Author's Note: I feel weird posting another chapter so soon, but I've had a nasty bug and haven't really been able to do much else today. Besides, I enjoy writing so I figured "why not?"

We're just about at the end now. If I don't decide to change something major, the chapter after this one will be the epilogue. This chapter was originally part of the epilogue, but then I thought it was too long and decided to break it into two parts.

Hope you enjoy, and thank you for being wonderful readers so far! :)

Chapter 34: Days Go By

Samus was aware that there was someone beside her before she was fully awake. It didn't alarm her, however, as she slowly opened her eyes and felt the warm presence of the other woman in her arms. Although it always took her a little while to figure out where she was upon awakening, this scenario was familiar to her and strangely soothing.

Elisa looked back at her with her large brown eyes and smiled as her lover awakened. The two women were snuggled close under the covers of Samus's bed on her ship. Samus looked around at the rows of rifles that lined the walls and then back at the woman in her arms.

"Good morning," Elisa said softly, brushing the hair out of Samus's face. "You were out for a good ten hours, you know."

The bounty hunter rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Is that all?"

"Most people would consider that a long time."

Samus shrugged as she closed her eyes again, her head firmly pressing itself into the pillow. "I haven't slept in days." It had been a very long time since she had slept. She had not even caught a minute of rest since right after being revived by the Chozo. It may not have been the longest she had ever stayed awake, but it had felt like a long stretch given that she had challenged Silver Wing, rescued the survivors, defeated the xenomorph Queen, and attended the faux funeral all since the last time she had woken up.

"Hey you," Elisa said, shaking her lightly and causing the sleepy bounty hunter to open one eye and stare at her languidly. "I've been awake a couple of hours now waiting for you."

Samus grunted and rolled over, turning her back to the other woman. "Just give me a few more hours." She was sore all over and reluctant to leave the warmth of the covers. Now that she had finally taken some time to recuperate, her battles were catching up with her.

Elisa propped herself up, reaching over her lover to lightly embrace her as she planted a kiss on the side of her face. "How about a compromise? You sleep and I'll make breakfast. I'll wake you when it's done." Fortunately for both of them, the police officer had been acquainted enough with the bounty hunter's lifestyle that she had thought to pick up some groceries before coming over the night before.

Samus made a sound Elisa decided to take as a "yes", and she slipped quickly out of bed, stopping only to throw on a pair of panties and a bra as she hurried out of the room. As the other woman left, the bounty hunter curled herself up more tightly in the blankets, acutely aware that her source of warmth had left. As much as she wanted to go back to sleep, there was a part of her that was too afraid that the other woman would be gone by the time she woke up again.

She had not expected to be able to sleep the night before, as wired as she was from the fights on LV-426 and then the hours she has spent after the funeral giving statements to Federation officials and trying to help straighten out the chaos that had erupted from Adam's mysterious rise from the dead. Seeing him reunited with his family had been heartwarming but emotionally exhausting. Marza and the girls had been so grateful to her for rescuing him that she had found it overwhelming and quietly excused herself before she was technically supposed to leave.

As much as she hated to get up, Samus slowly sat up and stretched. There were so many things she needed to do, including checking in on how Ripley and Newt were doing. The Federation officials had put them up in a hotel room for the duration of the investigation. They had wanted Adam to stay in a similar situation, but Marza has fought so adamantly to let him come home that Keaton had finally relented. He had tried at one point to insist that Samus stay in quarantine until they were able to determine what had happened to her, but she had never been one to comply with those sorts of things. She knew what had happened to her, and they had no legal authority to compel her to stay in quarantine without some tangible or clearly articulated cause. The fact that her face looked weird didn't really meet that standard.

As she got up, she threw on a pair of jeans and a loose flannel shirt. She grabbed a second one for Elisa as an afterthought realizing the only clothing the other woman had brought with her was the dress she had worn to the funeral. As Samus stepped out into the living room, Archer rushed up to greet her. Carefully, she got down on one knee and ruffled the dog's fur, scratching him lovingly behind his ears. "Good morning, boy. Who's a good dog?"

