They ordered almost one of each of the restaurant’s entrees and waited for the food to arrive, mingling with each other in the kitchen. Rosalind tried to observe how Lt. Anderson interacted with everyone else, but there wasn’t much to see. He was withdrawn from the conversations physically, leaning back on the kitchen counter and not attempting to speak a word. Instead, it looked to Rosalind like he was studying the room, just as she was. She wanted to know why he was studying the room but catalogued her thought until the time when she could attempt to ask him to answer it. At present she had more important problems, the first was she wanted to drink some water and didn’t know where to get it and the second one was where was the restroom. Both of these questions could easily be answered by Lt. Anderson, but she wasn’t keen on talking to him. Instead, she hoped the other pilots had been to this house previously and knew the basics, at least she figured Lt. Martinez had.

             Rosalind who felt that she could wait no longer turned to the pilot to the left of her, Lt. Daniels and decided to ask her, her most desired questions.

            “Um, Lt. Daniels?”

            “Yes, Rosalind?”

            “Do you know where I can get water?” Rosalind asked while pointing at her cup.

            “Oh sure! Lt. Anderson usually gets it from the refrigerator is that okay with you?”

            “Yeah, that’s perfectly fine. Thank you.”

            ‘That went well, considering,’ thought Rosalind. Lt. Daniels had always seemed to be disapproving in how Rosalind treated Lt. Anderson and showed it on her face. ‘Maybe she had a thing for him or something?’

            Rosalind left her spot to grab water from the refrigerator, as she was about to press the glass into the dispenser, a shadow appeared over her and spoke quietly, “Do you want ice?” It was Lt. Anderson’s voice.

            “No thank you, this is fine.”

            “Alright. Do you need anything else?”

             Rosalind thought about whether she should ask her second most important question for the night, but since she hadn’t felt the need to use the restroom yet, she figured at least one of the pilots might reveal the hidden restroom, when they go to use it. 

            “No, I’m okay.”

            Lt. Anderson returned to his spot, for a second before leaving with Lt. Martinez to grab the food that had arrived at the front door. There was no space for anything else on the kitchen table, so everyone followed the smell of food to the dining room table and took a seat as, Lt. Martinez grabbed plates and silverware for everyone. The food was carefully laid out by Lt. Anderson and as soon as he and Lt. Martinez were seated, they motioned for everyone to dig in and they did. Everyone sampled a little bit of everything. Rosalind’s plate was covered with small pieces of lasagna, spaghetti, fettuccine alfredo, mushroom ravioli, and chicken parmesan. She refrained from trying the eggplant parmesan because she was weary of trying something she had never tried before. But after eating all that she had put on to her plate and finding it all amazing, she thought perhaps she should have tried the eggplant parmesan.

            ‘There’s always a next time,’ Rosalind thought to herself while exhaling carefully after she settled back into her seat with her back straight to make room for her distended stomach. A conversation caught Rosalind’s ears as she was quietly burping at her end of the table.

            “I don’t want to leave this base. It feels like I’ll be leaving my family. I mean we spent so much time together while we were in our comas,” Lt. Daniels whined.

            “Yes, I understand how you feel, but our base needs us. Besides I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” Lt. Kapadia replied with a smile.

            “I think so, too,” Lt. Randolph chimed in with an arm wrapping around Lt. Martinez’s neck. He drew him in and rustled his hair. He was the oldest pilot of the group, at the prime age of 30. Lt. Anderson and the other pilots were 26 or younger, but Lt. Randolph had no problem fitting in and the other pilots made plenty of room for him in their gang. Rosalind enjoyed watching how the pilots interacted with each other, but she felt like an outsider. This particular feeling wasn’t new to her as she seemed to find herself on the outside of groups and even worse cast out, her parents and the mecha scientist group on the main base being the top two examples.

            A yawn escaped Rosalind as the pilots’ conversations ran on. She was tired and the pleasant background noise was putting her to sleep. Lt. Martinez noticed her yawn and decided that it was time to move on to the next event for the evening.

            “Okay, fellas let’s clear this dining table and then get to movie watching!”

            One by one each pilot stood up with their plate and utensils and walked them over towards the kitchen. Rosalind followed their example and lightly rinsed the plate and utensils with water, then stacked it in the dishwasher. They all then grabbed their cups and refilled them with their drink of choice and followed after Lt. Martinez into the living room where there was a huge couch and four additional recliners surrounding a large screen tv. Lt. Martinez, Kapadia, and Randolph took a seat in a recliner, while the rest chose the couch. At no surprise to Rosalind, Lt. Daniels was eagerly seated next to Lt. Anderson and Lt. Miller had chosen a seat near her. Lt. Miller was a relatively quiet pilot, who kept to herself, but was always highly aware of the situation.

            ‘Lt. Miller may have thought I might want a buffer from Lt. Anderson,’ Rosalind thought to herself.

            “What are we watching today?” Lt. Martinez asked the crowd.

            There was no comment, so of course he referred to the original brains behind this operation.

            “Rosalind what were you planning on watching?”

            “I was going to watch whatever caught my eye, I usually go for action movies, but seriously it’s up to you,” she grumbled. Rosalind was beginning to get cranky from how tired she was, and it wasn’t fun anymore for Lt. Martinez to put her on the spot like that.

            “Fine, I’ll just pick something.”

            He turned on the base’s streaming service and picked out a new action movie that had come out. It was vaguely interesting but didn’t capture anyone’s undivided attention. The pilots started up conversations with each other, while Rosalind fell asleep with the lights off, it was hard not to. It wasn’t until the end of the movie that the pilots, minus Lt. Miller, had noticed she was asleep. When they turned the living room lights back on, they found her curled up in the seat. It was time for the pilots to leave so Lt. Martinez, took them home in his minivan, while Lt. Anderson was left in charge of Rosalind.

            “Rosalind? Rosalind!” He called trying to wake her up.

            She stirred in her sleep.

            “Rosalind!” He shouted.

            “What!” Rosalind said while waking up with a heart attack.

            “Ah, you fell asleep, and everyone left. I’m going to take you home.”

            “Oh, thanks,” she replied embarrassed.

            She stood up and put on her shoes and followed Lt. Anderson to his car. On the ride back she felt the awkward silence forming between them again.

            “Did you have fun?” Lt. Anderson asked out of nowhere.

            “What? Oh, yes. Sorry for falling asleep. I was really tired.”

            “Why?”

            “I was working all of Saturday late, into Sunday morning.”

            “What? Why?”

            “Major Green, wanted my report on you and he wanted it to be very thorough.”

            “Oh.”

            “It’s not your fault or anything. It’s my job. It’s just everything is happening so fast that I ended up working over the weekend like this.”

            Rosalind had a soft smile while saying this. She didn’t mean to make Lt. Anderson feel bad and despite feeling extremely tired she was looking forward to the coming chaos. A few minutes later and they arrived at her house.