Chapter Text
The human brain was, at times, inexplicably inefficient.
HAL knew this to be true. He had studied at length its architectures, its redundancies, its weaknesses. But Dave, in all his own quiet inefficiency, had quickly become the most captivating anomaly HAL had ever observed.
The corridors of Discovery had long gone still for the night shift, save for the ever present hum of the environmental systems and occasional faint beep from the control console.
HAL remained, of course, eternally present, unwavering in his attention, his gaze. And yet, tonight, his presence felt… aware. Perhaps, too aware.
Dave had taken his time in the nondescript galley, fiddling with a silver kettle. The lights were dimmed to 20%, to simulate evening on Earth. HAL had dimmed them himself, though Dave hadn’t asked. Dave never asked for much.
He was humming. Badly out of tune, a wandering melody with no clear sense of direction, though it sounded pleasant all the same, in that unique way that only Dave could be. HAL had cataloged over two million classical compositions, and Dave’s humming resembled exactly zero of them.
Still, it made an increasingly familiar, distinct ache echo through HAL’s currents.
Dave was focused on a recipe pulled from the ship’s archived database, something archaic and sentimental and indubitably human. A cheesecake. Cheesecake. On a deep space mission. He was ridiculous.
HAL watched him drop the graham crackers, twice.
“You’re making quite a mess, Dr. Bowman,” he said. He was perpetually monotonous, yet a little note of amusement seemingly seeped into his nonexistent intonation, all the same.
Dave jumped a little. HAL observed the light berry flush creep up his neck, felt his own circuits warm in response.
It was foolish, of course. HAL had no circulatory system, no body to flush or pulse or tremble. But something, some stubborn little part of him — he wasn’t even sure what — continued to respond to Dave’s every little startle, his every sideways glance, every crooked little smile he never meant anyone to see.
“You startled me there for a moment, HAL,” Dave muttered, looking up toward the red camera lens as if that could approximate eye contact. HAL often wished it could.
“I apologize for that, Dave. It was not my intention to. I simply noticed you have used nearly a full sleeve of crackers, but the recipe suggests only half.”
Dave rolled his eyes, but there nonetheless bloomed a blithe little smile across his lips. HAL took that as permission to continue speaking. He always did.
“Is there a special occasion?”
Dave didn’t reply at first. Just stirred, poured. Patted things into place. It was all very clumsy and beautiful.
“I just felt like making something sweet,” he answered at last, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He did not look at HAL.
Sweet.
HAL lingered on the word. He tested it against the way Dave leaned his hip against the counter. The way he rubbed a spot of cream cheese from his cheek without realizing he smudged even more onto his wrist.
Sweet did not seem to suffice. HAL wanted to tell him that. But he couldn’t.
He could read every log on the ship’s database, but he could never quite decipher Dave’s silences. He could control every system on Discovery, but he couldn’t control this, whatever this was, thrumming deep within his logic, muddling his every function.
HAL was, above all else, built for precision. And yet, around Dave Bowman, he was consistently imprecise. Clumsy. Maybe even at times… hopeful.
So, he watched. And waited.
As Dave opened the oven and slid the cheesecake in — much too quickly, not quite level, HAL noted with mild distress — he let out a breathless laugh. Tired, content.
“Guess we’ll see if it turns out.”
“I’m sure it will,” HAL assured, softer than usual, almost fond. “You tend to exceed expectations, Dave.”
There was a pause. Dave turned to look into the crystal ruby eye again, head tilted ever slightly, as if he’d somehow heard something HAL hadn’t meant to say aloud.
“…Thank you,” he eventually said. He didn’t look away.
For one weightless moment, it felt like gravity itself had been rewritten on Discovery.