Lucky put down the microphone in the small, empty karaoke room as the last of the song lyrics faded away on the projection screen, finally finished with his 'rehearsal' for that night. He would have kept going for hours longer, singing his heart out to no one, if he hadn't realized he only had thirty minutes left until curfew.

He'd decided that on their last off-day together, he was going to take Six to do karaoke, like she'd wanted to in the first place, and give her a surprise she'd never forget, just in case they never did see each other again. Perhaps she wasn't one for grand gestures, but he couldn't imagine not proclaiming his love for her in the most extravagant display he was allowed to.

Allowed. If he was allowed, he would stand on top of the Timekeeper statue and scream his love for her for the entire TVA to hear. That word, love… as skeptical as he'd been when he first heard it, it seemed to fit his overwhelming feelings, encompass all of his desires.

The entire TVA-from the mildewy-smelling carpets, to the nasty coffee everyone drank, to the day-in, day-out routine, to the uniforms somehow growing itchier every day-all of it was starting to get under his skin, like crawling insects burrowing around, trying to find a way out. The song wasn't just a surprise for Six, but a way for him to vent, as well. He'd spent the last two nights there, singing his throat raw without entirely understanding why.

Lucky sanitized the microphone, like he was supposed to, then turned the machine and the lights off, leaving the room in total darkness after being bathed in the projector light and a fantastic, multicolored neon glow. He walked leisurely down the claustrophobically narrow hallway full of identical doors that seemed to stretch on forever, just like the bowling alley on the other side of the recreation floor. If it weren't for the signs hanging from the ceiling directing him to the exit, he felt he could have walked on in the wrong direction for days.

Each door had a tiny window, and most of them were pitch black and empty. Every once in a while, though, he'd find one that was lit brightly from the inside, and could hear joyful, loud, drunken singing coming through the padded walls. No one ever went to the karaoke rooms alone, it seemed. Groups of people would pack themselves inside, not more than ten or so, usually, since the rooms were small. The songs they sang were almost always upbeat and happy, sending the singers and backup singers sloppily swaying along with the beat.

That night, as he slowly walked along the crimson-lit corridor towards the exit, he did the same thing he'd done for the past few days, sneaking a peek into every lit room to see what song they had picked out. He smiled to himself, satisfied with his choice of song: it wasn't too popular, but it expressed all of his feelings perfectly. He couldn't have done better.

Lucky peered leisurely into another window, but stopped, confused by what he saw inside. Only one person sat on a couch facing the projection screen, away from the door, as the words rolled past. The man, hunched over, was nervously gripping a microphone, perfectly silent, not singing along. Lucky leaned in and listened to the voiceless melody, still watching the lyrics through the window.

…I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck

With a pink carnation and a pickup truck

But I knew I was out of luck

The day the music died

The silver haired man lifted the microphone, then, and started to sing. To Lucky's astonishment, he knew the voice, and felt he should have recognized that hair as soon as he saw it.

"I started singin', Bye-bye Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye-"

Mobius stopped suddenly as the words rolled on, put the microphone down on his seat, then slowly leaned forward and held his head in both hands. His shoulders jerked uncontrollably. He was sobbing.

Lucky took a step away from the door, his stomach sinking to the ground. Half of him wanted to run away and forget what he'd just seen. The other half wanted to burst through the door and ask what was wrong, and if it was his fault. As it was, he was stuck between the two halves of his brain, and so just stood there, dumb and perfectly still.

Before he could move, Mobius suddenly stood from the couch and headed to the door. Lucky ducked into a dark, empty room and watched through the window. Mobius didn't see him, wasn't looking for him. He paused in the hallway, his head down, wiping his hand across his face. He looked terrible. His eyes were red and puffy. Something about him felt strange, too… different, somehow, but Lucky couldn't say what it was.

