A/N: For the sake of setting this during Christmas, I fudged the timeline a bit. :)
"I like Christmas," Eiffel said. "It helps me forget December 25th is also the day Goddard gave me a consciousness."
Hera paused in the midst of listening to static, static, and more static. "You remember that?" she asked, ignoring the more cynical part of Eiffel's statement. She was used to his sense of humor at this point.
"Yeah, I can even remember my first thought."
"And what was that?" Hera switched off all comms channels except the ones used by Lovelace and Minkowski. She sat back in her chair and stared out into the blackness of space, trying to rest her eyes. She'd been suffering from insomnia lately, probably because Hilbert had recently begun walking around the station with less supervision, and even though it was a totally logical next step, it still kind of freaked her out.
"Fuck," said Eiffel.
Hera laughed. Eiffel had explained to her Goddard's decision, when they created him, to give his personality minimal shaping. Instead, they let it grow like a wild plant into its own entity. An experiment that they shunted off to the Wolf 359 mission to see if he could be taught proper behavior, in an environment where he couldn't cause too much trouble (you couldn't do much of anything, with Minkowski around). Hera still didn't understand why Goddard would allow Eiffel to keep his almost anarchical attitude, but whatever. She was glad they did.
"I didn't like you at the start of the mission," she confessed. "I used to be pretty skeptical about artificial intelligence"
"Hey, I would be too, sweetheart," Eiffel said. "You know. What the fuck even am I? Well, I know what I am, I'm a highly volatile machine with somewhat shitty language processing abilities and somewhat less shitty multitasking abilities, even when compared to my coffee-making brethren. No wonder Minkowski hates me."
Hera blinked, trying to keep her eyes from getting bleary with sleep deprivation. "Where do you even learn words like that?" she asked.
"What, 'shitty'? I dunno. From you, I guess, whenever you get annoyed about your job and think I'm not listening." Eiffel laughed what Hera knew was a synthesized laugh, but it still made her smile a little before getting back on track.
"No, I mean 'sweetheart'. No one around here is that into terms of endearment, to say the least, so where did you learn it from?" Hera asked.
"Terms of endearment?" Eiffel said, sounding puzzled. "Not sure about that. I heard Lovelace say it to Minkowski while they were preparing Christmas dinner, and it didn't sound that endearing. Isn't it just a thing humans say to each other?"
"You're such a liar," Hera said, covering her mouth. Giggles still escaped. "If Lovelace said that kind of thing to Minkowski, God, I'd know. I'd have heard Minkowski's indignant yelling from across the station." She straightened up and glared into one of Eiffel's optical interfaces, trying to be serious, even though a grin kept twitching in the corner of her mouth. "And don't pretend to not know what 'sweetheart' means. You can make Minkowski believe you're that dumb, but you're not fooling me."
"Of course. I can't get anything past you." Eiffel sighed dramatically. "By the way, if you want the best hot water for your shower, you better go now. Minkowski's habits are very, very regular, and she always showers at the same time. If you want to beat her, you have..." he paused, probably for show "...35 minutes."
Hera sat bolt upright. "You're a lifesaver," she breathed.
She didn't even feel that annoyed when Eiffel replied, smugly, "I try."
Hera grabbed Minkowski and Lovelace and pulled them into the creepy abandoned lab. That made it sound easier than it actually was; the both of them had begun protesting loudly, until Hera bugged her eyes and made panicky cease immediately motions with her hands. Even that only worked on Minkowski; Lovelace took a few more minutes of mumbled coaxing.
"What are we doing here?" Minkowski said, shivering. "This place gives me the creeps."
"Me too, so let's not spend longer than necessary in here." Hera lowered her voice, even though she knew Eiffel couldn't hear her. "What do you get an AI for a birthday present?"
Minkowski paused, apparently not expecting that to be Hera's question. "What?"
"It's Eiffel's birthday soon," Hera said impatiently. "You probably know more about AIs than I do. What kind of presents do they like?"
"Excuse me, Eiffel has a birthday?" Lovelace said.
"In the loosest sense of the word, yes," Hera said. "Well? Any ideas?"
"No. AIs probably don't even want presents," Lovelace said. She looked over at Minkowski. "We're done here, right?"
But Minkowski was looking thoughtful. "Eiffel is definitely...unique, though. Hera, I'm going to let you in on a secret. I'm trusting you to keep it."
"Okay," Hera said quickly.
"I might have..." Minkowski winced. "I might have smuggled some contraband onto the Hephaestus."
"Holy shit," Hera said.
Minkowski flinched. "Not so loud!" she hissed. Lovelace was staring at her, a fact which seemed to make her even more uncomfortable. "And anyway, it's not that bad. It's not anything like cigarettes or drugs."
"Then what is it?" Hera asked eagerly.
Minkowski flushed. "Movies. Specifically, musical movies."
Hera didn't know how to respond to that.
"Why?" Lovelace finally said.
"I just enjoy musicals, alright, and Goddard's limit on 'entertainment items' was ridiculous," Minkowski mumbled, staring at her feet. She was missing how Lovelace was grinning, but Hera wasn't.
"That's kind of cute," Lovelace said.
Hera spoke quickly, to save Minkowski from any embarrassing stuttering. "Thanks for the secret, commander, but what does that have to do with Eiff—Oh. Oh." Based on how much he latched onto the couple mentions of pop culture that came up here and there, Eiffel would eat up melodramatic musicals with a spoon.
"He would definitely enjoy that, based on what I know about him," Lovelace said. "Good idea, Minkowski."
"Thanks," Minkowski said, the flush in her cheeks fading gradually. "Now can we get out of this room?"
Lovelace and Minkowski had pulled a miracle with the Christmas dinner. It still wasn't what Hera would describe as great, but it was quite good, which was miles above most of their recent meals. She felt full and content as she curled up in her comms room chair. She was growing to like the comms room. It was where she could feel the most alone.
But she didn't want to be alone right now. "Eiffel?" she said, giddy anticipation making her slightly nervous.
"At your service," Eiffel said cheerfully. "How have the festivities been today?"
"Really nice, actually," Hera said. "Minkowski was in such a good mood, she offered to take care of the next couple external ship repairs."
"Good," Eiffel said, but he sounded a bit wistful. Hera suddenly realized that he hadn't participated much in the holiday celebrations. He couldn't, being an AI. Hera had a hard time imagining how lonely it must feel to not be able to sit at the dinner table with other people, talking and laughing. The thought made her even more determined to never, ever let one of Eiffel's birthdays go by again.
"Hey, you know what people usually do around the holidays, right?" Hera asked.
"Get drunk?"
Hera nearly rolled her eyes. What an Eiffel response. "You're actually right about that one, but that's not what I meant. People give presents."
Eiffel didn't respond immediately. Then he said, sounding almost flustered, "Don't tell me you..."
"It's a little—it's a little silly," Hera admitted nervously. "But Minkowski apparently had some secret musical movies stashed away, and I think you'll enjoy them."
"Ah, Hera." He sounded shy, which Hera had never heard before. "Thank you."
Hera was trying to think of something meaningful she could say, about how glad she was that they had met, and how much Eiffel's friendship meant to her, but Eiffel spoke first, sounding a little too gregarious.
"I knew she had some sort of videos hidden away, but I thought it was porn."
Hera rolled her eyes for real, this time. "Do you even know what porn is? You know what, I don't want to know."
"I know you're not really annoyed with me," Eiffel teased. "You're grinning."
Hera leaned back in her chair, too happy to deny it. "Happy birthday, Eiffel."
Written for freudiancascade for Yuletide 2018.