Something felt wrong.

Not just in general, but like it was something specific. She just couldn't remember at the moment.

EVE woke up slowly, like she was reluctant, like she hadn't meant to fall asleep. All she could make out were the words across her screen and the blue glow of her LED eyes.

The feeling of cool metal pressed against her own.

She turned to that feeling, knowing, longing.

She pressed her face against the top of the dirty box. It was so familiar.

WALL-E...

God, I love you so much, WALL-E...

EVE checked her internal clock; 2 am. Far too early to get up. Why was she up so early? Well, that didn't matter at the moment. She didn't feel like going back into stasis, so instead she carefully pried herself away from WALL-E. He mumbled something incoherent, but he didn't wake up.

His arms had been out, around her, but his head was tucked inside.

EVE was very quiet as she worked the door mechanism, slipping outside with relative ease. She turned around, flinching when she saw rolling hills full of grass and trees.

Why did that surprise her? For some reason, she was thinking that she would see lands of dirt and garbage towers.

She massaged her head, deciding to think about that later. She flew up a little higher, looking at all the valleys and rivers. The bridge below them was on the verge of collapsing, so renovations were already under way to move their truck to a more secure location. WALL-E of course had been reluctant at first, but Willow insisted that a little change was necessary sometimes, so he obliged.

Still, something felt off.

EVE flew even higher. Almost all the garbage in the surrounding area had been eradicated, replaced by buildings and trees and flowers. She still felt wrong. Nothing around her seemed familiar anymore, it was all strangely foreign.

Things had been like this for almost forty years now. Why did it all seem so new?

EVE stopped her ascent when she caught the sun rising steadily over the horizon. The beams of light cascaded over the land far away, and each dip in the land had echoes of shadows, garbage piles that no longer existed. It was like a scar on the planet, one that would soon heal.

EVE sighed, glancing down at her outstretched fingers. Her metal had once been pure white, but now it was tinted brown, little nicks and scratches covering her body from head to hover. she felt the side of her head, where a tiny scar of a dent was left after her long-ago struggle with AUTO. Her right arm had deep gashes in it from when Shannon Forthright managed to blow it off her body. Then, they had oozed hot oil and molten metal, fried circuit boards, but now it only showed off a faint discoloration. EVE mused that they looked almost like claw marks.

"Evah!"

She flinched, "Ah." looking down, she realized that she had been lost in her own head for hours, and WALL-E was now stumbling out of the truck, wondering where his wife ran off to.

"Wall-E." EVE hurried to him, "Help?"

"Uh..." he shook his head, "I got it, thanks."

She blinked. Oh yeah, he had learned how to talk. How could she forget something like that?

She didn't even see WALL-E leave, but when he came back, his eyes were stern, "Okay, what's wrong?"

EVE found her voice, "What?"

"That whole thing you're doing." he replied, like it was obvious, "Why are you so distant? Why did you speak to me like that? How come you were staring at your hand like fifty feet in the air?"

"A hundred and twelve..." she corrected.

"Just answer the question." WALL-E glowered.

EVE knew she couldn't hide anything from him, so she didn't bother trying. Letting out a hiss of some frustrated noise, she clenched her hand into a fist, trying to find the right words to describe how she was feeling. Instead, she fell flat with a simple, "I don't know..."

"Just tell me, Eve!" WALL-E growled impatiently, "You know I'd never judge you for it!"

"No! I mean I really don't know!" EVE shook her head, "I just feel so odd...it's like I'm stuck in the past! I forgot that you can really talk to me, I forgot that we have a daughter, I forgot that this developing city was right at our doorstep!" EVE glanced away from WALL-E, suddenly not wanting to look him in the eye, "I have no idea what's wrong with me; diagnosis not confirmed."

WALL-E sighed. She hadn't used robot jargon in normal conversation for at least 60 years.

"I'm sorry, okay!?" EVE was frustrated with herself, now, "I just-! I can't-!"

"Slow down, Eve." WALL-E soothed, "It's okay..." he took her hand, making sure their fingers were laced, "Durr-reck-tive."

EVE's eyes widened, then they relaxed, "That sounds just like..."

"It's still me..." he continued, "Just like I've always been...just like I always will be..."

EVE closed her eyes into tiny crescent-moon shapes, using her other hand to cover her face.

"Evah?"

"Hm?" she looked up at him. His eyes reflected understanding.

"Do you think you had a bad dream?"

A bad dream, "What do you mean? I don't really dream."

"I know you don't, but I dream, sometimes." WALL-E shifted his fingers so he was holding her thumb, "And then when I wake up, nothing feels quite right anymore."

"That...could be it." EVE conceded. Something she knew about dreams were that they were disorienting. They warped your view on reality so when you come out of them, something feels kind of off for awhile.

"Anyway, you have work in an hour. Want me to walk you?"

"Uh, not today. Thank you." she just needed to be alone right now, "I'll see you? At five?"

"As usual, my queen."

EVE gently shoved him to hide the blush, "You don't have to call me that!"

"Bye, Eve!"

"Hey!" she watched him zoom off into the sunrise, giggling like he didn't have a care in the world.

She laughed too, but the laughing slowly faded until she was frowning. She still felt weird.

Did she dream? And if so, what did she dream about?