That night, Heather awoke twice in a cold sweat, breathing hard and looking about in a state of panic until her heart stopped thumping its way to freedom. The recurring nightmare, strange amorphous blobs of sound and screams filling a place of pure darkness, was now replaced with the faint light of day from the window, a whistle of breeze breaching the crack in the pane. Tired as she was though, Heather felt a focus she hadn’t found within herself for years. Shaken but filled with purpose, she extracated herself from the bed, and then eyed the pile of books by the desk. The walk home and back to and from Ore the previous day proved more than a little exhausting, but what other option was there? If Heather had a decent phone or a laptop with some form of mobile internet maybe she could avoid carrying books all day, but if she had to either haul all these in or run home first…

Heather slapped her forehead as the third option hit her. She eyed the pile, and then picked up her backpack for books, leaving it empty as she made for the door. Then, she remembered that going to school in pyjamas wasn’t socially acceptable outside of hyper specific days, and the last of those she’d taken part in was a good five years ago. She doubled back, and with a bit of time and prep took on her school guise. She was about to leave again, when she saw that one book. The star on the cover beckoned to her, though she hadn’t pulled it out the previous day, the only book she left aside. With a gentle care, she slid this one book into the bag again.

“Do you need a new bag Heather?” Marley asked as he spooned at his runny egg. His hand quivered as he tried to keep the spoon level, but he looked as keen as ever if you ignored that one telltale quiver. Heather tried to keep her eyes off of it and shook her head.

“No, why?”

“Two bags?” He eyed them with a raised eyebrow. The light blue backpack had a fair amount of wear and tear, but then it had been her main backpack for three or so years. The top had a small peppering of holes from many an abandoned badge long since disposed of in an attempt to grow up. Her current messenger satchel could fit a few workbooks, her journal and a pencilcase. Black and red, and about half the size of the other, this old laptop bag belonged to Connie beforehand, giving it added sentimental value. 

“No I just, needed a bit more storage for a project, thing.”

“Well if you’re sure.” Marley said. Heather felt the familiar knot in her stomach, but talk of potential spending on her appeared to have now passed. Connie flipped through the pages of the newspaper on the table, her own breakfast of oats still steaming, untouched.

“What’s the project?” She asked, not looking up.

“Erm, it’s a research group thing, I have to pick up some textbooks from the library to go round a friend’s house.” Heather blagged the explanation off the top of her head, and then marvelled at just how good that was as a cover story.

“Oh? Anyone we know?” Connie said looking up. She didn’t appear to register Heather’s flinch.

“No.” Heather hated the bluntness, but wasn’t sure what else to say. Connie looked intrigued, but the ice wall came to Heather’s aide as she seemed to reconsider probing further. Heather turned back to her own cereal, and realised she too had forgotten to eat, the crisp crunch now closer to her mother’s oats. She made herself eat it all the same.

“Hey, I was talking to your mother this morning, and we wondered if you would like to do a film night this weekend? Like we always used to?” Marley said, seeming to find the use of the barrier between them more than a little uncomfortable.

“Oh, sure I’d like that.” Heather said, brightening a little at the memory of those intimate nights. Connie looked a little surprised at Heather, and to be honest, Heather herself found it a little strange how easy that answwer came. Even with her father, she found the overt enthusiasm she voiced a little uncanny.

“That’s great.” Marley beamed, and Heather gave a small smile of her own. “Oh, do you need to be setting off?”

“Ah,” Heather looked at her watch, her almost finished breakfast, and scooped up the last of the latter, “thank you.” She said around a mouthful of soggy cornflakes as she started to gather her things up, including both bags, and tried to weave both onto her back with some semblance of dignity. “See you both later.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright today like that?” Connie asked after her.

“All good, I’ve got it in the bag.” She smiled at both, and in a few steps was at, and then out the door. The parents looked at one another across the table.

“Which one of us is to blame for the love of terrible puns?” Marley asked, shaking his head. Connie stirred her oats in thought.

“You know what’s funny? That’s the first one I can remember hearing from her in years.”

