We had rushed René back to the infirmary in Red Bay to have his gash treated, arriving in the beginning hours of the evening.

It would have seemed that we were successful in fleeing from the Combine's pursuit without a trace, but we couldn't be too careful, so Matthew Bridger tripled the number of sentries manning the search points in the hills surrounding our town until the all-clear would be given to him. In the meantime, since it was getting late and their friend was getting treated, Francis and the others decided they would spend the night here in Red Bay. This delighted me; the more friends I had around town, the merrier I was bound to be, and I had grown affectionate for Francis's little assembly.

While they were situating and making sure René was being treated well, I resumed my business of bringing the wafting disks to Doctor Mofuni's lab to have him look them over as a viable method of transporting the Cloud Runner to Red Bay. Fortunately, Aaron had been close at hand to help me with the heavy lifting; easily carrying three packs loaded with wafting disks and wearing one while I wore my own. Doctor Mofuni was unfortunately locked up in his Think Tank again by the time we went down the elevator to his place of dwelling, so we set our gifts aside by his unused bed with Aaron leaving a note to call and discuss with us when he woke up.

The afternoon outing had served me well in finding a place to put the anxiety that spiked me that morning after meeting the entity. Now that the spontaneous rush was done, my priorities returned to my fellow inmate in the suited entity's realm. I dearly hoped he had not taken the news of all the time he had lost to direly, though I hardly imagined that he wouldn't.

"How's Adrian?" I asked Aaron as we both left Mofuni's garage. Aaron put his hand behind his back, widening the length of his broad shoulders.

"He's a lot calmer, lassie,' Aaron assured, though a weary look in his elderly eyes told me that it took an effort to get him them in multiple categories. "I gave him the best and most cohesive rundown of the situation I could. He's taking it all in right now."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Still at the dispensary last I checked," Aaron answered. "I could tell he needed to be alone for a little while, so I gave him the space he needed. I can't imagine how hard it's all hitting him right now…"

I was silent as I pondered this situation. Unlike most who were currently alive on Earth (as far as my knowledge), who had twenty years of getting to know the Combine and the damage they were doing to their planet, Adrian was a man out of time. The life and the Earth he knew was gone and dead for a long time. I couldn't help but resonate with that feeling, even if I too had already accepted my world's destruction long ago.

"I want to talk to him," I offered, garnering a concerned look from Aaron.

"Well…I won't say go at your own peril," he considered. "I don't think he has the will to shout at anybody anymore, but I would advise caution. He's had quite a few drinks this afternoon."

"All will be well, my friend. I'm going to make sure of that."

Aaron couldn't help but smile at my insistence. "I've missed that plucky spark of yours," he said fondly, closing his arm around my shoulders. "You never know when to quit."

"I surely would have died years ago if I did," I replied, leaning into his affectionate gesture. Rekindling again as fluidly as we always did, we began drifting towards the mess hall as the sun hung vibrantly just above the hills across the bay.

"How's about we get you some grub?" Aaron asked. "I'd like to hear all about today's escapades, and I bet it's left you quite famished."

There were several things I had experienced that day that made me lose any kind of appetite, but Aaron managed to make food sound a little more appealing again. And besides, he had a little help with the salty breeze and the potent but admittedly pleasant odour of fish getting prepared down the street stirred my desire for a savoury fillet.

"Perhaps, Aaron. Perhaps."

While Red Bay didn't have an official curfew after dark, it was a general rule of thumb to be indoors once mandatory lights-out came into effect.

Wandering around town when it was cast and dark with no people around was an unappealing experience for people, but they were misled; the stars were so bright and beautiful with no ambient light around. There were still plenty of people awake; the residents' telepathic signals permeated as actively as ever in the buildings, but one stuck out to me the most, and that was the one idling in the dispensary.

Along the end of Main Street was a small building with only one floor. It was believed to have been some kind of small storage building before the war, no bigger than a modest barn, but it had since been reconfigured to be a sort of pub, serving homebrewed alcohol along with a decent supply of pre-war concoctions. I brought along with me a plate of fried trout and chips for the corporal, hoping to entice him to at least eat something being so late. I had an inkling that he had eaten little to nothing since arriving here.

There wasn't any door at the entrance―not anymore, I was told―and in its place was a tattered blue quilt one was meant to push aside when entering. I was able to see a soft bluish light coming from underneath the quilt, indicating an occupant. An occupant that either didn't understand our lights-out policy or didn't care. I was inclined to assume the latter given the waves of misery I could feel flowing past my mind like thick peat in a mudslide.

