I'm so so sorry I didn't post earlier! I've been studying exams, and Edie hasn't let me write anything in a while (he's pretty stubborn), but I finally made it. Hope you like it :)

Chapter 14

Three makes family

Edie had lived through enough battles to know that silence at the end wasn't always a good thing. It could mean everyone was dead. And now Base 19AX was as quiet as Gallifrey, and he was more scared than when the dragons had attacked.

Professor Haile sat down, panting, but Edain sprang to his feet. His androids were missing.

"Mik!" he called, and saw a few people staring at him. "Yan! Where are you?"

He heard a chirping noise behind him, and he turned around to see Yan running toward him across the room.

"Yan!" He took the tiny dragon in his arms and fell to the floor in relief. Yan kept chirping and squeaking and tugging at his shirt, poking holes in it with his nails. Edain hugged him tight. "You okay, buddy?"

Yan seemed alright. He was a bit dirty, and really scared, but he'd managed to stay safe even with his wings disabled. Edie turned them on again, and the android finally relaxed on his lap.

Okay. Now he needed to find Mik.

There was a light tap on his shoulder. Edie looked up.

"Jack." It was Ellen, one of the time agents. Mik lay motionless in her arms, and she placed him carefully on Edain's lap, next to Yan.

Edie couldn't speak. Mik wasn't dead, was he?

"I found him beside the front door", said Ellen, her voice soft. "It looks like he followed you there and got hit."

Edain nodded, a knot in his throat. He lifted Mik slowly. His body was cold, and felt strangely delicate on Ed's hands. Edain gasped for air and clutched Mik against his chest, eyes closed. He could feel the tears pressing at the back of his eyes. Mik couldn't be dead, he just couldn't, they'd been together for so long he'd memorised the ticking of his engines…

Ticking.

Edain froze. There was still a ticking noise inside Mik. It was faint, almost inaudible (Edie guessed humans wouldn't be able to hear it), but it was there.

He felt a new rush of adrenaline, and quickly turned Mik over. He drew a small screwdriver from his jacket pocket and opened the lid on Mik's stomach. His fingers were trembling. The mechanism was almost dead, but there was still a light, indicating that the reactor could still work. He'd have to recalibrate it, and probably change the internal systems, but the memory disc was intact. Edie thanked his lucky stars (and his dad) that he'd taken special precautions with that part of the system. He jumped up.

"Is there anywhere I can work?2, he asked Ellen. "I need to fix my android, but I can't do it on the floor. A table will do."

Ellen looked surprised.

"I thought it was dead! Are you sure you can fix him?"

"Yes, I just need a little bit of time", smiled Edie. "Do you have a workshop? I'd need some precision tools as well, and… I don't suppose you have sandor sheets on this base, do you?"

"Sandor sheets? What's that?"

"Oh, never mind. I'll get some of mine". He ran to the door.

"Wait!" Ellen grabbed him by the shoulders. "Don't open it!"

Right, Edie remembered in dismay. The smoke.

"You think it hasn't cleared yet?"

"It's been about five minutes, kiddo, and it's not even windy. You'll have to wait a while. Is it really urgent?"

Edie thought of the light on the PS reactor and the ruined circuits. He ached to fix them right away, but it was true that the PS could keep running for a long time. He sighed.

"No. I can wait."

He leaned on the wall, suddenly very tired, and slid to the floor. He put his face in his hands and noticed he was crying. No, no, he didn't want to cry.

"Jack". It was Ellen again. She'd knelt beside him, and had a hand on his shoulder. "It's alright. You did amazing. You've saved us all, Jack".

Edie tried answering, but couldn't. he wanted to say he was fine, that it' had been nothing, and that he wasn't sad, but the words wouldn't come out. He leaned onto Ellen, and she held him tight.

"We'll fix your android, okay?", she murmured against his hair. "As soon as the air is clear, I'll go with you to get what you need."

