Emmet is on his morning walk on a different route than usual. This particular open expanse of bricks hasn't had time to develop just yet. As much as he loves meeting new neighbors, he wants a bit of alone time with just himself, his headphones, and the acoustic guitar version of Everything Is Awesome Lucy sent him.
Is this brooding? He's alone and it's a bit dark outside, but he doesn't think so, he feels too gosh darn happy for any internal monologuing.
Well. Up until he finds that fraction of Rex. It looks like a rock from far off and he's able to dismiss it, but the closer he gets the more he can make out silver safety straps.
He pulls off his headphones, trying to control his gag reflex as he stares in horror at the lone piece. The rest of the distance to it is covered in a stumbling run. He has to be mistaken, he has to be—
When he's a few feet away, there's no denying it. The bright green R stares up at him from the left side.
Emmet finds it pretty upsetting to see the blue-vested torso of his buddy sans everything else. Anyone would! Even if that buddy was a terroristic time traveler that had gone right off the deep end and tried to doom the universe to avenge himself. Emmet begins to suspect at some point during this train of thought his experiences are not universal.
Point is, he feels horrible seeing it laying there. Maybe he should—
Emmet reaches for the torso before pausing. Some small spark of internal logic with a voice remarkably like Lucy's urges him to reconsider.
"No, just leave it, just leave it." Emmet waves his little claw hand sternly at himself. "No. I know what you're thinking, Brickowski, no. Remember the last time you touched a strange piece?"
The last time he'd gone on to save the world, but that isn't the point. Also, this isn't a strange piece, this is a piece of Rex, it's different. He knows him. Or he thought he did.
For a while there he'd been convinced Rex was some grandiose invention of his imagination, a super cool dude meant to coach him into meeting everyone's expectations of him. But no, Rex was real, fortunately for an asteroid-field-bound Emmet and unfortunately for everyone else. At least Emmet thought so. It was so, so hard for Emmet's mind to grasp the idea of Rex's true backstory, let alone the concept of back to the futureing or the matrix or half the other things he said.
Emmet's mother had always told him he was a few bricks short of a full set. She was probably right, but Rex had grown up to be so smart. And strong. And handsome.
And selfish. And mean. And willing to break Emmet to pieces.
His shoulders sag.
"Well," he says to himself, trying to reason, "I can't just leave it out here."
Emmet grabs hold of the neck peg and hauls the torso into his arms. The cold stiffness of the thing is creepy. The reminder of who it belongs to in the form of the lime green R is all that keeps him from dropping it in disgust. Still, he keeps up a steady chorus of, "Gross, gross, gross, gross—" all the way home. He really can't help but say it every time he hears the sound of the torso bouncing against his chest with all the little clicks and clacks of plastic.
Vitruvius had turned into a ghost after getting his head knocked off. Would the same thing happen to Rex? Maybe he would think it's cool. The only thing cooler than being a captain of a ship of raptors is being a ghost captain of a ship of raptors, right?
Every step is a struggle to justify what he's doing.
"Did we leave on good terms? Kind of, not really, okay, no," Emmet says as he adjusts his grip on Rex's limbless torso. "Would everybody think it's the right thing to do to save him? Also no."
But it is. Everyone deserves a second chance.
When he gets home, he hides the torso where no one will ever find it and tries not to sit too stiffly in the living room.
He hopes Lucy doesn't suspect anything, but she's always been so good at reading him. From the moment she walks in the front door she seems to know that something is up.
"Hey Emmet," she says, brushing her hair out of her face and giving him a contemplative look. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's awesome!" He grins at her.
Lucy sits down beside him. "You don't have to pretend to be cool if you're not. I get it. There's been so much construction for Syspocalypstar, I don't know how everyone can handle it."
He takes her yellow claw in his. "Don't worry! I'm great, really."
She smiles at him and his hard little plastic insides melt. He'll tell her the truth, just not yet. He doesn't know how she'll react. Just thinking about the limbless, headless Rex sitting in their house gives him the creeps.
They go to bed without further incident, and he only starts getting new troubles the next day.
Unikitty will bring him "presents" on occasion, so Emmet isn't entirely surprised when he opens his bedroom door and steps on something outside of it. He is surprised, however, when he blinks away sleep and registers that he's standing on top of one half of a pair of legs.
He yelps despite himself and draws back. He covers his mouth immediately after, glances over his shoulder at Lucy, and shuts the door.
Only then does he allow himself to look more closely. Knee pads, steel-tipped boots, a black belt to hold up dark blue trousers—these are Rex's legs, no doubt about it.
"Unikitty?" Emmet asks in a voice three octaves higher than usual.
Unikitty appears from nowhere with all the subtlety of an explosion of flowers in December and rubs up against him. "Hiiiiiiiiii!"
"Shhh, shhh, you'll wake Lucy," Emmet says, unable to appreciate her cheery attitude and affectionate purring as he struggles to process what has happened. "Why did you bring this here? Do you—"
"Found it." She butts the side of her head against him with a little click to avoid poking him with her horn. "And yes, Emmet, I know. You hid his body in plain sight in Planty's room."
He thought that Planty was big enough to hide a body. Apparently not. He rests his hand on Unikitty's head and gives her a pat.
"Are you gonna bring him back?" Unikitty asks, neatly tucking her long tail around her front as she sits down.
Emmet looks away, withdraws his hand, and says nothing.
"That's what I thought you were going to say." She nods. "You really should tell Wyldstyle about it."
"I know, I know. I'm just… worried. I'm surprised at how well you're taking this."
"Well, Emmet," Unikitty says, giving him a princessy tilt of her head, "extending the olive branch to the big bad guy is very much your thing so I'm not surprised. Besides, what's the worst thing she can do? Throw him out into space?"
"I hadn't even thought of that but now that you say that, yes!" Emmet cries out.
Unikitty licks her paw and rubs it over her ears. "She's your special best friend. You have to tell her eventually."
"I will. Just. Not right now." Emmet sighs. "Who knows, I might not even be able to find all of his pieces and there won't be any point to telling her."
"Well, my lips are super sealed!" Unikitty makes a motion over her mouth with her paw, then makes another motion as if to unseal it, whispering, "And I believe in you."
He reaches down and picks up Rex's legs, then pets Unikitty again.
"Good kitty-cat," Emmet says.
Her purrs grow impossibly louder.