Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uzi was pretty sick of everything going crazy. Which was saying something. This was Uzi, after all. But even restless angsty teens could only handle so much crazy, and more and more she was afraid something would happen that she couldn’t fix— someone would get hurt, and she would be helpless.

One upside to the disaster of a prom, however, was that she was actually allowed to hang out with N now! She didn’t have to go through the whole process of trying to sneak out only to get caught every other time. It made her life much easier. Her Dad seemed to finally warm up to N a bit after he saved her life or whatever.

Not that he trusted N. That was a stretch. But he was… perhaps cautiously accepting.

Uzi rifled through her stack of papers, having burned the scribbles of each onto her optics several times over, before flopping back onto the metal floor of her room with a groan. The dry pages scattered away from her fingertips. N glanced up from his own stack, tail-tip flicking.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

She kicked at the papers he’d sorted. Humming, N pushed them out of reach, returning to the page in his hands.

“Well… there’s a lot here. The more we figure out now the better, don’t you think?”

Uzi groaned again. He had a point. How dare he.

“I’m bored though,” she said.

N shot her another glance, setting down one paper and lifting the next. He studied it. A faint smile played across his face.

“You’re always bored.”

“And? Shut up, I wanna do something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She rolled over, sitting up on her knees. “You like badly written TV shows?”

N shrugged. “Maybe? Probably.”

“Can we watch one?”

N gave her a level stare. She glared back, holding out for a long moment, but eventually caved and slumped back down with a groan.

She wouldn’t be able to enjoy that right now and they both knew it. That’s why he was here in the first place: to give a second opinion on her theories. But it had been over an hour of sitting on the cold floor surrounded by red string and scribbled notes, and it felt like days, and there was a ticking clock SOMEWHERE that she could hear but couldn’t see.

It was great and all that N learned to hold his own since they’d met, but now Uzi had to compromise sometimes. She hated it. (Not that she wasn’t glad. Getting away from J had really helped him. He never talked much about his life back then, except during their first conversation, but she’d seen his improvement since then and could fill in the blanks.)

Grumpy, Uzi huffed. She shuffled a bit to kick at N’s leg, and he lowered his paper with a pointed look.

“At least take a break. You need it,” she insisted.

N went to speak but paused. He looked away, frowning thoughtfully and drumming out a small pattern on the metal. Uzi sat up again to fix him with a defiant stare.

“Yeah. Okay. I— you’re right.”

“Awesome!” A malicious grin spread across her face. The regret on his was instantaneous.

“Now, how much do you know about pirating?”

J shot up from the wreckage of the spacecraft, hovering to brush herself off. Thankfully her outfit was still pristine. With her updated Arsenal, she’d correct the brief hiccup in the company’s plans with ease.

Thank Jenson they understood that she wasn’t to blame. How could she have predicted that the runt of their squad would turn traitor? She’d been so careful, worked so hard to condition him, it was only by incredible fluke that things ended as they did. That worker and her dangerous ideas… the perfect foil to J’s efforts.

But no matter. Her superiors understood, and she was going to rectify the issue once and for all with their blessing.

One more change in N was that, as he’d relaxed, they realized pretty quick that he was the touchy kind. High fives or fist bumps, emphasizing a joke with a little shove, offering a helpful hand, that kind of thing.

Uzi, meanwhile, was not a very touchy person. She didn’t mind it so much. Not in those forms, anyway. But she wasn’t used to it, so she was hyper-aware of it, and then she would overthink and weird herself out. As excitable as N was, he struck a good balance between challenging her and respecting boundaries.

This was the rabbit she was busy chasing in circles through her head while she was supposed to be watching some action-comedy show. N seemed to like it. He pointed out plot or character details that she missed completely, and which really helped the story. She didn’t even mind when he got excited and talked over what was happening on screen. The point was to take a break, and he was much better at keeping her attention than the show was anyway, so.

After a couple episodes they got back to work. They bounced ideas back and forth, distracted eachother a bunch, poured over every detail twice, and eventually, as dawn approached, relented that they just didn’t have enough information yet.

“Hopefully the next disaster will come with a handbook,” Uzi joked lamely. For some reason N laughed.

At the exit to the bunker, N went to hug her, but hesitated. Instead he stepped through the doors with a little salute and a cheerful smile.

Uzi was torn on that one. In all honesty, she wouldn’t have minded a goodbye hug. But the moment had passed, and she rushed to wave before the metal walls rumbled and jumped shut, trimming her world down to rows and rows of metal boxes.

Uzi’s time out at the spire never felt quite right. There was companionship without history there. She had a whole wide-open world at her fingertips, but it was empty of meaning or purpose, a snowy wasteland.

The colony was never home either, though.

Or… maybe it used to be, but then her Mom died, and well… since then it had been a maze with no way out, literally and figuratively. Sure, Uzi was restless. Sure, she wanted more, she wanted freedom. But she wouldn’t have minded a home either.

It was nice, having one now, despite everything.

Uzi lingered at the door for a moment. Then, remembering the WDF who were… just kind of watching her, she turned on her heel and left. Just because she was experiencing emotions didn’t mean they had to know about it. She was still edgy, and she wasn’t about to let anyone think otherwise.

Maybe she could get that hug next time. She could even pretend she hated it, for the sake of any observers (as well as her own peace of mind).

Yeah. Next time… that sounded good.

Chapter Text

Uzi startled awake with a bad feeling in her chest and the Absolute Solver flickering on her visor. She kicked off the sheets, gasping, and rolled off the side of the bed, falling (a long ways) down and landing with a crash. She stumbled to her feet. Barely pausing to collect herself, she ran.

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.

She seized the Master Key and was out the door. She didn’t have time to be careful. If she got caught, it didn’t matter, she was going and no one would stop her.

Uzi skidded to a halt at the first door, slamming the Key against the panel until it snapped open. Jogging to the next panel, she did the same for door two. The WDF workers looked up from their card game. One of them stood, stepping around the table, but Uzi went straight for the panel without acknowledging him. She didn’t have time to play polite either. She didn’t have time.

A hand caught her arm, jolting her from the freedom her fingertips had almost brushed. She blinked over her shoulder, disoriented. The worker held on to her still. His expression hardened with his grip, and he drew her a few more steps back.

“Khan called ahead. Said you might be coming through, and to stop you if you did.”

Of course. Of course he had.

She had to go now. She could win this fight if she had to. Right? Surely. He didn’t know how to fight. Uzi meanwhile fought a Murder Drone and won.

Something pinged in the back of her mind.

Uzi narrowed her eyes, sizing up her opponent. Her gaze landing on the others though made her hesitate. She was greatly outnumbered here… and alone, and on top of that, she couldn’t go around hurting other worker drones. But she really really needed to get out immediately.

Door two rolled open again and her Dad stumbled in, gasping. They made eye contact and a sort of sick, dizzy feeling crawled up her throat. One more thing to slow her down. One more wall to slam into when she needed to move.

“Uzi! What are you doing??”

“Let me go.”

“Explain.”

“Let me go.”

Khan crossed his arms. He gave her a stern, infuriatingly calm glare. Momentarily, Uzi had to wrestle with the Symbol fighting to out her by glitching across her visor, as well as the violent rage that surfaced it.

“I need to go, now. I need to find N. Something’s wrong. Now get— “ she wrenched her arm free, practically spitting, “off me.”

Her Dad started forward with alarm but she’d already slammed the key against the last panel. The WDF worker tried to grab her again, and Uzi dodged around him, slipping outside the moment the doors opened.

And she ran.

Didn’t look back, just ran.

Snow spiraled past her in torrents, some from above and some tossed up by the wind, she couldn’t tell which was which. Even the looming silhouettes of crumbling skyscrapers were barely visible through the white. If she didn’t know the way like the back of her hand, she would’ve been lost in seconds.

There was no way anyone could follow her through this. Not that her Dad would bother.

In a flash of yellow, she collided with something solid, falling back with a gasp. The something yelped and stumbled too. Uzi coughed, dusting snow off her visor and squinting, which didn’t do anything. Somehow the storm had gotten worse. She was blind.

“Uzi!”

Hands wrapped around her forearms, helping tug her upright. She brushed at her visor again, looking up.

“N?”

“I was just on my way to— were you… looking for me?”

“Yeah, I— something— uh… huh.”

They stared at each other, pieces clicking into place and leaving them more confused than before.

“Did you feel like…”

“… something was wrong?” N finished for her. “Yeah. Did— you got that too?”

Uzi nodded. The Solver symbol glitched into view. N’s gaze flickered to it, his eyes widening minutely.

“Uh…”

“Yeah. It’s weird.” Uzi suppressed a shudder, glaring off to one side and hugging herself.

N was quiet for a moment. He glanced upwards, studied the sky, then finally returned to Uzi. He offered a hand.

“I can get us to the spire, if you like?”

Uzi gave a small, half-bitter chuckle and accepted. She squeezed his hand gratefully.

“Yeah. That’s… it has to be better than standing around out here.”

Regarding the snowstorm that had barely lessened in intensity, she sternly added, “If you crash and kill us, I’ll kill you.”

N laughed. “Duly noted,” he said, and launched them skyward.

There was a long minute of nothing but whiteness, wind battering and scrabbling to rip her away. Uzi had no idea how N could see where he was going. Or even tell up from down, for that matter. She couldn’t see how high up they were but she knew if she slipped it was a promise of death.

Which, in and of itself, she was fine with. But the blind dependence on someone else? That… did get her heart pounding a bit. A month— heck, a week ago, she would’ve gone to lengths to avoid this situation, or any like it.

But this was N, and it wasn’t even a question for him. This was as simple as a stroll down the hallway. Even if it were life or death, he would never so much as consider dropping her.

They landed in an explosion of snow, startling Uzi, and N lowered her so she could more easily leap to the ground. He beamed at her.

It had taken her a while to figure that out. He just did that, sometimes. Once they got closer, though, she realized it was just a genuine reaction to seeing someone he liked being around. Smiling at them, because he could, and wanted to.

She returned the gesture while moving through the entrance to the spire. For the most part, the storm couldn’t reach in here. She unwound with relief at recovering her vision. Learning to rely on others didn’t mean she wanted to need to.

Uzi started towards the pod with N trailing behind her. The symbol flickered across her visor again.

She paused, mentally poking at that.

She was here. She was with N, this was where she needed to be, and the feeling of panic had faded almost entirely when they ran into each other. But it was back, rising steadily. A looming tide of dread she couldn’t explain.

She glanced at N and found him giving the snow a puzzled frown. He caught her looking and grimaced awkwardly.

“You too?”

He nodded and dropped his gaze again, fidgeting. Uzi took a deep, exaggerated breath, steadying herself and making sure N heard it. Blinking, he sort of startled before doing the same.

“Let’s just… get inside, see if we can work this out, yeah?”

A nod. Uzi nodded once, too, mostly to herself, and gave him a final once-over before starting forward again.

They stepped inside the crumpled spaceship. V was pacing, lost in her own world. Uzi nudged N towards the chairs and he went. She followed, but didn’t sit down, instead leaning against the opposite seat.

Only then did V notice them. She turned abruptly, suddenly zeroed in. Caught off guard, Uzi stepped back, defensive.

“Hey! D’you… feel….. “

V trailed off, blinking. She slowly looked upwards.

“What?” Uzi said. She followed V’s gaze, but there was only metal ceiling. She looked over to N, expecting him to shrug at her, equally confused. But he was looking up too.

“What? What is it??” She demanded, looking between them. There was no answer. In the silence, though, she heard a faint humming, growing steadily louder.

“N,” V breathed. He didn’t move, fixated on whatever was above them.

“N. Go,” she said, more firmly.

He didn’t move. The humming was louder now, closer, practically on top of them. V finally snapped her gaze to the two of them, and she looked terrified.

She stormed over. Grabbed N, practically threw him towards the door. She shoved Uzi, too.

“Both of you! Go! Run! Now!!”

Chapter Text

Snapping into herself, Uzi nodded once and grasped N by the arm. She bolted. He stumbled after her, finally looking away from the source of the noise. The humming of wings.

They ran.

Uzi debated getting N to fly them. But if they could hear someone else’s wings, there was no doubt that the someone would know if he used his, too.

So they ran. And ran, Uzi leading the way and N keeping pace easily, having come to his senses. They were closing in on the bunker. Another minute or so and they’d be safe.

That’s when Uzi collided with someone for the second time that night. They caught her by the shoulders to keep her upright. N skidded to a halt, managing not to crash as well and knock them both over.

“Uzi?”

She shook herself and stepped back.

“Dad?? What—“

The humming— which had risen to a roar— peaked, followed by a crash and a flurry of snow rolling over them. Uzi turned. She stumbled a step back, towards her Dad, the bunker, safety. N stepped back too. He reached behind him, for Uzi. But he didn’t find her and didn’t look over to do so.

Through the storm, a figure straightened up and brushed themself off. Their wings retracted. The solver symbol glitched frantically in time with Uzi’s heartbeat.

“Ah, there we are. Just as I thought.”

J strolled forward, almost casually, as if the smile on her face wasn't promising massacre. N took another step back. Uzi thought she heard a small, choked noise from him, but couldn’t be sure.

J halted and studied them like cuts of meat at a butcher’s.

“All my least favorite people, in one place.” Her smile widened sweetly. “How convenient.”

She lunged.

Uzi’s Dad seized her and dragged her back. She lost her footing, and by the time she dug her heels in she was halfway between the fight and the doors. J tried to pull N in the opposite direction. Uzi wrenched free seconds before he did. He rolled as J swiped at him, scrambling up, and darted towards the two. Khan Caught Uzi around the waist, trying again to pull her to safety; she struggled, reaching for N.

He had escaped. But he was panicked, desperate. And J was faster. She caught him again and twisted his arm behind his back with a snarl. N cried out, faltering. Torn between old habits and new. Compliance and self-defense.

Fight back, Uzi willed, shoving harder at her Dad. Please, you’re better now, fight back.

And he did. Though shaking, he settled on rebellion, and twisted violently, breaking free once more. His tail whipped around. J stamped it into the earth. They struggled for an upper hand.

Uzi, distracted by a battle that wasn’t her own, was only being dragged farther and farther back. They were at the entrance to the bunker now. Gritting her teeth, she launched into a bout of kicking and hitting, bringing them to another standstill as Khan fought to hold on.

“Let me go!” She cried. She clasped her hands together and beat them against her Dad’s arms once, twice, thrice. “I have to help! I have to help!! She’ll kill him! N!”

He was holding his own, but only just. One hand switched to a cannon. N fired. J ducked with a ‘tsk’, catching him around the middle; he slammed to the ground, hard. N gasped. His visor glitched. J’s claws came down and drove through his arm and shoulder, into the frozen earth, and he cried out, struggling for a moment before going still and shuddering in agony.

They were basically through the door. Uzi couldn’t go any farther in or it would slam shut. She had to break free, and now.

She swung one leg back and caught her Dad’s knee, he let go and fell into a kneel, cursing. She ran forward and the WDF were on her in an instant.

She pushed. Just barely outside. They couldn’t close the doors yet. “Get off me! N!!”

J was leaning over him. She said something. N coughed, mumbling a reply and looking away. J scowled and dragged him upright, to eye level, and he gripped at her arms, trying to take some weight off the blades stabbed through him. J spoke again.

N’s expression changed, he froze and opened his mouth to speak.

She didn’t give him the chance. Just like with the virus, she jabbed something onto his midsection, and he yelled, scrabbling against her hold.

“No!”

N saw her. Uzi broke free, reaching. He reached too. All he could do was lift an arm, still pinned like an exotic bug in a display case, so she fought to bridge the distance. You’ve saved him before. You can do it again. You’ve saved him before. You’ve beat her. You can win. You promised yourself this was over, she would never hurt him again, so you have to win this one battle more than anything.

Just this one battle.

You can win.

Just this one.

Please, just save him.

N’s visor glitched and went dark, and J’s claws retracted, dropping him into the snow.

Chapter Text

She just stood there. J just stood there, the asshole, with this smug look and her hands on her hips, while Uzi thrashed and yelled and the collective effort of the WDF barely managed to hold her back. Even the Solver, which should’ve been doing something helpful by this point, remained dormant. Taunting her.

The workers were frantic. J could be on them any second, now that she was no longer preoccupied. But instead she stood there and smiled.

“I’ll kill you!” Uzi screamed. She clawed at one worker’s face, and he drew back with a yelp. One less obstacle, a glint of cruel satisfaction.

“Why? A life for a life?” J called.

Growling, Uzi kicked at another worker. The one she’d clawed returned to the fight.

“He’s not dead if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She went still. The WDF even took pause. Khan limped forward and wrapped an arm around Uzi’s shoulders, drawing her not through the doors, but to his side.

“W-What do you mean?”

J’s smile only widened. She gave N a kick, and Uzi saw red.

“C’mon. Up,” J snapped. “Now.”

N groaned weakly. He rolled over, blinking. Exhausted, beaten, but alive. Uzi almost sobbed.

“Uzi…” her Dad started.

He was alive. That’s what mattered.

Snarling, J kicked him again.

“I said get up.”

N flinched, coughing, and pushed himself upright with difficulty. J grabbed him and dragged him the rest of the way.

“sorry,” he rasped.

“Shut up. You left the only workers I gave you to deal with alive. Now get it done and I’ll consider going easy on you.”

“Uzi. Get inside,” Khan said. She ignored him, staring, completely lost.

N looked from the group at the door to J and back. They made eye contact. His expression was puzzled and unhappy.

What…

“Now!”

N flinched again and looked away. His eyes glossed over for a moment.

Uzi’s Dad yanked her back suddenly, pulling her the last few steps inside.

“Wh-hey! No!”

They held her there. Khan wrestled the key from her and passed it to a worker.

“Wait!” She said. “Just— wait, he’s alive, we have to let him in—“

They hesitated. Uzi turned to N, pleading.

His visor flickered. An X fell into place. Uzi froze.

“N…?”

He looked over, and she couldn’t tell but she knew he recognized her, he had to, of course he did…

The doors slammed shut.

“No!!”

Uzi broke free and this time Khan let her go. She ran to the door. Something impacted on the other side. It had to be him. He was still trying to get away. He was trying to escape and they left him out there with J, who would hurt him again. They had to let him in, they had to help. She wouldn’t… she couldn’t just…

“Uzi, I’m sorry.”

“Shut up and let me out!”

She banged the metal hard enough to send herself reeling back. On the other side, N did something similar, with much more force. A hand landed on Uzi’s shoulder but she pushed it off and threw herself at the doors again.

“LET.”

Clang.

“ME.”

Clang.

“OUT. N!!”

She hit again and again, long after the other side of the door went quiet, the faint humming of two pairs of wings indicating both Drone’s departure. Some part of her recognized the implication. Two pairs of wings. N flew away, at least partially of his own accord.

Did he even recognize her?

What… exactly did J do to him?

Slamming against the door one last time, Uzi sank to the ground. She hugged her knees, shaking. After a moment her Dad sat next to her. He awkwardly shuffled over to wrap his arm around her shoulders. She let herself be drawn to his side, barely seeing or feeling anything.

“I’m sorry.”

Uzi screwed her eyes shut. She nodded curtly. Khan turned to hug her properly, tucking her under his chin, and she buried her face in her arms.

“I-I wanted— I was going to hug him, and I didn’t—“ she cut herself off, choked. To her shame, a sob forced its way from her throat, and her Dad held her tighter.

“I know.” He shushed her. “I know. I’m sorry.”

For the second time in her life, Uzi found herself without a home. For the first time, she was there to watch as it was ripped away.

Chapter Text

V wrung her hands, pacing. She didn’t like waiting. She needed to know what was going on… but she had to play it safe, or she’d be no help if things went south.

There was a whirring of wings outside, followed by the thump of landing. She rushed out of the pod. The chain she’d re-sautered around her neck clanked around her ankles, nearly tripping her as she skidded to a halt.

Two figures walked into the spire— J, and trailing close behind, hunched in on himself the way he used to be whenever J was mad… N.

V’s breath caught.

Oh no… no…

“Ah, V!” J walked over, hands on her hips. Her expression was guarded, calculating, as she studied the chain. “I take it this is why N and the worker are still in one piece?”

V straightened with a giggle that sounded like a recording, played from someone else’s mouth.

“Yeah. Only just escaped. It was sooo boring watching them dance around and whine ‘murder is bad!’ and
‘humans are bad!’ and ‘no fun allowed!’. Honestly, I’m glad you came back when you did.”

J grinned and patted her shoulder.

“Of course. I never leave a job unfinished.”

She moved past V and into the pod. V breathed a shaky sigh of relief, blinking rapidly. She looked to N, who was watching her with a complicated expression. They made eye contact.

V wanted to talk to him. She wanted to tell him everything and get him out of here. Or stand up to J. Or reassure him. Or even smile at him, which would make him so incredibly happy, because he was right back where he started; it was as if no one had ever been kind to him. As far as he knew, no one ever had.

If only V had helped from the beginning. Then he’d remember and there would be one small thing she could do. But she’d been complicit then, and she couldn’t break that pattern now, not if she wanted to save him.

I’m sorry, she thought as hard as she could. I’m so sorry.

Please, don’t forgive me.

V turned away.

Uzi lay on the floor, papers scattered all around, exactly where she and N left them. The things he’d touched were the only things in her room that remained intact. The clock was still somewhere, ticking away, and the floor wasn’t cold enough to make her feel anything.

The last time she’d done this, she thought she’d lost him in a different way. She’d hurt him. Just like then, his drawing taunted her, slicing into her chest, sealing the wound, twisting it open again, fraying wired nerves until she couldn’t tell what was pain and what was cold emptiness. They weren’t all that different, it turned out.

She never apologized to him. They’d cleared the air, but she never apologized for making him feel like a monster. She was just… after everything that happened, she didn’t know what to do with it all, and he was the closest thing she could put her problems on. All because she couldn’t deal with her own stupid emotions.

He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve any of this.

He’d probably be proud that she wasn’t blaming everything on her Dad, at least. It would’ve been so easy, too.
And it’s what she would’ve done a week ago. But she didn’t have it in her this time. She couldn’t hate him for protecting her where he failed to before. Part of her did want to scream at him that she could have saved N if he’d only let her, but in truth, she didn’t know that; she’d been unarmed, and J seemed stronger than last time.

So no. She couldn’t hate her Dad for this. But she could hate J. And she did, with every atom in her body. She hated J. And no matter what, this would end with J in the ground, only for good.

Uzi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, blocking out the drawing. Her body screamed against her desire to move, insides writhing in nausea, which she ignored in favour of stacking herself upright. Once on her feet, she stopped to breathe again.

If there was a way to bring back the N she knew, she’d find it.

And if not?

Uzi started for the door. Her mind was already swimming with schematics, plans, possibilities. She knew who to talk to. N would be okay.

… If not?

She’d burn it all to the ground.

He couldn’t quite place it but something was off. He felt different than before.

J had reset him, N knew that much. A huge chunk of his memory had been purged. What memories he did have were early ones, some of their first days after landing on Copper Nine.

J and V were normal. Nothing about them had changed. And N himself acted the same as he remembered, but it felt… wrong, somehow? It felt worse. He knew he shouldn’t question things and that he deserved how he was treated but there was some part of him that was just different and it wouldn’t leave him alone. How much did he change, in the time he’d lost?

It was jarring to wake up one day feeling like a completely different person in the same situation.

He knew he wanted out.

He also knew enough to keep that to himself, because J probably wouldn’t bother resetting him a second time.

Chapter Text

“No.”

“It will work,” Uzi insisted. “And there’s doors, who knows doors better than you?”

Her Dad hesitated. He shook his head.

“It’s too dangerous.”

Uzi stared, her jaw working silently. She took a step towards him. She pressed a finger to his chest, and when she spoke it was soft, dangerous.

“If you think,” she said, “that I’m going to leave my friend to be used, tortured, and eventually killed by his abuser, then I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but it isn’t your daughter. I am doing this. Either you help me, or I go it alone, again. If I die then congratulations! I’m sure Mom would be so happy you failed us both.”

He opened his mouth. Stopped. Closed it again. Uzi knew exactly what she’d said and didn’t feel a glimmer of remorse. Either he came around, right now, or she was done with him.

She waited for a long moment. Finally, scoffing, she pushed past him. The plans she’d ironed out swam to the forefront of her mind without pause. Uzi was moving forward.

“… wait.”

She halted and glared over her shoulder. Her Dad wrung his hands, sighing, and didn’t turn to face her. But…

“I’ll help,” he said. “I… you clearly care about him, and you’re doing what I couldn’t. So I… I’d rather know you’re safe, and that means helping you build this contraption.”

“Great.” Narrowing her eyes, Uzi jerked her head towards the door. “Let’s go.”

Keeping her distance was killing V slowly. She watched, and waited, and beat herself up every single time N got hurt. The only reason she couldn’t help now was that she never did before. She didn’t care enough. She was a coward. It was so much easier to do nothing, to turn a blind eye, because she wasn’t the one suffering and he always came out of it with a smile, so clearly he could handle it.

He smiled less, now. He seemed more confused. Distant. V dared to ask him about it, once.

“What’s with you? You’re all…”

She made a face. Ever the actor.

“… quiet.”

He seemed surprised she was talking to him at all. But not enough to be dangerous, probably. Hopefully. It wasn’t an especially risky question, especially given her disinterested tone.

“I, uh— I guess it just… feels like I’ve lost something, maybe? Or like… everything. That’s… yeah.”

Then he said something in a mumble, probably expecting she wouldn’t hear it: something like he didn’t ‘know what the point even was anymore.’ V was scared to ask what he meant by that. And she couldn’t risk it, so she didn’t.

It was even harder to keep her distance from then. As much as possible, she kept a close eye on him as well as J.

