Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. The story is an au that sets place (once again) in the Hawkins household with all our favourite Synths staying there for a while. I'm not even sure anymore but I'm just gonna ssume that I managed to put spoilers in it.

"How on earth aren't you more fucked up?"

The soon as those words had escaped her mouth, Mattie realised that she had said them aloud and felt instant regret.

Leo, who sat on the couch diagonally opposite from where she was sitting and was working on his laptop, just slowly turned his head towards her and looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Pardon?"

Mattie blushed and started muttering.

"It's…it's nothing. I was just thinking aloud. I'm… sorry".

Leo just nodded and turned his head back to his work.

Mattie sighed internally from relief that he apparently had been distracted enough to not understand her question.

After a few moments of staring into the distance he suddenly closed his laptop and again turned towards Mattie.

"You think I'm fucked up?"

Well shit, thought Mattie, so much for not understanding.

He didn't even sound angry, just curious in a way.

"No I don't I um I just wondered… I mean considering…considering everything, you just seem… I mean yeah you are a bit weird but except from that you seem so, I dunno normal?"

Oh gosh just stop talking, Mattie. Just shut up. Oh boy. Well maybe he will just drop the topic.

"Define normal".

Oh no there we go.

"Well I mean, you… you manage everything so well. I mean looking after your family, keeping them together. That's a lot of responsibility and, and I mean you're on the run and you have an open wound 24/7 and then considering what happened to you…I mean…the stuff with your parents and your death… you're sometimes even funny and…"

Oh my god, ugh why won't you shut up? You're making this so much worse.

"So in your opinion I function too well, and should show the world more often what a traumatised train wreck I am?"

Mattie didn't know if the sarcasm in his voice was a good or a bad sign.

"No I just meant that…um…well…"

She didn't even know anymore what she had meant.

Leo sighed deeply.

"Listen, Mattie. You don't know me, or my family for that matter. You think you do because you've seen a lot of things, but you really don't. Yeah you might know more about me, about our history, than any other human, but just because you …this does not mean that you understand, okay? And frankly speaking how "fucked up" I am, is really none of your goddamn business."

Mattie stared at her feet. He was right, of course he was. He hadn't even raised his voice and yet his words very much felt like a slap in the face.

It was just when she felt tears prickling in her eyes that she stood up and left the room without another word.

She didn't want him to think that she was crying because she couldn't handle harsh words, because that wasn't the reason at all. She was crying because she was angry at herself.

Mattie got up to her room, closed the door behind her and lay down on her bed.

And the price for the most insensitive conversation with the world's only Human- Synth goes to Mattie Hawkins. My thanks go to my ability to say inappropriate thoughts out loud and to my inability to shut the fuck up. Without them I would never have achieved this. Thank you very much; I'll be here all week. She thought bitterly.

But yet she still wondered how Leo managed to be so considerably normal. She couldn't even comprehend how it must feel like to not forget anything, to have every person clearly mapped out inside one's head. He had told her that they, humans, were not build for this emotionally, and yet somehow he seemed to manage all of it.

I wonder what I am like inside his head. Despite being nosy and rude. I wonder if…

Mattie interrupted her own thought. It was probably better to not go down this road. Especially, since she always seemed to manage to remind him of horrible things. A fact which mostly resulted in him being pissed off with her; which she thought was understandable most of the time.

And yet she hated herself a bit or it. She didn't even know what annoyed her more, that she managed to treat him in a way that, she felt, made him dislike her a bit more from time to time; or the fact that she wanted to get to know him so badly, which always brought her in the situation of saying tactless things in the first place.

It knocked on the door.

"Go away."

Mattie wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. She planned on spending the evening feeling embarrassed, guilty and stupid. As well as analysing why she couldn't shrug it off when she fucked up situations with Leo. With Harun this was way more easy. She made a mistake, she apologised sincerely or sometimes not and then he dealt with it. With Leo she always had to fight the urge to check if he really, really was okay, when he said so after one of her verbal missteps.

"Matilda? May I come in?"

Mattie groaned.

"Wait give me a sec!"

She wiped away the tears that had never made it down her face, but instead were still lounging about in the corner of her eyes.

She stood up and opened the door just enough to allow her visitor a look on her and not her entire room.

"Yeah? How can I help you?", she said, leaning against the door frame, trying to look as much as her normal disinterested, slightly annoyed teenage self as possible.

"I come to you to talk about my brother. He seemed quite upset and you were the last to talk to him. He won't talk to me."

Oh bother.

"Well, sorry but I really don't remember talking to Fred today."

Max chuckled.

"I have two brothers actually."

Mattie sighed, but couldn't help to smile a bit. Something about Max, who often answered with such an honest innocence, reminded her so much of Sophie.

"Okay come in". She opened the door properly and stepped aside to let Max through.

He walked in, stood in the middle of the room and looked around a bit.

"I like your room. It is very nice."

"Thanks."

Mattie grabbed the "used but not so dirty that it needs washing already"- clothes from her desk chair and threw them on the ground next to it. She sat down with her left leg bent under her right one.

"Please, sit", she said to Max who looked down to the left and then down to the right before he sat down at the edge of her bed.

"You mentioned Leo being upset?"

Mattie tried hard to not look too guilty.

"Yes he is. He told me to get out of his hair for a while. I don't think his mood is correlated to any of my actions. Maybe you know what happened."

He didn't make it sound like an accusation, but Mattie knew that Max had already figured out that Leo's change of mood had something to do with her.

She sighed.

Go on Mattie, time for your "twas I who hurt your brother" speech.

