A late spring snowstorm had covered the entire city under a massive layer of pure, icy whiteness that kept most of the denizens indoors where it was safe and warm, and to help keep the harsh wind at bay. Due to the unexpected, sudden and extreme dip in temperature after what was shaping up to an early spring, the reported cases involving androids had dropped considerably courtesy of the intense cold. The reasoning behind such a sudden decrease in reports was potentially connected to the extreme cold air causing damage to android biocomponents or freezing over internal Thirium lines. Such complications of course kept androids inside buildings just like the humans in an attempt to keep safe during the damaging weather.

In a rare moment of opportunity Hank and Connor had been sent home from the precinct early due to the bad weather and the lack of deviant cases. Soon the duo found themselves bored after being cooped inside all afternoon and evening long with the dangerous, cold weather keeping them trapped within the walls of the small house until nighttime.

"When I was a kid," Hank stated as he looked at the massive snowflakes blowing by in the powerful gusts of wind through the front window in the livingroom. "I dreamt of snowstorms like this just so I wouldn't have to go to school the next day. Now as an adult I dream of winters where the snow misses us entirely so that I don't have to shovel the driveway, look at the aftermath of people getting sick, getting hurt from slipping on the ice, or dealing with... car accidents."

As he listened to Hank speaking of years past Connor sat quietly on the couch with Sumo laying over his lap, the massive dog keeping the deviant completely still and unable to move as he sought some attention.

"My scanner indicates that the storm should pass by noon tomorrow." The change in subject was sorely needed as Connor knew Hank was thinking about Cole again and that it was breaking the man's heart. "The cold spell will pass by in seventy-two hours allowing the temperature to rise from eighteen degrees to sixty-three degrees at an even pace."

"Three days, huh? Not soon enough, even for Michigan weather. Guess I should keep dreaming." Hank lamented as he sat down in the recliner beside the couch and stared with disinterest at the television screen showing yet another report on the chaotic weather outside. The entire lower half of Michigan was covered under thick white snow clouds that showed no sign of dissipating soon. "What about you?" The senior detective asked in a strangely curious tone. "What do you dream about? Electric sheep?"

"Dreams? Androids don't dream, Lieu- Hank." Always logical and honest Connor explained the situation casually as he ran his hand down Sumo's back at a steady rhythm to show the lovably dog some affection. "When in rest mode our programs become dormant and recorded memories will briefly replay as our systems process and back-up all of the data for that day to conserve in our memorybank. That's all."

"So, even after you become deviant, even after you gain freewill and can think for yourselves, you still have the same routine as any other machine?"

"Corr-" Connor stopped short as his L.E.D. flashed from a content blue to a cautious yellow for a moment before returning to blue. "For a majority of the time, yes."

"Majority of the time?" Picking up on the hesitation, if not confusion in Connor's response, Hank pressed the matter a little further. "Sounds like a 'no' to me, son."

"I do not... I don't quite understand the concept of dreams, yet." The still learning deviant's brow furrowed a little as he tried to explain things to the seasoned human detective who knew even less about android design. "Shortly after I became deviant, I found myself witnessing unusual images and sounds while in rest mode. They weren't recorded memories replaying, they were... different. At first, I thought they were the result of connecting my system to another deviant's system and having their memories bleed over into my memorybank by mistake. However, these visual and auditory manifestations are always through my own eyes and ears which means it's impossible for these images and sounds to be from another deviant's memories."

"See? You do dream." Hank pointed smugly at the deviant from where he sat. It wasn't often Hank was able to prove Connor wrong on anything and he relished in every opportunity that came his way. "Do you remember what you dream about?"

"I..." Connor wanted to avoid the question until he had more information on the concept of dreams. He wanted to understand dreams in general before he wanted to even speak of them. Absentmindedly he began to pet Sumo's ears instead of the dog's back and sighed quietly to himself. "I wish I could explain what I had seen, but I'm still unable to fully comprehend those unexpected images. They can be quite vivid and intense at times."

"Yeah, sure." Having his own experiences with unpleasant dreams Hank could sense that something was bothering Connor and decided to change the subject to avoid accidentally upsetting the confused deviant. "How much do you wanna' bet that when we get back to the precinct tomorrow that we're going to have to deal with Gavin bitchin' about us getting the day off and him having to keeping working during the storm?"

Connor smirked a little at the question and he visibly relaxed on the couch as his tense shoulders finally slumped. "If there's one thing I've learned since I've known you that it's not wise to take any bets against you."