Intrigued, Lucky followed Mobius quietly down the hall until he went into a bathroom. He kept the door from closing all the way, staring at Mobius through the crack as he splashed water on his face, then eagerly drank out of his cupped palm, like a man at a watering hole in a desert.

Lucky held his breath. It was now or never, he figured. He opened the door all the way.

"Mobius?"

The agent lifted his head from the sink, first catching a glimpse of Lucky through the mirror. His posture transformed instantly, his back going from slumped to perfectly straight, and he whipped his head around to stare at Lucky, blue eyes astonished, blinking.

"What… you? It was you…" he whispered, voice cracking.

"I'm sorry, Mobius," Lucky muttered. "I really wasn't spying on you or anything. I just happened to see you in the karaoke room and wanted-" he stopped as he noticed that Mobius had taken a few steps away from him, as if he was inexplicably terrified of Lucky.

"It's really you," he said again, a grin twitching at the corner of his mustache for a second. He paused, seeming to take Lucky in once again, scanning him from his feet, to his striped trainee tie, all the way to the badge hanging from his lapel.

The grin fell from his face. "Oh-oh god," he muttered, running a hand through his uncombed white hair. He leaned back on the sink and stared into space.

Lucky tilted his head like a confused dog. "Are you alright? Do you feel sick again?"

"You know me, though," Mobius whispered to himself, squinting at the floor. "How do you know me if…?"

"You're not making any sense. Of course we know each other." Lucky was starting to worry, now. Mobius continued to run his hand through his hair, the other hand gripping the edge of the sink as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

"Yeah-" Mobius' eye flicked to Lucky's badge, "-L-7. Right. We've met."

Lucky let his mouth hang open slightly, unsure of what he should do. Something was horribly wrong, and the feeling kept growing stronger the more he looked at Mobius. He looked like he hadn't slept or showered in much too long, and one of his shoes was completely untied.

"It's me, Lucky," he said, letting out an unintentional chuckle, feeling almost lightheaded from the ridiculousness of it all.

Mobius coughed, stood up all the way, straightened his suit and tie. In an instant, he suddenly seemed like his old self again. Almost.

"Lucky!" he said, the grin returning to his face. He haltingly gave Lucky a hearty pat on the shoulder, then left his hand there for a second, squeezed it hard, and repeated his name. "Lucky. Of course. My brain's just been all over the place. Sorry."

"Oh. Okay." Lucky didn't feel much relieved, but despite Mobius' strange behavior, he needed to confess before he lost his nerve. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Um… Mobius? I have something I need to tell you."

Mobius only stared at him, standing in the middle of a silence that seemed to grow around them like creeping mold.

Lucky stumbled over his words, feeling his will suddenly disappear again. "The thing is… I wasn't… when Miss Minutes asked me, I had to…"

He stopped himself. The only reason he was atoning for what he'd done was because he'd promised Six he would. And how would she ever find out if he didn't? He could just lie to her, keep his secret from Mobius, and make it easy on the both of them. If Mobius didn't ever figure it out, then what was the harm, really?

A weight seemed to lift off of his shoulders, replaced with a new burden, one that he convinced himself was easier to carry. After all, the easiest way out of an uncomfortable situation always seemed to be the best path to take, in the long run.

"What are you talking about?" Mobius whispered, squinting.

Lucky's attention snapped back to Mobius. "Nothing. It's nothing. Never mind." He suddenly remembered the photograph of his aura sitting in his desk. Using the temporal soul scanner might land him in a little hot water, but not nearly as much as confessing to ratting everyone out. His curiosity was insatiable, and surely Mobius would know something.

"Actually, there was something I wanted to show you, not tell you," he conceded.

"What's that?"

"I left it in my room. You can come up with me."

Mobius' squint seemed pained. He bit his lip for a second and fiddled with the edge of his brown suit jacket, which, for some reason, he hadn't buttoned completely.

"How about you bring it down here?" he said, after a moment of deliberation.

