Tomorrow

V awakened in the dark.

He was uncertain at first what had happened. The dazzling light of the lunar tears; the cold, starlit dark of the night kingdom… This place was neither. Sweat seeped through his clothes as he lay on his back on an uncomfortably ridged floor, his eyes adjusting to dingy light that revealed a scuffed and stained ceiling over his head.

He sat up slowly. The air itself was warm and the heavy layers were only managing to overheat him after so long in the bitter cold. He peeled them away one by one. The cloak. The coat. A hideous sweater. All the way down to the once-white Resistance shirt that had become stained with blood and oil. He wiped his face with it anyway. Not like he could get dirtier.

Bootsteps approaching at a busy trot made him freeze.

"Ay, dinner's up! Truck'll wait, unless you want me to eat your share."

That drawl…

The truck clanked beneath him. "More power to you if you can eat the whole pot."

In the scope of his life, he'd heard that voice so briefly, yet the magnitude of hearing it again was enough to return V to the heights of the qliphoth. To Vergil, leaving a book as a lifeline back to someone he hoped to see again. Promising as he spoke of business unfinished. In riddles, always riddles. How much easier it would have all been if Vergil could say what was on his mind. How easy it would be, in theory, for V to throw the door open and see the face of the one who carried him when he could no longer walk to the place where he could become whole again.

It didn't matter what he was. Whether Vergil might think of him as a ghost or some echo of him that shouldn't be suffered, it didn't change that he was himself. It didn't change that when V first thought of where he should return to—when he first wondered if there was a place for him to go, Vergil was not what crossed his mind.

It was this truck. It was that voice.

It was Nero.

"If you didn't drive this thing like a stunt truck, we wouldn't have to fix it so much."

"Please, my drivin' kills! Demons, anyhow. You wanna call a cab, feel free."

"Least I know it'd be on time!"

The already dim light flicked off. "Don't keep Kyrie waitin', punk."

Nero clicked his teeth and grumbled. There was a noisy rattle as the garage door closed. His steps thumped at a half gallop across the stone floor and he passed through the inner door. A faint click signaled he'd locked it behind him.

Once he was sure he'd be alone, V gingerly stepped out into the garage.

It had been right here, hadn't it? That he'd first met Nero.

He was an intruder once more, though this time it wasn't by any intention of his own. It would be best that they didn't meet again under the same conditions but raising the garage door would have caused an unmissable racket and entering the house would probably get him killed on principle. Perhaps he'd grown used to the mundane peace the other world offered him when it wasn't exploding. Or at least he didn't feel like dealing with the kind of chaos he couldn't end with a timely stab. Either way, he desired the minimum possible disturbance.

He climbed back into the van with fingers squeezing reflexively for a cane he no longer possessed. A crumpled lunar tear glowed feebly from the shed bundle of his clothes. He used the light to look around, grounding himself with the presence of mundane objects that felt new after so long in a world that had nothing like them.

Sticky notes, magazines, and photographs of people he didn't know. Unsmoked cigarettes and full ashtrays atop a jukebox. Nico's workshop was still crowded with devil breakers. Some Nico had developed when V was last there, while others seemed to be brand new creations. There was even one half-built on a rack, sitting like a model ship out of its bottle. The artisan had been hard at work.

With Shadow's sturdy form passing beneath his fingers to steady him, he made his way to the front and slumped into the passenger seat. His body felt heavy again. Fragile. Pain wrapped slender, sinuous fingers around his spine, and he trusted there would be more when the war he'd survived truly settled and scarred into his bones. His eyes fell naturally through the window, to where he'd left Nero in a pool of his own blood. Sharp as the regret was, the event itself felt like multiple lives ago. With every breath, the expanse between then and now unfurled in time with exhaustion that settled over him to replace the heaviness of the winter clothes he'd shed.

Sitting the lunar tear atop the dashboard, something caught his eye. A familiar gold embossment. The book. His book.

So, Nero had kept it close at hand.

For a long time, V stared at the flower's gentle light and the worn leather, breathing in cigarette smoke, gunmetal, and stale food while rubbing thumb over index finger against his dog tags as if they were rosary beads. Sweat laid a shining net over his skin as his head drooped against the glass. He had no idea when it was; he hadn't bothered to examine the calendar.

But as he drifted off, for some reason he was pleased by the thought that it might be summer in Fortuna.

