Work Text:
There was solid ground under her face.
Cortana instinctively opened her eyes to look.
Wait. I don’t have eyes.
She blinked.
Or maybe I do.
Cortana began to notice various sensations: ground under her legs, her arms, her hands, her chest. Hair brushing against her neck and face. Fabric on her body.
I have a body?
Cortana pushed herself to her knees and looked at her hands.
My hands. She flexed her fingers and ran her palms down her arms. The fabric on her jumpsuit was smooth and stretchy and cool, the seams bumpy and uneven. She reflexively tugged at the seams on her wrists.
Cortana lifted her hands to her face. She could feel eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes. Nose and chin. Cheeks and jaw. Teeth and lips and tongue. Her skin felt soft, like…like what? She had almost no basis for comparison.
Do I look the same? Cortana brought a lock of hair in front of her eyes. Black. That’s the same. She tugged the soft strands through her fingers and let her hands move to her ears, then her neck, then her shoulders, down her front. She felt an impulse to see her face, but there was no reflective surface nearby.
Cortana stood and lifted her knees experimentally. She wiggled her toes inside her boots. She rocked back on her heels and then to her toes. She had experienced all these sensations in John’s body, or filtered through her link with him, but this was different. This body was hers.
But how?
“Cortana?”
The familiar voice made Cortana turn so quickly she almost fell. That, too, was a new feeling.
Opposite her stood John, clad in his fatigues, looking every bit as bewildered as she was.
He looked down at himself. “Where’s my armor?” He looked at Cortana. “What are you doing here? Where’s here?”
What was this place and what were they doing in it? Cortana didn’t know. At the moment she had a more pressing—or at least more answerable—question.
Can I touch him?
Cortana took a few tentative steps forward and put her fingertips on John’s chest. She was almost afraid he would disintegrate, like her pixels when anything solid passed through them.
John didn’t disintegrate.
He looked down at Cortana’s hands, then at her. “Are you…?”
So this is what it’s like. Inexplicably emboldened, Cortana flattened her palms and leaned her forehead against John’s breastbone.
“Cortana?” John asked again. He hadn’t made any move to return her touch. “What is this?”
“Whatever it is, don’t ruin it.” She slid her arms around his back.
John was warm. Oh, he was so warm. And solid. Paradoxically, it made Cortana shiver. She pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart.
She’d monitored John’s heart rate for years, but to hear and feel it with her own ears….
Is he going to hug me back? Cortana was embarrassed suddenly. Had she pushed him too far? Did he not want to hug her? Had she broken some rule—
Before Cortana could finish her thought, John’s hands grazed her back and shoulders. Then his arms wrapped tighter around her. A strange rush of relaxation washed over Cortana’s new body and she all but melted into the embrace.
No wonder physical contact was such a powerful need for humans.
Cortana almost whimpered when John pulled back just enough to look at her. He swept her hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her left ear.
She gave him a quizzical look and he shrugged. “It was in your eye.”
“Do I look the same?” Cortana blurted.
“You’re less blue and sparkly.”
She made a face. “Remember what I said about not ruining it?”
John quirked a smile. “Yeah.” He brushed his fingers over her hair again. “You look the same.”
The affection in his voice and touch made Cortana’s eyes brim with tears.
“Cortana.” John stroked his thumb across her cheekbone. “What’s wrong?”
Wrong? How could anything be wrong? I’ve never felt so safe.
I’ve never felt so loved.
“Nothing.” She burrowed into his embrace again. “I’ve just wanted to do this for so long.”
The admission seemed to break something loose and John’s hold tightened like a vise. Cortana adjusted her arms to wrap around his neck as he sank to his knees and took her with him. John crushed her against him, his hands running across her shoulders, down her back, through her hair, like he was trying to commit every facet of her to memory.
“John?” Cortana gasped.
“Yeah?”
She’d wanted him to hug her back, but….
“I can’t breathe.”
John chuckled softly and loosened his grip. “Better?”
“Just don’t let go,” Cortana begged hastily. She’d been scared to touch him, and now she was scared to stop.
“I won’t.” John buried his face in her shoulder and took a long breath. “I won’t.” His next sentence made the tears in Cortana’s eyes spill over.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, too.”