Lessons

" I-I do-don't understand..." I stuttered. She was one of the most healthy people aboard the Aegir that I knew from my memories.

The most quirky, the courageous and the crackhead.

HOW COULD SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN TO HER!?

A thought howled.

She looked at her legs and ran her fingers across the metal, making a smooth screeching noise." Before five months..."

" tell me" I buried my hand in my hair, nearly plucking out a few in frustration. She dragged to literal Earth and hugged me for comfort, rocking me from side to side, as she made the scene look like a mother cradling her baby.

A real big baby in my case...

She made me lean back into her chest and place her chin on my head, just like I did to my own sister, Jeamie.

" Five months ago, the oxygen supply aboard the Aegir 578 was running out. We had to land on some oxygen supporting habitat to refill the cargo and to catch some air. Literally." She paused for a moment.

" And that was when I had the idea to upgrade your robots to be more efficient with the Si-Bed."

It was true. My version of the SPRIT was only a prototype, not a completed one.

I knew that even when I saw it.

I yawned due to the duelling winds, running up my face and making it a bit numb.

" But no one volunteered to test it. Not after what happened with you." She said with a sigh.

" You almost triggered the alarm systems and that was what caused us to panic and throw you off into space as a last resort in the case you wake up and all of us...err...well you know."

" So, like an idiot, you volunteered yourself"

" The impulses weren't contained and encrypted and once they entered my cerebrum, they kinda messed up my motor nerves. Ever since then, up to a month ago, the oxygen levels cranked the effects up the charts even if it was null for the others."

" Not enough oxygen, the brain goes nuts" I remembered the classes I took in school. Which was centuries ago, technically.

" Yes. And so the neurotransmitters from my legs never really reached my brain and died halfway through." She shook her legs from side to side. I sympathetically hugged her, trying to grab her with my hands backwards, nearly breaking a bone and almost tearing a muscle of two

" Jason?" She said in a low voice.

I nodded, thinking how I could help her in this seemingly hopeless situation. " I love you" She said, her voice quivering in fear, like she was gonna get taken from me any moment. " I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you" I said as Stace started sobbing.

My eyes were tearing up themselves, finding myself in a place that was normally called, a rock and a hard place. But I couldn't show is was weak now.

" You know, you were always like a sister to Jeamie, and now I think of you as an elder sister."I said with a slight laugh. " Just one with an undying child and one who's a bit bonkers" She playfully hit me with her shoulders.

OHHH!!! GAAAAAAAWD!! IT HUUUURTSSSSS!!!

" Go on" She ordered with a gruffly voice.

" So, know that I will love you, no matter what" I crossed my heart and muttered," Hope to die" She buried her lips on my head and announced," I'm gonna take my medications" with a sigh.

She knocked my head slowly as I tilted my head back, she said," Don't tell anybody...about this." gesturing to her legs and I said with a nod," Take care, Stace."

" Mind if I add some upgrades to this SPRIT? I might just have the materials to make it like the real you, just senseless and with the grip of a gorilla" I laughed wholeheartedly at the connection I made with her.

" So you'll feel more yourself again."

" Take me home again, Kytte" She said with a sound portraying a bright smile and I could imagine her face perfect. And the SPRIT went limp. I carried it back inside and locked myself in my makeshift lab which took about three hours to make.

Carefully and efficiently, I made a synthetic layer of skin and covered it with some organic dyes, permanently.

I used some old 3D printers and what-not to synthesise the pseudo melanin needed but I personally begged Aria to make the model which is as close to Stace as she knew the female anatomy more than I did and also considering the fact that I was shy.

" I'm still young after all..."

Don't slap me, Aria...

I prayed as Aria had a look of total disappointment plastered on her face.

And after exactly 17 hours and 38 minutes without a break, I completed the modifications. I used an alternative activator to test it out, checking the wavelengths of the waves and the axes, and it worked like a charm.

" Don't you think it's a good idea to change the gears and replace the head so that expressions can be made like you did for ATTAC?" Aria suggested, leaning hers on my back when I was designing the modified body.

" What? Are you sayi- um- it's a good idea. Just takes a while..." I raised my head and smacked her on her nose. She flinched in pain and tripped and stomp my foot, making me flinch in pain.

" You! Y- You're gonna pay!" She laughed and playfully kissed me, holding me in position as she fell on me.

Unlike before, I enjoyed the warmth of her soft lips. I left a scar on the left side of her lip and I pause, pushed her a bit away from me and looked at it for a good moment.

She placed her index around it, gently rubbing the skin and she smiled a mischievous look on her face.

" It's from you..."

And I guess anyone could have imagined my expression when she said those words.

I literally have nothing to say...HOW'S THAT FROM ME!?!?

I should have made a pretty weird look as she laughed a cute one and pulled my lip's grasp back into her control.

" When did that happen?" I asked her, finally managing to pull her off my face. She looked at the sky again, turning her face upside.

Uh- um- Aria? We're in a cabin, you can't see the sky...

My mind seemed to ask. But I mouthed silence...

" Right after THAT incident" She had numerous emotions going across her face as I tried hard to decipher what she meant. But she told me straight away.

" After Stan..."

I froze.

" You had a grim look on your face and you took a shot too much. You pranced about the shuttle now and then about how you had done a terrible thing, that you have sinned in front of the audience for the dead." She looked at me as a small smile played on her face.

" I grabbed you by your arms and you smacked your lips on me after saying..." She paused and thought for a second...as her eyes gleamed as if in admiration.

" An eye for a tooth. A nose for a chin. A scar for a graze" She pulled my suit up and showed the graze on my leg.

" At least that's what I remember you saying. You bit me and licked the blood off my lips" The girl in love leaned in close again.

" LIKE THIS!"

And it just seemed Jeamie found her way in with a grin that immediately turned into a blush as she slammed the door shut yelling, " I SAW NOTHING!!"

" That's a call for an apology, isn't it?" I said with an embarrassed smirk, trying to immediately grasp a way to explain this to her.

But I would say she knew all about it. It was I who didn't know.

" Yes, it was" My newly adopted sister, Stace Collet burst out laughing.

And...double the order...

Boy, mind the timing.

SINCE WHEN IN THE ABYSSAL VOID WERE YOU HERE!? GODDAMMIT!!