This story was written for the fanworks challenge '101 ways to snog en route to a colony' to celebrate GWAddiction's two-millionth hit, which was organized by Psyche and Dracostella. (Thanks, guys!) This fic is archived under Snog 53. It's an alternate universe setting.

Automatic

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"Last boarding call for Flight..."

Trowa looked up at the announcement, but it wasn't their flight yet. So he glanced over at Cathrine, who sat beside him in the crowded spaceport, auburn curls fiery in the direct afternoon sunlight, ankles wrapped protectively around her luggage, immersed in a thick Russian novel. He wasn't aware she knew Russian, but even after living with her for a year, there were still many things about her he didn't know.

She noticed him staring and looked up, smiling. "Our flight doesn't leave for another hour and twenty-three minutes," she told him without consulting anything.

"I know," he said.

"Then what were you staring at?" He made a thoughtful face and she waved him away with a melodramatic sigh. "Ah, you're a weird brother!"

"Why do you keep calling me that?" he said. "We're not related. And besides, robots don't have siblings."

But her fathomless, pupil-less blue eyes just stared back smiling and knowing. "Yes, but you seem like someone who could be my brother. Not in a strict, biological sense like you find in the dictionary, mind you, but in a more sociological or emotional context. Do you understand what I mean?"

He didn't really, partly because he never had seen her as a sister, and partly because her idea of emotions always made his head hurt, but he nodded anyway.

Cathrine watched as they broke through the final layers of the Earth's atmosphere, and the sky changed from blue to violet to black, her face pressed intently against the window. Now it seemed ridiculous, but he had thought that she would have a hard time leaving the Earth. In fact, he was the one with the problem. He already missed the blue sky and one G. "It's fascinating, isn't it?" she asked him, her voice brimming with excitement.

"Yes, it is," he said, and meant it.

"We'll have so many adventures in space, won't we, Trowa? We'll see the towers of Lunar City and the lights of New Hong Kong and get a little apartment above the market. Or buy a freighter and cruise the solar system living one day to he next. Maybe we can find a job showing off our knife-throwing act at a high-end nightclub."

"No. No more of that."

She turned and looked at him. "But I'm still just as accurate. And everyone always loved it."

Everyone always loved her, he remembered with a twang of jealousy. They had made her into a star - that was the problem. Then when people found out she was a robot, they inevitably liked her more, and the admirers sent gifts and letters, thinking a machine was easier to please and harder to break. Or slower to catch on. They didn't care who she was inside, just the Cathrine Bloom she had been manufactured to be. He couldn't bear to see her taken for granted any longer, so he had bought her a ticket.

As usual, though, she figured him out faster than he could himself. She just rarely let on. "I'm not that naïve," she said somberly. "I know why you bought me that ticket. And I'm not sad or angry, so there's no reason not to talk about it."

He flashed her an uncertain smile. "What's there to talk about?"

"Your feelings, for one."

He couldn't think of anything to say, he was too shocked that she had figured him out so nonchalantly, and then she kissed him. He had wanted to kiss her since he first laid eyes on her, so it took him a moment before he remembered to relax and respond. Her lips were soft and gentle, and her mouth warm, wet - even her scent was real, just as he'd always imagined it would be. He stroked the line of her jaw with his thumb, and she seemed to take it as encouragement, because she tilted her head to kiss him deeper.

"See?" she said quietly when they broke apart. He felt his cheeks burning, but she was unabashed. "You're just like a brother, always trying to protect me."

"Do you read minds now too?" he asked with a slight chuckle.

"No," she said, grinning haughtily. "Just hearts on sleeves."

12/17/02
Thanks for reading. :D