Chapter 15

Sam put her hands up after screeching and it rippled to Tucker.

"Okay. Okay. Ooookay," she said much more calmly. "S-So he says he's an experiment but he speaks Esperanto. How do we know 'experiment' refers to the same thing in his language? How do we know it's not um…'expert'? Or 'expertise'? Or maybe 'experience'?"

"Do you think…maybe that's the reason he came here?" Tucker asked. "You were out of town and the place was empty so maybe he was running and ended up here?"

"No. No. He isn't an experiment and he isn't on the run from some government agency or something. That's Hollywood cinema all the way."

"I wonder if he has any superpowers…" Tucker whispered curiously as he bent down close to his face.

"He's not an experiment, it means something else in Esperanto!"

"Maybe the rings are what help him control his powers."

"Tucker!"

"I wonder if it's one of those 'better soldier' things."

Sam shrunk down and held her head in her hands. "This isn't real…there are no such things as human experiments…it's all just in movies…"

What in the world was going on with them…? They were English-speakers, why was this upsetting them so much? Or, more specifically, upsetting Sam so much. But even Tucker was being so overdramatic. It was…disturbing. But even though he'd upset them, they wouldn't do anything…would they? No. No, of course not. Sure they were English-speakers but they were so different. They cared about him beyond an experiment, beyond Projekto Nivelo Up. He was an actual human being just as important as them. Minus the rings and language gap, he was no different from them. They had given him food, water, shelter, company, acceptance, safety, comfort, and numerous opportunities for various things—the biggest being learning English. Surely they wouldn't take all that away.

He had such a luxurious lifestyle and he could only hope he didn't just destroy it. It…might not have been the best time to let them know anything… But to lie to an English-speaker was pure madness. But perhaps there was one way to calm them down, or at least take their minds off all this for a moment.

He started whistling the tune Sam seemed to like. It worked. They both looked at him in surprise; they'd never heard his practices before. In fact they'd never heard him make any kind of noise before. Sam's little tune had a kind of calming effect, even though his whistling wasn't on par with hers yet. It seemed to be enough to satisfy them anyway.

"When did Daniel learn how to whistle?" Tucker asked. "I've never heard him do it before."

And there it was again—the name he prayed they would let him keep. The name that identified him as a unique English-speaker that didn't speak English, and not just the 428th thing that was probably considered ruined by now.

Tucker scooted closer to him and he stopped whistling. Part of him really wanted to believe nothing would happen. Another part of him knew something would.

And something did happen, just, not in the way he expected. Tucker patted his shoulder a few times and smiled, saying, "Good job, Daniel."

He honestly couldn't tell what exactly Tucker was saying but his voice sounded kind—almost encouraging, if he was willing to go out on a limb. This could only mean whistling was a good thing. It was accepted among English-speakers. Or…these two, at least.

"Yeah," Sam added, replicating Tucker's tone and smile. "You did great."

He looked at Tucker and used his wrist to pat—more like bump—his shoulder. Tucker just shuddered in response. Newfound information or not, the rings clearly did not lose their effect. Sam had always been able to handle them but Tucker, for some unknown reason, hated them. He pushed past that hatred to give him care and attention though. Just one more weird but welcomed trait about these two…

Tucker carefully pushed his hand away and turned to Sam. "You know, experiment or not he's still the same person. We just found out a little more about him. That shouldn't change the way you see him."

She put her hands up defensively. "No, no, don't get me wrong, I don't see him any differently. It's just a little bit shocking and what I've been doing is probably illegal."

"So what are you going to do then? He'll never make it in the outside world."

"I'm not dumping him outside, Tucker. He's still staying with me, but I mean…w-we don't know where he came from or what's been done to him… What if he has some kind of allergy I don't know about and it makes him, like, turn green or something? How am I supposed to take proper care of him?"

"Sam," Tucker sighed. "He's still a person. He hasn't had a reaction to anything so far. If you're that worried, maybe just feed him the same foods you've already been feeding him."

He pat-bumped Tucker's shoulder again to calm him back down, only to get the same result as before.

"Thank you, Daniel, but I'm fine. No need to, um, you know, make physical contact WITH—" Tucker flinched and leaned away from him when he tried a third time, just to be sure. "—those rings that go right through your skin."

Sam smirked. "You're the one who gave him the idea."

"I was just trying to be supportive."

"And now he's trying to be supportive back."

"Why are you doing this to me…" Tucker muttered. "I'm already in charge of bath time."

