Hey guys! I made a handy-dandy cover for Forever and A Mile—one of the oneshots in my Odd Squad oneshot book—and since that oneshot is definitely long enough to be its own story, I thought hey, why not use it here?

If you've already read this, thanks! If you haven't, I hope you enjoy this one! I sure did. :D

Because really... haven't you ever wondered about that Ballpit?

---

    She couldn't leave. And that scared her.

O'Brian seemed to have been on more shifts this week than she'd ever noticed a tube operator work before... and all of them were when Octavia had tried to escape Headquarters.

"Pff," he'd scoff quietly, a smirk pulling at his face. "You can use the tubes when I say you can use the tubes."

And she would nod meekly, not knowing anything else she could do.

She could go to Ms. O, of course. But no one had dared tell on O'Brian in the past (well, aside from one unfortunate agent; hopefully the moon men had fixed the tubes for poor Orbot), so why would her boss believe her now? Surely it could be resolved without bringing in authority.

"Apologize, and then I'll think about it." He stretched out, all too casually, a comic book propped up on his workstation. Yet he still did his job in a brisk, calculated way; there was no catching him slacking off if he didn't want you to.

"B-but what am I apologizing for?" she'd squeak, afraid of offending him further. Sadly, his displeasure only seemed to deepen.

"You seriously don't even know?" he asked in disbelief, making a point of gawking. He sputtered a few times, almost mockingly, and shook his head in a show of disgust. "Oh, wow. Rude."

She'd wince, wanting to object but not knowing what to say. So, she would leave, as quietly as she'd come in.

The day after that, she had come in again, not having gotten a very good night's sleep, even in the breakroom's comfiest chair. But alas, the bane of her hopefulness was still seated in front of those all-important controls.

He looked up from his comic and said nothing, but his face held only smugness.

And again, she would leave, meekly and silently and almost on the verge of tears.

She still did her work the best she could, though. She got more paperwork done trying to ward off the worry that she would never escape than she ever had on a normal day.

Oz didn't show, either. He excused himself from work once in a while, usually on something he called 'invisible business.' (She was almost certain that it was either to stay home and help his sick mother, or to go to the amusement park. She wasn't quite sure how to ask which.) Not that anyone else noticed when he was gone. The two of them usually kept to themselves, doing their own thing most of the time.

So without a partner, she was lonely. Very lonely.

She would wake up early, before anyone arrived for work; when the halls were empty and the lights were dim. She'd quietly fix herself something from the breakroom fridge, hoping against hope that Oksana wouldn't notic—mind. She meant mind, of course.

She would stay late after everyone left, under guise of being busy with work. And she was busy. She did all of her paperwork, all of Oz's accumulated paperwork, and then she'd organize her desk until it was neat and tidy.

Ms. O had a very nice purple sofa in her office.

An office that was also locked.

So, after wandering the halls for an hour and still being unable to find the Mattress Room, Octavia would curl up dejectedly on a large breakroom chair, lonely and misty-eyed. She'd toss and turn until dawn the next morning, when she'd do it all again.

"You're here early, Octavia," Ms. O commented one day, looking a bit surprised to see anyone at HQ before herself.

She could've told her. She could've told her everything.

But somehow, her mouth could only manage to chuckle sheepishly and form the words "Yeah... a little early. G-good morning, Ms. O."

Ms. O, it seemed, had more pressing matters to attend to, seeing how she nodded briefly and hurried upstairs, leaving Octavia alone.

Again.

Days went by like this. Each morning Octavia felt a little more desperate, and each night, a little more upset. Finally, someone bothered to ask about her.

"'Goood mornING, Agent Octavia!" greeted Agent Todd as he meandered by, grin crooked and eyes mischievous as always. He glanced at her, really glanced at her, and furrowed his eyebrows, stopping mid-stride to gawk. "You look terrible," he observed bluntly, though not without a pensive frown.

Okay, maybe 'ask' wasn't the right word. She didn't dislike Todd; he was very smart and a great agent. But that wasn't saying she'd never felt very... comfortable around him, either. He was a little bit sudden, and unpredictable in doing things. A little bit sarcastic. Not that that was a bad thing, but... Well, she wasn't really sure how to talk to him on a normal day.

"Sorry," she mumbled, clutching the few files she had left to complete. She hadn't checked herself in the medical bay's mirror yet that morning, so upon reaching up to touch her hair, she wasn't surprised to find that it did not feel fixed properly or tangle-free in the slightest.

Todd shrugged with a don't-look-at-me mumble, not appearing to personally care in the slightest what she looked like. "Eh, don't say sorry to me—say sorry to your reflection."

With that, he spotted a pair of agents contemplating a case together as they stood nearby, and he left quickly in a confident amble, presumably to solve their case before they did.

Octavia watched him for a moment with tired eyes, slowly realizing that all this wouldn't be near as bad if she only had someone to talk to.

I need to call Oz, she thought dimly to herself, shaking her head as her gaze dropped down to the floor. Where was he? It wasn't like her partner not to let her know if he wouldn't be showing up.

...Okay, maybe it was a little like him. But that didn't mean she didn't worry about him.

Just as she'd dropped her folders onto her desk, and was turning around to find a quiet spot to call from, a very loud voice rang out over Headquarters.

"OCTAVIA! OZ! IN MY OFFICE, NOW!"

----

Seated quietly—albeit sleepily—in one of Ms. O's octagonal chairs, Octavia listened as her boss informed her of her newest mission.

"...called because their World's Largest String Cheese was stolen."

Octavia blinked, willing herself to pay utmost attention.

It's my first case in days. Gotta know all the details, she thought forcefully to herself.

"However!"

The tired agent jumped, startled, as her boss banged a fist sharply on the desk. "Yes, Ms. O?" she blurted, afraid she'd missed something.

To her surprise, her boss' eyes softened a bit. "However," Ms. O continued, "I don't like sending agents out by themselves."

It took a moment, but Octavia shot out of her chair, shaking her head fearfully. "But—but I'm not by myself! I have Oz—!"

Ms. O only frowned. "I know you have Oz, but that really only helps when he shows up for work. Right?"

Octavia sank back into her chair guiltily. "...Yes, Ms. O."

The smaller girl heaved a tired sigh, taking a juice box from the corner of her desk and giving it a good, loud sssiiippp. Ms. O seemed to drain the contents of the box in less than an instant.

