Lost on Titan

{Part 22}

~Videl~

Videl was suddenly terrified by the idea of telling Kane her weird secret. She hadn't even told Sienna. It was embarrassing - it was creepy. She was overwhelmed with the possibly irrational fear that Kane would stop liking her if she told him.

"V, come on," Kane pulled the box out of her hands, placing it in her cart. "It can't be that bad."

The concern in his eyes when he lifted her face in his hands to make her look at him, made her even more scared.

"Please, don't make me say it," Videl pleaded, her voice cracking slightly.

His hands dropped from her face to grasp her by the waist and pull her body toward him.

"You can tell me anything," Kane murmured intimately. "Don't you trust me?"

Videl's lower lip trembled. "I do, I - " She cut herself off and took a deep breath. "I'll tell you, if you promise you won't stop liking me."

"Baby, I promise - just tell me." Kane's voice was tinged with desperation.

The butterflies that she felt from him calling her "baby" mingled with her bubbles of anxiety.

"Belle is my roommate," Videl confessed, squeezing her eyes shut against the fear of judgement.

"But I thought you . . . didn't have a roommate?" Kane asked tentatively.

"When I first got out of Cryo," Videl explained with her eyes still closed tightly. "I was so lonely." She swallowed the lump in her throat and continued,

 "I was trying to stay in my quarters. I wanted to give Sienna . . . " Videl winced, admitting the second part, "And you . . . some space."

Videl's face started burning with embarrassment as she got to the hardest part to say, "There was this . . . cleaning module . . . that I programmed to respond to voice commands. I started to see it as, um.. as a friend. I talk to it . . . a lot." Videl was mortified to admit it out loud. The next words she spoke came out blended together, she said them so fast. "InamedherBelle,andshe'smyroommate!There,Isaidit!"

Videl couldn't bear to open her eyes and risk seeing him looking at her like she was insane, so she kept them squeezed shut. She held her breath, trying to brace herself for his reaction.

"V," Kane said softly. "Look at me."

Videl shook her head, feeling like she might cry.

"You really won't look at me?" Kane sounded hurt, and his words cracked her heart a little bit. It was enough to make her force her eyes open.

"I don't think you're crazy," he told her, shaking his head. "I hate that you were so lonely, but I understand that you needed something - someone to keep you company. Honestly, I think it's kind of . . . cute."

"Cute?" Videl whimpered with an incredulous tone.

"Well, people are capable of far worse when they're really lonely. You lost your memory, you were by yourself, and you were scared. Talking to your appliance is fairly harmless - pretending she's your roommate who wants popsicles?" Kane sighed. "You know what's really crazy?"