Hello! I'm back!

WALL-E, EVE, and Kitty were inside their trailer home. The garbage-bot was brooding silently to himself.

His best friend was sick. He wasn't going to get better. After only knowing him for twenty-five years...it just wasn't fair. If anything, WALL-E should've been the one to go first, being way older than anybody else.

D-FIB and Benny were going to be left behind. WALL-E couldn't imagine doing that to EVE and Kitty. He loved them too much.

M-O was a good friend. He didn't deserve this. Why did it have to be this way?

WALL-E had gone through loss before, with his pet cockroach Hal. The bug couldn't go on forever, and finally kicked the bucket a few years after Earth's recolonization. It had taken forever for WALL-E to accept it. The Captain's death was also a shocking blow. The robot still hadn't gotten over that. What would he do when M-O finally passed on?

"WALL-E?" A robotic feminine voice asked. He looked up to see blue LED eyes staring at him worryingly.

"Ee-vah," he responded sadly.

Even though WALL-E had learned some binary code, he found that he wasn't capable of speaking it. He had to stick with his limited English vocabulary.

EVE wrapped her arms around her husband. "Sad?"

WALL-E nodded. "M-O."

EVE's eyes shaped into crescents. While she wasn't as close to him, she still considered the cleaner-bot a friend. To hear of his impending doom was crushing. She didn't know what she would do if she were widowed. D-FIB was going to need all the help she could get.

The probe cast a glance at her sleeping daughter, thinking of how lucky she was. Benny was going to be deprived of a parent. He too would need support.

The extraterrestrial vegetation evaluator rubbed a hand over WALL-E's back. She feared for his mental health as well. Hal and the Captain's passings had been devastating to him. Could he take another death?

She looked down at WALL-E's recorder, an idea coming. She pressed a button, and It Only Takes a Moment started playing.

She hummed the first few measures before the trash-bot's voice joined hers.

Once they were done, EVE gave him a spark-kiss, then pulled away. "Sleep?"

WALL-E nodded.

()

Kitty's bicolor eyes blinked into view on her screen. It was still dark outside. She looked over at her sleeping parents, then activated her thrusters, opened a window that had been installed where the hole used to be, then headed out, leaving trails in her wake.

She soared through the skies until she reached her friend's house. She landed on the ground near the old, crumbling, faded sunset mural. She searched for the right window, then lightly tapped on it.

Benny was jolted out of his sleep by the sound. He turned to find Kitty waving at him. He went over and opened the window, gesturing at her to come in.

"What are you doing here? If you wake up my parents…"

"I...I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Benny sighed. "In the middle of the night?"

Kitty realized the implications, which were definitely not true. "Sorry. Guess I wasn't thinking. I'll go right now."

Benny held up his hand, halting her. "Wait. Don't go just yet. We're both awake, so you might as well hear how I'm doing. Well, I'm okay at the moment. I'm sad, but the talk with Father made me feel a little better."

Kitty smiled a little. "M-O's like an uncle to me. I'm sad, too, but I know it must be nothing compared to how you feel."

Benny's green orbs slid down his screen. "You have no idea."

Pink fingers slipped into white ones. They squeezed tenderly.

"I'll be here for you Benny. No matter what."

In a quiet whisper, he replied, "Thanks."

Kitty looked to the window. "I should go now. Don't want my parents to wake up to find me gone." She turned, then stopped. "Oh, one more thing to make you feel better."

She leaned in, then pecked him on the cheek, a spark briefly passing. Before he could react, she was gone in a flash.

Benny watched her go, slowly bringing a hand to the area he had been kissed. A smiling expression unfolded.

"Goodnight, Kitty."

He closed the window, then went back to sleep.

I know that cockroaches can't come close to the amount of time Hal lived. But this is the future; maybe cockroaches had evolved so they could live longer. Also explains how he was able to thrive on a polluted planet.

Note: Kitty and Benny will not get together in this story. You can ship them if you want, and I may include more moments, but for now, they are close friends. In this story, a romantic subplot is not needed.

CocoDisney out!