He goes slightly tense when Pradnakt brings up last night. But- There's no yelling, or anything else. Just. Calm questions, responses and explanations.

He blinks confusedly at his potatoes for a moment, and then goes back to eating.

"It's all right, he's not upset at you." She pats Nine on the back. "We haven't been working on manners, yet, that's a bit too much to ask right now."

    "Yes, m-" Nine rumbles, and Pradnakt gets back to her meal.

"I- I'm sorry?" he says quietly, mostly finished his own meal, and poking at the remaining potatoes a little.

"It's fine, Nova. If you don't want to talk to someone I'd rather you do that, right now, than worry about being polite. Doing what you want is important for you right now."

He nods quietly, and...doesn't actually say anything in response. And doesn't move to clear his dishes immediately either.

She gives his shoulder a squeeze when she takes his plate. "Proud of you."

He blinks at her, startled, one of his tiny smiles making its way onto his lips, and a small, pleasant feeling curling in his stomach. Tempered slightly by Pradnakt taking his plate.

"Uh, I can-?" he starts quietly.

"Yeah, so can I. You're all right." and she goes to wash the dishes.

It still doesn't feel quite right, but he settles a little. (And seems to have picked up the habit of signing reassurances to himself.)

Is she really like that, or pretending? That's your work. Nine signs to Daisy, once Pradnakt's back is turned.

   I usually do it; she's making a point. She's really like that, though. I told you.

Nova watches them silently, but doesn't really have anything to add to what's being said. (And it's another layer of reassurance that this is real.)

    That's bizarre.

Yeah. It's nice, though, once you get used to it.

And soon enough Pradnakt has the dishes washed and put away.

"All right, let's go see what still needs to be done with the house."

Nova gets to his feet, starts towards the door, pauses, and looks back to Pradnakt.

She's right behind him, smiling. "You're all right."

She gets a tiny smile in response, and Nova heading outside. He's not sure what else is left to do, but-

(But he's still a little more used to being outside than in.)

Pradnakt and the droids follow him out, and she heads over to the work site, where new batches of bricks have been set out to dry by each of the walls. "Yeah, that should be more than enough," she concludes, after a quick inspection; "good job, you two."

    "Thank you."

"'Welcome. And then we'll need to do the wiring, and get the doors and windows in - Daisy, do you remember how to do the windows well enough that you and Nine can do that while Nova helps me?"

    "...no, but it'll be in my journal."

"That's fine. You can go ahead and look that up while we get the walls up; Nine, you can go with her if you want, I think Nova and I will be fine by ourselves."

    "Yes."

"- that wasn't an order, hun, you have your pick of what to do."

    "Oh. ...I'd rather stay, I think."

"Sure. And surfacing'll go fastest with all four of us, and then I can put the roof on just fine by myself - it'll need to settle for a few days before it's safe to walk on, so we'll come back then to put a deck up there. Sound good?"

    "Mmhmm."

Nova follows them, listening quietly to Pradnakt. He doesn't really react to anything, except a brief, still confused frown at Pradnakt telling Nine that he can choose what to do, and a little confusion that Nine would rather stay than go with Daisy. But otherwise, he's waiting for an instruction on where to start.

Daisy goes off to look at her journals; Pradnakt starts mixing up a batch of mortar. "Nova, can you show Nine what to do? You seemed to have a pretty good handle on it yesterday."

He looks a little startled at being given that task. "I, uh, yes ma'am? If- y'sure?"

"Mmhmm. Unless you don't want to, but I think you'll be okay."

He nods, not quite eagerly, and will set about showing Nine what they'd been doing the day before - where to put the mortar on the bricks, how thick it needs to be, and how to place them to make things easiest for Pradnakt to put them into position.

Nine watches attentively, thanks him - calls him sir, again - and tries doing it himself. "Is this good, sir?"

Nova seems a little lost at being asked that (and a little unnerved at being called 'sir'), but looks, and then nods. "I- uh, yes, it is. Um. Yes."

"Thank you, sir."

He gets to work. The rest of the building goes up quickly; Daisy comes back out in time to help them finish it up.