Adan was sitting in the main room watching the DVD the two had turned on earlier to try and distract themselves from their current problems for at least a little while. He had just finished his drink and set it aside, his eyes moving to the clock. Even if time didn’t have any real meaning anymore, it was a comfort to at least know what time it would be, in the old version of the world. But as he saw the digital readout changing from 12:30 to 12:31, he adopted a worried expression.

Having finished her drink earlier, Aura offered to go grab them each a new one from the pantry. But that had been just before midnight. Adan swallowed and hit pause before pushing himself up from the sofa.

Entering the pantry a minute later, he called to her. “Aura? You still in here? How long can it take to grab a couple of drinks?” he asked loudly in the direction of the expanse of high shelves that lined the room.

Receiving no response, he took a breath and began moving down the first aisle and then the second. It felt like nearly five minutes had passed before he made the turn that led him to where she was, still laying unconscious atop a sack of stored foods.

“Aura!” he stated her name with more worry as he rushed to her side, squatting down to gently shake her.

It took a few panicked moments before she finally began to stir and climb back into consciousness. “Adan?” she murmured as her light blue eyes slowly opened.

“Who else?” he replied with relief, “and what happened? You've been gone for over half an hour, and... I know you don’t sleep much but...”

“Do you remember it?”

Adan looked down at that statement, perplexed. “Did you hit your head? Remember what?”

“The shadow” she whispered.

“What? Wasn’t that a movie from the nineties or something? Are you OK?” he asked as he helped her to her feet.

“The shadow. The one you saw last night. You said it was probably just a flickering light” she stumbled through her explanation, as her brain was still feeling a bit muddled right then.

“OK, so you did hit your head?” he stated as he reached up to try and tilt her head forward to assess the damage.

“No, dammit. I’m talking about what happened last night!” she told him in frustration.

“What?” he looked down at her warily. “You remember last night now? I mean, the missing part of it?”

“Yeah” she admitted with a shuddering breath as she sadly looked up into his eyes. “And I’m guessing you still don’t?”

He was at a loss for what he should say there. She looked so heartbroken by the fact that he didn’t seem to remember what she now did. Which just happened to be the most significant moment of the shared portion of their lives.

“Well, maybe it’ll come back to me too” he decided on. “Temporary short term memory loss is a thing, right?”

She then looked down sadly. “Yeah, I guess it is. I just really hoped you would...” she then shook her head to compose herself. “And there’s still the question of what even caused it. I mean, pretty sure brain cancer isn’t a contagious thing, right?”

“Now you think you have brain cancer?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Well, it would make sense, with the forgetting, remembering, fainting... But like I said, it’s highly doubtful we’d both get it at the same time. Unless they did something else to us” she added in a mumble.

“Oh, we’re back to the alien conspiracies now” he said with a slightly sarcastic tone.

“They’re not conspiracies when we know there really are aliens, Adan” she told him pointedly.

He just sighed. “I think we both might need some sleep right about now. Playing 'what if' is kind of exhausting after a while.”

“But what about the shadow?” she asked a moment after he started leading her back out of the pantry.

“The one I said was probably a flickering light?” he stated as he looked back down at her.

“Are you remembering that now?” Aura asked hopefully.

“You just said that, like a minute ago” he pointed out.

“But that was the thing, Adan” she pressed as they neared the bedroom door.

“What was what thing again?”

She just whimpered in frustration. “This would be a hell of a lot easier if you actually remembered too!”

“Trust me, I know!” he returned.

“Fucking hell” she mumbled as she stepped into the bedroom. “Just... fuck!” she exclaimed with further frustration as she plopped down at the foot of the bed. Adan couldn’t help a tiny smirk as he closed the door behind them. Catching his expression she looked back up at him. “What the fuck are you smirking about?”

“Was just wondering if the thing you just said before that was like, an order.”

“Jokes, Adan? You still got jokes?” she complained.

“I’m sorry, Aura” he stated, actually sounding sincere as he moved to take a seat next to her. “I guess I just gotta laugh, cause otherwise...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Otherwise you’d be as much of a wreck as me?” she finished for him.

