After David's disappearance, Professor Allen Hobby finds himself at a bit of a loss and takes consolation where he can find it. (NOTES: (1) The first story in the "One Degree of Separation" series. (2) Hobby is a scientist, so some of what follows is quite technical. Hopefully there's enough juicy stuff to make up for that. (3) I wrote this story after trying to explain slash to someone using the most unlikely pairing I could think of. Then it turned out that the pairing wasn't so unlikely after all.)