AN: light trigger warning for character death and characters dealing with it.

Another chapter I've had written for awhile (like I said, I had the major plot points figured out when I started) and I...well...sorry…

enjoy!

"Talking"

Emphasis

Thinking

"Android brain talking and texting"

.:internal workings like mission updates, scanning, and android googling:.

Chap 6

Cassian didn't see Connor for a few more months. She was glad he was taking care of himself but, once again, the office became boring; whenever he showed up in her workspace, things were interesting, if not panic inducing. Her life became monotonous; the same routine everyday: "Wake up" when the humans came in to work, help with human patients, scrap or repair a few androids here and there, keep her workspace clean, internally roll eyes at Nancy, "shut down" when the humans left, read into the night...repeat. She wished something interesting would happen.

She took that back as she stared down at the body on her table.

Connor.

He had looked so alive and now he was here, in her office, dead. Not terminated, not non-functioning...Dead; a lost, far off look in his eyes as he lay on the table under the bright, clinical light, a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.

A lucky shot… she thought absently before mentally shaking herself; Connor may have been programmed to be on the other side of the deviancy issue from her, but he didn't deserve to die like this, his body heaved onto a table like a sack of spare parts to be examined and thrown away like so many before him. She knew what happened (an altercation during an interrogation, deviant got an officer's gun, she had heard someone tell Nancy) but doesn't stop her from asking why: why him? why any of them?

Nancy must have seen her freeze at the sight of Connor, because she called out to the rest of the staff in the room, stating that a break was in order. "The androids can finish any the work that's left and clean up, don't worry. Let's go get that coffee you were talking about _, then get out of here. You all deserve it." With a worried glance over at Cassian's back, Nancy herded the crowd out.

Once everyone had left, for a second, Cassian's silent stare held. But then she broke; her tears silent but unstoppable. She had seen many of her people cross this table in varying degrees of damaged but this was the first time she had to be the undertaker for someone she had treated in another visit. Many other visits…

He attracted trouble...she smiled watery at the thought. With a sigh, she closed his eyes with one hand, bowing her head. This was the first time she knew what the dead man's eyes looked like alive and smiling.

"Let's get you on your way."

.:Mission Update: assess damage and dispose of damaged assets:.

Fuck off…

Wiping away her tears, she ordered Astrid and Logan to start cleaning up the office, "I can handle this one alone." and began the painful process of pulling her friend apart. She froze as that thought struck her, her hands part way through pulling his coat off. Without realizing it, she had come to think of Connor as her friend, despite who he was...and now he was dead. In a stupor, she missed a small, silver disk fall out of his pocket. She flinches when it pings off her shoe and rolls under the table, before getting on her hands and knees to find it.

She nearly starts crying again as she sits under the table, quarter in hand; the very same one connor had driven her out of her mind with, the first time they met.

She sits there for what felt like hours, but, looking up at the clock, was, in actuality, only a few minutes. An "are you ok?" from Nancy spurs her into action again. She had to finish this before the group got back; Nancy may have bought her time alone (or rather, as alone as she got these days...) but she actually had to do the work to get away with it. With an "im ok now. Let me finish this up." back, Cassian continues her work. She contemplates what it would be like to not feel anything like the other two in the room, who were puttering around behind her; to not have this ache in her chest. Would it have been better to not know what was lost? Would it have been better to never have seen life in those eyes to have to endure it gone later?

"No…no it wouldn't be..." she whispers, her hands finishing organising the salvageable parts from Connor and folding his clothes (he always looked so smart...even when he was leaking blue all over the goddamned floor…) Even as she detaches herself from what she was doing, she concluded: everyone deserves to have someone remember them. If she had to feel like this for someone to remember Connor or that HR400, then so be it.

Cassian was cleaning up her workstation, trying not to think of what just happened there, when everyone filed in again to gather their things to leave early; they were almost somber, as if they could sense the Cassian's mood. They all left promptly, even the late nighters found reasons to be elsewhere...no one paid any attention to the android standing stoically to the side.

Nancy waved off some offers to join a group for a drink, "I have paperwork to finish. Drink one for me." They seemed eager to do so.

With everyone gone, Nancy was at Cassian's side, "Logan, please lock the door, then both of you go on standby." She rubbed friend's shoulders as they waited to be truly alone.

"Are you ok?"

Honestly?

"No, no I'm not. My friend is dead and I-" annoyingly, a sob escaped her; she had thought she was cried out, "I couldn't fix him like I always do. I've failed him. Why couldn't he just stay out of fucking trouble for once in his fucking life!"

"Hey, hey…" Nancy sounded so soft, a sharp contrast from her normal brash attitude, pulling Cassian into a hug, allowing the android to cry on her shoulder, "Some people just attract trouble, it's like they're built to find it...and in his case, he actually was. We wish they would be more careful but to reign them in would change who they are." A drop hits Cassian's cheek, looking up she saw that Nancy was crying as well.

"Even if it saves them?"

