A/N: I'm back! I hope I didn't leave you all waiting for TOO long, and I hope the last chapter was enough to keep you guys going until now.

ALSO! I know I haven't really done too much reviewing lately, and I'm sorry for that. I'll get to that whenever I can, but just know that I didn't forget about all of you!! Things have just been hectic lately, which might explain my 'dead absence' as I like to call it, here atfanfiction... Finals are always a drag and I'm getting really REALLY tired with constant studying and staying up and working at papers nonstop and its all starting to take a toll on my back and OMGWATF!?!? But don't worry about a thing! I'll be back and reviewing again in no time, just as soon as things go back to their normal pace. LUBS!!! XD

Warnings for this chapter: Just the usual… nothing different than it normally is. Just a few references to God. Dun sound like too big a deal, but there are people out there who care about that kind of thing. So if that bothers you, don't say I didn't warn you, cuz I don't want to offend anybody. (holds up hands in defense)

Dunno if you wanna think of this as a warning too, but this is a very dull chapter, mainly filled with a tortured Daxter in the mental state of mind, and aiming it all at chu! So be prepared for a slightly depressed Daxter, a not so exicting read, and a pathetic attempt at a cliffhanger, coz here we go.

But hey anyways,

Thank you:

Silver Draggon: Ha, well I guess now that you mention it, it can be kind of confusing reading that part. If it clears anything up, it can go along with the rest of his trip down memory lane. Like a memory of Jak shouting his name, and it kinda snapped him back to reality. But that IS confusing, so if you want to, you can interpret it however your heart desires.

SilverRain: How can I leave off there? Well that's easy! I love to torture readers like that! I know it was a bit of a wait, but I updated as fast as I could, so enjoy. I'm flattered that you read this fic non stop! And amazed that you could do such a thing at the same time. And my writing style thanks you for your comments.

Neon: Hours? Sitting? Reading? All those chapters? NON STOP? (twitches with you) Wow, another reader that read all of that writing in a small amount of time. Thank you! Thank you for telling me that, it means a lot!

Demyrie: Hey, hope your little trip went well, and can't wait to hear from you again. As much as I love to put you though the indecision of killing me or letting me breath long enough to complete another chapter, Daxter is still furreh. I just couldn't help it. And I HAD to recap all of the events too, cuz it's easy to forget things after a while in stories. It'll all sloppily come together some how, though. Hope the 'action' near the end was up to standards. GLOMP!

Sanjuno Shori: A little depressing, but in a good way, right? Right? Don't be disappointed, love! The next chapter is here!

jemisard: Daxter tears are hard to handle, aren't they? Put your heart back together, darling, because we all know that things can't get deeper in shit than they already are, right? Or can they? Huh! I mean, I kinda put a bit of myself in that chapter when Daxter was sorting things out. That can sometimes be how I like to think through things when they seem really out of place, but I'm sure many can relate.

CSkerries: I'm a little confused cuz ya reviewed from the first chapter, but uh… ya! Sorry my spelling bugs ya, I really do try. Anyone who reads my Author Notes knows that grammar and me don't get along really well. Sorta like a school bully that never got over giving mea hard tiem. But if you think about it, it still kinda fits into the sentence. Cuz another meaning can be "To acknowledge, often reluctantly, as being true" in the sense of being sure of himself. (shrug) That was my attemp at defending myself.

Goldbryn Callow Lyte: First off, I wanna say how much I love you story and your artwork at DA its beautiful! And this is a total of three readers who read a crap load of my story at once! Thank you for the compliments, they are so kind of you. And ya, I don't mind Keira as a character. But I never did like girls getting in the way of the relationship between friends.

CassieCats: Ehhh, it's confusing, I'll give you that. But it's hard to explain, even to myself. 'Sides, I think it's obvious that Jak cares for his little buddai! If not, I WILL make it so!! I swear it!! Cuz I know its there, AHAA!!

manicalpha: Sure, wouldn't YOU feel safe with that guy nearby? Everyone seems to be all 'oh it was right there and I didn't see it' but that's okay cuz this story has been dragging on for so long, parts of it can leave the memory. AND YES!! The 'I am your father' commercial is the greatest thing since sliced bread! I love all the commercials I've seen, TOTALLY!! XD! I actually have all threeof themunder my favorites.

