As the groaning and whirring of the engines slowly came to a stop, Braxiatel checked the readings before flicking the door switch. The Doctor collected his things while his brother helped see him out.

"Do take care, will you, Doctor? It would be a terrible shame if you left young Charlotte stranded, you know."

The Doctor couldn't agree more. "Yes, after this I really must get back to her. You should meet her. Benny shared her name when you were in contact, did she? Wait- I didn't mention what Charley was short for," he commented, giving a sideways glance.

"I'm aware of her, if only by proxy. And I knew it was this face of yours the girl travelled with- it wasn't much to deduce," he explained. The Doctor was evidently before the Zagreus incident. She was still a temporal instability at this stage, which meant Irving would be tactfully finding a way for her to not walk right up to his doorstep. So if the Doctor did indeed invite himself to meet Irving with Charley in tow, he'd be sure to have that be far away from the Collection.

Luckily, his brother didn't seem to catch on to that. "You always were a show-off when it came to that sort of thing, Brax."

"Guilty as charged. Hm."

There was a long pause. The Doctor was trying to think of what to say and how he should say it. They weren't close, especially not anymore- but he was still worried about his brother. "Are you alright, Brax? Really? Don't be flippant, we've not got the time."

"You asking me not to be flippant, oh, what has the universe come to..." Braxiatel fidgeted with his cufflinks, concerned on whether he should actually answer. He wasn't good at this. It had been ages since he felt so close to helpless, and looking strong made that easier. But finally, he did, exhaling tiredly, "No, no. No, Theta. -I'm not alright. I sent Bernice into it and failed to realize this was a trap, which was bad enough. But the strain of fighting her infection and keeping us together was also exhausting, yet there's still so much more to do, so much on the line. My friends, my livelihood, my... my partner. It's been grim before, but not like this. Doctor, do you ever feel this way?"

"Yes..." he trailed off. He thought about Charley, and the times he nearly lost her, among so many of his companions, or the TARDIS. The thing was, he was used to it, to an extent. Always knowing- or at least usually reasonable in thinking, that things would go right in the end. Braxiatel wasn't.

The Doctor understood, but was rightfully a little shocked about Irving's openness. Something had changed since they last met. It has been a long time now that he thought about it. Not since his last visit to the Collection at Christmas, and even that was so brief it might as well have been two boats passing in the night.

He supposed, and was correct in supposing, that Braxiatel was tired. Not just because of what happened these past few days, but in life. But there was something else there too, a type of warmth that hadn't been openly present... ever. He never thought that the man in front of him, stiff and deliberate in all his actions virtually since they were children, would ever fall into something as deeply unpredictable as love.

Then again, lately he might've too.

But looking back, the newspapers definitely weren't wrong about their relationship, and it certainly wasn't a brief fling that he would've gathered from Bernice if it was her alone, he could tell from Brax's level of care and intimacy, and the genuine fear in his eyes that broke through his sternness when she was in danger. A truth that only ever manifested in those blue-grey eyes of his, the clouded skies about to rain that they were.

He still thought Benny had terrible taste in men- him excluded, but that was neither here nor there.

"Here, take this. You'll need it. That little screwdriver of yours won't do much good with a reading for something this potent." Irving unplugged the Artron Signature tracker from the console and passed the dense object on to the Doctor, before finally letting go and bidding him a reluctant farewell.

As his brother disappeared from the ship and made his way towards his own, the doors shut. And Brax was alone again. He didn't know whether or not that was a relief, so he felt for the needs of the ship to move onto the next subject. She wasn't usually begging to be a drawing room again, but his time sense picked up the discomfort and distress that having a piece of the Seal around must cause in addition to temporarily not having her TVG.

Braxiatel appeared apologetic. "I am sorry. We'll be back to normal soon. And tonight, despite Bernice being back, due to the situation, of course you'll remain unbothered by any... evening activities."

She groaned.

"I know..." he whispered, gently stroking the sides of the console before he got back to the controls, leaning towards and practically whispering sweet nothings to the time rotor. Benny wasn't the only one he made these softer gestures to. The other recipient just happened to be his telepathically bonded time capsule.

He stood still and just let himself breathe as it took flight into the vortex once more. Not much longer, this would all be over in hardly any time at all, right? Hopefully. As soon as he returned and the ship was once again his study, Irving's first choice of action was natural. And, undoubtedly, uncomfortable.

After he walked a distance and made his way to the staff block, he knocked on the door to one of the apartments.

Her son's apartment.

After a while, the door opened inwards, which a dark-haired man with one furry ear perking up was peeking around. After getting a look, it opened completely. He looked curious.

