Reunited at Last [Charles]

Mae suddenly gripped his hand, as Charles was stuttering about, juggling his words around to no avail. This sudden shift of direct contact though, it halted his unease and the balls he had been juggling up to now bounced to the ground around him. He looked the girl holding his hand straight in the eyes, a twinkle in his own as they dazzled in what little light was still present in the room.

He was acting really childishly, he was aware... Or well, at least he presumed so... He didn't want to act this way in front of her... He wanted to just walk into the bathroom and get himself cleaned... But he just couldn't... For some reason, this selfish logic carried more weight to itself than any other option... Even yet, he couldn't keep this from her. If anything, she might have a solution... No matter the cost, he wanted the issue resolved.

"It's just... The bathroom... It feels awkward to... use your bathroom... your belongings..." Charles managed to mutter, quickly closing his mouth shut afterwards. It was so embarassing and he felt like he wanted to just sink into the concrete beneath his feet and disappear. "I-it's weird, I know... I apologize... I mean-"

She stood there silently for a moment, listening to what the android had to say. So, that's where the problem lied, eh? It felt awkward to use her things? Now, this wasn't completely unexpected on Mae's end, as she knew Charles was a bit... eccentric at times. He had his odd quirks about the smallest of things. As for why, she had no idea. All she could do was to make guesswork, which would really not do her any good in the long run. Besides, what was the point of guessing when the person in question was right in front of her?

"Hihi. I had a feeling it was something like that." Mae replied with a cute, lighthearted giggle. This was the Charles she remembered from back when they first dated. He was so... insecure about what he could and couldn't do, where the boundaries lied, and what it meant to be a couple, and he was not alone. Mae had also struggled a bit with the concept back then, and perhaps that was why it never really worked out between the two of them. They just... weren't ready for an intimate relationship at the time. And it would seem Charles still wasn't quite sure on how he could behave around her. "Oh, Charlie... It's fine. You can use my things. I don't mind at all." If that's what he even was worried about. If he still kept up his nervous demeanour, her grip around his hand would tighten up as she opened her mouth again. "It's not weird... Not at all. This stuff is still rather new to you, so if you feel a bit insecure or unsure of what you can and can't do... just ask me, okay? You think you can do that for me?"

Charles listened intently to what Mae had to say in response. He was really half-expecting a negative reaction, however silly that might've seemed to him from a logical standpoint since Mae wasn't an easily irritated individual, especially whenever he was in question, but what she said really eased him. And the tightened grasp on his hand only further complemented this feeling. Not only that, but since he was still somewhat doubting Mae's reaction at the time, her words caught him off guard, like he was thrown off a cliff only to land into a cloud-filled ocean as tenderly caring as the softest cotton.

"You really wouldn't mind?" Charles asked, carefully, a slight smile, this one very much true, slowly creeping to his lips. He didn't have to juggle his words anymore. They were flowing naturally now. "All right." He chuckled. "I think I could manage that. And if you really truly wouldn't mind, then I will use your bathroom. Just---tell me which towel I can use. And point out everything I would need so I don't have to look through your belongings." The smile was now beaming all over Charles's face. Moods were such fickle things and even the smallest of events could set them on fire... like Mae did with her words right now, change his rattled mood for the better. He was feeling all right now.

"Oh, and Mae... thank you."

"Hehe, of course not, silly!" Mae replied with a light giggle, and walked inside the bathroom, pulling Charles with her in, after which she began to show him all the stuff he needed for his little cleanup. "And here you have the towels. Pick anyone you'd like." She said, opening a drawer filled with fluffy towels of different colors, but none straying too far from the light color palette of the room they were in. Each of the towels gave off a subtle fragrance of cherry. She would then show him where the shampoo and all that other necessary stuff was located, including a bathing sponge and other such things that made showering a much more pleasant experience. And finally, she showed him how to turn the shower's water supply on and off along with regulating the temperature, although she wasn't completely sure it was relevant for Charles, but she did it anyway, because why not?

Once that was all done, Mae slowly slinked out the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a wide grin. "Enjoy~!" After which, she picked up the rag again, and began cleaning up what little mess Charles had made earlier. It wasn't too bad, fortunately enough, but now she needed to by a new bathing sponge... what if some gravel or such got stuck in it? Well, she would have to wait and see the end result before she made any hasty conclusions.

