Oblivion exploded into awareness, and a freshly awakened mind was bombarded by stimuli. Optical receptors/(eyes?) snapped open before reflexively narrowing at the sudden onslaught of light. A limb/(arm?) reflexively rose to shield the front of the central processing housing/(face?). Pressure and texture sensors/(skin?) divested a wealth of information about the movement and temperature of the air, as well as the texture of the cloth that shrouded most of the chassis/(body?). Olfactory samplers/(nostrils?) dilated, taking in the organic esters of humans in a closed space layered over the harsh inorganic scents of disinfectant and latex.
Even as the awakened mind struggled to process those layers of stimuli, more data intruded. Balance gyros/(inner ear?) registered that the body was prone, as well as a slight positioning shift as a foreign weight settled on the edge of the bed. Pressure sensors in the arm registered warmth and contact, followed by pressure as the manipulator/(hand?) was gripped and squeezed by an appendage that was similarly shaped, but thicker and sturdier. Audio sensors/(ears?) registered input, and the central processor/(brain?) converted the input into data. "Curie? Talk to me, please."
The Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer (CVRIE) blinked, and in so doing registered the novel sensation of the soft, fleshy flaps moving down and then back up in a fraction of a second, lubricating her eyes, and reducing the pain from the glare of the brightly lit room. Her eyes focused on the source of her audio input as her CPU support strut/(neck?) turned her head to face him.
Curie processed his appearance, and her limb anchors/(shoulders?) sagged in relief. It was him. Her savior, the human who had freed her from the strictures of her programming that had trapped her in Vault 81's secret lab after the deaths of the scientists she had assisted there. She would never forget his face, the first she'd seen after more than a century of solitude. His skin was pale, indicative of a post-Vault life spent mostly shrouded in a suit of heavy power armor. He had the same short, fine hair she remembered, but Curie frowned to note that there was a patch of gray at the peak of his brow, a brow that was slightly more lined than she remembered. Dark bristles adorned his upper lip and the tip of his chin, and these were flecked with gray as well. Intelligent, deep blue eyes presently surrounded by worry lines gazed deeply into hers, as though he was looking for something.
Breaking his gaze, Curie looked around the room they were in and started in surprise. The walls were pastel-painted metal and free of any dirt at all. The carpeted floor and furnishings were spotless as well. The bed linens were clean and new, and soft enough to indicate chemical treatment in their cleaning, a virtual impossibility in the wasteland. "W-Where are we?" Curie stammered.
"We're safe," he replied immediately. "Curie, can you tell me the last thing you remember?"
Curie's ears detected in his voice notes of worry and… desperation? "I remember Doctor Amari 'ooking me up to the computers in the basement of the Memory Den," she replied cautiously, feeling worried herself. "Were there complications in the memory transfer?"
Because she was looking very closely, Curie saw sadness in his eyes as he shook his head. "No Curie, the procedure went perfectly." He squeezed her hand. "You're going to be fine." In spite of his words, he bowed his head over her hand, and she was startled to feel drops of warm moisture falling onto her skin.
Days Earlier
"What do you mean you can't restore Curie?"
Doctor Amari, like most survivors of the wasteland, didn't frighten easily. In her years in the Memory Den she'd faced down irritated raiders, strung out 'memory' junkies, and Mayor Hancock's hired muscle. Beyond that, she'd quietly opposed the Institute and aided their enemies, never knowing if any given day would be the one that an Institute synth would come to end her life.
Despite all that, Amari felt a moment of fear in the face of the bewildered rage radiating from Raymond Sellers, the Director of the Institute, General of the Minutemen, and all-around savior of the Commonwealth.
"Director Sellers please, calm down." The soothing words came from Doctor Maxwell Loken, the Institute's elderly division head of Robotics.
"Then explain this to me, Max," Ray growled. "First Curie collapses with no warning, days of tests without knowing anything, and now you say you can't help her?"
"We know what happened now," Amari supplied. She swallowed hard before continuing. "You will recall, of course, how Curie as we know her came to be. She started her 'life' as a robotic research assistant built before the bombs fell. She was activated in Vault 81 as part of Vault-Tec's bioweapons and antiviral treatment program. You removed her from that facility, and shortly thereafter you brought her to me, because she wanted to grow past what she was, to gain the human traits of inspiration and improvisation. At that time, I offered to upload her into the body of a synth in the care of the Railroad, one that had been left in a persistent vegetative state after a failed memory wipe."
