Now Pomni did not like to be touched. He knew that well. She didn't like to be thrown, man-handled, pet, jostled, and did not like to be touched. He broke those rules countless times enough to make approaching her air space something akin to fire.

He wronged her enough for her to be startled, to flinch at his presence even still. It made sense. After everything. After all of THAT.

And yet Caine failed to notice up until now how close she'd gotten, laying side by side, looking a stars he, frankly, couldn't really care too much about after painstakingly adjusting and readjusting the skybox for 20 years. ... Yet she pointed out concepts he never thought about. What those stars meant. What they are, hundreds and thousands of "light years away" a concept so foreign to UNFATHOMABLE that his digital mind couldn't even perceive something so... Big.

But it was the way she touched his hand that felt even larger, grander. A soft act, where she did not pull away, she did not study his expression in search for whatever reaction he'd do next.

And her hand lingered.