Adrian sat on the porch for several hours lost in thought, recalling his time before waking up in the aliens’ facility. His captors on Earth had been unkind to him. Unkind to everyone. The deaths of his fellow test subjects haunted him. Sometimes, he wondered if it was his fault they died. Their screams echoed in his head, drowning out the sounds of nature that surrounded him. He remembered them, one by one. Each experiment. Each scream. Each death. Each feeling of loss and hopelessness. The ever-present fear that he would be next.

He hadn’t expected to wake back up when he was submerged in his pod. An eternity compressed into a moment. That was the feeling Adrian had while frozen in that pod. He shuddered.

The scent of spices wafting from the kitchen caught his attention and the faint sound of sizzling meat filled his ears, replacing the screams that echoed in his head. He stood up and went inside to see what was going on. Reya was standing in front of the stove, cooking thin slices of meat in a pan. On the island behind her was a large bowl of salad, with strange vegetables he’d never seen before on a cutting board on the counter. Mushrooms sat in the sink, freshly rinsed and ready to be cut.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Reya jumped in fright, not having heard him come in over the sound of her cooking. Adrian winced, not having meant to startle her. Again.

“I’m on cooking duty,” she said, a hand on her chest above her rapidly beating heart. “Since I don’t have any work to do here like the others, I figured I’d keep myself occupied and make lunch for everyone. One moment.” She turned back around to face the stove and flipped the meat over with a pair of metal tongs, facing Adrian once again when she was finished.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Reya hesitated. “It’d be great if you could help cut the mushrooms but . . .” she trailed off.

“I get it. You don’t trust me around the knives. I’m sure Jyn would be especially mad if he caught me holding one.”

Reya looked guilty. “Yeah,” she said lamely. Adrian had correctly guessed what was on her mind when she’d hesitated.

“It’s fine, really. I’d probably feel the same way if I were in your position. Mind if I sit and watch instead? There isn’t much else for me to do either.”

“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable,” Reya motioned towards the table. Adrian sat down and watched her cook with a hungry gaze. “It’ll be ready soon, in case you were wondering.”

“Is there enough for me?” Adrian dared to hope.

“Of course there is! Why wouldn’t there be?” Reya took some of the meat off of the pan and added it to the pile on the plate next to the stove. She added some more meat and seasoned it, keeping a watchful eye on it as it sizzled.

Adrian shrugged. “I’ve only been given those bars to eat so far, so I figured that maybe I’d have to keep eating them.”

Reya was appalled at the thought. “You mean that’s all they’ve fed you? What about since you arrived here?”

“We arrived here the same day you did, except in the morning. And the ration bars weren’t so bad. They kept me somewhat full. Quite tasty too.”

“You think ration bars taste good?” Reya laughed. “How could anybody like those? They’re the blandest things in existence. It’s like whoever invented them tried to suck the joy out of eating.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective. Beats the food I was eating before by a long shot. Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help?”

Reya eyed the table. “You could help set the table. I still don’t know where everything is, and I’m kind of busy cooking.”

“Great,” Adrian beamed. Standing up, he walked around the island to join her and began sifting through the cupboards. “How many people will be joining us?” He located the plates and took out two of them, setting them down on the table next to one another.

“It should be you, me, Rann, and maybe Tassie. Depends on whether or not she can get her nose out of her ship. I swear she’s married to that thing sometimes. I don’t think the others will be joining.”

“It’s a pretty cool ship,” Adrian admitted. “We don’t really have ships like that where I’m from. Well, we have ships, just nothing as sophisticated as that.”

“What’s home like for you? Tell me about it.” The question had been on the tip of her tongue for some time now since learning about him, but she hadn’t found the right moment to ask.

“We have towns and cities, jobs and schools. We have cars and bikes – not the hovering kind, mind you. I imagine it would be pretty similar to life here, minus the whole secret safehouse thing. The only difference would be the technology level. You guys are more advanced than we are.” Adrian continued to tell Reya about his culture back home, which fascinated her to no end. They compared and contrasted different aspects of their respective societies and while they discovered some stark differences, they found common ground in others.

When Reya asked about their religion, Adrian looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Religion is a complicated topic,” he explained. “We’ve had wars over religion due to conflicting views or even differing interpretations of the same religion. Really touchy topic back home.” He gave some examples of different religions to prove his point.

Reya was floored at the thought of multiple religions coexisting. “How come you have so many? How do people pick one? Which one is correct?” The last question caused Adrian to laugh.

“Every religion thinks they’re the correct one. Some people are born into it, brought up by their families to adopt certain views. Others simply choose as life progresses and their faith changes. I’m impressed that you guys settled on just the one. Tell me more about it.”

