Trouble is in the kitchen, quietly inventorying.

"What's for breakfast?" Andi inquires. "Are you making breakfast?"

"Course I'm making breakfast," he says. "Pancakes sound good?"

"Pancakes sound sizzly, which is good, sizzly is a nice food sound," says Andi, lazily sprawling herself in a kitchen chair and onto the table.

He giggles softly. "All right, pancakes it is."

"Did things wind up okay with Ax last night?"

"I think so. I went to bed pretty soon after we talked. You want your pancakes nowish, or when everybody else wakes up?"

"Eh, I can wait, unless they take forever."

"You and Ax friends now?"

"Good question. Maybe I'll ask him."

"I dunno about that, kind of a heavy question, 'are we friends'."

"How else am I gonna find out?"

"Ob...serving? If friend things happen?"

"'Friend things' is kind of different for everybody, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"And with most people I can guess, but him I don't know well enough."

"I took it as a pretty encouraging sign when I brought him the stars and he told me this was a kindness and asked me about the water thing instead of going to Bella about it," offers Andi.

"Yeah, that does sound encouraging. He told me he liked 'em, too."

"The stars? Yeah. I'm glad they help, being claustrophobic doesn't sound fun."

"Yeah, I bet it's not. I get some of it when I morph Andalites, but I'm pretty sure starting out human makes a difference. Not to mention starting out me."

"You're, what, particularly un-claustrophobic?"

"More like - on most things, I can get pretty damn uncomfortable before it really starts bothering me."

"...If you aren't bothered by a thing how is it even technically uncomfortable?"

"Mmm... you'd call a papercut uncomfortable even if it wasn't that annoying and you could mostly ignore it, right? I feel that way about a broken arm. I just have a really high tolerance for unpleasant shit."

"Oh. I guess that's handy."

He laughs. "Damn right."

"That's not how come you're bitey-critter-bait, though, right, that's a different thing?"

"Yeah, mostly. I mean, maybe I wouldn't get so much out of being mauled by bears if I got more upset about pain, but who knows?"

"Not me, I do not know."

Trouble giggles.

Andi yawns. Then she says, "I wonder when Mom's going to show up. I mean, on the one hand it's convenient that we have the house to ourselves if we're not gonna tell her stuff, on the other hand it's kind of lousy that if our dad had, actually, got mauled to death by a bear, we would be alone in his house for the next several days?"

"...yeah," says Trouble, "I hear ya. Do you even know if anybody's talked to her yet? She was on a trip or something, right?"

"Nobody's reached her. I'm supposed to call the hotel she was at last night sometime today when she will probably already be gone."

"So I guess if your dad had actually been mauled to death by a bear, you might be trying harder to get ahold of her."

"Well, we could have got her on the phone last night, or I could call the hotel now," says Andi, "but there wasn't a way before that, she wasn't planning to be at specific hotels at specific times till now."

"She's probably gonna feel like shit about that when you finally talk to her."

"Yeah."

"That sucks," says Trouble.

"Every few months she thinks about getting a cell phone, then decides it would be too expensive," sighs Andi. "I bet she gets one now."

"Yeah, I'll say. Do you know if you guys are gonna tell her about - stuff?"

"I don't think Bella's decided yet."

"Yeah. It's hard."

"Mom is decent with privacy but not very good with secrets, is the problem."

He nods. "And then there's what if she just gets a random Yeerk..."

"Right. That's already happened the once and we were really lucky."

"Lucky's one way to put it, I guess."

"Well, I mean, if there had to be an Animorph getting Yeerked, you and Aspret is one of probably not all that many combinations that lets us end the day not all enslaved or dead. I don't mean it's lucky it happened at all."

"Yeah, no - what I mean is - the reason Aspret got me specifically is the same reason she could barely hang onto me," he says. "It wasn't all luck."

"Huh?"

"She got assigned to me as a punishment. To torture her, basically."

"...Uh?"

"I... don't know if I wanna know, do I wanna know? Should I know?"

"Well... I wouldn't mind you knowing. But it's pretty nasty."

"It kind of sounds like you got tortured a lot? And the Yeerks knew it?"

"Kind of about right," says Trouble. "My stepdad's a Controller. He has some kind of a deal with his Yeerk. I dunno what the Yeerk gets out of it, but I know what Reggie got."

Andi scratches her head, but doesn't say anything.

"What?"

