Julian thought he'd gotten used to being forgotten by now. How hopelessly naive, he thought.

He currently had his attention in the Shadow Chamber, not particularly bothering to focus anywhere else. In the aftermath of the assault, he'd retreated out of his SPARK among all of the confusion. From what he'd seen on ship surveillance, everyone generally seemed to have already rallied around each other and lifted each other's spirits in some no doubt heartwarming moments that taught them what true friendship and love was all about.

He was guessing those little moments didn't extend to him.

So here Julian "sat" in the Shadow Chamber, just... not doing anything in particular. Lazily monitoring the Network stats, as lazy as dedicating processes to it could be. Lazy by his standards, when he was used to operating a facility designed to build robots at peak efficiency for years, even keeping up routine maintenance on the machines with the robots themselves. It was almost soul-crushing to just sit here and do nothing. It reminded him of when Lily kept him cooped up in basically a virtual machine—so why stay here? He didn't have an answer to that question, and wasn't particularly bothering to solve it.

He'd piloted his SPARK body here at some point, which now sat deactivated in front of the Gate. What was the point of being in it if nobody was here? Wasn't like someone was going to reach out to him and make sure he was fine. Everyone was busy tending to their own little groups, and he wasn't important enough to—

The door opened, and in stepped Lily. She looked towards Julian's SPARK body, then the console next to the Gate. "Hey, Julian? Are you here?"

Hm. What was she here for, he wondered. Probably to ask a favor. "And so the prodigal child returns. What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing." Lily further walked in, approaching his physical body. "I just... wanted to check in on you. I noticed this was gone from the Workshop and it looked like you'd migrated over to the Shadow Chamber. I wanted to stop by because... well, it's been a hectic day and a half. I wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Please, Lily," he began, "if there's something you need me to do, don't spend time needlessly buttering me up."

She sighed. "Julian, I'm not trying to get anything out of you. I'm genuinely trying to make sure you're ok. A lot just happened, and I know I didn't focus on you too much right after I was done patching you up, and I'm sorry. But I want to make up for that now."

Well, it was what he wanted, wasn't it? It was just... Julian could hardly accept it. He'd faster think Mordenna or Vix to be the one to come in and check up on him. He knew he and his sister resolved to try to be better to each other, but still. She locked him up in that server for so long, her reasons irrelevant. He thought she'd take longer than this.

But care was care. Julian felt his cynicism softening, and he gave a digital sigh. "Fine. Just a moment."

After he said that, he began the upload process to his SPARK. It was rather short—he'd occasionally worked on the protocols to speed them up—and soon the red lights of his eyes lit up, and he brought himself into a more proper standing position. "There. I'm physically present. What now?"

In response, Lily walked closer and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his midsection. "—I make sure you're ok. You're a part of the Avenger like the rest of us... and you are my brother. You... you deserve to have someone caring about you. Not just me. If Mordenna wasn't in the Infirmary, he and Vix would be here too."

Julian fully stopped, at a loss of what to do. Lily wasn't supposed to care. Not based on what she'd done before. But if what she did was, however misguided, an attempt to protect him... after fifteen years, a part of him just wanted to believe someone else other than his father cared enough about him.

He didn't say anything in response, but he did bring himself down a little bit so he could properly hug Lily back. Julian was just happy to know someone cared.