Alison's POV

I sigh quietly, careful not to wake Frank, as I readjust my position in a vain attempt to get comfortable. There are some nights where every physical stimulus is obnoxiously noticable, making finding comfort a near impossible task.

When I'm on my side, my hip presses uncomfortably into the mattress, feeling the hard floor underneath it, and my upward facing side is scrunched in a way that makes breathing painful. When I'm on my stomach, I can't get my hips and my head and an angle that compliment each other, leaving my body crooked in a way that causes my back to ache. When I'm on my back, it feels as if the mattress is swallowing me. Nothing feels right.

Maybe I should just get up? I mean, attempting to fall asleep has proven futile so far. But if I get up now and get tired later, waking up in the morning will be hard, and we have errands to run tomorrow. I wish I could just pause time. Then I could stay up until I was exhausted enough to sleep through my discomfort without any time passing and impacting my ability to wake up tomorrow.

But, unfortunately, my life isn't some superhero show where I can bend reality at will. If I could do that, I'd probably conjure up a comfortable mattress. Or I could use my powers for things that benefit the masses, not just my ability to sleep. But conjuring up a comfortable mattress would definitely be high on my list of priorities.

I groan out loud, annoyed at my discomfort, and sit up on my bed. Frank stirs in his bed across the room. I probably should've been more quiet in expressing my dissatisfaction. I don't want to wake him. He'd ask me why I was up, and even though my discomfort is no big deal, he'd worry. That's just how he is. I suppose I can't be too surprised; he is my big brother, after all. Regardless, I don't need him to worry over something as trivial as my difficulty sleeping.

I grab my jacket off of the floor beside my bed and stand, careful to be as quiet as I can. The floorboards creak under my feet as I slowly make my way to the open door and out of the room. I wince and look at Frank, but he shows no reaction- he's probably too deep asleep to notice.

I round the corner directly outside of our bedroom door, descending down the worn steps of the diner as I pull the jacket onto my body. The desert gets incredibly hot during the day, but the temperatures at nighttime fall surprisingly low. As much as I love the guys and the ability to live my life without the control of an oppressive government, there are some luxuries of living in traditional civilization that I miss. The heat during the day is almost unbearable, and I can't help but slightly envy the people living in normal conditions, with their air conditioners and ice water. Back when I lived in Battery City, I'd wear tank tops when I was hot. Now I have to throw a jacket on on top of it because we have to choose between overheating and intense sun exposure. The heat is extremely uncomfortable, yes, but getting sun scorched would be miles worse. I've seen those people out in the desert who choose to live off the rays, embracing the exposure to the point of blistered skin and severe dehydration. God, I can't even begin to imagine, I mean that has to be such an awful-

"Ahem."

"Oh my God," I yelp out, my hand flying quickly to my gun.

Shit. No gun. I continue to clutch at my waistband desperately, as if enough effort will make my weapon appear.

"It's just me!" a voice calls out in the dark, a hint of amusement peeking out through the words. "Alex."

"Holy shit, dude," I exhale, all of my worry seemingly escaping with my breath. I move my hand from my waistband, instead clutching at my heavily-beating heart. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were a Drac or something."

I scan the darkness until my eyes land on Alex, smiling to himself in a booth. I can tell by his expression that he's amused at my reaction. It's not my fault that I didn't expect him to be sitting in the lobby in the middle of the night. As a matter of fact-

"What are you doing down here anyway," I sigh, regaining my composure. I cross the room so that I'm standing next to his booth, leaning my weight onto the edge of the table.

"Just couldn't sleep," he shrugs. His voice suggests that his inability to sleep has a cause, but I don't want to pry. If he wanted me to know why he couldn't sleep, he would have told me. "What about you?"

I nod my head. "Same thing. No matter how hard I tried, sleep just wasn't coming to me."

"But why'd you decide to come down here?" He looks up at me curiously. He actually seems interested in my answer, which confuses me. I don't mean to be negative, but why does he care? It's not like he really knows me.

"I like to go outside when I can't sleep," I find myself answering despite my confusion. "There's a ladder on the back of the building that leads to the rooftop. It's a nice place to relax."

"Mind if I join you?" He asks, standing up from his seat. Seeing as he's already stood up, it seems as if he's already made the decision to join me. He didn't even wait for my answer. Though I doubt that my answer would impact his choice- regardless of whether I said yes or no, it seems clear to me that he's coming along.

I sigh quietly, hoping he doesn't hear me. I don't want him to take it as a sign that I'm annoyed or anything of the sort. If I'm being candid, I wouldn't mind some company up there. Besides, it's not like I go up there to be alone- he's not exactly intruding.

"Come on," I flash a polite smile at him, moving my left arm in a gesture that tells him to go. We walk toward the back door in silence.

He and I aren't even friends, really. Acquaintances at best. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't nice to have someone my own age around here. Like I expressed earlier: I love the guys. Getting to hang out with them is wonderful, and the relationships I've built with them- as well as my pre-existing relationship with Frank- are great, but having Alex around is a welcome change. I feel like our ages and circumstances allow us to have an unspoken understanding of one another.

He wordlessly opens the kitchen door, crossing through the threshold and stepping behind the wood. The open door lets a cool breeze into the room, and he doesn't move. I look at him questioningly, tilting my head to the side and raising my eyebrow.