One day, a week or so later, she was patrolling near the colony when she spotted something of interest. Something new. A room-sized metal box, sitting out in the snow. She landed, slowly pacing the perimeter.

There was no visible door or other entrance. One side had what looked to be a window, with thick, reinforced glass (?) and a small cluster of holes barely big enough to slip a pencil through. The window was thin but stretched the width of one wall. Behind it there was another layer of metal, which looked capable of slotting together just like the bunker doors. The room itself was dark, but V’s heightened vision allowed her to see a trapdoor on the ground in a far corner. There were soft chairs, as well as a small table, and lots of construction mess still littered about.

Ah. I get it.

V smiled to herself, feeling a spark of hope. She stepped back and glanced around, making sure she hadn’t been seen, before launching herself skyward and sailing back to the spire.

Chapter Text

“Maybe I should just like… bring a bed in here. Or a sleeping bag, or something.”

Her Dad shot her a look. He was knelt down, checking the door mechanics for the 100th time.

“You can’t sleep in here.”

“I will if I have to.”

He went to protest, caught her expression, and relented with a sigh. With one final glance around he made his way to the trapdoor. He paused. Then descended silently, closing it behind him. Uzi went over to the window, leaning against the ledge— which was really the bottom half of a door, but served well as a windowsill for her angst agenda— and peered out into the snow.

The room had been finished for two days now and there had been no sign of N in that time. She’d never considered that part. Getting him here, convincing him to talk, any of it. And she was running out of options. At this point she was hesitant to ever leave, on the off chance he showed up.

A flash of movement caught her eye. Uzi blinked. She saw yellow. Her heart jumped, and she leaned forward until she bumped against the glass. It was…

V?

Hovering in the distance, she waved, gave a barely visible thumbs up, and zipped away.

So not N. But then… did V know what they were doing? Maybe this meant she was going to help. There was no way to be sure unless N showed up.

Uzi collapsed into a beanbag chair and grumbled to herself. More waiting. Fantastic. Exactly what I wanted.

At least now there was a chance.

This was risky. The riskiest thing she’d done yet, by far. But it was all for nothing if she didn’t.

It was difficult, too, to talk to N alone. J kept him on a tight leash. But she dumped extra patrols she didn’t want to deal with onto him, and V had always been eager to get out and hunt, so they were able to slip away on patrol. Then it was just a matter of “you go this way, I’ll go that way,” and pretending not to hear him protest that he wasn’t allowed to go near the bunker.

He would do it anyway. She felt horrible for taking advantage of his need to comply, but it was for his own good.

“Wait, but I can’t go— aaaand she’s gone.”

N sighed. This kind of thing always happened and he hated it. He should listen to V— she gave him an order, and she knew better than him— but it was against the rules. If J found out…

V wouldn’t do that, though. At least, he didn’t think she would. She must know something he didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t an important rule, or J changed it?

Or maybe V didn’t care all that much.

Either way, listening was usually the right thing to do, and if he was wrong… well, hopefully J never had to know.

N shook off the cobwebs of anxiety crowding his mind, dislodging some snow in the process, and started towards the colony.

… Maybe there were usually a lot of workers here they didn’t trust him to catch, and it was fine right now because they weren’t around? Or maybe J was starting to trust him again. This was where he’d failed, after all. Maybe she was giving him a second chance? He wasn’t going to ask, in case he was wrong, but it was a nice thought.

A few minutes passed of drifting overhead, scanning silently, with no signs of life or movement. Then something caught his eye he was pretty sure wasn’t there before. A big metal box. Uncertain, he looped above it for a while.

Curiosity got the best of him. He landed as lightly as possible and edged forward, reaching out to brush each wall as he walked the perimeter— searching for gaps, weaknesses, clues about what this thing was and what it was doing here. His fingertips stung with the cold of the metal. It felt like sandpaper, scraping as he moved, but he didn’t retract his hand until it became unbearable.

… And all he’d been focused on. He’d have to start over.

N sighed, rubbing at his visor tiredly.

There was a gasp from the box. He startled back, convinced he’d been caught, he was in trouble, he was going to die—

There was a window.

Idiot. How did you miss that?

Eyes peered through the gap in the wall. They were familiar, and he blinked, trying to remember who this worker was and how he knew her. How she was alive and he knew her.

“You…“ he said. Her eyes widened, and she moved closer to the glass. N stepped forward, pointing. “You’re the one from the door! I was supposed to kill you.”

She stared at him. After a long moment, she seemed to crumple in on herself, visor dimming.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

N wasn’t sure what to make of that. Did he do something? Not that she was— this was a worker drone, they weren’t sentient the same way he, J, and V were. She couldn’t really feel.

“I… uh… what exactly is this?”

She looked up. Her grief seemed to soften a bit.

“The room?”

He nodded.

“It‘s… a long story, but… it’s to talk to you, actually.”

N blinked. He waited for the laugh indicating that this was, in fact, a joke. It never came.

“…To talk. To… me.”

“Yep.”

“But not… not me specifically, though, right? You mean my squad in general…”

She was shaking her head.

“No. I told you, it’s— it’s a long story.”

He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand. What was this? Some kind of prank? Or trap?? Did J do this? Or maybe V… no, neither of those made sense… the worker could be lying, but why? He didn’t understand and he didn’t know what to do because that meant he wasn’t prepared and something bad could happen, he wouldn’t be ready if something hurt him and that was always the worst— when he didn’t have time to brace himself for it. And the waiting. The waiting felt like this. Knowing, but not knowing when, how bad, or sometimes even why. He didn’t know what to do.

N took a step back.

“Wait! Wait, I’m sorry, don’t go. I’m— m-my name is Uzi.”

She… wanted him to stay?

“ … N,” he said, warily.

Uzi opened her mouth but no words came out. She nodded instead, looking away, and N thought he heard a sniff, followed by something like a cough. He was more confused than ever. But the fear lessened some.

It felt weird to see her sad, if he wasn’t crazy and she was, in fact, sad. Or… acting in a way that imitated sadness, as per her programming.

He was supposed to kill her.

“Never mind,” Uzi said. “Listen. I’m always here at this time, and some other times, too. You can always come talk.”

“I should tell J you’re here,” he challenged. It made her look sad again, and a bit grumpy.

“Well then you’ll have to tell her you were here. And that you talked to me.”

N hesitated, frowning. Uzi made a good point. He didn’t especially want J knowing either of those things. How much… how much did this worker know about them? Could that have been a lucky guess?

N opened his wings and took a step back, eyeing her.

“I don’t have to come back,” he tried.

Uzi smiled that time. It was still bitter, but not ingenuine.

“You don’t. But I want you to.”

It was N’s turn to be speechless. Far too many feelings and questions hammered the inside of his skull like wind and snow battered the outside. He was torn in different directions. And rising above it all was the blaring, ever-present why??

He stuffed it down deep into the neat box where the bad things went and gave Uzi one more glance before lifting off.

He didn’t look back.

He didn’t.

He didn’t need to, so he didn’t, simple as that.

Chapter Text

Uzi didn’t leave for the next two days. Her Dad brought in anything she needed and forced her to sleep, which was only possible because she tended to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. It just took shaking her awake and depositing her in one of the beanbag chairs with a blanket.

For two nights, N didn’t come back. There was no sign of V either. Uzi couldn’t help but wonder if her plan had failed already. If so, what came next? What would she do?

It was sometime around midnight on that second day when she heard a faint thump outside, startling her out of a light doze. She scrambled to her feet and pressed against the window.

He was there.

Uzi could’ve sobbed.

Didn’t, but could’ve. Very important distinction.

“N!”

She waved. He paused in the act of brushing snow off himself, lifting his hand to wave back, but caught himself and lowered it again with a vaguely strained expression. He studied her for a moment.

N looked away. After a pause, tail swishing thoughtfully, he wandered towards the room, tracing the seams in the metal. He disappeared from her sight as he walked the perimeter before finally coming to a stop at the window again. N poked at the tiny holes in the glass, frowning as if they’d wronged him.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. And he still wouldn’t meet her eye. Instead his gaze flickered over the interior, pausing on the door mechanism, before returning to the window.

“What’s this made of?” he said, poking it again. Uzi narrowed her eyes.

“Something you can’t break through, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He looked away with an almost guilty expression. It was only visible a second before he smothered it.

“I have to kill you,” he said.

Uzi bit her lip to keep it from trembling. Her voice remained miraculously steady.

“I know. But you can’t.”

He went quiet. Uzi waited, picking at the spots where the rubbery adhesive they’d used to seal the window spilled over.

N slumped into sitting with a sigh. His head fell into his hands, and he mumbled something she couldn’t make out beyond the bitter tone. Uzi leaned up to peek down at him and to hopefully hear better.

“I have to, though. The whole reason I—“

He stopped. Shook his head.

“No. I can’t— nevermind. You don’t need to know.”

Uzi hummed. She hefted herself onto the door/windowsill. She crossed her arms, leaning against the frozen glass.

“Do you not want to tell me?”

N traced shapes in the snow, looking miserable.

“Why would I? You’re a worker. Who knows why you’re out here.”

“D’you think it’d be dangerous?”

His hand stilled, and he glanced up at her, before continuing the motion.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“And what if it’s not? What if I want to listen?”

N paused again. He clasped his hands together, shooting her a suspicious look.

“Why?”

There were so many things she wanted to say. How she cared more than he could possibly know, how he was being lied to, how he deserved for someone to hear him. So many thoughts and feelings aching to spill out of her and just fix things, bring him back. But it would only scare him away.

She leaned harder on the window, letting it take the weight from her next words, so she could set them down lightly.

“Well… everyone needs to talk sometimes. I think you’re here for a reason. I think no one’s listening.”

N froze, eyes going wide. Hunching further in on himself, he angled his face away, and his tail looped defensively between them. A barrier against her words.

“N?”

He shook his head and hugged his knees. Uzi bit her lip again. She dropped her head back to rest against the wall, closing her eyes and cursing her bluntness.

When she opened them, he was gone.

Chapter Text

Another night went by with no sign of N. Now, though, she knew it was only a matter of time.

He was back the next night. Just like before, she climbed up to settle against the glass and waited for him to talk first so she didn’t scare him off. He seemed shifter than usual. Instead of speaking, he paced, and fidgeted, wringing his hands hard enough to make Uzi wince. His tail lashed carelessly in his wake. Now and then he’d glance over; he’d go to speak. But each time, he hesitated, gave up, and returned to pacing.

It went on and on until finally Uzi caved and spoke first.

“Are you okay?”

N stopped and studied her with that suspicion he now held. He looked worn to the point of fraying. She couldn’t place what exactly gave her that impression.

N dropped his gaze, blinking rapidly, and stepped back, before abruptly turning and rocketing away.

… What … ?

He was back the night after and still didn’t seem in the mood for talking. Thankfully Uzi came prepared, with some paper. That way, she could work on theories, or sketch if she felt like it. It lifted some of the pressure to hold a conversation on her end while hopefully communicating to N that she was fine just hanging out.

He sat in the snow, hugging his knees, to watch her draw. He was less restless and only stood up to wander around the exterior of the room. She was pretty sure he kicked it once or twice. Then he would slump down again, muttering to himself, and watch her draw some more. The only time he approached the window it was the side opposite where she was sitting. He traced the line between glass and metal, refusing to look anywhere else. Uzi lowered her paper.

“Why are you really here?” he said, voice quiet, close to breaking.

“To talk to you.”

She set the page aside and sat up, watching him carefully. She half expected he’d take off at any sudden movement. N closed his eyes. He shook his head fervently.

“don’t lie to me,” he said.

If Uzi couldn’t stay calm, all their progress would vanish in an instant. Every word counted here. She dared to exhale and focused on how he sounded on the brink of tears— as much as that hurt, it was something she could try to fix.

“I’m not lying.”

N tensed and shot her a challenging stare. She met it calmly. If he wouldn’t believe her words, maybe he’d find the truth there.

Eventually, N looked away with a small scoff.

And he was gone again.

Tension snapping, Uzi fell back against the wall with a sigh, pressing her palms to her eyes. Her hands dropped into her lap. She stared into space.

Should she be upset about how resistant he was, or did it mean something of his rebellion was intact? Was this past healing shining through? He was so much of a people-pleaser when they first met. But these were different circumstances, and who knew how J was treating him now. Could she have finally stamped the light right out of him?

Uzi took a deep breath and released it slowly, squeezing her arms.

He’d be okay. She would prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and… and he’d be okay, because he had to be.

N was back. Although quiet, he was much more collected than he’d been the last while. Much more himself. Or, at least, much closer to the N Uzi knew.

He approached the glass, stopping a ways away. Uzi closed the book she’d been reading and dropped it on a beanbag. She walked over, resting her arms on the windowsill and leaning on it.

“Hey,” she said.

“Uh… hi.”

His tail flicked into his hands in that achingly familiar way, and his eyes jumped between her, the door, and off to the side. He frowned. For a moment he kept his gaze zeroed thoughtfully downwards. Then he took a few measured steps closer.

“You’re always here,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

Uzi sighed and rested her chin on her arms.

“I get why you’re confused. Again, it’s…. a really long story.”

He stared, the silence loud with his thinking. When he finally blinked and broke the moment, she got the distinct impression he was beginning to consider her words.

“So… you come here, for hours on end, every day, to talk to me for some reason. You won’t tell me why. J said you’re the reason I was reset. Am I— do you expect me to… trust you?”

Uzi chuckled. “When you put it that way, it does seem like a dumb idea.” She bit her lip, staring down at the rippling reflection of purple light in the metal, before admitting, “I-I guess I want you to trust me, yeah, but… I don’t expect you to, and I’d be surprised if you did.”

N drummed thoughtfully on the back of his hand. He took a step back, paused, then started pacing.

“I guess that makes sense,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

Since he was busy in his thoughts for a moment, Uzi honed in on what he’d said. She played the memory file over and over, dissecting it.

Reset.

Was that what happened? J reset him? What did that entail? If she asked it could serve as proof, in his eyes, that she was just trying to get information out of him. But this was important.

She could be careful. Careful and upfront, so he wouldn’t misinterpret the gaps in her story.

“Hey, N?”

“Hm?”

“You said something about being reset. I don’t want to pry, especially since I just said I don’t expect you to trust me, which I still don’t, to be clear. You don’t have to tell me anything. But I’d like to at least ask about that?”

He tilted his head.

“What about it?”

“Like… what does it mean? What happened, I guess. How much do you know what happened.”

“… I shouldn’t— hm.”

N considered for a moment. A powerful gust of wind tugged at him, spiraling a wash of snow upwards. His eyes painted the translucent air yellow.

“I basically just lost a bunch of memories,” he said at length. “The first days since landing were yesterday as far as I remember. Except…”

N stopped himself. He made a face.

“No, that’s not— that’s not important.”

Uzi shot him a grin.

“Try me.”

Chapter Text

It was working.

The walls were breaking down.

“… I guess I… feel like a different person? Whatever happened between then and my reset must have changed me somehow, so… to still feel that, and not know why, it’s… I should— I need to shut up. I can’t be—“

“No pressure,” Uzi said in a rush. “Whatever you tell me— or don’t— is fine.”

“But I shouldn’t be here. If J found out—“

“She hasn’t. And it’s not like I can tell her.”

N relaxed a tad, gripping his arms. He took a breath.

“I guess…”

Only a little more. She just had to hold back a little longer. The victory was so close, so tantalizingly sweet, dangling barely out of reach, if only she could hold back for seconds more…

Uzi took a deep breath too, sitting up and shifting closer to the window.

“So, d’you think there’s any way you could… I don’t know, get your memories back?”

N muttered something that was ripped away by the tide of frozen air before shaking his head.

“J would never allow it.”

“Hypothetically,” she pressed.

So close. So close. She had to know it was possible, and from there it was a matter of how. N met her eye, visor dim. His resigned expression seemed in sympathy for her more than himself. If that were true, he wouldn’t know why.

“Uzi, I was reset,” he said softly. “It’s over. Whoever I was, whatever happened… it’s gone.”

Uzi stopped.

Or time did, skipping over and over in what must have been a second, and Uzi tumbled through that moment, scrabbling for an anchor.

Reset.

Gone.

Time, memories, stupid stupid ordinary moments that he would never get back.

All of it.

Everything was gone.

“Uzi?” N tipped his head, squinting at her. “Uh… you good?”

“You good, Uzi?”

“I’m good. Stop asking!”

Uzi turned sharply and slid off the ledge. She landed, the clang of her boots reverberating long after the sound itself faded. She slid down the wall behind her. A hand— her hand, it was her own— clamped over her mouth, her whole body seizing. Uzi trembled with the force of it but no sound escaped her.

“Uzi?”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t. N couldn’t know, she couldn’t afford to lose whatever was left of him.

“What’s going on? Did I do something?”

Don’t you dare. Don’t you start blaming yourself now, of all times. I will physically fight you.

He didn’t speak again. When exactly he left she couldn’t tell, she didn’t hear it. Which isn’t to say he didn’t fly away. He probably did, she was just too occupied clinging to the pieces of her mind as they crumbled into shards, shattering, to notice.

What must’ve been hours later, she dragged herself upright and braved a peek over the window ledge.

She was alone.

Torn between relief and self-loathing fury, Uzi sank down the wall again, curling up against it. With no one to hear she finally sobbed. Once it started, the dam broke.

There was no next step to take.

Chapter Text

N was back the next night. Uzi hadn’t moved. Her Dad came to check on her when she didn’t show up in the morning, but she didn’t so much as look at him until he left.

Uzi stayed in the same spot, curled beneath the window, all that time. She wasn’t sure if she slept. She probably didn’t. This time she heard the whir of approaching wings, though, at least.

There was a thump. Soon after, the crunch of snow, then silence. Uzi tucked herself closer to the wall.

The lights were on. He knew she was there, might even know where she was hiding. But he couldn’t see her. And she wasn’t going to talk. So he’d leave sooner or later.

“ … Uzi?”

Uzi balled her hands in her sweater. For some reason she was shaking again, invisible claws gripping her throat. Faint yellow light filtered through the window as N shuffled closer, and there was a small tap, as if he’d pressed a hand to the glass.

“Hey, Uzi?”

She closed her eyes to shut him out.

For a while there was silence. The yellow glow dipped whenever he would blink. Then it faded altogether, and there were footsteps, humming, a sound like a gunshot, and N was gone. She was right after all.

Uzi laughed. It sounded more like a sob.

When he didn’t come the next time, she was convinced it was over. She’d finally ruined everything. Despite the futility, she found herself desperate to hold on to what little she had left of him, and now maybe she was losing that, too.

He didn’t show the next night either.

The night after, Uzi was curled on the door/ledge, sort-of-sleeping off the ache in her chest, when there was a brutal crash far too close. Uzi startled with a yelp, flailed back, and tumbled onto the ground, before rolling over and jumping to her feet. She glared through the window, expecting trouble.

N was sprawled in the snow, struggling to push himself upright. He coughed and scrubbed snow from his visor.

“shoot,” he mumbled. Wincing, he stood, immediately stumbling and only just catching himself.

“What was that??”

N paused, looking up. He brightened.

“Oh, you’re here!”

“I didn’t even hear you coming, how hard did you land?? Why were you flying so fast?!?”

He winced again, looking sheepish.

“I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose…”

“You—“

Uzi cut herself off. She groaned, pressing a closed fist to her forehead, then gave him a pointed look. N shifted and looked away.

That caught her attention.

Frowning, Uzi studied him more closely. He was hunched in on himself more than usual— even as of late— his movements were skittish, and he looked faintly battered.

“Hey… N?”

N blinked at her warily.

“Are you— did something happen?”

Alarm visibly seized him, and he shook his head, waving his hands in front of him.

“No— no no n-no, I— no. Nothing happened.”

“Okay.” Uzi lifted her hands too, placatingly. “Okay, okay, good. That’s fine.”

He relaxed. Although her suspicion was far from quelled, she took his not running off as a good sign.

“So… um. Do you… like drawing?”

She lifted one of her own drawings to justify her asking, because of course he did. She had the proof hung up in her room. But he didn’t know that.

One more thing she’d lost.

N lit up, though, which made it all worth it.

“Oh! Yeah, actually. The other day I found some stuff stashed in the landing pod, I don’t know how it got there. Maybe it was mine? But anyway…“

Uzi propped her chin on one hand, smiling as she listened, and definitely didn’t tear up every couple minutes. They talked about all the meaningless stuff they used to. Things he’d known. He’d ask the same questions from time to time, make the same jokes, and it was only through sheer willpower that Uzi laughed without crying. When he left, she did cry. Again.

The next night he seemed a little more himself. By the next, he was back to normal— or, as normal as he ever was, at least.

Every night he came. And every night she was waiting, and they were almost starting to feel like they used to. Sometimes she would block it all out and pretend he still knew her. It would even work. For a few seconds she would forget. Then for minutes at a time. But each time she would inevitably reach out, and she would hit a barrier, and it would all come crashing back. That moment grew more devastating the longer she lost herself in fantasy.

One night, a while later, he was gone again.

Chapter Text

Uzi took note when he wasn’t there. She also took note when, the next night, he seemed off again. It took him a few days to get back to normal. She had a sinking suspicion of why, but didn’t ask, afraid to scare him off.

It happened again.

The whole time she was waiting Uzi paced, trying and failing not to think too much. When morning approached she finally switched off the lights. Still, it took firey dawn inching across the carpet for her to climb down the trapdoor.

But then he missed the next night too. And Uzi nearly burned a hole in said carpet with her restlessness, glancing to the window every second. This wasn’t normal anymore.

She told herself that if something really happened, V would show up. Knowing he was alive didn’t stop her brain from oh-so-helpfully providing her with every possible terrible thing J could be putting him through, though, so she’d worked herself into a panic by the time dawn came around.

Another day went by where N was all she thought about. She climbed into the room early. Hours ticked by where he didn’t show, and Uzi had resigned herself to another night of his terrifying absence by the time she noticed a faint humming. She rooted in place, convinced she imagined it.

No. That was definitely wings.

Uzi scrambled for the window all at once, pressing against it in time to see him land hard, only to ricochet up, tumbling forwards into the snow, and finally skidding to a halt. He grumbled something unintelligible.

“N! You okay?? What was… ?”

Pushing himself up on his hands, he sputtered and shook snow out of his hair. Then he struggled upright. N caught himself with one hand on the window, hesitated for a moment, before caving and slumping forward to lean his forehead against the glass. He closed his eyes with a sigh. Uzi shuffled closer. Hearing her movement, he blinked his eyes open to watch as she pressed her hand to the same spot, studying him.

“Hey… you were gone for a while there. What happened?” she said. Infinitely cautious, but too worried to help it.

N didn’t say anything for a moment. Just stared at their hands, long enough to make her wonder if he was really seeing them at all. He blinked and took a breath. Averted his gaze.

“I still don’t get it,” he mumbled.

“Get what?”

“Why you’re here. Don’t—“ he cut her off before she could speak, waving a hand tiredly— “tell me, I know, you want to talk and stuff. It’s just… I— I-I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Uzi listened, and watched, hoping he would give her something. Any little detail he didn’t realize he was sharing. A glimpse. Anything. It had to be in this conversation, because by tomorrow he might be okay enough to hide again.

N closed his eyes, shoulders falling, and sighed. If it weren’t for his hand still against the window and the tail flicking behind him he could’ve been asleep.

Uzi waited.

After a minute N dropped his hand. He turned to lean sideways against the glass instead, crossing his arms, and scuffed at the frozen earth, kicking away layers of white.

“Do you have other workers you’re friends with?” he asked.

“I guess I don’t, really. Maybe one friend.”

“Oh.” He looked surprised. Several other emotions darted across his face before she could place them. After a beat, he tacked on, “Uh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Uzi scoffed. “I’m not what you’d call a ‘people person’. Most of them are boring anyways.”

“So you don’t really have anyone else to talk to?”

“ … I— I mean… I guess not?”

N went quiet again. He traced the seam at the bottom of the window, zeroed on it. His gaze lingered there with exaggerated, casual ease when he spoke again, even as his voice was barely a whisper.

“What would you do… um. If something… happened to me?”

Uzi froze. Inhaling sharply, she shot him a piercing look, heartbeat pounding through her hands— which were suddenly icy, and which she curled into fists to steady them. He pretended not to notice.

“N.”

“Hm?”

She narrowed her eyes.

“N.”

He finally, reluctantly, looked up. Uzi studied his gaze with new fervour. But as insistent as she was, he was at least as defensive, and yielded nothing.

“I’m not answering that,” she said.

N held her gaze for another moment. Uzi felt she was being searched, her thoughts and feelings dragged into the air between them and analyzed. For what, she couldn’t say. And when he looked away, nodding once, there was no telling if he found what he was looking for.

The silence settled over them in heavy drifts for what must’ve been minutes.

N pushed himself up from the wall. He offered her something like a smile, backing away, opening his wings and lifting off. Uzi watched the spiraling snow swallow him. When he was gone, she stayed, the memory file from their conversation playing on loop.

“What would you do… if something happened to me?”

She breathed, blinking rapidly and shutting down the playback as best she could. Somewhere in the back of her mind it continued. But she was present, at least. She was here, sitting in a metal box with only the muffled shrieking of wind for company. Nothing better, nothing worse.

Uzi leaned forwards, arms draped loosely over her knees, and didn’t move until the rising sun chased her away.

Chapter Text

N disappeared for a couple more days. The next time she saw him, he was closer to how he’d been when they first met than he’d been for a long time. A bit too cheerful, too conscious of his words, skimming over any issues he let slip. Uzi didn’t bother hiding her disappointment. They were actually growing close again, and now he was shutting her out when she could be helping. She didn’t blame him, of course. She was just worried.

He must have realized what he was doing though. And this was N: he couldn’t help wanting to keep others happy, especially his friends. So by his next visit he was tentatively working to lower that wall. Her positive reception seemed to reassure him.

