This is one of the really old chapters. But I don't write chronologically... I write whatever I feel like writing. This is starting to bite me in the butt; the pieces don't always match up when I fill in the gaps. It turned out that I deleted every single word of this chapter except the first two paragraphs!

...and of course added about eleven more pages, which I hope is okay. ) I like this one, it ended up so cute!

Capcom loves you, because they own Rockman.

Netto's office was quiet, warm, and sunny. The usual hums and whirs of computer fans and air conditioners had been silenced at exactly 2:00 pm by a power outage.

A bright beam of sunlight was shining through the blinds and zebra-striping the carpet. Rockman was sitting in his PET on Netto's desk, and Netto was rocking back on two legs of his chair with his feet propped up next to the PET. They had been sitting like this in a catatonic daze for about twenty minutes, both watching dust motes swirl languidly through rays of sun. It was a lazy Thursday afternoon, lazy to the point where Rockman wasn't even bothering to point out the dangers of chair-tipping to Netto.

"Mmmm." Netto stretched out contentedly. "Wonder what Meiru's up to."

"Teaching," was Rockman's short reply.

"Yeah."

The silenced resumed.

Rockman felt a little guilty about their current behavior; they, after all, had caused the power outage. In the end though, after a thorough scolding from the safety department, they had been unable to help repair the electrical grid and were told to wait for it to come back online like everyone else. Waiting was rapidly becoming boring, and Rockman wondered how long Netto could resist the temptation of leaving work early.

"It's just..." Netto broke the silence, "I hope she's feeling alright and all that."

"I'm sure she's fine, Roll-chan told me she hasn't been feeling as sick lately," Rockman reassured his Operator. "She's in her... uh..."

"Second trimester, yeah."

Rockman smiled. "I'm impressed you remembered that."

Netto scoffed at him. "I pay attention sometimes! And besides," he continued, his face darkening, "Meiru doesn't listen very well when she's nervous… That's why I go to all of her doctor's appointments with her."

"Oh." So that was why! When they'd gone to Meiru's four-month checkup last week, Rockman had actually been a little miffed because Netto (most likely intentionally) left him at work with a huge pile of paperwork to (electronically) sort through. Now he, despite Netto dumping long-overdue work on him, was a little ashamed for having felt that way.

Rockman wasn't overly close to Meiru and knew practically nothing about her pregnancy; what he did know always came from Roll. She was very on top of every aspect of Meiru's health and well-being. He, being so busy with research, was content to let to her control that half of their life, and she in turn seemed happy with that arrangement. It gave her things to do, at any rate.

Netto's face hadn't changed its sour expression.

"Netto-kun?"

"Huh?" The cloudy look passed. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine."

Rockman gave his Operator a shrewd look. "Are you nervous?"

"Of course I am!" Netto exclaimed, surprising him. "But I can't let Meiru see that, can I?"

So I was right, Rockman thought. Netto had been very… enthusiastic about having a baby, so much so that Rockman had been wondering if some of it was a front to hide his true feelings.

"You know," he admonished nonetheless, "your overly up-beat attitude has been driving Meiru-chan a little crazy, or so Roll-chan tells me."

Netto gave a hearty laugh. "Better crazy than angry! I can deal with crazy."

"Netto-kun."

"Seriously though, when do you and I ever plan things out one-hundred percent? There are too many unknowns here to do that; we can't plan for every outcome! When the time comes, we'll deal with things as needed. It's that simple. I've tried telling Meiru that, but..."

"I tried to convince Roll-chan of the same thing not too long ago!" Rockman nodded in agreement. "She said that attitude will be the death of us someday."

"Aah, women. They don't understand." There was a brief pause as Netto's face clouded back up. "Rockman. I know... I know I can make this baby thing work out, but I wonder: at what cost?"

"Hm?"

"I'll become Papa. I don't want that."

"Oh." When Roll had said it, Rockman was offended. As time went by, however, it was starting to turn into a very likely outcome. He wasn't sure what to say. What was there to say? Even if they tried their best to complete their research, it would still be almost five years before Netto got a real job and could work normal hours. Missing out on five years of his baby's life... Netto had every right to be worried.

"But even then," Netto continued, "I always had you, right? So I turned out okay."

Rockman gave him a self-conscious half-smile. "I wouldn't say that was all my doing."

