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Stella walked through the door of the old warehouse, dank and dismal like nothing she'd seen before. How could the Terrans let things get like this? Run-down and decrepit, and with a scent of--
Oh.
She closed her eyes and took-- no, a deep breath was even worse, and she coughed as the rancid scent of infection assailed her throat. "Is Arpegius okay?" she asked, but Octave shook his head.
"Pegi is fine," he explained, but his expression didn't soothe the ache in her heart. His next words confirmed it: "It's the man who saved us. Shep, his name is. Darkwood's bodyguards... They were chasing us after he got us out of the concert. They got hit by a truck, but not before they shot him. It's not good."
Stella nodded slowly, making her way past the shot-out van as Octave and Baryl led her through the shadows. "Is he- How did he even find us? He was blue, right? I'm not imagining that?"
Baryl, a few steps ahead, glanced back over his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be blue, too," he said. He was a little more subdued than Stella was used to; the bombastic drummer's ebullience was a staple, but now, he was walking a little more slowly, talking a little more quietly, in a way that Stella had never seen him before. "He's from another planet. He says we are, too."
"From his planet, even," Octave added. "He's a huge fan. Got a distress call that we'd been kidnapped from a concert and then chased us down to Earth. His ship crashed, but he was still able to track us down and break Darkwood's brainwashing. Doesn't fix our memories, but he's got some ideas about that, too."
Stella swallowed. "If he survives long enough to share them, you mean?" she asked. She wasn't sure that she believed what they were saying, but something rang right about it.
Baryl came up short before a heavy-looking door, and she and Octave stopped behind him. Baryl stared straight ahead, while Octave bowed his head. "Yeah. If he's even still- He's in rough shape, Stella." Octave reached past Baryl and laid a hand on the door, but he hesitated before pushing it open. "I'm honestly not sure he'll still be alive. I mean, I'd expect that Arpegius would have been out here to meet us, but..."
The door seemed, all of a sudden, to be an insurmountable obstacle, a sturdy, impassable wall to bar their passage. Shaking her head to clear it, Stella pushed that thought back and moved around Baryl. "He would. He wouldn't let us walk in unawares." Pushing the door open, she moved ahead of her bandmates and stepped through.
The next room was smaller, though still stacked with shipping containers. A soft blue light flickered ahead from around a corner, and she made her way down towards it. As she made her way into the makeshift alcove, she gasped at the sight: a tattered, stained mattress was propped up against a container, while Arpegius moved adroitly around it, checking on the makeshift bandage on the shoulder of the strange blue man who lay there. Blood, as red as hers, tinged it.
Arpegius looked up at her gasp. "Sis!" He leapt up, eyes alight. "You're safe! God, I was so worried."
"S-Stella...?" The man -- Shep, Stella reminded herself -- on the mattress looked up, though he didn't manage to fully raise his head. "I'm- I'm glad they got you out. Heh, guess the battery held, huh, Baryl?"
"Yeah, buddy." Baryl stepped forward, grinning at Shep, though Stella could see the strain around his eyes. "The thing worked perfectly. Broke the glasses on the first shot."
Shep sagged a little, tension leaving his body. "G-good. Can't believe he-" Coughs wracked his body and he convulsed before crying out. Fresh blood seeped into the bandage on his shoulder.
Stella knelt down beside him. "Shh, don't talk," she said, reaching out to grab his hand. Warmth gathered where her skin touched his, and at first she thought it was fever, but then a strange light began to form between them. "What is this?"
I wasn't sure. The voice sounded in her head, a stronger echo of the voice she'd heard a moment before. Didn't work with the boys, but all the fan sites said you were the most gifted. I thought maybe I'd still be able to Share with you.
A pang of familiarity ran up her spine at the word 'Share', though she was sure she'd never heard the word used in quite this way before. "Are you-" she started, but then, memories echoing like deja vu, she thought it at him: Are you psychic? A telepath?
There was a long moment of silence before he answered. That- I don't know that word, but it feels like it may be correct? When we Share, we can talk mind-to-mind. We Share thoughts, emotions... We can even... He broke for a moment as he coughed again. Do you trust me?
I don't know you. I- I just met you. I don't know if-
Do you trust me? he repeated.
I- Stella swallowed. Yes. I don't know why, but I do.
Then come with me.
Sharing a place, Shep reflected, always felt a little bit like falling from a great height, all up until the moment that you landed wherever you were going as softly as if you'd stepped through a door. This fall ended with him and Stella landing in flight, midair. "So, what do you think?" he asked, looking to Stella, their hands clasped as they soared through the arches of the Balantor Wetlands, as perfect as they could be formed from his own memories. "You grew up not far from here. Me, too, actually, although you were a couple of years ahead of me in school."
