A/N: It's weird... Just something I came up with on a whim one day. I think I wrote it in like... an hour or so. There's no point to it really, just a concept.

Trust In You

Distantly, he was aware of a rustling in the bushes off to his left. From the regular beat it carried and that it was slowly, steadily coming closer, he quickly figured it to be footsteps. His first, instinctive reaction brought out his cannon, and he grudgingly moved himself into a more defensive position while still sitting on the ground. Perhaps it was a threat, but relaxation still clung heavily to his body. He did not want to put forth an effort unless he was certain he absolutely needed to do so. And so he sat, half-heartedly poised to leap and fire if needed, and listened.

The steps did indeed approach him, but at a casual pace. It were as though whoever it was were merely out on a midnight stroll in the light of the moon. Listening more intently as the sounds became louder, Forte soon sighed in irritation and settled back against the tree again, returning his hand back to normal mode. The footsteps were closer now, near enough that he realized it was no robot stalking about in the shadows - they were too light to be the footsteps of any machine. The soft thud thud of it ruled out the possibility of an animal - the creature had only two feet, leaving the only other option clear. It was human, and there was only one of them. He had no reason to feel endangered, and so he did not worry himself about it. He merely laid against the trunk heavily, a lazy glance in the direction of the noise the only indication that he paid any attention to the approaching intruder at all.

Shortly afterwards, a shadowed figure became apparent between the trees. Even from afar, Forte could make out certain features. The shape of the body - the first thing he noticed - identified the human as a female, perhaps in her mid to late teen years. If he had been human as well, he guessed they might have been the same age or a few years apart. Her hair had been allowed to grow long and lightly colored, almost white. Her clothes were short, chosen well enough for the heat of the summer nights, but were dark in color. Her top could've been either a gray or a brown, but her shorts were definitely black. More importantly, she seemed to bear no weapon, and her clothing deemed it impossible that she had managed to hide any on her person.

With a soft snort, Forte turned his head to the side, allowing his crimson eyes to close softly. She was no threat to him. Most likely, when she saw him, she would turn and run in terror. If he was lucky, she might even scream as she fled.

A few moments later, and the girl appeared in the opening. Forte only sensed this from the sound of her feet, and here, he smiled slightly. It did not last long, for, as expected, she did not scream, nor did she run. In an unconcerned bout of curiousity, the bioroid lifted his head once more and glanced over at the girl.

She had indeed seen him - the look of shock on her face aimed solely at the robot told him so. There, at the edge of the clearing, she had noticed him and suddenly stopped in her tracks. Forte scoffed at this openly. So, she had seen him and was scared stiff, wasn't it?

He turned the encounter into a small staring contest, but the girl lost all too quickly. She blinked once, then twice, and it was not only that she blinked, but how she did so that perked the black robot's interest. Frightened humans generally did not blink; rather, they tended to stare wide-eyed in their horror at the source of their concern. This female, for all his assumptions, did not seem truly afraid of him, only startled. She still regarded him with huge eyes, but moved as though she were merely uncertain of his presence.

Intrigued, he took a chance and cast a mildly frustrated question in her direction. "Well, are you gonna run off or are you gonna stand there and stare at me like that all night?"

The girl's expression changed then, perturbed. "I didn't realize I was supposed to."

Forte huffed and turned his head again. "Do you even know who I am?"

She seemed unfazed by his tone, fascinatingly enough. "Yes, I know who you are."

Again, the bioroid's gaze returned to her, but for fun, with a bit of added hostility. "And you aren't worried I'll try to kill you right where you stand? You say you know me, but if you do, you must also know that it'd be nothing for me to wipe you out, fragile as you humans are."

The girl did not answer immediately. She fidgetted in place a second, seeming to think about it before responding slowly. "You're right about that," her voice came, low and careful. Clearly, she did hold some tension from him, yet she still refused to run. "But, even though you could kill me so easily, I don't believe you will."

A loud laugh, less than humorless. "You're so sure of this?"

This time, she did not hesitate. "You would've shot me dead already."

Forte effectively hushed himself, giving the girl a snide glare before diverting his gaze to the forest with a huff. "You're just lucky is all." Afterwards, he lapsed back into silence, indicating that he would go no farther into the subject. The girl watched him for a moment more, and a minute later, chanced a few steps closer to him before seating herself in the grass a short distance away. Boldly, Forte noticed, she had left her back to him, wide open to any attack he might use against her. His lip arched over a single fang-like canine in distaste. Was she really so trusting or just plain stupid?

That made him think, albeit grudgingly. If she were dumb, it wouldn't bother him so much. She might become annoying, but in that case he could simply up and leave or kill her. Her death would probably become the reality in that case - his body was still too content to move about. Yet somehow, he got the feeling she wasn't so absent-minded. That would leave her to trust him, but Forte had never known anyone to trust him before. The others at the fortress merely depended on him as an ally. There was no real trust in that though - it was in their programming to support each other to a certain extent. Half of those robots might easily have killed anything that moved without those restrictions, what with their violent programs and that crazy old coot to order them about. The concept of trust was still too foreign for him to completely grasp.