Netto sighed in a wistful manner. "I want to make a Navi for my child, like Papa made you for me. I don't think I will, though; I don't have the time to spend on a pet project and..." It sounded as though he was struggling to find the right words. "Papa had a lot of reasons to make you. You are… unique, in more ways than one. Because of that, you and I share a bond that no one else has ever had. I don't think I could re-create that feeling by making an ordinary Navi. I want him to mean something, like you do to me."

"I'm... touched," Rockman managed to stutter at last. "But I never replaced Papa, did I?"

"No. You didn't change the fact that he was never there."

Rockman hummed a small note of agreement. He missed the days where all of his problems could be solved by a Charge Shot. Things had gotten so much more complicated as Netto grew older, and solutions less clear. In fact, Roll was still a little miffed at him, and it had been over a month since that last argument. It was her own fault, though; she switched the topic every time he tried to talk about it.

"Oh! Hey! Speaking of a new Navi... well, I have... err, I want your advice." It was a lame tactic to switch topics, but he knew this one would cheer Netto up. "Roll-chan has been acting funny lately."

"Oh? Funny how?" One of Netto's eyebrows raised, and Rockman felt the usual sense of dread well up in his chest.

Netto had achieved every milestone in his relationship with Meiru due solely to Rockman's support and incessant teasing. Netto, normally a very loud, outgoing person, grew very shy around Meiru during his teenage years. Had it not been for Rockman's constant pestering, he and his wife would probably not be where they were today. Rockman always knew Netto would get him back for it some day; why it was now and why it involved teasing him about Roll, he had no idea. They had become rather good at working as a team over the last few years (mostly because they lived together), but they didn't do anything different or act and differently than before… did they? And it if they did, did it really warrant such a barrage of teasing?

"Netto-kun..."

Netto put a hand over his heart in mock offence. "Whaaat? I haven't done anything!"

There was still a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Rockman eyed him nervously, but chose to continue.

"When you and Meiru-chan got married, Roll-chan did most of the planning. Did you know that? She's very organized. More than once, when I tried to help her with your side of the family's affairs, she... Hm. She would sometimes make off-hand comments like, 'Meiru-chan picked out blue ribbons, but don't you think green is nicer?' or 'I would've chosen a cake with off-white frosting, like an ivory color'... things like that."

"Doesn't every girl dream of her own fairytale wedding?" Netto yawned, stretching again.

"Exactly! I think she was jealous of Meiru-chan, just a little bit."

Netto nodded sagely. "And so she should be. You missed a fine opportunity to make a move, you know. You were alone with her a lot back then weren't you? You still are, come to think of it." He gave an exaggerated sigh. "Poor Roll-chan!"

Rockman was at a complete loss for words.

I should've just let him stay depressed.

"How are you and Roll, by the way?"

"W-what do you mean?"

Netto gave him a surprisingly dead serious look. "I guess what I'm asking is... you and Roll are pretty close now, aren't you?"

There had to be a color for the shade of red his face went. Had to be, but Rockman felt that he wasn't qualified to name it, seeing as he couldn't actually see his own face. "I... W-what kind of question is that?!"

"A pretty simple one," Netto deadpanned. "Answer it."

"I-I don't know! W-we're good friends, I mean, we live together." Netto was still giving him the evil eye, and he quailed a little under it. "I guess... we... have an understanding."

"Pfft!" Netto failed to stifle a chuckle. "An "understanding"? Rockman, let me give you some advice: women like commitment."

"C-com... mit..."Gaping like a fish (a beet red one at that), Rockman was unable to think of a reply.

Netto laughed at the reaction his advice got. The motion shook his chair, which unbalanced and began to careen backwards. Netto made a surprised "Eep!" and windmilled his arms. After a precarious wobble, he managed to land his chair forward on all fours with a loud "thump!"

Rockman wanted to say, I warned you!, but remembered that he'd actually resisted saying it for once in his life.

Netto sat up and made a face as he straightened out his back. "Whew! In all honesty, though, I know what you wanted to say. Roll's doing it again, isn't she? Meiru mentioned something about her acting kind of jealous."

"I don't know if that's entirely it," Rockman mumbled. "But I'm worried."

"When are you not?" Lan muttered under his breath.

Rockman heard it anyway. "Netto-kun!"

"Oh don't worry, I'm sure she's fine. It's strange, but not unheard of," said Netto. "Jasmine's Navi, um, Medi? Right? She got a baby."

"What?!"

"Well yeah, you know, a baby Navi."

"What?"

