*

He reappeared three days later, slumped outside their motel room and missing his suit jacket. Dried mud crusting thickly on his shoes, heavy-set in the lower legs of his pants. Twigs littering his hair. He might have been dozing there for an hour, or three – they had left to explore and get supplies from the town, and she had gotten lost on the way back.

He opened his eyes as they approached. The fading light made his eyes look darker somehow, twin eclipses of black.

"Water," he said. Exhaustion dragged his voice hoarse, made it barely more than a whisper. "Food." He looked like he was going to say more, then a blank look came over his face and his head lolled to shoulder. For one heart-stopping moment, Helen thought he had – but then she saw his thin shirt lifting in shallow breaths, and she started to breathe again.

Once her fingers stopped panicking, she moved smoothly, efficiently, as if on autopilot. Finally managed to fit the key in the door and helped Klaatu inside, one arm hooked behind his back and holding her grunts behind clenched teeth. Told the plastic bags rustling nervously beside her to just leave them on the floor sweetie, and get him some water, quick. Slapped peanut-butter on soft white bread, wishing she had bought a wetter spread, and skipped the civilisation of a plate for immediacy of fingers. Jacob hovered in the peripheral, a silent anxious shadow.

Her guest took the sandwich and ate silently, mechanically, his eyes half-closed. When he finished, he picked up the glass again, hand trembling only slightly. His throat moved, drinking so thirstily that it took a moment for Helen to realize the glass was empty. By the time she returned with a full glass, he was already half-way down the corridor, one hand trailing the wall like a lifeline. He collapsed on the bed like a coat folding in and was asleep when she reached him.

*

When she checked on him after dinner, she found the glass on the bedside empty. Jacob entered the room just as she was draping a light blanket over the sleeping man. Alien. Sleeping alien.

"Where'd you think he went?" her stepson whispered. His small face was watchful, thoughtful; his shadow cut a blanket of darkness over Klaatu's face as he leaned down. "Do you think he's going to go home soon?"

No, Helen thought. "I don't know, sweetie," she whispered. "Can you help me get a fresh glass?"

Her stepson nodded and left. When he returned, the liquid in the glass was opaque in the shadows: orange juice. Jacob's favourite. He put the glass down carefully on the bedside table. Then, before Helen could stop him, Jacob leaned right over Klaatu, close enough that his breath tickled the short hair behind the man's ear. His lips mouthed something, too soft to catch. The sleeping alien frowned slightly, then sighed and his face smoothed again, pale and blank as marble. His breathing never changed: deep and even.

Jacob pulled back and shrugged, looking smug and embarrassed. "Nothing," he said, even though she hadn't said anything. "Nothing important." She knew better than to press on.

They spent the rest of the evening flickering through several news channels, Jacob's head lazy on her lap and one brown hand controlling the remote. Around the world, people's faces were pinched and drawn, or twisted in anger and grief. Footage of riots flashed from capital to capital, like a New Year's day global coverage turned nightmarishly inside out; a reporter covering London broke down and was taken away sobbing. Jacob said nothing through it all, not even when a Central Park replay showed her face for a second in the background, looking white and strained inside the Hazmat helmet. As far as Helen could see, the only good thing that had come out of the devastation so far was Jacob's head on her lap. She wasn't sure she could classify the individual sleeping in the other room as a good thing yet.

Every couple of hours, she would lift Jacob's head reluctantly and get up to check on Klaatu. She found the glass drained empty every time.

*

She woke later that night, of course. Abruptly, dizzyingly. Someone's out there. It took a second for her to remember where she was. Helen got up silently and quickly, taking care not disturb the huddled shape beside her.

She caught Klaatu just as he was returning to his room. He cut a tired glance at her, and she followed him in without thinking, head still thick with sleep and half-remembered obligations of empty glasses.

Inside, a crack in the curtains gave enough light to see. It cut a ghost-pale band across the ceiling, the bed, his bare chest. His shirt lay crumpled by the floor, stiffened by sweat and mud to form a shape of its own. And it might have been pity or the thickness of sleep still heavy in her head, butsomething caught in her throat, looking at him sprawled on the bed. All skin and bones and pale angles. One arm covering his eyes, the crook of his elbow bleached white and fragile in the colourless light. She wondered if he missed his own body.

Helen leaned down, on impulse: reached out. A hand on his forehead, tentative as a question. His skin was slightly clammy from sleep sweat, but it felt cool enough. When she stood up again, he rolled over. His back towards her, pointed as a statement.

That arrogant alien. He had dismissed her.

A smile tugged at her lips, unbidden; Helen shook her head, and took the empty glass with her as she left.

*

It was a full day and half before Klaatu finally emerged, looking unshaven and grungy and still too bone-weary for someone who had slept for nearly thirty-nine hours straight. He was also someone who had not eaten for thirty-nine hours, and he made a beeline for kitchen table where they were breakfasting.

"Good morning." Relief chased surprise, and courtesy took over her tongue in the lull. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." There was gravel in his voice, hoarse and low. His eyes never left the cereal box by Jacob's elbow as he took the closest seat. "This body will still take some getting used to."