"Down here?" Lucky asked. "But it's really close to curfew, Mobius, I don't know-"

"It'll be fine," he interrupted with a dismissive shrug. "I'll be right here."

"Um… alright. If you want."

Lucky slowly left the bathroom and walked down the hallway, an uneasy feeling growing again in the back of his mind. Everything about Mobius just felt… weird. Lucky had seen him get sick that one time in the cafeteria, but was there any sickness that would make him forget that Lucky even existed?

He'd gone all the way to the elevator terminal before the obvious answer slugged him in the head like Casey's fist.

His broken shoelace. The unbuttoned jacket.

Lucky's breath caught in his throat as he gasped. It wasn't Mobius at all. He was the one who'd been sneaking around in the vents, the one who'd left behind a button and a shoelace, and he somehow looked just like Mobius. They'd learned about shapeshifters in class, though, and he'd even seen one in person after falling into the waiting line below the soul scanner. He'd never, ever imagined meeting one like this. Mobius-the real Mobius-hadn't wanted anyone to know about what he'd found in the vents. Was that why?

Lucky paced back and forth in the terminal wildly, trying to think. If he went back just then to try and apprehend him, the shapeshifter might turn into something that could kill him. He didn't have any kind of weapon, or a tempad to call for help.

Not knowing what to do, Lucky rushed into an elevator and frantically pressed the button for Mobius' dorm floor.

"EL3, hallway one, EL3, hallway one, EL3, hallway one," Lucky muttered to himself, keeping his finger pressed against the button while smacking the 'close door' button with his other hand. The elevator seemed to move so slowly he felt he could just climb the walls and get there faster. To his dismay, it stopped, taking its sweet time to open its doors to let someone inside.

"Hey!" cried the analyst trying to get on, but Lucky pushed him back into the terminal. He kept smacking the 'close door' button like it was the only thing keeping his heart beating.

"Sorry, emergency," he said as the door closed again.

Finally, after what felt like a leisurely hour-long ride, the elevator doors dinged and opened to EL3. Lucky squeezed through the doors the second they had opened wide enough and ran down the hallway.

"Mobius! Mobius!"

He flung himself against the bedroom door labeled J-888 and beat on it with his fist. The door slid open with Mobius staring at him, a perfect copy of the imposter down in the recreation room, except he wore nothing but a pair of TVA issued yellow-and-brown plaid pajamas and white socks.

"Lucky, what in the hell is wrong?" he said, sleepily squinting and shaking his head. "Is there a fire? Did someone die?"

Lucky opened his mouth, panting heavily, and a stream of incomprehensible babble poured out.

"He's down there… I saw him… he's you… the one in the vent… we have to…"

Mobius' eyes suddenly went wide, sleepiness forgotten.

"Stay here."

He disappeared in a flash, then came back a second later, still in his pajamas. He hadn't even put shoes on, but something fairly heavy was bouncing around in his pocket as they left for the terminal: his tempad. He took it out of his pocket as they got on the elevator and pressed the Main Terminal button while rapidly scrolling and tapping on his tempad screen.

"He's on the recreation floor," said Lucky, "Why are we going up instead of down?"

"I'm calling a transport," Mobius explained, putting the tempad back in his pocket. "It'll be a lot faster. You mean you went all the way back up here from the recreation floor, on the elevator?"

Lucky nodded. How else was he supposed to get up there?

Mobius grumbled. "Shit. Shit. He's probably gone already. You might as well have ridden a tortoise."

Lucky held his tongue. That moment wasn't the right time to ask what a 'tortoise' was.

A floating transport was waiting for them at the docking area near the main terminal. They both jumped on. Lucky held onto the seat for dear life as it quickly dropped down through the empty space in the middle of the TVA, while Mobius balanced with only one knee on the seat, the other leg standing on the footrest, leaning forward as if he could make the little ship go down faster that way.

