I have added a small note to chapter 1 that might clarify a few things regarding this fic :).

Also, in case it's not obvious, quotation marks in this chapter are depending on which language is 'native' to the POV character.

Chapter 8: Don't 'What' Me! (I)

It had taken Sonic about five more seconds in the nightly rain to decide that, screw it, she'd survive being creeped out for a moment if it got him closer to another shot at actually getting home. It was probably the worst idea he'd had so far. But then nothing could really top ending up on an alien planet in the first place, so he had a bit of leeway…

The wrinkly guy had dropped her off at a hospital, and Sonic had actually managed to stay awake this time (even though it had stopped raining midway and he'd started feeling vaguely comfortable again), and he'd managed to catch the moment she came back out. Then he'd started following the car that had picked her up—a yellow thing with a sign on top. It was probably a cab.

The car took a turn into a dimly lit suburb and Sonic scaled a nearby house to keep running on roofs again. He had no idea how deep into the night it was by now, but the area seemed positively deserted. He was probably stirring up more people by trampling on their roofs than by zipping through their backyards at this point, but catching the drivers attention was clearly the worse option.

After a couple of more turns, the cab came to a halt on the wide front yard of a four story apartment house lined with a handful of tall trees on either side. The building seemed to be part of a square complex of three other buildings surrounding a lawn. Each of them had outside stairs leading to open walkways that took you to the respective doors.

Sonic perched, watching from the roof across as she dragged herself out of the car. A small backpack hung from her good elbow, and the bag of groceries she still carried was awkwardly cradled in the same arm. The other arm was still in a (slightly more professional looking) sling, and some sort of harness seemed to be strapped around her shoulders.

She exchanged a couple of words with the driver, then began trudging up the stairway, all the way to the topmost floor.

#

"Oh, come on! Do keys always have to be in the wrong pocket when you've got your arms full? Seriously…" Jen crouched down and set the worn shopping bag on the ground in what felt like a minute-long process. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this ready to call it a day.

And what a day.

First she'd been late to the library and missed out on half of the books for her assignment, then she decided to go shopping and had to wait in line behind, like, a bus full of pensioners, then she had to call off a meet-up with Allan, and then she messed up her car on the way home, with the only help around being some kind of blue… something that she still couldn't quite wrap her head around. The universe could've really picked a better moment to confront her with the idea of sentient animal people casually knowing how to tie a sling.

Jen let her backpack slide to the ground beside the bag and straightened up again, fishing for her keys.

There was a clang on the metal railing behind her and she spun, keys halfway to the lock. Jen felt her mouth drop open.

"You!" she said intelligently.

He crouched on top of the walkway's metal railing and gave her a two-fingered salute.

»Hey,« he said, grinning briefly and showing a row of oddly perfect teeth. Then he studied her for a moment as if unsure what to do next.

"Hey yourself," she muttered.

Now he showed up? It would've been nice if she could've talked to that old man without sounding like a nutcase earlier. She'd later even asked around in the waiting room, and had tried to absorb as much of the news from a nearby TV as possible. But no one had even faintly known what she was talking about, and she eventually had to convince herself to dismiss the encounter as a freaky once-in-a-lifetime experience. It took some effort to rearrange her brain again now.

Also, it didn't help that he tried to be all casual with her while crouching on a metal railing four stories above ground.

His eyes followed her own gaze into the darkness that was the yard below, and he seemed to catch on just as she was positive she'd exhausted her grimacing capacity.

He rose to his feet, looking amused and vaguely gesturing to the ground below. »What? You think that's high?« he began in the same language as before. »Better not watch me ride on the back of a plane then.« That brief grin again. At some point during that sentence his fingers had interlocked at the back of his head, somewhere inside the spiky mess that were apparently quills growing there, and he managed to look more relaxed standing on a high-up metal railing than she currently did on solid ground.

He seemed to gauge her reaction and Jen was pretty sure she hadn't changed her expression. After a moment he cocked his head, growing strangely serious. He sat down on the rail and interloped a foot with one of it's bars. Jen exhaled softly.

"Well…" she began, realizing she'd curled the fingers of her looped arm around the other. "I'm glad you're not just a figment of my imagination, but—" She bit her lip. What now? She couldn't just go inside now, could she? Would he just… leave? Or would she be stuck with him for the rest of her life? He couldn't really understand her, could he? It had seemed like it at times, but it had probably just been coincidence.

