Ever since that first mission in the Resistance camp, they'd slept together. Well okay not together, but next to each other, side by side, sharing the same mattress. 2B lay flat on her back, body perfectly aligned to allow for maximum joint support so she could fully relax and rest. 9S started out that way, but always wound up curling off to one side a little. Since she was right next to him, he found himself turning to face 2B.
The first time, they didn't touch, just fell still dressed and dirty into an exhausted sleep. For a while they kept their respectful distance, obeying the invisible boundary line down the middle of the bed. Then 2B's fingers had curled around his upturned hand and held it tight. 9S didn't sleep much, but felt better than he had in a long, long time.
After a particularly long and arduous mission in the desert, 2B had stripped off her dress and gloves, and shaken the sand out of her hair. 9S couldn't help staring. Partial nudity- or even full nudity- was nothing to a soldier. It was more the breach of protocol that had made him blink. Also her leotard was super distracting.
"I'm gross and there's no water," she'd said by way of an explanation. 9S had to agree. His clothes and hair were also caked with sand, a thick layer of grime coating his skin. Deciding to follow her example and dump as little sand into the bed as possible, he shed his own outer garments before joining her.
"'Night, Nines," she said sleepily, finding his hand and squeezing it.
"'Night, Bea."
It was what he called her after that.
Gradually the space between them diminished, till one night found them curled up in each other's arms. It felt warm and safe and 9S wondered how he'd ever managed to sleep alone? At some point, they'd started kissing. Eventually, they did a bit more. Actually, make that a lot more. Neither of them had ever opted for an 'upgrade', but that didn't mean they couldn't interface if they wanted. He was a Scanner model, after all.
They slept together (together-together) now, twined naked beneath the sheets. They didn't always make love, sometimes it was nice just to be close, to cuddle. More often, 9S would page through old human manuscripts while 2B did small chores like polishing her weapons, or listened to him read before settling down to sleep. Just mundane stuff; relaxing, winding down. Peaceful. Domestic. Almost normal.
Missions were still a thing, as were rogue machines. These days it was mostly the elements that made life difficult. That was okay. That meant there was no shortage of work for 2B and himself to do despite the war finally being over.
Most mornings it was the same. They'd wake and untangle themselves (or not), make the bed together, dress, and prepare for the day's mission. 2B usually woke first- probably hazards of being a combat model- with 9S surfacing from sleep a moment later. This morning, however, she had to pull herself loose since her lover was still curled limp and heavy around her, dead asleep.
"Nines," she said, gently shoving his shoulder. "Nines, it's time to get up."
9S groaned and hid his face in the pillow.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled.
"Lazy," she teased, shoving him again. He curled up tighter, flinching away from her touch.
"Nines?" Worry had crept into her voice. "You okay?"
"I feel like crap."
2B blinked. It wasn't like him to admit to pain. Sure he'd gripe and complain if he found a mission tedious, or felt a rule or situation was stupid, but he'd never shirked a mission, had always done what was asked and more. Hell, the first time she'd met him, he'd had an arm and a leg blown off and he'd tried to shrug it off as a scratch. Sinking back down onto the bed, she rested a hand on his shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
"One mother of a headache. And I feel like I'm gonna be sick if I try to sit up."
2B frowned. "Pod, run diagnostic on Unit 9S."
"Unit 9S' systems are running normally. Processing runtime slightly elevated. Diagnosis: Unit 9S has not had sufficient time to defrag after excessive hacking. Proposal: additional rest."
"Okay," she agreed. "Five more minutes. You want me to stay with you?"
"Please?"
"Okay." She lay down again and gathered him in her arms. 9S tucked his head under her chin and was asleep before her next breath.
—
The desert still sucked. 2B had let him sleep an entire extra hour and 9S felt better for it, for a while anyway. Both nausea and headache had lessened, but not vanished. The glaring light and searing heat did not help, neither did the thrice damned sandstorm. He had sand in places he didn't know were possible. He could feel his processor chugging, overwrought from trying to keep him cool. It has been cycling into overdrive the last couple of weeks but never this badly.
2B had always been faster than him, and she'd had to pause and glance over her shoulder several times to make sure he was still there. 9S did his best to keep up, but he could hardly see straight in a way that had nothing do with the air being filled with millions of particles of sand. The headache was making everything fractured and hazy; an indistinct, jagged chorus line of 2B's walking ahead of him instead of just one. They were also growing smaller and smaller. 9S tried to pick up his feet, but he couldn't seem to make himself go any faster.
"Bea!" he called, his voice getting lost in the hiss of sand shifting over sand. "B-"
The word devolved into a sloppy BLECH as he collapsed to hands and knees and retched. A revolting mix of oil and hot water formed a soupy puddle in the sand. It was enough to turn his stomach and he vomited a second time.
"Nines!" 2B's shadow passed over him; a blessed eclipse of cool and shade in this hell of light and heat. "Pod, run diagnostic!"
"Affirmative. Unit 9S is overheated. Cooling systems are running at double capacity, as is processing. Core temperature elevated. All other systems functioning normally."
"Why?" she snapped.
