Something was definitely wrong with her, Rosie realized. She supposed she should be more concerned about it, but for whatever reason she was calm enough. She had run scan after scan all day on all of her systems looking for anything remotely out of the ordinary, but to the very best of her observations and knowledge, everything was fine. In fact, the main reason she was concerned at all was because she wasn't terribly concerned about it.

The Supreme Flagship had already reassured her, after all, so whatever she must have been going through had to be normal, right? Surely, Yamato would have called off the mission had she suspected that Rosie was malfunctioning?

Still, Rosie couldn't make heads or tails of what exactly she was feeling or why she was feeling that way.

Again, there had been humans that Rosie had encountered over her ten years among them that she had grown attached to or cared about in one way or another, but with Marcus, the feeling was different. Mainly, it had occurred much faster and was already much stronger.

What exactly was so special about him?

Certainly, he was utterly fascinating. She had never before met a human who had had such a long history of conflict, combat and violence. According to Marcus, he had personally killed at least eighty people, yet seemingly remained functional day to day, alcohol notwithstanding. Could he have possibly been some sort of sociopath? He didn't seem that way to her, but Rosie had made mistakes in character judgment before.

The one thing Rosie did know, was that despite his history, she genuinely liked being around him. In fact, this was, she admitted to herself, an understatement. It was only the tail end of her first full day with him and all she wanted to do was be around him, study his behavior and ask him questions about himself.

This was, to some extent, perfectly in line with her research parameters up to this point: Find an interesting human subject and learn more. But Rosie couldn't help but suspect something ulterior, not in her programming or in the mission parameters, was going on.

Despite that, she felt her mind wandering to the fact that in far too short a time for her liking, Marcus was going to have to sleep and she was going to have to wait patiently for hours until he woke up again.

She busied herself with yet another system scan, but it of course revealed nothing amiss. She was, according to all scans, operating at maximum efficiency. Maybe this was what emotion was simply like: Being able to operate perfectly and yet still feel like there was something wrong. This was an all new feeling for Rosie.

She decided to not be too concerned with it at this time. She would, however, keep a close watch on herself and all her systems to make sure there was no deterioration.

Rosie looked up from her perch from a stool at the kitchen counter as Marcus poured her a glass of water and slid it to her. It was obvious he was unused to company merely by the amount of times he asked her if she needed anything, she thought with amusement. The irony in her case being that she never needed anything, at least in the way of what Marcus was offering. But, she was determined to play along, so when the water had been offered this time, she had accepted.

Marcus topped off his glass of whiskey and took another long sip. She was unsure how much he had drank so far this evening, as he may have been drinking at times when she was unable to observe, but just based on how much she had seen him drink, all calculations would have pointed to him being far more impaired than he currently seemed to be.

He came around the counter and grabbed the empty stool next to the one she was sitting on, bringing it into the kitchen itself so he could sit across from her, as opposed to next to her. Rosie had, of course noticed Marcus's consistent preference to not be too close to her at any time and she still had no idea why this was.

"You can sit over here, you know," she offered helpfully.

"Nah," Marcus waved her off, seemingly trying to be casual. "I can see you better from here anyway."

He plopped down on the stool, took a gulp of whiskey and leaned back a little with a sigh.

It was at this point that a plan began forming in Rosie's mind. She wondered if Marcus would be more talkative while he was heavily intoxicated. Calculating that this might very well be the case, Rosie resolved to keep this conversation going for as long as possible and not, at any time, dissuade Marcus from drinking. So, Rosie kept the conversation flowing while relaying entirely made up details about her youth and growing up on Oahu. How her parents had protected her during the Crises before the military began to intervene. How she had been lucky, compared to a lot of people, because she and her family had been a part of a small community of people who stuck together and protected one another. How she had been given, by Oahu standards, an almost normal childhood.

All lies. Every single word.

Rosie had never felt guilty about manufacturing stories about her nonexistent human past and even though she had formed seventeen such fully detailed stories (and numerous less detailed ones) over her ten years on the mainland, she had never once felt bad about any of them, or lying to anyone, until she had met Marcus.

