A quick thank you to my friend TheWhiteGaurdian for helping me with editing! Thank you so much for all the help, my friend!

Clank glanced over at his close friend, it was hard to witness him like this. Ratchet's fur was disheveled and scruffy looking, as bags hung under his bloodshot eyes. Thankfully, the scent of alcohol had worn off weeks ago and he'd given that up and begun focusing on his love ships and put a lot of focus into his work. Enough that it caused him to lose sleep. It was starting to worry the little robot, as he reached out to speak to him, "Ratchet?" he asked. His ear twitched at the sound of his friend's voice.

"If you're worried about me Clank, don't. I've been getting -" He paused to let out a massive yawn. "Better." But him reaching over to rub his eye as he struggled to keep his head from falling onto the steering wheel and using it for a pillow didn't help the situation.

"Ratchet! You are a mess! You have not slept well nor have you taken care of yourself since … Since you and Miss. Apogee split up. I know it is difficult, but you cannot continue to neglect your basic needs like this!" The lombax sighed, his friend's nagging was annoying enough as it was, it didn't help that he was right. Not like he was going to admit that, as much as he knew Clank wouldn't rub it in, he just didn't feel like dealing with the situation.

"Yeah you said the same thing about drinking too, and I stopped doing that just so I could do my work again. I'll go back to normal soon enough pal but for now," he paused. Not sure what else to say as his mind drifted across the dark void that was space about the last three months and how it all ended the way it did. Leaned back in the seat, Ratchet let his head lull against the headrest as his hands slowly loosened their grip on the steering wheel. Between the warmth of the ship's heater and the soft hum of the engine, Ratchet found it a struggle to stay awake. Clank looked over, still worried as he watched his friend essentially falling asleep at the wheel. They left Meridian city three weeks ago and had been riding out in space since, with Ratchet not once stopping to do anything save to use the bathroom or get the occasional snack.

"Ratchet?" Clank piped up, but before he could do anything, he felt the ship begin to tilt forward as they were sent barrel-rolling into the nearest planet. Clank jumped up to grab the wheel and try to pull it forward, though his piloting skills were sloppy at best. "Ratchet, wake up!" He cried, still struggling with the steering wheel. But it was too late, they were already too dangerously close to crashing and Ratchet was completely out of it. Too unaware of anything that was happening around him, ignoring the sounds of the ship's failing systems as each one went offline. Clank just did his best to brace for the impact and hoped things would be okay.

Planet: Torren IV

Time: 6:45 PM

Location: The edge of Molonoth Fields

Clank could faintly hear the sounds of his fan belts whirring loudly as he struggled to boot up. He was barely able to open his eyes as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, but thanks to his cracked optics and the smoke that filled the ship, it was hard to make anything out. Suddenly, he could've sworn he heard the sounds of voices calling out. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming or if his wires had gotten crossed in the crash, but he could've sworn a pair of bright blue eyes were bounced around the wreck, while Ratchet seemingly was pulled from the wreckage. "Any idea what happened?" One voice asked, it sounded female but he knew it wasn't Tal. If it was, it would've been a miracle. But the bright blue eyes that bounced around the wreckage told him otherwise, "Looks like they forgot to gas up and had the alerts turned off. Which is strange because you'd think someone would want to know that." the blue eyes commented.

"What an idiot! Gah maybe he was drunk or something, alright well is there anyone else in there?" the other voice huffed.

"Yeah, but you can go ahead and get that guy loaded onto the trailer. I'll catch up!" the blue eyes called back. Clank felt a gentle hand take his hand and before he knew it, he was enveloped by an oddly warm sensation as a blue light surrounded them. Before he had a chance to process what happened, he was resting on Ratchet's chest before he fell unconscious.

...

