Loyal and still worried about Hank's poor health Connor had remained overnight at Hank's house along with Lucas,while the senior detective was still ill. As much as he wanted to call off work to take care of Hank until he had recovered to a more comfortable degree Connor knew that he needed to let Lucas have the chance to be the caring deviant that he knew his little brother could be, and in turn truly earn Hank's trust. The desire to let his unorthodox family become closer was a surprising reaction that Connor hadn't anticipated when he began to bond with Lucas just as easily as he had done with Hank ever since the night of the Revolution.

Before reluctantly leaving the house Connor quietly crept into Hank's bedroom without waking the ill man to ensure that the human's health hadn't degraded during the night. With a light hand to the forehead Connor was relieved to find that Hank's fever had dropped considerably and would break sooner rather than later.

"All vitals are stable."

The deviant whispered as if he needed to say the readings out loud to make them set in stone.

"I'll be back after my shift, Hank. You'll recover soon."

Leaving the bedroom just as quietly as he entered Connor located his younger brother standing just outside the opened backdoor as Lucas had let Sumo out for the morning. The deviant technician had grown to enjoy the company of animals just as much as Connor had and in turn was happy to tend to Sumo's needs just as he would for anyone else.

"Lucas, I'll be back at approximately five-fourteen p.m. this evening." Connor announced as he cybernetically calculated his time frame regarding an average workload during his shift. "If you require me to purchase any additional items to aid in Hank's recovery contact me and I will make the necessary transaction on my way back to the house."

"Thank you, Connor." Lucas turned his head to look back at Connor standing in the middle of the kitchen. "I'm certain everything will be fine. However, if I do require anything I will be sure to contact you."

Nodding at his younger brother's confident attitude Connor took his leave for the day to be begin his shift. "Very well. I will see you both later."

The day went by quickly as Connor found himself dealing with an anti-android zealot who had tried, and failed, to set off a large bomb with the intent of framing deviants at the now relatively infamous Stratford Broadcast Tower. If the coldhearted human had actually known the proper method for wiring his crudely and cheaply constructed pipebomb there would have been a small chance that he could've gotten away with his attack. Once the police were called to the tower by a keen-eyed security guard to the scene of the failed assault and had witnessed the crazy human attempting to fix the wiring on said bomb in person, it was all over for the malicious and hateful human.

After enduring a barrage of hate speech, slurs and insults Connor escorted the failed bomber into the interrogation room where Gavin happily got into a shouting match with the loudmouthed human, while also questioning the man for his blatant stupidity. It didn't take too long for the hate filled human to confess to everything and to be brought up on charges ranging from trespassing to attempted murder.

While Gavin had the 'joy' of talking to the suspect it was Chris and Tina who had to go through the man's house and confiscate all of his explosives, weapons and the notebooks he used to detail the extent of his failed plan and would-be other plans. The evidence was damning to say the least.

As soon as Connor finished filing his report he readily left the precinct and walked to Hank's house at a steady clip. Stepping up the front walk Connor was happily greeted by Sumo who had been circling around the property all evening waiting to be let back inside the house. Seeing Connor just seemed to make the loyal dog's evening.

"Hi, boy."

Connor rubbed the dog's ears as the loyal Saint Bernard walked right alongside Connor's leg to the front door. Once the door was open Sumo trotted inside and happily plopped down over the length of the couch while Connor called out for Lucas and Hank.

"Hello?"

"Down the hall." Hank shouted in a nearly normal voice in response to Connor's question. "Come on in."

Walking down the hallway Connor saw that Hank's bedroom door was open and that the senior detective had managed to shower off and change into fresh clothes. Sitting on the edge of his bed Hank popped two aspirin into his mouth and sighed a little where he sat and watched the helpful deviant detective approach him.

"Hey, kid."

"How do you feel?" Connor asked as he sat on the edge of the bed next to Hank and put his hand back over Hank's forehead. The ill human's skin wasn't nearly as warm as it had been, but it wasn't as cool as it should be either. "Your fever is almost entirely gone."