ChronoClockXVII: It's just something about best friends and the relationship they carry that attracts a person to turning them into a pairing. All the hints and factors are there, and you know that they know each other better than anyone else, so its really possible. So yes! Cute it is.

(to the bunch on question marks document editor won't let me write it, heh):YAY! THANKS! WOOT!

cin-min: Pretty please? Oh I'm a sucker for that stuff!! Not really, but I did update as fast as I could so enjoy, kay?

Midnyte Wolf: ah, AH! Don't have a twitching spasm on me now! The next chapter is here, so relax, chill out and enjoy it with a Jak plushy plush. I bet you have some pretty interesting guesses with what happened with the Light Eco. But you have to read on and wait some more to see for sure. This chapter isn't the most action packed, sad to say, but I hope you like it anyway. (Didn't make the rhyme on purpose) Oh, and thanks in general for the drama in your review, it makes me feel all tingly in side, (happy shudder)

Jira: Wow, you really DO know how to make me smile. Such nice words, and.. and they're directed at ME! Thank you so much! You thought it was the best chapter? Well I know this one won't be a night in paradise, but I'm sure that if you stick around, later chapters will also fill your thirst for goodlyness.And I'll do my best to keep everybody in character, I always try.

WHEW!!! So many! I'm happy with the growth of reviewers, thanks everybody.


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Confusion is something that – if it were a person – I would kick square in the balls and then later admit that I had enjoyed doing so. I would proudly state that I had no regrets and no remorse, and I would do it again if given the opportunity. Of course, the simple yet complicated state of being confused was not a person. Or an object for that matter. Or anything else that I could vent to or hurt in some way. Instead, it was something I couldn't seem to even come close to touching.

Like now; I was confused as hell and didn't know how to deal with it.

Too many things have happened in the sum of a few years, and it was all starting to catch up to me. There were just too many things I had to put together, too many words I had to place into the right order, and too many thoughts crowded into one spot in my brain that just wasn't meant to hold so much at one time. It's like all of my emotions and burdens and troubles and feelings were crowded into a small elevator, going to the tippy top floor and taking its lovely time, and confusion was making the air fowl, and having a blast in doing so. As much as you hate it, you can't do anything about it, and you have to deal with it until you reach what you want or where you want to be.

Or in my case, to reach who you want.

Not the greatest example I could give but don't think I'm gonna be dishing them out all day.

There's no doubt in my mind that Jak noticed me and the way I was acting as he carried my sorry ass to who knows where. (I wasn't really paying any close attention.) I didn't say a thing and I knew he was starting to wonder about it. (It was starting to seem like this scenario was happing a lot.) The thing was… I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore, it felt like. I don't even give a rats tail that I'm still an ottsel! Yeah, I couldn't care less, actually. So what if I'm still short and Jak will never understand the way I feel about him? So we'll never get to be together and I'll just have to throw out my hopes and all that came with it. So what? Did the Heavens really hate me so much that they didn't even bother to give me any kind of luck whatsoever? Was I seriously gonna be cursed to walk the Earth like this for the rest of my life? With no respect? No pants!? Or any kind of clothing? And never getting the kind of love and attention that I somehow feel I deserve? What about Jak? What can I do now? I've been watching him for forever now, and I'm starting to wonder if that was how it was meant to be. Maybe, things were supposed to be this way. You know? MAYBE, I've been wasting more than half of my life waiting for something that was never gonna come.

I always hear people sayin' all of these nice things about a guy they never met. Namely, God. If all high and mighty really does exist, what is the reason for me being like this? Small and trying to break seemingly unbreakable animal instincts and habits. Why am I so loud? And why wasn't I meant to be with Jak? What has God ever done for me!? I mean, there are people out there who are always saying stuff like 'everything happens for a reason.' And I would believe it, but after all the stuff that has happened, and after going though a horrifying road trip called 'my life'…

I'm not very religious.

Look at me! Does it really look like I have even the slightest chance!? Jak's my best friend, but even if looks didn't matter, can you really see someone as perfect as Jak with someone that could be the very definition of imperfect? Trust me folks, size does matter.

I mean, lets face it. I'm a klutz. Mebbe not so much as a klutz as I used to be when I had two left feet as a human, but I still manage to hold my amazing reputation. I'm always landing face first into the dirt for one reason of another, and never seem to have any luck at all with walking away from a disaster or 'adventure' unscathed.

