Chapter Text
Marie woke with a start, phantom pains tingling along her bad leg. Behind her, her bedfellow sighed. “Everything okay, Marie?”
She rolled over and pressed her face into his chest. “Nightmare. I can’t remember it now…”
His arms wrapped tighter around her. “Those nightmares really get to you, even if you can’t remember them. Anything I can do to help?”
“Just… keep holding me.”
He sighed, venting a little steam. “Is your leg hurting? It usually does after nightmares, right?”
“A little,” she admitted.
The Spine sat up, pulling Marie with him to lean against his side while he carefully massaged her leg. His fingers gently touched the old scars, and he used the lightest pressure when it came to the area of her break, the crooked bone long since set where it was, with the lumpy new growth holding it there.
“Marie,” he asked, “your muscles seem atrophied?”
“Figgy hasn’t even been helping me with my exercises anymore. That, or she pushes me far past what I can handle.”
“What? Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“I can’t. Every time I try to tell anyone about what she’s doing, she appears and whisks me off. Or she stays in the room to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t say anything.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“A few months after she was hired?”
“I need to tell my father,” he declared. “I can’t let this go on.”
“Figgy gets up at the crack of dawn,” Marie cautioned. “If we wanted to tell him, we would need to get up now.”
“Very well.” He ceased his massage and climbed out of her bed, straightening his clothes before going to her closet. He pulled out a light yellow dress for her and came back to the bed, helping her out of her nightgown and into the dress, finishing with her corset and the pouch he had found her with, buckling the belt over her corset.
He had always loved how she looked in this dress, the yellow complimenting her darker skin, her black hair that turned silver at the tips. And with her blue eyes... she was simply stunning.
He had done this for her hundreds of times, up until his father had hired a personal maid for Marie.
He now wished he had not left Marie at the mercy of her maid.
Marie held up her arms for him, and he picked her up. She had always been light as a feather to him, and she had never been afraid of him accidentally hurting her.
“Come on, it will be safer to slip through the kitchens.”
The Manor was silent at this time of day, just before dawn. Soon enough, it would wake. The Spine’s siblings, the staff, everyone. Which meant he needed to be fast.
He slipped soundlessly through the staff hallway into the kitchen, and from there to his fathers’ office.
His father wasn’t there yet, but that just meant he had some time with Marie before he got there.
Colonel Walter stepped into the office half an hour later and raised an eyebrow. “Son, Marie? What brings you both here at this hour?”
“We need to talk to you about Figgy.”
“Oh?” He sat at his desk, facing The Spine and Marie. “Tell me.”
“She hasn’t been helping Marie,” The Spine burst out. “Her leg- the muscles are even more atrophied than before I left for the Great War!”
Colonel Walter’s sharp eyes flicked to Marie, and she willingly raised her skirt so he could see her leg. “What has she been doing?”
“She… she doesn’t help me at all some days and just leaves me in bed, or she will do my exercises, but push me far harder than I can take.”
The Colonel’s eyes flashed, and he frowned. “This is consistent with what Rabbit has been telling me. This should be enough evidence to justly fire her.
“And for another, I support your decision to court Marie, son.”
The Spine gaped at him. “Father!?”
“You think I haven’t noticed the two of you making eyes at each other?” Colonel Walter chuckled.
Marie blushed, and The Spine vented steam in embarrassment. “Father…”
“Now, now, son. You can’t deny it. You’ve both been making eyes at each other since the Great War, and if you think I didn’t know you both share a bed, you are sorely mistaken.” Peter stood from his chair and gestured for him to rise. “Now, I think it’s high time to move Marie to a better room. I’ve had the empty room next to yours renovated, Spine. It should be perfect for you, Marie.”
“And Figgy?”
“I believe I have enough evidence to fire her now, and keep her from getting another attendant position. You won’t have to see her again.”
“Who will take care of Marie?” The Spine couldn’t help asking.
“For now, you will, son. Any attendant I hire for Marie will have to go through a more thorough screening. I will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Thank you,” Marie breathed, eyes shining with hope.
“Better take her to her new room, son. I’ll have breakfast brought up, send Rabbit with it.”
The Spine nodded, picking up Marie once more. “Thank you, father.”
The Spine was excited as he carried Marie to her new room. She would be right next to him, where he would be able to help her easily if the need arose.
And not only that, but his father approved of their relationship.
He pulled open the door to what had been a storage room, and found himself pleasantly surprised. He and Marie had discussed before what she would want in a room, and now that room lay before them. A large bed, the window seat, the bookshelves. There was a record player sitting on a desk in the corner, and a place for her guitar next to that. The walls had even been painted the same soft green that she had asked her old room to be painted.