"...I'm sending Orchid instead," Ms. O finally decided as she massaged her forehead, tossing the emptied juice box over her shoulder. An assistant hurried over to catch it, but screeched to a halt and jumped out of the way just in time. The juice box landed in the wastebasket, rattled once, and was silent. The assistant raised her eyebrows, impressed, and gave her boss a thumbs-up before hurrying to leave. "Tell her about the case. I haven't been able to find her yet today, or else I'd do it myself."

"Yes, Ms. O," Octavia replied with confidence in her voice, standing up quickly to nod. Um... What was it, though? String cheese? At... the park?

Before she could ask, Ms. O raised an eyebrow and gave Octavia a steady look.

"Don't be afraid to say if you need anything, Octavia," she informed her, her voice almost conversational, not quite having its usual businesslike tone.

After a moment, Octavia nodded, a hesitant look crossing her face. "...Thanks, Ms. O," she replied, and even though she tried hard to sound cheerful, her voice was only small and quiet. "I'm okay."

Ms. O nodded in return, her face returning to its usual brisk expression. Octavia couldn't say for sure that she hadn't seen doubt in her boss' eyes, however.

"Good," Ms. O replied, removing and opening her badge phone with a swift flick of the wrist. She narrowed her eyes at Octavia, making a shooing gesture as she glared, dialing a number into her phone. "Well? What are you waiting for? GO!"

"Yes Ms. O!" Octavia stammered quickly, backing away from the desk and nearly toppling a chair in the process. Instead of instantly apologizing and jumping right in to help, however, she could only bring herself to stare at the now-crooked chair, a look of sad despair creeping slowly into her face.

Ms. O's eyes softened somewhat. Then, the agent she was dialing answered their phone, and her expression immediately turned stormy.

"ORCHID!" Ms. O yelled into her badge phone. Octavia took this opportunity to quickly replace the chair and hurry to the glass doors of the Management Office.

As she fumbled to swing the door open, she heard her boss' loud yells behind her.

"GET IN HERE! You're meeting Octavia by the sandbox! STAT!"

"Relax with the volume control, Sherman. I can hear you just fine."

"GrrrRRRR..."

"Coming! Alright! Sheesh..."

-----

The end of that day was not a particularly fun one. Not if you asked Octavia, anyways.

"Thanks for the help, Sherman," Orchid had muttered upon her return, back late and covered in cheese. She sounded a little sarcastic, but Octavia always had the worst time trying to tell.

So, she hoped for the best and took it as a half-compliment.

"You're... welcome?"

Orchid rolled her eyes, shook her head as if Octavia was missing the most obvious thing in the world, and shoved right past her en route to her desk. Octavia, a bit hurt but not entirely surprised, tried giving the younger agent a tired smile.

Orchid seemed to ignore her, instead grabbing her toy dinosaurs from where they sat next to the sandbox. She tucked them under her arm and headed for the Tube Lobby, where the last of the regular agents were filing out to go home.

"'Night, Sherman," was her only acknowledgment, but then she strode past a chattering pair of agents and was gone.

Octavia's face, which was until then plastered with a weak smile, slowly fell.

I'm not a regular agent anymore, am I?

"Squishinating," called an all-too-familiar voice from the lobby. Octavia didn't need to go check to know who it was.

Her heart sank a bit, and she returned to her desk to pick up the last of her absent partner's paperwork that had lain there, finished, since that morning.

-----

Octavia didn't know when she'd dozed off, but it couldn't have been long afterwards when she found herself suddenly awake again, blinking in confusion and aching all over.

Sitting up and drawing in a slow breath as she stretched out her back, Octavia glanced at her aging office chair and frowned slightly.

It'd sure be nice to have a chair I could sleep in, if I needed to, she thought distantly. Already she could imagine the most comfortable chair ever, one where she could relax for hours and not get cramped. Maybe it would even have a cup holder. That would be neat.

Her real chair creaked idly beneath her.

...Never mind.

The very stiff agent stood up, glancing around at the now-empty Headquarters.

The desks around her glinted dully in their dim illumination—it was nearly dark in the large office. The power generator hummed lowly in the corner, its massive tubes glowing green and blue. A few small lights remained on, shining faintly from the ceilings of the lab, the security stations, and the Ball Room. The abstract lighting fixture hanging above the back hall flickered from green to blue and back again, its warped reflection moving eerily on the metallic wall.

Octavia stared at the lights, not really seeing them.

The sun is so much brighter than those, she remembered, though the memory was nearly as dim as the lights themselves.

She tried, half-heartedly, to picture the outside world—green trees growing, grey birds fluttering, all under a yellow sun and a blue sky.

She knew what these things were. She had walked right under them almost every day. She knew that trees had leaves, birds had feathers, the sun shone too brightly to look at, and clouds rolled in the blue overhead.

So why couldn't she picture them?

How big was the sky? It seems small, now, Octavia thought, glancing sadly down at the desk in front of her. Her computer's power light glowed a dull orange, indicating that there wasn't currently enough power to run it. Headquarters went into an energy-saving mode at night.

Her thoughts drifted back to the outdoors, though she still had to wrack her brain to even imagine what the warm sun on her face or the cool breeze in her hair could have felt like.

It would have to be. It couldn't be nearly as big and empty as this place, could it?

Headquarters was locked up at night; that much she knew. But didn't anyone check to make sure no one was still here? Didn't they want to make sure no agents were left behind, forced to stay the night all by themselves?

...I guess not.

Suddenly, Octavia felt very sad and very alone.

"I wish I could see the sky," she mumbled, voice trembling softly.

No one answered.

She knew she should head for the Breakroom (well, the bathroom first; so she could brush her teeth) and get some rest—the sooner she slept, the sooner morning would come. Morning always felt less lonely than nighttime. But for some reason, she didn't.

Instead, she sat slowly back down on the stiff-cushioned chair, leaning back and folding her hands across her stomach. The chair, surprisingly, did not squeak in protest, and it was perhaps because of this that Octavia heard a noise.

It silenced as quickly as it'd began, but the girl frowned slightly, tilting her head in bewilderment.

Rustle.

What was that?

Shuffle, rustle.

Uncertain, Octavia sprung to her feet, looking around for the source of the noise.

Rustle-rustle.

"He...Hello?" she asked quietly, eyes darting around from one dark desk to another. "Is someone there?"

Was it strange she was almost hoping for a yes?

Another noise came—one of a multitude of small, plastic objects cascading and shifting as something heavier than they pushed through them—and this noise she recognized.

Her gaze jumped right to the Ballpit, which was churning just a little, as if someone was wriggling their way out of the balls after a top-secret meeting.

