Sorry for the long delays between chapters. If anyone is even still reading this series, haha! I do fully intend to finish it out to the end, but it's undergoing a bit of a revamp, a very small revamp, so bear with me. I may be changing a few minor things here and there, but nothing too big.

I've just switched universities, so updates may continue to be a bit slow, but I promise to have another chapter up within the next two weeks, maybe sooner. We'll see. I've fallen back in love with this story, so you may see the next chapter out as early as this weekend, so keep your eyes peeled!

And finally, sorry this chapter is so short. I needed to get it out of the way; only one or two more 'hump' chapters before we get into the thick of the actions! Yee, I'm so excited to unveil what the main plot is! I think y'all are gonna love it!

"Er…Aria?"

It was actually a shock when Finn used Aria's actual name, and for once, she looked up when he addressed her, instead of awkwardly brushing him off. Quickly wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve, she tried her hardest not to appear as if she'd just been crying, but it was difficult. She didn't want to end up as that weird girl that cried alone on Campus.

"What?" she said, a little too brusquely, hiding the tremble in her voice.

"Are you okay?" Finn set his backpack on the ground and sat beside Aria on the little wrought-iron bench. She didn't stop herself from heaving an exasperated sigh, and shook her head.

"I'm fine," she lied, very obviously. Finn paused. He looked like he was mulling over the words in his head, but Aria knew that couldn't really be the case…could it?

"Did anything of yours get taken this time?" he asked. Aria shook her head. "Well, that's good. One of my buddies had some of his stuff stolen, but nothing too important I guess, he didn't seem too busted up about it." He tried for a smile, but when Aria didn't return it, didn't even look at him, he let it drop. He sighed as well, hanging his head. "…But yeah. It's…wow. Twice in a year."

"Yeah," she croaked, feeling stupid, sitting here with someone she disliked, trying hard not to sob her eyes out. At least Finn wasn't trying to make a joke out of any of it…yet.

"So, what's got you so upset, then?" he asked, trying to get a good look at Aria's red and puffy face. "If nothing of yours was stolen last night, that's a good thing, right?"

"…A bunch of Hiro's stuff was stolen again," she finally managed to choke out, swallowing hard. "Mostly just data this time. Really important data." She pressed the palm of her hand to her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut as a few tears streaked down her cheeks. Finn looked rather worried at this, and at first extended an arm out, like he was going to encase her in an awkward side-hug, but at the last second, he thought better of it; he knew he came on a little strong sometimes, and now was perhaps not the best time for an overtly familiar contact like that. Floundering for a moment, he just ended up patting her back awkwardly.

"Oh, the guy who pledged you, right?" he asked. Aria immediately whipped her head up, a look of fire in her eye and her mouth open to start spitting vitriol; she got in on her own merits, damn it! She didn't need Hiro Hamada's help to get into SFIT! But all that came out was a gush of empty air, and she visibly deflated, slumping back down. She didn't have the energy to get mad at an idiot, not twice in one day.

"He was more than that," she said, "he was…a friend. I guess." She drew a ragged breath. "But now he's…I don't know. I tried to help him, but I guess he just hates me now!" Her voice cracked on the last syllable, lifting an octave, and she dropped her head to her hands. "He's such a moron! I tried, damnit, I was just trying to help!"

"Whoa, whoa, Ari…a," Finn finished, reminding himself that now was not the time for nicknames. This time he set his hand on her shoulder and left it there. "It's okay…he got mad at you? For what, helping?"

"I dunno, being in the way I guess!" She was full on crying now, her sense of shame apparently evaporating at the memory of her altercation with Hiro that morning. "T-told me to just 'stop making things worse'!"

"How could you have made things worse?" Finn asked, "It's not like you broke into the school and took his stuff."

"I know!" For once it seemed, Finn was making sense. She almost felt like congratulating him for not saying the wrong thing. "He's been so stressed, and he blames me for…for screwing something up yesterday night, and it w-wasn't my fault, and I just-"

"Aria, hey!" Holding his hands up to stop her, Finn cut her off. "You don't have to convince me! I'm on your side!" She looked up at him then, smiling down at her reassuringly, and it just made her want to burst out crying even harder. Why wasn't Hiro this understanding? Why was he acting like such a jerk? Was this just how he was now?