He took a breath and averted his eyes, staring at the ground for a moment. Then he shook his head and faced her again. »Guess we both have no idea what we're supposed to do now, huh?« he said. »Glad you're looking okay though.« He hopped to the ground before her and gave her that salute again. »Sorry for bothering ya and all. Take care!«

He turned and headed for the stairs.

"No, wait," Jen blurted, regretting it the same moment.

He paused, turning halfway to look at her again with a strange mixture of frustration and… hopefulness, maybe? His fingers curled into fists.

Jen chewed her lip.

She had more than a ton of questions by now and knew that this was just the chance she'd wanted to have after he'd left her in the woods. But what was she supposed to do now? Let him in just like that? He had helped her, alright, and she felt like some thanks was in order, but would she be able to get him out again if it somehow got too much?

He watched her quietly, then lowered his gaze before turning around again.

"Goodbye," he said with a bit of a melodic accent.

What? Jen blinked. This was going too fast.

"Wait," she said, and he paused again, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he turned around. He cocked his head, taking a breath.

"Uh," she began, fumbling with her keys. "You… you can come in if you want…" Jen swallowed, pointing at the door as he raised an eyebrow…-ridge…-thing. She was fairly sure he'd gotten her intent. He crossed his arms as if to say 'are you sure?'.

It was the first time Jen thought he looked a little lost.

She edged closer to the door, trying not to keep her eyes from him as she unlocked it and pushed it open, then she tilted her head towards the inside.

He looked sideways, letting his arms drop and apparently trying to stifle a smile. Then he came over and hefted the bag of groceries into his arms. It took Jen a moment to process that she was the one supposed to enter first.

#

Sonic closed the door behind him, now standing in a short, softly lit and somewhat stuffed corridor that opened into a larger room. She'd gone in ahead, leaving her shoes at the side between a bunch of other pairs, and now waited quietly for him to follow.

Being inside a home was… odd all of a sudden. As if his feet weren't supposed to walk on perfectly smooth ground anymore. And the dry, warm air with the faint smell of furniture made him feel as if he was heating up from the inside. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to close a door. It hadn't been half as weird when he'd stepped into the house on the island only days before.

He took a few more steps inside, then paused again when something blue appeared in the corner of his vision. To his side a mirror stuck out, halfway hidden behind a couple of coats. Sonic instinctively straightened himself when he saw his reflection: some weird blue guy, way too short for everything around him and with a strange, crumpled shopping bag in his arms. He'd been prepared to look like crap, but, damn, for a brief moment he'd been confused by his reflection. As if he'd already gotten way too used to seeing their alien faces all around. He really was the odd one out around here.

Sonic tore his gaze from the mirror and found her looking at him. She'd probably watched him the entire time. Now she abruptly stepped aside and beckoned for him to follow.

»Uh, yeah. Come in,« she said—whatever it meant exactly. All of this 'not talking' was going to drive him nuts at some point.

The longish room he entered had just about strained its capacity. At its center, around a low table that could've been a decent dinner table elsewhere, stood an old leather couch with matching armchair. At the room's far end, on a slightly elevated floor, a bed stood beneath a skylight, and to Sonic's right was a hopelessly cluttered desk that would've made Miles wither on the spot. He stifled a smile.

Two doors led away from the room—one to the left of that bed-elevation, the other right behind him past the desk—apparently into a small kitchen.

…Well, small to her anyway.

Sonic shifted the bag in his arms and headed inside, pausing again when he heard her draw a breath. Her eyes seemed to follow the movement of every hair he had on his body.

#

Jen's mind wasn't exactly at its best at the moment. She was exhausted, probably high on painkillers, and in a very, very odd situation in need of making sense of. Unfortunately, there was no way figuring things out by simply talking to the creature in question.

She guided him into the kitchen and watched him balance the bag on a chair just like anyone would in a place in which they had no idea where stuff went. But his eyes wandered, lingering briefly on every other thing, as if he had to make sense of what he saw while at the same time he just seemed to be acknowledging the things around him. She figured he'd been in a house before, but it still felt off in a way. He appeared to act natural most of the time and this situation didn't seem to be the thing to become tentative about.

