"Can't anybody divulge on just what's wrong with him?" Stella asked as she forced her shield to drop so that the nurse could prep her.

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Schuyler Tate. He's my brother."

"I'm sorry, I'm not working with him."

"Well, do you know who is?" She asked as the nurse tied off the top half of her arm and ripped open the small alcohol satchel. The nurse took the alcohol-laced swab out of the packet and rubbed the alcohol swab and rubbed the skin on the inside of her elbow. Stella flinched a bit; she wasn't used to getting shots. The ultimate benefit of her shield was that it had given her a natural inoculation to every biological agent in the air. Even when her shield failed on the outside, her entire body had a permanent weapon against all pathogens. The nurse slid the needle under her skin, making her flinch.

"You okay?" The nurse asked as she secured the blood drawing apparati.

"I'm just not used to this."

"Well, I have you logged in for giving…four pints of blood?"

"Yup."

"I'm warning you, that's a lot to give up all at once."

"I know. Just do it. I'm not the one who needs it." Stella said, closing her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the long process ahead.

"Bridge…?" Syd said, gently tapping him on the shoulder. Jack and Z had left to report back to base, leaving them waiting on any good news regarding Sky.

"What?" Bridge questioned coldly.

"…Is this about Sky and Stella being related?"

Bridge sighed, trying to control his temper. "I'm upset because he was childish about everything. I'm upset that it had to come this far. I'm upset that nobody can seem to forgive Stella for her mistakes. I'm upset that I can't forgive her for her mistakes. I'm upset that she used me. I'm upset that she's so stubborn. I'm upset that she's so much like Sky and yet she's his exact opposite. I'm upset because everything's hitting me at once. I hate this feeling, Syd. I hate this feeling of being manipulated. I hate this feeling of being codependent. I hate this feeling that I have for her. I hate that she toys with me like I mean nothing at all! I hate that disregards how I feel!" He looked up, his hazel eyes glassed over, trying not to shatter. "I don't ask for anything…anything from anybody…do I? Ever? Do I ask any of you guys for anything unreasonable? Have I ever for as long as we've known each other?"

"You've been way more than reasonable…in fact, I don't ever think you've asked me for a favor since the first day we met."

"She doesn't care how other people feel…she's worse than Sky…Sky tells us we have to do things, and that's because they're rules and it's probably a good idea to follow them. She does things and she doesn't care who or what she destroys….like her shield's blocked out her emotions, too…"

"Listen, I'm guessing that this is your first sorta crush, isn't it?" Syd asked, hoping that she didn't sound too condescending.

"What do you care? You can go around, going through guys like they're rag dolls! She's the first person that I've ever been able to relate to in my entire life! She's the only person who understands…and it hurts that I understand her at all…I know nothing, and she knows everything…" Bridge bent over in the chair, lying his head against his knees.

"It's a little weird for you to not know something, isn't it?"

"Just shut up and go away." Syd sighed, decided that it was probably best to take his command to heart. He was obviously not in the right frame of mind to be asked any more questions.

Stella had been stumbling aimlessly and slowly regaining her bearings. She tried drinking from the bottle of mineral water she was given, but she could hardly pick her arm up to her face, let alone enjoy the cool liquid. She could only hope that this wasn't all in vain. As she was wandering about, she heard gossip from the nurses that Sky was in a room on the fourth floor. She smirked as she focused all of her energy to walk over to the elevators; she was not going to lose her chance.

She kept a low profile as she slinked around the hallways, trying to make it look like she wasn't doing anything suspicious. She worried that she'd be caught at the door, but the guard had gone for a coffee run, leaving the room wide open for invasion. Stella walked in by leveling herself against the wall; she was feeling the effects of losing four pints of blood all at once. She was happy to see a bag of the blood she had just donated being IV'ed into Sky's body as she looked around for a place to drop herself.

"Now you owe me twice as much." Stella joked, sitting down in a chair across the room from the bed. The room was small, and the chair was close enough for her to prop her legs up against the raised end of the bed. The somber silence was interrupted by the EKG and the movement of the respirator moving in a slow-paced rhythm. Stella sighed; she felt like she was eight again, sitting in the chair across from her father, waiting for some sign of life, but getting back nothing but fading vitals.

