A/N: So, a few people were interested in finding more out about Alniss and Carla's backstories. Hopefully this chapter will give you a little more information!

Two weeks later, Carla pushed her key into the door of the apartment, exhausted. She'd travelled to yet another town, this one an hour away, to hand out resumes, but no-one wanted an employee without references. They had the luxury of choosing: new technology from the Andalites, combined with that humanity had reverse-engineered from the Yeerks, was making a lot of people unemployed. True, it hadn't affected the restaurant trade that much yet, but Carla was still competing with a spillover of retail workers, cleaners, factory workers… it made things difficult.

"Hey." Alniss emerged from the living room. "Any luck?"

Carla shook her head morosely. "You don't need a brain to infest, do you?" She joked flatly. "Or would you want references too?"

"I think I already had them." Alniss' voice was quiet, her tone almost mournful, making Carla immediately regret what she'd said. "Silrin thought a lot of you."

Carla swallowed hard, trying to keep control of her expression. "I still don't know why."

Alniss frowned. "Don't you? She said you were brave, strong, kind, funny…"

Carla snorted dismissively. "Oh, she told me all that, but I thought she was mad. Still do."

"You don't believe that she meant it? Let me put your mind to rest about that, Carla, because she said all this to me in the Pool, so it couldn't have just been to…" Alniss trailed off, her voice hesitant.

"No, I know she meant it," Carla said, shaking her head. "I could feel she meant it, whenever she said it. I just think she was wrong."

"How could she possibly be wrong?"

Carla turned her head away, her eyes suddenly misted with tears, her fists clenched. "She called me strong when I was whimpering at her, begging her to let me go and buy some vodka. Even though I knew if I kept drinking like I had been I'd probably kill myself with it. Even though I'd joined the Sharing specifically to help me stop… and the Sharing wasn't the first way I tried quitting, it was the fifth. It only worked because I had a mind-controlling alien in my brain that I knew would stop me if I actually tried to drink anything… well, apart from the controlled amounts they were giving me, at first. I was that bad that I'd have died if I'd tried to stop cold turkey. Now you tell me how anyone can look at that and say that's strength. Silrin was more than wrong, she was completely insane… in a good way. I mean, I love her, but it didn't make any sense."

Alniss made a soft sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "Maybe we should go and sit down for this."

"It's fine," Carla said quickly. "We don't need to talk about it. I shouldn't have-"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Carla said, though inside she was wishing she hadn't said anything. What had possessed her to splurge out a rant like that? She'd made Alniss feel uncomfortable, which was the last thing she wanted to do.

"You said Silrin 'would' have stopped you 'if' you'd tried to do anything. Did she ever actually have to?"

"Have to what?"

"Take control to hold you back. Did you ever physically try to go and drink?"

Carla shook her head. "No."

"So you quit all by yourself. You didn't need the mind-controlling alien."

Carla laughed. "I didn't quit by myself. She talked to me, distracted me, reminded me of all my reasons for trying to stop… I'd already tried by myself, and it didn't work."

"You still did it under your own willpower. She could have been another human and done all that."

"She wouldn't have noticed as early," Carla argued. "She saw when I was feeling like I wanted it, she saw it before I did."

"Okay, fair enough. But that's all she did. And from that alone I agree with her. You got over that dependency all by yourself: that must take incredible strength."

"I was the one that got myself hooked in the first place. It wasn't like I didn't know alcoholism existed. That was weak."

Alniss sighed. "There's no arguing with you, is there?"

Carla finally raised her eyes to meet Alniss'. "You sound exactly like her," she said quietly, her voice cracking.

Alniss crossed the hallway in two strides, pulling Carla into a hug and kissing the top of her head. "I'm sorry."

Carla could hear the tension in Alniss' voice, as though she was holding back tears herself. "You must miss her too."

She felt warm, wet teardrops begin to leak into her hair as the Yeerk's arms tightened around her. Strangely, it seemed to make Carla feel a little stronger.

"She… she always looked forward to seeing you. Well, seeing probably isn't the right word, but you know what I mean," Carla said, attempting to return the comfort Alniss had been unquestioningly giving her for weeks now.

"We were close," Alniss said simply, pulling back a little so she could look at Carla.. "We were something called schrelna, it means the grubs we were born from were very close together, from the same part of our parents. The siblings who are closer to you in space tend to be more similar genetically, because of the way our reproduction works, so you also tend to be closer to them emotionally than you are to those that were born further away."

