Hey good lookin'. You needed another chapter.

Also, I just want to say a big thanks! to everyone who reviewed. You're awesome, and I welcome the feedback! I have a full outline for the entire plot of the story, but I may want to sneak in a few scenes of Ratchet and Clank being acclimated to each other. Any scenarios you'd like to see me add in? Post in the comments!

"Well."

"Well?" Talwyn asked sweetly as the waiter disappeared, doing her best not to corpse, before loosing it with laughter.

Clank had picked up the fork, stabbing the piece of meat, followed by a second stab with the knife, rubbing it back and forth in a pretty hilarious display to try and cut a chunk off the still-simmering hunk of broiled squid. It looked less like eating and more like a bad attempt at playing the world's smallest holoviolin.

"What are you, five?" Ratchet asked, jovially, watching Clank make an utter fool of himself with the silverware, before attempting to snatch it away himself, dropping it clumisily as well.

"Actually, I am thirteen," Clank retorted. "And what was this about dexterity?"

"Your fingers are too fat for the cutlery," Ratchet muttered in response.

"Mind if I step in?" Tal said, after a moment of watching the two fight over the knife.

Clank lowered his head, ears drooping. "Save me," he finally breathed out, as Talwyn reached over, pushing a cloth napkin into his collar, before taking the tableware and slicing his food into neat pieces. "Just go ahead and stab," she replied, handing him back the fork when done. "Thank the supernovas we didn't get sushi."

Clank, now full, and oddly happy at being so (with only a small amount of sauce on his fur, easily wiped away, and nothing staining the suit!), grumbled at his late afternoon predicament. "This is a terrible idea."

Ratchet tried to laugh, before realizing he actually had to vocalize the words "Ha ha ha," shaking his head in frustration in the harness and rubbing it against his own body's scruff through the purple bodysuit Clank now wore. "We both need to be able to do this, you know."

"You can attempt to glide us down over water; when you fail, and I mean this as no offense to you, but I would be impressed and surprised if you did not- we will both simply fall in. I would be concerned about drowning, but I have your rebreather; you can take all the time you need getting acquainted with my hydro-pack. It is me leaning to hoverboot that is making me uncomfortably nervous. I can guarantee that even with my reaction time, I will not be flying high enough off the ground for you to assist when I inevitably fall, and…"

"Clank?"

"Yes, Ratchet?"

"Shut up and hit the thrusters. You're in armor. We have nanotech. Relax and, I dunno, enjoy the ride. Oh, and put in that mouth guard. I don't want you biting off my tongue, thanks."

"Your lack of concern…" Clank started, before sighing, adjusting the Nether helmet and popping open the visor to wear the mouthpiece before snapping it shut.

"You ready tin can?" Ratchet asked. Clank perked an ear, hitting it on the inside padded wall of the full helm, muttered out an "Mmmm-mmmh!" through the guard and kicked on the thrusters.

Now he understood why Ratchet tended to scream when using the blasted things.

Ratchet unhooked himself from the harness, patting Clank on the shin as the poor temporarily ex-robot slumped into a bench on the outer perimeter of Meridian City's best skate park. If the constant sidelong glances were any indicator, the smattering of locals had a pretty good grasp that Ratchet was inside the infernally hot armor. Native of desert-hot Fastoon or otherwise, the lack of ventilation made even Ratchet's body overheat from too much exercise (especially in a suit like that), and Clank could feel himself sweating profusely from his hands and feet, pulling off the gauntlets and the offending hoverboots.

Ratchet returned quickly with a glowing blue bottle from the vending machine near the gate, passing it to Clank. "Nanotech, salt, and water. Considering you're leaking all over the freaking place, you could use all three," he replied as jokingly as he could. He was beginning to get a grasp on Clank's vocal modulators. Clank fumbled with the helmet before Ratchet stepped in to assist, and the two of them yanked it off together. Clank spat the mouth guard back into its case, wiped the spit off on a forearm, and attempted to twist off the cap. Ratchet snatched it back, opening it smoothly.

"I really ought to attempt fine motor skills myself."

"You're sweating straight through. I would never have been able to open it," he said, holding out the bottle before reconsidering. "Drink slowly. I'm sure the EMT's would have a field day trying to revive someone who choked on Nanotech. Oh, and it's going to burn a little. Breathe through your nose while you do."

Ratchet held the plastic bottle back out, which Clank carefully took. "First time for everything, I suppose," Clank said before taking a sip. It tasted… odd. Sharp, sweet as the bread from the morning… and dry. Salty, probably, if he remembered what the effect of various flavors was for organics. Not unpleasant, just odd. He could feel a slight burn as the nanites washed down Ratchet's throat and dispersed themselves to the bruising he'd acquired in the last few hours. The kink in his tail, the twist in his shoulder, the pain from a scraped knee- all seemed to melt away as he slowly sipped down the contents of the bottle.