"I'm doing okay, but I think Lucas is exhausted."

Retracting his hand Connor's blue L.E.D. flashed yellow before it went back to blue. "Where is he?"

"I told him to lay down on your bed about two hours ago. I haven't heard a word from him ever since."

"Did something happen while I was gone?"

"Not to me." Hank confirmed with a stern voice. "But there was some kind of emergency at New Jericho Tower. A deviant found, whatever a 'YK' model of an android is, laying in the street heavily damaged after being thrown from a moving vehicle." Dragging his hand over his bearded chin Hank gave the deviant beside him a mournful glance. "...And Lucas couldn't save him."

Connor's eyes narrowed and his L.E.D. flashed back from a calm blue to a distressed yellow as he realized the gravity of the situation.

"What?" The silent vacant stare in Connor's normally soulful brown eyes was enough to let Hank know that whatever had happened out at the tower was in fact very serious. "What's going on?"

"Hank, all 'YK' models of androids are the smaller models of androids designed to emulate children." Connor bowed his head a little in emotional upset as he explained the mental toil the loss was sure to have on Lucas's mind. "They are very much like human children in that they are defenseless, weak and fully dependent on others for their care. Deviant 'YK' models are so human in their behavior that many humans can't even tell the difference."

"Son of a..." Moving his hand from his chin and to the back of his tense neck Hank let out a disappointed sigh at his own lack of compassionate behavior toward Lucas that afternoon. "I didn't know. If I had I would've talk to him about it." Guilt was evident in every word Hank spoke. "If I had only known that Lucas had to deal with a-"

"It's okay." Connor interrupted as put his hand on the senior detective's shoulder. "'YK' models are rather rare and are even more so now after the Revolution gave deviants the right to control our own reproduction. Very few humans even seem to realize that android children had even existed, let alone still exist to this day."

Hank just shook his head somberly at his own apathetic reaction to Lucas's obvious distress. "I wish he had told me what was going on. I just thought he was tired, I didn't know he was upset about something so horrific like the loss of a child."

The final comment struck a chord with Connor as he realized that the incident was becoming personal for Hank just as it was with Lucas. "I'll go and speak with him." Connor volunteered eagerly as he rose from the bed and exited the bedroom. "Remain here and rest a moment longer."

"Yeah, sure."

Respectfully Connor knocked on the closed door of his own old bedroom before entering the room to check in on Lucas. There was no response from his little brother prompting Connor to slowly push open the door to investigate. "Lucas?" Peering inside the room Connor saw his brother laying on the bed and not moving a muscle. "Are you in rest mode?"

The other deviant was laying on his back with his hands neatly folded over his chest as he stared up blankly at the ceiling overhead, lost in thought and guilt. While the Thirium of the deceased android's lost blue blood had long since evaporated and been washed away from Lucas's fingertips Connor could still see the trace amounts clinging to Lucas's artificial skin and beneath his fingernails.

The lingering stains were indicative of how hard Lucas had fought to save the dying innocent android, but even the best efforts of the most skilled technician in the world had proven that they weren't infallible. It wasn't Lucas's first loss, but it was the first time he had been affected by such a loss.

"Hank told me about the emergency at the tower." Connor stated in a whisper as he stood beside the bed and looked down at his little brother with truly sympathetic eyes. "I had not received a report of an android being struck by or thrown from a moving vehicle while I was on duty. If I had known-"

"No one said a word." Lucas bluntly interjected as he continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. "The only reason Charlie had even been brought to the tower is because another deviant happened to locate his body in that alleyway where he was left to die. He never had a chance."

"Lucas," Connor noted that Lucas's stress levels were beginning to rise from an already dangerous seventy percent up to seventy-eight percent. "you did everything you could to save him."

"No. It took me twenty-one minutes to get to the tower from here, it would've taken twenty-four minutes if I had been at the apartment. In that time I could've possibly saved Charlie from permanent shutdown if I had just stayed at the tower."

