Author's Note: Important note, only thing I know about this series is Rift Apart, so kept my horizons very small for this story. Just was a little plot bunny that was nagging me, so I spewed it out. I'm hoping its not too sappy or ends too abruptly, stuff like that, as well as the whole "plz sound like you guys are in character" thing. Lemme know what you think, I love feedback.


She found him sitting on top of his ship outside a good distance away, seeming lost in thought. There was a celebration to be had, it wasn't everyday you saved two worlds and many more in what felt like a few short days. It'd been suspicious when Ratchet had wandered off, passed the fan fair and practically evaporated from the scene. She thought him to be a guy who loved a good party.

If you had asked Rivet she would have thought he'd used that Dimensionator to scurry off somewhere.

But thankfully he hadn't, she was rather done with dimension chasing for a while. Now she just wanted to relax and digest the peace she never thought she could have ever lived to see. It'd cost her an arm quite literally but within her bones she knew she would sacrifice it again to know the world was safe.

She put a hand on her hip, hesitant on interrupting what seemed to be a private moment. Music played muffled behind them from the celebration being had, far too peppy for the mood he seemed to be in. He didn't look sad persay, merely deep and lost in his thoughts, whatever they might be they were clearly making him chase his own tail in circles.

Taking a courageous breath, she took the plunge into the metaphorical rip tide. "Hey!"

His orange head turned to look at her, slowly blinking at her once the surprise wore off. "Oh, uh, hey." The moonlight made Rivet's fur burn silver.

"Yeah, uh, hi." Smooth, she told herself with a strained grin, waving a hand as she gestured at the space next to him. "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure, knock yourself out," Ratchet replied, shuffling away to make room. Rivet began to climb up, jumping onto the ship to sit down beside him.

Neither said anything, just exchanged a quick smile before glancing away to look at something else. She sometimes wondered how they could both have seamless and awkward conversations all at once. It wasn't like either of them were shy people, so what was it? They were pretty familiar with each other now too, unlike back at their first face to face introduction at Zurkie's.

Instead of lingering on the nagging thought and joining Ratchet in his wandering mind, she spoke. "Nice night, huh?"

"Yeah, it's great to look at the stars and not see time and space tearing apart for once," he mused, jokingly as he recalled their adventure.

"Yeah, it's a major bummer when the dimensions collapsing on themselves ruins a good full moon," she joked back, smiling.

"Ugh, tell me about it." He shuffled his weight to get more comfortable, drawing his knee up. "I'm not complaining about retirement again anytime soon. Meeting you and Kit was a nice compensation though."

"Are you saying that because you like my company or because I'm another Lombax?" She copied his casual posture a moment, tipping her head to the side coyly.

"Uh… both?" He scratched the fur at his neck absently, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't know, I think I'd still like you even if you were a three eyed frog."

She gave him a look, amused. "You would make for an odd three eyed frog since we gotta match and all, so good thing you and me are Lombaxes."

"Yeah, yeah," he scoffed, large ears flat as he suppressed a snort. "Either way… it's nice not being, yanno, alone."

"Alone is something I know all too well," she told him with empathy highlighting her face and words. Of course, her loneliness had been different from what she imagined his to be like. He gave her a sympathetic look, the starlight reflecting in his gaze. "I never thought I'd actually meet someone like me… uh you?" She made something of a comical face. "It's a bit over–"

"It's a bit overwhelming, huh?" Ratchet grinned at her when he realized they'd jinxed each other yet again. He suppressed a chuckle best he could but it was all for naught. "I think I owe you a lot of sodas at this point, sorry."

"I could use the sugar so I'll take you up on that offer, it's fine," she joked, rolling her eyes with a huff. "Anyway, It's been an adjustment period, yeah," she replied with a sheepish look, grasping her palms together to distract herself. "My first impression wasn't the most brilliant."

"At least you knew how to say hi at all," he teased her. "I didn't peg you as the shy type."

"Hey, neither did you!" She started in a firmer tone before it broke off into a more trickling voice. "I don't think I would have been able to break the ice if I didn't have Clank," she admitted, lifting her palm to scrub it down the back of her neck, embarrassed.

Ratchet still looked at her with a mixture of amusement and fondness. "Am I really that scary?"

"Depends how you define scary," Rivet replied, giving him something of a knowing look that suddenly made him uncomfortable. She decided now was as good a moment as any, curious of just why he was out here. "So… uh, I'm not the best at this but…"

He sighed, already knowing what was coming when his smile came back in a more somber fashion. "My head won't shut up," Ratchet told her, not bothering to deny anything.

"Well, there is a really smart mouth attached to it."

"Har, har, har, you're funny," he quipped, nudging her with a childish huff and pout. "I know I promised our pit stop but–"

"Is this about the other Lombaxes?" She was never one to beat around the bush, always direct, somethings ruthlessly so. Her words weren't spoken harshly though, a gentle inflection to the question.

"Ah, sorta?" Rivet arched a brow at him in a telltale manner that made him doubletake his answer, backpedaling. "Okay, maybe a lot sorta."

"You wanna elaborate?" She encouraged him, cocking her head with a curious blink of her intelligent eyes.

There was a pause, Ratchet taking the moment to figure out what he wanted to say. Rivet was patient, shifting between focusing on the intense frown of his brows to the matching frown on his lips. He eventually took in a breath and faced her.

"What if they're not what I expected?" He asked her, propping his fist on his chin, contemplating the question once again. His eyes looked at the starry expanse of sky, endlessly stretching farther than the mind could imagine.

