[Oh boy,] says the Joker, to a much smaller subset of the adults on the brainphone network.

"I guess that means I can't go home with you," muses Renata. "...But, but it means you can stay here with me!"

"...Yeah," says Nathaniel. He seems sort of ambivalent about this.

"Is that okay?"

"I'll get you set, don't worry," says the Joker. "How would you like your very own asteroid?"

Nathaniel blinks at him.

"This would probably not be a good place for you to stay," observes Renata. "It's not designed for humans to live in."

"Neither are asteroids, usually," says Nathaniel. "But I guess Aedyt's was okay."

"Yeah, that's the idea," says the Joker. "A nice little house on a nice little asteroid. Everything you could need, plus a teleportation power so you can go visiting if you wanna. Mm?"

Slowly, Nathaniel nods.

"This is cute," asserts Renata.

"Sure is!" says the Joker.

Nathaniel giggles.

"And you're cute," Renata tells Nathaniel. "Can I hug you?"

"...Okay."

She perhaps takes a liberty with the definition of "hug" when she lifts him off the ground and snuggles him like he's a teddy bear, but she looks deliriously happy about it.

Snuggles! Grinning happy snuggles.

Giggly snuggles.

"I love you. You're my favorite thing."

"Awwwwwww," says Nathaniel, snuggling her. (She is not very snuggable. But he supposes she can't help that.)

(She is doing her very best!)

Anyway, he likes how she's all happy. And calling him her favourite person. Those are nice.

She sets him on his feet, and adjusts but does not automatically conclude the hug.

Renata unhugs. (But she holds his hand.)

"Aww," pronounces Renata.

"Awwwwww," Nathaniel agrees.

The Joker giggles and hugs him.

Nathaniel lets go of Renata's hand temporarily to hug back, and then picks it up again.

Handholding! Renata's thumb makes little circles on the back of Nathaniel's hand.

He is beginning to develop a blush again.

"You're so cute. You are the cutest ever," Renata declares.

Nathaniel grins a little.

Nuzzle!

Hug hug hug. And again they have reached a state where Renata will comfortably remain forever unless otherwise prompted.

It's a few minutes later when Elspeth brainphones Nathaniel, [As long as you're stuck in the middle of your trip intended to meet an alt of Micaiah, there are two of them in Aurum at the moment.]

[...That's true,] he says. [How old's the little one?]

[Harley is one year, three months, and six days old.]

"Don't see why not," he says.

[Okay. When should I come visit him?]

[Why don't you ask Nathan? He's better at that sort of thing than I am.]

[Well, you're the one I'm talking to about it right now,] he says reasonably. [And you're the one I'd be visiting, really.]

[Well, anytime the day where we are, when I'm not working, will be fine.] And she supplies a summary of Harley's sleep habits and her work schedule.

His newly acquired vampire is so happy about that!

It's nice when she is happy! He likes her being happy at him.

She will do it lots if he keeps being snuggly with her!

Hooray for snuggles, then!

Hooraaaaay!

"You two are just precious," the Joker observes.

Renata has no comment besides to continue doing exactly what she is doing.

Nathaniel, on the other hand, has a blush.

It is cute. She wants to kiss it. She's not sure if she ought to. She is considering how best to ask, and this is clearly a challenging intellectual task.

Well, Nathaniel will be over here with his blush and his snuggle until she has figured it out.

Eventually she settles on, "Your face is cute and I want to kiss it, can I?"

Kisses! A swift rain of little affectionate kisses.

Blushy blushy blush!

See, the more he does that, the more she has to kiss him.

He giggles a little, too.

Awwww! Snuggles. Snuggles and little kisses all over his adorable face.

Giggly blushy snuggles.

Excellent. Renata is well pleased.

"Mm-hm!"

[Sure, now is fine.]

Hug. Teleport!

Elspeth is in a comfy chair in her quarters with Harley on her lap and a picture book in her hand; she appears to have just finished the story and is letting Harley behold the final illustrations. "Hello, Nathaniel. Hi, Renata. This is Harley."

"Nathaniel is Micaiah's brother. Micaiah's one of your alts," says Elspeth to Harley.

"Yes, it is pretty cute, isn't it? Nathaniel is from Samaria but he's stuck here until Jane comes back or someone can find a door to Milliways. Later today I'll try some more doors."

"Harley has a refined sense of taste for cuteness," says Elspeth, petting the toddler's hair.

Elspeth laughs. "I think Nathaniel thinks you're cute, little nibbler," she tells Harley.

"He's right," Harley announces. Nathaniel laughs.

"Yes, he is. You are very cute." She puts the book she was holding down, and she hugs Harley back, and then she lets him go, in case he'd like to wriggle out of her lap and go investigate his alt's brother more closely.

"You'll grow," laughs Elspeth. "You will get to be six foot one and then you will stop."

"How tall is that?" wonders Harley.

"A little bit taller than Nathaniel is."

Elspeth laughs.

Harley is still holding Nathaniel's hand. He looks speculatively at it.

"Harley, if you bite him, he will not like it, I will not put you back in biting distance of him or other humans again while you have that habit, and Renata will hiss at you and be very upset," says Elspeth.

Nathaniel gently takes his hand away. Harley scowls and sits down on the floor.

Elspeth is unapologetic.

Well, Harley is just going to... sit there... and feel thwarted.

"I don't remember the beginning of the last time that well; I was just a kid," he says. "How long was this world cut off, that time?"

"About a decade. I wasn't here, though, I was Downside and experienced less than two days of outage. And this was one of the harder-hit worlds. Rainbow only missed a few hours even though it has no special characteristics like Atlantis or Sunshine relative to Milliways doors."

"So I guess we just have to wait and see," says Nathaniel.

"Yes. By the same token Samaria could have a wildly divergent amount of time lost."

"I'll miss my nieces," he says thoughtfully. "But I'll see them again someday."

"Yes. Although they may be full grown by the time you do."

Elspeth pets Harley's hair.

Harley snuggles her leg.

"Feeling better?"

"Meh," says Harley.

"You'll bounce back from the disappointment soon," Elspeth assures him. Pet pet.