\As they were walking down the halls, Tham suddenly stopped and grabbed TO’s shoulder, stopping them in their tracks.
“Wait.” He said, “Let’s take the long way around.”
TO frowned at him, “Why?” They said, “I’d like to get there as soon as possible-“
“I know.” He said, “but… I’d rather not go the normal way right now.”
“Why not?”
He gave TO a long stare, then cleared his voice. “Because the shorter path goes past GiDi’s room.”
They were about to ask why that mattered since they were certain GiDi and Pearla would have the door closed, but then recalled how loud they themself could be in normal circumstances. “Right.” TO said as they abruptly took the other path heading down the longer, winding corridor to the dorms in an awkward silence.
“… How long is that thing supposed to last?” Tham said after they had walked for a while.
“It’s supposed to be over today.” TO said, their ears burning. How did the Chilacians on Apoikia handle this? They hadn’t gotten to that part of the file yet, but TO imagined that this whole ‘thing’ was hard to hide or keep quiet.
“I know it’ll be over by tomorrow.” Tham grumbled, “But… will it be early evening? Overnight?” they gave a joyless chuckle. “Does it end when our three moons all pass the apex of the sky?”
TO’s ears flicked, “As far as I know, the moon cycles are irrelevant to our biology.” They looked back at Tham. “What’s that from, anyway?” They asked.
“… An old story from when I was a kid.” Tham said after a moment, “How do you know I didn’t just make it up?”
“Because that’s not how you talk.” TO said, “Anyway… I have no idea.”
“But you’re a synth too, and you have a mate, so-“
“I don’t know!” TO said again, their blue ears flicking down and pinning back. “I have no experience with this!”
“Oh…” Tham said. the awkward silence set in once more, and for a while TO was happy with it as it gave them a moment to collect themself and let their ears cool. Once they were more composed, they cleared their voice again, “I’m sure Pearla will contact you when she’s free.” They said.
“You’d think she could make time for me before tomorrow.” He grumbled, “I mean, this is all none of my business and I’m happy for her… But tomorrow might be dangerous, and I’d like to talk to her before then.”
“I’m sure she’ll talk to you as soon as she can,” TO said. “If she could, I’m sure she’d talk to you right away.”
“Are you now?” Tham said, and though TO didn’t look back, they could hear the way his tail slapped against the stone floor, “Well, she made time for you, didn’t she?”
A pang of guilt and sympathy ran through TO. She had, that was true. Pearla had slipped away while GiDi was sleeping to help TO with the civilians, and while she was helping TO, her interactions with Tham were mostly angry. “That was different.” TO said, “There had been an issue in the dorms, and I needed help to get things done.”
“Yeah, and then she still had time to follow you up to the ship where she made time to tell me off…”
TO wanted to point out that she wouldn’t have done that if Tham hadn’t been complicit in the failsafe that he, GiDi, and Vik had set up in their brains. Still, this wasn’t the time for it. “I’m sure she’ll message you as soon as she’s free.” TO said instead. “She’s your sister, and she cares about you, so she would, yes?”
“I don’t know.” Tham said, “She was pretty angry.”
“Well… you told her to talk to you when she’s done, right?”
Silence met TO’s ears at the end of their question, and they turned around to look at Tham. “You didn’t?”
“Well, she was angry. I figured she’d talk to me if she wanted to.”
“… But she’s your sister, and we’re leaving tomorrow.” TO said, their ears once more flattening out. “Of course she’s going to walk to talk to you.”
Tham shrugged, “I dunno. She will if she wants.”
TO’s ears went parallel once more, but then they perked up, flicking with interest. “Huh… fascinating.”
“What’s fascinating?” Tham said, frowning.
“Just that I guess this is what Avery felt like back before DH and I became a couple.” TO said, “Just… amazed at the level of… well, ‘stupidity’ seems rather harsh but-“
“Hey now!” Tham said, his eyes narrowing. “Watch it.”
TO sighed and turned around to continue down the hallway. “Just send her a message saying you want to talk to her when she’s free, regardless of how early or late it is.” TO said, “She’s your sister, and she cares about you; she’ll want to talk to you before everything happens tomorrow. Family is important to her.”
“I hope so,” Tham said as he followed behind TO, “Otherwise, if things go sideways, our last conversation will end up being an argument.”
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“Really, you should have come here sooner!” Goretta snapped as she cut away the bandages on Tham’s arm. “I told you I needed to check this at least once a day.”
“I figured if it was really important you’d tell me!” Tham protested.
“How? When?” Goretta snapped, “I haven’t had two seconds to sit and think about anything that wasn’t an immediate, pressing concern.”
Tham, who was now sitting on a table while Goretta cut away bandages, gave a heavy sigh, “It doesn’t hurt.” He said, “No more than usual, anyway.”
“That’s very good. How much is the usual amount of pain?” Goretta snapped. The last of the bandages came off, and TO saw the wound for the first time. The color drained from their face -
Blood, cracking bones, scalpel through skin.
-As they saw dried blood sticking to Tham’s red skin, and the simple stitches that held the ragged edges of the wound together, now encrusted with dried blood. TO turned away, their ears low as they tried to figure out if the smell of antiseptic was lingering in their mind, or if Goretta was using some while she examined the wound. They knew the smell of latex was real as they heard the snap of the plastic as Goretta put her gloves on.
“It doesn’t look too bad.” She said, “Maybe a little inflamed, but not infected.”
“I told you.” Tham said, “It’s fine-“
“Well, if you had come earlier, I might have been able to clean this up a little better and put something on it to reduce the inflammation!” TO heard a bottle open, and a moment later heard a hiss of pain from Tham.
