"So, Kujo. I insist you tell me about your love life. Are you, or are you not, available for me to match up with someone? Are you married?" Anne leans forward onto the table across from him; he backs away a little.

"Divorced," he mutters.

"Ah," replies Anne knowingly. Then, the inevitable – "Wait, aren't you a little young for that?"

"None of your business," he groans.

Anne frowns. "So… got any kids?"

"…um." He clears his throat; suddenly, it feels a little constricted. "No."

She twirls a lock of her hair in her hand. "Don't suppose you'd be interested in a young, attractive, currently available professor of theoretical physics, would you?"

"Who?" He looks around, just in time to see Kakyoin coming up to their table. "There's no one here like that."

Anne rolls her eyes. "I was talking about myself, dumbass."

"Oh," he grunts. "Then no."

"Kakyoin, can't you help convince Kujo here to date me?" she whines.

Kakyoin sits down next to him, looking a little taken aback. "Erm… I think he's old enough to make his own life choices."

"I barely know you," confirms Jotaro. "And you're not my type."

Anne pouts. "Then tell me your type, Kujo, and I'll set you up with someone."

"Please don't," he mutters. "I really don't know what my type is myself."

"Eh? What about your ex?"

"My ex-wife," says Jotaro firmly, "is not my type. And nor am I hers."

"You're so damn cagey, Kujo," sighs Anne. "I give up."

With that, she gets up and flounces off to join another table. He lets out a sigh of relief and shrugs at Kakyoin. "Sorry. She's been hounding me about this for ages."

"Oh, me too," replies Kakyoin wearily. "She keeps asking me about my previous boyfriends, as if she can work out what my 'type' is by stalking N'Doul and Hol on Facebook. It's not going to work, they're just too different."

He nods. "The last thing I want is another one like Marina."

"Marina, huh?" Kakyoin pokes at him. "You know what that name means, right?"

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, I'm aware. Yes, it is very ironic. No, I don't specifically date women with ocean-themed names. It was bad enough the first time."

Kakyoin nods sympathetically. "Bad divorce?"

"You don't know the half of it," he grunts. "We weren't even married for a year."

"Jesus. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he mutters. "Better off without her."

"Amen to that," replies Kakyoin. "If I never see Hol again it'll be too soon."

"Bad?"

Kakyoin snorts. "He's a fucking cowboy, in all the senses of the word. And it turns out he was heterosexual all along."

"So both our exes turn out to have been into women," he grins.

"You think we should introduce them?" Kakyoin winks at him and smiles. "Sounds like they deserve each other."

She looks up. "Oh, Dad. Didn't see you come in there."

"Yeah." He sits down by her. "What's the verdict?"

"Umm." She rubs at her shoulder. "Where's –"

"On the way." He folds his hands in his lap. "I suppose you want to wait?"

"Yeah." She sighs. "I'd like you both to hear it."

He nods. "What about Hermes? Is she on her way, as well?"

She bites her lip. "I… don't want her to know. I want…" She swallows. "I want to feel normal with her, at least."

"Is it that bad?"

She looks up again, her face a picture of agony. "I don't wanna die, Dad! I don't wanna die!"

She's still eighteen.

He talks to some of the scientists at the other sites regularly; there's no other marine biologists among them, but a fair few in other areas – zoologists, in particular, seem pretty common. Not that he really gets on with many of those who do share his subject, of course; Professor Brando is the perfect example of that. Thank god they don't have to work with him.

There are one or two he likes: an Egyptian doctor of thermodynamics, Avdol; a remarkably stupid French physicist, Polnareff; an older American mathematician who insists on being called Joseph; even a Japanese asshole of an astronomer named Rohan. They speak of the pods, mostly, and of how their research is progressing. So far, no one else seems to have figured out the thing about time; or perhaps they're keeping it close to their chests like Kakyoin insisted they do.

Whether they're being secretive or not, of course, he still learns some useful titbits. The fact that each 'pod has its own unique colour and pattern, for example (red and black in Egypt, silver and gold in Europe, purple and orange on the other side of the country, even a pure white one in Japan. None of them are the same blue-with-white-spots as Star, the one he thinks of as his pod).

