Nicole had never been so miserable in her life. She thought that she had hated bussing tables, but that was nothing compared to this. Her arms ached, her feet were sore, her back was creaking every time she bent over and her hair would not stay in its ponytail. It was dangling in her face and driving her crazy. Plus that stupid Academy boy wouldn't stop looking at her, and she knew it wasn't because she was pretty. She had never felt more abused in all her sixteen years, bar none. Well, maybe not when the Boss took it upon himself to test just how easily she bruised. Maybe bar that. But otherwise she had never been gawked at or... well, she didn't know what it was, but she did know she didn't like it. Those precious little Felines were probably the only good part about the day so far. They were so cute, and she just felt awful about forgetting their milk, but there was no way to explain why. There was no reason why. She was just sick and tired of waiting on ungrateful customers who left insignificant tips. She made a noise in her throat, somewhere between a growl and a groan, and turned back to the kitchens to pick up her next order.

"So, finally turned in your bucket in favor of an apron?" came a cool and cutting voice behind her. Nicole didn't even have to turn around to know who it was. "Did you get promoted, or are you just trying to cut in on my tips?"

"Leiko, stuff it," Nicole replied, without turning around. The She-Beast was back. Leiko's jaw dropped open, but she didn't let on. Nicole still hadn't turned around, and Leiko was not gonna let her know. When Nicole did turn around, Leiko was waiting, and stuck her foot out. Needless to say Nicole tripped (it is still considered tripping, no matter how gracefully one does it) and succeeded in spilling the entire contents of table twenty- seven's dinner on the floor. Tears welled in her eyes, not only because the fall did nothing but aggravate her already bruised and battered body, but also because she was sure that now, after this latest debacle, she would be fired. And a girl who gets fired from a job as a waitress doesn't usually get another one. Sure enough, the crash of shattering dishware had been heard all the way upstairs, and as she struggled to sit up, Nicole found herself staring up into the red, slanted eyes of Mr. MacGruder.

* * * Jim looked up from his plate and met his mother's eyes. She was providing a welcome distraction from the inedible... lump on his plate.

"Yeah, Mom?" He watched as she undid the clasp on her out-of-date purse. She reached a finger inside, seemed to poke something, and then Jim heard it. The unmistakable sound. "Morph!" he yelled excitedly. The pink blob flew over to him and nuzzled against his cheek. He clasped his hands around the warm, soft slime that was one of his best friends. The gesture was the closest he could manage to a hug.

"Hooway, it's Moph!" yelled Anthea. Her brother and sisters caught on and cheered wildly until their mother reached over and dropped small cookies on their empty dinner plates. After that, the only sound they made was the slurping and chomping sounds associated with toddlers eating. Jim smiled at them, and at Morph, and then turned to the loudmouthed robot that was trying to recapture his attention.

"Jimmy, this stuff is too brown. I think I'll take it to the kitchen and talk with the cook." Then he looked over at the window that provided guests with a view of the kitchen. The robot's eyes turned a very pale blue, Jim's only clue that he was blanching at the sight of the chef. Jim was following his gaze to the huge Noxian when a loud crash erupted from behind them. Jim turned, immediately pinpointing the origin of the sound. (Not that it was hard to locate the waitress, Nicole, lying on the ground with broken dishes spread all around her) He glanced around and saw that the entire restaurant was staring at her. He winced, wishing he could tell the all to turn around, that it was none of their business, but it wasn't his place. He couldn't really do anything to try to help her anyway, and he wouldn't have after he saw the creature coming down the steps. Orange with eight legs and a swollen egg-shape head, the creature stared down at the girl who was struggling to stand. The creature's red eyes pulsed strangely, and the girl replied. They seemed to be communicating, and Jim couldn't figure out how. Then it clicked, once he saw the girl's hands twitching at her sides and her eyes squeezed shut as if with a headache. She was being yelled at telepathically, so that no one else could hear what he was saying. His own hands clenched at his sides, and he turned pink in the face. That wasn't right! He had no right to do any such thing to his employees. It was against regulations. He made to leave his chair when a soft hand covered his own and he looked up. His mother met his gaze and shook her head gently, telling him not to get involved. She was right, he knew, but it only made him madder to know that he could not help.