"One of these days he's going to demand you answer that," Elisa called from the kitchen section of the room.

Samus looked up and laughed as she got to her feet. "I think he knows I'm talking about him."

Elisa shrugged, and Samus realized the other woman had found a pair of red and black plaid pajama pants and put them on. She was pretty sure they were the pair she had been wearing the night before when Elisa had arrived. She had been alone and halfway through a previously unopened bottle of whiskey when the other woman had called to let her know she was outside the ship. It wasn't long after she had let Elisa in that the pair of flannel pajama pants in question had ended up somewhere on the living room floor.

"I can't believe you had five people and a giant dog in here," Elisa said as she set a couple of plates out beside the cooktop. She was frying some eggs and a good amount of bacon.

"Six people," Samus replied, handing the other woman her spare shirt to put on, "if you count the prisoner in transport. Seven if you also count the severed android head."

Elisa gratefully took the shirt as she quickly put it on. "I didn't realize until it was too late that cooking bacon in just pants and a bra was probably not the best decision I've ever made." She used her spatula to plate the eggs and bacon before starting on the next batch and handing the plate to Samus. "Eat up before it gets cold."

The bounty hunter gratefully took the plate and sat in one of the stools at the narrow island counter as she began to wolf down her meal.

Elisa smiled as she watched Samus enjoying her food. "When was the last time you ate anyway?"

Samus shrugged and finished chewing before she tried to answer. "What day of the week is it?"

"Wednesday."

"Maybe Sunday then? I lose track… Adam made me something at one point on LV-426."

"Geez, Samus!" Elisa looked at the bounty hunter in shock. "Are you trying to starve yourself to death? You sucked down half a bottle of liquor last night after not eating since Sunday?"

Samus shrugged, not wanting to discuss it further. "I think it was Sunday. Maybe it was Saturday. I really don't remember. Time is fuzzy when I'm planet-hopping."

Elisa leaned on the counter in front of Samus. "You need to take better care of yourself. Seriously."

The bounty hunter grunted, trying to brush off the comment, but when Elisa didn't move away, she sighed. "I've been making an effort to do that. I just screwed up last night. LV-426 was a bad mission for me, and I had a lot of things I needed to think about."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Samus shook her head, keeping her eyes on her plate. "I don't see how that would help. Won't change anything."

"It's not good to keep it bottled up either."

The bounty hunter sighed as she put down her fork down and looked up at Elisa. "Look, you don't have to worry too much about me not eating or sleeping normally. I'm not really human. I mean, at this point, I'm barely passable as a human at all… There's just a lot of stuff that's been happening lately, and I just need some time to process it all."

Elisa frowned and turned back to the magnetic cooktop, turning off it off and making her own plate of bacon and eggs. As she took a seat beside Samus at the counter, she turned and looked at her companion. "Getting drunk alone on a space ship isn't a great way of processing anything."

"No, it's not. But I don't… I don't even know where to start." Samus shook her head and stayed silent for a long moment. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you noticed I look different."

Elisa nodded. "I noticed."

Samus looked at her companion, afraid that if she tried speaking about anything that everything would overwhelm her and burst out like water from a broken dam. "You know I'm part Chozo and that I'm some kind of super soldier. I haven't always been that way though. I was born human. My family was killed by Space Pirates when I was a kid. The Chozo sort of adopted… or maybe abducted… me after that, and they engineered me into a bioweapon so they could have something to protect them from the Space Pirates. But when the Pirates attacked Zebes, our planet, I was only fourteen. I lost."

Elisa had stopped eating at this point and turned her full attention to Samus, gently placing a hand on the bounty hunter's forearm.

"I thought everyone died in that battle," Samus continued. "I spent years fighting, thinking I was the last Chozo. I thought of them as my family since I didn't really remember anyone else. But now, on LV-426, I ran into some Chozo that had apparently survived, and I found some… old data files. About me. About the experiments they were running and how they built me, and I'm very… conflicted about the whole thing. I feel like I was just a weapon to them the whole time even though I've spent the last nineteen years thinking I was carrying on some great legacy." Samus touched the dark scars on the right side of her face. "Something happened on this mission. Someone… that prisoner I transferred to Federation custody yesterday… that person stabbed me in the back. Literally. So that she could have this really nasty looking alien impregnate me and use my body as a host to gestate its young."

