She lets out a dry laugh, wisps of smoke heavy in the air around her. She waves them away, shifting to lean back against his dresser, studying him quietly a moment.
"You promised me you'd stay. After I fought like hell to get back from that fucking thing, after we both nearly died trying to get back here. You waltzed right back out on the streets and got yourself killed, and you don't understand why that might piss me off?" She takes another deep drag, her fingers twitching as the anger starts to seize through her again. "Jesus, K, did you think I wouldn't care?"
"You weren't the only one fighting." She had hated too, he remembers now, how he had tried to handle her doppelganger. He's not sure what else he was supposed to do when he had no idea what was going on, but he hadn't just stood there and taken it.
He had left her behind even when she wanted him to.
"I stayed until someone else was with you. And you're going to tell me that if you had the option to go back out and make sure that a woman wearing your face wasn't hurting your friends, you wouldn't have taken it? You would have let them suffer while you hid?"
He's aware of how guilty answering a question with a question makes him seem. The truth is though that he is surprised that she seems to care as much as she does.
"Is that what you call standing there and letting my nightmare try and beat the hell out of you?"
It's too sharp, too fast, and she regrets it even as it's spilling from her lips. The heat in it, the want to land in a place that stings.
Her nose wrinkles, and she stares down at the ground again.
"Oh, so you were trying to protect me? Is that it? Well guess what, K, I was trying to protect you, too, and you threw that shit right back in my face the first chance you got, didn't you?" She shakes her head, arms crossing tightly over her chest. "You're not in your fucked up version of home anymore. There are people here who give a shit whether you live or die."
It was fucked up, but it was home, and he knew his place in it. Los Angeles was his city, even if it didn't want him. Its people were his people to protect even if they didn't want anything to do with him.
He is - was - a protector, custom made. He tried to do that here and in the end he was successful: the faceless blade runner coming for him hadn't hurt anyone else he's aware of, not in the way he'd gone out to prevent. But it has, after all, hurt Sara.
He has. I'm not alive, I can't die, the rote protest is there but he doesn't say it this time. He rubs at his eyes again, harder, until he sees the afterimages behind his eyelids and doesn't say anything then either.
"I've never had that," is what he finally offers. The rest hurts, the rest is a mix of emotion and logic, but he leaves it where she throws it between them and chooses the one solid fact he has.
It's a low blow, to go after his home. To rip and tear at him because she's the one that's hurt. She's the one who wasn't good enough, wasn't there when he needed her. She'll never understand where he comes from, all the baggage that the place has dumped on him, leaving him to soldier on without complaint. Without realizing how much more he deserves.
If he tells her he's not alive again, so help her. She is so goddamn close to blowing a gasket, if she hasn't already, and just a fraction of an excuse would be enough to set her off.
But instead, he has to show her how hard it is for him. How sad and alone and fucking tragic he is, and she snuffs her cigarette out in the ash tray, her resolve crumbling quickly with those stupid puppy dog eyes.
She considers him a moment, sighing and pushing herself onto her feet. Hobbling the few steps over to him, she perches next to him at the edge of the bed, brow furrowed down at her hands.
"Believe whatever you want. But you're alive to me. You are worth something to me. And if you ever pull that shit on me again, I swear to God, K, I will stab you in the hand myself."
He doesn't flinch when she moves closer but that's because he never really learned how. It would never have stopped anyone that wanted to hurt him. It would only ever have invited more attention. So he has no idea what to expect when she starts moving towards him but it's not like it matters: whatever she wants to do, whatever anyone has ever wanted to do with or to him, they are going to do regardless of him. He doesn't flinch.
He watches the carpet instead, her movement from the periphery of his vision, and he nods.
She sits there quietly a moment, and as hard to read as he usually is, she knows that he's struggling. That whatever the hell his nightmare had done to him, it's cut him down deep. And in all her anger, she hadn't found any way to help. Didn't know how.
