Church stares at Rho for a moment, the only sound the whirring of computers and fans in the air vents. If he had eyes, he's sure they'd be as big as his hands. He's just so surprised.
"It's you," he says after a long while, finally breaking the near silence.
"What?" Rho asks, sounding concerned. The other AI had finished whatever he was doing to try to fix her minutes ago, and hadn't spoken since. "Did it work? Is something wrong?"
"Oh, yeah, you're fine," Church says dismissively. "Some stuff wasn't lining up right in your programming, but I fixed it. You shouldn't have any more problems. But don't you get it? You're it. You're the key."
"Key?" she repeats in confusion.
"The key to fining Dr. Han," Church explains as he begins to pace on top of the table. "This whole time I've been trying to remember stuff about her, when I should have been trying to remember you."
"I still don't get it," Rho says, tilting her head to the side. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that I know where to find her. I know where Dr. Han is hiding."
Simmons walks into the infirmary and is greeted by a boy who looks far too serious for his age.
"What do you need?" Rhodi asks, looking Simmons up and down and seeing no injuries on him.
"I came to see Nick," Simmons explains, holding up the scanning device. "Yttri asked me to get some measurements for his arm."
Rhodi's eyes widen when he sees the device. "She let you take that with you?" he asks disbelievingly.
"Uh, yeah," Simmons answers uncertainly. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"No," Rhodi shrugs, "just unusual." He points to the only occupied cot in the room. "He's doing better now that Carolina has started visiting him. Go do whatever Yttri needs."
Simmons nods and walks toward the injured man. He freezes for a second when he sees the many layers of bandages still wrapped around his shoulder. He remembers when Grif looked like that, before Sarge gave the Hawaiian his own arm. Simmons shudders. That whole experience was something he could do without remembering.
"Hey, it's the shirtless cyborge," Nick says happily as a form of greeting.
Simmons blushes instantly, remembering the first and last time he'd seen Nick. "That- that wasn't-" he stammers.
"I'm just messing with you," Nick says, laughing as he struggles to sit up. Simmons reaches out to help, but gets waved off. Nick wants to do it for himself; he wants to start learning how to deal with this. "You get embarrassed so easily, though. It's a lot of fun," he continues once he's changed position. "And I bet Yttri loves to see you blush like that." He wiggles his eyebrows during the last statement, causing the sim-trooper to blush even darker.
"I-um- she asked me to-" Simmons says helplessly, holding up the scanner.
"Time to assess the damage?" Nick guesses, gesturing to his injured shoulder.
Simmons nods. "I also need to scan your remaining arm," he explains. "So Yttri can know the right weight and dimensions for your new one."
Nick nods and holds out his arm expectantly. "Let's get started then."
Simmons scans the arm over and over again, trying to get it from every possible angle. He knows the machine will create a full image based on all the scans combined, so he doesn't want to miss a single part. He doesn't want to let Yttri down again. He refuses to.
"So," Nick says after a few minutes of letting his arm be lifted and turned and rescanned in silence. "How are things going with you and Yttrium?"
"Um, we've been working together," Simmons answers, trying to figure out some of the settings on the scanner.
"No, I mean you and Yttri," he repeats. "How is that going?"
Simmons doesn't answer for a moment, instead moving to the other side of Nick's bed and unwrapping his shoulder. He tries his best not to look at the injury as he begins scanning. It's mostly healed over, testament to Carolina and her healing unit's presence, but it's still gross. For Simmons, the injury is hitting a little too close to home. Eventually he decides to answer Nick, hoping to distract himself.
"I- we're not-" Simmons stammers, not sure of how to describe what's going on between himself and the mechanic.
"Come on, this is the first time anyone in this family has shown any interest in anyone," Nick pleads. "I've been locked in this room for days, so I can't ask her myself. I want to know what's going on."
"Yttri isn't interested in me," Simmons says, sounding depressed. He stops scanning the injury and stares at his hands instead. "She- she thinks I'm competent and good to work with, but that's it."