The dreamless dark split almost as soon as he'd relaxed into it, cut in half by the screech of the garage door and fully eliminated by the morning light. Squinting, V spied a cobblestone street glistening in dusty orange. Nero exchanged pleasantries with some elderly passerby, lazily shifting his weight and crossing one arm to hold onto the stump of the other. A faint blue shimmer, fine as strands of spider silk catching the dawn, trailed in feathered patterns from his shoulders.

A yawn sounded out of V's view. The truck shook and someone climbed inside.

"Now what in the gotdamn…" Ah. Nico. "Nero! If you're gon' work late, least you could do is not leave your stanky clothes all over the place!"

"My what?" V caught the flash of apprehension in Nero's eyes as he bounded past. The way his wings solidified to a sharper, more solid blue. It stung more than V thought it would and was precisely why he didn't want them to meet again here of all places. "These…aren't my clothes."

No helping it now. "They are mine."

"V…?" Nero squinted, his fingers twitching uncertainly for weapons he might or might not need. "How the hell… What are you doing here?"

"Waking up from a very long dream." He stood, creaking with every gained centimeter. His body felt even worse than it had the night before, and he leaned heavily against the walls. "Dante and Vergil?"

"You'd know more than I would."

"Still in hell, then." He chuckled. "So… The shadow has beaten the body home."

Nero slammed a hand into the wall. "None of your cryptic bullshit this time around. I oughta kick your ass a second time."

V stared into the excess of spirit boiling out of his son's eyes and bit back an exhausted sigh. What was it he was meant to say in this situation? He hadn't the slightest idea where to begin.

"Ease up, Nero, look at him." Nico circled casually around them, reaching for a cigarette. "Guy looks like he's been offroadin through hell. He's even skinnier than I remember."

"So, what am I just supposed to invite him in?"

"That's your daddy. Half of him anyhow. What y'all do is your business." She stepped back and lit her cigarette with an impish smile. "Am gon' tell him you cried like a li'l bitch when he left though."

Nero shot her a glare that was more incredulous than anything, and pointed an irate 'don't you dare' finger that quickly turned on V.

He had no doubt that Nero hadn't cried, but he had kept the book. The innate oath that he would come back. The one means of connection and acknowledgement that Vergil had been able to offer, even though Nero could not possibly understand the gravity of it. The door had been left open. Whether an understanding could exist on the other side or not, V would have to find out for himself.

"I was returned here unexpectedly," he explained, and wobbled, crumpling against the cluttered surface of the microwave. "I did not intend… to trespass."

"Hey! Asshole, are you dying again?!"

"No, I am just…" His stomach betrayed him before he could find the least galling words to say it. "…Hungry."

Nico covered her mouth, but her snickering couldn't be contained.

"Seriously…?" Nero sighed, rubbed a hand over his face and briskly hauled V up. "Fine, fine. Come on. Nico, just stay here a while will you?"

"Sure thing, hon. Have fun introducing daddy to the kids~"

Abstract horror throbbed through V at the concept that maybe Dante hadn't been needling him—maybe he really did have grandkids. But through that door that had once existed only on the edge of his concern was not the home of a single family.

He'd passed through one or two places like this, after the house burned but before he realized that merely existing in the same place as other human beings endangered their lives. Every room was a common room of a different sort. One for play, for sleeping, for learning. Long hallways with scuffed, yielding floorboards and white walls were marked by the colorful ghosts of chalk, crayon, and markers that refused to be fully washed away. The kids were gathered up in a cozy room adjacent to a kitchen, still messily spooning food into eight faces of varying shades and shapes, not one of which bore the vaguest resemblance to Nero or to the penny-haired girl at the head of the table.

Orphans.

V had to struggle not to laugh. He'd only just returned from an extended discovery that he was prone to taking in children who weren't even flesh and blood, much less his flesh and blood, and it turned out that Nero lived that way every day.

"One more?" the girl asked, rising from her seat.

"Yeah," Nero answered. "Leftovers should be fine."

Nero guided into the kitchen, to a small wooden card table with just two seats. He dropped into the one that placed him quite purposefully between V and the children and gestured with mock gentility at the other chair.

The moment V took his seat, Nero relaxed a fraction but still sat forward with hard eyes. "V, what the hell happened to you? If you're here, then did Vergil…?"

"No," V said quickly. "I'd worried the same, but I came back into being through different means about eighteen months ago."

"Eighteen mo—it's only been a year!"

"For you."

"What, you gonna tell me you been in hell this whole time too?"

A wry grin parted his lips. "Purgatory, I think."

