... ?

A response, that was definitely a response.

joy fear relief panic love need relief relief relief

do you understand me?

She's confused, but she leans into the emotions, wordlessly asserting her presence.

nausea protectiveness fear need frustration love

hi.

The sense of presence increases, tense and defensive; she doesn't know what's wrong, but she wants to do something about it.

She almost misses the greeting, distracted by her own reaction; she puzzles over it, for a moment, and then sends back one of her own.

 She wants to fix it. Even wanting something at all is better than what she was before.

And communication, that’s good. That’s her.

(He’s starting to learn not to get too excited, though.)

i missed you.

She doesn't understand, really. But she gets enough of the idea to calm herself, a little, and wrap her presence around him, warm and distinctly alive - like a cloak, or, more than that, like a cat draping itself across his shoulders.

...that's good. That feels like home.

He just enjoys that, for a little while. He can give himself a few minutes.

Good. Good.

Breakfast is delivered after a while: hers first, cubed cheese and sliced fruit and little bite-sized chocolate chip muffins, and the droid encourages her to try eating it herself instead of being fed.

He enjoys this too! Fruit especially, given the content of his own diet.

She'll eat more fruit, then.

It runs out, predictably enough.

Other food is also good!

And breakfast proceeds.

Eventually, she's done, and the droid takes the tray away and lets her rest for a little while.

He starts to do his exercises again, keeping a proverbial eye on her.

She watches, and every once in a while she offers a correction, recognizing when he's doing something incorrectly and sending wordless impressions of what he should be doing instead.

—that’s interesting. And really helpful.

He improves quickly, with the benefit of her attention.

The droid interrupts them to try to get her to stand up and walk around.

...he guesses avoiding muscle atrophy is important.

He stops practicing to let that happen.

And up she gets.

It's a little more obvious, now that he's not distracted, that she's trying to understand what's going on. In a vague, barely-directed way, but it's happening.

He probably should have checked earlier, shouldn’t he?

He waits until she’s down again before he tries to say something.

do you    remember anything?

She doesn't understand.

After a few minutes of trying to puzzle it out, she sends an impression of a shrug.

do you know who i am?

...that implies that he's a separate person, which is not, actually, something that had occurred to her. Oh, she sends, hello. (His question is already forgotten.)

He's a lot less upset by this than he would be if he hadn't just had the experience of someone forgetting he was not part of them.

i guess you don't.

we're going to escape together.

...it needs escaping from? Okay. Logistics?, she sends - the concept, not the word, she's still not doing words.