While TO was grateful that Petra offered to push them towards Lendulin, DH had already rigged up their new chip to the chair, so her assistance wasn’t necessary. Ideally, they should have been able to use it much in the same way Flit had been using his mechanical leg, with the chip recognizing it almost as a limb and allowing signals from the brain to control it. The only problem was that unlike Flit’s leg, TO had never had a chair connected to their brain before, so now their mind was connected to a brand new ‘limb’ which it didn’t know how to control. After some practice, they were able to move it, but occasionally they’d glitch and the chair would either turn suddenly, or stop altogether.

It was an improvement on pushing themself constantly whenever they wanted to move. They had tried that for only a few minutes and it left their arms burning from the effort.

TO and Petra approached Lendulin without any incident or odd glitches from the chair. She had claimed a small area of the perimeter of the weapons bay for herself, and lounged on the floor with a wheelchair at her back. Whether it was due to the background noise of the area or the task that Lendulin seemed to be entirely focused on, TO didn’t know, but she didn’t notice them until the two had gotten close enough to see what she was doing. Lendulin had a tablet in her hands, but it wasn’t the same kind as the others had used, nor was it the simplified kind that the kids shared. This tablet was slimmer, and the screen lacked the same kind of shine to it that a normal one hand, appearing far less shiny as a result. Rather than use her fingers on the surface, Lendulin was using a stylus. TO leaned in to get a closer look and saw that Lendulin was creating a digital painting of the ship. TO’s ears instantly burned as they looked at it and recalled their own attempt to draw the same thing. They thought they had been doing decently despite the fact that the ship they drew on the tablet looked nothing like the ship they had in their head. They could recall nearly every detail of the ship, but somehow it still looked skewed on the paper, and impossibly flat. Lendulin’s ship glided through space, parting nebula like clouds in its wake like a ship cutting through waves. TO knew that a nebula didn’t work like that, and knew that their ship wouldn’t part a nebula like that, but it didn’t matter; it looked so good.

It looked better than reality.

“Ah, it’s not finished!” Lendulin’s voice pulled TO from their admiration as the screen went dark. In an instant TO went from being in space, looking at their own ship soaring through the luminescent clouds, to being back in the makeshift dorms. they looked at Lendulin, entirely confused by the deep shade of blue that colored her cheeks.

Fascinating, Lendulin blushed the same color as a Synth did. It was odd to see it on someone’s cheeks, though.

Confused by her objection to her work being seen, awed by the way the ship looked, and still feeling this odd, burning shame and desire in their own chest, the words that left TO’s mouth did so with no consideration or forethought. “That was breathtaking. I’ll never paint like that.”

Lendulin blinked in surprise, staring at TO for a moment before she laughed nervously, “It was just, uh, the beginning of a thing.” She said awkwardly, “And I’ve not painted many ships or vehicles… and I know that, uh, space is a lot emptier than…” she suddenly knit her brows as she looked up at TO, “Wait. You’ll never paint… like that? I didn’t know you were painting?”

TO hadn’t planned to tell anyone that they had tried to draw something, especially not after seeing what Lendulin had made. “Ah. No. I’m not.” They said, “I just… well, I could never do that.” Their ears warmed as they chuckled and looked away. “That’s all. I wouldn’t know how to start, or how to make it look like it’s actually moving towards you-“

“You totally could!” She said, suddenly leaning forward as though excited, “That’s perspective, and it’s almost like math. I hate perspective, but you might like it!” TO continued to shake their head, but Lendulin continued, “Honestly, I think anyone can learn to draw or paint! It just takes a lot of time and practice!” Her eyes brightened, widening bigger than TO had seen before as she leaned forward. “I could teach you!”

It didn’t seem to TO that drawing or painting was something that anyone could learn, at least not unless they were very young. Civilian skills like that were, well, just that: Civilian skills. Still, Lendulin seemed so excited by the prospect that TO couldn’t help but stammer out, “S-sure.”

“Ok, calm down there, teacher.” Petra said as she stepped forward and slipped into Lendulin’s chair. “TO’s still recovering, and more than learning about that, I want to learn what happened.” she eyed TO’s wheelchair. “I mean, what really happened? Not the little story that you’ve told everyone else.”

