((A/N: This is the second to the last chapter guys. It isn't quite as long as I wanted it to be..but reading over it when I had it at 16 pages I decided I would do with this what I did with Chapter's Six and Seven. Sometimes less is more. And I feel good about this one. Let me know what you guys think! ))

Chapter Eight: March of the Martyrs

A tired, sore, and slightly sour smelling Pakadermis J. Elefun sighed, and let his small, grey eyes slowly wander up towards the little bit of morning light creeping out from behind the thin, white linen curtains in his office. The clock, slowly ticking off the seconds next to him read six thirty. He'd been up almost the entire night pouring over Astro's blue prints. Straining his eyes over all the complicated circuitry and odd assortments of connections in various places Tenma had made. He grunted and brought his thumb and pointer finger up to rub away the ache on the bridge of his nose, due to his glasses having dug into it. You could learn an awful lot about a man's ethical point of view when you stayed up looking over his designs. And Tenma was a man who obviously had a very VERY different ethical point of view from the average scientist.

Brain matter… traces of blood being used throughout Astro's circulatory system… and there were even some of Tobio's hair follicles precariously placed here and there on what was supposed to be his scalp. Evidence of Tenma having actually collected thing's from his son's body after his death. It was disturbing. And he had absolutely NO idea what to do with the information. What was he supposed to do should he ever have to actually try his hand at fixing the boy? Grave rob to make sure the child maintained his ties to his former self? Good lord. Why in the world had he ever agreed to do this? Then there were all the cosmetic changes he'd made during the time they'd stayed with him. The application of artificial fingernails, a belly button..and nipples of all things. What was he really missing out on by not having them? Being able to paint his nails and walk into a piercing and tattoo shop on his own when he turned sixteen to further perpetuate the 'rebellious teen phase' stereotype?

Standing up out of his chair, Elefun took a few moments to adjust his pants, then walked around to the front of the desk to gather up the assorted pieces of paper littered all over it. He could hear his house bot puttering around outside doing her early morning sweep up. He let out a series of groans as he made his way over to a portrait hanging by the bookshelf on the right side of the room. Sitting for so long like that was going to have to be cut out in the future. His old bones just couldn't take it. Nor could they handle the chill creeping up underneath his office door from the greenhouse, which really needed to shut up before things started to get really frosty come late November. Why did he have a greenhouse anyway? Biology had only been a minor for him in school. Other than that six year spree he went on after Tenma had become Minister…flying around the Horticulturist's Lab with Amaya—er Hoshie. Now he thought about it..that was probably the reason he had a greenhouse.

Elefun chuckled and pushed the portrait of him-self hanging on the wall, to the side, revealing an old, ash-gray safe he'd had installed in the wall some ten years ago when he'd gotten heavy into super-robotics. It took all of about a minute for him to open it, slip the prints in, and get the picture back in its place. He then shuffled his way out of the office, flipping off the light switch on his way out. The shower he was about to take was going to feel wonderful. And so was the next eight hours worth of sleep he was about to get. Or rather..that hoped he was about to get.

Ever since Tenma had struck up that deal with Emily Niele, and moved back into his and Astro's home in Green Acre's, things had been..very quiet. Almost eerily so. The six and a half month's they'd stayed with him he'd gotten used to hearing their sounds of general discontent about both the environment they were living in, and their constant voicing of their dissatisfaction with one another. The very day they'd first come to stay in fact, Tenma had stepped over the threshold complaining about how stale and hospital-like his home smelled, and didn't have anything too much nicer than that to say about the décor either. Astro had been several degree's more polite than that, thank god, and had kept all his opinions about the little things, to himself, unless of course it concerned the room he resided in.

