A/N: I've just been having Feelings about my own relationship, so this can be considered something of a vent. Even though the situation doesn't really apply to me (I'm happily engaged).

Ah, well. I love the hopeless relationship trope.

There's no reason to wake up early anymore, but the habit is ingrained into Cora and she wakes at sunrise every morning, without fail. It used to be that Metro City dumped their garbage early in the morning, so Cora got up beforehand to beat everyone else to the good parts.

She glances toward the window with bleary-eyes. A thin white curtain is flapping in the gentle wind, doing a horrible job at keeping the light out. Cora closes her eyes again, enjoying the feeling of the breeze against her skin. During the day, the noise of traffic is nonstop, but so early, she can enjoy the quiet.

There will be no robot parts falling from the sky if Cora looks outside of her window. For all that she wanted to return to Metro City, in the end, her home came to her.

Someone shifts next to her, foot digging into Cora's stomach. She can feel breath against her hand and hair tickling her leg. Despite herself, she smiles. Her bed is too small for a group of people, but Cora had wanted to have all of her friends over for her birthday. Despite the fact that her parents only have an apartment, they hadn't been able to refuse her. So the obvious solution was that everyone brought a pillow and a blanket and they slept in a nest of fabric and bodies.

Cora rolls over and her smile falls. She hadn't fallen asleep next to Astro, but he had ended up near her anyway, his head within reaching distance and his body laying the opposite direction of hers. She presses her lips into a thin line. If it weren't for Widget using her thigh as a pillow and Zane pressed against her other side, Cora would have moved.

But for once, Astro isn't looking at her with those big, questioning eyes. He isn't laughing at a bad joke she made or babbling about the latest innovations in robotics or shooting off to save the day in that heroic way that she selfishly hates. His chest rises and falls pointlessly, eyes twitching behind his eyelids as he dreams, letting out the occasional soft breath that could have been a mumble if he would put more energy behind it. He's just sleeping. So Cora lets her eyes linger on him.

If he had been awake, she wouldn't have done it. There is no point in leading him on. Cora just turned seventeen and he's… well, he might be older than her mentally, for all that she knows, but physically, Astro hasn't aged a day since she met him. She's going to be a woman and he's always going to be steel alloy and coolant tubes and computer chips. They won't work. It can't last.

Not that Cora doesn't wish it were different. Every day, she wishes that she had gone for it when she was younger, closer to his age. Maybe if she had established something with him sooner, they could have worked together to find a solution. They could have changed people's minds, they could have designed him an older body, they could have worked through their differences, they could have tried.

But regret never turned back time. It's unfair to push now, after years of making it clear to him that she isn't interested. Except Cora is interested, has always been interested, and she is merely scared. A coward.

She wishes that it could always be like this between them, just quiet and easy. It's so easy without her parents breathing down her neck, the public's eyes following Astro's every move, the weight of the precedent they would be setting stuck heavy on her shoulders. If it could always be as easy as laying next to him, she would have at least tried it.

Cora knows that she's a coward, a selfish one. Because even if everything aligned and there would be no repercussions to kissing him, relationships are messy even between the best of friends. What if they didn't work? What was going to happen when she was in her twenties, thirties, forties, and Astro was as youthful as ever? Would she still be able to hold him? Would he be disgusted with her? And before that, if they broke up with drama and screaming and throwing things… She would lose her best friend. Someone she couldn't live without.

So Cora keeps him at arm's length, and it's killing her as much as it is him, but it's that or nothing. She can live with that.

In the silence of the dawn, Cora leans a little closer. Astro's face is so relaxed when he sleeps. She hardly ever gets to see him like this, all tension and stress and anxiety washed away. She reaches out with one hand, daring to brush his artificial hair back with the faintest touch she can muster.

There's so much she still doesn't know about him, she can't help but think. Cora knows that there's a story behind the way he sometimes flinches, how he stumbles through regular interactions like he doesn't know how to talk to his friends, the hesitant smiles when the topic of his "dad" comes up, like he isn't used to that being a positive thing. He can't accept praise and he doesn't understand how to hug someone and it's like he's incapable of opening up.

It's his story to tell, but Cora wants to know it more and more every day. She knows that she doesn't deserve to hear it. He had a life before her and he's going to have one after her.

And that's really the crux of it, isn't it? She's going to die one day. He's not.

Cora isn't sure if she can put them both through that. She wonders if it would be any better or worse than the fine line they walk around each other at the moment.

She could probably kiss him. No one would have to know except for her. A part of her has always wondered what it would feel like; if his lips would give like a human's or be as hard as plastic. But his unaging face looks back at her, delicate and boyish and relaxed, and she can't bring herself to do it. She doesn't want to push their waking world problems onto the only bit of solace he's going to get.

But there's energy in the air now, where it always is whenever the traitorous thought occurs to Cora. The tension is palpable and she hates it, hates how suffocating it is. Some days she wonders if it would be better that she stopped talking to Astro entirely.

For one more day, at least, she decides not to. She's been telling herself that for years, though: one more day. Cora reaches for his face again and taps him on the cheek, if only to avoid a lingering touch that might turn into a caress. She wouldn't be able to explain herself if he woke up to find her holding him like he's something precious (even though he is).

Astro's eyes flutter open and they pixelate for a moment. She loves watching him wake up. The last bits of sleep cling to him and his eyes adjust to waking. It's beautiful, the way they focus on her face and glow, a faint blue that lights up the area around them before his eyes fade back to their usually brown as he blinks and yawns. He doesn't need to yawn, he doesn't need to breathe at all, but the fact that he does anyway makes Cora smile.

The smile is wiped away when he refocuses on her, taking in their proximity. She's not imagining it when he inches a little closer. "Hey," he says, still sounding tired. But, then again, Astro is always tired. "Good morning."

It's almost an invitation. Cora almost accepts. Just like she does every day, she wills herself not to move. She wonders if he knows how tempting he makes it, how much she wants to kiss him. It would ruin everything, if she did, like a house of cards that couldn't sustain its own weight anymore. They would go tumbling down.

"Good morning," she replies and pointedly moves away a little bit. It takes some clever shifting and swapping her thigh for a quickly-placed pillow, but Cora manages to get into a sitting position without waking anyone. She glances over at Astro and is quiet while they both collect themselves, trying to pretend that nothing happened, that no feelings passed between them. "I was thinking about making breakfast for the gremlins. Do you wanna help? You're pretty good in the kitchen."

He's much better than she is. He always has been. (She isn't talking about cooking, not really, and something in his face says that he understands.)

Astro shrugs with one arm, uninterested. "Sure," is all that he says, and Cora wants to scream. She wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him, beg him to say something meaningful, but she can't even do that much.

If Astro pushed her, she would break. But he never does, he never challenges the distance that she puts between them. He respects her decision too much to do that and Cora can't help but wish that he didn't.

"Great." Cora says nothing else. She stands up and doesn't offer him her hand. They pull themselves together and resume their normal lives, falling right back into the status quo.

Nothing has changed.

A/N: This was supposed to be fluffier than it came out… I tend to do that.

I've been listening to too much girl in red.