"I dunno how much I'm supposed to be able to figure out from that?"

"You can always ask for the rest."

"It's kind of awkward to have to ask, though, like, I don't have sadistic fascinations here and probably don't actually have to have details to do anything I need to do and I dunno how much you want to tell me anyway."

"I want to tell you, I just don't want to give you nightmares if I can help it. And me and my high tolerance for unpleasant shit aren't always good at figuring out where that line is for other people."

"I don't really have a problem with nightmares. If my dreams get even slightly unsettling I wake up and roll over and try again. So I guess that kind of is a problem with nightmares, but not the usual kind."

"Yeah," says Trouble. "I just... it's weird having people I'm willing to tell. Maybe it's just 'cause Reggie can't get me anymore. Except if we all get captured and infested they might give me back to him for a while. It'd be a waste, but it'd be just like Visser Three to waste me like that."

Andi nods.

He shrugs. "Anyway. I guess you don't need the details."

"Who else knows?"

"Bella. And Ethan could've guessed by now if he gave half a shit."

"Which... he does not?"

"Course not, he's Ethan."

"Well, I'm glad he can't get you anymore, anyway."

"Aww." He smiles. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"So - hungry yet?"

"Yeah."

Andi supervises.

Ax is mid-morph. Charlie's clothes are too big on his mixed-up human form to be morphed into it, but he does come with underwear, and is reaching for the pants when Trouble comes in.

"Hi," says Trouble. "I brought you some pancakes."

"Pancakes," Ax repeats. "Pan. Anc. Akes."

Trouble grins and offers him the plate.

Ax picks up a pancake. He tastes it. He inhales the remaining available pancakes, making undignified sounds.

Trouble smiles.

<Pancakes,> says Ax unnecessarily.

<Are there more?> inquires Ax.

He laughs. "Not right now. There will be if I make 'em."

<May I have more?> Ax gets his pants on, and his shirt, and peers into the kitchen.

Ax's morphed human instincts must be driving the generation of facial expressions. He looks truly pathetic when he says, "How many? Men-nee?"

"How about..." he looks at the remaining volume of batter and makes a calculation, "three more, and then I'll wait until everybody else has eaten and give you what's left?"

"Three," says Ax. "Thhhhrrrrrreeee." He sighs.

"Aw, poor Ax."

"Yeah, I know. But we've got a lot of people to feed here."

"I wish one of us besides Charlie could drive, we could go get groceries. Maybe if I successfully miss Mom calling today I can call one of Dad's friends and get a ride."

"Yeah, 'cause otherwise I'm gonna have to go kill a deer or something pretty soon."

"Would you even know what to do with a dead deer?"

"I'm sure I could figure it out."

"Inconspicuously?"

"Mmm... depends where."

"You'd have to get it to the house, to cook it."

"Yeah, probably. Or do some serious experimenting off in the middle of the woods somewhere. But the deer'd still have to come back eventually, I guess."

"Yeah."

"What is a deer? Deeeeeeeeeeer?"

"Four-legged herbivore with hooves."

Ax looks alarmed.

Trouble hands him a plate of pancakes.

This is a very effective distraction!

Bella comes down the stairs.

"Morning, Bella!" says Trouble. "There's pancakes."

"Are there now. Ax sure seems to approve."

<Pancakes!>

"I make good pancakes," Trouble says smugly.

"I'm not sure if Ax's approval is much supporting evidence, but I'll sure have some."

Trouble provides.

Mmm, pancakes. "I, too, approve."

"Good!"

Ethan and Robin come down the stairs together.

Charlie is not far behind.

"Ooh, pancakes."

"Thanks," Charlie says to Trouble.

"Welcome."

"Y'know," says Charlie, watching pancakes fry, "you came up on the phone, a few times - before - but Bella never mentioned your real name."

"Yeah," says Trouble, "that's 'cause I never use it if I can help it."

"Why's that?"

He shrugs. "I just don't like it much."

"Mm. All right."

Trouble smiles, and provides more pancakes.

Ax watches pancakes travel from pan to plate hopefully.

"Everybody had enough?"

"Provided no one steals mine, yes."

Ax eyes Ethan's pancakes.

Ethan points his fork at Ax. "No."

<They are delicious!>

"They are mine."

"Ax, do not steal food from other people."

Ax sighs tragically. <Yes, Princess Bella.>

Robin grabs herself another pancake, then says, "I'm good."