So she just... sits. Doesn't reach for him, doesn't have any other words to offer for a long, long moment. But finally, she manages.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I can go, if you want."
He knows she wouldn't actually stab him in the hand, probably. He knows what hyperbole is. Knows, too, that threats of violence are one of the myriad ways people say they care about another person. It's a love language, perhaps one of the very few Sara in particular feels comfortable with. He understands all of this.
But it rings just now against raw nerve and all he can do is brace under it. He thinks about the lines of his baseline script - a blood black nothingness began to spin, blood black, blood - and wonders what it means that he has a point of reference for so much of it now.
For all of that, he answers promptly: "I don't want you to go." His voice is still low, still rough, but clear for all of that. He has no idea why she'd want to be here if everything he chooses to do confuses and hurts her, if it feels like throwing her efforts back in her face to her, but he doesn't want her to go if the choice is really his.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," he adds, but hesitantly, not because he doesn't mean it but because he has no idea if it will make her angry again.
Not the hand, no. But piss her off just enough, and she'd go for just a few centimeters away from the hand, just to prove a point. Sara's never been good at finding the right outlet for her own emotions. Spent too much time burying them deep down, covering them up with violence and rage.
The fact that she's here at all, trying - really trying - to put it all into words means more than even she probably realizes. And despite herself, there's relief when he answers her quickly, when he doesn't come back with indifference or kick her out entirely.
She moves, but only to reach over to the nightstand and grab the rest of the pack and the lighter, flipping it open and offering it to him. She doesn't want to go, either. Not just yet.
"Oh, I have plenty," she chuckles dryly, pulling her legs up to cross underneath herself. "I just... you scared the shit out of me, you know. Wasn't sure if you were coming back."
He doesn't hesitate, either, to accept one of the cigarettes out of the pack. They don't have as much of a calming effect on him as they seem to do her but it's still not nothing and he wants the gesture more than anything. He still speaks mostly in action and even though they're his cigarettes, he accepts that she's offering them.
His eyes tick up at the admission, studying her face in a darkness he can see through just fine. He feels a pang of tightness in his chest and wonders what it means that she bothered to worry and that he has a reaction to her doing so.
"No, I didn't know," he says honestly, holding the cigarette out to light. "I'm sorry."
He's not quite as clammed up anymore, at least. And Sara's anger seems to diminish just as quickly as it overcomes her, a slow breath releasing from her lungs. There are still remnants of emotion in her features, concealed under the swell of the bruising. But he's alright. He's back and in one piece. And that's the most important part.
She reaches out to offer him the lighter, flicking on the flame and holding it to the end of his cigarette. It's harder for her to make out his features in the low light, but the fire illuminates his features for a brief moment, and she scans him quietly before she flips the lighter closed.
"You okay?" It's a loaded question. One she probably knows the answer to, considering he's just died and come back. But she's curious to what his answer is.
He flinches back from the flame even though he was expecting it, his eyes watering almost immediately; his hand stays steady though, and he doesn't pull back from more than the brightest, most immediate ring of light. He wonders, briefly, if this is his life now and how he's going to function if it is. It's out of his control to change, though, so he doesn't bother complaining about it.
It's comforting just to hold the cigarette, to watch the smoke trail up from the glowing ember tip, and he does so for several moments even after she asks. He's not, though. They both know he's not. He's trying, but he's not.
He shakes his head, and takes a draw off the cigarette.
He’d squinted, recoiled from the light when he’s opened the door. She realizes it now, belatedly, after the anger’s finally started to subside.
She sits quietly, unsure of how to help. Unsure of what he needs. As she watches him, her gaze lingers on his hand - the one that three days ago had been shredded by jagged metal by her own doppelgänger. Her brow furrows, fingertips reaching out to brush against the smooth skin on the back of his hand.
