He pets her shoulder tentatively. He's not sure what else he can do about the situation at hand.

She scritches the back of his head again. "He'll be all right." She relaxes, obviously intentionally.

"Daisy, do you need me to do anything here before we go?"

"I think we're good - did you refill the generator?"

"Nope, I'll take care of that."

"Okay. Kai-Zi, come help me with the dishes?"

"Oh! Yeah, sure!"

That's an unusual amount of enthusiasm for dish-doing.

He'll follow her down to...wherever that happens.

Downstairs in the kitchen! Dusk follows with the tray and dishes and then goes out front again; Nine sits at the table and fiddles with a piece of broken machinery.

"Are you all right?" Daisy asks, as she hands him the first dish to be dried.

He dries it carefully and sets it aside.

"Huh? Yeah. Why?"

"I saw your back, earlier. It's kind of worrying."

Oh. Aww.

He laughs a little.

"Oh, yeah, don't worry about that. I, uh...I'm weird, and think it's fun."

"All right," she says, after a few moments' thought. "I suppose that's safe enough. If she ever scares you with it, though-" sigh. "Keep in mind that she is a Sith; you're playing with fire."

There's so many awful responses he has to that.

But...

He nods.

"Yeah. I'll remember that."

"Good."

"It's been almost two years, she might be stable, it's just hard to know. We've thought that before and been wrong - granted not for two years, but..."

"She seems nice to me."

"She is; that's not the problem."

"It's, uh...I don't know for sure if this is it, but..."

He hopes he's not drawing a connection that isn't there.

"...it moves you. And it's...a lot more sure about hurting people."

"Yeah."

"And if you're in the habit of following it, it's hard to break that. I don't - want her to have that problem again."

He nods.

"...it's hard to imagine being controlled by that all the time. I'm...glad she's out of it."

"Yeah."

"She'll probably be okay, if she's taking it that casually. But it's a risk you should know you're taking."

"...honestly, I've probably got better odds than if she wasn't doing it."

She gives him a look. "Hm?"

"I kind of...look for trouble. It's hard not to."

He rubs his neck.

"I figure this is probably better than whatever else I would get myself into."

"Ah. Well. I'm glad I picked you up, then." She's grinning, a little, from the sound of it.

Aww.

"I'm glad you picked me up too."

"Good."

There weren't many dishes to wash; she's midway through packing the leftovers up to fit in the fridge. "Dusk's probably hanging around out front, if you're ready to go."