"But really how does he manage all of this?"

Max looked at her.

"Why do you want to know this Matilda?"

Because I want to know if he is really okay. What if he's not really coping but it's all just a façade? What if he needs more help than his family can give? A nasty little voice inside her head replied almost immediately: And you think you should be the one to help him? Despite you are having no actual idea of how to actually help him? Even though everything you try could probably damage him even more?

This was when Mattie realised something.

"I think I just want him to trust me, or at least to see me at someone he can trust. "

Maybe I want him to see me as something special. Did I try to push him in this direction? Oh god how needy and pathetic would that be? Why is him trusting me even so important? I mean yeah he's fascinating and all but why…

Oh shit! Oh fuck, oh god no.

This was one of the rare occasions were Max looked completely serious at Mattie.

"Leo does not have much room in his life for trust. But how do you know that he does not already see you as someone trustworthy?"

Mattie stammered, because she felt unable to focus her thoughts right after the discovery she had made about herself.

"I , I don't know I just figured…I'm sorry I think I…um"

Max looked at her and asked with the most innocent face:

"Is this one of those times when being a teenage girl is as confusing and frightening as being like me?"

Mattie couldn't help but burst into laughter. Even though her heart sped up by the thought that Max apparently knew something. She herself had only figured it out a minute ago. So if he had figured it out, who else had?

Max seemed to be amused that his comment had made her laugh. After she calmed down she answered him.

"You know what Max, I think you are right. I should probably fix this situation. I know that I really am so sorry for what I said earlier. But Maxxie what if he doesn't want to talk to me either? He must hate me now. Or at least dislike me intensely."

Max smiled at her.

"No he doesn't. You irritate him. That's all."

Mattie looked at Max in surprise.

"I irritate him? I? Him? He's the one to talk."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"How exactly do I irritate him?"

Max smiled one of his wide smiles.

"You irritate him because you care."

Mattie was taken aback.

"What? I mean I think he's used to being cared about I mean you guys care about him."

"Yes we do. But we are his family. You are not. And yet you care."

"Of course I care; I mean my whole family cares."

Max smile did seem to even widen a bit more and his eyes showed a flicker of amusement.

"Really? Your mother cares about Mia. Your father cares because of your mother. Your sister Sophie cares about Mia and Niska. Your brother Toby cares about Mia, Fred and myself. All of you cared about me when I was sick. And you, you're the one who cares about Leo. However I don't think you don't care about the others. I think every one of you just cares especially about some of us."

Mattie blushed. She knew that Max was right with his observation. She couldn't remember her mum ever addressing Leo with a question or Toby asking Niska if she wanted to play. And for some reason she always seemed to be the only one who tried to get to know Leo a bit more.

Just when she wanted to ask Max how to proceed with the situation and if Leo would accept an apology, Max with a sudden movement stood up from the bed.

"I have to go downstairs. I am helping Mia preparing a dinner. It was very nice talking to you Matilda."

"Yeah same", she muttered before Max left the room.

Mattie didn't bother to go downstairs for dinner. She didn't want to sit on the table with all of them, wondering who had figured it out, watching Leo treating her like air. She was hungry but she figured that she would simply sneak downstairs and grab something as soon as they were all asleep or charging.

According to the sound Toby was showing one of his stupid games to Fred and Max, while Niska strictly opposed to tuck Sophie in later. She could hear them arguing. "I'm not your nanny." "But you are my friend." "There you go, friends don't tuck each other into bed at night. Ask Mia or your mum. And now shush I'm trying to read." Mattie couldn't hear what was said next. "No I don't want to read a story with a bunny and a duck."

Half an hour later, Mia and Laura were tucking Sophie into bed.

Mattie could now hear chatter and laughter but nothing distinct.

Two hours later, she could hear Toby getting into bed as well as her mum. Her dad had left half an hour ago, for some reason wouldn't sleep on the couch tonight. She had heard that Max had told them all, that she did not feel well and wanted to be left alone. But she did not wonder that her mum was checking in on her anyway. She just pretended to be asleep already.

There were no more conversations.

Mattie who was dreadfully hungry now decided to wait another 15 minutes.

Just when she wanted to leave her room and opened her door a bit, she could hear steps on the stairs. Mattie carefully looked outside.

"You have to sleep in your own bed. I am not a couch you know."

Niska walked down the corridor with Sophie, who had wrapped her arms and legs around her.

"I'm sorry that I pulled your plug", she whispered softly, almost asleep again.

Niska seemed to smile a bit, which Sophie couldn't see.

She passed Mattie's room, opened the door to Sophie's and tried to lay her down on the bed. But Sophie didn't seem to want to let go.

"Tell me a story."

"You already had a story, you should be long asleep right now."

"Story, please."

Niska sighed. "Okay there was once a little monkey who wouldn't let go off a Synth. The Synth couldn't charge and never woke up again. The end."

Mattie almost expected Sophie to argue but as it turned out when Niska was making a step towards the door, she was already lying in her bed, and apparently fast asleep. Niska smiled at her and muttered: "Good night, little monkey."

Mattie carefully took a step back and closed the door to her room. She waited until the sound of footsteps had faded away.

When she opened it again, making a huge step outside, she almost collided with something on the ground.

She could just barely manage not to scream.

When she looked down, she found a tray full with food from dinner. Mattie looked the corridor up and down and listened carefully, but there was no sign of whoever had put it there for her. She took it up and went back into her room, to finally eat something.

She wondered if it had been Niska, since she had been awake shortly before, or maybe Mia. But she knew exactly whom she hoped it had been.