Rosie was completely, utterly and uncharacteristically lost.

She had no absolutely no idea what was wrong with her. For the first time since she became aware of her own existence, she began to seriously wonder if she was legitimately malfunctioning. Why else would she be reacting in such ways? Why else would she be blurting out and saying things without even thinking them through first? Of course, she had always assumed that interacting with humans and learning their behavior would change her in some way, but up until today she had never seriously worried about her own intellectual and emotional well being.

She was a quantum computer. Why wasn't this all so simple for her? The Supreme Flagship had told her that she was advanced even for a Fog ship, so why was she having these problems? What was wrong with her?

She felt her face flush red and knew that it was yet another automatic reaction that had somehow programmed itself into her systems during the last few years. She was embarrassed and she couldn't help it. She even tried immediately and in vain to shut that particular response down, but couldn't make her systems or her body obey.

"Hey," Marcus said, sitting up, eyes full of concern. "Rosie, what's wrong?"

She didn't even know what to say and couldn't summon a response; she just stared out at the ocean while running a system diagnostic to see if that could identify any problems.

"I..." Rosie started after a few moments. "I don't know..."

"So, tell me about you?"

She turned to face him, confused. "What...?"

"Tell me about you," Marcus smiled warmly. "Your name is Rosie Dahlia Franklin. You're twenty-one and you live in Hiawatha. That's pretty much all I know."

Rosie breathed in and out several times, not even realizing she was doing so automatically to try to calm herself down. Of course, having read her fraudulent I.D., he knew some things, but most things about her, or more accurately about her recently fabricated cover story, he didn't know. Rosie had spent a good portion of the night putting her cover together and now seemed like it was going to be the time to test it out.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything!" Marcus said, putting his binoculars in his lap, throwing his finished cigarette in the pot next to his chair and giving her his full attention. "At least, everything you're willing to share, of course."

Rosie felt the sun shining on her face and the cool breeze coming off the Pacific delicately playing with her hair and she breathed in deeply once again. Her system scan had revealed no abnormalities and she could feel herself calming down. Maybe she had control over herself again.

She tested this theory out and began to talk, concentrating to make sure that whatever emotional response had paralyzed her before wasn't currently present.

"Well... I'm a florist; I work with flowers."

"I didn't know there were many of those left on Oahu," Marcus commented. "I mean, plenty of flowers here, just didn't think the demand was around anymore. Shows you how out of touch I am."

Rosie smiled, as she felt the warmth on her face lessening, save for the sun's rays. "Yeah. There's always demand for flowers!"

"How'd you find your way into that field? Of flowers? I mean, I guess your name might help a little, there..."

Rosie giggled a little. No, she was definitely fine now. She would have to keep an eye on her systems going forward; make sure nothing else too bizarre happened.

"Oh, I don't know. I just found that it was work I liked to do and I'm good at it. So..."

"Yeah, we all seem to gravitate towards what we're good at..." Marcus muttered, gazing out at the Pacific. "So, what's your life like, Rosie?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean exactly that. What's your family like? Your friends? What do you do for fun when you're not playing with flowers?"

Rosie hoped she was ready for this moment. She had spent several hours the night before fabricating a life story that she hoped would hold water, at least to some level of scrutiny. She dearly hoped Marcus would believe her.

She took a breath and began. "I'm an only child. My parents were killed during The Fifth Column attack on Wheeler Air Base."

Rosie tried inflecting this in such a way that would make her sound just faintly upset about it. She wasn't sure if that part had worked, but it didn't seem to matter.

"Yeah, the Battle of Wheeler," Marcus sighed. "I was there. That was a rough one. A lot of people died in the crossfire who shouldn't have. I'm sorry, Rosie."

"It's okay," Rosie said quietly. "I got through it fine."

"What about friends?"

"I don't have any."

Marcus laughed a little at that. "What, nice girl like you? Forgive me if I don't believe you."

Rosie paused for a moment, to add effect. "It's true. After what happened to my parents, I just... I just kind of withdrew."