Some time went by, and Clank finally came around. Only to find the pair of bright blue eyes staring back at him and caused him to jump out of his plates. Zen jumped behind him, making sure he was okay and helped him back up. "Oh sorry!" She said, jumping back in front of him. "I didn't mean to spook ya too much!" Clank wasn't sure what to make of the odd being in front of him. Zenith had a slender, humanoid frame made out of an odd, dark metal. She had a large circular element built into her chest, emitting a soft blue glow. Her head was oval-shaped and slightly elongated, with two large blue eyes and a similar circular element on her forehead, and with two ear-like structures sprouting from the back of the head, sweeping upwards. Clank really didn't know what in the galaxy to make of this odd little being.

Her arms and legs were seemingly retractable, being made of overlaid, interlocking metal plating with a slight blue glow emanating from the seams. Lastly, Zenith had an enormous, vaguely reptilian tail with a glowing blue orb at the end.

"Who are you? And how exactly did you find us?" He asked, still groggy and trying to boot up properly. Her eyes winked at him in a smile as she spoke to him eagerly,

"Zenith, but my friend calls me Zen! As for how we found you, the sound of a ship crashing into a cliff is a little hard to ignore. By the way, you might want to turn the alerts on your ship back on once it's fixed! Looks like you two ran out of gas somewhere along the way." Clank tilted his head a little bit as if he were trying to make sense of what she'd told him and his surroundings. It didn't seem like much, just a small living room with a large TV on the wall by the stairs and stacks and stacks of photos on the other wall. But Clank's optics had been damaged in the crash, and thus everything that was far away looked fuzzy to him, so it was hard to make out the photos. As he stood up and dusted himself off whilst trying to not get tangled in the doily beneath his feet, he asked,/p

"Who may I ask, is your friend Miss. Zenith?"

Zen leaned around Clank and pointed out her friend. "Just Zen is fine! And my friend is that lombax over there, with the fluffy fur." Exactly as she said, just behind them past the open door to the garage was a lombax, or what Clank assumed could've been one, it was hard to tell as she was bent over and all one could see was the massive fluffy tail in the air. But soon enough, she stood up, revealing her short, chubby frame as she tied her red wavy hair into a bun and revealed a dark red mask and a set of yellow and blue eyes that turned to the two little robots and her full attention was on them.

"Well that took long enough, guess your friend finally decided to boot up. Wonder if that means his friend's awake too." Nev mused as she came into the living room while inspecting a small, spherical object in her hand. It quickly dawned on Clank who she was talking about. Fueled by worry, he jumped and darted to her only face plant the ground as the doily got tangled up in his feet. /p

"Friend? Ratchet! How is Ratchet? Is he alright?" To which Nev nodded in response as she knelt down to help Clank untangle himself.

"Yeah, he's fine just knocked out. Looks like your ship was low on fuel and your friend wasn't in his right mind or something." She finished helping him and decided that now was as good as time as any to go check on Ratchet. "Anyway, you two stay here and get to know each other. I'll be back." Zen nodded in response as she watched Nev saunter up the stairs and disappeared into a side room.

"He was pretty beat up," Zen spoke up between the two suddenly, catching Clank's attention. "Nev said it looked like he broke some ribs and banged his arm up pretty good, said it looked like his legs were surprisingly okay, might be sore though when he wakes up." Clank finished listening to her, before returning his attention to the darkened room, wondering what was going on.

Inside of the bedroom, Nev had opened the curtains to his room, causing Ratchet to jerk awake as the sun got into his eyes. It felt like someone had taken his wrench and beaten the piss out of his head with it. "My head," he grumbled as his head throbbed and screamed at him the longer the light shone in his room.

Nev moved about the room, picking up his clothes to wash later as she spoke, "Rise and shine princess! Your friend's up and it's been a week since you were last awake, I figure now's as good a time as any to get you up."

"What? A-a week?! Are you kidding me? Aaah! My head," Ratchet groaned as he slipped back into the bed, letting his head rest against the soft, firm support of the pillow his entire being aches and screamed at him for moving as fast as he did, it felt like his body was cussing him out for driving while exhausted.

"Yep! Been a whole week since you and your friend crashed into that cliff! What happened anyway, were ya drunk or something?" She shot, as she turned to look at him. Ratchet struggled to piece together who was in front of him, but the way her brow was raised while her tailed wagged furiously back and forth. The way the sun caught her hair, Ratchet could've sworn it was on fire. "Well?" She snapped, not giving the poor guy a chance to speak.