"Irving- what are you doing here? You don't exactly do house calls."

Brax inhaled sharply, before letting it out. His hands were folded in front of him, as if subtly praying. "Peter, Bernice is in the medbay. Something... happened to her. Something serious."

"What? What happened to her?"

"It was... deeply unpleasant. You should see for yourself. She won't be awake yet, but at least you should know what happened to your mother," he said gravely.

Peter's eyes widened slightly. There was a little fear for her in the look he gave, a little anger. He didn't say it openly much, but the man still loved his mum.

Irving was unspecific in what he told, but still none of it was good news. "She'll be out for another six to eight hours during this part of the treatment, and then a surgeon will take over."

This was mad. "Surgeon? What the hell, Irving? What the cruk happened? Take me there. Now," he demanded.

And Brax did.

They stepped into the cold, empty-feeling hospital room, in which Bernice lay still on a bed, needles in her arms and hooked up to the machine. It was a morbid sight, the state of her, taken apart and stitched back together, almost mangled in a way, the colour of life barely apparent in a now extremely slight warmth to her skin. The beeping of her heart monitor was the only sound, tinny and discordant.

Brax tried to maintain composure as he said this- but the fresh knowledge that it had happened to her once before, let alone twice now- it was hard to keep a straight face about. "Apparently this is the second time she's undergone a failed cyber conversion. ...I'm sorry, this must be something particularly personal."

"...Yeah, it is."

It was hard to look at her like this. They'd had their differences in the past, and he didn't see what happened to his stepdad in person, but that didn't make this any better. It reminded him of death, and upheaval, and running. So much running. Running from the man who stood right in front of him. He knew they weren't the same, uncle Brax and Irving. But the sight made him uneasy, and more than a little mad at the injustice, at history being forced to repeat, albeit in a different form.

Peter held in a growl, but bared his teeth all the same. Braxiatel almost felt a tinge of fear at the expression he was showing.

At it, Irving rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "...Jason is in the other room, if you wish to visit him as well."

That made Peter suspicious. Was Brax taking this chance to hurt them, and then go and look like the hero who saved their lives afterwards? Something stank of deceit here, and it wasn't unreasonable to think this could be that. Especially after he confessed to regaining his other self's memories. What else could he have gotten back?

"What did you do? Did they get him as well?"

Irving was unsurprised by the man's apprehensiveness. The position he was in was far from good, after all. So he confessed to what he did, and what he didn't, and told everything he knew in simple enough terms. "It was my fault they ended up there, but I didn't know it would happen. And Jason wasn't converted, he just got some bad burns from energy weapons. He should be up and about in a wheelchair in a few hours. We actually have him to thank for getting her out of this."

Peter still didn't think that was the whole story.

"...I'll believe you for now, but if anything like this happens to him or mum again, or Jack or Diego, I'll kill you. Got it?" he threatened.

Braxiatel nodded reluctantly. He knew he shouldn't fear Peter, he was a gentle soul on the inside. But much like him, or Bernice, or Jason even, he made protecting who he cared for into an unbreakable duty. And Irving couldn't ever force himself to hurt him. He may have been a man now, but even if he wasn't Benny's son, he still saw Peter as the boy he took in. Those years they spent at the White Rabbit, he'd grown attached. If Peter needed to fight him, he could only bear to use defences that couldn't cause harm to a single hair on his head.

So Brax heeded his warning, and swore an oath, a hand held to his left heart. "Nothing like this will happen under my watch again, Peter. I promise. Regardless of if I were to do it, it would be my fault. This already is my fault. I won't let it continue to be." There was something stern and cold about his words. He'd failed today. He'd failed before, of course. But this was a long-needed reminder of just how unshakable of a protector he needed to be in future. Not another ounce of public vulnerability, not another crack in his facade. Benny would once again become the only one to peer underneath his mask. All others would only see a figure of power who could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders without even flinching.

Peter looked at his mother. She could be sleeping peacefully, if he pretended. But he didn't. He knew that right now, out like this, she wasn't there at all, her mind empty, and blank.

They stood there in silence for a while.

"I'm not visiting Jason," he finally mumbled.

Much as he loved him, Peter still didn't like him much. Because why would you like looking at someone you strangled in the eye? It only gave him bad memories.

"Leave us alone, will you?"

"Of course. Just let me check up on the treatment, and I'll be gone."

Not enough nutrients or water- he realized she might not have eaten or drank during the time of her capture. That would be a problem... if he couldn't simply give her an IV drip. The filters would only be getting the various nanobots out, that didn't even need to be changed.

