Just as the sun set, I slowly lowered the five bicycles down onto the ground, managing to do so with gentleness this time since I was now more familiar with riding inside of the basket of one.

We were now safely at the clearing in the forest, our destination, and Elliot was quickly the first to jump off of his bicycle and he gently picked me up and set me down onto the ground as he unwrapped me from the warm, white blanket that I had been wrapped in.

Elliot then rushed over to the special transmitter we had constructed for the purpose of sending a message to my companions in their spaceship. The transmitter was humming and buzzing with life as Elliot cleared away the dry leaves that had fallen onto it.

It was just then that the wind began to stir, and I looked up towards the sky as the clouds began to glow bright shades of blue, purple, and yellow, and I quickly began to feel a very familiar sensation in the very center of my heart, so that the light in it began to glow even more vibrantly.

"Home!" I said as the clouds began to part and a magnificent light of unexplainable brilliance began to fill the evening sky.

From the corner of my left eye I could see how Elliot was holding his hand above his eyes as he watched what I was watching. The mother-ship was descending gradually and gracefully from above with all of its light beams glowing brightly. I extended my neck to see it better as it lowered ever closer and I could see it in all of it's glory. I truly had seen it countless times before, but seeing right now was really a special time. For a while I had been sadly feeling that I wouldn't ever see it again, and now here I was looking up at it and blinking rapidly, and not just from the brightness of the light that it was radiating, but also from all of the love and harmony that it was radiating to my heart which was now really pulsating with an overwhelming sense of joy.

It was rather like how I had felt when I had come back to life, as Elliot said I had died although all I remember is being in a very deep and peaceful sleep before I awakened with my illness gone from me, and knowing then that my companions had received the message I had sent them and were on their way for me. Now here they were as I could really feel a strong connection of our heart-lights joining together once again. I had lost the connection to them as soon as they had left me behind, which was an accident as they were in a hurry to flee from those men, and now the sensation of being reconnected with them was almost more than I could bear.

"Home!" I said again as I gulped down a sob that was rising inside of me.

I watched as the spaceship was lowered down before me and its pistols were spread out evenly so that it was set onto the ground with perfect gentleness. I then watched as the door was opened and a ramp was lowered onto the ground, and just inside of the opening of the ship I could see about four of my companions with their heart-lights all glowing a bright red that matched my own.

It was just then that I saw another set of lights coming from around the corner in the forest, I looked and watched as a car pulled to a halt in front of us, and out of it stepped Mary, who I knew was the mother of the three children that had looked after me during my stay at their house, and the man who I now knew was among the men who were searching for me, and that he wanted no harm to come to me.

I also saw Gertie, the little girl who was the little sister of Elliot, and I watched as she approached me holding the pot containing the geranium plant she had given me shortly after we had met.

She approached me with tears streaming down her face. "I just wanted to say. . . goodbye," she said.

"He doesn't know goodbye," said Michael, standing close beside her.

Gertie then simply handed me the pot with the geranium in it, and then gave me a tender little kiss on the side of my face. I smiled, for I loved Gertie and the geranium plant that she gave to me as a gift. It was true that I didn't know the word goodbye, though I sensed that meant something of sadness as I looked into Gertie's tear filled eyes.

I remembered that it was thanks to her and her toy electronic spelling board that I had learned to speak a bit of their language, and I also would not have been able to phone home at all without it.

"B! Good!" I said the very first thing that Gertie had taught me, hoping that it would cheer her up.

"Yes," she said and nodded with a weak smile.

Then Gertie stepped aside as Michael, who I knew was the oldest of the three, stepped closer to me and slowly reached his hand out towards me. For a moment I was confused as to what he was going to do, and then he ever so gently rested his hand onto the top of my head and petted and stroked it with a great tenderness that was very calming to me. I sighed deeply as I leaned back and enjoyed the sensation of Micheal's love for me that flowed into my heart-light

I could feel that Michael had rediscovered something he had lost through me, and that he would never forget me, or what he had learned from me. I felt him slowly draw his hand away from my head and I relaxed as all of the love I felt from it settled into me.

"Thank you," I murmured. I had learned this phrase before, and now I somehow felt that it was the appropriate thing to say to Michael at this moment.

"You're welcome," Michael said as he slowly stepped back and smiled broadly.

