the military, while glossing over the uncertain accidents and simple failures and loss that were certain to happen under the siege. It was for the general public; the enlistees, and a majority of the officers, were rarely treated to the same level of reverence on any given day, and so had a tendency to enjoy events as they came.

Ryan held to the convention spirit. As soon as he was able, he slipped away through the assembly.

Divergent, Gray stuck to the fringes. He was depressed, for several reasons, and he wasn’t interested hurting others through sympathy, or further depressing himself likewise.

A quick glance caught the last sight of his corporals as they vanished; the captain considered this as he watched a shoe pulled under the veiled table. No one else noticed, or didn’t care if they had, so he pretended not to – they rarely caused enough trouble at these things to be concerned about, and he knew exactly where to keep an eye on.

Under the table wasn’t as interesting as some of the reception, but it held its own appeal. The table itself sat in a quiet corner against the wall; complimented by white tablecloth, it provided secrecy and solitude befitting the crafty and serene. It was like and unlike prior under-table ventures; both tired to begin with, they dozed against the wall and one another, relaxed, not sleeping, though not far from it.

Trapped in the trance between the worlds, Jane stared at the translucent shadows that were left on the spread from the intermittent passersby. She was afraid; she didn’t know why, but she knew she didn’t like the affliction.

In one moment, everything changed.

Neil shifted, and his hand brushed against her belly; one gesture so haphazard, seemingly meaningless in the scheme of eternity – such that the odds seemed to favor otherwise – set the course of result for a panic…. And panic comes in many forms…

Jane, robbed of her blissful ignorance, knew her fear. She detested it, and so suddenly its cause.

"I tried," distant, feeling very much the simple observer of her own life, she thought she had, "It’s so hard…"

Emotion was a memory, or, worse, a fantasy – pure imagination.

Neil blinked, drowsily curious, as she slid away from him. She stared, irresolute or certain, and as indifferent towards either as she was to the end result.

"It’s over."
 
 

18:35, December 01, 2065

In a few short minutes, the world had been skewed beyond recognition, and snapped back to a normal that some didn’t recognize and others didn’t notice changed.

Gray nearly missed it.

As it was, no one noticed Jane surreptitiously slip from under the table, neither did they see Neil as he followed likewise. No one noticed either of them until they were halfway out, when Jane upped her step and Neil had to lunge to stop her. She only pushed him away.

"Why?"

The question he cited from time and again, yet was unable to remember when it had become an issue. Others, unsuspecting of the extent of the question, were forced by human nature to wonder the same.

"I’m sick of it," she snapped, "I don’t want to do this anymore."

"Wait!" she turned to leave, but his voice held through the final plea for compassion – a covetous appeal for selflessness and one last chance, "Don’t do this; I don’t want to be alone."

For a moment, he thought it must have worked.

"Then find someone else."

That was it – a simple solution of which he had no way to accomplish… in part because it was one that he didn’t ever want to. The honest stoicism shocked him. There was nothing left but to watch as she walked away.

Ryan stepped in, apparently to point out the obvious and nothing more. Neil was the recipient of a spiteful scowl from the woman as she fixed the few misplaced buttons; singularly, he was more distressed when she turned away again than from getting glowered at. Gray appeared over his shoulder, and he didn’t think he could live through an unwarranted round of questioning. The officer said nothing, and Neil still couldn’t stand it.

"What?" the thick word fell to nothing, as there was no answer to what wasn’t a true query.

The tech took a moment in turning away from his captain, and followed in the footsteps, if not the same train of thought, as the woman he loved.

9:43, December 04, 2065

If he could have stood the break in silence, Cpt. Edwards would have sworn until he was struck sick. He had enough trouble with his faith in womankind before Jane decided to pull a fit. He’d been relieved when she called up two weeks vacation, until he found that it left the issue of Neil to him. His opinion dropped further when he realized that he would have been the one to deal with it anyway, and was slowly on the decline as he mulled over the best way to draw the dejected soldier from the torpid catatonia.

Gray considered how long Neil had been here, sulking in his room. He wouldn’t even sit up until they positioned him thus, at which point they quickly atoned for the transgression. Between a sympathy for what must have been a highly uncomfortable slouch, and a glare by the man who otherwise refused to move for himself, it came to be a little too much.

"I’ve got an idea."

Under the sudden attention of his commander, Ryan smiled, earning just a little ire.

"Well?"

"I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not," the sergeant shrugged.

Gray’s sour expression didn’t lessen, "Then try it and see."

"You sure you want me to?"

"Yes," Gray maintained, while meaning no the whole time, and fully knowing it. Despite the fact, Ryan went about his plan, gathering Neil over his shoulder and leading the way straight to the shower. Oddly enough, the technician seemed to revive slightly by the time his bearer had the water running. The captain watched passively as Ryan dropped his encumbrance into the stall, and thought he saw the younger man make a desperate leap for freedom before the slider was slammed shut.

Ryan held the door closed with one hand while exhibiting the fulfilled ‘idea’ with the other. Gray sighed, shaking the doubt out of his head.

"So long as it’s a permanent fix…" the thought was interrupted as a sodden class A jacket landed by his right foot.

Gray swiftly decided to leave before being attacked by the matching pair of pants... or worse.

19:12, December 04, 2065

The hologram fizzed out as the power was cut, and Jane couldn’t help but snort at the lack of responsibility in dealing with the machine.