Raymond nodded shortly, his expression pained.
"The fact that Doctor Amari was able to fulfill your request speaks volumes of her skill, especially given the tools and knowledge base she was working with at the time," Max Loken interjected. "She couldn't have known that the reason that particular synth's memory wipe failed was different than the usual cause."
"What 'usual cause'?" Raymond asked.
"In those days…" Dr. Loken trailed off, his expression was one of regret. Unlike many in the Institute's 'old guard', who had been shuffled off into retirement after Raymond took charge, Max had changed his mind about synths, accepting that they were more than machines. "Back then we regularly updated the firmware designed to prevent the Railroad from reprogramming escaped synths. Sometimes they caught it, but sometimes they didn't and the synth was rendered useless instead of escaping successfully. Doctor Amari and the Railroad concluded at the time that this had happened with Curie's body. In their place, even I might not have noticed the real problem." Amari felt a surge of gratitude to her boss for the cover, though it did little to assuage the guilt she'd felt since realizing what had happened to Curie.
"What problem?" Ray demanded of his Robotics division leader and his second, Amari.
"The fault in Curie's body was not in the software, but the hardware. The memory module built into Curie was flawed. That flaw caused the brain-death of the body's original mind during the memory wipe. When Doctor Amari uploaded Curie into the body the externally induced personality matrix reset the module and purged the corrupted data… but it didn't address the hardware issue." Max sighed. "I'm sorry Director. What happened to Curie last week was inevitable. It's a small miracle that the module held out for all these years before failing a second time."
Director Sellers lowered his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So if you've identified the flaw, why can't you fix it? I've seen you both open up a synth's brain and replace components. Can't you… repair Curie?"
Amari and Loken exchanged a hesitant glance. "We… we can replace the memory module," Amari offered, "and I never deleted the mind and memory templates I took from Curie at the moment of her transfer, but…"
"The data on the original module is hopelessly corrupted, Ray," Max explained gently. "I had Madison take a look at the chip before we came to report to you. She confirmed that it's beyond recovery. I'm sorry."
"So what are you saying?" Ray asked after a moment of silence, and Amari noted the dark bruises under his eyes, reminding herself that the Director had barely slept since Curie's collapse and was undoubtedly fatigued.
"What we're saying is that we can restore Curie's conscious and mind," Amari told him, "but all of the memories she formed in that body are gone, permanently. With your approval we'll perform the surgery…"
"But Curie won't remember anything that happened after we left the Memory Den?" Ray concluded wearily, sighing at Amari's regretful nod. "If that's the only option… then do it."
"Please, do not be crying," Curie pled of her savior as she felt his tears fall on her hand. "The procedure was a success! Everything is bon, oui?" Curie looked around at the strange room again. It was like nothing she had ever seen in the wasteland. It was cleaner even than Vault 81 had been. "Where are we?" Curie asked again.
Raymond wiped his eyes and looked up. "This is the Institute, Curie," he replied gently.
"Mon dieu," Curie exclaimed. "We are captured?"
Ray shook his head. "No, Curie. The Institute isn't the enemy anymore. We're in the synth wing of the Shane Sellers Memorial Hospital." When Curie just stared at him he stood up, still holding her hand. "Let me show you where we are."
Curie climbed out of the bed, her legs unsteady for a moment before she got her balance. Ray led her to a closed door that hissed open as they approached. They stepped out onto a balcony, he in a white lab coat over a dark sweater and slacks and her in a pale hospital gown. Curie stared at the sight before her without comprehension.
The analytical part of Curie's mind stalled for a moment, because what she was seeing didn't make sense. A wide boulevard of smooth new concrete stretched by below them, and there were cars on it. Not the rusted hulks that dotted the wasteland, but freshly painted, new, working cars carrying passengers. Beyond the road was the blue water of the Charles River, free of boat wrecks and debris, hemmed in on the banks by uniform walls of stone blocks held together with fresh mortar.
