Unnamed Chapter (3)
Hal and EVE arrived home and announced that they didn't find anything. They would look again tomorrow, and maybe bring some more people with them.
Way back, she was looking forward to sitting next to WALL-E in his truck and falling sleep together. But now she couldn't do that, so she had asked where she was to stay. The Captain found himself gazing at the Axiom, at his quarters where the broken Auto lay.
"Actually, EVE, do you think you could do me a favor?" The Captain had asked.
EVE wearily nodded.
"Auto is still turned off in my quarters. Bad as it sounds, no one wants to go up there and retrieve him. There's no way he could do anything, but we're still kind of in shock of everything, I guess." He paused, and allowed EVE time to think about this. "Do you think you could go up there and grab him, bring him down here, and then I'll find you someplace to rest up there?"
She'd hesitated. Then asked, "Morniinngg?"
The Captain frowned slightly. "Well sure. But where are you going to sleep tonight, then?"
She looked around her, and then shrugged. I'll find something.
"Well alright then, EVE. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
She nodded again, and slowly turned toward the open land ahead of her.
"Oh, EVE. One more thing."
Her eyes were half closed. She just looked at Captain McCrea with a blank, unenthusiastic expression on her face.
The Captain's voice was gentle, but also serious. "If you ever need anything call me, ok? If you need to talk I'm here, and I'm sure there are some other robots who would also want to help you."
She looked toward the rejects. They were busy helping people build makeshift huts, some looking excited, others looked depressed.
M-O stood back and supervised it all. When he saw EVE looking at him, he just nodded sheepishly and waved.
She didn't have the energy to wave back; she just blinked.
M-O looked embarrassed and pretended to run after a patch of unclean trash.
EVE knew she would have laughed, had everything been alright.
But it wasn't. She turned back to the Captain and promised him she would.
He looked very relieved, but concern still brought a certain glare to his eyes. "Thank you EVE," he said. "See you in the morning."
She just nodded once, then turned around and left.