"I hate you, Schuyler. I've hated you for a long time. I hate that you're such a golden child. I hate that everybody loves you, but they can't be bothered with me. You were always so perfect…but it's all really a façade. Am I the only person to see it? Am I the only one who knew anything about you?" She stopped, letting the EKG beep a few times before continuing. "Listen, if you go out like this, this will be your legacy. You'll be remembered for being the first B Squad ranger to be captured and killed by fellow SPD members. You'll be remembered as being just like dad…just a pawn to the job…don't you want to be more than him? Don't you want to be free…? Don't you want to be the hero you've always dreamed of being? Don't you want more than what mom wants for you?"

She huffed, thinking of how ridiculous it was that she had such a mundane fight, and how stupid it was that she expected Stella to be long gone in the morning. Stella was sick of running. She couldn't run anymore. She had made her decision this morning that she couldn't let her fears rule her life, and not even her own mother could stop her from being here with her brother in his time of need. She sighed, and stood up. The sudden movement made her sway, but she steadied herself by gripping the end of the bed and catching herself before her legs gave out. She slowly made her way up to the top of the bed, stopping as she grabbed his hand softly.

"Ya know what? Even though I hate you, you're the only family I got. I don't care if you never talk to me again, or if you say nothing but the worst lies about me that you can dream up, you're the only family I got now. You're my big brother, and you have to promise to not die on me. I promise to drop all the thing you owe me if you live." She clenched his palm. She shook his hand slightly, then grinned. "There, you shook on it. You have to keep your promise this time; if you die, I'll never forgive you."

She sighed and looked down. This was the tough part. She despised it all, but she had to. "…I'm sorry I did all those stupid things when I was younger. I was afraid. I was greedy. I was self-centered. I'm trying to work on that…but you gotta promise to work on that too. There is no I in team…I think we both have a lot to learn. I hope one day we'll be close, like when we were younger…" She smiled, then ruffled his hair. "Get better." She said as she picked his hand off the bed, bent down, kissed it lightly, then laid his arm around his waist.

She went to walk out, when she noticed that a doctor had left x-rays up. "Gee, I wonder what's here…" She said, finally opening her bottle of water and forcing herself to lift it. The doctor from earlier wandered in and jumped when he saw Stella standing in the corner, staring at the x-rays.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Huh?" Stella turned and looked at the doctor.

"Did the guard let you in?"

"…Yes."

"You look flushed."

"I got up to look at this."

"Well, sit down."

"Will you explain it to me while I'm sitting?"

"I think it's best if you're sitting for this, anyways." He said as he pulled a chair over for Stella.

"That doesn't sound good at all."

Bridge had fallen asleep in the waiting room trying to forget the beginning of the day. Syd had long gone back to the base, and the silence lulled him to sleep. Sure, there was the occasional person came in and sat by him, making sure to not disturb him. He abruptly woke up in a panicked state; something was tugging at him from inside, drawing him outside the hospital.

"What the hell…?" He got up and scratched the back of his head. As he tried to think of what was going on, his body kicked into autopilot and began carrying him out of the hospital.

The fallen sun gave only so much light; Bridge found that it didn't help anyways, since he didn't know what he was going. A forced walk turned to a run; a sudden, overwhelming trance began overtaking his legs and rushed throughout his body. Whatever he was going to do, it was important. He found himself halfway to the cemetery when he spotted a strange sight.

A young man dressed in a long white, knee-length trench coat adorned with red stripes was approaching Bridge in a manner that suggested that the man was, in fact, looking for him. On the left side of the jacket sat an SPD shield badge, which was occasionally overshadowed by his black tie, which also ended in red stripes, bent to fit the arrow-headed end of the tie. His hands were covered in white biker's gloves that ended halfway up his hands, and his red-rimmed white boots went up almost all the way up his shins, showing off only a fraction of his black tights. As far as physical structure went, it was too dark to make out anything serious, but Bridge could tell that the man was roughly around his height and build, and that his fauxhawked hair was colored similar to that of a burnt pumpkin pie. He was carrying a human-sized parcel over his right shoulder as he walked closer.

"Officer Carson?" He called out.

"Who are you?" Bridge asked. He had never seen anybody in SPD wearing that uniform before. The man smiled and began to respond.

