A/N: Just after Widening Gyre. I always liked the first two season best, and was disappointed when the writers seemed to up and leave just about every relationship. That, and the insta-cure that saves everyone at the last moment. So, yeah. My take on WG, with more sweet sweet realism...I think.

Dylan was on the table, unconscious. Trance was patching up, nanites moving as fast as they could to repair the structural damage the Magog had done to him. Structural damage, what am I saying...he's human. He can feel pain. He has one body, one mind, one shot at life. I guess I can understand that, and that's why I try to protect him. I feel like Jill, sometimes. We're too much alike.

His hair. I touch his hair, and what do I feel? I interpret tactile sensation on twenty-nine different scales and gauge them against past experience. I can't feel soft, hard, anything. I can't feel it like he can. That's why I hate this body, sometimes. It's like having your own ghost running around. Yes, you can interact with the world, but just barely. I'm not human. I can see the people I care about, I can talk to them, I can help them a little bit... but never enough. I can't feel what they can. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't play, I don't do anything they do. I'm trapped in a world of shadows, shadows of things I wish I was. I wish I was human. Then maybe Dylan would care for me as more than a treasured possession.

He's lying there, broken, and there's nothing I can do. As a warship, I'm used to having a certain amount of power over a situation. I'm used to simply obliterating anything that's a threat, or an obstacle. When I'm in this body, there's so little I can do. As a ship, I can protect him with my body, shield him, lay down my life knowing he'll be safe. It's hard knowing that the instant he leaves me, he's vulnerable. This body goes with him, but it's cold comfort. I know that a stray bullet, a fall, a disease could get him and there'd be nothing I could do. Just like that, he's gone forever. No new body, no resurrection in Harper's lab. Gone. It's hard, knowing you can obliterate planets but you're basically helpless to save the person who means the most to you.

He's waking up. Look at me, Dylan. Look at me. See how I feel.

I'm yours, heart, body, and soul. You just need to reach out.

Look at me, Dylan. Please.

Please.

Look at me, Dylan, I am nothing. I am nothing without you.

He doesn't. He doesn't look me in eye. So I leave, it's getting awkward. Trance is staring. So, I hide. Ship-self can hold the fort a little while. I go to the only place I really consider my own- it's a little bay, off Harper's den. Sometimes, it seems like an abattoir to me, but I have a little corner behind a large particle collider. I put a cot in there, a pillow, a blanket. It's dark, and I can go there and be alone. I pretend to go to sleep sometimes. I pretend, I wait for a sleep that will never come, reach out for a man that will never lie beside me. I remembered the days and weeks and months and years I spent watching him as he slept, hologram reaching out to touch him. Holograms can't feel, and neither can I.

This was much worse. I could touch him, but he didn't want to be touched. I couldn't FEEL him. So I curled up in my corner, pulled the blanket over myself.

Look at me, Dylan. Look at me, I'm nothing.

I could have died, right there. Death, of course, has a lot less meaning to me. It's an abstract concept- destroy the android, it can be rebuilt. Repaired. Part of me wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear into nothing. Part of me urged me to continue being his faithful servant, and just keep doing. He'd notice me one day.

I closed my eyes, cut myself off from the ship. I lay there, and I thought.

Could Dylan ever love a machine?

Could anyone?

Is what I'm feeling love? How would I know?

Why do I care for him so much?

What am I doing?

I barely heard him come in. I didn't even notice he was there until I felt (to the degree that I can experience that sensation) his hand on me. It wasn't even his full hand, just a gentle stroke of the back of his fingers across my cheek. Something was off, I could tell right away. A thumb wiped away tears I hadn't even realized I'd cried. I opened my eyes, expecting Dylan.

It was Harper, just sitting there, looking hurt. My memories of him were recalled, reviewed. He gave me my body. He had been repairing and maintaining me for almost a year, in both forms. Harper defended me after the assassination. He comforted her after Gabriel's betrayal. Looking back on that, I realized just how he had been there for me. He had given me everything he had. And now, he sat here, trying to make me feel better without even asking what was wrong. He didn't need to, I don't think. I could have been crying over not being a flying mongoose, and he would have been doing the same.

It struck me like a bolt of lightning. Harper loved me. I don't know why, but I felt compelled to reach out, pull him close. He sat down beside me, and I put my head in his lap and wept. He just stroked my hair, the entire time. Not a single question, not a word. He held me, stared at me until I stopped crying. We're alike, in that way- we follow our hearts as best we can, no matter how badly they've been broken.

I remembered how I had treated Harper, how he always wanted to be close to me. I wept for him, for myself, for Dylan. I wept as he watched me, and I knew that I was everything to him.

And I'd treated him so badly.

Our fingers intertwined, and I pulled him down beside me. My arms were around his chest as he lay there beside me. I held him until I felt safe again, until he and I both went to sleep.