November turned into December, Hank and Connor worked more deviant cases – it seemed almost as if more androids went haywire as closer as they got to Christmas.

"Got a theory why the android related crimes go up during the holidays?" asked Tina.

Hank shrugged and took a gulp of coffee, they were in the break room at the precinct. "Christmas drives people crazy – and they take it out on androids."

She raised an eyebrow. "Listen to you. One could almost think that you're on their side."

"I'm on nobody's side. But you should see how some of them treat the androids – no wonder that they go mad. I mean … Cyberlife build them to be emulate humans. What does the abuse of these machines say about the people owning them?"

She leaned back in her chair. "Perhaps, but-" she fell silent.

Hank followed her gaze to the door – Gavin stood there, eyeing them both. "Tina, would you excuse us? There is something I have to discuss with Hank."

Gavin wanted to talk to him? What in the seven hell had happened?

"Sure," said Tina and got up.

As soon as she had left, Gavin sat down on the table, leaning down to Hank.

"What do you want, Gavin?"

Gavin wiped over his mouth. "I've been watching you, Hank. You cleaned up your act – you actually get work done."

Hank waited for him to continue. Fowler had said as much, he was curious why Gavin bothered to comment on it.

"I just-" Gavin licked his lips. "I need to know." He looked pained. "Why didn't you pull yourself together when we were partners? I mean … why did you do it for a fucking android and not for me?"

Hanks blinked in surprise and for a few moments he was speechless.

"I bent backwards to help you through your loss. Covered for you countless times – because you were my partner – my friend." Gavin said in a low voice. "All I got was a shot in the gut."

"Gavin I-"

"And then this android turns up and you – you just-" he broke off.

"I'm sorry," said Hank. "I don't know, okay." He stared into his coffee mug. "Perhaps I needed to hit rock bottom … perhaps I needed five fucking years to get a grip."

He looked up, Gavin looked defeated. "Fuck you, Hank." He sounded tired.

"You know what – you're right. I'm an asshole. I let you down … and I know that words alone are meaningless but … I'm sorry."

Gavin's scoffed. "You don't know …" He wiped across his face with both his hands. "You don't know … but do you at least know that your Pinocchio isn't a real boy?"

Hank felt how the blood drained from his face. "What the fuck did you say?"

Gavin stood up, he chewed on his lips and shifted his weight from one leg to another. It seemed he had realised that he had gone too far.

"What the fuck did you say?" repeated Hank, clenching his hands to fists.

"I didn't mean it like that," said Gavin uncharacteristically guarded.

Hank jumped up and grabbed Gavin by his lapels. "You fucking insinuated that I would try to replace Cole!" He could feel tears sting in his eyes. "How dare you?"

Gavin lifted his hands. "It was just a stupid pun. I know that you would never-"

He let go of him and pushed his away. "Shut up!"

Hank walked out of the break room, bristling with anger. Fucking asshole! Motherfucking asshole! He returned to his desk, his fists clenched so hard that his knuckles turned white. He didn't look at Connor who sat across from him and stared instead into the screen without seeing anything on it. Stupid mongrel! Jerk! He forced himself to calm down and took a deep breath.

He wasn't worth it. Gavin wasn't worth it. He inhaled and exhaled a few times until the white hot anger had tickled away and only a quiet grudge remained.

"Hank? Are you alright?"

He jerked his head up and saw Connor leaning over so he could see past the computer screens.

"I just realised once more that Gavin is a miserable son of a bitch." He gulped. "Nothing to worry about."

"Do you want me to hack his computer terminal and install malware?"

Hank laughed. "I'll consider it."

Connor flashed a smile and refocused on his work. Hank's gaze lingered on him. Not a real boy, huh? Fuck you, Gavin.

-0-

A few days they were called to a crime scene – two androids had killed their owner, no other than the famous Elija Kamski. When they arrived a full SWAT team was standing outside Kamskis artsy mansion.

"Morning Captain, a little much, isn't it?" Hank said gesturing towards the men and women in dark combat gear carrying assault rifles.

"Lieutenant Anderson," he glanced briefly at Connor, "and this must be the prototype I heard so much about."

"Good Morning Captain," said Connor.

"Kamski has a house full of androids. We can't be too careful. As far as we know there were only two deviants but what if there were more of them?"

Hank crossed his arms. "What happened? All we know is that Kamski called 911 and said something about an android attacking him."

"Found him just outside his house, multiple stab wounds. There were two androids that were smeared with blood."

"Let us establish what happened," said Hank, "perhaps we can rule out if there were more than two attackers."

"Knock yourselves out, I-"

"A deviant!" yelled Connor.

Hank had just about enough time to turn his head, seeing how a young blonde woman stood over a fallen SWAT member lifting an assault rifle towards the cops in front of the house. Hank reached for his gun, but he already knew that he would be too late – from the corner of his eye saw a movement. Connor brushed past Hank, a gun drawn.

The several shots rang out at the same time. There was a moment of ear deafening silence before people started to yell. Hank realised that he held his gun in his hand and took a step forward, past the SWAT Captain who stared incredulously at his own empty holster.

Connor had taken his weapon and shot the deviant android in the head, it had only managed to fire a round before it had collapsed. Absolutely amazing! Hank patted Connor's shoulder. "That was incredible!"