After that, she fell over again on her bed, arms and legs streched out all over the blanket, as the girl closed her eyes, and waited for Charles to finish with his cleaning. The sleep-inducing sound of the shower almost made the girl doze off occasionally, but she stopped herself every single time. She couldn't be sleeping in case something went wrong! Her body was still so battered and bruised however, that a nap looked very, very inviting. She wouldn't give in to temptation though. Not now. Sleeping would have to wait, even if it was for a short while...

Charles followed Mae into the bathroom to look at the stuff he could use. Small, uneasy steps, as if he were walking over eggs, but a smile on his face. He awkwardly picked the first towel he saw, a pale pink one, looked at the sponge with confusion as it was handed to him, shampoo as well. He'd probably need one to smell nice... He didn't have much of a smell to himself, but maybe it'd be interesting to change that up a bit... Maybe just for Mae. Then the shower, temperature and jet stream and what-not. Modest, but he didn't need much more.

Still holding the sponge with the same confuzzlement, he followed Mae with his eyes as she exited the room, waving a little to her as she disappeared behind the door. He then looked back at the shower... He had to do this. It was now or never. She showed him what he could do and use, so everything was fine. He needed to get clean as to not mess up her place even more. Yes. He needed to take a shower!!!

".........................." Charles somehow expected showering to feel... special. But it was just water dripping over him from this thing called a shower. Like rain, just stronger. It tickled, kind of, as much as he could feel such a sensation as an android. And the shampoo smelled nice too. He just wondered whether he was supposed to just squeeze the whole bottle dry like he did... Well, it was going to be fine. He just had to make sure he got all the little dents and get the sand out. The sponge, interestingly, came in quite handy for that task. Interesting. Really interesting. So soft and squishy, it could fit into wherever he pushed it and he could rub all of his parts with it. It made for quite an enjoyable experience, actually.

There is a certain thing about first times, though-they don't always end well. And as much as Charles was enjoying his shower, he certainly didn't take direct notice of the curtains dangling at the side of the shower, so, as he was having his happy time touching himself with Mae's sponge, the bathroom floor suffered the consequences. And by that, I mean it was flooded. Kind of. Not really flooded, but more like sprinkled. All over the room. Charles, of course, didn't pay much attention. Perhaps that was meant to happen, right? So yeah, he happily shut off the water, proud of himself for overcoming this obstacle, before plopping out onto the flooded bathroom floor. He took the towel and started drying himself up with it, taking notice as to not wet Mae's floor. He was smelling nice now thanks to the bottle of shampoo he poured onto his head as he showered and was 100% sand-free!

But--------his clothes were super torn. He just realized he had nothing to wear. Was this one of the problems Mae told him to tell her about if they happened? "U-um, Mae? I might have a slight issue over here!" He said loud enough for Mae to hear before gripping his tonr-up pants and the towel in his hands  in front of himself and waiting for Mae to arrive.

Mae opened her eyes, and leapt out of bed as if she was shot out of a cannon the moment she heard Charles' call for help. She may have just fallen asleep for just a moment there, but his voice was loud enough to not only grab her attention, but waking her up faster than any cup of coffee ever could. She haphazardly ran over to the bathroom. Oh no! Something was wrong... Without hesitation, she opened the unlocked door, only to see a half-naked Charles covering up most of himself using his torn up pants and one of her towels. The floor had been completely drenched in water, as if he had forgotten to use the shower curtain when showering, which honestly was a very 'Charles-like' thing to do. He smelled much like her own hair right now, except... three times stronger... Had he used up an entire bottle just to get himself clean?

She stood there in the doorway for a couple of moments, trying to register the whole scene in front of her... And that's when her cheeks began blossing up like crazy. Sure, Charles was pretty featureless, being a robot and all that, but Mae still didn't know what he had and lacked, and thus to her, this was the same as walking in on any half-naked man... Kind of. Sure, Mae had said that she would come to his aid if he needed it, but... she didn't actually expect him to need help, and thus, she wasn't mentally prepared for what she was now a witness of... "U-U-U-U-Um... Y-Y-Y-Y-Yes, darli...ng?" She could barely speak at this point, much less think properly.