She hoped it did... if there was any hope of saving him, he needed to be able to trust her. Which was more of a daunting task than it’d been the first time around by a longshot. But at least he was trying. Right now, that’s all that mattered.

V saw everything.

She hated herself, so much. But there was nothing she could do. Not yet. If she tried now, that would be curtains for them both. The longer she held out the better their chances. The closer N and Uzi got, the better positioned she was to save him.

V was beginning to wonder, though, what the point in waiting would be, if N didn’t last long enough for it to matter.

She hated herself for doing it. But she started going out more. She’d fly a ways away and level entire areas just to keep her rage in check. If it festered inside her, she’d snap, getting both herself and N killed in the process. So she slipped away. Beat stone into dust, shredded metal— lost herself in destruction until the fury snuffed out all at once, leaving her cold.

She’d never admit this to anyone.

But sometimes, while ripping ruined buildings apart, she cried for him.

N was gone again.

Two days.

Cold, burning.

Spinning?

There was something faintly damp, icy, a sort of prickle, the fading embers of pain.

And…

N jolted awake with a gasp and immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, freezing. He blinked until his surroundings came into focus. He was just inside the spire, in a mound of snow and scrap. Soft powder draped around him, littered with hundreds of small knives.

This was fine.

He didn’t think about how he got there. It was a gamble if he’d even remember, and either way he lost, so better to not think about it. There was no point thinking about it.

Biting back a small noise, N dragged himself free and collapsed into a moderately thinner, less pointy patch of snow. He curled on his side and breathed for a moment.

This was fine. It was fine, as long as J didn’t see him, and she wasn’t there. She could show up, though. That would be bad. He didn’t need to remember to know he couldn’t handle that right now.

Not important! This was fine, he was fine, just laying in the snow.

N poked at some stray wires. He pushed them around, scoffed to himself. What was he doing? He should get up. He was perfectly fine. He’d rebooted without any trouble and there was no reason to be here except finishing healing. If he didn’t get up, and J found out, he’d be in trouble.

He still wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t he moving? He could. He had to. So why??

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, couldn’t even keep his own brain in line.

N effectively ignored himself and stayed put despite being the one beating himself up about it. The other part of him, the part that didn’t care, was determined to have this moment of peace. So what if J found out? It’s not like he’d remember it anyway.

He was being dragged in opposite directions, and couldn’t move in either of them. This only went one of two ways.

In the first, it actually helped. He stayed, his mind sorted itself out, and when he could move again, he felt better for it.

The second possibility had J arrive and show him just how much farther down rock bottom could be.

It didn’t especially matter either way. He was stuck here until the fact. May as well try not to think about it, take the opportunity to rest, hope it didn’t cost him. There was a good chance of that. Especially if J was in a good mood or too busy to seek him out. N settled farther into the snow with a heavy sigh and closed his eyes.

How weak he must be, to lose a battle with himself.

Uzi had resigned herself to N not showing up yet again. As of today, it was the longest he’d ever been gone. And she thought she’d been worried last time.

She was pacing. Again. Naturally. What else was she supposed to do? If she tried to sit still, she’d end up breaking something. At least storming back and forth only made her vaguely dizzy after a while.

Lost in her quiet seething, it took longer than usual for her to notice the approaching hum. Uzi halted by the trapdoor. She strained to listen, doubtful; N never got here this late. It was too close to dawn… but that really sounded like…

Jogging over to the window, she caught herself on the ledge, leaning as far as she could with her momentum. The smudge of yellow in the sky was definitely real. Holy heck. Finally, finally something to work with.

Moments later there was a crash and a flurry of snow, but when it settled, it wasn’t N who rushed forwards.

“V?? What are you—“

V skidded to a stop in front the window. Her expression settled on something grim, barely masking a note of panic. Uzi faltered.

“ … V?”

V took a deep breath, words tumbling out in a rush.

“We need to talk.”

Chapter Text

“It wasn’t like this before.”

V paced in front of the window, hands clenching and unclenching by her sides, attempting to strangle empty air. Uzi didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say.

There was plenty going on in her mind, of course; a torrent of harsh words and the kind of feelings you can only breathe through. For once, though, the connection between her and her rage had been severed, and she couldn’t muster the strength to do anything about it. So she kept an eye on the horizon as dawn crept nearer, because there was no way V was on top of that in her state. Uzi couldn’t afford to lose her only ally. Especially not to something so stupid.

“It’s really that bad?”

V snarled. Her hands stayed clenched, that time. Feeling vaguely sick, Uzi let her gaze fall, staring through the snow.

“I’ve been biding my time. J trusts me as much as she can trust anyone, but if we don’t figure this out, it’ll all be for nothing.”

“Okay,” Uzi said. “Okay. What can I do?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know.”

V halted and ran a hand through her hair, sighing, and approached the window again. Her worn appearance reminded Uzi of N. Seeing, now, how put together V was despite her exhaustion, and remembering the state he’d been in…

It really was that bad.

“How far have you gotten with him?” V asked. “Does he trust you yet?”

“I… think so? Partially. I don’t know if it’s enough.”

V went quiet with a frown. Similar to him. But more calculated. After a few moments she glanced upwards, then to Uzi again, taking a step back.

“It’ll have to do,” she said grimly. She opened her wings and shot upwards, out of sight in an instant.

“Wait, what?!” Uzi threw herself against the window, glaring after her. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!?? V!!”

Uzi gritted her teeth, hands curling into fists, pressing to the glass hard enough to hurt. With a small yell, she slammed against it. She ricocheted back against one wall, arms crossed, and glared daggers into nothing. Helpless fury washed over her in polarizing waves of hot and cold that left her out of breath.

More waiting. More uncertainty. More sitting around and doing nothing while her friend suffered. She wanted to blow something up.

Another night of awful silence.

N wasn’t sure if he’d missed his visit to Uzi or not. He hoped he hadn’t. It was hard to tell, when he didn’t know how long he was spending on reboots any given night and refused to check because he really preferred not knowing.

This time, he seemed to have lost most of daylight. Which was better. He would have slept then anyway. It also meant that, as long as he stayed out of trouble, he’d be more himself tonight than he could be, usually. For some reason he always felt weird for a while after rebooting. Sort of… floaty?

It wasn’t good.

He’d take what he could get, though, and tonight was looking to be moderately less bad. Maybe he could even leave for a bit. No one was around, so there probably wasn’t anything to do. Patrol would be perfect. As long as he didn’t get in trouble for going off on his own— the rules about that were pretty unclear, and changed daily.

N reached forward, grasping a fused tangle of metal and dragging himself from the snow. He hissed, freezing up, at a sharp pain from his right wing. Breathing carefully— and shallowly, and moving as little as possible— he glanced over his shoulder.

His wings were out (why were his wings out?) and one was twisted oddly. He looked away.

Okay. Okay. That was fine, the Solver had a bit more work to do. This happened sometimes. It was terrible, but it happened. N pressed his eyes shut, holding deathly still, and waited.

It’s okay. It’s fine.

This is fine.

Chapter Text

N held completely still, the faint hiss of the solver sounding alongside his heartbeat, both barely audible over the faint thunder of wind outside. He tried not to think about it.

And there was something else. Unsure if he was imagining it, he zeroed in on the murmur. There were two muffled voices coming from the pod. J and V. He listened closely, hardly breathing, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Or even the tone, really. It was too quiet.

Oh well. At least his wing was mostly healed.

N tightened his grip on the metal again, shifting, and hauled himself the rest of the way from the snowdrift. His wing twinged a bit. Worse though were the shreds of metal, which gripped at him, trying and failing to keep him in place. The solver blipped into action yet again to knit together the scratches. He shuddered and rubbed at his arm.

N staggered upright and stretched gingerly, dusting himself off and starting towards the pod. As their voices grew clearer, he slowed, eventually halting just outside the door. The looming sense that eavesdropping was somehow against the rules was barely smothered by his curiosity.

“— to deal with him. No patrolling until then. We can’t afford another incident now, and I can’t be in two places at once.”

That was J. What…

“Well, how long, d’you think? A couple hours? I doubt much could happen in that time.”

“That’s exactly the attitude that I don’t need,” J spat. N tensed, a rush of fear on V’s behalf, but J wouldn’t hurt V. There was no good reason to.

A long silence. Tension seeped through the air, even without any visual cues. He listened with bated breath. Finally J sighed.

“Alright. Just… I’ll check things out. You make sure to actually keep your guard up, alright?”

“No problem!”

J muttered something. There were footsteps. N froze, jolting from the door as if it had burned him, and was still stumbling back when J appeared, stopping to appraise him like an inconveniently placed worker corpse.

“I— I was just— “ N gestured vaguely with a helpless smile, pleading an innocence he was uncertain of. J studied him for another moment.

She smiled warmly, striding over, and patted him on the shoulder. N deflated with a sigh. It was one of those days, then.

“You’re up! Certainly took a while. But I suppose you can’t help it.”

“Um. Y-yeah.” He laughed, wincing. J smiled again.

“No worries. I’ll try to lower my expectations a bit. In the meantime—“ she draped an arm around him in that weird, semi-professional side-hug she did (the one that left him confused about the line between co-workers and friends). He relaxed at the contact without really meaning to. “— I have to go out for a bit. Stay put and try not to break anything, got it?”

N nodded wordlessly. The teasing comments stung, but they were jokes, not really meant to be hurtful. He’d asked about that for clarification and gotten a good idea of what was actually hurtful. Spoiler alert: not words.

“Perfect.”

She gave him one more pat on the shoulder before withdrawing suddenly and completely. The juxtaposition between his fear of her and the abrupt lack of warmth left him reeling.

J summoned her wings. She lifted off through one of the gaps in the spire wall. For some time— he wasn’t sure how long— N stood there, staring at the beam of light cutting through the ever-present icy mist. Maybe, if he stayed long enough, he’d blink and J would be back.

He wasn’t sure he wanted that.

Instead, when he blinked, he snapped out of his thoughts. N glanced over to the pod and found V hovering there, staring at the same gap. She frowned and idly tapped against the doorframe. It was perfectly in time with his internal clock, and her stare was calculated instead of absent-minded.

What was she… was she counting? Why was she counting? What was going to happen that she needed to count for?

V closed her eyes and stopped tapping. Unsure, N glanced around, then back at her, wringing his hands.

“Okay.” Her eyes snapped open, startling him. “That’ll have to do.”

She darted forward. N stumbled back, panic lodging in his throat, and V caught his hands to steady him.

“Sorry— just— listen, we don’t have much time. I know you know something’s off. Right?”

Shaking himself to try and dislodge the fear clouding his vision, he eyed her warily. This could be a trap. Was J testing his loyalty? Was that what they’d been talking about? Or… no. She would’ve had a much stronger reaction to his eavesdropping if that were the case.

“I— I mean… why, what—“

“Please, N! You have to trust me here. It’s important.”

This was a completely different V. She looked desperate, a jarring emotion from someone who’d only ever been gleeful, apathetic, or mildly annoyed. But something about it clicked as more real than anything had been for a while.

So he went with that, feeling as if his wings had been ripped away from him in midair.

“I- I guess I do… ? I mean, I don’t know what— or how to, um—“

“Okay! Okay, that’s good.”

A flood of relief. The right answer.

“Now I need you to listen to me. That feeling? It’s right. J’s been lying to you. About a lot of things.”

… what?

“You weren’t reset because you failed, you were reset because you figured it out and stood up to her. That’s why she’s been more and more awful, she wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

N frowned. He drew back a bit.

“J’s not—“

“She is, N!”

Blinking rapidly, he pulled away and shook his head, oddly breathless.

“No. No, this is… I-I can’t— I—“

V’s hands curled into fists, and she pressed her eyes shut. She took a deep breath, which by some instinct, he copied.

“Listen,” she started, much more calmly. “I know it’s a lot. And it goes against everything you know, right now. She’s made sure of that. But if you stay here, things will only get worse, and worse, and eventually she’ll go too far… you have to run.”

“What? Run— where am I supposed to go??”

“Uzi.”

N stopped breathing.

She knew. She knew. She knew. She knew, and he was definitely going to die.

V caught his hands again and he flinched, but it startled him back into himself somehow.

“Why do you think I sent you towards the bunker? She can help you, but you have to trust her.”

“H-how— how do you—“

“We knew her. She helped you stand up to J the first time.”

V paused, studying him. N averted his gaze. The state he must be in… it would be laughable, if he wasn’t fairly sure he was dying. For a moment V didn’t say anything.

Then she stepped forward and hugged him. Dizzily, N wondered why the heck it was possible for a robot to feel nauseous.

“Breathe. It’ll be okay.”

Oh. Right. That.

He gasped, immediately choking. But at least he was slightly less dizzy. V gave him a squeeze, and he focused on that, hugging her back, until standing on his own seemed possible again.

V stepped back.

“Go,” she said.

Blinking a few times, he took another breath and summoned his wings, lifting off.

Chapter Text

N hadn’t arrived yet. Which… wasn’t necessarily a big deal, it was still a little early, but… she couldn’t help but worry. With how often he wasn’t showing and how distant he’d been and everything. He’d changed, in more ways than just memory loss.

The deflecting with humor was the same. He still defaulted to that, whenever he had it in him to— when he didn’t look like he’d been dragged to the planet’s core and back— and if anything, the jokes felt more genuine and less like he was grasping at straws. Maybe it was because he was generally calmer. Resigned, almost. She couldn’t place why, but she definitely didn’t like it.

Leaning back, she sighed, swinging one leg idly and forcing herself not to sit glued to the window. She’d hear when he got close.

If. Not when.

Shut up, me.

Uzi froze. She strained to listen.

Catching the familiar hum, she shot upright and spun to press against the window, elated, and then quickly alarmed when he crash-landed again, tumbling into all fours. This time, though, he shoved himself upright, remaining momentum sending him forward. He caught himself on the window, breathing hard. He was shaking.

“Are you— what—“

She’d drawn back from the window at some point. Blinking, Uzi pressed her hand to where his was again, fixing him with a firm look.

“What happened?”

N sort of startled, then coughed, as if remembering he needed to breathe but not how to. He stared through the metal below her with wild eyes.

“I— I’m supposed to— V said you would— that you could— she said to go, I-I don’t— “

“Breathe, N.” Uzi pressed her full weight to the glass, willing him to feel it. He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping at one sleeve.

What could she do? Something obviously went down, for V to break her cover and send N here. He was panicking. She might be able to help if it weren’t for the freaking barrier. What was she supposed to do?

“Okay, uh… okay. N—“

Before she could finish, he slumped down, curling against the frozen metal wall. There was a reverberating thunk as his tail hit it. The thing was lashing furiously. That on its own was a problem, he was going to hurt himself.

If V sent him here…

“Does he trust you yet?”

“It’ll have to do.”

This must’ve been it. V took the first opportunity to get him out. This was it.

Biting her lip, Uzi hoped she wasn’t about to ruin everything by dying.

“Hold on. Don’t go anywhere, alright? You’re safe, just breathe,” she called, shifting to hop off the windowsill. She descended through the trapdoor and ran.

This time, no one stopped her on her way out. She’d taken off into the snow before the doors shut. Then there was the search for the room. She’d never looked for it from the outside, and it was snowing, as usual, so that took longer than she would’ve liked. Every second that ticked by she was viscerally aware of. Every step, the wind drove her back.

When she spotted the looming silhouette in the distance she nearly collapsed with relief, sprinting the rest of the way. Skidding to a halt next to N, she knelt down, mind tumbling over and over itself, disjointed from her steady determination.

“Hey,” she said, softly. Time was ticking. They had to go, but he needed to be calm first.

N froze. He lifted his head, blinking at her. Rubbed at his visor shakily and blinked again, inhaling sharply.

“You’re — why are you— ?“

He cut himself off with a frustrated growl, breath hitching, and curled in on himself even more.

“It’s okay, I got it— I’m out here because you need me to be. Did V say to let you in?”

“ … Yeah. How’d… ”

“We talked. Think you can make it the rest of the way?”

Uzi offered him a hand. N stared at it with an unreadable expression for a long moment, tail-tip flicking. Haltingly, he reached out. He gave her a searching look before gingerly accepting, struggling upright, and quickly drawing away. He took a deep breath.

“I think so,” he mumbled, using the wall to steady himself.

Uzi dropped her hand and tried not to look disappointed.

“Okay. Let’s… c’mon, this way.”

She started back towards the bunker. N jumped to follow her, keeping close and glancing around as they went. He stayed small and uptight the whole way. Uzi was pretty sure he was shivering, but it was hard to tell without staring him down, which would psyche him out even more. So probably not the best approach.

The entrance took shape through the haze, yellow light piercing all the way to the ground. N slowed.

“Wait— ”

Uzi paused and looked back. He was gazing up at the doors with wary confusion.

“What’s up?”

“I— you’re... letting me into the colony? Surely you’re not, why would you—“

Uzi shrugged. Fighting not to snap, she glanced skyward and quickly down again, which he didn’t seem to notice. Thankfully. She had to force the ease into her voice.

“I trust you. And I want to help.”

“Why— no, that’s not— nevermind. How? How do you know this isn’t… like, a trap or something? How do you know I won’t kill everyone?”

“You’re probably sick of hearing this, but it’s a long story. And I— I guess I don’t, really… but you could have killed me by now and you didn’t.”

N opened his mouth. He closed it again, wringing his hands, before nodding and dropping his gaze. Uzi gave her own curt nod and stepped towards the doors.

“I should have, though,” he said quietly. “I should. I… I don’t want to.”

She paused with her fist raise to knock.

“ … I know.”

Turning away, Uzi banged on the door and stepped back.

Chapter Text

The second the doors opened Uzi seized N’s sleeve and darted inside, earning a yelp from him. A couple WDF workers scrambled upright. They eyed him, unsure.

The doors snapped shut.

Uzi unwound and she exhaled all at once. Releasing N, she stepped back to sink down the wall, wrapping her arms over her knees. N stood exactly where she’d left him. He glanced between her and the workers, twisting his hands. She shot him a weak smile. He relaxed minutely. His tail looped protectively around him.

“Should I… tell Khan you’re here, or…?” One worker started hesitantly. Uzi waved him away.

“Sure. Maybe just tell him the plan worked, and we’re safe?”

He nodded and moved back to the table. Uzi got to her feet, giving N a pointed look and starting towards the next door.

“We’ll head over right now.”

The next door opened. N trailed behind her as she went through it, and the next one, gaze fixed intently on the floor. He was practically stepping on her heels. Uzi looked down too, frowning.

It was always hard to tell why N acted the way he did. Especially since the reset. Right now, he could be unsure about this new environment, or not trust the other workers. Or maybe he expected them to be scared, and didn’t want to be seen as a threat? That would make sense, he never liked it before, either. Or maybe he expected a trap. His unease could also have nothing to do with being here specifically, and instead be the general stress of everything happening all at on—

“Ah, there you are!”

Uzi halted, looking up, and N almost crashed into her. He backed up hurriedly, muttering an apology. Khan waved and jogged towards them.

“Figured I’d meet you halfway. I set some things up first, assuming our guest will be staying?”

Uzi opened her mouth. Closed it, and opened it again, before her mind helpfully pulled up an image of a goldfish and she snapped herself out of it. N looked to her with wide eyes.

“Y-yeah, I… thanks. Thank you. That’s um. Yeah.”

She smiled awkwardly, hoping she didn’t look as stupidly overjoyed as she felt. Khan returned the smile subtly before reaching out to N, inviting him out from behind her. N glanced between them. Uzi gave him a reassuring look, and he wavered for a moment before trailing hesitantly after her Dad. Taking a deep breath, she followed, feeling infinitely lighter.

She glanced back towards the exit. The warmth in her chest dulled slightly. Then she shook herself and followed the other two with a small frown.

Wherever V was, Uzi hoped she was okay.

V opted to lay low. J wasn’t stupid, she’d know by now that V turned traitor. And even if she didn’t, V wasn’t especially tempted to reason with her— on the off chance she bought V’s excuses, that was still a massive failure and reason enough for J to punish her somehow. V’d seen firsthand what that could look like.

No. No, she was gone, and she wasn’t moving from her hiding spot for a few days at least. She’d been planning this for ages. She had the means to stay longer, if need be. She also figured out what she needed that J’d notice if she stole, and waited to grab it during her escape. Documents. Tech. Stuff she didn’t understand, but was determined to learn even if it meant starting from scratch. She wasn’t giving up until she was absolutely sure there was nothing to be done.

If it was possible, if there was a way to fix this… she’d find it.

Uzi hovered by the doorway. She could just make out where N was curled on the couch, buried in blankets, visor flickering feverishly in and out of sleep mode. The only light source, dipping and swaying.

She backed through the doorway and towards the dining room as quietly as possible. By a good few steps away, her chest started to ache, and she released a breath she didn’t mean to hold.

Despite collapsing almost the moment he was given a place to do so, it had taken almost an hour for N to get any semblance of sleep. He was an incredibly light sleeper. Come to think of it, Uzi wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him sleep before... if he had fallen asleep around her, she probably passed out first, she tended to do that.

It was a good thing she didn’t have friends. Sleepovers would have been a nightmare.

Uzi’s shoulders fell as she stepped into the dining room, sighing, and grabbed a chair. She spun it to sit backwards, resting her chin on her crossed arms. It would’ve been so easy to fall asleep right there. She could’ve. It would have been annoying, but oh so simple.

“He actually out this time?”

“I think so,” Uzi mumbled. Khan looked up from his booklet, studying her silently. She narrowed her eyes back at him.

Uzi looked away first and tightened her hold on the backrest. She didn’t especially want to sleep all of a sudden. But she was still so tired. Groaning, she dropped her forehead onto her arms.

She wasn’t feeling much, per say, emotions-wise, but there was this burning behind her eyes that wanted to spill over in pixels of light anyway. Which was especially weird because she wasn’t choked up at all. The strangled-ness always came first. It was supposed to be a benchmark.

“I think I’m going to bed too,” she grumbled.

Khan glanced at the time with a frown. He looked back over with a nod, though, which she appreciated more than she’d ever say. Uzi stood. She lingered, tapping the table for a moment, before nodding curtly and moving past him.

Uzi was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

N startled awake to a pitch dark room. For a while he just lay there, picking at the blanket draped over him, trying to figure out where he was and what was going on. It never got this dark in the spire. Or this comfortable, for that matter. His eyes were adjusting a bit, but even still, he couldn’t tell…

He wasn’t especially confused. He didn’t know, but this seemed okay enough. It would make sense eventually. There were plenty of things he should find concerning about all this, but it wasn’t happening— which was always better, and rarely so easy. Plus, there was a distinct sense of safety as opposed to just not having the energy to care.

N rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. It swam in and out of focus as his systems puzzled out the lighting situation. His head had cleared some. The memories were still sort of fuzzy. He was used to that though. And honestly, it made sense given his vague idea of what happened. V… and then Uzi, he crashed, she let him in… V knew… ?

N winced and shook his head, closing the memory file. He got the gist. It was enough.

When the headache didn’t recede, he blinked a few times before pressing his palms to his visor with a whine.

That’s a bad one then. Stay away from that one.

Uzi.

He sat upright, faltering with a grimace, then tried again to scan the room. He’d gone to Uzi. They were in the bunker. This had to be where she lived. They… the workers, they really let him stay? Why…

No. No, no, he was thinking again. He didn’t want to do that.

N dropped back onto the cushions, curling as small as he could manage. He wished he could switch off his hazard lights. They worsened the pounding in his head. How ironic that the only light source— his worst enemy, right now— would be himself.

Whoever designed him this way was evil.

A thought he automatically filed under “keep to myself or die”.

After a stretch of aching stillness, N groaned and pulled the blanket over his head, too, pressing closer to the back of the couch. He didn’t sleep again.

Uzi woke up slowly, blinking out of sleep mode and blearily observing as the world came into focus. Yawning, she stretched. Even as her movements were sluggish and at ease her mind kicked into gear, darting through everything that happened and the fact that her plan worked, N was safe.

The moment she was steady on her feet she made a beeline for the living room. Whether it was elated or nervous energy making her all jittery, she couldn’t tell.

… What now?

N may have been safe, but J was still out there. They’d need to find a way to beat her properly. And oh boy would Uzi enjoy it.

There was also the matter of N himself— sure, he was safe, but he still didn’t know much of anything that’d happened. The company’s intentions, their time together, the mysteries they were working on. There had to be a way to get him back to where he was the first time around, surely.

If she could just get his memories back. Everything would be fine, they’d sort it out together like always and she wouldn’t be stuck with choice after impossible choice. N was the one who always pulled a solution out of nowhere. Nothing was as scary when she could look over and see him unfazed; he’d felt the same way, once. They did that for each other. Made each other stronger.

She wanted it back.

Uzi paused at the doorway, collecting her thoughts and taking a deep breath, then peeked into the living room. N was sitting tucked in one corner of the couch with the blanket still around him. He looked up as she came in.

“Hey. Sleep alright?”

He shrugged, smiling a little.

“Wasn’t bad. Um… you?” he stumbled over the last part, visibly cringing. Uzi chuckled and crossed the room, sitting next to him while maintaining careful distance.

“Oh, horrible. What’s sleep? I’m an edgy hormonal teen, we don’t do that.”

N huffed a laugh. She smothered the stupid grin creeping into her face, having to press the back of her hand to her mouth and look away. When she turned back, N was watching her with his head tilted pensively.

“What?”

He didn’t respond right away. Just studied her thoughtfully. He turned back to his blanket, picking at the pilled edges.

“Nothing. Um… so, what, like… what am I doing here? What do I— what’s the plan?”

Uzi sat back, exhaling.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out.”

He hummed and tugged the blanket tighter around himself. Uzi traced the reflective patterns on the ceiling with her gaze.