Speaking of that room in particular, Elefun laughed out loud when he looked out of the corner of his eye and spotted it on his way towards the kitchen to grab a hot cup of tea. There had been many a night when he'd walked in there to find the boy he privately liked to call his Grandson playing on his Nintendo DS, bouncing around on the cot where he kept his clothes, and even doing things as trivial as counting the dust-motes floating around the room to fight off boredom. And god forbid any hapless insect crawled or flew his way in. He'd end up on his back with a laser burning through his abdomen immediately after having been scooped up and tossed into a corner where the burn holes would be less visible to any visitors. Anything..anything to escape the endless monotony of the evening hours when everyone he knew was asleep. Poor Toby. Not able to sleep. Not able to eat. Not even able to fully enjoy the secret stash of 'Playboy Magazine's' his father kept hidden on top of the center book shelf in his filing room.

Dianna puttered her way on into the kitchen a moment after him, a dust pan clasped close to her pale blue chasse, and hovered her way over to the trashcan to empty its contents. She wasn't anything like Nora. It had taken him all of about a year and half to build her and make sure she understood all the commands he gave her and the various duties she was to perform. Nora had hovered off the table almost as soon as she'd opened her eyes asking Tenma what year wine he wanted out of the basement to go with his T-Bone steak and baked potato! In a just a few more day's he was going to be Vice Minister of Science. He'd have access to any and all project plans, and the authority to decide how the Ministry budget would be spent. All that, and a much bigger pay check. And despite his Ph D's in a good majority of the science's he wasn't sure he was exactly as pleased about it as he had been before.

"What kind of tea would you like this morning Professor Elefun?"

Elefun settled himself into the chair at the head of the table stretching his legs out once again to relieve a bit more of that pins and needles feeling still crackling up and down them. "The usual Dianna. Chamomile. Three teaspoons of sugar-one tablespoon of creamer please. Thank you."

"Yes sir."

The curtains on the window over the sink, which were the same thin, gauzy linen as in his office were a bright golden yellow now. Due to the sun having fully risen. Elefun looked down at the contents of his cup once Dianna sat it down and grimaced. His mind kept wandering back to the contents of the blue prints. How do you tell your..er..boss—or anyone for that matter- who'd put that amount of time and determination into something they loved, that a good bit of the fixture's internalized in it are unnecessary and just down right unsettling upon contemplation? How do you tell a man who watched his son being ripped to shreds—his limbs torn off and spine crushed—right in front of him, that the method's he'd used to, in a sense, 'raise him from the dead', were not at all scientifically ethical? Let alone even morally ethical! Then there was the matter of Astro himself. How would he react knowing that somewhere out in the country, on the plot of land his family owned, that his old body..or what was left of it, lay languishing and rotting away in the family crypt with pieces of it missing?

He took a few sips of his tea after Dianna exited the kitchen to finish her cleaning, and let out a deep sigh. It seemed he was always the one getting stuck with making choices like this. Burn the blue prints and forget about the whole thing? Tell Tenma he's a sick demented bastard for having done such a thing? No. Toby was still on the books in the Metro City regional hospital as his God Son. And Tenma was still one of his closest friends. He would just have to swallow his misgivings about it and go into his room and get some sleep. One, because he was old and a bachelor in his mid-fifties. He needed someone to bicker with occasionally, and it was nice to have company over sometimes. And two, because he was just that type of person. The type of person who preferred to ask "For whom?" , rather than "For what?"

Astro and Cora

"Cora..?"

Cora grumbled and flopped over onto her stomach, burrowing herself deeper into the mass of Egyptian cotton covered pillows and various blankets she didn't remember having when she'd originally gone to sleep. This was the fourth time Astro had come over to see if she was awake or not since she'd passed out at around three in the morning during a game of Uno. She had no idea what time it was. She just knew she really, really wanted Astro to go away and let her snooze. Such soft pillows. Such cool, smooth sheets.

"Cora? It's nine o' clock. My dad's up..and he wanted to..you know. Know when it was you wanted to go home.."

Cora picked her head up off the pillow and scowled. Astro waved nervously, then backed up a bit in case she swung at him. He knew from experience that she wasn't the happiest person in the world when she woke up in the morning. The gunk in the corners of her eyes and the semi-dried drool on the left side of her chin made her look even more surly if that was at all possible.