"After you," he motions his right hand away from me, signaling me to step outside with him.

Oh, right. That makes sense. I smile at him sheepishly, embarrassed by how slow on the uptake I was. I step outside, relishing the cool air hitting my face.

"You act like nobody has ever opened a door for you," he chuckles, letting go of the handle and allowing the door to swing shut behind us with a bang.

"Oh hush," I roll my eyes, laughing along with him. "People have opened doors for me before. I'm just tired and not all there right now, I suppose."

He makes a noise of understanding in the back of his throat, but the sarcasm is easily detectable. For someone who hardly knows me, he sure seems comfortable with being a jackass toward me.

"So where is this ladder," he asks, looking around at the back of the building in the dark. "Oh, there it is!" He walks toward the ladder, the sand crunching quietly under his feet. I follow behind him.

He climbs up the ladder noisily, seemingly apathetic to the fact that he could be disturbing the people sleeping inside. I roll my eyes at his carelessness and climb up as well, careful to make as little noise on the metal rungs as I can. Just because he seems intent on waking the Killjoys doesn't mean I am.

"It's nice up here," he comments. Standing on the roof and looking out at the horizon. The views stretches for miles out into the nothingness of the desert.

"Yeah, it is," I reply, stepping onto the roof to join him. "It's too hot to come up here during the day, but it's nice at nighttime."

I cross the surface, moving toward the middle of the space, where I sit down. I lean back on my elbows, looking up at the night sky.

"Woah," Alex's awestruck voice rings out behind me. I look up at him and notice his gaze on the sky. I smile and look there as well. "The stars out here are amazing." He sits down next to me, and I notice from the corner of my eye that he doesn't turn his focus away from the sky even as he's in the process of sitting.

"Yeah, it's pretty neat." I smile, remembering how amazed I was by the stars when I first left the city. "Bat City is so industrial that it muddles up the sky. We don't have any of that out here."

"How long have you been out here?" He asks, still not looking away.

I think for a moment, trying to create a timeline in my head. I know that Frank and I were on our own for a couple of weeks. And we must've been with the Killjoys for at least a month, if not more than that. I shake my head, "Honestly, I'm not sure. It's easy to lose track of the days. We've probably been here around two months. Maybe more than that."

He nods, finally looking down from the sky, instead directing his gaze to his own lap.

"Why did you guys come out here?" He asks, almost timidly. I guess the events that lead him to being here are a sensitive topic, so he probably doesn't want to upset me by asking, just in case mine and Frank's events are similar in nature.

They kind of are, if I think about it. Alex and I left in a pretty similar fashion. Both of us were thrust out of the lives we knew in the City, forced against our own wills to move out into the desert. Neither of us got the chance to say goodbye to the people we knew and loved, nor to emotionally prepare for the drastic changes our lives undertook.

"It was sort of like what happened to you. Ghoul got into some trouble with BLI, so we fled the city to avoid persecution. We've been out here ever since." I carefully lie back flat onto my back, careful not to slam against the roof. I stare up at the night sky, not necessarily out of choice, but just because that was where my position naturally focused my gaze. It's not like I'm complaining though; the stars really are gorgeous.

"What about the rest of your family? Why'd they stay behind?" He asks again, mimicking my action of lying down.

"I don't have a rest of my family," I chuckle, hopefully signaling to him that I'm alright and not in need of his pity. "Our folks died last year. I had some friends that I never got to say goodbye to, but Ghoul is my only family left."

"Except the rest of the Killjoys," he turns his head to look at me, smiling softly. I look back at him, returning the expression.

"Yeah, you're right. I guess they kind of are my family now too, huh?"

He nods.

"What about you?"

His smile falters and he turns his head again, refocusing his gaze at the sky. I probably shouldn't have asked him that. The wound of him leaving unannounced is fresh.

"I have a family, yeah," he smiles again, but it's obvious that it's empty of any positive emotion. More like the sad smile you get when you look back on an unfortunate event that you had no control over, which I suppose is exactly what he's doing now. "I left behind my mom and my stepdad. I used to have a stepbrother, but he passed away a while ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I reply. I know the words seem empty and don't do much in the way of providing comfort, but it's the best I can do. "If it helps to hear, it gets easier with time. Being away from everybody, I mean. You'll still miss them of course, and there are days that are really, really hard, but it does get easier."

"That does help," he answers my indirect question. The smile that he has now seems more genuine. There's a long pause before he speaks again.

"What is one thing you're looking forward to?" He asks, turning to look at me. I shoot him a confused face, silently asking him to elaborate. "I mean, like, if somehow you were able to return safely to the city and live a normal life, what are you looking forward to?"

His question catches me off guard. I usually avoid thinking about things like that; planning for an unforeseeable future seems so silly to me. I don't want to get myself excited over the prospect of something that will likely never happen, and planning for it is a surefire way to do that. But despite my pessimism, one obvious answer to his question pops into my mind.

"I want to start my watch again," I answer, lifting my arms so I can pull down a sleeve of my jacket, revealing my wristwatch. I look at it as I speak. "When Ghoul and I left the City, I pulled the little pin that you use to adjust the time out of it. It's in my backpack right now. We left at midnight that night, so my watch has read as midnight ever since then. In the event that we return safely to the city and live normal lives, I want to put the pin back in and set it to the correct time."

His smile widens. "That's an excellent thing to look forward to."