"I am an SPD operative."

"What's your name?"

"You can call me Greg." The man smiled. "I have a delivery for you. She's in rough shape, so we should probably go to the hospital."

"What is it?" Bridge was surprised to be receiving large parcels from SPD, delivered by people in strange uniforms.

"Well, I think we should unwrap it in the hospital. Let's go." Greg said with a smile. He began to continue his trek to the hospital with a somber smile on his face, leaving Bridge to follow him with a pondering of the man's sanity.

As they arrived in the lounge, Greg smiled as he sat the parcel in a chair gently, then pulled a chair over to prop the bottom half of the parcel up. Bridge stared at the parcel as he unwrapped it. He gasped; it was Stella…only something didn't feel right. When did she leave?

"Don't worry, it's not the real deal." Greg said, smiling.

Bridge gave a confused, then realized exactly what he meant. It looked exactly like Stella, only there were several chunks of wood and iron sticking through it. If it had been Stella, there would have been lots of blood, only there wasn't any. Bridge watched as Greg searched around the Stella doppelganger's arm, finally finding what he was looking for right around the wrist. He applied pressure to the area in the center of the doppelganger's wrist, causing its eyes to shoot open. The doppelganger looked directly at Greg and gave a confused look.

"Officer Carson?" It asked. It even sounded like Stella.

"Ya know what? That's not the first time I've heard that," Greg answered with a smile. "but no. The name's Greg. You're in the hospital waiting room. How're you operating?"

"I'm severely damaged; I'm not fit to operate properly."

"Just what I thought. Listen, I'm gonna shut you back off until they can bring you back to SPD, okay?"

"Okay."

"When you wake up, you'll be nothing but a floating conscience again, because your body's not fit to operate." Greg illustrated the fact by swirling his hands about. "If you can't move under your own weight, then you should probably get a new body," he then turned to Bridge and finished his sentence. "got it?"

"Ugh…sure."

"Alrighty!" Greg proclaimed, clapping his hands together. He then re-pressed the pressure point in the doppelganger's arm, turning it off. "I see that my work here is done." He stood up, then stopped. He then turned quickly to look at Bridge. "Oh, I almost forgot!" He raised his hand, extending his index finger in a manner that generally suggested a thought. "Some parts of this lovely lady may be salvageable, so you may wanna turn whatever you can into scrap parts before it's too late." He then winked, which confused Bridge. Why would anybody wink in such an odd time?

"Wait, why would I tear it apart?"

"You can always rebuild ACTER anyways, ya know. SPD always has some assortment of spare parts, doesn't it?"

"…ACTER?" Bridge asked, looking over at the doppelganger.

"What? You didn't know?" Greg gave a confused look.

"…No."

"Perhaps Officer Tate would know." He replied. Bridge didn't get it; why would Sky know something about ACTER?

As Greg began to walk out, Bridge followed him. Stella was walking down the hallway towards the waiting room at the same time, and as Greg noticed him, he seemed to get excited.

"Officer Tate!" He shouted as he waved. Stella looked up and behind, hoping that Sky was right behind her. When she didn't see him, she gave a vicious look to Greg, making him flinch.

"Are you talking to me, ya weirdo?" She asked as she walked up to him.

"Oh, you're not Officer Tate?" Greg asked, pointing at her and giving a confused look.

"Well, that's my last name, but I'm not an officer. I'm a mechanic."

"Well, that's odd…" Greg looked down and to the side in a pensive manner. "I could've sworn…" He stroked his chin as he looked upwards. "perhaps I'm misinformed…" He looked back at her and gave her a warm and familiar smile. "well! I suppose we can't ever be right all of the time, but nobody's ever wrong none of the time, but we can tend to be both right and wrong at the…same time…did I screw that one up?" Greg gave an upset look, but he quickly traded it off for the smile. "Well, whatever."

He took his coat off and inverted it, revealing something similar to an SPD Mechanic's long coat, complete with tools. His boots changed colors from white to green, to match the coat. Greg smiled as he put the coat on. "I'd really like to stay and chat, but I have to get going. It's been nice meeting both of you, but…yeah." He began searching his coat pockets, but then suddenly had a thought, digging into what was the outside of his coat moments before. He pulled out a small device that looked like a pen. The tip shot up, emitting a blue light. "Say cheese." Greg said with a toothy grin. After the flash went off, he quickly dropped the memory modifier into his pocket.