"Pass it back, close your eyes, and just breathe," Ratchet said, as Clank took in the last few sips. Clank did as instructed. "Well?"

"I… am not in any pain, but… I feel as though I need rest."

"Physical exhaustion," Ratchet replied, nodding. "Let's call it a day. I'll hail a cab and-"

"Hey whoah…" a very brave looking Markazian cried out, dragging two friends over to size up the lombax. "I've seen you on HV. You're Ratchet, right?"

Clank pinched the bridge of his nose, attempting to pull himself into character. "Yeah?"

"You wanna do a few tricks for us? Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase?"

Clank accidentally sunk a fang into his tongue, tasting blood. "Sorry, I'm a bit burned out, and I didn't bring my board."

"Yeah, we saw you eating dirt with those hoverboots. Man, that stuff's oldschool."

"Ratchet was attempting to learn how to use them," Ratchet said, flatly, trying to help retain his image and help Clank out. "His father left them behind and we were both curious as to their efficacy." Efficacy, Ratchet thought to himself. Twenty-four hours ago it was a word he would have just ignored if Clank said it, let alone know the meaning. Now, synonyms just sort of… appeared to him.

Clank picked up on the train of thought and finished. "Yeah. They need some work, and heck, I need some work usin' 'em, but they're pretty sweet, as far as gifts go. But, yeah, sorry. You saw me wipe the floor while trying them out. I'm not really in a position to hoverboard right now."

"Aw man."

"We could always return next week," Ratchet intervened.

"Coooooool. Promise?"

"No guarantees, kid, but I'll try," Clank replied, as he put the shoes back on and wobbly rose to his feet.

"Man," one of the trio said as Clank walked off with Ratchet astride instead of on his back. "My uncle still has a pair. Maybe I should see if they fit?"

"I am so glad I can't smell right now," Ratchet groaned, looking at the gloves and boots Clank discarded at the entryway. "This stuff's going to need to be cleaned properly. Thank the supernovas I only sweat from my pads and don't sweat all over like Markazians, but you still could use a bath, and- ew. Gross." Ratchet put a blocky metal hand to his forehead, as Clank pulled the jumpsuit off and down to the waist. "You still have some toad ooze sticking to my fur. From yesterday." Ratchet huffed indignantly as Clank stripped completely, fumbling with buckles and zippers, partially at watching Clank's feeble display of coordination and partly from realizing that the goo would be all over the back of his suit shirt and both jumpsuits Clank had worn since taking over.

Ratchet wanted to help, but decided to go run the taps instead- Clank needed to get used to using his hands; Ratchet could only do so much as far as repairs or maintenance was concerned in Clank's body (with both fewer and chunkier digits). It was really going to be Clank and Talwyn, both of whom were decent, but not as good as Ratchet, who would be modifying Ratchet's equipment to work on their little ruse planned for a few day's time.

"Did you even use shampoo when you took a bath yesterday?" Ratchet called from the bathroom as Clank sauntered in, properly using his tail for balance and sliding into the hot water while Ratchet simply shook his head, exasperated, though a bit chuffed that Clank had picked up walking enough to swagger a little.

Clank flipped around to face him and shrugged, as Ratchet took a good look at his own body in the tub. He was so small, so skinny, so exhausted looking. His fur was thinning in patches where, if he remembered Alister or Angela, wasn't supposed to be the case. "Was I supposed to?" Clank asked, embarrassed, ears drooping, snapping Ratchet out of his thoughts.

"How else do you think you get goo from fur? Water alone won't cut it," Ratchet retorted, smiling with his eyes as he ran back to the main room, fishing in his suitcase for a pack of travel shampoo, hovering back to the bathroom and holding it up to Clank, who was resting his head in his arms draped on the side of the tub, eyes closed and purring lightly.

Ratchet ground his gears (or, more precisely, twisted and locked up the pair of servos holding his jaw in place), muttering, "Purring is good for me," as he squirted the shampoo into his palm. "Head down a bit more," he added a little louder, as he began to rub the goo into his own fur, before realizing Clank would have heard him regardless. "I am still not used to this," he added, watching as his own tail thrashed in the water, noting that he was hitting one of his own ticklish spots on the crown of his head. "Here. Chest, arms, legs, feet, make sure to clean off your palms and soles so the sweat salt doesn't stick to 'em" Ratchet said thrusting out the bottle to Clank. "I'll get the bile and ooze off your back, so flip facing away."

Clank turned around, splashing, and began roughly rubbing in the shampoo into his forearm, while Ratchet began attacking the gunk on his own back in silence.

"Man, the last time someone had to help bathe me was after Drek," Ratchet eventually commented with a high pitched squeal (he'd intended a laugh but Clank's vocals were still not quite under his control, despite his increasing ability to modulate tone), carefully sudsing his own ears while avoiding getting shampoo into the holes leading to his ear canals.

