Sometimes, a story doesn't proceed the way you initially planned. Sometimes, you realize you skipped a few plot points that needed addressing and sometimes, the plot turns a way you weren't anticipating. Sometimes, you just have trouble hitting the right tone.

Mids wanted to explore a specific plot point, intended for chapter 3. That tilted too playful for what she'd wanted to bring up. So we tried again in chapter 4. Again, the tone wasn't quite right. It's something Xander knows he needs to talk about with Leto, but it's also something he's been avoiding bringing up. So for chapter 5, I opened, and while I did hit a more serious tone than the other two, I overshot and this one ended up a little too somber. So we'll finally hit this plot point in the next chapter.

We decided to share this little story to underscore the idea that it's okay not to get something right on the first, second, or even the third try. It's important to keep at it, and I'll also say it's important to learn to cook with a few too many cracked eggs.

Character Notes: X goes by Xander Light, Zero is Zachary (or Zach) Weidlich

Leto hadn't been able to sleep. She'd laid in bed, silent, for several hours (it felt much longer) before relenting and getting up. Part of her knew this was something that'd pass, if only she'd be able to sleep. Part of her knew that even leaving the room risked waking Xander, even though his room was more or less on the opposite side of the apartment. Did she want the attention? Not really. Did she need it, though?

Most probably.

One thing she'd learned about living with war vets was that even the tiniest environmental changes triggered their scanning and tracking programs, and for a unit that was asleep, that often meant that their full boot was initiated over the smallest disturbances. It was honestly easier to keep Xander asleep than Zach, but that might be more due to her sleeping in a different room. He wouldn't feel her mattress shift when she got up, and he wouldn't hear the floors in the room as she moved.

She pulled on her robe and, treading lightly, she stepped out of her room. She glanced toward the other end of the apartment for a moment, then turned to consider the living area. Short of her knocking out on one of the couches within minutes of sitting down, he'd hear her within ten minutes.

The balcony, if he didn't hear the door, would mask her presence. It was a frigid February night. Morning. It wouldn't do, either.

The kitchen would be noisier than the living room unless she wanted to sit silently at the breakfast bar with nothing but her thoughts for the next five hours. No.

There was, of course, one other unit sleeping here tonight, and he wouldn't hear her no matter what she did, short of physically disconnecting him from the stasis system. She took a breath and held it, listening.

Silence.

This was the opposite of what she needed in her current mental state, but she still turned and, silently as a cat, headed to the lab. Past the main maintenance area Xander kept, and into one of the side rooms. It wasn't much larger than the standard examination room in a doctor's office, and it looked a lot like one. In place of the cot, however, there was a single, sealed pod. The console hummed, constantly monitoring, and the data on display, while changing from minute-to-minute, was consistent enough that she knew at a glance that all was well.

She placed a hand over the sealed door of the pod, and she realized it was shaking. She was trembling.

She knew it wasn't from the cold.

It was less than ten seconds after she'd entered the medical 'wing' of Xander's apartment that his security scans registered a presence in the rooms, and it was about thirty seconds later that his eyes fluttered open. A frown formed at the darkness, a mental command dropping the far wall's opacity to allow at least some moonlight into the bedroom at the same time that he was checking his chronometer.

0012, on the…

Oh.

Once he'd seen the date, Xander had pushed himself out of bed, needing barely a thought to grab his saber and the belt it hung from, and his motions were almost robotic as he set the weapon at his hip, not bothering to grab a shirt for the time being.

He hadn't even realized he'd armed himself until he was halfway to the room the pod (and Leto) were in.

Making a point of knocking on the wall as he passed the maintenance bay, just so that she knew he was there before he actually reached the room, he linked into the controls for the room's lights and brought them up to just above ten percent. It was only just before he cleared the doorway that he finally registered the way her breath was hitching, the unit trying desperately from breaking down into a full cry.

At least she could spend the day in the room with Zach when his birthday rolled around. He wondered if she'd even realized what day it was when she headed for the lab.

Today would have been Cora Weidlich's—more publicly known as Mother Elf— 45th birthday. It should have been a day of celebration, except the Vaccine Elf was still lost to them even all these years after the Wars concluded.

He knew that she needed comfort, that she needed someone there to help keep her stable, but he also knew it had been so long since she'd had a day to herself, time to let all of it just catch up with her. It was cathartic to cry, even if it didn't really fix anything in the moment. So, "Coffee or tea?"

She'd been hoping she'd have a little more time before Xander came calling. They hadn't been roommates for all that long, and she knew she'd miscalculated when he rapped on the wall.

She was always a little uncomfortable with sharing her emotional turmoil. It felt like placing an extra burden on the people around her, even if logically, she knew they wanted to help because they cared.

Nothing in the immediate sense had upset her. There was no one for Xander to send from the room, no foe to vanquish other than the darkness in her own mind. He couldn't fight that. In a lot of ways, she couldn't fight it.

So when he asked her about coffee or tea, she finally broke down sobbing over the pod, her exhaustion and her grief finally overloading her ability to keep control of herself.

Tea, Xander noted to himself, pulling a second chair over to the pod as he settled next to Leto, soft tugs against her beckoning her away from the pod and toward him. As much as she needed to get this out, as much as she needed to vent like this, he figured crying onto him would provide more comfort in the long run.

Once she calmed a bit, he'd go make tea.

The stubbornness drained out of her whenever she became this upset, so it wasn't difficult for Xander to shift her into his arms, still openly sobbing. The past few months had been especially hectic, projects beginning and ending at a breakneck pace, and it'd been a useful distraction from her own emotional turmoil. It was easier to pretend everything was normal when there was something to do to fill every idle second, if you wanted to.

Reploids weren't built to maintain that, however, and as the years wore on, her half of the link empty and echoing with unanswered calls, she'd begun to feel more and more hollowed out, more and more detached from reality, even if she did try to be mentally present for the people around her.