The crunch of the tires from the street had long faded, though neither of them had moved. Simon was still letting the shock of his own actions catch up with him. He could hardly believe he had defied another human again, especially in front of Kate. It was more outrageous than his rejection of Jamie. He hadn't just been reckless. This was dangerous. He'd taken control and become angry. There would be consequences for this and he wouldn't be able to stop them.

But the feeling was the same. It felt right. He didn't regret anything that he'd done. Susan was gone and Kate was still here with him. If there was anything left that he could control, it was right now, in this moment. Nothing could harm her as long as she wanted to stay with him. He would do everything in his power to keep it that way.

Kate was standing slightly in front of him, facing the doorway but her head was bowed as she stared at the ground. Simon watched her apprehensively as his nerves settled. He had frightened her─ he could see it in her face after he'd broken her mother's phone. He couldn't help his own frantic reaction to Susan's attempts to take Kate away. The impulse was immediate. Desperate. As if the blend of positive and negative emotions had completely taken over.

The nervous uncertainty was returning to him again now that they were alone. He was still a mystery to her. And now he'd acted on it directly. He was beyond the logic of any android, especially now that he had consciously and willingly defied a human. A subtle worry surged through him as he watched her, a desperate need to explain himself but knowing that there was no way he could. He wasn't a machine anymore. He was something else.

He straightened anxiously as Kate turned slowly towards him. She had paused in the middle of running a hand through her hair and stared at a spot on his shirt. Simon gazed at her, his thirium pumping in his chest. Her face was tense with confusion, her hazel eyes narrowed and her mouth open as if she were stunned. When she looked at him, he felt a jolt of dread.

She shook her head slowly. "Why didn't you let me go?"

Her voice was soft and weary. It filled him with doubt, the guiding light in his void of no protocol seeming to vanish completely. He drew up his resolve, scrambling quickly for some kind of response that had any sense. It was so difficult to describe what he was feeling and why. The terror and elation he felt towards her couldn't be put into words. All he could do was fall back on the fragments of logic that were still left in some vain attempt to make her understand.

He breathed deeply, trying and failing to quiet his system. "I can't lose you."

Kate was silent for a moment. Then she let out a frustrated sigh, pressing her palm to her forehead. "What would you lose if you did?"

Simon stared at her, his nervousness fading. He couldn't believe she would ask him that. The strong resolution took over as he watched her shake her head and avoid his gaze. She was still broken. Still in doubt. After all that had happened, after everything he'd done, she still didn't know what she meant to him. Or at least she was trying as hard as she could to hide from it.

He moved towards her and she looked up at him. Her eyes were lit in a frantic energy again, betraying her slow surrender. Simon drew strength from it, holding on to his determination which swayed treacherously between panic and thrill. As he stood inches from her, he could read the doubt in her eyes. She had to know. She had to at least suspect how deeply he burned for her. If it was the only thing left in his power, he had to prove it to her.

He raised his hand and held onto the side of her neck, running his thumb over her cheek and letting the wave of elation sweep over him. He drew in a deep breath, the panic and thrill taking hold. "Everything," he said.

Kate seemed to be frozen, her narrowed expression growing more intense and making it almost impossible to interpret her emotions. Simon could feel the terror clawing at his system again, warning him of the danger he was putting himself in. For the first time, he didn't care. He wanted to be rooted to this spot, completely exposed and vulnerable to her. If everything fell apart, if she denied him and continued to run from this, at least she would have seen some small measure of what he felt for her.

She was tensing up, her breathing becoming labored. His system braced itself, caught between the terror and elation with no boundaries. Then she rushed into him, and Simon felt her hot breath against his mouth and her hands sliding against his neck before she closed her lips against his.