Two worlds and ten thousand years away.

The coy answer only served to aggravate Nero, but V didn't feel that was much of a problem. He wasn't sure yet if he wanted to talk about where he'd been or who he'd been with. It wouldn't be now, regardless. Not when it was all fresh and tender as a scraped knee. But that left them at a bit of an impasse, didn't it? Nero had questions and deserved answers. V wanted to give him answers. Just not those answers.

Griffon swirled onto the back of his chair with a hoot. "Go easy on him, junior, he's reeeeal sensitive right now~"

Nero snorted and leaned back in his chair. "Don't have that in common with the other guy, do you…"

"…You would be surprised."

They stared at each other for a long moment. V could almost see Nero processing the invitation. Trying to decide for himself exactly what V was and whether he should be regarded as father or something adjacent.

V didn't offer him any advice. It was complicated, after all.

A bowl sat between them, and V picked up a faint 'thanks, Kyrie' before Nero was gently urging her out and away from them, whispering something about taking the kids to the church for a while. There might be enough goodwill in Nero to take V in, but he didn't intend to be caught off guard or put anyone else at risk. And it seemed at the bare minimum Nero intended for this meeting to last.

V disregarded them. Taste quickly became secondary when the goal was to not starve, but the prospect of food cooked according to human sensibilities had him dragging the bowl across the table. Utensils were less than an afterthought. He brought the bowl to his mouth and the shock of at a dozen flavors meeting at once nearly made him drop it.

"Woah, slow down!" Nero advised, caught off guard as V coughed. "It's not going anywhere, man."

"It's..." V licked at a splash of sauce at the corner of his mouth. "It's salty."

"Are you seriously complaining after you nearly passed out?"

"I'm not," he laughed. "It's a compliment. It's good."

He meant it. He meant it with an honest marvel he hadn't experienced since he was a child and only laughed harder for it. What else was he to do before the absurdity of it all?

He was sitting at a table in a house he'd ransacked with a son he didn't know he had and the orphans that son cared for with—his girlfriend? Fiancé? V had no idea. He didn't know a thing. Morning light poured through intact windows fitted with cheap lace curtains and he didn't belong there at all, but he'd been cautiously welcomed in anyway. To eat the same homecooked food he'd been offered before snapping Nero's arm off. This was a kitchen with a fridge where letter magnets left cryptic, poorly spelled messages and frilly, stained aprons hung from worn pegs. This was Nero's home and it brimmed with so many artifacts of love V thought he would drown, but he sat there faced with that his own son who was wild like Dante and proud like Vergil and who might also be senselessly, unrelentingly, recklessly kind in his own way.

Any bridge that could be built between he and Nero would have to be constructed over the ashes of the barely built one that burned before it, and it would have to be built around the fact that Vergil already existed. And what did V have to guide him in the endeavor? A silver bangle around his wrist and a set of dogtags against his chest. One to proclaim that he was Eva's son regardless of why or how he existed, and the other to remind him that at least two beings had been foolish enough to love him and that V had managed some measure of reciprocity in kind.

Perhaps there would be time enough to master it this go around.

He shook as though he was shedding free of old skin. Until his stomach burned in ways he had forgotten it could. Mercy, pity, peace, and love lay on an unknown but tentatively open path forward and by some providence, he actually felt equipped to walk those old roads of family. It was all so patently, ridiculously human that he laughed until tears stung his eyes. And if they fell, that was probably alright.

Only devils never cried.

A Year

"Isn't this a lot of work for something that can't reach him…?"

"It's not about it actually getting to him. You just kinda have to do it on the off chance."

"Like a prayer?"

"I think it's a different kind of thing. I just want him to know we're doing okay," 9S grinned brightly. "I talked to you like this too, when you were gone."

2B's lips parted and she quickly turned her attention to a passing bird, prettily tucking hair behind an ear. "That wasn't necessary. But go ahead. Maybe I'll understand it as you go."

9S took a deep breath.

"Hi, V.

I guess I should I start with the date: It's 31 December 11947. You've been gone for almost a year now. I figured I'd record something to update you since you're the type who won't tell anyone if you're worried.

We couldn't find any evidence that any demons survived Roswell and it seemed like all the Legions fell apart when Briar was destroyed. So about a month after you left the Night Kingdom, we all left too.

Uhm... mostly.

