Chapter 25 -Admissions-

  Paulie stumbled up the st flight of stairs, Jakiikii practically hanging off his shoulder. It wasn’t that her weight was any hindrance to him, in fact under the light gravity of Gike he was sure he could have simply picked the alien female up and carried her to her bed bridal-carry style. But he was uncertain of the way that might be received, so instead he supported her as she huffed her way up the stairs.

  He had no idea what had happened, one minute she seemed fine and the next she was acting like a barely functioning rag-doll, pressing close to him for support and clinging to him like he was flotsam in a stormy sea. He attributed the sudden ck of fortitude in his friend to the shock of the day, his own body craved the release of sleep after all that he had been through though it was only mid-afternoon on the world. His ribs still hurt and the painkillers he had taken earlier were quickly wearing off. All he wanted to do was take a quick shower, rub on some quickheal and go to sleep.

  But before that, he had a friend to take care of.

  Jakiikii muttered suddenly, “I hope they can revive her.” Paulie patted her back comfortingly.

  “It’s okay Jakiikii. Griilm will be fine, I am sure they will get her fixed up in no time. If she is anything like you then she will be fine, you are probably one of the toughest people on the whole pnet.”

  The termaxxi clung to him a little harder. Her upper body pressing into his shoulder almost painfully as she id her head against his shoulder. “Yes. I know that, but.. a part of me, a greater part, still feels the loss too strongly. I should have stayed, I left her again!” She wailed the st part, but he shushed her quickly. Not out of worry about the noise, the entire floor they were on was unoccupied as per Mack’s instructions to the ndlord, but instead in a near-futile attempt to comfort her.

  It didn’t work and instead of quieting the alien it only made her become more emotional. “Why am I the one who had to go get the food, it was her turn that day!” Another few steps, she scrabbled at his armoured chest, the motion tugging at his greatcoat. “We were only still there because it seemed so safe, I remember it vividly. It seemed too good to be true, and it was. It was probably a trap from the beginning!”

  He shook his head. She was distraught, her breathing coming in bored wheezes, the slits to the lower sides of her torso fring as she cried. Paulie was a bit at a loss. He wasn’t really sure what to do with the traumatised alien woman. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but then again neither did he want to intrude on her privacy. He tried to think, what would he have done back on Earth if she had been a close grieving friend?

  Well, he would likely have offered to keep her company if she were a human woman, but she wasn’t human. Not by a long shot. He realised with some curiosity that the fact didn’t seem to bother him all that much though. She was a friend, and one for whom he cared deeply.

  They reached her door and he watched as she fished the small emerald green crystal sercard from her suit. The cleverly concealed pockets hidden under the tactical vest she wore over the top. She tried to put the card in the slot but fumbled it, she managed to catch it with one of her smaller third pair of arms before successfully unlocking the door to her room. The door loosing a small buzz as it was unlocked.

  She tugged on him strongly as the door opened but he hesitated, digging in his heels as she seemed to want to pull him inside.

  “Come on in, I am not going to bite.” She chuckled and stuck out a few centimeters of her proboscis-like tongue. “I literally can’t.” She said with a brighter look, but he remained stubbornly in pce.

  Shaking his head he responded, “No, but thanks for the invitation. But I need to get some rest too, and if we sit and talk for a while I don’t think I am going to get much sleep. Maybe make something to eat, you still have some frubble juice I take it?”

  She stepped inside her room backwards, one long arm going to her hip as she waved one of her middle arms at him. “Sure I do, do you want a gss?” He frowned. Okay, she was definitely trying to get him to come in. But a small part of him didn’t really think it was a good idea still

  She seemed to frown now, her normally mottled skin’s chromatophores twitching as she changed her tone with a small exasperated sigh. “What is wrong with you Paulie?”

  He blinked, that was a bit of a different reaction than he had been expecting. “Uh, what do you mean?” He took a slight involuntary step back as she followed him.

