It was dark again though dim light filtered in from the street, casting a square of bluish hue along the far wall. Sometime over the last few days' Krill had determined that Adam was no longer in critical condition and moved him to one of the private rooms in the hospital. Adam had been stable over the past few days sinking in and out of consciousness every few hours or so. His recovery was taking longer than krill had anticipated and that worried everyone, though Krill had also said it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

There was always a chance his body would reject the nonhuman tissue.

She prayed to the architect that wouldn't happen.

Voices passed far below the window, a group of young Drev headed home after a night of dueling. She glanced out the window from where she sat next to Adam. Weird to think that she was that young once. Weird to think she was capable of feeling old.

She wasn't that old really.

She turned her head back from the window, where the dim blue light lit the small room, with its smooth white floors, softly beeping machinery and crisp white bed sheets, In the far corner, Kay lay asleep on the little couch wrapped in a hospital blanket and clutching his fish resting half his head on it like a pillow.

The two most important people in her life within arms reach.

The way she preferred it.

She glanced down at Adam and then back up at the door. It was around maybe one in the morning. No one usually came to check on them for another few hours, and at this age Kay slept like a rock, so Sunny felt safe as she turned her head back to Adam. The feeling began as a hum deep in her chest, building up softly.

Drev have music.

Almost every major sentient group has something similar to music.

Drev rely primarily on drums, the Tesraki use something between string instruments and an accordion. Celzex use wind instruments, but it had always seemed that only humans had the ability to bend their voices to any sort of use, at least naturally. Now that humans were a known actor around the galaxy, other species had attempted to learn the art of using their voices as instruments to varying degrees of success.

For Vrul it was basically impossible, tesraki could really only carry a tune in a hum.

Surprisingly Celzex could sing if they really tried, but it only worked with varying success considering the size of their lungs.

Technically speaking Drev had the greatest chance of mimicking the human ability, mocking it and perhaps outmatching it to some degree. For instance, humans have to rely on the use of their vocal cords, nose and mouth to make singing work. This includes the network of nasal passageways inside their head.

Drev have similar structures, and an entire network of nasal cavities going through their neck and chest. A drev can go much deeper than the average human, but, as sunny had learned, it was also possible to manipulate their voices to go higher. In the end, Drev voices were far more powerful than human voices, their lungs were bigger, and their extensive set of tubes and passageways made them much louder.

But she didn't need to be loud.

She just wanted to try.

To see.

She had practiced in secret for years now, since Adam was lost to Behemoth. At first it had been frustrating, almost impossible, but there were other drev who had managed it, and after more than three years, Sunny had taught herself how to sing. It was,'t necessarily pretty, and she wasn't gifted, but she liked to think she wasn't in danger of making people's ears bleed.

She couldn't sing human songs but found that some of Kanan's poetry lent itself rather handily to a tune.

The song she chose was lighthearted, about a small Anin animal, similar to a fox that chased, another creature, similar to a butterfly, into the sky, its long flowing tail creating the bands around their planet they knew to be the glowing ribbons of a magnetic field.

It even rhymed.

Kay turned in his sleep, but did not wake up, clutching his fish tighter.

The poem kanan wrote had several verses, all of which she sang, softly, her voice nearly hidden under the sound of hospital generators and the distant sound of voices. While she sang, she held his hand, cold and limp in hers. In the glowing blue darkness of the hospital room, his hand was pale like a corpse worm. Behind her voice, the sound of the heart monitor paced out the beat for her, melding itself into her music as she went, until she was lost in the sound.

So lost she didn't even notice as it changed, sped up, and grew in strength until eventually her voice faded away and she lapsed into silence.

"I didn't know you could sing."

Sunny nearly jolted out of her spot, hand reached instinctually for her spear until she realized.

Adam's eyes were open.

And focused on her.

It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she could see the light reflecting off his good eye, and felt as his hand tightened around hers.

She struggled to keep her voice down, "Adam!"

He blinked once in the near dark, reaching up an unsteady hand to his face. His arm trembled as he attempted to move it, a painful process that was slow and lethargic with exhaustion that still hadn't abated. He managed to reach up and press a hand over his bad eye, which, at this point was missing tis prosthetic.

"You could at least have given me my eyepatch." he mumbled, "So I don't look all freaky."

His voice was partially slurred, but to her delight, he was speaking, and making some sense! And he knew who she was.

