Chapter Text
Hope Mikaelson knows that she’ll never fall in love. She’s just not wired that way. However, despite being fairly young and new (nine months, eight days, sixteen hours and forty-eight seconds to be exact) she likes to believe she carries some wisdom about the world. She may never experience love, but she would never push the opportunity away if it was in front of her.
And right now, standing at the front of the queue at the coffee shop she works in, is the most beautiful human she believes she’s ever and will ever see. The woman has blonde hair that rests below her shoulders. She’s wearing a black long-sleeved crop top with plaid pants on. She’s tall, taller than herself, Hope notices. She looks young, probably late teens, or early twenties. The same age that Hope was designed to look. And her eyes. Her blue eyes are just so striking, it momentarily freezes Hope in place.
It takes a couple seconds to recompose herself when Hope realizes she should be doing her job.
“Hi! Welcome to Greasley’s coffee shop. What can I get you?” Hope automatically bursts out, familiar with the words.
The blonde girl smiles at her before speaking. “Just a tall iced latte, thank you.”
“Coming right up! And your name is?”
“Lizzie.”
Lizzie. Somehow it’s fitting, Hope thinks.
numerology 1: for harmony and balance in their lives, and respond positively to beautiful things.
She must’ve been thinking too hard about the name. She doesn’t like when she accidentally looks things up in her brain, it can distract her from the outside world. She doesn’t need another reason for humans to see her type as a sub-species.
Hope reaches for a cup and scribble the woman’s name onto it, before turning away to make the drink. She looks at the blonde many times during the process. Lizzie’s standing there, hands in her back pocket and looking around the shop. She’s not doing anything particularly intriguing, so why was Hope so interested? It makes her brain wiring hurt.
She finishes making the latte and steps forward towards the girl that’s making her head spin. “Here you go! That’ll be three dollars!” She says to her; in the cheery voice she’s supposed to use.
The girl puts the money on the counter, and Hope hands her the drink.
Lizzie takes the latte with another smile. “Thank you…what’s your name?” She asks.
“TXFM009.”
Oh fuck. She hates when that happens. Its been programmed into her to respond with her official name whenever someone asks. It always seems to weird people out, but the blonde just laughs.
“I meant the name you chose for yourself, weirdo.” The blonde says. But there’s no disgust or malice behind her words, only a playfulness Hope isn’t all that familiar with.
“Oh, yeah,” Hope starts, feeling surprisingly at ease. “I’m Hope.”
Lizzie just looks at her when she says that, playing with the paper straw to her drink. “Hope.” She says, with an emotion Hope can’t decipher. “It’s nice.”
Hope is rarely ever complimented. It’s due to the fact that people probably don’t think she would respond to praise, due to the less-than-human biology of herself. But there’s a flutter in her stomach that she’s never felt before.
“Oh, uh, thank you.” She manages out.
“Well, Hope, I better stop holding up the line and get going.” She waves slightly before leaving.
Hope doesn’t experience emotions. Not in the way humans do. She knows this. But she can’t help but think what she feels when Lizzie leaves the shop as something resembling sadness. She hopes she can see her again.
And she does see her again.
Lizzie shows up the next morning and orders a caramel Frappuccino before leaving. The day after that she orders a hazelnut hot chocolate. The day after that she orders a peach iced tea.
“You know, eighty-six percent of people I’ve served order the same thing whenever they’re here. Why do you order something different each day?” Hope questions her one morning, five days after they first met, and five days of Lizzie getting something new.
Lizzie looks down at the counter for a moment, before meeting Hope’s curious eyes. “I guess, I just want to experience the most out of life. Before any of that gets taken away from me.” Lizzie’s eyes drift off again, seemingly in deep thought.
Numerology 2: People with this name have a deep inner desire for travel and adventure, and want to set their own pace in life without being governed by tradition.
Lizzie always leaves after ordering. Its been a week and the blonde’s always here between 9AM and 9:15AM. She probably goes to the nearby college. Sometimes, Hope wants to experience a normal life that humans do. But she knows she was built to work. Veronica made sure of that. And Veronica’s fine, she figures, she’s just a bit strict on what Hope can and cannot do. It surprises her that she was even allowed to get her own apartment. Its only use is for when Hope wants to refuel, however.
It can feel weird working for Veronica’s side career, especially seeing as she’s the CEO and founder of Triad AI Productions. But working in a coffee shop is miles better than being in some factory, so Hope’s actually kind of grateful. And MG usually helps out whenever he can, and Hope likes him. She likes that he doesn’t treat her like a slave in the way most people do.
She also likes that she gets to see Lizzie. She doesn’t know what it is about the girl that makes Hope feel nervous. Or something close to that emotion. If she was being slightly outlandish, Hope would say she had a crush. But that’s stupid, robots can’t get crushes.
But as her and Lizzie’s fingers graze when she hands the girl her drink of the day, she can’t help but wonder. Because the Mikaelson faction is the most updated and advanced of modern AI’s, maybe it wouldn’t be so crazy to say she has a crush. Or at least, the closest thing she can have to a crush.
As long as she gets to see Lizzie's smile everyday, Hope tries not to think about everything that could go wrong so much.