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Library, Sunday

Space Battles books. Evan hadn't had the faintest clue that there were so many Space Battles books. He'd started watching the movies, once upon a time, and he'd been kind of thoroughly emotionally destroyed when he realized that his hero turned out to be the big bad of the original trilogy, and he'd given up on Space Battles completely after that.

But today, for some reason, the library seemed hell-bent on getting him back into them. All of the books that came through the circulation desk were Space Battles. All of them. The books on the shelves were unchanged, thank goodness, because it would be difficult pointing new students to helpful reading materials otherwise, but every single book that passed through Evan's hands while he was at his desk?

Yup.

So. Many. Space Battles books.

[Open!]

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"Wow, you're losing people all over the place," Alana said sympathetically. "'Sorry' always feels cheap, but ... sorry. Let me know if there's anything I can do. And, um, I don't know what I'd do if there were no doors at the shop. I guess you can crawl in a window, right?"

Evan gave her a brief, tired smile in thanks for the 'sorry,' and he nodded.

"Thank you," he replied. "And I think I'd probably have an easier time getting in through the window than any customers might. At that point, you kind of have to wonder if it's worth opening the shop that day, or if you could just take it off so that Rosalind isn't paying a days wage when there obviously aren't going to be any sales."

"I'd call her and ask," Alana decided after a moment's thought. "She seems pretty tough, and I don't want to disappoint her. Plus, maybe sometimes the doors come back."

She didn't know. It seemed possible!

She hesitated,then -- "Evan? Tell me if I'm being nosy -- actually, I know I'm being nosy, so just tell me if you don't want to answer -- but what happened to your friend?"

Evan hesitated a little in turn, feeling a bit of a pang before pulling in a breath, squaring his shoulders, and replying. If there was even a chance that Alana knew Gert, he couldn't keep this to himself. He couldn't.

"I don't know all of what happened," he admitted. "I'm going by what was already a second-hand account when Bay told me. Did you know Gert...?"

"A little," Alana confirmed. "Purple hair, big lizard for a pet, right? She kind of stood out in a crowd."

She frowned. "That's ... wow. No one I went to school with ever died before."

"It's weird," Evan murmured. "I'm so used to just... knowing she's there if I want to talk. She was always really good to talk to. I'm taking care of her dinosaur, now, but that's not the same."

Because Gert was not a dinosaur. And Old Lace didn't actually make for amazing conversation.

"Of course not," Alana nodded. "Even if the dinosaur could talk, which I don't think they do -- right? -- it's not a person. It's not your friend."

"She's not that friend, anyway. Old Lace is a pretty good friend for a dinosaur, but she isn't Gert."

She was good at snuggling, at any rate.

"Gert was Gert," Alana answered. "Seems to me like you can't just plug one person, or dinosaur, in to replace the other. It doesn't work like that."

"Gert was Gert," Evan agreed. "And Sholeh is Sholeh, and nobody can really replace anybody else. I just have to get used to people leaving, I guess."

Because they were going to up and do that on him. A lot.

"Wish we could stop it," Alana said sympathetically. "Like, just make everyone we love swear to stick around forever, no takebacks."

"Yeah," Evan agreed. "But then I'd be worried about how long it would be before they'd come to resent us for it."

Because in a place like this, nobody's life was really here, was it? It was back home, wherever in the multiverse that home turned out to be.

Alana frowned, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "Sometimes I'd rather have somebody around and hating me for it than not around at all," she admitted. "But that's probably because my parents split up, so..."

"Oh... I'm sorry," Evan offered, sympathetically. "Everything I remember of my parents..."

Was a lie.

"We were always happy, you know? So it was jarring, leaving home for the real world, where everything is brutal and people really do leave forever."

"That must have been nice," Alana said wistfully -- even at their best, her parents had been pretty miserable -- before shaking herself out of it. "Except for the people leaving forever part. I can see where that's a hard one to get used to."

"My parents were the first to go," Evan offered, softly. "My misconceptions about reality were shattered... pretty quickly. And I want so, so badly to just go back to that. But it's not really something that can happen, is it? Not once you know what the world really does to people."

Alana bit her lip. "The world sucks that way," she said softly. "Look, would it be super-weird if I offered to hug you? 'Cause I really want to."

"Not that weird," Evan decided after a moment's pause. "I could really, really use a hug."

It had been just that kind of week.

"Good thing I'm here to give you one, huh?" Alana asked, coming within hugging distance and reaching her arms around Evan.

After their talk, she needed a hug too.

The moment she was close enough for a hug, Evan was going to wrap his arms around her (just the once) and cling tight.

"Thank you," he murmured. "For... listening and understanding, and everything."

"Anytime," Alana said, and made a mental note to visit Evan more often. She could use more friends, and it seemed like Evan could too.

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Library, Sunday

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