I don't own Metropolis or its characters.

Last in Chapter 3: The Truth Revealed

He blushed but he hoped that his sunglasses blocked it. He wasn't used to acting or feeling like this. "Well…don't expect an apology ever again" he said firmly, trying to back up his kindness and make it seem like no big deal. There was a discomfited silence, but Tima decided to break it with a subject change.

"Umm…Rock?" Tima asked. "Yeah?" he answered. "Do you have anything to eat? I'm starving!"

Chapter 4: From Bad to Worse (Theoretically Speaking)

Now that Rock thought about it he was pretty hungry. He hadn't had a full course meal in days, but he wasn't about to say that he was hungry too. "I don't have any food, but I have a good idea where we can get some," he said as he walked over to her. Rock touched her arm to get her attention. "Can I trust you not to run away from me the first chance you get?" he asked.

"Can I trust you not to shoot me?" she said smiling slightly.

It had been a month and Tima had tried to escape before, but now it was more like a game to them, it gave them something to do that kept the day exciting. He nodded firmly and then she said, "Then you can trust me not to run away. Do you have any money to buy food?" Rock smirked slightly after she said this. She knew the answer anyway but he humored her.

"Of course not, about the only thing I got out of my job was killing robots, besides, even if I did it would be gone by now." He said starting to walk away from her.

"Hey wait for me Rock", Tima called, running slightly after him.

As they walked, questions started to flow into Tima's head and she knew that Rock was the only one that could give her answers. She didn't know why she never asked before, maybe because out of all their conversations the question never popped up till now.

"Rock?" Tima asked looking at him as they walked.

"Hmm?" he mumbled.

"If I was a robot…would you have killed me in the beginning?" she asked quietly, starting to wonder if it was wise to bring the subject up.

He sighed, "I thought we were finished with that." he said, slight frustration in his voice. She went silent after he said this.

"If I was myself I would've killed you in the beginning if you were human or not", he thought to himself.

He glanced over at Tima and noticed that she looked rather sad. "By the way you were acting when I first met you…I was surprised you didn't kill me when you had the chance… are you so cruel that you think you have the right to befriend me…then change your mind and kill me…?" she said, trying to hid the pain in her voice. The thought had just now hit her and when it did she realized that he was probably capable and was doing that to her. He stared at her, surprised by her sudden outburst.

"Tima you should know me well by now, I wouldn't kill you now…because…you're…I…" he started; now thinking of the word. He knew the word, but he just couldn't remember what it was.

They both stopped. Tima looked at the ground, her hair covering her eyes and her hands in fists at her sides. Tima's words had hit him hard and he now realized that in the future she was probably going to be put in a situation like that if he wanted to or not. Tima had changed him so much after only being with him for a few weeks. He never put feelings or emotions into his thoughts before he did anything until she came along. Rock had learned how to numb those feelings after losing everything and everyone he could ever care or love about, but now they were leaking out of the area where he had hid them in himself. The feeling he felt for Tima…it could only be…

"…" A small sniffle brought him back to reality and out of his thoughts. He looked at Tima sadly, noticing the tears rolling down her cheeks that he knew she was trying to hold back and she looked up at him, fury in her eyes. "You were going to do that weren't you? Weren't you!" she asked, her voice shaky. He knew she was close to screaming at him.

"Strange…I'm the one that triggers her sadness and anger when she does get upset." he thought sadly. Suddenly Tima slapped him across his face, taking him off guard and knocking off his sunglasses. Then she ran away as fast as she could.

"Tima! Wait! I told you that I wouldn't do that!", Rock shouted after her as she took off. He quickly grabbed his sunglasses off the ground and ran in the direction she took off in. By then she was gone.

Rock sighed, put his sunglasses on then pushed them up on his head, and rubbed his cheek a little bit. It was already starting the swell slightly and a red hand print stood out across it.

"Why am I the victim here?" he said aloud as he started searching for Tima.

Snow still fell as Duke Red's car came to a stop in front of the hospital. Kenichi liked to visit his uncle often, at the moment he was staying in an apartment that the Duke paid for, but everyday the Duke would take him to see his uncle because it was so far from the apartment complex.