She was also pretty sure that he was perfectly aware of himself. When he'd seen himself in the mirror he couldn't hide some… dissatisfaction, but she'd gotten the impression it had rather been because he frankly looked somewhat like a vagabond (the scent of wet rag mixed with bonfire wasn't particularly easy to ignore, either), and not because he'd been generally freaked out by his appearance.

And his clothes were curiously well-fitting, too. At first she thought he'd stolen some kids' clothes, but those red and white sneakers looked pretty premium despite their wear, and his cargo-shorts even had a tailored hole for his short tail to stick out. It weren't things you just picked up. Did it mean there was a place were guys like him got proper clothes and had their own language, now? She wasn't remotely enough of a conspiracy person to come up with a decent explanation as to how something like this could've gone over everyone's head.

"So," Jen said, apparently pulling him out of thoughts of his own as he turned to face her. "Is there anything you understand? Français, peut-être?" she asked, vaguely hopeful.

He lifted a finger, brows furrowing, then let is hand drop again. »You know, there's probably a really good response to whatever you just said, but—« He shrugged.

"Yeah, I'll take your word for it," Jen said.

An idea struck her.

Maybe that teaching-degree in progress would finally be good for something other than draining her bank account…

She went over to her desk and pulled a writing pad from beneath a stack of papers before letting herself sink into her swivel chair and instinctively reach for the pen clipped to the pad. The spot was empty. Jen started to rummage.

He appeared before her with a pen in his hand, holding it out for her to take. »Didn't think I'd need that thing anytime soon, but here,« he said, expression somewhere between disbelief and amusement.

Jen moved to sit a bit more upright, awkwardly repositioning herself without bothering her shoulder. They were roughly on eye-level now and it was kind of hard not to stare. How could he act so human without even remotely looking the part? He even seemed pretty self-assured most of the time—something she could only imagine someone to be if they'd been in this… shape for quite a while now.

Her first thought had been that, at some point, he must've had transformed or mutated somehow. But that made about just as much sense to her as the idea that he simply had been born like this. ...Allan shouldn't have dragged her into watching sci-fi movies with him last weekend.

Well. Only one way to find out for sure.

Jen delicately took the pen he offered and muttered a "thanks". He gave a slight nod in response.

The pen looked about as worn as he did, made of some sort of plastic that had cracked at the end and now revealed a narrow refill. She pulled off the cap and began scribbling it to life out of habit. It had an odd feel to it, like a pencil drawing thin lines of ink, and it didn't come from a brand she recognized. But she wasn't exactly an expert in pens, so that ultimately didn't mean much.

"Alright," she said, grabbing his attention. She drew one figure resembling a human, and a second, smaller and somewhat more large-headed, spiky figure next to it.

"You," she declared, pointing the pen at him and then at the second figure.

He raised an eye ridge.

"Yeah, I know. I'm an exceptionally gifted artist."

His brows knitted just a tad more and she directed his eyes back at the paper.

"So: you." She pointed at him again, then at the little human on her pad, and then drew a couple of squiggly lines from there towards the incredible artwork that was supposed to resemble her newly acquired guest.

"Have you transformed somehow?" She tried to make her point with a bunch of expansive gestures but only earned a few confused blinks and few of what must've been his languages' version of a "what?". A grin crept into his words and only spread further.

»What? No! No way!« he said, shaking his head and laughing by now. It was strangely refreshing.

He snatched the pen from her fingers and took a few tentative strokes before flipping the pad around in her lap and drawing a second, stick-figure-like being of his kind that came out only marginally better than hers.

»I'm not sure I wanna know how this works around here,« he said, drawing another figure and regarding it briefly. He added a pair of boobs. »But were I come from, we get born.« He traced a Y-shaped line from both of the figures to the one she'd assigned to be him. »And I definitely have no idea how I'm s'pposed to explain that to you if you don't even know what I'm talking about.« He emphasized his words by a series of gestures that somehow involved the pen entering his semi-closed fist, then he shrugged, grimacing briefly. He held the pen out for her to take again.

Jen ignored it, staring at him instead.

Then she blinked, pointing at him. "You," she stated. "Have parents."

