This is just a short little filler chapter, but I'd advise you to note some of its details! :)

It was already 10:30 in the morning when McGee woke up. At first he had forgotten the events of the night before, but as he looked around the room, everything came rushing back to him.

He sat up, looking down at himself, and realized that he was still wearing the same pants he had on from the night before, and no shirt.

As he got up and stretched, his newfound wings sprang into sight, stretching out and knocking over a lamp. Once he righted it, he put the wings away again to avoid any further messes.

Tim began to pace his room, unsure of what to do. The room itself was nicely decorated, with a small desk, a dresser, a bedside table, and a large leather chair. The ceiling was ornately decorated with original carvings, and a set of doors led to a large private bathroom. Would it be considered rude to take a shower? It wasn't his house, and he didn't know what he was allowed to do. Finally, as he passed the dresser, he found a small handwritten note.

Timothy,

There should be some clothes in the drawers; feel free to help yourself to them. There are towels in the bathroom cabinets. Also, there should be tea and coffee in the kitchen- please help yourself to something to eat.

~Apollo

Well, that was as kind an invitation as any! McGee quickly showered and dressed in a light tshirt and some jeans that fit him well enough. He was going to have to track down some new clothes as soon as possible.

At first, he got lost on his way to the kitchen, taking a wrong turn and finding nothing but a hallway of doors, so he back tracked and took a different route, finally ending up in a dining room. After that it didn't take much to find the kitchen, one room over.

"Good morning," Victoria smiled politely at him from the kitchen table. "How are you feeling?"

"Great, thanks," Tim smiled back. Although she seemed at ease around him, McGee noticed that she was very formal in mannerisms: keeping a good distance, being very careful not to touch him or brush against him- she had held his hand the night before, but its purpose was to lead him while he was in shock, nothing else.

"Is your memory any better?" she asked him. He thought about it, but still couldn't conjure up much about his past life. It was bizarre- he knew his age, his name, and that he was American, and he still retained the basic knowledge he had learned throughout his life...but he could not for the life of him remember a moment of time before he had woken up the previous evening.

"No," he frowned. "Will I ever get it back?"

"Some people do, some don't," she admitted. "I wouldn't have remembered my previous life if I hadn't stumbled upon my apartment one day. That sort of brought everything back."

He was about to ask her to elaborate, when she stood up and walked to the fridge. "Are you hungry? We've always got more food than we can eat."

"Actually, I am." He literally couldn't remember the last time he ate.

"I thought so," she said, reaching into a cupboard to retrieve a mug for coffee. "There is fruit in the refrigerator, and cereal in the pantry."

Tim looked around the kitchen, noting its modern features, like the appliances, and the features that had remained from when it was built, like a gaping fireplace large enough for him to stand in.

"How old is this house?"

"It was built in the late 1500s during the Italian Renaissance," she said, handing him the mug. "Most likely it was designed by one of the great masters. According to Apollo, it's been redecorated and renovated several times, but it is the original shape and structure."

At first he had thought it was his imagination, but as she moved around the room, he noticed that she was indeed keeping her distance. Though discreet, he could tell it was deliberate. When he took a step towards her to take the mug from her hand, he noticed that she held her hand in place, but shifted away slightly, almost unnoticeably.

Had he insulted her? The night before, he did react in fright and awe at seeing their wings, before finding that he had his own. Did he seem too frightened of her? Was she just being polite?

As he ate, she quietly sipped her coffee and flipped through the pages of a book- on the other side of the kitchen. When he was finished, she insisted that he leave the dishes in the sink.

"You're our guest," she said.

"I've got to do something," he said. "Otherwise I'll wander around, lost all day."

This gave her a genuine smile, not just a reassuring look.

"Come on," she offered. "I'll show you around the house."

He followed her down a hallway that opened up into the enormous room he woke up in. "You saw the ballroom last night," she said, gesturing to its grandeur. "Most of the house is actually only made up of four rooms. The rest are little bedrooms and guest rooms. The house was practically built for the sole purpose of throwing parties."

She walked under the dome, where a small bit of light shone through the skylights. Tim looked up to see a lazy drizzle pattering against the glass, the image of which reflected on the floor. As he shifted his weight to his other foot, he heard metal shift as well. Looking down, he realized he was standing on a drain, but it was so intricately designed that it was almost hidden in the floor.

"What's this for?" he asked, stepping off of it.

"There used to be a fountain where you're standing," Victoria said. "It was removed decades ago. I'm not sure why. But Apollo's mother ordered that they leave the drain. Apparently she liked to open the skylights and watch the rain fall in."

"Huh," McGee said aloud.

"His mother was really creative. Wait until you see the library."

She turned and headed toward a staircase that Tim hadn't noticed before. It wasn't large or particularly grand, it simply served to lead up to a heavy set of oak doors, which Victoria threw open with ease, revealing an enormous personal collection of books. The right wall contained nothing but book shelves and a sort of balcony, upon which sat a desk. The left wall had a large fireplace and many wonderful paintings of the Italian countryside, of Venice, and of children playing in a field. Large Turkish rugs covered every inch of the floor, and a grand piano sat by a pair of windows on the far wall. Books covered almost every inch of the room. The sight made Tim's heart swell. His past may have been forgotten, but not his love of knowledge. Victoria was delighted by his expression.

