Kos-mos gets up rather quickly this morning, for the most part it seems T-elos did fine last night seeing as she woke up in her charging station like she asked. Scott also doesn't mention anything odd, simply telling her 'good morning' and that the others are in the diner preparing breakfast.
Still, she worries slightly and decides it'd be best to check up on T-elos anyway. Once Scott leaves she tries speaking to T-elos. She calls her name quite a few times, to be answered only by the ambient sounds of machinery within the lab.
"T-ELOS!"
Kos-mos raises her voice calling out, before it hits her that it probably doesn't work like that and T-elos isn't any more likely to hear her. Instead she runs a quick scan over all hers and T-elos' systems, it's the only thing she can think to do to make sure nothing bad happened the other night.
"OH MISS KOS-MOS!"
Kos-mos turns to see one of the ship's maintenance droids rushing in the lab holding a large box. Before she can ask them what they want the droid hurriedly shoves the box into her arms.
"I'm so sorry about last night, I was too overwhelmed to properly help. So I went and found every movie and video game we have on the ship for you!"
Looking down the box seems to be filled to the brim with game and movie cartridges, just as the droid said. She flips one (apparently a racing game) around in her hand, wondering why T-elos would ask for so many of these. "Erm... Thank you, I will have to look these over later." The droid seems to beam with pride as she sets the box down in her pod.
The droid still stays in place, watching her. Kos-mos wonders if T-elos promised them something in exchange for the things they brought her.
A shock of nervousness makes its way through her, she continues staring at the droid while running through her system files. Hoping she can either find record of what T-elos said to them, or that they'll simply say something to her first.
"Oh! Well I'd better get going now."
Kos-mos watches them zip out just as quickly as they came in. She... Hopes that means T-elos didn't promise them anything.
It takes just another minute before the system scan is done, every piece of both hard and software seems to be in place. In fact she seems to be running more efficiently then before, a record showed that a small leak in her battery was fixed last night. Even looking over the recording of last night nothing bad seems to have happened, T-elos acted skittish and odd yes, but other than that she didn't get hurt or harassed or anything.
Perhaps I'm just being overly cautious, after all she slept in the other day as well.
She decides that's what she's going to go with for now, and that she should meet up with the others now.
Allen sits at a table in the diner with Scott, the two of them go over work related stuff as Allen absentmindedly pokes around at his food. Scott's especially happy and excited about the fact that the professor has been considering working on new A.W.M.S. for everyone now that they no longer have E.S.'s.
"It'd be really useful to have them, especially in some of the more dangerous parts around here."
"Umm... You guys aren't thinking of making them have to... Combine, are you?"
"No, no. Well... Not to make the base A.M.W.S. anyway."
"Oh my god-"
"LISTEN, it'll be fine! You'll all get to combine together into the limbs of a giant robot, like that one show! Have you seen it Allen?"
The sound of the diner door sliding open disrupts them for a moment, peeking over at the disturbance he sees Kos-mos come in. He actually almost forgot she wasn't here yet, something that just comes with being so quiet he supposes.
Without a word she makes her way over to the table Shion sits at and takes a seat of her own. Allen hears her give Kos-mos a cheery 'good morning' like she always does, before turning his attention back to him and Scott.
"Well she seems to be doing better."
"Hmm," Scott looks back to Allen, "you mean Shion?"
"Yeah, I mean it's only been a few days so maybe it's just a brief high. But it's at least a lot better than the previous ones. I'm hoping that now that things are getting back to normal she won't be as depressed."
"I see... Well either way I'll have to take your word for it, I don't know her too well after all."
Allen simply nods and looks down at his food. He should probably finally just eat it and stop playing with it...
"You seem to care about her a lot."
"Y- Yeah, I don't think she's interested though..."
"Well that's alright, after all, there's other's that ARE interested."
"Um.. I don't know about that. I've been told I don't make a big impression on people, and anyway I don't know that many people so who even-" Allen stops in the middle of his sentence when he looks up and notices Scott giving him a weird look. He wonders if he said something wrong.
Scott opens his mouth to say something, but stops and shakes his head. "Eh, nevermind. So Shion turned you down when you asked huh?"
"Well um... here's the thing I haven't really..."