Edie didn't want to cry, but he was so tired, and he felt so small, and he couldn't fix Mik, and it had been a long time since someone had hugged him like that. He closed his eyes and, just for once, he let himself rest.

As it turned out, everyone wanted to ask him questions. It had only been ten minutes since he'd woken up (that was embarrassing, he was five hundred years old, he couldn't go falling asleep on people) and he already wanted to go to sleep again, just to get away from the swarm of people peppering him with requests.

Besides, he still had to fix Mik.

He made his escape through the back door thanks to Ellen. She'd clearly decided that she was her friend now (not that Edie was complaining), and had no problem in distracting commander Usman so that he would let Edie go. Edain seized his opportunity and got out.

He barely saw anything on the way back to Ona. Yan flew next to him, his metallic wings on Edain's ear, and Mik lay motionless in his arms. Please don't let me be late, he pleaded. His feet hit the ground so quickly he couldn't identify individual steps. Please, please don't let Mik die. Oh, if only he had longer legs.

He didn't even know who he was praying to.

His family, maybe. His father would have never let Mik die. Never.

He climbed inside Ona, panting, and left Mik on his workspace. Yan settled himself next to Mik immediately, chirping sadly.

"I know, bud", Edie said to him while he checked on the systems. "I'm afraid too."

Oh, thank God. The reactor was working.

He still stood a chance.

Back in Gallifrey, Lune used to say that whenever Edain was involved in a project, he was blind, deaf and senseless to anything else. The world could be burning, and he would have never noticed.

For all that Edie cared now, the world could burn again. As long as Mik survived today, he was fine with it.

He guessed that was probably why he didn't notice the expedition approaching his spaceship until it was too late.

He'd been connecting the last cables. Mik was one complicated little android. Edain made a mental note to secure his vital parts better, just in case. He'd had too many accidents with androids lately. The light inside the reactor had flickered (Edie had caught his breath), and then the ticking had become faster, and the light stronger.

Then Mik had opened his eyes, and Edie and Yan had tackle-hugged him until he protested. Edain had wanted to cry in relief. They were okay, all three of them. Mik and Yan were all he had now, and they were alright.

He held them close, and Mik climbed inside his shirt as usual, and Yan curled up against his neck.

They were okay, and they were together.

Right that moment, somebody screamed outside.

Edain jumped up and hit his head against the lamp. Great. An interruption was exactly what he needed right now. Rubbing his hair, he opened outside view, the scream still ringing in his ears.

It was captain Harkness.

"Dammit", Edie murmured. "The shields are up".

Ona had a really good defence system, idea courtesy of Runa. If an unwanted creature touched its surface while the third shield was up, they received an electric shock that killed small ones and threw others down screaming. It had come in handy a couple of times during the Time War.

And, of course, the first thing captain Harkness had done was to put his hand on the rail to climb inside. Edie sighed. Humans could be huge idiots sometimes.

He climbed up the stairs and snuck his head out the spaceship.

Captain Jack was sitting on the floor, holding his arm to his chest. He was clearly still in pain, but now no one was touching Ona. Hey, at least they learned quickly. Ellen and other two soldiers stood behind Jack, and they were all looking at Edain.

"What are you doing here?" Hey, he could be rude. These people were trespassing on his spaceship.

"What was that thing?", the captain demanded. Edie had a sudden urge to pull out a cane and scream at them to get off his lawn like a proper centenarian would do.

"It's called a security protocol, captain", he explained. "What do you want? I'm fixing my androids."

Mik and Yan climbed up Edie's shirt, just to prove a point.

"Commander Usman wants to talk to you, Jack", said Ellen. "We came to bring you back to the base."

"About the shields? I told him already, I just reversed the polarity. It's a really handy trick, I'll teach professor Haile whenever…"

"No, not about the shields."

Edain furrowed his brow. "What is it, then?"

The humans looked uncomfortable.

"The Base council has decided to make an expedition to the forest. Commander Usman wants to officially ask for your help in fighting the dragons."