Willow’s lips parted as she processed what the man in front of her had just said. Her dream, the thing she’d given up on years ago… Was it really possible?

She stood abruptly, walking over to a door that was set into a small divot in the living room wall. She opened it, revealing a stairway that led downwards, and turned to Erile.

"Come here. It’s… Everything is downstairs."

Erile stood up, grinning, as he followed her down the stairway. He had seen technology that far surpassed Willow's, of course, but still… Her work was much more elegant than anything in the future. All of the prosthetic limbs, though more versatile, had a mass-produced feel to them in the future. Willow's felt all natural.

Plus, the AI where he came from all had the same names, spoke with the same voices, and learned the same way.

Willow could build a person with his help.

"Alright. So what have you had trouble with?"

Willow flicked the light on at the bottom of the stairs, and glanced over at him. "Everything is complete. The body is fully ready to receive signals from the brain." She led him over to a large metal door, and tapped a couple buttons on the keypad beside it before she pushed it open. The lights turned on automatically, illuminating the large room of the basement that had been turned into her workspace.

The lab was just as one would picture it. Metal tables were covered in contraptions that were all created by her. Arms, legs, strange robots with unknown design features. Along the walls were large shelving units, each marked with tape so that she would know what drawer stored what part. Blueprints hung on the walls, and any nearby surface she could find. It was an organized disaster.

But it was dazzling.

And so was the body that stood against the back wall.

It looked just like him, as she had painstakingly crafted the man to look and feel exactly like a human. It had taken her years of hard work, but it was done. When it was complete, it would function just like Nych's old body had. But for now, it was propped up against a metal stand, wires running from various parts of the body and layers upon layers of blueprints coating the wall behind it.

Willow walked over and examined the husk sadly. "… I can't figure out how to properly hook his brain up to the machinery." She said after a second. "I don't know how to make it function. I don’t know how to link the body with the brain." She buried her face in her hands and sighed. "I don’t know how to do anything."

Erile chuckled, knowing exactly where she was going wrong. It was understandable; the laws of bioelectronics hadn't exactly been established yet, and she wouldn't understand most of them. But he could boil down the main one to a single thing that she could understand.

"Well, Willow, there's a bit of a problem. You're trying to run an electrical body off of a biological brain. That can't happen, just like a flesh and bone body can't run off of a machine's brain. No, you either need all flesh, or all technology. Or in Nych's case…"

He walked around the body, smiling and nodding his head. It was done well.

"Both."

He knew he'd need to explain.

"You can't have only the brain hooked up. But if you were to implement a hard drive within the brain…"

She hesitated, and silently mulled over what he was saying. It made sense, but she wasn't exactly sure how she could execute it.

"… So how would I go about doing that, then?" She furrowed her brows, walking over to a safe she had on one side of the room. She opened it up, and from there pulled out all that was left of the man she had once loved.

Nych's brain.

She carried the box it was stored in over to a nearby table and set it down. She sighed as she examined it, and then looked up at Erile. "I don't want to cause any damage to his brain. If that were to happen, I… I might never get him back." She bit the inside of her lip, seemingly frightened at the thought. It would probably destroy her if she was the reason that Nych was never coming back, and she didn't want to risk anything.

"Ah, well. For that, you'll need this." He laid his bag on the ground and knelt down beside it, rummaging around until he pulled out a strange looking needle. When he flipped a switch on the side, the point at the end begin to glow a light blue color.

"This will fuse synapses and transistors. The brain and the hard drive will become one; Nych's conscious mind will exist on both the hard drive and the brain, without any loss of memory. The hard drive will, therefore, be attached to the body via… Whatever you used as a replacement for the spinal cord."

That tool… No wonder she'd never been able to figure it out. It wouldn't exist for hundreds of years.

He handed it to her, a bit of a smile on his face.

"You're the doctor. You'll want to remove all of the parts of the brain that won't be needed. For example, robotic eyes mean that he won't need the occipital lobe, and so forth."

She nodded slowly, biting the inside of her lip as she looked to the tool and then to the brain sitting on the table in front of herself. "I…" She sighed, and ducked her head as she looked away. As much as she didn't like the thought of it, she knew what she had to do. It would be the only way to restore Nych, and if she didn't…

She wasn't going to get him back. Ever.

"Is there anything else I should know?" She asked after a second.

"Only that I know you'll succeed." He said, a small smile on his face. "I've seen Nych in his AI form before, Willow, which means that you won't fail. So don't worry too much about it, but worry enough to get it done. Just know that the future is never set in stone."