"YOU HAVEN'T ASKED HER OUT!?" Tony flings himself over to their table and leans above Scott's chair, Allen tries to motion for him to quiet down but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "What the hell dude? Why not?"
"I already said, I'm sure she's not interested-"
"Well in that case you should just let her turn you down." Scott chips in, causing Allen to look at him like he just suggested he throw himself in the ship's engine. "I mean, think about it, at least that way you can say with certainty that she's not interested. It may be easier to get over her that way."
"Yeah! What he said." Allen ponders for a moment, that seems right, and it is about time he starts moving on. Yeah...
"All right!" Allen quickly gets up, his friends putting him in a courage high. "I'll do it, right now!" The two cheer him on as he turns and marches over to Shion's table. He takes a deep breath, looks down toward the floor (he decides he'll lose his courage if he has to make eye contact), and then turns around to speak.
"I- I need to tell you something! I know... I know you already know that I really l- lik... LOVE you, but I think it's time I ask. So that I can be true to my feelings, even if you say no. Will you go out with m-"
Allen finally decides to look up at Shion... Only to realize she's... Not there. She must have left earlier without him noticing because now the only one sitting at the table is Kos-mos, her mouth half full of cereal she was eating. With this the weight of Kos-mos' and everyone else's stares really starts to weigh on Allen.
God, why did I say that so loud? Why didn't I look and make sure the Chief was still there? WHY AM I STILL JUST STANDING HERE? I need to fix this situation somehow. Do I just tell Kos-mos I wasn't talking to her? BUT WHO WOULD I SAY I WAS TALKING TO THEN, THE CHIEF ISN'T HERE-
"Allen..." Allen jolts as Kos-mos' voice pulls him out of his thoughts, she takes a napkin and wipes her mouth off before speaking. "I am sorry, but you are-" She stops and looks at him funny for a second, trying to find the right worlds. "-not... My type."
"Aha... Okay, that's alright."
"That is not to say that you are unnattractive-"
"Okay, Kos-mos..."
"-Although, granted, I do not find you attractive-"
"Okay..."
"-But that is not to say no one will find you attractive. I mean statistically-"
Oh my god, please, I just want to go. "Okay it's fine, I'm just gonna go now-"
"No, hold on Allen, I think you should hear this." Kos-mos grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him down into the seat next to her. "You see between the total population of the federation government, the miltian alliance, and even the outer republic-"
Allen tries to wriggle away from her, but Kos-mos has too strong a grip on his shoulder. Please help...
"-Are you listening Allen? By law of large numbers there must at least be someone- likely 50 to 225 people- who does indeed find you attractive."
Shion slips out of the bathroom and back towards the diner, all the while going over a mental list of what she needs to do today so she doesn't forget. Make sure Kos-mos is doing better, confirm the new A.W.M.S. designs with the professor, fix Jr's Playstation X 25, help clean the girls room, lament on what a busy day she's going to have...
She was going to pull Kos-mos aside for a check up after she got back, but when she walks back in she finds that Allen is now sitting next to Kos-mos as she appears to be giving him a lecture of some sort. One look at Allen banging his head on the table and Shion decides whatever their conversation is about it's not worth getting into.
Instead Shion slips past them and heads over to where Jr and Shelley sit.
I'll just see if I can find out what's wrong with Jr's game while I wait for those two.
"Hmm, oh hey Shion." Jr greets her as she takes a seat across from him.
"Hey Jr, if you've got a minute would you mind telling me what exactly is acting up with that console. I'll probably be able to fix it by tonight."
"Uh, okay. Didn't you have other things you needed to take care of first though?"
"Well, number one on my list currently seems to be a bit..." She glances back over at Kos-mos who has started pushing her face really close to Allen in an attempt to get him to pay closer attention to her as she continues lecturing him. "...Occupied."
"Hmm, number one on your list in WHAT sense?" Shelley quips in a rather suggestive tone, causing Shion to reel.
"Shelley Godwin, did I just catch a hint of your sister in your tone there?" Shelley scoffs, only making Shion laugh at her. "Anyway I just need to give her a brief looking over to make sure the maintenance I ran on her last night went well. Anything else will have to wait until my schedule's not so jam packed."