“This isn’t supposed to hurt, Tham.” Goretta said with a chuckle.
“It didn’t… I just thought it would.” While a person’s tone of voice was still difficult for them to make out without being able to look at faces, TO was certain that if Tham had mobile ears, they’d be low and flushed. “Anyway, it was cold, and I didn’t expect that!”
“Well, we’ll clean this up at least and put a bandage on it. If you’re careful, I don’t think you’ll need the sling anymore. You’re lucky the shot missed bone, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tham said. “Look, it’s not like I went out there trying to get shot, or that I was being careless. Things kind of went crazy!” He huffed, “Just like I’m sure TO didn’t go down there thinking, ‘You know what, when this is done, I’m gonna faint just for fun.’”
“I indeed did not.” TO said, their ears warming.
“Well, at any rate, you should be fine.” Goretta said, “I want to check this daily though. Last thing I need is for you to get an infection. You probably wouldn’t come to me about it until it got to the point where I had to cut something off!”
“Told you.” TO said.
Tham sighed, “Well, I’m here now.” He muttered, “Pardon me for being busy.”
TO sat down on a nearby chair, letting their head and stomach settle from the sight of blood. At least the red blood didn’t seem to affect them as much as their own blue blood did, and dried blood had even less of an effect. Still, they were happy for a moment to sit and collect themself.
“Uncle Tham!”
TO’s ears perked up since they recognized Constance’s voice, and their confusion lasted only a moment as they recalled Constance calling Pearla, ‘auntie Pearla’. They turned to see the young shark like girl pulling herself towards Tham on her little cart. It wasn’t just her though, there were five or six children had followed her in her rush towards Tham.
“Well hi there, Constance.” Tham said, and instantly his entire body language changed. Where once he had been stiff and upright, now his muscles seemed to have relaxed, and his tail lay still on the floor. He looked at the other children following her. “Jayda, Rimini, you’re doing better now, yeah?”
Two other children, One scaled from head to toe with a long tail and clawed feet, and the other a Cephaloid, both nodded. The Cephaloid grinned. “You should have seen the mushroom that Doctor D pulled out of my nose!”
Tham grinned, “Oh?” He asked, “Was it big? Or just gross?”
The scaled one, who TO figured was Rimini, wrinkled up her nose, “It was big and gross!” She said, “Jayden kept showing it to me, and he wanted to keep it, but Doctor D said that it was a *contaminant*.” She said the word with a big smile and spoke it so carefully that TO knew she had learned it today. “So they made Jayden throw it away.”
“Doctor D?” TO asked, their ears flicking with confusion.
“That’s DH!” Constance said. She turned to the other children. “This is Tio, and they’re DH’s partner!”
TO felt their ears warm as she said that. She was so direct, and that still flustered TO despite the fact that it was perfectly safe to announce that DH was their mate here.
“Are you a synth too?” One of the other kids, a Nagarajin with spiky scales, asked.
“I… I was.”
“But.. you’re not now?” He tilted his head at TO.
TO frowned, “I…I think that you’re only a synth if you work for King Decon.” They said softly, quietly verbalizing what they had been thinking of for days.
“And… what are you if you don’t?”
“I think that’s Chilacian then.” TO said as their ears flicked with worry. They didn’t know if that was really a good explanation of things or not.
“Oh.” The kid looked blankly at TO for a moment more, then turned back to Tham, their eyes lighting up as they glanced at his arm. “What happened to your arm!?” He said.
“Ah, that.” He looked at the kid. “I got shot.”
“Tham!” TO’s ears flicked down in horror, “You can’t just tell a kid-“
“You did!?” The kid, somehow, seemed more excited now than they had a minute ago. “You really did? Did it hurt?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Rimini said, “Of course it hurt!”
“What did it feel like!?”
“Will it scar?”
“Can I see?”
TO shook their head and turned away as the kids clambered about to get close enough to see the wound before Goretta finished bandaging it up.
“How did you get shot?” Constance asked.
“It was that day you all came here to stay with us,” Tham said, his voice far more jovial than TO expected it to be. “The Okoian police and a Special Agent came after us, and they shot me!”
“But you took care of them, right?”
“Well, actually, it was TO.” Tham said. “I got shot pretty early on, so I wasn’t much use. If It weren’t for TO…”
“They would have got you!?” Jayden said, “And they’d send you back to jail?”
“Holding, not jail.” Tham said. Of course, TO knew that they wouldn’t have sent Tham to the Holding center. Those who went in to catch them were out to end their lives. Still, the kids didn’t need to know about that.
Constance looked over at TO, her eyes bigger now than they were before, and the fins on her head perking up, “You stopped them!?” she said.
“Well, yes.” TO said, “But-“
“How many were there?” Jayden asked, “Did they all have guns?”
“Of course they all had guns, dummy.”
“Was it hard?”
“Were they strong?”
“How did you do it?”
The chaotic slew of questions from the children threw TO, and by the time they had an answer to one question ready to go, the kids had five more. They glanced up at Tham, who only grinned at TO while Goretta was now left to bandage his wound in relative peace. Somehow, TO felt Tham knew what would happen once he told the kids the truth.
TO cleared their voice, ignored the questions for a moment, then spoke up with their voice a little louder and firmer, and with a tone that brought silence to the children. “You’re asking too many questions all at once.” They said, “If you sit down and if you’re quiet, I’ll tell you what happened. However, must keep all questions for the end. Understood?”
Among the chorus of promises to be quiet, and the shuffling around as the kids sat, TO missed the low chuckle Goretta gave, and the slow shake of her head as she finished bandaging Tham’s arm.