Connor's yellow L.E.D. flashed at a quicker pace as he noted Lucas's stress levels reaching a dangerous eighty-five percent. "You cannot blame yourself. You can't possibly expect to be readily available to handle every emergency situation that arises. It's impossible."

"I should've never left the tower." The distressed deviant technician's stress climbed up to ninety-one percent and continued to rise. "Had I stayed where I belonged, had I remained inside the tower then-"

"Stop it, Lucas." Connor all but commanded as he watched his little brother's elevated stress level carefully. "You're not responsible for the deaths of every deviant in the city, no more than I'm responsible for the crimes committed against them. All we can do is our best to help them, but to expect ourselves to prevent every incident... It's simply not possible. It's too much to ask for."

Lucas sat upright on the bed, his green eyes now distant and unfocused. "How do we know that for certain?" As his stress levels quickly reached a near lethal ninety-seven percent Lucas swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stared blankly at the floor beneath his bare feet. "How can we be so sure that everything we're doing is the best course of action for our people?" His stress level was now at ninety-eight percent and he positioned himself in front of the bedroom window and began staring through his reflection on the glass and out to the neighbors house on the other side of the window. "What makes you so confident that we- We... We..."

"Lucas?" Connor's yellow L.E.D. briefly flashed to red before cycling back to yellow as he walked around the bed to stand closer to his distressed and emotionally vulnerable little brother. "What's wrong?"

Unable to finish his own question as his stress level reached a critical one-hundred percent Lucas put his right hand to the glass as he took a single step forward in an attempt to throwing himself against the glass of the window in an attempt to harm himself. As he smashed his forehead against the window the strong, weather resistant plexiglass structure only warped and buckled under the strike, but did not break.

"Lucas!?" Connor moved in a flash as he wrapped his arm around Lucas's chest and pulled his little brother away from the window just before Lucas's forehead smashed against the glass in a second attempt to break it and to self destruct. "Lucas! No!" Emotionally crazed and stressed out to his limits Lucas threw his head backward and caught Connor in his jaw, busting open his older brother's lower lip in the process. In response Connor's L.E.D. transitioned from yellow to red in pain as he tried to keep Lucas from trying to hurt himself and fought to keep him restrained. "S-Stop!"

Falling backward onto the floor with Lucas atop his own body Connor kept one arm wrapped tightly over his little brother's chest and pressed his other hand to the back of Lucas's head to force the deviant's head to bow forward and away from himself. Rolling onto his side Connor then wrapped his legs around Lucas's legs to keep his distressed brother from flailing around violently.

"I failed!" Lucas blurted in an emotional sob as his stress level remained peaked. "I failed!"

"Stop!" Struggling to keep the self destructing deviant from harming himself further Connor shouted and ignored the Thirium pouring from his own split lip. "Don't do this!"

Lucas began to cry heavily as the desire to self destruct was proving itself to be a great foe. The guilt, the emotional pain, everything was overwhelming his senses and he didn't know how to properly cope with these feelings that were never meant to be apart of his programming to begin with.

At the sound of the shouting and banging noises Hank rushed into the bedroom and watched as Connor restrained Lucas as tightly as he could on the floor near the foot of the bed. With the two deviants being of the same height, weight and build, it was a nearly impossible feat for Connor handle alone. Knowing that Lucas had been designed to be more physically efficient than Connor it was only a matter of seconds before the emotionally distraught deviant broke free from Connor's grip and would try to self destruct once again.

"What the hell's going on!?" Hank asked he knelt on the floor at Connor's back and put his hands down against Lucas's shoulder and hip to help pin the deviant down on the floor. "Talk to me!"

"His stress level peaked." Connor replied loudly as he tried to keep Lucas physically restrained. "He wants to self destruct."

"Lucas? Lucas!" Hank shouted and knelt down lower as he tried to gain the distressed deviant's attention. "Hold still and look at me. Look at me son."

Lucas didn't respond to the order and kept trying to break free from Connor's lifesaving embrace to rush back to the window.

