In another place, she wakes up. Eyes closing and breath on her skin, he vanished. Pointless sighs escape, and she feels like crying for no reason at all.

She cries anyway, because no one is watching.

----

Often, it rains. The desert air gets humid, and it's near enough to be considered rain by all living in Roswell. No one goes outside, and it's quiet. Quiet enough to echo footsteps, and quiet enough so that it raises philosophical queries.

But left alone, with no breath being drawn in, it does not rain.

----

She slept again. Afraid to stay awake, afraid that she would convince herself to think like her friends. She wanted, more than anything, to be selfish.

And so she sleeps, and dreams. Knowing they will come is half the battle.

He doesn't sleep, for reasons similiar to his female counterpart. Fear clouds the air around his head, and the couch is not comfortable enough.

If he were born elsewhere, left to his own devices, he'd be better. He'd be unable to fuck without commitment or a promise. A whisper of love turns to fury, and the sound is unbearable.

Rain pounds in his head, letting him close his eyes.

Memories, all at once deadly, kiss their way over his face, and he sleeps despite his fears.

----

Darkness that smells undeniably bitter allows secrecy, and they imagine they are someone else. They imagine they are one, dreaming of being alone, dreaming alone. Hard enough to love yourself, they find it harder to kiss and still ignore the heat of another body. If, elsewhere, they were born and they met, they could have been famous. They could have been Romeo and Juliet.

Presently, they are Greek.

----

If she could tell the difference between talking and thinking, she didn't let on. She sees, with her own eyes, a bottle falling off of a table and falling, desperate to break. She imagines not cleaning it up, letting her broken friends worry over it and finding their own secrets.

The bitter smell stays in her head and she wants the quiet so that she may cry again.

He's far away, unable to stay apart. Unable to seperate the different parts of himself, he lets thoughts drift and wander, wonderfully explicit thoughts, and alone and one human, he stays near her.

----

Death presented itself and demanded retribution. With one dead, the one who died next would be a good guy, self-sacrificed against their will. He is afraid, very afraid, that he will aid them in their journey, and so he shuts himself off from the others. Death, unwelcome and warded off by a feline he found on the street, stays away long enough for him to sleep. If he can sleep, his fears of sleep itself are forgotten.

She doesn't feel she should explain why she stands, alone, outside. Who to explain it to? Her friends are alone, together, and she fears that what was once a perfect group of alien/human relationships will be dissolved, and she will carry the torch alone.

Emotion comes by and she sees, in a flash of dry lightning, blood mix with something unearthly, something altogether alien. She feels the impact of a body against a wall, and collapses against the door, alerting all who are listening to the humidity that there is an altogether alone girl at the new kid's door.

The cat moves out of the way, because cats know things like that, somehow. He doesn't question why death would try to repeat itself, but he pulls her in, not standing up, before the men in suits enter the hallway.

Sobbing alone turns into a duet, not quite loud enough to be a chorus.

And the cat watches on the couch.

----

Sleep comes easily, but it is interrupted. They collapse together, against the counter. She hits her head, and he cuts himself on the knife, but the pain feels vibrant and they hold more tightly.

Clothing, never to be moved unless by someone not involved in this, dissolves into a stain on the floor, gathering mildew and eventually dust. It remains there as a reminder to not go out too often, and to only invite others inside whom they know will not bring death as a guest.

Touching, desperate to intensify the rain. Undeniably, the temperature rises, and the bitterness evaporates into something different, musky and sweet. They both had smelled it before, in dreams, in humidity, in chalk dust. If they could tell the time, they didn't mind.

The cat sleeps against the door, protecting. Its eyes, brown and not unlike his, close and they watch it sleep, side by side on the floor, letting the air become rain.

----