"Guh..Can't I just sleep over again?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind, but I don't think my dad is gonna be too comfortable with the idea of someone staying two nights in a row. Remember when I told you how he never used to let me have company over before?"

"Oh.."

"Yeah."

She blinked at him a couple of times after finally getting her eyes all the way open, then smiled. Astro looked up at the ceiling awkwardly and scratched at the little tingle on the back of his head. He'd been having a lot of 'ghost itches' lately. He took a moment to turn up his hearing, and glanced toward the door. The only sound he could hear behind it was Nora, puttering around in the hall way sweeping and wiping things down. His dad was still shuffling around his room, occasionally taking sips of his coffee. Cora sat up and belched, making him wince and he snapped his eyes back over to her with a mildly irritated look on his face. He ought not to have told her so much about all his functions and weapons and whatnot the night before. Especially not the super hearing. She seemed to be able to pick up on when he was using it somehow, now she knew about it.

Cora grinned, showing all thirty-two of her Hawaiian punch and soda stained teeth, then flopped back onto the bed, patting her belly with both hands.

"It hurts you know!"

"What?"

"The loud noises when I'm using my hearing!"

"Sorry. It's just funny seeing how startled you look when it happens."

He brought his hands up to massage his ears, and listened just a bit longer to see whether or not his dad was coming towards them, then turned his hearing back down and proceeded to clean up the trash littered all around the room from yesterday's escapades. Or was it last night's escapades? He wished he could sleep. Then he'd have a better grasp on times and days and not be bored out of his mind all the time. There was a big pile of clothing on the floor in front of the closet where he'd been trying on clothes over and over again after Cora had fallen asleep just to have something to do. The last outfit, a navy blue and white long sleeve shirt and blue jeans was what he had on now. That, and an old black baseball cap he'd found stuck up under the now empty toy chest Widget and Sludge had dug around in to find toys to take back with them. Everything they'd left behind he'd gone ahead and thrown away.

"So…about that question I asked last night…"

Astro looked over his shoulder, clutching a handful of closet hangers in one hand and a little bundle of shirts in the other. There she was again. Asking awkward questions. He rolled his eyes and sighed, turned back around towards the closet and hung up the first shirt he was able to get a hanger into without dropping. He could have maybe made it easier on himself and put them on the desk and done it one at a time, but he wanted to try to make it so Cora could stay as long as possible. When she left he'd have to go back to shooting water bugs out the kitchen window to keep busy. At least until his dad came in and decided he wanted to chat about something.

"You really want to know the answer to that? How do you figure I even know?"

"Because! It's your..body. You have to know where it's buried. Do you have like your own..crypt thingy?"

He really didn't know. And what was more, it had never been something he'd felt comfortable asking his dad or Dr. Elefun about. Pretty much everything he knew he'd already told Cora the night before. All the way from the days when he was little and his dad used to take him horseback riding up until the point where he started working so much he virtually forgot what he looked like. He'd even told her about the time he'd gotten to go to Africa when he was eight because they couldn't find a babysitter on short notice.

"I don't know. Maybe. I know my mom is in one. Somewhere out in the country near the house we lived in when I was a baby.."

"Hm. It seems like-."

"Something somebody would see fit to tell me?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome. Now I know I'm not the only one that thinks so."

Cora folded her arms across her chest and squinted against the sunlight coming in through the windows, hitting her directly in the eyes, and made the decision, finally, to get all the up. The little bit of a reflection of herself that she could see in the mirror over Astro's dresser made the 'low class chick in a rich person's house' feeling she'd had the whole day before come back again. She looked like crap. She was still wearing the same spare t-shirt he'd given her to wear after her sweater had ripper. Only this time it was all crinkled up from having been slept in and stained with the various foods and drinks she'd had. And her hair looked like something out of a bad Lady Gaga parody video. She started raking her fingers through it and walked over towards the mirror to try and make it look at least a little better. Jeeze..maybe it was time now to start thinking about getting rid of the pink streaks.