No one's still here, she reminded herself carefully. More than anything else, she didn't want be disappointed again. Everyone went home. Maybe it's... a creature? Did a centigurp get in there again?

Telling herself that this was definitely the only possibility, Octavia edged around her desk, jumped to steady her file tray when she almost knocked it off, and tiptoed hesitantly up to the glass front of the Ball Room.

The multicolored balls, illuminated in a faint yellow light, rustled again.

"Hello?" she repeated softly, hoping not to scare whatever odd creature must've gotten out.

Suddenly, a very human face popped up, and Octavia gave a small squeak, nearly jumping out of—and tripping over—her shoes.

The agent in question inhaled sharply and stiffened nearly as much as she did, probably startled by her yelp. He, a messy-haired boy who looked about her age, only stayed still, eyes wide in bewilderment.

They both stared at each other for a minute, equal amounts of sheer surprise in their expressions.

Finally, Octavia spoke, giving a sheepish laugh and waving slightly as she rocked hesitantly on her heels. "Um... hi?"

The boy started, blinked, and gave a crooked, sheepish smile. "...Um... hey."

How did you get in here? Is... there another way out? Please show me!

"...Were you in there all day?" was all Octavia could manage to ask, a very blank look probably written all over her face.

The boy only stared for a brief moment, before shrugging. "...Yeah," he replied simply, blinking at her. She didn't answer, so he elaborated. "It's... actually a lot bigger down there than it looks."

Finally, Octavia shook herself out of her thoughts.

"Is... anyone else in there?" she wondered, still confused. The boy shook his head.

"Nope. Just me," he replied, shifting slightly amongst the balls.

"Oh."

Octavia knew that she probably wasn't making friends very well, but she couldn't help herself. She was lonely.

"Could... could you use someone to talk to, maybe?" she inquired, smiling sheepishly with a tiny shrug. Please? I need someone to talk to. "Because I... haven't... had anybody to talk to all day."

The dusty-haired boy chuckled slightly, a sympathetic look crossing his face.

"Me either," he replied with a bit of a smile, shuffling into a sitting position. He made no move to leave the Ballpit, however. It took a moment, but then he waded up near the glass outer wall of the Ballpit, holding out a hand for her to shake.

"Name's Opie," he introduced himself, and Octavia quickly hopped forward and shook his hand.

"Oogent Acta—I mean Agont Octe—I-I mean, Octavia," she stammered, grinning sheepishly as she withdrew her hand and folded it with the other one around her stomach.

Opie flashed a tiny grin at this, and it was only then that Octavia concluded he must've been feeling a little awkward up until then, because afterward he seemed relaxed enough that the change was noticeable. He tentatively rested his elbows on the edge of the Ballpit, crossing his arms slightly.

Octavia chuckled, shaking her head as she apologized. "Sorry, I-I've just... um... I've had a kind of rough couple days."

------

"And that's... what happened," she concluded, seated cross-legged on the floor. Opie, who was listening very well for someone who probably hadn't been out looking for conversation, frowned in sympathy from where he sat on the edge of the Ballpit.

"Oh... sorry to hear all that," he apologized quietly.

Octavia managed a weak smile of assurance. "I-it's okay, though!" she quickly exclaimed, before shrugging and adjusting the cuffs of her sleeves. "I'll... get out of here eventually."

There was a silence for a moment.

"So... Why were you in the Ballpit?" Octavia wondered, tilting her head in curiosity.

Opie shrugged slightly, gazing down at the faint grey silhouette of his shadow.

"I just... like it in there, I guess," he replied, watching his feet swing idly back and forth. "It changes, but it's always familiar. Plus," he added, glancing up at her with a wry smile, "it's always an adventure."

Octavia couldn't help but frown in confusion. "How?" she asked, looking over at the contained flood of plastic balls. "Isn't it just... more balls down there?"

He shook his head, then paused, before nodding and shrugging again. "Well... yes and no. There's..." He trailed off, struggling for the right words. "...You know the Hall of Doors?"

Nobody knew the Hall of Doors, but she did know about them, so she took a chance and assumed that was what he meant. "Mhm?"

Opie glanced over his shoulder at the balls, a strange look on his face. "Well... it's sort of like that. I don't know if it goes down through the different rooms or what, but there's... places down there, and they change."

He went quiet, still gazing at the balls, lost in thought.

Quietly, Octavia unfolded her legs and stood up. She walked tentatively up beside him.

The two agents were still for a minute, both staring at the mysterious sea of balls.

Very hesitantly, Octavia glanced at her new friend.

"Could you... show me?" she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

For a moment, Opie didn't answer.

Then, he looked up at her, almost surprised. Slowly, his quiet smile returned.

"Sure," he answered simply.

Her face lit up in reply.

--------

Down.

Octavia didn't know how far one could bury themselves in plastic balls, but as Opie took a deep breath and sunk down into the pit, she felt like she could only follow.

At first, it felt perfectly normal. The balls were always fresh and clean—some rule insisted that they had to be changed after every secret meeting. But the deeper she followed her friend into the ocean of plastic colors, the more she couldn't help but wonder exactly how many balls it took to change out the ones in the Ball Room.

The balls became thicker, and more densely packed together. Octavia frowned in concern, finding she was having a hard time pushing them out of the way to go down. She paused for just a moment to take a breath, and noticed that the balls around her were still.

...Opie? Where are you?

Suddenly fearful that she was lost, and had gotten herself left alone once again, she struggled almost frantically to worm her way further down. Layer after layer after layer of balls—and suddenly, she was falling, tumbling, and landing on her back, very surprised.

She quickly sat back up, blinking at her dim surroundings as she rubbed her head.

She was in a room, of sorts—a large, box-shaped cavity in the balls that stretched from wall to wall. The walls were all cement here, and had yellowing underground lights mounted in them every few feet. These illuminated the little room in a pale glow, though it seemed to Octavia that they gave off barely enough light to read by.

Opie was standing up, his head bowed to avoid hitting it on the densely-packed balls that made up the low ceiling. He wasn't quite as tall as she was, she figured, but he was close.

He frowned a bit, looking concerned.

"Oh, sorry..." he apologized, flinching slightly as she rubbed her head. "There's gaps every once in a while."

Curious, Octavia stood up, though she rather quickly found that being on one's knees was a much more comfortable choice for a tall agent who didn't want to rub her shoulders on the ceiling. A small pile of books lay in the corner, a bowl of oranges sat propped up against the wall, and—

Octavia suddenly jumped a bit upon seeing several pairs of small, glowing eyes crowded in the darkest corner.

