The Beast came to her side as they walked down the winding paths, following the sparkling lights that glowed softly and made Bo think of back home where they relied on lightbulbs to brighten the nights. She hadn't been able to see her family on the screen for a few days, and it worried her that the camp had barely any activity. She wondered if they'd gone out scavenging, leaving only a skeleton crew behind. Whatever the reason, she wasn't sure she liked it. It worried her.

The Beast, unaware of her thoughts, still rode the elation of the stage. He spun and walked backward, facing Bo. He stuck his hands in the pockets of the midnight blue coat, the tails flapping against his legs. It went well with his blue skin, though Bo felt weird thinking it.

"I was looking through the books in the library, and I found one I wanted to give you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin book with a milky cover and words pressed in gold. He handed it to Bo, and she read the title.

"Poems of Robert Frost," she said.

"Poems? What are those?"

"Like a song. But not," Bo said. She barely knew what they were either. If it wasn't for one being in one of her books at home, she'd have no clue.

"Oh. I thought the formatting looked strange," the Beast said, stilling walking backward and grinning at her. "Do you like poems?"

Bo nodded. "They're nice. Thank you."

He finally spun back around and fell back in line with her. An awkward silence developed between them. Bo ran her fingers absently along the spine of the book, looking down at it but not seeing it. She had already started to worry about home, and once she started doing that she knew she wouldn't be able to stop.

The Beast, sensing that the mood had changed, gave her a puzzled look. "What's the matter?"

"I'm just worried about my family," Bo said, sighing and looking at the sky.

"Do you want to see them in the screen?" the Beast said, pointing back to the house.

Bo shook her head. "I wouldn't see anything this late."

The Beast twisted his lips and kicked at a pebble. "I still do not understand this concept of 'family'. Why do you worry so much for them? Are they not capable of taking care of themselves?"

"Yes, of course they are. But it's still... look, it's hard to explain. Everyone worries about their family. That's just how it is."

"Do you think... if you feel sad when thinking about someone, that it means you love them?" he asked.

"I suppose it could mean that. Why?"

The Beast stopped walking. Bo didn't realize until she was a few steps away from him. She turned and he glanced up at her.

"I have a picture of my mother," he replied, simply.

"Really?" Bo asked, raising an eyebrow. It wasn't like aliens to take pictures of themselves. They held no place in their heart for remembrance.

The Beast nodded and reached into his pocket to bring out a slip of paper that was much like the one he had in his study of her in her blue dress. Bo stiffened at the sight, wanting to see but not wanting to ask. She knew that the topic of her own mother was one she locked behind a metal door in her mind, and would never share with anyone. She wasn't sure if the Beast was similar.

"I believe she died soon after I was born. She didn't... she wasn't suited for our kind of life." His hand shook ever so slightly as he held the photo and looked down at it.

"What do you mean by that? Are there any aliens that aren't suited for that kind of life?" Bo asked, taking a step closer.

"She didn't choose her life in the camp. She didn't choose her death. She didn't get much choice at all." He held out the photo for Bo, but it still faced away from Bo. As she looked at the blank white back, she felt a sudden fear of looking at it. Something in the air felt charged, and she clenched her fists instead of taking the photo that now seemed so terrifying. The Beast, when he saw she wasn't moving, stepped forward and reached for her hand. His skin once again charged hers with an electric tingle, and he pressed the photo into her palm.

With shaking hands, Bo brought it up to her face.

It was a woman, her face plain but fresh, her blonde hair tied in a braid. She wore the dated clothes Bo remembered her mother wearing. The smile she wore as she stared at the camera was one that wasn't quite happy. Something behind the woman's eyes carried with it such a sadness that Bo's throat tightened just looking at her. Her skinny arms held a bundle to her chest. It was obviously a baby, wrapped and safe, and held so gently that Bo knew it had to be the woman's own. When Bo looked closely, she could see a tiny hand reaching from the blankets to wrap around the woman's finger.

It was a blue hand. A stunningly blue baby hand.

With a jolt, Bo looked up at the Beast as her whole face went numb. "This is a human woman," she whispered.

The Beast hesitated, and then nodded. "My mother."

"How?" was all Bo could think to ask. She had never heard in her entire life of a hybrid. No one had even dreamed it was possible for a child to be made from a human and an alien.

"I was told it was an experiment before we declared war on earth. To see if a human could be integrated into our society. She was captured in secret and brought back to our planet. The leaders wanted to see if we could gain anything from mixing with humans."

"I don't understand. They kept her a prisoner?" Bo asked. Memories flashed to her mind of a cage and the aliens shouting as her own mother's arms kept her close. She knew what it was like to be one of their prisoners and treated like less than an animal.

"They treated her as a female of my own kind, but she didn't last long. Only a few wanted to test the compatibility with humans. Most of my kind thought it was an insult to be paired with inferior creatures. They were quick to overtake the project and destroy it."

"So you're..." Bo asked, her mind struggling to change what she thought of the alien standing before her. "You're part human?"

"I suppose, in my blood. I have never known a human before you, so I do not think of myself as such." As he spoke, she realized that she should have known before. The hair on his head, something aliens simply did not have. The way his eyes were a gentle brown instead of black. He was an alien, but ever so slightly not at the same time.

"I don't know what to think," Bo said, her mind coming up blank. She couldn't even process the concept of him being even a fraction of her kind, much less start accepting it.

"You do not have to think anything. Just because my mother was a human does not change anything about me," the Beast said.

Through the fog in Bo's mind, she still found herself shaking her head. "No, it does change things. You want to know what it is like to have a family. You asked about love. There's something in you that wants to be more than a bloodthirsty war machine," she whispered.

The Beast's jaw worked. "I want to know, but I am not sure I am capable of understanding. This love, it seems so strange to me."

"It's not strange," Bo said, suddenly feeling that maybe she could reach across stars and planets and grasp onto an alien that was not so different from herself after all. "You just have to discover what it is first. Find it within your heart and learn to use it." She gently laid her hand over his chest where she felt his heart beating against her palm. He glanced down, wrapping his hand around her own.

"You make it sound like reading," he said.

"It almost is," Bo said, a small smile lifting the corners of her lips. "You just have to read your heart. It will come to you."

The Beast gently pulled her hand away and took a step back. His expression shuttered and Bo saw that the conversation was over. "We should head in," he said. "It is late."

Bo bit her lip as she trailed a few feet behind him back toward where the Service-Matons were bringing the dinner and table back into the house. She watched his back, wondering about his mother and what was possible if an alien had a human heart. Could he really learn to love? She hoped so. She really hoped so.