"Unknown. Proposal: Unit 9S should perform a self-hack to troubleshoot abnormal functions."
"Later," he grunted, letting 2B pull him to his feet. He swayed dangerously, optics graying out briefly. "We need to-"
2B caught him as gravity tried to yank him down onto the dunes. His whole body felt like jelly. Melted jelly. What was wrong with him?
"You can't go on like this," she said, matter-of-fact as always. "Here."
Crouching down, she maneuvered his arms so that they circled her neck from behind. Catching a hand behind each of his knees, she hefted him onto her back and stood. Ordinarily, 9S would have protested being carried, but was too miserable to care. He laid his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. Five minutes. Just five minutes and maybe he'd feel well enough to walk…
He woke later- though how much later, he had no idea- to find himself stripped to the skin and lying in the shallows of a small body of water. A palm tree and 2B's worried expression kept the worst of the sun off his face. They must have made it to the Oasis.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Not great," he grunted, lifting a hand to rub at his face, "but better."
"Your cooling system and processor were really chugging badly. Are you sure you didn't take any damage from the last hack you performed?"
9S thought about it, trying to remember anything weird or different. Yes he'd done a lot of hacking in almost back-to-back instances in the last few weeks, but not more than he'd done when the war was still on.
"I don't think so? I'll perform a self-hack once we've made it back to the Resistance camp."
"Why not now?" It wasn't like her to press him with questions. She must really be worried. Reaching, 9S cupped her cheek in one hand.
"Because I don't know how long it will take, or what I'll find. Let's just find those spare parts and get out of here. I can make it till then."
"Now," she insisted, her tone making it an order.
"I'm not being insubordinate, I really can't do a self-hack out here. Even with you beside me, it's too risky."
"9S…" she began, her voice edging from scared into angry.
"Tell you what. How about I reorganize my chipset? I don't need to be carrying so many combat plugins. I'll swap some of them out for speed boosters so I'm not chugging so bad."
She didn't look happy, but she nodded and stroked a hand over his hair. "Alright."
The walk back to the Resistance camp seemed to take days. Despite rearranging his chipset, 9S' processor was whirring dangerously, loud enough for 2B to look over, frown, and sweep him off his feet and into her arms. For once, he didn't complain. When they finally got home, 2B only paused long enough to hose the sand off them both before setting him down on their bed.
Sand free and in clean clothes, 9S felt more like himself. However, the headache persisted and he still felt tired and queasy.
"Do you need me to put you in safe mode?" 2B asked. 9S couldn't tell if it was an offer or a threat. Possibly, it was both.
"No, I can do it. Just gimme a minute."
He felt her take his hand, the mattress crush and slant as she sat down beside him. After that, awareness of the outside world faded as 9S turned his attention inward.
He performed a standard once-over and came up with more or less what the pods had: for reasons unknown, his processor was laboring to keep up with what should have been routine functions. That, in turn, was taxing his cooling system. Weird. Nothing was immediately out of place, so he dug deeper.
Whoa, what the hell?
It reminded him of a half-begun motherboard; notches for audio, visual, tactile, and other basic functions, but most of the little square of programming was obviously incomplete. Was this some sort of mental shrapnel? Fragments of code left behind from the last enemy he'd hacked? No, he realized. He recognized these functions. Strength, speed, agility...all primary attributes of a combat model.
This code belonged to 2B.
But how? He hadn't hacked her sys- Wait, yes he had. Only it wasn't his usual method of hacking. 9S could distantly feel his face flushing as realization dawned. He must have copied fragments of code from her each time they'd made love. Apparently it had been enough to accumulate into….this: the foundations of an android's consciousness. A consciousness that had been growing and piecing itself together without him even noticing. That would certainly explain the strain on his processor.
Wait.
Wait just one minute.
Did that mean?
Was he…?
Oh shit.
9S stared at the code, at the prototype motherboard. He hadn't consciously put it together, had not even known it was here until now. Logically, one could assume that every time he and 2B slept together, more code was added. His system seemed to be trying to integrate it but not in such a way that it melded with his own consciousness and abilities. Instead, the program appeared to be trying to build on itself, using the shared fragments of his and 2B's code. Theoretically, there might eventually be enough to form a whole second personality.
Well now.
How the heck was he going to explain this? (And were those freaky robots in the desert ever going to be mad if they ever heard about this. Which they were totally not going to. Like ever.) It occurred to him that he could delete it. Could set his systems to perform an automatic scan and wipe from now on but…
He didn't want to. Half of this...whatever...was 2B's. She should have a say in what happened to it, right? Also, he'd been in safe mode for a while now, and she was probably getting worried. 9S took a step back, out of his head and back into the waking world.
Tactile and olfactory were usually the first systems to boot up, alerting him of the gentle waves of slightly mildewy coolness coming from the air conditioner. Both of 2B's hands were clenched around his, her grip relaxing as his eyes fluttered open.
"Well?" she asked.
9S looked up at her, trying and failing to find words. Well, she'd never minced words with him. Perhaps this one time, it would be best to be blunt and to the point.
"I...think I'm pregnant."