(Not) Alive - Machine | Detroit Become Human [finished]

11100 - Protection

She felt herself pressed against the nearest wall without understanding what was going on.  When she opened her eyes she found herself face down in Connor's dark gray sweater, his body covered her, his arms placed on either side of her head, and looking up she saw his face leaning towards her, he had eyes closed.  A terrible feeling of deja vu seized her, he had protected her again.

No !  No, not that, not again!  She thought as a wave of uncontrollable panic began to wash over her.

__________

He had acted instinctively, without thinking, as if he had been programmed to protect her.  Images of flames and smoke imposed themselves on his memory, cries and smells of burnt flesh.  He furtively felt like he remembered what had happened, a feeling that quickly faded, replaced by a terrible fear running through his components, not for himself but for Angie, and it was even worse.  Fortunately, he detected very quickly that her vital signs were stable, she wasn't in danger, just panicked.

He slowly opened his eyes and pulled away as she started to fidget against him.  She had her face lifted up to him and looked at him in a weird way, with eyes shining with contained tears.

- Oh my god, I thought ... Are you okay? She breathed in a trembling voice, raising her hand to rest it on his cheek.

He nodded as he relished the touch, staring at her intently, plunging into her jade-colored eyes.  She sighed in relief, she had genuinely worried about him.

He didn't know if it was due to the fear they had just experienced or to her particular way of looking at him, which made his thirium pump speed up and upset him, but he had a mad urge to kiss her, exactly as in the memory he had at the police station.  This kiss had completely messed up his program, making him unstable for a split second.  How could he have forgotten it?

Could he feel the same, or even more, now that he was deviant?  He didn't know, but he really wanted to find out. So he slowly moved closer, until he felt her heartbeat against his chest and when he felt it beat faster, he leaned a little closer to her lips, irresistibly drawn to their luscious softness.  He saw her swallow and open her mouth, holding her breath.  But when their faces were only a few millimeters apart, she stopped him with a pressure on his cheek.

- Connor, no, she whispered.  I ... I can't ...

He took a step back, freeing her from his arms, feeling the burn of humiliation rise in him.  He gritted his teeth and put some distance between them.

- I'm sorry, she said, it's just that ...

He looked away, he wasn't listening to her anymore, he knew she would give him perfectly reasonable and logical explanations for rejecting him, but for once he didn't want to be either reasonable or logical.

He had thought that there was something between them, a special connection, but in the end she only helped him because it was in her nature to help others, and maybe also because of the guilt, because she clearly felt responsible for his death and what happened next. The truth was, she felt pity for him.  He should have realized it sooner, he wouldn't have ridiculed himself like that.

How could he have imagined that she would want him, that she would let him kiss her, him, a damaged android?!

- Connor, wait, she pleaded as he walked away.

- I'll see what happened, he told her in a neutral voice that didn't reflect the tumult of his thoughts.

He couldn't blame her for not feeling the same as him, and then he had to check where that explosion sound was coming from.

__________

The emotionless gaze with which he had looked at her before walking away had given her a thrill.  He didn't scare her, he never had, but it reminded her of the machine he had been and she realized that in the end he had really become a different person.

The machine Connor she had known, even if he had sometimes unexpected behaviors, had been rather easy to understand, he only obeyed his program, especially at the end when he didn't even bother to anymore feign emotions he didn't feel, to ensure the collaboration of humans.  But now he was making his own choices, according to his own free will, he had a conscience like other deviant androids, and if she rejoiced for him, it made her feel like she didn't know him anymore. In fact, maybe she had never even really known him.

For the first time since she had found him, she wondered if they were right to seek at all costs for him to remember who he had been.  What was the point of trying to remind him of a person he no longer was.  In fact she had selfishly wanted him to remember her, but she should rather encourage him to move on, to live this new life that was offered to him, no matter if she was part of it or not. Besides, it was better not, she could see she had hurt him and yet it was the last thing in the world that she wanted.

She had been so relieved to see him open his eyes after the sound of the explosion that had petrified her, plunging her back into traumatic memories.  It seemed to her that he had rushed on her instinctively, serving as her shield without even knowing the origin of the danger, if there had been any danger.  And for a moment, she thought she was reliving her old nightmares.

Fortunately, she was quickly reassured and she couldn't help but touch him.  He hadn't tried to remove her hand as she had expected, hadn't stepped back, on the contrary, he had come so close that she had felt his thirium pump beating.  Then he had a strange, unsettling look.  And when he leaned over to kiss her, nothing had existed but that warm gaze and this attractive lips.

But one thought had pulled her out of her trance at the last moment: Bryan!  She couldn't do this to him!  She wasn't that kind of woman.  How could she have looked him in the eye after kissing another man?  Maybe some would find her scruples stupid, but she was like that.

She should find Connor and explain to him that it had nothing to do with him.  Or maybe a little bit anyway?  If there hadn't been another man in her life, did she would have let him kiss her?  She preferred not to think about it too much.  Connor was her friend, he needed her help to put his life in order, not to complicate it further.

She sighed then left to see if he had found where the explosion had come from.

__________

When she walked down the side alley after Connor, she found it empty.  Where had he been?  She must have been lost in her thoughts longer than she had believed if he had already reached the other side.  A hubbub was heard, there was a crowd at the other end of the street.  She picked up the pace to join Connor as quickly as possible.

She emerged on the main street just as the procession of a demonstration was approaching it.  A few firecrackers resounded in the middle of colored smoke, that was what they had heard, triggering a series of instinctive reactions due to their traumatic experience.

The crowd overwhelmed her and blocked her field of vision.  She called out to Connor once, twice, louder and louder, but her voice was lost in the slogans chanted by the demonstrators.  How to find him in this chaos?

She noticed a staircase, she would have a clearer view taking a little height.  Nudging her way through, she eventually reached the steps.  Putting her hand up in a visor, she quickly spotted a small crowd a little apart, a group of menacing individuals surrounded a lonely man: Connor!