MERCURY, NEVADA, 2040.

"I'm so sick of these powdered meals," Fiona groans as they mix a pack of instant oatmeal, the goop barely sliding off her plastic spoon. "I just want pasta."

Fiona can see the light at the end of this all-too-spontaneous road trip. At the border of Nevada, they've got less than eight hours left on the drive before finding themselves in the anonymity of Sacramento. Between the skyscrapers and hordes of people on the streets, it'll be near-impossible for Shailene and LB to find her in the next little bit. Fiona and Abin only have to wait for nightfall before they can finish off the drive and continue their scrappy living in a shoe-box rental.

But for some reason, being so close to the end only feels so much more torturous to go through the motions. Especially when the motions include sitting in dingy motel rooms with the blinds tightly shut until nightfall.

"Pasta?" Abin's eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"Pasta." Fiona sighs dreamily, her lumpy oatmeal forgotten.

Abin is silent for a beat. "What's that?"

Fiona raises her eyebrows, wondering if there's something wrong with the translation device. "You know. Spaghetti, fettuccine, pappardelle..."

"You're just making up words." Abin's eyebrows are scrunched together in confusion, and he says the words not as an accusation but an obvious statement.

Fiona pauses, stuck again by the fact that he looks so normal with his boyish features despite being from the 16th century. "I guess it's just like... noodles for white people. Did you have noodles?"

Abin's face is so baffled that he almost looks irritated, ever confused by the abundance of new technologies and inventions since his time. "Then why don't you just call them that? Of course we have noodles."

She laughs from across the table, flicking some of her sticky oatmeal into his bowl. The corners of Abin's lips lift in response but sours as he takes another bite of the oatmeal. She'd been so hesitant around him after... what happened at the carnival, unable to talk to him without cringing at the moment all over again. But as much as Abin's stoicism drove her crazy when she first met him, Fiona had to appreciate it now. If her outrageous advances had made him uncomfortable, he does nothing to show it now.

"I have an idea," Fiona says, watching him grimace at another bite of oatmeal. "Why don't we check out Cacio e Papa?"

"Stop making up words," Abin says, his trademark frown returning. He scratches his head, his ever-fluffy hair always sticking up haphazardly like he's just rolled out of bed. "You're just trying to confuse me even more."

Fiona rolls her eyes and jumps up to open the window a peep. "No," she says slowly, pointing at the desolate Italian restaurant across the street. "Cacio e Papa. I haven't seen a single soul enter since we've gotten here, let alone anyone in this town at all."

Abin's frown deepens. "I don't know if that's the best idea. We're so close to Sacramento and I thought you didn't want to risk getting caught again."

Maybe it's the disgusting oatmeal or the endless days of driving that's consumed their lives. Or maybe it's the way that he's looking at her that makes her forget all about farmhouse explosions and tailing cars. It all feels so far away now. She just wants one normal day and Mercury, Nevada seems like the place to do it.

"We'll get takeout. We'll be quick."

Abin's eyebrows scrunch together again. "What's takeout?"

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The highway between their motel feels open and exposed, but it is entirely uneventful. A few abandoned office buildings and a strip mall sit on their left, with an infinite road on their right. They drive the car up and down the highway a few times – just in case – before pulling up into the side of the restaurant and slowing to a park.

A tiny bell jangles when they enter the restaurant, alerting their presence. No one responds. There is no hostess at the booth nor any patrons sitting around for that matter. Just the distant sound of clanging pots.

"Here you go," Fiona says, plucking a take-out menu and handing it to Abin. She watches as his eyes focus on the levitating translations, produced by his Sheltersuit. "Pick any pasta you want and we'll get out of here."

"Get out of here?" A burly Italian man comes rushing into the room, whipping off his chef's hat and slapping an upside-down name tag onto his chest. "Oh, no, I don't think so."

Abin tenses, ready for a fight but Fiona laughs instead. "We're just here for takeout. Are you the waiter?"

"Of course I am," the man responds, jutting out his chin. "And I'm also the chef, the owner, the host, the dishwasher, and anything else you need me to be to have the best meal of your lives. Come in, come in!"

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The chef/owner/host/dishwasher/waiter ushers them in, starting to unravel Abin's robes much to his dismay. "I, uh, want to keep my jacket on," Abin says, tucking his scrolls deeper into his sleeves.

"Suit yourself!" The man jovially leads them to a table and pulls out a pad of paper. "My name is Giuseppe and I am Cacio e Papa. What brings you in today?"

"We just wanted to get takeout," Abin says, looking pointedly at Fiona as though this boisterous Italian man is all her fault. "Before we hit the road again."

"Traffic doesn't look bad at all," Giuseppe quips, pulling a bottle of sparkling water out of nowhere and pouring some in each glass. "I have some new recipes that I've been wanting to have taste tested. Why don't you stay for a bit?"

Fiona perks up, fanning herself with the menu and ignoring Abin's look. "What do you have for us to taste test?"

"Shouldn't we get back on the road, honey?" Abin frowns. Despite his forced voice and disapproving look, Fiona feels a familiar flutter at the words that only spur her on even more.

"We can try some of this up-and-coming chef's menu, can't we, sweetie?" Fiona smiles back, innocently tucking a lock of her titian hair behind her ear.