Marcus, obviously glad to be getting details about her, proved to be a wonderful listener and ironically a very good proofreader of consistency in her stories. He asked questions that forced her to create even more intricate detail and he seemed to be memorizing everything she said to him.

This was made all the more impressive based on the fact that the bottle of whiskey was rapidly disappearing. Rosie had seen drinking (even very heavy drinking) before on numerous occasions, being, again, completely fascinated by it. Though, she couldn't recall a single time when a human she had observed had drank so much without seeming to be terribly affected by it.

She had been sexually harassed by such people more times than she cared to calculate, though Marcus was doing nothing remotely of the kind, which fascinated her more because he seemed to be very attracted to her.

It was this observation, plus the fact that the current topic of conversation was Rosie's fabricated dating history and the kind of men she was drawn to, when yet another thought (in a increasingly long line of them, it seemed) stopped being a thought and was, without Rosie meaning to in the slightest, vocalized.

"Would you sleep with me, given the choice?"

Marcus nearly choked on the sip of whiskey he was taking while Rosie instantly began blushing. She had no idea how that one had slipped out of her mouth in that manner. She had been merely trying to ask Marcus if he found her attractive, but somehow all of the power her Union Core had to offer had somehow jumbled up what she was trying to say.

Rosie couldn't even begin to guess what reaction she was going to get from this profound lapse of judgment, but the one she got was certainly unexpected. Marcus began laughing so hard, that tears began to form in his eyes.

Transfixed by this, and trying to downplay the fact that she had just dramatically misspoken, Rosie decided to press on. In for a penny, in for a pound, she figured.

"What...?" she asked, trying to make her tone sound like her question had been the most innocent thing in the world, while trying desperately to stop blushing, which she hoped Marcus hadn't noticed because of his laughing fit.

"I'm sorry," Marcus said between breaths, trying to get himself under control. "You just caught me so off guard with that one."

"Well, would you?" Still trying to convince Marcus (and herself) that she was in control of herself and of what she was saying, she continued on. "You give me indications that you're attracted to me, after all. I'm just wondering."

Taking another sip of whiskey for good measure, Marcus took a deep breath and finally seemed to have himself mostly composed.

"So, is this like a hypothetical attracted to you and sleep with you question, right?" Marcus asked, suddenly trying to keep from laughing more, by the looks of it.

"Yes, I suppose." Rosie didn't know if she should feel insulted by all of this. Maybe she had misread the signs and he didn't find her attractive at all.

"Okay," Marcus said. "Yes. You're a beautiful, smart and nice girl and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to you." He shrugged. "Fair enough?"

Of course, he didn't actually answer what she had actually asked, but Rosie decided to let it go. She figured she had nonchalantly played down her error enough and was happy to let the subject drop.

She instead decided to ask Marcus something that she had wondered for a while.

"So, were you born on Oahu?" she asked. She knew of course, that he wasn't, but his history on any information network she could access hadn't made clear where exactly he had come from.

"Oh, no," he said, refilling his glass again. "I was born on Lewis-McChord Joint Air Force and Army base in Washington. My Dad was stationed there when I came along. My grandfather was Air Force, too, and had a house nearby. He finished his career at Lewis-McChord and liked the area so much, he decided to settle down. Dad always said he was lucky to have been stationed there when I was born."

"Did your mother come to Oahu with you and your Dad?" Rosie knew she hadn't.

Marcus was quiet for a moment, and Rosie feared he would do the normal Marcus thing and stop talking about it, but he took a deep breath, another sip of whiskey and continued speaking.

"No. My mom took off about a year before we came here. She was just gone one day. Dad looked for her for a while, but it's like she vanished off the face of the earth."

"Did anyone ever find her?" Rosie didn't know this one.

"No," Marcus said matter-of-factly. "Never did. She probably died during the invasion or the aftermath of it, anyway."