With that, he turned around, heading back up the stairs. "I think you'll find that you're in the home stretch, Willow. There isn't much farther to go now."

He then left, leaving her to her work as he walked upstairs.

… To promptly hear a knock on the door, and then find it being practically slammed open.

"Willow?!" There was a man standing in the doorway. He was on the taller side, slim but well-toned. His hair was ginger and somewhat scruffy, and he had the slightest stubble on his face. He looked very similar to Willow, the only major difference being in the color of their eyes. While hers were a beautiful green, his were blue.

"Uncle Terry!" Aisling squealed from a couple rooms away, and after a moment came running out and hugged the man around the legs. "Hi!"

Terry looked down at her, and after a second relaxed with a sigh. "Hey, kid. Where's your mom?"

"She's downstairs. You know she's always working on something."

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Blake's voice carried down the hall as she walked towards them, a small smile on her face. She'd gotten to know Terry quite well after Nych died, considering he'd helped with Willow. The two weren't the best of friends, but they were pretty close.

"Been a while, Terry." She said, wrapping an arm lightly around him.

"Yeah, she's downstairs," Erile said, looking back down the way he came. "I wouldn't distract her right now, though; she’s had a breakthrough."

"Blake?" Terry blinked at her, and then chuckled after a second and reached up to ruffle her hair with a grin. "God, it's been years. Where have you been all this time?" He looked to her with bright eyes, and then as he looked over at Erile, his grin faded. "… Who's this? And why are his clothes burnt?"

"… Why are there a bunch of weird people around?" A young boy, only about ten years old, walked up to everyone and looked around at them with a frown. His hair was blond, his eyes blue. There was a frown on his face, and he didn’t seem happy to be there.

"Hi Dean!" Aisling released Terry to grin at him.

"Hi Ais." He peered past his father and into the house. "Who are these people?"

"This is Blake!" Aisling wrapped her arms around Blake's waist with a grin, looking over at him. "She's really cool and she protects mom, and she has a knife and we were building with my Lego before you guys got here!" Apparently she really liked Blake. "… I dunno who he is though." She looked over at Erile and shrugged.

Erile chuckled, looking down at Aisling before he walked up to Terry. "I'm Basil Connors. Specialist in the field of artificial intelligence, and I came when Willow called me to help her with Nych."

There was a long silence, with narrowed eyes from Blake piercing every inch of Erile's body. He couldn't let Aisling know who he was. Otherwise… She might not survive the Auranis.

"Yeah. He's pretty smart, gotta say it. His tech's impressive." Blake said, with all the ease of the truth.

She was, after all, used to lying.

Erile let out a sigh of relief.

Terry nodded slowly, examining him before he slowly relaxed. Whoever he was, he wasn't going to pose a threat to his older sister or his niece, so he was good in his books. "… Willow told me what happened." He looked towards Blake. "Where's Marcus?" His voice took on a lower, more threatening tone. Willow's entire family hated the man, and it was evident in just the way that they spoke about him.

"Mama said he's gone." Aisling said quietly, still holding onto Blake.

"That's good. I didn't like him." Dean said bluntly, and Terry sighed.

"This is Dean." He rested a hand on his son's shoulder, looking up at Blake. "My son. Me and Julie are married now."

Blake raised a brow, grinning. "That broad? Never thought you two would last." She was joking, because she'd used to hit on Terry constantly. She was happy for him, no matter what. The matter of Marcus, however, darkened her mood.

"Yeah, that bastard's gone. I threatened him with a knife to the face and then broke his teeth before I kicked him in the gut."

She was dead serious, evident by the look in her eyes.

She then smiled, nodding to him. "But he earned it, so we're good."

Terry stared at her for a second, before he chuckled and shook his head. "Honestly… Knowing you, I'm not even surprised. If you hadn't done it, it probably would've been me instead." He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

"I'm thinking I'll probably hang around for a day or so." He sighed. "Just in case the bastard tries to come back."

"We can have a sleepover!" Aisling's eyes lit up, and Terry smiled at her. "… Could you stay too?" She looked up at Blake, lightly tugging on her shirt. "You're fun."

Blake looked down at the kid, and a sad sort of smile laced her lips. She was about to tell her that she couldn't stay, when she thought better of it. What was waiting for her when she got home? An empty bed, stale coffee and old cigarettes, an empty fridge and some soiled furniture.

