Lingering balminess on cool air replaced the swelter of the late season as they reached the edge of Normandy. Humidity came and went like the tide. As did the familiar background whisper of ocean waves that carried when the air was clear. Soft yellows colored the bellies of the clouds where they stretched toward the last sliver of the sun slouching against the horizon in the west. To the east, the pale blue sky stretched toward mountains of faded violet clouds capped by crowns of pink light.
Down on the ground, groups of androids moved through the dreamy last light like shadows on unknown pilgrimages, the flicker of their optical cameras weaving and merging in with the occasional glow of a firefly. With a greater concentration of androids came a greater concentration of equipment that might pick up activity on a signal as robust as the one used by the pod regional network. Pod 153 and Pod 042 had been set to stand-by mode and private channel communications only. There'd be no more asking them for small requests or even using them at all unless it was absolutely necessary.
Whether or not fishing was necessary was still a bit of a gray area.
"It's not gonna work."
"Humans didn't have state of the art conveniences to start with," he countered, biting a strip of shrapnel into approximately the shape of a hook. "If it has all the right parts there's no reason it shouldn't work."
Beside him, Fern's unimpressed stare didn't change. "You're right in theory, but you're missing something important."
"I am?" He lifted the crude, half-rusted rod sitting across his lap and turned it in search of a defect. "What is it?"
"You have no goddamn idea what the right parts of a fishing pole are." He opened his mouth, but she quickly cut him off. "No, neither do I."
A stick, a hook, and a string to connect them was simplistic, but he couldn't think of anything else that was necessary to the basic structure of a fishing pole. Refusing to be deterred, he grabbed the length of wire he'd scrounged up and got back to work. "Might as well try while we still have other options. With no sunlight, there's probably not a lot to eat in the night kingdom other than stuff you have to fish for."
She gave a broody hum that was almost a growl. Normandy's shore was a shimmering heat sink in the distance, no more than a day out at best. Fern had held up the first part of the deal and gotten them there. Getting 49 to the moon and V to the night kingdom would take them to the edge of her experience. Once she was on the other side of the ocean, she would be in the dark both literally and otherwise.
Above their heads, a light too big to be a star trailed slowly across the sky, reflected in 49's watching eyes. Horizon-1. Close, but still too far to reach.
"What are you doing?" V's voice. Falling over them as naturally as nightfall.
"Great timing," said Fern. "You know anything about fishing?"
Their conversation turned to noise as he gazed at both of them. Pushed to the background by other processes whirring with activity in his memory cortex. It hadn't been so long ago that he'd cried like a child thinking V was leaving him behind for Fern within the small world of the city ruins. Now he was the one running off and willingly leaving V in her care to go somewhere V couldn't follow even if he tried. The summer had felt so long while all the endless forests and hills and empty mesas were ahead of them. Now it seemed like it hadn't taken any time at all. The time ahead would be even shorter.
Soon, they would all go their separate ways.
"Admirable forethought," V responded, to some explanation 49 had missed. "But the fish have been sparse here, even for the pods."
Fern rubbed at her hair and grimaced at the narrow river. "Probably too much junk in the water..."
"How fortunate that it's far from our only recourse."
He rolled his wrist and Shadow shed from it, bubbling amorphously through the sparse grasses only vaguely in the shape of a predator. She was nothing if not efficient, so Fern and V busied themselves scanning the terrain for somewhere they'd be able to set up a fire that wasn't out in the open.
Inconspicuously as he could, 49 trotted off after the slithering shape of Shadow. He didn't know where he could or should touch her when she was like that, so he crouched and carefully held out his hand to her. A tendril wrapped around his wrist. A disembodied jaw followed, sprouting up to lick his face. He'd have scratched behind her ears if he had any idea where they were.
Dipping in close, he whispered. "Can you do me a favor?"
xxx
Shadow returned a little over an hour later. They'd set up into the mouth of a half-destroyed alley they'd chosen, which afforded them two walls and a collapsed pile of rubble's worth of privacy and a clear view of the western horizon. Just as proud as could be, she marched in and up to 49 and dropped half a deer carcass at his feet.
