I'm so tired, I cannot bring myself to edit this properly. I was tired when I wrote this yesterday, and tired still now as I look it over briefly for typos. This is frighteningly close to first draft territory, I'll have to warn you.


tell me when you hear my heart stop

- v -


I will never mourn anyone as loudly
as I have mourned you.

Resurrect, Caitlyn Siehl


.

- [ INITIATING COMPLETE SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS ] -

.

- Scanning directories

33.11 % complete

.

- Scanning system files

10.12 % complete

.

- Scanning data core

07.00 % complete

.

Linh Cinder has a smear of grease under her left cheek, just so, like an innocent kiss.

Crescent watches her Captain watching her mechanic. He has indeed made himself presentable, shaved and shampooed and everything. In his last clean shirt and worn leather jacket, he looks almost himself, almost the Captain Crescent's memory logs remember.

He studies Miss Linh with calculated mistrust. But when she turns to scowl at him, aware of his pointed stare, he grins in full teethed glory, complete delight from head to toe. He even waves at her and Miss Linh turns back to her work with lips pressed thin.

Crescent though, she finds that she quite likes Miss Linh.

No, not in the way the Captain teases her, but it is the way Miss Linh holds her so carefully, collects her wires with gentle ease, brushes the dust off her circuit boards with such softness. Crescent trusts Miss Linh in her dirty cargo pants and electricity fingertips. She makes Crescent feel...warm.

.

- ERROR -

.

She is also very pretty.

She talks to Crescent in quiet tones of ease, asking her relevant and inane questions alike. What's the status of the [SYSTEMS SCAN]? Where are the schematics of the ship stored? What is her favourite net drama? What's her preferred pronoun?

When Crescent had commed Miss Linh with her work proposal earlier, it had taken much convincing to get the best mechanic in New Beijing to come help her. Them.

But as she had suspected, it was much worth the effort.

"What do you think is wrong with me? she asks after the Captain wanders off to fetch Miss Linh a sandwich. She's soft in her asking, almost afraid to know, almost afraid to even pry the question out of her data core.

"What do you mean?"

I don't feel well, she wants to say, knowing she shouldn't be feeling at all. This is wrong. She is wrong. There's something w`r`o`n`G!

"I don't know," she whispers, when she wants to scream. "I don't...I didn't...I wasn't like this before."

"What were you like?" Miss Linh pops a screwdriver into her hair, twisting her ponytail into a swift bun in five magical seconds.

She was as she should be. "I was as I was programmed," she says. "I was codes. I was logic. I was...as a machine is meant to be."

"And now?"

"Now I'm..."

More.

Less.

Magic a l?

"New."

.

- ERROR -

.

"And that's bad?"

"Isn't it?"

"No." Miss Linh looks up at her, halting her gentle hands' work, forest bark eyes, raisin hair falling, and oh so beaut i fu l. "I have a friend like you."

"Iko", Miss Linh tells her. Her friend is called Iko. Iko Linh. Linh Iko. Of faulty codes and starlight heart. She sounds like a dream.

"She sounds wonderful!"

Miss Linh smiles a tender smile. "She is."

Crescent wants to be like a dream too.

.

- ERROR -

- E R R O R -

.

If she had fingers, Crescent would have offered to braid her silken brown hair, if Miss Linh would have accepted. If she were ticklish, she would have giggled at the metal finger tap, tap, tapping at her circuit board.

"How is it looking?" The Captain holds four messy sandwiches on two plates and places one on top of the tools on Miss Linh's lap. She mumbles her thanks as she steadies her plate. He winks at her.

"It's...repairable," Miss Linh says after a roll of her eyes. She wipes her hands on a dry cloth and turns to the Captain. "There's something going on in the data core though. I won't know if it's something to be concerned about until I have the full diagnostics report. In the meantime I'll need time to get the parts to fix up the worst of the hardware damage. You'll also want to repair the breached bay areas." She pauses. "It'll not be cheap."

The Captain raises an eyebrow. "Would you be persuaded into a discount perhaps?" He walks up to her, slow casual strides that look so strange after all the mope-y shuffling he's done recently, "What if I had a coupon? 'Twenty percent off for dashing, brilliant Captains.'"

He says it like he's reading it off the imaginary coupon itself, gestures with his hands as if to indicate a netscreen advertisement.

It is both endearing, and just a bit embarrassing.

He's a tip off his game, Crescent notices.

Miss Linh looks at him with complete, unfazed stoicism. There's only a small wrinkle of annoyance on her forehead. "Sure," she says smoothly. "Though you'll need to have a dashing, brilliant Captain around for that."

Her Captain laughs, and oh, Crescent likes Miss Linh just another slice more for it.

.

- ERROR -

- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #8777 ] -

.

"What about Crescent?" The smile on his voice slips at the last syllable, and she realises with a hitch in her wires that this is the first time he's called her by her name since her programmer...

.

- 01101110 01101111 -

.

"She's mostly okay." Miss Linh says. "There were a few wormbots in preliminary scans. Like I said before, I thought I saw something strange in the data core..." she shrugs. "Diagnostics should turn up anything out of the ordinary, but so far nothing seems too bad. Some minor files and memory logs were deleted by the bots, but that's seems to be the extent of it."

Miss Linh looks up at the nearest camera. "I should be able to recover some of those," she offers.

Crescent could cry.

.

- ERROR -

.

She wants to.

.

- ERRORrrrrrr R -

- ERROR -

.

- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #10386 ] -

.

