It was nearly lunchtime, and the semi was still in disrepair. For all the calls Bonnie had placed yesterday trying to source a fan belt for the semi, she'd had no luck. She'd asked Kitt to let her know if anyone of the return calls she was waiting for came in, but so far nothing. On the one hand, it was a fan belt! How hard could it be to find! On the other hand, they were next to the middle of nowhere, camped out in a garage that barely had what she needed to work on the semi. The guy who owned the garage and the lot had been apologetic and offered to pay for the belt should they find one, but Bonnie had declined. He was helping enough just by letting them stay on his property; it wasn't his fault.
Michael stalled Bonnie by pointing out that they should go get lunch. While she and Devon both knew he often hid the extent of his injuries from them, a lot more than just Kitt's fear of flying had come up in Bonnie's reminiscing. There was a lot Kitt hadn't mentioned, things that he knew Michael would need to be there to defend himself for. Like getting stabbed by Fletcher, or the time Bonnie had replaced part of Kitt's exhaust. Kitt had wanted to tell her that he'd taken the initiative then; that he'd done what he could with the limited options he had left while being housed in a car because Michael could barely breathe at the time. Kitt had wanted to tell her about the then-new sensation he'd experienced, crawling along his wiring and jumping from circuit to circuit like some sort of virus. Thanks to Michael, Kitt had a name for it now: fear. Fear of losing someone about whom Kitt cared deeply; fear of not being able to do enough.
THREE YEARS AGO
Bonnie stared thoughtfully out the open bay door. Knight and KITT had long since disappeared from view, but it still bothered her. There hadn't been that much blood on the seat; she hadn't seen Knight for nearly a week. She came to the only logical conclusion she could: Knight had been hurt much worse than the evidence suggested. On top of that, KITT had hinted that Knight had come home injured too. Thinking back, she realized that Knight hadn't brought KITT to the garage like he'd started doing recently. At the time, she'd just thought he was too much of a coward to confront her face-to-face over the damage done to KITT.
Except for as much as she still didn't like him, Knight wasn't a coward. Sure, he joked and avoided the issue sometimes, but he always took accountability when it counted. The day after she'd finished fixing KITT up, Michael had been in there talking with the AI. What little she'd overheard sounded like a rather heavy conversation that had been a long time in the making.
TODAY
Their waiter for lunch was the diner's owner's son, a cheery young man with big dreams to leave this little corner of the world. Bonnie and Michael chatted with him more than they did each other, but neither minded that. It was a needed break from the emotional turmoil they'd come up against.
On their drive back to the lot, Kitt informed Bonnie that one of return calls had called but no luck. The young woman on the phone offered to do some calling around herself to see if she could help speed the process along, and Kitt accepted that offer.
THREE YEARS AGO
Bonnie decided she'd go ask Devon about all this. If she was going to confront Knight, she needed more information. Assuming Devon was willing to give it. If Knight had asked him not to tell anyone else, then Bonnie would never get anything from Devon. Maybe she'd be able to learn something from how Devon reacted to her questions even if he wasn't going to answer verbally…
She tidied up the garage and headed to Devon's office first. He was very rarely not there, being tied to the phone and emails and paperwork. Unsurprisingly, she found him there, in the middle of a rather heated phone call. In all the time she'd known him, Bonnie had never seen Devon struggle so much to keep his anger in check. Now was not a good time. Since he hadn't seen her (or at least, he hadn't done anything to acknowledge her presence, something he was very good about doing), she took her leave, planning on trying again in an hour or two.
TODAY
"Confront me?" Michael repeated once they'd settled back in their spot at the edge of the lot.
"Yeah," Bonnie said, with a shame-faced shake of her head. "Getting you to take care of yourself is still an uphill battle even today! I was getting ready …" She giggled at the memory. It was funny now. "Honestly I was getting ready to have to go to war with you on this."
"Yknow, part of me wishes I could have seen that."
THREE YEARS AGO
Bonnie got caught up in giving her toolboxes a thorough cleaning. While she was always careful to wipe tools down and put them back where they belonged, time had a way of forcing chaos on her. She'd just finished tucking the last wrench back in place when the phone rang. She jumped and banged her hip on the open drawer. Cursing under her breath, she rubbed what she knew would turn into a good-sized bruise later and answered the phone.
"Hello?" she said.
"Ah! I was hoping to find you here." It was Devon, and he sounded like he was in a much better mood. "You stopped by my office earlier, but I was … preoccupied, shall we say?"
"Yeah. I meant to check back in an hour or two. What time is it?"
"Dinner time, my dear. Would you care to join me?"
"Gimme 15 to get cleaned up!"
TODAY
"I'd always wondered if Devon didn't tell you," Michael mused. "I didn't outright tell him that he couldn't tell you that shit." He looked over at her. "I certainly didn't expect you to go asking about it."