"Anything else, huh?" Jr decided to join in on teasing Shion.
"Yeah, I mean talking, cuddling... I dunno, it's been a while since I've done couple things-"
"WAIT, HOLD ON!" Jr cuts her off, "you mean you two actually are dating?"
Shion blinks, looking at Jr a little confused. Oh... Perhaps I misread the situation a little bit. "Y- Yeah, I thought you guys already found out and that's why you were giving me shit about it."
"Yeah, me and Mary figured as much-"
"I DIDN'T KNOW!"
"-at any rate I'm guessing this is a pretty recent development, so congratulations."
"Thanks, I'm sure Kos-mos won't mind me telling you, I think she was just being shy the other day."
"Wait, hold on Shion. You can't just go on with this like nothing's up."
"I... Can't?"
"No, you're supposed to make an announcement to all your friends when you hook up with someone!"
"I'm pretty sure I never did that when I got with Kevin..."
"Oh hold on, I'll set something up for you guys!" And then, before she can even argue, Jr zips right out of the diner.
"Erm, sorry about the little master, I believe he's been watching too many sitcoms lately." Shelley simply watches Jr rush out, she's given up any attempt at stopping his schemes long, long, ago.
"Well, that's fine I guess, I mean I didn't plan to make a big deal out of this but... OH WAIT!" Shion covers her face with her hands realizing she forgot something important. "I never got that game system from him." She lets out an annoyed sigh, Shelley gently placing a hand on her shoulder.
This is going to be a long day, I can already tell.
Kos-mos ends up talking to Allen a lot longer than she intended, long after everyone else already left. She wanted that conversation to make him feel better, but no matter what she did Allen only seemed to feel worse, and every attempt she made to fix it went nowhere. After a while she simply lets him go and accepts that she's just no good at comforting people.
I am not sure how I ever managed to help Shion, she thinks to herself as she slips out of the diner, I suppose she's just very different from Allen. But also I don't think I could hug Allen, that would just be weird...
Kos-mos stops in the middle of walking, almost as though she's expecting something. Do you have nothing to add?
...
Jr and Albedo are not here right now, and you seemed to do just fine last night, so why are you doing this right now.
...
She sighs, I cannot even comfort another android, and one that literally cannot leave me at that. Kos-mos shakes her head and begins walking again, perhaps I'm just no good with others. That's at least comforting in some sense, that way it feels a bit more like an actual human personality trait and less like I'm too much of an emotionless machine to understand people.
Not entirely sure where she's trying to go Kos-mos just ends up back in the lab, which has become quite the mess. Tons of papers which all seemed to depict various A.M.W.S. blueprints are scattered around the floor, some larger half torn blueprints for a robot that was distinctively designed by the professor are sprawled across one of the computer desks, and someone seems to have pulled out a whiteboard and drawn a smiling robot on it along with the word "friendship".
Kos-mos notices Shion sitting at one of the desks fiddling with her comm device. "I am guessing designing the new A.M.W.S. didn't go over too well."
"Oh gee, what gave you that idea?" Shion says in a joking sarcastic tone as Kos-mos takes a seat next to her. "Of course Jr isn't picking up. Oh well if he really wants that game fixed he can come bring it to me himself." Shion tosses the device onto the table and turns her attention to Kos-mos. "At least you're here now, how are you feeling? You were acting pretty goofy last night."
"My energy efficiency is up quite a bit, one of the updates you ran also improved my general system speed a good bit, aside from that my OS-"
Shion cuts her off by placing an arm on her shoulder, "Kos-mos I'm glad you're physically feeling well, really I am, but also that's not what I meant."
"Oh, I see. Well most of today I have felt... Default... Emotion. Is there a word for that?" Shion simply shrugs and hums unsure of the answer. "Right now though I am feeling pretty happy that I am with you."
"Aww, you stop that." Shion smiles and playfully shoves her, "well I'm glad you're feeling better. Do you mind if I ask you one more thing though?"
"Of course, anything you want."
"What happened to Mary after we left Michtam? Are you like the same person? Are you different? Is she still there even?"
"I am... Not entirely sure." Kos-mos pauses and stares down at the floor for a moment, trying to figure out a good way to word her explanation. "I think Me and Mary come from the same place and were the exact same at some point, but after a while we became different."