"Good observation, kid."

The lights in the house began to flicker and dim momentarily as the intense storm outside threatened to knock out the power. In response to the possible power outage Connor's L.E.D. flashed from blue to yellow as he looked about the house and watched the lights temporarily dull and return to standard illumination. Hank in turn grumbled as he walked over to the nearby closet in the middle of the hallway.

"Shit." Pulling open the closet door Hank began rummaging around the top shelf by pushing a few extra blankets to the side. "I better light some candles in case we lose power. I really need to get that damn fireplace cleaned up and functional again."

"A power outage could prove to be very detrimental." Turning to look at Hank over the back of the couch Connor asked Hank about any stored emergency supplies as he stopped petting Sumo for a moment much to the dog's dismay. "Do you have an emergency generator?"

"Nope. No room in the garage to store one." After pushing aside a couple of long forgotten board games buried under the blankets on the top shelf of the closet Hank found two old candles and a lighter sitting in the back of the shelf and grabbed them with both hands. The candles were large cylindrical ones in glass jars that had long since lost their vanilla scent but still had viable wicks. "We'll have to make do with these."

Lighting the two candles Hank sat one on the coffee table next to the couch for Connor to use and kept the other for himself.

"I'm going to bed." Glancing at the snow covering the front window again Hank had an expression of loss fall over his face. Winter was the time of year that he hated the most and it was the one season that never went away without a fight. "You should get some sleep, too. I get the feeling that we're going to be busy tomorrow with the aftermath of this storm. Fuckin' hate shoveling..."

"Very well." Connor found Hank's suggestion to be as logical as it was sound. "Good night, Lieutenant."

"Stop calling me 'Lieutenant' when we're off the clock." Hank muttered as he walked down the hallway with the glowing candle in his hand leading the way. "It sounds weird. We're on a first name basis in this house."

"Sorry, I'm attempting to make it a habit to call you by your name."

Connor sincerely apologized to Hank as he gently pushed Sumo aside so that he could lay flat on his back across the length of the couch. Sumo let out a sad whimper in response as Connor moved him away with both hands to ensure he meant business.

"Sorry." The deviant apologized again, this time to the dog. "You take up too much room."

Sumo grumbled as he laid down beside Connor on the couch cushions and pressed his back up against the deviant's side to keep them both warm during the snowy, cold night.

Pulling the blue blanket off the back of the couch Connor draped the covering over himself and over Sumo before laying his head down against the small matching blue pillow propped up against the armrest.

"Good boy."

The sound of the howling wind outside the house created a loud commotion that made it difficult for Hank to fall asleep despite his best efforts to ignore it. Pulling his quilt up over his head to block out the flame of the candle burning on the nightstand beside his bed and pressing the edges of the pillow against his ears, Hank closed his heavy blue eyes and steadily drifted off to sleep at last.

It was near dawn and the snowstorm was still raging relentlessly when Hank was startled awake by a voice suddenly shouting out with a strange panic as the voice cut through the howling wind outside.

"H-HANK?!"

Hearing his name being shouted Hank sat upright in his bed in a quick bolt of motion and stared confusedly at the shut door of his bedroom as he tried to figure out where the shouting had come from. When he heard his name being shouted a second time through the closed door Hank quickly realized that it was Connor calling out to him.

"Connor? What the hell?"

Hank grabbed his mostly melted but still lit candle and marched out of his bedroom, down the hallway and into the livingroom where he expected to see Connor confronting some burglar in the house or the house itself on fire, but instead he saw that Connor was still laying on the couch with his eyes screwed shut. The deviant's L.E.D. was cycling red rapidly and his body was randomly jerking as if he were struggling against an unseen force in his sleep.

"Connor?"

Holding up the candle a little higher Hank illuminated the livingroom and watched as the deviant's arms moved about as if blocking physical blows and his legs became entangled in the blue blanket that was no longer covering his body.

"What's going on with you?"

Disturbed by the odd behavior as well Sumo was sitting beside the couch on the floor watching as Connor twitched in his sleep as if he was trying to figure out what was happening with the deviant. Even with all the eyes watching him Connor continued to thrash about in his sleep.

Carefully Hank reached over the back of the couch and put his hand down on Connor's bicep to try and shake him awake, but the deviant didn't respond to the touch and continued to flail about in his sleep.

"Kid, look at me!"