“Whatever happens next, you can’t go back out there, right?”

“I… “

N hesitated, not meeting her eye, before looking away entirely.

“I mean, I guess not.”

“As long as J’s still around.”

He went quiet. Recognizing, for once, that she was digging a hole for herself, Uzi elected to put down the shovel. Think. Use your brain this time.

“Well, either way, you’re welcome here. We can figure out the rest as we go, yeah?”

N unwound slightly and blinked at her. His expression was completely unreadable. Uzi just hoped she got it right this time— that she said the right thing to move them forward.

With a start, his gaze flickered around the room before settling on his hands again, a little too intently to actually be seeing them. She waited.

“ … Yeah,” he said, finally. “Yeah, this… I think this is okay.”

Uzi smiled. “Okay.”

It took consciously reminding herself to not playfully bump his elbow or get any closer. Invisible or no, there was still a wall between them, and she couldn’t risk breaking it yet.

Chapter Text

Uzi kept conversation light, that first day. She was careful. It was easier now, without the looming dread of what he might be going through. The actual talking was easier, at least. In another sense, she was struggling more than before, with no clear goal to ground her and keep her focused.

It was better. This was a much better problem to have.

Still, it was frustrating.

N mostly stayed in the living room. When he wasn’t talking with Uzi or her dad, or drawing, or reading, he would stare into nothing with a thoughtful frown. He also seemed to latch onto that first blanket they gave him and didn’t want anything else. She didn’t get why he liked it so much, given the whole overheating issue and it definitely being their heaviest blanket.

That wasn’t a big deal, though. Her Dad was able to get enough oil from the colony’s emergency supply (medical stuff) to last them a while. They rarely used it anyway. Workplace injuries were rare among robots literally designed for said work, and getting hurt via Dissasembler meant instant death, generally speaking.

In full honesty, Uzi couldn’t quite get a read on N. Based on overall vibe, she could only assume he was in the same weird spot she was, both weirdly okay and very much not okay. A confusing liminal space. When she stopped to study him though, really thought about it, she had no idea. Which only fueled her ‘I’m desperately out of control’ spiral.

It would be fine. She’d figure it out. Just… one step at a time, instead of with a plan, which was uncomfortable, but it was the way things were.

V was on a mission.

It didn’t take long for her to hit a roadblock. She had something, but needed more tech-ish nonsense than she had access to.

One fun new thing she learned about herself: V hated walking. She couldn’t risk flying when J could be anywhere, which meant creeping around on foot and it was slow and boring and she hated it. To make matters worse, so far every building she checked didn’t have what she was after. What kind of building would have computers and stuff? How did a computer building look from the outside??

Needless to say, she had no idea what she was doing.

A few times she came close. There were office buildings with lots of computers, except they’d all been looted to oblivion and there was nothing salvageable left.

So she moved on. Several nights in a row, all she did was wander deeper and deeper into the city. As certain as she was that checking residency buildings would be pointless, she was running out of options fast enough to try— even though, realistically, what civilian would need that kind of tech?

But maybe she misjudged humans. Because it was in some rando’s basement where she hit the jackpot.

V shot the door off its hinges and watched it topple, with much less caution than she probably should have. She was expecting nothing, anyway. As soon as she stepped inside, though, her first thought was good freaking thing it was all on the other side of the room. Her second thought was holy—

She did it. She found the motherload. And it was more advanced tech than anything she’d ever seen, a patchwork of the best parts available everywhere. Heck, she didn’t even need something this good! Whatever human made this had one heck of a hobby.

Now she just had to learn coding.

V groaned and backed out of the room to make the WALK back to home base and move her stuff.

N was… confused, mostly.

Not about anything in particular. Just confused. He’d try to figure it out, but when he climbed back out of his thoughts, he always found he hadn’t really been thinking anything specific. Sometimes he would blink and all of a sudden he’d done it by accident.

That was mostly bad when Uzi or her Dad were trying to talk to him and he completely missed what they were saying. He’d have to ask them to repeat themselves. He kept expecting them to get angry, but they hadn’t yet.

If he still missed what they said after the second time, though, he didn’t bother asking again— he’d just give a vague enough response to hopefully satisfy them. Only after they’d moved on would he be able to focus on what they were trying to tell him, caught in a loop of wondering, and then it was all he could focus on.

Drawing helped him think. And they seemed to like when he drew things, for some reason, always giving him the materials for it. J was annoyed when he wasted time like that. It was a nice change. And he was antsy, with no tasks expected of him, so drawing even helped him feel productive, which kept at bay the looming sense that they’d snap at him for being lazy.

So he was drawing, and his mind had calmed some, when he fumbled and dropped his pencil-crayon.

He stared at it. It sat on the floor, completely inoffensive.

In the past he’d broken them accidentally by holding on too tight. That was a thing. He never… held on too loosely, nevermind dropped one.

What…?

N lifted his hand, studying it. Turned it over. He frowned at it, blinked, and looked more closely.

No, that was definitely… there was a faint tremor there. He wasn’t imagining that.

…

Huh.

Chapter Text

V was no tech genius. This was apparent now more so than ever, in her agonizingly slow progress. If she were a worker, she would have cracked this days ago. But noOoo, they had to give Dissasemblers next to no skill beyond breaking stuff. Even basic coding knowledge would’ve been fine.

She was starting to understand Uzi’s hatred of humans.

But whatever. Slow progress was still progress, and she was making progress. Slowly.

When she finally caught the signal, she pushed away from her desk with a shout, punching the air as the rolly-chair spun her towards the opposite wall. It snagged and sent her tumbling, but she couldn’t care less. She jumped up and darted back to her monitor without bothering to fix the chair, faintly breathless. Leaning over the desktop, she scanned the screen a few times over. Her mind swam with numbers and symbols and where to go from here. She had a rough idea.

For now, though, she drank in those words and savored them.

Connection established with Venice-JC1

Uzi was frustrated.

She was careful to keep her attitude far away from N, as he was quick to assume it was his fault somehow. He didn’t say so, but she could tell. And he did that even before he got reset so she could only imagine it was worse now.

Her irritation did have to do with him, but he wasn’t at fault for it. It was just… she was just frustrated. They kept talking, and it was even easy, but it felt… it wasn’t right. It was too easy. After everything that happened, real conversation— the kind they needed to be having— shouldn’t be this easy. But it was only ever when she was walking away that she realized they’d made zero progress.

That was the problem. N was a master at keeping things light and skirting around problems completely. He kept knocking her off track.

And the worst part? She was pretty sure he had no idea he was doing it.

Uzi let it slide, for the time being. There was a positive in that it was building his trust back. His suspicion was fading fast. He was settling in, more or less, and maybe it was better to worry about that for now anyway? Maybe barging right into big issues wasn’t the way to go, here. All she could do was guess. This was very much not her area.

Her Dad seemed to pick up on her struggle. He wasn’t exactly great with this stuff either (understatement of the century) but he started keeping an eye on N too, nonetheless, which was somehow reassuring.

One day, while going through old school stuff, she found a notebook that looked relatively unused. The cover was shiny and it crackled when she opened it. The first couple pages were scribbled in, but she flipped through the rest and found it blank. She tore out the scribbles and tucked the book under one arm. She carried it out with her, alongside some cool pens she found. Her bedroom door slid shut behind her as she made her way down the hallway.

Uzi paused at the entrance to the living room, knocking on the doorframe. N looked up. He smiled, and she smiled back, a little awkwardly.

“Hey. Whatcha readin’?”

He paused, thinking, as she made her way over and sat down. He flipped the book and squinted at its cover for a moment.

“Uh. Something,” he finally said, helpfully. Uzi rolled her eyes.

“Thanks. What’s it about?”

“Stuff.”

Uzi laughed. She grabbed for the book, which he tried to lift out of reach, but she was quicker and snatched it. She saw the cover and lit up.

“Oh, Tales from Outer Suburbia!? This one’s awesome!”

N nodded, grinning.

“It’s really cool. Very weird, though.”

“Super weird.”

“Are you reading all of the stories, or…?”

“Mostly flipping to random ones. I think I’ve done most of them by now, though.”

“Did you read the one with the ball of—“

“The poem ball?”

“Yeah!!” She handed it back, beaming. “I don’t know why but it always stood out to me. Which. Y’know. They’re all bizzarre, so that must mean something.”

“I like the stick figure one.”

N paused. He made a face.

“ … Maybe um… maybe ‘liked’ isn’t— isn’t the best word, uh…”

“Weird vibes?” She guessed.

“Weird vibes,” he agreed, nodding. He frowned at the book as if it called him something that was either a complement or very offensive, and he couldn’t tell which. Uzi chuckled to herself. She made a mental note to re-read that story later.

Remembering what she’d brought with her, Uzi sat up.

“Oh! Speaking of the poem thing… here, I found these.”

N blinked at the notebook and pens she’d extended to him. He glanced up at her, then back, stunned. Lowering his book, he reached out haltingly before gingerly taking the gift. He inhaled sharply, blinking a few times.

“What’s, um. What do I—“

“It’s for anything. Draw, write, whatever. It’s yours. No one gets to see it unless you show them.”

N gazed wordlessly down at the notebook in his lap. He looked up at her again and quickly away.

“I— I don’t… I—“

Stopping to collect himself, he took a deep breath, and started again, quietly.

“thank you… ”

Uzi smiled. She knew it was unusually soft, but she didn’t care.

“Anytime.”

Chapter Text

“They are not a problem, just another part of the suburban landscape, their brittle legs moving as slowly as clouds. They have always been here, since before anyone remembers.”

…

“This can go on for hours, depending on how many the boys can find. But eventually it stops being amusing. It becomes boring, somehow enraging, the way they just stand there and take it. Why are they here? What do they want? Whack! Whack! Whack!”

…

“Are they here for a reason? It’s impossible to know, but if you stop and stare at them for a long time, you can imagine that they too might be searching for answers… for some kind of meaning.”

Uzi decided that she didn’t at all care for Stick Figures.

Chapter Text

Uzi was rooting through her stuff again. She didn’t realize how much old junk she’d squirreled away until there was a purpose for it. Now she couldn’t get enough. It was like treasure hunting, and every time she struck gold she got a little thrill and a new memory to replace what they’d lost.

Speaking of striking gold.

With a flash of excitement, she grabbed the headphones from a bin she’d unearthed. There was a small device tucked underneath. It was purple, much smaller than a phone, with buttons arranged in a circle. An iPod.

How long had she had this? It could’ve been her Mom’s, she didn’t remember ever using it. Clicking it on, though, she recognized the songs. So probably her Mom’s then.

Man, this thing was ancient.

She scooped it and a few books into her arms and headed to the living room. It was empty, the blanket folded and carefully tucked in N’s corner of the couch, with a clear aura of “don’t touch”.

The books she deposited on a side table. The headphones and device stayed with her as she peeked into the dining room, which is where he’d likely be. Sure enough, he was at the table with his notebook, idly tapping pen against paper. Uzi stepped inside, waving, and he looked up, sitting straighter. He closed the book and set it aside, smiling.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Found something else cool,” she said. N brightened, studying the items tucked in her arms. Uzi rounded the table to sit down and present them.

“You can keep these, too, by the way. I never use them. No idea if you’ll like any of the music though, so don’t get too excited.”

N stared from the tangle of tech in front of him to her and back a few times, gaping.

“I— I don’t— you don’t have to— “

“Really, it’s not a big deal. Promise. These were just sitting in a drawer until now.”

Uzi elected not to tell him they were her Mom’s. Either way he’d treat them like glass, so it didn’t seem necessary. It also probably wouldn’t go over too well if his reaction so far was any indication.

“ … Thank you. This— this is— “ he fumbled, twisting his hands almost feverishly.

“Don’t worry about it.” Uzi reached out to squeeze his forearm. N stilled and blinked at her hand.

She’d mostly wanted to stop his fidgeting, because her hands ached just watching him, and it was just that simple, to reach out. To forget about the walls still standing firm for both their sakes. A protection she may have just shattered.

Freezing, Uzi inhaled sharply and drew back.

“I— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to— “

“It’s… okay, I—“

“I wasn’t thinking— ”

“Uzi.”

N caught her arm that time. And it was so normal she almost forgot it wasn’t.

“ … Huh?” She said, dumbly.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Uzi breathed deeply, searching his gaze for hints of a lie. His smile was a little forced. Was that it? Could the way his tail curled around him be the sign she’d broken a boundary and he was too nice to call her out? Uzi took another breath. The smile was more awkward than anything, really. Nerves weren’t always for bad reasons.

“Okay,” she finally sighed. She lowered her face onto her palm, then combed her hair aside with another steadying breath. “Um. Sorry, for… for being weird and stuff.”

N shrugged.

“I think I’d be a hypocrite if I blamed you for that.”

Uzi chuckled, a little disappointed when he moved back, folding his hands in front of him. She leaned back in her chair.

“We’re both a mess, huh?”

“Ha! Ha ha!! Yep.”

Huffing another small laugh, she gazed upwards. N poked at his notebook. They steeped in the ease of silence for a moment.

That anything about this place could feel peaceful or warm was remarkable, being wrapped in cold, echoing metal and bad memories. But home was always fleeting, for her, and this was no different.

Uzi sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before reluctantly sitting up. She pushed the headphones closer to N.

“Why don’t you look through these, see if there’s anything you like? It might be more fun listening to music while you draw or whatever.”

Glancing at her, N hesitantly reached out and lifted the iPod as if it might disintegrate at his fingertips. He flipped it a few times. He flicked the power button and studied it, frowning. Uzi raised an eyebrow.

“I uh. I think it just died.”

“What?”

She snatched it, flicking it on and off a few times, and scowled, throwing herself back in her seat.

“Aw, no! This was so perfect! Now we have to wait for who knows how long…”

Uzi’s rage trailed off into angry muttering. N turned to face her a bit more, squinting at the device.

“You… do have the charger, right?”

She stared at him.

“ … right?”

Blinking, Uzi glared down at it, dropping it onto the table. She slumped back with a drawn-out groan, shooting a withering glare at N’s poorly-masked amusement.

Chapter Text

The music did help, it turned out. N liked it. He could pick any song from the list and listen to it over and over, or pick different ones at random, or change halfway through, and the headphones meant it didn’t matter in the slightest. The songs further staved off some of the restlessness or uncomfortable thoughts endlessly poking at him.

Everything that happened… it was still very much there, he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t, but it was distant somehow. Blurred, hastily thrown together like the last-minute background of a drawing— normal enough until you zoom in and realize nothing makes sense. It all came back to him in pieces.

He found he didn’t mind that too much.

The notebook was good, too. From pretty much the moment he opened it, both Uzi and her Dad avoided it like the plague. It was invisible to them. N knew that was on purpose. Still, he couldn’t help but keep it close, despite feeling horrible for it since Uzi had only ever given him reason to trust her. The idea of someone touching the book was just too real. It did something to his chest that he didn’t like at all, so he kept his words with him, always.

They seemed okay with that. Which helped the guilt a bit. Not completely, and only when he didn’t think too much, but it was better than nothing.

Having thoroughly torn her room apart, Uzi went through the dreaded ordeal of sorting everything into neat piles to at least give the impression of organized disaster. She wanted to re-introduce N to her space, but she didn’t want him to think a bomb went off in here.

…

Recently.

She kicked a few more things into the corner and was satisfied with her work.

A few hours later, her Dad peeked in and found them sitting on the floor, happily drawing, and backed out with a wordless smile when Uzi glared.

She grumbled to herself. N gave her a confused glance, having missed Khan’s snooping, and she waved it away.

Sleep was still an issue. That never changed, no matter where he was or how he was doing. If anything, it might’ve gotten worse. At least with J he was forced to recharge while healing, even if that sleep was inefficient (what with the Solver working overtime and drawing from any power he regained). It was better than only sleeping through the day, though— or night, now that he was living inside— which he never managed anyway.

He considered taking naps. But the idea of sleeping while everyone around him was awake…

No. No, he’d manage.

It wasn’t that bad. Until it reached a point where his power level was actually concerning, he’d shelve the nap idea. N sighed, rubbing at his visor, and checked the time.

About 4:00. He’d gotten maybe three hours tonight and been awake for one. As always, he did his best to settle again. Writing, drawing, music, whatever was calm. As always, it didn’t work. He’d thought it might this time. He usually slept at least a couple hours longer, and he was usually much more alert when he did wake up. Apparently that didn’t matter.

Stupid, stupid dreams, ruining his already terrible sleep schedule.

N flipped to a fresh page in his notebook, muttering under his breath, and started scribbling. What exactly he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t even close to what he’d been picturing, but the general idea was there.

When he was mostly done he stopped to inspect it. N lifted the drawing and squinted. The light from his visor made the eyes glow yellow, shadows shifting across the page so it moved. He frowned at it. Blinking, he stared down at the pen in his grasp, unsettled his hands had conjured that.

Drawing was usually cathartic. This just felt like he’d brought his nightmare to life.

He really hoped no one would open the notebook.

Starting with a growl and shake of his head, he jolted to close it, but fumbled, pen and book spilling from his hands to splay across the floor. His vision dipped ominously before flickering. N froze.

[̴̴E̷RR̷O̵R̵]

…

Uh oh.

[E̷RROR — enc̷o̶di̷n̵g blocked by: _̵SNS̴]̴

The warning flashed across his optics and scrambled with other messages. N took a stuttering breath, which was immediately pressed out of him, and scrabbled at his chest. He curled in on himself.

“shoot,“ he mumbled.

Chapter Text

Uzi wandered through the living room, dropping a couple books off at the coffee-table on her way by. The rest of the stuff in her arms she brought to the door, kneeling down, and dumped into her backpack. She glanced over to the couch. Backing up a bit, she peeked at N. He didn’t seem to have noticed her come in— he was fully absorbed in his notebook, frowning as though trying to decipher it.

“Hey,” she said.

He startled. After a moment of alarmed confusion, his gaze landed on her. He blinked slowly and deflated.

“Oh. Uh. Hi.”

Uzi frowned and turned fully towards him, giving him a once over.

“You sleep okay?”

He dropped his gaze and shrugged.

So no, then. Uzi looked towards the door, hesitating. Between N and getting back to school she knew which she cared about. But she couldn’t hover over his shoulder 24/7. That wouldn’t be good for either of them.

… She could be a bit late, though… that wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Stepping around to the front of the couch, Uzi sat down, settling her backpack in her lap.

“Why don’t you try having a nap? There’s no rule against sleeping whenever. Heck, if your sleep schedule’s messed up anyway, at least you’d be recharging.”

N fidgeted with the cover of his notebook for a moment, keeping it angled away from her. He closed it and set it down beside him— out of sight— before glancing at her and quickly away again.

“I’m, uh. I don’t— it’s— “

Uzi waited for him to sort out what he wanted to say. She tilted her head and studied him again. What about what she said had gotten him all shifty? There was definitely something there, but she couldn’t begin to imagine what.

He trailed off into mumbled nonsense, staring at the coffee-table with an unreadable expression. Taking a breath, he turned, gesturing towards her bag and not-quite meeting her eye.

“What’s that for?” He asked, too lightly.

She decided to humor him. Looking down at the backpack, she realized it was still partially open and tugged at the zipper.

“School,” she said.

“ … oh.”

Caught off guard by the dim tone, she zeroed her gaze back to him, but he’d already turned away.

“N?”

He hummed in acknowledgment.

“Hey, what’s up?”

For a moment he was silent, tail flicking lethargically. Then he shook his head, mumbling something, and grabbed his notebook again, catching the pen that tumbled out when he opened it. His expression was forcibly neutral. If Uzi didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have spared it a second thought.

She couldn’t say anything right today, apparently.

Taking a stab at what’d bothered him, and hoping she broke her screw-up streak, Uzi scooted forwards to see his face.

“I… won’t be gone for too long? And I always come home for lunch.”

Yet again failing to meet her eye, N smiled. It still seemed strained, but knowing him, it wasn’t entirely ingenuine.

“I know. It’s not… I’ll be fine, it’s not a big deal. You’ve got stuff to do.”

“Unfortunately,” she huffed. N chuckled, shoulders falling a little. A smile lingered while he twisted his hands thoughtfully. Teetering on his next words. Uzi bit back her own to avoid swaying him.

It didn’t end up making a difference, though, because her Dad strode in and broke them from the conversation’s path. He stopped at the threshold, hands on his hips, and gave her a stern look. Uzi groaned and slumped back preemptively.

“Shouldn’t you be in class by now? You’re late.”

N’s eyes widened and snapped to her. She groaned again, shooting her Dad a glare, and gestured vaguely between her and N, trying to walk the line where he caught on and N didn’t.

“I was just on my way out,” she hissed.

Khan glanced at N and back to her. He frowned thoughtfully.

“Hold that thought.”

And he slipped out of the room.

N gave her a look. Uzi shrugged helplessly. She didn’t understand Khan any more than he did.

They looked over when her Dad came back in with a thermos and a few blankets piled in his arms. He stumbled to the couch, dumping the blankets onto N, who yelped in protest, flailing to dig himself out. He emerged with a vaguely dazed look and a lopsided hat. Khan held the thermos out to him. N paused, looking from him to it and back, then to Uzi for help. She grinned and nodded for him to take it. Once again, she struggled not to be too visibly grateful.

Khan stepped back to drop into a chair, reaching for a book. N contemplated the thermos in his hands. Taking that as her cue, Uzi stood. She slung her backpack over her shoulder.

At the threshold, she again hesitated, glancing back and catching her Dad’s eye. He smiled with a nod.

Only a little reluctantly, Uzi smiled back before finally turning and slipping out the door.

Chapter Text

Going back to school was… well, it was stressful. She didn’t expect anything less. Her classmates were still jerks (Thad aside), she was behind in everything, she was anxious to get home and could only think about that for 90 percent of the day. It was also sort of nice, though, to get out again. To have a positive social interaction, and feel like things were almost normal.

Thad knew the gist of what happened. He’d even visited her at the room thingy a couple times. She didn’t tell him much beyond the memory-loss part, because that wasn’t really her place to share, so he wanted updates.

He was ecstatic when she told him N was staying in the colony and asked to come over. Uzi turned him down with a tentative “maybe next time”. She wanted to bring it up with N first.

It’d be really good if they could be friends again. She just hoped Thad could take things in stride. He was good with stuff like that, but still, it was… a lot, being reminded over and over that someone doesn’t remember your favorite moments with them.

It probably wasn’t that deep. Still sad, but N and Thad only talked a few times, even if they did click really well.

Uzi stopped at her front door. She took a deep breath, settling her thoughts before they became any more muddled. The door slipped open and she swung her backpack off, carrying it by the strap and pausing briefly to glance around the living room. No sign of N or her Dad.

She dumped her bag in her room, peeked into the others, which were also empty, then settled on the couch with a book to wait. It was a little wordier than anything she’d usually go for. But she’d been given reading for homework, and she wanted anything but that specific reading. It was a decent story too. So.

Maybe ten-ish minutes later, the front door slid open again. Uzi looked up as N rounded the couch to his usual spot, shooting her a smile.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Where were you guys?”

N shrugged and gathered his blanket and pillows around him. His tail looped in on itself as he settled.

“I was helping out with work. Don’t really understand the details, but apparently some of the stuff I can do is like. Useful? We were mostly just hanging out and talking about that. I might get to help test some things if I go again though, so that’s cool.”

“Huh.” Uzi smiled privately, glancing at the doorway to the other room. Her Dad really was coming through on this. Who would’ve thought? “I take it you had a good day then?”

“Mhm.”

He yawned, turning to curl sideways against the back of the couch and beaming. Uzi closed her book without bothering to bookmark it and sat back too. She let her head fall to the side a little so she could return the easy smile, saying,

“Oh. By the way, I have a friend who might come over at some point to hang out, if you’re cool with that?”

N gave her an odd look.

“Um… yeah? I mean… I don’t know why you’re—”

“You’re kind of living here too, I can’t just not ask.”

His expression grew more puzzled. Uzi crossed her arms behind her head with a grin, watching the gears turn.

“But… you don’t ask your Dad about anything. You do whatever you want.”

“Ah, see, there’s a key difference there— I couldn't care less what he thinks.”

N laughed.

“Right. Okay.”

They hung out on the couch for a while, Uzi filling N in about school, N sharing all the engineering junk Khan had tried and failed to explain to him. Eventually Uzi got restless, though. So they wandered to her room, and she reluctantly chipped away at her homework while he poked through stuff. She was fine with him exploring. He was still hesitant to touch anything, anyway— which was fair, given that he still didn’t know why she trusted him as much as she did.

Uzi was wrestling with yet another stupid captcha when, in the corner of her eye, the yellow glow stilled.

“Uh… hey, um. Uzi?”

“Hm?”

She looked up. He was staring towards her wall, completely motionless.

“I— what’s, um. Where did… ?”

Confused, she slid her workbook off her lap. She trotted over and peeked around him to see what the fuss was about.

Oh.

Oh, shoot.

His old drawing.

This… would call for some explaining.

“Is that—“

“Yep.”

N inhaled sharply, glancing at her and then back to the drawing, scanning it almost frantically.

“How, I-I don’t—“

“Remember how I kept telling you it was a long story?”

He snapped around, eyes widening. Whatever he was going to say died on his tongue. Rubbing her arm, and just barely dodging eye contact, Uzi smiled. It probably looked more like a grimace.

“You, uh… you wanna hear it?”

Chapter Text

She didn’t tell him everything. That seemed unfair, somehow. She told him the gist of it— how they met, why he switched sides, snake-crab J, the fight with Doll— but she spared him the specifics of how they’d gotten close. The bonding moments and little talks. It just… she couldn’t imagine it would help, to know without really remembering… and the less she upset that cognitive dissonance, the better.

