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Choi had spent months slaving over this. Her hands seemed like they were permanently stained with oil and grease, too much time spent slaving away without taking a break to nap or eat or even just rest her shaking fingers. She didn’t have time. Not when Uchiha wasn’t here.
Choi held the USB around her neck carefully in her grip. Usually the chain laid just over her heart, but she felt the need to hold it close now. She had already copied the data on it onto the computer where she could work through the code, but it was still a nice weight to have there.
She had never really considered herself an engineer. She was a doctor- specifically a brain surgeon. She wasn’t formally trained in robotics. But, well, the USB containing everything about Uchiha was kind of like a brain if you thought about it. The brain held everything that made a person a person, just like the little drive in her hands did.
The parts were already there. Boston Dynamics didn’t want to lose their best cyborg, and were more than happy to help the process of putting all the parts together. But no one had figured out how to transfer a human brain yet. Not even them, with all their knowledge and combined brain power.
But no one had the determination like Choi. She wasn’t going to lose Uchiha, no matter what.
It wouldn’t really be him and all his memories. It wouldn’t be her husband.
But it was enough. She could work with it.
She had gone through wooing him once, what was one more time? One more go around, reliving the old days. She’d do it all over again for him. It wouldn’t be the same, but it would be Uchi, and that was enough for her.
No matter who she was or where she’d be, she wanted him to be by her side. Through all their lifetimes, through all their faults, she wasn’t going to let go of him.
The one thing that terrified her though, was the time the flash drive was backed up. Uchi had given it to her the day of that first awful court case, before they knew the verdict.
This Uchiha would still be on death row in his mind.
Uchi had never divulged what he was really thinking during that court case, he always put up a veneer of being totally confident. He KNEW he was going to get off. He KNEW they wouldn’t kill him. But no matter how confident you are, Choi knew there had to be something in him that feared death in that moment. It was just human instinct.
But win he did. Except, he had never thought to update the drive after everything was resolved. He was always so confident that no matter what, he could be rebuilt. He had practically figured himself invincible, and Choi had unknowingly bought into that mentality as well. She had never paused to even think about not waking up beside him every morning, placing a kiss on his forehead before heading off to work at an ungodly hour before he eventually met up with her at the hospital with some kind of injury.
Neither of them were truly aware of just how fragile he really was in the end.
One mag dump to the brain, and there wasn’t anything even Choi could do. She didn’t even know who to get revenge on. There was no Phoenix Downtown for this.
There was just Choi Jones.
Maybe this was playing God, maybe this was messing with the natural cycle, but Choi didn’t care.
Choi was God now.
She slowly took her goggles off. After three straight months of work, she had finally finished. She had figured out how to crack the code and hook it up to the body without losing any of the precious data inside.
The robotic husk in front of her closely mimicked Uchi’s real human self. It had his purple hair, his boyish face, his vibrant smile. His skin was perfectly realistic, smooth and unrobotic in its appearance. Everything mechanical was hidden behind the thin layer, other than the port on the back of his neck. He’d still make mechanical sounds when moving like before, he’d still be obviously robotic in his movements and his general demeanor, but it was enough. More than enough. Choi would still love him if he was just a tin can, anyway.
As long as it was him.
Choi waited patiently as the data transferred. It would take a long time, because it was an entire consciousness stored in that little bit of data, but Choi could wait. It wasn’t like she hadn’t already been waiting for three months.
It was concerning that she hadn’t eaten in three days, or slept in two, or had a full night's rest in a month, but Choi couldn’t really be bothered, and she most certainly wasn’t getting up now.
No, she’d stay here the whole time. Waiting.
After three hours of staring, the robot’s eyes slowly blinked open, glowing a soft purple color.
“What? Where am I?” His voice sounded sleepy, like he was just waking up from a nap gone long. Choi hadn’t realized just how much she had missed it.
Her heart skipped a beat, a warmth she had been sorely missing finally back. It was him. His voice was the same as it had always been, his cadence just perfect. He looked around the room, head swivelling to examine where they were. She knew it had to be confusing.
Slowly, Choi cupped a hand around his cheek. “Uchi?”
“Choi? Where the hell are we? We’re supposed to be at the trial.” A flash of panic that only Choi could recognize after many years crossed his face, miniscule but still there.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Uchi?” She asked.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked her up and down for the first time. She knew that she had to look different than the last time he saw her in his memory. There were stress lines on her face from too many years of working at Pillbox, she was pretty sure she had a few grey hairs already. She knew she looked a mess, she had severely disregarded her own personal hygiene over the past week, just knowing she was so close. Her normally tight bun was loose and messy, she didn’t have any makeup, and her cheeks were sallow from not eating enough. There was dirt and oil and grease stained across her fingers, and across her face. She was sure that didn’t matter to him, though.
Understanding seemed to cross his face, his eyes widening.
“I was downloading my memorah into the USB. Did I lose the trail? Was I put to death? What took so long getting me back!”
Choi shook her head sadly. “No. It’s been five years since then, Uchi. The trial was a long long time ago, and you weren’t put to death. You…” Choi took a deep shuddering breath. “Three months ago you died in a shootout. We don’t know who did it. The bullets all went through your brain; it was just a pile of mush. There was nothing I could do.”
“A few bullets took me down? How weak .” Uchi pushed himself down from the table where the robotic husk had previously been sitting on, standing up slowly on his new feet.
“Please be careful, I don’t know if it’s all been properly calibrated.”
“I know how to walk, Choi,” Uchiha scoffed, before promptly stumbling as he tried to take a few steps. “That was a calculated move,” he tacked on.