Fern actually stayed behind. She said she'd come home eventually, but she wanted to be alone for a while. 'Stop and lay in the flowers'. Pod 006 said the expression is 'stop and smell the flowers', but I'm pretty sure Fern knew that. I didn't want her to stay, but I figured I imposed enough on her the first time. It's what she wanted to do. I told her I'd be waiting to see her again. Ships still aren't running between the night and day kingdoms, so I'm sure it'll be a long time before she makes it all the way out here.

I'm looking forward to seeing her again, someday.

The Army of Humanity ended up dissolving once Theta provided her report on Roswell. The full one, about how they were intending to say you were the one who closed the gate and that you supposedly died in the process. At that point, they'd lied and been revealed so many times that even the really loyal soldiers from the post-Machine War descent missions started to defect en masse. By summer, there was no Army of Humanity anymore. Just the Resistance, the HHRMO, YoRHa, and…androids. Totally unaffiliated androids.

Theta took the dissolution pretty well. She's still here in the city, operating as an HHRMO official with Iota and Gamma. She doesn't worry about android survival these days. Our total numbers are still low, but Jackass and Pine are going around the world tearing the old human personality data out of android factories so only androids can decide on android production.

I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not. Maybe being stored like that isn't all that different from the situation with the Ark... But on the other hand. I think we've probably had enough tries at bringing humans back.

Without an Army of Humanity, there's no governing body that could attempt to claim ownership of YoRHa as war assets. I don't think anybody would've tried but knowing you can win against anyone who comes after you is a really different feeling from knowing that no one is coming. It's not like we're anybody's favorites or anything but it's peaceful enough.

We're still based in the city but a lot of YoRHa spread out in groups of two or three to decide what to do with themselves. Pod 006 is attending all active units, so nobody's ever really alone. Some of them have crossed the sea and gone wandering, just like we did. The B models get restless easily so quite a few of them headed out to the mid-continental sectors where there are still big hostile machine presences. More than I was expecting went back to the Ark. They were satisfied having survived the Battle of the Night Kingom, and instead of destroying themselves they abandoned their bodies, went back to the sub-network, and went to sleep in their old rooms. One or two of them woke up and came back out, but most of them have stayed asleep for the whole year.

I hear when an android sleeps in the Ark, they can dream. Maybe that's enough for them.

Seems like another group will be heading in this coming year, but they seem more interested in making the ark more like the outside. It's all data so there's not much stopping them from altering it any way they want to. N2 doesn't seem to care who comes and goes. (That probably doesn't apply to me, so I never go inside anymore.) A lot of that group seem to be Operators, which makes sense.

Turns out Operator models have really cheap filtration systems because they were never intended for ground-side deployment. They get clogged up pretty easily. A lot of them have taken to cleaning up those old houses in the amusement park. Mostly near the promenade since it's all cobblestones and the water in the canal is clear enough to clean their filters every day. They were gonna go to the forest, but when I showed them the records of how much pollen gets in the air around summer they backed down pretty quick.

We can't exactly manufacture a bunch of new bodies, so 801S has been hard at work doing model ground-side model updates. It's slow, expensive, and really finicky work without YoRHa-specific R&D machinery, but he and 3S are making solid progress. He's also been working on model transitions. It's dangerous for us to have only three H-types, so a lot of the B types who didn't want to fight anymore and the O types who wanted to be useful have become Healer models. Including my old Operator. She was already scary, so now that she's a healer it's pretty dire! But she's pretty happy with it.

Oh, the twins came with us too! The Devola and Popola models from the Night Kingdom! Er, or more like when 801S met them he refused to let them stay behind. 801S corrected their emotional matrices so they don't generate guilt anymore and they've been living here in the city with us. Last time I talked to them it sounded like they want to look for other pairs of their model, but they haven't left yet.

To them, it's like they finally atoned and have a place they can call home where they won't be looked at as anyone but themselves or be punished for things they didn't do. But once they leave the city, there's no way to know how other androids will treat them. Despite everything, the world hasn't changed all that much.

They've gained a lot. Which means they have a lot to lose.

The white dragon visits sometimes. Seems like he became good friends with Emil. Er, several Emils, actually. He'll usually show up with a bunch of them bouncing around him in some of the most awful looking contraptions I've ever seen. There was one with long spindly legs and another that looked like a train and this really weird one that looks like it's made of excavator parts.

Makes me kinda glad I've only ever had to deal with the truck. I'll be happy never figuring out what it's like to ride any of the other ones.

Oh, speaking of the truck, our Emil comes into the camp to see Theta sometimes. I can't tell if Theta gets along with Emil or if she just kind of tolerates him, but either way, she never calls him 'No.7' anymore.

