Elias had slept late. Well, late for him. He'd woken up at 9, which he supposed was still far too early for someone like Shard or Larry. The point was, he had slept later than usual. But it was noon now, and Elias was pretty sure that he was fully awake. So what else could explain Shard giggling to himself...about nothing that anyone else could see?

Shard sat by himself in his room, door open, seemingly oblivious to Elias. And yes, he was giggling. "Shard?" Elias asked. "Is everything okay?"

Shard chuckled now, shaking his head, but not in response to Elias. "Shard?" Elias asked again, a little louder.

This time, Shard noticed him. "Oh, hey, Elias." Another chuckle. "Man, I wish you could read this."

Elias furrowed his brow. "Read what?"

Shard, in response, tapped his metal skull. "I've downloaded a magazine - well, pirated, really; you can't get anything through Ixis Naugus' censoring these days - and it's exactly how I thought it would be. Utter trash."

"This is funny because…"

"It's so bad it's good, dude. Thirty different articles that are all equally bad? You've gotta be trying that."

"Bad? Bad how?"

"I'll give you a hint. 'Seven ways to tell your crush you love her...with balloon animals.' If that's not the stupidest thing you've ever read…"

"You should've seen some of the stuff that Hamlin would try to get through the council sometimes," Elias countered.

"'How I became my true self: half-porcupine, half-zebra, all happy,'" Shard read out loud.

"How can you be 200% of anything?"

"'What your batting average says about your future,'" Shard continued.

"If you get a low score, you better run," Elias mocked.

"Here's the best one, dude. 'How I learned to stop worrying and love fecal jokes.'"

He was clearly trying to make Elias smile. Elias humored him, even laughing. "If this is news-worthy, I'd love to know what isn't," he smirked.

The look on Shard's face changed from playful to interested. "Huh. This looks like fun."

"What?"

"Well, it's a question. 'What's the one thing on your bucket list that you can't do by yourself?' How about it, chief?"

Elias thought hard. A lot of the things on his bucket list he wouldn't be able to do for a while, it seemed. Seeing his family was definitely out of the question until Naugus was gone, and he'd already done regular things like skydiving (though certainly not under normal circumstances). "You know, I'm not really sure," he admitted finally. "I kind of gave up on a bucket list for a while."

"There's gotta be something," Shard pressed.

"No, nothing. Why, what's yours?"

"A Stinking Weasels concert."

Four words had just come out of Shard's mouth, and Elias had no idea what any of them meant together. "A...what, exactly?"

"You know, the Stinking Weasels."

Elias didn't know. "Do they smell that bad?" he said, completely serious.

Shard laughed. "No, dude. They're a band. The grungiest thing since Uncle Chuck's garage. I guess all that princely grooming meant you basically lived under a rock, huh?"

"Hey now," Elias warned. "I knew who Sonic the Hedgehog was."

"Just like the rest of the world," Shard grinned. "Let me guess, you also know that fire is hot and sugar tastes good?"

Elias couldn't help but smile. Shard was getting good at making him do that.

"Anyway," Shard continued, "I don't know that it's a realistic dream...there's a lot of people who look at me and just think Metal Sonic. And I'd need a real ID to attend a concert."

"You can pirate magazines but not fake an ID?"

Now Shard smiled. "I don't know. Hey, is it lunch time yet?"

"You can't eat, Shard," Elias reminded him.

Incidentally, it had been lunch time, and shortly afterward, Elias returned to his room for some reading and thinking. Today it was Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which was a long book by any account, but packed full of humor. He wondered if the other members of his team would enjoy it as much as he was, and just like that, Elias' mind was off the book and wandering.

Elias was certainly proud to be a Secret Freedom Fighter, and he loved his teammates, no doubt. But the more he thought about it (and the more time he spent with his teammates), the less he knew about his team. If Shard was an amateur magazine critic and Stinking Weasels fan in his spare time, who knew what people like Leeta or Larry did in their spare time? Did they cook? Did they play music on the streets? Did they like economics?

What did, say, Silver like? ...Wait, Elias knew that one. He liked discovering the traitor. Silver had a one-track mind. But besides that, what did Silver like?

Maybe it's about time I started really getting to know my team, Elias thought to himself. Not just as a leader, but as a friend. Starting with the amateur magazine critic himself, Shard.

Shard was inarguably hard to shop for. Elias found what he needed.

Within a few hours after leaving his room and the HQ (disguised heavily, of course), Elias had returned to the compound with clothes that he thought would fit Shard suitably. A stretchy grey sweatshirt and thick olive-green pants would be enough to cover him, along with a black baseball cap. With luck, they wouldn't look too suspicious where they were going. Imagine that. Elias Acorn in trouble with the law.

Elias rapped a knuckle on Shard's door twice. Shard's head instantly poked out the now-open door. "Is it dinner?" he said excitedly.

"You still can't eat," Elias smiled.

"Not with that attitude, I can't," Shard pouted.

"Anyway...that's not what I came here for."

"Why did you come if it wasn't for dinner?" Shard asked, genuinely confused.

"You have plans for after dinner?"

"No, why?"

"I think I might have heard about someone's wish to see a Stinking Weasels concert…" Elias procured the clothes and two tickets. "Was it your wish?"

"Holy geez...I didn't think anything was better than dinner, but you just made my day, man."

"I tried."

"I mean, you're like a saint! Like a god on Mobius! A king like Max Acorn! Wait, maybe that last one was in poor taste-"

Elias rolled his eyes. "You can save the ego-stroking for later. It's time for dinner."