"Well, I should be off. Have a good day, you two." Greg said, waving softly and turning around, still maintaining his smile.

"Wait, who are you?" Stella asked, completely confused.

"Oh, I'm a contracted worker for SPD. I got called up about a missing android that could've possibly been damaged, so I went and picked it up for them. The android requested that I bring it to the hospital, specifically to one Stella Tate and/or one Bridge Carson. Well, I ran into both of you, I delivered the android and now I'll be on my way!" He gave a sly smile which only he understood. "How could you two forget that so quickly?"

"I'm…not sure." Bridge replied, looking down at the ground, heavily confused.

"Well, I hope you two have a good night! I hope you two feel better!" He said, walking out the front door.

As soon as he had disappeared into the night, Greg re-inverted his coat and smiled. "Well, good deed for the day…done."

"There you are, Greg!" A female voice shouted. Greg turned to face the source of the voice, and spotted the source standing underneath a lamppost.

The Cervian female had long, straight, shoulder-length brown hair, with two small cat-like Cervian ears peeking up on the sides. Her Cervian freckle pattern started directly above her eyebrows and met down at the tip of her nose. The pattern itself was rare and usually connoted that the Cervian was naturally skilled in various fighting attributes, such as agility, depth perception, strength, strategy-making, and spatial awareness. Many people automatically presumed that she had relation to Dr. Kat Manx when she arrived at SPD, but after a long and lengthy talk over coffee one morning, the young Cervian had found out that Kat hailed from the opposite side of the planet.

The uniform she wore was a carbon copy of Greg's, only the red had been replaced by orange.

"Pulling a 'Sam', are ya, Greg? I thought you were different!" The Cervian woman called out as she walked up to Greg.

"Ailuros, Sam is an ego-tripping nut. He left to save the damn world for whatever reason. Besides, you found me, and you're never going to find Sam."

"Well, he was sent out to do some sort of mission, but he left earlier than planned, while you just ran off." Ailuros replied.

"I had a mission, too!" Greg replied. "It just…wasn't issued to me."

"You know how dangerous time-traveling is without permission! The Commander will lob you in half!"

"Oh, please! My cause was worthy!"

"Oh really?" Ailuros replied.

"What better cause is it than to save the lives of those you care about? Sam preaches it all the time!"

Ailuros sighed. "You're right. It's kinda hard to remember that when…you have nobody…"

"Hey…you have me, don't you?" Greg said, placing his hand on her shoulder.

"You're different. You're my partner."

"But I would stick my neck out for you in a pinch, even if we weren't SPD."

"That's because that's what you're told to do that."

"No, it's because you're a nice person."

Ailuros smiled weakly. "I guess."

"C'mon, let's go home. I'm sure everybody's waiting for us at home."

"Yeah…" Ailuros said as Greg pulled a small device out of his pocket. He pressed a button, unleashing a time portal. They slowly walked into it, hand in hand.

Bridge turned to Stella and attempted to smile. He scratched the back of his head in nervousness, hoping that Stella would talk first.

"…So…" Bridge said.

"…Yeah…" Stella said.

"Should we check out the android?"

"Um…sure."

They walked in, and Stella gasped. "ACTER!" She shouted as she ran over.

"ACTER?" Bridge asked, confused. "That's ACTER?"

"Yeah! ACTER wanted to help, so I agreed that she could help me fight Mordom. He would've won if I didn't cheat…besides, I promised that I'd repair her when it was over…" Stella looked around ACTER's body, but all Stella replied with was a large sigh. "A lot of the vital components are compromised…she's ready for the scrap heap…"

"That's too bad…" Bridge said. "We worked really hard on her, too…"

"Some parts of this lovely lady may be salvageable, so you may wanna turn whatever you can into scrap parts before it's too late."

Bridge was unsure of where the voice came from that spoke the line that came to memory.

"Maybe we should try salvaging parts we can use."

Stella stopped moving and just stared at ACTER. She whipped out a piece of paper with several notes on it.

"We should salvage her! Gimme a screwdriver!"

"Huh?"

