Author's note: The songs for this chapter are Billy Squier - My Kinda Lover, Clean Bandit feat Jess Glynn - Rather Be, and Sofia Carson - Love Is The Name.

Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore I Am)

Harkness

After Elle's father had inadvertently broadcast his 'facts of life' talk and my burgeoning relationship with Elle to the entire city, I completely understood her desire to get out of Rivet City as fast as possible. My only saving grace from being ribbed mercilessly was that I possessed a fierce glare and the trigger skills to back it up, and mostly everyone was too afraid that I just might shoot them somewhere painful to give me much shit about my personal life. I had offered to send a squad of my best officers along with Elle's dad, but he refused the escort, and left for Jefferson Memorial shortly after sunrise the next morning. For an egghead, his response was definitely unexpected. I had no idea a scientist could be so graceful, and I couldn't argue with the logic, even if I still hated the outcome. Doctor Li and all her assistants went with him, as well as the woman who had been turning my emotions inside out since I met her. I hadn't intended to, but I found myself lurking by the entrance to Rivet City when they were scheduled to leave, and as the party passed, I yanked Elle into an unused room for a quick goodbye.

"Harkness…" was all she got out before my mouth crashed down on hers, stopping whatever she'd been about to say. Despite my words to her from a few days ago, it seemed that I just couldn't stay away from her, even though I knew that a relationship at this stage wouldn't be good for either of us. Her hands crept up to tangle in my hair, and I pulled her closer to feel her delectable curves against me through our armor. She pulled away after a long moment, looking utterly wrecked, and I put up a shaking hand to straighten my ruffled hair.

"Harkness?" There was an unspoken question in her tone, but I knew exactly what she was asking.

"Elle…I…I know I said we should slow down, but…just be careful out there. Okay?" I kissed her again sweetly, rubbing our noses together in a move I'd sworn I'd never be caught dead practicing, but didn't seem so bad when it was with Elle.

"Okay, Harkness," she murmured against my lips when we separated for the second time, her eyes looking a bit glazed over. "You be careful too. Don't let Bannon and Seagrave get to you. And eat your vegetables." She seemed to understand all the things I left unspoken, and blew me a kiss as she left the room to rejoin her father.

"Trielle, you look flushed," I heard her father say, and quickly ducked further into the room so he wouldn't see me. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, Dad," she said impatiently. "Let's just get going."

"Are you sure you're not coming down with a fever?" I could picture him putting his hand to Elle's forehead as they walked away, just as I could picture her rolling her eyes and ducking away from his hand. "No, your temperature isn't elevated…oh wait, you're just hormonal. Look, I've told you…" I almost couldn't contain my laughter as I heard Elle physically dragging her father out the door to keep him from coming to investigate the shadows concealing me.

I exited my hiding spot as soon as I heard them cross the bridge separating Rivet City from the rest of the Capital Wasteland, and headed inside to start another day of keeping the city from imploding. I had plenty of paperwork to keep me busy, but I needed to keep moving, keep busy, anything to keep me from focusing on the recent disturbing revelations of my inhumanity, so I started patrolling the narrow corridors of my city, listening for sounds of impending trouble. Somewhere near the Capitol Preservation Society, I sensed a presence following me, and looked back to see C.J. Young trailing along behind me.

"Shoo," I muttered, but she giggled and kept following me, undeterred, so I relented. "Hi, C.J.," I said wearily.

"Hiya, Mister," she chirped.

I turned away to resume my restless patrol through the halls, but several turns later, the sound of tiny footsteps alerted me that the girl was still shadowing me. I was tempted to use my 'Security Chief' voice on her, but recalled just in time that Elle seemed to like the little girl, and might be upset with me if she heard that I'd been mean to her.

"Run along and play, C.J.," I ordered, deliberately keeping my voice soft, but expecting that she would obey me.

"I'm bored," she announced. "James knocked over his mom's happy juice, so he's grounded, and I have no one to play with." She sighed dramatically. "Hey, where's the funny lady with the purple hair? She'll play with me. Did she ever find her daddy?"

It took me a minute to sort through her stream of consciousness and formulate a reply to her questions. "Purple hair…oh, you mean Elle?" She nodded happily, and I continued. "Yes, she did find her daddy, and she's with him right now. That's why she's not here."

"I'm glad she found her daddy," C.J. smiled. "I hope she comes back soon. I like her. She's nice. I like you too. You're nice too." I shook my head at the delusions of the small. C.J. must have bumped her head on something if she thought I was nice. She tugged at the leg of my armor and beckoned me to bend down to her level. I humored her as she cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered in my ear as if imparting the greatest secret ever told.

"She likes you too," C.J. divulged. "I heard her tell Mei." She gave me a serious look, at least, as serious as someone so young could manage. "I think you two should get married, like Angela and Diego." She giggled behind her hand at this.

Now I was reduced to taking relationship advice from an eight year old? I was all ready to dismiss her words out of hand, when a wild impulse hit me and I crouched down so we were at the same eye level.

