"Alright, here's your lab coat and goggles." Amy held up the two items in each hand, gesturing with the white coat folded over one arm, and the clumsy looking goggles in the other.

"Okay... The lab coat I can get, but are the goggles really necessary?"

"Standard procedure." Amy shrugged. "I don't think he'll hurt you, but you never know. Plus, it's kind of part of the rules when operating in the lab. Same with the gloves." With a resigned sigh, Mark nodded and complied, taking up the goggles and shrugging on the coat. He scowled however as he adjusted the clunky goggles a second time.

"I never did like wearing goggles. Especially over my glasses."

"Yeah, but they're annoying in a good way, to protect your eyes."

"Yeah." Mark gave the goggles another moment, then picked his gloves back up and slipped them over his hands.

"Alright, first on the list." Amy flipped through her own notes that the doctor had provided them. "They want us to see 'what kind of food the extraterrestrial lifeform eats'," she read.

"Cafeteria food?" Mark guessed. Amy wrinkled her nose.

"It's better than the kind in mandatory schools I guess, but it's no homecooked meal."

"True, but it'd be a good way to determine what kind of diet he does eat." She nodded and made a few notes.

"So carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, pescivore, insectivore..."

"Could be vegetarian too."

"Good point." Amy clicked her pen. "So the best starting place could be trying meat or fruit out first." With their first hypothetical established, they stopped by the cafeteria to grab a few samples; fruit, vegetables, applesauce, cooked carrots— ugh, squishy— some shredded beef, and a little leftover chicken. They made sure the meats were safely reheated, then Mark stopped to grab a scrambled egg before they made their way back into the laboratory.

"Okay, it might be safest for him if we put a little bit of everything in the chamber itself." Amy grabbed a paper towel, folding it to make sure any food placed on it would not affect the environmental chamber once inside. "That way he can still breathe, and he won't get out and risk hurting himself again." Mark set the last few edible samples down before peering into said chamber. Jack had perked up upon their re-entry, sitting in the far back of the glass enclosure to tilt his head, watching them.

"Hey there," Mark murmured, offering a smile with a little teeth showing as possible— he didn't want the little guy to think he was showing aggression or anything. The apprentice watched with a warming feeling as the lithe tail swished at the sound of his voice. "Are you hungry?" He asked, making sure his voice remained calm; not too loud, and not demanding. "We've got some stuff here, if you wanna try them?" He moved his hand toward the hatch, giving the lid a light tap with two fingers. He watched again with growing awe as Jack got up, though the creature remained relatively crouched with the tips of his diminutive fingers rested on the floor.

"Okay, hold your breath, too much oxygen can damage your lungs." As Amy moved her hand over and pulled the lid open, Mark gave a small cough and moved further back. Once the chamber was open, he'd started to move his hand for the food samples, only for his eyes to widen when he suddenly saw their little friend already at the door to the hatch.

"Wait—" He coughed a bit again and briefly turned his head to take a deep breath. "Jack, wait." He'd quickly put his hand up in a 'stop' gesture, but the little guy only flinched back before approaching his hand. Mark's eyes widened as curious hands grabbed at his thumb, but when he tried to lower his hand, Jack clambered onto his outstretched fingers, using all fours to nimbly take a seat in the center of his palm.

His movements had been so strange and sudden, Mark forgot he was holding his breath; until he let out one last little cough and gave in, pulling away from the chamber and taking his little companion with. "He, um, wanted on I guess," Mark sheepishly told Amy. She shrugged understandingly

"Okay, but let's make it fast." Mark nodded back, carefully turning to place his hand on the counter, amongst the edible samples. He watched as the alien's chin lifted, his head tilting back to sniff the air.

"Yeah, see? You hungry Jack?" Mark tried picking up a grape and holding it out between two fingers. Once again, Jack moved within a crouch, that curious little tail-tip twitching as he investigated the foreign object. Watching him, Mark couldn't help but consider his temperament "Skittish yet bold"; he couldn't imagine how scared shitless he'd be if he'd ran through a portal, found himself tiny and in a completely different world from his own— yet Jack was now curiously biting into a grape, only to make a face and recoil with disinterest.

"Okay, fair enough," Mark laughed a little, setting the grape aside. "How about this?" He offered the cooked carrot... The reaction was about the same, quicker yet somehow funnier. "Okay, umm..." Mark's hand hovered before picking up a fluffy piece of scrambled egg. "Egg?" He offered weakly. Jack sniffed at the pale yellow bite, then gave one end of it a suspicious nibble. His face had been scrunched up expectantly, Mark noticed, but then it gave away to confusion, before the little creature perked up and took another bigger bite, gnawing away ravenously.

"Huh, he likes the egg." Amy glanced at her clipboard and added a few notes, mumbling away to herself. "I wasn't expecting that for some reason. Especially after the reaction to grape... Maybe it was too sweet? Hm..."

