The ride back on the plane was quiet. Quieter than I've ever heard my mom be. I'd say quieter than when she was asleep, but even asleep, she was noisy, alternating between talking and snoring. How Randall could sleep through it, I have no idea.

Clark was in the plane with us and visible instead of being a stowaway. He actually sat on my lap for the whole ride. My mom and Randall didn't comment on getting rid of him or anything, but then, they didn't have any Pokémon to enforce such a demand with. Thankfully. But even he was quiet for the whole ride, sleeping curled up with his head on my belly. He had one of his… hands?... to his mouth – he had one, real small! – and I could hear him sucking on one of those little glowing things sticking out of his hand. A finger, I guess.

He slept through the plane landing, us getting out, us getting to our house. Once we got inside, though, I looked down at the little Pokémon in my arms, and then looked to my mom. "Mom, can I go out until dinner?"

She glanced between me and the little alien-Pokémon. "Yes," she said. "But you're going to bed early tonight. And I hope you don't intend to keep it."

"Him. He's my friend. If he wants to sleep over he's going to. He's nice to me. Okay, I'm going to the lab, bye!"

As I left, Randall called to me, "Make sure you introduce yourself to Mara!"

I had seen Mara before. She had long hair she kept in a ponytail and glasses thicker than Randall's. Maybe. I thought so, at least. When I got into the lab, Perry was there, working in the main part of the lab by the front. Mara sat by the back, typically, at her work station. I went to him and looked at what appeared to be a Pokédex entry on his computer's monitor. There was a pink Pokémon with little ears and a long, thin tail that was bigger at the end. "Whatcha doin'?" I asked, watching.

"Copying a Pokédex entry and modifying it for the—" he paused and brought his face away from the computer, turning in his chair to look at me. "Liv, welcome back!" Then he noticed me holding Clark. "Your parents let you get a Pokémon?" I shook my head. "You… stole it?" I shook my head again.

"Him. He's my friend. He followed after me and protected me."

"That's a good Pokémon, then. Good Pokémon do that sort of thing. Well, good anythings do, looking out for others." When he said this, my mind was brought back to what happened at the mall. I wanted to talk to him about it. But not at the lab. Perry was pretty good for advice. He was my only human friend. Two friends wasn't bad. I had twice as many friends as Randall or my mom, I figured.

"His name is Clark."

"I see… and he told you this?" I nodded. "And your parents don't know, do they." I shook my head. "Of course not, I don't think Randall would happily let a telepathic anything near here," Perry said.

"Why?" I asked.

Perry shook his head, and looked to his monitor slowly. "… we don't always do things that are right to get the results we want. At the lab, and people in general." He typed a bit, but my eyes were focused on his face.

"Why are you being secretive? Mom, Randall, you… everyone's so secretive."

"And you're not? You just told me that you're keeping Clark's ability a secret from your parents."

"Shhh! Someone might tell on me!" I said, peering at him. He laughed quietly and shook his head.

"I'm not going to tell, but I'll keep quiet on it for you. You said he protected you… from what?"

"I was attacked at the mall."

"What creep attacked a kid?"

"I'm not a kid!" I huffed. "… and it was a Litwick."

He nearly launched out of his chair, got an arm around me, and began to pull me off towards the kitchen area. "Did you have sugar? Are you lightheaded? Have you slept yet? Do you feel warm?"

"I uhm… I slept… the nurse took care of me," I said, walking with him to the kitchen area. "I'm fine now… I had those problems before… but I'm fine now."

"The nurse?" He sounded surprised. "I'm glad your parents brought you to the hospital."

"They didn't."

"But you were treated by a nurse."

"Yes. Nurse Joy. Clark was hurt from protecting me and I had to protect him, so I brought him to the Pokécenter," I said. Perry slowed to a full stop. I turned to him. His face was twisted in what I thought might be restrained rage. But I had never seen Perry angry before. He inhaled sharply through his nose, and spoke pointedly.

"They. Went with you. Right? At least your mom?"

"No. They came after and the nurse yelled at them."

"Good," he said. My stomach rumbled, and that made Clark wiggle around in my arms a little. Elgy… Another, smaller rumble came, but from his little belly. "When did you last eat?"

"Lunch." I paused. "Wait, no. I missed lunch because I was attacked and then saved Clark. Breakfast."

He went to lead me to the kitchen area again. "I have some of my lunch left over, if you don't mind. And there's a bag of Pokéchow we keep in the kitchen," Perry said.

"What was lunch?"

"A salad."

"Eww, just vegetables and fruit?"

"No. There was cheese. And bacon. And croutons. It was a proper salad Liv, what do you think I am, some uncultured fool?" he asked. I couldn't help but laugh at that. My mom had stopped by the lab with me a few times and always picked on the different scientists for eating low-quality products. It ended up becoming an in-joke with the lab workers to call each other uncultured.

Clark woke up once we got into the kitchen and looked up at me. Perry knew that he was a telepath and said he'd keep it secret, and was in the process of getting food for us. Clark looked at Perry for a moment. "Ghh. Please don't telepath me unless it's necessary. It feels weird," he said aloud. Elgyem! Clark waved his arms around.

"I think Clark is sorry."

"I am!" Clark said, moving to look up at me. "It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"Nn-nn." I shook my head. I went next to Perry and watched him fill a steel bowl with the word KNIGHT on it with Pokechow. "He said he's sorry."

Perry stopped and looked at Clark. "It's okay. Just try not to if it's not an emergency."

"What's an emergency?" Clark asked me. So I asked Perry for him.

"An emergency is like… if you're in danger, or Liv is in danger, or something bad is about to happen, or something bad is happening, or something bad has happened and someone needs help. Those are emergencies," Perry explained.

Then he and Clark stopped moving, and were quiet.

"Uhm…?"

I looked from Clark to Perry to Clark to Perry, and wiggled Clark a little. I looked to the clock mounted on the wall. Time was still ticking. Everyone outside of the kitchen was still going about their work.

It was an uncomfortable silence. It took too long for Perry to speak, but when he did, he said, "I think it might be a good idea for you to spend more time at the lab and less time at home, Olivia."

"Well I'm going to be, I'm going to be working here and learning here!"

"Good. Don't get too far from Clark, and if you do, be near me. Got it?"

"Why?"

"Olivia, do you understand?"

"Yes, but why?"

"Because I actually care about you," he said stiffly.

"Oh. Well. Thank you for caring?" I asked unsurely. Part of me knew what he said meant a lot, but I didn't know how. "Right! Randall said I have to introduce myself to Mara and get to know her. Can you help me with that?"

"Yeah… sure…" he said, cheeks going red at Mara's name, voice squeaking.

"Why do you get weird whenever anyone mentions Mara? Or when she's near?"

"Get weird?"

"Your face gets all red and you wipe your hands on your pants or your lab coat if you're in the lab, and your speech gets weird," I said.

"Very good observations. You'll make an excellent scientist, like *squeak* Mara."

It hit me. "You like her, don't you!"

"Shshshhhshsh!" He said, covering my mouth. "What if she hears you!"

"Mffmfmfmfmff!"

"What?" He uncovered my mouth.

"She's at her desk. Why are your worried? You're cool. She has to like you back."

"I don't know about that…" He finishing filling the bowl and brought his container and the bowl to the table in the kitchen. He set it down, and Clark hopped over to the bowl and began to eat the Pokéchow. "Don't worry about that though. Eat up. That Litwick did a number on the both of you, and I'm sure Nurse Joy did great, but I won't be able to sleep at night if I don't try to help a little."

"But the Litwick fainted, there's nothing more to do."

Perry shook his head and said to me, "There's always more to do."