"That's probably because 'this body' isn't supposed to camp out in forests," Jacob said pointedly as she passed Klaatu a bowl and spoon. She wondered if it would be rude to point out that there were pieces of twigs still caught in his matted hair. Jacob apparently didn't have such reservations, because he added, "That's why you look like a hobo. And you smell."

"Really." The said hobo seemed more concerned in getting as much cheerio's in his bowl as possible.

"Really. I'm going to sit over there."

Klaatu ignored him, already digging into his cereal. He ate swiftly and methodically, but without any sign of pleasure, as if food was merely a necessity to be endured. Like refuelling the car, Helen thought. Ten minutes and three bowls later, he was still refuelling. Even Jacob had paused in his breakfast to watch. It was only when the cereal box had been emptied and the last cheerio was chased out of the bowl that Klaatu sighed and sat back. His gaze fell on Jacob, newly positioned across the table.

Jacob followed his gaze to his own half-full bowl. "No," her stepson said firmly, in the same tone that most people said down, boy; bad boy. "Mine."

Klaatu blinked. Then to Helen's amazement, he grinned. Or at least, a grin on the scale of his usual facial expressions: a corner of his lips twitched briefly. His spoon clinked as it settled against the porcelain. She had been leaning against the counter, nursing a steaming cup of tea, and jumped guiltily when he caught her staring.

"You have questions," he said. Stated simply, as if he knew she had been waiting to ask. The rough edges of sleep had smoothened out of his voice again and he sounded the way she remembered: calm and precise, as if enunciating even the pauses of punctuation.

"Yes," she said, surprised. Then, more rebuking, "Where did you go? We were worried."

Klaatu looked unmoved. "I had to make my report to the group of civilizations who sent me. Grot will have reached them some stars ago, and I did not program enough data to inform them of my decision. The discussion was... extensive."

"Grot?"

"The being which activates when I'm in danger." Klaatu paused. "The process."

The dust. A sick tautness settled low in her stomach; one of the channels had shown a special program the night before, on the 'diamond dust' victims. Process, like a lab experiment. She shoved it out of her mind. "They didn't like your decision?"

"No. It was unorthodox." His look was measuring, steady. "But not one without precedents. We find that most of our civilisations have changed at the precipice. It seemed only fair that humans were given such a chance. Your last chance."

"Figures," Jacob muttered. "We waited three days for you to decide the same thing."

Her tea rippled; she put her cup down hastily. "Jacob," she started, then found herself grasping at what to say. Don't be rude our guest honey, he could wipe out the world before lunch?

"There was greater disagreement than anticipated, and the distance of the communications distorted my sense of time," Klaatu said evenly. "I had expected to return earlier."

"Still could have told us before you left," Jacob accused.

"A human representative was not required in the meeting. And you would have insisted on coming."

"So write a note," her stepson said forcefully, just about the same time she wondered:

"Why would we have insisted on coming?"

Klaatu looked a little bemused. He was sitting in a kitchen counter with a kid and his mother, Helen reflected, and that was already more reaction than when he'd been held hostage at a military base. Possibly his preparations for the trip did not include being interrogated by the world's most stubborn nine-year old before ten in the morning.

"Because it regarded our decision on the earth," he directed at her, then more carefully, to Jacob, "It did not occur to me. Like I said: I had expected to return earlier."

"I thought you guys were supposed to be smart."

"Jacob," she warned. She ignored his glower; there was something in Klaatu's tone that caught at her. A certain finality that hummed ominously in her spine; but it couldn't be –

"What decision? I thought they agreed – that we have the earth for a second chance."

"No," he corrected patiently. "We agreed that humans may have a second chance. The earth is still at its tipping point. Therefore, there must be rules."

"Rules."

"Yes. There is a time limit."

"A time limit." The numbness in the base of her spine had swallowed her legs from under her; she had to move back, blindly, find a seat. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

He regarded her curiously. "I thought it was clear. It was only logical. At the tipping point, humans can only be allowed a certain margin of time to save the earth. Beyond that," he paused. "Beyond that, it is too late."

Too late. Of course. Of course. She should have known. Not the end, but the beginning. Don't thank me yet. And their world still whirring in shock, still gorging the earth apart. She should have known!

Jacob's voice was small, subdued. "What do you mean, too late? Too late for us? What if..." He trailed off. Helen thought of the footage on the tv, the pinched faces. The list of missing hundreds. She took his small hand, squeezed, and looked at Klaatu.

"How long do we have?"

"That would depend on the decisions of your world leaders. It would be difficult to --"

"Klaatu."

Klaatu met her gaze calmly. For a second, Helen wondered how he could ever pass for a human in a world so wild with panic. How he could have eaten breakfast with them so easily, with knowledge like this held in his head.

"How long?"

"At best," he said at last, "six months. At worst--" His dark gaze never wavered. "Tomorrow."

Thanks for the feedback, especially the mature ones. I know the pacing in this chapter is jerky, but it's more of a transitionary chapter while I sort out my pacing and style of writing. Don't worry, I'm taking your cries for a slower pace into much consideration! :)

Again, thanks for the feedback - it's always encouraging to find readers in a small fandom!