The walk home felt a lot longer than usual, Pirra thought.

The door opened for her, and she threw the old human hat inside, just missing the chair, so it landed on the floor.

Damn it.

Well, it was a miss like a lot else tonight, she thought bitterly.

Her toy gun had been lost hours ago; someone else had probably picked it up and wandered off. But it had her ID chip in it, so they'd return it later.

Alexander was likely in bed still, and she tried to be quiet as she stepped across the room, but managed to hit her leg on a chair.

"Sky damn it!" she said softly. "Fuck," she added a moment later. It was a very useful human word.

Making her way to the bedroom, she opened the door quietly, peering in.

But the bed was empty.

She checked the digital readout on the bathroom, but he wasn't in there. He wasn't even in the apartment.

Where was Alexander, she wondered, alarms ringing in her head. But if he had gone to get medical help, she would have been informed.

For a moment she felt a great burden of guilt - what if she had missed the call because she had been enjoying the parade with Iago?

But no, she knew that they wouldn't have left some silent message. It would have been a maximum personal alert, and there was no way to miss that.

She double-checked her messages, but there was nothing about him.

"Find Alexander," she told her system.

It told her; level 147. That was only a few levels below their apartment, in the general housing for civilians. Why was he there?

He was moving her way. Perhaps he'd just gone for a walk? She couldn't fathom why he'd gone down there for one, though. But she could meet him on his way back.

Her steps had more urgency as she went out towards him. Something was weird. Or maybe, she reasoned, it just felt weird because she'd had a strange day.

Going down a level, she intercepted Alex just as he was coming up a ramp from the deck below.

"Pirra," he said, surprised. "I didn't think you'd be back this early."

"I didn't want to stay late if I was alone," she said truthfully. She looked him over with a professional Response eye. "You seem to be feeling better."

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"I do feel better," he admitted. He wasn't in his costume, she noted, just normal civilian clothes.

"Did a walk help?" she asked.

"Well . . . mostly talking to Father Sair," Alexander said. He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but stopped himself.

"You went to visit the priest?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah," he said, looking uncomfortable. People were passing them; no one paying them an impolite amount of attention, but it was a somewhat awkward situation.

"Let's go home," she said.

They walked back in silence. She kept waiting for him to say more, but even as they went inside he headed straight to the bedroom without a word.

She followed.

"How did the priest help?" she asked.

"We just talked about things," he said.

"Like what?" she prompted. "You don't have to tell me, I just . . . I didn't know you were feeling bothered so deeply."

Had something upset him so much that he'd made himself sick?

"I just find myself questioning things," he said. "I've always been a man of science, and of course I still believe in it. But things like the Leviathans, the thing that affected Iago, the . . . whatever it was on that pirate ship that left you and your entire team so hurt . . ." He shook his head. "That's not science. I can't explain it."

"It's just science we don't understand yet," Pirra said. "You know that."

"Is it? Is it really?" he asked. "Because they don't seem to make sense. People lose their minds trying to understand them with science and maybe that's because science can't figure it out. Science is a philosophy based on observation, but observing this stuff makes people lose their minds, and even what doesn't seems to have no rhyme or reason. Maybe this isn't something we have to think through so much as . . ."

"Just believe some dogma about?" Pirra asked, trying not to sound too skeptical but unable to stop herself. "I don't think unchanging religious views are going to be the solution. I've seen these things firsthand, you know that; I've done it again and again. I'm terrified of them, but I know that one day we'll figure them out."

"That's another thing!" Alexander said. "I worry about you every time you go on a mission! Even normal ones; what if there's some craziness that comes out of nowhere and you get severely hurt? We all know what happens to some people. Hell, the entire Union has stopped all our colonization at the mere idea that maybe we woke up the thing at Terris with reckless expansionism. And who’s to say that's not right?"

He sat down on the bed, burying his face in his hands. "I always thought I had the universe figured out. Like, I knew the basis on which it worked. But now I feel shaken."

Pirra sat down next to him, putting a hand around him, leaning her head on his shoulder.

Time after time he had to sit and wait while she went off into danger. He was always there to support her when she returned. Even when she did idiotic things, no matter how well intentioned.

But this time she could be here for him.

"The universe is bigger and more frightening than we ever thought," she said softly. "And however we do it, Alex, we're going to do it together."

He leaned back against her, silent for several minutes.

Pirra was content, just to be close to him. The wounds of the day, even the deeper ones, seemed to fade, and she decided she would not bother him with those things. They didn't really matter.

"Did you have a nice time at the party?" Alexander finally asked her, softly.

"I did," she replied. "Next year will be even better when we go as Bonnie and Clyde and steal the parade."

He chuckled weakly. "I just couldn't make myself face the crowds in my state. But like you say; next year."

"Absolutely," she said, smiling.

On some level, though, she felt antsy. Worried about his state of mind, mostly. But another thought popped into her mind, unbidden; he had lied to her. He had said he'd been sick. And while she could understand that on some level . . .

He'd also hadn't said he was sorry.