As Mae entered the bathroom, Charles felt a wave of relief. She was going to help him with this, surely, somehow. Her presence alone, despite instilling some unease in him, with him being bare and all that, was enough to also give him a sense of comfort. This quickly fell apart as he noticed something was wrong. Wrapped up in a towel, he looked at Mae with his expression slowly turning worried. "M-mae, are you... all right?" Charles asked, words coming out carefully and sporadically. The way she spoke and acted... Oh boy, did he also act that way!? W-was he now making her feel uncomfortable, just like he felt uncomfortable about the bathroom thing? If Charles could blush, he'd have blushed right there and then.

"H-here here, I'll cover myself up better!!" He began frantically wrapping himself up in the towel, as much as he could, spinning and turning on the spot as he got all tangled in it. That, coupled with the wet surface of the bathroom floor... No robo-tech could prevent Charles from slipping and hitting the floor hard.

The android lost balance easily and fell to the floor, the back of his head slamming into the edge of the shower cabin...

The moment Charles fell back over and hit his head hard with a metallic *CLUNK*. "*Gasp!* CHARLES!" The color on Mae's face drained quickly, turning from a bright, apple red into a pale, paper-like color. She cast aside all of that anxiousness from before aside, and made her way carefully across the soaked floor up to Charles' side, crouching down next to him with a worried look on her face. Sure, he was a robot, and he had taken hits harder than that before, but still... she couldn't help but worry abit. She didn't care about the wet floor soaking her leggings either. It was just water anyway. "A-Are you okay?!" Mae asked, panicking over what had just happened. Her heart was beating faster and faster by every passing second it took for charles to respond. A bump on the back of the head was no big deal, right...? Right...? If it wasn't for him being a robot, and thus very heavy for his size, Mae would've at least tried to get him out of the bathroom and onto the futon outside. She sincerely hoped that nothing had broken inside of him... But maybe it was just her brain playing tricks on her, making it look worse than it actually was.

Charles hit the floor quite hard. His vision shifted as he fell from the nervous Mae to just the top of her hair and finally to the bathroom ceiling in a sudden maelstrom of purple that twisted and contorted and he had no program inside of himself that could adequately comprehend what he was or was not seeing.

Just three symbols blazed engraved in his vision, Alpha, Beta and Zeta...

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The first thing Charles saw when he opened his eyes again was Mae's face. Mae's very worried face. He couldn't exactly recall what had happened at first, so he gave her a confused look. Even though he had clearly been out of it when she asked the question, though, Charles was somehow aware of it, and answered. "I-I'm fine, I think." Something bugged him, though... Why was he lying on the floor? His hand slipped to the back of his head, where he felt something soft between it and the hard surface of the shower's edge. The sponge. The metallic clunk Mae heard must've been one of his other parts hitting the floor. "D-did I fall?" Charles asked as he grabbed hold of the sponge and showed it to Mae with a smile. "Haha, I fell on this thing. Everything's fine, you don't have to worry."

Skills Used:

Mae let out a sigh of relief when Charles opened his eyes and answered her question, albeit in a slightly confused manner. She didn't think much of it. He was okay, and that's what mattered. "Oh, thank heavens!" The worried look on her face would quickly melt away, only to be replaced with a relieved smile. "Yes... You slipped and fell. It looked at lot worse than it actually turned out to be though. Can you stand up properly?" Might as well do this properly. Besides, she wanted him to feel more like an actual person than a robot, and she as such, she would treat him as one... Unless of course he openly objected to this treatment. And seeing as everything went so fast, she didn't notice Charles' use of his latent ability to prevent damage.

She would help the android back up on his feet, and walk back with him into the main room once again, flopping down on the bed, giving Charles the all clear to sit with her. "We have a lot of stuff to talk about... First, and foremost... What you told me on the phone earlier..." Mae took a deep breath. "I felt... confused at first. You sent me some very different signals back when you first met Kayle, only for it to change over such a short time... what happened? Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have you back in my life. It's... just a lot for me to process, ya' know?" Thinking back on that moment, this felt so surreal. What if this was just a dream? A very scary, yet lovely dream? She needed to know that this was real, and not just a fabrication of her sleeping mind...


Everything that had happened over these last couple of hours was enough for her to question whether it all had just happened or not. None of that mattered... so long as their feelings for eachother were real, she could live peacefully.

"Haha... How clumsy of me..." Charles suddenly remembered all that had led up to the moment of his fall...all the little teensy beensy awkwardnesses and such. "I am sorry to have worried you, though. Thanks." He'd accept whatever help Mae would give him as he stood up, still clinging to the towel, covering the general area around him crotch.

They walked together to the bed and sat on it, Charles wrapped in his towel still.