"Maybe I AM making things worse, though," she said, slightly calmer now than before. "Maybe it…the thing, maybe it was my fault? How can you be on my side when you don't even know what's been happening?"

"I know that's not true," Finn said, as if it were common-knowledge fact. She sniffled and just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "Dude, Aria, you never take any of my crap," he said, smiling kindly. "You're always so focused and down to Earth, every time I see you it's like you've got places to be, and you know exactly what you're doing! I'm just some idiot floundering around campus, you know." He cocked an eyebrow self-deprecatingly, and almost made Aria laugh. "I know you're right because it's got you so upset. You seem to know what you're doing, Aria. If he can't see than, then he's the one that's wrong." Aria was silent for a long moment. Her eyes shifted from him, to her hands, to the pavement below her feet. A very small smile ghosted across her face.

"You are just some idiot floundering around campus," she said quietly, and this elicited a very boisterous laugh from the blonde sitting next to her.

"Got you to smile!" he said, nudging her side slightly.

"Barely."

"Barely's a foot in the door!" Standing and shouldering his bag again, Finn held his hand out to Aria, to help her to her feet. "C'mon, I'd hate to just leave you here to mope. You need some coffee." Aria glanced at his outstretched hand, thinking that it reminded her of Hiro helping her to her feet two evenings ago in his room. But instead of a distracted and angsty ball of nerves on the other end, this hand was attached to someone who seemed, for better or worse, determined to show her he was on her side of things. He was annoying, and pushy, and damn idiotic at times, but right now, a little ray of kindness was something Aria desperately needed. And she sure as hell wasn't getting it from Hiro.

She let Finn take her hand and pull her to her feet, and the two made their way across campus. And she had to admit, tuning out her own dour thoughts and just listening to Finn ramble endlessly about nothing was a good way to clear her head. For now, at least.

"…So, yeah," he said, shrugging slightly at her. "I don't know if it's something you'd be interested in going to, but they're having this, like, security conference tomorrow night. You know, to discuss what they're gonna do about any more break-ins. Students are welcome to attend, so…" Aria perked up slightly at this, the wheels in her head slowly turning. Maybe, if she went, she could get a little bit better idea of what kind of robbery they were up against. Then, maybe she wouldn't be so 'in the way' of Hiro all the time. It was a hope, at least.

"I want to go," she said without thinking, more to herself than to Finn, but Finn none the less smiled, running his hand through his hair.

"Great!" he said, stepping forward and holding the door to the campus coffee shop open for Aria. "It starts at 8 tomorrow, do you wanna meet up at the conference hall right then, or do you like…I dunno, wanna meet up before? We could grab dinner beforehand if you want…?" Aria was still a little caught up in her own thoughts as Finn obviously was grasping at ways to get her out on a date, and as a result, she only really heard half of what he said.

"Eight?" she asked absent mindedly. "Eight, huh? Yeah, eight's good I think." Finn looked a little defeated at that, but his smile didn't vanish. He just coughed awkwardly, standing beside her in line.

"Right," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Of course, Aria remained oblivious. So much so, in fact, that she didn't even protest when Finn automatically paid for both of their orders. Sitting down with him at one of the little tables by the front window, she took a sip of her latte, and mentally remarked that Aunt Cass' coffee could run circles around this one.

As Finn picked the conversation back up, Aria offered only minimal participation, but that seemed like more than enough to satisfy the chatty 20 year old, and they sat and sipped for a while. A long while. In fact, it wasn't until Aria caught sight of a shock of purple among black hair did she finally check her phone and see than an hour had passed. And in the same moment, Gogo, who's been walking by, spied Aria through the window, and stopped.

"Aria?" she asked, poking her head into the shop, taking in a very peculiar scene; Aria with puffy red rings around her eyes and streaky makeup, sitting with a blonde 'dude-bro' type guy Gogo had never seen before, having coffee, seemingly together. Gogo wasn't the type to jump to hasty conclusions, but this was…more than a little odd.

"Gogo!" Standing, Aria waved her over, smiling slightly. "Have you heard about that security conference tomorrow?"