TO weighed what they could tell the two, and figured at first that they could tell them more or less everything without telling them about Avery’s potential involvement. However, as they considered that, their stomach seemed to churn, and their ears flicked down in guilt even before they had said anything. They remembered Lendulin’s anger when she found out that TO and DH had been synths this whole time: Anger not over the fact that they were synths, but anger over the fact that they thought they were friends and TO had hidden that fact from them.

*It would be good to get their perspective anyway, right? Maybe the other civilians wouldn’t react as poorly as they feared. Maybe the civilians would be willing to give Avery the benefit of the doubt, no matter how damning things seemed for them.

“Alright.” TO said, feeling oddly relieved and lighter once they convinced themself to tell the two everything. “So... it started the day we were planning to leave. We were sleeping, and all of a sudden our communicators woke us up...”

======

Petra and Lendulin were quiet for a while once TO was done. Through the story, their expressions had gone through rapid transformation, cycling often between rage, shock, and fear. It made TO feel better that they skipped over the details of how they had found Avery and avoided an in-depth description of exactly how Kei had hurt them once the other synth had shot their knee and bound their hands. Petra’s expression turned unfathomable to TO, her demeanor icy in comparison to how she normally was when they got to the part about Mark coming into the room and Kei turning and shooting at him. Though they had originally intended to tell them everything, Petra’s reaction was enough to convince them to skip over any comment about Mark after Kei shot him, and how TO had simply focused on Avery and shouted at Mark to stop them.

They hadn’t even told DH that, not yet. They didn’t think they ever could.

“You mean to tell me...” Petra said, her voice low and quiet as she spoke, “That Avery, the one who let Kei go, is still on the ship?”

TO’s ears dipped down, and they instantly wished they could go back in time and choose not to tell them anything about Avery. Still, at least now they knew what everyone else would think of that.

At least she kept her voice down.

“I don’t know what happened,” TO whispered, keeping their own voice low enough that Petra and Lendulin had to lean in to hear them. “But Avery wouldn’t do anything to hurt GiDi, DH, or myself.” They said firmly. “That I do know.”

“Yeah...” Lendulin said, drawing out the word as she considered it, “I mean, if Kei and Avery were working together, then why would Kei stab Avery in the neck?” she frowned and looked up at TO, “Avery is your friend, right?”

“Right.” TO said, their ears relaxing despite the fact that they never noticed how they tensed up, “They’re more than that, actually. They’re family.” They figured they’d explain the whole thing to the two of them at some point about Ankyra and the family bonds, but they didn’t want to go into that right now.

Petra huffed and looked away, but clearly she was softening. “Well... either they had something to do with it, or they were very unlucky. Still, why wouldn’t they tell you they were going to see them then? Why were they even there?”

“I don’t know.” TO said as they looked down at their lap, “That’s... well, we’re waiting for them to wake up to tell us what happened.”

When they woke up. Not if, when. They refused to think about the potential of them not waking up. Also, what happened if they woke up and didn’t remember anything? What would they do then?

Petra sighed again, “Well... I suppose you know them better than I do.” She said, “I figure you wouldn’t have them on the ship if you thought they’d do something. Still....” she looked down at TO’s leg again, observing the heavy bandages before flicking to the chair itself. “They had something to do with it. Intentional or not. If they hadn’t been there, do you really think that Kei would have escaped?”

“I don’t know.” TO said truthfully. Kei’s behavior had changed since the procedure, so they didn’t know if they would have found a way to escape with or without Avery.

Before they could consider that any further, they heard the din of noise behind them momentarily increase. As they turned to look, they saw two kids playfully wrestling atop some thick blankets.

They recognized one of them as Leanaran’s eldest daughter. If she was now playing with other kids, didn’t that mean that Tham’s time teaching the kids was over? They looked around, but didn’t see him anywhere. Where could he have gone so quickly?

“Is something wrong?” Lendulin asked as she watched TO look around.

“Yes.” TO said, “I came up to talk to Tham, but he seems to have disappeared. “