Ella woke up groggily and forced herself to open her eyes. There was no time for sleeping in today. She sat up, fighting the dizziness in her head and taking a deep breath. She glanced across the room. Sunlight was filtering in through the window, so it couldn't be too early, despite how her body was protesting.
John and Sam both appeared to be sound asleep, completely conked out. Their dog – pigeon – chimera – whatever it was, merely cocked an eye open at her, then turned its head, closing it again. But Daniel was awake, lying with his hands folded under his head, staring at the ceiling. On a normal day, he went jogging before she even got up, but apparently he had opted not to today.
"Good morning." She said quietly, slowly standing up.
"Morning." He said in reply. Ella took a few steps towards the door, then hesitated, turning back around.
"Are you just going to stay there?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I'll be out in a minute." He answered.
"Okay." She said nodding, and left for the kitchen.
Six was already up, rummaging through the refrigerator.
"Good morning." She greeted Ella as she walked in.
"Hey." Ella replied, walking over and taking a bowl out of a cabinet.
"So I'm just kind of taking your food," Six said, gesturing to the refrigerator. "Hope you don't mind." she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Oh, not at all." Ella replied. "Help yourself. We might as well get rid of it all now anyway, since we're leaving."
"Very true." Six replied, finally settling on an orange. She then proceeded to the toaster.
"Another thing you're welcome to . . . all of you," Ella began tentatively. "Is the shower."
Six glanced up at her. "Do we smell that bad?" Ella opened her mouth to protest, but Six said "You don't need to answer, I know we do. Thanks, it'll be nice to take a hot shower." She paused for a minute, taking a long sip of coffee. Ella wondered where on earth she had gotten that from. "Are the others up yet?"
"Daniel is." Ella answered, taking Six's place at the refrigerator. She took out two glasses and began to pour out orange juice. "But the other two aren't." She glanced over at Six. "Orange juice?"
"No thanks." Six answered.
"What about Tyler and Patrick?"
"They're up. They're just still in the room, warming up, you know, stretching and stuff."
Ella nodded. She did know. She personally preferred yoga, although with school she far more often did it in the afternoons than the mornings.
"So I've been thinking," Six said, taking a seat on the table. "You said you can sense people, or something like that, right?"
"Yes." Ella answered, turning around to face her and leaning back against the counter.
"So, could you tell us where Number Eight is, right now?"
Ella shook her head, and Six's face dropped. "Oh well." She said.
"It's pretty hard if I've never met the person." Ella explained. "Unless they're really close by."
"So you wouldn't be able to sense where the Mogs are right now or anything?"
"No. I can only tell if they're nearby, because they're obviously not human."
"Well, we're not human either. Couldn't you sense that?"
"I could. But not when I don't have any idea where she is or even who she is."
"Technically though, you did meet her, when we all came to Earth together?"
"I guess technically. But I don't remember her. I think that's the important part."
"Oh." Six said, her face dropping slightly. "Well, it would have been nice."
"Don't you already know where Eight is, though?" Ella asked. "Didn't you say she was in Beijing?"
"Yeah." Six answered, finally finishing peeling her orange and, dropping the rind on the table, beginning to eat. "Which is good. But, we don't really know anything more than that. We just got a general area from the stones, not a specific location. She could be anywhere in Beijing. And besides, it's been a couple months now, they could have moved."
"Maybe when we're in Beijing I'll be able to tell where she is. When we're closer, and I have a smaller area to search in, it should be easier to spot the alien life-form." Ella suggested. "You seemed to find me okay though."
"Yeah, well, last night was our third try. D.C. is kind of a big city, in case you hadn't noticed."
"Perfect for hiding in." Ella responded with a smile.
"So, are you going to be ready to leave today?" Six asked, eyeing her.
"Yes." Ella answered. "In case you didn't notice, we don't exactly have a lot of stuff to pack."
"That's good." Six said, smiling. "But what about the city? You don't have any, baggage, you're leaving behind?"
Ella's smile fell a little, but she shook her head slowly. "I like it here." She admitted. "But, you can't really let yourself ever get too attached to a place, you know?" Six nodded. "I'll send out a message to my friends saying that I'm leaving and then get rid of my phone. Done."
