Ruined jacket number two. Auto mechanically dropped it in the floor beside the first one. Maybe I DO need a personal tailor—to design some clothing that's a bit more durable. My clothes don't seem to last for very long.

Being a human would become quite expensive at this rate. He wondered how normal people managed to afford it. Maybe he'd ask during their next holo-call. But for now—he caught a glimpse of the digital clock (one of the few functioning screens on the Axiom's control panel) reading 21:05—it was past bedtime, and the lights would automatically go out at 21:30 to save power.

Auto switched off the hoverchair to conserve electricity, then dragged it across the floor to the nearest power outlet so he could charge while he slept.

"I guess we're sharing the hoverchair again?" Lily asked.

"Unless you want to sleep in the floor, yes."

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh. "No way! It's cold enough already! Which reminds me…" she dove into the pile of belongings that they'd recovered from their cabin "…at least I can sleep in my pajamas tonight. That will be a bit warmer than the jumpsuit."

Arms full of fluffy fabric, she turned to face him. "I've got to change clothes. Go stand outside the door—oh. Wait. You can't. Never mind. I've already put our spacesuits away." Her gaze dropped as her shoulders slumped. "I hate only having one room in this ship that's inhabitable…"

"…but I'm not sleeping in a jumpsuit again. So, I suppose…" she dropped her pajamas in the floor and began digging in her pile of belongings "…we'll just have to improvise. Here." Lily pulled a towel out of the makeup kit and started walking toward him. "I'm going to tie this over your eyes."

Humans are weird. "If it makes you feel better…fine."

It felt a bit strange to have a towel over his eyes, but at least the fabric was soft. He didn't need to be concerned about it scratching his delicate optic lenses.

The blindfold admitted very little light, even with his pupils completely dilated. To compensate, he shifted to infrared. The resulting image wasn't very detailed—nearly everything in the room was a dismal 57 degrees Fahrenheit—but he could make out Lily's 98.6 0F silhouette.

Interesting.

"I wish it wasn't so cold," Lily grumbled to herself, sticking out one arm—putting on the sleeves of her pajama shirt, Auto guessed. "It would make it much less unpleasant to change clothes."

"Luckily for you, you get to sleep with my warm batteries all night. You're welcome."

"Auto!" (He imagined her rolling her eyes.) "Ok, fine, fine. Thank you for being warm, Your Genius-ness."

"Your gratitude is simply overwhelming."

"Ha ha. Since when did you get so snarky?"

"I learn by observation."

"At least we know I didn't…program…you…" she fidgeted around like she was trying to get settled into her clothing "…with that attitude." The orange silhouette of her torso folded down the middle, like she had bent over.

"What did you drop in the floor?"

"I didn't drop anything, I'm just putting on my…slippers…" Her voice slowed as realization dawned; Auto could practically hear the neurons firing in her brain.

"AAAAAAUUUUUUUTTTTTTOOOOOOO!" she shrieked. "Were you looking?"

"Blindfold." He pointed a finger at the very obvious cloth over his eyes.

"Then how did you…oh. You're reading heat signatures, aren't you? I should've guessed that one…heck, I can even see your red eyeball staring through the fabric." She sighed. "Well, I've finished changing by now, you may as well take the blindfold off."

"Endothermic entities are easy to identify in a cold environment," he explained as he tossed the fabric to the floor.

"So I'd noticed." Her facial expression was nonplussed, her eyelids half-closed in their desire for rest. Her hair stuck out in places where she'd mussed it up by pulling on the pajama shirt over her head.

Auto hadn't been originally programmed to recognize the term "cute"…but he concluded with 82.327% confidence that it was standing directly in front of him, right now. (His ongoing immersion in the human experience was teaching him several things.)

Auto crawled into the hoverchair and pushed himself as far as possible to one side—Lily would have to fit in the chair, too.

She studied him for a bit, carrying a spare blanket in her arms. "Let's not make this as fidgety as last time. I guess this would work better if we both sleep on our sides; we're a bit narrower that way."

"We should both face outward so our limbs don't get tangled. Unless you would prefer…that you face outward, and I hold you."

"Spoon-style?" Her face went slightly pink. "Well…I guess…that would be warmer…all right then." She laid down, pressing her back and shoulders into the bare plates and cables of his torso. "Here, pull this over us," she instructed, holding up one side of the blanket as she draped the rest over herself.

He took the remaining fabric and tossed it over the other side of their makeshift bed. With the blanket trapping Lily's body heat, he realized for the first time just how warm she was. (It didn't bother him; he was built to withstand 120 0F before his systems had to shut down to protect themselves.)

Very carefully, he draped his free arm over her, drawing her in close. Not wanting to touch her in someplace that might make her uncomfortable—she still seemed to feel a bit awkward about sharing a bed—he decided to place his hand just past her, on the edge of the hoverchair.

"This…is…warmer," she murmured sleepily. "I suppose…this arrangement…isn't so bad…" She yawned like a snake about to swallow a prey bigger than its head; as she released her breath, her body went slack, as though she were exhaling all her tension with the air. "Goodnight, bolt boy."

He turned down his vocoder volume until it was barely audible. "Goodnight, Lily."

Unlike the previous night, Lily lay completely still save the slight rise and fall of her breathing. Watching her, it occurred to him for the first time how much Lily trusted him, willing to curl up in his Kevlar-lined arms and fall asleep.

It made a strong impression on the android. He'd never expected a human to trust him like that ever again, not after he'd locked McCrea out of the control room and electrocuted the living daylights out of poor Wall-E. He'd just accepted that he would always be everyone's least favorite robot, an assumption that John and Mary's previous reactions had helped to cement.

He replayed the previous day's conversation in his mind:

I don't think you're a threat to humanity. McCrea is wrong about you.

Why do you think that?

Well…correct me if I'm wrong…but the way I remembered the story was…that you…were programmed to keep us from returning to Earth. You were just obeying orders, which was exactly what we'd expect of a computer. You weren't being deliberately cruel. I don't think you were given a very clear set of instructions to work with, Auto. You were programmed to obey the CEO, and you were also programmed to obey your Captain. And then the two of them gave you contradictory orders…seriously, what were your programmers expecting you to do?

He laid awake, thinking about his past and watching Lily sleep, even after the lights went out. Her biometrics shifted slightly as she drifted out of consciousness: her breathing slowed, her body temperature dropped by about 1 degree. Her right arm suddenly twitched, but the action didn't seem to rouse her.

Hypnic jerk, Auto recalled from the Psychology book. Humans sometimes do that right as their brains are transitioning into sleep mode.

The human body was quite the fantastic machine, Auto realized. If he ever got the Axiom's database working again, he needed to read up on human anatomy and physiology. But until then, he needed to stop wasting this valuable opportunity for sleep. Auto closed his ocular lenses and powered down, entering the same unconscious state as the woman beside him.