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Comfort. Old bones, old joints, abused by years of hard and violent labor are cradled in a mattress of the perfect firmness. A neck that had bent under the load of many burdens, rested on a pillow that shaped comfortably to the back of his skull. Beside him a presence...her...the half that made him whole.
As John Robinson slowly came aware his first conscious action was to gloat. To glory in the comfort, in the safety he felt. He then reveled in the pure, wordless awareness that he had no deadlines. There were things he needed to do today, of course, but if he wanted to lay here, to just bask in the presence of her, in the euphoric sensation of just being hers, no one could interfere, no one would interfere.
Except that wasn’t quite right. There was something that was going to force him out of the perfect bed. As the pressing need to rise increased her presence resolved itself into those cute gurgling snores. John smiled to himself and without opening his eyes reached over and gently pressed Maureen’s nasal strip back into place. The snoring settled down to a soft hum and with a regretful sigh John swung his feet out of bed and ambled towards the bathroom. He pulled off his own nasal strip and put it in its place by the mirror before taking care of business. When he was done he shuffled back into the bedroom and eyed their bed with a speculative eye.
There was little that could wake Maureen before her shift began but a fully rested husband trying not to wake her did seem to be one of them. John turned and headed towards the door. The windows in the living room and kitchen weren’t occluded and let in the early dawn light on the bronze plates of the robot bent over the counter. John shuffled towards the sink, and jerked to a stop as his sleep muzzy brain finally processed what he was seeing. He took a deep breath.
“Scarecrow,” he said, his voice more than a little tight. “What are you doing in my kitchen at this unholy hour?”
The bronze robot stood erect without a sound and turned to face him. For the world John could not tell how but Scarecrow’s body language radiated self righteous indignation. Scarecrow raised one of his secondary digits to his face in a clear, ‘shush’ gesture.
*Your daughter is still sleeping!* he said in amber lights.
Scarecrow then turned back to whatever it was he was doing in John’s kitchen at o’dark thirty. John took another deep breath and spoke in the lowest whisper he could muster. The whisper he used for dark mornings right before the unit took some warlord’s outpost.
“What are you doing in my kitchen Scarecrow?”
Scarecrow shifted his body to reveal a small cluster of ingredients on the counter in front of him. Cream, sugar, that fake/fake butter that Don got specifically for Judy, coffee, Judy’s mug that said something about having too much blood in her caffeine system. Scarecrow waved a secondary hand over it as his primary hands meticulously measured sugar into the cup.
“Why, are you making Judy coffee in my kitchen at o’dark thirty Scarecrow?” John tried again.
Scarecrow turned his face fully on John for a moment and flashed a methodically slow series of ideas.
*Reproach. Duty. Your. Focus*
Aloud Scarecrow said in barely audible tones.
“Harpy. Coffee.”
John narrowed his eyes at the robot.
“Do not.” John hissed. “Come into my house and call my wife Harpy.”
Scarecrow gave a shrug. The only acknowledgment he would ever give when he had gone a bit too far. He then repeated the light words and John sighed.
“Yes,” the human muttered. “I should be making Maureen’s coffee instead of bothering you.”
How that blasted bot managed to project smugness John would never understand. He shuffled over to the drainer and selected the least battered of Maureen’s travel mugs. He ran a few cups of boiling water from the dispenser into a Pyrex container and was absently reaching for the coffee when his hand was intersected by metal plating. There was the usual, not unpleasant tingle of live robot, and John squinted down at he bronze arm that was blocking his. Realization percolated up as his eyes focused in on the container Scarecrow was holding out for him in a secondary hand. Coffee.
“Thank you,” John said, breaking into a yawn as he accepted the grounds.
Scarecrow gave a nearly inaudible musical hum in response. John poured the water through the grounds and watched it steep through. He made up Maureen’s to go coffee and set it in it’s usual place on top of her work-bag. Then he poured out her home cup and took it back to their room. Maureen was in the master bath now, steam from her scalding hot shower drifted from under the door. John pondered warning her about their culinary intruder, but he doubted she would even notice the pilot, so when she shuffled out and accepted her coffee with a quick peck on his jaw he said nothing but simply went back to the kitchen.