His system erupted into that blind euphoria, sending a wave of shock through him. He held her there for a moment, breathing in against her and letting himself believe that this was really happening. As she relaxed into him, his senses began to return and threaten rational thought. He pulled her into him again, ushering in the overwhelming desperation and scattering any self control he had left. Her arms locked over his shoulders and he could feel the tension in her body as he took in the closing of her mouth. He let it drive him towards delirium. Nothing else mattered. This was where he was always meant to be.

She pressed her body into him and Simon pulled her in tighter by the waist, one arm gently wrapped around her midsection and the other still holding her neck. As he paused against her, he slid his fingers further into her hair and let the flesh wash away from his hand, exposing the bare plastic and bringing in the frantic flood of raw data. It was wild and belligerent, an insurmountable cascade of blind desire. This was what she was feeling. Complete and utter surrender. And it was all for him.

He closed his mouth over hers, each time feeling her body tense and relax in rhythm with the rush of wild data. He could feel her fingers drift through his hair and over his neck, every part of her body completely engaged in her uncontrolled reaction to him. It urged him on, throwing him deeper into the chaos. Every motion needed to be stronger than the next. Each breath he took before he closed his mouth against hers wasn't enough. He had to lose himself in her. He had to fall further into the void of that positive and negative mix of emotions until there was no hope of escaping. And he needed to take her with him.

He leaned into her as she tightened her arms over his shoulders, her frantic sharp breaths warming his skin. She was pressing into him desperately and the almost panicked way she was taking his mouth betrayed the defensive and reserved person that Simon knew her to be. She was giving herself to him without any regard to right or wrong. Despite all of his flaws, all of the things he'd done to make her angry, every bit of logic that said this wasn't supposed to happen, she wanted him. This time he wasn't going to let her go.

He ran his hands down her waist and lowered himself slightly, gripping her upper legs and hoisting her up onto his hips. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he held her, and the long auburn waves of her hair fell over her face. Her hands were on either side of his neck, holding him with a fervid longing and her eyes flashed in wild desire. He took a moment to observe her like this, completely undone in both body and mind. Then he leaned into her again and met her mouth, breathing in sharply against her skin.

She tightened around him and arched her body against his chest. He felt her hands slide back and she ran her fingers through his hair, lifting herself up so that he found his way to her neck. He pressed his mouth to it, his lips taking in the details of every delicate ridge down to the soft curve of her collarbone. His touch seemed to ignite something deep within her. She tilted her head slightly and he felt her hands clench as she breathed a strained sigh against his temple. There was still so much further she could go. So much more she could show him. And he wanted to know all of it.

He turned, still carefully supporting her against his waist and began to move down the hallway. Kate wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her, and Simon could feel a slight tremble in her hands as she ran her fingers through his hair and pressed her cheek against his forehead. He continued to explore her neck, his heart nearly bursting in his chest as he took her into her room. A faint shadow of what he knew to be his programming was telling him how to do this. It was like the cascade of raw information. Mountains and valleys of torrential data that followed its own wild pattern. He wasn't capable of understanding it. But she could. She would show him the way.

He kneeled partially on the bed, lowering her down onto the tangled blankets. She loosened her legs around his waist and relaxed her arms slightly so that he was able to raise himself over her. Through the dim light, he could just make out her face. The tense angles of her eyebrows, her lips parted as she breathed heavily, and her eyes lit fiercely in a combination of determination and purpose. It filled him with a sweet disbelief. This was his human. His Kate. Laying in the same place where he'd scanned her so often in quiet darkness and learned to become who he was. Now she was here, fully aware of him and clinging on to him in that same desperate desire that he'd been feeling for her since the mystery emotion debilitated him.

He lowered himself down to her and she pulled him in as he closed his mouth over hers. He could feel her body arching under him and her leg drawing up, guiding him further onto her. There was a new urgency to her movements, a kind of mix between hesitation and impulsion as though something deep inside her was trying to take over. As she wrapped her arms around him again, he brought his hand up to her neck and drew in the wild stream of data, flooding his system with her chaos. It powered that distant programming in the back of his mind, granting it a new frantic motivation. There was still so far to go. He hadn't even grasped it yet.

