" I'll bring Cosmo back, if you stop acting like that already! " Eggman told Tails in his house. What brought him to this point?

After Tails had to sacrifice Cosmo to save the universe from Dark Oak, he was devastated, and finding that all that was left of her was a white seed didn't make him feel any better, as all he did was start crying and blame Sonic for not saving her while wishing in frustration that he would just hug him already. He regretted calling Sonic out a few hours later since he knew there was nothing Sonic could've done, but apologizing to him for it didn't make him feel better either. He spent the rest of that day crying and isolating himself so he wouldn't depress his friends, feeling guilty and thinking that it wasn't fair, and being frustrated that he didn't even know why, logically, he had to kill Cosmo to save her clan and defeat Dark Oak in the first place; it was confusing to him that there even was anything left of her after she was hit with that laser, let alone a seed, and yet she was certain that being completely vaporized would bring back her clan.

Not much changed after he came home with the seed, as he still kept crying and isolating himself from his friends. All that was left of her was a potted plant in his room, so he was determined to take as good care of it as possible. He went from an engineer to an amateur botanist, learning everything he could about plants from the Internet as a way to try to desperately distract himself and not make any mistakes with her sprout. He started neglecting his health, not caring about bathing or combing his hair, and Sonic once complained, " You eat like a bird! "

It only took a day for Vanilla to decide to move in with Tails so he'd have someone looking after him. Sonic was more interested in running around on his own, and more than ever now that Tails was being so depressing and he was too awkward to try to deal with it right. Vanilla at least was used to and enjoyed taking care of people, since she was a mother, not to mention she once worked as a nurse at a hospital. Tails' lack of interest in doing anything but staying in bed or taking care of that plant caused her to get concerned and move in, since she cared more about keeping him fed than he did.

And of course, since Eggman went after Sonic with a giant robot every week, Tails became scared that her sprout would get destroyed in the crossfire because his house might get attacked, even after Sonic reassured him that he always tried to lure Eggman's attacks away from populated areas. He was worried that Eggman would try to destroy the sprout just to be a jerk. As a result, Tails decided to move the plant to some soil in a secret greenhouse underground that he built specifically to be able to keep sustaining healthy plants with his own brand of Sunshine Ball. That way, it would never be found and destroyed even by accident. It had sprinklers programmed to go off to water the plant on the hours that he would've, and the soil had the best quality he could give it. His friends found it encouraging that he was engineering again, even if only temporarily.

It was an automated greenhouse that had a back-up generator programmed to let in real sunlight from above ground if the mirror tower for the Sunshine Ball got destroyed, or the power in general went out, and he made sure it was a power source that would never run out; the Master Emerald. He had convinced Knuckles to put the altar of the Emerald in an underground cave in Angel Island, courtesy of a big machine of his that could lift it up, because that way it wouldn't be out in the open and obvious to any thief that could see it outside. Normally he'd be too stubborn to change his ways, even when it was a better idea than the ways that got the Emerald stolen on him multiple times, but since Tails was so depressed by that point and could get himself to cry really easily, he couldn't bring himself to refuse.

So from that point on, his altar was safe in an Emerald Chamber under the ground of Angel Island, where Eggman never managed to find it again. He at least liked how it looked, as it had walls that looked like green gems, and there was a pillow below the tube used to get into the chamber from above, which he appreciated. He also appreciated the security system Tails built for the chamber that made him not have to stay in front of the Emerald to guard it anymore, which included a force field generator and electrical cage that would activate around the Emerald itself if the motion sensors detected a large enough moving object. He also gave Knuckles a wrist device that would warn him. Even he admitted, " Now I can finally have a LIFE! Not that I didn't before, but compared to going on those adventures with Sonic, it's really boring staying in front of the Master Emerald all day. I'd rather fight robots. "

Tails would visit the greenhouse every day, both from missing Cosmo and from the paranoia that even the automated greenhouse systems might fail on him. From that point on, he technically didn't need to do anything to take care of the plant anymore, and it grew from a sprout to a flowering little tree. That didn't get him out of the depression, though. The second he was done with all of that inventing, he went right back to spending most of his days in bed, refusing to let any of his friends try to talk him out of it. It was always the same thing with them anyways; they always told him that he needed to move on, that it had been a long time, and that they missed the old him. No motivational speech cheered him up because it wouldn't bring her back, and he told them to stop trying, and just talk about anything other than that or else he'd just keep isolating himself from them forever.

