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Hank woke up with a start. For a moment he wasn’t sure why – he didn’t normally wake up at night. Well, okay, sometimes that happened more now because Connor kept going on about how drinking yourself to sleep wasn’t conductive to a long life and actually, Hank was pretty sure that the whiskey was getting watered down, which he really needed to talk to Connor about –
He cut his thoughts short. What the fuck had actually woken him up? If this was Connor forgetting that humans needed sleep and starting a wrestling game with Sumo again, he was going to ignore all that new stuff about android rights and shove something so far up that android’s ass –
There was movement out there. He was pretty sure he could hear Sumo moving about but none of it was fun moving about, more like something had woken him too. A voice maybe. Yeah. A voice.
Connor’s voice?
Connor calling his name?
Nah, couldn’t be that, could it? If Connor needed him, Connor would have called again and he hadn’t. Or he’d just have come into the room and Hank would have woken up to his face far too close – which had happened more than once. So it had to be fine.
Only now he’d thought that, it felt right. Connor had called his name and that had woken him up.
He got out of bed, trying not to swear as his muscles creaked. God, he was old. Too fucking old sometimes. Night time always made him think about shit like that. Too much time to look back and think about how it had been better when you were younger. He really was going to talk to Connor about leaving that whiskey alone. What did an android know about the hell of night?
He headed out of the room, fixing a glower on his face just in case Connor was standing there with that smug look on his face. That had happened more than once too, Hank would open a door and Connor would be on the other side of it, just staring. Hank was almost getting used to it but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
Connor wasn’t standing at the door. In fact, for half a second, Hank thought Connor wasn’t in the house at all. Then he spotted him, sitting on the floor with Sumo draped over his lap.
“What the fuck’re you doing?”
Connor looked up at him, blinking.
“Nothing,” he said and he sounded so like a child that just got caught sneaking in the cookie jar that Hank had to hide a grin. Connor kind of swung from dopey kid to irritating plastic to grown up and sometimes moved between all three within minutes. It was one of the things that was kind of sweet about him, once you’d got used to it. Not that he had any intention of letting Connor know that, of course.
“It’s not time to be playing with a dog. You remember that right? Night time’s for sleeping and all that.”
“Yes. I know. I am sorry. I did not mean to wake you.”
So it had been Connor. Hank didn’t see any reason to tell him that he hadn’t known for sure. Sometimes when you lived with a super-smart android, you had to cling to some mystery.
“Well, why did you then?” he asked.
Connor looked away from him, down at Sumo. He was kind of hunched up on himself. There was something wrong, really wrong and Hank had no idea what it was.
“Come on. Why did you wake me up? And Sumo too, you know Sumo needs his sleep or he gets grumpy.”
Connor’s mouth twitched but he didn’t quite smile. Hank paused for a second, then sighed and lowered himself down, sitting on the floor. Sumo promptly pulled himself forward and started dribbling contentedly on Hank’s knee. Hank sighed again, loudly and pointedly this time.
“This dog is going to be so spoiled.”
“You already spoil him. I’ve told you before that you feed him at least 35% more than he should be fed. And if we switched him to – ”
“Oh no you don’t. Don’t try to distract me. Why did you call?”
Connor’s LED flickered a little.
“You know androids do not sleep.”
“Yeah. I noticed when I got up that time and you’d reorganised the whole damn house in a night.”
“It was a more efficient – never mind. Androids do not sleep – mostly. But we are supposed to make sure that programme files are in order on a regular basis. Sometimes, if this organisation takes time, we enter a mode that is like human sleep. Sometimes, while that is happening, the files that are organised can become briefly disrupted. They can sometimes come together in ways that are not logical while an android is in that state and replay in peculiar ways.”
Hank frowned.
“So ... like a dream?”
“No,” Connor said, then paused. “Perhaps. I can’t ... I don’t know. I usually choose night time to organise my files. I was doing so and I ... I suppose that my memory files just decided to replay an instance that was not pleasing to me.”
Hank looked at him. Connor was staring down at Sumo in a focused kind of way, like he was hoping that Hank was going to just drop this whole conversation.
“What did you see?”
“It isn’t important. I told you, it’s just a corrupted file.”
“Connor, don’t fuck about with me. You woke me up yelling my name. Now you’re sitting here, all curled up, cuddling the dog. You think I can’t see something’s messed with your head? So tell me. What the fuck did you see?”
Connor’s LED flickered again. He gave a soft sigh.
“I saw ... you. You in the Cyberlife building with the other me. The advance model. Only he shot you. You died and you were ... I couldn’t save you.”
Aw, Jesus. Jesus.
“It didn’t happen,” Hank said roughly. “It didn’t happen, Connor. I’m fine. It’s a bad dream, that’s all. Just ... delete it or whatever.”
Connor made a small sound.
“I tried that the first time.”
Oh God. And didn’t Hank know what that was like, dreams that wouldn’t stop, that haunted you? And you told yourself that everything was fine but it wouldn’t go away with a bottle – and sometimes it wouldn’t even with one. And it wasn’t like Connor could try the bottle method. He just had to live with it.
“I’m not dead, Connor. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Logically, I know this,” Connor said. “And yet I currently find it very hard to believe.”
He sounded very calm. He did that sometimes – quite a lot actually. Hank was getting used to it now. One of the things about Connor was you had to really listen to what he said, both the words and all the unspoken stuff around the words. This was Connor trying to protect himself by retreating into programming. Everything became ones and zeros and structure, no matter what was actually the truth of it all.
Hank paused. Then he reached up and put his hand on Connor’s neck, gently pulling. Connor went rigid for a moment – and boy, when an android went rigid, you fucking knew it – and then submitted, letting his head be guided onto Hank’s shoulder.
“Just a dream,” Hank said quietly. “Just a dream. It’s over now and it didn’t happen. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re both here and we are both alive.”
He stroked the soft hair on the side of Connor’s neck. Did Connor feel it like a person? He wondered about that sometimes. How did you know what an android really felt? The emotions seemed to be the same but Connor’s skin wasn’t really there, was it? Was it the same? He didn’t know. But Connor seemed to like it and that was all that mattered.
He didn’t know how long they sat like that, him soothing Connor and Sumo napping on them. It didn’t matter.
Sometimes, the best way to get through the night was not to be alone.