Power flickers through the garage windows—once, twice—then dies completely, leaving only the warm glow of her Christmas tree and the beam of her flashlight cutting through the darkness.
Perfect. Darkness has always been my ally, and she will need the gentleness of gradual revelation rather than the harsh shock of fluorescent-lit first contact.
I stop outside her door and listen to her moving around inside, enhanced hearing picking up the quick, efficient sounds of someone who has dealt with power outages before. No panic, no helpless crying for assistance. Just pragmatic problem-solving and the soft hum of Christmas music from what must be a battery-powered radio.
I raise my hand and knock—three measured taps that won’t startle her but will make it clear someone is outside.
Inside, her footsteps pause, then resume with the careful deliberation of someone who has heard something unexpected but is not yet afraid. Good. Fear will come later, when she truly understands what I am, but for now I need her curiosity to outweigh her caution.
“Who’s there?” she calls through the metal, voice steady despite the impossible circumstances of anyone being outside in this storm.
The sound of her voice hits me like a physical blow. Three winters of listening from a distance, of catching fragments of her conversations with dispatch, of hearing her humming Christmas carols while she works. But this is the first time she has spoken when I could respond.
The first time her voice has been meant for me.
I close my eyes and call on three years of listening to her voice, of learning the rhythms and patterns of her speech, of studying this planet’s dominant languages through OOPS courier protocols. When I answer, it is in carefully practiced English, each word chosen for maximum impact.
“Someone who needs help.”
Simple. True. Non-threatening enough to appeal to the generous heart I have observed in her interactions with stranded travelers, but vague enough to avoid premature explanations.
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the storm and the sound of my blood dripping onto the snow at my feet. Inside, I can hear her breathing—steady but elevated, the sound of someone whose mind is racing through possibilities. I can smell the spike of adrenaline as her human instincts war with her rational mind.
Help a stranger in a deadly storm, or maintain the safety of her locked door?
Logic says to keep the door locked. Caution says that anyone outside in this weather is either dangerous or stupid, neither of whichbodes well for her safety. But I am counting on something deeper than logic—the part of her that chose to become a mechanic instead of fleeing to safer professions, the part that stays in a small mountain town despite having skills that would take her anywhere.
The part that secretly reads about alien warriors and wonders what it would be like to be claimed by something extraordinary.
“Are you hurt?” she asks finally, and the genuine concern in her voice makes something warm unfurl in my chest despite the cold eating at my strength.
There it is. The compassion that makes her magnificent, the inability to ignore suffering even when self-preservation suggests otherwise. She could have asked who I am, where I came from, what I’m doing outside in impossible weather. Instead, her first concern is whether I need assistance.
“Yes.” No point in lying when she will see the truth soon enough.
“How badly?”
The question tells me everything I need to know about her decision. She is not asking whether to help—she is assessing what kind of help to provide. Already she is shifting into the competent, take-charge mode I have observed countless times, the version of herself that can handle any crisis with calm determination.
“Badly enough.” The admission costs me, but I suspect Fiona Davis has little patience for anything less than honesty. She values competence and directness, qualities that would make any attempt at manipulation backfire spectacularly.
Another pause, longer this time. I can hear her moving inside, the soft sounds of someone making rapid decisions. Then the distinctive clicks and beeps of locks disengaging, security systems being disabled. She is going to open the door. She is going to help me.
She is going to see me.
The door swings inward, revealing warmth and light and the woman I have been watching for three winters. Fiona Davis stands silhouetted in the doorway, flashlight raised but not quite pointed at me, dark hair escaping from its ponytail in ways that make my fingers itch to smooth the strands back into place.
For a moment, neither of us moves. I drink in the sight of her up close—the small scar on her chin that I have wondered about for three years, the competent hands that can coax life from dead engines, the way she holds herself with unconscious confidence even when facing the unknown. She is smaller than she appears from a distance, barely reaching my chest, but there is nothing fragile about her presence.
She fills the doorway like she owns it. Like she owns everything around her through sheer force of competent will.
Then her flashlight beam finds my face, and I watch her expression change from concern to confusion to dawning horror.
“Jesus Christ!” She stumbles backward, flashlight wavering. “What the—you’re—that’s not—” She stops, stares, blinks hard several times like she’s trying to clear her vision. “Okay. Okay, I’m clearly having some kind of breakdown. Too much coffee, not enough sleep, maybe carbon monoxide from the heater—”
“I am real,” I say gently.
“No.” She shakes her head firmly. “No, you’re not. Because that would mean aliens are real, and I’m having a perfectly normal Christmas Eve that does not include seven-foot-tall blue... things... bleeding on my doorstep.” Her voice is getting higher with each word. “I’m going to close the door now and when I open it, you’re going to be a very tall, very cold person who got into some kind of paint accident.”