At first he was suspicious of the Duke, could tell there was something off about him. Every time he saw Kenichi, he would ask if he had come in contact with Tima. Today the Duke seemed distracted and not interested in the least of what Kenichi had to say, but he paid no mind. He only looked forward to seeing his uncle. Sometimes Kenichi would stay there for hours at a time.

Kenichi got out of the car and he closed the door. Then he ran to the entrance of the hospital and the automatic doors flew open as he ran in. He was in the lobby.

The truth is that they had moved his uncle, they had called and told him, but they hadn't told him what his new room number was. He walked up to the check in desk where he found a young girl in nurse clothes; she couldn't be older than seventeen. It seemed like she hadn't noticed him standing before her, she was too caught up in reading Teen Magazine and chewing bubble gum. "Umm…excuse me." Kenichi said. He looked at her nametag which said her name was Anne Morgan. "Excuse me Miss Morgan, but could you tell me where I can find Shunsaku Ban?" he asked.

After a few moments of silence Kenichi started to wonder if she had heard him. He was about to repeat his last question. Without looking up from her magazine she pointed to a computer. "Go look it up, I don't get very good pay as it is and I'm not going to play secretary when I need to catch up on my reading." she said, pulling the gum out of her mouth and switching it with Pocky, a Japanese snack.

Kenichi walked over to the computer. On the screen it said, "Welcome to The Metropolian Hospital! Please type in the name of the person you are looking for in the blank below. Thank you for using our computers!" Kenichi typed in his uncle's name and a second later the screen showed his uncle's room number and what hall he was down.

Shunsaku, Ban
Room number: 777 on hall: D7

It was a very big hospital so he printed a copy of the information so he wouldn't forget it. There was a map of all the rooms, floors, and halls on the wall of the lobby. A look of confusion suddenly popped on Kenichi's face.

"This place is so big…where am I supposed to find Uncle Shunsaku…?" he asked himself, a little annoyed by all the maps. There were at least fifteen floors that patients where on because there were fifteen maps. He looked at each one carefully, looking for the hallway D7. By the time he found it he thought at least ten or fifteen minutes had based. Kenichi's uncle was on floor fourteen. He was starting to get frustrated though because there weren't any elevators in the lobby. He walked out of the lobby and looked down a long white hallway.

"What in the world?" Still no sign of the elevators, so Kenichi ran to the end of the hallway and upon reaching the end of the passage he finally found them.

"Finally", he said with a sigh of relief. Kenichi walked over to the elevators and pushed the "UP" button. There were hardly any people around because the hospital in Metropolis was pretty expensive.

The elevator door opened and Kenichi step inside. There were actually twenty floors. "Maybe, the other floors are for x ray machines and stuff like that", Kenichi thought to himself.

He pushed the button that said fourteen. The elevator started to go up. In a few moments Kenichi was on the fourteenth floor and was looking for the D7 hall. It took him a full five minutes to find it. He walked down the hall and found his uncle's room. Kenichi opened the door and saw his uncle sleeping in the bed. Walking over to a chair that was next to his bed, Kenichi decided to sit in it. As he began to relax he realized how tired he was. After closing his eyes, he was asleep in minutes. His uncle would wake up soon anyway.

Tima was sat in an alley and sighed. It had been at least an hour since she ran from Rock. "I just need some time to think", she thought to herself. Her stomach rumbled and she frowned a little.

"Quiet tummy", she whispered and patted it gently. "Why did you do that", she said to herself. "Rock was about to get you some food and then you start to think about what might happen, don't do that anymore", she sighed after she said this. "I guess I should look for him…he'll probably threaten to kill me or something." she said and laughed a little after she did. "If he does I won't be surprised." she giggled. Tima got up and went on her search for Rock.

Rock had actually found Tima not to long after she settled down in the alley. He decided to let her find him, or was it because he was used to the game of cat and mouse? He smirked a little.

"A small innocent joke should be okay, about the worse she can do is take my gun and try to shoot me", he thought to himself as he watched her silently. Then again he wasn't sure if he should chance her getting his weapon again…even though she never had a gun in her life, she was becoming a better shot each time she got a hold of his weapon. Rock pushed the thought out of his head and couldn't help but chuckle as he watched her talk to herself. When she got up he was ready. He wasn't in the alley, just against the wall that was next to its entrance. Rock held up one of his hands and made it look like a gun.