"Me either." Mark tried to move his hand away so they could move on to the next samples, but he was frozen in place by the sound of a small growl. Upon suppressing this movement, Jack continued eating with what looked like content, as Mark could see his little tail sweep side to side in light flicks. "Yeah, he uh... He really likes the egg," he sheepishly added.

"We're gonna have to give him a break then, put him back in the chamber for a breather before we continue."

"Is there not like, an oxygen mask or something he could wear? Something so he doesn't have to stay inside of the chamber so much?"

"Well there's the big ones." Amy pointed to a box mounted on the wall, next to the goggles within a similar display. "Nothing small enough for him though. I guess we could try asking your mentor if he can fabricate a custom one. The 3d printer oughta be able to handle it."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Once Jack was done with the morsel, Mark moved his hand and carefully deposited his little friend back into the chamber. "No," he quickly said as he put his hand up, blocking Jack more effectively from climbing back out. "You need to catch your breath." Fortunately, the little guy seemed to get the hint this time, stepping back and sitting while he focused on breathing. Once Mark closed the hatch and turned the inner atmosphere back on, the heavy breaths slowed, and his chest soon stopped heaving for ingestible air.

"His lungs seem marginally more durable than humans," Amy observed. Mark gave a grunt, leaning onto his folded arms to study the alien's body language.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't want to put that theory to the test."

"Technically it's a hypothesis." He gave her a venomless look; it was nigh impossible for her to erase the smirk on her lips, it seemed. "Or a potential observation that would require more research," she added cheekily.

"Alright Dr. Smarty-Pants, I hypothesize that I'm going to eat a few grapes."

"And I hypothesize that you can't eat our data," she countered, "We'll need to extract his DNA and analyze it."

"I take it the experiment is going well then?" Both turned from their jesting competition to see the doctor step into the lab.

"Oh, Mx. Kim! Yes- well sort of." Amy quickly scanned her notes. "So far we've determined that he likes scrambled eggs. And that he might not like sweet things." The doctor raised one of their brows.

"The alien, not Mark?" Mark chuffed.

"Yeah, he turned down the grape, but he did take a bite of it. Amy was just saying something about analyzing the DNA."

"Oh, don't worry about that, I can work on it."

"Thanks Mx!" Amy turned to pick up the grape, but Mark was closer. They shared a lighthearted stinkeye, but he carefully held the sample in the palm of his gloved hand as he carried it over to Mx. Kim.

"Perfect, set it down right there Mark."

"In this container?"

"Yep, right there. No fingerprints to get in the way of its DNA, hopefully."

"Sure." Once Mark successfully closed the container over the grape, he paused before looking back to the doctor. "Hey, uh Mx. Kim? Can I ask a question?"

"You're going to anyway," they replied with a quipping note in their voice; Mark guessed that was their way of saying "go ahead".

"Um... How come Amy doesn't call you Doctor Kim?"

"Well," they started as they finished putting on their equipment, "Despite the PhD, I personally don't consider myself a doctor because I'm not saving immediate lives."

"But...?" Mark gestured at the lab.

"Oh this isn't your typical Tuesday, trust me," Mx. Kim chuckled, "But being a scientist, a researcher... I'm not a physician. Even when I was little, it wasn't people I was really interested in anyway— it was the future." Their eyes seemed to sparkle as they continued. "Studying the impossible, pushing the limits of what we do already know, that's what makes me feel like a little kid again."

"Huh. I... Guess I didn't realize I wasn't the only one." Mark sheepishly ducked his head. "Growing up, my dad saw how passionate I was about space, and he supported it every way he could: buying science-fiction games when we could afford it, going stargazing at night, away from the cities..." The apprentice gave a somber little smile, his eyes growing misty. "There's always been something so fascinating to me about all the things we could yet discover, the billions of galaxies and trillions of planets... Every speck of dust like a star, and we're so tiny in comparison to the vastness of space that... It's humbling, you know? To think that we aren't the only ones. To know that there's life out there, somewhere..." Mx. Kim smiled.

"And there's life right here, too." At their gesturing nod, Mark looked over his shoulder. Amy was leaned forward, peering into the environmental chamber and very carefully tapping the glass; and Jack, who was up against the glass on the other side, was tapping back within the same patterns of rhythm, his eyes round in confused intrigue. "It's easy to forget that the present on Earth can be pretty cool," Mx. Kim murmured, "And if the portal is anything to go by, we still have yet to learn a lot more about our own planet. But, being here at this site, with that little extraterrestrial in our hands? It's a pretty great feeling too. We're making great progress on a lot of fronts."

"Yeah..." Mark felt a familiar warm feeling that he was relieved to experience; it had been a while since he'd had his eyes opened again— not just to the wonders of the beyond, but just how incredible their own planet still was. "Thanks Mx. Kim— uh, Mx. Kim works, right?"

"Yep, that'll do just fine," they reassured, letting out a soft chuckle. "And hey. I bet your old man is proud of how far you've come. Not everyday you get to meet an alien, let alone befriend it." Mark grinned, feeling more hot liquid spring up in his eyes even as he took a shaky breath.

"Yeah... He was."