Noticing this, Opie followed her gaze, and half-chuckled, almost sheepish.

"Oh, don't worry about them. They're tame."

Octavia blinked, still unsure exactly what they were, when Opie crouched down, holding out a hand as if he was holding a piece of food.

"Here, kitty kitty..." he called quietly, and the glowing eyes slowly blinked in succession. Little by little, they inched forward, until finally, several orange kitten faces appeared.

Octavia couldn't help herself. "Aww!" she cooed, sitting down on her feet so as to look less intimidating to the approaching cats.

It was then that the litter stepped out fully into the light, and Octavia noticed something... different about these kittens.

They had the bodies of spiders.

She squeaked slightly, tipping over off her feet in surprise. She caught herself, quickly scrambling all the way back up to her feet with a sheepish smile.

"Oh, heh," she chuckled, rubbing her arm in embarrassment. Regaining her composure, she crouched down again, holding out a hand for one of the odd creatures to hesitantly sniff. "Spider kittens! They're... still cute, actually," she admitted, smiling shyly as the one closest to her began rubbing its chin on her hand. "Where did you find them?"

Opie chuckled as a pair of spider kittens sprung up onto his arm and tried to cling there. Gently, he picked them up and set them down on the balls that served as a loose floor.

"They were just... here," he replied with a shrug, straightening up and putting his hands in his pockets. They both watched as the kittens got bored with their company and began tussling with each other, mewling and squeaking. "The balls only get changed out on the top layers. Down here, all sorts of stuff can stay hidden."

"Like you?" she inquired, offering what she hoped was a small, friendly smile. Opie smiled back.

"Yeah," he replied, glancing down at the balls beneath him.

"Like me."

-------

Balls, balls, and more balls.

How many had to be down here? Octavia wasn't sure she knew of a number that big.

Even as she dug down, again following her new friend into the unknown depths of this chasm of color, Octavia felt strangely peaceful in between fits of uneasiness.

There's someone else here, she reminded herself every time she had to try not to panic slightly whenever she lost sight of the wriggling balls ahead of her. He's just ahead of me. He wouldn't leave.

As if her thoughts were on a repeating cycle, the uneasy feeling slowly came back.

Would he?

It was then that her hand struck something very hard, and she sucked in a sharp breath, drawing the hand back to tuck it under an arm.

She frowned, finding herself increasingly distracted from her uncertainty. It was a welcome distraction, and she really was curious, so...

...What is this thing? she wondered, spying a faded, bony projection sticking out from between a few balls.

A little bit of digging revealed even more of the grayish object. Some shifting around, and the brushing away of black dirt that had somehow accumulated around the mystery item, and even more of the object was revealed.

It was strangely shaped, whatever it was. The part she'd found looked like a knobby, three-toothed gear—but it was so large and rough and irregular in shape that she thought it could hardly be mechanical.

Then—there was another one, attached to the side of the first.

In the back of her mind, Octavia knew she should hurry to keep up with Opie. She already could only faintly hear the distant rustling of balls below. But... she was curious.

The long chain of objects curved and trailed downward, so she dug down to follow it. The knobs became longer, then shorter, then finally—

"Hey," a muffled voice came, sounding oddly as if it were only inches below her. "...Be careful. There's another gap down here."

She nodded, and for some reason tried to wriggle her way downward just a bit more, perhaps so he could hear her more clearly when she replied. In hindsight, this was unnecessary and also a bad idea.

Because, being Octavia, she only succeeded in breaking through the ceiling of balls and dropping unceremoniously through.

She tried to land on her feet, but sadly, she needed a lot more practice to have reflexes like a cat's. She did manage to get one foot underneath her (a foot which promptly sank right through about six layers of balls), but what actually surprised her was the pair of arms that suddenly caught her from tipping over, steadying her by the shoulders.

The moment she managed to regain her balance, they were gone, and she blinked in sheepish curiosity, turning to see her new friend.

It was dark down here—much darker than the previous gap in the balls—but he still looked worried, then slightly awkward.

"Sorry," he mumbled, balls rustling and shifting as he took a small step away.

"Hm?" Octavia blinked, shaking her head quickly. "Oh! No, thank—"

She paused suddenly, noticing something out of the corner of her eye.

"...you?"

She turned.

Even in the dimness of the small, room-like area, she could see three things.

One was that there were no longer cement walls surrounding the Ball Room down here. It was black dirt, and protruding in places were pieces of pottery, bones, and even what looked like the propeller of a thoroughly-rusted airplane. How far are we underground?

Two, that the balls were deeper here. They didn't form a hard-packed floor—she was having trouble not sinking down in.

Three was that in front of her, jutting down from the same spinal column she'd been following just moments ago, was the massive, grinning skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

For the record, she didn't squeak and jump backward in fear, per se. She was just surprised. Obviously.

Well, no. That wasn't quite true. It was closer to startled.

...Okay, so maybe she was scared for a moment. It was forgivable—each pale tooth of the skull was almost the size of a steak knife.

She tripped in the balls and dropped, rather clumsily, into a sprawled-out sitting position. Octavia stared up at the hanging half-skeleton, both amazed and slightly fearful.

"That... is... big," she finally marveled, eyebrows raised as the surprise of the situation wore off. Before long, she was hopping back to her feet, curious. She looked over her shoulder at Opie, not trusting herself to turn around in the tentative footing.

"How did this get down here?" she asked, tilting her head in amazement. She turned back to the fossil giant, mentally estimating a measurement. "...Wow. That head has to be five feet long."

Opie, who had been standing stiffly, looking unsure what to do, seemed to come back to the present once heard her question.

He shrugged, frowning just slightly at the rows of jagged teeth.

"Not sure," he replied, glancing off to the fossils and other, ancient-looking miscellanea in the walls. "I think this might be part of the Archaeology Room."

Octavia turned to look at the artifacts littering the place and frowned. "I didn't know we had an Archaeology Room," she admitted, glancing around curiously.

Opie waded up beside her, keeping one eye on the dinosaur skeleton.

"Probably because it's down here?" he suggested. She shrugged, pursed her lips, and nodded, because that made sense.

Opie glanced down and began wriggling downward, shuffling his feet beneath the balls and slowly descending.

She must've been watching for too long a moment, because he noticed and looked up at her.

"There's more," he offered, giving a tiny, awkward smile. "But be ready to hold your breath."

He suddenly dove under and disappeared.

----

She didn't know what she had expected from that cryptic comment—but whatever it was, it wasn't that there would be water further down.

