A/N: Although this is almost entirely a Men in Black/Signs crossover, there will be various minor inclusions from other franchises, which I will not give away and allow you to pick up on. The backdrop of this fiction draws from Men in Black, Men in Black II, Signs, and uses Men in Black III as "flavor" material, acknowledging certain elements while discarding others.

1

K didn't feel right, sitting behind the desk his old friend and superior had sat in for so many years. His position as head of the Men in Black was strictly ad-hoc, but it was an unspoken assumption among the agents that K would be keeping that position permanently. It wasn't like the agency had anyone else to replace him. He gazed out into the MiB headquarters through the glass walls of his elevated office. He didn't like the thought of it being his office. K thought about Zed. He was mourning for him, in a somewhat secret way. K was a man of little emotion; he made a reputation of himself in the agency of showing very little feeling. He had something of a block in his mind, one of his own design, to keep the serious feelings at bay, to keep him emotionally detached, it was tailor made for a situation just like this one, but as it seemed to K, his block was nowhere near as effective as he had always believed.

Two weeks had passed, two long and frustrating weeks, since the floating lights had left the sky, since the unnamed alien's siege on the planet Earth had ended, since Zed's death. The Men in Black, for once in their entire existence, had been too late to avert tragedy. It had all happened so fast, one day it was all business as usual, the next day, crop circles appeared worldwide. The Men in Black didn't know what to make of the crop circles, their appearance was widespread and immediate, but the MiB had received no message, no contact was established and no ships were detected, so when lights appeared in the sky over every crop circle that had appeared, the Men in Black were just as surprised as anybody. Within a week, the aliens had attacked, killed and consumed roughly a third of the Earth's population, and hastily left upon the discovery of their weakness, of all things, it was water.

It started in the Middle East, the news commended the discovery to a small boy with a water gun, but the entire world seemed to have figured it all out more or less at once. Britain presumably solved the problem before they even realized it. Crop circles appeared across the UK, but no sightings followed, they were lucky enough to have a climate marked with excessive rain. Less could be said about most of the United States.

Initially, the alien's departure had been cause for great celebration worldwide, for a short period of time, there was a sense of triumph among the people of Earth it was a sort of "the war is over" mentality. Within a couple of days of that celebration however, the entire world, as it seemed, went into a state of mourning. K thought back to Zed again. Zed had a gut feeling when the lights appeared in the sky, he knew it wasn't going to end well, his feeling was only cemented when people living around the crop circles started to disappear. When that news started to travel, Zed left to be with his younger sister and her family in New Hampshire. Everyone in the Men in Black had left people behind in the lives they chose to give up, some agents talked a lot about their past lives, and others hardly mentioned theirs, Zed never talked about his sister. K couldn't help but think that had Zed decided to stay in New York, he would have been fine; he would have been sitting at the desk K so reluctantly sat before. Zed wasn't the only agent to leave and reconnect with his loved ones when the situation became dire though, and he wasn't the only one to lay down his life for the loved ones he left behind.

K tried think of something else, anything else. He gazed out into the headquarters, big, shiny, white and empty. K consciously realized that it was the emptiest he had ever seen the place. Nearly half of the agents had decided to do exactly the same thing Zed had done, almost all of them had died. So the MiB was operating on half the manpower and on top of that, there were no visiting aliens to be seen, the visiting aliens were really the ones who filled up the MiB headquarters, but they were all gone. In fact, almost all friendly aliens living on Earth had packed up and left the planet immediately upon the appearance of the crop circles, they knew something the Men in Black did not, but that was just another question the agency didn't have an answer to. Had it been 10 years previous, the Men in Black may have been able to have a handle on the departing aliens, but Earth's resident alien population had quadrupled in recent years, the Men in Black weren't ready for a mass exodus.

No matter what he tried, K couldn't keep Zed out of his mind; part of him didn't want to believe his old friend was gone, after every near apocalypse, every tough negation, every unknown attack, every death ray threat, potential alien plague pandemic, Zed had finally bitten the bullet. K let out a deep sigh, he was so deep in thought that he hadn't heard his office door open, but he did feel a reassuring hand rest upon his shoulder, it was his partner, J.

"Ya know," started J. "There wasn't another man in the whole universe Zed would've rather seen in that chair." J's voice was filled with rare genuine sympathy, no humor or sarcasm.

"I know, slick." K responded, trying to force a half-smile.

"And, uh, I know you're the head honcho and all," J said, somewhat nervously. "But I just wanted to remind you that there is some stuff we gotta' get done one of these days."

"Yeah, I know." K said quietly. "I got the sighting reports this morning."

"What's the word?" J queried.

"Well over 200 sightings nationwide, but with the widespread paranoia, there's no telling whether or not they're all genuine." K said, coldly.

"I just wish we could just neuralize the population and let them get on with their damn lives." J commented.

"I hear ya, kid, I hear ya." K concurred, gesturing agreement with his hands. K stood up, pushed his chair in and faced J. "Well, we better get going." He said, casually.

"Right now?" J questioned, surprised.

"Yep, no time like the present," K very dryly remarked, "and the sooner we get this done the sooner we get on with our damn lives." K added, maintaining his casual demeanor.

"What lives, man?" J asked with a chuckle. "This is all we do."

"Fair enough, come on." K said quickly, walking out of the office, with J walking quickly right behind him.

"Where we going first?" J asked, walking at K's side.

"Maine." K replied, simply.

"You driving?"

"You better believe it, kid."