“At least you can remember it. And believe me, I wish to hell I could too.” He then placed a hand gently over her knee. “So tell me what it was actually like. I do wanna know” he finished softly.

“What it was like?” she asked with a shake of her head up at him.

“Well, what led to it, of course, but also,” a pause, “if it was what you wanted it to be. I guess I’d like to know that too.”

“It was you, making love to me. Of course it was what I wanted it to be” her voice cracked as she spoke. He just smiled over at her and moved to kiss her lips again, for what felt like the first time, at least for him.

As Adan pointed out, a good night’s sleep was something the two of them could probably both use right then. So it didn’t take long before they agreed to at least give that a try. Though this time they would try sleeping, just sleeping, in a real bed. Though the two of them still lay close together as they moved back against the pillows, Adan on his side next to where she lay on her back, with his arm draped loosely over her waist.

Their heads shared a pillow as he closed his eyes and made the attempt at sleep. His warm breath tickled her ear as he gave her a little squeeze and went about the normal human’s nightly ritual of actually trying to sleep. Though that tradition was one that Aura herself had never been all that good at, even before this new world they now were residing in.

While he tried to sleep, she stared at the ceiling in the near darkness of only the security lights once again. Her brain was always going a million miles a minute due to all the regular anxieties of the world, let alone all the new ones they were now dealing with. And a racing mind was not a sleeping mind, and she was still a long way from figuring out how to slow it enough to actually get any of that much needed sleep.

Though he hid his worries a lot better than she ever did, it still took Adan nearly an hour before he finally started to drift off to sleep himself. And the moment he seemed to start to succumb to slumber, Aura lost her fight against her own worries. Almost as though she feared being awake while he was asleep was just a little too similar to being alone.

“OK so now I remember last night, but I still don’t get why the hell I passed out in the pantry tonight. And you said I was in there for like half an hour? I only remember being in there for like five minutes before you were shaking me awake. And I’m not the fainting type. And it just doesn’t...”

Adan sighed as her voice jarred him back to the consciousness he had just released his own hold on, “so, trouble sleeping again?” he stated the obvious as he moved closer and gave her another squeeze, though still didn’t open his eyes again just yet.

“How are you still so calm?” she pleaded with him. “I told you about the shadow, flickering light, whatever. And now I’m missing whole half hours, and passing out, and...”

He finally opened his eyes and looked over at where she had now turned her head to give him a pleading expression.

“Should I start kissing you again? Would that help?”

“Adan.”

He sighed again as he finally pushed himself back up into a sitting position, leaning back against the headboard, as she sat up and leaned back next to him as well.

“Neither of us know what’s really going on, and I think just sitting here driving ourselves nuts trying to figure out the things we can’t figure out... It just...” he sighed again with a defeated shrug.

“What is that? The Serenity Prayer? Did you go to rehab without telling me? Now you’re all about accepting the things we can’t change, or what?” she complained as she looked away.

“If we stayed up all night, inventing a million theories about everything that we honestly don’t understand at all, is that gonna make us feel any better? Honestly?” he attempted.

“So, you’re OK with all this weirdness?” she asked with disbelief.

“There are a few shades of gray between being OK with stuff and letting yourself stay up all night panicking about it. Isn’t there?” he suggested softly.

“Not for me” she whispered as she looked away from him again.

Adan let out a sad, heavy sigh as he turned his eyes to the ceiling and tried his best to think of anything at all he could say right then. “God, Aura, I wish I knew what I could do or say to make you stop feeling the way you feel all the time. Especially now. I just don’t” he said softly, his tone full of regret that he didn’t honestly know how to help solve any of this for her.

She then looked over at him again, as he hopelessly stared at the ceiling above their bed. “Is that what you meant, when you said I would find out that you’re not perfect?”

He finally turned his eyes back to her, “I guess it probably is” he whispered as he reached up to touch her hair.

“Nobody’s ever been able to fix this for me, Adan. Why do you think you should be able to?”

“Cause I just want to, so badly. I just want, so much, for you to finally be able to be happy for even a moment and...”

She let out another sound that was somewhere between a cry and a laugh as she leaned over and covered his mouth with hers once again.