Still...

Forte shifted himself a bit, partially in an attempt to get the girl's attention. He had hoped she would take the movement as a hostile act against her, if only to relieve himself of the discomfort he now suffered, but she merely turned her head slightly in response, not even enough to be able to see him.

"Don't humans sleep at night?" asked the disturbed bioroid, his gaze now fully attached to the human's back.

The girl shrugged. "I couldn't sleep tonight," she sighed, tilting her head back to see the stars, "so I decided to go for a little walk. Maybe I'll get tired or something pretty soon."

Quiet settled between the two again, but Forte was not content with it, and he suddenly found himself wanting to be anywhere but near her. Nothing about her expressed any ounce of fear toward him, and it was this that unnerved him so. He had experienced those who weren't afraid of him before, but this... Not a human who had no means of defense against him. Not a human who knew very well that he could kill her in a heartbeat. If he didn't know any better, he might have guessed she had a death wish.

He thought to ask her bluntly about it, then decided against it. He would play around the subject for a while, perhaps find a crack in her resolve.

"Have you done this often?"

"Not really. Only once or twice before out of insomnia like this, but I have been here several times. It's the skies that lure me."

Such innocent openness... If only it weren't to a known enemy. "So I suppose you're not used to finding someone like me sitting under your tree, are you?"

Forte stared at her blankly in a mild shock. She actually giggled. "Not at all," came her amused reply. "Actually, this is the first time I've ever seen anyone else here. When did you find this place?"

The robot faltered in his response. "Uh... About a week ago." He noticed his slip and cursed himself for it immediately. He realized, not without some horror, that she, a mere, helpless human girl, was somehow breaking his cool. His grip on the situation was loosening, its undoing her casual air. He hated it, and it began to show. The robot suddenly pinned the unsuspecting female with a vicious glare. "What are you," he growled, "that you can just sit there and talk to me so... so damn comfortably?"

Finally, he calmed a little - she turned to him then, a questioning look upon her face, lightly laced with alarm... Sweet alarm. "You asked me questions," she responded, maintaining her easy tone, "so I answered them. What's wrong with it? Do you not want to talk?"

Forte ignored her, straightening himself even more. "How can you not be so much as nervous around me? I don't get you!"

Anything he thought he had won then both blossomed and dissolved right in front of him in her next move. The girl suddenly glared at him, returning his ten fold, yet her tone betrayed a lack of anger. "Well I don't get you either. I see you on the news all the time. 'Forte destroyed this' or 'Forte killed that.' When I saw you here, I thought surely I was dead, but you didn't kill me. I shocked you, you shocked me. Wouldn't you call us even?"

For everything, the Wily bot could only sit and stare at her. Oddly enough, even as her remarks registered, he found he could only stare at the aqua of her eyes, suddenly fascinated by the almost unnatural blue. Catching himself beforehand, he shook himself from it too soon for her to realize he'd been staring and slowly let himself back against the tree. He calmed himself considerably at that point. "Fine then. We'll call it even."

She threw him another curve ball and smiled kindly with a soft laugh before turning back to the sky. "You're pretty interesting for someone who can do so much damage in a day, you know that?"

The bioroid's jaw hung open slightly. He said nothing, even after he regained his voice, and only managed a small moan. Admitting defeat, Forte simply shook his head at the stranger and allowed his gaze to trail off to the heavens. Several minutes passed by before either moved or spoke again. The girl yawned, and without a word, lay back in the grass, folding her hands behind her head. Forte watched her do this silently, numbly noting her eyes were closed the whole time. This time, it did not affect him as it would have before, and that was what surprised him.

Some time later, his gaze returned to the human once more. She had not moved an inch, but her breathing had evened out. She was asleep. Despite an rest, Forte crept closer to the slumbering girl. Taking pains not to make noise, he knelt beside her, carefully staring at her lax face. She did not even twitch, a sure sign she was definitely in dreamland. Forte lowered his head a bit, truly defeated. She had fallen asleep in his presence, well aware that he was still near her. He could think of no greater sign of trust than that, yet here she had no reason to rely on him at all. She would not fight beside him in battle, she would not need him to help her

But did she really need a reason? She had been right all along; if he wanted to kill her, he would have done so when she first entered the clearing. She knew he would not hurt her, and still, he didn't understand it.

Now... he wanted to... If anything, it would give him a distraction. Yet, as he raised his arm to the girl, he found he could not phase his cannon into place. The commands were there, the path was clear, but it wouldn't go. With a groan, Forte realized that it was not a techincal error, it was his conscious efforts that kept his weapon from activating.

The bioroid stared at the human a moment longer, and then he was up and moving again, back to the tree. There he sat for several more hours, gazing out at the stars, wondering over the oddities of human nature.