Day 8:

"I'm facilitating a call between you and your father today," you say, forcing out your words as you place the monster's breakfast in his tray. Your voice is cold. Gullible. Stupid. His words ring in your ears.

His head jerks up, and his eyes briefly meet yours, then pull away like ripping away a bandaid. "I don't want to see him."

"Are you crazy?" you say, flicking the switch to send the tray rattling over to him. "I would kill to see my Dad one more time, forget if I was on a life sentence."

His body seems to seize at that part, but he refuses to look up. "Yeah? Well, I'd kill to see my Mom again, and look how you treat yours."

You don't respond to that.

You leave the room, your heart trapped against invisible walls, and put yourself through another recorded fitness class on the TV to stop thinking about it. Then you shower, and then you're in your room with an hour or so until the call.

You play around with your paintbrushes, but you can't think of anything to paint. Trees? Forests? You already hung a few of your old  paintings around the white walls when you unpacked, but it feels like you've lived in this stark white Bubble forever, nothing in your world but video calls, monsters, and vast, vast ocean and sky.

You jerkily grab your paintbox, pulling out a large brush and covering the lower half of the canvas in bold green. You dip it into the water dish you brought, then cover the sky in gold, pulling out a smaller brush to detail the clouds of a sunset.

You zero in on the work, tracing the curves of each gilded cloud, until your phone buzzes with the notification that Sheriff Galpin is waiting for you. You close your eyes, then open them and purposefully set the paintbrush down to clean it, the sky drying out on your easel. Later you'll paint Paris, you think, moving your fingers to picture a graceful Eiffel Tower in the midst of the pink-hued clouds.

It will be beautiful, and it will be something other than life on the Bubble.

It's been easy to keep yourself busy, but you wish your friends from the Academy could see it. With most of you fresh on assignment somewhere, calling together is not allowed.

You wipe your hands with a painter's towel and move into the living room, setting up the laptop. There's a ding, and the Sheriff appears on the laptop, looking strained.

A stab of pity seizes your heart. "Hi, Sheriff," you say unsteadily, adjusting the camera. "I'm Y/N, the USOAT agent on the Bubble with your son."

He shakes his head, sighing. "Please, call me Donovan."

You bob a nod. "Okay."

"How..." he swallows, as if working out the words, tilting a finger through the air.  "How is he? How is Tyler?"

"Angry," you say. "Bitter. Mean."

"He didn't want to see me."

You don't answer that, but your silence says it all.

"I turned him in, you know," the Sheriff says, eyes drifting down towards his desk. "But it wasn't because he was a bad kid. I turned him in because he's a good person, deep down, because I wanted him to get better. To come back home."

His voice breaks at the last line, and something inside you cracks like ice.

You shake your head, then lean in, your voice like a wisp of ghostly wind.

"You know USOAT isn't in the business of sympathy, right?" You say. "I mean, the board wants to keep him here. Forever."

The Sheriff closes his eyes, throat moving as if processing a deep pain. "Is there any hope for him?"

You know the answer. The answer is none. But in that moment, the monster isn't just a monster. He's a boy with a father, and even if he is a spiteful and inhuman creature, his father isn't.

"We don't... typically offer much hope for life sentences," you say, moving around the keys on the keyboard. "USOAT would rather have them contained so they don't hurt anyone else. But if there was a way I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's completely rehabilitated, they would have to let him go. It's part of the 2011 Outsider Act."

Those last couple words aren't yours, you realize, as they travel through your throat. They're your fathers, the things he used to say when you were very young, almost too young to remember it. They're the words that are undoubtedly splashed across the pages of his journal, penciled in like a cannonball of organized hope.

You pull out the white journal, the unmarked one, from the couch and open it, the first blank page staring at you.

"Do you think he'll meet that in a year?" you say eventually, looking up at the Sheriff. "If he's not aware that he can get out?"

The sheriff leans forward. "I don't know, Y/N," he says, "but will you promise me you'll try?"

You open your mouth, but the words are stuck in your throat.

The Sheriff nods, wearily, like he understands. "He's upset right now, Y/N. He was led to believe- I led him to believe-  that he was a monster. I never taught him to handle it, never taught him-"

His voice breaks, and he shakes his head, abruptly changing topics. "Tyler loves hard and he loves well, if you give him the chance. Give him some time to soften up, and maybe he'll come around. You seem nice enough- maybe you two will be friends."

Soften up.

After what we said to each other? Never.

You set the pages of your blank journal down, and pick up the laptop. "Are you ready to see him?"

The Sheriff sighs. "As I'll ever be. Thank you, Y/N, for chatting with me."

"You're welcome," you say uncomfortably, trying to unlock the door to the monster's space.

"Tyler?"  you call down, the monster's name foreign and unusual on your tongue.

He claimed he didn't want to see his father, but he runs over to the glass, eyes drinking in every fraction of the screen like a man who doesn't know where his next water will come from.

"Dad." The word is breathless. It carries so much hurt and betrayal, but is laced with a kind of need and desperation.