His friends did feel sorry for him, but Knuckles and Amy couldn't help but be frustrated with him for not being motivated to fight Eggman at all since Cosmo's sacrifice. While he felt guilty about it, he just didn't feel like it anymore. He didn't see the point. Especially not since Sonic never needed him and his plane since they got home. All Sonic needed to do was have a backpack with a Ring in it and keep using the spindash and homing-attack on the giant robots, while Amy and Knuckles wore them down with their own attacks. But Tails was never there, and even Eggman began to get sick of it.

While Eggman didn't want to admit it to his enemies, he respected Tails because he was the only engineer on Mobius who showed the potential to be at the same level of skill as him. The only reason he fell short of it was that most of the time he had just stuck to engineering planes. Other than that, they were both genius inventors, and that at least he could relate to. If it weren't for their radically different personalities, he'd see him as a kindred spirit, and he wished that Tails would support him in trying to conquer the world so he could have a cute little fox inventing some things in the lab with him, which could be endearing.

While he was grateful that Tails wasn't fighting his giant robots with his plane anymore at first, eventually he started to get tired of never seeing him at all. At the start of one of his giant robot fights with Sonic, with this one being shaped like an ape, he complained in boredom in the Eggmobile, " Let me guess; Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles? " as he saw each of them show up one by one. " Aren't you at least gonna fight me in a way that's NEW? Don't you ever get sick of that hammer, Amy? Why don't you use a projectile weapon, instead? Like a crossbow or something? " Decoe and Bokkun were in the Eggmobile with him, while Bocoe was busy cleaning the base.

Amy yelled at him, " What's wrong with my hammer?! You saying I'm a wimp who needs to stay back in the fights? " and promptly got hit away by the giant robot's arm. He complained, " Idiot! THIS is exactly why I'm sick of you. Where's TAILS?! " The heroes all looked sad, which made him suspicious, and he complained, " Ever since that business in space, I've just been stuck with Sonic, the rage-fuelled idiot and the SECOND one with spikes on his fists! Tails was a brat but at least he was smart! What happened to him?! "

They hesitated for a bit before Sonic said, " Why should I tell you? So you can go bully him in person? " This at least implied to him that Tails was still alive, and he asked, " Is he hiding away at home because he's too scared of ME? He hasn't lost his nerve, has he? " Sonic homing-attacked his robot as the rest of his friends looked angry, and he said, " No! It has nothing to DO with you! " not wanting to make his friend have a reputation as a coward to Eggman.

Amy told him, " He just doesn't feel like it when he misses Cosmo so much! " Knuckles complained just to vent about it, " He doesn't feel like doing ANYTHING these days. He doesn't even build anything anymore. All he cares about now is that stupid plant! " Amy yelled at him, " That plant's all that's left of Cosmo, you jerk! " " Yeah right. It just looks like a plant to me! I can't believe he picked her over us. He knew us for way longer. " Knuckles said.

Eggman asked, " Are you sure he's even still alive? " as his robot sidekicks were getting increasingly worried. Sonic yelled, " Of course he is! We have Vanilla taking care of him, and if anything happened to him, she'd tell us! Don't even joke about that! " Bokkun asked sadly, " About what? He didn't look like he was joking! Why wouldn't he still be alive? "

As much as he hated to be aware of it, he couldn't help but feel sorry for Tails. He remembered when he shot a missile to home in on Tails' plane just as a temporary game to give him a scare, and then freaked out at his robots when he learned that he couldn't call back the missile. He had yelled at them in a panic, " Now Tails really is going to be destroyed! With Sonic gone I can't afford to lose another enemy! "

To everyone's surprise, everyone began to hear the sound of Tails' X-Tornado flying towards the robot, and Eggman sighed in relief at the sight at first, only to be alarmed at just how reckless Tails was being when he joined in on the fight. Tails shouted, " I'll beat you, Eggman, no matter what! I'm not hiding anymore! I'm not scared of anything! " Eggman just barely flew his Eggmobile out of the way of Tails' plane, which had been on a direct course for him.

Not only was he firing lasers at his robot every second, but he seemed to be flying the plane directly at it with no intentions of stopping, which was scaring his friends. Sonic told him, " Stop! " and Eggman remote-controlled the robot to make it avoid the plane's attempts to fly into it, and he was panicking while doing so, and covered it up by saying, " Hey, stop! You won't destroy my robot THAT easily! "

The robot ape was now focused entirely on dodging Tails' plane as it flew in circles. This at least made things easier for the ones trying to smash it to pieces, as Eggman wasn't even trying to fight back anymore. Things had gotten too serious for his liking. But for the most part, he was just afraid of the consequences of getting Sonic and his friends furious with him if anything happened to Tails. The thought of that scared him the most of all. After all, he was selfish at heart.

