Originally this was supposed to be a bunch of one shots, but then I realized I could stuck them together.
Chapter one: Good kitty
Bob was heartbroken. It had been ten whole seconds since the wedding, and it was just sinking in. All of the pain was more than he bare, and yet, he still loved Dot. The guardian sat quietly on his couch. Mike was probably out getting more interviews. The silence was nice- it gave him a chance to think.
How could Dot propose to him and then marry his copy? They were engaged. She had asked him. Didn't that mean anything to her? He was willing to dedicate the rest of his life to her. He trusted her to do the same.
For better or worse, till deletion do them part...
"You can't do this, Dot." the guardian could hear his voice again as he thought of that moment "I love you."
"I'm sorry."
She was definitely sorry now, but Bob wasn't ready to take her back. He needed to be able to trust her before he could do that. But he trusted her then. How could he ever trust her after that?
But he wanted to. His heart ached for her. He still loved her, even what she did to him.
The sound of meowing got his attention quickly. Scuzzy was sitting by his feet. The guardian got angry. He was extra gentle as he picked up the cat. After Bob was stupid enough to almost kill himself just to separate from Glitch, Megabyte had not only moved in with Dot, but he was cruel enough to kick Hexadecimal's cat out of the guardian's apartment. What was the point in that? If he wasn't going to be there, what harm was Scuzzy going to do to anything?
Someone should have noticed how strange that was, but apparently they somehow thought kicking out a helpless cat after his owner died was something Bob would do.
"Good boy, Scuzzy." Bob said, placing the cat in his lap and petting it. The cat purred happily. Bob smiled. At least someone still loved him. "Very good boy."
The cat got down. Bob smiled- the cat was as fickle as its owner, but even when her mask cracked, they still loved each other. They loved their guardian too.
Bob's eyes widened at a thought. Hex loved him after everything they had been through. She was a virus. He was a guardian. They were supposed to be enemies, yet when she kidnapped him when he first got back to find Mainframe in ruins, she didn't even go so far as to threaten him until after he insulted her. She didn't attempt to go through with her threat until his hand got close to her mask.
Just now he understood why she grew her claws out at his hesitation; her mask was her weakness, and he had already hurt her once.
He tried to see it from her point of view- she had innocently made the town pretty for people who hated her in an attempt to gain their positive attention, and he lied to her, taking advantage of the fact that she trusted him, and ripped her face off in return. He made her put up with Mike, adding constant annoyance to her already painful recovery.
And when her dear brother helped her send him away to the Web after what the protector of Mainframe had done to her, she couldn't even trust her family.
She had been so casual when she had explained their relationship.
"He's my brother!" She was so happy, almost proud. For a nanosecond they forgot the danger they were in.
"But you're always trying to kill each other!" Bob tried to make sense of it.
"Oh, that's just sibling rivalry."
She believed it. Somehow she believed that it was just sibling rivalry and that Megabyte loved her somehow. She believed it enough to think that she could just walk away after Megabyte saved her life. Even after all the times they had tried to kill each other, she trusted her brother.
She trusted Bob too before she was forcefully merged with Megabyte. Who knows what that monster of a brother said to her to make her turn on Bob?
And yet, she was happier than anyone else when Bob came home, even after how he hurt her. If only he had seen that sooner.
After everything came to an end and started again, she eventually came back more beautiful than ever, just like the rest of the world.
Hex tried so hard to get his attention. She would have done anything for him. She gave her life so he could live.
After Dot and Matrix had made it clear that they still didn't trust her, she saved them too. She could have let Dot die. Dot was the competition. Dot hated viruses, and she had every right to after what had happened, but when Hex tried to be her sister, almost the entire family rejected her. Enzo tried, but he wasn't allowed to be her friend, even after she used her powers to bring their father back.
And she gave Enzo the power to have him back again. She didn't have to do that. She could have just left, but she didn't. He was the only one in the family who was nice to her, and she rewarded the entire family for it.
Hex was wonderful. She was so forgiving and generous, even as a virus. She wasn't what everyone thought she was. She was the benign virus he kept insisting existed, and he hadn't even noticed. She had always caused just enough to keep herself amused. If only she had a few friends to keep her amused, but all she had were Mike and Scuzzy, and she hadn't known Mike very long.
"Guardian." he heard her voice. Tears raced to his eyes. He missed her so much. "Bob." The voice was louder this time. Bob couldn't stop the tears from falling down his cheeks. It was so realistic. "Megabyte!"
Bob jumped to his feet. It wasn't a memory- Hex's voice was calling out to him. He looked around frantically, eager to save the day and scoop her thin, intimidating yet fragile-looking body into his strong arms.
"Hex, I'm here! It's me. The real me. I'm Bob. I'm not Megabyte! Where are you?"
"Guardian." The voice was calm again. Bob looked in it's direction. Scuzzy was sitting in front of the guest room door, looking at him, smiling at him. Hex's face was on the screen; Scuzzy was playing a recording. "Guardian."
"Scuzzy!" Bob scolded as he walked to the door. He had let cat in there so many times. It should have been easier to just leave the door open, but Bob couldn't handle seeing inside. Technically it had Mike's room, but the television didn't use it much, so he had just let Hex use it during her short time as a sprite. "What have I told you about using Hexadecimal's voice to get my attention?"
"Guardian." Scuzzy jumped in excitement, turning to face the door
Bob stopped in front of it and crossed his arms. Scuzzy had to be trained. "I don't think so." The cat looked up at him. "You have to stop using recording to get my attention. I'm not going to open that door for you unless you start asking like a normal cat."
The cat rubbed against his leg. Bob gave in. He looked away as he opened it, not being able to bare seeing the condition it was in. But as he started to walk away, Scuzzy bit down on his pants leg.
