It was only Applebee's, but tonight it seemed like a banquet hall to Tyler. It was raining outside, which only made the restaurant seem warmer and cozier, the lightbulbs dangling out of the dim lights casting a warm red glow over the entire room.
The place was almost empty except for them – there was an old couple on the other side, and a group of middle aged men grouped around a window, but other than that it was just them, taking up a table the length of the entire wall.
The food was no culinary masterpiece, but Tyler couldn't remember ever having eaten better. He was ravenous and it was warm and he could smother everything in ketchup. Teresa was sitting next to him and smiling, a bracelet dangling from her wrist and clanging against her fork every time she set it down, blond waves falling down her back as if she hadn't come from a battle just hours earlier.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Patrick laugh so loud, the sound boomed out of him like thunder as he related old jokes from Lorien, some even Tyler had never heard before.
"We did it," John said, raising his glass yet again.
"God, John," Six groaned, "How many times do we have to interrupt –"
"To victory!" Sam crowed, clinking his glass against Six's. She rolled her eyes but smiled and began clinking her glasses obligingly with everyone else, water splashing onto the table.
Tyler gulped down his coke, the ice clanging down from the bottom of the glass.
"I bet this is what superheroes feel like." Leo said, grinning from ear to ear.
"As far as everyone on earth is concerned, you are a superhero." John said, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Funny the way things have been going on Earth." Netoya said, her eyes focused on Daniel's arm, draped over the back of Ella's chair. Everyone else averted their eyes awkwardly, pretending not to be listening to her. "Cepans were held to standards back on Lorien. Good cepans."
Ella's face turned to stone, but neither said anything. It was hardly the snidest comment Netoya'd made towards them tonight.
Tyler pulled the plate of fries towards him. He was ninety percent sure his stomach could not hold another bite of grease smothered food, but that ten percent of uncertainty meant he owed it to himself to give it another shot.
They'd cleared their way through pretty much every dish on the menu. The plates gradually got emptier and emptier as the hours wore on, until Tyler was left drawing patterns in the ketchup with his fork and now Teresa and Sam were flipping through the desserts.
"What's it like on Lorien?" Sam was asking.
"I don't have many memories of it," Six said. "I don't think any of us do."
"But they say it's beautiful." Ella said.
"The stars," Six said, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "They're closer there. And the oceans. They say they're nothing like the ones here. They're huge and deep and people live under them or in them if they want to."
"Will we need spacesuits?" Sam asked. "Or will I need a spacesuit? Or scuba suits?"
"It's pretty much the same atmosphere as Earth, that's why we came here."
Teresa mumbled something about going to the bathroom and pushed her chair back. But instead she walked passed John huddled over the payphone and stepped out the door. Tyler waited a second, then followed her.
The air was stiff outside here. It was warm and heavy, you had to work to move through it. It was so different from other parts of the world he'd lived in. He had no idea how he'd describe Earth to someone who'd never been there. What was the weather like? It could be anything. How could anyone possibly sum up a whole planet in a few sentences.
"Hey."
"Hey." Teresa responded, staring straight ahead.
The parking lot was practically empty. The streetlamps shone down on a couple of cars, grouped in clusters, but mostly just on vast swatches of empty space filled with silence. If it weren't for the faint sounds coming from behind the closed door, they could've been all alone in the world.
"I'm sorry about them," Tyler said. "They're just excited, I'm sure they didn't realize." They were all looking forward to Lorien so much, they seemed to forget that not all of them were so sure.
"Maybe I should go."
"Go?" Tyler repeated. "Wha – Why would you go?"
"I'm not one of you. I don't belong with you guys, I don't know anything about Lorien and I didn't know anything about Mogs either until a month ago."
"I know it's harder for you than it was for any of us, having to deal with all of this on your own. But you're not alone anymore. You have all of us."
"I didn't mean that," Teresa said, turning to him. "Finding you guys was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was the first time I was ever really able to talk about this to someone.
"But I'm still not one of you. I don't know how to fight. I don't know what I'm doing."
"None of us know what we're doing."
"But you've been preparing for this, psychologically, your entire lives. I'm not ready for this. I can't deal with – with going to another planet. That's too much."
Tyler couldn't help it, he laughed. "Fighting an intergalactic war is fine, but space travel is over the line?" Teresa rolled her eyes.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah." Tyler said. "I do. And that's why I think you need to really think about it before you decide no for sure."
"What do you mean? I have thought about this – I'm not just being whiny. Are you sure you guys have thought about this? I feel like the decision to move to another planet should at least take a night to sleep on it."