  She waved a hand, all of her previous exhaustion seemingly forgotten as her bright orange pupils narrowed. “I mean, can you not see me?” He looked at her. She was quite visible.

  She continued, her words stabbing him in the heart. “Is it because of what I am? Who I am?” He opened his mouth to tell her that, but she cut him off with a wave and took another step towards him. He stood his ground, she seemed mad, but not violently so. More.. frustrated, than anything.

  He cleared his throat. He was getting an idea of what she might be talking about, but he wanted to hear her say it. To confirm it to him what she had hinted at earlier that day. “I see you.” Paulie told Jakiikii softly. She stopped, only a step away now. She still looked tired.. and maybe a little upset. But no longer angry, no longer afraid.

  She nodded her head. Those bright eyes of hers shining in the light of the hall. “You do? I mean, of course you do. You have always been there, right on the edge. But today..” She seemed to kick herself internally. She whispered, this time barely loud enough for him to overhear even as close as he was. “Shit, what am I doing?”

  He gave her a small smile and answered the question he was clearly not supposed to have overheard. “You are doing what you feel is right I can only assume.”

  Jakiikii fshed pale and covered her chest with two hands as she straightened quickly. “Oh! Your damned super-hearing again..” She seemed to look around, hopping from tri-cloven hoofed foot to foot in that cute way she did when she got excited or nervous. Finally she stopped and looked at him. Paulie wanted to tell her something too, but had not been able to find the words to say it. Maybe now was the time? He opened his mouth to speak, and then Jakiikii grumbled, “Aww, screw it.”

  The alien woman crossed the space between them with a single step, her four lower arms wrapping around his chest as her two longest arms pulled his head down to her face. And she kissed him.

  The first thing he felt was of course surprise. That she was kissing him. That an alien culture would share such an innately intimate concept. Maybe it was the st vestiges of the shock wearing off, but he found himself almost completely petrified for a moment as she hugged him tighter in that hypnotic embrace.

  Now, Paulie was no stranger to the concept of love. He had been in retionships before, several times things had even progressed along well past the awkward stage. But none of them had ever really felt right to him, little things cropped up. Differences he found difficult to reconcile at the time. But Jakiikii was different, something about the termaxxi had always caught his attention. From the very first moment he had seen her, he had almost felt a sort of inexorable pull to her. Like she had been calling out to him from across the stars, like she knew him.

  And now he was being pulled to her for real, her six strong arms wrapping him in an iron grip that he would have struggled to extricate himself from had he wanted to. But he didn’t.

  Paulie allowed himself to lean into the shorter alien. Their differences in biology taking second pce as she ran alien fingers through the hair on the back of his head. She had no lips really to speak of, but her small mouth seemed well matched to his own and as she held him he felt the tip of her long tongue as it poked his own lightly.

  After a moment she seemed to remember that Paulie required his mouth to breathe, unlike her, and she broke the endless loop.

  Paulie had to admit it, in that moment he was breathless. And it was not for ck of air. The stirrings in his heart had burst forth into something else, some new emotion he had never really felt this strongly before. Almost as soon as it happened he felt the parasite stir in his consciousness, the vile leech trying to take some small measure of this energy for itself. And he fought it away, hoarding his new happiness to himself.

  Almost as if she could sense his thoughts, Jakiikii asked, “What’s wrong? Paulie?”

  He shook his head, the screams that echoed through his mind were not his own. “I.. I am just a little surprised. That’s all.”

  She threw up one pair of arms in apparent exasperation. “Really? You must be the most thickheaded person I have ever met, figures that I can’t read you like the others..” She muttered, and then froze as he gave her a funny look.

  “What do you mean?” He asked, his interest piqued.

  She rolled her shoulders and reached for his head again, but this time instead of pulling it down for a kiss, she instead cradled it like it were a priceless faberge egg. She hesitated, and then began, “I.. can read people, Paulie. Their thoughts.” She spoke quickly as he looked at her funny, “Not like their actual thoughts. More like, impressions. Feelings. What they are thinking is yered behind a mask of emotions that I can read if I try hard enough..” She turned his head slightly. “But not you.”