"Yes, sir." He heard Nicole say across the room. Then she walked back into the kitchen and returned with a broom. She began to sweep up the mess, and so the customers turned back around, disappointed with the lack of excitement. Only Jim continued to look at her, and only Jim noticed the tears falling from her eyes into the dustpan.

* * *

Nicole was crying not for herself, but for her family. They could not survive. She would have to send them all to live with other units, splitting up their happy little group. She cried on, silently, as she dumped the mess into the trash barrel. Leiko had won, and the chienne knew it. She smirked at Nicole as she walked past, expertly swinging her hips as she balanced the tray on one hand. Nicole only sobbed even more quietly, not trying to stop crying, but trying not to be heard. She walked slowly to the back of the kitchen, to the side entrance where she had come in that morning, the door she would probably never walk through again. She hugged Maya and said goodbye, and tearfully agreed to see Dierdre when she got off work much later that night. The girls hugged tightly, both crying by now, and then separated. Nicole put her flimsy shawl on and walked out the door, pausing on the step to hear it slam behind her. She stepped out into the snow, which had apparently fallen all day while she had been working inside. The tears dripped off her chin and mixed with the ice that coated the pathway. She couldn't see where she was going, and frankly, she didn't care until she walked straight into something hard, warm, and much bigger the she. She looked up at the roadblock, and found herself staring up into the eyes of a vicious Lagarto. The creature was a six-foot lizard with huge arms and long legs, and thick scaly skin the color of puke. It had 2 huge yellow eyes with red pupils that stared down at her like a predator on its prey.

"Well, pretty girlie. What're you doin' out s'late?" His speech was slurred with liquor, and his walk, or rather, slither, was unsteady. He stumbled toward Nicole, and she took several steps backward. "C'mon now pretty, I'm not gunna 'urt you. Jest want you t'gimme sumthin'."

"Sir, I-I don't know what you want, b-but I have nothing to give you. No money, no baubles..." Nicole stammered and stumbled on the ice. She fell backwards into a snowdrift.

"Naw, missy, nuthin' like 'at. Jest a little warmth," his letters were mixing themselves up at this point, and 'warmth' came out as 'wormf'. "Maybe you's could stay the night w'me, seein' as 'ow cold it is.." His sentence trailed off in a loud belch that floated sourly in Nicole's face.

"Um, no t-thank you?" she stuttered, trying to stand up and run away but before she could regain her balance, the Lagarto had leaned forward, so that his face was inches from hers.

"I weren't askin' you. I's tellin' you," he breathed. Nicole paled and her pulse rate sped up. She gulped and grasped about in the corners of her terrified mind for some kind of intelligent response, but came up empty. She attempted to stand, but before she could make any kind of move, a dark figure leapt from the shadows and wrestled the beast to the ground.

* * *

Jim saw the creature approach Nicole, but waited to see if she noticed him. When the two collided, he stepped closer, but remained in the shadows. When he made his threat Jim acted, and threw himself at the bully, putting every fighting maneuver he had ever learned to good use. The drunken creature was no match for him, and soon it was lying spread-eagle on the ground, unconscious. Jim breathed deeply of the cold night air, not unduly winded, (the Lagarto had been almost twice his size) but more immediately concerned with the girl who sat shaking on the ground. He squatted next to her, and put a hand gently on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and her eyes were full of gratitude and fear, a combination that made Jim feel stony and cold inside. She smiled fleetingly, not even a real smile because it didn't stay there for long enough to register. She whispered some unintelligible thank- you, and ran off into the night. Jim stood and watched her go, feeling useless. All the months of training to help people, to protect them, and he was no closer doing any of that than when he hadn't cared at all.

* * *

Nicole was ashamed, and embarrassed. She had dragged that poor Academy boy into her own messy affairs and had not even had the grace to thank him properly. She had run off into the night and not even looked back. She couldn't regret this decision; doubtless the boy had wanted to investigate her further or some other silly schooled notion. She couldn't lead him to the Den, and let him find the little ones. She told herself she did the right thing, but for some reason, way down in the pit of her stomach, she didn't believe it. She felt that maybe the boy could have helped her; maybe he could save her family. She was full to brimming with maybes and what- ifs. She stopped in her tracks, the maybes and what-ifs overflowing and telling her to turn around, to find him, to follow him. But when she turned, he was gone.

