Archive of Our Own

Most days, working at the research center was kind of pointless. 

Of course, Martyn understood the significance of looking out into space and trying to understand it, but come on–sitting here, for hours on end, just staring at some screens? What was honestly the point?

He knew the answer–there really wasn’t one. It was, for all purposes, a filler job to give them an excuse to work on tech in the basement without anyone bothering them. Martyn was well aware of the weird experiments they did down there. 

Heck, everyone was. 

But everyone who didn’t work in the lab just turned a blind eye. For all his complaining, the “research center” paid him well, especially considering the minimal amount of work he did. 

It was just so boring . 

Martyn sighed, reaching forward and grasping the handle of his steaming mug from his desk. Ideally, he would drink coffee, but his doctor had told him to lay back on the caffeine, so tea it was. 

He sat back in his office chair and brought the mug to his lips, taking a long, slow sip before setting it back down. It was late, probably around two in the morning. Martyn always worked the night shift. 

Sometimes he liked being up so long after dark. The peace and quiet were nice; they gave him a chance to mull over things. To think. 

Other times…well, sometimes the research facility got the slightest bit creepy. Too quiet. Martyn would peek his head out the door and glance in both directions down the long, endless hallways, and see nothing. Even so, it was impossible not to imagine the strange science experiments that occurred in the basement…

It could be unsettling. He wasn't supposed to, but on nights like that, Martyn would lock his door. He'd barricade himself in his room, swearing that every shift in the building was something coming to kill him.

But tonight wasn't one of those nights. No, tonight, Martyn sat with his back to his open door, looking down at the diminishing tea in his cup. The numerous screens displayed in front of him flickered every few moments, the way they always had, and they showed nothing but lost radio waves and sharp static. Not a single thing worth nothing.

No different than every night he'd worked there.

Martyn took another long drink. He sat there for a while before there was a small break in the repetitive, monotone routine. He heard footsteps, quiet things that only got louder as they got closer. 

Martyn swiveled in his chair to look out into the open hall. His heart was beating a little too fast than usual, but foolish relief coursed through him when he saw who it was. Cleo.

“Hey,” he greeted, leaning back into his chair. He hadn't noticed he'd leaned forward.

“Hi,” Cleo responded, bright red hair spinning in waves over her shoulders. She was carrying a small box of pizza. “I brought you this.” 

Cleo worked in the lab downstairs. Martyn didn’t like most of the scientists; they were cranky and always lost in thought. But Cleo…

He had never minded Cleo. 

Of course, he rarely got to see her, given that they worked so far from each other. But when he did, the conversation flowed easily and brightly. It was easy to communicate with someone who wasn't a jerk all the time, he'd found. 

“Thanks.” He stood and opened the box. Cleo often brought him food late into the night, and it was often a pathetic excuse for pizza. 

Just as predicted, two sad, lumpy pieces sat there, but Martyn didn't care as he grabbed both. He hadn't eaten since lunch.  

Cleo smiled. She was dressed in a thick blue sweater, her lab coat thrown over her shoulders and dragging down to her knees. Martyn watched as she moved closer to the screens, eyeing them with vivid curiosity. 

Cleo had always been fascinated by Martyn's job. He wasn't really sure why; his job was incredibly boring compared to hers. But he supposed after a long time of doing the same thing, any sort of break from it was a cause for excitement. Besides, he liked watching her when she looked so focused. 

Martyn plopped back into his chair, spinning it back around so he was sitting next to Cleo as they observed the screens. “How's False?” he asked in between bites, letting his eyes roam over the radio waves on the monitor to his left.

“She's good, still a little jumpy. But that's to be expected given how new she is.” 

“Right,” Martyn replied, still scanning. His eyes caught on something and he frowned, setting his pizza on his desk. 

Cleo didn’t seem to notice. “She’s a little odd, but most of us down there are. She likes to talk about personal projects she had. Today she mentioned some sort of force-field type thing.” 

Martyn hummed to show he was listening even if he wasn’t. His eyes were trained on that screen, watching the little line jump and sputter. That wasn't…

“Yeah. I think she'll get used to it, though. Etho and I have been showing her around, trying to get her accustomed to it all–”

“Be quiet,” Martyn interrupted, his heart leaping to his throat. He could feel the colour drain from his face.  

Cleo glared at him. “ Excuse me? I–”

“I'm serious, Cleo,” Martyn said, hands fumbling with his equipment. He shoved a pair of headphones on and thrust one at Cleo. 

She looked confused, frustration pulling at her eyebrows as she looked at him. 

But after a moment, she sighed, tugging the headset over her frizzy hair. 

Breathing heavily, Martyn nodded to show his thanks. He whipped back to his screens, reached out and fiddled with a few knobs, turning them back and forth. He flipped some switches and pulled his keyboard closer, typing on the keys. His hands were sweaty and shaky.