“Really? She always used to make them non-stop.” Marley cocked an eyebrow, finishing his egg.

“Yes, she did.” Connie said. She hadn’t meant it to come out quite so blunt as it did, and saw Marley faultered for a moment, spoon halfway back to his plate. “Sorry I-”

“No, no it’s fine. I know things have been hard for her. For both of you.”

“At least she listens to you. I’m glad she seemed, receptive to the film night idea.”

“She listens to you too.” Marley said. Connie didn’t reply, spooning her unwanted breakfast before forcing herself to take a bite. “So, her new friend.”

“Hm?” Connie said, chewing on the lukewarm porridge. “I don’t know anything about them.”

“Someone she met through Elissa maybe?” Marley asked, and saw Connie shudder, not even trying to hide her feelings about Heather’s long-time ‘friend’.

“I hope not. She could do with a broader group of people to spend time with.”

“Could be a boy.” Marley said, just tossing the idea out there.

“Not necessarily a boy.” Connie shot back, a small smirk. “But, it’s probably better we don’t probe too much. She likes her space at the moment.”

“So long as she’s happy and safe right?” Marley said, starting to tidy the table and take the utensils to the sink to wash them. Connie nodded, hoping very much that Heather was both, and wishing she could know for sure.

The rush to school, of classes and lunch, these all passed as blurs on the wind as her mind’s eye kept its focused trained on one place. Elissa tried to grab Heather at the end of the day, nudging her to spend time with her and her entourage, but for once Heather answered both firm and negative, which the other girl did not like one bit. Even as Heather extracted herself from the cornered state El trapped her in, she could hear her friend declaring Heather was being weird again.

There was a time where that would have negged Heather into place, but as it was she forgot the encounter almost entirely as she sped down towards the bus stop, and then past it in the straight line direction of Ore. Her backpack had more than a few books bouncing around inside, but in a stroke of inspiration Heather had this time borrowed the stack from the library. Yes, it was true that students weren’t supposed to take out more than three at a time, but while far from a model student Heather was on good terms with the school staff, and haggled that figure up to six for a ‘group project’. She wondered what the librarian was going to think when she dropped a bunch back the following day.

"So these trains?" Halos asked, looking up from the screen of the translator some time later, his features illuminated in a faint-ghost blue where he stood in front of it. The dim light masked the paleness of his skin, making him appear much healthier, but he also looked more relaxed in general today. 

"Yeah? What about them?" Heather said, turning to check if he’d seen one over her shoulder, which he did not appear to have.

"They are, your way of transporting yourselves around the world?" Halos asked. His voice was a little less halting than it had been, but he still spoke a little slower when asking more specific questions, or using words he hadn’t before.

"Not the main way,” Heather slid the last book back into her bag, one detailing the geography of the planet; she supposed he might be wondering about how humans traversed the more gnarly parts of the globe, “we use cars the most, oh and planes. But trains are the only railway to travel."

“Do you mean, real way to travel? I think the machine garbled that last message.”

“It was a pun Halos.”

“What’s a pun?” He frowned.

“It’s word play, you know, words that sound like other words, double meanings. Sorry didn’t mean to derail the conversation.”

“That’s ok I-” Halos blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “That was another one wasn’t it?”

“Mayyybe.” Heather put on her most fake innocent expression. “That’s just how my train of thought works.”

"Anyway,” Halos said, rolling his eyes, “I've been meaning to ask as I’m, little confused, what power source do you use?" Halos’s eyes flitted to the rails momentarily, both of them remembering those more, explosive results.

"Erm,” Heather frowned, trying to remember something like the complete list of big hitters, “oil, gas, nuclear power, stuff like that." She looked up to see Halos looking further perplexed.

"You use, oil, as a main power source?" He sounded halting again, but Heather got the distinct impression the only processing lag this time was his mild incredulity. She shifted her feet on the concrete, trying to avoid swiping through a fresh patch of gum.