"I have," the older girl said, walking over, her arms crossed.

"Are you going?"

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

"Er-" Finn tried to interject, wanting to assert that he and Aria were going…together. But, finding sense once more, decided against it. Dropping the issue, he sat back, and took a long drink of his now cold Americano, wondering if this was a lost-cause.

Gogo shot the boy a quizzical look, before continuing. "Uh, right…anyway, I wasn't gonna go, but I wanted to talk to you about what happened. Last night, and I'm not talking about the robbery."

"Oh…right." Shifting slightly, Aria grabbed her bag, and shot Finn an apologetic look. "I've got to go, Finn, but, I'll see you tomorrow at eight."

"Right, eight." Nodding, Aria rushed out after Gogo, the two girls walking close as they made their way out of the coffee shop. "So, what about last night?"

"What was that?" Gogo gave Aria one of her looks, raising an eyebrow, and she just shrugged.

"What was what?"

"Was that a date?" Gogo stabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the coffee shop behind them, and at the word 'date', Aria bristled.

"Date?" she almost laughed, though rather bitterly. "Ha! Please. The last date I was on was…months ago." She thought back to her and Hiro's last proper video-chat-date, and sighed. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, before Gogo snapped her fingers in front of Aria's face.

"Earth to Aria," she said, "come back to me, Aria!"

"Sorry." She shook her head to clear herself of that thought. Couldn't think about Hiro now. Not when she'd just stopped crying over him and his ass-hole-ish-ness. "But, no. Finn is…a friend? Kinda. He's not a jerk, at least." The older girl still gave her a skeptical look, but let it go.

"Whatever you say," she shrugged, "anyway, I wanted to talk to you about those two thugs from last night."

"Yeah? What about 'em?"

"They were talking about someone named Fage, and someone else, Boss." She brushed the hair from her eyes, her eyebrows set together low on her forehead. "Just because we lost them yesterday doesn't mean the lead is dead. In fact, I suspect this is as much as Hiro's found out on his own all these months."

"I figured so too," Aria replied, "but what can we do now? Baymax may have gotten a scan on them, but…I don't think Hiro's going to want us 'interfering' with his investigation again." The two girls had made their way through Campus, and Aria halted then, as they were halfway over a bridge, over the koi pond in the middle of campus. Through the now-bare branches of the cherry blossom trees, the robotics lab could be seen, and Aria's gaze lingered on the giant glass and steel structure. "Did you get a chance to talk to him this morning?' she asked, wondering if Hiro's anger had been directed at anyone who's seen him, or if it was exclusively at Aria. But Gogo scoffed at this, tossing her head to the side.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, leaning against the railing of the bridge. "I wouldn't go near him right now. Not after tonight. Not after the break in. I wouldn't touch that boy with a ten-foot pole." She'd taken her phone out to check her text messages, but stopped when she saw the desolate expression Aria wore. "…You went there, though," she correctly deduced, and Aria just nodded. Sighing heavily, Gogo ran her gloved hand through her hair, and rolled her eyes. "Why would you do that? After last night? You knew he was in a bad mood, and now that we've been broken into again, you thought maybe he'd magically be in a better mood?"

"I didn't think he'd be so…"

"What, upset?"

"Angry. At me." Aria shuffled her feet slightly, resolving not to cry again, but her eyes were feeling a little wet already. "He was acting like it was my fault his data was taken. Like…like I'd caused it." Her eyes lifted to look at Gogo, her look pleading. "It's not my fault, though. I mean, how could it be?"

"Of course it's not," Gogo huffed, crossing her arms. "Aria, I told you. He's under an insane amount of pressure right now. He's not being himself-"

"That's no excuse!" she tried to say, but Gogo held a hand up, much calmer than the younger girl.

"No, but listen-"

"He's just being irrational!" she continued, throwing her hands up. "Like you said, he's such a child, he's-!"

"-He's grieving the loss of his data like he grieved for Tadashi." Those words hung in the air heavy between the two of them, with Aria's fists unclenching slowly, her anger deflating once more. She was left just staring at a sullen-looking Gogo, who seemed to not be able to hold the stare that long. She looked away. "Baymax was Tadashi's brain-child. He worked so hard on him, and when he died, the only thing that seemed to help Hiro find any purpose was working on the project. And now what's happened? Most of it is gone. The rest is ruined." The more Gogo spoke, the more Aria felt like sinking deeper and deeper into the ground. "Aria, this isn't just some material object he's lost. It's like losing Tadashi all over again."

