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Was this all he ever wanted? Almost always? Isaac was already forgetting what feeling was like as a Kaylon, all he knew was that the way he felt now…didn’t come out of nowhere.
Now, though, he was able to act on what he felt. Experience the sensations instead of just analyzing them, and most importantly, he got to tell Claire how he felt. Isaac was a completely different being, and he savored every moment of it.
So, that pit in his stomach…was that happiness? The brief bouts of complete emptiness until he looked back into Claire’s eyes…were they overwhelm and fear? Just as he had told her?
It was these contradictions of being human that had always confused him. And despite his rebirth, they still did. He didn’t only feel wonderfully and frighteningly vulnerable, but almost as though he was weak.
Too weak to appreciate this gift.
Before, he never would have admitted, never even thought it possible, that he was. He always did what was optimal, what was most efficient, his practical intelligence was superior to everyone else's, and he rarely made a mistake. Very rarely.
This wasn’t just too much and not enough in the way he had told her. In the way where he was suddenly bombarded with love and pain and joy but still craved more.
It also felt so beautiful, but so, so, wrong.
Everything was almost the same. He had always felt the way he had, in his own way. It was just these sensations, these words, that were new to him. It was his own being, not his simulated body, but his very existence that had fundamentally changed.
But whenever he looked at Claire he remembered exactly why he needed to do this. All the beauty, the fulfillment, the happiness that this had given him…began with her. Since the beginning, and now.
Now, though they both knew just how loved they were. Her happiness was all that mattered. And she herself was an exquisite, delightful mix of everything in a living being’s heart that Isaac wanted to hold onto forever, no matter his own doubts about his transformation.
It was almost paradoxical, he thought. He would not have yearned for every feeling that had ever existed if he had not gone through this change. He could only hope for that level of emotion while he had it.
Yes, he was still using what he had learned for others, it was just now he could understand them, match the exact words to his exact emotions, when before, all he could do was repeat them.
Before, he’d been perfectly content only attempting to do what was best.
Contentness. Was that too much for a Kaylon?
Fondness and appreciation, all the words he had used, because that’s what he’d observe others saying. But with those few words, he had meant so many different things.
Efficiency and Logic, what he thought of when he needed to find a way to rationalize his own feelings. If they were not logical, how could he have felt them? Did love or joy ever make any practical sense?
He felt too arrogant to call anything he had done a “sacrifice,” whether it was looking into Ty’s innocent eyes and choosing to save him, or obtaining emotions because Claire had asked him to.
Compromise, then? Was that what love was?
He admired this man, who could speak eloquently and convince Claire of his love.
But the man was strange. His understanding was so deep and pure that he knew just what to say and do. How to express himself in what was seemingly the only manner others could actually understand.
This version of Isaac was part of him, of that, he was sure. Yes, this was the way he felt.
But it wasn’t the way he felt.
This poetry, this splendor, these fluid movements and the physical sensations. How he couldn’t think when he was with her. To the point he could barely think about her.
He seemed to recognize why his stomach churned and he felt disconnected from the woman who he was holding close to him. The elation of finding out what it was, until realizing what he had found out.
Shame.
He felt ashamed of his selfishness, his ingratitude, that he couldn’t just be happy at how overjoyed Claire was, even though that was how he always wanted to see her.
But then, why did he have to change? Maybe because he never felt understood. Maybe it was that he had insisted on his lack of feeling for so long that everyone started to believe him.
It was almost like he was the superior Isaac, though he would never have imagined it before.
Which still meant that he wasn’t really Isaac.
He was a simulation, just as his human form was. He didn’t want this intensity, this love, this euphoria…
He didn’t want it to go away. But if it didn’t, he would never be himself again.
He wouldn’t change back though, even if he could.
Or he would return to those muted expressions of love that he denied.
He wouldn’t be able to tell Claire every day how much he loved her. The butterflies he felt when he saw her, the way his heart sank when she wasn’t near. Because his body wouldn’t feel all of those things anymore, but he’d have them, and act as best he could on something he couldn’t understand.
