WALL-E crept into the truck very quietly, trying not to disturb his family. The door hadn't alerted them, thankfully, so he did his absolute best to close the door quietly and get inside before anyone suspected a thing. Hal chirped upon his arrival.

"Sh!" WALL-E unwrapped a sponge cake and dropped it for him, "Here! Just be quiet, okay?"

"Dad...?"

Crap. He'd woken up Willow.

"Go back to sleep." he said quietly.

"Where were you?" she asked tiredly.

"I was just in town. I'm home now, so it's okay."

"Mom was worried sick."

"I know, just go back to sleep."

"Dad..."

"It's fine, alright? Don't alert your mother."

"She's going to find out anyway."

"Sh, just don't worry about it."

She finally gave up, "Whatever. Let's see how long it takes for her to find out."

"Fair enough. Goodnight, Wil."


WALL-E's solar charge warning was especially loud that morning. It was like an alarm clock, beeping constantly as a sign that WALL-E would be at death's door if he didn't get into the sun.

"Ugh..." EVE woke up before he did, "Good to see you came home."

WALL-E groaned tiredly, pushing his head out of his body.

"Come here."

"No...I can do it..."

EVE was surprised. He always let her carry him out of the truck.

It seemed he underestimated how hard it would be. He dragged himself across the floor, remembering when he did this on a daily basis for 700 years. He finally got to the roof, out of the girls' view.

"Mom?"

"Yeah, I can tell. Something's wrong." she said, "I'll have to talk to him about that."

"Can I make sure he's okay?"

"No. I can do that." she hovered to the roof.

Here it goes...

"Wall-E!?" EVE exclaimed, "WALL-E! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU!?"`

That didn't take long at all. Willow rolled her eyes.

"Willow! We're going to the science lab! Right now!"

"Coming!"

EVE carried her husband all the way there, his battery hanging out of his casing like an organ in the middle of surgery. It looked like he was falling apart.

"Wall-E!" Jonathan raked a hand through his neatly-cut hair, "I told you this would be a problem! Why did you keep this from your family!?"

He looked down shamefully.

"Willow, why aren't you more worried?" EVE said, "Did you know about this or something?"

"Yeah, but he told me to keep it a secret." Willow replied, "I was just waiting for you to find out on your own, and you did the very next day."

Jonathan glanced back at his computer monitor, "Well, luckily it's not a horrible malfunction. I can fix it, but he has to stay here until I can locate the problem. Is that alright, Wall-E?"

He nodded.

"Can I stay here with him?" Willow asked.

EVE sighed, "We had target practice today."

"I know, but I don't want to do that today..."

"Ugh, fine. Comm me if something happens, will you Jon?"

"Sure thing."

Willow watched as Jonathan scanned over WALL-E and a hologram image appeared before him, showing him the whole problem. WALL-E's old garbage-compactors had crumpled, leaving him disfigured and squashed on the inside. He'd had to expose this when he opened his solar panels and that's how EVE discovered it.

Willow was the first to speak again, "Dad? Why didn't you want us to know?"

He shook his head, "I don't know...I guess I just reverted back to old habits..."

"What do you mean? 'Old habits'?"

"Yeah...you see, remember how I told you I spent seven hundred years all by myself?"

"Uh huh..."

"Well, this has happened before. I break, and I get a replacement. It was always an arm or an eye, or a wheel. No big deal, right? Whenever I broke, I fixed it myself, because I had no one else to help me."

"But you have friends now!" Willow pointed out, "Why did you still hide it?"

WALL-E couldn't answer that at first. He had to think about that for awhile.

Finally, he sighed softly, "Because...I didn't want you to worry about me...I didn't think it was a big deal at the time...a garbage truck broke and toppled over in a street too narrow for the Wall-As, so I offered to help out..." he frowned while Jonathan continued to type away, "...heh...I guess my compactors rusted over and cracked from underuse..."

"Okay..." Jonathan finally finished his typing, "It looks like the damage isn't too serious. Is it alright if I fix it here in the lab?"

"Yeah, that's fine." WALL-E replied.

Willow held her father's hand as Jonathan pulled out the crumpled compactors and replaced them with new ones, inserting new supports for WALL-E's battery and other components. Once the damage was fixed, WALL-E wheeled out of the lab, still hand-in-hand with Willow.

"Whew...glad that's over..."

"Do repairs hurt or something?" Willow asked.

"No, it's just uncomfortable." he explained.

"Is that why your display is still cracked?"

"Kind of."

"Hm..." Willow kicked a rock on the pavement, "That's where Auto shocked you, right?"

"You like to ask questions, huh?"

"Just tell me!"

"Yes, that was it."

They made conversation like this until they caught up with EVE again.