Work Text:
Isaac takes a while to adjust to their next step---what it really looks like, after the burst of excitement that their wedding thrusts upon them, after the quiet fades in and daily life on the Orville becomes slightly more stable. There's always the threat of the Krill-Moclan alliance waiting to pounce on its prey -- but it has been quiet for a while, allowing Claire to truly stretch herself out into married life again.
He just doesn't seem to understand that things are supposed to be a bit different, after you get married. That's okay, though - Claire is learning more about him every day, and she is beginning to become familiar with his eccentricities. She knows exactly how to explain things to him in a way he'll understand, exactly how his beautiful mind works when he is processing information and analyzing his data. Before their relationship developed, she had thought him to be so alien, his inflated sense of superiority clouding his sensors -- but now she understands. He is more human than he will ever know, more loved than he can even comprehend, and Claire grows warm with every moment that passes in his arms.
In his lab, she approaches him, watching mechanical fingers dance and slither and tumble over digital panelling as he works to analyze samples of the soil from a planet they'd visited the other day. He must hear her enter, and he definitely must know that Claire is sneaking up behind him to snake her arms between his, but he does not recoil or pause until Claire embraces him. Then - then Claire feels the speed of his whirring increase, the vibration like a purr within, and thinks about how it sounds just like a heartbeat, how this is even more intimate than listening to a lover's breath.
"Hello, Claire," he says. "This public display of affection is unusual."
She smiles at him - he doesn't even realize it, but long ago he would not have been able to recognize her embrace as a display of affection, couldn't have parsed its purpose at all. Now his demeanor loosens just for a moment in Claire's touch, as if he's relaxing into it before he continues his work.
"Well, we're married now," she says. "We're both off-duty. I think it's appropriate."
"I see," he says, pausing, his head tilting for just a moment. "I trust your judgement is sound."
"What are you working on?" she asks, pressing small kisses into the mesh covering his neck.
"You are already aware that I am analyzing soil samples, as I informed you of this earlier. Would you like me to replay---"
"That one was a little ridiculous on my part, I see that now," she nods. She releases him with hesitation. "Isaac?"
He turns to her. "Yes, Claire?"
"I'm trying to segue into a conversation that... well, it's not working, so why don't I come right out and ask? How do you feel about moving your charging chamber into my quarters?"
"For what purpose?"
"I just thought..."
She wants to see him at his most vulnerable - his version of asleep. She can cuddle with him in plush simulator beds, but it is not the same - though he has seen her sleep so many times, she has never seen him recharging. God, she loves him so much, she wants to have every experience with him by her side. She wants to know that Isaac is there at night. He rests at her side every night for eight hours, awake but idle as he waits for her to wake up, and he seems content to be in her presence even when doing nothing - it still isn't the same as that kind of trust.
"It would just be very important to me," she explains. "I view it as... analogous to human sleep. It would be... an exciting way for me to.... gather more data about you. To learn more about the man I love."
He speaks a bit too quickly now, and Claire wonders if she is imagining an eagerness in the jump. "Very well. I will have Lieutenant Keyali assist me in moving the chamber tomorrow."
"Thank you, Isaac," she says, taking his hands. She thinks about how their love will go down in history as the catalyst that saved Earth, the spark of peace among their peoples, and can only beam.