When I wake up the next morning, I have a vague idea of where I am and a massive headache. 

It's like I'm reliving my first hangover after Cathy Chewy's sixteenth birthday party, when she stole a bottle of Jack and made out with me in her grandma's bedroom. Only, this time I had spent the night before chasing around a Blueberry and hanging around with nerd boy Adam Kavinsky.

Had the whole night been for real?

I sit up in bed and blink the sleep out of my eyes, the room coming into focus under the bright sunlight from outside. Adam's slab of a TV is on loud, crackling and playing episodes of The Tick, just like every Monday morning, and people are talking downstairs.

I clamor out of bed, dragging the sheets behind me, and I turn around when I hear a soft moan.

What in the actual the fuck?

Baby's still curled up in bed, his knees tucked up to his chest, his white hair all splayed out. His skin had gone back to its original weird cerulean color, but it was softer now, so he was kind of like a powder blue or maybe a rain cloud.

I look left, and then right, trying to see if that dumb chicken-strip and Adam were watching me from somewhere, playing a joke. Trying to see what I would do.

"Yo, Bahzy," I reach out with my foot and I nudge his shoulder, "Where did Adam and KFC wander off to?"

Bahz moans louder and then rolls over so that he's facedown on the mattress, refusing to budge, even when I nudge him again. He kicks his blue legs like a kid throwing a fit, then he grabs a pillow and yanks it over his head. "Go away," he mumbles. 

I take a step back because it still freaked me out to hear him speak English so clearly.

I guess I just figured since he looked innocent, he was like the nerds at school, who cowered when I walked past them and pissed in their pants if I talked too loudly.

"Okayyy..." I tighten the sheets around my shoulders and then I turn to look for a bathroom. "I'm gonna take a wicked piss, and then I'm gonna look for Rocket Man. Stay here, okay?"

Baby jerks the remaining sheets over his head in response.

I navigate the room and push aside space books with my toes on the way to the bathroom. Kavinsky had left the hatch open in the floor, so he must not have been too afraid of his mom coming up and finding the most threatening guy in school walking around and ALF sprawled out in his bed like he owned the thing. 

The bathroom was small, with only a toilet and a standing sink, so I don't bother closing the door all the way because I tended to get claustrophobic and crap like that.

I unzip my pants and I start thinking about what I was going to do now.

How was I going to get out of this mess? Adam thought I wanted to help him with Alien Boy, that we were supposed to figure out what to do with him together. When all I had really wanted was to dump him off here and move on with the rest of my life.

That's what I wanted, right?

I hear a creak from the door and a few seconds later I look over my shoulder and I see Baby peeking around the doorframe, seeming all curious and shit. Then he literally turns a shade of luminous pink when he notices my bare ass hanging out and my angry expression.

What the hell? 

"Get out!" I holler at him, and I quickly zip up my pants, "Don't you fucking knock!?"

Baby stumbles back and he trips over his long legs when I go after him, the door slamming open. We crash across the room and he screams and ends up on the mattress with me on top of him, grabbing him by the front of his metallic alien suit to jerk him up towards me. 

"You listen here you piece of--!"

I stop when his hysterical screams dissolve into amused giggling, then I realize what was going on. This guy thought I was one big joke, he wasn't even taking me seriously at this point.

"Oh, so you think I'm funny, huh?" I demand, and I'm struggling to stay angry. 

"I think you're hilarious," he smiles, in that voice of his that made me feel like I was in the presence of something amazing and wonderful at the same time. 

And then I look at him, but like, really look at him this time. His hair was all splayed out on the mattress, iridescent like tendrils of a jellyfish. His blue skin was still that flushed pink and he was holding onto my arms where we'd been struggling. And he was fucking glowing, no kidding. There was this soft light coming out of his skin.

"Hey, guys!" Adam announces suddenly from the hatch, "Cluck Norris and I went to grab breakfast! You two awake yet?"

I crash out of bed as soon as Adam comes up the ladder and I end up on the floor tangled in the sheets, so when he finally comes up, he sees me laying there upside down.

"Is this how you humans normally wake up?" Cluck Norris questions when he flys up after Adam and lands on a stack of books, watching me untangle myself. "How strange!" 

"Adam!" Baby jumps out of bed and he runs for Adam, slamming into his side and holding on tight. "I missed you," He sighs happily, snuggling into his chest. 

The backstabbing bastard.

"I...um...I missed you too, Baby," Adam admits, a bit flustered before he gently pries Baby off so he can show him the bags of food he's carrying. "I brought us some McMuffins and pancakes from McDonald's. You hungry?"

Baby nods his head and turns to follow Adam, practically gripping his arm, but not before glancing back at me. 

Then he sticks out his tongue.

And I knew that this Alien Boy wasn't so innocent right then and there. And that I was going to have to prove it. I had to save Adam Kavinsky before this guy brainwashed him or something.

After finally untangling myself, I join everyone outside on the roof where Adam had this whole patio thing going on. He had laid out a patch of astroturf to look like fake grass, propped up pink plastic flamingos, and got a table and umbrella set up to make it look like he was a desperate housewife tanning by the pool.

It looked like the Holiday Inn down the road before it had shut down in the 60s.

"So what's the plan?" I question when I sit down on one of the plastic chairs across from Adam and Baby, who's glancing into one of the Mcdonald's bags before Adam starts pulling out foam cartons full of food. 

"Not sure, I haven't gotten that far yet," Adam replies, and he slides a box of hashbrowns towards Cluck Norris since eating eggs would have been cannibalism, maybe. "I really want to see the crash sight where Baby landed last night, though."

"No fucking way, Kavinsky!" I snag a box of pancakes, sausage, and hashbrowns and a fork to dig in. "Do you know how many cops are going to be there? Cops that know I shoplifted like a million times?"

"Yeah, I know. That's why you're going to stay in the car!" Adam answers, and then he plops down, his hot pink chair creaking beneath him.

Baby takes a bite of his Mcmuffin, chews a little, then leans over and spits it out into a napkin.

I silently slide my pancakes towards him and I grab his Mcmuffn instead, but I don't meet eyes with him or anything. A few seconds later, he picks up his fork and takes a tiny bite of pancake, then another one after that. The whole time, he makes gasping noises and surprised sounds like, "Oh! Mmm!" Like it was fine-dining and five-star cuisine or something.

"I think it's a wonderful idea to go see the wreckage," Cluck Norris pipes up from where he sits in his own chair, bits of hashbrown stuck to his beak. "It may even give us the opportunity to salvage a navigation computer so that the Prince and I may go home."

My appetite vanishes in an instant, and I stop chewing.

I hadn't even thought about Baby going back home to his planet. I had just assumed he'd stay here.

I look across at him as he shovels another pancake into his mouth and then smiles at me.

And I know I fucked up saving him, cause now I'd do anything to keep him safe.