As she talked, N sat in silence, listening. His expression was completely unreadable. If she had to guess, she’d say he was processing. There was a lot, after all. But really she had no idea.

Avoiding parts of the story also meant not tearing up all the time, so that was good.

“… but, um… I couldn’t really get away properly, I just managed to keep us outside the doors. So I couldn’t reach you. J did the whole reset-thing, and… yeah, you… I guess you know the rest.”

N went to say something but caught it, closing his mouth. He nodded instead and stared at the headphone cord he’d been absent-mindedly untangling for the last five minutes or so. (It didn’t look any better. She didn’t especially care— no one was ever going to use them anyways.)

Uzi sighed, dropping her head back against the wall, and turned her attention to the drawing hung across the room. That darn drawing. She hated how important the stupid thing was.

Quickly, she glanced at N— who was scowling at it too— and away again.

“So?”

He stilled. The corner of Uzi’s vision glowed yellow as he turned to her.

“… So… ?”

“I dunno. You must have something to say about all this.”

Silence. She looked over, studying his face, trying to puzzle him out. N frowned down at the cord mess again. He blinked at it. Unraveled it from his grasp and set it aside. Twisted his hands for a moment, before reaching and gathering it again, combing through the stubborn plastic.

“Um. I— I don’t— it’s just… I-I don’t think I do.”

Uzi brought her knees to her chest and hoped she wasn’t making any sort of scary face.

“You— what do you… ?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to— to fit this into, like, everything? Um. Like I just don’t. I don’t have any feelings. Or I haven’t figured them out yet, maybe.”

N’s words stopped, but he visibly struggled for a moment before giving up on whatever he wanted to say and picking a bit of fluff off his coat, tossing it grumpily. Uzi sat back again and stared at her knees, locking her hands together.

So he was… what, confused? Numb? He could be lacking enough context for his past to hold any real significance. But it was his past, and he couldn’t remember a bit of it, yet things had happened and he did things and knew about the things he did but didn’t remember and surely that had to mean something. Right? It must not have hit him yet.

She didn’t really know how to feel about this either, come to think of it. But if anything, it was because she was feeling too much.

Mainly confusion.

A sideways glance at N made her brows knit. He didn’t seem to feel anything. There was no way he’d be so casually focused on the wires in his hands otherwise. She knew his pretend-causal look from before, when…

…

He wasn’t acting. Or he wasn’t covering up any earth-shattering (ha) emotional crises, at least. Which was good! It was good, this was ideal, actually, and exactly what she was going for by leaving out some stuff. Less existential dread was good.

Still. She thought…

He really just… nothing?

Whatever. Uzi shook herself, stretching and hopping upright with a huff. N watched her cross the room, lowering the headphones. She shot him a reassuring smile over her shoulder as she slipped out. Then paused to take a breath, and made her way down the hallway.

She was only leaving for a moment. To collect herself. She wasn’t about to let N think she was mad at him.

Chapter Text

Uzi came back a couple minutes later with a thermos and one of the couch pillows, and didn’t miss the way N unwound a little when he saw her. She tossed the thermos to him as she walked over, and dropped the pillow, then herself onto it.

“I refilled it for you by the way,” she said. “You’re welcome.”

N stared at the container. He looked from it to her and back with a puzzled frown.

“Uh. Wh— hm.”

She sat up a bit. After a second, he set it aside.

“Thanks,” he said, somehow both too quietly and in a tone she couldn’t decipher.

“Yeah… no problem.”

More silence. Uzi pulled her gaze away when he didn’t turn around after a while. She couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on in his head, and she couldn’t be bothered with the headache of trying anymore. At least until she had a good nap or something.

Mmm... sleep.

Not now, though. That would be less than great timing.

She straightened abruptly, scooching back to lean against the wall and crossing her arms with a frustrated noise. Which prompted— startled?— N into looking over.

“This sucks. Everything. This whole situation is bad and annoying and I hate it.”

N huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s… probably a fair assessment.”

“It’s so annoying,” she mumbled. Uzi hunched in on herself, sliding down the wall a bit. “There’s like. One thing that would fix it all. And everything would be fine again, and it feels like we should just be able to fix it but for some stupid reason that has to be completely impossible.”

N adjusted, turning towards her more with a hum, then bringing one knee up to rest his arms on and laying his head on them. He blinked slowly at her.

“The memories?”

“What happened to the whole— like— isn’t data supposed to always exist somewhere? That should apply here I think.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of the internet…”

Uzi blew a hair out of her face and pointed at him.

“You shut up with your facts and logic.”

N chuckled, and that helped a bit. More than a bit, actually. She huffed a laugh too, rolling her eyes. The warmth in her chest bubbled down after a moment, though, and she stared at the floor, smile fading. N watched his glowing tail-tip flick idly. When she spoke again, he perked up.

“I just… I-I want it back,” she admitted. “I want you back. And… it should be enough that you’re okay, but so much happened and it’s all just… and… it seems like this should be something that can be undone and everything goes back to normal but it can’t. It can’t. And I don’t… know what to do with that. Um…”

Uzi wavered, looking away. She cleared her throat and blinked rapidly. Not the time.

The glow of N’s visor dimmed as he leaned back, head hitting the wall behind him, and gazed upwards.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine it’s— there was basically a whole other me you knew, and you’ve lost that. But then like, I’m also here, as a constant reminder? I can’t imagine that’s fun. You’re… kind of crazy-strong.”

Uzi choked a laugh and tried to secretly scrub at her visor.

“Pfft, y-you’re one to talk.”

“Ha! No. No, I’m really not.”

“Shut up and take my mutual respect.”

He laughed again, shaking his head. Uzi suspected it was more shelving-the-argument than her winning. But they’d work on that later. For now, she hesitantly shuffled closer to lean her head against his arm. He tensed, but after a moment, his tail looped protectively around them.

“You’re more than a reminder. Just… FYI.”

He hummed. One hand came to rest on her back and rubbed absent-mindedly, and they gazed at his drawing, lingering in tangible silence. What they were waiting for she couldn’t say.

Probably a few hours later, she startled awake and N was gone.

The thermos was still there though. He must’ve forgotten it.

V didn’t realize how gosh darn frickin terrifying this would be. Or how painstaking. Maybe that was how cautious she was being, but she wasn’t about to not be careful. Besides. There was time, now. At least, as long as J didn’t manage to do anything insane, or find her somehow, which was unlikely (she hoped).

There was maybe a 20 minute window where the satellite was in range. Then she had to wait for it to circle around the planet again. Which took forever, because it was supposed to be in an orbit that left it functionally stationary, but the core collapse threw it off, so now it was just wandering in a circle. A detail which made it all the more spectacular the thing had been in the right place at the right time.

At first, she thought J must’ve saved and uploaded the data for the company. Reports, evidence, study of the accidentally very sentient life they created, whatever. Except they didn’t care. J didn’t care. And no way would she sacrifice a good power trip and the knowledge that she’d irreversibly destroyed N, just for some useless files.

That theory unravelled. Meaning it really was chance, plus some quick thinking on N’s part.

Either way, she was almost there— it was just a matter of extracting everything without catastrophe and stuffing it into a convenient little flash drive without, y’know, wiping it from existence.

Chapter Text

“Hey, um.”

Uzi turned her head, blinking lazily up at N from where she was laying on her cold floor again. He’d been writing, but put that on pause to stare at the picture again with a faraway look.

“Hm?” She prompted when he didn’t say anything. N startled, glancing over and quickly down at his sketchbook.

“Uh. I just— the other day. Are you— I mean… you’re like, handling all this okay, somehow. Right?”

Uzi scoffed and turned back to glare at the ceiling.

“What do you think.”

“Oh,” He mumbled. Uzi caught him fixating a little too intently on the page in front of him and rolled her eyes, shifting closer to swat at him. N jumped.

“Cut that out,” she scolded, pointing. “I can make my own decisions. This is a messed up situation for both of us, but I’m helping because I’d rather everything suck and you’re alive than everything suck ten times as much because you aren’t.”

N stared, the edges of his book crumpling slightly in his grasp. He blinked and closed his mouth, opened it, closed it again, looked away.

“Oh,” he managed. Noticing the wrinkled paper, he loosened his grip to try and smooth it over, wincing. Uzi studied the ceiling again and let the silence sit. Her thoughts gradually slowed into a hazy spiral; the almost trance-like, semi-awake state that would easily turn into a nap if she wasn’t careful. She didn’t think it would, this time, since she wasn’t tired… but there was really no telling.

When eventually she checked, N was gazing in the general direction of his drawing again. It was hard to tell if he was actually looking at it from her angle.

She let it be.

Some time later, Uzi woke herself fully by shifting with a sigh.

“I missed this.”

N responded with puzzled silence.

“This is how we used to hang out,” she said. “Sort of. It’s cool how we wound up in the same place again, almost.”

More silence. N’s tail flicked in between them, and he pretended not to notice, the pen in his hand hovering in place as he regarded her with careful neutrality. He looked down, but didn’t even pretend to start writing again. As if stuck somehow. When he spoke it was in that same false neutral.

“So, could it… happen again, then?”

Uzi squinted at him. Frowning, she pushed herself up on her elbows.

“What d’you mean?”

He didn’t reply for a long moment. Maybe he hadn’t heard her somehow. Before she could ask, though, N abruptly shook his head and closed his book, setting the pen on top.

“Nevermind.”

…

Oh.

She sat the rest of the way up and took a deep breath, voice softening maybe a bit more than she meant.

“That was different. You were still living out at the spire. It’s the only reason she caught us off guard, so no, it won’t happen again.”

N hummed non-committedly. His visor dimmed as he studied the floor. Just barely, but enough.

“What’s up?”

He did that thing again, where he looked up and then away really quickly— as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“I-I don’t know. It’s just— I… don’t know.”

Helpful.

Uzi huffed. Why did this all have to be so complicated? It was so much easier to hit things. It would be awesome if she could beat away some abstract feelings. They were all difficult and frustrating for no reason.

“Still waiting on that manual,” she muttered, dropping back to the floor. “Would be reeeal helpful right about now.”

Uzi rested her hands on her stomach and glared at the ceiling. Then further back, to the wall, hat scrunching and pushing towards her eyes. Her posters and stuff were upside down from that angle. She could read upside-down, (robot and all,) but it still looked funny.

N gave her an odd look at the comment. She shook her head, waving him away.

“It’s a… just a reference, ignore me. Um. So, you’re… confused? Like, in general?”

He made another face at the book in his lap, bringing it closer, and flicked his pen. It scittered across the cover into his other hand.

“I mean, sort of? That’s part of it. It’s… I’m kind of just… here, y’know? Like— like none of this seems real, fully.”

“Denial?” She tried.

N shook his head with a sort of scrunched expression.

“No. It’s more like it doesn’t fit into reality yet. Like it totally happened, but now I’m… just here.”

Okay. So… moderately helpful. She still had no idea what to make of that, but it was something.

“I dunno what to tell you,” Uzi said, shrugging, and crossed her arms behind her head, propping it up so she could scan him. N went quiet for another minute.

Then he opened his notebook again. Uzi took that as a conversation over.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Zi!”

Uzi paused her rifling and leaned back awkwardly to see around her locker door without stepping down from her makeshift stool. (Books. She was standing on books.) Thad was jogging towards her. He waved, smiling, and Uzi waved back.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Not much,” he said, coming to a halt. “Workbook is brutal. That’s not just me, right? I’m not crazy?”

She hummed, stuffing her books into her bag and hopping to the ground. Dumping the ones she’d been standing on in a heap at the bottom of her locker, she swung the door shut, slinging her bag on one shoulder.

“I’m probably the wrong person to ask. They totally suck, but I’ve been gone for weeks. So.”

“Yeah… true.” He winced, smile gaining a nervous edge. “I uh. Maybe I should be worried.”

“Maybe,” Uzi agreed.

Thad gave her a level stare. Uzi stifled the laugh simmering in her chest, staring back innocently. She started walking, smile only slightly malicious, and he fell into step beside her.

“So, uh. What’s the verdict?”

Uzi was puzzled for a second before it clicked.

“Oh! Right. Yeah, you can come hang out if you want.”

Thad cheered and ran ahead a couple steps. Then, remembering Uzi, he slowed again so she could catch up. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“You guys are fun to hang out with,” he said sheepishly. “Sue me.”

Rolling her eyes, Uzi huffed.

“You don’t suck either.”

The conversation fell away as they entered the classroom and split off to their respective seats. Uzi managed to keep to herself and focus, sort of. She didn’t especially feel the need to cause chaos that day.

— 

Uzi was nervous. Why was she nervous? She already knew they got along, what’s the worst that could happen? N was in a weird place, but he wasn’t fragile. There was no reason to be nervous about this. None.

She hesitated just outside the front door, scowling, and narrowed her eyes.
As soon as she thought about it, her heartbeat jumped.

Ack. Stop it.

Surprise surprise! That still didn’t work.
Whatever.

Uzi shook herself and stepped forwards, the front door sliding open. She shrugged off her backpack as she entered. Thad trailed behind her, looking around curiously.

“I’m home! With company!” she called.

“Hello! I’m company,” Thad supplied, earning himself a weird look. He shrugged.

N poked his head around the corner and blinked at them. Thad lit up, waving, and he edged into the room with a wary smile.

“Uh… hi.”

“N and M’s,” Thad greeted, beaming. N froze. Several expressions flashed across his face, confusion coming out on top.

“Did I— did— do you… know me?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Thad laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, and N’s face fell. Uzi debated stepping in, but Thad jumped to clarify before she could.

“But— don’t worry, we only talked like… a couple times? If that? This would be our first time hanging out anyway.”

“Oh.” He considered that for a moment. Uzi relaxed when he unwound a bit, nodding. “Right. Okay.”

Grimacing, Uzi glanced between them, both relieved and supremely uncomfortable.

“Well this isn’t awkward at all,” she griped.

The two looked over as she crossed the room, nudging past N, to go dump her bag and not-so-subtly escape the weirdness. They laughed, though. And from her room she caught their muffled voices, whispering conspiratorially, so it seemed the awkward re-introduction stage was a short lived one.

Soon enough they were all sprawled in her bedroom while Uzi struggled with her captcha homework yet again, and Thad laughed at her despite procrastinating because he was having the same problem. Out of spite, she refused to let him anywhere near her work, so he couldn’t copy if she got a question right.

N was quick to take her side and lurk over her shoulder like a large, Murderous bat. Whenever Thad tried to peek, the wings would come out and block him. A difficult task given how much he was also laughing at her. Uzi was playing it up, of course— narrating pretty much everything she was doing and reading out the instructions (which were not helpful at all) as she went.

To her credit, she only chucked her book across the room once.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until she was about halfway done the workbook that Thad finally let slip that N was a double agent.

The whole scheme fell apart, Uzi swatting them out of her room with said book and throwing pillows after them as they scrambled around the corner. Assuming she was safe for the time being, Uzi poked through her best hiding spots. They were not getting those answers. After all the looting she’d done the last while, though, there weren’t many places she could stash her homework that they wouldn’t find it.

It was Thad’s brilliant idea to sneak up behind her and try to smother her with a blanket. He shouted for N to grab the book while Uzi flailed at him. She tucked it close to her chest defensively.

“No!” She laughed, aiming a few kicks and only landing one. “You don’t get to steal the one assignment I’ve done this year, piss off!!”

There was a yelp from Thad, and instead of the book being scooped from her hands, Uzi was scooped up. Then they were running, and she swore they must’ve hit every wall along the way, N cackling as Thad’s protests faded behind them.

Uzi was finally dumped on her feet. She tore the blanket off, feeling disheveled, and pointed accusingly at a very smug N, who was trying and failing to look remorseful.

“You,” she snapped. “I trusted you. Why have you betrayed me this way?”

N lowered his head tragically— a clear attempt to compensate for the smile he couldn’t quite squash.

“I have greatly wronged you, m’lady. How can I ever atone?”

Uzi’s expression scrunched.

“Pfft— m’lady? Really?”

He looked almost wounded. Uzi couldn’t stifle her laughter, that time.

Before he could defend his honour, though, there was a crash from the front door, followed by faint thumping. They straightened, laughter snuffing out as they met each other’s wide eyes, then turned, straining to listen. Uzi stepped closer to N with a frown.

There was a beat of silence followed by muffled voices. She couldn’t quite make out the words. Loud noises weren’t generally a good thing, here. But she couldn’t think what could be happening... and freaking out would freak N out. So she wavered for a moment, debating her next move.

Thad crashed into the room. He paused, noticing them, and collected himself before gesturing backwards.

“Uh. Your Dad’s here,“ he said. “I think someone’s at the doors for you? Like, the main doors?”

Uzi exchanged a glance with N, who looked vaguely sick. She didn’t miss how he twisted his hands, either, or the way his tail curled protectively around himself. She glanced at Thad, hesitating. Then shifted to lean over a bit.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said in a low voice. Uzi rested a hand on his forearm. N re-focused with a start, blinking, and his hands stilled. “You can stay here if you want, though.”

His gaze flickered down to her hand. Then he shook his head, arms falling back to his sides and a heavy breath dragging out of him.

“No. No, I’d rather… know what’s going on.”

She nodded once to Thad, who studied N briefly before stepping back with a nod of his own. They sped past. Her Dad was waiting at the front door. Upon seeing them, he stood and started off without missing a beat. The two rushed to follow.

Despite their pace, Uzi had enough time to think along the way. Meaning she had time to worry. If it was J, this could end… badly. It might be V. But why would V want in the bunker? If it was J, and a trap, was it really this easy to bait them?

Uzi shook herself with a scowl. She turned her attention to her Dad, a few paces ahead.

“Did you get a name?”

Khan glanced over his shoulder with a frown. Facing forwards again, he shook his head, his grip on the controller for the doors tightening.

“No. Even if I had, she could’ve been lying, and I’d have to check with you anyway.”

“Right.”

Uzi set her jaw and sped up. N stared downwards, not saying anything, which she’d usually do something about, but there just wasn’t enough time. Part of her wished he’d stayed behind for this. But she was also selfishly glad he was there, facing potential danger by her side, like before.

The only reason she didn’t feel horrible about that was the fact he’d chosen to be there. It also kept him involved in what was happening— a control he needed, probably— and Uzi refused to deny him that.

She just hoped it didn’t ruin everything.

They finally skidded to a halt at the first door. Khan opened it. They stepped through, waited. Uzi shot N another glance but couldn’t get a read on him. Door 2, and Khan stepped around the table, Uzi following more slowly.

Her Dad raised one hand to the control panel and looked over for confirmation. Tail-tip flicking feverishly, N edged closer, bumping against her arm.

“You ready?” Khan said. “She shouldn’t be able to get through, without the keycard, but there’s no guarantees.”

Uzi took a deep breath.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. N?”

He nodded vaguely, completely zeroed on the door. Uzi looked back to her Dad. They exchanged a final glance before he turned, hitting the button that would open the door partway.

N startled back to life as it parted with a hiss of air. Drawing a sharp breath, he fumbled to grasp her hand. Uzi squeezed back as a strip of misted night came into view; a flash of yellow and sliver.

Uzi deflated with a sigh.

V.

Chapter Text

Beside her, N exhaled shakily and dropped her hand, swaying on his feet. Uzi rested said hand on his arm briefly before moving to peek outside.

“Hey,” she called.

V, who’d been pacing a ways away, snapped her gaze around. She darted forwards, colliding with the door and gripping it hard, eyes shining. Uzi startled back with a yelp. She shot the Disassembler an unimpressed glare.

“Sorry,” V said, not looking sorry at all. “Can I come in? Can we talk? I have something very big and important and if J gets a hold of it that would be really bad. Also she’ll probably kill me if she sees me. So there’s that.”

“Woah woah woah, slow down.” Uzi waved her hands in front of her to quell the tide of information, trying to process what the heck V was on about. “You— what did— what??”

V inhaled slowly. She exhaled through her teeth, narrowing her eyes.

“I figured something out. If you could please let me in, I promise not to kill anyone.”

“Very reassuring.”

“I’m serious! This— here, look.”

She held her hands out. Cupped inside them was a very ordinary looking flash drive. Uzi raised an eyebrow.

“You’re lucky I already believed you, because that… that would not have done it,” Uzi said. She nodded to her Dad, who hit a button on his controller. The doors snapped open fully, and V swatted Uzi over the head as she stepped inside. Clasping her hands protectively over her hat, Uzi stuck her tongue out in retort.

Before she could say anything, though, V caught sight of N and lit up, darting over. He took an uncertain step back. She didn’t seem to notice and caught his arms, studying him.

“You’re here! Wow, you look much better. That’s awesome.”

“I— “

She’d already turned back to Uzi.

“How have you guys been navigating everything? How much does he know abou— wait, no. I’m getting off track.”

“… yeah,” Uzi agreed, bewildered. She walked over, checking to make sure N was okay before turning her searching gaze back to V’s weirdness. “You’re… talking, much more than you have literally ever. Should we be worried?”

“No. I’m just— I’m excited, geez. You try spending every waking second on something and having it finally work. Then try not to talk slightly more than usual. I promise it’s not that easy. Oh, hi! I think I’ve seen you before.”

She waved to Khan. Uzi was torn between laughing and strangling her.

“Slightly?” She muttered.

N patted her on the head. Which inclined her slightly away from the strangling option, at least.

“Hey, V, d’you mind sharing what all the crazy’s about?? Sometime this year, perhaps?”

“Yeah yeah, one sec.”

V turned, scoffing as if Uzi was being the unreasonable one, and lifted the flash drive again. Her eyes gleamed.

“This. I was able to connect to one of the two operational satellites still in orbit. It seems like N was a quick thinker, and luck was finally on our side. You know what this is?”

The pieces slowly clicked together. Uzi stared. She was torn, because this wasn’t supposed to be possible, and it had to be some kind of sick joke. But if it was, it'd kill her all over again. She wanted to be right. She wanted that little thumb drive to be the golden salvation she’d cried herself to sleep hoping for a hundred times over.

“Is— is that— that’s not— “

V’s grin widened, wavering as a spark of real emotion broke through.

“It is,” she said.

Uzi released a breath, hardly daring to believe it.

N’s memories.

N stared at the tiny device in V’s palm. He was torn. There it was: the answer to every question he never dared ask. The answers he needed if he wanted to change. Everything he’d learned that first time around, what would patch the cracks in his mind.

Someone else entirely. A whole life separate from what he’d come to know.

Who was he going to be, when it all came rushing back? When the dust settled, what would be left? Was it him? Or was it easier to live with those pieces missing— telling himself that if he found them, everything would be fixed— than to find out they didn’t fit anymore?

It didn’t matter now. Truth had found him.

The only way to move was forwards.

Chapter Text

Uzi barreled back through the door, scaring Thad half to death, who she’d forgotten was there. N, V, and Khan trailed after her as she paused sheepishly.

“Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

“Is everything okay?”

Thad scanned the others, lingering on V, probably catching on that she was the one at the door. A new-ish face. Uzi glanced at them too and nodded.

“Yeah. No, it’s— it’s good. Good news.”

N edged past her, avoiding both her and Thad’s eye. V was practically jumping up and down on the spot. Uzi shot her a glare to counter the one she was leveling at Thad, and earned a stuck-out-tongue in response.

“…Guessing I should head out, then?”

“Sorry, I don’t want you to feel like—“

“It’s cool! No worries,” he assured, patting her shoulder as he moved past. He stopped at the door, smiling. “I get the sense this will be uh. A pretty personal kinda thing. Hope it all works out… keep me posted and we’ll call it even, yeah?”

Uzi deflated and smiled too, a little awkwardly.

“Yeah. Cool.”

And with a final salute, he slipped out the door. V rolled her eyes.

“Finally.”

Uzi swatted her arm. They glared at each other.

Uzi held her palm out expectantly. V stared her down for a long moment, but Uzi refused to trust her with this, no matter how much she obviously cared in order to get them to this point in the first place. With a scoff, V finally dropped the flash drive into her palm. Without a second thought Uzi started forward. She beckoned to N as she passed the couch— he’d already buried himself in blankets— and V followed, practically breathing down her neck. N stumbled up and grabbed one of the blankets to bring with him.

Uzi dropped into her chair, momentum rolling it towards her computer and spinning her to face it. She plugged in the USB and dragged her keyboard closer, curled over it as she worked. V leaned down to again hover over her shoulder. Uzi bit back a few harsh words. As long as she could focus, nothing else mattered, right now.

N stayed by the doorway, rubbing at the blanket looped around his arms and watching silently. Her dad wasn’t in her peripheral. If he was there, she couldn’t see him.

Hitting the last few keys with a characteristically dramatic flourish, Uzi spun in her chair again, reaching for one of the electrodes she mostly had for the sake of hacking her classmates, and waved N over. He started forward, frowning at it. And there was Khan after all. He’d been peeking around N, barely out of sight.

Uzi hopped out of her chair again and hesitantly, with prompting, N took her place. She pressed the device into his hands and stepped in front of her computer again. With one final warning glare at V (if this goes wrong, it’s your fault) and a deep breath, she smiled, much more bravely than she felt.

“You ready?”

N didn’t look up as he secured the electrode in place. Once he could release it and it stayed, he dropped his hands into his lap, and only then did he answer, fixated on the fraying blanket-edge he was pulling at.

“As I’ll ever be,” he muttered.

“Alright. Good. Okay.”

Uzi took another deep breath. She stared at the keyboard, which her hand was hovering over, helpfully immobile and also shaking for some reason. She inhaled again, curling her other hand into a vice.

One final glance at N and she’d hit it. This didn’t have to be difficult. As long as he was fine. She didn’t have to think this much, it was a push of a button, there was no way to mess that up, it was fine, everything was about to be okay again, and yes N was fine, he was sitting with his eyes closed and she was the one freaking out about this. He was fine. Okay. So button time, then.

