Seeing my friends reunite with their families stings, all the smiles and tears of joy while I just stand there, happy that they are happy.

"Are you Violet, the one who saved my little Rose?" Her mother asks, tears in her eyes.

"Rose saved herself." I smile.

"I wasn't talking about the escape." She smiles gently at me.

"I did what I had to do to keep them safe." I comment, dropping my smile.

"Still, with complete strangers…"

"What kind of a person would I be to have not tried at all." I walk away to Lily, not wanting to continue with that particular conversation. I walk over to Lily and her parents, them embracing each other tightly.

"You protected her!" Her father's arms engulf me. "Thank you, thank you!"

"She was doing fine before I came along." I chuckle, prying myself away from his bone crushing hug. "And I didn't even do that much."

His eyes soften. "Yes you did. You-"

"-Did what was necessary." I turn and stand near the exit, a habit I picked up while homeless and kept while imprisoned.

"They seem to be enjoying themselves." Rook says from next to me.

"Yeah. They're pretty happy, seeing their families."

He notices the hint of sadness in my voice. "Where is your family?"

I shrug. "Dead." My heart clenches, thinking of my Mom, whose throat was slit in front of me.

"Hey, Rook, what's up with the family reunion?" A familiar voice asks. I turn, and am faced with Benjamin Kirby Tennyson.

"Son of a bitch. How are you, Ben?" I ask, embracing the human-alien.

"Violet?! Oh my god, its you, I can't believe-"

"Right, it's been way too-"

"It's been-"

"Forever, yeah!" I exclaim, hugging my best male friend… Matthias doesn't count… he's female. I remove my arms from around him. "How's the alien watch?"

"Still giving me trouble." He jokes, half serious.

"You 2 know each other?" Rook Blonko asks.

"He's/She's my best male/female friend!" We say simultaneously.

I lightly punch his shoulder, which he does right back.

"How are things, my fag, my pansexual panda?" He foux insults.

"Good now, xenomorph." I refer to the alien from Alien.

This is when Max walks in, heading towards me, stopping by the families of my friends.

I meet them in the middle, a quarter of the room away from the door.

"What's up?" I ask, arms crossed.

"Your blood tests came back…"

"That was fast." Rose says.

"Well, they are the Plumbers." Lily counters.

"What about them?" I ask.

"They're positive for drugs, heroin to be exact."

"That's what the weekly injections were." I say, clearly at ease with it.

"You didn't know that?" Lily asks.

"Nope." Me and Rose say, or should it be Rose and I say?

"Well, at any rate, the next couple day are going to be rough."

"It takes about 7 days. Don't ask how I know." I mutter the last part.

"How do you know?"

"Rose, she just said-"

"My mom was an addict." I say. "She 'recovered' a lot." I use finger quotes.

"Ah." They say.

"Well, we're requesting that you all stay here until you recover."

"Okay." "Alright." "Sure." We say.

"What?! No!" Rose's mom says. "My baby is gonna be with me when this goes down."

"With all due respect, we have experience in this field." Max counters.

"Of what?! Heroin withdrawal?!"

"We've had more than one alien who was an addict." Max waves the question off. "We know how to deal with it."

"I'm good with it." "Me too." "Me too."