"Anyway", he thought, "this'll give me a good laugh at least." Tima started to walk towards the only way out of the alley, which was where he was. When she was at the perfect spot he jumped out put his finger inches from her face and said loudly "bang!"

The second Rock had jumped out Tima froze and screamed when he said "bang". The alley was dark so Tima didn't know that the guy was Rock. She screamed for several seconds and just as she was about to turn to run away, Rock grabbed her by her shoulders, laughing at how funny it all was. Tima was trying to get out of his grip.

When she started to hit his arms he said,

"Tima! Tima calm down it's me!" She stopped immediately, he let go of her shoulders, and she stared at him in utter shock. Rock laughed at this because this whole thing was just so funny to him.

"You idiot!" she said, after she over came the shock. "You scared the hell out of me!" she almost screamed it.

Rock was still laughing so hard his stomach was aching. "You're too much! This is just so funny!" he said between laughs. Tima looked rather annoyed, one of her eyebrows slightly twitching.

She said, almost calmly "If you don't stop that right now, I'm going to hurt you." This made him laugh even more and Tima just stared, and then started to laugh herself. Rock stopped laughing and just looked at her because she was still laughing.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

She caught her breath and said, trying not to laugh "It's just that...you always look so serious...and then just a while ago you're dieing of laughter...now that's just funny!" she finished and started laughing again.

This time he was the one with an annoyed look on his face, and one of her eyebrows slightly twitching. That was just mean…but he wouldn't let her know that such a trivial think hurt him. He said, almost calmly, but with a hint of annoyance in his voice

"If you don't stop that right now, I'm going to eat all the food right in front of you and talk about how good it is." Tima stopped in mid-laugh, and that alone almost made him have a laughing fit again, but he held it in.

"Alright I know exactly where we can get food." Rock said as he began to walk. Tima walked next to him.

Rock rubbed his arm where Tima had hit him, she could really hit hard when she wanted to. He stopped when Tima looked at him. "How can we get food anyway?" she asked curiously.

"Do you remember that hotdog stand you ran by when you and that boy were running from me?" he asked her.

She nodded, "A little bit" she said "but it's kinda hard to notice anything when you're on the run, and that was so long ago." He glanced at her from behind his sunglasses, not meaning to stare but not being able to help it. What was wrong with him? They're having a serious conversation and all he can do is stare at her. Tima looked up at him, he having an extra two feet in height to her.

"Rock?"

He walked ahead of her slightly, trying to regain his composer.

"Rock? What's wrong?" he continued talking as if the incident didn't happen.

"You're going to do a little acting so I can grab the stand", he said and smirked a little.

"Me? Act?" she said in bewilderment. Rock nodded. "If you want to eat then yeah, faint in front of the stand or something." He said as they walked up some stairs. Tima decided to let what happened go, knowing that Rock didn't recognize she could read him like a book.

Before she knew it they were near the hot dog stand. Rock took off into a crowd of people and then Tima saw him behind the hot dog stand. Tima walked over to the fat man that owned the little hot dog stand. She cleared her throat and said as loud as she could

"AHHHH!" she screamed and pointed at the guy that owned the stand, "he touched my breast!" Rock managed to hold back his laughter and just grin. He could laugh about it all he wanted after they were through.

"How the hell did she think of that?" he asked himself. Right after Tima had said that men came out of nowhere and grabbed the fat man.

"Wait a second! I don't know what she's talking about!" the fat man shouted as they dragged him away. The hot dog stand was the kind that could be pushed around like a grocery basket. Tima went next to Rock laughing so hard she could barely stand and then Rock started laughing too as they took off with the stand as fast as they could back to the lab. When they finally got there, out of breath and grinning at each other, they started to laugh again.

"How the heck did you think of that?" he asked between laughs.

"I don't know" she gasped "it just came to me", she answered, still laughing. After a few minutes they stopped laughing and caught their breath. They both stared at the hot dog stand in awe.

"It took awhile but we finally get to eat", Rock said opening the container the hotdogs where in. Both of them stuffed themselves with hot dogs and by the time they were done eating it was dark. They were both very tired after the long day. Tima yawned and laid down, curled up a little.

"Goodnight Rock…" she murmured as sleep took over her. Rock laid down about three feet away from her

"Goodnight Tima…" he whispered quietly. "Being around her should never get boring…" these were his last thoughts before he let sleep take its course.