"I can tell you're a reader. So are we."

"This is incredible," McGee said.

"Thank you," Apollo's voice called from the balcony, where he sat looking down on the two. "My family has a rich history of book-collecting. And speaking of," he said, taking a small set of stairs down to the floor. "I found the book, just as I promised."

He handed a ragged little volume to Tim, who opened it to the cover page and noted the signature of the author.

"Darwin?!" he exclaimed. "Darwin was a flightling too?"

"No," Apollo chuckled. "But his wife was. The story is that he was so fascinated by her that he did a whole study on flightlings alone. Hence the book."

Tim began to skim the first chapter, which covered the origin of the species itself.

"It says that no one knows the true origin of the flightlings," he said.

"The interbred-with-angels idea is just one," Victoria said. "The other is that we come from humans that simply evolved incorrectly."

"Which Darwin disputes on the next page, I believe," Apollo said, noticing Tim turn the page.

"It makes no sense to me either. If we were just some horrid bird-people, we would have other bird characteristics, which we don't."

"And it wouldn't account for the strength or health," Victoria added. "The other concept is that we are mutants, that a gene somewhere along the line became so warped that it gave us a whole new set of abilities."

"But then the whole human soul thing makes no sense," McGee said.

"Exactly," Apollo agreed.

Tim continued to read the titles of each chapter. One outlined in detail the abilities of a flightling, and another described the anatomy of the wings.

"I'll take good care of this," he promised, closing it gently.

"Let's go put it in your room," Victoria offered. "I'll show you the rest of the house along the way."

She led him through a large courtyard full of plants McGee had never seen before. Rain splashed against its tiles, decorated in intricate arabesque. They passed through a long dining room into a more modern living room, with comfortable furniture and a TV. A stylish bar sat in the corner.

"Honestly, this is where we spend most of our time. Here and the library," Victoria said. The rest of the house is just bedrooms and baths. And you've seen the kitchen and the dining room. When it's not raining, I'll show you the garden."

He hadn't mentioned it before, but a dull ache had begun to settle in his back. He felt the urge to expand his wings.

"Victoria," he said. "Is it normal for your back to hurt all the time?"

"Oh, feel free to let your wings out," she said. "It is normal, especially in the beginning. The more you walk around without them, the more it will feel normal. It's just more convenient; walking around with your wings out makes you more likely to knock something over on accident."

He tired to do as she said, but was hindered by his shirt.

"What do I do about my clothes?" he asked, not liking the idea of having to go around without a shirt in order to move his wings.

Victoria ran into the kitchen and returned with a pair of scissors. "Turn around."

Still careful not to touch him, she cut two thin lines down the back of the shirt, barely noticeable to the naked eye.

"You'll get good at this," she assured him. "I'm lucky because most of my tops are low-backed. You, on the other hand, will have to master this trick. Honestly, the safest thing is to not cut slits in all your shirts. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, you'll be inclined to stretch them out by reflex, and you won't even notice you're doing it. If that happens out in public, you're in trouble. So if you have material that will hinder them, you'll be reminded to keep them in check."

"I guess I'm going to have to buy a new wardrobe once I leave here," Tim said.

"You know, Apollo wasn't kidding when he said you could stay as long as you want. We like having guests, and friends pass through all the time."

"I appreciate it, but I don't want to impose," he said.

"Please. There's five bedrooms in this house, we only use two. Anyway, I think you should at least stay until you master the whole flying thing, and you can't do that until you've built up enough muscle in your chest. By the way, make sure to walk around with your wings out as much as you can for the next few days, it speeds up the process. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do. I'll most likely be in my bedroom or in the library if you need me."

She left him alone in the living room with his thoughts. He had completely forgotten about flying. It made him nervous just thinking about it. Somewhere deep down, the flightling half of him didn't seem bothered by the idea. But he was part human as well, and it frightened the human in him profusely.

That thought got him wondering what percentage of his genes were human and what percentage wasn't. Did it work as some dominant and recessive gene set up? Or was it that everyone who descended from an angel could be a flightling? He seriously doubted that one; that would mean that other members of his biological family were flightlings, and he would have grown up knowing his full lineage.

He looked through the table of contents in the book Apollo gave him, and found that there was a chapter on genetics. He found his way back to his guest room and sat down at the desk to read.

McGee stayed that way for hours, enthralled by his reading when a knock came at his door.

"Come in," Tim called, not looking up from the book.

"I don't mean to intrude, Timothy," Apollo said, opening the door. "But we have dinner ready, if you'd like some."

He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and his stomach suddenly growled, angry that it had been ignored all day.

"Oh, thanks," he said eagerly, rising from his desk. He was about to follow Apollo from the room, when he realized now would be the time to ask his question. "I don't mean to be rude, or too forward, but is Victoria always-"

"So stiff?" Apollo said, amused. "She's a wonderful person, and she's not usually like this, no. She has a tendency to be distant or overly formal with strangers. She'll come out of it, just give it time."

"Oh," was all he could say as they walked down the hall, still wondering if it was something he'd done.