haha I've already gone back and made the changes to TAoI

The thing is, I was free basically whenever. What was effectively my job didn't have any strict hours, and it wasn't like I had enough friends to clog the rest of my schedule.

Rose, though, wasn't as flexible. Between the NSS and Masked Mayhem, I could only imagine how packed her daily life was. And keeping me a secret from half of her colleagues couldn't have simplified things.

So I was left waiting for her, rather than the reverse.

"Yo."

I jumped. My eyes darted around the room—the half-open door, out the window, and behind the nightstand—and found nobody and nowhere anybody could hide.

When I realized where the noise had come from, I groaned into my pillow. It had been a few days. That was Rose's voice. She was reaching out to me with Cuttlefish's little communicator. Did the thing have to just blip on like that?

"You're there, right?" she said.

"I am," I sighed.

"Yeah, so I finally found some downtime. I think One and Two are busy, and Three's doing… something with Sheldon. You cool with meeting up now?"

She was remarkably committed to this outing. Really, I'd only brought up the idea as a passing thought, but I wasn't going to complain about it amounting to something.

"I guess I am," I said.

"Alright. Meet me at that bench again?"

"You're dressed up for this," I remarked.

I wasn't particular about clothing—my own or others'—but seeing her show up in a skirt… I could tell this wasn't what was usually in her wardrobe.

And oddly enough, it kind of suited her.

"Ah… heh." She stuffed her hands into the pockets I didn't know it had. "I thought I would try something different."

"You look nice." That was what I was supposed to say, right?

She turned red and averted her eyes. "Thank you," she murmured. Rose wasn't used to getting complimented like this, was she? I was getting better at this. That composure I'd heard over the communicator was all but gone, and I had to hold myself back from smiling at her. But then she coughed and shook it off. "We got lucky," she said. Gesturing, she took off walking inland, and I followed after her. "The day the others are busy, there isn't any NSS work for me."

"Is there usually?"

"There isn't a 'usually' in the NSS." Rose lowered her voice—something she probably should have done the first time bringing it up. "Stuff sneaks up on you, and before you know it, you're on a month-long campaign against some new guy that popped up out of nowhere." She locked her fingers behind her head. "…That's only happened once since I joined, but it's probably not the first time." She looked over her shoulder at me. "How's Eileen? Say anything new?"

"Um… Normal? Not a lot has happened." I squinted at nothing in particular. "She started gripping her Blaster right yesterday."

"How do you grip a Blaster wrong?"

"Upside down."

"Wha— Actually?"

"Unfortunately."

Rose laughed and shook her head at the ground. "Okay, that's not… that's not what I was talking about, but… I mean, I guess if we're talking about her like this, that's a good sign."

Like this, as in like there was nothing to be afraid of? I had to agree with her there. "Where are you taking me?"

"Oh, yeah." She slowed down until we were side-by-side again. "Alright, so, first of all, you've actually been in Inkopolis longer than I have."

"What…"

"Yeah, I moved in two months ago or something and stumbled into the NSS on, like, day three. And Octrope showed up on day six."

"You settled in quickly."

"I mean, it wasn't that hard." She stopped and flinched. "Uh, sorry."

"No, I get it," I said. "Those six months, I did it to myself."
"You had a really good reason, though."

"Which is why I don't blame you."

"Ah…"

We turned a corner and ended up across the road from a large plaza. A wall of marble, short enough for even me to climb over, lined all sides but the one we had entered from. There were evenly-spaced plaques on the edges, and out of a plot of dirt in the center grew a tree. It was a lot larger than I'd have expected for one in the middle of a city.

Down the road, a vibrant truck sat parked by one of its corners, out of the way of the rest of the traffic. There was a line of people parallel to it, and near the front, there was a group of Octolings and Inklings laughing with each other as if they had no differences at all. It wasn't the first time I'd seen something like that—just recently, I'd met Kei and her team. But I couldn't help but admire it.

"Oh, Crusty Sean's here," Rose said, noticing what I was staring at. "Yeah, he's the guy that runs that food truck."

I shut my eyes. Food truck. Why did I know what a food truck was? For the first time since waking up in Deepsea, I was aware of the concept of a food truck, but it wasn't the least bit foreign to me. I doubted there were any of those underground, so it must have been something from the stories.

"I heard he used to sell shoes?" She said. "Don't know why he's doing that now. He usually hangs around the square at this time. I don't usually eat there because, uh… I care about my health."

"…Good to hear," I said. I gestured to the plaza. "And that?"

"This!" Rose snapped her fingers. "This is a Great Turf War memorial." She clasped her hands together. "No actual battle was fought here, I think. It was a little more to the southwest, across Hammerhead. I remember hearing they have a bigger one over there."

So the first place she'd taken me was a historic site? It wasn't what I had in mind, but I supposed this was a good place to know of. If the food truck were any indication, there'd be a good amount of… more general establishments close by. But me being at this kind of landmark was a bit ironic after putting more than five seconds of thought into it.