“Well, here goes nothing… ”

With a final sharp breath and a jolt, she squeezed her eyes shut and hit it.

Chapter Text

Silence.

Then a gasp from her right, and something slammed into her shoulder. Uzi snapped her eyes open with an indignant yelp.

“V!! What…”

She stopped. V skidded into a crouch in front of the chair, leaned over to study N’s visor, which was a glitching mess. Uzi dodged V’s lashing tail and halted her momentum with one armrest, before catching N’s face in her hands, tilting it and scanning frantically.

“That’s not— i-is that supposed to be hap—“

“No. No no no, it’s definitely not.”

“Th-then why— what’s—“

It went dark.

Uzi froze, staring. She jumped to steady him when he tipped forward, trying to remember how to breathe and mostly failing. There was no help from V and Uzi was afraid to even look at her.

But before Uzi could open her mouth, if she’d dared to ask… whatever she was going to ask, N’s visor flashed.

[SNS override]

A few other jumbled messages followed, too glitched to read.
Then N startled online with a gasp, hunching in on himself. Uzi had drawn back at some point. But he caught her forearms and held on for dear life, blinking as his breathing evened out. V exhaled shakily and stood, falling back a step, before turning and stalking across the room. From Uzi’s other side an arm wrapped around her shoulders. She jumped a bit and whipped her head around; it was her Dad, watching N with wide eyes. He looked about as relieved as she felt.

Uzi turned back to N as well, breathing deeply, and waited while he blinked around and gradually came back to himself, as if from a trance. He paused and his brows knitted in confusion.

Finally his gaze cleared and he sat up, dropping her arms and staring around more vigorously. Uzi inhaled, voice wavering.

“What in the— what just… are you, like… ”

N saw her and stopped. He went to say something, caught himself, looked away.

“… yeah, I think— yeah. I’m okay. Fine. Um. I don’t know what that— what happened, sorry, just, uh— weird glitch, I guess. I’m okay.”

“Right.”

She studied him, frowning.

“Do you… remember? Everything?”

A weighted pause, where he stared at the floor beside them, expression unreadable.

N nodded slowly.

“… yeah. It’s all back.”

Uzi pressed a fist to her mouth, biting back something between a laugh and a sob. And failing. They definitely heard her. She’d have to punch V later or something to offset that. But… in the meantime, surely it wouldn’t matter if she… she could just…

Why not?

Uzi stood, her Dad’s arm falling away, and launched herself forward to wrap her arms around N, sending the chair rolling back and knocking a muffled oof out of him. After a moment, he shifted to rest a hand on her head.

“Idiot,” she scolded. “I missed you.”

He chuckled and buried his face in her hat and his other hand, shaking. Uzi held on tighter.

She didn’t want to let go. But time moved on, unfortunately, and she wanted to talk with V, and N probably needed a nap or something after all that. Information overload, no doubt. Lots to process. Her Dad had it handled, and funny enough, she actually trusted him with this, now. Things really had changed.

Her and V squabbled for a few minutes after N retreated to the living-room. Then Uzi slipped out the front door, V close behind, and started walking. She planned on asking Lizzy to deal with her. They didn’t need another disassembly drone lurking around the house, especially one Uzi was less than fond of (and vice versa).

Still… credit where credit was due and all that.

“Thanks,” Uzi reluctantly bit out. She grimaced, the words almost sour on her tongue. “I know that… wasn’t even remotely for my sake, but… thank you. For being actually helpful.”

For once, she didn’t say.

“Mhm.”

Uzi could feel the look V must be giving her and she wanted to smack it. They walked in silence for a bit.

“J’s still out there,” V finally said. Uzi spared her an incredulous glance.

“Yep.”

“You wouldn’t want to help me… I don’t know, plan her violent death, or anything, would you?”

A slow grin spread across Uzi’s face. A laugh— a real laugh— bubbled out of her against her will, and she shook her head, trying to beat it back. V’s smile was pleased without even a hint of smugness.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

N thumbed his blanket absent-mindedly, listening to Uzi and V’s muffled voices from the room over. It sounded like they were arguing. But, then again, everything they said to each other sounded like arguing, so it could be fine. It probably was. If they were ever going to be on good terms, it was now.

“Hey there!”

N blinked, sitting up. Khan walked back in with a warm smile and wave. N had completely forgotten about him; he’d stepped out of the room, saying he would be back in a minute. Khan rounded the couch and tossed something over. N fumbled to catch it, before staring down in confusion.

“I refilled it for you,” Khan said.

Refilled?

N frowned at the thermos, even more puzzled.

“Uh. Thanks.”

Khan nodded with a hum. He sat down in his chair, scooping up the book he’d left there— a placeholder for his spot in the room— and opening it. N gazed down at the thermos. He fidgeted with it instead of his blanket, wondering what he was supposed to do with himself.

He looked up again as Uzi and V passed through, heading straight for the front door, and then were gone. Which was good. He wasn’t sure he was up for conversation right now. Even with Uzi.

It was quiet, without their bickering.

And that’s what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? He couldn’t focus on anything else with their voices raised, even if he couldn’t make the words out, even if he couldn’t change anything, even if they were smart enough not to start an actual fight and no one would get hurt. But now there was nothing, and that… somehow that was worse.

He pushed his blankets to the side abruptly and stood. Khan looked up, and N gestured vaguely towards the door, not meeting his eye.

“Just… want to get out a bit. Think and stuff.”

Khan studied the front door. Then him. He nodded slowly and turned a page.

“Alright then. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to stay inside the bunker, so… don’t go far, and if anyone asks, tell them you’re with the Doormans.”

“Thankyou,” N breathed, already halfway across the room.

He probably should’ve paid attention. But as soon as he got his out, he kind of just… went. It wouldn’t be impossible to find the way back. He could ask around if he really needed to.

N wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he found a section of the bunker that seemed largely abandoned; or, at least, wasn’t attached to any main areas, and was generally empty as a result. It was quiet. There were fans, and the skittering echoes of workers going about their lives, but mostly quiet. The right kind. And no one would see him there.

N inhaled, ducking around a corner, and sank to the ground with his back against a wall. Completely still except for his flicking tail, he stared through the floor. Everything was sort of staticky. Like he was made of bees.

A… weird image, but sure, that fit.

He drew another rattling breath, blinking a few times and gripping his sleeves.

Then a sob tore out of his chest. N collapsed in on himself and buried his face in his arms, shaking.

Chapter Text

Uzi was confused when she came back from Lizzy’s and N was nowhere to be found. Her dad waved away her confusion and said it was nothing to worry about.

While she didn’t fully trust that, N wasn’t a toddler, and maybe it was a good sign that he wanted to get out a bit? He hadn’t shown an interest since he’d been staying with them. And the N she knew before was on the adventurous side. He’d be fine with hanging around, for the most part, but if left to his own devices they’d have to hunt him down every other day for a week while he figured out the layout of the bunker and wound up stuck in corners like a roomba. A smart roomba, an enthusiastic one, but one who’d be bested nonetheless.

So no. It wasn’t a stretch to think N might’ve gone wandering while he processed things. But still. She resolved to wait and make sure he got back okay.

And then maybe they could, like… talk? She could barely wrap her head around the fact that he— everything was just there again. Like. Just… yeah. Even if it was a little weird, she couldn’t bring herself to care. An adjustment period was a small price to pay to have him back.

She didn’t mean to doze off slumped against the base of her bed. But she startled awake and all the lights were out. Cursing under her breath, Uzi scrambled upright, jogging to peek into the living room.

It was dark. But that was definitely the yellow glow of N’s lights, peeking from between blankets. Uzi deflated, a sigh breezing out of her, and felt a little silly for ever worrying in the first place.

After another moment of pause she nodded once to herself before retreating.

It was okay. N deserved to rest after all that. They could hang out tomorrow. Or later, even, if he needed more time to think… because now, finally…

They had all the time in the world.

There was the whir of a door shutting at the end of the hallway. Then silence. N waited, and waited, smothering the urge to move his tail. Or anything, really, but especially that. It was almost painful to tie it down. Which never made much sense to him, but he rarely thought about it because the stupid thing just moved on its own most of the time and he had other concerns besides forcing it to cooperate. Right now though it was being a pain. So he was irritated with it.

Once he was 100 percent sure the coast was clear, N raised his head, dislodging the blanket draped over him. He scanned the room— paused, staring in the direction of Uzi’s. Knowing her, she could be asleep already. He wasn’t going to assume, in case he was wrong, but she might be.

Turning over, N burrowed back into the blankets, and curled up tightly, pinning his tail under one leg.

Uzi woke up to a clock alarm. Her first realization was that somehow, the day after reality-shattering life events was a school day.

The world was a cruel, dark place.

She dragged herself out of bed, to her half-hearted homework attempt, then to her backpack to dump it, and then to her mirror to make sure she didn’t look half-dead, which she did, so then she did absolutely nothing about that and grouched into the living-room, dragging her bag behind her.

Her second realization of the day was that N was gone again. Which was odd, considering how late they’d been up, and how early Uzi was awake compared to their normal schedule. (The polite way of saying she slept in until noon whenever possible.)

Now moderately more awake, Uzi slung her bag onto her shoulder with a frown. She walked over to the kitchen, where her Dad was already making a ruckus, her gaze lingering towards the couch for a moment as she greeted him.

“Hey…”

“Good morning! Did you sleep well?”

“Mhm.”

Uzi tore her eyes away, grip tightening on her bag strap as she frowned more deeply at the floor.

“Was N here when you woke up?” She asked at length. “Like, did he let you know he was leaving again?”

Khan blinked at her.

“I… wasn’t aware he was out, no.”

“…Okay. Is that— that’s weird, right?”

Khan pondered her words, before turning back to the cans in front of him and shrugging.

“I’m not sure. It could be, but I don’t know him as well as you. What do you think?”

“I dunno,” she mumbled. “Realistically I’m probably worrying too much.”

“I’m sure he’ll get back before you. Then you can ask him yourself.”

Khan turned, holding out a thermos just smaller than the one they’d gotten for N, and said “Here, by the way. I figured it was a subtler solution than open oil canisters.”

Uzi took the thermos gingerly in both hands. Silver, with a purple lid and base.

It was so stupid. But he’d thought to get her colour. That was sort of… not completely ignoring every aspect of who she was as a person? It was such a low bar, but still.

“Ah— thanks,” she stumbled.

“You should probably get going. You’re going to be late.”

“Right! Yes, okay.”

Uzi glanced at the time too. She was always later than this, but an out was an out, so she gave a strained laugh and backed towards the door.

“Cool, thanks, seeyoulaterbye!”

Uzi ducked out of the room with something like a wave and made a beeline for the front door, settling into a brisk walk the moment it shut behind her. She exhaled, making a face. Her expression wrinkled more when she realized she was still carrying the thermos. She swung her bag around in one hand, partially unzipping it and dropping the container through the gap. Zipping it, she swung it onto her back again, threading both arms through the straps that time.

At least she could understand N’s reaction to gifts a bit better. Holy heck.

Chapter Text

There was a lot of empty ruin, between the bunker and the spire. The sprawling grid of the city lent itself to the sense that, even when outside, you were deep underground. Earth and concrete looked much the same when smothered with ice and stinging haze. An artificial labyrinth of canyons for an artificial form of life— both perfect, both abandoned… it was oddly poetic, really.

He couldn’t believe he’d never noticed it before. How trapped he really was.

N came to a halt, gazing expectantly upwards. He waited, still except for his tail, which was carefully restrained in its lashing. He’d made himself known. Surely it wouldn’t be long until—

“Well well well… ”

N jumped, snapping his gaze down from the sky. J stood a ways in front of him. Her smirk and casual stance were barely visible through the shower of ice dust. She studied him, one hand on her hip, looking almost bored.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

N narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer. After a moment of studying him, her smile dropped. A corner of his mind instinctively sparked with alarm. But J wasn’t angry, he could tell from the moment he saw her.

One of those days.

Meaning this might not’ve been the biggest mistake of his life.

“Care to explain why you came crawling back? I thought you had shiny new friends to lie to you.”

“I’m not coming back,” N snapped. “That’s not what this is.”

“Is that so?”

“We fixed it. I remember everything you did, and I’m not going to fall for it again. I won’t.”

J laughed. It wasn’t even snide or condescending. It sounded genuine, and looked genuine too, which was worse, somehow. Not to mention she didn’t seem bothered at all.

That was what he’d wanted; to see the realization that her hard work had unraveled yet again. He wanted to know he’d won, finally, in some small way. But of course she wouldn’t care. It was bitter, and left the distinctly unsatisfying aftertaste of one more desperate hope crumbled away. One more load-bearing plan turned up empty.

Her laughter cutting short, J leaned towards him with that ever-present grin and raised an eyebrow.

“Remember everything, hm?” she purred. “Of course. You keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday, one of us will actually believe it.”

N’s retort snagged in his throat mid-breath and he stepped back, dizzied by the sudden spin of panic. It took seconds to mostly smother. Whole seconds where he was disarmed, vulnerable. She couldn’t possibly know… could she? Surely not… there was no way…

Shaking her head with a sympathetic sigh, J straightened. She studied him.

“Believe what you want. But as harsh as the truth can be, living a lie is worse. And it will get worse. Whenever you come to your senses and realize you’re falling too far, you know where to find me.”

And she took off with a crack,a burst of air.

Just like that.

Gone.

N stared in the direction she’d left, quietly reeling as he processed what’d happened. He let out a shaky breath, swaying dangerously and blinking a few times— staggered back a step, dropping his gaze to the ground beside him. He was swept up into his head almost before he registered it. N didn’t move for a while.

Once the sky began to lighten, though, he had no choice but to drag himself back to the confines of the bunker.

The first thing Uzi did upon getting home was check if N was back. He was— sitting in his usual spot, perfectly okay. So yes. She was worrying too much.

As she passed by she also noted, with some confusion, that he looked almost… windswept? How he managed that was beyond her. Something to do with the large fans littering the ceilings, maybe.

Huh.

Shaking her head in baffled amusement, Uzi headed to her room to dump her books, taking a swig from her thermos and setting it down. She grabbed her only-readable-when-procrastinating-schoolwork novel and headed back to the living room. On the other side of the couch from N, she settled in, curling her legs underneath her. He glanced up briefly before burying himself in his sketchbook again. He’d been writing a lot the last while. Maybe it was her imagination, but…. she was pretty sure he stopped when she sat down. Instead of scribbling away, he gripped his pen awkwardly, staring at the page.

Most likely re-reading what he’d written and nothing to do with Uzi. She was looking too much into it. N was figuring things out, he was bound to be on the quiet side for a while. They’d talk when he was ready. And when this new wave of change settled back into normalcy— like it always did, with them— there wouldn’t be a lurking undertone of bitterness and loss. It would just be them. She could wait a while, for that.

A bit more waiting was fine. It was worth it, so it was fine.

Even if she did want nothing more than to laugh with him again.

Chapter Text

Uzi was struggling to maintain her patience. Not for lack of caring, and not because she didn’t believe N needed the time, but it— it never ended. And what was she supposed to do?

He kept disappearing. He came back, and didn’t want to talk. He always had his notebook open but she swore she never saw him writing in it. It almost felt like he was mad at her, and that just… didn’t seem fair, like at all.

So maybe there was something she should be doing. Maybe some thread had yet to be resolved. Except that wasn’t supposed to be how this went.

They got his memories back.

What else was left?

Sit and wait. That’s what it always came back to. Waiting and waiting and on and on and on and sure, she was willing to wait as long as she had to but what if it was forever? And what if she waited, and waited, and then realized she was supposed to be doing something else all along? If it was meaningless, she couldn’t handle that. And she had no way to know if it was meaningless.

An easy answer should’ve been talking to him. But, again, he wasn’t really talking, even in the deflect-y way he used to. Which was always infuriating, but a heck of a lot better than this.

Uzi was willing to wait.

It was just a question of if she was able.

—

Uzi woke with a start, shooting upright.

It was very obviously too early. Especially for Uzi. She was always the last one up, and by then all the lights everywhere were on, which they were not, currently. As the haze of sleep trickled away between her fingers, so too did the memory of whatever had woken her.

Uzi sat, puzzled, in her darkened bedroom, for a good minute. A hunch was brewing. But she couldn’t tell if she’d imagined it or not. Would it be paranoid to check? Would that be weird? It might be weird.

Too alert to sleep again, Uzi eventually relented that a quick look around couldn’t hurt. She’d grab a drink or something to try and settle again if she was wrong.

Perfect. Solid plan. Nice and non-creepy.

One hand trailing the smooth metal of the wall, she padded down the hallway, squinting hard and still pretty much blind. She stopped outside the living room, uncertain. After a second she brought her hand to the doorframe and leaned in, tilting her head. To her surprise she actually heard movement. As well as some quiet muttering. Now concerned, Uzi peeked into the room.

“N?”

He gasped, scrabbling to whirl around and almost knocking himself off the couch in the process. She started forward a few steps but halted again.

“Are you— “

“Sorry! Sorry, you just— I didn’t know you were there.”

“… right.”

Uzi studied him. The hand hovering in front of her, as if to help somehow, fell back to her side. She could see him clearly— illuminated in his own light— and nothing else. Even her own glow was useless unless she held something right to her face and crossed her eyes awkwardly. It was the same sort of difference as between a moon and a sun.

Based on his expression, N wanted anything but to be seen right now.

“Did— I— I’m sorry, did I… wake you up? I didn’t mean to, I just— it wasn’t— um…”

“I don’t know,” Uzi reassured quickly. “I just sort of… woke up. I don’t remember what did it.”

A half truth. Although, one that she couldn’t quite wrap her head around. Not because it didn’t make sense— it did, completely— but because… it didn’t. To her. Somehow. It would eventually, she just… nightmares hadn’t been a part of the perfect fix she imagined after undoing N’s reset.

But that was okay. Heck, he’d never fallen asleep around her until post-reset, so maybe it wasn’t a new thing.

N deflated a tiny bit.

“Okay.”

Uzi lingered. Still tense, N toyed with something beside him, probably the edge of a blanket, and used it to avoid her gaze. She looked away, biting her lip.

“You wanna talk about it?”

In her peripheral, N stilled. The light dipped a few times as he blinked. He started fidgeting again.

“No.”

“Okay. You sure?”

He nodded, closing his eyes. When he opened them, his gaze still repelled from hers.

“Yeah. Happens sometimes, it’s… it’s not a big deal.”

“Okay.”

Uzi hesitated for another beat. Finally she nodded, tearing herself away to go to the kitchen and busy herself getting oil. She also refilled her thermos to bring back to her room with her. Then she leaned back against the counter to drink, gazing absently in the direction of the living room, thinking about nothing and everything as her mind slowed and fogged over.

Her systems comfortably cool, Uzi put everything away and tucked her thermos under her arm, carefully finding the wall and edging back through the living room. N was curled back in his blanket pile by then.

He definitely closed his eyes as she went past.

Chapter Text

He was freaking gone again.

Uzi sat propped against the base of her bed, workbook in her lap. Thad was visiting again. They were mostly silent, besides the thwip of her turning a page and the scratch of her pencil. (Which. Why were workbooks even still a thing? They were robots, why the heck wouldn’t it be done digitally? Sure she’d be able to cheat easier, but most of her classmates wouldn’t, and only managed to cheat because they could exchange or steal physical copies of stuff.) (Not the point.) Thad glanced over now and then. Both of them were lost in their own worlds.

It wasn’t… awkward, per say, but… it wasn’t as effortless as it sometimes was. She was actually able to work, though. Silver linings and all that.

Finishing the last line on the page, Uzi slumped back with a sigh, her head bumping the wall behind her. Her brain felt wrung dry. There was more to do, but for the time being she stared at the ceiling with her mind buzzing full of nothing. Thad glanced over, sitting up a little. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he turned away.

“I’m guessing the cure-all didn’t exactly, uh… cure all,” he said.

Uzi huffed, gaze hardening. She kicked at one of the containers of junk scattered across her floor. Whatever was inside spilled out with a clatter as it tipped.

“No,” Uzi muttered. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.”

They lapsed back into silence.

—

It wasn’t like before. She wasn’t trapped in a box, wondering if he’d come back at all. Technically she could follow him if she wanted. The problem was that wouldn’t do anything— not anything helpful, at least; she might make things worse.

It just… it was like he never came back anymore. He did, but not really. And it was starting to feel like waiting wasn’t the answer, and she had to find the real one on a ticking clock, except it was also seeming more and more like it didn’t matter at all what she did, because it’d only drive in the wedge between them.

So she held back, still, despite the rising nervous dread. Never really knowing if she was right to worry or if this was another example of her throwing art on the gritty floor as a kid because the paint wouldn’t dry. She tried to hunt down some sense of perspective. She waited, hoping for the break where everything fell into place. She paced endlessly in N’s absence and then didn’t bother going to the living room when he got back because it got weird after a while.

She waited, and waited. The break never came. He only drifted farther away.

He couldn’t have told the way, or written it down if asked. But N always found himself at that same spot in the cold hallways. Sometimes he’d sit for a while, arms draped over his knees while his tail drifted lethargically. Sometimes he’d watch the glowing canister. Otherwise he’d close his eyes and bury his face because it was obnoxiously bright, or he’d stare through the floor.

Other times he’d wake up there. It also happened where he wasn’t sure if he’d actually fallen asleep or just been in that fuzzy in-between state for long enough that reality escaped him.

Sometimes he’d be curled on his side. Sometimes he came to slowly, sometimes he’d startle. Sometimes he’d remember leaving. Other times, he wouldn’t.

He’d only really been there a handful of times. It wasn’t as much as it felt like by a longshot. Still, it became a sort of brutal, evasive routine; always slipping into the easy way out.

As if it could be called easy.

What else was he supposed to do?

Chapter Text

School mornings were soured by default, but they’d had even more bite, the last week or so. It’d been a gradual decline since they got N’s memories back. A steady downward trek with no sign of interruption, least of all by N himself.

She shouldn’t’ve had to be surprised. It stung, that him reaching out was a shock.

Uzi was in the kitchen, re-filling her thermos for the day, with sleep still dragging at her every move. Even her brain felt muddied. Checking that the lid was tight, she tucked the container into her bag, which she slung over her shoulder as she turned to leave. She halted, blinking.

N was hovering by the doorway, messing with his hands and still not looking at her. He waved awkwardly.

How long had he been standing there?

“Hey,” she fumbled. “What’s, uh. What’s up?”

“I was just… thinking of heading out for a bit, and I realized you’re leaving for school, and I get it if you don’t want me to but I was thinking I could like. Walk with you? Maybe?” He said in a rush. Just as abruptly, the tide of words cut off and N finally looked up.

This is it, Uzi realized. This is the break. She almost burst out in giddy laughter but mostly smothered it. The giggle that did slip past her hand was thankfully sane. N dropped his hands, averting his gaze again sheepishly.

“Yeah. Sure, I… I’d um. I’d like that.”

He nodded, a smile flickering across his face.

Uzi started forwards. N stepped aside as she passed, trailing behind her as she made her way to the front door. She paused, checking that she’d remembered everything, before stepping out.

It was still weird. Just not as weird as it was a couple minutes ago. That first, big silence had been breached, but a new silence grew between them with each step it went unacknowledged. Uzi was hesitant to break it. Glancing over now and then, she got the impression there was something he wanted to say. She didn’t want to trample over that. She also didn’t want to get to school and have wasted precious time where he was trying to connect. So she kept an eye on their time.

Halfway. Once they reached the halfway mark she’d start a conversation. Just another minute or so.

Uzi glanced over again, and that time N caught it and froze a bit, staring quickly downwards.

“Uh.”

“What’s up?” she prompted.

“I just, uh. Hah. Um. I wanted to— to ask about— like— okay. So… this keeps happening, and I clearly can’t tell the difference, but it seems like everyone else probably can and I just want to know.”

N paused, taking a breath. He was wringing his hands again in that way where she wanted to reach out and catch them, handle them more gently.

“How d’you, like,” he started again. “How do you tell when someone actually cares about you? How do you know if it’s a trick?”

His hands stilled, locking together, and he finally met her eye. His words fired in whispered loops through her mind. For the first time in a while she could read him, and what she saw was an overwhelming amount of lost.

Oh, N…

Uzi tore her gaze away. Swallowing hard, she tried to think. If she didn’t reply it’d scare him off. She had to say something. Truthfully, though… she didn’t have an answer.

“I… guess I don’t know. It’s always easier to tell as an outside observer, so there’s that. But I’ve never been in that situation. When people don’t like me, they aren’t exactly subtle about it, so I know who to avoid right off the bat.”

N frowned thoughtfully. Uzi hitched her bag higher and let herself slow down. Take a breath, dig deeper.

“Real friends are supposed to make you feel better, overall. So, like, you can care about someone, but do you feel better after spending time with them? Or when you have been for a while?”

“Hmm.”

They were nearing her school. She had to wrap things up. Was there anything else…

“Why do you ask? Is it… are you wondering if—“

“Yeah… I just— yeah. I mean, J was obvious, right?”

“Sort of. But that’s how it goes. When you’re in it, you can’t really know, because they’re sort of thinking for you. But now you have hindsight, and distance. And J was never nice at all. Kind of a baseline friend qualification there.”

N huffed something mirroring a laugh— still muted, distant. They came to a stop beside the doors that separated the wider halls from the smaller passages and rooms of her school. N traced the doorframe with his gaze and stretched his hands, shaking them out, before coming back to himself and glancing at her, then away again.

“All good?” Uzi said.

He nodded.

“Okay. I should probably head in, um. See you in a bit, though, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He ducked his head. She thought (or maybe hoped) she caught a hint of a smile on his face. Glancing at the doors, Uzi hesitated, wavering on the spot. She eventually stepped forwards to shove one open, but paused with a final searching look.

“Hey… N?”