Astro watched her smooth down her hair out of the corner of his eye, now in the process of hanging up his eighth shirt. Cora was pretty. Even when she was covered in pizza stains and her breath smelled like onions. Onions. Heh. He looked away to keep her from seeing the smile on his face , and started to move at an even slower pace than before at putting away his clothes. In the days before the get-together he'd had a chance to do a lot of thinking. Primarily about his upcoming meeting with President Logan. His dad and Dr. Elefun had pretty much said what he figured scientists who deal with high up political figures and military personnel on a regular basis always say to someone who hasn't.

'Don't worry. I've got it.' Or , 'Everything's going to be fine. The only one with any brains in this administration is the Secretary of State anyway. You just relax and let us do the talking and wait till' the paparazzi comes out.'

Paparazzi? That meant cameras. And a lot of them. And what did they mean the Secretary of State was the only smart one? Nobody knew anything about President Logan really. What if he was just another war-mongering jack-ass like Stone? Then there was the thought that everyone might expect for him to start…crime fighting. An idea that, the more and more he thought about it, seemed like a much better use of his time than spending hour after hour wandering around his house, watching his dad sleep, and making small talk with Nora. He'd thought a lot about school and his old friends. Especially after Cora'd asked the question about whether or not he knew where his former self was buried. Where were Kennedy and Alejo? Where was Alvin? Did they make it out of everything okay? Were their houses still intact? Or did they get busted up like a lot of other stuff when the city fell? Had they come to his funeral? What about Grandma and Grandpa Tenma? Were they okay? So many questions. So many people to think about.

"Hey, Cora?"

"Yeah?"

She was holding her hair back in a ponytail with her hand and further surveying herself, using the nail on her pinky finger to pick the gook out of the corner of her eyes. Totally not a very lady-like thing to do,especially when she could easily just ask for a wash cloth, but it was okay. Cora's lack of…'class' as his dad would probably have put it was what he liked about her.

"You really think 'Astro Boy' is a good name?.."

Cora looked at the oddly colored crust under nail and scrunched up her face, and then once she realized Astro was actually looking dead at her, shot both her hands down to her sides and attempted one of her 'I-don't-care-what-you-think-of me' looks which he of course did not acknowledge.

"Uh—yeah. Yes! I do. Why? You said yesterday you weren't thinking about doing any crime fighting."

"I know. But I'm changing my mind. At least for now."

Cora frowned. The whole time she'd been running around Astro's giant,comfortably furnished mansion she'd felt nervous and self-concious about her ratty clothes, and the fact that her hair was a tad oily from not having had the chance to wash it. That, and another issue that had been weighing particularly heavy on her ever since she'd had that first weird little dream about him. That issue in particular being..that he was a robot. Not a cyborg. And there was no part of him—at least as far as she knew—that was human. And yet she couldn't make the crush she had on him go away. No matter what she did. No matter how logically she tried to justify NOT liking him to herself. No matter how much her mom had tried either. And between the both of them..they'd tried just about everything they could think of. Even Zane's awkward questionings and hypotheticals the day prior to their group visit hadn't been able to chew away any sizeable chunks of feeling she had.

-Flashback-

"Do you have and five's?"

"No, 'Go Fish.'."

Cora looked out of the corner of her eye as she reached down to sift through the pile of playing cards between her and Zane. They'd been sitting in the same spot going through various games since she'd gotten there that morning. 'Crazy Eights', 'Black Jack', a couple of games of Uno..pretty much everything. Widget, Sludge, and Grace were sitting across from them at the other table, taking turns at playing Connect Fourth against one another. The rec room at the St. Elmo's was relatively full due to the fact it was pouring rain outside. There were kids everywhere. Toddlers and teenager's alike, either digging through cabinets looking for games they haven't already played, or just lounging around over by the windows where a projector set with a movie had been set up for them to watch.

