A knock came at his door, the patriarch of the Doorman family rising up from his seat to open it. It slid aside to reveal his daughter and son-in-law on the other side. "Uzi, N!'", he threw his arms wide, "great to see you!".
Uzi gave him a cautious hug, N giving the man a handshake afterward. "So uh", Uzi started, "we don't wanna drag this on too long, but we were wondering if you'd let me use my old room for my workshop stuff. And I could uh, come over and use it".
"Why? What's going on?", he asked.
"N-Nothing's going on!", Uzi squeaked out, "just need some space!".
Khan laughed, "seems like you got some crazy idea in mind for that room".
"Dad, please", Uzi sighed.
He gestured for them to enter, "well? It's been a while since we last chatted. Care to catch up with your old man?".
"I dunno Mr. Doorman. We've been kinda busy lately and this was a little spur of the moment", N said feeling a little shy about the whole thing.
Khan raised N an amused smile, "you know, you're also 'Mr. Doorman', you can call me by my name or just call me dad. You're my son-in-law after all".
Fluster clouded N's screen at the offer. "Uh, i-is that weird? Like, you're Uzi's dad and if we're uh…".
Uzi's face fell into her palms, "I forgot we were married".
"The party was fun though!".
"N, we only got married for the party!".
"We had fun", N blankly said, encouraging her to elaborate.
Uzi leaned against the doorframe, an exhale escaping her mouth. "I did have fun, I just never really…", she muttered something under her breath. N didn't need to hear it clearer to know what she said.
He set a hand on her shoulder, "hey, that doesn't… bother you, right?".
She said nothing for a moment, N's worry rising with every passing second as Khan shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. "N?", she asked, "don't worry about it. If it's you, it's ok".
"No, not ok", N looked at her in concern, "I didn't think it was that big a deal but if it's bothering you let's talk about it".
Uzi's eyes met Khan's, a deep concern set on his face. She looked down at the floor, "it's fine, let's just go back".
N nodded and offered Khan a smile, hoping the older drone would find some relief in it. He carefully ushered Uzi off keeping her at arms length until she leaned into him. He breathed a mental sigh of relief at the act, wrapping an arm around her. Behind them, he heard the door sliding back into place moments later. Poor guy having to see them like that. N made a mental note to do something nice for him at some point.
He led Uzi back to their place, gently urging her to sit on their couch with him. She complied. "Hey, Uzi", he started, "you can talk to me".
"Nothing's wrong".
"No, something's wrong. You freaked out your dad and I talking about us".
Uzi's brows arched downwards, "did you want to get married?".
He shook his head, "I didn't care if we got married. The party was fun and all but that wasn't really what we wanted to do".
"But marriage or not, you'd still love me the same, right?", she asked, fearful of the answer.
He nodded, "yeah, I'm not all that familiar with marriage anyway".
"I just… can't believe I gave into it", she started, "I didn't really care about it. I don't need it to make it clear that I love you. But then… people kept asking and it made things weird and uncomfortable".
He put an arm around her. "Is that why you proposed?".
"Yeah", he could see her display forming tears, "I'm sorry. I just wanted it to stop. I do love you, but that wasn't the reason I did that, and it really should've been".
"Uzi…".
"You don't hate that, do you?".
N shook his head, "no. Uzi, I didn't care if we were married or not. Sure, I was excited over the wedding party and doing something new with you, but we weren't doing that because we really wanted to".
She took his hand into her own. "Thank you. I couldn't have asked for a better partner than you… as cheesy as that is".
"Sorry we couldn't have addressed this sooner. I guess we both repressed having done that. Can we fix this somehow? Do we go back to forgetting it, or stop being married?".
"N, no", she squeezed his hand, "we're already married, let's not complicate that".
"Oh. So, maybe a pretend do-over of the proposal? Maybe?", he suggested.
She had no doubt he came up with that on the spot. The idea did pique her interest though. She nodded, "that might be fun".
He smiled and pulled her into a hug, the two held each other for several moments before N pulled away. "So", he asked, "do you want to redo it yourself, or let me propose this time?".
"I'll do it", she said, "let me do something right".
"Uzi", he nuzzled her, "don't be so hard on yourself. We made a little thing earlier and that turned out great".
"Thanks… thank you".
He offered her a small smile, "when do you wanna do it?".
She nudged him playfully, "it'll spoil the surprise. Gotta do it right, you know?".
N laughed, "alright. I'm looking forward to it!". N's infectious energy caught on and Uzi giggled with him.
The wind blasted at his face as N landed in the snow. He took in the sights noticing the frozen lake off in the distance. A bag was slung across his torso.
He remembered the first time out here. The deaths, the terror. How out of water he felt being apart from her, her feeling the same. It was really the first time it sunk in how much he'd grown attached to her, he just hadn't figured out yet the true extent of that. In their years together, he never did ask her at what point she fell for him, but in retrospect it was clear she already had by the time of that trip.
Now, years later, he was back here on a bizarre quest. As much as she was fearful of what happened to her that night, here he was looking for something to bring her back to something akin to the transformation she underwent. Just this time, under a better context.
His tail dragged in the strength of the wind.
N carefully glided to the entrance to the facility. The hole in it had long-since been walled off. A safety feature to keep drones from wandering in. This security feature would be completely useless to him, however.
He sailed over the hole and plunged in. Flashbacks of doing this before entered his mind. It felt wrong to come here alone. He would never bring Uzi to this place, without the Solver she was as safe here as any other helpless Worker. This was fine for him, since he wanted this to be a surprise. He would've asked V to come with him but that felt especially wrong after what happened to her here. The idea he never once seriously considered.
Flying in was quiet, silent. He glided down to the lobby, eyes darting around for Sentinels. While there was likely to be some button or switch to turn them off, as soon as they left this place, they never came back.
He soon spotted the corpses of other Disassemblers, exactly what he was after. He found a female body still mostly intact and moved over to investigate. Her wings were deployed, but her head was smashed in. N regarded the wings in curiosity. They hadn't talked about grafting on wings for her, but that was a possibility he was interested in. It had been years since they last flew together, he missed it a lot.
Gently flipping the corpse over, he drew his attention to the tail. It seemed unharmed, and therefore a good pick. "Sorry", he apologized to the corpse, "I fell in love with someone and she's going through some stuff. Misses having a tail. It's kind of a long story".
With careful fingers, he popped the appendage off the corpse. It came off with almost disturbing ease. Almost, because he was hit with the reminder of what he was. He pushed his unease to the side as he deposited the tail, injector and all, into his bag.
N quickly took off afraid to stick around too long. Sure, Uzi would probably like to have a tail again, but she'd be miserable if he got hurt here. He dry swallowed at the thought of worse. Without the Solver he was left with a basic set of repair nanites that would be nowhere near helpful in repairing huge wounds. Uzi made it a point to remind him of that when he stepped in to help sometimes. He sailed out of the hole and into the sky headed back to civilization.