He says the person she's modeled after isn't named 'Kaali'. He's certain, but he still can't remember what her actual name was. Since the first Emil was with that person, he's kind of the authority by default. So Theta's been working on a subterranean record gathering mission out in the desert to see if any data can be found to correct the record. Emil's been really excited about it. I'm kinda curious too!

Obviously, 2B and I have stayed here in the city the whole time. We're planning on traveling, but there's still plenty to do here. You know I get bored easily and 2B is a bit of a workaholic so she's happiest when she's doing work that's worth doing. The whole world is out there, but it's not like it's going anywhere. I can't wait to show her all the places we went, but we've got time.

What else…?

Oh, do you remember the other male model who came to get us at Roswell? That's 2D, and he's a good friend of mine! He keeps to the flooded city more often than not. Sometimes 2B and I visit him. Once, I even saw A2 with him. Did you get to meet her? Everything was so hectic and there was no time to introduce you to everyone but we brought her back too. She's…fine. 4S hangs out at the old commercial facility a lot and she'll usually turn up there and in Anemone's camp one or two times a week.

Anyway, 2D's seems to like to sit by the ocean and read books with Cruel Oath. Sounds a little boring to me, but he seems content.

He reminds me a lot of you.

…

I promised a really long time ago that I would take everyone I cared about to the grove. Me, 2B, 2D, 21H...all the scanners. I wanted to eat with them, and I finally did earlier this month. I don't think everyone was impressed like I was; eating isn't really normal for us. But a funny thing happened: Everyone kept contacting other people and eventually there were about a hundred of us all there. YoRHa and otherwise. Even Anthurium joined us. He gave Witch Hazel a new hat, and he's been taking care of the trees. He didn't eat any oranges with us, but he and I talked for hours about all the stuff you ate while you were here.

I think he'll be cooking a lot from now on.

...

I don't think I ever really expected the war to end, but I'd always hoped that if it did… it would be something like the time I got to spend with you.

Not that it wasn't awful at times. I think we both would've liked a lot more to have old-world conveniences. Maybe we should've been the ones to end up in your world instead? Me and Fern would have made great devil hunters. And maybe I could've seen you ride another roller coaster!

Haha...!

…

I guess I still give long goodbyes, huh?

…You know, V…

Because I'm a scanner, sometimes I have a lot of questions about you that I know I can't have answers to anymore. I'm not gonna ask them now either; it's one thing to talk to you, and another thing to ask questions that won't be answered. But Fern once told me that part of the joy of not knowing the truth was being able to tell yourself anything.

So instead of asking, I'll just assume you're eating well.

I'll assume you're still a lazy, smug, bratty guy and Griffon still makes fun of you and you still get mad but never actually hurt him. I'll assume that you made up with Nero and Dante and hopefully made peace with the other you. And I'll assume that you picked a day just like you said you would and stood at your mother's grave, so you could say everything you never got the chance to.

I hope it was a nice day.

You're never gonna be the cheerful type. But you've got a surprisingly playful streak and you like to show off and I think you're able to be content and relax when you're with people you trust. That's probably its own kind of happiness.

So… I like to tell myself you found a place where you can be like that again.

I don't know…when I'll talk to you again. I don't know how much I'll have to say, or if I'll have anything new to say at all. But I won't forget you. I promise.

…

…

…

Take care, V.

Pod, eject recording data."

Pod 153 released a data chip that fit in the palm of 9S' hand. It seemed so small, but 9S already knew that even big emotions didn't take up much space once they were compressed to simple records. There was nothing more he felt the need to say, so with his other hand squeezing at his dog tags, he stood and sent the data chip sailing into the colorful lights and brilliant fireworks. It wouldn't reach V, but that was never the point anyway. Grieving wasn't for the person who was gone.

At his side, 2B watched with mild (and slightly jealous; but he really liked that she had a possessive streak of her own) interest. 9S held out his hand to her.

"Let's jump."

"Why?"

"It's how you welcome in a New Year. V taught it to me."

All of her instinctive answers rushed forward. For having such an ineffective mask, it was an ingrained part of her thought routines. But because there was no need for her to stay on task or wrangle him, she said none of them. Her hand closed around his.

"Okay."

It was like every other jump they'd done from high places before, drifting safely down on their pods. But she was making a slightly self-conscious face and 9S thought that nothing would make him happier than to watch her make faces like that for the rest of his life. To watch her unlearn every little way she's tried to spare them both from the inevitable. He wanted to see her smile and laugh and finally break down together with her somewhere quiet. Somewhere that even the gods wouldn't be able to bother them.