And it's not like I can really help it or control it, but I talk. A lot. What do you want? When the only friend I had… only friend I have wouldn't even talk to me, and I had to talk for the both of us? It's just a habit I can't shake for the life of me. But you know this, and Jak knows this, and so he's the only one that doesn't lift a boot or a rolled up newspaper when I keep going and going.

On the other hand…

What would Jak be like if there was no one there to keep him in check? What if… no one was there when he needed indirect comfort? Even if I can't get Jak as more than just a friend, I'll always hold close the title of being his best friend. After all, who else is there to sooth him when he wakes up from one of his nightmares? Does anyone else besides me make him smile? Or laugh?

Still, I shouldn't get my hopes up. I mean, it's always one step forward and two steps back. And even though I'm still wrapped up and confused as hell about all of the information I've yet to place together correctly, there are the other issues I still needed to take into hand. Things that I'm pretty sure didn't have anything to do with this big mystery that seems to be forming before my button nose, but still bothered me just the same.

In case you forgot, there's still that ping of 'hurt' in my chest somewhere, stirring every now and again for no reason, coming up randomly to taunt me whenever it felt necessary… all 'coz of her. I never did figure out what her and Jak had their little spat about, and no matter how many times I try to forget or try to tell myself that it was all in my head or even try to convince myself that she meant nothing to Jak and it was just a small argument that maybe even by now, Jak had forgotten all about, it wouldn't leave me alone. I couldn't help but feel that she was just more important at times, and luckier, and more attractive by a long shot, no matter how sexy I am or become. She was a girl and that advantage gave her the natural talent that all girls have to act fake and mask themselveswith perfection. Whether she really felt something for him, or she was just pretending to be attracted to him because he was Jak, and being Jak was a blessing in itself, didn't matter. She was able to make him look at her and talk because of her prying abilities and her phony cooing. And she was able to make Jak feel safe at times, as hard as that is for me to say, because she was a master at pretending that she knew what he was talking about and what he was going through, when she has no idea what he feels, what he needs, and what sets him off. And you know why, right? You know why she's so good at it? Why it's so easy for her?

'Coz she's able to hug and hold him.

I'm not saying that I lack the ability to hug, or lack the ability to feel emotions ('Coz you and I both know I can get pretty worked up), but it is here that you can see a perfect example of where size matters. Imagine how hard it is to want to make someone's pain go away, and you go to hug that person, but you can't even get your arms halfway around him. I mean… y-you know, not that I think it's cool or anything to be hugging my best friend more than once a day, or a week even, ahem, but I can do everything but hold him. I can talk to him, and I can be there to listen, and I can do everything 'cept give him the comfort and security that only a human body can do. And, needless to say, a human body is what Keira had, and she used it well with Jak.

Of course he would probably run to her over me when it came right down to the very fine, paper thin line of love, as in 'I love you as a best friend' and love, 'I want to be closer than just close friends' and I wasn't on the winning side.

So, when I picture Jak finally having a break down, or pissed off at the world for one reason or another, I can see myself, as an ottsel, being there for him, telling him it was okay, cracking a joke to make him laugh and feel better because that's what I did. But then that image is brutally kicked aside with Keira embracing him, and him doing the same back because a hold on someone can say a lot. And I can't do it. And she can. I can't, she can, what else is there to say?

But Keira is just one of the many things I need to be worrying about right now. And as strongly as it bothers me, it has to be near the bottom of my priority list. Near the top, I have to figure out what Snake's deal is, why the hell I'm still fuzzy sexy when I know I should be furless sexy, and what Jak is thinking when he looks at me in that way that he does. And above all else, if Jak was okay.

'Coz he's been all weird lately. It could have something to do with the way I've been acting, although I'm not sure if I've been acting different or not. I really don't know. But when he looks at me, he seems dazed and he never used to look at me like that. So I can't help but wonder what he's thinking.

Thinking about my problems and the things (cough andpeopleorshouldisayperson cough) wasn't making them go away or improve in the slightest. In fact, I was only making my head hurt more than it already was. And my fingers.

I opened my eyes, finding my fingers twisted harshly in the fabric of Jak's clothes, thanks to my mental sidetrack. I released the poor tunic, trying to straighten out the wrinkles that I had left behind, absentmindedly running the palm of my hand over it, not really thinking about making it look better, but thinking about how to stop thinking about what I've been thinking about. It sounded so easy, but in reality, it was as hard as Jak's head. Maybe harder!