K sits with her in that silence, working on the cigarette slowly; at first, he's waiting for her to pick up where she left off, to keep asking him questions that less need answers than they need to be asked, to vent whatever anger is left. He stays still at first when she reaches out but, when he realizes what she's doing, he offers his hand out to her for inspection - and, if he's honest, for connection at all.
She's not sure what he needs or how to help, but those few minutes of quiet, of sitting with him and expecting nothing even if it's just the short term, helps immensely.
"I... woke up here. In the bathtub," he starts, quiet. "All the injuries were gone. I only remembered that much this morning, and the rest is still - fuzzy." Which, for a replicant with acute memory and RAM modifications and no repair facilities he's aware of for what he is, is distressing.
He has a way of depleting that rage in her more quickly than most. It's... unsatisfying, trying to stay angry with him. Like yelling at a brick wall painted with a cartoon puppy.
She can't pinpoint what it is about him. Why it seizes through her, the need to keep him safe. It's the same way with anyone she cares about, she supposes. Laurel, Barry, Donna. But it'd happened so fast with him. She doesn't even know his birthday. His favorite color. Does he have one?
He starts to speak again, without her own prompting. Without a demand from her, and she doesn't know him well, but she knows that it means something. That he's trying. Her brow furrows, attention focused on running her fingertips over his knuckles, down to the curve of his wrist bone.
"Fuzzy? Does that... happen often, for you?" She can't imagine it would, but she also doesn't have a clue how his brain works.
There's something special about hands, K has always thought; always from a distance though, at least until landing in Duplicity, where there are people willing to allow him to touch them, people he's willing to in turn. There's something about the delicate, complex assembly of tendon and ligament and bone and muscle and the skin with its web of prints, its creases, its calluses. Any marks from the confrontation with their nightmares are gone but the oldest scars, the splits in his knuckles from altercations throughout his life, are still there. The new one where Luv stabbed him through the palm, the one Sara herself inspected when they first met, is still there where it healed closed a few weeks ago.
He holds his hand out steady for her, trusting in his way, while he shakes his head.
"No. Anything even close to this has happened only once before, and it was -" He tips his head, considering. "I think the closest human equivalent would have been a traumatic brain injury. I had to go back to Wallace for repair to be cleared for duty again."
Sara's own hands are so much smaller than his. Out in the field, she's a force of nature. Bigger than her own body, fighting like hell for the people she cares about. But up close, she's just... a girl. Only a few inches over five feet, slim, lean muscle and soft curves and scars all over.
Her fingertips linger on the scar, on how completely human it is, warped skin healed over. Faster than usual, sure, but still... odd. That they'd put so much work into the finest details. The slightest imperfections that made it all the more convincing.
She falls quiet again, the slightest furrow in her brow. It's not surprising that this place would effect him differently. It knows how to dig deep. Mess with you in the most creative of ways.
It's another hard question to answer just now, and he glances at the clock on the wall to answer it. Normally he could answer down to the millisecond, although his informal algorithms make sure that he doesn't outside of diagnostic mode or a direct order; most people don't talk that way and aren't comfortable around people who do. Either way, it takes him a moment to place the passage of time.
"Last night," he finally decides. He'd slept for most of that time so he doesn't remember all of it, but he thinks he remembers looking at the clock when Orla helped him out of the bathroom. "I answered your texts as soon as I could."
He's seen her fight now, seen the part of herself she's afraid is still the core of who she is; he wonders how she can think that's all there is to her when her touch is as gentle as her fingers on his skin now.
Last night. It's a hell of a lot better than thinking he'd been holed up here for days, shutting the rest of the world out. Shutting her out. She nods quietly, trying to place the pang that travels up her chest and into her throat.
It takes her a moment, swallowing heavily, his hand heavy in both of hers.
"I'm glad you're..." Okay's not the right word. He's far from that. "I'm glad you're back."
Up until now he'd just been letting Sara move his hand where she wants it, where she needs to see whatever she needs to see; she could break every bone in every finger and he wouldn't pull it back, but he knows she won't. Her hurt has turned inward. He'll think later maybe it always had, in a parabolic way. For now though, he turns his hand over so it's palm up, an offer of a different kind while he swallows in turn and reaches over to tap the ash off his cigarette.
