Fidds continued his training with Lilith. After his first lucid dream, it was some months before he had another one, but he kept up his efforts. He wrote in his journal, performed reality checks, and learned to meditate. Suddenly, he was twelve, able to lucid dream about once a month, and focusing on specific dream goals. Then he was fourteen, entering high school, and working impossible feats in his dreams on a regular basis.

High school turned out to be much better than the previous schools Fidds had attended. He got to take classes more focused on his interests — metal and wood workshops, advanced math classes — and he was confident enough to answer questions without losing his train of thought. His teachers helped him cultivate his natural brilliance, and he enjoyed learning from them. He was still shy, nervous, and bullied — but now school had inherent rewards. He actually liked attending.

Of course, what he learned in school was nothing compared to what he learned from Lilith. His life got busier, and he couldn't visit her as often — but he still worked on the powers of the mind, and he still gave his parents the slip when he could and headed over to her shack. He was getting more attention and praise now, and some kids actually wanted to talk to him, but they didn't provide the same happiness that he felt around Lilith. Throughout high school, she continued to be his only major friend.

Then it came time for college.

During high school, Fidds' teachers introduced him to many amazing opportunities. West Coast Tech, with its insanely high standards and astoundingly big results; University of Tennessee, with its proximity to home; and a variety of other technical colleges, engineering programs, and prestigious studies.

Fidds thought it would be fascinating to study the mind and get a scientific look at the ether, the powers of the mind, and lucid dreaming. With the amazing events of his childhood — meeting Lilith, learning to lucid dream — he had no doubt that there was something more to the mind than they taught in schools.

With his nervousness and flustered nature, though, he didn't trust himself to discover ground-breaking things about the mind. He did much better with his practical machines. So, much to his teachers' chagrin, he rejected all his prospects in favor of a small school called Backupsmore, where he'd have a quiet education with less prestige but more freedom. He worked best when he worked independently, after all.

He didn't make this decision easily. Many long afternoons were spent fretting with Lilith — or, more accurately, Fidds fretting while Lilith tried to calm him down.

"Go where your heart's telling you, Fidds," she'd say.

"But my heart's telling me to go everywhere!" he'd cry. "I could go somewhere with an amazing engineering program — but I'd have to leave you. So I could stay nearby and visit you, but the places 'round here don't have what I want to study!"

"Do you want to go to college at all?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. That much he knew. "Not for long, but I wanta learn more before I set out in the world."

They did their research — or, more accurately, Fidds did the research while Lilith consulted him — and eventually, he found Backupsmore. He was probably the only student there who purposefully chose to attend, but the low-pressure environment spoke to him more than any other option had.

His parting with Lilith, on the day he left for school, was probably the hardest thing he'd ever gone through. Even the death of his father, some years earlier, hadn't been so difficult.

"You keep goin', ya hear?" she said. A shiny film covered her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge it. "Keep on harnessing the ether. Keep working for your powers."

"I will," Fidds replied. He sat next to her, on a chair he'd supplied to the shack. "Of course I will. We'll do it together."

Lilith put a hand on his knee. "I'm so close, Fidds," she said, and her voice was almost a whisper. "So close."

"Let me see you fly the next time I visit." He smiled gently at her. At eighteen, he'd long since surpassed her in height; it was strange to look down on her, when he'd spent half his life gazing up into her sunlight.

He stood. "I'd better go," he said. "My bus leaves soon." He held out a hand to help her up, but (as always) she grumbled him away and hoisted herself to her feet with her cane.

The hug that followed was awkward and lopsided and Fidds wouldn't have it any other way.

A minute later, Fidds walked up the hill away from Lilith's shack. She stood in the doorway, waving at him, and he forced himself not to think of this as goodbye. He would see her again. He was leaving, but he'd be back.

The bus ride to campus was long and lonely, and Fidds tried to fill it with good memories he'd shared with Lilith over the years. They were filmed with a layer of nostalgia, but they were good nonetheless. They were full of triumphs, as both Fidds and Lilith had progressed in their powers of the mind. Fidds could read people better — Lilith could bring small details from her dreams into reality — and both could lucid dream regularly. For the past year, they'd been trying to figure out how to share a lucid dream, but hadn't been successful.

Now, Fidds was off to be successful in another area of life.

He was worried — who wasn't when starting college? It quickly became apparent, though, that the ether had moved to influence Fidds' college experience. Upon meeting his new roommate, Fidds immediately knew his destiny was beginning to form.

Stanford Pines was a scientifically minded teenager whose natural brilliance was suppressed by bitterness. In the first few weeks of term, Fidds heard Ford's sob story constantly: a failed perpetual motion machine, with hundreds of hours put into it, that Ford had never quite gotten to work. Countless nights awake with his loyal twin brother, the pair of them fueled by corny jokes and toffee peanuts, and all for nothing!

Fidds wanted to point out that perpetual motion was only possible through the powers of the mind, but Ford looked so sad and angry around the topic that he didn't dare.

As the school year went on, Ford mellowed out, and the two became friends. To Fidds, it felt like a shaky friendship — Ford was so charismatic that Fidds constantly feared he'd be abandoned for their cooler classmates. In other words, it definitely wasn't as strong a friendship as Fidds had with Lilith. But both Fidds and Ford were interested in unnatural happenings — a deliberate motion from the ether, Fidds was sure — and that common fascination drew them together.

