"Okay. Get some sleep. It's probably safest if you don't come into the main house in Andalite form at all - we don't expect guests yet, but might be surprised."

Off goes Ax.

And to bed go Ethan and Robin, since that seems to be the next logical order of business.

The house is a little crowded; the twins wind up sharing Charlie's bed to let him and Ethan have their bunks and Robin have the air mattress in the master bedroom. (The trouble with the couch is it's nowhere near Andi's protective light-sleeperhood.)

"I slept outside," he says. "Comfier that way. Will people like it if I make French toast, you think?"

"French toast sounds good to me. How's outside comfy?"

"Psychologically," he says. "When are Bella and your dad gonna be up, you think?"

"In like... half an hour?" guesses Andi, tracing a vague swirl on the table. "Maybe a little longer."

"Mm, I better not start yet, then."

"Okay. Psychologically comfy how?"

"...Sometimes I get kind of spooked," he says, "and it's just easier not to be around whoever spooked me until I calm down."

"Ax spooked you because he didn't want to be an 'also' or whatever you said with Aspret?"

"Kind of. It's complicated." He sits down at the kitchen table. "I kind of get where he was going with that, but I don't think I can make myself talk that way - I don't want to - and I wasn't sure which way anybody was gonna swing if I pushed it, except that Ethan predictably doesn't give a damn, and it was so much easier to just bail on the whole conversation. I do that sometimes." He quirks a smile. "Maybe you've noticed."

"I think you kind of spooked Bella. I'm not positive, it's kind of hard to tell when she has a beak."

He shrugs. "I told her I'd talk to her about it later."

"She's kind of - I don't know, never mind, I'm probably imagining things."

"No, tell me," he says. "Kind of what?"

"Huh," he says thoughtfully.

"She's - I think she's avoiding doing this with everybody else? Out loud anyway, God only knows what she's writing down, but I think she's kind of - turning herself into a - she thinks she has to - I think she'd drive herself insane if she thought that would get the Yeerks to go away, and she doesn't think it would, but maybe she thinks using herself like she's some kind of - very creative tactical computer program operating a lightly armed Transformer? - will - does that make sense?"

"Yeah," says Trouble. "Yeah, a little."

"I think she thinks she knows how much of that she can do before she falls apart, I just don't know if I know that, and anyway there are bad things besides falling apart."

Trouble sighs. "Yeah, no kidding."