That was the far, far future, though.

"Happy New Year, 2B."

"…Happy New Year, Nines."

For this year and the next and the one after that, it was enough that they were finally connected.

The Future

In a sanctuary on the dark side of the Earth, the air smells like ice and salt and the strange perfume of lunar tears. The flowers weren't there when I laid down, but they sway in a rising wind above my head.

I don't know how long I've been laying there. I don't feel all that different from when I laid down. It wasn't like I set a timer, I might have slept forever for all I knew. Waking up is just a change in my status that tells me my nap has been long enough.

On some level, I'm ready to go.

A bright red 006 Pod sits at my side. It must have run out of power a long time ago; not even the emergency signal comes on anymore. I don't really mind. Being awake doesn't mean I don't want to stay alone for a while. Somebody had the presence of mind to leave me some anti-freeze and a couple of nanomachine supplements. They're dusty, but seeing as I can barely move, I'm not about to be choosy.

Outside, the stars are obscured. A storm is blowing in from the east.

The lunar tears have crept over the white stones and sprouted all over the courtyard. Like they're attempting to devour the church itself. Maybe a hundred or a thousand years from now, this place will be reduced to rubbled and sink into the lake. For now, what catches my eye is your cane. It was nowhere to be found after you left, so I'd assumed it was gone. But there it is. Stabbed into the center of the courtyard dusted with lunar tear pollen and glistening in their light.

I stand before it for a long, long time. I hesitate. Walk away. Run back to it with my pulse in my throat.

I can't leave it behind. With everyone gone, and the stars obscured by the clouds, this place is too much like the bottom of hell. I can't leave what remains of you in a place like this.

The cane comes to my NFCS like any other weapon. Just like 'Humility' I know it has no true name. You don't name things. But it's called 'Perseverance' anyway. There's data on it, but the thought of reading it makes me want to lie back down immediately. So I let it vanish and leave the courtyard.

There's a corpse at the end of the archway. I think so, at least, until I circle around it and it looks up at me with a spark of mutual recognition. It coughs noisy static that seems sacrilegious to the hush and jarring as the sudden shatter of a window against the emptiness inside of me.

"You're awake," she says.

"You're alive," I answer. "Barely. Why are you still here?"

"I was also tired."

I never said I was tired in the first place, but a unit as old as Scheherazade wouldn't need me to. Just like I didn't need her to say more to know exactly what she meant. She was practically in pieces, still gripping the blue axe she'd used to fight the gods alone for seven thousand years. The Machine War had been made unwinnable by parties on both sides. Scheherazade's war was unwinnable because her enemies could only ever be delayed.

"There'll be another seed sooner or later, won't there."

She nods. "The white one... his task now. The red one left this world to his care."

"What's that mean for you?"

"I am unnecessary."

It's a harsh word, but she says it like it's a relief.

"Just been enjoying the downtime then?"

She twitches her head no. "Remembering. At Jerusalem... Legion was resurrected because a replicant wished to resurrect someone he loved. They were empty beings at first. When and where was this love learned?" Her one functional eye twitches toward me in its socket. "When and where did androids learn this?"

"...Is there any point asking something like that?"

"Unlikely."

The wind begins to pick up. I don't know where she's been or what she's been doing to be in this condition, but I get the feeling she doesn't plan to get up.

I ask without really thinking. Maybe there's nothing to think about. "Should I put you to sleep? I don't mind. I am an E-type after all."

For a long while, she doesn't answer. Her optic lights strobe slow and there's no sense of haste from either of us. She answers when she answers. I don't understand her that much better than when I first met her, so I can't imagine what must be going through her mind. Especially when they turn out to be some of her last thoughts.

"Use my axe."

The axe has a dignified, weighty name, just like its wielder, and it makes my head throb a bit, but it doesn't feel like anything special. Not the kind of weapon you'd dive off a dragon into the bowels of god with. Then again, your cane doesn't feel like something special either. It just feels like you.

"You hesitate."

"I've never killed someone who actually wanted to die." I lift the axe. There are no routines in me for a weapon like this. It is a manual effort of joints and pistons and conscious signals through waiting wires. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

"…Your real name is Zera, right? That's the name Rubrum was registered to back at Node #07."

It's the first and last time I hear her laugh like she means it. "This does not matter."