Once she had a card in her hand, she looked down to see what it was, then slapped it down in front of Zane who immediately proceeded to snatch it up and stick it into his pile of cards. He had been acting odd all day. Not looking at her. Giving vague answers to questions, and just not saying much in general. Usually you couldn't get him to stop talking. Especially on a day like today. The menu posted up on the bulletin board in the entrance hall had spaghetti, garlic bread and cheese sticks for lunch, which was his favorite. That, and supposedly there was a couple interested in taking Widget and Sludge on as their new little ones. He'd talked to her about it before and sounded genuinely happy about it. Making the comment that people were starting to notice how 'Dashingly handsome, and adorable' the twins both were. Even though, try as he might, they were pretty much almost always in a perpetual state of dirtiness.

Cora took her eyes off the giant pudding stain on Graces skirt, looked back at Zane and frowned at him as hard as she possibly could. To the point of making her thin black eyebrows appear to be a straight line across her forehead.

"So why is it you haven't looked me in the face the entire time I've been here?"

Zane glanced at her, then went back to staring overly intensely into his playing cards.

"I have. You're just doing something really jacked up with it right now."

"Don't be an asshole! Look me in my eye and tell me what's up!"

Cards slapped down on the table, and Zane found a comfy spot on the back-rest of the chair. Still only half-way looking at her. It was too weird and potentially controversial a subject to talk to her about. But he couldn't lie about it and make her quit asking. She'd see right through that. He couldn't just keep making rude comments either. So what could he do? Keeping up the 'silent douchey' routine for too much longer might get him hit. Telling the truth could get him hit too. Why couldn't she have developed a random crush on somebody else?

"It's nothing that's a really big deal okay? Just something I've been thinking about for a while."

"Such as?"

The truth? Or a lie?

….

A lie.

"That blonde chick I told you I was diggin' rejected me."

Cora's frown turned into a look of impatience. She folded her arms across her chest, and sat back in her chair, just before flicking a crumb off the shoulder of her jacket. Out of all the things he could have come up with….he chose that? A lie about the chubby thirteen year old girl in the girl dorms across the hall that had been making cow eyes at him since he and the kids had gotten there? Christ.

"Zane…you have five seconds to tell me the truth. Or I'm going home! And you can spend the rest of the day half-way looking at that stupid playboy magazine clipping you pilfered out of the garbage two days ago!"

"I didn't pilfer it outta the garbage! And for your information Cora—I don't even really like blondes!"

"Dude, what your taste in girls is has nothing to do with anything! Quit being a douche and answer what I asked about!

"You don't even know what it is you're asking about!"

"I'm asking what's wrong with you!"

"Can I answer that by asking you a question?"

"As long as it doesn't have anything to do with when I'm gonna try to con my mom into adopting all you guys—go ahead!"

Zane opened his mouth again to make a snappy retort in response to that comment, but then closed it. Truth might really be the better policy. She looked mad enough to pop, minus the puffy, red sweater she was wearing that he knew she'd gotten out of the clothing bin when she'd been here last. He'd once made a joke to her about her getting her mom to adopt all of them, and since she worked on robots too, it would be just like the old days again in a way. Cora of course, had just made vague statements about what she really thought of the idea. And until just then, he'd always figured she thought it would be cool. He hadn't ever really thought about what her life situation was like outside of when she came to visit. The little pieces of lint on that sweater told him a lot.

"Um…"

"Yeah?"

Zane sighed, and leaned forward, back off the chair again. "Why do you like Astro?"

Her eyebrows parted ways, and her cheeks turned pink. Cora's face was the only thing not tense at hearing that question asked. She looked up at the ceiling, and started chewing her lip, and folding her arms around tighter.

"Can I answer that with another question..?"

Zane blew a couple of black curls out of his eyes and rested his chin on his arms. Sure were a lot of questions going around, and not very many answers. Hopefully..it would all sync up sometime before the kids got tired of Connect Fourth and wandered there way over.

"Go ahead I guess."

"Why would that be something that would bother you..? And why…why are you bringing this up right now?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it all. But you looked like you were gonna punch me a second ago, if I didn't just say something."

"Hm.."

