But Roxanne didn't return the next day. Noon came and went, and Mace sat in his room with Minion in his glass sphere, the both of them listening for the door with an urgent anxiousness. As they waited, Mace tried to sketch, but he found himself unable to focus, and kept breaking his pencils.

Finally, around five, Mace leaped to his feet, tossing his notebook to the floor. "I'm going over to pick them up!" Mace announced decisively.

"Could I go with you, Sir?" Minion asked, quickly rolling down the small ramp that lay on the bed, which brought him into the belly of his lendor suit. The ramp closed as his ball entered, and in a matter of milliseconds, Minion was free to move about in the bowl at the top of his robotic contraption.

"No, Minion," Mace answered, shaking his head. "I'll be right back. Code: I need you to pretend I'm here if Mom and Dad ask because I'm not really supposed to be using my rocketboots for another few days."

"Code: Alright, Sir," Minion acquiesced, and though he sounded chipper, his eyes were tinged with a touch of sadness.

"Code: I'll be back with Aida and Gilda!" Mace said, tapping his heels together and gently ascending into the air. He'd been working on that.

"Code: See you soon, Sir!" Minion called back as Mace fled out the window, and with a sigh, the minion went about tidying Mace's room, his fins drooping slightly.

***Break***

When Mace came upon the Cerebellum household, he was surprised to find Roxanne's window open. Very quietly, the boy tapped his heels together, landing on the windowsill and entering with a gentle, "Ollo? Aida, are you—" Mace halted when he caught sight of Roxanne.

She was thrown across her bed, her face buried in her pillow and her arms flung over her head. She shook with quiet sobs that could barely be heard through the thick composition of the gonshedin-feathered pillows. The pillow, along with her bangs, hid her face from sight, but her body shuddered with every sob and sniffle.

"Aida?" Mace asked softly, concern appearing on his face as he made his way over. Roxanne looked up at him, tears leaking from her eyes, her face blotchy, her eyes puffy and red. Snot dribbled from her nose, and Roxanne sniffed and wiped at her nose before turning away from him, trying to quiet herself. A Lady shouldn't cry, especially in front of a boy. The only people a Lady should cry to are her minion, her parents, and her mate, and while Roxanne was far from being a Lady, seeing as she was still a teenager, she was going to be one, and that was reason enough to make herself stop.

"What's wrong?" Mace prompted gently, looking around before seating himself beside the girl. She was alone. Not even Gilda was with her.

He set a hand on her shoulder, and Roxanne flinched and pulled away. He repeated the action, and though she still flinched, Roxanne didn't pull away this time.

"Are you alright?" Roxanne shook her head. "Where's Gilda? And your parents?"

"Outside," Roxanne answered, and her voice cracked as she said the word. She covered her mouth with her hands as another rebellious tear leaked from her eyes. She muffled a sob with her hands.

"What happened?" he asked again, this time a little more assertive, but not by any means unkind. Roxanne shook her head again, handing him a crumpled image she'd had in her hands. He unfolded the photograph carefully, and his forehead creased in thought as he looked down at the picture.

It was a high-quality picture of a tiny bungdo-skinned infant, a tuft of brown fluff covering its head as it hugged a tiny red baby kitten with one arm, its other arm set on the glass sphere of a purple-pink minion that smiled up at the babe with pride and hope for the days to come in its shining golden-brown eyes.

It didn't really take any brain power at all for Mace to realize that it was a picture of Roxanne, Gilda, and Quicksilver. He analyzed the image, searching every detail for a sign of what would make her unhappy. A dreadful thought bloomed in his mind, and his heart seized up.

"Gilda isn't hurt, is she?" Mace demanded, dropping the picture and turning Roxanne toward him, gripping her roughly by both shoulders. A wild fear was in his eyes. "Tell me Gilda's alright!" he insisted.

"Gilda's fi—fine," Roxanne said, wiping furiously at her eyes. Her throat ached from trying to withhold the tears.

"Oh thank God," Mace sighed in relief, his heart released from the icy claws of fright.

"But Quicksilver—Quicksilver's not," Roxanne went on, sobbing on the last word and biting at her tongue. Mace's face fell all over again.

"What's wrong with her?" Mace asked. Roxanne shook her head, and tears came unbidden to her eyes once more. She stopped trying to fight her. She was no Lady—she'd never be a real Lady; who was she trying to fool?

"She—She didn't…She couldn't—She—she—she's g-gone," Roxanne stuttered, and sobbed again.

"No," Mace said quietly. Roxanne nodded, beyond words as she shut her bright blue eyes and covered her face with her hands. "No," he repeated a little louder. "She can't be—I was making her a robotic body! She was going to be able to live as long as you did!"

"She had a hea-heart a-attack," Roxanne sobbed. "G-Gishnar didn't m-mean it," she went on. "He didn't kn-know that she was there. He was—he was ju-just t-trying to g-get Reptung a sn-snack, and she was s-sleeping o-on the b-banister, and he acci-dent-ally grabbed her t-tail, and she f-fell, and…" Roxanne couldn't finish the sentence. She buried her face deeper in her hands and succumbed to her own woe. It broke Mace's metaphorical cardiovascular center to see her like this. Broke it clean in two.

Mace slowly wrapped his arms around Roxanne, holding her close and letting her cry on him as he buried his own face in the top of her head. He closed his eyes and wished that he could make it better.

He had known that Roxanne loved that kitten, but until he'd seen that photograph, he hadn't realized just how long she'd loved her, or just how close they were. He wouldn't be too very surprised if Quicksilver and Gilda were all she had ever had. And now she just had Gilda…

No you don't, Mace chided her mentally, knowing she couldn't hear him in his thoughts (and glad for it). You've got me and Minion now, too. We're your friends.

"I'm so sorry, Aida," Mace whispered aloud, stroking her hair to see if it would soothe her. "I'm so, so, so sorry."

"It's n-not y-your f-fault," Roxanne sobbed. Mace just held her tighter.

It was almost an inevitability that the two of them fell asleep like that.

Author Comments: Extreme sadness...And a little tiny drop of cuteness in an endless sea of Molankaly.

A Lady (with a capital L) is a noblewoman. Isst and Mendje are Ladies because they're both wealthy and come from noble families with high-status men as husbands. Roxanne will one day be a Lady because she was adopted by a Lord and Lady. And, as is mentioned, they aren't supposed to cry except in front of the people closest to them, because it's simply unbefitting of a noblewoman to cry in front of anyone else.