* * *

Jim walked slowly back to the front entrance of the restaurant. There he met with his family. His mother was putting her coat on and the Dopplers were putting the toddlers into two double-hover-strollers. The children were snoring contentedly, their bellies full and swelling. Even B.E.N. seemed tired. Jim watched as his small and admittedly oddball family was loaded onto the yacht that would ship them back to Montressor. He watched the skies long after they had disappeared into the night. He studied the stars, and watched the constellations. Cetus, Lupus, Camelopardalis, the familiar shapes winked back at him as he turned to walk back to the dorms. His feet were heavy and his walk was more of a shuffle. He was confused and saddened, the way a child feels when first confronted with a homeless person asleep under a doorway. The child asks questions like, 'Mommy, what are they doing?' and 'Why can't someone give them a home?' But the mother has to tell them that there's nothing that they can do. The child continues on, perplexed, but eventually will give up. Jim could not let go of the feeling that he had just witnessed one of the many injustices of society. That he couldn't do anything to stop it made him sick to his stomach. By the time he reached his dorm, his brain was as tired as the rest of his body, and he collapsed into bed, with a certain lullaby playing in his head.

"Maybe I have been here before, I know this room; I've walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you, I've seen your flag on the marble arch, Love is not a vic'try march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah."

* * *

Nicole crawled down the ladder and into the Den. She met a small group of overly tired children who knew no way to express their exhaustion other than whining and pouting. She understood what they meant and what they felt, but really, it was getting pathetic. She was sick and tired of being yelled at and bossed around. The little angels were really trying her nerves now.

"Please! Please just be quiet! I can't hear myself think!" She screamed at them. All four fell silent and stared at her with wide-open eyes. She felt her own eyes water with frustration and regret as each of them looked at her sadly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled, it's just," here she trailed off. "I just lost my job, and some freak was trying to... but anyway, I'm home now and I'm really sorry I yelled but I couldn't help it." Nicole sat down on the end of her bed and began to cry. She knew that Grant and Ashlyn were heartbroken, if not terrified, but she really didn't feel like singing. She cried somewhere between silence and sobs, but neither were enough. She was dimly aware of Ashlyn crawling into her lap, and of Grant snuggling at her side, but what really brought her back to reality was Charlie's comforting hand on her shoulder. She hadn't seen him caring for anyone but his sister for the longest time. It had taken her three weeks after finding them in the streets to get him to even acknowledge her. Now he was comforting her? This was a changed boy, but Nicole's mind didn't connect it to her own efforts, nor did it accept the credit. She leaned down and whispered something to Ashlyn and Grant. While she would have liked it to stay a secret, that was impossible as everyone in the Den spoke ISL as fluently as she did. The two children jumped up from their seats and ran into the corner of the room that was designated as the kitchen.

"So," said Kiera said conspiratorially. "Gonna bribe them with cookies, are we?" She followed Nicole into the little kitchen.

"Oh yeah!" Nicole laughed. She assembled the mediocre ingredients. They had to stick with the basics: eggs, flour, and sugar. No milk here, just water. She sighed and seized the strand of hair that had gotten loose from the leather ribbon she had tied it back with. The strand of strawberry hair was worried until Nicole feared it would come out of her head. She knew it was bad, but she couldn't help twisting her hair around and around her fingers. When she was younger, she'd had tiny bald spots on her scalp because she would pull the hair out. She growled in frustration and tucked the lock behind her ear.

After the cookies were baked over the open fire outside the Den, Nicole let them children take a handful inside to eat before bed. She sat them down to play Sticks and Stones, with the promise of a lullaby later. She climbed up the ladder and sat on the bridge that sheltered their little hole. She lay back across the railing and stared up at the sky. This had felt like the longest day of her life, but in truth she was usually still working by this time of night. Because she wasn't working, she had no idea what to do with herself. Spending these hours at home had reminded her of just how.... sad their little life was. The children didn't eat dinner or lunch, only breakfast and that only because it was cheaper than the other meals. Sometimes Nicole brought home the scraps from the tables she bussed. People were so wasteful, and as long as the food was still edible, it was eaten. She was so utterly grateful that no one asked questions. As long as it was the right color and didn't smell like a trash can, nobody complained.