"Going back to Lorien has always been the long term plan, hopefully," Tyler tried to explain. "Especially for Patrick, and Netoya. For them, being on Earth was always just temporary, this was never home. And I guess some of that got through to us too. They didn't realize that going back to Lorien would be a decision, they always just assumed it would be fact."
"Well they assumed wrong." Teresa crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "This is a huge decision. I already left the country with you guys, I'm not just going to leave the planet with a group of people I just met."
"That's probably the more reasonable argument," Tyler said, smiling as he rubbed his forehead. "But I just think you should think about it. You are Lorien Teresa. You're not going to be able to find other people here who can do what you can, or who even would be able to understand it.
"I know that was your life before us, but, it sounded kind of lonely."
He stared across the parking lot, trying to distinguish where the blankness of the sky turned into the darkness of the ground. "When we go to Lorien," he said, "I'm not sure if we're ever coming back. I don't want to never see you again."
"Of course, I don't want that either." She said, linking her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder. "You're the first people I've ever been able to be real with. I don't want to lose that.
"And it's not like I have family or anything here to stay for. But another planet? Can't you understand that that's too much to ask?"
"Teresa," Tyler asked. "What's the longest you've ever stayed in one place?"
Teresa stared at him for a few seconds. "I grew up in Mexico. Six years." She answered finally. "But other than that . . . Nine months. Ten maybe." She was still staring at him. "Why?"
"Because I can't remember ever staying anywhere longer than six months." He said steadily. "That wouldn't happen on Lorien. We could stop running. It could be home."
Teresa looked down, softly exhaling into a smile. "What you're saying, it all sounds so good. But neither of us have any idea what it's actually going to be like."
"So be optimistic" Tyler said, grinning hopefully. "This could be the best thing that's ever happened to us."
"I'll think about it, yeah?"
"You'll think about it? Really think about it?"
"Yeah, that's what I said." Teresa said, laughing.
"That's perfect. Perfect."
"May I speak to Sarah please?" John spoke into the receiver. He glanced up at Patrick and Netoya, who had abandoned the kiddie table for the bar. The Mogs were gone. They'd finally done it. He'd be reuniting with Sarah any day now.
"Hello?"
He smiled like crazy at the sound of her voice. "Sarah? It's me, it's John."
"John!" She laughed, and he closed his eyes to better remember her face. "I wasn't expectin – why did you call me on our house phone? I thought you weren't going to be able to call for a while now, that you had to get rid of your phone!"
"I know, I did," He answered, "So I lost your cellphone number, I had to look it up in the phonebook."
"I feel like it's been forever since I talked to you."
"A week." He agreed, "Forever.
"You'll never believe what's happened," He continued. "It's over."
"Over?" She echoed. "What's over?"
"The Mogs. The Mogadorians. We defeated them. They're all gone. We kicked them off of Earth."
"What!" Sarah shrieked. "You did! How? That's amazing! Oh my god, I can't believe it!"
"I know, neither can I." John said, turning his back on the rest of the room and staring into the phone booth, covered with faded advertisements, stickers, and gum. "It still feels too good to be true. No more running, no more serial killers after me."
"You're safe now?"
"Yes." He could breathe like he hadn't been able to in months. He felt invincible again. "No one's trying to kill me anymore. We're all safe."
"Does that mean you can come back?"
"Yes. I'm in New Mexico now, but I'll get there as soon as I can."
"I can't wait to see you."
"Me too. I love you."
"I love you too."
Leo screeched his chair a little bit closer to Daniel's. "I'm sorry." He said.
Daniel's head titled down to look at him. "For what?"
"For Netoya. Being so rude."
Daniel's eyes flickered over to her, where she was actually laughing with Patrick. "Thank you, but you don't have to apologize for her." He picked up his glass and took a drink.
"Why do you let them treat you like that?" Daniel's eyes snapped back to Leo's.
"Sometimes it's better to just grin and bear it."
"But they're not right." Leo continued to stare steadily at him. "So why put up with it? You're strong. You're scary. You could make them stop."
Daniel breathed in and set an elbow on the table. "You know what imprinting is?" Leo nodded. "Before Ella, I didn't believe in it. Love, sure, but only one person forever and always, I thought people were just deluding themselves.
"I thought it was all a power play by the Garde. As long as the Garde kept on 'imprinting' on the Garde, they'd be able to keep their special social circle exclusive, and their power.
"No one can disprove you if you claim you've imprinted on someone, there's no hard evidence. Imprinting is sacred, it's very hard to argue against.
"So that's why I accept people not accepting me. I understand where they're coming from. I wouldn'tve believed me either five years ago. I would've thought I was just a cepan trying to up my social class by pretending to have imprinted on a Garde."
"But you're not." Leo pointed out.
"I'm not." Daniel repeated. "But I can't blame people for being cynical. They have good reason to be."