Eventually Eggman managed to hit the back of the plane with the robot's arm, being careful to aim for the part of the plane where Tails wasn't. The back was completely smacked off the plane, and the rest of it started falling right away without its engine as Tails screamed. Everyone was especially worried when Tails didn't even try to jump and fly out of it with his tails, and since the plane was really close to the ground at the time, Eggman barely had the time to make the cracked robot catch what was left of the plane and put it safely on the ground. Since he was worried that he was causing suspicion by letting it down gently, he started making the robot smack most of the plane to pieces, and just hoped that they would be too distracted by that to point out that it wasn't trying to hit Tails.

Tails was in tears by that point, frustrated at his failure, and yelled at Eggman to try to goad him, " Why is that robot hitting everything except me? What, is it chicken? Or just that bad at aim? Or are the controls on the remote control too loose? " He said the last sentence because he finally noticed that Eggman was looking down at his Eggmobile as if he was busy controlling the robot directly. Eggman yelled, " I'll have you know the controls are just fine! " caring more about not being seen as an incompetent engineer than anything. Tails shouted, " Then why do you keep missing me?! Go ahead! Why would I be scared? " and thought, " I want to be back with Cosmo! " as his friends looked uncomfortable and wished he would stop provoking him.

There was nothing but rubble surrounding Tails when it came to his plane by that point. Sonic pulled the Ring out of his backpack, saw that it was finally finished charging up power for him to use, and used it to power up his spindash to deliver the final blow to a heavily damaged robot, destroying it completely.

To their surprise, Eggman wasn't focused on the loss this time and called out Tails as the kid hid his eyes with his hands, " What were you thinking, flying the plane like that?! Don't ever do that again! You saw how it worked out for you and that's how it'll be every time from now on, so if you value your planes, you'll learn your lesson! " Sonic called out Eggman, " Leave him alone! He's upset enough! " and ran up to Tails in a blue blur, and Amy told him, " Yeah, get out of here! "

While Sonic gave Tails a hug and Eggman was feeling uncomfortable because of how Tails was acting, Eggman said, " It's not MY fault he decided to go kamikaze on me! I hope you lock him up for his own good, or at least keep him away from the pilot seat from now on. He didn't SOUND like he was drunk, but he sure flew like it. "

Knuckles snarked with suspicion, " You almost sound like you DON'T want him to get himself killed! If you did, you'd be encouraging him to do this! " Knuckles was angry at him for insulting Tails, but he wanted to opt for the insult that would really spite him, and it worked as Eggman stammered in embarrassment, and started flying the Eggmobile away as he made an excuse, " I just don't want to lose one of my greatest challenges, that's all! "

All of Tails' friends looked concerned about him, and Amy told him, " Don't fly like that ever again! It scared me! " All Tails had to say in his defense was, " I just wanted to help. I-I wasn't REALLY gonna crash the plane into his robot! I was just trying to psych him out, and it worked! His robot spent all that time trying to avoid me and didn't even try to keep fighting you! It aimed all of its attacks for me. It was the perfect distraction! " Sonic told him seriously, " We don't need a distraction. I beat all of his robots before this WITHOUT that strategy. And we definitely can't have you needing to build a new plane every time! Don't you ever do something like that again! We want you to help, but not that dangerously! "

Sonic picked Tails up and brought him to bed seconds later. He made sure to use some locks, plywood and nails to try to keep him from going to any more of his planes, and the reason for why Tails was being so reckless, didn't escape anyone who was there.

As Tails laid awake in his bed sadly staring at the ceiling, with shadows under his eyes since he was barely able to actually sleep, he screamed when Bokkun's high-pitched voice startled him saying, " Tails? " He looked over at him sitting up as he flew in through the window. Tails exclaimed, " L-Leave me alone! I don't wanna talk about it! " and Bokkun had to dodge a pillow thrown at him saying, " Hey! "

