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When Joel returned to the apartment the day he dropped Mike off at the bus terminal all he wanted to do was sleep. His heart felt heavy as he put down his stuff and he just couldn’t shake this dreary lonesome feeling. He couldn’t explain it; he knew that Mike would be back soon, but he still felt a little part of him had been lost. He plopped down onto the couch and turned on the boob tube. The 'bots being nowhere to be seen -- they were probably in their room doing lord-knows-what.
He had just turn the TV off and was ready to go to sleep after a fruitless search for programming when he felt a slight nudge on his side.
Despite himself, Joel smiled. There was no mistaking that bump, and sure enough when he got up he saw Cambot looking earnestly up at him with his one "eye". He gently picked the small camera ‘bot up and put him in his lap, grateful for the company, however small it was. Cambot gave slight beeps and whirrs of concern, which were all could he manage to use as communication.
Joel considered the camerabot carefully, and sighed. "I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve felt like this ever since Mike told us that he wanted to go home to his parents’. It’s weird, I mean, I’ve only known him for about a month and I know that he needs to go but I still feel a little empty."
Cambot peered up at him and snuggled in, whirring softly to comfort him. He had rarely seen Joel like this and it caused him some distress.
Joel smiled slightly, although surprised by the camerabot’s concern for him. "Don’t worry, little guy, I’ll be okay," he said, reassuring himself more than he was Cambot. "Where’s the rest of you troublemakers, anyway?" Joel asked, forgetting that it would be impossible for the robot to answer, it not being a yes or no question.
Cambot beeped indignantly.
"Sorry, I forgot," Joel sighed, thinking that he really should install a voice module for him sometime. "They’ve been treating you all right the past few years I’ve been gone?"
Cambot nodded ever so slightly as to not disturb Joel too much.
"Good, good," Joel sighed, trying to think of something else to say. "I hear the terrible twosome were pretty rough on Mike."
If he could have, Cambot would’ve laughed at that comment. Being the observer (no pun intended) of everything that went on in the Satellite, and he saw every little thing the poor guy went through, from being dressed up as a woman to being waken up by cymbals early in the morning, not to mention the endless teasing he received from the bots. To him, Mike was the picture-perfect definition of tolerant, just turning the other cheek when being teased by the bots and ignoring their pranks as harmless practical jokes, even if they did induce some minor injuries. He even tried some to perform some practical jokes on them, with varying results. All and all, Mike loved the bots no matter what cruel things they did to him, sort of like an old friend or sibling.
Joel wasn’t really expecting an answer from that. "I suppose you were left out a lot, though."
Cambot just sighed again in his lap. He was a bit of a loner by nature, as most camerabots are, but it still hurt sometime when he was all alone and he could hear Mike/ Joel and the rest laughing over some dreadful jokes they were exchanging in the bridge. It really hurt sometime when he needed to tell them something, too, like just now he wanted to tell Joel that the other bots were on their room playing Battleship the last time he checked. How was he supposed to convey that in beeps and gestures? It made him feel like Lassie or something to try so he soon gave up.
Joel understood what the sigh meant, for he was quiet too... though it was actually due to his own personality, and not the way that he was "designed". He had never been much of talker, even in school. He was quite and stayed mostly to himself, never even participating in class unless he had to. He was recognized as being very bright early in school and for those reasons he never really had any good friends. What was he supposed to say to other kids, anyway? He was never quite able to talk to kids his own age without getting embarrassed or making the kid confused with his technical talk about electronics and other machines, even back then. He spent most of his spare time studying and taking things apart that he found around the house, much to the despair of his family. He never really got real close to his parents and spent hours of his free time alone with his various projects, for both school and for fun.
"I guess we’re not that different at all, are we?" Joel asked, petting the robot’s head/body a bit. "At least most of us are back together again." He sighed, thinking of Gypsy. It was only now when she didn’t have to use most of her intelligence to run the SOL that he realized how incredible she was. As much as he wanted her to come home to him, he knew that she had great things in store for her and that he shouldn’t prohibit her progression into the real world. He often couldn’t believe that she was his own creation when he thought about the things the scientist back at NASA said she had achieved and sometimes had to keep reminding himself that she was his and that he should be proud, for it was partly his achievement. Yet over the years he believed that not only Gypsy, but all the bots had grown in their own unique way and were quite beyond anything that he would’ve been able to plan for them.
Cambot nudged him out of his thinking spell, feeling a bit neglected. Joel smiled and gazed off into nonentity. "I don’t know about you, but I miss Gyps," he sighed.
Cambot did too, even though he didn’t know how to show it. Joel was able to tell, anyway, although he wasn’t quite sure how -- he just did. "She’ll be fine, she really seems to belong there. I’ll miss her, but I’m pretty sure she’ll come back soon." He grinned to himself. "Maybe she’ll ask for my advice for running her company."
The rain was starting to taper off, and Joel could faintly hear the other two bots in their room. Checking his watch, he was shocked by the time. "Dang, it’s seven o’ clock already? I’m surprised the bots haven’t come in bugging me about where we’re gonna go tonight. C’mon, let’s ask ‘em. I don’t really feel like picking tonight."
The truth was he didn’t feel like going out at all, but the bots would probably protest until he got the car started up. Letting Cambot get up first, he got up (much to his body’s protest) and headed towards the bot’s room.
He had just deftly knocked on the door when the two bots burst out, bouncing in anticipation. "So where to tonight, Joel?" Servo asked, following Joel as they started back down the hallway.
"I dunno you guys, you decide today," Joel said, trying to mask his concern. "I think we better keep it small, considering this is our first night on Earth without Mike to help me keep you guys out of trouble."
Right after he had said this he realized it was their first night without Mike since he arrived on the satellite, and he could see it had dawned on the bots too. They subdued their pace and just stopped at the living room without the regular dashing towards the door in anticipation. Joel stopped in front of them. "Well?" he asked, although he had a feeling he knew the answer.
Crow just stared at the floor for a sec, fidgeting. "Uh, I dunno, I just feel like staying home for now." Joel could tell that was not an easy thing for him to say.
"Um, yeah, what he said," Servo added, sounding a bit anxious.
Joel smiled and headed towards the kitchen phone. "I’ll tell you what, I’ll order pizza and have them deliver, my treat," he said, opening the phone book that lay next to the phone on the counter.
"Yeah! Serves em right, always putting in olives when we say no olives, let’s see how they fare in the rain…" Crow started.
"Oh, now Crow, you shouldn’t blame the delivery guy…" Joel warned.
"Nah, I don’t think they’ll mind the rain, they’re sort of like postman in a sense, through rain and sleet and dead of night…" Servo mused.
"Yeah, when was the last time a postman ever delivered something at night…" Crow griped.
"But that’s not the point," Servo snapped, agitated.
Smiling, Joel picked up the phone and dialed, leaving the two to their argument. Cambot, watching from afar, just shook his head in amusement. It was their home, and they were all family. And although some were miles away, or even so far as across the continent, they were bound together on levels that most families never reached... that could never be taken away.
"I was once told that each living being on this earth contains within the material of stars. That bounds us all together, as stars, as kin. And no matter what happens, we are always brought back to the ones we love and identify with most due to our celestial connection, and we even manage to find people of our own kind to help us through the tough times when we need it most due to this relationship. I have not truly realized that this is true until now."
-Source Unknown