"I said look at me, damn it!"

Lucas continued to try to break free of Connor's grip as he wept openly from his emotional turmoil.

"You're NOT at fault." Hank reiterated, this time his voice was less authoritative and more supportive as he spoke. "You didn't kill that deviant, the person who left them to die in the street did. You didn't fail them, son. The people who didn't lift a finger to try to help him did."

Steadily Lucas began to relax, his green eyes looking upward toward Hank at last as if he was finally able to understand what was being said to him.

"Tell me something Lucas;" the senior detective continued to address Lucas with a paternally charged tone. "did you do everything that was possible to save that deviant's life?"

"...Y-Yes." Lucas stammered as his stress levels began to drop very gradually down to ninety-eight percent. "I... I did everything that was... possible."

"And when you were told about what happened did you wait to head back to the tower or did you take off as soon as you found out?"

"...I...I left immediately." Lucas's stress level dropped down to ninety-four percent as he spoke. "I didn't... wait."

"Right." Hank lessened his grip on Lucas's shoulder and hip as he spoke and could feel Lucas beginning to calm down. "Before you were the lead technician at the tower did deviants die from their injuries, or was that something that began happening only after you took over?"

"...Many deviants shutdown before I became a technician." Lucas's stress level dropped considerably down to seventy-eight percent as the questions and logical realizations entered his mind. No longer at a critical stress level Lucas's body relaxed further and Connor too began to lessen his grip on the distraught deviant. "Deviants shutdown rather... frequently."

"So why do you think that you're supposed to do something that no one else could do? No one's perfect, not even androids. You can't stop death."

"I... I'm allowed to... be less than perfect."

"That's right."

Sensing that his little brother was coming to his senses Connor released his grip from around Lucas's chest and unwrapped his legs from around Lucas's legs. As he let Lucas go Connor's L.E.D. cycled from red to yellow and he sat upright on the floor while he helped Lucas to sit up next to him. Hank remained kneeling down beside the two deviant brothers as he tried to keep duo as calm as possible.

"Humans and androids make mistakes all the time." The senior detective reminded Lucas in a calm voice. "I'm not perfect, neither is Connor or any other person in this fucked up world."

Connor easily followed Hank's lead and continued to ease Lucas's guilt with understanding and empathy. "After you became the lead technician the mortality rate of injured deviants seeking shelter at New Jericho Tower had dropped from fifty-eight percent to only seventeen percent. You've saved more androids than any of the other deviant technicians at the tower and the city combined." Relaying the statistics Connor reached his little brother on a logical level. "While you're not expected to be perfect you have brought a drastic improvement to the tower and aided our people in an immensely impressive manner."

Feeling his stress levels drop further Lucas used the heels of his palms to wipe away the damp tears on his face as he began to calm down. With his stress levels down to an even lower to sixty-three percent Lucas began thinking more clearly. "...Then why do I feel so horrible?"

Hank cleared his throat a little as he made a rather macabre suggestion. "...Was that the first time you were unable to save a child deviant?"

"...Yes." Lucas confirmed heavily where he sat. "He was so small and innocent. So... alive."

"There's your answer. I had the same horrible feeling the first time I couldn't save an innocent kid." Hank confirmed as he placed a comforting hand on the back of Lucas's neck and kept it there as a grounding feeling. "I thought I'd never be able to move on, but I did. And in time I ended up saving more kids than I lost."

Lucas nodded a little as his stress dropped even lower to thirty-one percent. "Does the horrible feeling ever go away?"

"No." Hank replied honestly as he kept his hand in place. "You just get used to it, and after a while you start to go a little numb to that horrible feeling. But as long as you still feel horrible when something like this happens then you know you still have a heart. Once you stop feeling everything entirely then... I guess that means it's time to make a change."

As Lucas's stress level dropped down to twelve percent Connor stood up from the floor and wiped the streak of blue blood from his lower lip off onto the back of his hand. The situation was now under control.

