Michael Bublé – Save the Last Dance For Me

An hour could sometimes feel like an eternity to a human. Taylor contemplated this as she spoke to another man in a suit, this one claiming to be a personal friend of the Vice President and in possession of some very strong opinions of the current state of the hearings.

She had plastered an attentive, empty expression on her face but was having trouble focusing on what he was saying. Connor was standing next to her, where he had been standing sentinel for the duration, handing her appetizers from passing trays. It felt like she had been at it for most of the night, but he told her just a few minutes ago that they'd been there for a little over an hour.

"If it isn't Taylor Kolbeck." The blank look fell off of her face as her muscles stiffened. The man who had been speaking moments before turned with her toward the newcomer that had interrupted him mid-sentence, sputtering. Beside her, she felt Connor draw closer and for once was glad for his hovering.

"Kent Warren." Her face twisted into a forced smile. "Long time no see. Or talk."

"You look ravishing, as always." Kent gave her a cheeky smile in return, completely disregarding her jab. He'd slicked his messy black hair back out of his face, for once, so it wasn't obscuring the glint in his dark blue eyes.

"You enjoy the rest of your night, Miss Kolbeck." The older gentleman who had been talking her ear off bid her adieu, glancing between them one last time before he bustled off to find a new victim for his opinions. As he disappeared into the crowd, she suddenly wished he was her biggest problem and not the man still standing in front of her.

"Kent, this is Connor. He's in Washington with me as my co-ambassador in the android hearings. Connor, this is Kent Warren, famous actor and more famous son of President Cristina Warren." Taylor introduced the two of them in the hopes that it might prompt Kent to leave.

Connor had been standing so close that she felt him brush against her arm as he leaned closer to shake hands with Kent. She had been successful, in the very least, of drawing Kent's attention away from her.

"Your infamous android cohort. Yes. Good to meet you, Connor." Kent smiled, showing his perfectly straight teeth and infuriatingly attractive dimples. "Do you mind if I borrow Taylor from you for a few minutes?"

A surprised look came across Connor's face. Before he could muster a reply, she cut in for him. "No. Anything you have to say, you can say it here."

"Anything?" He turned back to her, his tone full of feigned innocence, raising his eyebrows. She felt the heat rising in her face, up her neck. "Very well, then. Raj wanted me to come speak to you. He's concerned."

"Raj can't be bothered to talk to me himself anymore?" Taylor felt Connor tensing at her side, though he stayed silent. "He sent you scurrying all the way back from London?"

"For some reason, he didn't think you would be amenable to his conversation." Kent raised his eyebrows at her again, though he sounded delighted at the idea. "Also, I've been back in the States for a while."

"Well, I wouldn't know," she shot back, glaring. He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Fine, fine. I'm sorry I didn't call you. Is that what you've been waiting for me to say?" The grin stretched across his face as he said it made her bristle, let her know how sincere he really was. "I thought since I would be gone for months, you'd prefer it that way."

"And I thought you came here to tell me something for Raj." She crossed her arms over her chest instead of balling her hands into fists. A tiny, dreadful part of her brain wanted to turn on her heel and pull Connor to her, kiss him for all he was worth.

She knew that made her a terrible person. She knew it wasn't fair to Connor. Kent wouldn't even have the good grace to be jealous, or to cease and desist. No, somehow, she had the feeling she would only make this whole encounter worse.

"Helping Humans." Kent finally said, his hands falling back to his sides. The crazy spiral of thoughts in her head cut off at those two words. All of her attention was on him now. "What do you know about them?"

"Not much." Connor had been bugging her about this all week. Worried. Protesters had been collecting outside of their hotel sporadically, but she'd been insisting that they meant no harm. "Why?"

"Raj thinks they're up to something." For the first time since he approached, he looked a little uncertain. "Says he found an android in one of his runs recently that might not have been a deviant. May have been pretending."

"Pretending." She repeated, stunned. She turned to Connor then, her face now pale. "Is that even possible? Can an android pretend to be deviant?"

