Work Text:
Rommie was almost ashamed to admit it, but when she first met Sere, she’d pitied the poor thing. The design of Serenity’s avatar was crude at best, nothing like the body Harper had managed to gift to the Andromeda Ascendant’s avatar, if she did say so herself. Sere’s mouth could hardly move, and her voice modulation dropped octaves almost every other sentence. Metal hydraulics showed at each joint of her limbs, as if her creator had run out of synthetic skin before they’d finished the job.
And honestly, it wasn’t like the ship herself was any more impressive. Firefly class ships were hardly top of the line even in their prime. Now decades out of date, the cargo hauler seemed all the more shoddy when compared to the others docked around her.
Rommie conveniently forgot that she, herself, was far more than just a few decades out of date. She was High Guard, after all; her design was considered a work of art even now, several centuries after her commissioning.
So no, Rommie wasn’t particularly impressed by the vessel piloted by Harper’s older cousin, nor by the avatar built for her by the bright and bubbly mechanic. She couldn’t imagine how a crew of eight comfortably fit about a ship of that size. They were certainly cramped, cooped up in such a tiny ship.
Rommie also conveniently forgot just how she’d underestimated the Eureka Maru time and time again at first. Beka’s ship was even smaller than Serenity, and they seemed to manage well enough. The Maru didn’t even have separate crew quarters, just bunks and a hammock crammed up against the interior walls. Granted, it was easier to doubt the capabilities of a ship that didn’t even have a true sense of its own identity. Or it should have been easier. Somehow, the Maru was easier for Rommie to connect with than Serenity, despite the fact that she and the Andromeda shared the gift of an AI.
In any case, when Harper and his cousin Wash arranged their first supposedly long overdue family get-together on a little moon in the middle of nowhere, Rommie kept her distance from the other avatar after the initial introductions. It wasn’t difficult. With the other vessels crew orbiting each other like moons themselves, Sere was never truly alone to approach Rommie, assuming she even hoped to. Instead, the other avatar spent most of her time in conversation with Kaylee, Wash, his wife Zoe, and Harper, all laughing and smiling fit to strain their facial muscles.
Rommie didn’t understand it. Harper and Wash clearly hadn’t spoken in years, but still seemed to be as close as Harper and Beka, as if the time and distance hadn’t had the effect it usually did on humans. And Sere—she slid in to place between the cousins as if she, too, were family.
Over the course of that visit, Rommie observed that there was just an ease about the other avatar’s interaction with her crew, an undeniable fondness that carried over from Sere to each of her human crewmates and back again. Sere was one of them, part of them, in a way that defied her artificial soul. Sere was almost as gregarious as her mechanic creator, something Rommie initially frowned upon as a definite lack in proper military protocol. That level of fraternization should certainly be against all High Guard regulations. Not that Sere was High Guard. Or that her crew might ever be. The closest any of them came to proper military service were the captain and his second, and from what Rommie could find on the various information networks, they’d really been more of a militia, rebels banding together against the corrupt government on their small nation of worlds and moons. Hardly what Rommie would consider truly disciplined.
And yet… Sere never seemed to question her connection to her crew, never had to wonder if she was truly one of them. Not that Rommie often admitted it, but there was a difference between her loyalty to Dylan and occasionally annoyed affection for Harper as her creator, and Sere’s buoyant affection and attitude of a confidant for every single one of her humans. Even the muscle-bound gunhand and the prim doctor seemed to share an equal regard for the android in their midst. And their trust in Sere’s abilities were nothing compared to the blatant friendship and well, even love, showered upon her by Kaylee and Wash and her Captain and …
In the deepest parts of her circuits, Rommie wondered if even Dylan cared for her as deeply as Sere’s crew did, if any of those aboard her might miss her the way Sere would so clearly be missed if her physical components ever failed her. Harper probably would, but then Harper was easily distracted. Who knew—he might just… replace her as soon as she was gone.
Being the cause of such uneasy thoughts did nothing to endear Sere to Rommie. She decided she’d be perfectly happy if Dylan called his crew back to his ship and back out into the Black with as little delay as possible. Sure, Harper might be more annoying than usual as he moped about their little get-together being cut short, but it wasn’t as if anything productive was being accomplished on the dusty little rock.
“Family is always an accomplishment.” The voice wasn’t one Rommie had heard yet in the mess of crew and conversation, but the face was one she had recorded in her data banks. One River Tam, former fugitive (or current fugitive depending on which data base had provided the data) and, if rumors were correct, a government created psychic and assassin.
She didn’t look it. The young woman was even more slender than Harper had built Rommie’s body to be, and she was currently dressed in a light sundress and what appeared to be ballet slippers. It was hardly the garb Rommie would expect a fighter to wear, though, perhaps that was the point for an assassin.
“Being underestimated is a weapon, too. Easiest one in the ‘verse to use.” River peeked out from under her curtain of hair to smile slightly at Rommie, though the smile didn’t even remotely ease the avatar’s unease at the supposed answering of her thoughts. Rommie wasn’t human; it shouldn’t be possible for a psychic to access her thought processing. “The River flows through it all.”
“But I—” Rommie began, growing even more uncomfortable with each passing moment, and she held fast to her military bearing to hide it as best she could. “I’m not one of you. You shouldn’t be able to… to…”
River shook her head, her wild hair flying every which way at the force of the shake. “Skin, bone, circuits, sinew. They don’t make you who you are. She knows that. So do you. You just don’t think you should or shouldn’t have you been something else?”
Rommie tried to parse out what the girl was trying to say, but found herself stuck on the idea that her design wasn’t who she was.
“Only what she is. The two aren’t remotely similar.” Without allowing Rommie to respond, the unusual human scampered off and threw herself onto the back of the burly merc, somehow staying out on reach even as the man tried to toss her off. It was, admittedly, a fairly impressive demonstration of skill on both their parts.
“She’s a little strange, even for a human, but she’s just the shiniest little thing, ain’t she?” Sere had somehow slipped up beside her without Rommie noticing her approach, either. That she could probably place firmly at the fault of River Tam, but that didn’t help Rommie’s embarrassment at her surprise. She should have been able to hear the other avatar coming. What was with this crew and surprising her?
“She’s certainly something,” Rommie replied, if only because Sere was so clearly waiting for her response. There was little complimentary that she could say about the young woman, but she supposed that was enough.
“Something like that,” Sere agreed, her voice blessedly staying on key for once. “I like her. Like all of them, ya know? They make me feel more real. It’s nice.”Rommie opened her mouth to speak only to close it again, unsure if she had anything to say. Sere seemed to take her silence as an invitation to go on. “They’ll like you, too, you know. Just gotta give ‘em some time to get used to the idea. They have a hard time understanding someone like us at first. But they’ll like ya. I mean I like ya, right? Hard not to.”
Sere smiled widely, the metallic joints of her jaw shining in the sunlight. Rommie couldn’t help it. This time, she smiled back.
“It’s just all sorts of shiny being us, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Rommie agreed softly.