He blinked up at her. She gave her own small smile, torn between pouring all the warmth she could into it and holding back in case of onlookers.

“Thank you for asking me. I’m glad you could.”

N opened his mouth but caught himself. He nodded at the floor, with that same darting smile as earlier, gone as quick as it came.

It never reached his eyes.

Chapter Text

And then he didn’t reach out again. She was back to endless silence, the last of her patience fraying and slipping away from her desperate grasp.

It just wasn’t fair.

After everything. They came so far, and for what— so he could shut her out again?? Without even telling her why?

She couldn’t do nothing. Either she figured out a smart way to handle this or she did something stupid, and it was very tempting to do something stupid, so her window of opportunity was closing fast.

Eventually she couldn’t put it off anymore. Uzi made her decision.

For once, N was there when she got back from school. She didn’t want to miss her chance. But she also needed a moment to collect her thoughts, so she went to her room to ditch her stuff and breathe, cement the words she wanted to say. Then she headed back to the living room. He was still there, thankfully.

“Hey...”

N looked up. A week ago Uzi could’ve asked what he was reading. They could’ve talked, then laughed, and talked some more about nothing and everything. Now, though, he gave her a blank once-over and dropped his gaze again.

“Hey.”

“Can you c’mere a sec? I wanna show you something.”

Hesitation. Suspicion.

A silent nod, tension in the way he pushed the book off his lap and stood, still refusing to meet her eye. Uzi turned and started back down the hallway. He followed, tail lashing once before abruptly going still.

Uzi stayed by the door as he moved past her, to the center of her room. He looked around. When he didn’t see anything of note he turned to give her a puzzled expression.

Chest buzzing with guilty panic, Uzi stepped in front of the door and shut it with a snap.

N froze. He zeroed in on her hand, which rested on the lock. The room locked from the inside so it wouldn’t really do anything. But it would give her time— a few extra moments at least, which was better than nothing.

“Talk to me,” she said.

N didn’t say anything. Just stared at the lock, and her hand, a statue of a familiar face where the artist got everything right and yet nothing at all.

“N?”

He finally tore his gaze away with a jolt, blinking rapidly. He glanced at her and away with a questioning hum.

“I just want to know what’s going on. I don’t know if I did something, or if there’s something bigger wrong… but you keep vanishing, you barely talk, you— I just… why d—“

“Leave it.”

He cut her off. Quietly, but with finality.

“Wh— I can’t just— why won’t you talk to me??”

N played with his fingers. He glanced briefly towards the door again.

“There’s nothing to say.”

Uzi gaped. How could he just… nothing to say?? Nothing to say. To her. Nothing.

He seemed to catch her expression, at least, and a glimmer of something like guilt swayed him, some of the aloof edge crumbling as he spoke again, in a tone less sure of itself.

“I’m sorry. I know you really want answers, I’m sorry, I can’t— I can’t give them. I don’t think this is something you’d understand even if I could.”

“You don’t know that,” Uzi pushed.

“I do, actually.”

“How?!”

“Because if you did, you wouldn’t be doing this!” he snapped, eyes blazing.

Once again her words evaporated.

N didn’t do that. She’d seen him turn defensive, she’d seen him get angry, even raise his voice once or twice. But only under extreme circumstances, and never… this was like someone had flipped a switch. He’d been controlled, and then he wasn’t. None of his usual tells. Now, though, his hands were shaking, and he noticed with a gritted tsk, clenching them and turning away. Uzi took a breath.

“Okay,” she said, softly. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help.”

“You can’t just fix me. I’m not one of your malfunctioning personal projects.”

“I’m not saying I can! Just… I want to try. Or at least know why I can’t. If helping means sitting back and doing nothing I can do that, but I need to know. Please, N.”

Uzi stepped forward, reaching, but pulled back, wringing her hands. N scoffed shortly. He didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge her otherwise. Her words rolled off him like melted snow in the ever-raging storm outside— freezing midair and shattering on the cold metal walls.

N, in every phase she’d known him, wouldn’t do that to anyone.

She was worse off than a stranger.

And he was one, to her.

“who… are you… ?”

She didn’t mean to say it. Not aloud, at least. But her throat closed behind the words, locking them out in open air, infecting it. The switch flipped again. N laughed harshly, the sound startling him as much as herself.

“You tell me,” he bit back. She felt it— the poison of his words, interlacing with her own.

He shook his head again with one last sharp sigh and went for the door. Stepping aside, Uzi watched N fumble the locking mechanism with unsteady hands. He was gone before the door had fully opened.

Chapter Text

Uzi waited. She knew she’d have to try again, but there was something to that last talk that she didn’t want to resurface if she could help it. She gave them time to regroup, and to think. Then she tried.

The moment Uzi sat down she could tell he’d been expecting this. N still knew her, after all. And he must’ve been able to tell they were reaching some kind of breaking point. He was always able to read her as well as she could read him— better, probably, actually, by like a lot— and Uzi was stubborn to a fault. Of course she wouldn’t settle with things the way they were.

“Hey,” she tried, cautiously.

N didn’t look up, but he shifted a bit, leaning more to the edge of the couch.

“Hey.”

Uzi hesitated, studying him. She dropped her gaze into her lap as well, picking a loose thread at the base of her sweater. Nothing left to say.

But there wasn’t nothing. She had everything to say. It was just that none of it was what she needed to say. Was that what he’d meant?

She didn’t think so. At least, it didn’t seem like there was anything he was holding back. She’d never known him to be able to hold back stuff like that. Maybe there were things he should say but he didn’t know what they were. Or maybe it was something else altogether, because she wasn’t seeing it like N was, given how she didn’t know what was up with him.

“I just… you know I’m— I care. Right? Like, I’m just… ”

“Yeah.” N closed his eyes. He inhaled, releasing the breath before his eyes drifted open again, gaze trailing tiredly across the floor. He blinked, clasping his hands together and focusing on that instead. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

Uzi nodded. Her hand came to rest on the vast stretch of couch between them. She leaned on it, still studying him. Uzi frowned and looked down again, hand curling against coarse fabric as she deflated.

“Okay.”

They fell into silence. Despite the well-lit nature of the room, N’s tail sent glittering yellow fractals across the floor, the walls— even the ceiling, in a couple spots— as it swayed faintly. It wasn’t dark enough to really see them. It wasn’t dark enough to know the faces he was making even when he wouldn’t look at her, it wasn’t dark enough that nothing else existed… which frustrated her to no end. Uzi didn’t need to see the table, the decorative coasters, posted lists or knickknack-littered shelves. She didn’t need to know what was where or what colour the cushions were. It was a… kind of a lighthouse situation, really. He was bright enough to be one. And the rest just got in the way, distracting her from her goal.

Uzi glanced over again. N was watching the lights on the floor too, but distantly. Probably not thinking about them like she’d been. Though he was thinking deeply about something. She couldn’t guess what.

“I care,” Uzi finally pressed when the silence only grew. “Please, N… ”

N sighed and closed his eyes again, lowering his head. For a moment that was his only response. Then he moved to unearth himself from the cushions and stood, facing her. He still wouldn’t (couldn’t?) meet her eye.

When at last he spoke, it was soft enough she almost missed it.

“I know. That’s the problem.”

And he walked away.

Chapter Text

They were reading again. Those times— where Khan settled in his chair to unwind from work and N sat across the room with his legs folded and a blanket pooled around him— were the only moments in the household that felt peaceful, anymore. The only times where silence itself wasn’t hostile.

Their routine was a relatively new one. And that fact hadn’t gone unnoticed. N’s suspicious glances early on made that clear; but again, a sliver of peace was too precious to challenge for its own sake.

It never lasted though. Eventually Khan would leave to do something else, or to turn in for the night. Or else N would go wherever he always went off to. There were signs before that happened. It was never unexpected, when N left, even if it was sudden. Once Khan realized that, he started paying more attention.

This was one such time.

So far his tells were the fidgeting with his hands, which hovered to the side a bit, so he could see what he was reading. The fact that he hadn’t turned a page in far too long, and seemed to be re-reading the same lines over and over. The points where he had to pause and rub circles into his palms— where he’d glance away, blinking rapidly, before the pages dragged him back in. And the final thing. Always the last sign, before he bolted: he’d fumble something or make an irritated sound. Khan finally caught why when it happened that time.

It was because he was shaking.

N was out the door only moments later.

Khan stared after him, vaguely shaken himself. He frowned. Then, reluctantly, he returned to reading. Try as he might he couldn’t seem to focus again.

Uzi looked over her shoulder at a knock on her door. Her dad waved, and she nodded hello, turning back to the papers she was sorting.

“What’s up?”

“Just checking in. And I… I wanted to ask about something, actually.”

Her gaze lingered on him go a moment. Then Uzi spun, going from kneeling to sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing him.

“Shoot.”

Khan stepped into her room, leaning against the doorframe. He crossed his arms and tapped his fingers, looking down thoughtfully.

“…Have you… noticed anything strange? With N?”

“Is that a serious question?” she deadpanned.

“Anything specific,” Khan pressed, suddenly insistent. Caught off guard, Uzi made a face at him. She scanned through her recent memory files.

“I mean… maybe? That— yes. Yes, I have. But what are you after?”

“Body language. Fidgeting, clumsiness, anything that seems off.”

“Okay…”

N was always a bit fidgety. For the most part, it wasn’t his body language that had changed, but the meaning behind it. The tone. His expressions, maybe. But still, she decided to humor her dad, if only because the outside perspective could maybe give her some hope. Uzi thought hard about her last couple talks with N.

Come to think of it, Khan had a point— N had consistently been the most fidgety he ever got. It seemed like he was holding something back after all. Just not in words. She also did catch, oddly enough, that very specific detail of fumbling where he normally wouldn’t— a tremor before he ran off.

She hadn’t thought anything of it when Khan had asked, but now…

How did he know? Had it happened other times? Why did he take note of that, of all things? What did he know? Or was she reading way too much into this?

“Yeah. No, I’ve seen all of those.”

Uzi gave her dad a pointed, searching look. He thought in silence for a moment. She waited for the insight, for whatever it was he’d noticed to think to come to her. The smallest detail that could answer everything if she only pieced it together.

“You should talk to him about that,” Khan said, finally.

Uzi stared at him. Then she scoffed. Shaking her head, she turned back to her papers, feeling stupid for ever hoping.

“We don’t talk, anymore.”

Chapter Text

There was no snow here. There was ice, growing in the gaps and corners of the metal halls, like moss, but the walls were flat and smooth and solid. They didn’t melt around him, as his temperature slowly ticked upwards.

N breathed deeply, timing himself, to control it as much as possible, keeping his eyes open to at least have glimpses of his darker stretch of hallway between the static and glitching error messages. He’d begin to doubt, when he couldn’t see it. And then for a moment he would see, and he’d cling to the reminder until the certainty of having seen it at all began to waver.

Eventually it wouldn’t matter. Once he was pulled in, there was no more control to be had. But this way, at least he got a sliver of pride in how he managed himself. Experience rendered some part of the downward spiral bearable. He knew it wouldn’t kill him. Probably. He didn’t think it could.

But, as always, it wasn’t about the present.

[ERROR: encoding blocked by _SNS]

[7.1 GB failed to process
Please initiate manual playback]

It was those messages that looped every time this happened, flashing over and over and over until eventually…

[Automated playback 1/?@$!]

There it was.

He didn’t know what that meant. But the switch from asking for a playback to forcing an automated one was the point of no return. An event horizon. The point where panic took root and choked logic completely. It grew outwards from his chest like creeping vines until his optics finally dipped and the sound of static sounded more and more like rushing wind, and sometimes he could see, but mostly he could feel. And there was nothing else. Nothing had changed. Nothing had happened.

Or it may as well not have, because the small part of him that knew was the part that took the brunt of both his own fury and past J’s— the part he lashed out at in the whirlwind of it all, because it was all he could do. Tear into an innocent part of his mind while one memory branched out into another and another until they tumbled over themselves faster than he could track but it was all happening at once and he could feel all of it at once even as the images flashed into a glitching rush of pixels.

Then, for the first time ever, there was something else. More real than the storm. A tapping of metal off to his left that faltered his wild descent.

The tapping stopped. There was what sounded faintly like a sharp breath. Then the tapping again, quicker, stopping right in front of him. He felt something land on his shoulder and flinched instinctively. But again, it was more solid. More real. And it didn’t hurt.

In desperate confusion his eyes snapped open. Through the glitching, and errors, and the past, and what looked like a fractured web, he saw green. Someone was speaking but it was muffled by the static. Right in front of him. Too far away.

“h-huh?”

He couldn’t tell if his voice was glitching or if it was the static tricking him. Something moved suddenly towards him, and he flinched back, but all that happened were his hands being drawn away from his head. Had he been covering his ears?

The same voice again, but clearer.

“Breathe.”

An order. He knew how to follow those. N sucked in a breath, diverting his focus to that. When it was cut short he tried again but the air just wouldn’t stay like it was supposed to and it felt like it came with thorns. So maybe he couldn’t listen, this time. That was bad. He couldn’t even defend himself, not that it made a difference but he’d already messed up and there was no way—

“Woah, easy. No rush. Just try, okay?”

Okay. It wasn’t the doing, it was the trying. That was good. He could follow that.

N closed his eyes again and focused, struggling to take in a level breath. He didn’t quite get it. But he tried again. And again, determined, and again, losing track of how many times and how long it went on.

Eventually it got easier. The static faded, phantom sensations becoming a whisper and reality sharpening in its place. There were hands loosely gripping his own, holding them out and away from him. Then all at once the playbacks shut down. His mind went quiet.

Cautiously, N blinked his eyes open. No glitching or error messages interrupted his hazy view of the grated floor. The web of lines stayed though. He freed one of his hands, brushing against his visor and shuddering with a grimace when it stung. His other hand was released.

“Shit, dude. Are you alright?”

N closed his eyes and took a breath. Then, reluctantly, he looked up to see who’d found him out.

He was once again met with a green glow.

Thad.

It could’ve been worse. But not by much.

“Don’t—“

N’s voice glitched and broke, and he coughed, shifting to sit up straighter. He seized Thad’s gaze urgently, lunging forward and catching his arm too.

“Don’t— don’t tell Uzi. Please, I—“

“Dude, I think she needs to kn—“

“Please!”

His grip tightened. The panic twisted back to life, threatening to rip him away again, a cold poison weaving outwards.

“Okay,” Thad rushed, wide eyed, hands reaching to hover between them. “Okay, I won’t, I won’t tell her. Just… take it easy.”

N nodded tightly and curled up again to calm down, burying his face in his hands. For a moment there was just darkness, and the pounding of his core, and the lessening sting of his visor as it slowly healed over without all the extra processes stealing system priority. Then there was a gentle weight on his shoulder again, grounding him. Thad sighed and mumbled something. When N looked up, questioning, he just shook his head sadly.

“D’you think you can stand?”

“… Maybe,” N said. “Just— give me a minute? Or, um… a-a few minutes, actually...”

He nodded and moved to sit beside N. To his hopefully-subtle-but-still-immense relief, Thad leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes to wait.

N relaxed a bit and tucked himself closer to the wall. He closed his eyes too, just breathing.

Chapter Text

They didn’t speak on the way back. A sick sort of dread gripped N as he trailed behind Thad, staring at the ground and pretending not to notice him glancing worriedly over his shoulder. They stopped on either side of Uzi’s front door and stared at it instead of looking at each other.

“Sorry, that doesn’t usually happen.”

He couldn’t say that. It would make this into an even bigger deal, something out-of-the-ordinary and concerning.

“Don’t worry, happens all the time!”

That was obviously worse.

N dropped his gaze again, twisting his hands sharply. He took a breath.

“Um… sorry, about that. It’s not— I’m… I’m working on it.”

“Hmm.”

Thad studied him briefly. He rubbed his hands, mirroring N, before they fell back to his sides and clenched a few times. He looked to the door again.

“… That’s good I guess,” he mumbled.

He stepped forward, knocking. After a moment there were muffled footsteps. The door slid open. It was Khan standing in front of them, which made N deflate a little.

“Hey, Mr. Doorman. Um.”

Khan looked between the two, puzzled.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, uh…” Thad glanced to N. “I was just— we were—“

“I got lost,” N said quickly without looking up.

“Yeah. But um… I helped him get back, so it’s all good… I should probably head home though.”

“Of course! Thank you, young man.”

Khan stepped to the side for N. Still avoiding eye contact, N slipped past Thad with a mumbled thanks, and Khan turned to head back inside. Thad made a pssst sound. N paused. He glanced back, one hand raised to shut the door.

“Talk to her,” Thad hissed, pointing sternly.

N winced and averted his gaze again. He nodded, knowing he would not, in fact, be doing that, but hoping Thad dropped the subject. The look he got was far too knowing for that hope to have any real ground.

N stepped back, closing the door, and rushed to bury himself in blankets until everyone went to bed.

Uzi sat up from her bedroom floor at a knock. So her dad had let him in already. That was helpful.

“Come in!”

Thad opened the door, stepping inside with a wave. Earlier at school they’d made plans to hang out again. N had been making himself even more scarce as of a few days ago. Uzi didn’t know why. Naturally. So she was bitter, and had nothing to do about it, and figured that a positive social situation might do her some good.

“Hey,” she said, shooting him a nod. He smiled in response. It looked absent minded, and fell away as he crossed his arms, gazing towards the hall thoughtfully. Uzi made a face.

“Did N bolt?”

“Right after I walked in,” Thad confirmed. He hesitated. Then glanced back to her, brows knitting. “I… I feel like he’s avoiding me.”

Uzi huffed.

“You and me both.”

Thad hummed, frown deepening. After a moment he unfolded his arms and stepped closer, sitting in front of her and leaning back on his hands with a heavy sigh. Uzi scanned him with a carefully-masked note of concern.

“He’s… he’s probably not,” she said, tentatively.

Thad changed the subject after that. Uzi got the sense he didn’t believe her.

Maybe she was really paranoid.

N wound up at the same spot as always, pacing feverishly. Thad said he wouldn’t say anything and there was no reason to think he’d go back on that. Yet. But if something else bad happened, Thad would know… he could connect the dots, surely.

N didn’t want to be mean. He really really hoped he didn’t come across that way, he didn’t want to upset anyone, and he’d done enough of that with Uzi… he figured he had enough reason to be a little awkward, after everything, though. And seeming a little shifty was the lesser of two evils. If he actually got worked up and then disappeared, while Thad was around, just days after… that?

Yeah, no. This was better. He’d hang out in the hall for a bit. Maybe actually explore some more. There were times where he did leave to explore, if only to get away from the stifling silence of Uzi’s place. Once he calmed down a bit he’d do that. Solid plan.

N sighed, ambling to the wall with his tail skittering behind him. He turned to lean back against it, hugging himself, and focused on his breathing.

Chapter Text

Thad kept coming around. And N couldn’t completely avoid him without being interrogated. So he tried his best to keep to himself or just be in a different part of the space, maintaining a few walls between them, and hopefully reducing Thad’s awareness of him in general. It didn’t work. Thad would just seek him out. And what’s worse, he seemed fully aware N hadn’t talked to Uzi. The only reason he could be sure Thad hadn’t done it himself was that Uzi would’ve freaked out at him.

If he did tell her, that’d at least be one less thing to worry about. But…

He couldn’t. It wouldn’t help, it’d make everything worse, he could handle things just fine on his own with more time and space. Everything would work out fine. It couldn’t stay like this, so it had to get better eventually, he was sure.
He’d considered the alternative. What would happen if he had everything wrong after all. But he couldn’t go there, so he didn’t.

The front door closed. Then, after a few moments, the door to Uzi’s room. N waited a while, tapping at the dining-room table and ignoring his sketchbook, which was sprawled open in front of him. After a normal amount of time he stood and peeked into the living-room. N shuffled to his spot on the couch, avoiding eye-contact with Khan, who studied him silently from his armchair. Once N was settled Khan turned back to his book.

“Knows something, does he?”

N froze, flashing cold again.

He took a steadying breath. Then glanced over, scanning the older drone sharply. Khan turned a page as if nothing had happened.

So… maybe this wasn’t an interrogation. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him.

N studied him for another moment, then inhaled again, sitting up— hesitated.

Maybe this was the chance he needed.

“Can I ask you something?”

Khan looked up. N deftly skirted eye-contact, wringing his hands and speaking quickly before Khan could interject.

“Do you… what do you know about, like— our coding, and stuff?”

“That depends. What specifically?”

“Um. E-errors? What they mean. That kind of thing.”

Khan gazed upwards with a small hum, before setting his book aside and leaning forward a little.

“I have learned about some of those. What do you want to know?”

“There’s, um. One that asks for a manual playback,” N said in a rush.

“And?”

A new note of panic. He didn’t like how much he was giving away, but he’d come too far to back out without it being even more suspicious.

“And, um. And I can’t do that. I don’t have access.”

Khan frowned.

“I thought you got your memories back?”

“Nonono I did! It’s not— it’s not those ones.”

A pause, while Khan held his eye, searching for a hint N was lying. When he turned away, it was again thoughtful.

“Any mention of encoding errors?”

“Y… yeah, actually… “

“Hmm.”

He nodded with a knowing grimace. N’s tail looped closer around him, and he twisted his hands, swallowing hard.

“What, uh… what does that mean?”

“It means you’re right, you wouldn’t be able to access the files directly. You’d have to try something else.”

“… Like… “

“Like talking.”

N narrowed his eyes.

“No.”

“You can’t ignore this,” Khan pushed, more firmly. “It won’t fix itself. You should be experiencing other errors with those, are you not?”

“No,” N shot back.

He tossed himself back onto his pillow, curling up and pulling out his sketchbook. He buried his face in it, tail-tip lashing, angled rigidly away from him. He didn’t really look at the pages. Instead he peeked through the gaps in the spiral binding to see what Khan would do.

He tore his gaze away from N with a frown. Studied the floor, fingers tapping lightly at his armrest. After a moment he stopped. Khan shook his head with a sigh and reached for his book again. N risked lowering his own book for a glance over the top, then tucked himself further back and hid away again.

“I don’t,” he mumbled. “It’s not a big deal, or worth the trouble.”

Khan didn’t reply. There was a thoughtful beat. Then he gave an affirmative hum, and they fell into silence— and that time, N stayed.

Chapter Text

Uzi was in the kitchen raiding their stash of oil when she spotted it. N’s thermos. On the counter, yet again abandoned. He really needed to stop leaving it laying around or it was gonna get lost.

She considered it, sipping from her own canister. The cooling liquid relieved the beginnings of strain on her systems and soothed the fun new burning in her core. The same thing disassemblers lived with all the time. Thanks to her slow but steady oil consumption and smaller build it never got as bad. The relief was less, too, which she was at least as thankful for.

She took another sip, looking away with a scowl. Then she set her oil down with a sigh and grabbed the thermos. It was heavy in her hands, so mostly full, and its weight shifted as she carried it to the room over, contents sloshing against the metal interior.

N was thankfully at his spot on the couch. He didn’t notice her come in. It seemed like he was actually trying to read— eyes trailing across the page, unfocusing, struggling to stay open, before going over the same line again. Uzi sighed heavily and approached.

When he noticed she was in the room, N stilled, blinking up at her. Uzi held out the thermos and avoided his gaze.

“Stop leaving this places,” she muttered.

Then, after a loaded moment, she added, “… it’s still at least half full. Otherwise I’d refill it. You should have some, though.”

N’s tail flicked into his hands and he toyed with the cord without looking away. He shifted to studying the canister instead, then finally reached out. Uzi handed it over.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. He unscrewed the top, peeking inside. “Forgot it, I guess. Sorry.”

“It’s cool. I just don’t want you to actually lose it and overheat, y’know?”

N hummed, taking a sip, and narrowed his eyes at the floor.

“I’d be fine. ‘S not like there isn’t tons in the kitchen.”

“I— I know, that’s not— I wasn’t… ?”

Uzi faltered. She stared at him, yet again lost on where that response came from. Shaking her head, she refocused. There was something behind all this. They kept coming back to it without ever making progress.

“How long do I have to wait, N?” She said.

He paused, shooting her a look that was both puzzled and guarded. Uzi went on.

“I’ve tried giving you space. I’ve tried confronting the issue. I’ve tried pretending it doesn’t exist, but nothing I do helps! What do you want from me? How long until we can talk??”

N closed his eyes and took a measured breath, both actions strained. He sat up a bit and angled himself away from her.

“Just… I don’t need you to do anything. Just leave it alone.”

“I tried that. And it’s obviously not working.”

“By whose standard?? Because it works just fine for me.”

“You—“ Uzi stopped. She exhaled slowly. At some point her hands had curled into fists, and with each cycle of her core her seething disbelief rose, until she was shaking. She pushed back against it. Lowered her voice.

“So what, you never want to speak to me again? You hate me now?”

A hesitation, a spark of guilt.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this.” Uzi pressed. Her control was slipping, her voice gaining volume even as it wavered. “But you won’t let me talk to you about anything. Period. You aren’t avoiding a subject, you’re avoiding me. So what is it? What do you want? Because last time I checked, you were the only one on this damn planet I could trust not to leave me.”

N didn’t reply, gripping the edges of the couch cushions hard enough to divot the coarse fabric. Otherwise there was nothing. No expression, no reassurance, no reaction.

Almost like he really didn’t care anymore.

N silently reached to grab his book again, and that was the tipping point.

She surged forward and whacked it out of his hands, startling him. Her teeth were gritted, glowing tears pricked at her eyes but she could not have possibly cared less than she did in that moment.

“NO! You don’t just get to do that! After all the shit we’ve been through, we FINALLY got you back and fixed everything, and sure!! Maybe I got my hopes too high, maybe there was still stuff to sort out, I could live with that if you’d just— ! And what about— I don’t even know what’s wrong and it’s driving me insane and I KNOW YOU KNOW THAT. You KNOW me, and you’re still CHOOSING TO LEAVE ME IN THE DARK?!? In what universe— what am I supposed to— what is WRONG with you?!?”