Shion nods, "okay, that makes sense I think. But is she still around?"
Kos-mos shifts her eyes from the floor back to Shion, subconsciously tilting her head in curiosity. "Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, well... this is going to sound silly, but I thought I saw her last night. I caught a glance of your eyes and well... They didn't look like yours."
Kos-mos blinks, coming to a realization. Of course, T-elos has blue eyes. I should have thought that they'd change, after all they always did when Mary took control. She frowns and feels a slight blush take over her face, what is wrong with me lately, why do I keep making logistic errors like this?
"Uh, Kos-mos?"
Kos-mos snaps back to attention with that, she shakes her head quickly before answering Shion. "I am not entirely sure yet, but I don't think that Mary is still around right now. Perhaps your eyes were just playing tricks on you?" Kos-mos hadn't lied to Shion before now, and she can now safely say that she hates doing it.
I know you likely won't answer, but you had better appreciate what i am doing for you.
"Yeah, you're probably right... Anyway, as long as you're doing better I guess it doesn't really matter." Shion leans on Kos-mos, putting her head on the other girl's shoulder. The tenseness Kos-mos didn't know she had leaves her body as she leans her own head on Shion's. "Oh boy," she sighs, "I've got quite a lot of cleaning to do now..."
"You're not their maid you know," Kos-mos looks over the dirty room as she speaks. "The professor and Scott made this mess, yes? I'll make sure they are the ones to clean it."
Shion smiles up at her, "thank you Kos-mos, I appreciate you looking out for me." The two of them sit quietly together for a while just enjoying each other's company, before Shion speaks up again. "Oh hey, Kos-mos?"
"Yes?"
"Tony said that if he's quick we could make it back to the Dämmerung by tonight, so I was thinking maybe when we get there we could find you some more comfortable clothes and you could sleep with me again." Shion blushes bashfully after finishing that sentence. "I mean... If you want to that is. I just felt bad because last time you fell asleep in that clunky armor."
"I think I would like that actually." Kos-mos reaches her arm over to hold Shion.
"I do have to help clean the girls room first though."
"How unfortunate for you."
"Hey, what happened to making sure I'm the one doing the cleaning?"
"Technically part of that mess is yours."
"True... But I also distinctly remember you knocking some of those things onto the floor."
...
"Perhaps we could stay in a room on the Dämmerung for the night."
A particularly excited girl paces around in the cargo bay of the giant vector ship. She's been there since early that morning, despite being told that the other's won't arrive until late that night at best and almost 3 days later at worst. But it seems like she's lucky tonight.
"Attention, the cargo ship Elsa is now within range and preparing to board. All maintenance staff are to clear the air lock and prepare the private docking bay."
"Oh!" She's brought back to reality by the sound of the ship's overhead speakers, "they're here! Finally, they're here! I'm gonna be the first to welcome- WAIT SHIT WHICH SECTION OF THE DOCKING BAY ARE THEY GOING TO!? Oh jeez why didn't I check this before?"
After a particularly long day the Elsa finally reaches the Dämmerung, at almost midnight. Shion looks over everyone in the bridge, most everyone seems pretty tired and, she imagines, pretty relieved that they finally made it.
Finally the airlock finishes pressurizing and the gate opens letting them through to the dock. From out the front window Shion notices Juli Mizrahi waiting on the dock for them. She smiles and makes her way to the ship's exit so she can go greet her.
"Juli, it's good to see you again. It's been quite some time."
"It certainly has, it's good to see the rest of you as well-" Juli looks behind Shion to see the Allen and Jr leave, but is caught off guard when she notices Kos-mos there as well. Kos-mos, upon realizing Juli is staring at her, awkwardly tries to back up back into the ship only to run into Chaos. The later of whom Juli is now also staring at, bewildered.
"Erm, it's a long story but we picked up some old friends again." Jr says, "I'll explain later, but for now it's good to see ya again doc. Where's-"
"JR!" Momo comes running through the cargo bay and slows down just before coming up to Jr so that she can give him a hug. "It's been so long since I saw you guys, and- Oh! Chaos! Kos-mos! you're both okay too!" She gets more excited as she sees the two of them, her excitement rubbing off on Jr until he's fully awake and laughing with her.