"In theory," Connor thought about it for several minutes before he gave his reluctant answer, his LED circling a persistent yellow. "If they were carrying out a specific set of orders, and if the actual deviants didn't ask a lot of prying questions."

"Why?" Was Taylor's next question when she turned back to Kent.

"He has some theories. None of them good." Kent shrugged. "You got me into this mess, it isn't my job to speculate on the wider conflict. He just wants you to keep your eyes on that lot."

"Duly noted. Thank you for the message." Taylor hoped he would take the hint and leave, but there was a new glint in his eyes as he considered her. His dark blue eyes swept out toward the dance floor, and he raised an open hand toward her.

"Dance with me?" She pursed her lips. She wanted to tell him where to shove it, but he quirked one eyebrow and gave a half smile that showed off the dimple in his left cheek. "One song. For old time's sake."

A second or two passed. She glanced toward the dancefloor, the couples moving in time to the music. The people along the edges that were watching them. The people hovering close by, waiting for their chance to swoop in and talk to her next.

"Fine."

Jealousy.

The emotion wasn't entirely new to Connor. He'd felt it before, with Markus, before he fully understood what he really felt towards Taylor. He had come to realize that the jealousy he felt towards Markus was unfounded, probably a side effect of his newfound deviancy and his inability to reconcile so many new emotions.

Now, though. This Kent Warren who had walked up to Taylor so carelessly, talked to her so callously. Pushed every single button she had and then convinced her to dance. He could tell easily enough how nervous she had become, though she hid it behind her temper well enough.

Still, she had taken his hand. Followed him out onto the dancefloor. Connor was following them now with his eyes. Kent had pulled Taylor in close, nearly flush against him, and was spinning her around the floor.

He had to admit that, as he observed their dancing, their margin of error was exceptionally low. Their steps were much more intricate than the simple waltz he had led Taylor through on a night very similar to this one. Kent must have had formal training in dancing to be keeping on step with her.

Taylor's eyes were bright as they moved around the floor, her cheeks turning rosy with the exertion. He stared at Kent's hand on the bare skin of her back, the way he leaned into Taylor's ear and whispered something that made her start to laugh.

Jealousy. A sick feeling, symptoms humans ascribed to nausea. She'd promised him one dance, but when the song faded out and the next one began, they kept dancing. They were a beautiful couple, impressive in action. Other couples had stopped to watch them.

Connor was fighting his urge to walk out across the dancefloor and cut in between them. He was being irrational again. But the fact that he knew didn't change it, didn't make the jealousy go away. It stayed through the moment she returned to him with one arm still looped through Kent's.

"Yes, yes, I'll see you later." She was dismissing him again, but she was still laughing. Kent smiled at her one last time, dimples showing, before he did retreat with a parting nod toward Connor. Taylor turned back to him, finally, and her smile instantly dropped away. "What is it?"

Connor was gritting his teeth. He couldn't answer immediately. He realized his LED was flickering red and turned away, trying to collect himself. 'You appeared to be enjoying yourself."

He heard her suck in a breath behind him. Every curse word he ever heard Hank say flashed in front of his processors. "I was."

He turned back, but she had turned away now, staring off into the crowd. Silence blanketed them for a few minutes. He was working out what to say next, how to backtrack now that Kent wasn't here and his jealousy was dissipating.

"You didn't ask me to dance, did you?" Taylor turned around suddenly and grabbed the clutch from his hands. Then she was walking away, quicker than he could react, the sound of her heels clicking against the floor.

"Hello?" The gruff voice of Lieutenant Hank Anderson was music to Connor's ears, though he certainly did not sound amused to be answering the phone this late on a Saturday.

"Lieutenant, I need your help." He heard Hank deep sighing on the other end of the line.

"What the hell about me made you think I'm helpful?" The line was quiet for a minute, as though Connor was actually meant to answer that, before Hank groaned. "Alright, fine. How can I help you, Connor?"

Connor had the distinct feeling that Hank was being sarcastic, but he continued anyway. "I've made a mistake."

"Oho. Well, this is an occasion, then." When Connor didn't respond to his teasing after a moment, Hank huffed, "Jesus, kid, what is it?"

