Aunt Cass was furiously sweeping up the café while munching on a bagel. Somehow she had managed to repair the table and switched it so it now was pressed against the wall.
Hiro entered nervously, "Hey Aunt Cass…"
"Hiro, what on earth were you and your friends doing in the café last night? And why couldn't you explain over the phone?"
"How much of last night do you remember?" Hiro asked nervously.
"Wait I got up last night?" Aunt Cass asked a little surprised, "Just how late were you guys here?"
Hiro rubbed his neck nervously, "Something happened last night that we are still trying to figure out..."
"You tell me right now Hiro." Cass warned. She was deeply concerned about how secretive Hiro had been the last few months."
"Well, um, we saw these strange lights out by the bay and started tracking them, and… um… I don't even know how to say this; people fell out of the lights from different places."
"Hiro I want the truth not an alien abduction story." Aunt Cass said sternly.
Hiro sighed and opened the café door, "You might want to sit down."
Aunt Cass cocked her head to the side as a young man stepped inside the Café. The morning light reflected off a passing truck, leaving him little more than a silhouette against the harsh lights.
"Wait it can't be."
"Um, Hi Aunt Cass." A familiar voice said uncertainly.
"Tadashi!?" she held out her hand less than an inch from his face.
She wanted to pull him into her arms and hold him tight but was afraid to touch him for fear of shattering the reality in front of her.
"It's me, Aunt Cass."
She threw her arms around him sobbing. Tadashi hugged her back a bit surprised, it had only been a day for him and he had to remind himself that he had been dead for almost a year to her. She pulled away and looked him in the eyes with pain and betrayal written on her face.
"All this time. Where were you? Why didn't you come home?"
"I didn't stay away by choice. I woke up in Howard Park last night and came straight here."
Aunt Cass blinked in surprise, "But what happened?"
"I ran into the fire to help Dr. Callahan and found Riley instead then there were these lights all around us and suddenly we're three miles away and its months later."
She shook her head, "You know what I don't even care how, I'm just glad to have you back."
She pulled both of them into a big hug again. She was just so happy to see her boys together again.
"Now go shower and get changed this calls for a celebration!" she said excitedly.
Tadashi was suddenly very self-conscious of the smoky smell lingering on his clothes, "Oh yeah, sorry I forgot to shower at Fred's."
"Wait Fred and the others know? What happened in here last night?"
"Do you remember anything from last night?"
"I'm not sure, I could have sworn that I saw a girl fall out of the ceiling and break one of my tables but that had to have been a dream."
"That was real." Hiro told her, "We don't know how it happened but the same thing that saved Tadashi pulled some other people here also. That's why we gathered at Fred's his parents have a lot of extra beds."
"They can come to. And Tadashi…"
Aunt Cass reached up suddenly tugging on his ear forcefully, "Don't you ever risk your life like that again!"
Abigail radioed down to the recovery divers, "Say again what have you found?"
"It looks like a ship of some sort. Like something out of the old Captain Rocket comic books."
"Can anyone else verify?"
"This is Frank I can verify Mark found a big red spaceship."
"OK….. we are standing by for quadrants and condition."
"It's one mile due south of grid 7."
"Why did you move that far outside of the grid?" Abigail asked surprised.
Mark saw lights flickering out here and we called it in to investigate."
Abigail dropped the pin she was holding, "Say again."
"The ship is lit up. It looks like it's a one-man craft."
"All teams focus on the team 2. This is a priority find."
She picked up the dropped pin and stuck it where the strange craft had been found. The captain stroked his short beard staring at the map. Abigail eyed him simultaneously wondering if he knew something and if beards were a requirement to be a boat captain.
"So this is the new find?" he asked pointing to the new pin.
"Yes, it looks like our search grid was insufficient."
The captain shook his head, "No it wasn't. Your debris field lines up with the current search grid perfectly."
Abigail had to admit he had a point. Aside from the strange ship all the debris from the portal had landed within the captain's search grid. The divers had found most of the portal already. Strangely they had also found a number of other objects some were old and worn a few were even in plastic packaging but all of them appeared to have fallen out of the portal with the machine itself. But that still didn't explain the Captain's certainty in their search pattern.
He smiled at her as her eyes widened with the realization, "Figured it out?"
"It's a second crash." She answered almost to herself.
Abigail scrambled back to the radio, berating herself for missing the obvious. "Are there any occupants in the craft?"
"That's a negative ma'am no pilot nor bodies in the craft."
"How much silt is on it?" the Captain asked taking the radio.
"The nose is a bit stuck but otherwise immaculate."
"And how's the current down there."
"Lazy and constant. Put a bit of silt on the left wing but not much yet."
"Thanks." The Captain set down the radio talking to himself, "Currents here move the bay floor consistently that can't have been down there more than a week."
Abigail turned back to the map. This raised far more questions than answers. If it was a ship then there had to be a pilot out there somewhere.