"Because, Tucker, he has no other way of telling us anything. He copies us to try to communicate, how else do you think he learned to whistle? The way he sees it, if he pats you on the shoulder, he's being nice to you, and now you're totally rejecting that. It's pretty obvious he wasn't treated very well where he came from so no, he never learned this kind of behavior. Imagine how confusing this is to him."

Maybe more whistling would settle this argument or debate, or whatever this was? They seemed to really like it before so if he did it again, it only made sense that they would calm down again. If only he'd known how to do this when Sam first found him…

He took a small breath and began whistling again. It did, as he expected, attract their attention for the second time, but their expressions didn't quite match the ones they showed earlier. That, he did not expect. And frankly it made no sense.

"Yeah, that's amazing, Daniel."

"Way to whistle, buddy!"

Despite both of them still sounding like they were encouraging him, they didn't seem as focused on him this time… He stopped. Maybe he could try again later. Maybe then it would have to same impact.

Sam sighed. "We should just stop talking about this. We can bring it up again after he goes to sleep."

"Does he know what 'sleep' means yet?"

"No. Closest I've come is 'bed'. I'm trying to take it slow, don't want to overwhelm him. Remember he already knows one language. Learning another might be a little harder."

"What if we just learn Esperanto and go from there?"

"I thought about it but he'll be better off learning English. We can try to learn Esperanto too but I really think it's more important for him to know English. He'll be able to function better."

"Can't argue with that logic. Anyway, I guess maybe he was whistling because he was upset with us not being too calm with each other. Let's just hug it out, show him everything's fine. Then like you said, we can talk when he's sleeping."

They both wrapped their arms around each other and put their heads on the other's shoulder. He wasn't quite as focused on that as he was on the word 'bed'. It was one of the very few English words he knew and he took that one word, along with the others, in great pride. He never, ever, took English for granted. So knowing the word 'bed' felt like a milestone.

He tapped on the bed and stared at Sam, who had already unwrapped herself from Tucker. His tapping alerted her to his incredible new and now proven knowledge.

"Yes," she said. "Bed. Why, are you tired?"

Bed.

"Tired?" she repeated. "Sleepy?"

No. This was a bed. She specifically told him herself, several times, that this soft block was a bed. Or maybe she was talking about the materials that were on top of the bed… Hmm…

She turned to her computer and tapped a bunch of buttons on the bottom of it. There was this other little thing that connected to the computer by a thick string. She would move it around over a small pad and whenever she pressed a finger down, it clicked. He didn't actually know what it was but he assumed it must be important.

"Ĉu vi dormas?" she asked.

He shook his head.

Immediately a light moved outside the window, and disappeared just as soon as it had come. Needless to say that was a curious thing. As he stood up to further investigate this anomaly, the light flashed again, once more only for a mere second. It seemed harmless but…

He slowly made his way over to the window and looked outside. The suno had turned white. The tall green thing he'd climbed to get in here was gently rustling an— There was the light again. But where did it come from and where did it go…?

Sam came over and opened the window for him. All he had to do was stretch out an arm and he would be back in the Outside… But, oddly, he was perfectly content right where he was. He didn't want to escape this place. This was…home.

"Pretty tonight," Sam said.

He pointed to where he'd last seen the light. It seemed to appear at intervals so maybe it would show itself soon.

"That's a tree."

But she didn't see the light. Did English-speakers have the ability to see things he couldn't? Because what if the light never turned off? What if he simply couldn't see it…somehow?

Yet there it was again, showing itself to him for a split second.

"Oh!" She pointed at the same place the light used to be. "That's a firefly. They come out at night and flash to look for mates."

Seriously though, he had no idea what she was talking about. He just knew the light was called a 'firefly'. It didn't seem very threatening and Sam didn't get upset at all about it so…it was probably safe.

He crossed his arms on the windowsill and watched as another light appeared with the first one—another firefly, so he assumed. But why hadn't he seen these fireflies before? Were they limited time only? What were they, exactly? Why did they light up? How did they light up? And why did they choose to come out now, when they were supposed to be asleep? Were they trying to sleep? Was this how they slept? Did Sam or Tucker know all these things? If so, where was all their research equipment? Or did Sam just need her computer to analyze these fireflies?

Agh! English-speakers were always so complicated… Always!

One day maybe he would figure them out though—he finally had the chance. In a way English-speakers were like fireflies; they only provided temporary glimpses of their knowledge. And, in Sam and Tucker's cases, compassion.

A/N

I know. It's been a long time. I apologize for that, honestly and sincerely. And excuses? I have none. I hope you'll continue to enjoy this fanfic nevertheless…