The night after I had determined Ron and Rachael would be okay, I started observing Edward and Donna’s relationship. Their problems seemed more intertwined. In their quarters, for instance, Donna would often skip out without telling Edward where she was going. Edward would sit in silence.

I was also gaining a better understanding of our shared reality at this time. Worlds seemed to be created best between two people. And Edward and Donna were from the same Earth. One night, I decided to delve deep into their shared subconsciousnesses, to the memory of when they met on Earth. My theory was that their struggles stemmed from forgetting this sacred connection.

***

NEXT UP: Bill finds an entity attached to Donna. He confronts it. This turns out to be the source of she and Edward’s conflict. The next day, they bring up to the rest of the crew at breakfast that they both dreamt about Bill, which spurs conversation about the Cheshire’s solitary captive. His absence and word-of-mouth mentionings make the crew’s collective heart grow fonder for good old Bill.

***

Donna and Edward’s nightly routine went off like clockwork. They’d return to their quarters at about a half past six. Then, Donna would leave no more than 20 minutes later. She didn’t tell Edward where she was going. Had my leaping abilities at that time been more advanced, I would have trailed her. But she seemed to leverage the Cheshire’s direct line to the Universal Union’s Akashic and I didn’t want to lose my astral self on that heightened plane. I stayed with Edward, who was left to sit there pondering where his wife went each night. At least he wasn’t alone, even if he didn’t know it.

There’s a funny thing that happens when two star-crossed lovers meet on their planet of origin and fall in love. Edward and Donna were from the same Earth version. They’d met down there, years ago, during their shamanic training. I had learned this from observing crew mealtimes, and the couple’s regaling the crew of their love story. They had formed an eternal bond, you see, meeting on this Earth. And with both of them on board, I could triangulate back to that specific planetary version via the two’s collective unconscious. It was an entirely safe dimensional leap for this Thunderbird in training. And I figured that world would hold a clue at least as to how these two drifted apart.

One night, when Donna finally returned from her after hours outing and joined Edward in bed already sleeping, I waited for her to drift off into slumber. As in their waking hours, they dreamt separately, but I traveled deep, deep into their collective unconscious that night, until I found an overlap in their psyches. It was where they had gone on their first date, a quaint little Italian place, with a terrace out back gently lit with stringed white lights that wove in between grapevines. They sat under the romantically illumninated vegetation, gazing longlingly into each other’s eyes. This was the moment both knew they loved each other.

From this origin point, I could then track each’s path to perhaps find where Donna had lost interest. In their dream realm, years were mere seconds. So I scoured the volumes of their collective time. A few years into their relationship, I did notice Donna’s eyes fade in their sparkle toward Edward. Her diminishing eyes began wandering onto other men, when they were out. She never acted on these longing glances at others, but even more concerning was that Edward barely noticed at all. He was too consumed with his shamanic studies, feverishly memorizing the old icaros and eventually composing his own, as he developed more in-depth and intimate knowledge of the Earth plants he was dieting.

Donna felt neglected. She too studied her plant medicine and could already sing beautifully, and still save time and attention for Edward. Why couldn’t he extend the same courtesy? Donna’s thoughts at this pivotal time in her and Edward’s relationship screamed as clear as black words on white paper in bold print. If only Edward, then, could have read them as clearly as me peering in from the astral plane. I needed to remind them both of their once pure fondness for each other. But how? My clues would have to be subtle, since it states quite clearly in the Thunderbird code that existential interference is prohibited, unless under dire circumstances. And lost love did not warrant such drastic measures. Still, I thought I could covertly convince them.

Little did I know that the force blocking Donna was hardly subtle. An entity had attached to her.

***

NEXT UP: Bill confronts the entity and asks it why it has attached to Donna. They answer. And Bill receives his first taste in having to expel an unwanted parasite from some unsuspecting host’s psyche. Always a good skill for a Thunderbird to possess.

***