The weekend may have been restful for Zelda, but for Alfred it had been anything but. With the brief but notable exception of his outing with Charity yesterday, the three days since he'd last seen her had been characterized by a lingering sense of dread and a feeling of restlessness. He'd been planning to use the weekend to get his mind onto something other than the curse, but instead he'd picked up a habit of glancing at his palm every few minutes to see if any mysterious blue swirls had appeared recently. Every time he looked and saw nothing but skin he told himself he was being stupid — he had lived his life normally while cursed since early January, after all, so it wasn't as though things he did normally were likely triggers — but whatever he told himself, he would catch himself checking again five or ten minutes later. He'd even gotten up once or twice during the middle of the night, ostensibly to use the bathroom but really just to have an excuse to turn a light on and wash his hands and see that they were still as clean as when he'd gone to bed.

So no, he wasn't particularly ready — but it wasn't as though more time was going to make him any more ready, so there wasn't any point in bringing it up, he didn't think. "As I'll ever be," he answered, resisting the urge to check one of his palms again. He couldn't let Zelda catch him being paranoid; what would she think of him? She wouldn't let him help with the ship anymore, that was certain, and since this was the only thing preventing him from just sitting around at home checking his palms and waiting to die, he wasn't going to let that happen.

"Where do you want to start?" he asked, surveying the Voyager from the pier. She looked so innocent from here.