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Mick walked back to his own room from the bathroom. This action in itself wasn't spectacular, but what happened to him on his way was extraordinary. As he walked, he noticed something from the corner of his eye; a shadow of a human figure. Yet whenever he turned his head, this shadow did not come into view. It stayed in the corner of his eye. Mick did not like this, for he believed it taunted him – come and catch me, you can't do it! Mick turned around a couple of times to find what was watching, but each time he grew more and more furious. After a while, Mick believed that shadow grinned in glee as Mick was unable to see it.

Then Mick snapped. He pulled out his heat gun – of course, he carried it everywhere, he did not like to leave it anywhere – and pulled the trigger. Flames hit the wall and Mick let them burn for a minimum of five seconds before letting go of the trigger and lowering his arm.

The wall was scorched and fumed a little. Nothing truly had caught fire, which was a relief for the AI that inhibited the ship.

"Mr. Rory!" Gideon spoke with an indignant tone. "Would you refrain from using that gun inside?" But Mick paid no attention to her; he looked around, but the shadow in the corner of his eye had disappeared. He could finally be at peace again.

That is, until Nate came running in the hallway, a confused look on his face. He noticed the burn marks on the wall – maybe something was damaged, but at least it did not burn anymore – and he turned his head to Mick's furious face.

"What the hell is going on?" Nate asked.

"I'm being stalked by a ghost."

"You, too?" Nate approached Mick and leaned in closer as if to tell him a secret nobody was supposed to here. Even though nobody was currently around to overhear it and Gideon would not tell anyone unless asked. "You know, I've been seeing this thing in the corner of my eyes. I can't quite seem to get a good look at it.

"Me, too," Mick responded. He took a step backward, away from Nate. the historian nodded, an interested look on his face.

"It's weird," he said and he placed a hand on his chin. He did not necessarily look at anything as he pondered upon the fact that they had seen something similar. "Maybe the gods are watching us. It would make sense, I mean, we are their champions. They'd want to keep an eye on us, see how well we're doing."

"Stalkers," Mick spat out. Nate sharply turned his head to Mick and almost gasped. Nate was not that dramatic, so he did not do it in the end. Still, his mouth fell open.

"Don't let them hear you," Nate whispered, glancing around nervously. "They are very sensitive." And if they really were keeping an eye on them, they would be able to hear everything their champions said. The gods are notoriously bad sports and are known not to take it well when someone insults them. Who knows, maybe one of them is sensitive to being called a stalker, even though they totally are.

"Does it look like I care?" Mick said with an indifferent tone of voice and a glare in his eyes. Nate decided not to answer that hypothetical question. Instead, Nate remembered something and asked Mick a question.

"Say, did you find a poppy in your room, by any chance?" He wasn't going to enter Mick's room without permission – he would very much like to stay on Mick's good side – and now he was already talking to Mick, it wouldn't be too hard to ask.

"What?" Mick reacted, a confused undertone in his voice.

"Y'know, a small red flower. Was there one in your room?"

"No." Mick turned and walked back to his room, leaving Nate behind.

"Okay," Nate said. "Thank you!" Mick already had turned the corner, so he possibly didn't hear it. Nate sighed deeply and watched the burn marks again. Maybe it was the first time Mick had spotted this spirit – if he had seen it before, Nate believed Mick would not have reacted so violently. Then again, it was Mick, and it was hard to figure out how he was going to react in certain situations.

Nate walked in the other direction, off to another bedroom, to continue his quest to find poppies. Next up was visiting Amaya and asking her about it.

#

Because Mick had decided to draw his gun to scare away a ghost, he had burned the wall. while nothing seemed to be too badly damaged on the outside, it was best not to leave this unattended for too long. So, Zari was sent to check it out. When she was done with replacing some wires and fixing other parts, she would have a conversation with Mick about damaging the ship's infrastructure and how he literally could have doomed them all if he had burned a different part of the wall, or some structures that were directly responsible for their survival in the time stream.

"Hey," a voice said next to her when she was almost finished. Zari had not seen anyone coming and almost jumped in terror and surprise. When she looked to her side, the resident speedster was standing there and he seemingly admired her work.

"Hey, Wally," she said. Another glance at him made her notice how relaxed he looked, how calm and at peace he was, a grin on his face. "You look happy."

Wally shrugged. "I figured I found my place in the group again. I'm no longer contemplating what I would have done if I decided not to have visited."

"That's good," Zari said, just finishing up reattaching a wire, not particularly looking up from her work. "It's best not to dwell on the bad things happening in life." Especially because thinking of what might have been could be bad if you were expected to focus on

"It wasn't bad per se," Wally responded. "Yes, I'm stuck, but when this is over, I can leave. And I no longer care how long that's going to take." There was a small pause. The wire Zari was working on sparked a little, but Zari quickly and efficiently finished the job and turned to Wally again.

His was still relaxed, though he also seemed worried. Somehow, that disturbed her. "How are you holding up?"

"Me?" Why was he asking about her?

"Yeah. I mean, er…" he paused. She almost could see his brain going 900 miles per hour, trying to find the right words to come out of his mouth. "…monsters and oracles and visions… and gods. Literal gods."

"Ah." Zari nodded once now she got what Wally was getting at. She could already guess how the conversation was going to go.

"How are you dealing with that?" Wally asked.

"I'm doing well," she said. However, Wally believed it was not an answer to his question. He was rather persistent.

"I know, but I meant…" He paused again. He tried his best to pick words that did not make him sound like an insensitive idiot and Zari could appreciate that.

"How you do… y'know, combine the Greek with the Arabic?"

"The Greek gods and everything that comes with it were created. They exist, though they're not nice creations." That was the only plausible explanation for their existence.

"But do you—"

"Wally," she said, interrupting him. She put down her work and turned to him. "I do not want to talk about it." She did not want to think about it too much, either. Trying to apply logic to creatures that stood above her would not make sense since they were not bound to human logic.

"Oh," he said, "Okay." He did not speak in a disappointed tone – he knew to leave well alone when people did not want to talk about something

"Hey, do you want to grab some lunch?" Wally then asked. "I'm starving."

Zari nodded. "Gladly." They walked to the kitchen together so they both could eat and refuel their tanks. Zari had just finished her work, so she wouldn't have to worry about any malfunctions while she was away. And the conversation with Mick could wait until her belly was sufficiently full.