Nick stares at him blankly for a few seconds before laughing. The sound causes Simmons head to whip up, a confused look on his face.
"Man, you must be really dumb," Nick comments, wiping a laughter induced tear away from his eye. When Simmons gives him a confused stare, he sighs. "You really don't understand how Yttri thinks, do you?"
"What?" Simmons asks.
"This thing," Nick says, snatching the scanner from Simmons' hands. "If Yttri knew I was even touching this, she would beat my head in," he explains, only partially joking. "But she's letting you use it. Not only that, but she's letting you take it out of the lab and out of her sight. That's a big deal."
"She trusts me to use her stuff," Simmons says. "That doesn't mean she likes me."
"Yttri loves her tools," Nick explains. "And she loves her inventions. She doesn't let anyone use them unless she absolutely trusts them. Hell, it took me a week to convince her to let me fly the pelican after she put the new engines in it!" He pointed at Simmons as he added, "If she trusts you with them, it means something."
"No, it doesn't," Simmons insists, though he doesn't sound too certain. "Maybe it does. I don't know," he finishes miserably. "If she really does like me, why hasn't she said anything?"
"Chances are it hasn't even occurred to her," Nick answers thoughtfully. "Yttri sometimes has trouble understanding how people think. She can't take them apart and see how everything fits together like she can with machines, so she usually decides it's too much effort. The most likely scenarios are that she either doesn't realize how she feels about you, or she hasn't realized that it's the type of thing she should tell you."
"Then how do you know she likes me?" Simmons demands.
"'Cause she's my sister," Nick says with full confidence. "I've known Yttrium my whole life, and I've never seen her seek out company like she does with you before. She actually wants to spend time with you. She asks you to go help her every day!"
"Maybe she just needs help," Simmons proposes uncertainly.
Nick shakes his head, laughing again. "She doesn't need help fixing or building things," Nick says. "She might need an extra set of hands to hold stuff from time to time, but she's never once in her life asked for help. Not until you came along.
"Look, Yttri might not be great at showing it, but she does like you. Just, keep doing what you're doing. Eventually she'll figure it out."
Simmons nods. "I wasn't going to give up," he says embarrassedly.
"Good," Nick says as he lays back down, smiling. "I think she deserves a guy like you."
"Where?" Rho asks impatiently, deciding she's had enough of her brother's riddles. "Where is she?"
"The same place she made you," Church answers, unable to contain his excitement. "The place where you were first given to her, where she put you together."
Rho cocks her head to the side in confusion. "Our old base?"
"No, not there," Church says quickly. "There's another base, an abandoned Covenant base that she and the Director found when they were younger. They used to go there to work together before they were recruited by the UNSC. After they both started their projects, it's where they would meet up to trade supplies and share information."
"What makes you think she'd hide there?" Rho asked skeptically.
"Well, it's one of a lot of places she could hide," Church admits. "But it's the only other facility where she could have made those copies Silver told me about. It's the only place where she could have staged an attack like that."
"Are you sure she'll be there?" Rho asks. She doesn't want to get Silver's hopes up for nothing, especially not now.
"It's what I'd bet on," Church answers after some thought. "She has to have at least been there at some point in order to make the copies. If she doesn't think we know about the base, I don't see a reason for her to leave."
Rho falls silent for a while, thinking. She's not sure if they're up for another mission right now. Nick is still recovering, Silver's started to come back out of her shell but is clearly still dealing with Lico's death, and everyone else is just plain scared. Still, they have Carolina with them now, which means they're much stronger than they were before. And Rho knows that after the last attack, they're all eager for a victory, as well as some sort of revenge. She herself can't wait to finally get her metaphorical hands on Dr. Han.
In the end, it's time that makes the decision for her. She knows the longer they wait, the less likely it is they'll find Dr. Han there, if she was ever at that base in the first place. Rho decides it's worth the risk.
"We should tell Silver," she finally says, looking at Church again. "If there's a chance Dr. Han is hiding there, we can't pass it up. We need to catch her."
It's been a while since we've had a chapter like this without Silver in it. That was kind of weird to write.