"I believe I'm screwing everything up with Taylor." There was another instant of silence. Connor glanced back toward the open ballroom doors, the sounds of the party filtering out into the hallway where he was standing. He had thought that Taylor would come back, eventually, but he'd realized some time ago that she had well and truly left.

"I should have guessed that's what this was about." Hank sighed again. "Listen, I'm not sure I'm the best person to call for relationship advice."

"Please, Hank." Connor turned back toward the exit, wondering for what felt like the millionth time where Taylor had gone. He hoped, like he'd tried to convince himself, that she was back at the hotel. The alternatives he hadn't wanted to consider for too long.

"Fine, tell me what happened." So he did. He told Hank everything, from beginning to end, and as he spoke, he understood why humans talked about their problems. It was cathartic, saying it out loud, knowing that Hank was listening.

"Maybe it was a mistake, thinking that a human and an android could be in love." Connor knew his LED was a solid red circle as he tried to process through this new emotion. As inexperienced as he was with identifying his feelings, he thought this must be misery.

"It's not a mistake. You clearly love that girl." Hank was stern when he finally spoke again. "You might just be going about it the wrong way."

"I don't understand."

"Look, it sounds like you guys are under a lot of stress out there. I'm not an expert on women, but it ain't always enough to be in love with someone. You have to do things to show it. Give 'em shit, take 'em on dates. Taylor might be a famous and rich celebrity type, but she's still a woman at the end of the day."

"What should I do?" Connor asked, still slightly confused. He still was trying to move past his sullen thought that he would never understand human relationships.

"I don't know. It's your job to find out what she likes. Buy her some flowers." Hank was on the edge of yelling at him in frustration, he was sure. The fact that he had kept the lieutenant talking and engaged this long was actually quite impressive. "Fly to the Bahamas. Fucking Christ."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Sure, Connor." Hank hesitated, not hanging up, before he said, "Good luck, son."

Taylor stood over the bathroom sink, trying to scrub the makeup off of her face. She was pretty sure that Jen and Anton used plaster. Or permanent marker. Something impossible to get off with her very limited resources in a hotel bathroom.

The phone started ringing from its place beside the sink and she groaned. She couldn't even be content to drown in her own misery and scrub her face off in peace. Glancing over, she saw Rachel's name on the screen and reached for it. "Hello?"

"Hey." Taylor heard her shuffling around on the other end of the line. Rachel was the kind of person who never slowed, even while on the phone. She placed the towel she'd been using on the rim of the sink and cut the water off. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Nothing important. What's up?" She walked back into the bedroom and took a seat on the bed.

"I just wanted to let you know that the story is coming out tomorrow morning. I finally finished all of the editing. I got approval today." Rachel sounded excited, and Taylor knew that she should be too, but she couldn't find it in her to share the sentiment. "It turned out really great."

"That's good." She managed. "I'll look forward to reading it in the morning."

The line went silent. Whatever Rachel had been doing in the background stopped abruptly. "Taylor, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong." She tried to say it like she believed it, but she had been panicking since she walked away from Connor at the party and he didn't follow her. He still wasn't here.

"Bullshit." Rachel was having none of it. "You can't lie to me over the phone, I'm not falling for it. I know this political nonsense has to be getting to you by now. Do you want me to come down there? They assigned that fuckoff Olivia to D.C., but I can have her pulled off in a second."

"It isn't that." Taylor sighed. "I sort of got into a fight with Connor."

"Trouble in paradise already?" Rachel had been aware of her and Connor's relationship only because Taylor had confided her feelings in the church. The brunette hadn't let it go since, so Taylor had kept her in the know, somewhat. "This isn't one of your self-sabotage things, is it?"

"Probably."

"So tell me what happened and I'll tell you if you're being crazy." She could tell from the tone that Rachel was trying to fight off a touch of amusement.

"We were at a charity event tonight. Kent showed up." Rachel made a disgusted noise. She had never been a fan.

"I don't know what you ever saw in that douchebag." She grumbled. Taylor snorted.

