TWO

As dawn broke the next morning Castle stood in the kitchen meticulously cutting pineapple into small triangular shapes. He intended the yellow fruit to form the spikey hair on the face he was creating for Kate's breakfast. He used halved grapes for the eyes and a piece of orange for the smile. He'd hoped for a fourth fruit—perhaps a strawberry—for the nose, but he was only able to obtain those three on short notice. Fruits were quite hard to come by those days, as they all needed grown in synthetic environments since farm lands of centuries gone by were no longer viable. As such, consuming great quantities of fruit was not practical, but for that special occasion he made the exception.

The prior evening, after a tense meal during which he found very little joy in his food despite it being delicious, Castle attempted to get Kate to open up more about why she insisted upon leaving. Each one of his tries failed and, in the end, she shut herself in the laundry room, which had always unofficially been her room, since it contained her clothing and charging port—an object that was now meaningless as she had never needed it in the first place.

He left her alone for almost an hour before trying to coax her out once more. He told her that he wouldn't bother her or speak to her for the rest of the evening, but that he didn't want her locked in the laundry either. He offered her the spare bedroom as an alternative, but she refused. When he attempted to speak to her again, he was met only with silence, so he gave up and retreated to his office to think.

Now that he knew Kate was a human woman, he had dozens of questions, but decided that with a little thought he might be able to answer some of them. For example: how old was she? As she was a human, she would age at a rate similar to himself, but he didn't feel he'd seen enough human woman to accurately judge her age. She certainly wasn't a teenager, and very much doubted she was much older than him, which meant she had to be somewhere between twenty and thirty-five, though he guessed she was somewhere in the middle. Most android women were designed to appear around the age of twenty-five, since apparently that was the most attractive age for women, but his gut told him she was probably slightly older than that.

Assuming she was around twenty-eight, that meant she had been a legal adult—and thus would have been tracked by the government—for around a decade. For how much of that time had seen been masquerading as an android? She was far too convincing to have only started when she entered his home two-and-a-half years prior; that simply wouldn't have been possible. He imagined she had been perfecting her android routine for many years before they met—perhaps for that full decade? Or maybe even longer?

That consideration sparked another thought. If Kate pretended to be an android before they met, had she worked a similar job? Had she been a house android for someone? Had that family discovered her true identity? Had they tried to report her? Was that the reason she insisted upon leaving him? Or had something else happened to her?

Being unable to answer any of these questions ate away at Castle's last nerve until he gave up and went to bed around midnight. He lay beneath the sheets, tossing and turning for over an hour before he gave up and returned to his office. He pulled up a new window on his computer and immediately began to make two lists: one, a list of the things he could do or say to convince Kate to stay with him, and, two, all the questions he would ask her after he'd done so.

Just as he put the finishing touches on the fruit face, Castle heard footsteps approaching from the laundry and glanced up to see Kate had finally emerged from her seclusion. "Perfect," he said. "Now I can start the eggs."

"What are you doing?"

"Making us breakfast."

"Why?"

"Because I want to," he replied simply. He picked up the fruit smile plate and walked over to the table where he sat it in front of one of the chairs. He turned towards her and opened his mouth to invite her to sit, but what came out instead was a stammered, "Oh—you—oh!" for there was something very amiss about her face. It took him a moment to fully process what he saw, but then he realized; it was her eyes!

Instead of the glimmering blue android eyes filled with dozens of tiny lenses that enabled the androids to process their surroundings and thus complete their work, Kate's eyes were instead a warm chestnut brown accentuated with flecks of green. This change in eye color altered her appearance far more than he would have anticipated and he knew it would take at least a few hours to get used to.

As he'd been staring at her for nearly a full minute, he lifted his hand and gestured vaguely towards his own eyes saying. "How—how did you?"

"Contact lenses," she answered tersely.

"Right…well, have a seat and dig in."

She looked at the plate he gestured to and then back to him. "I can't eat all that."

"Sure you can—it's delicious!"

She shook her head. "No, I mean I can't; I'll get sick."

He wrinkled his brow as he looked between her and the plate. The quantity of food that made up the smile really as not that great; he hardly doubted an average human would become ill from eating it but—shit—she wasn't an average human, was she? "What do you eat normally?"

"Complete Bars."

Castle audibly gagged at the notion of the brick-like substance that was meant to, as the name implied, provide complete daily nutrition in a condensed form. The bars were mass produced and incredibly cheap, mostly meant for those who couldn't afford the expensive and limitedly available food that was common place in decades gone by. Unfortunately, the bars were also minimally flavored and had a chalk-like consistency. He had only tried one once in his life when he was a teen, but that was enough to remember the horrid texture on his tongue for a lifetime.

"Those are disgusting—that's all you ate?!" he asked with horror.