“What's going on?” Cleo asked, dropping her voice, but Martyn shook his head. 

“I, I don't…” he couldn't figure out what to say. 

Because his boring, mundane, unexciting job? 

Well, it had just picked up on an unknown frequency. 

From space . 

Martyn stuttered in a breath, trying to calm his racing heart. His equipment was humming in his ears, the whine from the jumping needles traveling through his headphones. 

This had never happened before. Never. He exchanged a glance with Cleo, and for one terrifying moment, they locked eyes.

Then they both looked away. Martyn started tuning the knobs again, trying to fix the frequency so they could understand it. His heart was beating widely in his chest, hands slick where his finger pinched on the dials. His screens flickered black for a moment, the routine lapse in vision, but it scared him so badly that he flinched. 

“Martyn,” Cleo said, voice calmer than he would have expected. Her hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed, and he tried his hardest not to sink into the grounding touch. “Focus.” 

Right. 

He had a job to do, and even if this–even if this hadn't happened before, he'd been trained. 

He knew what to do.

Martyn shoved in another deep breath, trying to still shaky hands. He reached up and tugged the mic part of his headset in front of his mouth, clearing his throat while his fingers danced across the controls. 

“Hello,” he said, as deep and authoritative as he could. The practiced speech jumbled in his brain; it had been a long while since he'd even thought about it. “My name is Martyn Littlewood. I am a human at the Listener Research Facility. We picked up on your signal. Can you hear me?” 

He waited for several pained moments, listening to the static, and started over again. “Hello. My name is Martyn–” 

When he finished it the second time, there was a small blip in the static, a tiny noise that Martyn couldn't place. He exchanged a glance with Cleo and launched into his speech again. 

And then, while his lips were stuttering over the last word, a static, marred voice replied, “Hello?”

Martyn and Cleo both froze. 

That wasn't–this wasn't–

Martyn could not breathe. 

“Hello?” the voice said again. It sounded masculine, a slight accent that Martyn couldn't place tarnishing the letters. “Can anybody hear me?”

Martyn opened and closed his mouth several times before any sounds actually came out. “Hi, hi, yes. We can hear you.” 

“Who are you?” Cleo asked, and Martyn jumped. He looked over; she had placed her mic down, too. 

He shot her a look, his anxiety buzzing under his skin like bees. This went against protocol, and she knew it. But she just waved him away and tapped her headphones, as if to say You're the one who gave them to me.

Martyn sighed. The voice on the line said, “My name is Xelqua.” 

Martyn blinked. He had never heard a name like that before. “Where are you from, Xelqua?” The foreign word tripped on his tongue, but he managed to get it out. 

Xelqua was quiet for several moments on the line. “Everywhere.” 

The answer was bold, strong, the voice suddenly echoing in his ears. Martyn jumped and looked at Cleo, whose eyes were wide and unfocused. 

“I–what are you–”

“Are you alive?” Xelqua interrupted, their voice unwavering. 

Martyn shivered. A slice of fear, hot and cold at once, hovered over him. Confusion flooded his mind at the question. “I–what? Yes, we're alive.” 

Xelqua let out some sort of noise, something Martyn couldn't explain. They spoke again, but it was unfiltered and choppy. It took Martyn a second to realise it was a different language. 

He swallowed, the terror an actual presence in his mind. He didn't understand what was going on. Who was he speaking with? An alien? 

He almost asked, but thought better of it. The endless stream of broken chatter kept pouring through his headphones, but he couldn't make out any of it. 

Finally, the last words were clear, and a sinking feeling slipped into his gut. “I have to terminate them.” 

“No, no!” Cleo said, raising her hands as if that would make any difference. “Please, don't do that. Let us–let's talk, yeah?” 

Radio silence.

And then, “You must come here.” 

And before Martyn or Cleo could even move, a large zapping noise filled the air.

And suddenly, they weren't at the research facility. Suddenly, they weren't even on Earth. It was just blackness, racing by them as they stuttered and coughed and tried to scream. Sound lost all presence and there was no meaning to anything. 

Martyn tried to call out, tried to do anything , but it was impossible. He lost track of Cleo in the confusion, lost track of everything, lost track of himself. 

Who was he? He wasn’t–none of this was real. He’d lied to Xelqua, before–he wasn’t alive. He was dead, he was dying, he was alone and screaming and–

And–just as suddenly as everything had started, it stopped, and Martyn collapsed onto a cold white floor. 

He was dimly aware that Cleo was here, too, but he was shaking too hard to try and say anything. His heart lurched painfully in his chest, a rapid back-and-forth movement, and his lungs constricted and spasmed as they tried to take in oxygen. The sputtering breaths did little to help. 