She rested her two upper hands on the sides of his face, one hand overlapping part of his.

"You're okay" She whispered.

He hummed by way of response before, "When did you learn how to sing?"

She waved away the question, "how are you feeling?"

"Annoyed that you keep ignoring my question." He said back, and she gave a deep sigh of annoyance, "I've been practicing for a few years now, since you left to fight behemoth, and I didn't want to show you until I knew I wouldn't make your ears bleed.

He gave a tired smile, "For you, I'd let my ears bleed, but I am happy to report that you're actually not that bad."

"How flattering." She said dryly though she couldn't help but feel a warm sort of glow blossoming up in her chest.

He licked his lips, and she quickly moved to grab him a waiting glass of water, pressing a straw to his lips. He drank long and greedily interrupted only by sunny who insisted he at least breath at some point, a fact which seemed to annoy him to no end, but which he suffered with dignity.

The exhaustion was still evident, despite sleeping almost continually for weeks on end.

He yawned.

"Sleep, I'll be here." She said softly.

"Where are we?" despite his exhaustion, he wasn't too tired to demand answers.

"The hospital back on arcadia."

"Kazna"

"Escaped through a rip in space and time." She grumbled.

He huffed, "Figures..... kay/"

Sunny reached out to place a hand behind his head and gently lit him to see across the room where kay was still asleep.

"He's gotten big." Adam mumbled his voice already beginning to fade as she rested his head back down on the pillow, "You can say hi when the both of you are better rested." he didn't respond to this but closed his eyes and fell asleep.

***

Kay had waited very patiently for his dad to wake up. Warm light from the sun orbs was spilling in through the window turning the atmosphere above them to a light blue. He had played quietly on the floor like his mom had told him, until eventually he heard a soft groan and lifted his head to find his dad was awake, and wasted no time in climbing onto the bed crawling up to the side with his mom

"Papá!"

Adam cracked an eye, and smiled, "Hey there bud." Then he frowned in confusion, "Papa?"

Sunny sighed, "Ramirez is teaching him spanish apparently,"

"Mmm figures."

Kay hugged Adam with Sunny's supervision and Adam patted him on the back. It was just then that Krill bustled in, "Now now, settle down everyone, I have an exam to-"

"Give me five minutes would you."

Krill bristled, "Five minutes! Now listen here you big stupid..... I didn't watch you get stabbed in the chest, stick your fingers in the holes and cauterize with Anima energy to be told to WAIT FIVE MINUTES!"

His rage sent kay into a fit of giggling.

"Can we come in now?"

Adam recognized Ramirez's voice.

"Yeah, you can come in."

"They most certainly MAY NOT!" Everyone ignored Krill's conniption as they filed into the room.

Soon the room was basically at capacity, with all his friends and several members of his family beaming and glad to see him awake. Krill was seething, working himself up into a nearly vibrating ball of rage, but the room mostly ignored him.

Adam smiled, "You know this is becoming a bit of a tradition."

Martha frowned at him, "And I will kindly ask you to stop it."

The room laughed.

Kay sat happily leaning against Adam's good shoulder, talking incoherently in all three of the languages he knew to the point where no one in the room could probably understand him. Whatever it was, he seemed very excited to let Adam know.

"So, what's the damage?" Adam wondered, "I.... suspect extraordinary measures?"

The room glanced around at each other.

Celex frowned, "Well, at this point I might say you are only about maybe..... 65% human or less."

"We gave you an artificial biomechanical heart and lung..... We thought it might be more durable." Sunny said, afraid that he might be mad.

She should have known better.

"Awesome!"

The room laughed again.

"Though there are a few things......" krill began

That is when Kay decided to interject, "NIPPLE!"

Adam sputtered, and the room laughed, "Where did he learn....' Adam paused, suspicion dawning on his face as he reached one hand under the bedsheets prodding around his chest with one hand. The room watched his eyes widen, "Sonnofabitch, who stole my-"

The laughter drowned out whatever he might have been ready to say next, and Adam pulled back the sheet to take a look at their handiwork. The drainage tubes had been left in, so the sight wasn't exactly pretty, and there was a distinct dividing line between where human skiing began and artificial skin ended.

"No way." He muttered. They waited in nervous silence as Adam contemplated his changed body and then looked up at them with an accusatory look on his face.

"Who in the hell has the audacity to pilfer a man's nipple!"