Occasionally, Aquarius wondered how long it had been since she had left Earth. For the most part, time had lost its significance to her. It continued to pass. It would continue continuing. But it didn't really affect her, aside from making her run out of food from time to time. Since her point of departure before had been inside Southern Poultry, that made subsequent restocking trips much easier. There were no alarms to set off inside the store. It was still unwise to linger for too long, though, so she tended to stick to the same general 'shopping list' whenever she went back. And she still tended to stretch her groceries longer than was wise, since to return too soon might leave her stranded, back where it was no longer safe to be.

There was one time when, as she grabbed her phone to go back to Earth, she noticed the clock on it read 11:38AM. Exidor raised a fuss about that, but it took her several moments to realize why that was significant. Appearing out of nowhere in a busy supermarket in the middle of the day was probably not a good idea. But the thought of the shock it would give people made her laugh darkly. Laughs were rare at the Outpost, and she felt almost required to indulge in them when there was an opportunity to do so.

"I don't like this," Exidor told her as she dismissed her phone. "Bad enough that you isolated yourself physically. But if you can't even relate to others anymore, how do you expect to do what you've set out to do?"

Half of the time, she tuned out his tantrums and lectures. Responding generally didn't help anything. Nothing would stop his criticism, and defending her actions didn't really make her feel better, even when she could come up with logical explanations for what she was doing. The other half of the time, her need to talk to someone- anyone- overrode her desire to ignore the ghost into submission.

"At this point, the only thing I can hope to accomplish is to stay the hell out of everyone's way." This was not the first time they'd had this particular argument. For a while, Aquarius thought that the more she talked about the utter failure she was at everything, the more comfortable she'd become with herself. So far, that hypothesis was proving to be incorrect. She still felt awful, and she knew she wasn't convincing anyone.

Exidor certainly wasn't convinced. But then, she seldom convinced him of anything he wasn't already thinking. "And? You've stayed out of the way this long. Do you feel accomplished?"

No, she didn't. "Yes," she said instead, flipping open a very worn textbook.

"You're satisfied with your contribution to this cause being the removal of one soldier from the battlefield?"

That was just silly. "I was never a soldier, Exidor. Maybe you were, but I'm just a... a blight." Every time she thought otherwise, she was reminded of the things she had seen. Had caused. Laney and Dana, doomed to a life of battle because of her. Eon and Aries, dead. The clones and the comas and all the people on the Surrounding, and...

Smoke clouded her vision. She waved it away, dropping her textbook in the process. As it hit the floor, it let out a sharp sound. A gunshot, which resonated in the large room, followed closely by a blinding pain at the back of her head.

Aquarius screamed and leaped out of her chair, whirling around to see what was trying to kill her this time. But there was too much smoke, and she couldn't see what was coming. All she could make out were shadows, just out of reach. Occasionally she would get a glimpse of green skin, or sharp teeth, or claws that raked into her flesh and-

There was no way she was just going to stand there and let them devour her. Even if she wasn't useful to anyone, that didn't mean she was ready for her life to end, much less for it to be taken from her. She still couldn't see anything clearly, but that didn't stop her from running away from where the shadows were gathering. Once it felt like she had gotten some distance, she glanced over her shoulder, trying to see if they were following her.

All of a sudden, she was surrounded by something dark and clinging. Screaming again, she turned and fought back, punching where she thought the monster was. None of her blows seemed to have any kind of effect. The more she moved, the tighter it wound around her. It was only a matter of time before it suffocated her, or decided to eat her whole, or, or...

Was there even any point in fighting back? Exidor was right, as he always was. It wasn't like she was contributing anything to anyone. Nor did she expect that to change in this lifetime. So who was she kidding, with her desperate desire to keep living? Nobody deserved to get swallowed whole by a monster- assuming it was merciful and didn't chomp her into bite-sized chunks- but if anybody did, it was her.

She could die right then and there, and nobody would be worse off for it.

If there was a time to surrender to her fate, that was it. So Aquarius surprised herself when she redoubled her efforts, lashing out with a ferocity she didn't know she still possessed. Her hands caught in the strange darkness, but she didn't stop. Again she screamed, more determined than afraid this time, and jabbed downwards with her elbow.

Then she was on the ground, with softness all around her. She twisted and tugged and shoved it away, over and over, until light finally washed over her. All she could hear was the trickle of water in the fountain and her own breathing, heavy and ragged. She was splayed on the floor in the archway between the atrium and the entrance, surrounded by a thick blue curtain that she had pulled off its rings.

If anyone other than Exidor had been there to see that, she probably would have been embarrassed. As it was, she was more confused than anything else. Not at her mistaking a curtain for a monster; that sort of thing was happening more and more, and while she couldn't claim to understand, a part of her was used to it.

Feeling like she had something to fight for, though- that was new. And she wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Then I suggest you give it some thought."

Aquarius looked around, finally spotting her ghost where he'd been before, sitting on the edge of the fountain. She thought about responding, but there was nothing she could think of to say. "I'm going for a run," she announced instead, using a nearby bookcase to pull herself into a standing position.

Exidor's advice was sound, but Aquarius didn't want to take it. If she figured out what she was fighting for, she would only gain something else that would be taken from her. That was more than she could handle. So she left the issue, and the curtain, heaped in a pile on the floor, and walked away. Like her 'monster,' the problem disappeared under the twilight of the Outpost, and she could leave them both behind. At least, for a while.