Octavia made sure to stay close behind her friend this time. Good thing, too—just before he plunged into the thin spread of floating balls, he paused.

The balls had become strangely sparse the further they went down, Octavia noticed. She could see Opie's oddly apologetic face not a few feet beside her.

"There... aren't any towels down this far," he explained, his voice traveling slightly across the water visible between the balls beneath them. The echoes of it were quiet and a bit warbled. "Sorry. We'll get wet."

She frowned, meeting his eyes in curiosity. "Doesn't your suit have a self-drying button on it?"

"...Not that I know of," Opie replied, a bit of a strange look crossing his face. He managed a half-smile and a chuckle, and the look was gone. "My suit's not new. I don't think it has many features in it."

I think it should have that button, if it was made in the last couple of decades, Octavia wanted to say.

...How old are you, again?

But instead, her gaze trailed downward, into the clear water, and she could see places with blue and white tile surrounding the edges, like a pool.

Below that, there were balls.

"You can swim, right?" Opie asked, breaking her out of her reverie. She started, then quickly nodded.

"Oh, yep!" she replied, nodding as she looked down once more. Suddenly, her face grew hesitant. "...How deep is it... though?"

"It's pretty deep," he answered with a slight shrug, staring down into the pool. The water beneath them rippled, the surrounding balls wobbling and pushing into the clear expanse below.

Octavia stared down also, spotting a barely-readable depth line stretching down through the rippling water.

5', it read first.

10'

15'

20'

25'

30'.

She looked up and met Opie's gaze, eyes uncertain.

"Do you think I can make it?" she wondered quietly. Can either of us swim that deep? I guess he would know.

Opie just watched her for a moment. Then, he nodded.

"Yeah, I think you can," he replied with a fairly confident shrug.

That was good enough for her, so when he drew in a large breath and plunged downwards with a splash, she did the same and followed him.

----

The world seemed to float around her.

Everything was magnified in the clear water—the balls floating above her, the balls resting far below her, and the perfect squares of white and blue tile that seemed to stretch down the walls for miles.

The water was warm, but just pleasantly so. It really felt room temperature—other than the feel of water enveloping her, it hardly felt as if she were underwater at all.

It did feel odd, slowly drifting through a vast world of liquid. The strangest part was knowing that you couldn't breathe when you wanted to.

Though she had taken a deep breath before diving, Octavia still felt her chest tighten at the thought. She frowned slightly to herself, pushing down to follow the dim figure of her new friend, who was by the wall and had just passed the 15' mark.

Sunlight—or some other kind of light—cast rays that filtered down through the water. The occasional ball or cluster of balls floated serenely in the deep, as did a lone rubber duck. Curious, Octavia turned her head to trace the light back to the surface.

There, already seeming far above them, a bright light shone, but if it was the sun or a lightbulb or a window, she couldn't tell.

Her chest tightened further, very sharply this time, and that frightened Octavia into swimming with much more effort.

Opie was only a silhouette at the bottom now, down by the floor of balls that was shrouded in a dim blue shadow. He pushed into the balls, and, though not without a quick glance upward at her, disappeared.

15, 20', 25'.

Octavia reached the ball-covered floor, where she drifted to a near stop, lungs burning, unsure what to do.

She had only just reached a hand into the balls when a hand grabbed hers, yanking her swiftly downward.

The last thing she glimpsed before being sucked into the familiar sea of plastic was several bamboo shoots peeking out of the balls as they protruded up into the pool.

----

Octavia hadn't realized just how much pressure her body had been under in the deep water, but now that she was so suddenly out of it, her lungs felt weak and her muscles felt stretched to the limit. She shoved a hand to her heart, but even pressing as hard as she could didn't do much to quell the pushing feeling from her insides.

Very slowly, the decompressing sensation subsided, though both agents remained quiet as they regained their strength.

After several moments of resting, and pressing the button to dry her suit, and enjoying the presence of a substance so often taken for granted—air—Octavia, still breathing deeply, ventured a look around.

It was very green at whatever level they were at now.

More bamboo shoots poked their ways up through the balls, their little feather-shaped leaves jutting this way and that. Opie was resting against several large stalks a few feet beside her, forming a little cave in the balls just as she had.

"You okay?" he checked, looking at her in tired concern. His shoulders still rose and fell slightly as he worked to catch his breath. His reddish hair was slick and damp, and his suit was dark with water. "...Sorry. It wasn't that deep last time."

She quickly formed a tired grin and nodded. "Yup! I'm fine," she replied, before her gaze drifted upward. The balls not far above their heads rippled and swayed with the water they held overhead. Octavia didn't know why the water didn't come rushing down to where they were, but she decided not to question it.

She then peered downward, but the only thing she could see was a mix of colors and greenery.

"...How far does this all go?" Octavia wondered, eyes flickering up to her friend's in curiosity.

Opie seemed to have finally recovered from the swim, because he blinked himself out of his thoughts to look at her. He chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

"The Ballpit?" Opie asked, raising an eyebrow almost fondly at the thought. "Forever. And then some."

Octavia blinked, wide-eyed in wonder as she looked at the plastic balls surrounding them. "Wow. Forever?"

The boy smiled wryly, shrugging. "It sure seems like it."

Octavia tipped her head, peering downward into the loose mess of balls. "How many more... um... levels are there?" she asked, honestly curious. Some part of her wondered what time it must be by now, but it really didn't matter. I can't go out on cases tomorrow, anyway. I can't use the tubes.

She thought she heard Opie chuckle. "I don't even know. A few?" he guessed, sounding clueless for the most part. "Sometimes they stop, and sometimes they repeat. It's different every time."

Octavia made a small noise of agreement, still looking downward at the increasingly thick forest of matted bamboo. She glanced up to Opie, offering him a friendly smile. "Which one's your favorite?"

"Eh, I like them all," Opie answered vaguely with a shrug. Octavia smiled and gave him a playful look, at which he rolled his eyes upward and relented. "...Okay... there is one that's pretty cool to see, I guess."

Octavia met his eyes, intrigued. "Which one?"

He managed a small, wry smile, and shrugged. "It's another level down. ...Or at least it was the last time I was down here."

It was amazing, Octavia thought, how something so little as having someone to talk to could do as much as make a person feel ready for anything. It was far past the time she ought to have been asleep, and yet...

"Could I see it?" she asked with a grin, and he smiled slightly. Her face dropped a bit, however, as a dim thought crossed her mind. "But, um... No water this time?"

He grinned. "Nope. And I'm glad."