"You didn’t want to talk to Dad, right?" the knowing grin wasn’t enough to dissuade her from the obvious.

"No; though, I’m surprised he’d talk to you."

"He wants something," the soft, paranoid edge cut to a normally callous voice, "He’s been very persistent."

"Maybe he’s just lonely," Jane mumbled, making herself comfortable on the happily over-plushed sofa. The man huffed, pushing her feet out of his way and seating himself cautiously.

"I think there’s some truth to that."

The quiet was welcome, so long as it obeyed the bohemian atmosphere. The soothing familiarity brought rest in a welcome form, promising a more permanent comfort than the rest of life seemed interested in offering her.

Even then, there was a lot missing.

"Jake," at the sudden address, the man turned his head, "I miss Mom."

"I think we all do."

3:01, December 13, 2065

"What do you want?"

"I wanna know what you brought me."

"What do you want?" she asked again, as though stress and inflection played a part for the answer. In the interim, she dumped the contents of her pack onto her bed.

"You’re back early…." the observance was just that, not requiring an answer… but the explanation came anyway.

"I had a bad feeling."

"You had a bad feeling?" to Neil, it didn’t fit into his egocentric rationalization; he would have never have returned from leave early, thus forfeiting the spare time, on an impulse, "What, you wander into the wrong bar, or something?"

Jane slowed in her organization of her scattered things, essentials for and from travel, as she tried to comprehend the question. Once it came, there was nothing left but the counter, "That’s a stretch."

"A bit slow today, I see."

"Neil; what do you want?"

Admittedly a few seconds late, he managed, deftly, "You."

Catching on, Jane flatly changed her wording, "Why are you here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Neil chirped, carrying on with his previous bought of nonsense, "Think about it."

"Why are you here, right now?" the woman clenched her teeth and stared at him, mutely daring him to continue the tangent.

Intuitive to the boundary having been pressed, Neil dropped the bare flippancy. Behind his back, he flexed his fingers around the doorframe.

"The captain said he wanted to see you in twenty minutes…"

"Thank you," it was sincere, or supposed to be… it just didn’t sound that way.

"And that was about twenty minutes ago," Neil concluded, oblivious.

Jane couldn’t help feeling a bit wearied, "Wonderful. Can you get lost now?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because… Cpt. Edwards… he’s not in his office and he’s not at home or anything. He’s in the bay; ‘cause we’re on odd morning Patrol this week."

"Is that all?" the exasperation was showing easily, and it was bothering her.

"Yep."

The message was clear enough, although that Gray had sent Neil bothered her. The theoretic part of her randomly let her know that it was probably part of the communication. Didn’t mean she had to listen.

"Great. Now, would you-" Jane cropped the needless sentence as soon as she noticed – Neil had already left.

3:19, December 13, 2065

In the bay, there was much to be done, most likely for nothing, and little time in which to do it. Jane, being nearly an hour late, stuck close to Ryan and enjoyed her time. It was the smartest thing to do, as she wasn’t interested in being reprimanded by Gray, and Neil, already sulking on his own, was out of the question.

It didn’t take long to prepare for patrol, it rarely did, but, for once, Cpt. Edwards rushed it.
 
 

23:52, December 15, 2065

On a consistent schedule, biannually in the case of Underground, many of the lounges would close for repair and maintenance. Extensive cleaning, not just the everyday, five-minute mop over, was part of the operation. And before it could be cleaned, it had to be reconstructed from the mess the few maintenance workers had made of it.

The floor had been torn up, to be replaced with a fresh layer of cement. Ignored by the labor crew, Neil stole off with some discarded fragments; with them, he fled to the stair landing, and proceeded to break the fabricate rocks apart. The crunching of the pieces wasn’t deafening, but just loud enough so that gritty footfalls were drown out in a pitch of scraping.

So, when the man turned his head at something inconstant on the edge of his vision, he startled at the nondescript boots that had materialized beside him.

"I know I’m not exactly your favorite person in the world, but would you please not try to scare me to death next time?"

"Can’t promise."

Jane sat down, and Neil turned to examining one of his cement shards.

"Trouble sleeping?"

"Som’m like that."

He wouldn’t look at her, concentrating instead on the powder he had grated. He dusted the grains together, flattened, piled, and arranging them at his fingertips.

"Ryan… was tellin’ me, that I should ask you if this’s what you really want," drawl, but the tech smirked, "I told ‘im, you know what you want, and can make up your own mind."

It wasn’t what he wanted to believe. Jane knew that. She also knew he was trying, in his way, to face reality for what it was. From what she knew, his way must have been harsh.

"First love never lasts, does it?"

Neil paused, brushing the dust from his hands, "Mine didn’t; don’t know anyone else’s that… is not true; I guess it does, but it’s not really the same… same…." He sighed, in a breath, " y’know what I mean.

"And I knew it was getting bad; but I didn’t think you’d… I thought I had time to do something about it."

"I didn’t mean to hurt you like I did, I just couldn’t stay," Neil recognized the brusque apology, as roundabout as it was, it didn’t help much.

"Yeah; so…" he concluded, "You don’t hate me, but you don’t like me enough to love me. Where’s that leave us?"

"Back at the beginning," Jane resolved, easier than he thought possible, "Hopefully a little less rushed, this time."

Standing to leave, she caught his full scrutiny, and he huffed as he watched her go.

"Goodnight."

The soft, almost fragile word stopped the woman. For a moment, she turned to look at him, and she smiled.

And so did he.