Hank had noticed the smear of blood on Connor's lip and chin but didn't say anything for Lucas's sake. "Connor, give us a moment alone, will ya'? We need to talk in private."

Connor looked down at the drying blue blood on his hand and just nodded in silent agreement as he left the bedroom, stepping around Sumo who had been drawn toward the bedroom because of the loud commotion, and closed the door behind himself in the process. Entering the bathroom across the hall Connor ran a washcloth under the cool tap in the sink and dabbed at the cut in his lip to wash away the blood that was still running down his chin. As he pressed the washcloth to his lip Connor sat on the edge of the bathtub and proceeded to pet Sumo's head as the large dog plodded over to him and kept him company in the bathroom.

"He'll be okay, boy."

Whispering to Sumo as the massive dog pressed his chin on his right knee Connor let out a slightly pained sigh to alleviate his own mounted stress level.

"Lucas just had a bad at work. That's all."

After about ten minutes passed Hank opened the bedroom door and spotted Connor sitting in the bathroom with the washcloth still pressed against his bloodied lip. Walking into the bathroom he put his hand under Connor's chin and lifted the deviant's head upward to look at the fresh wound. "Looks like he headbutted you when you grabbed onto him."

"Correct." Connor lowered the washcloth and ran his fingertip over the already healing injury curiously. "Fortunately my self healing program will remedy this injury without the need of stitches. How is Lucas?"

"Sleeping." Hank confirmed as he offered Connor his hand and pulled the deviant up onto his feet. "He's exhausted physically, mentally and now emotionally. I don't think he knew he was capable of feeling tired in so many different ways."

"If you don't mind me asking, what did you say to him after I had left?"

"I told him about the first time I couldn't save a child and how absolutely terrible I felt for the longest time. Knowing that someone else feels your pain can be one of the most effective forms of compassion that a human, or a deviant, could ever experience."

"I just wish there was something more I could do to ease his mind regarding this tragic incident."

"Connor, you were there for him in every sense of the word. You stopped him from hurting himself and didn't back off when he tried to resist help."

Tossing the used washcloth into the sink Connor let out a tired sigh and his yellow L.E.D. finally turned back to blue as he too began to calm down entirely after the stressful incident. "How do you feel? I can't imagine the sudden emotional disturbance was beneficial to your recovery, let alone the discussion of lost children."

"I'm okay." Sounding entirely confident Hank confirmed that he was going to be just fine. "When Lucas wakes up I want you to take him back to your apartment and let him rest in the comfort of his own bed - let him feel safe in his own personal space. Don't let anyone at New Jericho bother him for a day or two, he needs time to process what he's been through and rest."

"Agreed."

"You know, I forgot that deviants could have such extreme reactions to stress." The emotional reaction felt as if it had drained all of the energy Hank had managed to regain during his own recovery. "I'm glad you were here to keep him safe."

Connor gave Hank an uneasy glance. "Emotional outbursts become less common the longer an deviant remains deviant and successfully adapts to their emotions. But that doesn't mean the possibility for self destruction isn't still a threat." The revelation reminded Connor of how close Hank had come to self destructing himself and how he never wanted to see his friends feeling so despondent or depressed ever again. "...Even someone as emotionally strong and experienced as Markus is still prone to stressful situations causing a self destructive response."

"Kind of like humans, huh, son?" Hank knowingly gave the empathetic deviant a sly smirk. "I know you're still worried about me falling into that dark place again, but I swear that I won't do anything to hurt myself. And right now you need to be more concerned with Lucas than me, okay?"

"Yes. Okay." Connor looked a bit uneasy but he knew that Hank was being truly sincere about his promise. In turn Connor made a sincere promise of his own to his adoptive father toward his little brother's life. "I'll keep Lucas safe from further harm, I promise."

"I know you will." Giving the deviant a slight nod of the head Hank stepped out of the bathroom and tilted his head a little to get his tight neck to loosen and crack a little as he walked back toward his bedroom to get some more sleep. "You'll take care of him just like you do for me."

-next chapter-