And… there's whispers. Rumours.

"Oh, my girlfriend Reimi was trapped in the riots in…"

"A man I know, Bruno, was arrested – by 'is own boyfriend, too –"

"Don't mention it to him, but my esteemed associate Vanilla is… well, you know. He's not a fan of the Heptapods."

"My co-worker, Loggins, his shop got set on fire…"

"I've heard they're stockpiling missiles in…"

"My boss – confidentially speaking – says we're on the brink of –"

"I don't know whether they'll say what our superiors want to hear..."

There are very few other linguists, Jotaro notices, and none so fascinatingly charismatic as Kakyoin. It must be some sort of talent.

She is a beautiful teenager, with a full, pouting mouth and startlingly blue eyes. She hasn't changed the colour scheme of her hair, even when it starts to fall out, even when her sickness is painfully obvious to even the most casual of observers. When she goes completely bald, she borrows his hat for a while, and he lets her. Then she asks him to bring a blue-and-green scarf from her wardrobe, so she can wrap it around her head like a turban, but when she looks in the mirror, she cries and cries and cries –

It's early morning again; he has woken up and can't get back to sleep, and it's going to be another several hours before they see the creatures. There's not even coffee ready in the canteen yet. He's too tired to focus on the work, either; so, he wanders outside for a stroll around the camp in the half-darkness alleviated only by harsh military LEDs keeping the camp awake.

A familiar twirl of red hair stands out in the shadows: he moves towards it, his lab coat flowing silently behind him.

Kakyoin is leaning on a Jeep parked by the shore, looking out towards the Obelisk thoughtfully. Without thinking about it, Jotaro goes to lean beside him, folding his arms and staring at the massive black shape in the distance. For a while, neither of them says a word, gazing at the overshadowed sea as the sun begins to rise over the horizon. A shift. Kakyoin pushes up his glasses.

"You religious, Jotaro?"

"Me? Not really."

"Mm." Kakyoin twirls a lock of his hair in his hand. "Me neither. But sometimes I… I wonder if there really is someone out there, controlling our lives."

"The pods?"

"Well, I don't know. Someone, anyway." Kakyoin sighs. "At any rate they're so advanced they might as well be gods, compared to us. Such control… Makes you think, doesn't it?"

"Mm." He glances at Kakyoin out of the corner of his eye: long nose, wide mouth, clear violet eyes almost hidden behind those rectangular glasses. Strange how much he doesn't want to look away.

Kakyoin's gaze flicks back towards him, and he blinks, trying to pretend he wasn't staring; at any rate, Kakyoin doesn't comment on it. Instead, he looks into Jotaro's eyes curiously, an odd expression on his face.

"Have you ever wondered…" he begins, and then ducks his head away again, hiding under his long spiral of red hair. "Do you believe in fate?"

"I…" Jotaro thinks about it. Thinks about a little girl with butterflies in her hair and a bracelet around her wrist. "I don't know," he answers honestly. "Some things are probably gonna happen no matter what you do. That's just how life is."

"Mm." Kakyoin looks out again, out towards the black curve in the sky. "If you could see your life from beginning to end… what would you do?"

"I'd…" He admires the way the golden morning light shines on Kakyoin's face, softly accentuating his cheekbones. "I'd spend more time with… the people I cherish."

Kakyoin looks back at him with a smile. "Yes," he murmurs, "I would too."

She dies slowly, quietly, her last hoarse breaths rasping out into the cool clinical air of the hospital. When there is nothing left that can be done, he drops his head onto her chest and sobs like a child, feeling her limp hand cooling with every moment. Beside him, the other one is sobbing as well, draping themselves over the corpse's abdomen.

He lifts her skinny hand to his cheek and feels something jingle. The other person lays a hand on his shoulder.

"She would've wanted –" they choke back another sob – "she would've wanted you to have it, I think."

He nods; wordlessly, he unfastens the metal bracelet with her name on it and, barely able to see through his tears, fastens it around his own wrist.