I didn't look at Jak, I was too afraid of receiving those disappointed eyes again, but I didn't have to see him to know that he was looking straight at me. I could feel his eyes on me as he speed walked, watching me curiously as I half heartedly tried to straighten his tunic. I inwardly hoped that he wouldn't say anything to me about it, or about anything for that matter, at least not here and not now, and was relieved when he didn't.

Where was I supposed to go from here? I mean, how was I supposed to act? I had just recently failed at being happy, by somehow messing up my chances at being human again and being with Jak again, 'coz if you look back long and hard enough, everything and anything that's happened to us can be traced back to me, and it being my fault. I'm sure that in some way, this was my fault, too. So the eco didn't work. Ok big deal, I still ran off into the blackness of the city, refusing to come back no matter how stern or desperate Jak's cries for me were, and to top it all off!?!?

I get myself in the deepest of shit and get chased by a metal mouthed monster, unable to defend myself or defeat him without Jak in my animal instinctive panic, but Jak has to pop in at the very last possible millisecond and save my scrawny, furry, and pathetic ass.

I'm just wracking up the score today, aren't I?

The familiar tapping of steel boots on a hard floor woke me from my daunt. I raised my eyes upwards, half expecting to see a black sky, maybe with some thick smoke to go along with it, but instead saw cracked and holy ceiling tiles pass by, and I finally sat up in Jak's arms, my head rushing and spinning when I finally reached a straight posture. He was still holding me as he sat down on the tattered bed, heaving a light, almost thoughtful sigh as he leaned back to rest his back against the dirty wall. His lip tightened momentarily, as if reacting to a personal thought that had just came and went through his skill, and then loosened them again as his arms slackened, and I gingerly crawled out of his hold on sat next to him on the bed in the same fashion as himself.

We both said nothing. I didn't know what there was for me to say, and I gathered that Jak was in the same boat as me when it came down to talking. This is horrible, I'm usually so good at this kind've thing.

Jak gently sucked in some air and pushed himself off of the wall. I was waitingfor him to say something 'coz I thought that was what he was attempting to do, but instead he reached out and grabbed the jar by the rim. The same jar that held my forged salvation, which was left on the bed when it didn't work and I had run off. As soon as it was in his hold and he leaned back again, into the same spot and position as before, and he turned and rotated the piece of glass in his hands, as if it would give him something. Anything. His hand dove inside, and he trailed his fingers along the inside, and sniffed his fingers.

I know Jak has a natural knack for eco, but can he really tell anything my sniffing it?

His nose wrinkled at the musty twinge it let creep into his nostrils, and he set the jar down in bitter defeat. He still eyed it, however, breaking it down in his mind, or so it looked. It was like he was pulling a Daxter, going through his process of figuring something out, only his way was probably more efficient, less dangerous and, uh… not as humiliating.

And just as the silence started to slowly tear me apart, I had to open my mouth, and say a stupid thing, and a pointless thing, but it gave me a small but silly satisfaction 'coz I had broken the stillness.

"Told you, Jak," I hesitantly raised my head to look at his concentrated figure, and those focused pupils. "It was the wrong brand."

His eyes flickered to a wide state for a single second before returning to their normal size, and his brows lowered and knitted together as though I had just said the strangest thing ever to float into his ear shot.

"Y'know Dax…"

His voice was random and unexpected and I jerked and twitched and jumped all at the same time when he spoke, my eyes rocketing to a larger bulk, shoulders stiff, and at the same moment, happy to know that his voice didn't hold the edge I thought it would have. If anything, he sounded... just... normal. Maybe he was feeling normal, but he was just in thought. He looked at me, not really grinning, but not really frowning either.

"You might be right."

My ears lowered as he scrambled off of the bed, cocking his gun and tucking it away on his back, and he looked in my direction, waiting for me to respond.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on or what he was thinking or what he was expecting me to do, especially after my little feat of running off and almost getting myself killed. He seemed almost… dismissive of the whole thing, but only after I had cracked that dumb statement.

So I slowly made my way to him, giving him a questioning glare the whole time, trying to figure out by looking at his expression just what was going on. But his face told me nothing, so it was all pure curiosity that placed me on his shoulder guard in the next instant, extending my claws to grip at the hard surface, eyes forward and clueless.

I have… no clue what was happening. But Jak seemed to have an idea.

Heh, he never was one to quit easily.