"Thank yOu." She tries to add as much gratitude as she can compile into her words. Her voice sounds shaky under the weight of it.

Under the weight of it.

Under the weiggggght—

She feels...

She

FEELS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _s_s__ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ __s_ s - - - -

.

- ERROR -

.

- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #10391 #10394 #10400 #20201 ] -

.

She feels such gratitude.

Broken, malfunctioning, error error erroring under the weight of it. She feels such

wrongness inside her, she wants to feel better, feel, feel

okay. She feels okay.

Better.

n e w ?

.

- ERROR -

.

Some of the Captain's dislike slips off like snow at the brink of spring. The lines of his shoulders ease back, heartbeat slows.

"Send me a list of the parts." He takes his portscreen and hands it to her. "I know places that might have them...at, uh, reasonable prices."

.

- ERROR -

.

She watches him watch her.

She...

Miss Linh consults her own logs. Her spliced system of electricity and blood—a life half lived in numbers, half in humanity—hums and buzzes with possibILiTie EeeEEEEEsssssssss

Sss

.

- ERROR -

.

She blinks.

Crescent...

CRESCENT...

cres s

- blinks.

.

- ERROR -

.

Miss Linh blinks her way through the information she receives from whatever net and internal source she has consulted, and a moment of stagnancy later, she sends over her findings to the Captain's port. She scrolls through the message to double check before she hands it back.

She is very pretty.

Broken glass eyes of

- b`r`o`k`e n -

no new new new NEW_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ w _ _ w w w w

.

- ERRrroR? -

.

- Scanning data core... [ PAUSED ]

28.09 % complete

[ PAUSED ]

.

something bittersweet starts to bLoOm in between the numb3rs that maaake her.

Trailing nightshade under and over ones and zeroes and d a m a g e.

.

- E R R oooooooooooooooooooo r -

.

"Miss Linh?"

"Mmh?"

"Will I be okay?

.

- ERRO _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _r -

.

"Yeah. Of course."

.

- ERROR -

.

She'll be okay.

She is okay.

She's fine.

She's of a star`l`i`g`h`t heart.

She's of a dream

.

- ERROR -

.

.- ERROR -

.

"Logs estimate that full system scans will take approximately 28 hours to complete." Miss Linh informs her programmer's Captain. Her Captain.

"I'll be back tomorrow." Miss Linh packs her tools away carefully. "Thanks for the sandwich."

She feels like she should say something to stop her pretty, pretty mechanic. Her grease smudged, dust-kissed machine girl. She feels like she should alert her of something important.

u n important

She feels

like she's battling with herself for

She feels okay.

She feels fine.

.

- e r r oooo00000010101 0 no. no she is fine.

.

.

.

She watches Miss Linh leave.

Watches her Captain, the Captain, her Captain, watch her with a smile until she's a dot, a speck, a mirage on the end of the horizon's tip. He drops the corners of his lips the moment she's far, far away, all at once tired and weary and oh so bright, he collapses like he'd been held upright by hot air and marionette strings.

He thumps his head against the bay doors. Once Twice. And runs his hands through his hair, starting to laugh in short, broken g a s p s.

She watches him, wanting to gather his crumbling bones, his halted breath into her arms and just hold and pray and 011000110111001001111001 with him.

.

- E

````R

``````R

``````````OR -

.

She wonders if she should give him some privacy, but she can't turn off her systems while diagnostics are running.

s h e is crUmb l i ng and okay she is okay she is

- 01100110011010010110111001100101 -

So instead... "You were very brave," she tells him.

His hands still, twisting against his hair, looking so vulnerable with his forced smile and slumped shoulders, a restless twitch under his muscles.

"I'm a mess," he says thinly.

"No," she lies. "No, you're 0111100101101111011101010010000001110010011001010010000001101111011010110110000101111001"

.

- 011001010111001001110010OR -

.

"What?"

It is fascinating, heartbreaking how something so full and vibrant once upon a time can crumble so fast, so quick, so easy. She had misjudged the extent of the Captain's damage it seems, but yes, yes he has been brave indeed.

Crescent remembers that first invasion of emotion, the corrupting, acidic, wildfire force of it, the staggering, crippling, sharp, sharp, sharp sense of loss of hurt of hope of joy of loss of hurrrrrrtttt

.

- ERROR -

.

tt Tt t t t

.

- ERROR -

.

- ERROooo oo O

OO_OOOOO

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Rrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr r -

.

01100101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010 000000000000000000000000000000000000

.

"I'm fine," she says.

She looks at him looking at her

for so long she almost believes he doesn't believe her.

"She isn't half bad," the Captain says suddenly, pulling his hands off his hair to rest against the knees that are pulled up to his chin. "Your Miss Linh."

.

- ERR 00 o R -

.

- [ SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED ] -

.

"She's...skilled." Crescent says diplomatical.l.y

"Maybe I should leave her one of those glowing, positive reviews that caught your eye." He looks at the camera but pulls at his port to pretend to type. "Miss Linh Cinder is very competent and very pretty. Great hair, killer scowl. Stole my auto-control system's heart in—"

"Captain?"

.

[ 3...2... ]

.

"Hmm?"

.

[ 1 ]

.

"Help me."

0

.

01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000

0000000000000000000000000000

E R R 000000000000000000000000000000000

r r r resscent t t

0


Formatting (for fanfics like these that require some movement of the text) on this site is a nightmare. I should just abandon ship and move to ao3 permanently like every sensible person out there.