Giuseppe looks at them back and forth before whipping out some cloth napkins and laying it across their laps. "Well, since you asked! With all those supply chain issues and extinct ingredients, I've had to get a little creative with my nonna's traditional cuisine. Let me get the first course started."

"Sir," Abin says, still looking out the window nervously every few seconds. "My wife and I are very antisocial. We don't even like seeing other guests in the same restaurants as us, so we should really get going."

Giuseppe freezes for a moment, staring at them like they are the most bizarre couple he has ever seen. Which, to his credit, could be true. Then his face splits into a grin and he keels over, guffawing in a breathless laughter. "Sonny, no one's been here in weeks! The last person to come in just wanted to sell me a copy of their bible. Trust me, you and your wife can be antisocial all you want. You don't even have to talk to me, if you don't want to. Now, for the first course."

The duo smiles politely until he leaves. Fiona flicks Abin's arm playfully. "Lighten up. You heard him – no one's been here in weeks."

Abin ignores her and shuts the blinds to the window next to them, still looking around as though Shailene was around the corner and ready to capture them. "I don't understand how you're being so casual all of a sudden."

"It's our last chance to be normal before we have to hide like vermin," Fiona says, folding the cloth napkin in her lap, feeling particularly fancy. "I want to enjoy it while we can."

"There's nothing normal about this world," Abin says, running his fingers along the Sheltersuit that melds against his skin. "I thought you were the one who told me that."

Fiona's smile dampens slightly at his words, and she purses her lips. "I know." She looks down at fingers, which have been chewed through. Fiona's always had a nail biting habit, for as long as she's known. It's what kept her sane.

"I'm sorry," Abin says immediately, leaning forward to grab her hand and make eye contact. "I didn't mean to–"

"No," Fiona says, folding her hands in her lap before he can touch them. "It's okay, it's just... sometimes I wish I had a normal life. I wish it so badly that my head hurts sometimes." She's never said the words out loud before, even though she's sure it's written all over her face.

"What's stopping you?" Abin asks. "Left Behind? We've escaped from them now."

"No," Fiona repeats. "Yes. I don't know. My life was normal before, in Korea. My Korea looked very different from your Korea. There were skyscrapers, bustling crowds along the pier, neon lights at all of my favorite restaurants." The memories are like a whisper in her brain and it becomes more and more of a strain to hear them. But Fiona remembers. "My mother always wanted to leave but my dad would never abandon his homeland."

Abin's focusing on her face so intensely that Fiona doesn't dare look up to meet his lilac eyes. "But he passed away."

Fiona looks up. "Climate-related pneumonia. A lot of people were getting it then, although no one knew why back then. My mother was always such a passionate scientist and she insisted we move to America, where I would get bullied less for being mixed and she and my father could get involved with the cause. But my dad was a pacifist. He loved to code and he didn't care for the politics of it all." Fiona blinks a few times, just to make sure that no tears pooled in her eyes at Cacio e Papa. "He would probably hate what I'm doing now," she said, with no humor in her voice.

"So your mother moved you and got involved as soon as he passed," Abin says gravely, rubbing his slim wrists together. "That's... something."

Fiona takes a long sip of her water, looking at nothing in particular. She's never told this story to anyone. Never needed to. Fiona's never knew anyone beyond Left Behind, and they're all familiar with what happened. "She put me into homeschool with Shailene and Evie, and we had to live very discreetly as soon as we moved. They weren't terrorists yet, but they couldn't exactly be too public about their intentions either." She taps her chewed-up nails against the table, thinking back to all the rage and pent-up bitterness she never showed Madison Leigh, who was grieving in her own way. "I hated her sometimes. But how can I blame her?"

Fiona bites her lip, and repeats the question, this time more to herself than Abin. "How can I hate my dead mother?"

"You are allowed to."

"But I truly, unequivocally, cannot blame her for what she did," Fiona says, her voice scratchy. "It's why I keep going back to LB."

"Why wouldn't you?" Abin asks, his usually soft voice hardened into a bitter whisper. "A child should never be involved in something like Left Behind."

"Because she just wanted to make the world a better place for me," Fiona says, the drumming of her fingers getting more intense on the banged-up table. "She's one of the few who actually tried to stop the government. You can't blame the woman for having a moral compass."

Abin looks like he wants to say more, maybe even to reach out and grab her hands again, but Fiona is jolted out of her daze when Giuseppe pops out of the kitchen, whistling a jaunty tune. "You're still here? I mean, of course you are! I mean, I'm not supposed to talk to you."

Fiona laughs, trying her best to pretend she wasn't about to spill some of her most bitter thoughts to some random monk she'd met only a few weeks ago. "You can ignore my dear husband. I think we'll dine in and try your new tasting menu today."

Giuseppe can barely believe his ears. "Coming right up! For the first course, you will be trying my delicious tofurkey parmigiana, baked with dehydrated cheese and vintage Campbell's tomato sauce." He rushes off to grab the plates, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Abin grabs his glass of sparkling water. "Sounds delicious."

Fiona smiles at him weakly, trying to tell him something she doesn't have the words for. "So one last day of normalcy?"

Abin sighs but there is no trace of his usual frown. He clinks his glass against hers. "To one last day of normalcy, Fiona."