"Rachel?"

The 25th Baam turned his neck slightly to look at the girl beside him. The only vision of his world, a blonde girl looked high at the ceiling.

"What's up, Baam?"

He craned his neck to look over her shoulder. "The ceiling, I think."

One pale hand went up to her mouth. She made a sound into it. "That's right Baam."

"Rachel?"

"Yes, Baam?"

"What's a ceiling?"

She made a reedy noise from her lips. "It's something like a...like a lid on a box...or...or a seal for a container or...no, Baam, you don't know what any of those are, do you?"

He thought about it for a bit. "I don't think you've ever talked about them before."

She made the noise again. It was a peaceful, pleasant noise. He found himself imitating it, flapping his lips gently.

"That's a hum, Baam."

"A hum..."

"That's right." She said easily. "It a noise you made when you're thinking. It tells me that you want to figure something out."

"Why are you making it then?"

"I suppose..." Her eyes returned to the, to the 'ceiling' again. "Well, I suppose an answer you don't understand is no good, is it."

Her eyes rolled down to meet his again, and Baam felt a thrill down his spine. Rachel so rarely met his eyes, but they were vivid in how wide they were. He found himself tracing the way they merged into her face, how every curve of her face cut into another, forming an odd picture. Curves moving and shifting, appearing and disappearing, shifting in patterns he could only occasionally identify or, even rarer, name. So much of it was alien to him, yet it was the only thing he could call 'familiar' at all. Moreso than even his own, the few times he caught sight of it in a pool of water. It made him uncomfortable, to realize he could no longer understand what it was saying to him.

Unbidden, words rose to his lips. "Rachel, do other people look like us?"

"Ye-n-..." She hesitated, searching his expression. "Yes. Yes, they look like us, Baam."

"Is there anyone that looks like you?"

Her lip curled into a shape Baam was unfamiliar with. It cast her into a far harder, darker expression, shadows appearing in the corners and edges of her face. "No. No, they're usually far prettier."

His eyes narrowed. That word seemed to make her angry. "What's pretty?"

The corners of her mouth softened, and Baam let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as her whole expression melted into the Rachel-face he was familiar with. "You'll know when you're older."

"Will I."

This time her mouth didn't tighten, but the shadows appeared on her face all the same. Baam didn't like it, but this time he didn't have the words to make it go away.

"You will. A hundred times over. You'll leave me far, far behind." She made little whooshing noises as she mimed her hand rapidly leaving her vicinity. "Like that. So fast neither of us will even understand what changed."

"How could it be so sudden?!" He cried.

Her face turned away. "Beats me. Sometimes they just...fall away, you know."

Baam tried to scrabble closer to her, but a single finger to his forehead kept him away, she slowly turned back, a look of odd amusement on her face. "It can't be helped Baam."

"I don't want to get older." He muttered. "I thought I did-"

"-so did I." She cut in sadly. "But sometimes what waits for us isn't what we expect."

"What prevents us from finding out?"

"A..." Her face slowly craned upwards. "A ceiling, would be the closest approximation I guess." Her arms slowly raised, as though cradling something far larger than her to her chest. "Yeah. Okay. Baam, a ceiling is just what we call God's Will."

Baam slowly scratched his chin and hummed. "That doesn't really sound like what you were saying earlier."

She waved him away impatiently. "Don't sweat the small stuff Baam. No, what's important is that I'm right."

Baam nodded. "Got it."

She continued idly. "God's Will, get it memorized. God stops us from proceeding, from moving on or from seeing too much. God keeps us low and blocks our progress. Ceilings are just massive blocks of oppression."

"What's beyond them?" Baam asked softly.

"Stars."

The look on Rachel's face was rapturous.

"Stars. Infinite stars. Endless."

Baam didn't like that look. The sourness in his stomach curdled, and left him feeling sick and angry. He didn't like when she looked away, like she was leaving him behind. She talked a lot about how he would be leaving her behind, but he couldn't help but feel like he was the one to be abandoned. He wanted to tell her that, but he didn't have the words for it, and she would be able to talk him down. She always did; she knew words, so many words, so very very many that he'd never heard of! And every time he'd have to ask her to explain, and they'd be sidetracked with her explanation, and he'd forget to be angry and beg her not to leave him and then she'd be gone.

She turned to look at him, and it was the look he dreaded. The sad, empty look she'd started giving him recently. The one where she looked at him, but never saw him. She saw someone else standing in his place, someone taller, and maybe stronger, and bigger. Some other Baam that scared her and made her sad.

Baam wasn't sure he liked that other Baam.

But he wasn't sure he could blame that other Baam, not if he'd really been abandoned. Not if he'd been left in the cave alone.

He wasn't sure what would happen if God's Will were not breached to allow Rachel in ever again. But he had a feeling he liked the outcome about as much as Rachel did.

Couldn't she see the solution? Wasn't it obvious? She shouldn't leave him. They were both happy; why couldn't see?

Was she - he tasted the word on his lips - stupid?

He immediately felt bad for thinking it. It felt awful on his lips, some unspoken taboo breached that he feared would go unspoken. He opened his mouth to apologize, for what he couldn't word, but Rachel spoke first.

"I need to go Baam, it's late." She said softly.

His lips hardened, but he tried to force them into what Rachel called a smile. "Okay. Bu, uh, Bye..?"

Her lips curved into a smile similar to how he imagined his own looked. He liked it, but it was never around for long. "Yeah. I'll see you later Baam."

She'd crawled out and closed God's Will behind her before Baam found the question he'd wanted to ask.

What's Later?

Another on/off project. One I have some ideas for.