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Tolerance of the time that they spent apart throughout the day, the persistent absence that their separate tasks and duties and specializations required, was made easy in the time that they spent at home together. Excepting interspersed moments of necessary independence, Mimsy's preference was to gravitate towards him as much as possible, maximizing every single second that she didn't have to share him with the rest of the island. She enjoyed the freedom of lacing her fingers with his without interruption, of slipping into the spaces between them to feel the comfort of her hand surrounded by his own, of leaning against him and experiencing unwavering physical support to mirror the mental reinforcement he provided, of how her skin felt beneath his fingers and how his felt beneath hers. She reveled in how much he enjoyed these attentions from her, and in the knowledge that it was through his patient efforts that she was even capable of this, and in the affection that he drowned her in, limitless and constant.

These sensations and securities were synonymous with the concept of 'home' to her. The definition of 'home' itself seemed to improve at a steady day-to-day rate, and though she could never quite identify why, she was always eager for the next day with him, and equivalently grateful that he had given this to her. The reality that she consistently fell short of grasping was that she felt more and more deserving of all of this, of his love and a home and a happy life, but the gradual improvements were too imperceptible to her to measure, and she had no reliable data of a prior Mimsy to compare. There was a safety inherent in that, in being nestled within the care of someone who she could trust when she could not trust herself. This was what she had always sought to achieve through obtaining love - she'd just outgrown the childish notions of who would be the one to provide that safety in the end.

It was through this safety that she found no particular conditions for secrecy, and through the intoxicating warmth of his arms around her that she forgot what secrets were; and in that languid state of Robert-induced oxytocin addiction she always wanted to give him everything, to spill the entire contents of her mind in hopes of giving him something that he might want and not yet have. But she couldn't, of course, so she offered it in handfuls and bite-sized pieces, testing his interests with trails of breadcrumbs to gauge how hungry he might be for any one palate.

She was quietly intertwined with him for the moment, resting comfortably on the floor of their living room while he diligently approached the construction of a Star Wars Lego set. As indicated by her observations of his present actions, this largely entailed the enactment of intricate conversations and plotlines between the small Lego people, which all looked so minuscule in his hands. She assumed that this was all part of the building process, and waited for a lull in a particularly heated minifig discussion before she spoke, not wanting to interrupt any crucial steps of the process.

"I've been considering," she murmured, affectionately rubbing her cheek against his shoulder as she turned to look up at him. "Thinking about building things. Making things, as opposed to breaking them apart with no known capacity to put them together again. Not building things like our home, as you have, but...well. A similar concept, I suppose. You build good things. You do good things. And you make me happy with them. I want to build good things too."

The figure hardly had enough time to come into focus before her angular feet began to parade along her skin, and Mimsy scrunched her nose in preparation for the journey. It was inefficient as a preventative measure, and though she did look a bit sillier, it did nothing to help.

"Um, I want--" She paused as tiny gold-bikini-princess hopped her way across her face at Robert's direction, lest the movement of her lips cause her to fall to her demise, and picked up right where she'd left off as soon as she crossed into the safety of her hair. "--to build things that make you happy, and elicit many forms of happiness from both of us as a result. Something that you don't have yet, or something you wish you had, or something you miss. Something of that consideration, perhaps, but not limited to it."

The occasional discussions about his experiences with raising animals on a farm always left her with an empty, helpless disappointment in herself over her inability to give him something that she wanted to give to him. And there were other offhanded mentions of missing things that were prevented by Deus' environment, all falling in different positions of painful prioritization, but the ever-present desire to provide him with their very own child was an ache that could never be surpassed in its location as the enduringly absolute worst.

She thought of the birds and smiled, delightedly giggling at the very idea of giving him something so incredible. Another impossible thing, all for them. All because of them.

"What would make you happiest?" Her fingers brushed against his cheek, delicate and gentle, and she smiled up at him again. It was as genuine as her question had been - though she did have a motive for asking and smiling and touching him, it was entirely transparent and precisely as presented, unlike her historically more nefarious pursuits. "Anything. Even the impossible."

Watching the shift in his expressions was just as satisfying as his other reactions to her, but the sight of it nearly radiating a positive change beneath her touch gave such an appealing perception of their shared ability to make things better between them, and seeing something so immediately good arise from her action was especially encouraging at the moment. She could do this, because they could do this together, and her hands could not destroy everything if he held them.

"I do know, but." A soft giggle barely escaped through another smile, and she touched his lips with ever-curious fingertips, marveling at the tingling sensations earned with their contact. "When I think that I cannot love you more than I do, I love you more. Correlatively, when I think that I cannot be happier, I am. The maximum capacity of happy - 'happiest' - continues to increase. It's a bit beyond my comprehension, but I like it, so..."

