Summary: Neither of them were perfect; both scared by past betrayals and demons. She was fleeing from the ghosts in her recent past. KARR was running from a world that had no room for him. Can one lost soul heal another? Just cleaning things up.
DIRTY SIDE DOWN
PROLOGUE
Scars
There was a gentle warm pressure against her neck of lips skimming the sensitized flesh and she felt his comforting weight against her, pinning her. Fingers curled in her hair, insistent as the mouth moving now along her jaw in small kisses. Serene eyes darkened with arousal stared down at her and his mouth opened to say-
"GOOD MORNING, CLEVELAND! It's going to be-"
Rebecca's eyes snapped open as the battered, black radio-alarm clock on the bedside table shrilled to life and with a swing was sent to crash against the wall. Her thin shoulders shook as her chest heaved. Fingers reached and curled over her face, hiding her form the world as the tremors slowed.
The world-hell, life was cruel, she reasoned as she stared blankly up at the off-white ceiling. How could any place that existed without him be any less? Her world had ended with him and yet, like insult after injury, the world around her continued on its way indifferent to her turmoil. The sun rose. Birds sang.
Coda was still dead. She was still alive. Dammit, I might as well get the hell up then, she thought as she rolled out of bed.
Slowly she was coming back, though and she was dimly aware of that fact. She was far better than she'd been for months. The months following his funeral had been a blur. She didn't remember much of them, just fragmentary bits. People coming and going, the phone ringing, one-sided conversations. She had spent those weeks lying in bed, only moving when it was absolutely necessary. She couldn't remember eating, but reasoned that she must have simply because she hadn't starved to death. Eventually, people had stopped coming. They'd grown disgusted or simply stopped caring about trying to roust her from her grief and a part of her was greedily pleased. She liked the pain, liked holding onto it. She was terrified of letting go, to her it felt like letting go of her grief would be like letting him go.
What had finally knocked her out of her stupor had been the little eviction notice slid under her door that had belatedly reminded her that no one was paying the rent.
The eviction notice was taped to her bedroom mirror now and she lifted her head to glare sullenly at it. Tomorrow they would come. Tomorrow they would come to force her from the home they'd built together; the place that had been so full of promise, like all the little promises he'd made to her. Without him there, she couldn't think of a single reason to even try to fight for the place.
Tomorrow they'd come and she'd be long gone.
She moved silently through the house, as though afraid of waking the ghosts that dwelled there. Everything and every room had its ghosts; memories and promises that taunted and teased her mercilessly. She went through the kitchen, feeling the smooth wood floor under her bare feet as she gravitated out of habit to the coffee maker.
Out the window in the driveway, her old powder blue Mustang sat under an oak tree. Inside its backseat boxes were piled, mostly clothes, but some pictures and small electronics she thought she might be able to sell along the way. Where exactly she was going though was a mystery even to her.
Away was all she knew. Somewhere, she reasoned, so far from this place that the memories couldn't torment her. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to even foster the hope that somewhere there was a place she could heal and forget. Forgetting was too much for her, too close to losing him all over again.
She reached for the keys on her counter, fingers curling around them tightly enough that they bit into her palm painfully and she savored the pain. As far as she was concerned, she would get nothing but pain from the world, so she might as well just take it and dish it back out whenever she could. She'd believed there was a rhyme and reason to the world once, when she'd been far more innocent and stupid. Now she knew the truth; the world was a cruel, sadistic place full of cruel sadistic people who only pretended to care for each other.
How else could she understand a world that took something pure and kind and killed it? Kind people, she thought in disgust, her eyes pricking at unwelcome memories. She truly pitied kind people like Coda. The world had no place for them and chewed them up. Worse, people like her clung to them in the vain hope that through contact they could become cleaner, better people.
Her eyes closed as tears she'd sworn she was done crying trekked down her cheeks and she shoved her short, wildly cut hair from her face. Her jaw clenched as she stomped to the door, slinging it open as though she had a personal vendetta against it.
No more, she thought as she stood on the porch, staring wild-eyed at her car. She would only give back to the world what she got.
To no one in particular, she said, "I just don't give a damn anymore." She glared defiantly at her car, feeling foolish for talking to herself, but also feeling a smug sense to recklessness. Today was the start of a new life. She would leave behind the hopeful girl she had once been and don a tougher skin.
