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Things had been a little hectic since they'd been on the rainbow road, and Gilbert hadn't actually had all that much time to track down Marienrode and see how she was doing. He didn't know her exceptionally well, just that she lived close by him and they passed sometimes in the mornings on their way to work; they were friendly enough, and he could appreciate the fact that she'd kept her head in a crisis and tried to help him keep things under control. When he'd heard that she was staying at the same outpost as him, he figured it would only be a matter of time until he ran into her while he was doing other things.

And so it was. She looked familiar from behind, one of the few advantages of actually seeing someone in passing for several years running, so he lifted a hand and hailed her. "Marienrode!"

When she paused, he approached with long, purposeful strides, a pleasant smile on his face. It really was nice to see someone he recognized, though he had to wonder how James was taking it that both him and their downstairs neighbor had disappeared without a trace.

Hopefully he wasn't panicking too badly.

"How are you holding up?" He didn't expect that she was tearing apart at the seams, but it was a nice thing to ask. His gaze was a little searching, taking in the lines of her face, the set of her shoulders. Yeah, good, she looked mostly all right.

Gilbert hadn't spoken to Marienrode much over the years, but he'd had enough passing conversations with her to know that it was likely that, lately, the only thing she'd snuggled up to passionately in the middle of the night was a thesaurus. A bit boring, if you asked him, and definitely not his speed of woman, which was probably what had surprised him most when she'd lunged at him during the bat attack and kissed him with more than enough fervor for the both of them.

Sure, his ribs had been cracked at the time, and sure, he really hadn't appreciated it. Looking back, he could do the mental slow nod and eye squint that came along with having an attractive woman plastered onto your body with apparently no provocation, but at the time, he'd kind of wanted to blow her head completely off her shoulders. He supposed he couldn't blame her, though, because as she'd said, she wasn't entirely in control of herself. He knew he'd been bright orange but he hadn't felt any different, but who knew. Maybe the different colors had done different things to people.

Anyway, he didn't think Marienrode was his type, or that he was her type, frankly. But that didn't mean he hadn't enjoyed the kiss, and wouldn't enjoy another one under different circumstances. Circumstances like... her not living below him.

Because oh, he intended to get home. And the fact that they were neighbors meant she was out of the question for a booty call. Gilbert didn't sleep with people he saw on a regular basis (and that was why he'd never had a live-in girlfriend, among other reasons) so he'd never considered Marienrode in more than passing. Unfortunately, it would have to stay that way, even though she was pretty attractive.

"Don't worry about it," he said, lifting a hand and waving it. Gray eyes were calm, friendly even, and he brushed his bangs out of his face. He needed a trim, darn it. "Everything kind of went to hell in a handbasket, so... no hard feelings."

At the mention of his ribs, he grimaced a bit, but patted his chest. "All better. Thankfully. Can't remember the last time something hurt that bad."

Marienrode patted his shoulder and he grinned, the look lending a boyish charm to an otherwise lean, markedly adult face. The stubble growing in over his chin really didn't help, either -- he needed to get ahold of one of those magical people and ask for a razor -- but otherwise, he really was feeling pretty good. He wanted to get his bearings and then step up his investigating a bit. So far, he hadn't found out all that much, but..

His smile fell a bit, and he rubbed a hand over his cheek. Scrape, scrape. "It's all right. I probably won't stay here too long, but... it seems like a decent place to be for now. I like how simple it is, and it's not overcrowded like some places."

At the same time, the dispersal of all the civilians left them plenty open to be victimized. He'd heard about the couple that were in a coma, if not more than two by now... more things were attacking them. They were supposed to be safe, weren't they? Except obviously they weren't. He needed to get somewhere that put him in a better position to find out about the wounded people, and whether or not they were going to end up in a semi-permanent state like that... Cancer?

It bore looking into, anyway.

"Have you heard anything about those people who were injured?" There was worry in his face now, and a tightness around the corners of his eyes. You could take the homicide detective out of his natural element, but, well -- you couldn't keep his brain from working.

He was, frankly, just waiting for the first person to die. The fact that no one had shocked him. Or maybe they had, and the Zodiacs were just keeping quiet.