Six nodded again. "Good." She said. "It's good to move on."
"Yeah." Ella said, nodding. "So, I guess you must have moved around a lot too."
"Naturally." Six said smiling.
"Did you live in Australia for a while?" Ella asked, guessing from the accent.
"For the first bunch of years, yes. Moved around quite a bit after that. And then lately, of course, I've been constantly moving."
Daniel walked into the kitchen, hair tousled, breaking the conversation.
"Good, you're up." Six said, standing up. "I'll go wake up those other lazy . . ." She trailed off, muttering various other insults as she marched towards the door.
Daniel and Ella gazed after her, hearing muffled thumps from the room next door. Daniel raised an eyebrow and Ella grinned. She handed him the second glass she had poured, he took it, and drained it.
"So it looks like we're going to China today." Ella said, taking a seat at the table.
"Yeah." Daniel said. "You've never been there before, have you?"
"No. You haven't either, right?"
"Right."
"I've always wanted to see the Forbidden City."
"Isn't it forbidden?"
"Only for humans."
Daniel smiled slightly. "I don't know if we'll have much time for sight-seeing." He warned teasingly.
"There's always time for sight seeing." Ella responded.
Daniel nodded. He turned, dropping his glass in the sink and picked up his jacket, pulling it on as he said "I'm going to go tell the landlord that we'll be leaving."
"Okay." Ella said, and he walked out the door.
Daniel walked back inside, not bothering to take his coat back off. They would be leaving soon enough anyways. He glanced into the adjacent room and saw Ella, packing up some things with the other Garde. He passed by and went into the other room.
There was Patrick, sitting on the bed, slowly and carefully polishing his knife. Sam was there too, typing furiously on a computer.
"Can I have a word?" Daniel asked to Patrick.
Patrick looked up at him and nodded.
Daniel didn't speak, looking over at Sam. After a moment or two of silence, Sam looked up. Realizing that the other two were staring at him, he quickly got up. "I'll just – go into the other room - better reception – quieter – see ya." He said hurriedly, gathering up his laptop and scuttling into the kitchen.
Daniel took a seat and pulled out his own knife, beginning to polish it as well.
"What did you want to say?" Patrick asked in a deep voice.
"I don't think anyone else in this group would give me a straight answer."
The edge of Patrick's mouth quirked. "That Six is pretty good at giving straight answers."
"Not as good when it works against her. But I need to know. How many times have Mogadorians attacked this group?"
Patrick looked steadily at him. "Since we've joined, only once. There was only one of them, and we defeated it easily."
"Only one?" Daniel asked, his brow furrowing.
"Yes, we found it strange too, considering their normal patterns. It was perhaps a fluke, or a rouge, or a –"
"A scout." Daniel finished.
"Precisely." Patrick said, nodding. "As for before. Well, they claim that there was only once, when Six joined with John and Sam. But I am doubtful as to whether they are telling the truth. It would not provide much incentive for us to join if we knew they were being constantly attacked."
"Exactly why I asked you."
"It is more comfortable having another cepan." Patrick said after a moment. Daniel nodded. They were both silent for a few minutes, concentrating on their knives. "I believe I remember you." Patrick said, breaking the silence. "You were the youngest of us all. Just graduated."
Daniel nodded. "Yes. I hadn't had any experience yet. But, they didn't exactly have many options."
Patrick nodded slowly, mirroring Daniel, as they were both lost in their memories of that day. The chaos, the mission they had had seconds to accept, which had both saved and exiled them in a single stroke. "Whoever was there at the time." Daniel said, his voice coming as though from miles away.
Breaking reverie, Patrick looked up. "You have not changed much since that time."
Daniel nodded. "I still do not have much experience. But I have learned."
"I am sure you have." Patrick replied. "And you are far from inexperienced." He looked at Daniel, waiting for him to meet his eyes. "It is not your fault that he died."
Daniel broke eye contact, looking at the ground. "He died too soon." He said in a muted voice.
"All do." Patrick said. "It is not your fault that you have lived while he has died."
"I was supposed to die." Daniel responded. "Everyone assumed I was dead with One."