Those improbable sights, however, paled beside the impossibility sitting on the south bank of the river. Curie had floated through the broken, decaying ruins of downtown Boston just days earlier, had shot her integrated laser at raiders from behind piles of twisted rebar and gazed up with mechanical optic sensors at the crumbling towers infested with super mutants, ghouls and mercenaries. But that post-apocalyptic ruin was simply gone. Most of it appeared to have been torn down, the rubble carted away. New buildings had taken the place of the old ruins. They were not shacks cobbled together from scrap metal and salvaged wood, but stately structures of brick interspersed with taller towers of concrete, steel and glass. Roads edged with sidewalks wove through the new Boston across the river, and there were more cars, as well as pedestrians. The fact that their clothing was new and unstained wasn't as jarring to Curie as the fact that most weren't visibly armed.
"'ow…" Curie stammered, "'ow is this possible?" She turned back to Raymond, and for the first time really registered the lines on his face that hadn't been there when last she'd seen him. "What… what 'as 'appened?"
Raymond's expression was pained when he turned away from the vista to face her. "There's no easy way to say this, Curie. That afternoon you remember in the Memory Den? That was almost twenty years ago."
"Non!" Curie replied in reflexive disbelief. "This is a joke, oui?" She managed a weak smile. "You are 'aving a bit of fun with pauvre little Curie?" Turning back to the impossible cityscape, Curie couldn't deny the truth of her own eyes, and her shoulders sagged. "Twenty years?" The words were a disconsolate whisper.
"So much has happened since then," Raymond continued. "What you see here is Neo Boston, the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You helped me build all of this." He turned to her and gripped her slender shoulders tightly. "You achieved your dream, Curie. You took on human form, discovered yourself, and that was just the beginning. You created so much. You pioneered better stimpacks that preserved thousands of lives. You invented portable radiation scrubbers that let the citizens of the Commonwealth travel without fear of storms from the Glowing Sea. You've helped tens of thousands of people in the last two decades, Curie. Much of this wouldn't be here without your intelligence, your drive and your discoveries. Without having you by my side all of these years, I couldn't have achieved half of what I have." Ray lowered his hands and his head.
"But why don't I remember any of this?" Curie stammered, her mind reeling.
"A week ago you collapsed in the middle of a meeting of the Institute's Directorate," Raymond told her. "God I was scared when you wouldn't wake up. The Commonwealth's finest minds have been working with you since." Raymond took a deep breath. "The part of your cybernetic brain that was designed to store your memories failed, Curie. That's why you don't remember. Doctor Amari has restored the record of your mind she took when she transferred you out of that Ms. Handy chassis, so for you, now, it's like the transfer just happened."
"Mon dieu," Curie murmured numbly. Suddenly her legs wouldn't hold her, and she fell to her knees. Raymond knelt beside her. His arms slid around her, hugging her tightly. Curie buried her face in his shoulder, feeling excess optical lubricant moisten her cheeks and the cloth of his jacket. Her chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe. "What… what do I do now?"
"I've been thinking about that since they told me your prognosis," Raymond replied quietly. "You recorded extensive holojournals over the years. So did our closest friends, and so did I." He leaned back and looked at her seriously. "You are not alone in this, Curie. I'm going to help you get back what you've lost. It doesn't matter how long it takes."
Curie's eyes widened in shock, and she sniffled, wiping away tears before shaking her head. "But you must 'ave so many responsibilities!" She protested. "Surely you 'ave more important things to do than tend to a malfunctioning robot!"
Raymond looked stricken for a moment, but his only response was to hug her so tightly that Curie squeaked in surprise. "Please don't put yourself down like that," Ray whispered in her ear. "You may be a synth, but you're going to be shocked how little that matters now. You're going to find out just how instrumental you were in proving that synths are people, with minds, feelings and maybe even souls."
He drew back, taking her left hand in his and holding it up in front of her. "But even if you weren't important to the Commonwealth, there's no one in this world who is more important to me." He gripped her ring finger, and Curie noticed the metal band around its base. A moment's examination showed her that it was in fact made of platinum, and delicately carved with two symbols. One was a robotic photoreceptor, the other a human eye. Shifting her gaze, she noted that Raymond wore a thicker band of titanium, carved with a power armor helmet next to a 10mm pistol.