"Tyler." You balance the laptop on the food chute so they can talk, then awkwardly nod to them both and retreat the back of the room.

You try not to pay too much attention for the next hour, outside of your duty to listen for any potential plots, but by the end of the hour, your heart feels like it's going to rip in half.

Your phone pings, from Afua. Too much time. End it.

"I never meant to betray you," the Sheriff is saying, voice defeated and clogged with emotion. "Tyler, I wanted you to be safe. I wanted you to be somewhere-"

Tyler is nodding, but tears leak out of his eyes as he stares down at the ground, tracing tracks on his face. "I know, Pops. I know."

My phone pings, and they both look up. End it now, Y/N, Afua writes.

"I'm sorry," you say, shoulders slumping. "My superior is on my case."

Sheriff Galpin dips his head to you. "I understand," he says. "Take care, Tyler. Son."

His screen goes blank, and for a moment, it's just you and Tyler, resting on his fist against the glass, silent tears running down his face.

"My Dad thinks I'm a monster."

Maybe it's for Sheriff Galpin, but for some reason, some words inside you press up into your mouth.

"That's not what he told me," you say. You close the laptop and start packing up the equipment.

Tyler sniffs and looks up. "What?"

You stop, looking over at him. "He told me that you love hard and love well, if given the chance."

You shiver, meeting his eyes, some kind of feeling brewing inside them. "He said I should give you time to soften up." You laugh softly, shaking your head before turning back to him. "He said maybe we would be friends."

You finish packing up the gear, zippering the bag shut. "Oh, well. Maybe in another life."

His eyes follow you as you walk towards the door.

"Y/N." His voice says, strained. "Come over here."

He presses his hand against the glass, and you scoff, shaking your head.

"You've got to be-" you protest, but he cuts you off.

"I won't," he says. "I promise."

You sigh and press your hand to the glass, the surface smooth against yours. "Fine, Tyler."

The name is barely a breath on your lips.

"You're looking into the eyes of the kind of monster that killed your father," Tyler says, moving his hand to match yours. His green eyes trace the skin of your hand, as though memorizing it. Something curls in your skin, echoing through your body. "And you just told me I'm not a monster."

"I didn't say that," you say, eyes following his. "I just said your father didn't-"

"That's not stupid or gullible," Tyler says, shaking his head and tucking his hand back into his jacket pocket. "That's brave."

He stops. "And I'm sorry I ever said differently."

You freeze, your hand still against the glass.

"Yeah," you say, nodding to yourself and bending down again to look at the laptop case. "Yeah."

You pick the laptop case up again, hauling it with your back to take it back upstairs, then stop. "You know what? Me too."

He doesn't say anything back or look back at you, but in a way, you see how he relaxes.

Day 9:

The coffee you make for him is back in his meal this morning. Neither of you speaks much as you pass it through the clanking tray. You're not sure if last night changed anything.

Your eyes flicker over to him, and you lock eyes before you rip away.

The monster takes a sip of the steaming brew and grimaces. "This is disgusting. Who taught you how to make coffee, warden?"

"I don't drink coffee," you say, picking up his dishes from his previous meal. "So the Y/N Special is the only coffee on the menu for the next year."

You turn back towards the door.

"I'd like to hear about the sunset tonight," he calls after you.

"Fine," you call back,  keeping your head down and moving towards the door.

You don't stay out long, as the December chill is starting to settle in, but you gaze at the sky and trace your fingers along dark blue clouds with veins of gold.

Author's note:

Hi, guys! I just wanted to say thank you for reading my story. If you've made it this far, wow! I am so, so humbled that you're spending your time with me and this little world, and I am so grateful. Your views and votes give me something to write for! (Outside of our crushes on Tyler, LOL!) I think you're awesome, and I really hope you have a very merry Christmas tomorrow. :)

Speaking of Christmas... there may be a little something-something on Friends With Time to celebrate.

Stay tuned for the c̶̡͕̲͙̯͙͈͋͌͌͜ẖ̷̜̝̝͐͛̈́͑͐͒͠r̴̛̛̖̻̲̟̞͈͆̑̈ͅi̸͚͌̄͋́̑͝ͅs̷̨͚͍̉̒͆̎t̸̨̠̺̝͚̼̝̐̀͋̋̏̑m̶̜̯̯͖̽̈́̾͆̉̕á̸̭̭̗̺͆͜͝s̷̹̈́̀̔̀͐͜ ̶̡̗̙̳̗͊́̆͗̒̄͒͘͠ͅs̷̨͔̰͔̭̜̍p̶͚̱͔̜͗͆̀ȇ̶̛̻̮̠͙̜͇̣͎͎̦̈́̍̉̄̒̐͝c̷̺͈̞̫̩͔̈́i̷̢͔̝̎̄͂ͅà̶̧̨̢̻̺̘͓̞̯̓̇͒̈̆̑l̷̤̙͗͌̌͋̇̆̓̚!

(You guys rock, and I hope you all have an awesome season! This is DivaSnowChickadee, signing off. Peace!)