"Wait, never mind." Stella reached into ACTER's coat pocket and pulled out a small tool kit. She pulled a small screwdriver out of the kit and began to turn ACTER over. She used her shield spike to tear through the clothes and the skin-like shell, exposing the inner core. The inside was a labyrinth of wires, plugs, screws and metal joints, created to mimic the real interior of a human, down to the placement of the motor, shock absorbers, and various important tanks in location where their human counterparts would reside. The metallic spine sat directly in front of where Stella had cut away the outer layer. "We can replace two of these columns…" She looked at Bridge with a serious look on her face. "Go get the doctor working in room 217. Tell him to come here."

Twenty minutes later, Stella handed the doctor two of the pieces of ACTER's spinal column.

"You do realize that, if this doesn't work, that this could kill him."

"Yes, I do. I'm willing to take that chance. He wouldn't want to live if it didn't work, anyways."

"Alright. You'll have to sign some papers…"

"Will do."

"I'll be right back with them." The doctor said.

As the doctor walked out, Bridge coughed to get Stella's attention.

"Yeah?"

"…you want some dinner?"

"As long as it's from that Chinese place again."

"You got it. Same as earlier?"

"Nah. I liked what you had."

"Same here." Bridge smiled.

Roughly twenty more minutes had passed when the deliveryman arrived. Bridge dived into the brown paper bag after paying the deliveryman, dividing their meal up. Stella noted the fact that several bottles of beer were also included.

"Trying to get me drunk, huh?"

"Oh, not really. If you want one, I'll share." Bridge grinned. "Today is just one of those days you could really use a good, long drink."

"Do this often?"

"Actually, not at all. I rarely ever drink unless it's a really special occasion; today definitely won the jackpot on that one. I mean, if you wanna see a drunk, Syd's a party animal. I'm a lot more like Sky; he never drinks. Ever. That's what surprises me."

"Definitely. I'd expect him to be a carbon copy of mom; I guess I'm glad to hear that not all of her vices were adopted by him." Stella said, grabbing one of the bottles. "However, you're right; today is a good day to take up drinking."

Stella grabbed a bottle and popped the top, giving Bridge the initiative to give a toast.

"To Sky's health." He said, holding up his open bottle.

"To Sky's health."

The two then took a long swig from their bottles, starting the hour-long binge of alcohol and Chinese food.

The night dragged onwards, and the sun had long set on the day, leaving a small crescent of the moon to glow in the sky as is was surrounded by the light of stars in various galaxies. Stella felt insignificant as she stared outside through the large glass windows, wondering how many of the many planets she could make out amongst the stars she had stepped on, entertained on, or just plain robbed blindly on. Bridge sighed; he decided to come straightforward with his wants.

"Will we still be close?" Bridge asked, snapping Stella out of her trance.

"Hm?"

"After all of this, will we still be close?"

"What do you mean by close? We'll still be friends…"

"No, I mean…will we ever have moments like earlier again?"

"…Oh…" Stella began to ponder his question.

"Will you be more open to me if we do? I feel like…I feel like I'm giving so much of myself and not getting anything back. All I ask is honesty; that you'll be willing to be up front with me…that's all I want." He sighed, looking down at the ground. "All I've ever wanted was somebody to be close with…I've wanted somebody who was on the level with me…somebody who I knew understood how I felt, how I thought, what my vices and virtues are…somebody I knew I could never hurt. I feel like you fit it all, except you don't care at all for me. I'm just some toy you can play with and toss when you're bored with me. I…I feel so fucking confused around you. I love you, and I hate you, but I need you either way."

Stella turned to face him, tears running down the sides of her face.

"I'm so fucking sorry…I didn't mean to hurt you…" She walked over and dropped herself on top of him, then began to sob uncontrollably. "I just…I know Sky's an asshole…"

"This isn't about Sky!" Bridge said, pushing her off him and knocking her to the ground. "This is about me! This is about my feelings! My thoughts! My emotions! Don't you care about anybody but yourself?"

Stella began to curl up in a ball. Bridge realized that he had scared her and began to calm down.

"I know I'm an asshole too. I'm trying…I'm trying to be better."

"I know. I just wanna know everything before I go throwing myself in your mercy."

"You're an asshole when you're drunk."

