Rosie had been told to wait in the first room of the house until Marcus was satisfied that, as Rosie had already informed him, the house was empty save for the two of them.

She did this willingly, but it still caused her to be a little annoyed. Being annoyed was a bittersweet feeling for Rosie. On the one hand, she appreciated that she understood its concept and that she was reacting in a way similar to that of humans when put under certain stimulus. But, on the hand, she was annoyed.

It took Marcus less than five minutes to check every room and check every lock on every window and door. Rosie had noted that all of the windows had bars over them and she doubted that the house had originally been built with them. The house also contained a very high tech security system, which Marcus had typed the code into a terminal shortly after entering the home, so the alarm wouldn't go off. Rosie had no idea why Marcus insisted on checking each room personally when the security system would have alerted even an incredibly unobservant human to an intruders.

Rosie took in her surroundings as quickly and thoroughly as could be expected from a quantum computer. It was a large house with two stories and lots of free, flowing space on the first floor. She noted that it was immaculately kept, by human standards, and that there was very, very little in the way of needless decoration. She also noted that none of the furniture matched, which was somewhat uncommon among the humans that she had observed.

The most glaring thing to Rosie was the fact that a single chair and table in the living room across the house were utterly smashed and lay in dozens of intermingled pieces.

From the vantage point she had, sitting in front of the locked front door, most humans might not notice that. But Rosie, of course, did. Also in the living room were shelves and shelves of books. Rosie was beginning to figure out what Marcus did with all his free time out here all by himself.

"Okay," Marcus said, trudging down from the upstairs, turning off unnecessary lights as he went. "You win this one. But you don't lose anything by checking, just to be sure."

"Except time," Rosie suggested, as she looked at him, thoroughly studying him.

Even slightly stooped over as he was, he was still tall; over six feet. And even though he insisted he was no longer in the military, his close cropped brown hair and clean shaven face implied that he was still keeping himself within the grooming standards of said military. Rosie supposed he could have been considered handsome, by human standards, but she had discovered that that was such an objective concept, that she couldn't say for certain. On thing she could tell, however, was that he seemed quite intelligent. Even though he was clearly somewhat intoxicated, he still seemed to be as alert a person as Rosie ever encountered and the fact that he had just wielded a firearm under such circumstances implied he was quite skillfully trained and coordinated, even despite his injuries.

"Yeah, well I have all the time in the world. And according to you, so do you," Marcus responded, before he pulled what looked like a passport out of his pocket and handed it to Rosie.

She opened it, revealing a photo of Marcus, his name and an address that was listed as classified.

"An official Hawaiian identification," Marcus said somewhat sarcastically, taking his I.D. right out of Rosie's hand and jamming it back into his pocket before staggering across the house to the living room, spiking his cane into the ground, sitting down heavily in a well worn recliner and reclining back.

"You do have one of those, right?" Marcus asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes." Rosie didn't, but she would momentarily. She had seen more than enough of Marcus's I.D.

In a flash, she extended her left hand behind her back and, using nanomaterial from her dress, she formed an exact replica I.D. In her hand containing a picture and an address from the middle of Oahu she remembered from studying historical records of the state. She hoped that that address would not only still be there, but would be unfamiliar to Marcus, who would take it at face value. She also listed her profession as a florist, which was something she actually did for over a year in San Francisco. Rosie quite liked flowers.

"Well, now would be a great time to show me," Marcus groaned.

Rosie gracefully crossed the room to stand next to Marcus and extended her hand with her new, flawlessly replicated I.D.

Marcus opened his eyes and stared at it for a few moments, and Rosie saw a great many emotions pass over his features. She identified anger, but that one was only brief.

"Well," Marcus said slowly, after a time. "Wish you had pulled that out before. I just put a gun on a Lieutenant because I didn't think you had one."

"And I really, really appreciate it," Rosie replied sweetly. "I was just so scared, I wasn't thinking clearly. I get like that sometimes. When I'm scared."

"You didn't look that scared to me," Marcus eyed Rosie and her close proximity to him warily for a moment, before gesturing to a larger couch nearby, away from him. "Please. Sit down. Oh, but hand me that first."