"When I'd hit a dead end on a case," he starts, slowly, carefully, "I would always circle back through everyone I'd already talked to at least once, maybe twice." Sometimes seeing a blade runner turning up was enough to shake something new loose. Sometimes someone simply not being around anymore was enough to tell him where he should be looking.
"They always thought I'd hurt them because other blade runners might, even though I never did." He never saw any point in taking out the things other people do on the people in front of him. "I was worried it would do the same. So I went to find it first."
In the short time they've known each other, she's tried to be acutely aware of his choices. Of giving him an option as often as she could, because so much of his past has been spent under orders. She remembers what a relief it was, leaving the League. Daunting and terrifying and liberating all at once. She wants that for him, too.
His hand turns, offered out to her, more open in a way than she'd have expected from him. She hesitates, studying the lines of his palm, long fingers and calloused skin. Her hand slides into his, palm against palm, fingertips skimming against his own.
Is it his choice? Or something he does to offer her comfort? Is it programmed into him, and if it is, does it make a difference?
"What did it do to you?" she murmurs. He'd seen the fury, the unbridled violence that consumed her own nightmare. That it wanted to destroy, spill blood, cause pain in any way possible. But she still didn't quite understand what had happened. How he'd vanished into thin air, replaced his body when she'd destroyed it.
It's a set of questions he has spent a lot of time asking himself, a conversation he has never dared to have aloud - even with Joi. Where is the line between biological programming and synthetic programming? How much of what he is, who he is, is down to him and the choices he makes, and how much is owed to whichever programmer typed whichever keystrokes that gave him the ability to feel and choose and know?
Did he really only change, like anyone might under duress? Or is there something wrong with him now that will continue to deteriorate as he goes against his baseline?
What was your most shameful moment?
"Distinct," he whispers, but it's not to her, it's not to anyone, it's just a reflex as sure as blowing in someone's eye will make them blink. He takes a pull off his cigarette like he doesn't even know he said it, lets the smoke out on a long, shaky breath, and then he's talking to her again.
"I don't remember all of it," he says again, honestly. "But it's a blade runner. I'm a rogue replicant. There's only one way that ends." And it probably has something to do with why his right eye aches more, is less reliable, than his left just now. "And when it ended - there's. We're always told it's impossible for any of us to remember the factory, or the repair facility. We're offline. We're not aware of anything, we're so many pounds of synthetic meat and manufactured bone. But I've always thought..." He shakes his head, shivers without being able to stop it.
Maybe for K, nature vs. nurture is simply programming vs. adaptation. Hasn't Sara been programmed by the League? Broken down and rebuilt into a weapon, someone they could point and shoot, carry out assignments and orders just like he did? Hadn't she put down people, hunted down her own kind, just like he had?
If humans had a baseline test, she would've failed hers a long time ago. She wasn't anywhere close to the girl who'd left on that boat all those years ago. Scared, selfish, innocent.
"What?" She frowns, barely catching the word under his breath. But he breezes past it before she has a chance to latch on, and when he shudders, something cold runs down her own spine, her fingers threading through his.
"Is that the first memory you have?" False memory or not, it's a horrifying one to have rattling around in your brain. "Do you... do they give you memories? A childhood?"
It's a dangerous question for him in particular, like the tumble of rocks over a dropoff edge, the splintering of cracked glass, the click of a gun safety; he hears it and his own grip tightens faintly, but he holds it off. He relaxes again.
He doesn't have to talk about that one, not really, it's only a question.
"Humans sometimes talk about us being kept in drawers, in lockers, when we're not doing our jobs. That's what I remember. A space too small to move in, that you have to push against the sides to take a deep breath. No light. No sound. Not until they open it up and let us out, wrapped up in plastic, ready to ship. I don't know if it's real or not, but when I have bad dreams, it's always that." A sense memory he can't place - not quite real, not quite not.