  All at once it clicked. She was a telepathic empath or something like that, but.. that meant..

  “You were there to let Mack know if I had dangerous intent.” He said, gesturing to her.

  She gnced around, her voice hissing low as if she were afraid they might be overheard. “What! I don’t know..” He gave her a pointed look. “I.. well, the secret’s out of the bag for sure now.” She stood back a bit and crossed her arms, all six of them. “I guess, you could say that I was there as a bulwark. And backup in case you decided to go rogue.”

  He opened his mouth in mild indignation. But then closed it immediately after, it was fair. They hadn’t known him, as far as they knew he had just been an exceptionally intelligent wild animal. How would he have felt if a New York lion escaped its cage in the zoo and started asking directions back to the African savanna?

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  She seemed a little surprised at that. “You do?”

  He waved at her, “But I am sure you already gleaned that with your.. superpowers. You probably knew how I felt this whole time, god I am so stupid. How long did you know how I felt?”

  Now it was his turn to look confused as she answered quietly, dancing from foot to foot in her nervousness. “I uh.. I didn’t.. know, that is.”

  Paulie frowned and crossed his own arms as he cocked his head. His mind was still reeling a bit from the unexpected kiss, but not so fogged as to completely render him inept. “But I thought you said..” She looked at him, those six bright orange eyes with their bubblegum pink sclera looking at him so imploringly. She wanted him to understand, no, she needed him to understand. “You said. You said, not me. Why did you say that, you can’t read me you mean?”

  Jakiikii nodded her head. “Your mind is like a wall to me, like those of a fortress. Their strength, I have never seen another with such mental defenses in all my life. I will admit that it at first terrified me, in the alley when you saw me. I realised that I could not read you, and I fled.” She hung her head and he took a small step towards her, but she continued on. “I told Mack that I ran because I was in danger of being discovered.”

  Now that made Paulie pause. “Wait, you lied? To Mack?” She nodded, shame and some other emotion warring on her alien features. “But that means you knew, you knew in the interrogation room that you were unable to read me.” he accused.

  Jakiikii shrank a little and nodded silently again.

  He shook his own head, looking around the empty hall and then back at her. His arms hung to his sides as he tried to understand. “But.. why?”

  Jakiikii hugged herself tightly. “Because, they would have killed you if they knew.”

  This single admission stabbed him like a dagger to the heart and he stumbled slightly. Holding the door frame as he realised how close he had truly come to the end. “You.” He gasped as he finally understood. “You saved my life then, twice before I even knew you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I did.” Now he had to know. He reached out and she took his hand in two of her own, the distance between them shrinking both physically and emotionally.

  “But, why?” Was all Paulie could think to ask the trembling alien.

  Jakiikii smiled, her eyes and mouth all showing her emotions as clear to him now as they would have been on another human. “Because I knew what you felt like, to be alone and hunted. To be cast aside simply for what you are, with no consideration for who you were.”

  Paulie understood.

  “I.. was you..” he breathed, the depths of emotion bridging the st of the gap that remained between them.

  She nodded, and he pulled her into a desperate hug. This time initiating the contact was easy. He felt like they understood each other fully now. They got along so well, even from the beginning, and now he knew why. They really were made for each other and in that moment he decided. There was no more lying to her or himself.

  He pushed her back slightly and wiped a tear from one of her six eyes. Smiling, he finally admitted it aloud. “Jakiikii. I love you.”

  She nodded and butted her head into his shoulder as one hand cradled the back of his head. “I know, I have known for a while. I might not be able to read your mind, but I have always been able to read your heart. Because it is the same as mine.”

  Paulie broke. That perfect response melted the cage that had held his heart, and he cried. He cried for a long time, and Jakiikii cried with him.