Connor didn't move. Hank frowned and walked around him. He felt himself blanch when he saw that Connor had been hit in his right cheek, his jaw and throat. Parts of his face were shattered, exposing the white plastic underneath. Blue blood was slowly tickling out of his wounds, a thin runnel came out of his half open mouth. Small drops were falling on the snow before him.

"Connor?" Hank asked in a toneless voice.

The brown eyes were staring past Hank, the LED was grey. The wind was playing with his hair as he stood completely still.

"It's broken. No wonder, took three hits," said the captain next to him. "But we were lucky that it was here – saved a lot of lives that one."

Hank felt like the time had stopped. He just stared at Connor … it couldn't be. Not Connor too. "Fuck," he mumbled, feeling strangely numb. This wasn't happening, it had to be some bad dream.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He blinked turned to face the captain.

"You really liked it- him, huh? Don't worry, Cyberlife can download its programme into a new body."

"What? What did you say?"

"Saw it with some of the uniformed androids, one day they were broken the next day they showed up to work."

Hank gulped and made an effort to pull himself together. Calm down, they can fix Connor. They can fix him. This is different … they can fix him. "Alright, I guess I have to call Cyberlife."

About half an hour later a Cyberlife truck showed up and collected the broken androids. Hank had to turn away when they came to take Connor.

-0-

The evening and the next morning felt like a nightmare, he ate and went with Sumo on a walk, but it felt off. Everything seemed bleak. Hank sniffled when he entered the precinct. Perhaps he should call Cyberlife and ask them about the progress- he froze when he saw Connor standing next to his desk, hands clasped behind his back.

Hank laughed and briskly walked up to him. He nudged him.

"Thank god that you're okay! You stupid piece of plastic!"

Connor looked at Hank, not a muscle moved in his face. "I'm Connor, I'm the android sent by Cyberlife." His voice was different, much deeper than before.

Hank's smile faltered. "What happened to your voice?"

"As per your complaint Cyberlife has changed the voice of the Connor prototype." He smiled, but it was off – it was too perfect, artificial. It wasn't Connor's dorky grin.

"My complaint? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You said that the previous Connor had a 'stupid voice' and a 'goofy face'. Cyberlife didn't have the time to remodel the chassis but they could change the voice on short notice."

"What- what else did they change?" asked Hank. His knees felt weak, he had to sit down on his chair.

"Cyberlife updated the heuristic programme and the mission priorities."

Hank clenched his fist. "There was nothing wrong with the mission priorities or the heuristic thing!"

"Cyberlife reviewed the subroutines written by the heuristic programme and discovered that the previous model had written a subroutine for dog care – quite unnecessary of course for its mission."

"You're not Connor," whispered Hank.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Lieutenant."

"Cancel the updates."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Lieutenant."

Hank slammed his hand on the table. "Call Cyberlife and tell them that I want my partner back, tell them to cancel the fucking updates or I will tell the media that their prototype is shit. Tell them that I'll make sure that this project end in a PR nightmare!"

The LED turned yellow for a few moments. "I'll follow your order, Lieutenant."

The android froze, the LED switched between red and yellow until it turned blue again. Hank paced back and forth, glancing occasionally at Connor. He ran his hand through his pulled back hair.

Suddenly the android blinked and directed its gaze towards Hank. "Lieutenant, good to see you," he said with his real voice. Connor gave him a genuine smile.

Hank sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "You gave me quite a scare, you dork," he said with a brittle voice.

Connor tilted his head. "I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you."

Hank could feel tears sting in his eyes. He took a step forward and pulled Connor into a tight hug. "I thought I had lost you," he whispered. He didn't care that the other cops were staring at him. Fuck them all.

After a short moment of hesitation Connor returned the hug.

After a few moments Hank let go and blinked the tears away. "Um, let's just get back to work."

Connor nodded eagerly. "Of course, Lieutenant."

Hank cleared his voice and took a look around; some of his colleagues were staring at him. He glared until they looked away. All but one. Gavin stood in the hallway and looked strangely lost.

Fuck you, thought Hank and hope it translated in his icy stare. After a few seconds Gavin turned on his heel and left.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" asked Connor.

Hank gave a nod.

"Why do you want to keep this version of me? You complained about me in the past-"

"Because I suck at being a decent human being." Connor opened his mouth, but Hank lifted his left hand. "Just- just let me finish. I was miserable the past years … really miserable." He stared at his desk, unable to hold Connors gaze. "I can't deal with emotional stuff. Not really. I wanted to be miserable because it made sense. Then you showed up, and things got better, you know. I guess I just wanted to feel good."

"I-"

"And I don't want to talk about it because- because I know that you're programmed to work with me." He scoffed. "And I'm pathetic enough that I don't care. So you don't have to tell me- I mean- well, you don't have to pretend even if your programming says so."

He glanced at Connor; he was looking at him. No doubt trying to determine how to react to his stupid blabbering. Fuck, he should have kept his trap shut.

"I like you too, Hank."

Hank's eyes went wide. Connor looked at him in earnest. Hank felt warmth spread in his chest. He cleared his throat. "Uh, do you have the address for the next witness? We should get going."

"Of course, Lieutenant."