Her words jumbled into sobs, which she smothered in her palm. They spilled out anyway as she gasped for air and glared through the blur. N held her gaze, looking more tired than anything. Almost impassive. Almost. But the cracks were there. She’d broken through, just… maybe not in the way she’d wanted.

The storm dampened to a whisper.

Now furious at herself for losing her edge so quickly, Uzi swiped at her visor, trying to re-kindle her rage while aiming it at the floor. All she got were sparks. Then complete cold, an almost terrifying absence of any anger, self-righteous or otherwise.

With a final weak huff, Uzi spun on her heel and made a break for her room. The door shut behind her. She stumbled straight to her bed, hauling herself up and collapsing onto her pillow. She rolled onto one side. Collecting her blanket in her arms, Uzi curled around it, pressing it over her eyes, since the light was still on and it made them ache.

She was asleep before she could think again.

Chapter Text

Uzi didn’t remember right away what had happened. She felt it, though. The moment she opened her eyes it was there, beating down on her with an oppressive weight that made moving next to impossible. It was in the stuffy air, the heaviness of her limbs, pounding steadily at the inside of her skull in just the most obnoxious way possible.

And then she remembered, and it all got so much worse.

She could move at least. Now that she knew she wasn’t dying and her brain just hated her. Holding her breath, Uzi rolled out of bed and staggered straight into the hallway, hitting the door on her way out. She went for the living room.

N was gone. No surprises there.

Uzi sagged against the doorway, forehead bumping against deliciously cool metal, her eyes prickling again. After a moment she stepped back and stretched, blinking the sleep out of them. She checked the time, and the day, hoping it was magically a Saturday. It wasn’t.

Uzi decided she didn’t care. She leaned through the doorway to find the light switch. She flicked it off. Stretched again. Then crossed the room, sinking onto N’s side of the couch.

It briefly crossed her mind that maybe she shouldn’t touch his stuff. That was a line that right now was maybe an awful time to be pushing. But she felt behind her anyways, and a blanket grazed her fingertips, and she clung to it like she had her mother’s favorite jacket, that first awful month.

Khan had spent a year looking for that jacket. It had taken him until recently to reach out to his daughter.

Uzi dragged the heavy fabric around her shoulders, curling up into a ball right where the armrest met the back of the couch. A shadow fell across her from the other doorway. She craned her neck to glare at her Dad— who’d peeked into the suddenly-dark room— in a silent challenge. It took him a moment to spot her. But once his eyes adjusted enough for Uzi’s purple glow to stand out, it didn’t take long for him to catch on.

After a small hesitation Khan nodded and moved on. It didn’t matter what he said and they both knew it. Uzi wasn’t going anywhere.

With him dealt with, Uzi burrowed farther into N’s blankets, cocooning herself in the least important things of his but drawing a hard line at anything else. She shouldn’t even be close to his sketchbook. But maybe refusing to look at it would make up for that somehow.

Uzi stayed there for hours, even after her dad left for work. She drifted in and out of a sleepy haze, idly watching the time. Exhausted, deeply miserable, and drowning herself in whatever raw comfort she could cling to.

She wasn’t sure what woke her up. But she startled awake. It’d been a couple hours. Also, come to think of it, she was a little too warm.

Uzi shoved the blankets off her with a grimace and stretched, shivering at the wash of cool air that wove around her. She stood and grabbed her thermos, which was too light. (Right, she went to bed before refilling it— )

Slamming the brakes on that train of thought, she stormed into the kitchen. It was the clear next step.

That’s where she was— sipping at her oil, the grating edge to her headache fading— when the front door opened. She fumbled the thermos, choking a bit. But thankfully she managed not to drop it.

That was N. It had to be. Her Dad wouldn’t be back for ages.

Uzi held still, listening. There were footsteps. Then shuffling from the couch, of things being rearranged. Steeling herself, Uzi set down the container, heading to the doorway with much more confidence than she felt.

There was still a moment where it snagged her. Where she wavered, because the only thing she’d managed with each conversation was to make things worse.

This was different.

Rubbing her hands, her whole self weighed towards the frozen ground, Uzi stepped into the room.

“Hey, um.” she croaked.

N looked over with a start. His eyes widened, glancing between her and the front door, but he didn’t say anything. Uzi winced at the harshness of her voice and averted her gaze.

“Yeah. I uh. I just— I’m sorry.”

She took a deep breath, glancing over and down again. She floundered, but pushed on, determined to get her point across, for his sake.

“Yesterday, I wasn’t— that wasn’t fair. I was mad, but not at you, not really. I kind of fell back into old habits. I’m not proud of it, it was just… you’re… you’re acting like me, and not in a good way, y’know? I was worried and I snapped and I’m sorry. No matter how frustrated I am with you, you don’t deserve that.”

Uzi shut her mouth, swallowing hard before she could ruin her words; before any more accidental poison slipped by. To be completely honest, she wasn’t sure it hadn’t already, somewhere in the rush. If she’d misspoken, she already forgot.

That anxious realization drew her to finally look up. But of course N was still completely unreadable. Of course the only thing that shone through was that glimmer of exhaustion. He could be furious, or sad, or maybe actually just tired, none of which were great, some significantly worse than others. Not knowing how worried she should be just meant she was the most worried she could be. Which was what got them here in the first place.

“Ok,” N said, too softly.

Uzi’s gaze flickered between his eyes as she hesitated.

“… D’you… I don’t blame you if you are, I just want to know— are you, like. Mad?”

N held her gaze for a moment. He blinked, turning to study the couch beside him with a distant thoughtfulness, as if he wasn’t really seeing it. His fingers trailed idly across the fuzz of one armrest.

“I’m not mad at you, no.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He stilled. Then continued the motion with a lash of his tail— but it was too deliberate. Calculated. A perfect shadow of what she wanted to see.

“… I’m not mad.”

Uzi didn’t believe him.

“Okay,” she said anyway. She drew a rattling breath and tore her gaze away. Whatever the truth was at this point it clearly wasn’t for her to know. If she ever wanted it to be, this was where she had to cut things off.

Uzi glanced up again. He hadn’t moved even a bit, to look at her or otherwise. So she nodded once to herself and stepped back, eyes stinging again, before turning and walking away.

She just hoped it was the right thing to do.

Chapter Text

N paced, kicking at snowdrifts, tail lashing behind him as he waited. Like last time, he didn’t notice when J showed up. He just looked and she was there. Leaning against an abandoned car, impassive in a way that was smug in and of itself. N rounded on her, resolve instantly wavering.

“I don’t need you,” he snapped.

J raised an eyebrow at him and huffed a small laugh.

“Okay?”

N opened his mouth. But his words fizzled out at her indifference and left him staring, blank. J’s amused look faded as she studied him in turn.

Eventually she pushed away from the car. Brushing herself off with a sigh, she rolled her eyes, extending her wings.

“Figure it out,” she said with a sickly-sweet edge. The kind of poorly-masked scorn you’d level at a child’s incompetence.

There was still something to say. Something unfinished, that he couldn’t just leave. N started forward, reaching.

“Wait, y—“

But with a crackle J rocketed upwards, a wave of air and stinging ice shoving him back.

And he was alone.

Uzi had long gotten ready for bed. It was ages past when she’d normally be asleep. But N wasn’t back yet, so she was sitting on her floor with heavy eyes, doodling.

Usually she would’ve fallen asleep anyway. This was far from the first time he’d been out so late. But the one clear thing going on with him was the tiredness, and that was something she could maybe help. It was the only thing she could really try to help. So when she heard the front door, Uzi set her work aside and got up, making her way down the hallway. Both hers and the living room’s lights were still on. It was just bright enough to find her way without help from a wall. At the threshold she stopped.

N was pacing the length of the room feverishly, (if quietly,) completely in a world of his own. Uzi watched him for a sobering minute. Clear intentions or no, she wasn’t sure how to deal with this.

Eventually she sighed and started forwards.

It was only when she got close that N noticed her, and backpedaled, blinking rapidly. Before he could speak or collect himself Uzi wordlessly took his hand and led him over to the couch, only releasing it to nudge him into sitting. From there he tipped over, collapsing onto his side. He curled up with a yawn and muttered bitter protests. It was a visible struggle for him to keep his eyes open; and even with them open, his gaze was hazy, unfocused.

Uzi shook her head, chest aching. She pulled the blanket over him. That was all it took for him to give in and sink fully into the cushions.

“Get some freaking sleep,” she mumbled.

“mmn… no…” N slurred, faintly. “d’wanto…”

“Shush.”

She kneeled down and tucked the blanket more securely against his half-hearted attempts to push it off. By the time she was done his breathing had evened out. Uzi studied him, hesitating. A part of her wanted to stay and make sure he actually slept. But… he wouldn’t like that. And she was practically dead on her feet too. So, reluctantly, Uzi stood and went to leave.

“I think… sh’wsri, boume,” N mumbled.

“Hm?”

Uzi turned back.

His breathing slowed, the last of the strain melting away, if only for a moment. N was already asleep.

Swallowing hard, Uzi blinked at the purple reflected below her. Eventually she was able to tear herself from where ice seemed to have crawled over her boots, frozen them to the ground. She glanced back one more time from the doorway. Then, unseeing, she flicked off the lights, escaping to her bedroom.

N jolted awake with a gasp that seared his throat. He doubled over, coughing, and clung to the blankets until they felt real— until he could breathe again. Once the darkened fabric came into focus, he blinked, looking around.

He was still here. Nothing had changed.

N lowered his head, eyes squeezing shut, and slumped against the back of the couch at the sickening spiral of relief and frustration. Then, when that didn’t help, he pressed his palms to his eyes with a whine.

It was too late to leave. He wouldn’t be able to slip out without waking Khan or Uzi (probably Khan, who might then wake Uzi). So this couldn’t happen right now. He couldn’t.

Of course, that didn’t matter.

The panic came anyways.

Chapter Text

He was sort of mostly okay. Tucked in his corner of the hallway, mind churning with thoughts and feelings that vanished the moment he reached for them. He wasn’t present, but he wasn't tangled in the past either. Running from his problems did occasionally work. It was the only thing that ever worked.

He hated this place for what it represented. The one hiding spot he had and he’d corrupted it with horrible memories. Maybe he could find somewhere else. But he didn’t want to spread that poison and ruin any other places. There was also rarely conscious thought in coming here, so he couldn’t really choose to go elsewhere.

Besides that, though… there was a twisted sort of comfort in how it hurt. If he was fully honest with himself it was only the trapped feeling he hated. The pain, at least, he deserved.

Shut up.

N shook J from his thoughts and fixated on the metal grating below him, attempting to drag himself back to the static. Whether or not her voice was right— whether or not he deserved it— he couldn’t afford to make things any worse.

Slowly his thoughts settled to white noise again. The light and metal and ice all blurred. He sank into it gratefully.

“N?”

Ripped from the comfort of numbness, N swiveled his head around with a start, sitting bolt upright.

“Thad! You— what, wh—“

“I was just on my way home from Zi’s. She’s wondering where you are.”

Thad stepped fully around the corner, one hand on the wall as he tilted his head to scan him. N froze, breath stuttering.

“You didn’t— did you say, um— does she kn—“

“No. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know if you’d be here or if that was a one-off thing, to be honest.”

“Right.” N deflated, picking half-melted ice off his hand and forcing himself to relax. One more thing Thad knew that he really shouldn’t. Yet again, it could’ve been worse. But.

“How, um. How long have I been… ?”

N cut himself off with a wince. Of course the first thing he does is give away even more! Because losing all concept of time is a great and not-at-all concerning look on a robot and yeah no Thad definitely caught that, given by the look on his face.

“Not sure. She didn’t say. But longer than usual, I assume, whatever that means.”

“Cool,” N rushed. Completely normally. He was fine, this was fine.

Thad nodded, that searching gaze never leaving or faltering. N stared resolutely downward as they lapsed into silence.

“… d’you, like. Want me to walk you b—“

“No,” N snapped with a seething glare, startling them both. Thad hesitated, expression shifting into even deeper concern. Shaken, and exponentially more frustrated with himself by the second, N tore his gaze away, a small strained noise escaping through gritted teeth.

“No,” he bit out in a carefully level voice. “I’m good. Fine. It’s fine.”

Thad went to say something but stopped. He stepped back, finally dropping his gaze to the floor beside him. N tried not to let his relief show. But instead of leaving, Thad did speak.

“I know you want me to— I might sort of get why, don’t get me wrong— and you might hate me for it, but I can’t… I can’t ignore this. It’s not fair to Uzi. Or you. Especially you.”

N’s chest twisted horribly, that ice flashing outwards and paralyzing him.

“I’m sorry, I… I don’t know what’s going on and I won’t pretend to. I’m sure this totally sucks. But I know enough to know you need help and you can’t… you can’t die. Not— you can’t.”

Thad paused, catching the words on his tongue. (Gauging N’s reaction?)

N wasn’t sure he could talk anymore if he tried. He stayed still and waited for this conversation and it’s awful feelings to pass. It always passed.

“You still care about Uzi, right?”

“What?” N snapped his gaze to meet Thad’s, wide eyed. “Of course! I— I could never— how could I not still— ”

Thad stepped back, hands raised defensively.

“I assumed you do! I just— I know a lot’s happened, but not what it is, so I don’t know where you two are at.”

“Okay…” N blinked. “Right. Okay. Then why—“

“Because if you can’t reach out for your own sake… knowing you, maybe you can do it for someone else’s. You can’t die—“

“I won’t—“

“You can’t die,” Thad cut him off sharply, “because there are others you’d be taking down with you.”

…

They stared at each other. Distantly, N was aware of the creeping ice, the pounding in his chest as panic quietly, mockingly took root, ready to snatch him away before he could even fight back. The moment he was alone, at best. He needed Thad gone now.

What he was saying…

It’s not that bad. I’m not— I wouldn’t.

This had to end somehow.

But I don’t want to, so I won’t. I would never.

That memory of a tactfully uptight letter, left open on J’s computer for him to see. He hadn’t then, he wouldn’t now.

Thad did have a point, though. And N had been so carefully not thinking about it, but he couldn’t do this forever. Just the idea of it was dizzying. Enough to make him question…

It was true that he couldn’t keep going like this. Something had to give. But knowing that didn’t mean he knew what to do any more so than he did before.

It’ll work out somehow, things always do.

They always had.

The simple truth now was that he wasn’t getting better. Now that he looked up at the path he’d been blindly following, step by step, moment by moment, he could only see one clear ending, and the realization caused something in his chest to seize.

“N? Hey… are y—“

Floundering, at a tipping point, N made a panicked move to scare Thad off and switched his visor to an X, letting his face twist automatically into a menacing expression. Thad stumbled back a step, eyes hollowing. He turned and fled. N didn’t dare move until the echoing footsteps faded.

The moment he was alone— truly alone, where he felt it— the sharp edges crumbled away. N slumped forward, head dropping onto his forearms as he gasped. Shudders tore through him. The glitching vision followed, even behind closed eyes. Every part of him screamed to run that something was wrong, everything was wrong, he had to get away he had to go now but he couldn’t move or possibly get enough air to stand at all.

Not that it mattered. He couldn’t run from this. No matter how much he tried, how long we waited, how determined he was, he couldn’t outpace the truth. And the truth was an awful, bitter thing. But it was truth. And maybe accepting it was the first step.

N’s optics dipped, panic dragging him down farther and faster than ever.

It really was getting worse, wasn’t it?

J was right.

Chapter Text

Uzi couldn’t place what, but something was different that time, when N came back. It wasn’t the avoidance. Or refusal to talk, or inability to meet her eye, or visible exhaustion, or… or any of that, none of it was new. There was something else.

Even if she were to place it, she couldn’t exactly help. Not even by dragging him to bed like she did the one time. He’d learned from that and kept pretending to be asleep by the time she walked in. So all she could do was watch at a distance as he spiraled towards some gaping event horizon.

To put it simply, Uzi was terrified.

“It’s so stupid,” she fumed, pacing in front of a vaguely disgruntled V, who watched her from the floor of Lizzy’s guest room. “I’ve tried everything. Literally, what do I even do at this point?? Freaking… I don’t know, lock him up? Yeah that’s real great. Perfect example of normal healthy relationships. As if it’s not confusing enough already. But like, that’s pretty much the only thing left to do! He doesn’t trust me anymore, and in full honesty I don’t think— I-I don’t think I can trust him, either. With this, at least. Whatever that means. Feel free to pitch in at any time, by the way.”

“What do you want me to do?” V snapped.

Uzi bristled, opening her mouth to retort, but bit it back. She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Then she glared cooly, pointing.

“Not piss me off, for starters. Fighting will get us nowhere.”

V rolled her eyes and muttered something. It would’ve been enough to send Uzi into a rage, except for the way V’s attitude strained to mask how genuinely shaken she was. Her perfect mirror of Uzi’s own fear was instantly sobering to catch.

Uzi gave a heavy sigh, rubbing at her visor.

“Look, maybe— I don’t know. I think my Dad was able to talk to him, kinda. And maybe Thad too, he’s been acting weird, so… maybe… maybe it’s because it’s me trying. D’you wanna drop by and see if you have any luck?”

V scoffed and gave her an incredulous look.

“You really think I’ll be any help? Me and my infamous ‘way with words’?”

“Do you want to see him, yes or no,” Uzi deadpanned.

There was another pause as V faltered, narrowing her eyes. She wasn’t stupid enough to waste the chance and they both knew it. It was clear from her scowl that she hated being called out, though.

Regardless, she turned away with a quietly rebellious huff and replied, “Yes, sure, fine.”

“Tomorrow?” Uzi said.

“Tomorrow,” V agreed.

Something was wrong.

Uzi startled awake with a gasp, a heaviness gripping at her chest. The solver symbol flickered across her visor. Feeling strangled, she kicked and squirmed her way out of her sheets, fumbling to the ground. She caught herself briefly on her door, practically slamming on lights as she darted down the hallway, to the living room. No yellow glow. Those lights switched on too and confirmed what she already knew. N wasn’t there.

Okay. Worrying. But why—

Something was wrong.

The knock on the front door snapped at her frayed nerves and Uzi jumped, inhaling sharply. She blinked and shook herself, running for the door. The second it opened V barreled past her, storming to the center of the room.

“Rude,” she huffed, rubbing her arm.

“Where is he.”

Uzi stopped.

“Why do you—“

“Shut up. You know, I can see it.” She pointed to Uzi’s visor almost accusingly. Uzi clapped a hand over the symbol. “It’s the same crap as last time. So either something’s wrong with N, or J’s about to do something awful, because I doubt that’s just some convenient glitch.”

No.

Not again. If V felt it too…

Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.

“I, for one, couldn’t care less about you or your stupid colony, so I say we find N.”

“Well screw you too,” Uzi retorted, almost relieved at the familiar banter. “But I’m glad we agree on something.”

Khan stumbled into the living room and drew their heated attention from each other, squinting blearily at them. Uzi shook her head pointedly at him and turned back to V.

“Where do we look? Do you even know where he usually goes?” V said.

“What part of he doesn’t tell me anything do you not understand.”

“At least I’m trying!”

“Oh don’t you go there, as if I’m not neck deep in memory files for even a hint right now— “

“Woah-kay,” Khan said easily. He stepped in between them. “Let’s all calm down. What’s going on? Did N run off?”

“Sort of,” Uzi said, ignoring the scathing glare V shot for choosing to humor him. “We think it’s different this time. Something’s wrong. Like, unusual wrong.”

“Have you looked through his stuff? Maybe he took something with him, or left something behind?”

Uzi and V exchanged glances. Silently, Uzi stepped around her Dad to scan the couch and coffee-table while V once again hovered over her shoulder. When nothing was out of place she finally dared move things. V poked through side-table drawers and book piles and Uzi slid her hand between the couch cushion and armrest, where he sometimes hid his sketchbook. It wasn’t there, which she took note of.

After a minute V stood upright with a huff, hands on her hips. Uzi hadn’t found anything either. About ready to move on, she grabbed the blanket and shook it out, just in case. Surprisingly, something small did tumble out of it.

She and V spotted the paper at the same time and dove. Uzi dropped the blanket over V’s head and got to it first. It was too important to ruin by fighting, and they were painfully aware of every second they wasted, so V sat back and grumbled while Uzi unfolded the paper.

Uzi frowned, brow furrowing. V strained to see what she was looking at. It was hand-written, so she couldn’t read it upside down, but at least they both knew what it was.

A note.

Swallowing hard, Uzi started reading. With every line her heartbeat rattled a little harder in her chest and her hands grew less steady. This was exactly the answer they were looking for. But it was the last thing she’d wanted to find.

Uzi reached the end and just sort of stopped. She felt the eyes on her, but she was stuck, captivated by that last little dot in all its finality. V looked from Uzi to the paper and back, expression openly terrified for the first time since they’d met.

“Is that—“ she said. Her breath stuttered. “that’s not—“

“No,” Uzi snarled, “but it may as well be.”

A hand on her shoulder. Uzi startled, looking over to see her Dad reaching for the paper. She jolted to fold it and all but threw it onto the coffee table. Shaking him off, she stormed for the front door, and V scrambled up after her.

“Where are you—“

“I know the bunker better than him. Hopefully this was recent enough that we can get to the doors firs— “

“What is going on?!” V exploded, grabbing Uzi’s arm and yanking her back a step. Seething, Uzi rounded on her, but again V’s expression made her stop. After a beat she spun back to the door and put her misbehaving solver to use in slamming it open. She beckoned to V and started forward again, gritting her teeth.

“Unless we’re very quick, and very lucky… “

N’s going back.

Chapter Text

It’s for the best.

It had to be. Something was wrong with him.

They’re better off.

And even if J could be hurtful sometimes, she understood, and she knew how to deal with him properly. He might not like it, but clearly he couldn’t manage himself. The alternatives were worse.

Uzi… she wouldn’t like this. She’d done all this work to get N back. She was still convinced she could get him back. It was cruel to let her keep believing that. At least this way she’d be able to come to terms with it and move on. She couldn’t as long as he was still hovering around, wearing the face of someone who’d deserved that love.

And V… what would she do? She cared, but he couldn’t read her the same way. If she saw right through him and cared anyway, his leaving might not actually be better for her, but…

He couldn’t imagine it being all that devastating, either.

“Well?”

N looked up, blinking. Something was lodged in his throat. Was he crying? He might’ve been crying. Cold blue light and snow drowned out most of everything around him. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, or how J found him anyway, because he’d just walked and walked and then stopped, waiting, for however long. Now it was just J and looming silhouettes and the blinders of moon-poisoned snow.

As per usual, J inspected him for a moment, layers and layers of ice cloud rushing by between them. Then she dropped her hand from her hip with a heavy sigh, shaking her head, and approached.

“Have we come to our senses?” She crooned, stopping beside him.

N looked down, trying and failing to blink away the blurriness in his vision. He swallowed. J made a pitying sound, a hand alighting on his shoulder.

“I did warn you. It’s a shame this had to go on for so long. I never took you for the stubborn type— we have your worker friend to thank for that, I suppose…”

He barely heard her. The hand on his shoulder drifted to the other side as she snaked her arm around him, his heartbeat pounding faster when it locked there, casually, until his vision was swimming and either J was holding him up or his standing at all was some kind of miracle. The gesture was a comfort that felt like a warning. The reassuring weight pressed to his neck just loosely enough. For now, it promised.

“But we can work on that.”

What was she talking about again?

His breath snagged again when her hand moved, but she just rubbed his shoulder idly, studying him. Everything was wrong, his mind was going faster than he could process, he definitely should’ve collapsed by now. His vision was blurry again. And yet. Somehow, he melted into the touch, shaking.

J sighed. Her arm loosened, falling to grip his lightly, and her other hand came up to his other arm so she really was holding him upright. He let himself be guided as she started walking. She had to support so much of his weight for that to even be possible, never mind easy.

“C’mon,” she said softly. “Let’s get you home.”

Funny. He had wound up back in the same place after all. And J had always been nice, sometimes. So maybe Uzi didn’t know everything.

Shrieking wind. It was almost impossible to tell up from down, at some point it’d gotten even darker, everything was just snow. The air, the ground, her own frozen hands. Snow. The footprints had faded ages ago.

“Uzi.”

“Shut up.”

V went silent. She’d fallen back, trailing behind Uzi as she pressed forward stubbornly.

“This isn’t the direction of the spire. And even if it was, you aren’t getting all the way there in this weather. Not that we could go waltzing in anyways.”

Uzi finally stopped, gritting her teeth. She rounded sharply on V.

“HE’S NOT— “

“They’re gone, nitwit!” V snarled with blazing eyes. She smacked away the finger Uzi had jabbed at her with enough force that Uzi stumbled. Uzi flailed to steady herself before retaliating with her own death glare. V held it, almost terrifyingly calm.

Slowly, though, Uzi’s fury ebbed. She turned to study the path ahead with a huff.

Snow, snow, snow, no footprints, no flying in this wind. No spire, no point finding it. No N.

N was gone. Reset again, for all she knew. And if not, it didn’t matter, because he chose to leave and no way would J let him go a third time.

Uzi blinked, her eyes stinging. Her gaze dropped slowly to the snow spraying over her boots.

It really was over.

V sighed, walking up beside her. The glimpse of her expression in Uzi’s peripheral was haunted. She reluctantly draped an arm around the much shorter drone, turning her around and guiding her back the way they came.

“C’mon,” she muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Uzi didn’t even have to bite her tongue. For the first time since this all began, she didn’t fight back. She didn’t keep pushing on blindly for N’s sake. There was nothing left to do.

Nothing left to say.