"Look, all I know is that one minute was struggling to stay awake and the next -" But Ratchet wouldn't get a chance to finish as Clank burst into the room, grateful his friend was still alive as he called out to him, just happy he was awake.

"Ratchet! How are you? Zeni -" Clank was about to continue, only to pause and see that Ratchet was in as bad of a shape as Zenith had described. Not only did he look like he'd gotten into a fight with a tree beast and promptly lost with how fluffed up his fur was, but Ratchet's arm was wrapped in a cast and rested in a sling, as his ribs ached against the bandages. The pain in his good arm's wrist had registered with him and Ratchet quickly snatched it back to take the pressure off of it. As he tried to scoot out of the sun and in the shade of the bedroom like some pitiful vampire, he looked over to Clank and gave him a weak grin as he tried to play off how badly injured he really was.

"I'm fine pal, just a little beat up is all." But Clank's response assured him that he wasn't impressed one little bit with the situation.

"You call this 'fine'? Your arm and wrist are broken, and you very clearly have a few broken ribs as well! And I suppose you have a throbbing headache too, with how you are trying to avoid the sunlight! I told you Ratchet, you cannot neglect your basic needs like this! Thanks to that, and the fact that I told you we needed gas before we left, we now have no ship, and you are injured. This is quite the far cry from being, 'fine'." Clank spat that last word like it was venom. Ratchet could tell his friend was pretty angry, and rightfully so, after all, it was he who crashed the ship and now the reason they were stuck here. Nev shook her head at the pair, she couldn't help but make a comment as she looked at them, "Well if the little old couple is done arguing, you need rest and you little guy, need to go see the old man for a tune-up. C'mon," she motioned for Clank to follow. Ratchet motioned towards the woman as if to tell Clank to go with her. He shot Ratchet a dirty look almost hoping the bax would catch fire as he left the room. As soon as he was gone, he turned to Zenith, the misery written all over his face as he tried to block out the sun.

Zenith, taking the hint, jumped up to shut the curtains. "Ya know, in her own way, she's just worried about you." She turned back to Ratchet, who looked like he wasn't listening to her as he rested his arm over his eyes and taking in sharp breaths between his teeth. It was clear he was in agony.

"She's got a funny way of showing it." He remarked, as he gently moved his arm from his face. "Who is she anyway? I didn't even get her name."

Zenith explained as she jumped onto the bed and pulled the covers up to Ratchet's chest and adjust his pillow. "Nev, well her name's Nevina, but we just call her Nev."

"Is she what I think she is?" Ever since Nev had walked into his room, what energy he had to focus on other things was used to question his sanity as Nev was sauntering around the room as if she owned it.

Her ears twitched at his question. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, is she … A lombax? Like a female one?"

"Oh yes, she is, just like I take it you are a male one." Zenith teased, not really understanding Ratchet's confusion.

"But I thought -"

"Oh no, they have tails. It's kind of a genetic thing I guess, male or female, from what the old man and Maeve told me, both sexes can have tails, or they not. Ya know, like cats."

He groaned upon hearing that were possibly more people living here. "So there's more of you?" He asked, rubbing his head to try and get some relief.

"Sure are, well I mean, there are more people living in the house if that's what you're asking. As for if there are more of me per se, there are! Just not exactly like me," But Ratchet cut in before she could finish as he began to climb slowly out of bed.

"Yeah, I meant if there were more people in the house. So then, who is the old man and Maeve?"

Though he wouldn't have to wonder that for long as a chocolaty brown lombax walked into the room, pushing up the sleeves to her blue shirt as she set a bowl on the nightstand and reached into the nightstand for some fresh bandages. "No need to wonder about me, I'm right here. Zenith, why don't you go keep Nev company while I take care of this young man?" The odd little creature nodded and went to go do just that. "Now then," she spoke, in her southern sounding accent, "Care to explain how you ended up out there?" she asked as she began to unwrap Ratchet's old bandages to clean his wounds.

