I.

After clouds had blown their way and the tide was starting to come in, the two old friends had gone back to the forest so Hogarth could escape the chilly breeze. He still ran his fingers under his nose from the unpleasant, saline sensation when he saw a small head poking out; it was a baby skunk. His face colored with disbelief.

And it wasn't just because he didn't want to get sprayed.

"Hogarth?" He heard the Giant rumble.

The teen executed a quick, high-kick turn and reached into his pocket.

Surprised, the Giant reeled back.

"Oh! Sorry, buddy..." Hogarth scratched at his head.

The robot was the perfect color of gray, matching the sky like camouflage.

"I guess when you've lived the last eight years..." He looked away.

"Hogarth?" the Giant encouraged him.

They both looked at each other as they both remembered their flight dilemma.

"Well..."

Hogarth's stomach growled and the Giant tilted his head in amusement.

He grinned tightly. "Hey, come on, now. What'd you expect!? We-,"

The robot's own stomach gurgled loudly and Hogarth almost fell over with laughter at the Giant's embarrassed look. He looked down at his friend a little more humbly after that. Hogarth placed his hand on his head and shook it. Some things, I swear.

"All right, come on," he chuckled up at the Giant, following a few smaller animals.

They wandered through the deciduous forest and the Giant raised his hand to allow the branches to brush and whack against it. Hogarth observed where they were all headed and took off running. The Giant gasped a little and bounded along after his friend. Like out of a fairy tale, their abrupt excursion took them to a place that they could find reprieve. Hogarth nodded at the river and the useful trees around them.

"All right, buddy, let's go find you some food first..."

His stomach growled out in protest.

The Giant looked down at him with concern.

"No, buddy. I'm fine. We gotta find you some-,"

Grrrrrgle.

"Well," Hogarth pulled down at his shirt, "When was the last time you ate?"

This seemed an innocent-enough question.

It took the length of three beats of the Giant's confused look for him to get it.

"You haven't eaten...? How long?"

The Giant didn't have to say it, even if he could.

Hogarth was horrified, worried and amazed.

To ease his reaction to this, the Giant addressed concerns more important to him:

"You. need. to. eat."

Hogarth grinned and waved, dismissive, but he did give in. The Giant, happy to be able to help his friend, to be able to do anything beneficial and useful, assisted with whatever Hogarth needed. As in years' past, he was so full of ideas and interesting things the Giant could hardly wait to get to work. Hogarth taught him how to build a lean-to, how to weave a basket to catch fish, how to build a fire pit, he called all of this a "campsite". Even when Hogarth was visibly exhausted, after the Giant had helped him to catch the fish (he happily did most of the work) he was still so eager to learn. The boy had laughed and told him to wait there for him, he'd be a minute.

The Giant looked after him in longing.

Hogarth laughed and he felt nine years old again.

"Buddy, it's a surprise."

" 'Surprise?' "

"I'll be right back." He assured him.

"No following?"

Hogarth stopped... and remembered.

The Giant looked down at him and his keenness seemed to pick up on something deeper going on. His friend smiled up at him, trying to look nonchalant. He said to the Giant that his patience would be rewarded and for him to stay still; be. patient.

"Be. patient... be. patient." He was still saying when Hogarth returned barely ten minutes later. His surprise at this elapse of time, that he had inadvertently learned to stay where he was in eight years, caused the boy crack up with laughter at him.

The Giant scratched quizzically at his head as Hogarth pulled something along on some branches that was hidden under some more branches. With a grin, Hogarth tried cracking his back like a man, realized he looked like an idiot, then gave up.

"All right, Great Metal Lord of Iron," he bowed with his hands pressed together and then uncovered the top, "I have brought you this offering with hopes that-," A huge hand instantly reached out and the Giant gobbled down the various pieces of scrap.

Hogarth almost died of laughter but the idea of his best buddy becoming some big, tyrannical robot overlord made him cringe. The Giant looked down at him, satisfied, then bowed like Hogarth had. "Ah, yes," he said with a chuckle, "I have pleased the Iron Overlord and he shall spare me another day." Hogarth said all of this ironically.

The Giant picked up on his feelings, looking at him in concern.

"Well, buddy, you were kinda comin' after me back there." His friend explained as he resituated the lean-to and motioned for the Giant to stay where he was. Hogarth then pulled over the finely-woven fish basket. "Wow, pal, you did a great job here."