And now Elliot stepped up to me. He was the very first friend I had made on Earth. He had taken me into his own home and given me food and taken such good care of me. If it wasn't for him I truly wouldn't be alive right now. It was his infinite love for me, as well as Micheal's and Gertie's, with the combined power of that of my companions who were like family to me, that had resurrected me after my death of the disease I had got from the polluted atmosphere that Earth has, and if it hadn't been for the three of them I would have perished much sooner.

As I looked at Elliot, I saw that his eyes were reflecting a deep inner sadness which I knew was because I was now leaving. From the moment that we had met each other we had been having the same feelings at the same time, our souls were connected. I felt that if we could just be together always that we would always be happy.

I reached out to him. "Come," I said hopefully.

"Stay," Elliot replied very sadly.

I knew that he meant he had to stay behind on Earth. I sighed deeply, for of course I understood, he had a family that loved him just as I did, and yet at the same time I could feel the loneliness I had felt when I had been left behind returning to me. My heart-light was strongly connected with my home planet and my family, and now it was also connected just as strongly with this planet and Elliot and his family.

I slowly brought my index finger to my heart and then touched it to my lips as I murmured, "Ouch." It was a word which I had learned to express pain.

"Ouch," Elliot murmured as he did the same pattern, and I watched as a single tear trickled down from his right eye.

As I continued to look at Elliot, I telepathically radiated a message for him to embrace me. As I began to open my arms for him, he opened his own and all at once flung himself onto me and held on tightly. I laid my hands onto his back and rubbed it tenderly as I tried to soothe the great sadness which I could feel his heart was filled with. At the same time I could also feel a love that greater and more powerful than could be imagined. I remembered all of the good times I had had with Elliot from he had given me Reese's Pieces and taken me in, and taught me about life of Earth, to when he had brought the tools I needed to build the transmitter and I had healed his finger when he had cut it on the saw blade, to when we had gone flying over the treetops of the forest on his bicycle, to when I had gotten sick and he had stayed by my side all the while, and then he had been the first face I saw when I was healed and resurrected, and then he had probably risked his own life in getting me to where I was now.

As we continued to hold each other I felt that I had somehow changed Elliot's life for the better and had filled in a void that had been in his heart, and indeed he had done the same for me. He was the first to show me that humans are gentle, and kind, and caring, and I would never forget that. I closed my eyes as laid my head against his shoulder, and just cherished the feeling of us being pressed against each other, and then he very slowly began to pull out of the embrace.

As I let my arms slide, ever so slowly, from Elliot's body, I looked at his tear stained face and felt I couldn't cry at this parting moment and make him sadder, and then I realized there was no need to cry anyway, for we would always stay connected to each other no matter what happened.

I smiled as I lit my fourth finger and touched it to his forehead. "I'll be right here," I said as I remembered that was the last thing he had said to me when I was very sick, and it had made me feel better, I just hoped it would do the same for him.

He smiled and seemed to be comforted. "Bye," he said softly.

So then I lowered my neck again as I reached down to pick up the potted geranium I had set beside me. I looked at them all one last time before I turned around and began my decent up the ramp to my spaceship. I held tightly to the plant Gertie had given me, of all of the plants I had and cared for on my home planet, this one would be the most special of all to me.

As I continued up the gangway, my companions came closer to me with their heart-lights beckoning me towards them. My captain stood in the center of them and as soon as I was close enough I reached out and embraced him. I then could feel the hands of my other companions touching me on my head and back, and our love and care for each other surged through.

I then turned around and stood beside of them as I watched the ramp being loaded into the ship once again, and the door began to close itself. I looked at the eight human beings who were gathered together for our leaving the Earth with unmeasured love and affection, and I knew we would always be together in our hearts and memories.

Then finally the door was closed, and my captain said to me, "We received your message, and we never meant to leave you behind, you know. I am sure it will never happen again."

I smiled as I replied. "I was meant to be left behind."

"You were? Why do you think that?" my captain asked with surprise.

"Elliot," I said. "He needed me, just as I needed him. He took care of me, kept me alive, if not for him I wouldn't be here now."

"So then humans are really caring creatures?" my captain asked.

"Yes they are," I said.

I then began to tell them all about my adventure on Earth, and when we arrived home to the Green Planet I would tell all of my fellow botanists. Would they envy me? Maybe, or maybe not. I just hoped that I would someday be able to visit Earth again and see all of the friends I had made on my last trip, and I hoped it would be soon.