Octavia laughed quietly, nodding in definite agreement.

---

She doubted she had ever seen so much bamboo as she did on her way past the bamboo forest.

It was everywhere—growing up thick and thin, its jointed poles sticking up straight as far as she could see. Little leaves sprung out here and there, and eventually, her surroundings were most all bamboo, interrupted by only a few colorful balls.

But as they made their way downwards, Octavia couldn't help but ask a question that had been mulling in her mind.

"Why do you stay down here?" she asked, glancing over at where her friend was making his way downward parallel to her. She couldn't quite see him, but she knew he could hear her, because the bamboo to her left stopped moving for a moment.

"...I just like it down here," Opie finally replied, awfully vaguely, and Octavia figured that he was shrugging. "It's pretty neat."

She frowned, because another question had been gnawing at her mind ever since the moment she realized it hadn't been a centigurp hiding in the Ballpit.

"Doesn't it get lonely?" she wondered, eyebrows raised in honest confusion. I know I would get lonely.

Heh, I barely lasted a few days by myself, didn't I?

The boy beside her stayed still for a long moment. But finally, he spoke.

"Yeah," he replied under his breath with a shrug, and if his answer hadn't been yes, it would've sounded like it was no big deal.

...Oh.

Octavia couldn't help but flinch as she felt her heart go out to him. But he starting wriggling downward again, so she only frowned meekly to herself and followed, feeling crestfallen for her new friend.

---

It seemed like the moment they had wiggled free of the bottom layer of the bamboo forest, they were floating.

Not in water, Octavia quickly realized with relief. No, there was no water here. There were very few balls, either. Only the gradually tapering ends of bamboo stalks protruded down here, scattered at different lengths all around them like stalactites.

No, they were floating for real, now.

They were suspended in starry, glowing, outer space.

There was a vast, immense blackness all around them, like they were inside an orb that had been covered in a black sheet. Pinpoints of light, some big and some minutely small, were dusted in every direction, as if someone had taken spray paint made of starlight and misted the vacuum of space-time itself.

Octavia was stricken with awe at the beauty of the Milky Way, as seen from... wherever they were. It didn't even begin to occur to her that they were supposed to be underground—there were giant planets orbiting them, and the sight was so beautiful that even Obi looked slightly speechless.

Jupiter was orbiting them, it looked like—along with Neptune, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto. The wavy patterns of the planets' surfaces was nearly breathtaking.

So much so, that she didn't even notice she'd forgotten to breathe.

That was when Opie turned to look at her, still drifting silently downwards alongside her. His eyes were still distracted by the wonderful view, but they were also clouded with a strange expression.

Can't stay, he mouthed.

Why can't I hear you? she asked with furrowed eyebrows, but to her surprise, even her own words made no sounds.

We can't stay, came the answer.

Why not? she wondered, confused. It's so pretty.

There's not enough oxygen. The balls are too far apart.

Do the balls give off oxygen?

We need to go down further.

Okay... coming.

Opie reached over, almost in slow motion, and grasped her wrist. In a practiced motion, he braced his feet against two of the thickest, longest bamboo stems that protruded down into this empty, soundless space, and shoved off, pulling her along with.

Octavia didn't feel even the slightest bit panicked here. It wasn't at all like being underwater. Her lungs were functioning normally, and she could very well inhale and exhale for some odd reason, even if there was no usable oxygen in the empty space around them.

Maybe she would have felt anxious in any other environment, but the view of so many clouds and clusters of white stars was so captivating that she barely even noticed the strain building up in her lungs.

Saturn's mosaic rings swept grandly around their planet, sweeping so close to where she floated that Octavia could only marvel at how massive they were. Uranus and Neptune were both otherworldly blue colors, the former an opaque sea-green and the latter almost sky blue.

Jupiter was so huge, so close that Octavia nearly missed it—but there, off to her far left, the giant planet loomed, its wavy channels of soft tans and rusting browns encircling the orb for what must've been thousands and thousands of miles.

Several moons hung silently around each planet, each of varying shapes and sizes. It was all so beautiful, so limitless and serene, that Octavia wished she could watch it forever.

That was, until she felt a tug on her wrist, and she looked over to meet Opie's still-clouded eyes.

Don't let it get to you, he warned silently. A brief flicker of worry appeared in his eyes, and she only now noticed that his face was drawn and slightly pale. You don't want to get stuck down here.

It was then that her body seemed to click back with her mind, and suddenly Octavia was heaving soundlessly for oxygen that was not there.

It's beautiful and dangerous, isn't it? she realized, glancing to her friend with worried eyes. The breathtaking stars and planets still tried to draw her gaze away, but she closed her eyes tight and refused.

Yes, she felt him reply.

She felt that she was following her friend down, but whether it was for a few feet or a few hundred yards, she didn't know. When she did manage to peek her eyes open once again, she could see starry space only in her peripheral vision—in front of them was a thick, rectangular cloud of what seemed to be floating balls.

Then, she could once again hear Opie as he grunted slightly, pulling her wrist forward before letting go. She felt gravity once again drag at her as she flew forward, and she crashed down into the balls, falling through dozens of sparser layers until she landed on a more firmly packed one.

Octavia quickly turned around and looked up, anxious to see if her friend was okay, but the floating balls had filled up whatever hole she'd made in them upon falling through. They were thick, and try as she might, she couldn't see even the blackness of space above her.

She could breathe, though. She couldn't help but smile in grateful relief as she panted for a moment, vowing never to take air for granted again.

It was then that Opie fell through the floating balls overhead, crashing through just as she had, though he landed on all fours with a bit more grace.

They met each other's eyes, glancing for a moment to make sure the other was okay.

"That was your favorite level?" Octavia couldn't help but break the silence in sheer surprise. That seemed dangerous! ...Really pretty, but also dangerous!

"...I... always thought it was kind of breathtaking," Opie admitted, voice still a bit winded, but his face entirely serious.

It must have been the lack of oxygen, because after a moment of mere staring, both agents burst into hysterical laughter.

---

Octavia marveled at looseness of the balls as she stared up at them. She wasn't sure how, but even when there hadn't been a level of outer space to suspend them in midair, she had been able see between them for quite a little ways.

Opie was stretched out on his back like she was, staring upwards. Octavia glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

That was okay, though. She was happy to hope that maybe, he was thinking that their adventuring had been a welcome change of pace. It definitely has been for me.

"How far have we gone?" she couldn't help but wonder, glancing upward again. Somewhere above her head was outer space, a bamboo forest, thousands of gallons of water, and what must've been millions of balls.