"That may be true. But that does not change anything."
"Why not?"
"It is far better for you to live. Now you can help the others. Have a second chance. You have provided a protector for Seven."
"Yes." Daniel said, staring back down at the ground. "But that does not take away the guilt."
"Nothing ever does." Patrick said. "But we must learn to live with it, to move on, and be strong in spite of it."
"I will." Daniel responded, looking up. Patrick nodded.
"I do not know your past." He said, standing up. "But I do not need to. It is from your future actions that you will form yourself."
Daniel watched as Patrick walked out the door, a smile in his eyes. He had a feeling that he and Patrick were going to get along fine. It was good to know that he wouldn't judge based on the past, that it was meaningless in someone's eyes.
But at the same time, the past held importance, and he couldn't deny that no matter how hard he tried. That was what made Ella so important, one of the many things. She wasn't just a member of the Garde. She was the only being alive who knew his whole past, as he was to her. She was the only one who he had told the whole story to.
He was young, and he was scared. Younger and scareder than he cared to admit. He had never been in charge of anything before. Fresh out of school, he hadn't even had a chance to serve as a real bodyguard on his own. How was he supposed to be a protector of a member of the Garde?
Not just any member either. One of the nine Garde left. Number One. The first one they would be coming for. No time to prepare. They were coming now. No time to learn the land, hell, the whole planet. Sure, he had learned about Earth, everyone had, it was one of their sister planets. But he'd only seen it in pictures before. Now it was his home.
But it wasn't his home. This couldn't be his home. Lorien was his home. Lorien was his family, his friends, his work, his . . . his life. But no. He couldn't think of that, he couldn't be consumed by his grief. Lorien couldn't afford that now. Number One couldn't afford that now.
Earth took some time to get used to, but adapting was not the priority now. The priority was survival. They kept moving. They didn't know how soon the Mogadorians would come, but they did know that when they did, they would be the first target. Sometimes he wondered if that was why he had been sent with Number One, because they knew that he would likely fail to protect him, but that if he did, it was no big deal. They still had eight other chances. Sometimes he wondered if this had occurred to One as well. He thought so.
One was a good kid, a bright kid. About eleven, he was old enough to know what was going on, but he was also smart enough to do what had to be done. Although they hadn't known one another before that day, running for their lives on a strange, alien planet brought them closer. They became like brothers, rather than the father-son, mother-daughter relationship the others seemed to have. They were both scared little kids, looking to one another for reassurance.
And they both knew they had been dealt the short end of the stick. They knew they had targets painted on their backs, and were ill-equipped to deal with what was coming for them.
So they tried to even the odds.
One had a grasp on his first legacy, and had been learning magic in school for some time. He thought he could perform a spell that would make Daniel better – stronger, faster, his skin impenetrable, his fists like iron, and best of all, untraceable. He tried. Daniel didn't know what happened, he didn't claim to know anything of magic. He didn't know what went wrong. All he knew was what had happened to him, and even that was only a shaky understanding.
He didn't remember anything after that day. There had been bright light, One's voice, he had felt as though electric shocks were going through his body, and then – nothing.
Nearly eight years later he started living again. He woke up, came to, whatever it could be called. He just got up, alone near the shore of New York. Eight years had gone by. One was dead. He knew. But he was still alive. More than alive, he was the same. Exactly the same.
A while later, he realized something else. He wasn't aging. His hair didn't grow, neither did his nails. He didn't get any taller. Nothing about him changed.
Perhaps on Lorien, this could have been easily rectified. But he was stuck on Earth, with only a handful of people who would even consider him sane. He set off to find those people.
The nearest were living in Quebec. There he found Seven and her protector, Helena, explained to them what had happened. They didn't know how to help him. Nobody did. He continued to check in with them, as he searched for some way to really live again.
He never found his answer. But one day, about two years ago, he had simply felt it. The seemingly frozen feeling left. He was able to grow again. When he got a haircut, it was not forever. His past had finally let him go, he was free to grow, to move on.
One day Seven's protector didn't come back. It was unthinkable to leave Ella on her own. He stepped into her protector's place, and prayed that history would not repeat itself.