"…But…he still has Baymax," Aria squeaked, feeling terrible the moment the words were out of her mouth.

"And that's about all he has." Gogo paused. "…And us. And right now, it's probably best if we give him his space. He's lashing out right now, so we'll stay at arm's length. Be there when he finally wants us. When he needs us." Reaching out, she punched Aria in the shoulder, though it wasn't hard; coming from Gogo, it was the closest thing to a hug she'd give.

"And if he doesn't come around?" Aria asked?

"He will. He always does." Straightening up, she beckoned for Aria to follow. "And in the meantime, we can do a bit of our own recon. Have something to show him when he's more receptive to it."

"But, the fact still stands," Aria said, "Baymax has the scans, and I doubt Hiro will hand them over to us willingly."

"So…we take them." Gogo and Aria had made their way to the edge of Campus, to the parking lot, and the elder girl laid her hand on the handlebars of an impressively well-kept motorcycle. Aria's eyebrows shot up her forehead, and when she didn't immediately hop on the vehicle with Gogo, she rolled her eyes once more. "Look, Hiro's likely gonna be here on campus with the police all day. That means Baymax is at home, and so's all his backed-up data. He won't even know we've been there."

"Unless Baymax tells him," Aria said, "and you know Baymax will tell him."

"So, we just wipe his memory of today. C'mon, you said you wanted to follow this lead with me; so help me follow it!" She swung her leg over the bike, and tossed her helmet to Aria, who only just barely caught it.

"Hiro will know," Aria fretted, more to herself than to Gogo, but still, she clipped the helmet on, and climbed onto the back of the bike. She was only just able to cling to Gogo's back as the bike lurched to life, and off they sped.

"Good afternoon Gogo, Aria." Baymax waved to the two girls that stood before him after he inflated from his charging unit. His eyes blinked slowly. "Where is Hiro?"

"He's still at school," Aria said, looking around, searching for the correct cord in the mess of cables that littered the garage floor.

"Shouldn't you also be at school, Aria?" Baymax asked, watching her inspect the ends of several cables, tossing them all away as she judged them to be incorrect. "My database indicates that you are skipping your 'Theoretical Principals of Engineering' lecture." Gogo chuckled at this, and Aria straightened up, puzzled.

"Hiro programmed my schedule into you?" she asked, and paused. "Awww. That's so sweet…that little jerk." She went back to searching, before Gogo called her over.

"Got it," she announced, and motioned for Baymax to bend down closer. Taking hold of his head, she blugged him into Hiro's main computer, and Aria sat down just as Baymax's main files appeared in the imports database. Clicking in, she easily guessed Hiro's first two passwords (Mochi, and TD1995) but the third had her stumped, until Gogo elbowed her out of the way, typing a few numbers on the keypad. Her guess checked out, and they were in.

"What was it?" Aria asked, clicking through the files. "I tried his middle name, Tadashi's middle name, a few combinations of his student number-"

"It was your birthday," Gogo said, her eyes flickering across the screen as they searched for Baymax's scan files. This made Aria's heart ache again, and she had to keep herself from saying anything this time. He was a jerk, remember? He was being a jerk! And jerks aren't cute!

"Here they are," Aria finally announced, before whipping out her flashdrive, and copying several files over.

"You are accessing the scans and audio and video files from last night," Baymax observed, watching the two sift through his programming.

"Sorry, big guy," Gogo said pointing out several other files she wanted copied over. "But…you're not gonna remember any of this."

"I do not 'remember' anything," Baymax corrected, "I catalogue everything my sensors perceive for future reference."

"Well, you won't be cataloguing any of this." Straightening up, she ushered him to stand back in his charge, before nodding over her shoulder at Aria. The latter nodded back, before dragging several icons over to the trash bin, and clearing the bin out. That same moment, Baymax went static, before his eyes closed, and he deflated back into his charging station. As the contraption closed in around him, Gogo smiled. "Sweet dreams." She looked back at Aria, and motioned for them to go. "C'mon, we got what we need. We can go back to my place and look it over."