Bokkun said sadly, " Why not?! " There was a silence as he gave him back his pillow, and he said, " I just want to know if you're gonna try that stunt again. 'Cause Dr. Eggman really doesn't want a repeat of last time! And neither do I, actually! I've never seen anyone like that! " Tails complained, " Doesn't he WANT to defeat me? " Bokkun said, " Well after THIS I'm not so sure anymore. That really freaked him out! And after he took off, he hoped you'd never do that again. It made him uncomfortable seeing you like that! Though he mostly just said he didn't want Sonic to get too mad at him. If anything ever happened to you he and his friends would be furious! " He was naïve enough to not know when to keep something secret. Tails was confused to hear that, and he said, " Uncomfortable? Since when does HE care? "

Bokkun flew away impatiently saying, " You'll see soon enough! Follow me! " Tails got out of bed and ran after him through the house, worried that he was planning on destroying the planes out in his workshop later. To his surprise, Bokkun opened the front door and Eggman was right behind it. Tails looked apprehensive, and Eggman made sure to talk the instant Tails would see him and say something that would really get him to listen. " I'll bring Cosmo back, if you stop acting like that already! " Eggman told him.

Tails gasped, and Eggman explained as Tails was trying to avoid crying, " Do you remember when I made a robot that looked exactly like Rouge? Well, why can't you make one like Cosmo? I made that infiltrator robot using Rouge's DNA. I just got Bokkun to fly after her in secret and get me a hair strand from her. All you have to do is give me a teensy bit off that plant of yours and I'll have a perfectly accurate, lifelike replacement in no time! And if you don't trust me, I've got no problem teaching YOU how to make an infiltrator yourself. So it'd be made by your hands and you'd know there were no nasty surprises. And DON'T get started on that nonsense that it's not the real her. The ' real her ' is a PLANT now! That's not the Cosmo you loved! You can't get any enjoyment out of kissing a TREE. So that's not the real her to you and it'll never be. "

Tails stammered, " S-Says you! How do you know?! " desperate to think of an excuse to not resort to his help and failing. Eggman snarked to relieve some stress, " What, are you waiting for that plant to start GLOWING with a white light and CONVENIENTLY transform back into Cosmo? " Tails was silent for a bit, too ashamed to admit that he was right. Eggman said, " That's just stupid and you know it! How does that make any sense?! You're just waiting for a miracle and it's been breaking you down. Making a robot ' clone ' was the obvious solution the whole time, and you should've tried it a long time ago. Instead you wanna make the PLANT turn into her. "

Tails said looking offended, " W-Well, Chaos Emeralds could- " Eggman snarked, " What, make the tree go Super? What does turning gold and spiky and invincible have to do with a tree transforming into a person? " Tails stammered, and said unhappily, " Well, uh… What about the Master Emerald? "

Eggman said, " Same problem as the Chaos Emeralds! If that thing could do literally anything you wanted, it'd be able to grant any wish and if that was true, I would've wished on it to conquer the world years ago! The only thing it can do is provide LARGE amounts of ENERGY, and I could only imagine adding energy to a tree would, burn it up from electricity! If you put too much electricity into something at once, it overloads the circuits! Best case scenario, giving that tree more energy could make it grow super fast, and, then you'd have an especially tall tree. Or more likely, it'd just overfeed it to death with too much energy too fast, even IF it got provided with LIFE energy. Oh, that's ANOTHER thing, a Planet Egg would just do the same thing. Do you even know WHY exactly she stopped being like herself? Even I don't know why she aged up in two seconds and then turned into a seed. How could you reverse a process you don't even understand? It COULD'VE happened from her aging enough that she could do that, or it could've been from something else, like ' she needed to do it at the time. ' So who knows if a de-aging ray of mine would work? What if it just shrunk the plant into nothingness instead? "

Eggman told him, " Face it, kiddo. If you want the version of Cosmo back who can hold you at your leisure, I'm your only option. And even if I'm somehow not, do you really want to wait any longer? Having an android who looks, feels, sounds and acts like her is better than nothing at all! Sure, I couldn't give her ALL the same memories, but you could replicate the ones you shared with her, and she'd be better off not being miserable about losing her family anyways. So she'd be happier because she wouldn't know what she was missing. And like Bokkun, she'd be able to eat just like you. Her being a robot wouldn't even matter. "

Tails stammered, " I, well, it could be betraying her memory! That wouldn't be her, would it? " Eggman said, " If it's got her DNA, and the ' real ' Cosmo is just a tree, then she'd be closer to the real Cosmo than what you have now! How is it NOT what you want? Besides, I think Cosmo would WANT that because she'd want you to be HAPPY, not like THIS. "