"Yeah…"

There was a few minutes of awkward silence before either of them said anything, and then finally, Cora spoke up. And burst out with a response that made the moment all the more uncomfortable.

"Do you have an issue with me liking him because…you..like me?"

Zane hid his face and gave an exasperated sigh. How had he not known it was coming?

"Goddammit Cora.."

"What? Do you? Cuz' if you do I-"

"If I do then what? You're cool with it but you don't want things to get weird?"

"Well..yeah. But I was gonna say too that—"

"Astro is cuter than me?"

"No..I was going to say that a long time ago..back when we were just starting out at Hamegg's, I liked you too. At least for a little while."

"Really?.."

Zane's voice was coming out muffled from behind his arms and Cora reached out to poke him to get him to quit his hiding. It was all technically out there now. They just had to get to talking about the really hard stuff.

"Yeah."

He sat back up again, bringing his face out from within the darkness and Cora stifled a laugh at the crooked expression he had on his face. It was both a frown and a smile at the same time.

"Oh. Cool."

"And you say I make conversations awkward. Jeeze."

"Shut up. You tell me what I wanna know now."

"About why I like Astro? What if I don't know?"

"How can you not know why you like someone?"

"Maybe because it's not something I really think about? Maybe because I just do for some inexplicable reason?"

Zane leaned forward all the way in his chair, glaring at her. This was not contingent with what he'd heard that guy Dr. Lovenstein say on T.V a couple of days ago.

"There has to be a reason! Do you..like the way he looks?"

Cora's brows knitted together once again and she frowned.

"Zane.."

"Is it cuz you know he's rich now, and could afford to give you security and nice clothes and all that junk?"

"Green Acre's is a rich neighborhood..but he might not actually be rich you know. And I'd honestly prefer it if he weren't. This isn't something that can be summed up like that Zane..it's.."

"It's what?"

"I guess if you just have to have a definitive answer as to why, I suppose it would be because of the type of person he is."

"You mean the type of robot."

"Whatever! But yeah. I mean…we have a lot of the same interests. He took care of the kids back on the surface when I didn't feel like it and he's the most outrageously kind and forgiving person I've ever met. Especially considering what we almost let Hamegg do to him that one night. He could easily have just said 'Screw you guys!' and blasted us into oblivion. But he didn't."

"So it's just 'cuz he's nice then? And forgiving?"

"Yeah. And he's brave too. Who else do you know that would willingly stick their hand in a poop-clogged toilet to get back an engagement ring for someone they don't even really know?"

Zane grimaced and tried quickly to think of something to cover up that particular memory. The day that had happened, they had all gone into town on the surface to sell off some of the more prime scrap metal lying around Hamegg's garage to see if they couldn't try and buy something to eat for dinner that wasn't cold and had bugs crawling on it. They'd walked by a lady crying her eyes out to the owner of a store and Astro had walked over to see what the matter was. After that..well…ugh..it was too disgusting to think about. It smelled like rotten vegetables in the garage for two solid weeks.

"Okay. I can see how you could be attracted to that. The whole 'nice guy' thing. I personally always thought he took it a bit too far."

Cora raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? How do you take being a hero too far?"

"When it gets you and the people you care about killed! Duh! I mean..I'm not saying anything about all that stuff with the Peacekeeper or whatever—but sticking your hand in a nasty old toilet to get back a lost wedding ring? Walking two whole days outside of town to deliver a package for some crinkly old woman likely being targeted by big muscely mafia dudes ? There might have been drugs in that box!"

"The lady he delivered that package for was handi-capped Zane!"

"Well—yeah! But he could've flown! That way we wouldn't have had time to get worried and go looking for him!"

"That was when he didn't want us to know he was a robot remember?"

"Okay..alright. BUT…"

"But what lame-o?"

"Hypothetically, if you guys dated…or tried to anyway..and you wanted to.. 'do stuff''…which would be creepy by the way..he could like..kill you. Without really even trying."

Cora's jaw dropped, and her eyes bugged out. "REALLY?"

"With all the weird stuff YOU say, you shouldn't be surprised!"