Netto gave him a confused frown. "You've never heard of that? New... N-something-hakase on the fourth floor makes them."

If Netto couldn't even remember the guy's name, it was no surprise that Rockman hadn't heard of him. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

"There are two ways to get a fully-customizable Navi," Netto explained. "You can pay a lot of money and wait two years for one to be made, or wait half the time, spend a fourth of the money, and get a Navi that has the mentality and looks of a baby. It takes about five years for it to grow to full size, so it takes a different kind of investment, but a lot of people are saying it creates a better, more personable Navi. It learns by being raised, not by being programmed. That's why Jasmine wanted one. She asked me if I knew Whats-his-face, but I told her to ask Enzan. IPC produces them."

"IPC makes them?! How do I not know this?" Rockman stuttered. Enzan… there was a name he hadn't heard in a while.

"It's a niche market," said Netto. "Not many people do, yet. It's small scale production."

Rockman tried to picture Medi with a baby. Surprisingly, it wasn't very hard to do. "So Medi is raising one of these babies?"

"Yeah. Jasmine sent me a picture of him as a thank you for getting her in contact with the right people."

"Him? I… I never saw that!" Rockman said, surprised. He controlled most of Netto's e-mail; how had he missed that?

"You wouldn't have," Netto shrugged. "Jasmine likes to handwrite her letters." He opened a desk drawer and rummaged through it. After a minute, he shut it and tried the second drawer down. It yielded no results as well, and he shut it with another shrug. "Forgot where I put it, but he was cute. Looked a lot like Medi; had the same Navi icon, anyway. They probably used a good chunk of her code to make him."

"But why would Jasmine need another Navi?" Rockman mused out loud. "She doesn't have children, does she?"

"No, but she plans to in a couple of years. She's married, right? And Medi wanted to do it too, I think. They're just getting the Navi ready in advance."

"Huh."

"So there you go!" Netto said cheerfully. "If Roll wants to play house, let her play house! I can probably find what's-his-name and get a discount, too!"

Rockman opened his mouth to object, but stopped, not having an actual objection to voice.

"What do you think? Roll will get her baby, and my baby will have a Navi! Two birds, one stone, right? Right?"

"I-I guess so…" He still had a vague feeling of dislike, though; maybe it was the casual way Netto had suggested it? This wasn't the kind of thing you just said yes or no to. It required more thought than that.

"It's perfect! The Navi will be ready when my baby is five; we can give it to him for his birthday, like you were to me! Wouldn't that be the best? Let's go home and ask Roll right now!"

Rockman snapped back to the present. "What? We can't just leave, Netto-kun!"

"Suuure we can! It's not like we're doing anything; we can't do anything without po—"

The world proved once again that it hated Hikari Netto; the power came back on.

Netto blinked up at the re-awakened fluorescent lights humming in the ceiling. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me…"

"Haha, no good; back to work!"

Netto burst through the front door with his usual gusto. And, like usual, had to waste a moment prying his key out of the doorknob because of said gusto.

Such a creature of habit, Rockman chucked quietly to himself. He had to admit, though, it was nice to come home after such a long day of work. He stretched his arms out contentedly. And now, even though she had to have heard the door... I hope she wasn't sleeping.

"Roooooooll!"

Rockman failed to keep his response internal. "Hwha? Why wo—" Struck by a sudden thought, he growled and tried his best not to blush. "Oh no you're not… Gah, I told you, it's noth—"

Meiru wandered out into the living room, dressed in a pair of cherry-patterned pajamas. "Roll? My name's not Roll."

Netto gave his wife a one-armed hug and a brief kiss. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, I was reading my book."

"My name is Roll," came a small voice from the television monitor. The screen flickered to life, and Roll waved from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing chess. She pushed the board away and stood up. "Do you need something?"

Rockman said "No!" at the exact time Netto said "Yes", which made both women raise their eyebrows.

"Roll, can you…" Netto clamped his hand over the PET's speaker to muffle Rockman's protesting. "I'm going to sleep, but you should bug Rockman. He has issues."

"I do not have issues," Rockman scowled, yelling to be heard over Netto's hand.

Netto ignored him, and plopped the PET down on the coffee table with an unsympathetic, "Goodnight. You'd better be fixed tomorrow, or I won't take you to work." As he left the living room, he flipped the lights off. Roll followed suit a second later by turning off the television, and the room went completely dark.