It did turn out to be more bizarre than the idea of someone suddenly changing shape.

After a moment with only a shrug for an answer (and her mind going all the wrong places) she threw the pad back on the table and got up to fetch an illustrated atlas from one of her shelves. She returned to her seat, careful not no irritate her shoulder, and cracked the cover open, turning the book around for him to see.

"Where?" she asked, waving her outstretched hand across the stretched-out map of the world.

His gaze latched on to it, and the remains of his amusement were replaced with curiosity. He ran his fingers along the open page.

Jen picked up the writing pad again and balanced it upright in front of her chest. When she had his attention back, she pointed at the sketch he'd drawn and waved her hand across the map. "Your parents. Where are they?"

He shook his head without taking another look at the map. Then a thought seemed to strike and he began leafing through the book, pausing a couple of times until he'd almost reached the end. There, two double pages were dedicated to 'Earth's place in the universe'. He pointed straight at one of the planets of the solar system.

"Huh, what?" Jen twisted to place the writing pad back on her desk and pulled the book out from beneath his pointy fingernail, turning it around. She read the caption: 'Clarion. With a semi-major axis only marginally longer than that of Earth, it is considered to be the fourth planet of the solar system. More commonly, however, this blue planet is regarded as Earth's Mirror.'

Next to it, a picture showed a close-up of both planets' orbits around the sun. Clarion's orbital plane was tilted and likened to Pluto's while Earth shared it's plane with the rest of the solar system. With both planets—Earth and Clarion—circling the sun on opposing sides but on different angles, the little diagram looked a bit like an atom.

'Clarion has a liquid hydrosphere and a density equal to that of Earth,' she read further. 'Its atmosphere… able to sustain complex life… planet's axis… climate… 22 hour long days…'

What the heck?

Jen shook her head, scanning the rest of the page in an attempt to recall the stuff she'd supposedly learned about Clarion in school. Didn't they sent space probes over there? What happened to them? The book didn't go beyond the technicalities she'd expect from an atlas, and she failed to recollect anything useful she might've heard before. Any talk about sentient aliens had always come across more as a joke to her.

She looked at him again with a frown, finger tapping on Clarion's image. "You're kidding me. You're from there?"

"Yes," he said, a hint of doubt in his voice.

Jen frowned. "You… you just got lucky with that response, right?" she asked carefully.

He crossed his arms, apparently waiting for her to go on.

Jen hesitated. She wasn't surprised that he'd pick up a couple of words and figure out their meaning, but it still seemed weird. How many people had he met before her?

When no other answer came she pulled the pen from his fingers again. This time she drew two planets circling the sun, marking one with an E and the other with a C.

"Okay, here's Earth." She pointed at the ground. "And there's Clarion." She pointed at the roof and then at him—

»Mobius,« he interrupted.

"Hm?"

»It's called Mobius. That one.« He gestured towards the planet marked with a C.

"Okay…" Jen nodded hesitantly. "_Mobius_—if you say so." She struck out the C and replaced it with an M.

"Good. How did you get from there to here?" she asked, tracing a line from Mobius to Earth then drawing a little spaceship along with it. Hopefully he'd recognize her new masterpiece.

His eyes lit up with recognition, but he shook his head and plucked the pen from her fingers again. He flipped to a fresh page and began drawing some kind of pole, briefly looking amused again.

His pictured explanation took a while. Apparently there was some kind of portal that had brought him from one planet to the other, and now it somehow couldn't take him back again, even though it seemed to try and tell him something that apparently had to do with a fat man wearing a mustache. By the time he decided he was done, her mind was even more mushy than it had been at the beginning of the evening.

Everything seemed so absurd, she was almost inclined to believe him. He was here, after all, and obviously not human. And he didn't exactly look equipped for space travel either.

He pointed at the pole, at his and her eyes, and at the pole again. »Have you seen something like this?«

Jen could identify a question by now.

"No," she said slowly, shaking her head. He seemed to understand.

"You know what," Jen said after a while of trying to put her thoughts in order. "I feel like I should believe you. But… give me some time to check up on a few things, okay?"

#

Sonic crossed his arms, watching as she rolled her chair closer to her desk and switched on some kind of flip-thing that turned out to be a computer. It didn't seem as if she wanted to involve him at the moment.