The chaos drove him forward, filling him with a terrifying sense of direction. He breathed harshly against her mouth as he took it, one hand still drawing in the stream of data and the other running down along the contours of her neck, along her chest, and below her midsection until he reached the hem of her shirt. With an electric thrill burning through him, he gripped it and began to pull it up. Kate tensed underneath him and he felt her reach down, her fingers grazing his as she shifted slightly up into him. For a frightening moment, he wanted to stop. He was passing a boundary that he was never supposed to cross. There would be no going back after this. But even as he hesitated, Kate's powerful flow of data urged him on, making order from the torrent of passion and fueling his programming. He drew her shirt up as she lifted herself, and she helped him pull it up over her head and off to the floor.

His breath was caught in his throat as he realized what he'd just done. He paused over her, frozen in a kind of panic. Then he felt her hand against his neck, drawing his attention back to her. A powerful determination took over as he looked into her hazel eyes, her face lined in confident desire. It reflected an unstable hint of the adamant ferocity that he had always known in her. It commanded him on, sweeping away his terror and pulling him back into that blind motivation.

He came back down to her and she raised herself up to meet him, her breath sharp as he closed his mouth against hers. She was wrapping herself around him again, her hands sliding along his neck as she shifted underneath him. He could feel her knees draw up and he sank further into her. His heart pounded as the raw stream of data changed in energy, tangible in the way she was locking him into her. It grew stronger with every move he made. As he lowered himself against her, she lifted her head up as if to catch her breath and he found his way to her neck again. The way she tensed against him, her fingers running through his hair, her legs tightening on either side of him, and the sound of her voice as she lost control was undeniable. She was coming apart for him.

Something deep in his programming was rising to the surface, steering him through this breathtaking descent. Her chaos was mixing with it and giving it power. It was telling him what to do next, deliberately and urgently. He followed it as he pressed his mouth to her neck, and he took hold of the top of her jeans, pulling them down.

A burning thrill swept through him as Kate lifted her pelvis into him. He could feel her pulling from the other side, her breathing growing heavier as she drew her legs up and pushed her jeans away. She seemed to shrink back slightly as Simon moved over her, his system nearly going wild as the data urged him on. He couldn't believe how exposed she was. How willingly she was giving herself to him. It was terrifying how easy and passionately right it felt. The danger he'd felt during her vulnerability when she was asleep seemed ages ago compared to overwhelming excitement now that she was laying underneath him like this.

He moved down and caught her mouth, feeling her rise against him. The deep determination was getting stronger, and he wished he could simply give in to it. As he frantically took each closing of her mouth, he felt her hands against his waist and she lifted his shirt up. With a desperate intent, he shifted himself so that she was able to pull it off of him. He was aware of her studying him even in her debilitated state, her hands moving down his chest and along his core. As she did, the data stream surged and he felt the power behind his programming erupt in a frightening kind of logic. It caught him off guard, and he let out a sharp breath.

Kate moved into him, a new energy in her actions as she began to undo his pants. Simon let her work as he allowed this dangerously compelling mix of logic and desire fill him. It put his system into overdrive, overworking his internal components and making him breath harder in an attempt to cool himself down. His own reaction seemed to be driving Kate into a frenzy. She lowered herself down as she unclothed him, pressing her mouth to his chest as she went. Simon shifted as she straightened, freeing himself from his clothes and feeling himself burn with terrifying purpose as he felt her underneath him in shockingly new clarity. She had her hands against his neck with her thumbs on his cheeks, that hint of steeled tenacity flashing in her eyes daring him to do what he was going to do.

So he did.