Shion here's some heavy footsteps and notices Ziggy following slowly behind, she cheerily greets him as well. "It is nice to see you all got back safely." His response is a lot less enthusiastic as Momo's, but Shion gets the feeling he's still pretty happy to see them. After paying so close attention to the any little quirks or hints of emotion from Kos-mos she's gotten quite good at reading people. "Someone else is coming to see you too."
Soon after he says that Shion hears some barking and the clicking of claws against the hard floor. "ALBY!" Momo pulls away from Jr so that the speeding animal can get to him. He hops up and all around Jr licking at him furiously.
Shion laughs cheerily at Jr, "well do we have any one else who wants to join the party or is that it?"
"SHION!" Shion perks up as she hears a familiar voice shout from... Somewhere. She looks all around but doesn't see where it came from, it sounded at least somewhat close though.
Allen takes this chance to move far away from Shion, learning his lesson from last time. He now stands by the front of the ship, close to the main hall. He figures that should be far enough-
"SHION!"
"OH COME ON- GAH!"
Miyuki suddenly comes running like a bat out of hell from the main hall, shoving Allen to the ground on the way.
Miyuki runs right for Shion much like Momo did when she ran to hug Jr. But unlike Momo, Miyuki doesn't slow down... At all.
"MIYUKI HOLD ON-" Shion does her best to brace herself but is knocked onto her ass by the speeding girl. This doesn't stop Miyuki from giving Shion a crushing hug and cuddling right up to her, though.
"OH MY GOSH, Shion it's been waaaaaaay too long! I don't think I've EVER had to go so long without seeing you or being able to text or video chat you or anything." Miyuki pulls her face away and Shion notices she looks like she's about to cry, she's still got a huge smile on her face, but still.
She hears a clacking of footsteps beside her as Kos-mos comes up to the two of them, "are you alright?"
Miyuki's eyes grow immensely in size when she hears Kos-mos' voice. "HOLY SHIT!" Suddenly she hops off Shion and up to tackle Kos-mos into a hug instead, almost knocking the android down as well. "I can't believe you're here too, Kos-mos! I thought you died in space!"
"Well, I got better." Kos-mos mumbles as she lightly wraps her arms around Miyuki. After getting her fill of hugs Miyuki pulls away from Kos-mos, still holding her by the shoulders.
"AA I know Shion said she'd find you again, but I'm still just so... SURPRISED! I can't wait to show you guys the new weapons I've gotten ideas for, oh, and I pieced your tertiary weapons system back together just in case we ever needed it. And Shion you were right, I DID develop an allergy to apples. So I decided to try this new thing, ohhhh we have so much to catch up on-"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down Miyuki. You do know we're only staying for about a day or so right?" Shion does her best to slow down the girl's wild rambling.
"Oh of course, don't worry one bit." Miyuki waves her off, "as soon as I got word that you guys were heading back for recon I immediately started packing my stuff."
"Packing?"
"YES!" Miyuki then grabs Shion's shoulders, "listen, Shion, staying back here was the worst decision. In addition to missing you, I was bored out of my mind. I mean I could've tried helping Juli and Momo develop their new form of transportation, but you know theoretical physics was my worst subject."
Shion decides to think on this a bit... Last time Miyuki wanted to help she blew her off, but since then she'd been nothing but helpful, and it seems she's still completely enthusiastic about coming along with her and the others.
I do sometimes get the feeling I never appreciated her help as much as I could have... Maybe it's time to start making up for that.
Shion smiles and nods, "alright, I understand. I'm glad you'll be coming with us, it'll be nice to get to spend time with you again." Shion's smile fades a little as she watches Miyuki break out into full on tears.
"Shioooon."
"Oh gee... Come on Miyuki, we still need to get settled in for the night, and I promised Kos-mos I'd buy her something more comfortable to sleep in."
Miyuki perks up, quickly wiping her tears away and pulling herself together. "A- Alright, I got just the thing for both those things." She grabs Shion's hand with one of her own, and then Kos-mos' with the other then drags them off. " Follow me!"
As they run off Shion swears she sees Jr give them a particularly mischievous look, but she isn't able to dwell on it before they're too far away from him.