Nicole smacked a hand down onto the cold, unforgiving bricks. She had never thought it would be this hard to run a family. When she brought them in, she assumed it would be temporary, and that she would find them all foster or even permanent homes later on. But no one had wanted them. She had never told anyone this, she had just made out that she had never wanted to get rid of them, that she was too attached. By now it was true, and she loved them all, but at the time she had been at her wit's end. Running a family of five misfit orphans was much harder in practice than in theory. She looked up from her lap and saw Dierdre in the distance. Great, she thought, I promised the lullaby when Dee got home. Now I actually have to sing it. Not that she didn't love singing; she just wasn't in the mood tonight. But some things in life don't wait for you to be in the right mood.

* * *

Jim woke to a squeaky, slimy sound. It rang in his ears and jolted him form his dreams. He looked around, at his alarm clock, which said that it was close to midnight, to his roommates, who were snoring contentedly, and down at himself, only to see that he had fallen asleep in his uniform. He sighed in frustration and exhaustion. Jim unbuttoned his outer jacket and laid this wrinkled garment across the back of his chair. He changed into looser fitting pants and crawled back into bed in his undershirt. Suddenly, he heard it again. The squelchy, high pitched noise that his newly conscious mind found it could identify.

"Morph?" he whispered. "Morph, is that you?" He peered out into the gloom; honestly surprised that he had managed to get dressed in the darkness that he now found he could barely see through. But when he felt the warm coolness that was Morph snuggling up against his face, he was satisfied. "Morph! You little scalawag! Why didn't you go home with Mom?" Morph shrugged his little makeshift shoulders.

"Home with Mom," repeated the little shape-shifter. "Home with Mom. Scalawag." The little pink nuisance raised his tiny voice and continued to speak until Jim was forced to clap him between his hands to muffle the sound.

"Shhh!" he hissed. "Morph, if you want to stay you have to be quiet. You're causing more trouble than you know. Now I have to send Mom a telegram and tell her that you stowed away in my pants pocket." He growled in frustration at the awaiting chores. He threw himself backward onto his bed and sighed heavily, reliving the events of the day. Thanks to Morph, he was wide-awake now. He thought back on the girl at the restaurant, (he could no longer remember her name) and found his thoughts wandering to Captain Amelia. He smiled to himself; he really should stop calling her Captain, seeing as how she had been fired. Oh, she would tell you she'd retired, but everyone knew otherwise. She had gotten married and had children and decided to settle down, but the Parliament had had her resignation form filled out, stamped, filed, and had a copy on her desk by that afternoon. She had kept a straight face, but she was hard to talk to for a few weeks. Rather, harder to talk to than usual. Jim sighed. He had been really upset by the whole affair. Mr. Arrows words had spun around and around in his mind.

"There's no finer officer in this, or any galaxy." Jim had never known truer words. Amelia loved what she did, and she was really good at it. It was a tragedy that the Department of Spacing was sexist. The day after they fired Amelia they passed a bill outlawing female spacers. Succumbing to the ancient superstition that women on ships bring bad luck, they had not been persuaded by the ruined return of the Legacy. Jim released a sigh of pent-up anger, and dismissed the recurring feeling that it was his fault. It was Silver's fault, but the old cyborg hadn't known any better. Like a toddler never taught to share. Jim laughed aloud at how many times in the last few hours he had compared his life to that of a toddler. He rolled over onto his side, and let Morph snuggle under his chin as he slowly and grudgingly fell asleep.

* * *

Nicole watched Dierdre slowly approach the hole. She dragged her feet and her head bobbed up and down as though she were sleeping standing up.

"Tired, Dee?" Nicole asked, barely suppressing a laugh.

"Shut up." Replied the exhausted girl. "I just want to sleep for the next week and a half."

"Too bad. You have to get up at dawn tomorrow and go back to work. Sorry babe. You have to suffer the twenty-hour work shifts until I get another job. But I do have an idea. It popped into my head a few minutes ago. I'll talk to you about it in the morning." She moved off the brick side of the bridge but stopped when Dierdre's tired arm grabbed her own.

"No, you can tell me now. Do I smell co-co-cookies?" she said, stifling a yawn.

"Yeah, Ashlyn and Grant made them. Watch where you bite, Ashlyn managed to lose that Suzy doll's head sometime during the baking process." Both girls burst out laughing and walked down the ladder, leaning on each other for support.

* * *