"Well now you can say that you've seen the better side of me." Bridge joked.

"I hate this you."

"I actually feel a lot better right now. I feel like I can breathe. I feel so fucking great!"

"You're too drunk to think about feeling." Stella said, sitting up.

"You know what? You're probably right. But I could care less. All I want is for you to give me a bunch of honest answers."

"Do you give all your little girlfriends this 20 Questions game, or is it just the freaks you ask?"

"Girlfriends? You're funny. I almost fried a bunch of girls just trying to be nice to them!" Bridge joked. "I was lucky to even get a sympathy date out of them, let alone a real fucking relationship…" Bridge painfully laughed.

"At least I don't feel like such a fucking loser now."

"Oh? Why's that? Does my pathetic love life amuse you?"

"No, because I thought I was the only person in the galaxy that, at my age, had never had a date."

"You? Not have a date? You're shitting me! You're perfect!"

"Do you know how terrifying it is to a guy to find out that if he hits you hard enough, he could get sent flying across the room? That he can't touch you…that you're like a sculpture in a class case? I can't get attached to anybody because they're afraid for their lives! They're afraid that I could do something to them! They're afraid of getting committed and never having any sort of physical relationship ever again! Most guys can't live without sex! It's painful for them!"

"Ha. Pussies. No man can know true pain without having to live life fearing that a slight brushing of a girl's hair away from her eyes could kill her."

Stella sighed. "So what do you want from me? You want me to be honest? Honest about what? Myself? Fine. My name is Stella Andromeda Tate. I was born December 27th, 2002, in Newtech City Hospital at 11:04 am. My brother, Schuyler Gregory Tate, was born precisely at 11 am, because the dickwad can't ever stand being late for anything. I was born to Gregory and Carolina Tate; my father was an SPD officer and my mother was an alcohol-abusing housewife.

"I grew up in the slums, because with SPD's pay, you can't afford to live anywhere else with four mouths to feed. My father died when I was eight years old, leaving my family to live off his pension. I was given the opportunity to join a band of space pirates less than a year later, and I accepted, knowing I could use the money we earned and plundered to help my mother and brother out. Of course, neither appreciated what we did until we ended up nabbing Sky during a raid. He was standing guard for his little troublemaking friends when we ambushed him. Sky's never been perfect; he just plays off that he was always a golden child. He was a little thief too, and a pretty good one at that. But I digress.

"I ran that for a long while, then I was captured on Earth by a lowly D Squad cadet…none other than Sky…when I was escaping from Mordom's wrath. I had saved Sky about two years back when Grumm started bombing us for making off with some of his goods, and I thought he'd pay me back for it. But he did nothing but get me jailed…he didn't care that I was hurt by it. He testified against me in court, saying that we hypnotized him into being a thief. What a liar he was!" Stella laughed, then crawled closer to Bridge's chair. Bridge leaned forward, interested in her story.

"Well, when I was about six, my shield kicked in, and the kids at school were relentless. They'd toss rocks at me, hoping they'd bounce off like they would. But of course, I didn't understand how to control my shield, so the rocks would go through my shield. For a while, I couldn't eat anything natural; everything I ingested had to be inorganic until I learned how to drop my shield for that sort of thing. The only person who could bypass my shield way Sky; when he learned that he had a shield too, we vowed to protect each other while we found out exactly what was wrong with us. What a fucking waste of a vow that was. But we figured that since we both had a shield, that we cancelled each other out. We found, thought, that our shields would rebound each other, so we could only come in contact when one of us had the shield down. We later learned that, if we focused our energies and were together, that we could make our shields stronger…am I babbling?"

"You can stop at any time."

"Good, because I wanna hear all about you."

"…Me? Seriously?"

"Yeah. I wanna hear about all your people-killing adventures."

Bridge scowled. "For the record, I've never killed anybody, but I have put a few people into comas, and that's usually the last time I talked to them. You're special."

"Aw, that makes me feel all happy inside."

"Well, you should."

"Now go on with your life story."

