(back-dated solo, happening right after uncharted waters)

There was a crisp clicking noise that almost seemed to reverberate in the confinements of Alba's unlit room as she gently pushed the door behind her to a close. It wasn't completely silent in the shared dorm. With enough concentration, the brunette could make out the muffled snort of Gloria's heavy-breathed slumber, or the hum of the small refrigerator that they shared in the designated kitchenette area. The lack of Elegancia's own haughty voice piercing through the night gave her enough confidence to believe that she was, in fact, sleeping in her own bed as well. These signs left Alba in the clear to move freely about her bedroom as though she'd been there all along, albeit with quiet care.

It was always worrisome to sneak back after a patrol or a team meeting when she shared the suite with two other roommates. During the warmer seasons of summer and fall, it had been easy enough to simply leave her window unlocked and--with the aide of senshi-enhanced acrobatics-- leap and flip her way back in without a clamor. Since winter's harsh entrance, though, it became too dangerous to attempt such a feat lest she slip on ice and fall. It was better to risk being caught as a civilian walking through the front door in these late night hours, though that didn't make her feel any less anxious about it.

Tonight was no different. It was exhaustingly late, Alba hardly remembering what time it had been when she received the call from Merope to group in their usual place. While their meeting was surprisingly short, it still left her with much to think about and a mind that was too tired to do so from waking up so jarringly just a few short hours before. So, it was with a sleepy haze that she began stripping off her clothes in trade for comfortable pajamas, using the light of the moon as her only source of illumination. In a matter of minutes she found herself sitting cross-legged on her bed and staring at her senshi phone, lid closed, Merope's words burning in her thoughts.

Can't you hear it? It's home, calling to us.

Naturally, Alba didn't hear anything but the noise of a sleeping dorm and her own nervous fidgeting. After turning the phone over a few times with the palm of her hand, her fingers flipped the lid open. It only took a few seconds of scanning through its equivalent of an address book to find the listing she was searching for:

Home - Unavailable.

She wasn't sure how she managed to overlook it before. Had it always been there? Did it only just appear now after Merope pointed it out? Seeing its entry on her screen caused her brows to furrow in concern as seeds of doubt began to grow in her judgement. What her team's captain insinuated within the boat rental's abode was inconceivable at best. Alba understood that many things had happened in her life recently that should, in retrospect, allow her to grasp this new information as a truth. That perhaps she really was from a star system millions of light years away, on a constellation best seen in this hemisphere's winter.

But what of her Costa Rica? What of her abuelos, primos, tias and tios and her parents that travelled all over the world. Would it mean that they were no longer her family? That the country in which she pined for in the coldest days of Destiny City was not really her home town after all?

A sigh heaved from the bottom of her heart; there was only one way to know for sure if she was in the right. Alba set the phone down by her feet, its screen already dimmed in sleep-mode, and straightened her posture into something resembling a lotus pose. She took in one final shaky breath before closing her eyes and willed her body to relax, though it was a task much easier said than done. There were no ticks of a clock to mark the passage of time, though the span felt like several hours had gone by without any disturbances transpiring. Alba was beginning to think that perhaps it was all a dream that Merope conjured, and had begun to feel better about her standpoint when suddenly, and just as delicate, there it was.

It wasn't unlike a lullaby, hummed by a doting mother to a newborn and repressed from years of growth. Hearing it gave her a new world of home-sickness, an emotion she couldn't fight against as the melody pulsed with her quickening heart beat. This was more than the desire to see the beaches of her home town and far preceded the delight she exuded after receiving family letters in the mail. It pulled at her very soul, beckoning for her to come back to the place Alba knew deep down she belonged in.

And it terrified her.

Her eyes snapped open and found her senshi phone, nestled in her sheets and bathing the contours of her comforter in a bright light. The original contact entry, Home - Unavailable had changed on its own and stared back at her in defiance. If she was going to ignore everything else, here it was, plainly presented on her screen in black type: available.

The phone would have cracked against the far wall had it not dissipated back into subspace after Alba slapped it away. She wiped away the tears that had begun to brim in her eyes with the back of her wrist, and slowly, she slipped under the covers of her bed. She buried her face against her pillow, unsure what to think of what had just occurred.

All Alba knew was, she wasn't ready to face the new reality of her life, and closing her eyes, she pleaded to forget this ever happened.