Rosie did as she asked and handed her nanomaterial composed, fraudulent I.D. over before heading to the couch and sitting down.

"Where were you keeping this thing, anyway?" Marcus asked, glancing up before returning his attention to Rosie's forged information.

"My pocket." Rosie said. She didn't have a pocket on her nanomaterial dress, but in a quick flash (which Marcus thankfully didn't see, because it happened to be concealed under his sweatshirt that she was still wearing) she suddenly did.

"Uh uh," Marcus muttered. "Good for you... And the good news is I know where this is, roughly. I can get you there in under an hour, give or take. I have a truck. Just give me like, five minutes to rest and we'll get going. You want a glass of water, or something?"

"I want to stay here tonight," Rosie stated. If she wanted to study this human further, this route only made sense.

Marcus laughed. "Yeah. No. Not a chance."

"Why not?"

Marcus leaned forward in his recliner and met her eyes with his. "I don't know if you've paid any attention to the last hour, or to any of the weird and horrible shit that's happened, or to anything I've told you, but it isn't exactly safe around these parts."

"I feel safe," Rosie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, calculating what best to say. "You're here."

Marcus was aghast, Rosie could tell. "Have you seen the bars on the windows?" he exclaimed.

"I have."

Marcus breathed deeply and reclined back in his chair. Rosie had seen and interacted with thousands of humans, but she had scarcely ever seen one who could calm down so quickly as Marcus seemed to be able to.

"Look," he began. "You seem like a nice girl; you really do. But I don't do guests. I'm not equipped to handle them generally, much less a girl like you. I've done what I could, I helped you out as much as I could, but now it's time to get you home." He rubbed his eyes again. "And I'd really appreciate if you stayed on the civilian side from now on. Iroquois Point and most of the island around here are off limits."

"What do you mean, 'a girl like me'?"

That caught Marcus completely off guard. "Nevermind," he said, as he slowly and painfully got out of his chair and leaned over to pick up his cane.

"Don't you want to know why I'm here?" Rosie asked. She was quickly running out of diplomacy cards to play.

Marcus leaned on his cane. "You know, I did. But now I don't really care. Come on, let's go. You sure you don't want some water for the drive or anything?"

"You've been drinking tonight," Rosie said flatly.

Marcus froze. "...I drink most nights. I haven't drank since way before I even ran into you. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before," Rosie rolled her eyes, a move that she had been doing for so long, that it was almost an automatic response to such asinine statements. "I'm not getting in a car with you until tomorrow."

"Goddammit!" Marcus snapped. "You're not safe here, don't you get it? Now come on, we're going."

"No!" Rosie jumped to her feet and clinched her fists. "I feel safe here."

Marcus just stared, his expression reflecting his inability to comprehend why Rosie was so adamant to stay. She seemed to be winning, but perhaps it would be best to try to reassure him in some way. Then something else entirely occurred to her.

"You can't hurt me," Rosie stated.

There was a pause.

"I disagree..." Marcus finally replied, softly.

"I don't care what you think. You can't," Rosie said, taking two steps forward and looking up at him. "I promise you, you can't."

Marcus looked away, lost in thought.

"Please...?" Rosie whispered.

"Fine," he finally sniffed. "You can stay the night. Tomorrow I'm taking you home. You can take the bedroom upstairs. The couch is all I need."

"I wouldn't feel good taking your bed."

"I don't give a fuck," Marcus snapped quickly. "You want to stay so bad? You'll stay where I put you."

Marcus then stalked to the kitchen and after a few moments, Rosie followed.

She watched as Marcus filled two tall glasses with ice from the kitchen freezer, then filling one glass with water from a potable water container on the counter and then filling the other to the brim with Jack Daniel's whiskey from a large bottle.

"Since we won't be driving anywhere," Marcus muttered, taking a large gulp of the whiskey as he pushed the glass of water towards Rosie. "I guess I should have asked you if wanted a drink instead. You're twenty-one, right? That's what your I.D. said."

"Water's fine," Rosie affirmed, taking a small sip.

