Subjects

20- Some Things That Can Be Fixed

It's been one week since a spaceship fell out of the sky and landed in the middle of the ocean, causing it to shut down completely and leave it's inhabitants helpless in the face of... Anything really. But that's just one way to look at it. Personally, I prefer to think of it a the first week of a relaxing cruise in the beautiful ocean. Roger certainly disagrees.

It took him four days until he managed to wake up without having to puke right away. The tiny spaceship keeps getting tossed around by the waves and the fact that they only have the world's most barf inducing food to eat certainly isn't helping. Anyway, this is not exactly Roger's idea of cruising. He usually takes the night shifts to keep watch because the cool air at night somehow makes him feel a little better.

Emily, after a whole week of floating about and hoping for somebody to find them, decided that she had enough. She didn't fix cars for five years at her brother's garage just to find herself stuck in a misfunctioning spaceship.

She walks out to "the porch", as they call the door at the back of the ship where they sit to keep watch. The hour is two in the morning and it's Emily's turn to take over and guard instead of Roger.

Roger's asleep.

"Roger," Emily whispers. "Hi, Roger, get up."

Roger jumps up and grabs the gun that was lying next to him on the floor. When he realizes that Emily woke him up he relaxes.

"I only closed my eyes for two seconds, I swear," he says.

"I won't tell," Emily assures him. "How was your watch?"

"Nothing special," Roger shrugs. "I think I saw a whale." And scared it off when the wave that it created caused Roger to vomit again. He is getting very tired of all of this.

"Cool," Emily sits next to him at the porch and Roger hands her the gun. He is about to pull himself up when suddenly Emily says, "Do you think anyone will ever find us here?"

Roger sits back, not in a hurry to get up and feel dizzy again. He is thinking about all the things that could happen to them and how often do ships even pass around their area, which he has no clue about. "I don't know," he finally answers. "I think someone must find us at some point but I really don't know."

They remain quiet, just looking out at the endless ocean, both lost in their own thoughts.

"Do you even think we stand a chance against the aliens?" Roger asks Emily. "We were lucky that we could escape last time, if they find us again than... It can be bad."

"I think that we need to be more prepared, when we find Leo he can help us get better with resisting the influence and this time we'll know what we're dealing with."

Roger thinks about what happened back at the mothership. He can't remember most of the time and the part that he can remember is straight out terrifying. The things that the aliens were willing to do, to torture a little girl. Do they have no emotions? But Leo is not like them, he tries to stop them. How can they be so cruel, so twisted?

Emily thinks about the spaceship. The water may have done some damage to it but the impact itself must be what caused it to shut down completely. She has to see where to power source is. Maybe she can get it started again somehow.

And also she thinks about the fact that the world could end and how crazy that is. With everything that's happened to her lately, you'd think she would already kind of be at peace with it. I mean, maybe not at peace, but more or less accept that this is how things are right now. You can see why she'd rather think about fixing spaceships, right?

"Do you think that we can try to fix this spaceship?" She says. She's not exactly asking because it's not a question, more of a polite way of asking Roger if he'd help her.

"I could barely fly this spaceship, let alone fix it," Roger is more of an artistic person, he knows how to get things to work but it usually involves reading the manual a couple of times. "But sure, we can try. Do you have any idea what to do, though?"

"I have one idea," Emily says. "I used to work with my brother, fix cars."

"Really?" Roger is impressed more than surprised. "That's great! I don't know anything about cars but I'll help you if you want."

Nothing like some good old VEPP fresh from the tube to start you off in the morning. And let's not forget the mineral powder, now that's some quality food. Seriously, I don't know what they're all complaining about. Angie certainly isn't complaining, she is humming something that sounds vaguely familiar and seems a little more cheery than the past few days. Ben, on the other hand, maybe isn't the opposite of cheery, but he's not far from it.

There are not many things that can dampen Ben's spirit. Not alien genes, nearing apocalypse and getting kidnapped have managed to discourage him, but this one thing that he just doesn't know how to deal with does. Leo's death. Ben hasn't yet found the right words to tell his friends the truth and it's eating him up day by day. At the beginning he just wished they'd know, without him having to tell them, tell his daughter. Then he hoped that they'd ask him. The more time that passed, the harder it became. Ben tried to tell them but it always seemed like the wrong time, they are too happy, they are too sad, they are all together and he'd rather talk to them separately, it's too early in the morning for this. He always has excuses, but it doesn't make him feel any better as the days pass and the group still talks about Leo as if he's alive.

If Eva was in a better mood, maybe she'd notice how quiet Ben has become. She's not though, so as they eat breakfast to the sound of Angie's cheery melody each of them are more or less in their own world.

As they're floating about in the ocean, maybe being in their own world isn't so bad, but somewhere high in the sky there was a very angry person, um- alien, looking for them.