"It was the dimples. Anyway, I may have agreed to dance with him." This time, Rachel's disgusted noise was reserved for her. She knew she deserved it.

"You really are self-sabotaging. What the hell? Were you trying to make Connor jealous for some reason?" Rachel sounded full of the disbelief that Taylor felt for herself, even now.

"No. No, of course not." She couldn't explain it, what she felt in that moment. The stress from the week pressing in. The idea of a brief escape. Rachel wouldn't understand, and she wasn't sure she understood it herself.

"So apologize."

"He's not here." She took a deep breath, shuddering. Closed her eyes. "I came back to the hotel. I don't know where he is."

"He'll come back." Rachel sounded so sure, all the certainty that she didn't feel, like a lighthouse in her storm. "Try to remember that he hasn't been a deviant for very long. Maybe he just needed some time."

She was right, of course. Connor had been incredibly patient with her, and she had been nothing but selfish, never considering his feelings. If anything, Taylor felt worse, and she placed her free hand over her mouth to hold in her sob, hoping that Rachel wouldn't hear her crying.

"You really love him, don't you?" Rachel's voice had softened. She knew.

"Y-Yeah.' Taylor lowered her hand but couldn't keep her voice from shaking.

"It's going to be okay. He'll come back soon. He won't leave you by yourself for too long." Rachel was trying to comfort her, but Taylor had only remembered that she'd broken her promise not to go off alone, and she started to cry harder.

The door clicked softly as Connor tapped his hotel key against it, pushing into the room. A hush greeted him, not even punctuated by the usual mumble of the television. The bed was still neatly made, the door to the bathroom slightly ajar, the chairs at the table pushed in, but he finally caught sight of Taylor, curled into a ball on the windowsill.

He let the door close behind him as he stepped fully into the room, and the louder click made Taylor raise her head. Their eyes met, and he tried to read the emotion on her face, but she dropped her gaze to the bouquet of roses in his hand.

She'd changed out of her dress, into one of her baggy shirts and shorts, so he could see a generous amount of her legs as she moved to stand. Her hair was still pulled back, but there were smudges of dark makeup around her eyes. It looked like she had tried to wash some of it off but given up. As she came closer, the redness of her eyes let him know that she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry," she said, coming to a stop a few steps away. Out of his reach. Her voice cracked, raw from the tears. Connor felt his world shifting again, trying to fathom what she was apologizing for.

"These are for you." He said, taking a couple of steps, holding them out to her. Her blue eyes dropped to the red roses. She took them, the plastic wrapped around them crinkling softly. Then she held them to her face, inhaling, breathing in the scent.

"Thank you." When she opened her eyes again, they stared at each other. At an impasse. Connor knew there was something else, something more, and he was replaying Hank's words in his head trying to find it. Taylor regarded him in thoughtful silence, before it finally came to him. He stepped forward, offering her his hand.

"Dance with me?" Her brow furrowed. She stared down at his hand, and then back up at him like asking a question, but he didn't indulge her. He didn't elaborate. He just waited. The moment stretched on, and he could feel his own fear rising every second.

Until her fingers touched his. She placed the roses on the bed beside them and stepped into his arms, tucking her head against his shoulder. He held her as tight as he dared. The room was only wide enough to allow for a simple box step, and with no music, he led her through it slowly. Just content to hold her.

"I shouldn't have danced with him." Taylor said after several minutes. She didn't move to look at him, just spoke into his jacket. "It had nothing to do with him. I don't like him. He's just really good at dancing."

"You don't have to explain. I should have asked you to dance." Her hand clenched into his jacket, her fingers tightening over his.

"Don't." Connor almost released her in surprise. "You don't need to forgive me like that. You're allowed to get angry. You can't be expected to know what I'm thinking all the time."

"I wasn't angry. I was jealous." He lowered his head and buried his face into her hair. "I thought you would come back, but you didn't. I thought I had ruined everything."

"Me too." She breathed a laugh. "I'm sorry I broke my promise. I came straight back to the hotel."