"Well, okay. My full name is Bridge Nathan Carson. My mom wanted to name me Nathan Jonathon Carson, but my dad didn't like it. My dad wanted to name me Bridge for a reason I'll never know. I always thought that it was because he was one of those new age guys, but I could just be wrong. Well anyways, I was born February 27th, 2002, to Jonathon and Marlonetta Carson, right here, about three floors up. My dad was a scientist for a chemical company and my mom was a traffic cop, so the story goes. My mom quit her job after I was born, and I lived a pretty normal life.

"Then, when I was about six, I had that accident with my mom that I told you about. My mom got worried, thinking it was my dad's fault with all the crap he did in the labs. My dad began to run all these crazy experiments on me, but by the time he had found out that I had some intense psychic powers, I had already gotten several restraining orders put on me, and that was after sending kids into the ER. My dad found that if I kept a barrier between myself and others, even if it was something as simple as, say, a strap of cloth or leather-"

He wiggled the fingers on his hand to show off as an example.

"that my mind would be incapable of unleashing my powers on other people. I found out on my own that, as a secondary skill, with a wave of my arm, I could read people's auras, and it would tell me the intentions of those around me. I could find out if they were being nice because they were genuinely nice, or if they were doing it to pull a trick on me. This started to depress me, because I suddenly found myself finding that the kids at school were coming up with false intentions more and more. It was hard for me to keep friends because I knew that they didn't want to be my friends because they wanted to. I had already put most of those kids in the hospital by that time anyways." Bridge began to fidget with his gloves as he continued.

"So yeah…my mom decided that I should be home schooled. So from first grade, onwards, you won't find my name in any school rosters. I guess it was for the best. I'm sure the kids would've pummeled me eventually with some long objects, like long branches or something. So yeah, I got home schooled, and everything was awesome. I found a wonderful hobby in building robots. I loved to build robots; they were friends that I couldn't hurt. I spent most of my time building, tinkering, improving…I figured that if couldn't have real friends, that my mechanical friends were going to be the best friends I'd never have." Bridge smiled, leaving a melancholy look before continuing onwards.

"I drew up some designs for pets, one of them being the very first template for RIC. SPD heard about some of my work, and wanted me to intern in the Lab department. Of course, a chance to go outside was most appreciated, so I took it. Much to my parent's chagrin, I wanted to be an SPD officer. I wanted to put my ability of aura scanning to good use, but my dad thought it would just be too dangerous. I just made a promise to keep myself suited up at all times. So he let me apply, and I'm sure you can guess how I did on the exam. I got nervous, because I feared the nagging and questions…but nobody ever questioned me about my gloves. In fact, one guy asked me where I got them because he thought they looked like comfortable biker gloves. That guy was Sky." Bridge smiled softly.

"He introduced me to this really famous blonde girl named Sydney and then the three of us began to hang out. They never asked about anything, and their intentions were always pure, and for once I felt comfortable around other people. It was fun for a while, but as we climbed up the ranks, Sky became a bit more arrogant and self-centered, and Syd became a bit prissier, and I found myself staying pretty much the same. Well, as time went on and we made it to B Squad, I found that my friends began to belittle me. What had been cute to Syd and cool to Sky had now become annoying and overplayed. I felt alone again, but I continued on. Then I met you." Bridge blushed a bit. "I felt like you could understand me, because you and I both seemed to have completely isolated lives. Now we're here, and I just want you to tell me whether or not you want to be with me, because I care about you, and I just want to be self-centered and have somebody care about me."

Stella looked down at the floor. "You know it's against guidelines for us to have an on-grounds relationship, right?"

"Definitely. But who says we have to be on-grounds?"

"I mean, that's when we see each other the most…"

"We can be together…"

"Do we have to have a real relationship? Can't we be friends? Good friends?"

"…yeah. We can."

"Then let's be good friends."

"It's agreed."

"Deal."

A silence filled the air for a moment, then Bridge looked up. "…sorry I pushed you."

"No, I deserved it. I was being a fucking bitch…" Stella picked herself up off the ground. "Are you going back to base?"

"Nope. Too drunk to drive."

"Me too…"

"I'm just gonna sleep here…" Bridge took his jacket off and wrapped it around himself.

"Can we share a chair?" Stella asked.

"Sure." Bridge replied with a smile. Stella curled up in his lap and smiled, kissing his lips softly, then lying her head on his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Bridge."

"Goodnight, Stella." He then took his jacket and draped it over then both of them before falling fast asleep.