So she purposely opted not to question it? There was a faint hint of hesitation, a tiny flinch, and she quickly shook her head. That couldn't be correct. There was no limitation to questions. Not ever. Just an error, then; that was more likely, and far more acceptable, and she'd opted against questioning this again without even recognizing it.

"If you would be happy building with Legos with me, then I want to play too." Which would quite possibly involve injecting a science lab into Star Wars, but why not. Absurdity and nonsense had existed within these walls from the beginning. "In the belief of the impossible, however...what if we could create something alive together? Not FEAR. Strictly living as we knew organisms lived prior to our arrival to Deus. And what if our living creation could survive here, no matter the conditions? If this were identified as something optimistically attainable, and your options were limitless, is there anything that commands your preferences? Any species, type, category..."

(...gender, age, hair color, eye color...)

The infatuated eyes that remained locked on him were wide with interest, and it was apparent in the stillness of her thin form that she was holding her breath in anticipation of his response. If she could have this knowledge, if she could give him even one thing he might want, it would prove that the looming burden of unavoidable inadequacy was avoidable after all.

The breath that she'd been holding caught in a hitch and spilled out into a satisfied sigh as Robert leaned towards her. She wasn't sure how this was especially relevant to their discussion, but she didn't seem to mind, and almost seemed momentarily disappointed when his attention returned to the more pertinent subject.

Later, then.

"Yes, I know that you do." Mimsy smiled, especially toothy, as her fingers followed the contours of his muscles from his neck to his shoulder to his arm, trapezius to deltoid to biceps. "You love many things, and I genuinely enjoy taking part in it."

And I genuinely enjoy taking what belongs to me.

"I'm familiar with the results of ambient FEAR on animals. But...I went to speak with Dr. H in regards to some of the recent accusations, and...the holiday gift that I gave to him, the dove, is still living." Possibly. Theoretically. In Schrödinger's sense. "And he has created another in its image, with all of the properties of the first, including the fact that it is not FEAR. It is a dove like any other dove, but they can withstand this environment, and can live. Actually live!"

If her words themselves were not properly conveying how thrilling the idea was to her, the tone of her voice and the physical shift from a body at rest to a body nearly constantly in motion certainly did. Every inch of her appeared to have some type of difficulty containing herself. This was an important moment, something critical, something she'd wanted and wanted to achieve and wanted to give, and now she finally had the opportunity to do so.

"So the potential is tremendous! Anything that you would like. Anything that would bring you more happiness. A bird to serve as a physical representation of one that can be 'clicked' and touched, for instance. Livestock to simulate the history that you have recounted to me. A pet, or a hobby, or a creature in which you show interest." She carefully took his hand and placed his palm flat against the center of her chest, and led it downward until it reached her stomach, then pressed against it with both of her own hands until it gently curled into the soft flesh of her stomach.

"Or a child," she whispered, eyes hopeful, voice trembling with uncertain excitement.

When more than a fraction of a second passed without a response, Mimsy was already aware that something was wrong. He was staring at their hands, and that must have meant that the answer he intended to give her was not a reflexive one.

A childish whine met his utterance of the word 'can't', and she shook her head through everything else he had to say, already declining to accept it.

"No, I--but that's precisely it! I won't!" As insistent as she sounded, her brows were twisted with hurt. "You're correct, of course. I refuse to leave you, and refuse to allow you to be taken from me, and I'm very firm in that stance. Nothing is worth that. A child is no exception to that rule. We will be together forever, and I will never endanger that. I would not have made this suggestion if I thought that any of this would harm me. Or harm us. I've been thinking responsibly. I'm being sensible. And none of my other suggestions would kill me, would they? The principle is the same. I promise. I promise."

A stormy desperation churned within her stare, flickering with sharp strikes of panicked lightning, spurred on by the whys and what ifs of his response. Where was his approval? Where was his excitement? Where had she gone wrong?

"Does this change your mind?" Her words were wavering again, but there was no excitement to be found in them. "Don't you want this? Is there something else that you'd prefer? I want to give you--I want you to have everything that you want. Do you not want me to?"

Ten thin fingers all weakly curled or flattened or extended to find some way to seek comfort from the hand on her tummy, but her eyes remained on his face, searching for some sign of guidance.

The attempt to calm her worked as well as a sedative. He'd had plenty of practice in his efforts to soothe her rigid anxieties, and she'd had plenty of practice learning to allow and not fear it. As defenseless as it left her, Mimsy had no trouble snapping back to attention when he neglected to give himself due credit.

"No. I could never do the impossible things until I had you." Her fingers moved as though to curl into fists, but didn't quite make it there. "I failed. I did nothing but fail. My resources were meaningless. Everything remained impossible. It has to be together. It's important that we do the impossible things. They're our impossible things. Together. Okay?"