Presumably, she'd eaten the other half.
"You trying to bulk up, V?" asked Fern. "That's way more than usual."
"…I didn't tell her to do that."
"I did. I thought maybe we could all eat together," said 49, twiddling with one of the hooves to help him endure both their stares. "It seemed like a nice idea…"
Fern rubbed at her forehead and gave a deep, unenthusiastic sigh. "You're not gonna make a habit of this, right?"
"No. It's a one-time thing. Scanner's honor."
She scoffed, threw another loose branch onto the fire, and got up to help him.
V stayed where he was, squinting at Shadow with something between confusion and reproach as she melted back into her place on his skin. His lips pursed, but he didn't say anything. At least not until he saw fit to dictate that they were making a mess of both the fire and the carcass. The three of them ended up debating over how they were even supposed to cook that much meat—this time with neither 49 nor Fern bringing up the laser option and V glaring so ruthlessly at both of them that his dragon arm went similarly unmentioned. In the end, it came down to just chopping it up, which was a pain since Fern was the only one with a knife and it took them way too long to remember they could just have Shadow do it. Then came the wait. They sat side by side in the narrow, crumbling alley with the smell of meat and smoke seeping into their clothes and hair and skin. There wasn't any reason an android couldn't consume raw flesh, but it seemed only right to wait until it was ready enough for V to eat.
Biting through rich animal fat and lean meat that seemed to taste faintly of grass, burning his tongue, getting grease on his face and all over his hands—it was a huge hassle, but it was…fun. Even Fern was chewing dutifully with a crooked smile despite clearly having no idea why two androids should go through the trouble.
Eating with V was one thing, but the three of them eating together ignited new and sparking paths through his wiring that he doubted he would have words to explain any time soon. 21B would be happy if they could do something like this together. Maybe with 2B and her operator.
So," Fern belched, leaning toward him expectantly. "Was today another important date or something?"
"No. I just wanted to end the trip on a good memory."
She laughed. "49, we're gonna see each other tomorrow."
"I know." He rubbed at his cheek and licked oil from his lips for what felt like the tenth time. "But anything can happen, and usually it happens fast. I wanted to do something special. As a goodbye."
Several times she went through the motions of saying something but never quite managed. V's reaction was more sedate. More opaque, too. All the time they'd spent together, and he could still surprise with novel and hyper-specific expressions that 49 had no frame of reference for.
Fern shifted to get on her feet. "I guess I should give you two a minute."
"No." He grabbed her hand before she could dismiss herself. "You came all this way with us. And we ate together."
"And?"
"And it means you belong with us. So stay. Please. I don't want to risk my last words having to be something I say at a river because you're gone." Her hand was a fist in his. Closed tight as the rest of her. But he squeezed at it anyway and she let him tug her gently back to the ground. "I know it wasn't what you really wanted to do, but I'm glad you came with all this way, Fern. I'm glad it's you that'll be with V."
She peered between him and V in search of a joke that wasn't there. "You're serious. You're actually saying goodbye to me."
"Mhm. And I want you to say goodbye to me, too."
"You know I don't have anything sweet to say."
"It doesn't need to be sweet. Whatever it is, I just don't want to find it on some recording or have to hear from someone else what was on your mind. I'm right here and I'm listening. So tell me yourself."
After a few moments with nothing but the sputtering crackles of the fire and the tap of her finger against her knee, she smirked. "Alright, then…" She curled her arm too-casually around his shoulders, trapping him in a not-entirely-friendly headlock. "What's on my mind is that you're the most bizarrely emotional android I've ever met, and I'll be glad to see the back of you so I can have V to myself for a while."
Not all that long ago, those same words would've had them seriously trying to kill each other. Now they didn't have much bite to them. Not for lack of honesty—Fern was joking but she was serious too, and he knew because once he would have also been serious. He'd moved past regarding V as such, but the shared experience of exposure to 'a human' made her coarse yet amicably conveyed possessiveness more understandable than incendiary. Sort of like the shared experience of wanting to kill V at first encounter, only less gruesome.
