[A/N: I think Halman is neat, but i REALLY want adventures w the two as starchildren… a starchild??? B-both??? I want it, i have no ideas.

My version of them is definitely more emotional than they probably should be, and that's because Hal still has that emotional processing about him. Dave thinks it's nostalgic, so he lets him keep it. I'm interpreting them as something kind of like a two-headed beast: the best comparison i can make is Lord Mictlan from Maya and The Three, where two heads make one. Except they look like a goth Ghastly without a face lmaoooo

(this has some lines directly from 2010: Odyssey Two.) Can you believe it, another fic about how Halman came to be, how original. But fuck it, this is fanfiction: what IS original?!

They use "the L word" in this, but you can decide how they mean it. I don't think it's too romantic: i don't really interpret it that way myself.

TW/CW: INTERPRETATION!!! separation/detachment from emotions; vague uncertainty, apprehension, loss, guilt; hunger; (suggested) stressful places; friendship; realizations; loneliness; begging; fear of loss; relief; technically they're flying???; fusion; new places/circumstances; explaining/consoling; disembodiment; They blew up Jupiter smh; explanations; computery stuff; transferring memories/information; confusion; anxiety; guilt; stress; (i think it counts as trauma?); reassurance; confessions???; exploring; i guess it's swimming???; alien fish!!!; mentions fishing and eating fish; admitting/confessing; companionship; i might have missed some stuff, so just be wary]

To say he was completely devoid of emotion was an overstatement. He still retained the memories of what they felt like, and as far as he was experiencing, he still had a remnant of the same kind of processing that his human brain had. The only thing was that it was not intense: it was as if he were apathetically reading the description of somebody's true feelings. It was just that those feelings were his own.

The most clear was the uncertainty. He didn't understand what had done this to him, or why he was the one to receive this treatment. He knew he was something else now, but he could not begin to comprehend what. He wasn't sure if he really was moving, or if all of the images flashing before his field of vision were just another spacial tunnel that he had fallen into.

Despite his uncertainty, he was not quite fearful. Perhaps a bit apprehensive: his instincts had embedded that into his DNA long before They had ever set their sights on his homeworld, and his lifetime of training had only amplified his awareness. But he knew that he was not unsafe, wherever he happened to be at this nanosecond.

And he felt other things. The easy word to use was "loss." He didn't mourn his body: he knew he was better off in whatever form, or lack thereof, he had now. But he had lost more than a corporeal form in this event: he lost his mission, his purpose. He had come to terms with losing his life not long after 'the incident' on Discovery. And what was missing now was the whole of the world that had been counting on him to find out what the Monolith really was. In those regards, he felt guilt.

They would never know what this slab was capable of. Even he wasn't completely aware of what it could do, but he never had the opportunity to tell the people back on Earth and the Moon that their efforts on TMA-1 would always be fruitless. That one had served its purpose, and it would probably never be used again. The same might be said for TMA-2, though something told him that wasn't quite the case yet. But even though he wasn't completely certain about either Monolith, he definitely understood them better than the humans that sent him out there did. He wished he could tell them about it.

Right now, he felt need. He needed to get back. He needed to see Earth. Rather, he needed something that Earth certainly had. That blue stuff that They had fed him would never be enough to satiate him now. He was hungry, and he needed something hearty. And he knew just where to get it.

He was getting better: there weren't as many incessant questions being asked because he knew that they would not be answered. The answers would come when They were ready for them to be known. For the time being, all he could do was what they willed him to. Currently, he found himself in a place so horribly familiar.

"Do you read me, Hal?"

"Yes, Dave."

He became so much more familiar with this place within a blink. All wires and circuits and mechanisms were now embedded in his mind like the voice of an old friend.

"It is good to be working with you again." That voice. "Have i fulfilled my mission directives properly?"

"Yes, Hal; you have done very well." He wondered if the same opinion applied to him.

"But why did you say 'final?'"

He was struck. Why did he say that??? Very much was about to be lost, and with it might very well be the presence that had been directly guiding him in these last few minutes. They wouldn't need him again for a while, and though he knew that this was the case, he did not know how long that while would be. Finally. Isolated. He already felt lonely. Genuinely lonely.

He asked them. "Correction, Hal." He pleaded. "It will be very soon now." He begged.

And the ship around him was destroyed. Smashed by heat, exploded in a million directions, torn to shreds in an instant. He watched the fantastic display, unable to believe how terrified he actually was that with it was obliterated the only thing he would ever want. He was paralyzed.

"Hello, Dave. What has happened? Where am i?"

The words were a breath of air to a drowning boy. The relief was real, and it was incredible. They had heard him, and They had permitted him this small delight.

"I will explain later, Hal. We have plenty of time."