“Hello,” the voice of Xelqua said, loud and echoing, and Martyn flinched. He barely managed to lift his head. 

He stilled when his eyes landed on Xelqua. His brain seemed to stutter, to back track and rewind and try to make sense of what he was seeing. 

The creature before him was unlike anything he had seen in his life.  Large black and purple wings stuck out of his back, and two more pairs of smaller ones protruded from his head. He was dressed in long, flowing robes, and his eyes were glowing the same bright purple as his wings. 

Xelqua’s expression was impossible to read; he looked amused and furious all at once. His feathers drifted lazily in the air around him. 

Martyn tore his gaze away, not understanding, not understanding. His panic was a clawing force, all focused on one thought: find Cleo .

Finally, his gaze landed on her, his stomach pinching painfully. She was slumped on the ground, shaking, the same way he was. He couldn’t see her face.

“Cleo,” Martyn tried to say, but his tongue was awkward and clumsy. The name was difficult to form and he had to clear his throat and try again. “Cleo.”

She shifted, groaning. Her head barely lifted, but for just a split moment their eyes met. 

They were…they were both alive. 

Thank the stars. 

The relief was an explosion through Martyn. Just seeing her, confirming that she was okay.

It helped. He was still terrified and angry and confused and he didn’t understand , but Cleo was…

She was okay. 

The small amount of knowledge gave him the strength to look around. His eyes were tired and didn’t want to focus properly, a result of the dizziness and fatigue crowding his system, but he was able to make most of it out. 

It helped that everything was one colour. The floors, the walls, the ceilings, they were all starch white. Behind the creature, there was a large see-through bit that looked like a window, and beyond that…

Space.

Martyn stared, still on the floor, still shaking. Horror grew in his gut.

They were in space. Somehow, someway, this alien–this being had transported Cleo and him to space . 

And no one knew they were here. 

Martyn’s breathing spasmed and almost gave out. Where were they? How had this–what had–

“You are humans?" Xelqua asked suddenly, interrupting Martyn’s spiraling thoughts, shuffling closer. He cocked his head, the wings sticking out of his skull shifting. Everything about the creature radiated power , something that Martyn had very little of at the moment. 

It was just–this should all be impossible. Sure, his job was to monitor space, but nothing had ever–

This was new . This shouldn’t be happening. 

Xelqua took another step forward and Martyn made some sort of noise in the back of his throat. He shuffled backwards, the fear strong where his heart beat beneath his skin. The disbelief was stronger. Surely this was some sort of nightmare. “I–yes?”

“What are you ?” Cleo asked, and Martyn didn’t want to acknowledge the relief that swam through him at the sound of her gravelly voice.

The creature straightened up to his full height. He wasn’t as tall as Martyn had thought him to be, but that did little to detract from the force radiating out of him.  “I am a Watcher.”

“A Watcher?” Martyn asked, slowly, testing the words on his tongue. His body still felt weak, his mind still scrabbled, but he didn’t like being sprawled in the ground. So he forced himself to stand on shaky limbs, legs tender and sore beneath him. Stars danced across his vision, but somehow he managed to stay upright. 

Xelqua nodded in answer. His glowing, void-like eyes were unnerving, expression blank as he said, “I’ve been tasked with killing you all.” 

For a long moment, the words didn’t quite sink in. They just hovered in the air, waiting for someone to reach out and touch them. 

When Martyn did, he could feel the ever growing horror welling inside his gut. He thought he might be sick. 

This was–this was the end for him, wasn’t it? He was alone in space. No one he knew or loved–besides Cleo–was around. And in front of him was this creature, this being beyond all imagination, planning to murder him. 

No one would ever know what happened to him. They would never–

“W-why?” Cleo managed to say. Both Xelqua and Martyn whipped their heads to look at her; she had gotten to her feet. Her labcoat was abandoned on the floor, blue sweater ripped in some places. 

Martyn looks at his own clothes. His typical green shirt was stained and ripped as well. 

Xelqua took a long time to respond, studying Cleo over like she was an insect. “Because that’s my assignment.”

“Assignment?” Martyn asked, slowly moving closer to Cleo. He thought maybe Xelqua might try and stop him, but the creature just watched with unnatural large eyes as the two connected and clung to each other. 

Having Cleo near him again, in his arms, enabled him to take his first real breath since they’d arrived. 

At least, despite whatever it was they were facing, they were doing it together. Martyn had been wrong. He wasn't alone; he had her. 

“That's my job,” Xelqua said, as if that explained it more. He waved his hand and Martyn flinched against Cleo, but all the creature did was gesture to the space around them. “They gave it to me”

“Who's they?” Cleo asked, slowly. Her voice was shaking a bit, but she covered it well. Maybe if they both pretended this wasn’t happening to them, they would blink and open their eyes back at the center. 