"You didn't get hurt, that's all that matters." Connor finally pulled away, cupping her face with his hands. He paused, though, when she shifted her eyes away, lips twitching downward. A split second of hesitation that anyone else might have missed. "Right?"

"Connor," she said softly, like a plea. Her left hand moved toward her right, and he dropped his eyes toward the movement. Reaching down, he grabbed both of her hands with his, but he jumped when she winced and released her.

More gently, he took her hands, turning them over. She'd gone quiet, not resisting, very still in his touch. He finally spotted the dark line of bruises forming on her right wrist, looking very similar to fingerprints. He hadn't noticed them because she'd been keeping them pressed against her side, then wrapped around his back.

"Who did this?" Connor nearly choked on the words, or perhaps it was the anger underneath them, curling through his chest. He was scanning the marks, but there were no fingerprints. She'd probably been wearing her dress at the time, with the long sleeves.

"When I got back to the hotel," Taylor began, barely a whisper. "One of the protestors grabbed me. I wasn't paying attention. The bellhop saved me, brought me inside and up to my room."

He remembered noting the absence of protestors on his way in but had attributed to the late hour on a Saturday. A member of the hotel staff must have called the police and had them dispersed afterwards. After they assaulted her.

"You should go to the hospital." She shook her head immediately, but he remembered when she'd been nearly hypothermic after Jericho and refused to go. He ran his fingers along her wrist, gently pressing as he went. "Does it hurt?"

"A little," she admitted. "I tried to pull away when he grabbed me. I don't think it's broken."

"It's not broken. You should still go."

"I don't want to go." She said, stubborn. He sighed, releasing her. Taylor scooped the roses from the bed, holding them to her nose again. "We don't have a vase. We'll have to get one tomorrow, or they'll die very quickly."

She was trying to change the subject already. Connor moved to the bed, watching her place the flowers on the table. She stroked her fingers along the petals, pensive.

"Come here," he said, diverting her attention. She turned her head and he raised his hand for her again, asking her to come closer. She approached, one step at a time, and when she reached the bed, she didn't hesitate. She climbed into his lap, tucked herself against his chest, resting her head against his shoulder.

From the night of the very first hearing, they'd started a ritual. Connor would take the pins out of her hair one by one before he let it down, massage his fingers into her scalp. He loved being able to touch her, finally, after being next to her all day without the privilege. He loved the way she closed her eyes, leaned into him, every soft sigh of pleasure.

Her hair was still up now, tied in its elaborate braid over her left shoulder, like she'd been saving it for him. He reached up and began working it loose. He figured this would take him much longer than usual, with the tiny pearls both braided and pinned into it, but he didn't need to sleep. He had time, and patience.

"I don't deserve you." She whispered against his neck. His fingers stilled momentarily, before he continued working the first pearl out of her braid. Once it was free, he cupped her hands in her lap and sat it there. Then he continued to work.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, pulling the pins out one by one, piling them in her hands. "You deserve everything."

He was at it for at least thirty minutes, untangling her hair with his fingers. By the time he had finally finished, he was just running his fingers through her hair for his own pleasure. Her breathing had evened out, she had fallen asleep some time ago, but he didn't mind.

No, eventually he took the pile of pearls from her hands and placed them on the bedside table. As carefully as he could, he lowered her to the bed. Just when he thought he'd successfully moved her, however, he must have jostled her wrist. Her face scrunched in pain, and her eyes blinked open.

"Done already?" Taylor smiled at him. Connor had taken her wrist in hand again.

'Would you like some ice, at least? Since you refuse all medical attention." He was scanning her injury again. He could only detect a small amount of swelling. Maybe a mild sprain. She shook her head.

"Don't go. Stay with me." She slid closer, pressing into him. "You know, I could teach you how to dance. More than a waltz, I mean. The old-fashioned way."

He thought of Kent and Taylor, dancing, the smile on her face. In hindsight, it hadn't been their proximity that had ignited his jealousy. It was how happy she had been, for the first time all week. How easily she had laughed.

'Like a date?" He said, hopeful. She was quiet for a few seconds, before she giggled.

"Yeah. Like a date."