She leaned back on the back of her palms before casting him a little look. "Well, was I what you expected?" The words were laced in good humor and she grinned once she saw his startled face.

He wasn't expecting that, big eyes round as an owl before he gave a grin of his own. Rivet was relieved to see it there, melancholy didn't do justice to his face. "No, actually, you weren't." The words were honest but hardly negative, some warmth tingling them.

"I'll assume that's a compliment," she teased him, her robotic hand making contact with his arm in a playful punch of camaraderie. She was sitting up again, elbows on her knees as she continued to speak. "And before you ask…"

"Ask what?" He rubbed at the spot where she'd socked him, wondering if she had any idea how much strength she really had in that cyborg hand and arm of hers. She must be a champion arm wrestler.

"I think you're pretty solid too. Those other Lombax would be dumb to not see it," Rivet assured him and this time it was him who bumped shoulders with her.

It was only the pressure against her shoulder she felt from the nerve endings pressed into the machine, she'd lost the ability to feel much else since losing that arm despite his warm arm brushing against her. It was strange but she was used to strange. She almost had a phantom sensation of his touch.

"Thanks," he chuckled before arching a brow playfully. "Are you reading minds now too?"

"If I'm you and you're me, it's a pretty obvious conclusion, right?" She challenged him, ears pricked forward.

"Man, that still makes my head hurt," he exclaimed, pushing a palm against his forehead with a chuckle.

He wondered if there was more to that besides being shadows of one another, recalling Mags' diary entries of how other Lombaxes had been cast out into different pockets of time and space. To say the least, his mind wasn't ready in the slightest to start going down that rabbit hole just yet. There would be plenty of down time now to do so later, the excitement of peril was done.

They filled the silence that followed with what felt like calm and peace a good friend brought, content in the lull of the conversation; it didn't feel suffocating or awkward.

Ratchet broke the quiet moment, his voice musing. "Yanno… for someone who's been a real lone wolf, you sure know how to talk to people."

"Hey, lone wolf doesn't equal socially degenerate," she quipped, shaking her head with a smile at him lifting a hand in mock defense. "Besides, I honestly get how you feel about… the whole scared of the Lombax thing." She let her face become serious, brows furrowed as she rubbed her hands together. Ratchet could hear the purr in the motors of her robotic arm as it moved. "It wasn't fair I threw that in your face back at Zurkie's–"

Automatically he interrupted her, shaking his head and catching her gaze. "No, it's alright. It wasn't right of me to call you a coward either when you had your own fears."

"Yeah but fear does nobody any good when it hurts people," she told him, lifting her eyes to glance at her arm, seeing her reflection on the golden sleek metal. She turned back to him not long after, somehow feeling a sense of peace wash over her despite some of the jitters. "Guess fear just doesn't make no sense sometimes, huh?" They shared a look, a somber smile on each other's faces.

"Yeah," he agreed, sighing with something that almost sounded like a chuckle.

She took a moment to find what she should say next, knowing the conversation wasn't going to end right there. A good friend did what she could to support each other, not snuff out their insecurities and ignore their needs. Her thoughts absently flew to Kit and Rivet didn't want to make that mistake again. "Meeting you was honestly one of the most intimidating things I ever did, I can't imagine adding to it an entire race of who knows how many more of us out there," she confessed at last. "Fighting Emperor Nefarious was a cakewalk compared to that."

He studied her curiously, a bit surprised. Considering their argument prior to the conclusion of this whole mess, he hadn't really expected her to have her own qualms about finding their kin. "You worry about what they might think of you too?"

"I mean, maybe a little," Rivet started, trying to sound casual, being vulnerable wasn't her strong suit but she was going to try her hardest. Breathing a sigh, she found her words again that were heavy on her tongue, relaxing the tension that had suddenly found itself coiled down her spine. "Well, I don't anymore, least not like I did before we met," she replied, meeting his eyes, mischief twinkling like a star. "You like me well enough, right?"

"You seriously need to ask me that?" He rested his elbow on his knee that was curled up close to his chest, the other leg comfortably laying under his relaxed slouch.

"That answers that," Rivet said, sighing extravagantly in good humor before taking on a more serious tone. "Anyway, if one Lombax thinks I'm good enough, then that must mean others will think of me that way too. If not, well, then I got just the one and your approval is plenty for me."

He smiled at her. "You think that highly of me? I'm touched."

"Yeah, I do, and I'm not saying that because you're the only other Lombax I know," she told him, returning his smile with one of her own.

Ratchet seemed to consider his words, quiet for only a moment before he said anything. "Hey, Rivet?"

"Yeah, Ratchet?"

"Thanks, for tonight, I mean. It helps," he told her, appreciative as he met her eyes. "Kit and me dished some talk but guess I hadn't gotten it all out, too much mayhem at the time."

"It's what friends are for, right?"

"Right," Ratchet said, nodding his head.

They fell into a short silence, just looking at each other before Rivet decided to speak. "So… think you're finally ready for that little pit stop soon you promised me?" She arched a brow at him, a challenge he met with a toothy smirk teetering on a grin.

"I've been ready." He reached a hand out to her, bicep raised as Rivet met him halfway, robotic palm pressed into the glove of his as they met in a firm clap.

She squeezed his hand, mindful to not crush it with their arms pressed together from the grip. "That's what I like to hear."

"Good, because you'll be hearing a lot more from where that's coming, Rivet."