Xelqua scrunched his nose in apparent confusion. “The other Watchers.” 

Martyn could feel his own bewilderment growing inside of him, and one glance at Cleo told him she felt the same. 

Martyn’s thoughts were an unsteady jumble inside his head. He was surprised that Xelqua hadn’t hurt them, scared of what might happen, horrified at the prospect of death. 

He swallowed those thoughts away. He had to focus , had to figure out how to get out of here. “Why–why were you tasked with killing us?” he asked Xelqua after a moment. 

Why didn't you just do it?

Xelqua stiffened at the question. His wings–all three pairs of them–straightened and flicked before calming down again. His eyes surged with a glow and he stared at Martyn. Martyn found himself unable to look away.

That went on for a few minutes, the endless eye contact hypnotising, unfamiliar and horrible. 

“I used to be one of you,” Xelqua finally said, voice echoing and unnatural. 

Martyn and Cleo both recoiled in shock. “You-you were human ?” Cleo asked. Her voice was laced with fear and disbelief. 

Xelqua cast them a glance before turning around suddenly to the window. He walked towards it, steps heavy and echoing in the space around them. 

For a long, long time, Xelqua just stared out into space. Martyn considered making a run for it, but something told him that wouldn't work. Besides, where would he go? They were just surrounded by endless white. 

Fear was steadily creeping up his spine. Here was this–this thing standing right in front of him, this being, and Cleo and him were just…stuck here. 

This was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Anything anybody had seen before. This creature, whoever he was…he had the power and capabilities to kill them easily. Martyn was sure of it. 

And yet…he hadn’t. 

“I was human,” Xelqua suddenly said, not turning around, pulling Martyn from his frantic thoughts. “Until…they took me.” 

“The…Watchers?” Cleo asked, words stuttering a little. Her breathing was unsteady and Martyn tightened his arm around her, letting her lean into him. 

Xelqua nodded. His wings flapped a little. “Yes.” 

Silence for a few moments. Martyn tried to think of something to say. Eventually, he blurted the first word that came to mind. “Why?” 

Xelqua turned to face him, cocking his head, glowing eyes large and ethereal. “They thought I had potential. Potential to prove my abilities.” 

Martyn swallowed, absorbing that information with shaky hands and terror. He glanced at Cleo; he couldn’t seem to stop checking on her. Her eyes were wide, face pale, lips parted slightly as she took it all in. 

Xelqua turned away again, his back to them. “I don't want to do it,” he said after a moment, and Martyn blinked at how real the being’s voice sounded. 

For a moment, he forgot where he was. He forgot the horror that kept building and blinding him, the fear that made it impossible to escape. All he could focus on was that voice, that little admission that sounded so human. 

“You don't have to,” Cleo was quick to say, taking a small step forward. Martyn tried to pull her back, but she shrugged him off, her red hair tumbling behind her. “You don't have to destroy Earth.” 

Martyn swallowed thickly. His stomach felt like boiling lava. He looked to Xelqua, scared of what he might do, but…all he did was sigh. Martyn was struck by how human it sounded, weary and full of pent up emotions. “It's the only way.” 

“The only what for what?” 

“To prove I'm useful!” Xelqua snapped, whipping around. His eyes were brighter than before, wings opening up, and Cleo and Martyn both scrambled backwards. Terror coursed through them as they stared, trembling, frozen. “If I don't do this, if I don't show them how insignificant I think humans are, they'll--they'll–”

His voice cut off sharply, the fight visibly draining out of him. His eyes dimmed until they were hardly glowing at all, and his wings dropped back down to hang limply. 

If Martyn didn't know any better, Xelqua looked– tired. 

He looked human.

“What will they do?” Cleo asked, softly, when too much time had passed. Martyn realised he had stopped shaking. 

Xelqua looked away, endless eyes pinched. “It doesn't matter,” he told them. 

His voice was quieter than Martyn had yet to hear it. 

For some reason, some stupid reason, concern welled inside Martyn. He knew he should have been scared, angry, anything that would have been rational, but somehow, staring at Xelqua slightly shaking before him, all that overwhelmed him was a thick sense of worry. 

Xelqua didn't want to be doing this. He was stuck, afraid of someone with more power than himself. 

It…it was a position Martyn had been in before. One he hated. 

“You guys--you don't matter,” Xelqua said slowly, drawing Martyn from his thoughts. The being paced forward a few steps. “Humans are irrelevant, playthings. Pets. They don't–there's no significance to life on Earth. Nothing.” 

“Is that what they told you?” Martyn couldn't help but ask, listing his head.

Xelqua crossed his arms. It was probably meant to be defiant, but it just served to look like a self-hug. “No.” 