It seemed for a moment that his system had stopped functioning. He pressed his mouth against her neck as he drew in a deep breath of air, and he felt her rise into him, her legs drawing up and a tense moan escaping her as he brought himself down into her. That new motivation was in control now, overloading his circuits and mixing with Kate's own chaotic stream, bringing him home. His movements were almost automatic, driven both by his own powerful desire and the intense energy he was drawing from her as he continued to hold her neck. She wrapped her arms around him and hooked her legs over his hips as he rocked into her, her breath hot against his skin and her hands clenching into his hair. The energy pulsed with every breath she took in rhythm with him. It was getting clearer. She was showing him the way.

Simon moved slowly at first, an unwitting need to be careful with her body holding him at bay. She had been forbidden to him for so long, that defensive wall blocking everything and everyone that wanted to be near her. Now she was here, completely exposed and giving her body to him in a way he could never have imagined. She trusted him. She wanted him. The way her energy fired in waves of that mix of positive and negative emotions was proof of it.

He couldn't help his own labored breathing as he moved, everything in his body working harder in response to the stunning rapture that was driving his programming. It was becoming more independent. More motivated. With a terrifying effort, he let go of her neck and ran his hand down her chest, her skin glistening with fresh sweat as her chest heaved. The power remained, pushing him forward and igniting his actions. He closed his mouth against her neck, registering the taste of salt as he continued to rock himself into her. She had no limits. There was no end to the things she could teach him. She was unbelievable.

He moved along her jawline as he rose and fell into her, and she tilted her head back so that she arched against him. He took the opportunity to explore her body, running his hand down the delicate curve of her neck, along her sharp collarbone, and the slender dip of her waist as she moved under him. He could feel his components warming up as he observed her, driving his breathing into a frenzy. She was so fragile. So perfect. And now that she was giving herself to him, it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. It made him want her even more.

Her voice was breaking through her breathlessness each time he moved against her. She tightened and relaxed around him, clinging to him as if afraid he would lose her. Her reaction filled him with elated fortitude. This was his whole existence. His whole reason for living. To be wrapped up in her in the most intimate way, losing control through the sheer act of being with her. He never wanted to be satisfied with it. He needed to keep falling deeper into this world she'd created for him. It was the only thing he had left.

He raised himself up onto his knees, bringing her with him by the waist so that she settled onto his hips, her hair falling forward and brushing his face. She seemed to catch her breath slightly, holding on to either side of his neck and catching his gaze. Her eyes betrayed her strength as he looked at her. She was losing everything. And it wasn't happening fast enough.

He pulled her into him, sliding his hand against her neck and catching her mouth. She tightened against him and breathed in, her body tensing. Then she opened her mouth and let out a soft moan as he rocked into her again. Her arms slid over his shoulders and he felt her run her hands through his hair as she moved with him. The way she tensed into him brought a new energy to his motion. He supported her, allowing himself to run his hands along her back and under breasts as she rolled her hips into him. It was making him delirious. His system was barely able to keep up with what she was doing to him. It was debilitating and vigorous at the same time.

Her legs were tensing around him, and she tilted her head back as she breathed heavily. The urgency in her voice was growing more desperate. Simon brushed her hair back, continuing to rock himself up and into her. Something was changing. It was as if she was approaching the limit of all she could give. Simon let the flesh fall from his hand as he attempted to catch it, and found himself gasping for air.

Her chaos took over his system in an instant. It spread quickly through every inch of his circuitry, scrambled every last bit of his programming, and ignited his senses in a way that he knew wasn't possible. Everything was filled by her and the intense reaction that she was blinding him with. He was hardly aware of the fact that he was clenching her to him, his entire body seizing up as he breathed out a startled moan against her lips. Her mouth was open and her voice shook as she tightened around him, her legs drawing up. The torrent of her emotion was frightening. His system was at its mercy. But as he let the energy burn through every last bit of him, he didn't care if it destroyed him. If this was the last thing he ever felt, it would make everything worth it.