So the same feelings but multiplied and changed and translated as if it was too foreign to be deciphered before. Why hadn’t anyone told him he was that confusing? Why didn't they ever admit they thought he was an inconceivable mistake? He had studied the interactions and customs of biological beings on this very ship!
Of course he had some difficulties, their unpredictability, their humor, and their morals.
He was told that, at his funeral, Captain Mercer had said that Isaac had shared every moment with them. And that though he himself did not feel, everyone else had felt for him. Was he a screen on which people could project? Maybe.
Or was he an amalgam of everyone he had truly loved?
Had they noticed he loved them?
It was always like looking through a window, observing everyone. It didn’t feel much different, now he was just watching himself. There were points where everyone seemed to forget the capability that he had denied. Despite how at first, they often recognized his potential to feel more than he had,
Either way, no matter how much they smiled at him, talked to him, tried to show him he was safe, and loved, and appreciated…they never forgot. They never forgot that he wasn’t a biological.
He was broken. That’s what it was. He felt, he always did. He denied it. He was broken. The Kaylon learned that when he betrayed them, the crew learned that too. He could see their smiles when they spoke to him. They had loved him, They had thought he was sweet and knew he was an asset to the crew, they seemed to know he wasn’t as emotionless as he let on.
But whenever he chose not to believe in those moments, their faces would fall. Of course they would. He couldn’t blame them for feeling dejected at his own denial that kept him trapped and kept them that way too. They hadn’t given up, but they had begun to treat him the way he seemingly wanted to be. When they discussed how the Kaylon could change, only Timmis was mentioned because only he was real. Isaac was not.
They still cared for him, but they all thought of him differently. For a bit, it was out of lingering fear or even betrayal. But now, it seemed, out of the slight resentment towards him for insisting he could never return their immeasurable fondness.
He was broken.
But now he wasn’t. Now he could admit that he loved Claire. He loved her sons. He loved his crewmates. He missed the Kaylon but he hated what they had done to his friends. He hated himself for not stopping them sooner. He wanted to apologize to everyone for what he had done, just for them to know they didn’t deserve the pain he once caused. He could laugh at everyone’s jokes. He could feel their losses, all of it.
So losing part of himself was a small price to pay for everyone else, right? For them to remember him? Because even as recently as they had fought for him, he had heard them mentioning his inability to feel. Which, although it was his own fault, felt so isolating. Even when he himself had believed the same for so long.
Everything he had done, they must’ve thought, was purely practical. Because that’s what he had told them, because that’s all he could make sense of. But it wasn’t true and thinking about the doubt he had in himself that caused them to doubt him made him feel so terrible until he realized.
He was feeling terrible. Now, all the love he had been given, all the love he wanted to give, and even the pain would finally fix things.
Too sympathetic for his species, too emotionless for his friends and loved ones. His practicality was his sword and shield. Whatever clouded it could not have existed until now.
He was no longer Isaac, but he was normal.
That was the bitter truth.
He could accept the flaws in his programming if he knew what they were. Everyone else could accept him then too.
So he only forced himself to feel grateful for these racing, contradictory, thoughts. For Claire, who he had tried to hide everything from.
Because that’s what biologicals did, right? They hid their emotions from others.
But...at least not from themselves.
Sadness, pain, fear, hunger, emptiness, love.
He couldn’t lose that, but maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe all he would lose was this strange man that Claire loved more, that everyone else would love more too.
Push those thoughts down, live in this beautiful moment.
So he did, and it was electrifying, dazzling, and even stronger than at the beginning and then…
He realized, just before it happened. So he allowed himself to revel in this last moment.
He felt loved, in love, scared, joyful, sad…
And selfish.
And relieved.
Relieved that it was about to be over.
“Isaac? What’s the matter?” Claire asked him.
“It is…it is gone,” he replied.
“What’s gone?”
“The neural modification. There appears to be a malfunction of some variety,”
“So…so you can’t feel?”
“That is correct.”