“Ah, home sweet home.” The moment we arrived back at Lauren’s house in her hometown of Farncombe, she left her suitcase standing next to the dining table and plopped herself down, face first, onto her sofa.

“Did you miss it that much?” I chuckled. “It looked like you were way less enthusiastic about returning here when we came back from space compared to now.”

“That’s because now this is also your place, it’s our home. A place of comfort for the both of us.” She turned around to look at me with a big smile. I had to admit, it made me blush up immediately. “Plus, I love cuddling up more when it’s cold outside as opposed to when it’s warm.”

“I think I agree with that.” I nodded and dropped my stuff off too before I sat down next to Lauren.

A couple of seconds later, dusty zoomed downstairs to give Lauren an updated report about its cleaning activities. It made it seem like the little guy was also very happy to see us, and who knows, perhaps it was.

On that first day back, we spent pretty much the rest of it just resting right there in the comfy sofa, just cuddling up beneath a blanket in front of the fireplace, just as Lauren was just talking about.

For the next couple of days we just slowly started preparing for the dinner we would host for our neighbors, planning the meal and just getting a little more decoration so the house didn’t seem too empty. Things went smoothly, but there was one thing I was starting to get a little bit nervous about.

“Is something bothering you, Luna? You’ve been walking around kind of antsy the entire day.” Of course Lauren had noticed with her great people’s skills.

“Well… aren’t you getting a little bit concerned about Ellie? We’ve not heard from her in quite a while.”

“Hmm.” Lauren hummed and gave me a nod. “I was actually thinking about that as well. I know she wanted to leave us alone for our holiday but I had expected her to already have sent us a message of sorts when we got back.

“Is there maybe a way in which we could contact her?”

"Mhmm. Let me see.” She put away some of the groceries we’d just gotten down at the store and then grabbed her holostick. “I was thinking about sending a message back to the ID from which she had called before. But I was a bit afraid that probably wasn’t the safest thing to do considering the situation.”

“Right, maybe there’s a reason why she hasn’t contacted us yet.”

“Never underestimate military intelligence agencies.” Lauren nodded. “So I’m still hesitant to contact her, we don’t want to risk our lives and Ellie’s either.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point.” I replied. “It sucks but I guess we will have to wait.”

“I think that’s for the better, yes.” Lauren agreed and put her holostick back down. “After all, we aren’t as smart as her by a long shot. When it comes to things like this, it’s best to let the expert handle it. If anything is going on up there in space, there’s not much we can do about it in any case. That doesn’t take away the fact that I hope everything is going fine and dandy, obviously.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded in return. “I hope so too.”

We didn’t hear anything from Ellie that evening either and as the day rolled over into the next one, the radio silence was upheld. Lauren reassured me to just keep calm and concentrate on dinner we were having with Martha and Roland that evening. But even as we were sitting down to have our homemade food together with our neighbour, there was always this little peck of doubt nibbling away at the back of my mind. Luckily our lovely elderly couple didn’t really notice that and they had really enjoyed the food we had made for them. At least that made me happy. Lauren and I had gone with some Japanese inspiration and had made tempura platter together with other greens and some home-made miso soup. As for the dessert, which was mainly made by Lauren, she had opted for a chocolate cake. Apparently quite the human classic that you couldn’t really go wrong by, and she was proven correct in that statement.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

We said goodbye to the great pair and promised them we would come and say our final goodbyes before we headed off to the HQ in a couple of days. Both of them already claiming that they would miss us dearly, and to be honest, I really believed them when they said that.

As our dinner was now behind us, we finished the evening with a short cleanup. Which was necessary as making food with any kind of better quickly left quite the mess behind. We were just about ready cleaning the kitchen countertop when Lauren’s holostick started ringing.

She immediately threw her kitchen towel to the side and ran over, opening the call as soon as she got to it. The way she rushed over meant that the call could only be coming from one person.

“Ellie? Is everything alright?” Her answer as she took the call confirmed my suspicion.

“Yes, Commander, I am.” Ellie replied.

“Thank the Goddess, we were getting quite worried.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Ellie apologized. “Lately there’s been a lot of techs on board and I didn’t want to risk any outgoing communications.”

I quickly walked over to the holo stick too to chat with our companion. “Did they do anything or was it just connected to the rest of the retrofit?”

“Mostly.” Ellie’s avatar nodded. “Some of them did come to take a look at my software for some routine checks, just to make sure I could handle the load. They all left quite happily in my impression.”

“Good to hear.” Lauren sighed a sigh of relief. “We were debating on whether or not to contact you, we decided not to just in case it would endanger you.”

“I had blocked the communications from your holostick to the ship just to make sure, but I do really appreciate the thought.”

“Wow.” Lauren crossed her arms and squinted her eyes just a bit.

“I suppose I should’ve left you a message to say I did so. Sorry Commander.”

“We’ll speak about this later.”

If it was in Ellie’s power to gulp, I’m sure she would have as Lauren was looking at the holo stick quite sternly right now. Ellie’s avatar did start shifting her weight from one leg to the other though, so it was obvious she was getting nervous.

That was, at least, until the corners of Lauren’s lips raised into a smile again. “I’m just pulling your leg, Ellie. I understand and I’m just happy that you are safe.”

Ellie’s avatar wiped the simulated sweat off her forehead. “You had me there, Commander.”

“You even had me convinced.” I admitted.

Lauren just continued smiling. “Well, now that you are here, would you like to watch the television together with us? We are just about finishing cleanup from our dinner.”

“And in the meantime we can catch up and tell you about our holiday!” I added.

“That sounds lovely to me, if I’m not imposing.”

“We are the ones who invited you, I’m sure that means it’s fine with us.” Lauren laughed and went back over to the kitchen towel she’d thrown to the side.

“Definitely.” I smiled at Ellie, taking a hold of the holo stick, bringing her over to the kitchen to get the last things cleaned up.

What was said, was done, we finished our cleanup and installed ourselves in the living room, turning on the television for some background noise rather than any substantial viewing material after which we started to catch up with each other.

Ellie told us about the continuous buildup of spaceships and patrols in the solar system and about some little changes in our own ship for that matter. It seemed like the bridge also got quite the security upgrade with computer controlled sentry guns. Similar ones had been installed in the hallways. Not visible during normal operations but they would fold out in cases of emergency. They were also provided by manual overrides in cases Ellie was locked out of the system. This meant that someone had to manually operate them with their holo stick. But it was still better than being in the line of fire themselves.

We recounted our tales on our lovely island getaway, showing her the pictures we had taken there so she could also picture the scenes more vividly.

“Are you not sad that you couldn’t join us, Ellie?” I asked after showing all the pictures I had taken.

“Not really.” She replied. “I’m really happy for the three of you that you enjoyed your holiday. As your friend I would wish nothing more than that. You have already blessed me plenty of times with your attention. And we will have plenty of time together in the future too. If luck will permit that.”

“And if I have something to say about it too.” Lauren smiled. “I’ve worked hard to get my ship and I am determined to keep it. And if in some forsaken timeline they take her away from me. I’ll transfer Ellie in some kind of potato computer or something like that.”

“I prefer my home to be less starchy.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Ellie.” Lauren replied to which Ellie’s avatar crossed her arms and pouted. It was really nice to see Ellie return to us once more. I really hoped that was a good omen. But only the future could tell if it was or not.