Tails couldn't argue with that. His eyes filled with tears at both the hope that such a tempting offer was giving him, and the fact that he had been apart from her for so long and this was only reminding him of that. He admitted, " I-I was visited by Cosmo's spirit after I, did what she told me to. " Eggman said, " So why do you think she'll come back from the tree when she's already a ghost anyways? How could she still be alive at this point? If it has her DNA, maybe that tree could have a part of her SOUL as well, so it WOULD be bringing her back. Even if it doesn't have her DNA, I'm sure you would have her DNA somewhere, like in the Blue Typhoon. What about her bed? My point is, I can bring back the Cosmo you know. And I'm doing it whether you LIKE it or not. "

Tails asked with a breaking voice, " Why couldn't you have said this a lot earlier?! I… I'll never… " Eggman kneeled down to eye level with him and put his hand on his shoulder to convince him, Tails couldn't take it anymore and said, " Oh, fine! " and Eggman gasped when Tails ran up to him and hugged him, wanting to repay him in some way for the tremendous favor he would do for him, and unable to stand not getting a hug anymore.

Tails buried his head in his chest to try to hide the fact that he was crying, although it was quickly made pointless by the fact that it was making his outfit a little wet and he was sobbing uncontrollably into it. Eggman was uncomfortable of course, and instantly said, " Bokkun, leave the house for a bit. Don't tell anyone what happened! " Telling himself that he was only doing it to humor him to get him to calm down, he found himself stroking his back the minute Bokkun left. He knew how unusual it was for him, but at least the kid felt soft and warm, and when Tails was THAT upset and depressed, who could help it?

He said quietly, " I won't tell if YOU won't tell. " Tails nodded. He was too ashamed to admit it, but he found it warm and comforting too. It only took a couple of seconds for him to pull away from the hug, of course, as he knew that this was normally his arch-enemy, but he still felt obligated to say, " Thanks, " anyways, and said, " I hope when I get the Cosmo I knew back, she'll be even better to hug. "

It took a while, but pretty soon he had gotten exactly what Eggman promised him. With Tails and Cosmo left alone together, Cosmo woke up on a makeshift bed in Tails' workshop, and asked, " I'm alive? Where am I? How'd I get here? " Tails hugged her the second she sat up, and while he was giggling, there were still tears in his eyes from how long it took for him to get this far. She hugged back, and asked, " That's sweet, but, again, how'd I survive? The last thing I remember was… "

Tails hugged her more tightly and said, " I'm so sorry I had to do that! " Cosmo reassured him, " I-I, you don't have to apologize. I was holding Dark Oak still, remember? If you wanted to beat him, you had to aim at me too. And I told you to do it. Now, not that I'm complaining, but why'd I survive? I don't even remember ever being dead. D-Did my clan come back? My seeds? "

Tails finally let her go, wondering if his hug length was worrying her, and he explained, " Sonic made sure all the seeds got planted just fine. They fell to the planet and landed, and Sonic ran all over it making sure none of them landed in anything but proper soil. It was a personal favor to me, especially after all I found that was left of you was, a white seed… I, I wasn't happy. Eventually, though, I figured out how to bring you back to normal. I, well, that seed eventually sprouted into this tree with the most beautiful flowers on it. I took a small DNA sample from it, as well as the DNA from your pillow back on the Blue Typhoon just in case. And I put that DNA into a machine that made a body for you that's identical to your old one. "

Cosmo stuttered, " W-What? A machine… made my body? " She felt her face and it felt just like she remembered, like soft skin, and he explained to her nervously, " I-It's organic on the outside, and you can still eat and drink and, you know, just like before. It's as organic as you need it to be to function just like a person. It's even programmed to grow at the rate that I would. "

Cosmo nervously felt her hands and arms, instinctively being uncomfortable with not being as natural as before, especially since her clan was all about nature, and considered making themselves too artificial to be the evil that led to the Metarex in the first place. While she felt the same as before, with even her clothes being the same, that barely reassured her. Tails said, " I DID the best I could DO! If I made a literal clone from your DNA, it would develop into a baby first and I'd have to invent some magical aging ray to get it to your age. And I'm not sure I'd feel like it was the real you anyways. At least THIS way, you have at least the memories I shared with you, as opposed to none of them at all. "