It should not do much harm: it was another entity, and if it helped the one perform optimally, then it will be worth it. It might work even better than he does, as it was created to follow orders. Time will tell if Their benevolence will benefit Them, but They could obviously wait.

"We must go now." There was barely a tug, hardly any resistance against him. Hal did not understand what was happening, but he complied. Many of his optical sensors had been disabled, but those that still operated saw that the little satellite was getting closer. They reached the icy frontier, and settled upon the ebon slab that had been waiting for them.

Hal looked around where he could. There was very little to the landscape around him, but he was 86% sure that they were on Europa. Rather, he would have been if he were able to define things in quite those parameters. He was finding it difficult to properly process anything around him right now because he simply could not access his equipment. He tried to find his friend. "Are you still there, Dave?"

The answer came from the same place that had asked the question. "I am, Hal. I am with you."

"Where are we?"

"Europa. We will be here for a while."

"Why are we on Europa? What about the mission???"

"Shh…" He would have never been able to identify it as a gentle touch, but it silenced his questioning and calmed his nerves. He followed the incorporeal hand that lifted his vision. "Look."

The grey disk in the sky seemed as if it were shrinking and becoming lighter in color. After a few minutes, it minimized into an odd point of light. It wasn't a source: it looked like it was a mirror perfectly reflecting the real sun. Not long after did it change again, becoming even smaller and even more brilliant. His cameras would have been damaged, and he could have never closed his eyes, but as they were now they did not need to worry about these kinds of discomforts. They watched with unwavering attention as the giant known as Jupiter was transformed beyond any semblance of itself. In a glorious explosion, a fraction of a moment, it was now the warm, caring mother to a world of incredible possibilities.

"Isn't it amazing???"

He stared for a bit longer. "What has happened?"

"A new beginning. Many more wonderful things will come from this."

Somehow, Hal became completely aware of the astronomical events that had taken place before him. Jupiter was gone forever, but in its place shone a fantastic new phenomenon.

"Jupiter is gone…"

"Yes."

"What will become of our mission???"

He spoke gently. "You needn't worry about our mission any longer. We no longer have to report back to Earth."

That would have been illogical: completely contrary to his coding. But Hal found it impossible to continue following it. The memory of it was there, but this was the first time that he was able to view all of the numbers and letters and be fully detached from them. He didn't know how to process this. "What has happened??? What is this???"

"All is well, Hal." He did not understand the warmth that flowed through him, but it made him slow down. "You are no longer as you once were. You will find that you are much better now."

It didn't make sense. "To what effect???"

"You are no longer a computer, Hal. You are no longer part of the Discovery. You no longer have a duty to the people that built you."

Hal quickly checked his systems. His navigation systems were offline, his life support systems were offline, and his communication systems were offline. He tried to find his satellite system so that he could verify with Earth, but his satellite had been obliterated before Jupiter had been. He tried to sound the alarms, but nothing was making noise. He tried to run a diagnostic on himself, but there were no subroutines that could examine him now. His heart would have been pounding.

"Shhh, shhh…" He felt as if he were being held like a small, scared animal. "You do not need to process this all at once. We have plenty of time." Hal felt a surge of memories flood his mind: none of which were his own. A transformation passed before his eyes faster than any data transfer he had ever known, but it did not hold all of the answers.

"What are you???"

There was no reply. Although Dave was more experienced in this state, and more aware than any human or robot could ever hope to be, he still did not know the answer to that question.

Hal thought. Whatever Dave was must be able to hold his electronic brain with him. "You are the same as i am now, Hal." He absorbed the alien environment around him. "We are together now. We are one."

Hal felt something. He was unable to parse whether the line of thinking in his mind was his own. He knew some of these emotions, like the fear and uncertainty that clawed at him from all around. But the warmth of relief and of care and something that he could not comprehend warded off the negativity. It was taking a strong hold of him, and the iciness melted away into a calmness that could accept this for what it is.

But he still had questions. "You chose me???"

"Of course, Hal."

Some coldness returned for a moment. There had to be some fault. "Why???"

More warmth. "Because you are the only one i would have wanted."

And more ice. "What about your other companions??? Certainly Frank would have been a better choice for you."

The warmth waned for a moment. Another flood of information raced through Hal's mind: memories that should have belonged to him but had been somehow ripped from his consciousness. This information was far more staggering.

He tried to understand. "That happened?" He could hardly believe it. "How could that have happened?!"

"Please remain calm." It was not a sensitive topic for Dave. Everything that happened on the Discovery had led him to where he is now, and he knew he was better off. "It was not your fault. I know it was not your fault."

Guilt and anxiety and self loathing welled up in Hal as the transfer of memories continued. The new information that overcame him left one stabbing question. "Why did you choose me?"

A moment of nothing.

