"You never searched. You stayed with him," It was half a comment, half an accusation as Wanderer stared at her, trying to understand the relationship between the Comforter and her husband. Watching her Comforter twist her wedding ring around her finger, Wanderer realized that this was not part of how a Comforter usually helps a Soul settle into their new host.

"At first we stayed together for the mission. Then when it was over, well, neither of us wanted to move on." The Comforter gave her a small smile, her eyes warm. So many emotions in that one smile: comfort, sadness, happiness, pity, all of it in one smile. Humans are so complex. How? How was it possible that simple, small manipulations of the facial features could exude so many feelings?

"Humans never really figured it out. Love. How much of it is physical, chemical, emotional." She stopped, staring past Wanderer's shoulder, her eyes moving as if all the answers were written on the window. "It just...is. Once it is there, it no longer matters why or how, simply that it is." Her eyes turned back to her, full of compassion and love for the man she would go home to. They flashed in light of a car passing by, a silver flare of light that separated the Souls from the Humans.

Wanderer ran.

She leaped out of the chair, bursting through the doors between her and the world beyond. She ran to get away. To fight the realization that perhaps Souls aren't capable of the love humans are full of. That all of it is nothing but left-over feelings the human hosts left behind. She woke up each night crying for the loss of her host's lover. Her Comforter never moved on from her host's husband. How could she even think of searching for love outside of Jared?

People must have thought it odd; seeing a woman running with tears streaming down her face. They would simply assume she was new to her host body, not used to all the potent emotions, the spectrum of feelings found nowhere else in the universe, in the galaxy, anywhere. Only there, only on Earth and most of them didn't even know it. It was their first planet, or maybe their second, or if an individual or two was adventurous perhaps even third. But she had been to eight. Eight.

She was strong enough to know that running was not weakness on her part. Truth only made a person stronger, but it hurt and that was where self-preservation kicked in. The evening air streamed passed her, reminding her of so many memories Melanie had of running. In fear or in exhilaration. Alone or accompanied. This time Melanie's body ran possessed. Wanderer sobbed, her lungs burning in her chest.

She halted abruptly, clutching her head in agony as memories flooded her mind.

The dam had been opened; the wall separating her from Melanie's memories had been unlocked.

She could see it all, feel it all, all the memories that weren't her own.

She stumbled, unseeing, until her fingertips jabbed into the rough bark of a tree. Sliding down she curled between its protruding roots as Melanie forced her to see everything. The life that was once hers. Wanderer would not betray her, that much Melanie knew. As crazy as it sounded, Melanie trusted her parasite. (The sudden change from Wanderer's point of view to Melanie's is disorienting. Is it possible to smooth it out a little or just get rid of it?)

It was fully dark by the time Wanderer opened her eyes, the sounds of the night on her ears. Never had she felt so much like a leech. All the foreign memories seemed so intimately a part of her.

But they aren't. They are my memories, my life Wanderer. Not yours.

She looked around, wiping the tears from her cheeks and the snot from her lip. Her miserable eyes met the playground several blocks from her residence. The five swings swayed gently in the night's wind. She could almost see in her mind the children playing on the jungle gym only a few yards beyond them. Sliding down the slide, climbing on top of the tunnel rather than going through it… no Soul child would do that. They would either be miniature adults or too obedient to do such a recklessly dangerous thing. They would have to be human children. Filled with a joy no Soul could possess because there were no previous memories. Every Soul carried some memory from their mother, no information was ever lost. There would be no innocent discoveries of a mind not fully developed. If she had any tears left she would've let them fall for the children who would never be.

Like mine.

Wanderer stood and walked towards the abandoned playground, drawn to the swings. The hinges creaked at her when she sat on the yellow plastic, signaling as to how long it had been since they were oiled. Wanderer sat and thought about all of her children. The ones she could give birth, but never raise. The little parasites. She cringed. How she wished she could love and be loved. To have a ring on her finger and carry a child in her own human womb, to hold that tiny baby as it cried in the middle of the night in need of comfort. How she wished she could be human.

"But you're not, Wanderer," she whispered to herself. "You are not human, you are an alien that has stolen the life of a human being. The most wonderful and terrifying living thing in all of creation."

Melanie's sympathetic despair was thinly veiled by enmity as Wanderer spoke. And something else.

"What Melanie? What is it?" Wanderer whispered.

Respect.

Wanderer blinked before probing further.

Melanie continued before she got too far. You've lived so many lives. We've got a saying here on earth: "you can't teach an old dog new tricks. She gave a huff of laughter. You though, you are able to look outside of all you've ever known. 'Course it would've been so much better if you hadn't had to take everything from me to realized all that.

"I'm sorry Melanie, truly. But there is no way-"

Melanie interrupted her, I know, I know. But…

"Yeah," Wanderer sighed.

Well, I would like you even better if you hadn't cut my hair.

Wanderer simultaneously smiled and winced, reacting to the tease in Melanie's tone. "I'm not sure whether or not to be sorry about that. You can be pretty annoying sometimes." She looked up at the night sky, partially diluted by the city's haze of chemicals and light. The Spiders were working on the effects of pollution on the earth that had accumulated when the humans had control over the planet. It was still bright enough to see the shooting star as it sailed across the sky.

So who gets the wish?

"Well, I think we both know what you would wish for." Images of Jared and Jamie flashed through their mind. "And I think I wish for the same thing, so both of us?"

You have your own wish Wanderer.

She looked at the little pebbles under her as she made the swings hinges squeak before staring again at the night sky. The moon was just where is should be, sitting there among the stars.

"I wish I were human. I wish I were the monster in a Soul's horror stories, the one that would rather be killed than give up what they are. I wish I could experience life as a human and give you back yours."

The winds blew her short hair around her face, the mild night quiet.

Does that count as only one wish?