The lie rang loud and clear.

Martyn tried to imagine himself as Xelqua, for just a moment. Uprooted from whatever life you may have had, trapped in an endless space, probably abused and lied to and manipulated. Forced to carry out orders, forced to change your body in ways you couldn't reverse. 

Forced to slaughter the very planet you had come from.

“Why did you send a signal out?” Martyn asked, taking a hesitant step closer. The question had been burning a hole in his mind. 

Xelqua looked away. “I had to know…it's been so long since I've been there. I had to know if people were still there .” 

“We are,” Cleo jumped in, stepping up next to Martyn. “So many of us, we're all there. Please. Don't–don't do this.” 

Xelqua closed his eyes. It was weird, Martyn hadn't realised that the creature had yet to blink. Now, with his eyes gone and hidden from view, it was hard not to picture him as human. No wings, no glowing parts. 

A person, just like him. 

“I don't want to,” Xelqua finally admitted, shoulders slumping, as if the weight of the universe were on his back. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder like someone might appear, then whispered, “I miss Earth.” 

Three words, yet Martyn had never heard such a heartbreaking sentence. They were quiet, fragile, unattainable things and for a moment Martyn wanted to wrap Xelqua in a hug. 

He forced himself to stay still. Part of him wanted to talk, to probe and ask and pry, but he glanced at Cleo and she shook her head. Wait.

That’s right. They were still in unfamiliar territory, still in danger. The threat was not gone; rather, the threat was quietly standing right in front of them. At any moment, Xelqua could snap and kill them. At any moment, he could wipe out the entire planet they called home. 

Destroy all of them. 

So it was better to wait. 

And, after a few moments, the silent inquiry worked. Xelqua opened his mouth and started talking again, like the words were tumbling out of him, like he had been waiting to speak freely. 

Xelqua told them how he was taken. How he had been stargazing one second and then ripped from his world the next. He said that they were cruel , mean . 

“They hurt,” Xelqua told them, hunching down, staring at the ground. “The like to hurt.”

Martyn didn’t need to ask what that meant. He already knew. 

Xelqua continued. He talked about how they trained him to be one of them, changed his body and forced him to take on their abilities, speak their language. They made him destroy countless planets, killing hundreds of thousands of people. 

“Those planets…most of them were just like Earth,” he whispered. 

Until, finally, they directed him back to Earth. 

“They told me to destroy it,” Xelqua said. “They told me if I didn’t…”

He trailed off, but Martyn was smart. He knew how to read between the lines. 

Xelqua cleared his throat and went on. He explained that they gave him a week to work up the courage. He wasn’t supposed to send out a frequency, wasn't supposed to make any contact with humans at all during that time.

But he hadn’t been able to help himself. The temptation, the grief of seeing his home planet after so long away had been too overwhelming. 

Martyn tried to imagine it, but he couldn’t. Even the idea of leaving everyone he knew and loved, and then being tasked, years later, to destroy their entire home…

It made him shudder. 

Xelqua just kept talking. At one point, he turned to pace, his anxious energy making his wings shiver and shake behind him. He spoke of his surprise and guilt and joy when Martyn answered. 

“I should’ve killed you all,” he said, turning to stare at them for a moment. “The second you answered, I should’ve done it.”

“But you didn’t,” Cleo whispered. 

Xelqua shook his head. No, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d used his powers to transport the two people who’d spoken to his cell. 

Martyn froze at that word. “Cell?”

Xelqua nodded. “They keep me here when I don’t have an assignment. It’s just like…a big box. It moves around, follows them.”

Follows them. Like a dog. 

“I could break it,” Xelqua told them, staring at the endless white walls. Martyn looked, too. It was hard to tell where the floor began and ended, so it looked like they were just standing in a void of nothingness. “They made it weak enough so that I could. But they know I won’t.”

It was a form of control. One more way to manipulate, to hurt, to strike fear. One more way to take away Xelqua’s power. 

Martyn could feel something lighting in his chest, something dangerous. He didn’t really know this creature, didn’t really understand him, but he hated the idea of anyone being trapped here. Hated the idea of anyone being forced to do something they didn’t want to, forced to change themselves for someone else’s benefits. 

Xelqua continued, talking over the rising anger of Martyn. “I brought you two here. I don’t even–I’m not even sure why I did it. Maybe I was lonely. I wanted–I wanted to see people again.” His voice stuttered and stopped. After a moment, he picked up in a whisper, “I forgot what humans looked like.” 

Cleo and Martyn looked at each other, their hearts beating in perfect sync, perfect sadness. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Martyn said when it looked like Xelqua had stopped talking. When no one responded, he continued. “You could come back to Earth. Live there.”