"I'm sorry..." Rosie said, not needing to act. She almost couldn't understand the multitude of feelings that seemed to be trying to burst from her chest, but she could at least detect sadness. This particular emotion was one that she wished she wasn't so adept at feeling.

"No, it's okay," Marcus said. "Ancient history. I barely even remember her at this point, anyway."

"What about your grandfather?" Rosie asked.

"Oh," Marcus said. "Yeah, he was my dad's dad. Was an Air Force lifer just like the old man ultimately was. He died when I was two years old. I don't remember him at all. Left his house to Dad, though we ultimately wound up at Barksdale in Louisiana for a few years before he got reassigned here. Dad still owned the house the whole time; always refused to sell it."

Marcus breathed deep and smiled. "You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I come from a pretty good line of honorable men."

"Tell me about your Dad?" Rosie asked quietly. She knew full well that this one might cause Marcus to shut down completely, but it was something she really wanted to know. Plus, Marcus was so intoxicated by this point, that maybe he was willing to share.

It turned out he was. "My Dad..." Marcus said, "was the best man I've ever known. I mean, Governor Inouye's a fairly close second, God bless that guy, but there was something about my Dad, about who he was and who he was to me..." Marcus trailed off.

He thought for a few moments, took another gulp of whiskey and continued. "Anyway... When I was fourteen, he came to me and said that at some point in the near future the military, all branches of it, were going to have to increase manning and he asked me if I wanted to join up. The Air Force is pretty much I'll have ever known. Literally. Grew up in three bases and for nearly two years, during the Crises, and a lot of the aftermath I never left Pearl Harbor-Hickam. So, the choice was obvious to me. Not to mention I had grown up hearing stories about my grandfather and I got to see firsthand who my Dad was. I wanted to be just like them. Plus, at that time, all I wanted to do was set Oahu, and all of Hawaii, straight. I saw what people like my Dad were doing for everyone here and I wanted to be a part of that. So, he asked me if I was sure and after I convinced him I was, he began training me personally on all the things I would need to know and do to be a good Airman. He also began working me and man, was that guy a tough coach. I was never in better shape in my life than during my abbreviated career."

Marcus trailed off, smiling a little.

Rosie waited for a few moments in silence, before prompting him again. "What happened to him?"

Marcus answered faster and more flatly than she could have guessed he would have. "He was killed in the Battle of Honolulu nearly four years back. Guy refused to leave his position. He and most everyone who held that line died. Though, they did hold it."

Rosie must have looked confused without knowing it, because Marcus began to elaborate.

"Towards the end of the main attack, the Column decided to hit our position, lucky us, in force. My Dad told me, ordered me really, to lead the evacuation of any wounded, nonessential or noncombat personnel. I thought he picked me because I was reliable. Turns out he picked me because he knew what was about to happen."

Marcus's gaze drifted away. "He died so I wouldn't. Though, ungrateful fuck that I am, I almost died, anyway."

"What happened to you?" Rosie was so entranced that she once again spoke without thinking. The results were as she would have calculated.

"Nope," Marcus shook his head. "Anyway, my Dad and his small group held. The attack was repulsed and, after another few months, the fucking Column was finally gone."

Marcus finished his glass, seemed to consider pouring another for a moment before checking his watch. "Woah. Getting a little late. Or early, depending on your point of view... Aren't you tired?"

Rosie decided that this was about all the useful information she was going to get out of him tonight and it was best to not press her luck.

"I guess I am a little," she rubbed her eyes for effect. "I was just so interested in your stories."

"That makes one of us," Marcus laughed a little as he rinsed his glass out in the sink and placed on on a dish rack to dry. "I'm actually pretty boring."

Rosie smiled as she tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle. "You keep saying that but I don't believe you at all."

Marcus returned her smile. "Your loss."

The next ten minutes passed by without much in the way of anything important said. It was mostly discussing the rough plan for the next day. Rosie decided to head upstairs shortly after.

Crawling into Marcus's bed, she again repeated the situation of listening to him move about downstairs for a little over fifteen minutes before leaving the house and not returning.