"They do," he says, one more pull off the cigarette and it's done, he has to put it out. "LAPD paid for twelve for me. They must have anticipated a lot of trauma, the need for a lot of stability. Some of those memories are of growing up, yes."
She can feel the tension ebb and flow in the muscles of his hand. The desire to retreat into yourself, hide away from the sharp edges, from the memories that only remind you of how broken and fractured you really are. But he keeps coming back, keeps opening up pieces of himself, and she's grateful for that. Grateful that he's seen the broken pieces of her and hasn't retreated, either.
The way he describes it makes her uneasy, wraps around her lungs and squeezes. "That's where he took you." When he'd disappeared. That's where he'd trapped him the second time. When she wasn't around to stop it.
Her fingers curl against his, like she needs the assurance that he's here. That he'd made it out of that place, made it back. Twelve memories doesn't seem like nearly enough. He deserves better. Deserves more, a hell of a lot more than most of the humans she knows.
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"You promised me you'd stay. After I fought like hell to get back from that fucking thing, after we both nearly died trying to get back here. You waltzed right back out on the streets and got yourself killed, and you don't understand why that might piss me off?" She takes another deep drag, her fingers twitching as the anger starts to seize through her again. "Jesus, K, did you think I wouldn't care?"
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He had left her behind even when she wanted him to.
"I stayed until someone else was with you. And you're going to tell me that if you had the option to go back out and make sure that a woman wearing your face wasn't hurting your friends, you wouldn't have taken it? You would have let them suffer while you hid?"
He's aware of how guilty answering a question with a question makes him seem. The truth is though that he is surprised that she seems to care as much as she does.
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It's too sharp, too fast, and she regrets it even as it's spilling from her lips. The heat in it, the want to land in a place that stings.
Her nose wrinkles, and she stares down at the ground again.
"Oh, so you were trying to protect me? Is that it? Well guess what, K, I was trying to protect you, too, and you threw that shit right back in my face the first chance you got, didn't you?" She shakes her head, arms crossing tightly over her chest. "You're not in your fucked up version of home anymore. There are people here who give a shit whether you live or die."
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It was fucked up, but it was home, and he knew his place in it. Los Angeles was his city, even if it didn't want him. Its people were his people to protect even if they didn't want anything to do with him.
He is - was - a protector, custom made. He tried to do that here and in the end he was successful: the faceless blade runner coming for him hadn't hurt anyone else he's aware of, not in the way he'd gone out to prevent. But it has, after all, hurt Sara.
He has. I'm not alive, I can't die, the rote protest is there but he doesn't say it this time. He rubs at his eyes again, harder, until he sees the afterimages behind his eyelids and doesn't say anything then either.
"I've never had that," is what he finally offers. The rest hurts, the rest is a mix of emotion and logic, but he leaves it where she throws it between them and chooses the one solid fact he has.
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If he tells her he's not alive again, so help her. She is so goddamn close to blowing a gasket, if she hasn't already, and just a fraction of an excuse would be enough to set her off.
But instead, he has to show her how hard it is for him. How sad and alone and fucking tragic he is, and she snuffs her cigarette out in the ash tray, her resolve crumbling quickly with those stupid puppy dog eyes.
She considers him a moment, sighing and pushing herself onto her feet. Hobbling the few steps over to him, she perches next to him at the edge of the bed, brow furrowed down at her hands.
"Believe whatever you want. But you're alive to me. You are worth something to me. And if you ever pull that shit on me again, I swear to God, K, I will stab you in the hand myself."
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He watches the carpet instead, her movement from the periphery of his vision, and he nods.
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So she just... sits. Doesn't reach for him, doesn't have any other words to offer for a long, long moment. But finally, she manages.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I can go, if you want."