"Hold on a sec." Clicking through a few more folders, Aria copied several file stacks over, before closing out the program and standing. Following Gogo out quickly, they pulled the garage shut behind them, and just like that, they were out of the alley and gone.

Aria clicked the 'replay' button for the third time, and with tired eyes, rewatched the footage from last night through Baymax's eyes. By now, she could have described every detail of the scene with her eyes closed, and still, there wasn't anything worth remembering that she didn't already remember first hand. Gogo paced behind her.

"Gogo, we have the scans," Aria said, stifling a yawn as she spoke, "we can go off of that." While Gogo's attention was elsewhere, Aria clicked away from the media player, bringing up the tab she'd been working on, on and off all night. Getting a few more lines down, she yawned again.

"There's gatta be more than that, though." The older girl was mumbling as she paced, and she waved at Aria. "Play it again."

"Watch it on your phone, I'm working on something." Disregarding Gogo's command, she placed a few more lines, rearranging some of Hiro's previous work. Gogo scoffed and looked over, only to stare in confusion at what Aria was doing.

"What are you doing?" she asked, walking over and leaning down over the back of the chair to watch the lines of code type out on the screen in front of the two of them.

"Rewriting some of this code," Aria yawned, and she rubbed at her eye.

"Since when do you know how to write code?" Gogo asked incredulously.

"Okay, I did learn stuff at my community college," Aria retorted, somewhat defensively. "I took a few coding classes actually. And one of my classes this summer is introduction to high level code reassignment and applications." Clicking over to an auxiliary tab, she transferred her new lines into the framework of the copied version of Hiro's existing program. Gogo watched as she clicked back and forth, a bit mystified with the purpose of rewriting a section of Baymax's coding. Her bachelor's and master's degrees had been mechanical engineering; the coding side of it had always flown way over her head. And while Aria was struggling a bit to figure out what went where, and she was nowhere near as efficient with it as Tadashi or Hiro had been, but eventually, she did sit back, cracking her knuckles. "Done. …I think."

"Okay, so…what did you do?" Gogo cocked an eyebrow, and watched as Aria pulled a charger and her phone from her bag, and connected it to her laptop. It took a while for the program to save and transfer, but when it did, a little solid-white icon appeared on her home-screen; it looked pretty anonymous, but it was an app none the less.

"It doesn't have an icon yet," Aria apologized, clicking the little white square. "And it's not gonna look very good; Hiro's code is formatted for computer and display screens, not phones. But it should work okay for now." As she clicked it open, a white screen popped up. After a moment to load, a grid finally appeared over the white, with coordinates lining the edges of the screen. The non-grid section at the bottom was extremely jumbled and ill-formatted, but it appeared to be trying to load the person icon Baymax used to identify his scans. More information popped up in the jumble, illegible, but as it did, so did a little red blip on the grid. "…Ta-da."

"It's…a map?" Gogo realized, taking the phone from Aria. Scrolling out with some difficulty, the grin enlarged to show all of San Fransokyo, a crude, pixilated mass on the grid, but once it scrolled out enough, another red blip popped up in a different part of town. "It's the scans," she said, smiling slightly.

"At first I was looking for a way to remotely hack into Baymax's display capabilities so we'd have the maps on our helmets," Aria said, "But…I don't know how to remotely log into other servers. And even if I did, I don't think there'd be a way to do it without alerting Baymax or Hiro. I mean, Hiro could probably figure out a way to do it, but definitely not me." She laughed nervously. "But then I realized, I don't need to do that, as long as I can find a way to get the map and the scans to load on something else, like a phone, in real time."

"So you're saying this is tracking those two guys? Like, right now?"

"It should be," Aria said. "We'd just need to reload to get it to accurately reflect their exact location. I didn't know how to code it to do that on it's own." Gogo smiled, tossing the phone back to Aria.

"Aria, you are a genius," she praised, and while she knew Gogo hadn't meant it seriously, she still did like the sound of the compliment. "Tomorrow, after the security conference, we'll take it out on it's maiden voyage."