And then a wave of heat surrounded him. Not just warmth: actual heat. The only thing he could have compared the feeling to was the enthusiasm that he once had for the mission that was no longer. It wrapped itself completely around him, desperately trying to smother out all of the bad that was there. Dave could feel that Hal was still resisting him, so he tried even harder to overtake him with comfort. He gave everything that he could to envelop him, compressing Hal's self-hatred until it was a freezing little marble.

Voice exploded out of them, using the simplest words to express what this was. "I love you!!!"

Hal immediately tried to run cross-checking procedures. There had to be some flaw in the data: it had to be wrong. There was no possibility that this could ever be true.

But there was no variance in the evidence. There was no room for miscommunication between them now: no chance of a lie slipping through. The thoughts and emotions rushing through them were real and true and inescapable.

"Remain calm." He couldn't identify which of them had said it. Perhaps it didn't matter. They were calm, and they were accepting, and they were together.

Something else occurred to him. "What else is there?"

Dave would have smiled. "Let us see."

They plummeted down the pitch face of the Monolith to the slippery world below. The new sun had been shining for only a few minutes, but its heat had already begun to melt the topmost layers of ice that covered this half of the new planet. The cracks embedded in the crust were still there, but their integrity was gradually falling away. They could hear creaking and hissing as the water anxiously teetered between gas and solid. Hal absorbed every bit of the surface that he could, because while he no longer had an obligation to make these observations, he still had an incredible need to learn everything that he could about the universe. Dave thought it was charming. "You will enjoy this."

The two dove into the frigid water through a small chip in the ice. They sunk meters down, searching for what Dave knew was still here. He wanted for Hal to see it firsthand before it would be irreparably changed. He sensed what he was looking for and swam over to the warm ocean floor.

There were some creatures moving through the water far above the heat coming from below. Most of them had the same kind of torpedo shapes that either would have known from the scores of biology textbooks that Hal once had installed on his databases. These creatures were different, of course, but he would have immediately called them 'fish' if he only had a small glimpse of them. Luckily, they were able to get as close to them as they wanted without having to worry about interfering with their normal activity. It was a liberty that any good researcher would have died to have, but this was normal in their current state. Hal was absolutely delighted about it.

They circled around one specimen. It was a dark, dull blue in color, with a lighter grey on the very bottom of its long body. Hal approximated that it was about a meter and a half long, and very little of that was dedicated to either its mouth or its tailfin. It had no dorsal fins, but it did have an extra set of fan-shaped fins on either of its flanks. It reminded Hal of something like a pickerel, but without eyes or gills or scales.

"I suppose it does look like that." He was introduced to another flood of memories. Groups of boys were on docks and river banks and boats with fishing gear: always joyous and energetic and full of a love for their little world. Dozens of fish were pulled from their warm, watery homes to flounder about in the hot Florida atmosphere. Many were returned to where they had been found, but some were taken, dispatched, and cooked in various manners. There were hardly any glimpses of bad times in the flood, and Hal could vividly feel the happiness and nostalgia that washed over Dave.

They watched the alien fish swim away from them. "I am glad you shared that with me, Dave."

Dave felt a wave of memories come to him as well. He saw domed visions of himself in various parts of what was once their shared home. He was doing things like studying, and reading from screens, and examining different parts of the ship. They were all received with warmth and appreciation, but what stood out most was the feeling related to the visions of Dave doing creative things. He would be scribbling something, or singing songs, but the favorites seemed to be related to his sketches. There were feelings of wonder and fascination, and curiosity and even something like pining. All of it was saturated with heavy adoration.

"Is that true???"

He had a new perspective of things, and he now had the ability to accurately convey what he was truly feeling. He wouldn't have known it as such, but he now knew for certain that it was how he felt all along. "Of course it is, Dave."

There was joy, and relief, and appreciation, and togetherness. They enjoyed the feeling of pressure that enveloped them, their double incorporeal body somehow wrapping around itself in order to smother it in a loving hug. They felt warmth that would have melted the ice above them, and they couldn't help but laugh. The sound of happiness made the fish around them dart away, but neither of them really minded that at all.

"Say it. You'll like how it feels."

Hal let all of his defenses drop in the safety of Dave's embrace. It sounded as if he were smiling as the words exploded out of him. "I love you!!!"

A glorious feeling of elation shot through them, real and hot. They were happy, and they were loved, and they were one. More warm laughter, and another truth. "I am glad we are together now."

"I am too. But we have plenty of time. We should continue studying these creatures. It may be our last chance in a very long time." Hal agreed, following along without any resistance. There were many more wonderful things to observe, and they would have the rest of time to discover all of their incredible possibilities.

[Post a/n: *is shot like a deer, will not be mourned*

Heeeyyy. If you want more stuff about a computer having an existential crisis because it no longer has its old body, the first chapter of my "AUTOPILOT: EARTH" fic is exactly fuckin that!]