"Scuzzy!" Bob scolded in surprise. The cat continued pulling him towards the open door. "I don't want to go in there. Let go." Scuzzy didn't listen. Bob got louder and kept walking, pulling the cat across the room with him. "Scuzzy, I told you to let go of me." The cat was being stubborn. Even the sound of Bob's pants ripping wouldn't get the cat to let go. "Fine, I'll go in there." Bob gave in, not wanting anymore more damage done to his uniform.
If Hex had been there to fix it, Bob wouldn't have minded letting Scuzzy rip his clothes. Hex was great with sewing up any damage the cat managed to cause, and Bob had gotten attached to the cat. It wasn't the first time Scuzzy had torn holes in his pants. The cat didn't know any better. The guardian had made sure to take time out to play with him while Hex was there. This was allowed before, so of course Scuzzy wouldn't understand what he was doing wrong.
Scuzzy rushed into the room and immediately started playing with the curtains, harmlessly slapping them with his tail.
Bob took a deep breath before going in. It wasn't perfectly clean, but it wasn't exactly cluttered either. The bed still hadn't been made and there was a nightgown and some art supplies on the floor. The guardian grinned. Hex used to lay on the floor and paint; what a cute quirk.
He sat down on her mattress. Mike didn't need anything more than a beanbag next to a recharge station. She didn't even have a real bed, but Hex didn't complain. She would have sleep on the floor if it meant staying close to the guardian of Mainframe. She was so protective of him after he gave her an icon.
Bob noticed something folded up on her pillow. It was probably a sewing project she would never get to finish. He looked away. Watching Scuzzy was comforting, but curiosity got the better of him. If it was an incomplete project, Bob needed to put the sewing needle where Scuzzy couldn't get to it.
He unfolded it slowly. He had seen the pink fabric before, but he wasn't sure when.
It wasn't an art project. It was a cheap, short sleeved nightgown he had picked up for her shortly after she moved in with him. There was a white cat on it with the words 'You've cat to be kitten me right meow'. It barely touched her knees and did a good job of covering her collar bone.
Bob teared up again as he clung to it. This was his favorite thing to see her in. Either she had been sleeping with it or she was planning on wearing it the night she died. Her cat jumped onto the bed next to him and nudged his elbow. Bob sniffled and looked down at the cat.
"Good boy, Scuzzy." Bob looked at the nightgown. It didn't fit her as perfectly as her other one, but it always looked so good on her. "I miss Hex." Scuzzy crawled into the guardian's lap and started playing a recording of Hex baking a cake. "Thanks Scuzzy." Bob sighed "It's not the same though." Losing Hex and then being betrayed by Dot was too much to bare. He tried to distance himself; after all, it seemed to help Dot get through things. "I wonder what Dot is doing right now."
The cat gave him angry face before jumping down. Without a sound, the cat slowly walked out of the room.
But Bob couldn't bring himself to leave. This had been Hex's room. She had done so much for him, and he had been way too focused on Dot and Daemon to appreciate the cause of her efforts. He thought about how willing she had been to help him, despite her programming. Her last wish from him to be happy. She asked only one thing of Dot- to take care of him.
And yet, Dot was getting married while he was dying. She claimed to not know how bad it was. Apparently falling from that height and being encased in that whatever it was didn't seem like a red flag to her.
Loud meowing interrupted his thoughts again.
"Not now, Scuzzy."
The meowing continued.
"No."
It got louder.
"Scuzzy, whatever you want can wait a nano. I've got a lot on my mind right now."
The meowing ended. Bob sighed. Maybe he was being too hard on the cat. Scuzzy had lost lost Hex too, and there was no telling what Megabyte did to him while there was no one to protect the animal. It was helpless, so Bob thought. The poor thing was just a lap cat who happened to have a monitor on its head. He needed the guardian to protect him.
Bob's thoughts were once again interrupted by a familiar sound. Unfortunately, this was not the sound of helpless cat. Someone had opened a door, and the sound seemed to be coming from the living room. Who would enter without knocking, other than Mike?
But this was not Mike. Mike always needed a grand entrance. Whoever this was made no other sound.
Maybe that was why Scuzzy was meowing; someone had been approaching the door and the cat had been warning his guardian.
Bob rushed into the room and looked around. The room was empty. Not even Scuzzy could be seen, but the cat could be hiding under the couch again. Bob ran to the door and saw his cat walking down the hallway by himself.
"Scuzzy." Bob was firm. He inwardly reminded himself to be gentle with the small animal. The cat turned around. Bob was much calmer now. "Did you open this door?"
The cat grinned.
"So all this time you could open doors for yourself, and made me do it for you?"
The cat turned back around and started calmly walking away.
"I don't think so."
Bob walked a little faster than the cat. Scuzzy got faster. Before long the guardian of Mainframe was chasing the cat through the apartment complex. Scuzzy barely managed to make it into an elevator while the doors were closing.
Bob gave up and went back to his apartment.
Meanwhile, the Super Computer had a surprise for him. Turbo had put what he could of the Collective to hard work tracking down fragments of a certain virus's code.
It was hard to tell how close she was to deletion. There wasn't a lot of information on the health of viruses since most of them were sent to immediate deletion instead of studied. She wasn't flickering, but she could have been the kind that was used for scrap metal. Her mask was shattered, with no mouth and empty eyes sockets. It was amazing that the pieces didn't fall. From what little he had cared to hear about this virus, Turbo knew that this was a bad sign.
"I never thought I would have to thank a virus." The Prime Guardian looked at her shattered mask "Bob was right; you are worth saving." He looked at the armed medic next to him "Let's keep her under observation for a few more seconds. I don't want Bob to see her in this condition unless it's absolutely necessary."