Perhaps it should've felt unnerving, having all that weight balanced over her head, but she had come this far and had never felt better for it. Why be afraid now?

Opie blinked himself out of his thoughts, then looked up as well, eyes distant for a moment. Then he shrugged, and she felt him glancing back at her. "Not sure. Probably a mile."

A mile. Somehow, it seemed a long ways to come, and yet an utterly short distance compared to what all they had seen.

Octavia looked back at her friend, her brown eyes curious. "How much is left to go?" she asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

Opie, to her surprise, smiled wryly at this. "As far as I know?" he checked, grey eyes now surprisingly bright.

Octavia nodded, tilting her head in curiosity. His smile turned to a very, very slight grin.

"Forever," he replied simply, turning back to look upward once again.

A small patch had cleared in the cloud of balls overhead, and for a moment, they could see the stars.

---

She didn't feel tired, but she must've looked it, because Opie suggested they go back.

"It's late," he finally muttered, voice apologetic. "Sorry. I shouldn't keep you up."

Octavia sat up—not without bumping a few floating balls with her head, and watching sheepishly as they went flying—and looked down at him, offering a shy smile.

"No!" she quickly tried to object, but the word came out surprisingly loud, so she clapped a hand over her mouth to try to stifle the volume. It didn't work, and she felt a bit of pink creep up her neck in embarrassment. But, being Octavia, she smiled awkwardly and tried to shrug it off.

"...I just meant it's fine," she elaborated, grinning self-consciously at Opie's  wry smirk. Busy thinking, she pulled a ball out of the air and quietly sniffed it, feeling a bit hungry at the scent of banana cream pie wafting from it. "I... haven't had anything to do in a little while."

Opie sat up also, leaning on the hand he had propped himself up with. His suit had mostly dried from the water, but his hair was a bit spiked up, and he looked a bit... damp, still. Octavia would've gladly given him a towel if she'd had one. It was almost a little cold down this far; being wet couldn't be much fun.

"Me either," he admitted, glancing up at her.

They sat there for a moment in companionable silence, until at long last Octavia felt her eyelids begin to drag themselves downward, and she yawned sleepily into the crook of her arm, breaking the stillness.

The balls shuffled as Opie stood stiffly up, and he offered her a hand, using the other to swat away a few floating balls. Octavia smiled sheepishly and accepted the help up.

"I—I'm not that tired," she tried briefly to insist, though she stumbled for a moment to right her balance on the moving bed of balls. Unfortunately, blinking sleepily to get her eyes to focus probably wasn't the most convincing backup for this statement.

"It's two in the morning," Opie replied in a pretend-serious tone, glancing up from his watch. He gave a half-smile at her sheepish expression. "We should both get some sleep."

"...Oh." Octavia stared for a moment, then chuckled, having to nod at this. "Heh. Yeah, that's kind of late."

They stood there for a moment, and Octavia looked around at the clouds of colorful balls surrounding them. A question came to mind, one she honestly could not think of an answer to.

"...How do we get back?" she asked, glancing hesitantly upward. We... don't have to go back through all that, do we?

Opie chuckled at the question, as if he'd not only been expecting it, but he was more than happy to present the much-hoped-for answer.

"Don't worry," he replied, smiling slightly at her. "It's not that far."

Relieved, Octavia smiled back at this. Until, to her surprise, Opie suddenly sprung upward into the cloud of balls, stepping and pushing himself up until he was completely out of sight.

She could only stare for a moment, but quickly enough shook herself out of it. She certainly wasn't getting left down here by herself—even if she was sure Opie would come back for her if she didn't make it wherever he was going.

So, she bent down and jumped upward as high as she could, kicking and scrambling up into what... felt like a much thicker layer of balls than she remembered.

Sure enough, the further she kept wriggling upward, the thicker the balls became.

...That's odd, Octavia thought to herself, but this was Odd Squad, so she shrugged it away and kept climbing.

Up, up, up she went, pulling and scrambling up as the balls became thicker and thicker. At last, just when she thought she would have to rest for a moment because of how hard it was to continue upward, something gave way, and suddenly, she was at the very top surface of the Ballpit.

Even the dim yellow lights of the Ball Room seemed bright to her, and for a moment, Octavia blinked, dazzled by the sudden open space of Headquarters. She couldn't have been in the enclosed space in the balls for that long, but all of the sudden, any amount of solid room that she could just... go walk around in seemed amazing.

She looked quickly back and forth, and there was Opie, resting with an arm over the edge of the Ballpit as he smiled slightly.

"Y'okay?" he asked, watching her to make sure.

He probably feels like this every time he comes up here, doesn't he? Octavia pondered, before shaking her head and smiling at him in reassurance.

"Yep!" she replied quickly, working on pulling herself up on top of the balls most of the way. She nearly shivered as a cool draft blew into her—the balls had a sort of insulating factor that the open air just did not have. She perched on top of the colorful plastic for a moment, just taking a quiet breath and enjoying looking around.

To her surprise, Opie began shuffling through the balls a bit, and he stood up in them, stepping stiffly over the short glass wall. Octavia stared for a moment—she hadn't yet seen him stand up on solid ground (and by the looks of it, he hadn't either, for a while)—before hurrying to follow suit.

---

The cool air continued blowing gently past from whatever circulation vent it was coming from, gently ruffling the hair of the two lone agents who stood in front of the Ballpit, thinking.

The silence wasn't unpleasant, by any means. But Octavia had to admit she was tired, even though she didn't want to say goodbye to her new friend.

Finally, she figured she needed to say something, so she glanced at the boy beside her, eyes flickering with a sleepy, friendly light.

"Thanks, Opie," she said simply, smiling distantly when he looked over at her.

"It's no problem," he replied, smiling his usual part-smile back. He seemed much less tired than she was. Did he stay up this late often? Or was it just hard to tell the time of day down in the Ballpit, so he was awake at odd hours?

Either way, a slightly tired look did cross his face as his eyes dropped down to the faint reflections of light on the grayish-brown floor.

"Thanks for... visiting with me," he added quietly, suddenly seeming just a shade awkward again. He glanced over at the multitude of desks and computers, though he didn't seem to focus on them. "It gets kind of lonely down there, sometimes."

Octavia smiled sympathetically at that, nodding in agreement.

"It gets kind of lonely up here, too," she replied softly, glancing resignedly over to her partner's unoccupied desk. Opie seemed to notice this, but said nothing. She dipped her head slightly and sighed, not being able to think of anything more to say.

