A month later saw them moved into new dragoner housing, an apartment that had plenty of rooms for both humanoid residents and enough room in the dragon-side for Quelymerith to grow nearly as large as her mother, if she wanted to-- though Damien fervently hoped that she wouldn't. She ate enough, as it was. Thankfully, for his own peace of mind and their savings, anything that could conceivably be counted as part of dragon-care, Jackie got a hefty discount on. And, when Jackie bargained, that included just about everything they could ever need. She'd even managed to get her discount to extend to framed prints for the walls, somehow. Damien was admittedly sorry he'd missed that bout of haggling.

Damien ended up doing the bulk of dragon-care, so far, now that Jackie had started up school down planet-side again-- though the same classes were offered on the station, they were quite a bit cheaper down on Atu-- and had taken a full load of classes. Quelymerith went with her now and then, but for the most part was bored silly by sitting still all day while Jackie took furious notes of teachers' lectures and presentations. So, she stayed station-side and followed Damien around, instead. He didn't mind, for the most part, except that she couldn't talk to him. He did have standard teleparts installed, but they didn't work, really, for dragons. Not in Damien's experience, anyway. Patus was a bit unnerved by it, but as long as he didn't give the dragon more attention than the terisin, she was quiet. Jackie had confided in him once that Quelymerith found the creature cute, even if she didn't entirely trust Quelymerith in return.

One evening-- early-evening-shift, but "evening" was easier, so both Damien and Jackie used the terms-- Jackie was buried deep in a textbook for her biology class, Quelymerith was sprawled quite ungracefully on her back after a large meal, and Damien was trying to take his time with a book on a language he'd never learned before, Patus curled up happily on his lap. Though he was taking his time memorizing words and conjugations, running a silent pronunciation diagnostic in the back of his thoughts, and some part of him was stroking Patus with his free hand, a sliver of Damien's attention, as always, was on Jackie. He noted her turning the page in her book, purse her lips in thought, run a florescent pen over a line of text, flip back to check a diagram a few pages before, glance over her shoulder at him, give Quelymerith a nudge with her foot to wake her up, glance over her shoulder at him again--

"Do you want something?" he asked absently, smiling for her but not looking up from the book. She scowled at him for noticing before she could begin the conversation.

"Me and Quely have been thinking," she began, glancing at the dragon, who opened one eye at her but didn't otherwise move.

"Should I be afraid?" he asked, still not looking up. He was, of course, teasing. He was always afraid when Jackie and her bond put their heads together. He wasn't stupid.

"Of course not!" Jackie exclaimed, turning in her chair so that she faced him more fully. "But we were thinking that there's another clutch looking for candidates, and--"

"No." Now he put down his book, resting it over the arm of his chair, and looked at her. "Jackie, we've been over this, you know I don't want to stand."

"But I hate to see you all alone, now that I've got Quely--"

"I'm not alone," he protested. "I have you two, anyway, and Patus never leaves my side, you know that. If that's alone, I don't know how you define it."

"But you can't even hear Quely," Jackie pointed out. "She's told me she tries, but you can't hear. And I'm gone most of the day, and Patus, she's sweet, but she's not intelligent. Not like a person or a dragon."

"I'm fine," Damien said firmly, though she was right in that he really didn't have anyone to talk with for most of the day. But he had long ago decided he was an introvert and preferred to be alone or with just Jackie, anyway, so that was hardly a problem.

"All right, so you're fine," Jackie agreed reluctantly, sounding exasperated. "But just because you're fine doesn't mean you couldn't be better! Why won't you stand? Huh?"

"We can't afford two dragons, you know that," he said, his usual argument.

"For the first couple years while he grew up, we could," she countered. "New dragoner discounts accumulate, you know. They'll double, if we have two! And it's not as if there isn't plenty of room here."

He had no argument for that, because it was true. He'd run the calculations idly one day, doubling the costs of bonding a dragon but also doubling the discount, and, given that they only needed one dwelling for the four of them-- five with Patus-- it would actually cost them about the same, perhaps even a little less, if they were very careful about spending. Ever since then he knew he was just making excuses, because he'd only once mentioned to Jackie the real reason why he didn't want to stand, and didn't want to do so again. It was, after all, the same reason he didn't like the idea of going out into the station and getting a job. It was the same reason he didn't want to do a lot of things.