Remaining silent for a few moments, Marcus breathed out. "Yeah... Yeah, I understand that."

"What about you? Where's your family?" Rosie already, of course, knew all about this.

"Yeah, no. It's Talk About Rosie Day," Marcus grinned. "Plus, my story's really boring, anyway."

"That's not what I've heard," Rosie returned his grin, genuinely.

"Oh, really? What have you heard?"

"Sergeant Sullivan said you were the bravest man he'd ever met."

"Oh, Sully? Yeah, he's a legendary exaggerator. Take what he says with few grains of salt and a lot of grains of skepticism."

"That's what he called you."

"What, grains of salt...?"

"No, silly!" Rosie giggled and meant it. "He called you a legend. He said everyone on Oahu knew about you."

"Well, evidently not, thank Christ," Marcus pulled another cigarette from his metal case that was sitting on his chair's armrest and lit it. "You don't seem to know who I am, which is actually quite refreshing, by the way. I'd thank you for your ignorance, but that would probably sound strange. Or rude. In fact, I should probably stop talking now, huh...? Don't suppose you want one of these?"

Marcus offered her a cigarette.

"No thank you. I don't smoke." Rosie admitted to herself that telling the truth was nice, especially to Marcus, for some reason. She regretted having to tell him such blatant lies, but there was really no other way.

Marcus nodded. "Smart girl."

"Marcus..." Rosie began. "You said you were at the battle where my parents died. I wasn't there that day. What was it like?"

Marcus breathed out smoke and Rosie could tell he was fighting for the nicest way to go about answering.

"It wasn't good. It just... wasn't. We didn't even get into Hiawatha until towards the end, after the main force was repelled. By then, we were too late for a lot of people."

"Did you-"

"I don't like talking about it," Marcus cut her off, politely but firmly. "I'll tell you this much, I'm glad you weren't there."

"Because of what I could have seen?"

"No, because of what could have happened to you." Marcus glanced at her and his gaze seemed to linger for longer than he meant it to before he turned back to the ocean. "I'm glad you're still here."

"Why?"

Marcus looked back at her, bewildered. "Why am I glad you're alive?"

"Yes. Why do you care?"

"Wow," Marcus blinked. "I don't even know how to go about answering that. Are you serious?"

"You just said you hate people. That you wouldn't mind if we all died. Why do you care what happens to me?" Rosie definitely had to figure this out; it made absolutely no sense to her and she had to learn more.

"Okay," Marcus chuckled. "Yeah, I did say that and I do mean it, I guess. But I also said I don't hate most individuals personally and don't wish them harm. I just wouldn't go out of my way to save humanity if something like say, the Fog decided to finish what they started."

"I don't understand..." Rosie blinked. "You risked your life to help me. Why would you do that if you don't care?"

"Because I could help you," Marcus said firmly. "At that moment, I could do something to help you. What's my other alternative? Not help you? Walk the fuck away? No, I'm just not programmed that way."

"Programmed...?"

"Yeah, we all have it, in one way or another," Marcus looked at her again. "Behavior we just can't control. My instinct, when I see someone who needs help is to help them. Not look for someone to help them, not stare at the situation like a fucking moron and sure as shit not walk away. That's just me. I don't have another choice. It's not kindness and it's not bravery. It's just how it is."

"Is that why you live out here? So you won't have to to be put in situations like that?"

Marcus laughed loudly. "Yeah, if that were the case, it's just working out wonderfully." He smiled at her. "No, I live out here for a lot of reasons, but I can't say that was a conscious one."

"Why do you live out here, then?"

"Just how did we stop learning about Rosie and get back onto the startlingly boring topic of Marcus?" Marcus stared at her. "You know, if you weren't so attached to flowers, you'd make a fine journalist. Or a psychiatrist. Or a lawyer."

"Why do you say that?"

Marcus laughed again. "Yeah, you're good."