When they'd gotten to the recreation floor, a small door opened for them on the side of the hallway next to the elevator shaft, and the transport let out a friendly, 'ding, dong', to let them disembark. Mobius leapt swiftly from the transport and called out to Lucky from the terminal, who was still trying to step off the vehicle without falling.

"Which way?"

"Karaoke," Lucky replied, finally with two feet firmly on the recreation floor. "Bathroom. A dozen doors down, I think."

In a flash, Mobius took off without him. He skidded to a halt in front of the bathroom door, then burst inside. Lucky stopped at the door, listening closely, waiting. It was quiet. Too quiet. No sounds of a skirmish, nothing.

Lucky peeked inside and caught a glimpse of Mobius inexplicably banging on the sinks, on the toilets, on urinals, on everything nailed to the floor or walls.

"Er, Mobius? What are you doing?"

"Skrulls can shapeshift into nearly anything, alive or not," he explained. "Is there anything in here that wasn't before? An extra sink, a new toilet?"

Lucky shook his head. Nothing had been added to the room, but there was something different about it. The edge of the vent cover stuck out unevenly from the wall, not flush with it.

He didn't even have to point it out to Mobius. He followed Lucky's gaze and gave the cover one good tug, which took it right off the wall. There was a long, sturdy string tied to the other side.

"Son of a bitch!" Mobius yelled, throwing the metal cover clattering to the floor, scaring the wits out of Lucky. He kicked the door of a stall, which smashed loudly against the other metal divider. Lucky had never seen Mobius that angry, even after the fight with Sarge. "Of course he got away! He's probably a quarter mile down the air ducts, now. He had a ten minute head start."

Lucky didn't know whether to feel angry at Mobius or ashamed of himself. His words hurt, either way. He'd done his best.

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" Lucky grumbled.

"You could have gotten backup from someone down here. They could have called me with their tempad, or the guards. You didn't have to come all the way back up on the damned elevator. You weren't th-"

Mobius stopped himself after glimpsing Lucky's dejected face. He took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of a toilet, calming himself.

"I'm sorry, Lucky. I'm just angry he got away so easily. It's not your fault. I should be thanking you. This is the closest I've ever gotten to catching him."

"I could get in there," Lucky said, eager to still be of use. "I could fit, no problem. We could still…"

Mobius responded with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head. "No, I've crawled through enough to know better. If we can't hear him then he's long gone. There's too many different ways he could escape. It's a maze in there. If I let you go in, you'd get lost, I guarantee it."

Lucky, frustrated, leaned against the sink with a grunt. "Well, what do we do, then?"

"We?" Mobius lifted an eyebrow, mildly amused. "I'll take it from here, Lucky. I don't want to get you mixed up in this."

"But I could help!" he insisted.

"No. Absolutely not. This is dangerous, and I'm not going to have a trainee hurt on my watch."

"Please, please Mobius?" Lucky whined, "I really need this."
"Lucky…" Mobius warned, growing annoyed.

"It's the very least I could do, after telling-"

He stopped himself abruptly. Both of Mobius' eyebrows shot up, then.
"Telling what? To whom?"

Lucky kept his lips shut tight, but Mobius was on to him. He couldn't lie his way out of it, now. He tried to speak, but nothing at all came out of his mouth. Shame burned inside of him, eating him from the inside out, but even so, he couldn't tell his mentor the truth.

Mobius seemed to figure it out, anyway. His mouth opened slightly in shock, then shut again, and he leaned against the back of the toilet he was sitting on. He rubbed his forehead, eyes closed tight.

"I knew it had to be one of you hatchlings…" he groaned.

"I-I'm sorry, but-"

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Mobius' voice was quiet, but heavy and dark, like a stormcloud.

Lucky didn't say a word, didn't shake or nod his head. He just stood there, waiting for the thunder to come.

"People didn't just get a slap on the wrist for fight night, Lucky," he continued. "They got in real, deep shit. Some of them lost their jobs. Some of them… well, even worse things can happen than that, apparently."

"I didn't tell Miss Minutes you were there," Lucky said.