Not that he intended to let it slide just because he understood it.
"He'll miss me the whole time I'm gone," he said with a shamelessly self-assured grin. "Bet you anything."
"Do I look stupid to you? I'm not into placing losing bets just for fun."
"Who says you'd lose?" V asked imperiously.
Fern eyed 49 conspiratorially from the corner of her eye. They both knew better. She let him go and clapped his back with surprising gentleness. "I dunno if I believe you can really pull this off, but if you do, take care of 2B. She's…"
Her expression turned inward to places 49 had only glimpsed when he was caught in her framework. The two of them were built more alike than different, but she was still an E-type. On that, he was an outsider looking in. If Fern felt like offering insight, it was worth however long she had to work to put it into words she could make herself say.
"She might not know how to live up to you caring about her the way you do," she finished. Out of the corner of his eye, 49 thought he saw V bristle. "It's not something that's easy for an executioner."
The sentiment was abstract and slightly difficult to parse, but he thought he understood. Getting to the moon would require him to lie at best and possibly kill other androids at worst. And he would if it came to that. There was no Pascal or Anemone to go to anymore. The only ones who would help him get where he was trying to go were the ones he was with right now, and the choice between being good or having 2B back was no choice at all. No matter how earnestly he wanted to live up to her hopes for him.
For better or worse, he was no stranger to contradictory desires. All he could do was try to be a good person in spite of himself.
"Thanks, Fern. I'll keep that in mind."
He turned to V, noting the last bit of a conversation the two were having with their eyes passing just over his head. Nothing serious, if Fern's mischievous, Griffon-like leer and V's down-the-nose warning glare were any indications. She was probably taunting him again.
All of that vanished when their eyes met. V looked the whole world was balanced on the tip of his tongue and if he wasn't very careful when he spoke, he'd choke on it.
"Still bad at goodbyes, huh?" 49 guessed.
"We've said them before already," V sighed, brow tightening. "Was there more?"
"Well, I had to rush last time since someone tried to leave without saying anything." V's mouth twisted, and he waved his cane in subdued 'go-on-then'. "I wanted to thank you, too. A lot happened that didn't really have much to do with you, but I wouldn't have come this far if you hadn't appeared."
"Showing up wasn't my intention. Nor was it pleasant for you to be beholden to me. It doesn't merit gratitude."
49 rolled his eyes upwards and took a deep breath. "Do you remember telling me I should stop apologizing and let someone else be at fault for a change?"
"I vaguely recall, yes."
"Think you can keep quiet and accept a little appreciation once in a while?"
Fern poorly stifled a snicker, and V shot her a dangerous scowl. 49 went on: "There are a thousand variables that could've ended with us not meeting. All it would have taken was for you to go a different direction or fly to a different building. Even if I hated it at times, it's because you appeared that I went on living after the tower fell. None of this would be happening if that wasn't true."
"...I see."
"Well, it's not like you're all that verbose to begin with. It's fine if you don't have anything to say."
Even if everything about his demeanor said plainly that he did.
49 thought he got it—what Fern really meant and why V reacted the way he had to her words. Without orders to dictate how she had to behave with him, 2B would be able to do anything. No one would be there to punish them for it. But that didn't mean she would instantly let go of that hot and cold, mission-oriented demeanor she'd built up over all their assignments together.
It wasn't easy to change just because you wanted to.
Fern tapped his shoulder. Following her gaze, his eyes turned up over the rubble to the east. He fumblingly patted V's arm, and together the three of them watched the rise of a brilliant half-moon against the pale sky.
"Nines," V murmured. Finally. Quietly. "Don't die."
"Is that an order?" he teased.
"If you need it to be."
49 gave a small, sympathetic laugh. That was probably about as much as he was going to get out of V, and he didn't mind. Short was fine if it was honest.
He breathed in the late summer air and dared to have a little faith. "I won't die. I promise."
XXXXX
A/N: Fun and fanciful jaunt over. See you back at the plot on the 16th of September.
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