"Samus…" Elisa said softly, but the bounty hunter waved off her concern as she continued.

"She succeeded. But between the stab wound, other injuries I had, and the trauma of the alien, it was too much. I died… I guess. A couple of Chozo found and revived me just enough so that my body could attack and absorb the alien spawn that was growing inside me. It worked. I'm alive… um, but I guess that's obvious. And I've now incorporated that monster's genetic material in with my own. I'm part… one of those things. And I just… I don't know. What the hell even am I?"

The bounty hunter looked so distressed that as she finished her story, Elisa threw her arms around her shoulders and pulled her in close. "You're Samus Aran. You're just kind of you own thing."

"Heh." The bounty hunter tensed slightly, but she didn't fight against the hug. "I guess I am my own species." The idea would not have bothered her so much if her son had been truly a full-blooded human, but now she knew that was not the case and didn't know what that could mean for the boy's future.

Elisa gave the bounty hunter one more quick squeeze before she pulled back. "I know you still have more to do today. I don't want to keep you from that."

Samus grunted as she snapped back into the present moment. "Yeah… that stuff. There's something else I need to do first before I can deal with any of that."

"What's that?" Elisa asked, intrigued and wondering excitedly if her lover were suggesting they go another round so soon.

"Coffee," Samus said with a yawn. "I need at least two cups of coffee before anything productive happens."

Elisa quietly hid her disappointment.

"So where are you going to be living now?" Samus asked as she leaned back and sipped her coffee. She, Ripley, and Adam were sitting around the big wooden table in the General's kitchen. Like everything else in the Malkovich house, the kitchen had a cozy, country sort of feel to it.

All three of them were dressed casually, although Adam still wore a pair of well-pressed slacks as opposed the blue jeans favored by Samus and Ripley. Marza and the girls were out, and Newt was in the backyard playing with Archer. It had been nearly a week since the fateful funeral, and Ripley and Newt had been living in a hotel room while Samus had been going back to the shipyard every night. With the military's investigation still going on, they had all ended up on something of an involuntary vacation since getting back to Earth. Samus had the option to leave if she wanted because she had been privately contracted for the mission, but she had not had any interest in it so far, much preferring to spend her days with her son and Adam's family.

Ripley shrugged as she snapped a long cookie in half and dunked it in her coffee. "One thing at a time. I had an apartment but it was provided by the Company, and I'm honestly done with them."

"You could live out of a suitcase like Samus does," Adam said with a light chuckle. "Spend most of your time on a space ship exploring the universe."

"While I can definitely see the appeal in that," Ripley replied, "and I mean no disrespect to Samus's lifestyle, I'd really rather be in a more brick and mortar kind of place. Kids need stability, and social workers really look at that sort of thing."

"No disrespect taken," the bounty hunter said with a smirk. "Honestly, the nomad lifestyle does get old after a while, and if you're planning to adopt Newt, I really don't recommend it. Besides, even I keep an apartment somewhere."

"Yes," Adam said, "and when was the last time you were there?"

"I don't know." Samus shrugged. "Spent a lot of time there after I blew up Zebes."

"The only time she goes there," Adam said, turning to Ripley, "is when she feels like being a brooding recluse and ghosting everyone for a few months."

The flight officer laughed as she looked at the bounty hunter. "I'm actually starting to think you've got the right idea. Dealing with humans is exhausting. At least with the xenomorphs we never saw them screwing anyone over for a few lousy credits."

Samus nodded absently. "I've actually fond of humans, but only in small doses. To be fair though, I'm warming up to the idea of being around them lately."

"Oh?" Ripley asked, intrigued. "What are you thinking?"