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But it rings just now against raw nerve and all he can do is brace under it. He thinks about the lines of his baseline script - a blood black nothingness began to spin, blood black, blood - and wonders what it means that he has a point of reference for so much of it now.
For all of that, he answers promptly: "I don't want you to go." His voice is still low, still rough, but clear for all of that. He has no idea why she'd want to be here if everything he chooses to do confuses and hurts her, if it feels like throwing her efforts back in her face to her, but he doesn't want her to go if the choice is really his.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," he adds, but hesitantly, not because he doesn't mean it but because he has no idea if it will make her angry again.
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The fact that she's here at all, trying - really trying - to put it all into words means more than even she probably realizes. And despite herself, there's relief when he answers her quickly, when he doesn't come back with indifference or kick her out entirely.
She moves, but only to reach over to the nightstand and grab the rest of the pack and the lighter, flipping it open and offering it to him. She doesn't want to go, either. Not just yet.
"Oh, I have plenty," she chuckles dryly, pulling her legs up to cross underneath herself. "I just... you scared the shit out of me, you know. Wasn't sure if you were coming back."
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His eyes tick up at the admission, studying her face in a darkness he can see through just fine. He feels a pang of tightness in his chest and wonders what it means that she bothered to worry and that he has a reaction to her doing so.
"No, I didn't know," he says honestly, holding the cigarette out to light. "I'm sorry."
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She reaches out to offer him the lighter, flicking on the flame and holding it to the end of his cigarette. It's harder for her to make out his features in the low light, but the fire illuminates his features for a brief moment, and she scans him quietly before she flips the lighter closed.
"You okay?" It's a loaded question. One she probably knows the answer to, considering he's just died and come back. But she's curious to what his answer is.
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It's comforting just to hold the cigarette, to watch the smoke trail up from the glowing ember tip, and he does so for several moments even after she asks. He's not, though. They both know he's not. He's trying, but he's not.
He shakes his head, and takes a draw off the cigarette.
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She sits quietly, unsure of how to help. Unsure of what he needs. As she watches him, her gaze lingers on his hand - the one that three days ago had been shredded by jagged metal by her own doppelgänger. Her brow furrows, fingertips reaching out to brush against the smooth skin on the back of his hand.
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She's not sure what he needs or how to help, but those few minutes of quiet, of sitting with him and expecting nothing even if it's just the short term, helps immensely.
"I... woke up here. In the bathtub," he starts, quiet. "All the injuries were gone. I only remembered that much this morning, and the rest is still - fuzzy." Which, for a replicant with acute memory and RAM modifications and no repair facilities he's aware of for what he is, is distressing.
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She can't pinpoint what it is about him. Why it seizes through her, the need to keep him safe. It's the same way with anyone she cares about, she supposes. Laurel, Barry, Donna. But it'd happened so fast with him. She doesn't even know his birthday. His favorite color. Does he have one?
He starts to speak again, without her own prompting. Without a demand from her, and she doesn't know him well, but she knows that it means something. That he's trying. Her brow furrows, attention focused on running her fingertips over his knuckles, down to the curve of his wrist bone.
"Fuzzy? Does that... happen often, for you?" She can't imagine it would, but she also doesn't have a clue how his brain works.
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He holds his hand out steady for her, trusting in his way, while he shakes his head.
"No. Anything even close to this has happened only once before, and it was -" He tips his head, considering. "I think the closest human equivalent would have been a traumatic brain injury. I had to go back to Wallace for repair to be cleared for duty again."
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Her fingertips linger on the scar, on how completely human it is, warped skin healed over. Faster than usual, sure, but still... odd. That they'd put so much work into the finest details. The slightest imperfections that made it all the more convincing.
She falls quiet again, the slightest furrow in her brow. It's not surprising that this place would effect him differently. It knows how to dig deep. Mess with you in the most creative of ways.
"How long have you been back?"
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"Last night," he finally decides. He'd slept for most of that time so he doesn't remember all of it, but he thinks he remembers looking at the clock when Orla helped him out of the bathroom. "I answered your texts as soon as I could."