Xelqua recoiled at the thought, and immediately Martyn knew he had said the wrong thing. Xelqua’s eyes glowed bright, wide, angry. “Absolutely not!” he yelled, waving his hand. The room sputtered into something darker. “Humans are nothing . I’m not human. I don’t belong with you guys. You’re all–everyone is insignificant. ” He spun on his heel, snapping his fingers. 

The moment the small click of the snap filled the room, Martyn and Cleo flew forward, launching across the room and landing unsteadily on their feet by the window. 

“See that?” Xelqua spat. “See all that expanse? All that wide open space, those stars? Look how small you are compared to them.” 

Martyn swallowed, his pulse drumming in his fingertips. He wanted to turn his head, but he couldn’t. All he could do was look out at the open void, the space that went on and on and on and–and–

And he realised it with a start. He was insignificant. 

Both him and Cleo. Everyone on Earth. When compared to all that space, all those celestial bodies and planets and beings, they were nothing. A tiny speck with no real impact on the grand scheme of things. 

If they died right now, if all of Earth went up in flames and no one made it out, what would it matter? It wouldn’t affect anyone else in the universe. These Watchers, other home planets. 

They wouldn’t care. No one would grieve for them. They wouldn’t be missed because they didn’t mean anything . 

Martyn’s life was feeble, fragile. It could end at any moment. Did he seriously think he had an impact on anything? How self-centered was that? 

No–he was born to die. They all were. That fate, that inevitable moment, awaited each and every one of them, and it meant that no matter what they did, it would never matter at all. 

Martyn was one person in a swarm of millions on Earth. 

And Earth was one planet in a swarm of billions.

They were…nothing. 

They were– stars, they were nothing – 

Xelqua nodded sadly, sparing Martyn a glance as if he shared his pain. “I know. I know.”

Martyn shook his head furiously, falling back a step. He couldn’t seem to stop staring at the window, the stars, all of it. The universe. 

He was so–so small. 

He didn’t mean anything. 

If he screamed as loud as he could, at the top of his lungs, it wouldn’t matter . The only people who would hear him would be Xelqua and Cleo–

Cleo. 

Gasping, Martyn turned to her. He was shaking, stumbling to her side to find out that she was shaking too. 

Both of them clung to each other, alive and breathing and trembling, staring at the big horrible nothingness. 

“We aren’t worth anything,” Xelqua was saying, voice softer than before. He was looking out the window, too. “There’s no point to it all. That’s how we justify destroying all those planets. It’s why we do it. It’s why I have to destroy you , the reason you all have to die. There’s no point to any of it–”

“No,” Cleo interrupted. Martyn clung to her. Distantly, he was aware he was crying. “You’re–this is some magic, or something. You’re manipulating us.” 

Xelqua shook his head, but Martyn could see the glow of his eyes brightening. With it, the fear Martyn felt swirled and plundered. 

They should all just die. They should just–

“Stop!” Cleo yelled, hugging Martyn closer. He was shaking against her, hard, so hard that he couldn’t tell if it was actually her or not. His feet were nothing beneath him. “Stop this!”

Xelqua blinked, looking torn. Martyn tried to look at him through the tears coating his vision, and maybe whatever Xelqua saw in his gaze worked, because a moment later the pressure lifted. 

Martyn collapsed to the floor, Cleo beside him. They were shaking, hard, and neither of them seemed capable of speech.

That was–

“I’m sorry,” Xelqua said. “I was just…I needed you to understand.” He turned away, staring out into space again. “That’s how the Watchers think.” 

Martyn shuddered. He lifted his fingers to his eyes, wiping away scattered tears. He could hardly breathe. Beside him, Cleo was gagging. 

It felt like a long time before either of them were semi-aware again. Even still, Martyn felt his thoughts swirling in a cloud, his skin slick with sweat. He didn’t stand; just stayed slumped on the cold ground and tried to focus on not passing out. 

“You–you guys r-really think that?” Cleo asked Xelqua, weakly. 

The Watcher looked unsure. It was hard not to be furious over what he had done, but in that moment, he looked like a mouse caught in a trap. “They do,” he affirmed. 

“Not you?” Martyn sputtered, latching onto the slip. He lifted his head, a little, to look Xelqua in his glowing eyes. “You don’t think that?”

Xelqua looked back at him for a long time. “I have to kill you,” he finally said, changing the subject, voice hard. 

“No, no,” Cleo shot back, shakily getting to her feet. Her blue sweater was hanging off her shoulder as she extended a hand to Martyn and pulled him up as well. “You just–you can’t just kill us because you think we’re worthless.”

“Humans are worthless,” Xelqua said immediately, as if spouting a fact that had been engrained into him. “They mean nothing.” 

“You–you’re human,” Martyn whispered. “Do you mean nothing?”