"Michael, you bled all over Kitt!"
"That was a weird week and I don't remember much of it, but I'm pretty sure there were just a couple spots here—" he shifted his legs to the left and pointed to a spot on the seat near the right edge, by the center console "—and here." He scooted to the front edge of the seat and traced out the size and shape of the stain as best as he remembered it. "I didn't come close to bleeding all over Kitt."
She glared at him as he sat back. She wanted to punch him. How could he be so blasé about this? She'd worked with him for four years by now. You really ought to expect this sort of thing from him, she told herself. Michael would take whatever she threw at him when it came to Kitt and often took blame for things she knew only Kitt could damage, but Michael absolutely sucked at letting himself be vulnerable.
THREE YEARS AGO
Bonnie waited until after dinner to broach the subject. It was a wonderful meal, and she hadn't wanted to ruin it.
"Devon, where was Knight this last week?" she asked, running a finger around the mouth of her wineglass. "He usually doesn't leave KITT and me alone."
"He was busy," Devon said. A nice non-answer.
"Did it have anything to do with the blood on KITT's seat?"
Devon sighed. "What did KITT tell you about that?"
"Just that Michael had been stabbed. He'd been upset that he couldn't keep it from happening," she said. "Why?"
Devon rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together, absently tapping the nail of his left thumb against his teeth as he debated just how much to tell her. Knight hadn't told Devon that he couldn't tell Bonnie anything, but Devon knew that the relationship between Knight and Bonnie was rocky at best.
"I'm not mad at him," she said. "Not this time. I just want to understand."
Well, in that case… "Michael had indeed been stabbed. Three times. Alpert and I wanted him to take longer than a week to heal, but that was a battle we couldn't win."
"Oh, gods. How often does that happen?" Devon hadn't sounded too upset that he couldn't get Michael to rest for longer; this couldn't have been the first time.
"Often enough that we knew what to expect," Devon said simply. "He rarely lets anyone know when he's been injured, Bonnie. The few times he's sought medical treatment from outside sources, it's been because of KITT."
Bonnie shook her head, conflicted.
TODAY
"It's not something I really think about doing," Michael said with a half-hearted shrug. "It probably started overseas sometime, and I just never kicked the habit. You can't let people have that sort of advantage over you. If they know you're hurt…" He shrugged again, this time in a way that suggested the whole thing was obvious to him.
"Well it's not obvious to me," Bonnie countered. "We're your friends." It dawned on her even as she said that and Michael said it out loud.
"Tonya said somethin' like that too." His voice was steady, but he refused to look at her. Refused to look up from his hands folded in his lap; refused to sit up straight. KITT turned the radio on, soft rock playing quietly to fill the guilty silence.
TWO YEARS AGO
KITT wanted nothing less than to set wheel on that plane, but they needed to get to Mexico now and Michael was threatening to get a rental car. That stung, and KITT's pride won out over his fear. While he hated leaving Michael to fend for himself, KITT knew the man would be fine on his own. It went against KITT's own programming to be willing to let Michael out of his sight just to avoid having to fly, and Michael knew that. Michael also knew that KITT was very proud and rightfully considered other cars inferior to himself. Appeals to KITT's pride often got Michael what he wanted when nothing else worked.
So for three hours, KITT tucked himself in a back corner of his programming, intentionally routing away any sensorial data from the flight other than the passing of time and deleting it. He didn't want the data, and it wouldn't be useful later.
And of course, KITT joked with Michael that the traffic jam was worse than the flight. Honestly, KITT wouldn't have been able to tell Michael how that flight had gone. KITT knew the flight happened, and that was bad enough. KITT felt Bonnie's absence all the more keenly when they returned to the states. He missed commiserating with her; she hated flying too. April had been sympathetic enough, in a vague, indirect way that KITT would later come to realize had been a little patronizing.
TODAY
"So that's what you deleted," Bonnie said. She'd seen it in Kitt's data log while reviewing it when she came back to FLAG but never found the time to ask Kitt about it.
"I didn't care to remember it," Kitt said.
"I wish I could do that," Bonnie complained.
"I mean, you can," Michael said with in impish smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Michael, if you say drugs…" Kitt threatened as Michael said with undo gusto, "Drugs!"
"That's enough of you," Kitt said. He retracted the sunroof over Michael's head in preparation to eject him from the seat. An empty threat, but it had both Michael and Bonnie laughing until they were wiping away tears. Kitt relished their mirth. It was a good while before they could even look at each other without cracking up again, but they finally managed to get themselves together.
a/n shitfucking hell here we are at three parts but i've come to a crossroads: do i delve into the vulnerability of an AI deals with when his less-protected undercarriage is exposed or do i go with the lighter conclusion of kitt inheriting his fear of flying from bonnie? i've got ideas for both; i just don't know which way to go with this ack