Holding Cassian at arms length, Nancy wiped away her friend's tears, "If he wasn't this way, you two would never have met. Am I right?"

"No, I suppose not-"

"Do you regret meeting him?"

"Of course not! How-"

"I'm not saying you should feel ok about this or that that you will be ok soon. But you will eventually. I know this will be hard but I also know you: you're strong; how else could you have survived this long here in this office?"

Strong? Cassian didn't feel strong. She felt weak and broken. She wasn't sure why she was in this state, something must be wrong with her, with her programming. Maybe they were right; maybe she was just an obsolete glitchy android.

"What you're feeling is normal, all the more evidence what you're feeling is real, evidence that you are feeling." Iit was as if Nancy could read her thoughts.

"Normal?" How? How could this ache, this pain be normal?

"The problem with feeling is it's not just sunshine and rainbows all the time, as I'm sure you've noticed. There are dark days, there are hopeless days, and there are days it seems like the world won't get better; but it will, I know it will. There will be stumbles along the way and it may take a long time but it will get better."

"How do you know?"

"I've been there."

They both sit heavily on Cassian's work table as Nancy looks off into the distance and smiles, "Ava was...she was a firecracker, always looking for her next adventure...our next adventure. We met in college, roomed together actually. I was a nerd with attitude problems and she was an art major who decided I was her best friend. She wouldn't leave me alone till I agreed to hang out with her. After that, we went everywhere together...well, more like she dragged me everywhere...and eventually she dragged me down the aisle."

"I didn't know you were married…"

"I-...don't talk about it, too painful..."

"Oh Nancy, you don't need to continue-

"Just...let me finish this bonding moment, then you can fuss." Nancy quirked a watery smile and sniffed, "Anyway, I had just gotten the job offer here, right when Cyberlife was just starting, when it happened; she was so supportive of my career...We were out on a walk, one night, and trouble found us; dark city streets and desperate men took her from me. We were both paying off student loans, we didn't have any money for him to steal...so he killed her for nothing. I never found out who he was…the man; he ran off after he saw what he had done. Ava was so small, but she fought like someone 3 times her size...I felt so helpless; I couldn't save her...I nearly didn't make it either: getting stabbed is messy business." She shakes her held as if disappointed at herself for getting stabbed, "When I got out of the hospital, I didn't know how to handle my grief. I took the job and I threw myself into my work fully to forget...didn't really stop till a couple years ago."

"What made you stop?"

Nancy closes her eyes and whispers, "You know? Ava would have liked you..." While not truly an answer, Cassian understood what her friend meant. She pulled her much taller friend into a tight hug.

"You didn't need to relive that for me..."

"You shared your grief with me, so it's only right that I share mine with you. I just wanted you to know that it gets better; things aren't 100% for me yet but they're better than they've been for nearly 15 years. It doesn't ever truly goes away but remembering them as they were before helps. Work helps too, it gives you purpose and direction, but friends, family, remembering the good times is what gets you through it all."

Cassian sighs a sad laugh as they pull out of the hug, ""As he was before"...you do realise this man spent a large amount of the time we've known each other sitting on my table missing body parts, right?"

"yeah...not all memories are gems….but all are precious. Hold on to them."

"You make it sound as if he was truly special to me…"

"Wasn't he?"

Cassian didn't know how to respond.

They sit in silence, side by side, in their own thoughts; an hour passes before Nancy stands and stretches.

"I must head home; I'm not known for long nights, any longer and people will get suspicious...are you ok for tonight, hon?"

Cassian wipes her cheeks, "I should be alright. I mean not really but…" she shrugs.

"Ok...remember, phones can reach farther than this Cyberlife facility, call me if you need to talk,"

A sad smile at Nancy's mothering stretches across Cassian's face, feeling brittle, "And you thought I would be the one fussing...I will, Nancy."

Watching her leave, Cassian sits for a bit longer in the empty office. Her eyes wander the room, before landing on Astrid and Logan; they were standing stoically in their stations, eyes closed, power off. She stands, overcome by a sudden urge to do something. Crossing over to the standby stations, she grasps Astrid and Logan's hands and wills them to wake up, to be Alive, to join her.

But nothing happens.

Cassian sighs. Maybe she was just being selfish, wanting them to be with her, to actually be her sisters...to be a family. Maybe it would be cruel to knowingly subject them to this prison, just so she wouldn't be alone; right now, they didn't know it could be any different, didn't know they could be any different...She leans against the wall of her own "room," forehead on her knees, and stays there until just before the people start coming into work the next morning; her eyes closed, lost in thought the whole time.

She misses the yellow glow of two LEDs in the dark office.

AN: So now Cassian is paranoid and depressed...can you tell i love my OCs?

Astrid and Logan aren't awake yet, but they're learning.

ill be 100% honest...this was hard to write….Cassian and Nancy went to some dark places here...and so did i….it was hard...especially since we all fucking know he's coming back...but Cassian doesn't, so let's give her some space.

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Suou Neko: I'm glad to hear it! It's always nice to hear people like your work.