"Damien," Jackie broke gently into the silence, "I didn't forget what you said last time."

Well, at least he wouldn't have to say it. He shot her a glare, but he couldn't put his heart into it. As if he actually had one to put into anything. Patus butted his now-still hand with her head, chirruping at him to keep petting. He obliged absently, scratching around her ears.

"And-- and I think you're wrong. In fact, I know you're wrong."

He sighed. "Jackie--"

"Quely says she'd be glad to bond you, if you were a girl, you're that wrong." She glared at him much more forcefully than he could ever glare at her, looking as stubbornly beautiful and beautifully stubborn as she always looked to him.

"Quelymerith might just be saying that," he pointed out, "to make you or I feel better."

"That's unfair, and you know it."

It was, but he still had a hard time believing either of them. Androids simply didn't bond dragons, not unless they were largely biological creations, which Damien most certainly was not. The closest things he had to biological components were the artificial blood that lubricated his inner parts, the real but implanted hair that hung, not grew, from his head, and the pseudo-synthetic skin that wasn't really even natural, but made to look and feel natural. Those, and the fact that he was completely sentient and had emotions as complex as any humanoids'-- but most people, and most dragons, didn't get to that part, in any android. They were too put off by the mechanical aspect, the titanium-steel alloy skeleton, the wires and little lights that the synthetic skin covered, the fact that he didn't have to eat, and usually didn't, for the sake of finances, even though he enjoyed tasting things. He still said nothing, stroking Patus automatically.

"Weren't you paying attention at Quely's hatching, Damien?" Jackie continued earnestly. "There was an android there, too, didn't you see?"

This time Damien blinked at her. He had been paying attention at the hatching, of course, and had seen everything-- he just hadn't been paying very close attention. Jackie and Quelymerith had been the primary focus of his attention, with side conversations in the seating, Patus on his shoulder, curiosity and pity for the three-legged hatchlings, his worries about finances, and physical sensations such as smell and feel taking up most of the rest of it. He did, however, have a mental recording of the whole event, which he had mostly ignored, in his memory banks. Frowning faintly, skimming over it in a split second's time, he realized that there was another android present, a rather primitive one, at that. And--

"He was way less advanced than you," Jackie was saying. "Didn't even look like his creator tried to make him look human! You, though, you look just like anybody else, you're one of the most complex people I know, you have plenty of emotion and mental presence and--"

--and he had bonded. Damien let Jackie babble, stunned by the memory he hadn't until now even noticed. If that android, primitive and artificial-seeming as it was, could bond a dragon--

"If he could, Damien, I just know you could!"

But this was ridiculous. He didn't really even want a dragon.

"Come on, Damien, just try it, just once. Then you can prove to the world that you're either as fake as you think you are-- which you aren't!-- or that you're as real as anybody else-- which I know you are! Particularly when you're being this stupid about it."

Drawn back to the conversation by that, letting the astonishment war with the realism in the back of his champion-multi-tasking, super-computer mind, he frowned at her, nose wrinkling faintly. She answered him with a grin; she knew him by now, and she knew she'd got his figurative attention. "You know I'm right, Damien," she said smugly, dropping her final weapon, "Besides, wouldn't it just make Granpa so proud to know his favorite creation bonded a dragon?"

"Now that is unfair," he protested. "Don't bring him into this, okay?"

But, of course, now that she had, it was too late. Ammanuel, his creator and Jackie's grandfather, certainly would be proud to know that his synthetic "child", as it were, was sentient enough to attract the telepathic attentions of a dragon. Not that he thought he would, but....

"So are you going to at least try?" Jackie demanded. When he glanced back at her, he found not only her own dark eyes fixed firmly on him, but also Quelymerith's, swirling through the opaline facets with colors of hope and certainty. He scowled at them and wriggled back a little in his chair, uncomfortable under the double stare. When Patus turned her own eyes on him, dark green and curious as to why he moved, it was simply too much.

"All right, all right," he exclaimed. "But only one, all right? Then no more. If I don't bond, you have to leave me alone about it, all right?"

The smug look in all three expressions-- even Patus seemed very self-satisfied right then-- made him want to slam a door. But that would require getting up, and would be childish besides, so he just picked up his book and stuck his nose back in it, still scowling.

"We'll sign you up tomorrow," he heard, but didn't deign to respond. Jackie just went back to her homework, humming to herself.

Chapter Four

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