She decided to only wait an hour this time instead of two; she knew he wasn't coming back inside. But tonight would be different in another way. She already missed him. She had the uncontrollable urge to just see him again, even if she couldn't talk to him. An hour was an eternity for a quantum computer, after all and this urge was so powerful yet strange that Rosie couldn't even begin to understand what exactly it was. She just had to see him.

She had to.

So, repeating the process of last night, Rosie found herself heading down the stairs, deactivating the house's security system and finding her way to the garage where Marcus was no doubt asleep under his truck.

Given that she was wearing actual clothing (a casual pair of shorts and a T-shirt that worked wonderfully as pajamas) Rosie had left her clothing neatly folded next to her Union Core (which was again encased in a nanomaterial rock) and she reassembled her mental model in the garage entirely naked. She briefly considered remaking her dress, but that (and the nanomaterial that composed it) were sitting in Marcus's bedroom and she hadn't considered bringing them and decided not to summon the nanomaterial from here.

She could always utilize a little of her mental model's mass to make a new one, but what difference would it make if she was naked, anyway? She wasn't cold and she wasn't planning on waking him up. She just wanted to be in the same room as him.

Only a little bit of the moonlight made it into the room through a barred window on the side of the building, but it was enough to reflect off her pale skin and make her look a little like a ghost, she thought.

She sat next to the truck, as close to Marcus as she could and folded her legs to her body, wrapping her arms around them while her hair fell into her eyes. She didn't bother waving it out of her face, as she could still see perfectly. More importantly, she could see Marcus, if only a little. He was fast asleep in the same sleeping bag as the previous night, but he had padded under it using a mat of some kind. His cane lay beside him and Rosie knew he was armed with his small pistol. It looked to Rosie that Marcus was settling down here for the long haul.

She hugged herself tighter as she thought for the millionth time in the last two days about what exactly was happening to her. The burning sensation in her chest had lessened somewhat now that she was next to him, but it wasn't gone entirely. Now, all she wanted was to talk to him again, though she was able to resist the urge to wake him up (she was naked after all and she'd have a lot of explaining to do on just how she had gotten to him in the first place).

He was causing this, she realized. All of it. Whatever unidentifiable errors her Union Core was experiencing, she was looking at the cause of them.

Rosie had never been scared before; not truly. She had pretended to be on a few occasions, depending on if the situation had demanded that sort of reaction from a small human girl, but she had never actually been afraid before.

She was now. But, even more concerning was the fact that despite this, all she wanted to do was be around the very source that was causing these emotions in her. Rosie dearly hoped that the Supreme Flagship's trust wasn't misplaced. She also hoped that when she ultimately figured out what was going on, it would be very useful information for Yamato.

But right now, Rosie was content to listen to Marcus's calm breathing.

Though, that only lasted for a few more moments. Marcus began moving slightly and for a split second Rosie was afraid he would wake up. She had only seen humans having nightmares on a few occasions, but she had observed enough to know when it was happening. Marcus continued moving, ever so slightly, as his breathing rate increased and he made slight murmuring noises that Rosie couldn't identify as words in any language she knew.

This continued for nearly forty agonizing minutes (while Rosie somehow managed to resist the urge to wake him up), before once again, Marcus fell quiet and his breathing evened out. Rosie wondered desperately what his nightmare had been about.

It occurred to her that Marcus maybe had just as many errors as she herself seemed to now. Rosie was then left to her thoughts and the reassuring sound of Marcus's calm breathing.

She sat there for a long time.

Author's Note:

Well, let me tell you, chapter eighteen was a blast to write, once inspiration struck. I think that chapter will signify the end of part one of this story after some fifty thousand plus words. So, if you've made it this far, rest assured that things explode in a narrative sense in seventeen and eighteen.
Thanks again for all the support I've received for this story! And yeah, do let me know what you've thought of the story so far! Any and all feedback, compliments and criticisms are definitely super appreciated.

Broken Soldier, by The Black Angels