The attached bathroom was a little spacious, but that was good, as it meant that she would be able to maneuver her wheelchair through it.
“It’s lovely,” Marie breathed. “I really get to stay here from now on?”
“You do.” He affirmed, striding confidently into the room and placing her on the bed. “I’m sure father will have the maids bring up your things soon, for now, I’ll grab anything you need.”
“Could you read to me?” she asked softly. “One of the books you sent me while you were at war?”
He chuckled, getting up to grab one of the silly romance novels. Why Marie liked them so much was beyond him, as he liked a good western himself, but he supposed that the romance novels were becoming a guilty pleasure for him. Especially since reading them meant he was spending time with Marie.
He selected a book from her shelves, (and he was looking forward to Marie filling them with books and other things she loved) then came and sat beside her in the bed. “Now where were we?”
Opening the book, he began to read.
Marie had fallen asleep a half hour ago, and he was just holding her right now. Part of him wanted to spend the day and night here in her bed, but he wasn’t even wearing nightclothes.
Instead, he got up from the bed and tucked Marie in, then stepped out into the hall to head to his own room.
Pushing open the heavy wood door of his own room, The Spine yawned as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. He had only taken a few steps towards his wardrobe before he was knocked off his feet, someone coming down hard on his back and an extremely sharp weapon pressed against the base of his neck, ready to slide through the gap in his plating and cut through what was essentially his nervous system.
“Where is she?” his attacker asked calmly, and his optics went wide as he recognized the voice. It was Figgy, Marie’s maid. “Tell me, or this body will end up as so much scrap metal while my boss re-purposes your core for menial labor.”
A Becile? In our home, after Marie?! His bellows hitched, and he activated his radio to call for help as he bucked, trying to throw Figgy off of him. “Why would I tell you?!”
Figgy giggled, her weapon slipping between the plates of his neck. “It took me twenty years to find where her mother left her, and another few to get the qualifications to enter the building itself. Getting appointed as that half-blood’s maid was the most annoying challenge of my life, and I’m not about to let you ruin all my hard work.”
Half-blood? The way Figgy had said it was disgusting. Everyone in the Manor knew that Marie wasn’t entirely human, but none of them minded in the slightest. After all, it had proven an exciting challenge for their father to see if he could figure out what her other half was. {Rabbit!}
{Th’Spine?}
{Help me!}
{Spine, wha-} The connection was cut from his end, as Figgy abruptly smashed the butt of her weapon, likely a spear given the amount of force she put into it, into the side of his head. He cried out in agony as his plating dented, oil and coolant lines burst, and his radio unit was destroyed.
He didn’t have much time now, as the oil was leaking onto his processors and would no doubt soon burst into flames and destroy him. His processors had also been damaged by the blow, and his body was seizing with malfunctions.
Despite his efforts, Figgy levered him over with her spear and sliced open his shirt and vest before prying at his chest plates.
Not my core! No! His body no longer responded to his commands, he could no sooner stop her than stem the flow of fluids coming from his head.
Figgy managed to wrench open the plates shielding his core, the blue light bathing what he could still see of her face.
He did the last thing he knew he could do, and activated his emergency siren.
Figgy fell away from his chassis with her own cry, clapping her hands over her ears as the Manor started to rumble with panicked footsteps, all headed in their direction.
Rabbit burst in first, saw him, saw Figgy, and lunged at the woman to pin her against the floor. “Pappy! Come quick!”
His emergency siren cut out, replaced by his own screams as a spark from a shredded wire ignited his split oil lines. The pain ripped through his body with frightening speed, the fire racing through him on its way to his processors.
He couldn’t hear anything over his own agony, barely registered two of his siblings holding him down through his pain. He was dying…
Icy cold spread through his body next as the flames were extinguished, his processors put out before they could really catch fire. His father’s face appeared in front of his, speaking frantically, but his audioreceptors had cut out and he couldn’t hear what Peter was saying. From reading his lips, he understood that Peter was asking if he was still there.
His mouth formed a single word. He could only tell that he made any sort of sound by his father’s wince. Peter turned and called out to someone, but he had turned so that The Spine couldn’t read his lips. His sensors had all been devastated by the fire, so he couldn’t tell if or who was responding to his father’s orders.
He didn’t know if he could ever be repaired from this damage. Fixing him may amount to moving his core and processors into a whole new chassis, and that could take months to build. Who would protect Marie while he was being rebuilt? Would he even be able to see her during the process?
Moments later, his father moved aside and Upgrade was helping Marie kneel in the space he had left behind. She was crying as she gently touched his cheek, though he could not feel her touch, and mouthed his name.
His vision was flickering as the damage from the fire finally registered through the shock, and he knew he only had moments left.
The last things he saw were Marie, and a bright light.