A fork of lightning split the distant sky, hidden mostly behind a bank of clouds and so distant that there was no real sound to accompany it, or whatever sound there was had already dissipated on the Arcadia afternoon. Rain drummed gently against the floor to ceiling windows, tracking long silver rivulets of water downwards to disrupt the light leaking in through the window.

The distant white sun orbs on the street cast a dull luminance through the dark afternoon.

The lights on the distant spartan training fields were somewhat dimmed by the rain, though Adam knew that wouldn't stop them from training. Spartans trained in all weather no matter what, though they were willing to forgo their spears and shields in case of lightning, in favor of bare knuckle boxing.

The thought of the spartans only served to remind him of how much of a bitch recovery was going to be.

It already HAD been a bitch.

Krill estimated that a full recovery would take somewhere in the realm of six to seven months. Katie said he was guessing on the far end due to all the unknown variables caused by his new mechanical parts. It was hard to remember that he was still being held together mostly on thread and prayers. The artificial skin that now covered him was completely flawless except for where they had left drainage tubes, but he had to remember his insides had still required stitching together.

He had been put on bedrest for the time being, though he had been allowed out of the hospital and back home.

Krill encouraged him to get up and walk for short periods of time, though he made sure Adam understood that, getting up to walk to the bathroom or the refrigerator were the only acceptable reasons to be walking right now. He was simply lucky they already had a handicaped shower, or else Sunny would still be helping him bathe.

Not that she hadn't seen him naked before, but there was something especially distressing, and embarrassing about being both naked AND vulnerable in front of her that he didn't particularly enjoy. It was like wearing socks and nothing else, somehow it just made you feel even more exposed.

Of course, she had called him stupid when he had explained that, but he would stand by his argument.

Sunny was around here somewhere, probably in the dojo training as far as he knew. She didn't tend to go far these days, though she was well aware of his insistence that he was going to be fine, so she at least pretended to leave him sometimes

A light glowed dimly from the holoscreen projected onto his arm. He was reading, looking for some good news on behalf of kelly's attempt to become president. An official ruling had come through that supreme court that indicated there was no law saying that she couldn't run for president, which was a good thing since she had already re-acquired her old donors.

The ball was in her court.

The bed shifted, and Adam tilted his head to look.

Kay was sitting on the bed next to him surrounded by a small explosion of toys.

The boy had a strange habit of bringing ALL of the toys he could carry with him, even if he only wanted to play with a few. This had become even more of an issue when he learned about backpacks, so now he could carry whatever he wanted his backpack, as well as whatever he could fit in all four of his arms.

Sitting next to adam , there was a little replica of an F-90 Darkfire jet lying upside down in what Adam would have said was the result of a terrible crash, the pilot was unlikely to have survived. Sitting next to that was a Drev action figure that looked suspiciously like Kanan, and beyond that was a rather tattered looking stuffed giraffe spooning the stuffed fish Kelly had given to kay.

At the current moment, Kay was playing with three action figures, one truck, and a small stack of blocks, which weren't really working out for him considering the bed was not a conducive place for block building.

And all the while he talked animatedly to himself. Ninety percent of what he said was almost completely incomprehensible, but what Adam could hear was also almost incomprehensible as a third of it was in english, a third of it was in Drev, and another third of it was in spanish.

Adam sighed and looked down at his holoscreen.

"Hola, ¿cómo estás? " Said the mechanical voice

Adam repeated the phrase with a sigh, and the little check mark blinked, and turned green, letting off a happy tone at his completion of the sentence before switching to the next screen. He matched the spanish tiles on the left hand side with the english tiles on the right hand side.

All small words.

Casa

Perro

Ramirez would have laughed at him, and HAD laughed at him, though he did eventually apologize and promise to work with Adam on his spanish later, so that maybe he might be able to understand his own son.

Adam thought he heard Kay say something about el dinosaurio, which he was pretty sure seemed self explanatory, though, he wasn't sure how dinosaurs factored in to his son's play considering that Adam didn't see any Dinosaurs.

Now that he thought about it, Kay having any such toys was kind of funny.

Here have this, likely inaccurate, representation of a long dead earth fossils, from a planet you only get to visit on holidays .

Off to the side, kay finished babbling, and drove the truck his was holding across the sheets and over to adam.

"¡Papá, mira!"

Adam quickly adjusted to the translation app on his forearm implant. Unfortunately the translation software in his auditory implants had trouble picking up what kay was saying most of the time, so he was forced to use a third party app to understand his own son.

He was going to have to learn spanish faster if he ever wanted to have a conversation with his own child. He didn't even know where kay had picked up so much spanish. He was sure that Ramirez didn't spend THAT much time with him.