He had no idea how much time had passed. Explaining stuff in an art form he was about opposite as good at as talking wasn't only exhausting, it was also insanely slow. If communication kept going at this pace, he was probably better off trying to build a trebuchet and shoot himself off the planet than to keep searching for people knowing about Star Posts of all things.

…Which was what he was still doing, right?

Everything seemed to be a mess right now. He was hungry, he felt like a grimy, smelly intruder in her place, and he felt as if he'd somehow compelled her to let him in. Plus, communication took so long, he couldn't possibly expect anyone to waste all their time on him—especially not without them getting something in return. The fact that he'd helped her before could never outweigh the time it would take until she really understood what he was looking for (even though that cut on her forehead did look really clean right now…). And him being handed over to whoever dealt with alien stuff around here wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to trade in.

Plus, she didn't actually seem to know anything.

The woman awkwardly hit a few keys with her good hand and still made no effort to involve him in any way. But then she also hadn't made any effort to kick him out yet. No matter how uncomfortable he felt about the general situation, he definitely didn't mind feeling uncomfortable in the warm and dry.

Sonic took a probing step towards the couch. When she didn't react, he moved past it to a shelf that had a small version of what he'd already recognized as their world's television on it. Behind it, a couple of cables ran along the wall and all the way underneath her desk where they plugged into some sort of connector. Had these guys run out of chaos drives or what? He only knew cords as something like a last resort. But if their cities were as crowded as they looked, they probably couldn't deal with it any other way. He just wondered why they didn't put more plants everywhere to balance it out.

On the table by the couch he spotted a pair of what looked like remotes and picked one up, randomly pressing a button. Some upbeat rock song started playing. Not half bad, actually.

She immediately spun around on her desk chair. »Hey, don't—«

Sonic raised his hands like a caught thief, cutting her off. His thumb moved to press the same button again and the music stopped.

She pressed her lips together as if inwardly debating what to do with him now. Sonic placed the remote back on the table, expecting to get the boot any moment. Well, it had been nice and all.

…Maybe he could skip by that bag in the kitchen on the way out, though.

Her face lit up. »Ha, I have just the idea,« she said.

That sounded… enthusiastic?

»Come.«

She got up and moved towards the door beside the elevation, pulled it open and flipped on the lights. Apparently she wanted him to follow.

Sonic rounded the couch and took a peek into the last room of her small apartment. It turned out to be a bathroom. Sonic needed a moment to realize he was gaping.

The room's space roughly mirrored the entrance corridor. It was narrow but large enough to have pretty much every important part in it. …As far as Sonic could tell, anyway. To the left was a tub about the size of a toddler bath. It was probably their idea of a toilet.

She brushed past him and slid open a stall to the right.

A shower.

She had about five seconds left to leave him alone, so why was she stepping in?

She came back out having grabbed two bottles and crouched down in front of him. Sonic licked his lips. Could he somehow just… roll her out without making her shoulder worse…?

»Alright,« she said, thumbing towards the stall. »I really hope you know what this is, 'cause I'm not gonna get in there with you.«

Sonic glanced inside. There was a shower head and a handle—nothing mysterious. Damn, his foot was tapping.

»…Okay,« she said hesitantly, then wagged one of the bottles in front of his face, grabbing about half of his attention.

»This one's for hair,« she said, somewhat awkwardly running a few fingers through her hair while her bad hand stiffly held the bottle. »And this one—« She picked up the other bottle, paused, eyed him then the bottle skeptically for a moment then put it away again. »Never mind.«

She got back on her feet, reached into a shelf and pulled a towel out, dropping it into his hands.

No way. This couldn't possibly be real. With his luck, he was probably two seconds short of waking up in a cold and damp forest, realizing he'd dreamt the whole thing. But, Chaos, even just dreaming of a shower was better than no shower at all. He dropped the towel to the floor and began tugging at his belt while at the same time trying to slip out of his shoes.

»Whoa, hey, hold on—« She raised her hand in defense, interrupting him. »You're on your own from here. Try not no make a mess.« She stepped out, but not without casting a slightly doubtful glance back into the bathroom on her way.

»Thanks,« Sonic said.

That seemed to catch her off-guard. She gradually developed a grin.

»You're welcome,« she said.