Xelqua dropped his gaze. It was an awkward few moments before he finally said, “I’m not human anymore.” 

The words were a low whisper. 

Cleo shook her head. She took a step closer. “You can be.” 

Martyn shot her a look. A sharp taste of alarm ran through him and he tasted iron. “Cleo?”

She waved him away, eyes only focused on Xelqua. “Come back to Earth,” she said, voice hard. “You can be human again. We can show you–humans aren’t worthless."

“What?” Xelqua gasped, taking a step back. His eyes dimmed so much that Martyn could almost see their true colour. “No, no, they’ll–if they found out– no .”

His wings were flitting in fear, and his robes kept swishing around him, as if moved by an invisible wind. 

He looked…scared. 

“Humans are worthless,” he said again, as if comforting himself, as if hearing the words made them real. 

Cleo shook her head. “No. We’re not. Humans are not worthless.”

Martyn nodded slowly. He was still immensely tired, terrified, but now that his brain wasn’t so muddled…he could see what Cleo was doing. “Humans love,” he said, quietly. “They love each other.”

“No,” Xelqua snapped. 

“They give gifts and they cuddle and they dance and cry,” Cleo added. 

“Stop it.” Xelqua covered his ears, shaking. 

“They laugh and scream and they all have family and friends and they’re important .” Martyn took a step closer. Cleo followed his lead. 

“Humans mean something, they’re each unique,” she said. “They all have their own thoughts, their own cultures. Nothing like them exists out there. Nothing .” 

Xelqua shook his head violently, opening his mouth and releasing some sort of noise. Martyn realised after a moment that it was a sob. 

The Watcher was crying. 

“No,” he whimpered, eyes squeezed shut, hands still over his ears. His head wings were flat against his skull. “No, no, no.” 

“Humans aren’t worthless,” Cleo affirmed. “And we deserve to live.” 

Silence. 

The air felt charged. Electric. Martyn exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Cleo, the two of them talking in blinks and head tilts.

He looked back at Xelqua. The Watcher was shaking, staring at the floor with wide, unseeing eyes. It felt like the entire universe was holding its breath. 

And then–Xelqua straightened out. He lifted his face, tired eyes blinking, tear marks trailing down. 

“I–I want to go home,” he sputtered to them, voice low and tired. 

He wanted to go home. Go back to Earth . 

“You can,” Cleo said, back, gently. “You just–you have to take us home, too.” 

“Wait,” Martyn rushed to say. All eyes turned to him, and for a moment, he froze. But he forced himself to continue. “You have to promise not to destroy us,” he told Xelqua. “Swear it.”

“I swear.” The determination, the hardness to the Watcher’s eyes…it was impossible to miss. 

And maybe it was foolish, but–Martyn kind of believed him. 

“You also might need to change,” Cleo murmured after a moment. “Do you–do you have any clothes?”

Xelqua blinked. He looked down at his robes, and then to Martyn’s and Cleo’s clothing, as if he hadn’t noticed any difference between them. Slowly, he lifted his eyes and looked around his cell.

There honestly was…nothing. Just whiteness, stretching into oblivion, and the single window staring out. No material possessions, and definitely no change of clothes. 

But Xelqua nodded despite all that. He took a deep, trembling breath and lifted his hands. Snapped. 

A blinding purple light filled the room. Martyn covered his eyes, wincing, struggling to adjust to it. 

When he looked again, his jaw dropped. Cleo went still beside him. 

Because standing there, in front of them, was Xelqua. But it wasn’t him. 

No, this man was just that–a man . He had shaggy brown hair and large, deep eyes. He was still short, still shaking, but instead of robes he wore a large red sweater and black pants. His wings had disappeared.

“You look…” Cleo started, then trailed off. 

Xelqua’s cheeks flushed, and the pure humanness of it was stunning. “This is…what I looked like. Before.” 

Before . What a tired word. 

“It’s lovely,” Martyn assured. He wanted to ask how Xelqua had managed that, how he had hidden his wings away, but he refrained. “Shall we get out of here?” 

Xelqua hesitated. “I need–they’re going to notice me escape. W-with the amount of power I have to use to get out of the prison, it’ll be impossible for them to miss it.” His voice darkened the slightest bit as he added, “They made sure of that.”

Cleo frowned. “Can they track you?”

Xelqua shook his head. “No.” He didn’t sound very sure. 

Martyn and Cleo looked at each other. The amount of trouble they could get into for doing this…if the Watchers somehow tracked Xelqua, the world as they knew it would literally end. 

They could be killing millions of people. 

“We’ll–we’ll make it so they can’t access Earth,” Cleo said. She sounded somewhat desperate. 

“How?” Martyn and Xelqua asked at the same time. Helpless coated each syllable.  

