Author's Note: Wow, I can't even really say "Better late than never" now, can I? I feel so horrible about not updating, especially after how I yanked the last chapter. I think it's because I yanked the last chapter that I've been avoiding updating, because… I've never taken a chapter back before, but it really went against the grain of everything this story is about. You may be able to see where I had intended to go with this chapter, and I think you'll agree that I made the right decision.

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            I still feel numb, more lost than I ever have in my still-young life. Willow wraps a blue blanket, soft yet scratchy, around my shoulders. I can't feel warmth or cold, but I appreciate the meaning behind the gesture.

            She flops herself down beside me. "I'm sorry Gregg was… wasn't… what you thought he was. In all honesty- I have to tell you that I'm not, either. These split antennae are no accident- no accident, not like yours."

            I look over and up into her face, and suddenly I seem to be able to see wrinkles lining every corner of her face. It's like she's aged thirty years right before my oval eyes. "Willow…"

            "Dee. I was put in cold-freeze prison for illegally conceiving Dee. I stole the tallests' genes, thinking that I could raise a future tallest- one who could make sense out of this festering, infected shit-wound of a life. But I… I only robbed myself of that which was everything to me. My vanity… my vanity was my life, is my life. And Dee? What can I say? She's a perfect Irken now- a perfect Irken, not the kind who changes worlds."

            There's a long, hesitant silence between us. "When I go back," I say finally, "I'm going to apply for that promotion. When I get my new job, I'm going to find a guy that really likes me. Really, really likes me, likes me for me. Even if I can't, it won't matter because I've got friends like Moby…" I put a gloved hand on hers, "and you."

            She half-smiles at me, then looks up at the blue-white and yellow stars overhead, and she quietly sings in the language of mothers brooding eggs, the language that never falls upon the antennae of grown men. Dirt crickets chirp in the silence trailing her voice, and one scrambles across the surface of my boot, cracked wings shining in the yellow sodium light.

            "Do you mean that? Are you ever Gregg already?"

            "I doubt I'll ever get over Gregg, but I can move on. Past Gregg. My life doesn't have to end because his did."

            Willow laughs. "I have to confess, when I met you my plan was to get down your pants, but I think I respect you too much now to use you. Say what you want about me, I don't use my friends, and I don't say I'll respect someone in the morning if I know I don't mean it."

            "When we first met… I thought you were off your rocker, to be honest." We both laugh, our voices vanishing out open bay windows, the only sounds of joy that float up from Dirt's gummy surface.

            "Do you mind me asking… how far you and Gregg…"

            "We… uh… yeah…"

            "Are you…"

            "No, no smeet… I should be sad, but I'm not. No smeet to bear his eyes, no smeet to-"

            "I am. Don't tell Raine. It's not his." She looks straight up and into my eyes. "It's not Gregg either, no, I never meant to insinuate that. I… something about you made me realize how much I wanted a smeet to finally raise on my own, the smeet I was denied, the smeet to fulfill Raine's broken promise. The real father's name isn't important. I wanted to… ask if you wanted to Aunt Org. Or Aunty Orgy, for that matter."

            My hand closes tighter around hers. Her antennae shake and her  breath twitches. I've never seen fear of hesitancy of this nature in her before. "Wouldn't say no for the world," I answer.

            Willow breaths a sign of relief. "One promise broken, a broken promise remade, and a promise for the future of a few dividing cells. I guess coming out here wasn't such a wasted trip after all."

            "No, not after all."

           Willow leans over and I smell the heavy scent of skin powder clinging to her with the last of its power. She kisses me, but it's not sexual. It's full of emotion that transcends sexuality, an emotion that can only be shared by two Irkens who understand something.

            What is that something. I can't tell you, because doing so would defeat the entire purpose of that moment, of that kiss. I can only tell you that to chase that moment like a glittering butterfly, because no life that feels such a moment can ever really be called ordinary.

            And no life that touched another can ever be called wasted, no matter how small the influence.