Choi raised an eyebrow, choking down a laugh. “I’m sure it was, Uchi. Come on, back on the table. I need to get everything tuned to your body, and the data is still syncing so you’re still connected through the wire. You pretty much just had the first brain transplant in history.”
She coaxed him back onto the table, and then went into the process of testing the reflexes of all of his limbs, fine tuning the response time as best as she could. There may have still been a little lag, but this was Uchiha. He could compensate for any perceived weakness twenty times better than before.
As she worked, Choi could see her-… Uchi looking around the room, taking it in. There wasn’t much interesting things happening, so she could only assume he was trying to figure out just what was different. Learning you were five years in the future to when you thought you were must have been pretty scary, no matter how tough you were.
After looking around with no results, she saw his eyes turn down to her, taking in her new appearance. First the first time in a long while she felt self conscious, despite the fact that she knew it didn’t really matter. She didn’t exactly look as in her prime as five years ago, so it must be a bit jarring for him to see.
And then she saw his eyes dart down to her ring for a split second, then back to her own eyes.
“Who did you geg married to?” He finally spoke up.
Choi blinked, taken aback. She twisted the ring around her finger nervously. It was a simple ring, the band made from the same steel that made up Uchi’s old body, with a small emerald on top of it. It meant the world to her.
She had always assumed someone had to help Uchi plan and make it, because there was no way he had come up with it on his own no matter what he said, but the thought still counted.
“I…” She couldn’t get herself to say the words.
This was the one thing she was so unsure about.
She was confident she could get him to fall in love with her again, confident she could break down his barriers. She knew that it just took time for Uchi to open up and finally feel comfortable, and then things would hopefully get close to where they were before.
But she didn’t know how he’d react to knowing they were married.
She didn’t know if revealing it would scare him off, the old Uchi too afraid of commitment. If she lied to him, if she said it was just someone else, if she broke that trust, there would be no moving forward to date again. But at this point in his mind they hadn’t even kissed yet, let alone said anything close to the L word. He might just reject it completely, and she’d lose her Uchi again…
Maybe...
Maybe a small lie wouldn’t hurt.
“It’s not a wedding band. Just a ring a friend gave me,” Choi explained.
“You’re wearing a ring on your left ring finger that isn’t a wedding ring? Are you trying to get got people?
“No, I…”
“Do you think I’m dumb, doktor?”
“No! Why would you say that?”
“There’s a picture of us on the table over there-” Uchi motioned his head over to the desk. Choi blanked. Their wedding photo. She had just left it there, completely out in the open. She had put it there to keep her company during the grueling days and nights where all she wanted to do was give up because everything hurt when Uchi wasn’t there, but that photo reminded her what she was fighting for. That reality that she needed to get back.
Maybe if Labarre were still with them, he’d have stopped her from falling so far down that pit, from grasping at straws and pushing herself to her breaking point. But he was dead, and no USB was helping him. Uchi was the only thing she could fix herself. She had the power, and that’s how she pushed through.
She just didn’t expect him to notice it. She hadn’t even thought to put it away, to conceal the evidence of a life that once was. She didn’t even think it through, just wanting him back so badly.
“I…. It’s…” She stuttered out. Words wouldn’t work. How do you fix this situation? This was exactly why she didn’t want to tell him!
Uchi’s eyes narrowed, not angry, but confused in a way. Almost… betrayed? “Why’d you really bring me back, Choi ? That USB was for the trial.”
“What?” Choi blinked, taken aback. He… he didn’t want to be brought back?
“If it’s been five years, why do you think I didn’t give you another USB?” Uchi tapped on his metal chest, as if testing the hollow echoing sound it made. It didn’t feel real. It was just a reminder that he wasn’t fully human, no matter how much he looked it. Choi couldn’t tear her eyes away, even as they filled with tears.
“I… You shouldn’t have died, Uchi! I had to bring you back! That’s why I kept it.”
“I’m just a freak , doktor. I’m not even human anymore. I gave you that USB because I didn’t want to die for a crime I didn’t commit. I’m okay with going out in battle. I resigned myself to that fate when I became a shinoba . I knew what would happen the day my parents were killed, what path I was going to take. You should have known that.”
“How could I have known? You never told me, Uchi! I’ve worked without a break for three months to bring you back.” Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“You brought me back to a world I don’t know, in a body I don’t recognize, taking away the peace I had in whatever realm comes next, and you think that’s okay?! I was never going to be around forever.” He looked over to the photograph on the desk. “And if we were… married, you should have known that.”
“NO!” Choi slammed her hand down on the table. “I do know that! I knew you weren’t going to be around forever because you’re Uchiha and you’re stupid and dumb and I love you for it! But I’m not going to let you go because I’m not losing another thing in my life to this stupid city! I don’t care!”
Choi’s hand twitched, itching towards a wire.
“You can’t play God, Choi ! I’m not a thing that you can just build back together and have everything be okay! I’m not whatever person you love, and if you loved me you would unders-”
Choi grabbed the plug, ripping it out of the connector.
The wire syncing data to Uchi’s brain disconnected, shutting down his purple glowing eyes, the life leaving them for the second time. The data would be corrupted now.
Everything had gone completely silent. The only sound that could be heard was her heavy breathing, and the sound of fans slowing down before going quiet.
Slowly, Choi plugged the USB around her neck back into the computer. The folder popped up on the screen, and she copied the files on it back onto the desktop, crisp and clean and untainted.
She pushed her chair over to her desk, tipping the wedding picture over so that only the back could be seen. She shimmied the ring off the finger, loosely putting it into a drawer and closing it quickly.
...There’s always another chance.
Choi would get this right.
Uchiha would be hers.