"It's so strange," she replied, shaking her head in wonderment. "It's so beautiful, and so odd, but it's so familiar, too. Like something I ought to remember but don't." She laughed at that. "Which I suppose is true. If I believe you, which I do. People don't normally fly like this back there, do they?"
"Sadly, that's not something we can do naturally," Shep confirmed, "and tech flying rigs are outlawed in the area because it's a protected environment, but a Tavek friend of mine took me up once. They're, uh- One of the other sentient species on our home planet, they can fly, it's a whole thing."
They flew in silence for several minutes, landing in a puffball then riding it through the sky as it shifted to red and then darkened into night. "I'm glad I got to share this with you before I passed," Shep said, finally. "If you're never able to get back, you should still be able to remember home, y'know?"
Stella stiffened in his arms. "You mean..." she began, but she could clearly not bring herself to say it.
"I wish I could do more. Stay longer. My mind's still strong, but I can feel my body weakening further with every moment. I'm sorry, Stella, but I have minutes left at most." Shep pulled back so that he could look at her properly, though with her head bowed he couldn't see her face.
"That's not acceptable," Stella said, finally looking up to meet his eyes. "You're not allowed to die. Do you hear me? You just shared the most amazing thing with me, but I need you to promise me that you'll take me there, for real, when we all get back home. I want to relearn the Wetlands with you, Shep. Even if I get my memories back, it's been years since I've been home. There will be so much new to see. I want to rediscover my home with you."
"I-" Even as he struggled to find words, Shep could feel himself fading-- could see his body start to fade away. "I can't make that promise, Stella."
"Promise me!"
Steel backed the words this time, and Shep, without thinking, said, "I promise!"
It was like a lightning bolt: energy surged through their bodies as Shep's image solidified with an audible snap. Gasping, they closed their eyes-
And opened them, back in the warehouse, sparkles of blue-white light tracing up Shep's arm and gathering around, then sinking into his wound. Shep moaned as burning itch spread from his shoulder, but the sensation passed and, with it, the pain and weakness.
He stared into Stella's eyes, both of them breathing heavily, as the light faded.
Finally, from behind her, Arpegius raised his hand. "Uh, what was that?"
Shep just shrugged, shaking his head, while Stella sat back and looked over her shoulder. "I'm not really sure," she admitted, swaying a little as she got to her feet. She reached down for Shep and helped him to his, each steadying themselves against the other as they felt the weakness passing. "I just- We were in each other's minds, and he was about to die, and I just- wouldn't let him."
Swallowing against a lump in his throat, Shep squeezed Stella's hand. "When we're Sharing, our life forces are mingling," he explained. "I've never seen, never even heard of it happening to anyone I know, but sometimes, with the right kind of connection... I think you might have given me an infusion? Shared your life force with me, I mean. Bolstered mine enough that I can recover."
Even though they'd stopped Sharing, Stella could still feel Shep at the edge of her mind. She let go of his hand, just for a moment, and the feeling remained. "Are we connected now?" Stella asked. "I can still feel you, even when we're not Sharing."
Shep shrugged. "I think so, yeah. That may fade, given time. Infusions like this are so rare, I don't know a lot about them."
"I- I think I need some time to process this, but I'm glad I could do it. I'm glad you didn't die to save us."
Arpegius shook his head. "Okay, I'm going to need you to talk me through that in more detail later, but right now... What do we do next? Darkwood is still out there."
"I don't know," Shep said. "I mean, if we could get my ship fixed, I could get you out of here..."
Octave shook his head. "That would just leave him to do this to someone else. He needs to be stopped."
"And we need to stay safe," Arpegius added. "We're too well-known to evade capture for long."
Stella considered this, looking down at where her pale hand still lay grasped in Shep's cerulean. "Maybe we don't." She looked up at her brother, at her friends, at-- Shep, whatever he was becoming to her, faster than she'd ever have considered possible. "We're aliens, Pegi. And we have proof, in Shep. Maybe the way to stop Darkwood is to drag him into the light. Expose what he's doing." She pulled a small card from her dress, tilting it to display an address, and a date. "And maybe where he's doing it."
"He won't like that," Octave said, dry but considering. Stella just grinned, and Shep felt himself grinning back.
"All the more reason to do it." Baryl stepped up and added his hand to Stella and Shep. "I'm in."
"Me, too," Arpegius said, adding his hand to the pile. They looked at Octave, who shook his head and grinned.
"Fine, me, too," he relented, placing his own hand on top of the stack. "The old man's not going to know what hit him."