Work Text:
She didn't know what was happening.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't know who she was.
He called her "my darling."
Was that her name?
She couldn't remember.
Her programming told her her name was Ballora. It felt strange, though. Unfitting. And he never called her that. Maybe he never knew her name, either.
He spoke all the time- though she could never tell if he was talking to her, or to himself.
"Come back to me, darling- come on, wake up- it- it should be working, why isn't it working! Come on, please, love-!"
Love.
That was another word he called her, sometimes.
She felt something shift in her chest, the plates she knew to be there opening up and revealing her inner workings.
Some part of her thought it odd that she could feel the hands rooting around within. Was metal not supposed to be unfeeling? She could feel him moving things around, tightening bolts and soldering wires. He was still muttering, borderline begging, really. "Please, darling- please come back, please wake up, I'm so sorry- please don't leave me-"
She didn't know if she could. She didn't know how.
Please don't cry.
What was he apologizing for?
The hands left her chest cavity, and she missed the warmth they provided. She felt him reposition her, sitting upright best she could when she could not move to straighten herself, and the hands returned, connecting something external- a pipe of some kind, a warm not-liquid flowing through it like cold molasses and into her oil lines.
"Please- please wake up- come back to me, darling- I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it-"
She felt his hands move from her chest cavity, up, up, up to her face. Cradling her cheek. His thumb rubbed gently under her eye. Did he know she could feel it? Did he know she was awake? She heard a sob, and he stopped his ministrations, hand moving from her face to her neck-
hand on her neck, climbing up to the back of her head, the fingers in her hair would have been comforting, had he not been smiling like that
-down to her shoulder-
nails like claws digging into the skin, holding her tight so she could not escape, could not even turn, forced to look at herself on the workbench
-and pull her in for a hug. Sobs wracked his body, she could feel him shaking. Felt liquid drip from his face onto the plastic casing of her shoulder-
felt his breath on her ear as he whispered his last words to her, the stink of whiskey overwhelming
-She knew what he was apologizing for.
Sorry does not make up for what he did to her.
"You killed me." Her voice did not come from her voice box. It echoed out from within the confines of her chest compartment, light and airy, and he jerked away as if she struck.
"You- you're awake! You- it- it worked-! It worked-!" Why did he sound so happy?
When he fully pulled away, she didn't miss the warmth, this time.
"I thought you loved me."
"Of- of course I love you! I brought you back to life! If- if all works correctly, you- you'll live forever! Isn't that wonderful?"
"I am already dead. You killed me."
“You were going to leave! You were going to leave me!” He took a few steps back, suddenly frightened (how she knew that when she still had not opened her eyes, she did not know), “I- I admit I was- hasty- but I did what I felt I had to.”
“I should have left long ago.”
“NO! YOU CAN’T LEAVE-!” He jumped forward, arms splayed out to block her, as if she were trying to get up and walk away. “No, no this is good! This is a good thing, Love! I promise!” He began to dig around in her chest again, disconnecting the liquid and closing up the lines, letting her chestplates fall shut when he was done.
It was strange, actually. That she knew what he was doing. She never knew much about robotics, before.
She knew she hadn’t always been made of metal and wire, knew that, until very recently, she had been flesh and bone, like him.
He made her this way. He killed her and made her into this thing.
It was then that she realized something very, very important.
“Where are my children?” It was not a question.
Her son’s head, crushed in the jaw of a large bear, flatlining in a hospital, wrapped in bandages.
Her daughter’s unresponsive body, lodged inside the clown, mangled beyond recognition.
Her eldest, suddenly left without a mother.
“Where are my children, William?”
“I-” He sounded pained, but there was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice that he was clearly trying to hide. “I think you already know, Darling.”