"You know what? Why not?" She said, the sad smile turning to one of genuine happiness.

Blake Medea hadn't been genuinely happy in a long time.

"I… Guess that I won't be staying. I've already contributed all I can." Erile said, walking around all of them towards the door. He'd have to wait a week to travel again, and that sucked, but he'd figure out something to do.

Terry glanced to him for a moment, and then slowly nodded. "Alright. You might want to let Willow know you're leaving, but you're probably pretty busy." He shrugged, guiding everyone over to the living room that was right beside the entryway.

"Yay! Sleepover!" Aisling laughed, lifting her hands into the air in celebration.

It was hard to imagine that this joyful little girl would turn into the strong young woman Erile would meet. A woman who had endured all the horrors of the world, and lived to tell them in the future.

But that is a story for another day.

Terry sat down and ran his fingers through his hair. "So. What have you been doing all these years?" He looked towards Blake, raising an eyebrow.

Blake chuckled, looking toward Aisling and Dean and shaking her head slightly. The things she'd been up to… Well, they weren't the best for children to hear about. Much of what she did was illegal.

She'd fallen in with the wrong crowd, and she knew that. Perhaps one day she'd make her way out of it.

"Don't mind me. What about you, Terry? How'd you end up tying the knot, anyway? You never seemed like the marrying type to me, but I guess I had you pegged for the wrong kind of guy."

She winked. There was the old Blake he knew and loved.

Terry snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, of course you did." He ran his fingers through his hair again to pull it away from his face. "Me and Julie got married a couple months before she had him." He jabbed a thumb towards Dean, and smiled somewhat at the memory. "Just a small wedding. We put it all into the honeymoon and went and traveled around Europe for about a month. I really recommend going to Germany if you have the chance."

It sounded like they had settled into a suburban life quite nicely for the most part.

"Mom and dad have been doing pretty well too." He leaned back in his chair. "Dad's been watching what he eats, though. Our family's got a bit of a history with heart problems. You can imagine she's been working day in and day out to try and find a solution." He nodded towards the basement door.

Blake nodded, sighing. Willow put way too much work into way too many things, it was no wonder she was pulled thin all the time. The woman needed to let loose and have a bit of fun for a while.

"I'll never be one for the married life, I suppose." Blake said, a tinge of sadness in her voice as she looked to Aisling and Dean. Eventually, she turned back to Terry, a bit of a smile on her face. It was only there to hide the pain.

"Emma broke it off right before I left to come here. For good this time. I guess I'm back to drifting."

Blake hadn't been alone in a long while. At least, not truly alone. Now Emma had finally left.

But she didn't regret coming to save Willow. She never would.

"Shit. I'm sorry." Terry's eyes widened slightly, and then his brows furrowed in concern. "That's awful, Blake. I'm really sorry to hear that."

He hadn't seen her in years, but he always expected her and Emma to stay together for a hell of a long time.

"If you need anything, you know you can go to any of the family." He gestured around the house. "On the plus side, I guess you can do what you always liked doing. Getting drunk and picking up cute people." He shrugged, and smiled ever so slightly. "Go have some fun, Blake."

Blake nodded her head sadly, but on the inside… She didn't know what to think.

She really didn't want to go back to that lifestyle, the partying and drinking and picking up random people she thought she had half a chance of getting into her bed. She wanted stability, and she never would have admitted that until Emma left.

No. She didn't want stability.

She wanted Emma.

"Maybe I can talk to her. Get her to understand." Blake said quietly, looking up to Terry with vulnerable eyes.

Blake was never vulnerable. This was new for her.

"Go talk to her. You can use my phone if you want to." He nodded at her, and tilted his head to the side. "If things don't work out, you know that we're all here for you. You were more than welcome at any of our houses to begin with, but after what you did here today… We really owe you one." He looked to her in earnest, and after a second gave her a kind smile. "I'll distract these two if you want to go somewhere private." He gestured to Aisling and Dean, who had dragged Aisling's Lego out into the living room to play with.

Aisling was really quite the sweet child. It was good that she was away from Marcus.

Hopefully that alcoholic bastard would never come back.

Blake nodded at him gratefully, taking his cell and walking over to another room.

She stared at the digital keypad in front of her with fear in her eyes, and she was glad that she had left the room. She didn't want anyone to know that she was this scared of calling someone.

That she had truly fallen in love.

Blake Medea had always been one to avoid long-term relationships.

But she threw that out the window when she dialed the number she knew by heart, and held the phone to her ear.