The younger lombax sighed, not sure how to go about explaining his situation. "I uhm see, my girlfriend and I, we were pretty serious and then I'm not sure what happened. She just blindsided me with this break-up, I tried to talk to her, see if maybe we could work it out but … She said it's hard to be in love with someone who's never there. So," he trailed off as the sensation of heartache began to set into his chest. "Needless to say, I stopped caring about myself or anything around me."

Maeve shook her head upon hearing this, "And I thought my Alister was bad about handling hard times. But you're no better, and I know you ain't related to him, you look too much like the old man that lives under this roof with us!" She joked, as she wiped Ratchet's eyes and began to inspect any cuts on his head.

"Old man? What are you talking about?" He asked, tilting his head to kind of get away from only for her to gently pull it back and wipe down his ears. Ratchet's eyes began to roll into his head at her tender touch. It almost felt like a mother tending to her son's wounds, something Ratchet never knew growing up.

"I mean, you look like Kaden. But if you really are his son, I would think you'd handle this better. Even he knows better than to go out driving while he's exhausted!" Maeve chastised, as she quietly cleaned his cuts and unwrapped his injured wrist. Ratchet's ears flew up at the mention of Kaden, and a barrage of questions hit him all at once.

"Wait? Ow- Kaden is my father, how do you -"

"He's a very close friend of mine, when I was sick and dying he was all I had and what kept me going. But anyway, lift your arm hun, you won't be meetin' anyone else in this house until you can move around and not feel like your ribs are gonna crack! You understand me?" She snapped in the gentlest way possible, Ratchet was a little surprised by her tone of voice but nodded in understanding nonetheless. "Good, now there's a bathroom right there where that open door is, now go take a shower and try to get to feeling better. I'll have some hot food ready for ya and get your chest wrapped up." He got the impression that arguing with her wouldn't be the best idea and headed to the bathroom.

...

As he stood under the hot water, letting the steam clear out his sinuses and open his head, he started to feel better. Ratchet couldn't remember the last time he had a shower like this, where his body was able to just relax and come down from the stresses around him. So, the lombaxes aren't really gone then. It's a shame Alister isn't here to see them, I'm sure it would've given him some comfort. Although it sounded like they knew him, or rather Maeve did at least. I wonder how, and how does she know my father? Does she know he's dead? Does she know about Alister for that matter? He thought to himself, as he rinsed the shampoo from his fur and inhaled the soft scent of mint into his nostrils. It was relaxing, to say the least. As he stepped out to dry off, a knock came on the door.

"Hey, you dressed?" It was Nevina, coming to check on him.

"Ah not really, why?"

"Mom wanted me to redo your bandages. She's busy cooking lunch." She explained the sound of a mattress squeaking could be heard shortly afterward and he just assumed she'd taken over the bed. After taking a moment to gather himself, he headed out and waited for her to redo his bandages. "So, bad breakup and no sleep for weeks huh? I'm surprised you haven't dropped dead yet." She remarked as she wrapped his chest.

"Yeah well -"

Nevina interrupted him, "You must've really loved this lil princess to let yourself get this disheveled." Still finishing up his chest, only for him to give up a soft growl in response and snapped.

"Look, can we just find something else to talk about? I get it, I'm an idiot."

"Did it sound like I said that?" She spat, wrapping up and tying off his bandages as she began to work on his arm. The duo sat quietly as Nev worked. As the silence overtook them, he couldn't help but notice how the little light in the room caught her eyes. How the mask on her face blended into her hair and all he could make out was her blue eyes as they stood out against her yellow sclera. Now they were up closer he was able to get a good look at her strips and fur as well. It was almost a light cappuccino color, not quite as light as Alister's but enough that it trigged his memories of the old man.

"Alister?" He muttered, realizing the familiarity of the strips. Nev looked at him with a dull, deadpan look in her eyes before going back to work.

"What about him?" She asked, still working to finish up his bandages. But he remained silent, it was clear she had to be related to Alister; but decided that for now, it was best to not bring it up for fear she might not know what had happened. He didn't want to be the one to explain to her what happened.