With that established, she took a deep breath, wet her lips with her tongue, and tried to determine how to explain the concept. There was no beginning, no 'step one', no process. This had been replicated, but not by her, and she had not prepared for this.

"I don't..." This in itself, the act of saying what was required in her answer to him alone, was impossible. One hand slipped into his palm, and her hands closed like a spindly flytrap to lace her fingers around his, providing more applicable surface area to draw from his strength.

Together. Okay.

"I don't know 'everything'." The admission was tied directly to his particular choice in phrasing, but it made it no less difficult to speak aloud to him. There was an unbearably persistent itch in her mind, even still--what good was she if she didn't know--and she blinked up at him through a thickening blur and wet lashes and forced a smile. "I tried. I tried, but it would have required too much of Dr. H's time, so I know only enough. I know that that something that contains and uses FEAR at its inception can become human, and I believe that such a method could be mimicked to provide us with a human child. A human child that could grow and learn, who would not be endangered by injury or the dangers of mortality. Or we could borrow the genetic data of a preexisting child to create one of our own, identical but safe."

She squeezed his hand more tightly, but gained no further confidence from it. There was a hole in her theory and a hole in her plan, and there was no Wonderland on the other side - just the reminder of reality, of a girl who had no right to silly fantasies and did not deserve to want for the impossible.

"You're right," she conceded. "I don't have every detail. This is a bad idea. I'm not good enough."

Why wasn't he agreeing with her?

Mimsy skeptically opened one eye, having shut them upon accepting her defeat, and saw that he was still following. He wasn't confirming that no, she wasn't good enough, and wasn't abandoning the pursuit at what she'd perceived as an unsatisfactory answer. She fidgeted, thumbs erratically tapping against his hand, and worked to understand that the possibility was still an allowable topic.

"Well...something akin to that concept is the reason that we are discouraged from conceiving, yes. That we'd--that it would be--" Ruined. She shrunk away by curling slightly inward, drawing her knees towards her chest. Was that what happened? Was it feasible that FEAR once ruined her, and her mother along with her?

"The difference arises in new data," she continued, clearing her throat in an attempt to retain any composure that she could. "I now know that it is possible for a being conceived with FEAR to become human. Any danger would be eliminated long before its birth, and long before it posed any danger to me. There are technical details that will require some adjustments depending on our methods, but it isn't beyond us, and there is plenty of time at our disposal. Approximately three-quarters of a year at minimum, should we opt for that route."

A playful glance was cast sidelong in his direction, curious to see if he'd catch what she was insinuating mathematically.

"Or we could borrow an existing human child to replicate, so to speak, at any point. It wouldn't be in any danger, and we would safely return it. Then we would be free to raise its...its identical twin as our own. We would teach it and raise it, and it would have no memory of anything but what we provide. No one would be harmed."

The evidence to the contrary was minimal at best. She felt at ease saying as much, without any direct indicators that it was definitively untrue. If anything, she could trust that this would be handled with caution and care, and that was enough.

"So all we need to do now, husband," she murmured, shifting in his lap until she'd turned to face him, her featherlight fingertips wandering the length of his jaw, "is attempt to make a baby together."

A disconcertingly bubbly giggle arose as Mimsy carefully observed the visible, physical shifts in Robert's increasingly more positive mood. This was fun to play again, now that she'd seen she wasn't losing, now that she knew she was still good enough to participate. He still wanted to play, and she exhibited her gratitude over this fact by attempting to match the intensity of his energy.

That was impossible, of course, but it was just another in a list of impossible things that she was not at all deterred from trying.

"Yes, I am. And I think that I'm succeeding," she teased, laughing again when his sudden motions seemed to prove her right. She buried her fingers in his hair, and tugged him towards her to steer him away from uncertainty with a kiss. "Don't be afraid, Robert. Your mind is drawing from outdated information that you and I have disproved together. Surely you don't really believe that nothing works as it should on this island. Not anymore. Not after you and I became us. We've achieved the impossible many times before. We'll do it again. There's nothing to doubt, and nothing to be frightened of."

And she smiled, recognizing that some portion of that fear appeared to come from the need to do this correctly, the desperation for something to work flawlessly and effectively; she saw the conflict between the risk and the pain of yearning, and found something intimately familiar to her.

"Just do..." She captured one of his hands with hers again, and easily guided it down the side of her body - then back upward, once she'd successfully slipped it beneath the hem of her dress. "...what you want to do. Take what you want to have. Take what you need. And love me. Love me forever. Nothing else."

Never anything else. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his, taking in the sound of strained restraint in his breath, shivering once from the warmth of it against her. This reaction was all hers, all because of her and her alone - and she always found pleasure in what she'd earned, especially when his need to have her eclipsed everything else in importance.

"Go on," she urged, a hushed whisper of encouragement, steadily pushing his hand until his fingers reached the band of elastic at her hip. "Have everything you want."