Betrayal was their nature. The insects that scurried all about him sickened him. Humans, even the word left a sickening oily sensation in his processor. They were monsters, smiling as they killed. KARR had realized the truth though. He knew. The only way to not fall victim to them was to betray them, kill them. They said he was imperfect. They said that he was flawed and they had tried to deactivate him. How could a being who perceived the world so perfectly be flawed?
The humans, he'd realized, were the ones who were flawed and the one who should have taken a stand with him had chosen the humans over him. Yes, he'd known KITT was imperfect, but his betrayal had hurt the worst. How his brother of sorts could chose the humans over him, baffled and hurt him. Every time his processor mulled the question over brought him pain as sharp as an actual wound.
They said he was flawed, but how could they expect anything less if he truly was flawed? How could they know what he'd suffered after his first betrayal? He'd been so eager to please; eager to show what he could do. And he'd been shunned. Worse, he'd been put in storage, that alone would damage even the staunchest AI.
KARR sank lower on his tires, shocks sighing slightly with the motion as his processor took a dark path. Had they known he was aware the whole time, he wondered. Had they guessed he could hear them talking so casually of deactivating him? He'd listened; listening was all he could do. His hell had been that place, unable to do anything but listen. His nightmare was going back to an existence of being aware of the world passing him by, but being an outsider to it. Even now he was an outsider, unable to touch the world he inhabited.
He couldn't do anything to draw attention to himself. Any wrong move would bring the hounds of Knight Industries breathing down his nonexistent neck. He couldn't go back to that place. He wouldn't go back.
Familiar to him, panic starting bubbling away in his processor as he backed up slightly on silent tires to hide further under the bridge he'd sheltered under. Soon the night would come and the darkness would make his paranoia and fear take control. He craved the light and day, the dark reminded him of his time spent waiting to be dismantled.
As the fear ate away at him, he desperately tried to find a solution. Slowly an idea formed, as tentative and slippery as a soap bubble. As his powerful engine revved to life, he went on the prowl for the one thing he needed: insurance that Knight Industries couldn't touch him.
After all, he reasoned, didn't they place a high value on human life? If he had a hostage, would they not give him a certain amount of immunity? His engine roared to life, sending a sleeping cat fleeing away with an indignant yowl.
Days on the road weren't kind to any wayward traveler, Rebecca thought sullenly as she cruised down another unremarkable road and pulled into a small gas station. The place looked fairly abandoned, but the lights were on. Even though she'd only been on the road two days, she'd adopted the sort of world-weary jadedness that was usually only worn by seasoned truckers. Another place she wouldn't remember, more people she didn't have time to get to know.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was being stupid. She knew that eventually she'd have to go back and face reality. The bill collectors would come knocking and discover her long gone, but someday they'd catch up to her. Her fingers flexed momentarily on the steering wheel before relaxing. Not today, she thought.
She slid out of her Mustang, wrestling with the seat to slide back as it stuck. Stifling a yawn, she stretched and stalked into the store. It was only a little after two a.m. and she was hoping for anything that could help her stay awake a little longer. She didn't want to sleep; honestly she was afraid to.
She'd left everything behind trying to leave the past behind, but her ghosts had taken up residence in her head. Little things reminded her of him constantly. Especially the car, after all, it had been his prized possession. Coda would never let her forget him, but she clung to the notion that maybe if she drove a little faster, got a little farther it would be enough.
As she slipped into the store, she never noticed the sleek new black Mustang moving silently between hers and the store. She certainly wouldn't have known what she was seeing as it accessed its nanos and with a faint shimmer, changed subtly to a powdery blue color, appearing older and with several dents and dings. She wouldn't have believed her eyes if she'd seen it.
But she didn't, she was paying the clerk for a small bag of chips and a very large energy drink. She walked out of the store and got into the blue Mustang, her mind marveling when the seat adjusted with no fuss and her forehead crinkling as she started the engine and the motor purred and growled a far healthier tone than it ever had before. She was far too tired to question her vehicle's sudden cooperativeness, though. She pulled out, without ever seeing the identical Mustang in front of the store.
She left behind her real car without ever realizing it.