"You were bedridden for three weeks…" Clank eventually commented. "Nanotech or otherwise, Drek's machination nearly crushed you."

"Hey, at least the nurses were nice," Ratchet replied, idly. "How you holding up?"

"Tired. Hungry. And my muscles ache," Clank said honestly. "Being an organic… it requires far more daily maintenance than I expected. I thought my own routine took too long, but…"

"Meh. You're easy," Ratchet replied. "And replacing your oil and coolant tanks isn't so hard."

"I am going to have to do that for you," Clank mused.

"Let's get you fed first, because-"

Both stopped immediately, Clank perking both ears, as they listened again, before a knock on the bathroom door.

"Please tell me that's Ratchet in there," a jovial sounding voice intoned.

"Oh, yeah, hi, Big Al," Clank responded.

"I'll use the bathroom in the shop then," he commented.

"You know, you didn't need to come all the way out to Polaris…" Clank said. He vaguely remembered Ratchet punching in a message to Al as they had headed for Meridian the day before.

"And you don't need to pretend you're Ratchet around me. Aphelion filled me in. I hope you don't mind, but I had her move to a different spot on the roof. You parked her on the emergency-landing pad. There's a teleport chute there for ICU cyborg parts, you know."

"Sorry," the real Ratchet said sheepishly from his side of the door. "My bad on that one."

"Nah, you didn't notice. I'll be back in a few."

"Thank goodness Aphelion sent me that encrypted message," Al commented, as he pulled out some tools, messing around in Ratchet's insides. "Oh, and Talwyn is stopping by with some dinner. Clank, you can take my bed, you need the rest more than I do," he added with a wave of his organic hand while his robotic one, coated in incredibly real-looking fake skin of his own design, continued to prod around inside Ratchet's sisterboards.

"This isn't so good, I'll be honest," Al finally said as he closed the maintenance shutter.

"What's not…?" Ratchet replied worried, before Al began loosening some bolts separating Ratchet's neck from the main chassis. "Okay, this is weird," Ratchet added, as his head was popped clean off. Clank, hastily dressed in another pair of work pants and attempting to put on a shirt, half-laughed and half snorted in commiseration of seeing his body spread out in pieces on the table.

"Yeah, we need you two back where you belong," Al added, after a silence.

"Well, I mean, that's the goal, but…why so serious when you say it?" Ratchet looked at his arm lying halfway across the table and moved the finger joints remotely. Still weird. he mused, before closing his eye shutters so he could stop thinking about it.

Al pinched the bridge of his nose, adjusting his HUD glass. "You stay like that too long and Clank's antivirus… well, it's going to start reprogramming you."

"What?!" Ratchet and Clank cried in unison.

"That would explain Ratchet's slight shifts in behavior," Clank mused, flopping down on the sofa.

"No, that's just Ratchet with access to a lot more stuff. I changed quite a bit too, after this," Al commented, gesturing to the half of his body that was now mechanical. "Having a processor instead of a brain will do that- or augmenting, in my case. And, thankfully, the AV's just feeling out what's wrong with the system right now; it hasn't actually started attacking Ratchet yet or anything. I disabled it, but that also means, for both of your safety, I turned off a whole host of other processes too. No internet access, no remote relay with other devices."

"Wait, you mean I can't ping Aphelion or use internal messaging? How are we supposed to coordinate anything?" Ratchet asked, as Al continued poking around inside his head.

"The old fashioned way. I'll get you guys some cellphones."

"What is this, the year 3000?"

"Look, I built that antivirus. I can reprogram it, but it's going to take time and I'm concerned about the security holes it'll cause. It's meant for Clank. It's meant to recognize his personality and thought pattern within a certain level of tolerance. It shifts over time as he learns new things and grows, but this is exactly the shock to his system it's designed to detect. What if Nefarious rewrote him? Or anyone? I don't care that he has a soul, he's still housed as a robot, and that means his brain can and could be reprogrammed at will," Al sighed, and began putting Ratchet back together, buffing the parts with a rag and wax as he went. "At the same time, I… I dunno. After dealing with Nefarious and the Biobliterator, those years back, I wrote some secondary code of our own basic parameters, yours, mine, Skidd's, Sasha's… everyone on the Q Force. In case Nefarious did try something like this," he added with a sweep of his organic hand between Ratchet and Clank. "But that many personalities as acceptable matches means it's less likely for the antivirus to detect a true infiltration. Adding in Ratchet… that means you'll be a bit more likely to have some problems down the line, Clank, but I could turn all the wireless functions back on. It's your choice. For now, they're off."

"Your body," Ratchet finally commented, as his neck axis was shoved back into his head and screwed in place.

"No need to make the decision now," Al replied, as his HUD flashed purple. "And Talwyn's just arrived anyway. I'll go let her in."

"Hey!" Ratchet cried, sitting up on the table and brandishing one of the limbs Al had removed during diagnostics. "At least finish with your patient first!"