"Yeah...?" Heather said, wondering why that was odd. Sure, she didn’t understand how that worked but, wasn’t it supposed to be something basic like burning it for energy or the like? Halos’s expression however appeared more disconcerted than confused.

"Isn't that a little, harsh on your planet?" Halos said, seeming to pick his words with some delicate consideration.

"Well yeah I mean..." Heather had never considered much what it would be like explaining this to an outsider. "We know it's not ideal but, best we have at the moment, I think, and um, people make a lot of money off it so they don’t want it to change. We, also use coal…"

"I see, that’s got to cause a fair few problems. My ancestors used it, both of those I mean. We have a small reserve of it even now made artifically but, doesn't it drive your planet's atmosphere haywire? We don’t have one and burn it outside but, how do you stop it from overwhelming the planet’s balance?"

"Um, I think we argue about it and are still, trying to convince people it’s even happening." she replied, feeling her cheeks redden. She made a mental note to join every single climate rally she could from here on out. 

"Fair enough." Halos never talked down to her. Heather would have been ok if he did, she knew she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box but he had no air of lauding his obvious intellect. Even so, Heather prodded.

"Well, what do you use?"

"Particle exchange.” Halos gestured over his shoulder at the distant rows of machines. “That’s what all those back there are monitoring for the whole planet. It's a bit complex, but it sort–of works by swapping particles around in space-time. The pressure increase generates power, and kind of powers itself a little doing it."

"I, think I understand...?"

"Actually it's not like that at all, it's a lot more complex. All to do with quantum particles disappearing and reappearing in nature. And some basic fusion."

"Ok then no I do not understand." Heather laughed, shaking her head a little.

"That's ok." Halos heard himself laugh a bit too. He'd never found anyone who understood this technology, bits of it still confused him when he wasn’t guided by his family’s gift, but it was pleasant to find anyone this interested. Oriaens didn't do 'fascinated'. "It's how we're talking now. I'm exchanging the light and sound vibrations reflected onto billions of replicating nanobots."

"So I shouldn't touch the window in case I break one?" Heather asked, looking at the delicate floating dots that made up a pixel display floating in the air, only one with such density that you had to look so close to even pick them out; Halos explained that while they’d ceased replicating for now on his command, there were more of the bots than people on both their worlds at this point, by quite some way. The pretty little pinpricks danced in the air in peaceful calm.

"Well, yeah that and they get pretty hot and you might burn your hand off."

"Oh." Heather said, realising that perhaps ‘peaceful’ wasn’t the word. Then she laughed, and he did too in tandem. They laughed a lot when with each other considering neither did so anywhere else. The others' company brightened their worlds.

"I can't be here every day by the way, just, you know so you know I mean..." Heather's smile fell a little pensive. She wasn’t sure why now of all times she chose to bring it up, but a sudden feeling in her chest tightened at the thought of the outside world. Halos tilted his head.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing it's, me and my parents are going to spend the evening together on Friday, and there’s no school on weekends so, it might be harder to get down unnoticed. I’ll still try."

"That's..."

"Saturday and Sunday yeah. Halos do you visit at the exact same time each day where you are?"

"Yes.” To Heather’s surprise he frowned as he said it. ”Our worlds have an identical length of day, that's been troubling me too."

"Troubling?"

"Not troubling, bad word. Making me curious. Days vary in length by a few," he stopped, checked for the correct word. Time units were still coming through wrong on occasion, so he wanted to be sure. He then turned back, "Sorry, by a few minutes on my world and your books suggest your world is the same. We should have already fallen out of sync."

"Maybe it's fate." Heather smiled. Halos returned it, and there was more to his smile than hers Heather could see. A wistful amusement, and below it a sadness he wasn’t quite ready to share. Even so, she poked ever so slightly.

“What is it?”

"It's just, nice, to know someone who believes in fate."

"Believe in it now more than I used to. I didn't know what to believe for a long time after everything just became, confusing and scary..."

It felt, both unusual for her to confess her real feat at a confusing world, and yet so natural to do so to him. A weight seemed to lift from her greater than any collection of books. And then he asked the question. And for the first time, unlike to any counsellor, teacher or friend before, she felt ready to open up.

