"Sarah, why haven't you stopped yet? Nine and I will be fine, but it's too dangerous for you to be this deep into the city; you won't be able to make it back home in time for curfew," Two had said unknowingly for the second time that day after one of his lapses.

Nine had made a small, sympathetic chuckle for his companion before explaining their plan to him once again. And again, the very same argument ensued in regards to her safety. "The machines haven't been searching this far in, not yet, and we can both watch out for her," he repeated, placing a hand on Two's shoulder, "Then when we meet with the others, we'll have eyes on everything. Nothing will be able to get near us without us knowing it ahead of time. Twenty eyes are a lot better than two."

The elder sighed, scratched the back of his head, and looked away for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Nineteen, in Five's case," he mildly joked with a sad grin. It was too early to assume anything—who was alive and who wasn't—yet; they both knew that. But the very thought of their possible survival helped to ease the ache of their loss.

Shafts of light tore through the oppressing shroud of clouds above, and every so often they would catch the faintest glimpse of the high noon sun. The light reflecting off of the bricks and the bronze and rusted metals cast a sort of golden hue across the expanse of the Emptiness. It was an eerie sort of beauty, and instead of speaking of tragic endings it seemed to whisper of beginnings yet to come.

Light, sweet, and carefree, Sarah began to twitter a little tune behind her mask.

"Oh we ain't gotta barrel of money,

Maybe we're ragged and funny,

But we'll travel along,

Singin' a song,

Side by side."

Neither felt that she had meant it in any way about the situation at end, but they looked up and down at one another's forms and then their own. The pair of Stitchpunks couldn't help but laugh, in spite of themselves. Made of worn cloth dirtied with dust, they supposed they did look a little ragged and funny. And though Sarah and her siblings managed to cleanse themselves on special, rare occasions, it wasn't long after that they were filthy again. Indeed, they were all poor beings thrust into a savage, apocalyptic age.

"Don't know what's comin' tomorrow,

Maybe it's trouble and sorrow,

But we'll travel the road,

Sharin' our load,

Side by side."

Yet despite the anguish, they could be merry. They could pick themselves off the ground, brush away the dust, and move on after their troubles.

"Through all kinds of weather,

What if the sky should fall,

Just as long as we're together,

It doesn't matter all…

Though they've all had their quarrels and parted,

We'll be the same as we started,

Just travellin' along,

Singin' our song,

Side by side."

Her voice wasn't like the woman's who sang about rainbows, but it was pretty enough—the mask probably didn't help—and they clapped anyway. They asked if she would sing it again so they could learn it themselves and so she did. The song was easy, bouncy, jovial. None of them were virtuosos, but it helped to take their minds off things and lift their spirits.

Nine wondered if there would be more moments like this, and if so, how many? It seemed that the machines would never truly leave and that the world would never return to its former state of grace and beauty. Any day now, the machines from outside the walls could scour the city anew for survivors and their haven could be turned into a cage of which there was no escape. But still, it was nice to breathe for a change without the constant need of looking over ones shoulder for signs of danger.

They took the long way to The Scientist's old home not for the sake of scenery, but because it was the only clear path that could be travelled by bike. Normally, Sarah would've parked it somewhere as she had many times before in similar situations. However, they weren't certain how far they would have to travel or whether or not they would need it. It was already well into the afternoon by the time they reached the building. The human child ascended the steps carefully, a Stitchpunk riding on each shoulder.

Entering the first room, Nine slid down a long strip of cloth while Sarah lifted Two in her palm, removed his cane from her pocket, and placed him with it gently on the floor. Two gave a nod of thanks before turning to look at the room. "It's been a while…" he mused quietly, "A long while…"

Upon spotting the disintegrating remains of The Scientist, he let out a sharp gasp and hobbled over to where he lay. Nine and Sarah watched in silence as he placed a careful hand upon the corpse's skull, his fingers tracing the path of The Scientist's brow and cheekbones without the hand sinking through flesh. They bowed their heads; they owed that much to the deceased, who both Nine and Sarah had realized with shame had never giving much attention to. It took Two's mourning for them to see that. "I knew this would happen someday…" their elder voiced sadly, "But I didn't expect to be around to see this… From the short time I stayed here, he was always pushing himself to his limits. I knew even when I awoke that the beasts wouldn't be the ones to end him: That he would die because he always put his health at risk for the sake of his work—for our sakes." His didn't say more, but continued to stare at the body. It was a small eulogy, but there wasn't much of one that they could offer.

All of a sudden, Sarah retreated back the way they had come. She returned a short while later with a large, torn curtain draped over her arms. Both Stitchpunks looked at her curiously as she approached Two and The Scientist, spreading the curtain out on the floor alongside them. "What are you doing?" Two asked with a raised brow.

"I'm going to bury him," was her only reply, her voice level despite the way her hands shook.