He looked to the Pacific again, before breathing in deeply. "Listen... I wasn't looking forward to this topic, but I'd better get to it... With the Fog ship bearing down on us, standard procedure is, of course, a general lockdown of the island for a few days to see what the ship does. No vehicles and no unnecessary foot traffic. It if follows standard Fog patterns, things will resume to mostly normal after that."

"Yes, that's standard; I've read about it." This was true.

"Right, so, I could try to break protocol and sneak you back to your place, but we'd both be in somewhat serious trouble if we got caught doing that."

Marcus paused and it seemed to Rosie that he was having a hard time saying the words.

"Or you could... stay here."

Rosie thought for a moment. "What if I walked home?"

"Yeah, not letting you do that," Marcus shook his head. "You've already proved that you walking around out here is a little bit perilous, at best. I can't in good conscious let that happen."

"I could always sneak off whenever you're asleep or not watching," Rosie shrugged.

Marcus grinned. "Yeah, you definitely could. I would strongly recommend against it, though."

"You don't want me here," Rosie stated. It definitely wasn't a question. "I don't understand why you'd invite me to stay if you don't want me here."

"Because it's the right thing to do!" Marcus said, stunned. "It doesn't matter what I want. It only matters what's right."

"It matters to me," Rosie crossed her arms, hugging herself tightly as she looked away.

"Okay..." Marcus thought for a moment. "So, what do you want here, exactly?"

"I want you to invite me to stay and I want you to want that," Rosie said simply.

Marcus didn't respond for a tense moment. "...And what if I don't?"

"Then I'm leaving." Rosie stood up to illustrate her point, tossing Marcus's sweatshirt to him and brushing her dress off to smooth out any wrinkles.

She desperately hoped this gamble would work.

"Well, that's quite the emotional blackmail, right there." Marcus said, matching her gaze and refusing to blink.

"I don't care what you call it. This matters to me."

...Okay..." Marcus muttered. "It matters to me that you're safe. Here, you're a lot safer than anywhere else nearby. By that rational, yes, I do what you to stay. But only if that's what you want and only if you feel safe here. If not, I have no issue trying to drive you home. I just can't promise that we won't get caught and if we are, I can't guarantee that I can get you off scot-free."

With a deep inward breath, Marcus finished his cigarette and tossed it into the ceramic pot. "Is this all acceptable?"

Rosie remained quiet for a few moments (she had decided instantly that it was) as she wanted to make Marcus wait. This was an important part of her plan and she needed to play the part.

"Yes," she smiled, sitting back down. "It is. Was that so hard?"

"You have no idea," Marcus muttered. "I don't have any clothes for women and I'm lacking in certain other feminine... necessities. We can always look in some of the neighboring houses as I'm wont to do when I need something. Or need to kill time... But other than that, we should have everything you'd need... Is anyone at home going to miss you? Basic phone traffic is still allowed."

"I don't have any friends and I live alone," Rosie said succinctly. "There's no one for me to tell anything to."

There were a few moments pause as a warm wash of relief flowed over Rosie. She, of course, wanted to stay right here. There was so much about Marcus she still wanted to know and she had to solve why he seemed to be the cause of the ghost errors that had been cropping up in her system. The only way to figure that out was further study. She just hoped the Supreme Flagship had been correct when she had told Rosie that she had utter confidence in her abilities to continue the mission. Rosie ran another quick system analysis to see if anything was amiss and nothing was. She had no idea what was going wrong with her. She suspected the obvious, of course: that after ten years with humans she had become enough like them to finally cross that dangerous line into the loss of objectivity, but again, the Supreme Flagship didn't seem concerned, so everything must have been fine.

Whatever the case, Rosie couldn't wait to figure it out.

"So, Rosie, do you feel comfortable here?" Marcus asked after a moment. "That's important to me, I guess."

Rosie smiled warmly. "I do. I told you I feel safe here. That's the truth." And it sure was nice to be able to tell it every now and again.

"Okay," Marcus returned her smile and stood up, grabbing his cane and heading to the sliding glass door. "Come on; I know you have to be hungry."

Author's Note:

Analyse, by Thom Yorke