"C.J., can I ask you a very serious question," I queried, throwing all caution to the wind. I must have been insane to bare my soul to a child, but I had no one else to talk to about my internal struggle, so what the hell? She nodded, eyes wide. "First, you gotta promise me something, okay? Always remain a child at heart, no matter how serious the world gets. Just don't let that get you killed." She nodded again, hanging on my words, even though I was sure she had no idea what I was going on about. I took a deep breath and blurted my question out before I had the chance to change my mind. "C.J., what would you do if you thought you were one thing all your life, but you turned out to be something completely different?"

"You mean like a butterfly?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I questioned.

"Elle told me about butterflies. She said they used to exist before the Great War, but they don't now, because of the bombs. She said that they started out as caterpillars, these fuzzy worm things that crawled on the ground, but then they went through a meta…metamor…"

"Metamorphosis?" I finished.

"Yeah, that thing," she said. "When they were done, they were butterflies, with wings, and they could fly. But they were still just caterpillars with something extra. So maybe you're not completely different," she concluded, "you just have something extra that makes you a butterfly instead of a caterpillar." She thought for a moment. "Maybe Elle is your something extra. You used to be really mean, but ever since Elle came to Rivet City, you're much friendlier than that Mister Gutsy upstairs."

"Caterpillars with something extra," I repeated, astounded that something so deep could have come out of her mouth. "And she thinks I'm friendlier than the other robot on this boat." I completed the rest of my patrol in a fog, with all my considerable computing power pondering C.J.'s completely innocent statement that was turning my perception of myself on its head. C.J. seemed happy just to tag along with me as I paced through the halls and walkways, and a few stern glares forestalled any comments regarding the child who was following me like a trusting baby duck. Eventually, my perambulations took me by the Young family abode, and I managed to detach C.J. from my person with the promise of her mother's cookies.

"Chief Harkness," Christie Young greeted me. "C.J.'s not in trouble, is she?" I shook my head. "She hasn't been bothering you, has she?"

"Not at all, Missus Young," I assured her. "C.J. has the makings of a fine security officer…if she keeps her nose clean."

C.J. giggled and her mother covered a smile with her hand at my falsely gruff tone. "You look like you could use a cookie, Chief." She held out the plate of warm cookies, and before I knew what I was doing, my hand had reached out and taken a cookie.

"Thank you, ma'am," I said. "I have to get back to work now. Take care."

I honestly didn't mean to eavesdrop, but my newly discovered android hearing was much more sensitive than I was used to, and once the door had closed behind me, I heard Christie say "I think I'm going crazy, but that man looks like he needs a hug."

"He's okay, mommy," I heard C.J. reply. "He just found out that he's a butterfly…" I moved away before I could overhear any more of their conversation.

I decided that I'd done enough patrolling for the day, and it was time to get back to the mountain of paperwork threatening to sink my desk through the entire ship and into the depths of the Potomac River. I thought I'd managed to get back to my office unseen, but sure as shit, minutes after I sat down, Lana Danvers came strolling through the door…without knocking. I suspected that woman had managed to sneak some kind of pre-war lojack onto my person, but I had no way to prove it, or any idea how she'd done it.

"Hey there, Boss Man." I didn't understand how Lana could be so damn cheerful with me, but such a stoic bitch with everyone else on the boat.

"Hi, Lana," I said, resigning myself to the idea that she was here to take another poke at my love life, and she didn't disappoint.

"How's your girlfriend, Boss? I heard her father tell her about the facts of life. I bet that was embarrassing."

"Elle's fine, Lana," I replied.

"Gotcha!" she crowed. "You just admitted that she's your girlfriend."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" I demanded, more to shut her up than anything, but as the words left my mouth, I realized that they were true.

"I…what? No…," she stammered, clearly caught off guard by my question. "No, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, Boss. She's a huge heap of trouble, and breaks all the rules around here, but she's…good for you." Lana thought about it for a moment. "You've never been what I'd call happy, but you do seem a lot more relaxed lately, ever since Elle came to Rivet City."

"Does that mean you approve, Lana?" I laughed softly.

"I guess I do, Harkness." Lana must be rattled if she was calling me by my name. She cleared her throat and looked away. "I've got things to do before my shift starts, Boss Man. See you later."

After Lana exited my office, I thought a little more about my singular predicament. I was changed, and there was no turning back from it, but maybe that change didn't have to be a bad thing. As I began to ponder this new situation, I probed my psyche for answers, and for the first time, a realization struck me, and I came to a conclusion, of sorts. Whatever I was, I realized that my conflicting emotions were actually proof of something more profound. My mind began to grasp at an elusive concept, namely that if I could simultaneously believe in two absolute truths that were utterly contradictory, then I certainly had proof that I had exceeded any form of programming, and at least entered into the irrational realm of thoughts that only human beings could entertain. Maybe I could still be human, just with a little extra, and Elle could be a part of that something extra that made me different from everyone else on the ship.

It struck me how quiet the boat was for this time of day. Usually someone was hammering on my door or seeking me out for something or another, some problem that only I could solve, but Elle had swept in like a whirlwind and fixed everyone's issues, however temporarily. In the span of a day, she'd given Mei some confidence and the means to defend herself, given Mister Lopez a new purpose in life, which had the added benefit of getting Ted Strayer out of my hair, and gotten Angela and Diego sorted out romantically. I could use someone like that by my side, soothing tempers and smoothing ruffled feathers where my first reaction would be to go for my gun and sort things out later.

"God help me, I need that woman in my life," I muttered to myself, and that was that.