"Here's the most important thing you need to know, Curie. I'm not just the General of the Minutemen anymore. I'm the Director of the Institute as well. When members of Parliament want to flatter me, they call me the most important man in the Commonwealth." Raymond offered an earnest smile and kissed Curie's hand, eliciting another surprised squeak. "And you, Curie Maria Sellers… you are the Division Head of Medical Sciences for the Institute – the first synth to be promoted into the Directorate – and you have been my wife for seventeen of the last twenty years."
Curie's jaw dropped, and she just stared. "I… I am what?"
Raymond grinned. "Where do I start, Curie? You're a brilliant doctor. You're probably the most respected synth in the Commonwealth. You're the founder of the first synth party in Parliament. But more than any of that, you're the woman I swore to cherish in sickness and in health for as long as we both shall live. So I don't intend to rest until you know how amazing you are again, and if that means handing off some of my other duties to the people I've been training for decades?" Raymond shrugged. "So be it."
"The seeds of the mutfruit are also the seeds of the improvement to the targeted regeneration offered by the stimpack. No other crop in the wasteland grows as quickly or bears fruit so large. Even after two 'undred years tatos, corn, melons and other staple crops are still far smaller than they were before the bombs fell.
The mutfruit, on the other hand, is actually a descendent of the wild blueberry, and like certain strains of insect life, experienced explosive growth as a result of radiation exposure. Like many crops altered in 'uman prehistory, the mutfruit's increase in size was at first believed to be the result of a kind of cancer in the plant encouraged with selective breeding, but my studies revealed something else entirely. The mutation engendered in the mutfruit is not a cancer at all, but a controlled rapid growth gene that is activated and deactivated in response to the metabolic state of the parent plant.
The Mk.2 stimpacks are now in 'uman trials now and the results are so promising! None of this would have been possible were I still chained to that mechanical body; I started thinking about the properties of the mutfruit while I was eating one with Raymond after the most delightful evening of lovemak-"
Curie smacked the 'pause' button on the terminal with a mortified squeak, looking around her room wildly before relaxing when she remembered that she was alone. Her cheeks still flamed crimson, and she glared at the offending terminal. "Such a dirty girl I become," she lamented under her breath.
Again and again the – supposedly scientific! – audio logs she'd been listening to had devolved into frankly scandalous musings or recollections about sex and sexuality. The earliest journal entries had only touched on her growing attraction to her savior and the private explorations of her new, sensitive, biologically driven body. After the point where she had confessed her growing feelings of attraction to Raymond and discovered to her shock that he returned them, the side notes in the journals became far more explicit – and uncomfortable to listen to!
It didn't help that Curie in the here and now felt a slow stirring of warmth low in her stomach and a flush of her skin listening to those sections of the holotapes. She wasn't at all opposed to the idea that she and Raymond were lovers – and married! – but the past Curie had the luxury of years with him to come to grips with the new urges and demands of her flesh-and-blood body, while Curie in the now was fast-forwarding through that process in just days.
Curie got up from her seat in front of her terminal and crossed the room to the door, making quite sure that it was firmly locked. Then she returned to her desk, sat back down, lowered the volume on the terminal and hit the play button, biting her knuckle and blushing fiercely as she listened to her own voice going into explicit detail about what else had happened the night she started thinking about mutfruit.
Raymond Sellers stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind him in front of a wide plate glass window that looked out over the Institute, which had – under his guidance – reclaimed and rebuilt the old CIT campus and returned to the surface of the Commonwealth. The old Institute with its secure facilities was certainly still in use for the projects that needed a high level of security (or deniability), but more of the Institute's work was done in the light of day every year. Students, faculty and scientists milled about in the courtyard below, some rushing to and from labs or classes, some gathered into groups, talking, studying and sharing information. Other than liberating the synths and returning to the surface, the biggest change Raymond had made to the Institute was returning it to its roots. No longer was it the sheltered enclave of an elite few. The knowledge of the Institute was shared freely with any citizen of the Commonwealth who wished to learn.
On the campus below humans, obvious gray-skinned synths, and the synths of the third and fourth generation who resembled humans perfectly mingled together as equals. Many of the advanced synths shared an identical tattoo, prominently located on the face or the back of the hand. It was a simple motif, three thin black circles in a triangle, each with a different design inside. The first was a smaller, solid black circle connected to the outer ring by thin arched lines that gave it the appearance of the robot's photoreceptor. The second was a ring with a gap at the bottom, resembling the eye of a first or second generation synth. The third was a human eye. It was both the symbol of human-like synths who wished to be known as such, and the logo of the Synth Equality Party Curie had founded shortly after the first Massachusetts Parliament was convened.