He told Peter what needed to be done, set it up, and, after spending a long time grasping her hand, laid a kiss on it and left. She was in good hands. The anaesthesiologists and other doctors were attentive, and Peter would certainly make sure it'd stay that way before she made it into surgery.

After finishing what he had set out to do, Braxiatel bid the two of them farewell.

Darkness.

Noise.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Over and over.

Pain.

But numbness too.

Fog stopped her from thinking, she hardly knew her own name, then slowly bits came back. Parts of a story she'd rather not remember at all.

She finally opened up to the blinding light that burned through her eyelids.

A figure stood over her, and she made out features slowly as her vision adjusted. She knew that face, those dark eyes that matched her own, and shot up in the stiff hospital bed, trying to reach out and shout for him. '...Peter- Peter!'

But when she spoke, there were no words. Only a quiet wheezing coming from her throat. Recalling what had been placed there against her will, she put her hands to her neck. She couldn't feel the vocal implants anymore, but there was a considerable amount of bandaging there. The sleep gone from her body, it was raw, aching.

Her eyes were still wild, a sense of serious danger there that she knew was illogical, but couldn't stop feeling. But a furred hand closed around one of her own and soothed her.

"Mum- stop, calm down."

Her son called another name she knew. "Irving! She's up- come here?"

The call rang in her ears.

What seemed like an eternity later, a tall, familiar man in a splendidly designed suit crossed her vision, a somber look of sympathy in his clouded eyes.

She tried to talk again, but was once more silenced, a gentle hand close to her mouth.

Irving Braxiatel shushed her quietly. "Benny, don't talk. And don't move much, either. Extensive surgery had to be done on you to get as much of the Cyber technology out of your body as we could, that included work on your vocal cords."

Bernice quickly began adjusting to not having a voice. She still didn't like it, but at least she was adaptable. So her response to 'As much as we could' was an exaggerated but still real look of scepticism.

He elaborated. It was an odd thing to explain but he did anyway. "The scans indicate that your skeleton was reinforced with titanium alloy. And it's directly grafted into most of your bones, so that has to be left alone. While it couldn't be completely reversed- at least in future you'll be extremely durable, if slightly more susceptible to tendon deterioration because of the metal. Thought, it won't be possible for you to be converted using anything inside you again- all active components have been extracted and destroyed."

Regardless of the positives, Benny still felt violated, like she wasn't fully herself anymore, at the thought not at home in her own body. She hated her scars already- knowing that there was something so huge, just underneath the skin? It unnerved her, disgusted her even. But she kept a straight face.

At least that was all it would be. She escaped full conversion once more, escaped the cold embrace of a living death in a walking metal coffin. She was still flesh and blood, and she still had her emotions and memories, right? She'd even have her own voice when it was back, too. It would just take a while for everything to heal.

But in the meantime, Bernice still felt helpless, and everything else was wrong.

Confined to a bed, unable to speak her mind, Benny let out a silent scream.

She yearned for at least a familiar touch, something to ground her in reality while still distracting herself from the situation. At that thought, her eyes turned to Braxiatel again, and she mouthed his name, along with a few words and an expression that didn't take a genius to decipher.

And before she knew it, his hand was on her cheek, which she gladly leant into.

She thought about how she felt about Brax. Everything left her feeling conflicted, at best. Not that it was his fault- or this him's fault anyway. But Jason, Bernice already knew she couldn't look in the eye right now, even if he was better off than her, and Peter- she'd love to see more of him, but could hardly bear to let him see her like this, at least for long.

Her eyes turned back to her son. Benny wanted Peter here, but still felt that she couldn't, because she'd be showing to be this weak, this vulnerable, when she was supposed to be his protector as was the promise she made as a mother at his moment of birth. He might be an adult now, and she failed that promise many times- but not even being able to be the figure that stood strong and never gave up for him, it stung a little. Not that she knew, but right now her and Brax had rather a lot more in common than usual.

At least it was a distraction from her other senses, the pain and the tingling of half worn-off anaesthetics- there was a lot of that, all over, and the pressure and itch of all the bandages and unseen stitches too.

Bernice wanted to be alone. But she needed a guardian, to prove to her that she wasn't. Because if she was alone, truly alone, then she had nothing to anchor herself. Being sure she even still was herself was difficult enough. But seeing people she loved, caring about her and being able to care for them back, loving like she used to and knowing that she could... It kept Benny out of the dark that wanted to encroach her.

It kept Benny... Benny.

When Irving was about to pull his hand away from her cheek, she reached out for it and tightly snatched it back, holding the interwoven pair in her lap. Bernice quivered, mouthing out a single word.

'Stay.'