"It's just been such a long time," the bounty hunter replied, "since I've had a place to call home. A place to really call home. One that didn't fly and that I actually felt comfortable being in. Hell, I sleep in my pilot chair most nights because I converted my bedroom into a gun closet. I'm thinking it might be good to get something a little more substantial in my life."

"I always wondered," the General mused aloud, "if I'd live to see the day you said something like that."

"I mean it," Samus said, setting her coffee mug down and looking between Ripley and Adam. "I've got a kid, and I think I'd like to see him a little more regularly. Elisa drove back up to Rosewood a few days ago, but she's still close enough to come down and visit on weekends. I've been thinking about maybe getting a little house or something. Nothing fancy. Just somewhere I can put paint on the walls. Maybe a garage for tinkering with ground vehicles and things. The Space Pirate War is over. I'm not on call nearly as much as I used to be. Maybe it's time to start focusing on myself and having an actual life."

"Seriously," the General said, raising his eyebrows and staring at her in disbelief. "Who are you and what have you done with Samus Aran?"

"What?" Samus asked, feigning innocence. "I think this stupid planet has really grown on me."

"I don't know much about Earth," Ripley said, looking back and forth between the mercenary and the General. "I'm a stranger here myself, but don't they have really strict immigration laws especially for… half-humans?"

"They do," Samus replied, drinking some more coffee. "It's almost impossible to even get a visa to come to Earth if you're a delta class semi-human. Unless you were born on an Earth Colony, it turns out. If you were born on a colony, no matter how far away the planet was, you can get automatic citizenship to Earth and even own property and things if you having a blood relative living here."

"And you have a son," Ripley said with a grin.

Samus shook her head. "No, as far as anyone knows, I never had children. I'm sterile now, and I just tell people I always have been. But I do have a relative named Morrigan, and Elisa agreed to facilitate working with her and me to help me swing some kind of citizenship. I saw my birth certificate for the first time a few months ago, and now I can prove I was born on K-2L."

"And that was an Earth Colony?" Ripley asked.

Samus nodded. "A very infamous one."

"You're thinking of looking for a house around here?" Adam asked, still surprised by her sudden change in attitude.

"Somewhere around this area." Samus shrugged. "I'll start going by 'Rhonda' again and hope people in the suburbs are just too fake-polite to ask about my scars."

"That's a big lifestyle shift," Adam cautioned, setting his coffee down.

"I know," Samus said, a hint of defiance in her voice. "I don't expect it to be an easy transition, and I'm not saying I could ever do it full time. I'm too restless to ever stay in one place very long. But life moves pretty fast, and I've nearly lost mine a few times now. One of these days, my luck is going to run out, and I'd like to get in a few good years before that happens." She turned to Ripley and added casually, "If you and Newt want to live in part of it, be my guests. Pay rent or don't. I don't care one way or the other. Even when I'm home I won't want to be around people much, so you'll have plenty of space."

Ripley looked at her in surprise. "You're actually serious."

"I usually am," Samus replied.

"I mean… I'd have to think about it, but this is a nice area for Newt to grow up. I'd pay you, of course. I'm not going to take advantage of your hospitality."

"I don't care one way or the other," Samus said. "Trust me, I've had a better career than any mercenary you've ever heard of. Money has not been an issue for me in a very long time. I guess I just see a lot of myself in that little girl and want to make sure she doesn't end up having the life I did."

"Wow," Ripley said, really looking at the bounty hunter. "I'm not sure what to say. Thank you… for everything. You've already saved us. I'm sorry I ever—"

Samus brushed the comment off with a wave of her hand. "Whatever. You'd never met a semi-human before, and I'm a particularly scary one."

"You're a really noble person, Samus Aran."

The bounty hunter felt herself blush as she tried to sink down in her seat and failed. "I'm far from noble. I try to be decent, but that's a much lower bar, and I don't always even make that."

"I beg to differ," Adam replied.

"Ditto," Ripley added.

Samus could feel her face getting redder. Praise had never been something with which she was comfortable. "Excuse me," she said quietly as she got up and dismissed herself from the table.