Reya thought for a moment to find the best way to describe their religion to somebody who’d never heard about it before. She took the last of the meat off the pan and set the plate down on a piece of cork in the centre of the table. Going to the fridge, she took out pitchers of milk and juice and set them down. “Well,” she started, “fundamentally, we believe that the universe was created by four gods that cover the cycles of life, death and rebirth. We have two heavens and two hells, each one governed by its respective god.”

Adrian blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that answer. “How does that work?” he inquired. Adrian wasn’t the most religious person, but he immediately began comparing it to the few he did know about.

“The first layer of heaven is where souls go to be reincarnated, returned to the ebb and flow of life and death. If they fell to corruption during their lives, they go to the first layer of hell to be purified and then reintroduced back into the cycle. When a soul feels they’re done their journey, they go to the final heaven, where they rest for eternity. And souls that are incorrigible, too evil, go to the final hell where they remain trapped for eternity, never to return to the cycle.”

“That’s surprisingly complex,” Adrian said, mulling over what he’d just been told. “How is one judged on whether or not they go to heaven or hell?”

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“We leave that judgment to the gods. Of course, we have guiding tenets to help us stay on the right path, but they’re really more suggestions rather than absolutes.” Reya began serving salad and meat to the plates that were on the table. When she was done, she called for the others to come and join them. It wasn’t long before Rann arrived.

“Ooh, meat,” Rann said, eyeing the still warm pile on the table. “Better yet, meat I didn’t have to cook.” She sat at the table and eyed the empty chair. “Who else is supposed to come?”

“Tassie, but I’m not sure if she heard me.”

“Hold on, I’ll send her a message.” Using her comms, Rann pinged Tassie and instructed her to come and eat. After a bit of grumbling on the other end of the line, Tassie gave in, listening to the wishes of her very hungry stomach.

The group waited another minute for her to arrive before digging in. Adrian eyed his food, picking at it with his utensils before cutting a piece of meat and bringing it to his mouth. Flavour exploded onto his tongue, overwhelming him. Tears stung his eyes as he ate his first good bite of food in years. Reya noticed his reaction and paused her eating, asking if he was ok. He swallowed, waiting for the pain to come. When it didn’t, he began to cry freely, eating another bite.

Reya worried about whether there was something wrong with her food. The others also stopped and stared at Adrian, uneasy at seeing the grown man cry over such a simple a meal. “Adrian, is everything alright?” Reya asked again, concerned her food toxic for him. He was an alien, after all. While she fretted over whether or not she her meal might accidentally kill him, Adrian continued to cry, trying his best to get a hold of himself.

“No, everything’s fine,” he sniffed. “It’s just, this is the best thing I’ve eaten in I don’t know how long. And it doesn’t hurt when I eat it.” Reya stared at him softly while Tassie and Rann stared at him with pity.

At the mention of food causing pain, Reya flashed back to food she’d been fed during her time in captivity, the excruciating agony it caused still fresh in her mind. “Did they feed you purple bread?” Reya asked, holding her breath.

Adrian paused and stared at her quizzically, brushing away his tears. “Among other things, yes. How did you know that?”

An inkling of Adrian’s experience dawned on Reya. She looked at him in understanding, wondering what else he’d been fed that warranted such a strong reaction. “Because they fed me the same thing,” she admitted with difficulty. Adrian’s eyes widened.

“You were captured?” Adrian asked in disbelief. He’d never been sure whether he was the only test subject at the facility and chose to ask a more probing question. “Did they experiment on you too?”

Reya looked distinctly uncomfortable and tugged at the edge of her sleeve. “Not exactly. I got captured and they held me captive. I was freed, eventually. But not before they fed me that bread,” she said with a shudder. Rann and Tassie shared a look. Reya rarely talked about her time in captivity. Not knowing what to do, they opted to remain silent and watched the exchange between Reya and Adrian, hoping to learn more.

Now it was Adrian’s turn to look at Reya softly. “You didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that. What they fed you was cruel and unusual punishment.” The look of understanding in Adrian’s eyes surprised Reya. Since her return, she’d had nobody she could relate to about her experiences when she was held in captivity. She never thought she would find companionship in the form of Adrian, of all people.

“At first,” Adrian began, “that bread was the only thing they offered to feed me. I starved myself, not trusting their strange food, but I was forced to eat it when I became desperate.”

“They starved me until I was too weak to resist eating their food if I wanted to live,” Reya said, adding her experience to Adrian’s. “I knew it. They knew it. I think I’d have rather died. It was awful.”

Adrian gave her a slow nod. “It was. Not to mention the taste.”

“I remember the taste,” Reya grimaced. “There’s no way I could ever forget that. I actually gagged on the first bite. I wouldn’t have eaten it if they hadn’t forced it back down my throat.”