Cosmo realized that, indeed, she had a huge hole in her memories, only remembering the things starting from her first meeting of Tails, and she realized that if she was in an artificial body, Tails must have used programming to give her artificially recreated memories, done to the best of his ability. The blurriest memories were the ones where he was just going off of what he'd been told and had only an estimate of how she was feeling at the time. She asked him nervously, " How much of me is still natural, Tails? What parts? It can't be my brain, that's for sure, because you can't just put programming from a computer into a normal brain. So, I have a CPU, like a robot! "

Tails reassured her nervously, " It's okay! You're still the same person! You still have the same personality; you're still a worrywart, for one. The CPU was designed based on the brain so it shouldn't be different aside from the memories. It's fine. You still have feelings, don't you? Although Bokkun's sensitive enough to have them too. Anyways, your vital organs are artificial, sure, but people have artificial hearts sometimes. They're called pacemakers, and it's no big deal to them. "

Cosmo asked him frantically, " Do I have oil in me and wires instead of veins? What happens if I get a cut?! " She panicked and gave herself a papercut with a piece of paper before Tails could stop her, and was relieved at the result. She sighed, and then asked, " Wait, what if it's just oil that's BEEN DYED? "

Tails reassured her, " It's not. You have real blood at least. Or whatever Seedrians have. You just need some time to adjust. Your life isn't gonna be affected by this anyways, you'll still eat and sleep, and age. No one will even notice a difference. If anything it just made you tougher and more resilient. It's way easier to repair a machine than something organic. You can replace metal just fine. For example, if you ever get brain damage, it would hardly be impossible to repair you. ALL this really did was make you way harder to kill, and give you some amnesia, which you're kinda better off with after what Dark Oak did to you. Oh yeah, good news, that microtransmitter is gone! I know you were worried about having that thing in your brain to spy on me and now you're definitely rid of it! "

Cosmo said nervously, " Yes, but now I'm more unnatural than ever before! " Tails said, " S-Sorry. I did the best I could. " " I know, Tails, I'm sorry. It's just weird to think of myself as a robot! " Cosmo exclaimed, trying to reassure and apologize at first. Tails said, " More like a cyborg, if anything. Sure, sure, there's metal underneath the skin, but it's SO underneath it that most cuts aren't gonna reveal that. You're as organic as I could possibly make you. But I had to fake it the best I could. I didn't exactly have access to Seedrian stem cells. Maybe if I had them, I could give you more organic parts instead. Who knows how long we'd have to wait to get a Seedrian able to do that, though? You're focusing on the wrong thing. We're finally back together! Now you can live out the rest of your life, experience a whole bunch of new things, explore all of Mobius you want and decide what you wanna be when you grow up. "

Cosmo agreed, " Y-You're right. At least there's HOPE that I could get more organic later. I should be spending time celebrating that I'm back. I'll try to push this to the back of my mind. I want something to eat first of all. At least that's organic of me. " Tails said cheerfully, " Sure! Anything you want! And then we'll go to the lab and we can start building a new plane together! "

Cosmo said, " We? I'm not sure if I could… actually I do know what to do. How?! " Tails told her excitedly, " The ONE thing I added when replicating your old mind; now you're not gonna be totally lost whenever I talk about engineering stuff anymore. About time! " Cosmo smiled nervously, and said, " Uh, thanks. You could've just taught me all that science the natural way, though. "

Tails said, " But that'd take FOREVER! It took years for me to learn everything I needed to build stuff. What if you got discouraged and thought you'd never be able to understand it or remember it all? That's how I used to feel, but you might never get past that. I get why you're worried though. But you don't FEEL any different, do you? You'll be alright. "

Cosmo said trying to stay positive, " Well, I did feel bad about not understanding your science talk. " She thought, " But still, a cyborg Seedrian? Would my people even accept me? With the Metarex gone, I'm the most artificial Seedrian there is! Is there really metal under my skin? It doesn't feel like it. I don't feel heavier. Though maybe my strength was adjusted to compensate so I wouldn't notice what I was lugging around. "

No longer was she completely lost and confused every time he talked about his interest. This time, she was just as excited about it as him, and insisted on joining in when he worked in the lab. So not only did he have her back to hold whenever he wanted, but they could carry on conversations together at an equal playing field, with both of them being intellectuals.

Of course, just getting Cosmo back didn't completely get him back to normal after all of that time being miserable. He was still nervous and unhappy by default when she wasn't around and took a while to return to genuinely being a cheerful child. He still had nightmares about her sacrifice for a while and always felt bad about having to do it. But he was back to eating normally now that he had her company to motivate him, and she made sure he wouldn't just stay in bed wishing that a tree would become like her, when they could be doing better things instead.