The other person takes his hand when he is done, and they sit clasping at each other's fingers, watching the nurse who comes in to lay a blanket over his baby girl.

"We couldn't do anything," the other person murmurs, "I wish…"

He nods, and stares down at the white sheets. He hadn't often said much to her, but… he needs to, now. He can't leave her here, cold and alone, without saying something to her. He reaches out for her hand again, and feels the two loves of his life on either side, one living, one –

"I always…" He can't continue, for a moment; his words stick in his throat, and only tears come out. "I always cherished you," he says, at last. She doesn't reply; she never will.

(Star is waiting in his room. He is about to leave and get breakfast, but the blue and white-speckled alien stands there in the corner, clicking and buzzing expectantly, its limbs looking clearer and more real than he's ever seen them, and – it's something to do with the future, something's going to happen, but he has no idea what –)

Kakyoin nods at him tiredly as he comes for his morning coffee. "Morning. I had the weirdest dream last night. There was a Heptapod in my quarters, but it was way too small compared to the real thing."

"Wait, you had that dream, too?" Jotaro frowns. "I dreamed that Star came to me for some reason. I think it has something to do with some… other dreams I've been having."

Kakyoin looks thoughtful. "I had Green," he says. "But, by any chance… do you have those dreams about… the girl?"

"The girl," he nods. "With blue and green hair, right? I don't know who she is, but I think she's important."

"I…" Kakyoin stares into Jotaro's eyes. "I was… you are… but that's not possible. How can we both have the same dreams about this mystery girl?"

"I have no idea," he admits. "But… it's something to do with the pods, somehow."

Kakyoin swallows. "You… saw the same thing that I saw, didn't you? About… how her life will end up. She's going to…"

"We don't know that for sure. It's just a dream."

"But… it doesn't make sense." With a frown, Kakyoin takes out his notes. "Why is it important now?"

"Maybe it isn't," he mutters. "But it might be, later. They don't think like us, right? So they probably place importance on different stuff."

"I…" Kakyoin takes a sip of coffee. "Well, we'll see when we speak to them today, I suppose. I have a little something that might help us."

"What?"

A knowing smile. "You'll see," promises Kakyoin. "I think it's rather clever, myself."

"Dad, can you help me with my homework?"

"Sure. What is it?"

She points to her paper. "What's that theory of, like, how language affects the way you think? The… thingamabob hypothesis."

"Um…" He scratches his chin. "That's not really my area of expertise. Did you ask –"

She rolls her eyes. "But you're here."

"Well, I don't know anything about this sort of stuff," he mutters. "Go ask."

Kakyoin points at his computer screen, which is running a simulated version of a Heptapod's writing – the sentence 'Star is a Heptapod'.

"It took me a few days," he smiles, "but I managed to code a simple algorithm which can form Heptapod phrases, based on the grammar I've been able to glean and given the words we already know. I think we should be able to start asking the real questions soon enough."

"Fantastic, Professor," nods Stroheim. "This'll give us a one-up on the other sites. Shall we test it out today?"

Kakyoin shrugs. "I don't see why not. Though it may be a little buggy still, of course… I'm not a dedicated coder, just a hobbyist really…"

"It doesn't matter." Stroheim gets up and marches towards the door, looking pleased. "I'll get you a big screen to project it onto right away."

On the way to the Obelisk, they see another boat coming back the other way, with a group of people in orange suits: he recognises Keicho and Okuyasu, and there's another, older man he doesn't recognise. A man with white hair that is striped with black, combed back against his head neatly. Jotaro shivers: for some reason, it feels as though he's just walked over his own grave.

And then they're in the meeting chamber once again, and Kakyoin selects a series of kanji into the program, and everyone – Jotaro, Stroheim, Speedwagon, and that damn Anne again – stares at the TV screen that has been set up while the black shapes arrange themselves.

Why pods here?

The pods sway in unison for a moment. Then Star reaches forward carefully and puts forth the answer.

Use weapon.

Well, shit.