Rann and Tassie were lost. They followed the conversation just fine and gleaned important details on both Reya and Adrian’s time in captivity but couldn’t weigh in on it. They felt like strangers listening in who had no right to comment while the pair beside them swapped horror stories. Rann felt an aching feeling in her gut, knowing that she’d have no way of ever relating to their experience. It ate at her. She was glad when they finally stopped and changed the topic.

“I guess my reaction was a little over the top. Sorry about that,” Adrian apologized.

Reya shook her head. “It’s fine, I get it. I had a similar reaction to hospital food, of all things, when I was rescued.” Adrian chuckled at the thought of hospital food being considered fine cuisine.

“Still, thank you for making this for us,” Adrian said as he ate another bite. The meat was slightly salted and had a gamey undertone. Combined with the spices that Reya used, it provided a rich flavour that he savoured as he felt it melt in his mouth.

“You’re welcome,” Reya smiled. “Never thought my cooking would bring tears of joy. Quite the compliment.”

The mood at the table lightened considerably as the meal progressed, a light banter going on between the others. Tassie and Rann still felt a bit awkward after Adrian’s display but tried not to let it show as they chatted away. They spent most of their time answering Adrian’s questions about their society and technology. He was hungry for information about the new world he’d been thrust into.

“So a data slate is basically just a tablet?” Adrian finally asked. “Why not just call it a tablet?”

Rann shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it just never stuck. You had something similar back home?” Adrian’s lack of insight into their society was very telling into how his worked. Rann learned quite a bit from Adrian just by the questions he was asking. Strangely enough, he stayed away from the topic of weapons.

“Yeah. Not quite the same looking, but something similar.”

When the meal was over, Tassie returned back to her work on the ship while Adrian offered to help clean up. He shooed Reya away from the dishes, claiming that it was the least he could do after what she’d done for him. Besides, there was no way he’d be a menace with a sponge in hand. Reya relented and made her way over to the living room where she set herself up to watch some of her favourite shows. To her delight, she was able to stream directly to the holoscreen, a definite upgrade from her data slate.

While Adrian was washing the dishes, Jyn and Beor came in to grab a bite to eat. Jyn was displeased at the sight of Adrian cleaning but didn’t say anything. They both ate quickly and were soon gone, back to their patrol.

When Adrian was done, he didn’t have much else to do. The others were busy, and Reya was engrossed in her drama. He decided to leave them alone and go explore the area. He passed by Rann and told her where he was going. She told him it was fine as long as he stayed nearby. He was under no illusions that he wasn’t somehow being tracked as he ventured into the forest behind the house.

He marvelled at the different flora that he found. The trees in the section of the forest he was in resembled maple trees from back home, except with a brownish-blue bark and blue and purple leaves. It gave the forest an otherworldly feel as he walked through it. He came across a large pitcher plant as tall as he was nestled between two trees. It was a beautiful magenta colour, with bright pink spots peppered all over it and released a pleasant, sweet scent. Bright orange mushrooms with white dots formed a ring around it on the ground.

Looking around, he spotted more such plants and mushrooms sprinkled throughout the forest. Small white and yellow bell flowers grew on vines that glowed with a faint phosphorescence. He leaned forward and smelled one of the flowers, delighting in the delicate scent.

The ground crunched underfoot as his steps disturbed old growth and branches. He found dark blue shrubs that produced bright red berries the size of cherries. He was tempted to eat one but wasn’t sure if they were poisonous or not. He would have to ask Reya later.

Adrian continued his exploration for the rest of the afternoon, getting lost in the beautiful sights of nature. There was more for him to discover, and he was endlessly fascinated by the differences between what was found on Earth compared to Verilia. After so many hours spent outside, Rann got worried. She found him and brought him back in time for dinner.

Reya cooked yet another wonderful meal, for which Adrian was eternally grateful. He didn’t break down in tears this time but was very appreciative of Reya’s efforts. Eimir had woken up and joined them. There wasn’t much talking that occurred as they ate, Adrian’s presence still off-putting to most of the crew. Jyn treated him like air throughout their time at the table, not bothering to interact with him. He was more interested in talking with Reya and Beor.

Adrian didn’t mind. He looked on upon the scene with fondness as he watched the others talk and crack the occasional joke. Small arguments broke out between Jyn and Tassie, forcing Rann to intervene and shut them down. Eimir remained a mostly silent observer to the ongoings, preferring to listen rather than participate.

It reminded Adrian of home. Of the little moments he used to spend with his sister and her family. Of the moments he knew he would never have again. They’re gone, Adrian told himself in-between bites. It’s time I accept that I’ll never see them again. Adrian watched the interactions between the team members with a bittersweet feeling. He would never be a part of that, not in the same way the others were. To them, he was just a job.