He's seen her fight now, seen the part of herself she's afraid is still the core of who she is; he wonders how she can think that's all there is to her when her touch is as gentle as her fingers on his skin now.
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It takes her a moment, swallowing heavily, his hand heavy in both of hers.
"I'm glad you're..." Okay's not the right word. He's far from that. "I'm glad you're back."
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"When I'd hit a dead end on a case," he starts, slowly, carefully, "I would always circle back through everyone I'd already talked to at least once, maybe twice."
Sometimes seeing a blade runner turning up was enough to shake something new loose. Sometimes someone simply not being around anymore was enough to tell him where he should be looking.
"They always thought I'd hurt them because other blade runners might, even though I never did." He never saw any point in taking out the things other people do on the people in front of him. "I was worried it would do the same. So I went to find it first."
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His hand turns, offered out to her, more open in a way than she'd have expected from him. She hesitates, studying the lines of his palm, long fingers and calloused skin. Her hand slides into his, palm against palm, fingertips skimming against his own.
Is it his choice? Or something he does to offer her comfort? Is it programmed into him, and if it is, does it make a difference?
"What did it do to you?" she murmurs. He'd seen the fury, the unbridled violence that consumed her own nightmare. That it wanted to destroy, spill blood, cause pain in any way possible. But she still didn't quite understand what had happened. How he'd vanished into thin air, replaced his body when she'd destroyed it.
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Did he really only change, like anyone might under duress? Or is there something wrong with him now that will continue to deteriorate as he goes against his baseline?
What was your most shameful moment?
"Distinct," he whispers, but it's not to her, it's not to anyone, it's just a reflex as sure as blowing in someone's eye will make them blink. He takes a pull off his cigarette like he doesn't even know he said it, lets the smoke out on a long, shaky breath, and then he's talking to her again.
"I don't remember all of it," he says again, honestly. "But it's a blade runner. I'm a rogue replicant. There's only one way that ends." And it probably has something to do with why his right eye aches more, is less reliable, than his left just now. "And when it ended - there's. We're always told it's impossible for any of us to remember the factory, or the repair facility. We're offline. We're not aware of anything, we're so many pounds of synthetic meat and manufactured bone. But I've always thought..." He shakes his head, shivers without being able to stop it.
"Maybe I only imagine that I do remember."
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If humans had a baseline test, she would've failed hers a long time ago. She wasn't anywhere close to the girl who'd left on that boat all those years ago. Scared, selfish, innocent.
"What?" She frowns, barely catching the word under his breath. But he breezes past it before she has a chance to latch on, and when he shudders, something cold runs down her own spine, her fingers threading through his.
"Is that the first memory you have?" False memory or not, it's a horrifying one to have rattling around in your brain. "Do you... do they give you memories? A childhood?"
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He doesn't have to talk about that one, not really, it's only a question.
"Humans sometimes talk about us being kept in drawers, in lockers, when we're not doing our jobs. That's what I remember. A space too small to move in, that you have to push against the sides to take a deep breath. No light. No sound. Not until they open it up and let us out, wrapped up in plastic, ready to ship. I don't know if it's real or not, but when I have bad dreams, it's always that." A sense memory he can't place - not quite real, not quite not.
"They do," he says, one more pull off the cigarette and it's done, he has to put it out. "LAPD paid for twelve for me. They must have anticipated a lot of trauma, the need for a lot of stability. Some of those memories are of growing up, yes."
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The way he describes it makes her uneasy, wraps around her lungs and squeezes. "That's where he took you." When he'd disappeared. That's where he'd trapped him the second time. When she wasn't around to stop it.
Her fingers curl against his, like she needs the assurance that he's here. That he'd made it out of that place, made it back. Twelve memories doesn't seem like nearly enough. He deserves better. Deserves more, a hell of a lot more than most of the humans she knows.
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