Don't call.

James tossed the card in the trash. Even as a tear fell from his face, he turned away and decided to move on. In the weeks ahead he'd become more social at work, even flirting with a cute woman in another department over lunch. She turned out to have a fiancee, but she let him practice flirting and gave him feedback, or just laughed.

He'd gotten a courtesy call from the police chief. Wilkin apparently thought he'd need closure. It had turned out the two men that had been watching him weren't from the placement program. The tall one had been the husband of the couple Aurora had been assigned to. The shorter one was a friend who had wanted to "try out" an alien girl for money. They'd been stalking the station the entire week waiting to see placement officials come in to blend in with. Aurora had decided to keep the name he'd given her, and she still talked about him according to the actual placement rep.

Now, she was one of the few ambassadors between Humans and Novaxans. She didn't leave the pod, though, and only spoke to people she decided seemed interesting enough.

Lee and Terri had become incredibly comfortable together. They practically lived together already, swapping from one house to the other. When James got his house back from the police, they'd helped him pick out better furniture. Everything else had been broken in the search. He even ended up getting the big aquarium Sally had mentioned for the guest room, filling it with blue fish of different exotic appearances. It made him sad, but also relaxed, to look at them.