Oh. An important thought suddenly occurred to her, and she quickly looked up, meeting her friend's eyes hopefully.

"Will I be able to see you again?" she asked, watching him in earnest curiosity. Opie chuckled softly at this, but did glance downward.

"...I don't usually come up here in the daytime," he admitted, glancing over to the staircase a short ways away, then up at Ms. O's office. His gaze drifted back down to the floor. "We're both busy during the day. And at night, you're supposed to be home, sleeping."

It was sad to think that she might not be able to see her new friend much. But Octavia was sure they could work something out.

She wasn't sure, however, if she could do anything about the sad fact that she couldn't be home, like she was supposed to.

"I'm... I'm stuck here, though," she murmured in reply, eyes growing a bit sad as she glanced up to the closed doors to the Tube Lobby.

I'm so tired, Opie, she wanted to say. The anxiousness and sadness she'd felt during the day, and the adventures she'd embarked on during the first half of the night were finally catching up with her, and suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to curl up on any chair she could find and sleep. And lonely.

She couldn't say that, of course. Neither could she do that; not at the moment. So she didn't.

But Opie was still watching her, silhouetted partly in the darkness of Headquarters. He frowned, and if Octavia didn't know better, she'd have thought he looked like he knew how she felt.

"Tell you what," he slowly suggested, glancing toward the Tube Lobby, then back at her. Her head bobbed back up at his tone of voice, and she stared at him, curious. ...Would he be nice enough to help?

It almost seemed like it.

"I can fire up the tubes and send you out, and when O'Brian comes back, I'll see if I can get him to stop not letting you out of Headquarters." Opie smiled slightly at her, but she was still trying to wrap her head around the thought.

...The tubes are shut down though, aren't they? her brain wondered, honestly not being able to recall the answer. He's not a tube operator; could he really... could I really...?

"But... but won't he tube-block you, too?" was the question Octavia finally managed to ask in concern. Or... worse? she wanted to add. Opie merely shook his head.

"Nah. He can't tube-block me," he reminded, smiling wryly at her. "I don't use the tubes, remember? I stay here."

Octavia thought about this for a long moment, before studying her new friend, an oddly pensive light in her eyes. Slowly, all the questions she'd had seemed to sound irrelevant.

If he says he can do it, I'm sure he can, she decided to herself.

If... he really wants to help me, even when I'm sad and lonely, then... I guess I would have a real friend.

That was when a thought came to her, a realization so sudden and so obvious that for a moment, it cheered her up so much that she wasn't sure what to do.

I'm not alone anymore, am I?

Octavia beamed brightly, so utterly grateful that she was unsure how to express it.

I can go! I can see the sky again!

"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed in joyful relief, but that didn't seem like enough.

So, she leaned forward and hugged him, still unable to wipe the smile off her face.

Opie stiffened, seeming at a loss for a moment. Then, hesitantly, he hugged her back.

He drew back as soon as she did, but when Octavia looked at him, still beaming, he was smiling softly.

"It's... no problem," he replied honestly, glancing away for a moment.

His gaze flickered back to meet hers, and they both smiled.

----

Octavia came through the tubes like she was supposed to the next day.

To her surprise, O'Brian was not working in the Tube Lobby. Instead, a small redheaded boy sat at the controls, who glanced up at her when she came in.

"'Morning," O'Malley mumbled in greeting, returning his attention to tapping something out on the broad screen in front of him.

Octavia stepped down off the tube platform, glancing around in uncertainty.

"Is... O'Brian here today?" she couldn't help but wonder, fearing the worst. Yes, he's just on break for a minute. He'll be back in no time... right?

Again, O'Malley surprised her.

"Nuh-uh," he answered, glancing back up at her. He was one of the younger tube operators, and Octavia guessed he was a little bit shy, because he quickly looked down again. "He's gone for a couple weeks. It's his vacation time."

Octavia only stared distantly for a long moment, trying to process all that.

"So he won't be here for a while?" she finally double-checked, tilting her head in hopeful curiosity.

O'Malley took a bite of a granola bar, munching on it, and shook his head. "Mm-mm."

Almost in a daze—though it probably could be blamed on not crashing in her bed until her alarm clock read 2:31 AM that morning—Octavia wandered out into the main room.

It was business as usual at Odd Squad. Agent Orchid was carrying a giant grilled cheese sandwich down a hallway, Oren and Olaf were talking to a woman with flowers for hands, and Todd was sitting on his desk eating a carrot and animatedly describing something to Olive, who listened with a hesitant smile on her face.

Octavia, hoping very hard, walked over to her desk.

"Partner?" she asked, eyes straining to see if anyone was on the chair across from hers. She was probably letting too much hope leak into her voice...

...but it didn't matter, because she got an answer.

"H—Hey, partner," came Oz's very, very sheepish voice from across at his desk.

Octavia didn't care how sheepish he sounded—she had her partner back. She could go solve cases. She had two friends here with her at Headquarters now, and for some reason, she felt so fearless and confident that it didn't seem like a far stretch to make a few more.

"Just a second, Oz!" Octavia exclaimed, beaming brightly like she'd always used to. I can smile again, can't I?

I'm not alone anymore! I can see the sky again whenever I want to! We can go solve cases!

Oz sounded bewildered, as if he was just about to apologize, but he trailed off and replied with an "...Oh... okay?"

Octavia, still beaming, hopped quickly over to the Ball Room, which was void of agents at the moment. She softly dropped down on one knee in front of the Ballpit and knocked twice on the glass wall.

Standing swiftly back up, Octavia called down into the balls, "If you can hear me, um... Thanks, Opie!"

Familiar footsteps walked up beside her, and Oz still sounded confused when he spoke.

"Who's Opie?" he asked, puzzled.

Octavia smiled brightly at the space where her partner was standing and shrugged simply. "A new friend I made! He showed me around down in the Ballpit."

If she could've seen him, Oz probably would've blinked at this explanation.

"Down in there?" he repeated, sounding a mix between incredulous and curious. "Isn't it just more balls?"

Octavia laughed softly and shook her head, watching the Ballpit for any movement for another moment before turning to head back to her desk, where a large stack of finished paperwork still sat. "No, actually," she replied with a smile. "There's... all sorts of things down there."

"Really?" asked Oz, most likely wrinkling his nose in confusion. "...How far does that thing go?"

Octavia paused for a moment, before chuckling lightly. "Forever," she replied, and she wasn't exaggerating.

Then, she turned to beam brightly at her partner, a knowing gleam in her eye.

"...And a mile."