"I see, is that the truck grandpa gave you."

Kay nodded, "Yid!"

Kay, very gently and with great exaggeration, turned, and curled up to rest cradled in the crook of Adam's good arm, and the human side of his chest. Kay had been told in no uncertain terms to be gentle when playing with dad, and by the architect if he wasn't going to do what his mom said. He was a relatively well behaved child. Part of that was due to martha's parenting skills, but Adam had a sneaking suspicion part of it was the child's fear that any mistake he made might run his parents off.

They left so often.

Adam tried to swallow down the pinprick of guilt and hugged Kay closer to his good side.

Kay continued to play with his truck, Driving it over Adam's arm as he made the requisite vroom vroom noises that all toy trucks required to move properly. Adam picked up one of the other toys, delighting kay as he joined whatever game this was.

Adam wasn't sure what the premise of this particular game included.

He wasn't really sure of any situation that would include a twenty foot Drev chasing a truck, but he didn't ask questions, instead letting kay have his fun. Fun which later turned into a yawn as it approached naptime.

Kay never agued with naptime to everyone's surprise, simply curling up wherever he was at the time.

This time it didn't take much work, and he curled up against Adam's chest and fell asleep still holding his truck.

Adam let him sleep, turning back to his spanish lesson which was arguably not going great.

Off in the corner, Waffles and pancake lay curled up around each other, pancake's head resting on her mother's shoulder as they both followed kay's lead.

Adam was the only one awake for some time, though his eyes were closing, beginning to drift when a sudden loud noise had him jolting out of his sleep. The noise itself had come and gone quickly, but he was awake enough to hear the tail end of the echo as he bolted upright. Pancake and Waffles were already on their feet looking to the door into the living room.

Kay had partially woken, staring blearily towards the door.

Inside his chest, Adam's new heart began to thunder against his metal ribcage beating out his slowly rising panic. What if it was Kazna, back again! What if She had come to finish the job, and with Sunny gone and Kay unprotected....

Waffles whined.

Adam's mouth filled with the copper tang of blood.

He couldn't let Kazna get to his son.

All though of his recovery fled, and he threw his legs over the side of the bed, forcing himself to his feet.

His tired body screamed in protest, but the screaming was drowned out by the ringing in his ears.

Blood red sky flashed before him.

His nose filled with the smell of ash. He grabbed his spear from the nightstand, and it retracted with a a loud click.

Waffles whined louder.

Adam glared towards the door.

"Tak?" kay said his confusion warping into fear in Adam's head.

Adam didn't wait for Kazna to enter, charging through the door and into the living room, spear raised to find.

Nothing.....

Still, the ash and blood filled his mouth, choking his lungs with the smell.

He looked around, sure he had heard something. A practice spear lying from where it had slid down the wall and fallen to the floor.

Kazna was never here.

Waffles whined again, grabbing Adam's hand softly in her mouth and tugging him downward towards the floor. In his befuddled head it took longer than it should for Adam to realize what had happened, and by the time he did, He was already sitting on the floor with waffles more than halfway in his lap as he leaned against the wall. His spear lay at his side.

He was breathing heavily, too heavily.

His heart hammered in his chest.

Was he dying!

Had he overstressed his transplants!

His heart beat faster.

He FELT like he was dying.

Waffles pressed in harder, shivering her face closer to his, sitting on his legs and leaning against him.

It was hard to focus.

"Daddy?" He turned his head to find kay standing groggy, confused and scared in the doorway rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"Its okay," Adam managed to wheeze, "Its okay, just go sit on the bed and go back to sleep okay. Naptime isn't over." His own voice felt distant and confused, but Luckily Kay didn't argue, and pancake accompanied him back to the other room.

...

Sunny caught the aftermath, stepping into the room, and dropping her spear in surprise when she saw Adam leaning slumped against the wall, waffles sprawled over his knees.

She ran over, cupping both sides of his face in her hands, "Adam, Adam are you okay?" She pressed two fingers to his throat desperately checking to see if his pulse was alright, and then checking his chest.

"Are you hurt, did something happen?"

. By that time though, Adam had come out of it mostly, though he felt sort of distant, tired, to tired to experience much emotion, "I.... the spear fell, I thought.... I thought Kazna was...."

Realization dawned on her and she pulled him closer, "We should cal Krill, make sure you didn't pull anything out of place."

Adam nodded, "Tell him to..... Bring Riss." He leaned his head back against the wall, "Is kay alright?"

Sunny leaned to the side peering through the open door, "he's asleep with Pancake, why?"

Adam's hands clenched into tight fists.

Hopefully he would forget what he saw. After all that was the last thing Kay needed in his already unstable life.

More fear.