It was quiet.

"I not hurt you."

Hogarth looked up at this in shock.

Somehow, he'd forgotten just how in-tune the Giant and he were.

"I know, pal."

"You think... I am Atomo."

"What?! Buddy, no. Of course I don't." He put something down. "Just cause I..."

But he couldn't excuse himself. The Giant lifted his mandible and lifted his hands.

Thinking of the unarmed look at first, Hogarth smiled when he moved this fingers.

"I know, I know." He flattened his lips. "I'm sorry."

The robot nodded.

"Giant." Hogarth walked up to him and stopped. He noticed there was no dent on his head. The Giant looked into his eyes with deeper curiosity. "Giant," he said in a protracted voice. "How much do you remember? Do you remember me..." Hogarth gestured himself over. "Like this? Have you ever seen me like this before, buddy?"

"No," the Giant answered.

He understood Hogarth was confused, too, and he was listening.

The connection was there and Hogarth grinned.

The Giant lifted his lower lids at this.

"You have seen me like this before," he explained. The Giant nodded.

"I... do not remember."

"Do you remember 2200? Do you remember Taylor? Kina? Golden? Anything."

The Giant tried, his shutters folding in. His mandible flexed back.

"No." He turned back to Hogarth.

Hogarth nodded. He suddenly felt his feet leave the ground and the Giant held him up to his eyes. The boy was absolutely still as the Giant touched his head, his arm, looked him over to see what was different and if he was all right. He didn't miss a beat of when Hogarth tried to hide something, his eyes would flicker up curiously.

When his friend tried to recover with a quick smile, he would only linger on his face all the longer. Finally, Hogarth dropped his shoulders in acknowledgement — There was nothing that he could hide from the Giant and they both knew it. But the Giant cared more about his feelings and placed him back on the ground. Hogarth rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he could make it up, and then grinned at the lean-to.

"You and me," He told the Giant. "From now on."

The warmth in his best friend's light yellow eyes turned his heart to butter.

"All right, ya big softie," Hogarth waved him off with a smile. "Let's start this fire."

After he had taken care of fish detail (a process he absolutely would not permit his friend to watch), Hogarth had shown him how to start a fire with flint rocks, twigs, and dry needles. Curiously, there was not an overabundance of brown this fall for-,

"GIANT, WHAT'D YOU DOING?"

The robot had dropped a branch on the already-high blaze.

"You wanna start a forest fire?.?.? Put. it. OUT."

"Haw!?"

He instantly patted it out with his hands and Hogarth, too stricken to laugh, set up another one and had to repeatedly reassure him it was all right. Eventually the day had ended and the clouds were gone. The Giant would look down constantly just to make sure Hogarth was there (or really there at all), then up at the stars that were partially hidden by the trees, and then he would search around their surroundings.

An owl hooted.

"I know. I can't believe it, either." Hogarth mentioned with a chuckle.

The Giant beamed down at him, both in the literal and figurative.

Hogarth felt warmed by this... whole. Happy.

They stared at each other, and although it was not awkward, they had nothing to say at the moment. So instead they both leaned in to watch the burning campfire.

After a while, though, the Giant turned to Hogarth.

"I love you," he said unexpectedly.

Hogarth met his eyes and smiled as he said truthfully, "I love you, too, buddy."

They turned back to the fire as they just enjoyed each other's company. More time passed and the earth rumbled as the Giant collapsed to his side and slept. Hogarth smiled over at him and tried not to think about how long it'd been since he'd been able to do that. Hours passed. The stars twinkled over them and when the Giant opened his eyes Hogarth was still sitting there, with his back to him. He still could not believe he was really right there, that he could actually reach out and touch...

The Giant thought about today.

He thought about everything quickly as he'd had nothing but time to think.

So the robot didn't disturb him. He just watched him staring pensively into the fire until eventually he fell asleep. Not long after this, the boy stood from where he had been, climbed up the Giant's arm and scaled it up to his face. He touched his wide, vulnerable face. The look inside Hogarth's eyes was one protector, provider, parent.

"I promise you," he said, steadfast as he stroked his iron cheek. "I will never, ever, let anything happen to you again. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you free, Giant."

The tired boy then fell asleep on his hand and he, too, was vulnerable.

To be continued...