She gave a little shrug. "Mostly. Every now and then I'd eat a little bit of leftover food, but only…only enough that you wouldn't notice," she added a bit softer.

Castle felt his heart clench beneath his ribs; how sad for her! He wouldn't have minded sharing his leftovers at all—not even a little bit! "Well at least try some of the fruit, okay? I'll eat what you don't finish, how's that?" He anticipated her fighting him a little bit more, but she merely walked over to the table, sat, and nibbled on the orange he used for the mouth. Satisfied with this, Castle returned to the kitchen to scramble their eggs.

"This is…impressive. When did you do all this?"

He shot her an appreciative smile. "It was no trouble; only took me about half an hour." Okay, that was a lie; it had taken over an hour between preparing the fruit and deciding how to arrange it before he actually began slicing and plating, but she didn't need to know that.

"You were up that early?"

"Didn't sleep, actually," he confessed.

She didn't respond, but he was pleased to see that a few minutes later when he delivered two plates of cooked eggs she had eaten several of the pineapple triangles in addition to the orange slice.

"Thank you for all of this, but you don't have to. I'll keep cooking and cleaning until I leave."

Castle opened his mouth to attempt a rebuttal but thought better of it. He at least wanted to enjoy his breakfast before they began to argue again.

After a few minutes Kate left the table, taking her empty egg plate with her, but leaving what remained of the fruit face for him. He continued to eat and thus was not fully paying attention to her actions until he heard her say, "I think there's something wrong with the internet."

"Why do you say that?"

"These websites aren't loading."

He hummed casually. "If you're talking about the android ordering websites it's because I blocked them."

She whipped around looking incredulous. "Why would you do that!?"

He casually stood from his seat and walked closer to her. "Because I don't want another android; I want you to stay. What'll it take to convince you? A salary? Consider it done."

She shook her head. "I don't want money, Rick."

"Then what do you want?"

She shook her head. "Nothing; I just need to go."

"But why?" he insisted perhaps a bit louder than he should have, but he was simply too frustrated; he didn't understand. "I told you I wouldn't tell anyone about you."

"That's not the point. I—I've already been here a long time and it's just time for me to go."

He grumbled, frustrated. "Time for you to go—what does that even mean? Are you saying that even if you hadn't cut yourself yesterday you would still leave?"

She gave a tiny shrug. "I've thought about it a few times over the last few months. Figured it was only a matter of time before something happened and I was caught—and I was right."

"So you've done this before? Pretended to be an android and worked in someone's home?" he asked; she confirmed with the bob of her head. "How many times?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

She shook her head sadly. "Just let it go, Rick."

Castle scrubbed his hands over his face when she walked away. God, she was frustrating—and stubborn. He paced the kitchen for several minutes trying to think of a new approach, when an idea hit him. He didn't love it, but it would buy him more time, and time was what he needed.

He followed Kate to the laundry room where he found her pulling a load out of the dryer. "Okay, let's say you leave here in a few days, find a new home to work in; a new family. You'll go back to being an android twenty-four-seven without ever having a break."

Keeping her back to him, she shrugged her shoulders. "I'm used to it."

"But don't you want a break? A vacation—you haven't had one of those in at least two years, I know that for sure. Stay here—in the guest room. You don't have to cook, you don't have to clean, you don't have to do laundry. Read a book, watch TV, sit and stare at the wall—I don't care. Just stay for a week and don't pretend to be a robot."

For a moment she didn't respond, but then he heard her say very quietly, "I can't."

The tearful sound of her voice clawed at his heart, so he stepped up behind her and placed his hand gently on her shoulder. His attempt at kindness backfired spectacularly when she jumped and collided with the edge of the washer. "Don't; please don't," she pleaded, the tears now replaced with obvious fear.

He stepped back and held his hands out to his sides defensively. "I'm sorry. I was only trying to—I'm not going to hurt you, Kate—or turn you in. I promise."

She glanced back at him briefly and then said, "I've heard that before."

Castle felt his chest constrict as the story began swirling in his mind until it formed a cohesive tale. Someone had found out about Kate's humanity before and promised to keep her secret as he had, only they broke their promise, which was why she insisted on leaving him quickly. He was truly sorry that had happened to her, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was also nothing more he could do to convince her he was trustworthy—not after all the time they'd spent together.

"Please stay the week, Kate. I'll give you your space and let you relax and…and then I'll let you order me another android and you can be on your way. I promise."

She turned back towards him, tentative, a few tear tracks evident on her cheeks. "Promise?"

"Yes, absolutely; I promise."

She stared at him for another few seconds until she rasped out. "Okay; I'll stay a week."

A/N: thank you all so much for your reviews

and thank you to Travis (LordofKavaka) for the new cover art!