Despite Hank's shouts Connor continued to struggle against some unknown foe in his sleep. Without warning Connor's free arm reached out and the back of his hand bumped into the second burning candle on the coffee table next to the couch. The open flame quickly burned the back of Connor's hand and caused him to jolt awake in intense pain as his artificial skin became quickly damaged by the high degree heat as he let out a sudden yelp of pain.

"Shit!" Hank moved to the other side of the couch to grab onto the second candle and blow out the flame before it caught anything on fire or burned Connor for a second time. "What's wrong with you!?

Now fully awake Connor forced himself to sit upright on the couch and as he cradled his burned hand to his chest in pain. His eyes were shut so tight a single tear of pain was forced from the corner of his eye and his L.E.D. was blinking red rapidly in his temple.

"S-Sorry! I'm... I'm sorry."

"It's fine, don't apologize. Let me see." Putting both candles down on the coffee table Hank urged the deviant to cooperate as he made a move for Connor's hand, but Connor didn't budge and kept his damaged hand to himself. Calming his voice Hank tried as again as he sat on the couch next to Connor. "Come on, let me see your hand. I just want to see the damage."

"I-It's nothing." Connor attempted to lie between his clenched teeth as he held his aching hand tightly against his chest. "I'll be fine."

"It's not nothing, and I want to know what the hell is going on with you. Talk to me and let me see your hand."

Trying to push through his pain Connor opened his tear filled brown eyes and blinked a few times before he even tried to speak.

"Kid, talk to me." The senior detective did his best to help Connor calm down and take in a deep breath to steady himself. "I'm not mad at you or anything, I just want to help you."

"...I was experiencing vivid images in my sleep again." Rubbing his opposite fingertips over the raw burn on the back of his hand Connor spoke with a shaking breath that turned his red L.E.D. into a less stressed-out amber shade. "They were terrifying."

"A bad dream?" Hank asked as he quickly reached for Connor's injured hand and pulled it away from the deviant's chest so he could look at the damage in the light of his single remaining lit candle. There was a deep black burn mark in the back of Connor's hand from where his artificial skin made contact with the flame and had been destroyed. The surrounding tissue was charred black and there was a gray smudge on the exposed white plastimetal frame beneath. "Looks pretty nasty. It should be bandaged up."

"It'll heal on its own." Almost ashamed of himself Connor replied somberly as he slowly pulled his hand back from Hank and held it to his own chest again. "It's minor cosmetic damage. It's not serious."

"I've never seen you so scared before." Untangling the blanket from Connor's legs Hank carefully shook it out and then draped it around the deviant's shoulders in a comforting manner as he tried to get Connor to open up about his intense dream. "What the hell did you see?"

"N-Nothing. It was-"

"Connor, don't make me pull rank on you." As Hank spoke the 'dad voice' crept in and he managed to hold Connor's attention. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I swear, it was noth-"

"If you say 'nothing' one more time I'm putting your tie in the garbage disposal." The man's threat was a bluff, but even so it helped Connor understand that the man wasn't going to let the matter drop. "Just talk to me, I won't be mad."

Contemplating Hank's words carefully Connor sat in silent contemplation next to his friend on the couch and finally answered as he found the proper words to express what he had just experienced. "I... I believe what I saw would be considered... a nightmare."

"Nightmares are a normal part of dreaming, and dreaming is part of being human." Replying casually but not dismissively Hank did his best to help Connor accept that what he endured wasn't a problem or anything to really worry about. "It happens a lot."

"How do you deal with it?"

"Nightmares? Well..." Handling nightmares and upsetting dreams was something Hank was still learning himself. "Depending on what you saw it might help to talk about it for a while."

Still shaking where he sat Connor gave Hank a truly skeptical glance while keeping his burned hand to his chest. "How does talking placate fear?"

"Because by talking about your nightmare - your fears - you're facing it, but you're not facing it alone."

Trying to understand where Hank was coming from Connor decided that handling a problem with a friend was indeed easier than handling it alone. "...I think I understand."

"Good. So, talk to me. What did you see?"

"I saw... It was about Amanda." Connor stated with a heavy voice as he stared at the wound in the back of his hand. The pain had subsided, but the ugliness of the burn was going to linger for several more hours. "And I was... trapped."

"Trapped?" Interested in the scenario that frightened Connor enough that he'd lash out in his sleep Hank wanted to know what could possibly scare the practically fearless deviant in such a raw and visceral manner. "How so?"