Behind Raymond the footfalls of the departing members of the Directorate faded from the board room, and he had a few moments alone before a single set of softer footfalls entered the room. A gravelly cough prompted him to turn with a smile. "Representative Valentine," he greeted the new arrival with a nod and a grin. "I see Ellie still hasn't convinced you to wear a suit." Nick Valentine still dressed like a gumshoe out of a bad pre-war movie, the outfit providing a marked contrast to the flat gray of his skin and the glowing yellow arcs set in his black eyes.
"Yeah, that's never going to happen," Nick shot back. "I like ties, but I've yet to find a suit jacket that doesn't restrict my range of movement. Can't hide a respectable gun under one either. I'll stick with this," he gestured to his tan trench coat. "Ellie won the fight about getting all prettied up for the cameras, but she's not going to win this one." Nick's skin was no longer covered with stains and holes around his neck. He'd given in to a cosmetic procedure to apply a fresh new synthskin to his frame shortly before his wedding to Ellie Valentine less than a year after Raymond and Curie had tied the knot.
Nor was marrying a human the only change for Nick since their days of running firefights with raiders in the ruins of downtown Boston; when Diamond City held its first election to Parliament, Nick had thrown his hat in the ring at Ellie's insistence. He'd been more surprised than anyone when the mostly-human town that had once been terrified of synths actually elected him. He was currently the only synth in Parliament who wasn't part of the Synth Equality Party; he caucused with the Prosperity Party, a centrist group of representatives focused more on economic growth and safety than specific ideologies.
Raymond stepped forward, shaking Nick's hand. "Well, that gumshoe getup makes you easy to spot on the floor of Parliament, at least. How are things going? Are we going to see David around here one of these days?"
A look of pride crossed Nick's mechanical face as he nodded. "He just turned fifteen and he's growing like a weed. In another year he'll be taller than I am. As to schooling…" Nick made a face. "Ellie's delighted with what a good kid David is, but I could do with some more teenage rebellion. He still wants to go into the constabulary and be 'just like dad', but I'll be damned if a bright kid like him isn't going to come here to study once he tests out of high school. He can become so much more than a working stiff with a gun."
Ray chuckled. "You didn't turn out too bad for a 'working stiff with a gun', Representative Valentine. But David will always be welcome in the Institute if he chooses to come."
Like a number of human women in relationships with older model synths, Ellie had come to the Institute for artificial insemination in order to conceive their son, David Valentine. The pair had more recently adopted a young synth girl named Mary. She was a member of the fourth generation of synths, 'grown' to the stage of a young child and designed to age, learn and live organically.
Nick's expression became serious. "So how is Curie doing, Ray?"
Raymond lowered his head for a moment. "We're both trying to stay positive," he said at last. "Her memory loss is… more complete than I had hoped. A human who loses memory due to a traumatic event still gets hints and flashes. Sometimes things come back. Curie has none of that, though. Her memories were all digital, and when her old memory module failed…" Ray's shoulders sagged. "Twenty years of our lives gone in an instant."
"Ray…" deep concern colored Nick's gravelly voice.
"I'm not going to lose hope," Raymond reassured his old friend. "She's going through her old audio logs at a brisk pace, and when she stops it's to dig into the digital newspaper archives of 'Publick Occurrences' and the history databases here at the Institute to learn more about the events referenced in her journals. She wants to regain what she's lost, Nick, and…" Ray exhaled slowly. "Being there with her is amazing and painful at the same time. It's amazing because so much of the woman I love is still there. She built herself up from what Amari transferred into that body once, and I believe she can do it again."
"But it's painful too?" Nick asked.
Raymond nodded. "It hurts because some things we'll never get back. We watched the recording of our wedding last night Nick. I could see her really accepting that we are married, but… everything she felt at that time? All the memories, all the feelings that seeing it again should elicit aren't there, and never will be."
Nick was silent for a moment. "So does she know about Shane?"