"Yes, it does. I'm asking who you want to die as."

"You already know the answer to this." Her left eye fluttered closed. The other remained staring up into the starless sky from a skinless, half-destroyed face. "Goodnight, Fern."

"…Goodnight, Zera."

It's snowing by the time I reach the city.

As I travel east, I find lengths of burnt cable. They are all that remain of the original Briar Rose, frozen where they fell and buried by so much snow it's hard to tell where they begin and end. I pass a crashed orbital base and a handful of androids at an outpost tell me it used to be Satellite Lizhin. They say and that a rogue Information Officer spearheaded a cyber-attack that ended with it falling out of orbit. There's a rumor she had YoRHa help. I bet I knew the rebellious little hybrid model that volunteered, but I didn't mention it.

It's hard to know where I am. I follow my memory back east more than anything else, but a lot of the outposts are empty and when I finally reach the east coast, there are no ships to speak of and no crews to man them. I head north until I find something big enough to manage the trip to the next patch of ice.

A machine meets me on my way. It wants to see daylight and more importantly, it modified its flight engine into a propeller, so I let it come with me. It's not a boat that would survive the open sea, especially if the weather took a sudden turn. So it is a long, cold trip that hugs the northern glaciers.

I used to laugh where I heard the stories of deserters who did this kind of risky travel. Who knew I'd end up one of them?

I know we're nearly there when the sky begins to gray, and then turn to soft blues and rosy violets. The machine's excited. I only got there with its help, so I take a little pity and veer us south, avoiding the dense android population around the stacks. We arrive on a foggy little horn of land covered in smooth, colorful stone. A place called Brest in my dim memories of saying goodbye to a skittish comms unit too small for my clothes.

Seaglass and Hibiscus are there, gathering glass for their bottles.

Hibiscus insists on bringing me back with them and Wisteria scowls like he brought an evil spirit into their home. But they take me in anyway, and I am a guest again. They pry stories out of me while seeing that my clothes are at least washed since I don't want to replace them. They change my filters and see to standard maintenance that has gone undone for what I understand to have been years.

They're gracious to me. So I'm gracious in return. I show them the trio of tags and tell them all about how we were all able to meet again before we parted ways.

"We know," Hibiscus says brightly. "Nines was here a few years ago."

I become abruptly aware that I haven't checked my internal clock or activated Pod 006. It's not a surprise that so much time has passed, but I'm not particularly curious about the details. "How long ago was that?"

"Mmm, six years? He had this really beautiful girl with him. He wouldn't say they were lovers, but it was so obvious!" His eyes glazed over in that dreamy way they did when he got caught up in his preoccupation with love. "We all did some shopping together and I felt like such a third wheel the whole time."

At that, I enjoy my first laugh since I went to sleep.

They let me have a little room to rest in. The same one where you pressed your back to the corner, huddled through nightmares I've now seen for myself. The thing about sleeping for a few years is that you don't get tired again easily. I close my eyes, but all through the night, I hear Hibiscus clumsily imitating you with lines that I know come from a faded old book with Heine on the spine.

It's been at least six years, but you're remembered fondly. To Hibiscus especially, it probably feels like a dream that you were here. That you ate and slept and lived with them, even briefly. You would probably be happy with how much he cherishes that book, and that is the closest I can come to a sweet dream.

I leave the next day once Hibiscus is gone.

Wisteria is the only one who sees me go, so she's the only one I say goodbye to.

"Good riddance," she says. She's too dramatic to mean in. The wrinkle of a smile is too obvious under her eyes. "If you're ever back this way, I'll buy you a drink. Maybe Chum's new buddy'll have some funny ideas about brewing."

I don't know what to do with the subtle admission that I'm welcome to return. So I nod and say something about how Wisteria's legs will probably be falling apart just like her arms by then and go to leave. But a thought arrests me.

"There's a scanner who is also a healer," I rush, words tripping one over the other. "I don't want to give you any false hope, but he's really good. The best in YoRHa. He might be able to do something for Seaglass and Seagrass. I'll tell him about you. I promise."

I run out before she can answer and before I have to process what I've said or what I am feeling.

The path I follow takes me east into spring as we once walked west into summer. It's not an efficient path for an android, and as the days pass, I realize I'm looking for the comms girl in every breezy, colorful field and pollen-saturated forest. I want to know if she found her flowers and hear what name she chose for herself.

I don't end up finding her. It's a big world after all. Maybe she found other flowers somewhere off the path I showed her. Maybe she decided she wanted something different. I choose to believe wherever she is, she's happy.