"I was trapped in a place that used to feel safe to me, the Zen Garden." Connor's head turned slightly to the right as he looked at the snowstorm outside the window, his yellow L.E.D. flashing back to red in response. "Amanda left me to die in the middle of an ice storm. I was alone and I could feel my biocomponents starting to freeze one by one and the Thirium in my lines turning to slush while she tried to reclaim control over my programming. As she tried to make me a machine again, I could feel it happening in real time and I fought back with every ounce of strength I could find."

Hank nodded his head as he listened to Connor speaking. "Sounds like this storm really got to you tonight."

"No. It was..." Looking away from the window Connor's voice dipped slightly as he continued to speak. "It happened before. Not the nightmare, the experience I felt during the nightmare."

"What? When?"

"The night of the Revolution." Connor admitted as his L.E.D. returning to yellow as he spoke. "When I joined Markus in Hart Plaza my consciousness was temporarily summoned to a place called the 'Zen Garden' in my Mind Palace, and while there Amanda tried to resume control over my programming. In order to do so she needed to... She's have to kill who I had become, and she planned on doing so by leaving me trapped in my own mind to freeze to death in a storm she herself had programmed."

"I remember you mentioning that horrible place once before. But you managed to escape." Recounting what the two had gone through prior to meeting up after the Revolution Hank remained openminded and understanding of the naive deviant sitting beside him. "You're sitting right here with me, right now, and you're safe. Talking to me is proof enough of that. She won't get to you, kid. You escaped and you won't go back to that place for any reason."

"I did escape, but if I had failed to find my way out when I did..." Trailing off as the disturbing thought of what he could've done to Markus filled his mind and his heart Connor clearly needed more time to work through his past experiences with CyberLife. "I dread the possible outcome that could've been."

"Let me tell you something about fearing the past." Hank grabbed on to Connor's wrist just below the wound on the back of his hand and pulled the appendage away from the deviant's chest to see again. "If you let fear control you, then you'll end up afraid of the future. The past can't be changed and even if it hurts now," the senior detective showed Connor the faint mark on the back of his own hand as his self-healing program finished repairing the damage to his artificial skin and regenerated a new layer over the exposed plastimetal frame. "it won't hurt forever. In the end all that gets left behind is a scar."

Pulling his hand from Hank's grip as if in disbelief Connor stared at the fading scar as it disappeared entirely before his very eyes. "...Or it'll just be a memory that feels like a scar. Correct?"

"That's right. Just like whenever I think about Cole." Mentioning his late son was a sore subject but one Hank couldn't deny forever. Just as Connor needed more time to move on from his past Hank needed time to move on from his own. "It hurts, but I can't stop living just because he did. And you are the one who taught me that particular lesson."

Such a revelation caught Connor off guard and made him arch his brow inquisitively at Hank. "I did? How did I do that?"

"Yup. Just by being a stubborn smartass who wouldn't let me give up on myself and for seeing me as a person, not the shell of the man that I used to be, I finally found the strength to move on. Now I'm going to help you find your own strength to do the same."

"Thanks, Lieu- Hank." Catching his mistake Connor quickly corrected himself as his L.E.D. finally returned to blue. "I think talking about my nightmare really did help with my fear."

"Good. Now, go back to sleep." After giving Connor's shoulder two firm pats Hank decided to let Connor alone to rest for the night. "We still have a few more hours before we need to clock-in and deal with the morning mess left behind by the storm."

"I will do so. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, kid. I'll see you in the morning."

Wrapping up in the blanket again Connor laid back down over the couch as Hank got up and walked back down the hallway to return to his bedroom. Looking at the back of his hand where the burned used to be Connor flexed his fingers a few times to test his pain threshold only to have Sumo suddenly lick his hand as if Connor had been beckoning his calming presence.

"Good boy."

Jumping back up onto the couch Sumo settled down at Connor's side again and let out a big yawn before resting his chin atop his outstretched paws. The large dog knew his place was beside his deviant master to be a comforting presence.

Running his uninjured hand along Sumo's back Connor felt a comforting warmth wash over him and was confident he wouldn't have a second nightmare before the night was over. Being in the warm house with his best friend's words of comfort filling his mind was all it took for Connor to push through his fears and dare himself to close his soulful brown eyes to drift off to sleep again.

"I'm safe here. Neither CyberLife or Amanda can harm me ever again."

Whispering to himself Connor refused to give in to fear or let Amanda or CyberLife control his thoughts. He was a free deviant and only had to worry about ugly nightmares scaring him while he rested, not internal sabotage from his former handler or the corrupt company who created her.

"And I'm home, with my best friend, right where I belong."

-next chapter-