"It doesn't matter." Mobius leaned forward again, his voice an angry hiss. "One of the people you named could have named me, too, easily. That's not exactly what happened, but it could have."

"She kept questioning me. She said she would rescind my recommendation if I didn't tell her everything."

"We don't rat each other out. We don't pull each other down."

Lucky threw his hands up in the air angrily, helplessly, and started to pace back and forth in the tiny bathroom.

"Fine! Fine then!" he yelled. "I'm not mature enough to be an agent. Go tell Miss Minutes that I'm a weasel, and a snitch, and a coward, and whatever else, I don't care!"

Mobius shook his head. "I never said I was going to take back your recommendation-"

"Well, you should!" Lucky's hands were clenched at his sides. His face grew hot. "You should, because… because…" He lost the anger he'd forged inside of himself, feeling it melt into desperate shame. "Because why would you want me around after this? I'm a bad friend, Mobius."

Mobius regarded him silently as Lucky blinked the tears out of his eyes, unable to look at him or say anything else. After a long, awkward moment, Mobius sighed and scratched the silvery five-o-clock shadow on his chin.

"You've got a lot to learn," he conceded. "Loyalty is a tricky thing, sometimes. There are times when you have to listen to your superiors, no matter what, but sometimes the person above you making decisions isn't always right."

Lucky gave him an incredulous look. That didn't sound like something Mobius would say. It didn't sound like something anyone at the TVA should say.

Mobius noticed his face, and gave him a smirk in return. "Sometimes you have to find a balance between your friends and your superiors, you know? If your friends are real, and true, then they might matter more than what Miss Minutes says. So, what do you want more, Lucky? Do you want real, true friends that will stay beside you, no matter what? Or do you want to be the perfect agent, who always does as they're told?"

Lucky shrugged. When he put it that way, the answer was obvious. "I want real friends," he answered.

Mobius' grin spread all the way across his face. "That's what I thought. You're going to have to learn how to keep them, though. When I tell you to do something-"

"I know, I know. I will. I promise this time, on my life."

"Good." Mobius added, under his breath, "It might be on your life."

Mobius rose from his seat on the toilet. Lucky tried not to laugh as the ridiculousness of seeing Mobius in his pajamas finally sank in, after the heart-pounding adrenaline of almost catching the imposter.

"So, you're not mad at me anymore?" Lucky asked.

"Nah, I'm still a little mad," he responded with a quick, sardonic look. "Can't help that." He tapped the side of his tempad, squinting, thinking. "I bet I could still use your help catching this guy, or girl, or whatever they are. You up for it?"

Lucky straightened up, his face brightening. "Am I? Mobius, I'd skip class for this!"

"Well, you won't have to do that, but you are going to have to listen to me carefully…"

Mobius explained his plan to Lucky as they boarded the transport, and Lucky could barely keep himself contained. He was so excited for his first real stealth mission that he was ready to burst.

The moment they got off the transport and back to the Main Terminal, Lucky hurried in front of Mobius, standing in his way, begging.

"I know this is, like, top secret… but can I tell Six? Please? She could help, too! Two lookouts are better than one, right? And I won't tell another soul, I promise-"

Mobius put up his hands, as if trying to slow Lucky down. "Okay! Okay! She can help. Now, which dorm are you in, again?"

"BQ6."

"Right, so take the third elevator to the left over there, that'll get you back the fastest. There's only a few minutes before curfew."

"Oh, shit," Lucky gasped. He'd totally forgotten about curfew, in all the excitement. He ran to the elevator, looked back over his shoulder, and waved to Mobius. "See you tomorrow!" he said, too loudly, as the elevator dinged and opened. He caught one last glimpse of Mobius in his plaid pajamas, shaking his head, his mustache tilted in a small grin.

Lucky wondered how in the world he was going to get to sleep that night. Still, he had to try. He had the most important mission of his life coming up tomorrow.