The Universe's Mixer

The conveniences of the City were a delight, and one that Leeloo very quickly learned and enjoyed. As she did, it seemed that the things she most loved were quietly placed into their apartment. A working television set. A Blu-Ray player. A Playstation 4. A microwave. Tablets that could be microwaved to generate full roast chicken dinners. Chicken was good, Leeloo had discovered. Together, sne and Peter could eat two chickens all by themselves.

He'd mentioned something about superior metabolisms. Leeloo laughed at the obviousness of the statement. Of course. Of course they had. She was a supreme being, and Peter represented the best of humanity so far. Of course their metabolisms were better than most.

Better, of course, because it allowed them to eat all the chicken they wanted. Chicken was very good.

When Peter slipped away from the apartment for a few hours, Leeloo tried not to worry. He hadn't seemed at peace with what was, and that troubled her. She decided to make good use of the time he was away and clean.

She cleaned the already spotless kitchen. The bathroom. Their bedroom. The living room. She brought in cut flowers for the table. She brewed coffee. She set the table for a beautiful meal, including candles and silver and china, just as he'd shown her some weeks before. She turned on some music that she liked and danced to it in the middle of the living room. She picked out a few Blu-Ray entertainment disks on the coffee table in front of the TV and filled the couch with pillows and blankets.

There was nothing else to do, after a few hours, but wait for him to come home. She opened the windows wide, then sat on the floor in front of the biggest one and watched the moon come up from over the tops of the buildings.

The City had told her during one of their night talks - when she spoke in the velvet darkness blanketing her bedroom, the scent of jasmine wafting in through the open window. Ted was gone. Ted had to go; it wasn't that the City wanted to send him away. He had to go. For his own sake. But it still hurt. Beauty couldn't do much but cry, and the City went quiet after that.

The next morning, she felt strung out and sore, as if she'd spent the night on a rocky hill instead of the softness of her bed. She cashed in one of those vacation days she'd learned about and spent the day in the spire of her cottage library, a book on her knee and her eyes far away out over the park.

It took weeks for her to grasp that she had lost the man she'd thought of as a father. Finally, when she could endure the ache long enough to entertain the idea, she dressed carefully and hailed a cab to take her across the City to the mansion she'd spent terror-filled days within, the mansion that had served as a haven - not because of its security, but because Ted had been here.

She knocked on the door three times and waited on the steps.

It'd been a day since she'd gone to Charlie's to share her sadness with the man who had been her surrogate father's best friend. Charlie was also Beauty's friend, but not in the same way as Ted had been. She was glad to have someone to share her grief with, though, and her heart was not so heavy now that she had.

However, the restlessness that had been following her since her return to the City was still wrapped wholly around her. She continued to use vacation days from her job to stay away from the bookstore, finding time to see Errol when he wasn't at work. And for herself, she wandered the City, refamiliarizing herself with the places that were here for its citizens.

She had missed the City. She had missed her friend, she had missed so much about this place -- and she couldn't pin why she was so very unhappy. Sad, yes - grieving, even, for the loss of a good friend - but she didn't know what else was under the mess in her mind.

While she walked, while she tried to figure that out, a very large frame ahead of her caught her attention. He was a familiar shape - unmistakable, really - but it took her a moment to recall his name. It had been so very long, lifetimes ago it seemed, since she'd opened her home to the man who could not fit on a bed comfortably.

"Piotr?" she called ahead toward the man a few paces away. It was him. It was! Did he still remember her? Was this the same Piotr she'd given a place to stay while he was looking for his Kitty? "Piotr!!"