The Great Turf War was something I somehow knew little about. All I understood was that they fought, then we were shoved underground. I had even less of an idea of how that measured up to other Octolings of my age, or even Eileen and Jacob. It wasn't exactly the most common conversation topic.

Rose turned back to me. "Not to sour the mood," she said, "but I think this is where they plan to redo the protest."

"Oh." I leaned in to whisper. "Already?"

"Yeah, I know." She stared at the sidewalk, dejected, as if she were somehow at fault. "I'm not planning on pulling a stunt like at the last one."

"You too, huh?"

Rose breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay." She shut her eyes and let her head hang. "Sorry. I thought you might have expected me to."
"Of course not," I said. "You've already done far more than anyone else. Come on, you're the reason we're all up here." Even if I had thought she was in the wrong, the night she'd dragged me to the ocean would have already cleared her name in my eyes.

Rose twirled her hair around her finger. "I just thought, if we left them alone, they wouldn't get any attention…" she said. "And it's not like they've actually done anything. Nobody takes them seriously other than themselves." At this point, she was just trying to justify it to herself. But hey, if what she was saying was true, then that sounded like good news. Or, better news than a second protest, at least.

"Yeah, yeah." I tried to smile at her, but I knew I couldn't pull it off as well as she could. "Is that all for here?"

Rose perked up… slightly. She stretched her arms and stood back up. "The next place is a few blocks down."

"Lead the way."

She laughed and rubbed her eye. "I'm glad we don't have Octrope breathing down our necks anymore," she said, turning down the sidewalk again. "It's nice to talk to you so casually."

"Mm." I hadn't even realized, but she was right. This wasn't something I could have done before. I didn't know if it was the atmosphere or something about Rose… but something just made me feel better.

When we passed the food truck, she waved to the person inside—that Crusty Sean guy—and he waved back. Briefly, some of the Inklings and Octolings glanced at us, but they didn't pay us much mind.

This interspecies mingling was already becoming a normal thing for them, it seemed. Given the new environment, it wasn't that outlandish. None of the Inklings here knew Octolings were still around until recently, so to them, we were just… well, just an influx of people. Basically immigrants.

Then I looked up at Rose.

Wait, she didn't…

"Rose," I said. How was I supposed to word this? I knew what she would say, but… "You're NSS. You've fought Octolings as your job."

"I mean, it's more that we handle whatever we need to."

"Okay, but… I don't bother you at all, do I?"

She looked over her shoulder and smirked, which would have surprised me had she been anyone else. "Alright, Sky, get that thought out of your head right now."

Even with what she was saying, I felt a rush of warmth when I heard her say my name.

"I don't want you to think I have any kind of problem with you."

I was sure she was going to give me an answer like that, but I wasn't expecting her to give it to me so… definitively.

"Our enemies were never 'the Octolings'. It was always some guy or another with a lot of authority. And that Deepsea Metro operation didn't have an Octoling or Inkling behind it. Just, like… a robot or something." She shook her head. "Even then, you're not, like, bad. Bottom line, Sky, we're cool."

"Ah… that's nice, I guess." I ran my fingers across my hair. What an awkward response I'd just given. "Sorry, I'm not really used to this…"

In front of me, Rose turned her head down, then back up. She almost looked back at me again but stopped halfway.

"Rose?"

"Sky," she said. "Is it hard? With the memory and all?" The moment the last word left her mouth, she stopped in place and pinched the bridge of her nose. "No, actually, never mind. Forget I said anything."

She'd stopped mid-step, one foot in front of the other. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, but I knew it wasn't anything malicious. How could it have been, when she had gone out of her way to show me the night sky?

"It's not that hard," I said. "But I wouldn't say it's easy, either. Just… confusing."

She made no effort to stop me.

"I'm the only one that went through a memory wipe. So I might just walk past someone I used to know. Sometimes, I wonder if any of them remember me." I shrugged. "But this is all I've ever known. At least, since Deepsea." I stuffed my hands into my pockets. "But I think the instincts and stuff stayed. The only reason I got out was that I could handle a weapon. I guess the training before then must have been pretty intense."

Rose crossed her arms. "I've always admired you," she said. "But knowing it came from that… I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're a lot easier to talk to about this than Eileen."

"Huh?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No no, It's not that I don't trust her," I said, my hands up. There were her NSS habits kicking in again. "It's more that she… she reminds me of my past."

"Oh," she said. Her shoulders relaxed.

"It's less she's hard to talk to and more you're easy to talk to."

"O— Oh." She scratched the back of her head. "Thanks."

I was nailing it.

"By the way," she said, "you're open to doing this again sometime, right?"

"Again?" I said. "I guess so, but…" I trailed off. She'd have gotten what I meant.

"You can't expect me to show you all of it in a day?" Something about her tone told me she was smirking again, and when she turned to me, I saw that I was right. "But anyway. Here." She stopped and put her hands on her hips. "This is the biggest park in Inkopolis…"

Okay, this is basically a continuation of the previous chapter. I would have had them combined, but I wrote the last multiple years ago and this one over the past two weeks and couldn't find a better way to connect them.