"What happened?"

It all came tumbling out at last.

"My dad lost his business three years ago. Before then my family were really close, but there was this, huge financial meltdown. They called it the Great Recession, and most people got hit by it in some way. But dad, he had like, investments? Not huge ones, that;s where you like, give your money to someone and if they make more, you get more back. Well, everyone lost money, so he lost some of his own, a lot of wha he invested, and then the business folded.” Heather bowed her head, the next part burned raw into the dark back recesses of her mind, where she so rarely braved to shine a torch.

“When it happened, dad became so, dejected. He loved his job, heck he was so overqualified for it and he was self–employed so it didn't pay well but, it completed him. He did trial work for a few people for a while afterwards but, the jobs paid better but he couldn't take it I don't think. Or at least he never stayed in any job that long." Heather almost swallowed the last words. She felt the familiar sink inside her that came whenever she recalled what happened next. "Then one day, he vanished. Mum, told me he, needed to go away for a few days, clear his head you know. I mean I thought it seemed strange but I, trusted her so much."

She could feel the tears burn on the edge of her eyes, even if she refused to let them fall she them sear. Her need not to show the firestorm beneath was a trait father and daughter shared.

"And then, one day, five or six days later I'm not sure, at night the police came, the police are like law, enforcing people..." Halos nodded her on, hanging on each word. "They came to say dad had turned up in a bus shelter, had, a full on breakdown. Don't think mum wanted me in the room when they explained it but there wasn't much she could do. They said he was barely breathing. He'd gone missing after work, a week or so earlier and, no one had seen him. If he'd been gone much longer there would have been a more public search effort. And mum, she'd lied, and, I just..." and with that, no tears fell, but an eerie silence fell.

Heather now stood mute, almost unable to bring herself to continue. But as she took a deep breath, she caught Halos eyes, and deep within them, saw a reflection of the pain she felt. She continued.

"I remember, the lights flashing on the police car outside. I remember as I watched from the car window. There was no siren, I'm not even sure if they meant to leave them on but they just kept flashing. It hurt my eyes, I still see those lights every night. Maybe that's because I'm always scared, scared the next time I see them outside, dad won't be so lucky..."

Unlike the entirety of his fellow population, Halos had a developed sense of empathy. He wanted to hold her, to help her. Never before had he been so moved by another person. It agonised him not being able to reach her. But in telling Halos, in trusting him, she felt held, and she felt safe. It was a sentiment that had come to her so quick it unnerved her, but it felt right.

"I wish, I wish I could escape this world, come to yours."

"My world has its dark side too Heather,” Halos said, the first such time he’d admitted what Heather had begun to suspect from the little details of his life she picked up, “and to even travel here would be near enough impossible. To travel from where you are now to me would take an insane amount of energy, and I'm improvising as it is."

"Then make one going the other way? Escape to my world and we can both be free."

"You'd want me to live on your world with you?" He sounded shocked, as if he’d never so much as considered she might want that.

"Of course! You're my best friend in the world – well, not this world as you're not on this one but, argh you know what I'm trying to say."

He did, and he felt such a glow inside at her words. On his planet he wasn't wanted, but on hers he was. Affection like he had not known since his father's passing, like in many ways he had never known before.

"I know you could do it, you're brilliant."

And, he didn't flinch. This time, he felt a warm burning feeling deep inside. He believed her words, felt her sincerity and felt confident. He could see thousands of blueprints, already rethinking each circuit in his head.

"I'll do my best."

Heather lit up and beamed as bright as any star. In that moment, as she smiled into his eyes and he into hers, both felt a bond they had not known in years with another. A trust that eclipsed the glare of harsh reality.

"You'll be back Sunday?" Halos asked, his voice tinged with just a little open hope to it. Heather wondered if he’d ever been able to show that kind of vulnerability given his situation before, and tried to make her smile as warm and genuine as she could.

"Wouldn't miss it for the worlds." She smiled.