With a pained expression on his face, he reached up as if to try and stop her. "Don't—"

"He deserves it," she interrupted as she finished splaying out the curtain, "and I'm the only one here who can do it. He can't be that heavy." He wouldn't—not with having wasted away so much. Two stepped back as she moved around the body to squat down on the other side. Placing one gloved hand on The Scientist's waist and another to cradle his skull she began to roll him over onto the curtain.

She could contain the wince of disgust that slipped past her lips; the rot was worse underneath him and parts of his skin seemed to cling to the floor before limply snapping away from it as he was moved. The smell of decay only intensified and she forced herself not to gag as the stench assaulted her.

Soon enough, he was lying face up, staring and the ceiling with her arms folded over his chest. With a sort of practice in her manner, Sarah wrapped the curtain around his form and hefted him into her arms with a grunt of effort. He looked so small, The Scientist—the giver of life who had once tenderly held each of his creation's in the palm of his aged hand. Without further words, she retreated from the room and around the corner of the hall.

Nine went over and gave his friend a pat on the back in an effort to help console him. Yet still, Two just stared at his feet, shaking his head. "She's just a little girl…" he whispered to himself, "It's not right… It isn't…"

Nine was beginning to understand more about children and what Two meant. He noticed that they had a strange sort of innocence to them—an innocence that this world was destroying a little more every waking hour, an innocence that Sarah had all but lost as she fought to keep it alive in her siblings. Children were meant to grow merry and carefree—like the natures of 3 and 4—not deprived of all happiness as they struggled for survival in a world that had put them at such a disadvantage and taken everything from them before they even knew what they had. Sarah took the hard tasks, the adult tasks, so others wouldn't have to, but the more she did only stripped away, piece by piece, parts of her own humanity. To grow without hope or joy was to grow with a heart dark, scarred, and empty.

He supposed Two needed some sort of distraction, for the elder left his side and began picking up the scattered papers about the floor—examining them closely and, if he thought them useful, rolling and tucking them underneath his arm. He cast Nine a sad smile over his shoulder. "I think we can handle the repairs for the others just fine, but we still have no idea what sort of condition they're in and having their schematics won't hurt." With that, he positioned one paper in Nine's line of vision to show him the plan for the latter's design.

He nodded in turn. "I'll start looking for parts."

Crawling over papers, shelves, and spilled equipment, he thoroughly searched through the mess for anything of use. For a long awhile, there was nothing to be found; He was still looking even when Sarah returned from her grisly chore—her clothes smeared with dirt and sickly muck of unmentionable description—and began to help in the search on the other side of the room. The progress was painfully slow, but eventually he found something that caught his interest.

Not far from the desk that bore the device that transferred The Scientist's soul into the Stitchpunks, a jewelry box sat high upon the topmost level of a nearby bookshelf. His optics shrank and his brows furrowed—his way of "squinting"—as he read the label pasted to its side: Spares.

"Sarah, can you give me a boost?" he addressed the girl. She nodded, cupped her hands upon the floor so that he could crawl into them, and carried him in the direction he guided her in. Hopping from her hold with a twinge of excitement similar to a child's on Christmas Day, he rushed to flip open the box's lid and hefted himself over the edge to where he leaned into it from the waist up.

And he burst out laughing in relief! A random mixture of parts filled the box almost to the brim. Some were finished: Some were not. Many of them were complete hands, feet, and eyes, but there were also parts for their skeletal frames.—everything of all shapes and sizes. And not only that, but folded and tacked to the inner lid of the box were blueprints for how to create the parts. It would be another hunt to find which parts what would best fit Two, but he was relieved to know that The Scientist hadn't forsaken them with only a message to help them survive. He had already prepared for them for when they needed help.

Two requested Sarah's help as well to join Nine and see what the matter was. Upon the discovery, he fell into a similar state of delight. "This is smashing!" he cheered, setting his cane aside to reach in and pick up an optic. It was obvious he was thinking of Five. "Smashing!" he repeated with an elated chuckle.

Sarah looked around for a moment herself; Spying a pair of scissors not very far away, sitting next to a stack of other instruments, she held them up and offered, "Do you need help?"

The laughter died in Two's throat and he smiled nervously at her. "If you could find some more cloth, that would be excellent; just don't leave the building."

"I won't," she groaned, and departed once more from the room after placing the scissors back where she has found them.

Nine tilted his head at Two for a moment. Getting down on his knees to peer at the shelf below them, he saw neatly folded scraps of vinyl, corduroy, and burlap. His gaze returned to Two in silent question.

"She doesn't know what she's doing," he reminded him. Then, moving so Nine could get a good look at the crudely jagged cut cloth and stitching at his side, he continued, "And she's not safe with scissors either." They both shared a good laugh at that.

Nine pulled over a wooden spool of black thread for Two to sit on, still cradling the optic in his hands. He examined the elder and found for the first time that the cloth the children had used, while durable, was also a little too stiff. That and nothing had been used for any sort of padding protecting his frame.

Nine left briefly for the stack of equipment and returned with a seam ripper and needle. "Let's see what we can do."