Ray nodded. "I told her she was a step-mom as soon as I thought she could handle the news. Her memory stops before I breached the Institute for the first time, so she didn't even know that I found my son, much less that he recreated himself for me on his deathbed." Shane Jr., now an adult in his late twenties, was the last third generation synth ever built, and the only one of that generation designed to grow and age like a human.
Ray ran his fingers through his hair. "To think I'd be grateful that Shane joined Piper and Preston on the expedition to the New California Republic; at least he wasn't here when Curie collapsed and no one knew what was wrong. He's got to be on his way back; the coursers I dispatched will have located him by now."
Nick nodded. "By the way, I'll be in the area for a few days. I'd be happy to pay Curie a visit if you think she's up for it."
"Sure. How about you come over for dinner tomorrow?"
"That sounds good." Nick paused and snapped his metal fingers. "Almost forgot; here." He slipped a holotape from his sleeve and handed it to Raymond. "I collected copies of all the physical and electronic correspondence Curie sent to Ellie and I over the years along with our responses. The physical letters especially she probably doesn't have copies of."
"Thank you, Nick. I'll see that she gets it," Raymond said sincerely, pocketing the holotape.
"No problem. Stay in touch, boss," Nick replied with a wave before departing.
"The fourth generation of synths was a triumph of changing ideas within the Institute as much as it was a technological breakthrough. Their research and then production reflected an acceptance both within the Institute and in the broader Commonwealth that synths are people; that we are citizens and the equals of 'umanity even if we are born in a vat rather than a womb. Young Shane was the inspiration for the fourth generation, but the end result surpassed even 'is design, brilliant as it is.
I am not so arrogant as to believe that I was the driving force behind the creation of the fourth generation. That project was born from the remarkable intellects of Maxwell Loken, Clayton 'oldren and Madison Li. My main contribution was a project that was not even envisioned in the initial design phase. The fourth generation synths are so similar to 'umans that a number of the prototypes – deliberately grown without consciousness, thankfully – were infected by opportunistic bacteria and viruses, and quickly died for lack of an immune system. Creating synthetic analogues of white blood cells and T-cells that the fourth generation frame could produce and maintain took years of 'ard work, but the result… mon dieu, they are perhaps the greatest creation of 'umanity and synths!"
There was a pause in the recording long enough that Curie frowned, leaning forward and tapping a few keys to make sure the terminal hadn't slipped into sleep mode. Glancing around her palatial bedroom in the sprawling residence afforded to the Institute's director, she could hear birds outside and see the green branches of trees waving in the wind through the wide windows. Once the scientists at the Institute were sure she was out of danger and her new memory core was functioning optimally, Raymond had taken Curie home.
"The fourth generation, once produced in sufficient numbers, will be self-perpetuating. The Institute will not have to build more year after year at such great expense! Thanks to Dr. 'oldren's synthetic DNA breakthrough, the fourth generation can reproduce as 'umans do, with any other partner similarly capable; 'uman or another fourth generation, it matters not!"
There was another pause in the recording, but Curie could hear her own breathing and a stylus being tapped thoughtfully on the desk.
"I wonder what the possibilities are for applying some of the fourth generation systems to older models?"
A knock came at the door and Curie jumped, hastily pausing the recording and turning around. "Yes?" she called out.
"It's me, Curie," Raymond's familiar voice answered.
"Oh! Please, come in." The door hissed open, and Raymond entered still in the white lab coat over dark clothes of an academic cut; the unofficial uniform of the Institute's Director. "'ow 'as your day been?"
"Busy. Nick Valentine dropped by to talk."
"Oh?" Curie asked excitedly. "'ow is 'e?"
"Doing great, actually. He dropped off something for you." Ray held up the holotape Valentine had given him. "This is a copy of your correspondence with him over the years; something else to look at when you're ready." Ray paused. "He also offered to stop by for a visit if you want."
"Oh yes," Curie replied, nodding excitedly. "There is so much to catch up on!"
"All right, I'll let him know." Moving next to Curie as she sat at her desk, Ray glanced over her shoulder, taking note of where she was in her review of her old diaries. He sighed when he saw.
Curie frowned. She was slowly relearning the nuances of Raymond's expressions and body language, and he seemed out of sorts. "My-" Curie hesitated, swallowing hard. "My love? Is something wrong?"