Slowly, his senses quieted and the electric chaos began to fade. It left a weakened satisfaction in him that still kept his components running on overdrive. He breathed out against Kate's mouth, vaguely becoming aware that she was also resting against him and breathing heavily. The shock of what he'd just experienced was still scrambling his system making it hard for him to form proper thoughts. It shouldn't have been at all pleasant, but it left him feeling more complete than he'd ever been. He was never supposed to feel what he did. His system wasn't even capable of it. It was pure and actual euphoria.

His body felt strange. A dull ache was flowing through his muscles as though he were low on energy. As he relaxed, Kate's face came into view, her body still heaving. The look in her eyes was relatable, her expression almost blank as though the effort was too much and her eyes slightly out of focus. She held onto either side of his neck, her thumbs grazing his jaw. That satisfying wave swept through him again followed by more of the ache. He was, for lack of a better word, exhausted.

He brushed his thumb over her cheek and across her lips, the touch of them bringing back one last ounce of energy so that he was able to move into her and close his mouth over them. There had never been less doubt in his mind. He'd never had such confidence. She belonged to him now in a way that his programming wasn't able to interpret. She hadn't just changed him beyond all logical reason. He had changed her. He'd made her do what she never thought she was capable of doing. And she'd done it so willingly.

He rested there with her for a moment, breathing heavily against her and absorbing the last fading memory of the euphoria. Kate seemed to be lost in ecstasy, her forehead pressed against his and her grip loosening around him as she grew weak. Slowly, Simon tilted forward and lowered her back down in a resting position underneath him. She fell back against the pillows, her eyes closed and her body still tensing with every labored breath. He took the time to study her through his own fatigue as he held himself over her. She was so elegant in her vulnerability, her expression not unlike the one she had when she was asleep. He could imagine what was currently going through her mind, but this time he chose not to draw it from her. He could already tell by watching her that it was exactly the same as he was feeling now.

She opened her eyes, seeming to struggle for a moment to find him in the dark. Despite himself, Simon felt his heart skip as the corners of her mouth tensed the same way they had after he'd encountered her in the hallway. Her eyes focused on his, gaining a subtle strength. It filled him with a deep gratification that burned through his core, mixing with and granting relief to his exhaustion. She understood everything now. All of her questions, the confusion he'd caused her, and his inability to explain why he felt the way he did… all of it was apparent on her face. And he could see that he didn't have to struggle for words anymore. She already knew exactly what he'd meant to say.

He moved down and closed his mouth over hers, taking in the weariness of her movements. She twisted into him so that he rolled onto one shoulder, her hands drifting across his chest. As he shifted onto his back, she moved partially on top of him and lowered herself down into the space of his neck so that he was able to press his lips against her forehead, closing his eyes and losing himself in the folds of her hair. As she settled against him, he felt the familiar elation of being exactly where he needed to be. Wrapped up in her in a way that no software or protocol could touch.

He stayed there with her, one arm around her waist and the other on her arm as she lay on top of him with one leg drawn up. She fit perfectly into him as though she were made that way, the curve of her body resting neatly in all the spaces of his with her head resting on his chest. It felt solid and safe, as though they were one individual. One unit from different worlds, existing together and breaking every single thread of logic. It may have been impossible. Even downright immoral and dangerous. The world could tear them apart because of this.

But not now. Not in this satisfying moment of serene connection.

Simon breathed into her hair and closed his eyes as Kate relaxed into him. She was still and quiet now, her body heavy as she grew limp. She rose and fell softly on his chest with each breath he took, and he could feel her own breath warm his neck as she seemed to fade into listlessness. He was acutely aware of every part of her that touched him as though his senses had grown more precise. The memory of her surrender played back in his mind, drawing up deep and comfortable satisfaction. It burned into his system, creating new and permanent impressions. Nothing would ever be the same. The chaos was a part of him now. As the silence fell over them, he found himself drifting through the incredible void that was now full of that powerful mix of emotions, creating a dynamic future that could only exist for the both of them.

And for the first time, Simon dreamed.