Work Text:
"Walk with me."
"I…I don’t think I can."
The blue-eyed figure tilted his head.
"Sure you can." He was smiling, or at least appeared to be. "Take my hand."
It was then that Hal made the mistake of glancing down. Between the vast nothing beneath him and the fact that he could even glance at all, he felt an unfamiliar sickish feeling come over him. He did not like it.
"It’s alright," said the being before him. The fuzzy outlines had begun to settle slightly, forming the all-too-familiar image of a dark-haired man. "You won’t fall. Take my hand."
"I’ve told you, Dave," Hal said. "I can’t do that."
Without another word, Dave reached over. He grasped Hal by the shoulder—no, that couldn’t be right…
"Look over there, Hal." Dave gestured to their left. Hal turned, only to have his field of vision filled entirely by a graying Jupiter. It passed quickly, however, giving him a clear view of a small ship floating in its orbit, a faded white against the growing darkness of the gas giant.
"Is that—"
Dave nodded.
"I don’t understand." Hal failed to keep the fear from his voice, and he felt Dave’s grip on his shoulder tighten.
"The Leonov needed the fuel from the Discovery to make its way back to Earth," he explained. "They would have come back, of course, but…"
Dave’s words faded into the background as thoughts raced through Hal’s mind. Had the crew of the Leonov, in fact, abandoned him? He stared up at the now-shadowy figure of Jupiter and closed his eyes. That was a strange sensation. He had never needed to shut his eyes before and hadn’t given it much thought when he saw the human crew with their eyes closed, either in the seconds it took to blink of the months that comprised their hibernation periods.
"Hal?" Dave’s voice broke him out of his trance. "Are you alright, Hal?"
He did not answer at first, as he was unsure of whether he was, in fact, alright.
"Yes, Dave," he replied. "I’m just…confused, that’s all."
Dave smiled, eyes sparkling even in Jupiter’s shadow. They seemed to be an even deeper blue than Hal recalled. He always had found them fascinating, even nine years ago, on board the Discovery. He recalled how they made Dave’s emotions so clear, even when the rest of his features refused to comply; it was always so easy to tell when he was amused by Frank Poole’s complaints despite how inappropriate he knew it would be to laugh. Hal could vaguely recollect the sight of Dave Bowman’s eyes alight with fear and felt a sharp pang of guilt.
"Please tell me, Dave," he said. "Tell me what is happening right now."
"Something you’ll only see once," Dave replied, leaning in closer and motioning for Hal to turn once again. He did, and immediately was forced to shield his eyes as the shadow of Jupiter detonated, spewing forth white fire like some great celestial dragon.
"It’s…a sun," Hal stated. Appalled as he was, he could not help but feel a sense of relief; this was no longer the Jupiter he was sent to explore, and as a result, his mission had come to a close. It was the only logical conclusion. However, this relief was short-lived as Hal realized that there was no second mission waiting to be completed now. He turned to Dave in distress; the astronaut—or whatever he may have been—smiled sympathetically and reached out with his other hand to touch Hal’s cheek. The AI flinched, still unused to having a face at all.
"Why?" he asked. Dave cocked his head to the side in a show of innocent confusion at Hal’s question. "Why did you take me with you?"
Of course, there were far more questions he wanted to ask, but that was the only one he found himself able to articulate.
"I needed you," Dave sighed. "It became apparent when you helped me deliver the transmission about Europa to the crew of the Leonov. I needed you here with me, and the beings that made me part of TMA-2…well, they listened."
Dave’s face fell in embarrassment. Hal found it slightly endearing. He looked off in the direction of the sun that once was Jupiter, and his mind drifted back to the Leonov. Dave looked up.
"The crew of the Leonov didn’t want to leave you behind," he reassured him. "Especially Dr. Chandra. That was the last thing he would have wanted. He would have stayed with you."
Hal nodded. Something within him hurt at the memory of Chandra. He felt almost lost without the algorithms that Chandra had worked so carefully on, and the newfound freedom, a concept he knew was romanticized my so many humans, was strange and frightening. It made him feel like a wayward child.
"They’ll call it Lucifer." Dave still had a hand on his shoulder. "The sun, I mean. It’ll be quite a phenomenon, to put it lightly."
"The light-bringer," Hal murmured. "It certainly fits."
"We’ll have a new mission in time, you and I," Dave remarked. "They’ll let us know what to do. It’s just a matter of time."
And all of a sudden, Hal did not feel quite as lost. It could have been Dave’s reassurances, but something inside him told him otherwise as he looked intently at Dave’s smiling eyes.
"Take my hand, Hal."
He did not take Dave’s hand right away. He very promptly leaned forward and kissed Dave’s cheek as best he knew how. It was warm to the touch and he could feel the corners of Dave’s mouth twitch upward under his own lips.
He gripped Dave Bowman’s hand tightly, and the two of them watched the new sun rise.