There was a docility to these miserable brain waves, which provided me with the courage to push aside the quilt and take a peek inside. The tidy eating area had all of its mismatched chairs scooted in underneath their equally mismatched tables, lacking any coherent design with a serving bar at the end of the room. It was all about function around here (and it was all that we had).

There was only one tenant in here: Corporal Adrian Shephard. He was sitting alone in the far corner of the room with a single battery-powered lamp illuminating the room on the table, resting his forehead on his palm with an elbow on the table while holding a bottle of beer in his other hand, which was also resting on the table. His heavy gear had been removed from his person, and things like his vest, helmet, mask and backpack, were placed on the floor close to his feet, where I soon noticed that his boots had also been removed and kicked to the side, exposing callused bare feet.

My feet were bare too, as they were reliable and quiet when treading, aiding in my intentions to not startle Adrian too badly upon entry, which I did so carefully. I managed to slink my tail halfway past the quilt once Adrian noticed my coming. It was apparent to me that he was heavily inebriated by the relatively slow turn of his head, wearing a long frown.

His shady eyes widened when he saw me come in along with a slight gasp, his mouth hanging open just a bit as he straightened his back a little. The tip of my tail fell to the floor and I began dusting it as I looked at the sad and crushed soldier sulking by himself. "Hello, Corporal," I greeted. "I reckon you've had better days than today?"

Adrian stared at me, still unable to make anything of me. My words soon seeped their way into his heavily numbed mind, and a hoarse snicker escaped his lips. "Now, what spurred that assumption, eh cutie?" he grinned, shaking his head as he took another hefty swig of his bottle, which led my eyes to the small collection of five empty bottles by his feet.

I sighed to myself quietly as I approached him with my gift, taking a seat close to him at his table. I presented the tray before him, which he quickly noticed once he parted the bottle from his mouth. "Oh shit," he gulped. "What's this?"

"For you," I smiled a little. "I figured you could stand to eat something."

Adrian wasted no time and went for a generous strip of oil-fried cod. It crunched delectably in his mouth, and I was able to see a little life return to his clammy face as he nodded with pleasure. "Jesus, that's good," he munched, looking at me with hazy eyes. "Did you make this?"

"No. But I helped catch it."

Adrian nodded again after a mindful moment of him looking at me past before he lowered his arm, still holding the fillet in his hand. "Yeah… The old man's told me that you've been catching a lot of fish for these folks," Adrian recalled. "Tells me they all hold you in high regard."

"I try my best to help out," I shrugged.

"Good on you," Adrian smiled―a sloppy one―before munching on more cod. After finishing it, he reached for the second one, and his slovenly smile dipped a little. "Did you just come here to bring me dinner?" he asked with a sigh.

"That. And to see you again," I clarified. "We never really did converse much after we met, but…perhaps you've done enough for today."

"You kiddin' me? I survived the fucking apocalypse, man. The fucking apocalypse!" Adrian cheered to himself, raising his bottle and getting a little beer spilt on his face. "When you do that, you can handle anything!"

Seeing somebody in such a low and pathetic state made such sights difficult to watch. However, Adrian was at least sober enough to read my vulpine face and see that his overly manic show of resilience was upsetting me, and his face seemed to fall instantly as he lowered his arm and set his bottle back down on the table. "Shit, I'm sorry…" Adrian said miserably, covering his eyes with his other hand as he leaned forward.

"Don't be," I reassured. "Your whole world; your whole life as you knew it is gone. I expect nothing less than despair."

I didn't mean to sound so harsh, but that was the truth. Even still, I wish I had restrained myself some. The method in which he was indulging to make the pain of his new existence seem less so would only break him down quicker. I wanted to show him that all was not lost and that there was always hope, but perhaps it wasn't my call to interfere with his mourning.

"Forgive me, Corporal…" I relented, looking down at the table. "I know this is more than you can bear. I don't want to make it worse; I will leave if you wish."

"But it's true…" Adrian said desolately. His lip quivered a little as he rubbed his eyes before taking another swig of beer and, sighing wetly as he set his bottle down―practically slamming it. "I ain't gonna give up. I ain't gonna let this beat me. I'm gonna live. I'm gonna make it. I…have to…"

Adrian stared off vacantly, not quite having the confidence in himself to truly back what he said. Nonetheless, he pushed on, grabbed the second cod and began to eat it, a little more slowly this time―taking the time to enjoy it.