And then the topic was swiftly drafted towards the most awkwardalicious one-the call Charles had made. [color=#666699]"O-oh... It's just that... As I saw you now, two years after we'd broken up... I felt as though I really missed you in my life..."[color] Charles looked at Mae, serious. "Catching bad guys with Jack in the police force was a perfect job for me to do and I was happy, but there was always this... hole, sitting next to me and following me wherever I went, a hole that needed to be filled by you... I'd realized that now and I'd realized my mistake two years ago... I couldn't take it, I had to get it out. I apologize if my call confused you, but I can assure you this isn't a dream." He smiled again as he put his hand over hers. "Besides..."

"Don't mention it, Charles. I'm just glad to hear that you're okay." Mae gave him a gentle smile in return, before she remembered... Oh yeah. The whole pants being ripped apart issue... Honestly, she didn't have any actual solution to that aside from... going to his house to get a spare pair. But his house wasn't exactly next door, and considering the island's current state of affairs, getting there would both be troublesome, and take a long time.

So her seeing him back then did give him second thoughts... He just hadn't been honest to her and himself about it at the time... Perhaps that's why his words recently carried that much more of an impact. Sure, it was confusing, but hearing his thoughts on the matter made things clearer to her. Then he said something she didn't expect... "S-So all this time... these two years... y-you missed me?" She knew that this wasn't anything to cry over, but still. The thought of him regretting leaving her for two years straight tugged at Mae's heartstrings. Why hadn't he admitted that earlier? It would've saved him a lot of internal struggle... She rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears before they could fall properly. "I'm glad that I can fill that hole for you, Charles..." Hearing him say that made her feel special. It sparked this warmth inside her chest that just wouldn't go away, nor did she want it to. It was a nice feeling. "Hehe. There's no need to apologize. I mean, it worked, yes?" Mae replied with a light chuckle.


Mae replied quietly as she felt his touch upon her hand. She was very grateful for everything that was in her life... Her friends, family and now Charles... "...Thanks for being you... You're the most important person in my life... You brought me hope and happiness in these dark times..." Mae's voice was affectionate and gentle as she spoke, slowly moving in towards Charles with pursed lips and closed eyes, giving him a long, passionate kiss... One he would always be able to remember fondly... Her day was almost coming to a close too, since her arms and legs would start protesting wildly soon. But until then, Charles was her world for that one moment of intimacy...

"I, I think I was lying to myself... That's why I hadn't noticed you were missing... Because I didn't want to hold you back, but now I understand, once and for all, that that is not how it works." Charles smiled. He didn't need to explain it all again. They both understood. They had had stopped understanding for a while... two years, to be exact, but it was okay. This path led them here. No other paths could've, and Charles for grateful.

As Mae kissed him, he kissed her back, as best as he could. The whole kissing thing was still an ordeal for him, even though he'd pulled it off perfectly in a couple of situations before, like on the hill. Practice makes perfect, doesn't it? That's what people always said. And he was people. Mae was people too. They were people together and two was always better than one. Another human saying, right~

But Mae had been through a lot today. She must've been exhausted. He could feel it in her embrace. She needed rest, and he'd let her rest. She could sleep now, holding his hand as he sat next to the bed...

[Charles - Exit]

"We've both learned a lot. Let's do our best to make things work out this time around." Mae said with a gentle, yet very tired smile. "I've always been one to give things a second chance, and this is no different. I really want this to work out..." Of course, that meant that the two of them had to work things out, set their differences aside, and just being together. And who said that this would have to wait until the whole crisis on Azores was over? Sure, they had to work hard in order to save their home, but Mae wanted to do so as more than just friends. Charles meant everything to her, and she was fighting for his future, even if it didn't lie with her. "Remember that promise I made you two years ago...? After this crisis is over, let us both go and find the answers to your past together..." She said after the kiss had ended, her face being mere inches from his. How could she forget? Wasn't that the sole reason why the two of them became close to begin with? That was one thing they both shared... the two lacked any knowledge of their past. Mae with her biological parents, and Charles suffering from a form of robotic amnesia or something...

Mae would slowly fall backwards onto the bed, uttery exhausted from the day's endeavours. She could really use this rest. She would give him a light smile from her position on the bed, her grip of his hand tightening ever so slightly, only for it to loosen after a couple of minutes, when the girl fell asleep, pleasant dreams awaiting her.