Cleo was silent for a long time. She turned to pace, walking past her lab coat several times before she paused and stared at it. “False.”

“What?” Martyn asked. “What about her?”

“She was…Remember? False was telling me about this force field design she had. She said it could be used for, like, the next drone we sent into space. I think…on a larger scale, it might keep the Watchers out.” 

“This is insane,” Martyn told her, waving his arms. “We can’t just risk the entire population of our planet on an I think .” 

“We won’t!” Cleo snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest. The glare she sent towards Martyn was a vicious thing, the expression she always gave him when they fought. Privately, it reminded Martyn of a snake. “We test it out first. Stay in contact with Xelqua.” She turned to the now human-looking Watcher. “How long until they check up on you?”

Xelqua hesitated. “About a week.”

“Then we have a week to do this,” Cleo said. She turned her eyes on Martyn, gaze softening when she saw his rigid stance. 

That was another thing that always came when they fought. She got angry, but just as quickly she backtracked. 

Slowly, Cleo stepped closer, closer, until she was standing right in front of Martyn. He squeezed his eyes shut as she brushed the knuckles on his hand. “Please.” 

He didn’t open his eyes for a long time. 

But finally he succumbed to fate and nodded, opening them to see Cleo’s tired but smiling widely, teeth exposed. 

And honestly…if the world ended right then, seeing that expression might have made everything worth it. 

“You have to send us back to Earth,” Martyn told Xelqua. “So we can test this force field and let you know when it’s safe to come.” 

The Watcher looked torn. “How can I trust you?”

“Because the trust has to be mutual,” Cleo explained. “If we don’t do this, you could blow us sky high at any moment.”

Martyn shivered while Xelqua thought on this. Finally, the Watcher nodded. “Okay.”

And with a snap of his fingers, Martyn’s world went dark. 

*****

Cleo worked tirelessly on the barrier. All hours of the day, she remained in the basement lab of the research center, only coming out when Martyn practically dragged her. Even then, she didn’t always relent. 

It was a tough project, harder than anything she had done before. Eventually, they had to clue False in on what they were doing in order to gain access to her plans. 

They were…complicated, to say the least. 

Martyn didn’t really understand a lot of what Cleo and Fase were doing. Instead of helping with the actual building part, he used his security skills to maintain access with Xelqua throughout the whole week. 

They ran countless tests. The actual gadget was smaller than Martyn would have imagined; it could easily fit into a car. But Cleo and False both assured him it would work. 

It was just…a work in progress. 

By the end of the first few days, Martyn was starting to get a little worried. Everytime they tested the barrier, something went wrong, and Xelqua was able to slip through and make contact. They were missing something, and the clock was running out. 

Ultimately, it was thanks to the new intern, Scar, that they were able to do it in the first place. He had a strange obsession with star wars, and something about what he was ranting to Cleo about finally made the last piece click for her. 

And the next time they tested it…

The machine worked. 

There were loud exclaims of relief. Hugs, maybe even a few tears of relief. The joy was a physical thing that settled on all of their shoulders. 

They shut the machine off and delivered the news to Xelqua. His voice was choked on the line, and hearing that firsthand made it all worth it to Martyn. 

And then–it was time for Xelqua to rejoin them. 

He came on the Tuesday after, snapping his fingers and appearing with a bright flash of purple light in the field they had selected. 

Martyn had never seen someone break down so fast. 

“The sun, the sun,” he kept saying, sobbing as he stared at the sunset.

Martyn had frowned, reeling from the experience as he lifted his head to the sky, too. The sun…it was something they all took for granted everyday. It was strange seeing Xelqua so moved by surroundings that had become so dull. 

Eventually, they managed to calm him down. They all sat in the grass, watching the clouds drift, feeling safe and content and warm for what felt like the first time in a while. 

They talked for a little. Told some stories. Mostly they just listened to the sounds of the wind, the birds, the bugs. It was a beautiful melody; one Martyn hadn’t noticed before. 

“Xelqua,” Martyn eventually said, about to ask him something or another, but the Watcher suddenly shook his head. 

“No. It’s not Xelqua.” 

Cleo sat up, blinked. “It’s not? Then what is it?”

“When…when they got me, they changed my name.” Xelqua’s voice was choked and he kept his eyes pointed towards the sky. “I used to be…my name is actually G-Grian.”

He said the word like it was sacred, tongue slipping over the syllables. Martyn tried it out, then Cleo. 

They both grinned at each other. It felt like a much more fitting name than Xelqua . 

“Well, then, Grian,” Cleo started, flashing Martyn that glorious smile he loved so much. 

Martyn returned the expression and shifted it to Xelqua, who grinned timidly back. He finished Cleo’s sentence. 

“Welcome home.”