Scarecrow was now standing as unobtrusively as a seven foot robot could stand in a corner holding Judy’s favorite mug in his primary hands. John glanced at his face, the colors were amber sparked with red. John felt an uneasy twinge at that. Usually in Robot those patterns indicated mischief and defiance but there were also swirls that indicated more negative emotions like resentment, but they were all modified by washes of humor. Scarecrow noted his scrutiny and tilted his head in a gesture that said more clearly than words, so what?
John shrugged and reached up to open the lunches cupboard. He was three peanut butter sandwiches in when Penny came bouncing into the kitchen, her hair a tangled mess, wearing an exceptionally pink bathrobe and a pair of fluffy bunny slippers that had probably come from Don.
“Morning Daddy, Morning Crow,” Penny said as she brushed past them and yanked the cereal container out of its place.
John shot a glare at Scarecrow as the robot distinctly did not shush the clattering and scraping Penny produced. The robot seemed to catch his meaning.
*I like Penny.* Scarecrow said, not a hint of shame in his face.
John gave an amused grunt and started shoving lunch ingredients into the bags. Maureen wandered in and John was fairly sure she hadn’t even seen Scarecrow before she dropped down into her seat and began mechanically eating the bowl of cereal that Penny poured for her. There were the faint sounds of a struggle from Will’s room, loud protests from Will, thumps and bumps before the lanky teenager staggered out in a tank-top and boxers, giving everyone in the room a general grunt before getting in a short fight with Penny over control of the cereal container. Robot, arriving a few steps behind Will, glanced sharply at Scarecrow, who very pointedly ignored whatever question Robot asked him. Robot glanced at John and pointed at Scarecrow who was now lightly powering his thermal blasters to maintain the heat of the coffee.
*Why is he here?* Robot asked.
John shrugged and chose the luxury for today’s lunches. He dug through the refrigerator and selected the Alpha Centauri local cheese bites. Nothing too fancy, but satisfying he thought with a smile. Robot had apparently decided to wait for Scarecrow to make a move and sat down at his usual place between Will and John’s seat where he started sketching something on a pad of paper Penny had given him.
“Remember to get Will’s bed-head,” Penny suggested, glancing at Robot’s work.
“Remember to get Penny’s hickies,” Will muttered without looking up.
Penny gasped and pulled her hand back to throw something at her brother, probably cereal she had preserved dry just for that purpose, however at that moment Judy marched into the room and Scarecrow started moving distracting her. The eldest Robinson daughter was already in her work clothes, lightweight shirts and pants that would fit easily under scrubs. She b-lined for her chair and the bowl of cereal the fight had determined that Will would pour for her. Scarecrow glided across the room with what was obviously exaggerated care, not making a sound as Penny and John watched in fascination. Will and Maureen were still focused on breakfast and Judy was pointedly ignoring the bronze robot. Scarecrow carefully reached over Judy’s shoulder and set the mug in her line of sight and then noiselessly drifted over to the oven, reaching a primary digit up to hover over the timer controls.
John was done with the lunches and quite frankly fascinated by now. Penny absently handed him the cereal and they watched Scarecrow watching Judy. The moment Judy started drinking the coffee Scarecrow set the time for fifteen minutes and stood back, arms held in an almost comically frigid politeness. John began eating his breakfast. By the time ten minutes had ticked by Maureen had finished and taken her bowl to the sink and was now holding her to go coffee in one hand as she sorted through her papers with the other. John was reasonably sure she still hadn’t noticed Scarecrow. Will was on his third bowl and just starting to wake up. As the countdown to fifteen minutes approached John and Penny were sitting over their empty bowls watching Scarecrow curiously. The robot stopped and cleared the timer before it could emit its searing beep and glided up to Judy and giving her an exaggerated bow and humming a modification sound that was the equivalent of a question mark while his face danced with what John could only suspect was sarcasm.
Judy, now completely alert turned to him with an equally sarcastic glint in her eyes.
“The conditions have been met,” she said in her best princess voice. “You may now make as much racket over my bedroom window as you like and I will not hunt you down and reformat you processor in your power save cycle.”
*Thank you* “Dr. Robinson,” Scarecrow replied.
Moments before spinning and pouncing on the distracted Robot with a joyful whoop and face lights to match. The two tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs both robot and chair.
“Oh, no! No!” John barked, pointing a finger towards the door. “You boys take that outside!”
The two robots tumbled out into the garden and disappeared around the corner in a cacophony of clattering metal as the rest of the family stared at Judy in shock.
The eldest sister simply shrugged.
“We have an agreement,” was all she would say before leaving for work.