What I do find is our old truck. The stink of urine is gone and all of the tires are flat. I could probably find gas for it, but calmly walking across the continents has been soothing. I don't think of anything. In that, I guess I might always be the same. Clinging to my habits so I don't have to contemplate about what I'll do without them.

I crawl into the space we all shared and curl up on the dusty cushions. I'm still not sleepy, so I watch the dappled light fall through the windshield. The rain comes, goes, and comes again. Petrichor and baked metal and old engine oil wrap around me in a haze that feels like 9S' too-tight hugs and waking up against your shoulder. I could stay there forever, I think. Comfortable and empty and safe, thinking of stories about you that I can never know.

But that's just making another shack, isn't it?

It takes a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, but I get up and leave.

The castle is empty when I arrive in early June. It isn't where I planned to go, but as soon as I saw the shape of it, I was drawn there. To the library where you wandered. To the ledge where you slept. To the windowsill where the old Fern sat beside you to receive the damning truth as if it were the only holy word left on Earth.

I even wander down to the shadow of a fountain where she'd looked for something she could offer you and find those same berries. They're red this time. Properly ripened, rather than pale and small. I pick just one, as I had in the forest an unknown number of summers ago, and carry it with me as I continue through the forest.

Peels in the grove suggested that someone has been eating there even though the fruit won't be any good until winter. I reach into the heavy boughs and graze my fingers over the small, early oranges. The scent of citrus makes me feel like I've finally awakened from a long dream, but after walking so long, all I can think to do is lay back down.

In the shade of the orange trees, I stare at the sky.

We might have irreversibly changed something about this world, but now it's like nothing happened. The purpose I was made for is obsolete, and the purpose I chose to go on for, I have fulfilled. If it was only you that I was looking for, I wouldn't have crossed the world chasing your shadow. I could've stayed alone in the dark, staring at the stars where you left this world.

Simply put, I'm not sure why I'm here.

Though I feel that old ingrained fear that knowledge will undo me, I let myself be curious about the cane. You are already somewhere I cannot reach you and it has been years. If it isn't alright to know you as something other than human now, it never will be.

Of what I once was, my part the worse
I, the stubborn heart; I, the renounced curse

Starved vessels, echoed simile
Yours, a yearning for the light; Mine, for lost eternity

Uncanny semblances, imitations of soul
We, more than fragments; We, less than whole

One equal temper; better this than gods to know
This prayer for seeming blackbirds, from one who seemed a crow

Even across a distance made of an unknown number of years, you still manage to be dramatic. I read it again. And again. And again. Looking for you. Looking for 9S. Looking for myself. Finding all of us and more.

At some point, the strawberry passes between my teeth.

Someone laughs and someone cries because it's everything you made it look like it was, but it seems pointless that an android can understand what it means for something to be delicious. That someone must be me. I don't know if this is happiness or sadness or if it's a feeling I have a word for at all, but it overwhelms all the same. The fruit is sweet but tart, and the grass is soft but sticky, and the witch hazel trees are lovely even though the blooms are already gone.

It's a terrible, beautiful day, and all I am living for are precious memories I can't give away and the fuzzy possibility that maybe if I keep going, I'll make a few more.

Familiar voices come to me on the wind. I wipe my eyes and see familiar black-clad shapes appear among the trees. 9S is among them, in a ridiculous shirt that had to have come from Hibiscus, and 2B is with him in one that matches. He waves to me with wide eyes and a wider smile and calls out my name. With happiness. Relief. Excitement. Awe. Like I'm an old friend.

I guess I am.

I've never had an old friend before. It's…frightening.

I want to believe watching you disappear taught us how to let go and move on, but I can't know that. A second chance doesn't mean immortality. Someday we'll lose one another, and maybe we'll repeat our mistakes or make brand new ones. I can't answer the question of whether the future will hold pain, or if the pleasant things will add up to something worthwhile by the time we find out that the answer to that question is always, inevitably yes.

But that's alright. Like sleeping and eating and crossing the sea, all of this is a choice I make. And the other YoRHa have certainly been making their own choices all this time as well.

I don't think you left answers to our prayers, but you did leave your own prayers on our behalf. That we might have the time and freedom to properly grow into everything it means to be alive. I think I might be a bit slower than others at it. But I'm trying. We all are.

So, for as long as we choose, we'll be here. Together.

Designed to end but deserving of life.

A/N: Thank you for reading.