"You hungry, or anything?" Marcus asked, taking another gulp of whiskey, before refilling the glass to the brim. "I don't have anything fancy, but I've certainly got a bitchin' selection of MREs. I also make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

"No, I'm not hungry, thank you."

"Yeah," Marcus nodded. "I don't have a lot of training playing host, so you'll have to forgive that."

"That's fine," Rosie looked up at him. "I don't need a whole lot."

"Well, you're likely to get that in abundance," Marcus said. "Just remember, you wanted to be here."

"I still do."

"For whatever reason..." he muttered back.

Rosie decided it was best to not reply to that one. Instead, she picked a different topic.

"Why is some of your furniture in the other room smashed?"

"Um," Marcus said, clearly embarrassed. "I didn't like it anymore. I'll replace it tomorrow."

Rosie decided not to pursue that subject any farther, either.

After a few more minutes of idle, meaningless chatter, Marcus checked his watch and asked her if she was feeling tired.

Rosie, of course, wasn't in the slightest, but she figured, with Marcus rapidly becoming more intoxicated, that she wasn't going to get any other interesting or noteworthy information out of him tonight, so she might as well pretend she was. She had plenty of other ways to gather information, even without Marcus's cooperation. She had already noticed a computer in a small office on the first floor and it was likely that it contained something she would find interesting, or was perhaps connected to a network that would.

Marcus showed her to the only bedroom in the house that had a bed, asked her one more time if she needed anything or wanted to call anyone (she didn't, on both accounts) and he bid her goodnight, hastily retreating back downstairs.

Rosie, still wearing Marcus's sweatshirt, played her part and climbed into Marcus's bed, curling up on her side in the position she had long ago discovered was most comfortable for her. She then listened as Marcus moved about downstairs for nearly fifteen minutes and left the house through the same door they had come in.

She then waited for exactly two hours to see if he would return. He didn't. Rosie increased her scanning capabilities and range until she picked up a human heat signature about twenty yards away, inside a garage and shed building that wasn't attached to the house.

Rosie glided downstairs to the front door, noting that Marcus had turned on the household security system before he left. Having already seen him use the deactivation code, Rosie didn't even have to hack the system to turn it off. She left the house and headed to the outer building, the glow of the moonlight reflecting off of the ocean and off her pale, nanomaterial created skin.

Finding that the garage was locked via a bolt lock from the inside, Rosie encased her union core (which she always had inside her mental model, refusing to keep it in her ship body) in nanomaterial to make it appear as a rock and she silently disassembled her mental model, fed the nanomaterial particles through the crack in the door and reassembled herself inside the room, minus Marcus's sweatshirt.

Then she found herself in a building large enough to hold three cars, though there was only a single red, aging pickup truck, with Marcus laying in a sleeping bag underneath it, fast asleep.

The glass he was using for whiskey was empty and sat beside the truck, though that wasn't where her attention was drawn to.

At the end of the building, in an incredibly neat stack against the wall, were several hundred empty whiskey bottles, mostly Jack Daniel's.

Checking once more on Marcus, who was still sleeping soundly, Rosie felt her gaze linger on him for a moment. Then she left the garage the way she had entered, collected her union core, put the sweatshirt back on, returned to the house and headed back to the bedroom, hacking into Marcus's computer as she went.

She curled back up in bed, just as she accessed all of the information she could've needed. It included almost the entire history of North America since before the Fog Invasion, most of which she knew, and a very detailed history on the last fifteen years of Hawaii, hardly any of which she knew.

But, what she found most important, was that in included a ton of information on Marcus.

Rosie cried for the first time about four years after forming her mental model and beginning her mission among the humans. She had reflected for a long time on what that had meant in her growing ability to feel and understand emotions. She was also amazed at her ability to empathize with the humans; her supposed enemy. Every time she cried, she was utterly fascinated that her mental model (even as anatomically accurate as it was) was able to automatically process the emotion and form tears without any direct commands from her. She supposed that was what Supreme Flagship Yamato might have meant by learning about and identifying with the humans to be become more effective fighting machines.

Even still, she didn't cry often. But Rosie cried that night.

She cried for the people of Hawaii.

She cried for Marcus.

Author's Note:

Oahu, by Menomena