Confidant.



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Working Title: Confidant



He suspected she was pissed at him. Something about the way her skin tensed ever so slightly just below her crystal clear blue eyes, and that carefully casual but intent stance. Best friends - as they had once been - knew these things of each other.

"Uh, Marc, that's your fourth drink in the thirty minutes since we've been here, don't you think you ought to ease up a little? And while we're at it, much though I like spending time with you, why did you make me drive halfway across town to meet you - here of all places? Surely not for small talk or 'remember whens.'"

There it was. The Calm Tone. Even when shouted in his ear to overpower the music, dead calm. Jane was definitely pissed. And Jane was not a person to have pissed at you - he smiled slightly, remembering the many times he'd seen various men (deservedly) verbally cut to shreds because they'd foolishly dared to underestimate her or overestimate themselves. It was a mistake they would make only once: lessons learnt hard are lessons learnt well.

He gave up trying to be fascinated by the different patterns of water his glass had distilled from the humid atmosphere and left on the bar when he raised it. Didn't work anyway; the terrifying truth was still lit up on a billboard in his mind. We are not alone (the great man Sagan would have been gratified to hear that) but some neighbours do not wish us well. He had tried to dismiss last night's visit as another of the many bizarre dreams he'd been having the last few months. In one of his pockets lay proof that it was more real. The communicator seemed at that moment to feel heavier as if lending it's own weight to his thoughts.

He'd awoken that morning and stared at the ceiling thinking his dream might have made a good B-grade sci-fi screenplay, albeit a dark one: fledgling race oblivious to the larger truth gets stomped on like a bug on pavement due a territorial conflict. Then he turned his head to look at the bedside clock and froze when he saw the very real obsidian-like communication device they had left him should he accept.

They had told him not to breathe a word: say nothing, do nothing. 'If after the three days have elapsed and you have not accepted, the device will crumble to dust, your memories of our visit will vanish and we will bother you no further.' That they could control his very memories bothered him only slightly less than the truth they had told him.

They had told him not to breathe a word to any other but this truth was too overwhelming to contain. It was selfish of him to impose on Jane like this but no-one else knew him this well, hell no-one else would believe him.