Fidds never felt safe enough to share what he knew about the powers of the mind, however. That knowledge felt highly personal, and he didn't feel that Stanford — dynamic as he was — would understand.

So despite his connections, Fidds still felt highly lonely. He missed his high school teachers. He missed his ma. He even missed his pa, whose absence he rarely felt. But he especially missed Lilith.

The winds of time slowly blew in the February of 1969, and Fidds found himself deep in his studies. With one semester of college under his belt, he felt a little more stable about life. He hadn't made it home for Christmas, unfortunately, and he passed a lonely holiday in the dorms while Ford went back to New Jersey to be with family — but that was two months past, and he tried not to think about it. Instead, he focused on the upcoming summer, when he could finally see Lilith again.

Said upcoming summer felt very far away.

Then one day, in his Intro to Mechanical Engineering class, the ether moved again. Fidds sat in the back of the classroom, idly doodling a crude likeness of Lilith as she sat in her folding chair and looked queenly. Except this sketch of Lilith hardly looked like a queen at all — hardly even looked like Lilith. Fidds' artistic skills lay solely in the realm of blueprints, but he still drew all sorts of things, from his project ideas to his dreams. It kept him from fidgeting.

"Now, at the end of the semester, you have a major project due." The professor stood at the front of the classroom and looked out imperiously over his students. "I mentioned this in the first week of class, but today I'll go over it in more depth."

Fidds squinted down at his sketch. Lilith had more jewelry than that, he determined — though with her squalid living conditions, he'd never figured out where she got it.

"The project conditions are fairly open — I simply want you to build a new machine. It can be a new take on an old machine, so long as you are creating the design yourself. Some project ideas in the past. . ."

Those eyes looked horrible. He really was terrible at drawing eyes. Maybe adding a lock of hair over one of — oh, no, that was worse. Fidds frowned down at the paper.

". . . plenty of computing machines, though I would counsel against those as they are very difficult, and a bit outside of the scope of the project. If you want. . ."

Her cane looked more like a wand than a support. Fidds kind of liked that, since it made her appear powerful, but it also made her posture look extremely awkward. If Lilith were to stand without a cane, she certainly wouldn't be standing like that.

". . . an easily demonstrable project, such as an automatic kitchen device, or a clock, or a mechanical support system for human movement."

Fidds looked up.

"We'll spend a class period presenting our projects, so you won't have—"

"Excuse me, s-sir?" Fidds waved his hand tentatively.

The professor looked unimpressed. "Yes, McGucket?"

"What was that you said? Ab-b-bout, um, machines for movement?"

His teacher's expression turned from unimpressed to mildly exasperated. "In the past, I've had students present me with exoskeletons to help people run or jump or things like that. Some were specifically for those lacking the ability, and others were to improve anyone's normal ability. It's a viable option for your project. Now, Mr. McGucket, if you would please pay better attention — this project is thirty percent of your grade. You won't want to miss the details."

"Of c-course, sir," Fidds said, ducking his head.

The professor went on, but even after that warning, Fidds found it hard to focus. Instead, he found himself staring down at his sketch of Lilith as an idea grew in his mind. Mechanical support system. . . could he help Lilith walk without a cane?

She was trying to learn to fly, he knew. But. . . well, as the school year had drawn on, Fidds had become unsure of the powers of the mind. He didn't have anyone to talk to about them, and he was surrounded by scientific theories and tangible engineering tools. His college studies felt far more substantial than the ether. Fidds still wrote in his dream journal — he still clung to what little shreds of faith he had left. But it was hard, without Lilith, to affirm his efforts.

He was honestly worried about returning to her with these doubts. So maybe he could return with something else — he could come home in triumph with a gift for his friend. It would prove he hadn't forgotten her, even during these long months of separation.

". . . due the last day of the semester, which is the day you'll present your projects to the class. Any questions?"

Fidds jumped guiltily as he snapped back into the present. He found he did have questions — quite a few — but he didn't dare ask them after being specifically told to pay attention. His eyes desperately searched out Ford, who sat across the room, and silently begged him to share notes later. Ford gave him a nod and a small grin of understanding.

For the next few minutes, students asked questions and the professor answered them, until the end of class. "And there you have it," the professor said. "Good luck with your projects. Class dismissed."

The students emptied the classroom in ten seconds flat, hurrying to their next obligation. A minute later, the professor joined them. But Fidds stayed, ideas rushing through his mind, a small smile lingering on his face. He had another class to get to, but his ideas kept him rooted to his desk as they clambered for his attention.

Ford poked his head back into the classroom. "Fidds? You coming?"

The words jolted him out of his reverie, and he hurried to get his things together. "Y-yeah, just — just a second."

He stood and followed Ford out of the classroom and to their next class (the roommates shared half their classes). Ford started talking about the project, about some ideas he had. Fidds nodded along, but his mind was far away from microwave ovens or automatic chemistry sets. Instead, he thought about the exoskeleton, about how to build it, about how much Lilith would love it.

It'd be the perfect gift.