Rockman knew Roll would be waiting for him; she always waited for him to get home, and now she had another reason to expect him. He debated for a moment if he should just stay where he was; Roll was a very polite Navi, and rarely entered his PET without permission or a good reason. No, he sighed, that wouldn't work. She was suspicious now, and if he stayed holed up in his PET that would only make her more suspicious.

"Welcome home!" Roll smiled softly as he appeared in the house's server in a shower of pixels. Her smile was not enough to hide the underlying worry, but she continued with their usual routine nonetheless. "How was your day?"

Rockman was surprised that she had resisted the temptation of immediately asking what was wrong. Hoping to distract her, he played along. "Long! I kept wishing I had brought you with me today, Roll-chan."

Roll made a little peep of shock. "What?"

"Oh, I made a very stupid mistake. I've been working of a long piece of coding for one of our projects, and I finally got it finished today after about a week of work. I checked it over for mistakes before I handed it off to Netto-kun, but... Well, I'm not as good as you are at scanning data."

Roll lifted a hand to lightly brush one of her antennae, the source of her amazing scanning prowess. "Are you alright? What went wrong?"

"I forgot a semi-colon, and two lines got smashed together. The result was a power surge that took out an entire fourth of SciLab's electrical grid."

"You're kidding!" Roll shouted, aghast.

"Nope," Rockman laughed.

"Did anyone get hurt?" she gasped, clearly not finding it as funny as he did.

"Nope," he repeated. "We lucked out, actually. A few instruments went out of calibration around the building, but everything rebooted fine. The only major loss was my program. A good chunk of it got loss in the mess." His explanation wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't a lie either; he was just omitting the more dangerous aspects.

"Thank goodness," Roll sighed, putting her hand over her Navi icon and breathing a sigh of relief. "Only you and Netto-san could turn something so small into such a disaster."

"I know," Rockman lamented, "and it was my fault! Usually Netto-kun is the one who screws up."

Roll put a fist to her mouth to hide her giggling. "Nobody is perfect. I'm sorry about your program, though. If you want help rewriting it"

It was a strange program; not the kind of thing Roll would know how to write. "If I ever get around to rewriting it, I'll be sure to let you proof-read it for typos! Though," he tiled his head to the side with another frown, "I'm not sure SciLabs will let us repeat today's experiment..."

"For good reason," Roll nodded in amusement.

"So what did you do today?" he asked, deciding to switch gears.

"Nothing as exciting as you!" Roll smiled, but the sudden complete lack of enthusiasm in her voice told a different story. "Meiru-chan didn't have school today, so she spent the morning making cute nametags for her students. In the afternoon she vacuumed the living room and read some… then we watched a little television while Meiru-chan made dinner... You know, the usual."

"So," Rockman said slowly, "what did you do?"

Roll waved a hand dismissively. "Browsed the internet. Slept. You know, the usual."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked. "I have my busy days, and I have my slow days. It can't be helped."

Was this what she meant about feeling useless? Rockman couldn't recall the last time he'd had a day completely to himself, but he imaged that doing nothing but playing chess and sleeping would drive him crazy after a while too. Not knowing how to respond, he turned his eyes to the floor. His right hand twitched; stuck by a sudden realization, he clenched it into a fist. Roll wanted something to do. Roll was good at scanning. He, on the other hand (quite literally), needed to do a scan and needed the free time to do it.

"Roll-chan!"

Roll jumped a little. "Yes?"

"I know what Netto- I mean, about what Netto-kun was saying earlier. I need your help!" Why hadn't he figured it out sooner? Netto wasn't just trying to embarrass him in front of her; Roll was perfect for this job!

"I'll try my best?" she said tentatively.

Rockman held up his right hand and spread his fingers out, his palm facing her. "Watch." He wiggled his fingers one by one. When he got to the pinkie finger, he only managed to wiggle it once before it got fuzzy and began to blink in and out of sight.

Roll gasped. "What the...?!"

"I know!" Rockman agreed, exasperated. "And when I do it long enough," he stopped, and involuntarily shuddered, "I get this strange feeling like... like I need to sneeze." Unable to repress another shudder, he rubbed at his nose furiously with his left hand.

"Sneeze? But... you can't sneeze."

"I am fully aware of that," he sniffled, "but that's what it feels like!"

"Is it a virus?" Roll asked, quickly becoming alarmed. "Has anything else been happening? Here, sit down, can I check?"