Okay..this needed to end. Cora stared at him in incredulity for a few more minutes before finally formulating what it was that needed to be said to shut him up.

"Zane..Astro is cool. Really cool. And smart. He has a sense of humor…he's kinda cute. In an odd sort of way..and…I never have to worry about him farting and burping all the time like a normal boy. And like I said before, he's brave, and super nice, and saved a city! Are those good enough reasons for me to like him—or not?"

Zane's thin, tanned face scrunched up in slight disappointment and irritation at having been shut down like that. But thinking about all that stuff at once he supposed it made sense. Girls did always like to gripe about how smelly guys were all the time. Even though they could be pretty stinky themselves some days.

"Guess this means you want me to shut my face and leave you alone about it huh?"

"Yes please."

"Okay..got any two's?"

-Flash Back End-

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I'm bored."

"That is not a good reason to fight crime!"

Astro blinked once, and tilted his head to the side slowly, his expression changing a little too slowly for her liking. Cora bristled a bit. That movement he'd made had looked ridiculously robotic. Like he was analyzing her rather than really listening to what was coming out of her mouth. Not that she'd said much…but still.

"How is that not a good reason? Do you know what it's like to not be able to sleep away all this boredom? I need activity!"

"So punching people in the face with your solid metal hundred thousand horsepower fist is gonna be how you get it?"

Astro grinned. "Maybe. I only said I was thinking about doing it. Why're you getting so upset?"

"I'm NOT upset! I just—don't wanna wake up one morning and find out you died 'cuz some terrorist guy shot you in the chest with a rocket launcher!"

"My dad would just fix me if that happened."

"Well maybe I care enough about you that I don't want it to even get to that point okay?"

Astro laughed, stuck the last t-shirt on a hanger, put it in the closet, shut it, and turned to face Cora, whose eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head for all she was so riled up. The shirt he'd given her to wear the previous day, was now more bunched and dirty looking than ever. Her belly button peeking out from underneath it gave him a ghost itch and he reached down to scratch the spot where his now new, artificial one lay. At that moment..Nora puttered her way in and began hovering around over the carpet, looking at them, and observing the way they were standing and peering at one another. She had finished all of what she knew to be her household chores and had come in to ask 'Little Master Tenma' if there was anything else she could do since he was the one who always seemed to be giving her her orders now. Before speaking, or announcing herself, she did a scan of him, due to having picked up some strange, unrecognizeable electronic signals from his direction. He wasn't paying any attention to the fact that she had entered at all. Ninety-five percent of all his functionary dynamism was being directed at the young lady..Miss Cora..of whom he was currently speaking to. How odd to devote that much of one's energy towards one thing! Or at least that was how Nora looked at saw the situation. Cora was blushing, and feeling embarrassed because, one, it was the longest awkward silence she'd ever been in, and two, Astro could probably hear her heart knocking around in her chest. His eyes were doing that weird flashy thing they did when he listened really hard at stuff.

"Quit it Astro.."

"Okay."

He stopped grinning, walked over to his desk, and picked up something that looked exactly like the old sweater she'd had when she'd come, except new…and bright purple..and tossed it to her.

Cora looked down at it in confusion after catching it, and held it up. "This isn't mine."

The grin came back. "It is actually. I patched it up and re-dyed it while you were sleeping. You like purple right?"

Cora's arms fell to her sides, the sweater sliding down onto the floor, and her jaw dropped. "HOW?"

"Remember when I said earlier I needed activity?"

"You got so bored you Googled sweater recovery?"

"Yup!"

"Yeah..maybe you should start fighting crime."

They laughed. Together this time. And Astro made a conscious decision at that moment that all his future attempts at ridding himself of boredom would be for Cora. That…and that before she left…he had to figure out some way of telling her that he liked her…really liked her…without it being weird.

((A/N: Ha ha! Cliffhanger! Of sorts. Don't worry though. The climax come's next chapter! Sorry about the wait. Please review! And thanks again for all the favorite's guys! I really appreciate it!))