Ax looks beseechingly at Trouble.

He looks at the various Swans.

"I think we're good," says Bella. She has half a pancake left.

After glancing for confirmation at Andi and Charlie, Trouble says, "All right, the rest are for Ax."

Ax grins from ear to ear.

Trouble giggles, and sets about making the last of the pancake batter into more pancakes.

When Ax receives the completed pancakes, they are gone in less than sixty seconds.

Trouble laughs.

"Pancakes," says Ax with satisfaction.

"Yep!"

"Paaaaan. Cayyyyyks."

"Are you having as much fun as it looks like?"

"Yessssssss."

Trouble grins. "It's adorable."

Ax smiles, a little. <Is there any more food or should I demorph?>

"Mmm... nothing more right now," says Trouble.

Ax goes back out to the garage.

"How'd talking with Ax last night go?" Bella asks Trouble.

"It went. I dunno."

"Affordances for privately discussing it are kind of limited when the house is this crowded unless we morph and thoughtspeak."

Trouble shrugs. "I don't need, like, secrecy," he says, "I just don't wanna talk about it in front of everybody. Can we go sit somewhere less crowded? Upstairs maybe?"

"Sure." Bella gets up and heads to the master bedroom where she and Andi have been temporarily sleeping.

Trouble follows.

Bella sits on the edge of the bed.

"Is the mutual not-getting going to cause problems?"

"Who knows? I know I'm better about it since we talked. I guess he might be too. He likes my pancakes, anyway."

"Yes. He does."

Trouble shrugs. "That's all I got."

"Okay." Bella writes something. "Thanks."

"Hmm?"

"Mmmm... thinking about how we left off last night."

"What about it?"

"...You seemed kind of frustrated."

"Yes."

"You wanna say anything else about that?"

"Not necessarily. What do you want to know?"

"I don't know. I'm just trying to—" He shakes his head and starts over. "When you let loose on me about what a total shit you thought I was being, it made me really not wanna tell you any different. So now I'm... seeing if I can not feel like that."

"I apologize for going off on you like that. It was against my better judgment and I will not repeat the mistake."

"...okay," says Trouble. "I'm not sure I'm hearing that the way you mean it. Uh, thanks, I guess. But how much it helps kind of depends on what the mistake was."

"I made a mistake in - managing myself. However I was feeling and whatever I saw and however much of a heel I felt like for being prepared to give Ax unpalatable instructions it didn't make it reasonable to yell at you about it - I mean, how you're feeling about everything matters too. Whatever I saw."

"...yeah, okay," says Trouble. "That's - better than what I was hearing."

"What were you hearing?"

"Well - it sounded like it meant that you don't think any differently than you did, you just regret telling me about it. Without there being anything about my feelings mattering in there."

"I'm still not sure what else I was supposed to think, at the time," says Bella. "But then you went and apologized, so obviously it wasn't as bad as I had been imagining."

"...you could say that, yeah," says Trouble, looking at the floor with a touch of strain in his voice.

"I'm... not sure I understand."

"I couldn't tell," confirms Bella.

He smiles wryly. "Yeah, I figured."

"So - when it looks like you're being a jerk I can probably call your attention to it less shoutily, huh?"

"Yeah," he says. "And maybe it'll be that I don't care, I don't guarantee I'm gonna care about every single thing you think I should for the rest of forever, but maybe it'll be that I was too busy being wrecked about something to notice."

He smiles crookedly. "Little bit, yeah. Going to talk to Ax was - not trivial."

"I couldn't tell that either."

"I know. That's kind of a thing with me. When I'm scared and living in my head like that, I'm not gonna let anybody know until I've got through it a little. Because it feels safer that way, you know?"

"I guess? I don't know, I don't have a thing like that."

"Yeah," he says, "that makes sense."

"Well, you - talked to him anyway, which was good, the house is still standing, you have not been slain in a tail-blade duel, etcetera."

Trouble laughs. "Yeah, that's a start."

Bella grabs her notebook. She writes something down.

"Mm?"

"Loosely - that there is room for more charitable explanations around you than I briefly believed."

"Yeah, okay."

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

He shrugs. "Nah."

"Okay. Thanks for clearing this up."

"You're welcome."

Bella writes inscrutably.

This time he doesn't ask. He just sits there for a moment longer, and then gets up and wanders off.