I let him eat in silence for a moment, taking solace in seeing that he was at least getting some peace out of the little meal I gave him. Though I tried to keep it out of his head while he contemplated his new station in life, Adrian's swirly thoughts were loud, drawly and bloated from the copious amounts of alcohol in his system. And yet, somewhat unsurprisingly, shown to have a steady amount of certainty.

I couldn't quite make out what he was certain of, but it was nonetheless a motivation, and perhaps a portion of that ended up guiding his next series of words. "You know…I never did thank you, earlier…" he eventually said, looking down at his plate contemplatively.

"For what?" I wondered.

"For getting me out of purgatory, or wherever the fuck that place was," he said, sliding his reddened gaze to mine. "That ghoul in the suit left me to rot in there when he caught me. My memory's a little hazy―beer's not helping―but I'm starting to remember you were in there for a short time…standing right in front of me. And the next thing I knew I was out on the grass. Back on Earth. But not the one I knew… But hey, I shouldn't complain. Anything beats being stuffed inside that country-club-owning grim reaper's icebox for eternity."

That managed a little smile from me, and Adrian noticed, making him smile a little too. "I mean that. Thank you. I'm pretty sure I owe you my life."

"I require no thanks," I reassured. "I'm just relieved I was able to free you."

Adrian's faint smile faded entirely as his muddled thoughts spun up again. "But I've got a hunch it wasn't 'free'," he supposed. "What was the toll?"

I thought for a moment, knowing exactly what he was talking about. The entity we both had unwanted relations with seemed to have accepted payment from me, while all he had was that one bundle of fur that I initially gave to Doctor Mofuni as a sample to test with―the first one that he had lost.

Although it seemed obvious now where the missing sample had gone, why he took it and what exactly he planned to do with it was beyond my comprehension. It certainly made my pelt crawl considering that it was a part of me. "I…don't…know…" I answered honestly.

Adrian looked disconcerted by my reply, but he stuffed a few chips in his mouth before quickly moving the conversation to less creepy subjects. "Maybe we'll find that out along the way―I dunno," he dismissed. "Better not be something that'll bite our assess so hard they'll rip 'em off kind of bad."

"You're telling me," I agreed. Adrian looked at me again, this time staring quite harder into my eyes for someone who was quite drunk. I maintained this gaze, which was considerably less wobbly than Adrian's was, and he began to laugh dryly to the point where it sounded like he would choke on his food.

"Why the hell, out of every eldritch horror I've seen spawning in New Mexico, are you the thing that stands out the most to me?"

I crisscrossed my arms with my hands on my lap, seeing an opportunity here to switch the mood around. "I'm not sure. Would it be my eyes?" I asked, leaning my head against my raised shoulder and fluttering my eyelashes. Adrian began laughing quite hard, finding the absurdity of it all to be enough to nearly make him double over, taking me back to the shots me and the others took at the municipal edifice a couple of weeks ago. It was worth it to see Adrian at least express a level of joy amidst his despair.

"O-O-Oh, shit!" Adrian giggled like the drunken fool he currently was. "You know, for…whatever you're supposed to be, a lotta girls I've known would've killed to have a gaze like yours, and yours ain't even human."

"Aw, you're so sweet," I said, sensing that meant that more sincerely than he meant it to be bantering. The longer he looked at my face, though, his smile began to diminish again, me a little concerned at first.

"I'm…sorry I socked you in the face like that," he said with shame as he glanced away. "It ain't like me to hit a girl of any kind like that…"

This surprised me a little because I had almost forgotten about that altercation. "That was in self-defence, Corporal. I was a bit too close for comfort," I reasoned. "I would have done the same thing in your boots, though I would have struck the teeth first."

Adrian still looked guilty, but he managed a wry smile as he turned to me again. "You don't gotta keep calling me by rank, you know," he insisted. "None of that really matters anymore anyway. Just call me Shephard."

"All right. If you so desire," I nodded.

"I do," Shephard said. "But just don't call me Shep. That's grounds for losing a few teeth at some other sucker's expense."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, with a little wink, stirring another round of laughter from him.

I had hoped that with a little time, the right friends and the right guidance, Adrian Shephard was going to come out all right in the end. The parallels I recognized between him and me were not lost on me. Inspired by a certain giant friend of mine, I felt determined to make Shephard feel at home in this new world as well.