"No, it's not anything as bad as that," he reassured. "Netto-kun's convinced it's a virus, but I've checked a dozen times. I think…" Looking at Roll's anxious face, he felt a small hesitation. "Netto-kun's project at work— his research— has required a lot of coding to work in tandem with my core programming."

Roll's mouth fell open, and Rockman offered her a sheepish smile. "And so... I think... maybe a small piece of something I've written has integrated itself somewhere in my core files?"

"What?!" Roll all but shouted. "Rockman, that's serious! You don't know what it could be affecting!"

"So far only my right hand and my nose," he chuckled, ignoring Roll's sudden glare.

"Rockman!"

"It's not like I'm modifying my core program!" he defended. "It's not like Soul Unison, where I was actually combining things together... do you know how dangerous that can be?"

"Rockman, this isn't about that. Don't change the subject."

It was kind of hypocritical for her to say that; switching topics was one o f her most common defenses. "I'm just saying. It's not as bad as you think. I've run a lot of little diagnostics, and nothing has come up."

"But you haven't done a full system scan," Roll correctly inferred, bringing a palm to her forehead. For some reason, she looked exasperated.

Strange. I thought giving her something to do would cheer her up.

"Roll-chan, I am not kidding when I say my file size is huge. If there were a competition for this kind of thing, I would definitely be in the top five."

"I should think so," Roll muttered. "Hikari-hakase spent five years making you, didn't he?"

"Mm!" Rockman nodded. "So I really haven't had the time to do a full system scan."

Roll sighed. "Alright then. I can help. How long has this been going on?"

"Er," he looked to the ceiling for inspiration. "Only... only about a week, I think."

Roll gasped, which brought his attention back to her. She looked shocked.

"What?"

"Rockman." Roll's eyes narrowed into dangerous tiny slits. "When you program, how do you type?"

"With a small command window and touch panel?"

"Which looks like an ordinary screen with "qwerty" keyboard, right?" She put her hands on her hips, like she was accusing him of some terrible crime.

"Well... yeah."

"Final question: What finger do you push the semi-colon key with?"

"With my rig—"

A prickly wave of shock washed down his body. He typed... with his right pinkie. His right pinkie which tended to fade out of existence when he wiggled it, like when he was typing.

"Oh— oh you've got—" He was dizzy. His hand had been acting up for a week; he'd been writing this program for a week. The timing was perfect. "No way. It can't be— I didn't seriously— That's such an easy mistake to make, just a semi-colon..."

Roll reached out to lay a hand gently on his shoulder. "I told you," she admonished, "little things can make a difference."

Rockman shook her hand off, suddenly furious with himself. "You don't understand! Netto-kun was in the room with me, and... there were sparks everywhere and— and the ceiling lights all blew out and the glass just..." Though she tried to cover it with a sympathetic frown, Rockman caught Roll's brief look of horror. "I hid this from him! I hid it and it... Roll-chan, I could have— he..."

"You couldn't have known that one tiny mistake would lead to this."

"But I should have taken that possibility into account!" Unable to stand still in his irritation, he paced back and forth. "It's like you've been trying to tell me, when I rush into things and don't think about them… What if I had missed another semi-colon? What if I hadn't— I mean, the first thing I did was shut everything off and isolate the closest generator so the whole building wouldn't loose power, but..." He stopped. "Roll-chan, today could have been the day I didn't come home."

Without warning, a pair of small pink arms wrapped around his waist from behind. He felt Roll's forehead thunk down against his shoulder. "But you did."

"But I coul—"

"You came home," Roll interrupted loudly. "That's all that matters."

Rockman stood stock still, trying to focus on he feel of her arms and not on the terrifying thoughts churning through his mind. True, he really hadn't been the one at danger today, but Netto sure had been... If Netto couldn't come home because of him...

"Rockman," Roll said slowly, "I am sorry I yelled at you. I've been foolish. There is no way to plan for every outcome. It's impossible. Sometimes, it is better to just do things, even if you don't know what will happen. And when you screw up, because inevitably you will sometimes, so long as you can contain the damage and learn from your mistakes, it was worth trying to do. I understand that now."

"Roll-chan..."

"Today," Roll continued, "you did just that. You learned something valuable, and managed to fix your mistake before anybody got hurt. I am very proud of you."

Rockman wouldn't call today an accomplishment; if anything, he'd call it a contained failure. He was touched by Roll's vote of confidence, but that didn't make it any less of a failure. When he wasn't careful, he wasn't just hurting himself anymore… he had an entire family to think of now.

