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It’s a few days before Christmas, and everyone who’s waited until the last possible moment to buy their gifts is out doing it now. The mall downtown is full to capacity. The Michigan winter has glazed the streets with snow and ice, but it’s still not enough to stop the horde.
You’ve only waited this long because you don’t have a car to get into town with (a machine that large still makes you nervous) but it’s not stopping you- you’ve never been one to let mere physical obstacles keep you from what you want, much less one as common as the weather. If snow and ice is the toughest thing you’re facing, you’re grateful.
A muffled, frustrated moan comes from behind you. “I can’t believe humans subject themselves to these conditions for fun. Please tell me a central heating system is nearby.”
No, your obstacles are a little…weirder these days.
She’s been reacting to winter the same way she reacts to all new, natural, human stimuli- with utter disdain. You know she’s wishing she could handle her problems her old way- by banishing them to an incinerator or warming up her neurotoxin generators with a thought. As it is, that doesn’t work so well for her anymore. What she does still have, unfortunately, is her ability to criticize, creatively and at length, all of her new annoyances.
You turn around, mostly just to make sure she’s still following you, and comment that you don’t have any control over the weather, so the curses she’s laying on you under her breath are pointless. She gives you a withering look, then harrumphs and wedges her face deeper into her scarf. You just grab her arm and pull her across the street, through the slushy parking lot and into the mall.
Even though your childhood memories of the holidays are one of the many things lost to time and cryosleep, you know you must have had good ones, because this time of year is one of the few things that really make you feel like a child again. Maybe it’s just the warm lights and the expressions of love and joy. All of the people together, easing the anxiety and pain of loneliness you still feel.
She’s not impressed.
“Once we take part in your precious human ritual, I would like to leave as soon as possible,” she says, shaking the snow off her shoes. You just act like you can’t hear her- your standard reaction when you know she’s posturing. If she knows anything about you, it’s that she shouldn’t mess with you when you’re focused.
You do have a few gifts for people to take care of- your co-workers, neighbors you’re fond of- and you navigate your way through the packed stores to find them all some small presents. She trails behind you like a shadow, and although she doesn’t complain any further, you can feel her ever-radiating annoyance against your back.
You’re crossing through a department store when you realize she’s not behind you anymore. You retrace your steps, through the men’s clothing section, and find her standing in the middle of the aisle, staring at a Christmas tree display. You push your way through the crowd to get back to her, and it’s not until you’re close that you can see her arms tight at her sides, shaking.
She prides herself on keeping a tight lid on most of her emotions. This isn’t anger, because her anger is either immediate and explosive, or barely shows unless you know where to look (and then dodge). This is an emotion she hasn’t practiced, doesn’t know how to let her new body express.
You ask her, flatly, what’s wrong- you don’t afford her your patience or your pity and she wouldn’t take it if you did, this is how you deal with each other. But instead of answering, she tears out of your grasp, turns on her heels, and runs. Before you can stop her, she’s gone, into the sea of people.
A minute later, when the crowd clears, you find her on a bench outside. She’s staring blankly in the other direction, at the shoppers passing by into the store.
Sometimes you think about whether other people can see what’s different about her. According to Science, she’s as human as you now, so maybe they can't. You look at her and still see the angles in her movement, the fluid grace in how she still tries to hold herself, the coldness in her eyes, cold like a panel of sheet metal.
You still dream, often, about Back Then and Back There, and more and more often now you return to that circular room…and then you wake up beside her, and sometimes you have to keep yourself from screaming.
But you remember what you, strangely, grieved for the most, when it was over. Somehow- in some kind of cosmic irony- the one being on the planet who could understand what you'd been through, who knew you, in ways, better than you knew yourself- was the one you'd left behind. Even though she, for most of the time you knew her, would have wanted nothing better than to kill you.
And then she literally walked back into your life, and things got weird, fast. Now you’re two people with problems, learning how to exist.
You walk over to the café and buy two cookies and two hot chocolates, and then approach her, slowly. You stand in front of her for a minute before she notices you there.
“Oh. Hi,” she says, with a sigh she tries to hide. She scowls, looking away, but snaps back when you hold the package out to her. She looks at you suspiciously, then takes the bag and looks inside.
“You brought me sugary baked goods,” she says slowly. “And a beverage, unless both of those are for you.”
You just raise an eyebrow and look pointedly at the bag, which she opens again and pulls one cookie out. She dangles the gingerbread man in front of her face by one leg.
“Oh, look, it’s even shaped like a human. It combines your love of fattening foods with your love for killing. How perfect for you.”
You give her the look again- shut up and just go with it, it won’t kill you- and hand her a hot chocolate.
You sit in silence and watch the people, as carols drift through the air from somewhere nearby.