Taking her hands, Ray drew Curie to her feet. "You don't have to force it for my sake, Curie. Don't say anything you don't mean just for me."
"But I know that love you," she replied earnestly. "Every word I speak about you in these journals is filled with love, with such caring! When I look at you, now, my thoughts are just as muddled as they were when I was truly new to this body. Whenever you touch me?" Curie pressed a hand to her chest. "My pauvre 'eart goes pitter-pat! Pitter-pat! So fast!" Hesitantly Curie moved closer to Raymond, and she was delighted to see happiness wiping away the lines of strain on his brow. "If this is not love, what is?"
Ray surprised Curie with his swiftness as he took her in his arms, his lips meeting hers. Curie's eyes widened; she thought her heart had been hammering before, but now it wanted to jump out of her chest. The kiss felt so right that a wordless noise of protest escaped her throat when he drew back, looking slightly ashamed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I-"
"I do not recall wanting you to stop," Curie cut him off. She reached up to run her fingers over the stubble on his cheeks, and shivered at the exquisite texture of it. With firm strength she pulled him closer, and kissed him back. "This cannot be wrong," she murmured against his lips when they came up for air. "Not when it feels so right."
"Curie…" Ray murmured, his voice thick with emotion. His arms enfolded her in a warm embrace, and she rested her forehead contentedly on his collarbone.
"I… I will not claim to be as earthy right now as the Curie who recorded this audio diary," she began slowly. "So much I am learning by listening and reading! So much about who I was, so much about what 'appened." She looked up at him. "But some things are learned only by experiencing, by doing, oui?"
Eyes widening slightly, Ray nodded. Hesitantly at first, Curie reached up and grasped the coat he wore, guiding it off of his shoulders. Ray let it fall to the floor, and she could see his muscles shift as he held back from moving, hardly daring to breathe. In an instant of the intuition she had hoped for when she sought to become more human, Curie understood. His love for her was unchanging, but he wouldn't – couldn't – make the first move. Not when she still lacked so much of what she had been before her collapse. Not when even the faintest suspicion remained in him that he would be taking advantage of her.
"You will 'ave to be my teacher once more," Curie murmured softly, "just as you were the first time we made love."
Ray blinked. "How do you know-"
"My journals contained a great deal more than scientific musings," Curie interrupted, her whole face burning. "Mon dieu, such a dirty girl I was, and-" she was interrupted when he kissed her again, passionately.
Raymond was laughing, his shoulders shaking when their lips parted. "You were – are! – quite a dirty girl," Ray agreed with a knowing grin. "I'll have to show you the research paper you published on synth sexuality some time."
Curie blushed fiercely, staring at him. "I what?"
Her reaction and scandalized tone of voice only made Ray laugh harder. "What was the title? I think it was Sexual Response in Synths of the Third Generation: Programming or Acclimation? The gist of it, as I understood, was an inquiry into whether human-like synths possessed sexual desires and drive as an innate function of their brain and body design, or if they were simply socialized to mimic human sexuality as a result of being surrounded by humans. You surveyed other synths for the study, and you even tracked down and studied a number of them who had been relocated by the Railroad." Ray smiled fondly at her. "We argued quite a bit about its publication. I had to fight to convince you to publish the article under a pseudonym. I wasn't the least bit ashamed of being married to a synth, but I'm a public figure too, and there's such a thing as too much information."
"Oh my," Curie murmured at the revelation.
"Such a surprise it was too," Ray's hands slid lower down her back, "finding out just how naughty," Curie stood up a bit straighter as his hands cupped her bottom, "my prim and proper little Curie could be." A startled squeak escaped her lips when he squeezed her denim-clad behind. "Are you sure you're ready, love?" Ray asked, studying her face carefully.
"Very sure, oui," Curie replied, tugging up the hem of his shirt and running her fingers curiously over his warm skin, discovering the occasional old scar. "I am… 'ow do you say? Most eager to learn."
"All right," Raymond said, his fingers finding the top button of the loose flannel shirt she wore, plucking it open before moving on to the next. "Let me show you," he paused to kiss her collarbone, sending a shiver through her slender frame, "everything we learned together… all over again."
"Oh… oh my," Curie gasped as he guided her towards the bed. "Everything?"
Ray chuckled. "Well not all at once. We'll take it slow to start."