Unable to or (more likely) unwilling to put these thoughts into words, he managed to chuckle weakly. Frying a fourth of SciLab's electrical grid with a single skipped semi-colon… that had to be a new record. And what more, just when he agreed with Roll about thinking things through, she told him he should do the opposite.

"Roll-chan, how did we end up switching sides?" He put his arms over Roll's, holding them in place.

"Dunno," she mumbled into his hair. "Does it matter?"

"No."

They stood like that, neither moving an inch, until Rockman lost all sense of time. He knew it had to be getting pretty early in the morning; he was practically dead on his feet from working so many hours today. Despite that, he couldn't bring himself to let go of Roll. He was so tired it felt like she was holding him up, and at the same time was still kind of in a dizzy denial which made it feel like she was keeping him grounded.

"Rockman," Roll said softly, "if you grant me access to your core programming, I can do a full system scan for you."

Papa was the only person who had ever seen his core programming; he'd more than seen it, he'd written it. Netto had never asked to see it, because there'd never been a reason to. But if Netto did ask… Rockman had a feeling he would say no; letting Netto see what made him him would… ruin the illusion of who Netto thought he was.

"Rockman?"

For some reason, though, he didn't mind if Roll saw it. "I think I can trust Roll-chan not to share my secrets to the world, right?" he smiled.

"Mm!" she agreed.

Rockman followed her instructions, and a few seconds later he was lying on the floor with her sitting adjacent to him. Her antennae uncurled and lowered down to rest gently on his Navi icon. Roll shut her eyes, and her antennae began to glow softly.

"Can you get in? Is any security blocking you?"

"No," she mumbled. "Mm. You weren't kidding, you are big."

Rockman blushed, but wasn't sure why. "You don't have to stay up all night doing this, Roll-chan."

"No, it's alright. I slept most of today anyway…"

"Oh," he said. "Alright." He watched for work for a minute; she had a very serene look on her face. "Hey... Roll-chan?"

"Mm?" she hummed, cracking open one eye to smile at him.

"Thank you."

"Mmn."

It was very quiet after that. Rockman breathed a deep sigh and closed his eyes, contemplating sleep... and Roll.

Once, a few years ago, Roll had asked him to just call her "Roll". She said he didn't need the chan; though they hadn't grown up physically like their Operators, there was no denying that they had grown up.

Rockman had flat out refused; his exact words had been, "But Roll-chan is Roll-chan!" It was strange to call her anything else, and somehow more strange that she had even asked in the first place. When did she change so much? As bizarre as it felt to admit it, he almost missed her joyous yells of "Rockmaaan!" that heralded an imminent hug. She no longer clung to him, no longer hung on his every word… True, they lived together and she saw him a lot more often, so there was no need to jump on him every day, but... Somehow, Roll had grown up and he had missed it.

Oh, she still showed her affection in little ways… For instance, when he came home. No matter how late, Roll was always waiting in the exact same spot with a big smile and a "Welcome home!" And then, no matter how late, she would ask how his day was, briefly tell him about hers, and shoo him off to bed. She would get up at the same time he did too, so she could say goodbye and wish him a nice day at work. It had become such a habit for the two of them that it if it didn't happen, it meant something was wrong.

It was a very housewife-y thing to do, but Rockman found it endearing. He was sure that if they were human, she would make him super elaborate bento lunches to take to work, too. That was just the kind of woman she was; she put her heart into everything she did. Only… it was more controlled now. Roll had a lot more confidence in herself; she could hug him, she could yell at him, she was full of kind (and not so kind) advice, she could do all sorts of things without the slightest hesitation... she had grown up! They really were equals now, and Rockman felt bad for not treating her like one.

He wasn't better than her, and by no means was he stronger; she was the one who fixed a lot of his mistakes, and she had a knack for knowing just what to say to make him feel better, like today. All the same, if something bad happened, it was his natural reaction to fix it himself. Not because he was better, but because... more so than anything in the world, he wanted to protect Roll. It didn't matter how upset she got or how useless she felt; she was safe, and that was what mattered.

But today, his perspective had changed. Keeping her safe and keeping her happy also meant that he had to be safe. He supposed that was how it was with Netto; one without the other just wouldn't do.

Netto asked him how he felt about Roll; he still couldn't answer. And in the end, he didn't need to. Roll was important to him; how she was important wasn't crucial to that truth. Satisfied with that conclusion, Rockman let himself drift off to sleep.