Chris feels her lie deep in his gut; there’s more to her ‘conversation’ with the aliens than Ami feels comfortable letting on. He could ask, but this is not the time. Dishonesty’s not a sleight, rather used to assuage his fear over performance anxiety, with reasons he knows are both fair and accurate. There’s a damn good reason he’s not been on a date in over a year. Those blue pills his doctor prescribed might fix the mechanics, but did nothing for his head.
It makes perfect sense to abduct one male and female. It’s why Noah shoved two of everything in the Ark, Bible’s writers leaving rest to the imagination of their readers. If this is an exercise in testing all their abilities… he knows now that’s not something his partner is willing to indulge in, not without far more than just a single evening out under their belts. That alone makes Chris feel more comfortable than has been true since their arrival.
Excusing herself to go to the unisex bathroom he used before they started dinner, Chambers sits alone, staring at a battered Rolex that reads just before 11pm. It’s Bishop’s idea that they keep themselves tied to London time as it exists on their wrists; the more normality that can be self-imposed the better. Whatever else might be happening around them plus within a fledgling shared consciousness, comfort and belief mattered above all else.
He’d thought briefly about asking to share a camp-bed, mostly because he was shit scared and needed reassurance, then considered the messages that might send her which are all kinds of wrong. Right now, he cannot revert to archetype. Strength alone is easy, when you don’t get all the chemical stuff as distraction. She’d made the point over dinner: if you wanted to truly test a species for suitability, there’s gonna be a point where loyalty to each other would be addressed.
It’s also hard to escape jealousy; she’d been shown consequences of failure in her mind and he hadn’t. His experiences of the aliens is far less detailed or interactive: it shouldn’t bother him, but worryingly does. His conscious initially struggled to even grasp the enormity of their situation, yet something is altering. Fear should never allow emotional responses to dictate experience, and yet it has, every time. Personal failure, parenting, relationships, decision-making…
Your importance is about to become apparent.
The Internet of Words 
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