...they’re just the same as each other.

"Of course we do. Of course we do. Come here." She scoots him over so there's room for the droid to come and get hugs, too, and Daisy settles into it.

"We don't - remember, most of the things she knows, still. So we don't remember you very well. We want to. We know you're important, even if we don't know how. We just don't know what we should be doing about that. We would never have hurt you if we knew how to avoid it."

Her reactions aren't very human - she leans in, but she doesn't cuddle up, doesn't react, particularly, to Deskyl's arm around her shoulders.

"All right, Ma'am. I just wasn't sure. It's all right."

"No, it's not. But we know, now. Some, anyway. I'm sorry."

Not-human is...a little unsettling, at first.

But it’s fine, to be a droid. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the feelings, just means they don’t come out the same.

He doesn’t know how to help, though, so he just watches.

"Yes, Ma'am."

She turns a little to look at him; it's impossible to tell what she's thinking.

Deskyl takes the opportunity to talk to him, keeping an eye on the droid as she does. I love you, is the first thing; that's important, so, so important. And I think I love her too - did, and will, even though I don't remember her right now. You're both important and I'm not giving either of you up. You don't need to worry about that.

But.

People only have room for better people — the people who have some use to them — he knows this. It’s a Fact About the World, not like space being black or water being wet but like how you’ll always be wrong about how much pasta you’re really going to eat or how usually things land on the wrong end. You could argue about it, but you have to plan for it, in the end, even if you think this time you’ve measured out just enough or you won’t drop your tablet face down on a rock because you’re being careful.

They got out together—they love each other—but she remembers very little, right now. What if she remembers that she has no space for the one who wasn’t here first, the one who was defective even before He got in his insides and broke him?

okay. i’ll try.

i love you too.

It hurts, that he feels that way, that that's how the world has been for him. She wants better. (Of course she wants better for him, she loves him.)

It feels false, too; she takes a moment to re-center herself, to tease out how and why it's false.

I don't think I'm limited like that. It's - the world is hard, I might not be able to have you both. (And she's not sure who she'd choose, either, if she had to; there's a flicker of awareness in the back of her mind of just how impossible that choice would be.) But I want to. I love you. It's not about usefulness.

Just the suggestion of being left behind has him panicking, for a minute, clinging, losing his breath.

(There are so many reasons to lose him.)

No. They escaped. They're good at surviving. She wouldn't just let one of them go because it was hard.

He makes himself look up and meet the gaze of the droid watching them.

She squeezes him close, rests her head on his. You two are more important than anything else I've ever wanted.

"I- you're- he's staying, Ma'am?"

    Deskyl nods.

"I should get to know him, then."

    She nods again. But - "this isn't the best time, sweetheart. He needs to recover."

"Oh. All right." She sounds a little disappointed.

He thinks about this for a moment.

(Oh. Right. They could be friends.)

"Soon. I hope."

"Okay."

She reaches for his hand. "If you're important to her, that means you're important to me, too. I'm not going to hurt you."

...

He uncurls his fingers from Pradnakt's clothes and takes her hand in his.

"Thank you."

If she had a free hand, she'd be joining it with theirs, but hers are busy supporting them, and that's right, too. "Love you both."

Her family, that's what they are.

"I can tell you more about her, if you'd like. I've read her files, I know what she was like before."

love you too.

He nods, immediately, when Daisy asks.

She starts at the beginning: Pradnakt is from the planet Echitov, an unremarkable farming world. Her file had very little about her childhood, but did mention that her village used a creche system for its children; she seems not to have been close with her parents. She was fifteen when Lord Pritruth - her master - found her there, and had already worked out that she was Force-sensitive and learned to do some things with it, including fixing her hearing and healing, which are not in her file - the healing in particular is very secret, since Sith generally can't do it and Jedi can. Regardless, Pritruth was impressed with her, and took her as an apprentice rather than sending her to Korriban. She turned out to be strong in the Force but not remarkably so, but very good at developing new Force powers and excellent at engineering, and quickly picked up lightsaber design as her vocation of choice; she was active in the distributed work group (and may still have allies, there, but Daisy doesn't know much about it) and had been repeatedly asked to give talks on her lightsaber improvements at tech conferences (and ended up killing someone who was too pushy about asking, once).

The file also says that she's remarkably calm, for a Sith: she's not very ambitious, and tends to let things go rather than make issues of them; the tech-conference murder only happened when the person made it clear that she wouldn't take no for an answer. However, she's certainly competent; she doesn't take missions often, but her success rate on them is just fine.

He absorbs it all, listening in fascination, occasionally gently proffering a fact for Pradnakt's consideration – her healing, her engineering, her power development.

Yeah, that sounds like me.

She sighs, when the story is over, and rests her head on his again. Going to have to figure out what's next, soon. The prospect feels exhausting.

doesn't have to happen until after the hospital.

got a little time, at least.