Ripley grunted as she lifted herself up on her elbows and shifted position. The vent was a fairly tight squeeze between her, the welder, and the heavy flashlight she dragged alongside her, and her injuries from the alien weren't helping matters much. She'd been crawling through the ventilation system for the past hour trying to find the spot that the computer system was reporting as damaged, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Bishop's constant updates and directions in her ear were only serving to drive her batty ("The computer indicates you've gone too far starboard. Track back towards port. Try ventilation system 2A. Make sure you're scanning with the light."), and as she heard another burst of static indicating an incoming transmission, she was on the verge of ripping the comms wire out and tossing it aside when a voice entirely different from the flat monotones of Bishop said: "Ripley?"

She paused, sliding the flashlight further up so that she could bring one of her hands up to one ear to adjust the earbud to make out Newt's soft voice more clearly. "Hey honey, what's up?"

"Nothing. I'm just bored."

Ripley smiled and shook her head. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, then braced her shoulders against the sides of the vent so that she could continue moving through it while scanning the beam of the flashlight in front of her. "Tell me about it. It's been a long couple of weeks."

"Yeah."

She could imagine her in the control room sitting on the table or inside her blanket fort, the radio system set up beside her as she played with the various makeshift toys she'd created out of bits of wire and cloth. Her creativity was boundless and both she and Hicks had caught snippets of the elaborate stories she wove as she played. "You think you can help me out here, Newt?"

Instantly, her voice lit up with interest, pleased to be asked. "Sure! What should I do?"

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully, craning her neck back to cast the light up at the ventilation shaft branching off upwards overhead. She looked down at the rough map she had sketched up before venturing into the system. The computer wasn't the most accurate with its approximations of damaged areas, but she was fairly certain from the past hour of trial and error with Bishop that she was at the right elevation and didn't need to go up or down a level, so she continued straight ahead.

"How about a story?" she suggested. "I think I'm going to be stuck here a while longer, and don't tell him I said this, but—" she lowered his voice to an exaggerated whisper, as if Bishop couldn't hear all of what was being said, "—Bishop is terrible at talking."

Newt giggled. "Okay. What story do you want to hear?"

"Tell me one of your stories," Ripley said. "Anything you like." The flashlight beam caught on an unusual ridge, a rippling in the metal that was unnatural and warped. She slid over to it, dragging up the welder and face shield and positioning the light so that it was trained on the area.

Newt must have been thinking of what story she wanted to tell, because a minute or so passed before the radio clicked with a staticky hum and her voice came through again. "Once upon a time," she began, and Ripley held back a laugh; she was putting on a storyteller voice, taking her new job very seriously. She continued: "Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was an orphan. She didn't have any family or anything, and she lived all by herself in the woods."

Ripley reached back and turned up the radio in her back pocket so that she'd be able to hear Newt over the sound of the welder, then flipped the visor down over her face and got to work.

"The forest was really dangerous, and the girl had to be really smart. She would climb way up high in the trees at night so that the wolves couldn't get her, and she'd only climb down when she had to find food, and she'd make sure to be really quiet."

Ripley bit her lip as she listened. The heat from the welder was just bearable, and focusing on Newt's story helped her keep her mind off it.

"But then, the girl was found by two people. Their names were. . ." Newt paused, thinking. "Hipley and Rick."

"Hipley and Rick, huh?" Ripley said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. "Interesting."

"Don't interrupt," Newt said firmly. "So Hipley and Rick showed up, and the little girl saved them from the wolves, and all three of them protected each other. And they sneaked away and left the wolves way, way behind and left the woods forever. But then they had to walk a really long time through a desert to find their home." The radio cut out for a few beats, then hummed back in. "And just when they thought they would never find it, they climbed a really big hill. And from the top, they could see everywhere, and they saw their house waiting for them. It was super big, with two floors, and they each had a room to themselves, and their fridge was full of chocolate and candy and chips—and no meatloaf," she added sternly. "And there was a big yard with lots of grass an' trees, too."

Ripley had just about finished the job now, shoving up the mask so that she could get a look at her work. As Newt paused, however, so did she, waiting for the rest of Newt's dream. When she didn't volunteer it after several seconds, Ripley prompted: "And then what happened to the little girl?"

"She lived happily ever after, silly. With Hipley and Rick. Oh, and Bishop too, I guess. The end."

Ripley chuckled into her sleeve. "I like that story, Newt." She paused. "And you know something?"

"What?" Newt's tone was curious, hopeful.

"We're going to find our home, too. Right now we're climbing that big hill, and pretty soon we're going to see that house right in front of us. Okay?"

There was a long stretch of dead radio silence, then Newt asked: "And are we all gonna get to live in the house? You and me and Hicks?"

A quick lapse, another click slipping in, and this time she could hear Hicks' voice. It was lower than usual; it had gotten more and more hoarse and worn over the past few days as his condition worsened. It was becoming quickly apparent that he needed serious medical intervention to treat his injuries. The sooner they could get back into cryosleep, the better, which made Ripley feel all the more relieved that she'd gotten the ventilation damage repaired.

Over the radio, Hicks said: "I was wondering about that too, Ripley."

Ripley only laughed in reply, adjusting her radio frequency to make sure she was including the entire ship comms, not just the channel to the radio stationed in the control room. "Bishop? Did that take care of the damage in the ventilation system?"

"Affirmative. Good work, Ripley."

"Great. I'll be back in a few minutes, then."

Newt piped up again. "Okay, Ripley! We'll make you some lunch."

"Thanks, sweetheart. I'd like that." She gritted her teeth as she began to slide back the opposite way. There wasn't enough room to turn around, so she'd have to head back feet first, dragging the equipment behind her. It meant for slow going (and reminded her uncomfortably of past experiences in ventilation systems), but she focused on just moving forward. "Do you have any fresh lobster over there? With some devil's food cake and champagne?"

"I'll see what we can whip up," Hicks laughed. She could hear Newt's giggle in the background, too, and a permanent smile worked its way onto her face. She was in a cramped vent that was too warm, with numerous bruises and scars all over her from the horrific events of the past decades, on a ship full of holes that seemed hellbent on keeping them awake and out of cryo, and yet—

She was happy.

It was the damnedest thing, but she was happy.

The perfect house that Newt had envisioned and imagined—for Ripley, it was right here. It was wherever Newt was—and, yes, she admitted it—wherever Hicks was, too. Hell, throw Bishop in there too. Together, they were a family, and so long as they were all safe, alive, and happy, they were home.

There was comfort in that. Comfort in knowing that, though they were drifting through space, in the middle of nowhere, with no one and nothing around them, sealed off in the metal bubble of their space vessel, they would never truly be alone. They had each other.

If you'd have told Ripley years ago that she would be this attached to a marine, an android, and a young girl—if you'd have told her that this would be her happy family—she would have called you crazy and laughed in your face.

But now, as she slid out of the vent and landed on her feet, equipment in hand, tired and hungry, there was a spring in her step and a grin on her face as she headed back to the control room. And turning the corner, spotting Hicks and Newt huddled at the table, conferring in whispered tones as they mixed together powder from two different meal packets to make a new "gourmet" dish, with Bishop watching from the side, a slight bemused smile on his face—seeing that was like cresting the hill in Newt's story and seeing that perfect, idyllic home laid out before her. Grimy spaceship, powdered meals, damaged hull and all.