No, he didn't really trust them. Could he be blamed for it? Not really.

"Oh, more than likely," he agreed, expression relaxing to match the set of his shoulders. "The space people have been more than accommodating so far, so I'm pretty confident they're on our side and working hard to get us home, so I'm trying not to pester them too much."

To be honest, Gilbert didn't completely trust anyone there, not even his fellow civilians. Who knew how they would react under pressure, or as the days ticked by and they weren't allowed to go home? People in captivity could get ugly, and even though there were a lot of shiny things to distract them, eventually the reality of the situation would fully set in and they would maybe realize they weren't ever going to get home. He was trying to fend off that particular thought himself, but it tended to creep up on him at night, when he was trying to sleep with his backs against the mats and an unfamiliar ceiling stretched out above him.

Still, Gilbert could handle slowly working through that particular problem and finding a way to get home. If the magical Zodiac people couldn't help him, he'd find his own way. God damn it, he'd only just made homicide, and he was not going to let that go to ruin because he'd been abducted and dumped onto some space road for reasons unknown.

Reaching out to Marienrode, he gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze, his expression betraying none of his inner turmoil. Gilbert had always been good at sucking it up and dealing with one problem at a time, and there was absolutely no reason for him to make his neighbor uneasy.

"Seems like you're holding together well. That's good. I've been pretty worried about you, you know, and it seems like we keep missing each other."

Gilbert ran a hand down her arm, from the shoulder to the elbow, and then gave that a little squeeze, too. Did he need to be as touchy-feely as he was being? No, certainly not. But human contact was a remarkably calming thing, and they were friends, sort of -- in a sense, anyway. Neighbors, certainly, and after going through all this bullshit together, well, that was a bond that wouldn't easily be broken. Marienrode wasn't freaking out by any means, but it couldn't hurt to err on the side of caution.

(It didn't occur to him that the human contact might be just as comforting to him as he was intending it to be for her, but that was because Gilbert believed that as a seasoned officer of the law he was mostly above that sort of thing.)

"The kids will be okay, probably. It's a little tough to keep track of how long we've been here, but I doubt the schools will hold it against them, all things considered."

Now, as far as his own job was concerned... yeah, he was worried. He'd do anything it took to make sure that he kept his job, but he was still worried. Goddamn, but he hated talking to shrinks.

"Just keep your head low and keep out of trouble. I should follow my own advice," he added, laughing and rubbing the back of his neck. "But I just keep poking around. The detective in me," he sighed. "Can't keep my nose where it belongs."

"At the most, I'd think summer classes... But then," he sighed, dragging a hand over his chin, "who knows how long we'll actually be here? But that's better than nothing."

He knew, kind of peripherally, that Marienrode taught. He'd never taken all that much time to get to know her aside from passing in the halls or sometimes buzzing one another in; James knew her better than he did, being much more of a social butterfly than Gilbert was. All accounts from James were that she was pretty nice, so that was really good enough for Gilbert.

His smile turned a little bit apprehensive the more he thought about James. How was he holding up? James was the type to grab onto something and worry, stressing and fretting about it until it was resolved. Assuming that time passed in an equal ratio up in space and on earth, he'd been gone for a while. He hoped James was holding up okay.

"James will be just fine," he said confidently, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. "And so will I. Trained officer of the law," he added, flashing her a charming smile and a wink.

Nothing to worry about here, folks. Just a good old boy on the right side of the law. Even if he had absolutely no jurisdiction up in space.

Gilbert laughed, taking no offense to Marienrode's attempt at teasing. First of all, it wasn't even really that bad -- and secondly, he'd been called a hell of a lot worse than boneheaded in his day. "Gee, thanks."

Reaching for some of the ledgers, he filled his arms with them good-naturedly and began walking beside her, apparently content to do little more than pack things back and forth as long as he was necessary. What else did he really have to do with his time right now? Sure, he could go around and try to gather some intelligence, but there was merit to touching base with people and keeping an eye on them at the same time.

Plus, maybe there was something interesting going on in Aquarius Outpost. You just never knew.