Carla nodded. "Silrin told me. She used to tell me things like that when I couldn't sleep… not because it was boring, but because it helped to calm me down. I was so interested in all of it that I forgot whatever was bothering me at the time."

"What else did she tell you?" Seeing Carla's wistful look, Alniss added: "Unless talking about her makes you feel worse."

Carla shook her head. "It… I think it makes it better. I think about her a lot."

"Yes, you must. Everything must remind you of her," Alniss said perceptively.

"She told me old Yeerk legends: Falniss and Kandrona; Thish the faithful Gedd; Sairan defeating the great Vanarx; Cilkik and Ghesh; the hidden Pool…"

"Wow. You could probably pass for a Yeerk."

"Not really. I'm not sure I could tell them verbally… so much of what I remember of them are the images and feelings she showed me. Though she told me bits in words." Carla stopped speaking abruptly, tears pricking painfully at her eyes. The memory of Silrin's voice in her mind was suddenly so strong she could half-convince herself it was really there.

"I'm sorry," Alniss said instantly, reaching to pull Carla closer to her. "I should never have…"

"It's okay. Did…" Carla swallowed, took a deep breath and tried again. "Did you talk much to your hosts?"

"Not as much. I never had a human, and my Gedd host was the only one who really wanted me there. My Hork-Bajir… she wasn't exactly involuntary. She didn't fight me, she was just… resigned." Alniss gave a light shiver, and Carla wondered whether it had been a mistake to ask.

"What was your Gedd called?" Carla asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards slightly safer grounds.

"Chash," Alniss answered.

"Is that a he or a she?"

"Female. Like my Hork-Bajir. I suppose that's why I chose a female nothlit form, in the end."

Carla frowned slightly, puzzled. "You never had a human host, then?"

Alniss shook her head. "I wanted one, but I rather shot myself in the foot by not wanting an involuntary. Voluntaries don't come up very often."

"So that's why you chose a human form? Because you wanted a human host?"

Alniss hesitated for a moment, biting one corner of her lip gently. "Partly."

Carla immediately felt guilty upon seeing the Yeerk's expression. "I'm sorry… please don't feel you have to tell me."

"It's okay," Alniss said softly. "It's natural that you're wondering. It must seem a strange thing to do, to trap yourself permanently in a body you've never had before. I just felt that being a Yeerk among Hork-Bajir… I'd spend all my time talking to other Yeerks, and then we'd gradually all die off and leave nothing behind. You can't really hold a conversation with a Hork-Bajir, the intelligence gap is too great. And if I ever did decide to reproduce… well, I know any children I have now would be human, but at least they'd be able to understand Yeerk culture, to pick some of it up, to talk to me on my own level." She paused for a moment, her eyes drifting to some of the artworks plastered all over the walls. "And you do have a beautiful planet, Carla."

Carla didn't respond for a moment, as she was busy searching her mind for a half-remembered conversation between Alniss and Silrin. "You have mates, don't you?" She knew that once a tripartite of Yeerks formed, they would spend decades strengthening their bond before they were eventually ready to mate. Given only one chance to reproduce, Silrin had explained, Yeerks thoroughly tested the qualities of those they chose to do it with.

Alniss instantly looked away, but not before Carla could see a rush of colour appear around her eyes and her lips start to tremble. "I…" Alniss' voice was suddenly choked, her words muddled. "They were in the Pool that day, too."

"Oh my God!" Carla reached for Alniss, feeling sick. "I'm so so sorry, I didn't realise…"

She heard a door open down the hall, but didn't even turn to see who it was. Alniss pulled away from her, seemingly with some effort, swallowed hard and wiped her eyes. "It's OK, honey, I'm fine. It just…"

Carla watched Alniss' expression harden, and wondered for half a second if she'd done something wrong, before she realised that Alniss was looking over her shoulder. Carla turned her head to see Kalran rapidly disappearing through the door to the living room, and turned back towards Alniss in puzzlement.

"Alniss, what-"

"It doesn't matter," Alniss said quickly. "Let's talk about this reference, shall we?"

Carla hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether to push for an explanation. But Alniss was sheltering her, feeding her, caring for her in every possible way she could… Carla didn't want to repay that with insolence, by asking about something she clearly didn't want to talk about.

"I was thinking, maybe if you found somewhere to volunteer for a bit…"

Carla nodded, though mentally she was still studying the image of Kalran disappearing rapidly, almost guiltily, through the door, and Alniss' expression when she'd seen her. "That sounds like a good idea."