There was a point at which she thought she might have been in love with him.

Mallory carefully curated her life. The right shoes, the right words, the right actions. She wasn’t secretive about it, and even understood on some level she was doing it to combat the things around her that she couldn’t control. The invasion was its own disaster, an upheaval of every system she knew, but she had been the same meticulous person before it as well.

She was capable of fun and spontaneity, it was just these things had their place and time. Relationships—romantic, friendly, familial—were their own kind of messy. They annoyed her, cut into time she had set aside for herself, but there were some people that were worth that investment. There were some things that were worth giving up a little bit of order for. Being without productivity or purpose made her restless, maybe even careless, but sometimes there was shining moment, with certain people, that she was able to put all that aside and just be.

Just waste some time.

So, yes, there was a brief time that she thought maybe she was in love. It had happened before, probably would happen again. If circumstances ever let her actually meet anyone again. The measurable time one spends ‘in love’ is agreeable, touching on the extraordinary. Everything is terrific, briefly.

Her problem was the time that came after that, when the novelty faded and slid from euphoria back into normalcy. The glowcooled. A few weeks or months ago, this person was perfect, unassailable, faultless, and then they have the audacity to just be a person again. The holes in their socks were not cute, their taste in music and food was all wrong, they snored. For Mallory, the illusion shattering was always intolerable, and every moment still within its dulled presence was a waste of her time again.

Wildwing was an entirely different experience.

It was difficult to tell who Wildwing was at any given time, because he couldn’t even decide that for himself. He ran on conflicting narratives that confused him endlessly, and it made him unpredictable in a way that she couldn’t anticipate, and thus, couldn’t tolerate.

Would he be the morose, quiet, lethargic Wildwing that buckled under the weight of burdens he didn’t want?

Would he be the judgmental, aloof, shell of a person that he wore when giving orders?

Would he be the small sliver remaining from before she had even known him, buried under the silt and debris of the other personas, that occasionally glimmered? Would he actually be in good humor for more than ten minutes, for more than a day, before he would tarnish and forget?

It was the diplomatic, disinterested Wildwing that took the message she was done, and gave her a curt nod in response. No argument, no defense, and not an attempt to appeal or negotiate. He didn’t even hold it against her, never acted with an ounce of jealousy when her attention went to other things, and treated her with the same respect he treated everyone else. It was as if he had simply flipped a switch somewhere, at her request, and she could not help but be a little insulted that it was so easy for him.

Mallory did not like that she had been the one to break it off, and yet was the one who appeared most affected by it. She hated that she couldn’t be angry about it. She wanted so desperately that he had made it messy, that he hadn’t been reasonable, that he had shown even the slightest hint that it bothered him, because that would have made it so much easier for her to justify the loss.

She wandered the Pond’s hallways, and this regret followed her as she went. The corridors lit before her as she walked, and turned dark after she passed, giving the illusion that the world was just her and an infinite empty hallway.

She stood for a moment, at the juncture of hallways, and was only half-surprised at where she had wandered while pacing aimlessly. Of course. She took a turn, bracing herself inwardly, found the door controls, and heard the singsong chime on the other side that announced her. There was no answer, or even a noise that suggested movement. She glanced over her shoulder out of habit, as if there were any possibility that she wouldn’t have known if she were followed.

She curled her hand into a fist and nonchalantly smashed at the panel. The buttons crumpled easily, and the door opened in surrender. It was not the most elegant of lock picks, but it was a workaround that she was especially proud of discovering. If nothing else, she was doing everyone a favor, by demonstrating how sorely it needed fixing.

She leaned into the open doorway and pretended at innocence. “Hey, your door’s open.”

“Strange,” Wildwing answered, glaring up at her from the floor. He was seated with his back against the wall, right next to the doorway, where she guessed he had collapsed a few hours earlier, and had not moved.

She leaned back out, peering at the broken controls as if she had seen them for the first time. “Malfunctioning, I guess, you should have someone look at that.”

Wildwing looked rather unconvinced, but did not stand, or complain, or scold. Only sat with his back to the wall, his hands in his lap, and waited for her to explain her visit.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked, leaning against the door frame. It sounded embarrassing to her ears even as she said it. She was the last person that should have asked.

“Absolutely not,” Wildwing said.

“Too bad,” she sat down next to him.

He didn’t answer, but he also didn’t tell her to leave, and she leaned her back against the wall, crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and waited. She could be stubborn too, if that’s what it came to.

“The Mask is gone,” he said. “Survived seven hundred years in a cave, and it’s just gone. I don’t even know what he did with the pieces.”

She did not know how to respond, because he was right to be upset about it,.

“It was quite possibly the most important piece of cultural heritage our planet ever made,” he mused.

“It’s replaceable,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “Sure, there was nothing like it in the known galaxy, but we can slap something together with a couple bricks and some wire.”

“Shut up,” she punched his shoulder. A quick, light jab. “Tanya’s smarter than anyone else who’s tried, anyway. She can do it, just give her some time.”

“I don’t know if we have time,” he said, absently rubbing the spot.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, struggling to find the right words. She was not adept with language. “It’s just a thing. It was an important thing, and it hurts to lose it. But I’d prefer to have lost a thing over a person.” She concluded, and felt her face hot, refusing to make eye contact as she said it.

He did not say anything, either, apparently just as baffled. She was not supposed to say things like that. It was out of line. She was the one who had made it out of line.

“Your photocopy may have found something,” she said, trying desperately to change the subject.

Wildwing made a noise of disapproval. “Perhaps the most irritating part of this whole thing is the inventive nicknames.”

“It's probably what Wraith was reading from when you interrupted him. He agreed to try to work it out as best he could.”

Wildwing nodded, but was not moved from melancholy. “He won’t do it in time.”

She sighed and continued to stare down the far wall alongside him. “I know.”