Yvette finishes her equation and looks for confirmation and an extra pair of eyes, and. … there is no Nai. What? Huh?? Did he just wander off, how is she supposed to input any of this into the console without him present to be sure she’s not secretly murdering the pla—

Then she sees where he went.

Oh.

She knew she could do it, but. Damn if it’s not another thing entirely to see the math become reality. She sets her papers and pencil aside and. Yeah. She can just be happy.

(There are tears in her eyes. She hasn’t noticed.)

Knives spends a long, long time there. Unmoving. Nearly half an hour, just floating there.

Then he'll float back and stand by the console and wait for her to resume.

He looks unperturbed. There is no evidence that he's feeling... anything. No evidence, except for the last half hour.

It’s okay if he takes a while. She packed her lunch today, so she can just have that while she waits.

Well, she will beam at him and say, “I’m really glad she’s feeling better.”

And then, yep. Back to work. With occasional reminders to take care of her fragile human form by someone who ostensibly hates them all. She takes them with good grace, because yeah, she’s really bad at it when she’s working. Sorry.

She. Did Zash teach her that? Zash himself keeps slipping into calling them "it" whenever he spends too long around humans. He tried to explain it once, how humans think plants are machines, and Knives still does not understand how this could possibly not make Zash absolutely livid and want to destroy things. Zash just, just smiled sadly and said "Ask the plants." and Knives knocked him unconscious and left.

So, so this human has been around Zash and Zash felt okay saying that plants aren't machines and now the human believes him and uses the right pronouns and.

Knives is really fucking angry and he has no idea who or what at. Maybe himself.

“… are you all right?” she asks after a while, hesitantly, when it’s obvious enough to her that he’s having… some kind of emotion.

"No."

“Okay. Um. Can I help?”

"Help the plants."

What the fuck is this human.

She frowns a little. That didn’t seem like an answer of what was wrong, and how she could help. That seemed like ‘it’s not important, focus on your work.’

“… All right. But you matter too, so. Let me know if I’m needed elsewhere.”

But then yes she’ll go back to doing her job. Still a little concerned about him, but he’s expressed his preferences and she will follow them and if she doesn’t understand what’s going on then oh well.

What the fuck is this human!!

YES, YES, HE GETS IT PLANTS, THIS SITUATION IS ANALOGOUS TO HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT OTHER PLANTS AND ABOUT HUMANS, YES SHE CARES ABOUT HIM INDIVIDUALLY, NO HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND AND IS MAD ABOUT IT.

CAN THEY MOVE ON.

YES? THANK YOU.

????? He is so incredibly upset, and she can tell, but doesn’t have enough to understand. She’s just going to keep doing her job??? She guesses???? Much better to ignore the strange scary knife man and his black box of feelings and just get lost in math and problem solving. Except she can’t entirely, because the scary knife man is, like, right there, having his emotional whatever it is. Constipation, maybe. She can’t help but poke at it a little, in her mind, try to figure out what’s wrong.

Eventually the hypothesis she decides on is that he’s probably mad that humans could have done this and didn’t. That makes the most sense. She’s also kind of mad about that, really.

And yeah, it’s pretty fair to want to ignore that and just focus on being better! She supports this. She continues doing equations, a bit more happily, now.

WHY IS SHE HAVING THESE THOUGHTS NOW.

HE HATES HER.

(They are such reasonable thoughts. Yes he's mad that humans could have done this and didn't. That wasn't what he was mad about just then but IT IS NOW.)

(Beats being mad about WHAT IS THIS FUCKING HUMAN.)

Yep, she thinks she totally figured it out, and has no idea she gave him an even better thing to be mad about! Instead she’ll just continue happily working with no fucking idea of what she’s done to his internal state.

She still wants to teach him the logic of how to do this himself, though!!! Doing it personally is nice and all, and she will happily continue, but since she’s a squishy human and will die eventually she wants her work to outlast her. He is not a squishy human, so clearly he is a better repository for how to do this than she is.

The computers are recording everything she says and does anyway, he made sure to have the doctor set that up, so he doesn't have to rely on his own memory.

...but also he wants to learn, himself. For some reason. And he wants her to teach him. For some STUPID reason.

Then she will! Happily.

She does however still have those annoying human needs like ‘sleep,’ though.

Yeah, he knows. It's dumb.

Whatever.

For what it’s worth, the plants will compare her annoyance to his and offer an [=], so it’s not like she’s doing it to spite him personally. Though, that might make it worse, really.

Anyway, she goes and takes care of human needs, kicks herself for forgetting to ask about more clothes, and then goes to bed. And misses Zash.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes two of them.

Zazi shows up, sometimes, to chat. Not while she's working, because Knives is still shooting their bugs off whenever they show up in the plants room, but when she's taking her breaks, or right after waking up, or right before going to sleep. They've decided they like Yvette, and they're getting her help with coming up with more puns. And they're starting to get pretty optimistic that Knives won't kill her at all!

No. He won't. He's coming to realise this, to his great annoyance.

Her death no longer constantly imminent, she does get new clothes and a toothbrush and a hairbrush and other things associated with the maintenance of one’s human. She can in fact do any advocating for herself and her comfort! Imagine that.

Honestly, she kind of likes Zazi, too. Talking to them is a nice change of pace as she settles in to something almost resembling a routine.

Would Zazi like to learn math? They’ve probably figured a lot of it out, but that’s not the same as someone teaching them, and, well. If humanity gives nothing else to the natives of the planet they crash landed on, she strongly feels like the ability to do math is a pretty fucking good way to be remembered.

Ooh, can they learn can they learn? Pretty pretty pleeeease, Knivesyyyyy?

...fine. He's not that mad at Zazi anymore anyway.

Yeeeeeeey!

Excellent! Then Zazi gets math lessons.