As her heart learns to beat (A Legends Of Tomorrow Fanfiction)

Chapter-7: Time has come today

The system got rebooted and the huge Central Computer screen was reflecting some weird calculation as if it was automatically installing some complex software. Rip didn't bother to pay much attention as he was lost in his own thoughts. The last holographic message from his wife, Miranda and son, Jonas was automatically being played over and over again in the middle of the cabin; but he could not pay much attention to that either. All he could think of was the last sight of DarkFire.

"No", he thought to himself, "she was no longer the DarkFire time masters wanted her to become! She had changed. Gideon's memory logs had transformed her into Gideon herself, in every possible way"

Gideon's absence was already bothering him ever since he decided to deactivate her; but now the vacuum had become unbearable.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about the last conversation he had with DarkFire-

"the memory chip that turned a lifeless computer into your Gideon is going to get destroyed with me...; is that why you're sad?";

"you shared a really close bonding...";

"you sort of fell in love with her, didn't you?"

"May be I did!", Rip wondered, "Probably not with the AI version; but may be I did fell in love with her human form who had a heart that cared!"

With feelings of hatred, guilt, disappointment and love, his emotions were brutally battling against eachother.

"Does my feelings for Gideon Pemberton is a mark of betrayal towards Miranda's memories?", He thought drowning in self-reproach.

"What's the point in thinking all these?", He whispered to himself, "they both are gone now. every single person I ever cared for, is gone!"

His self-condemnation moments, however, got interrupted by a familiar female voice,

"Rip?", She called

"Uh, Miss Lance", he replied with an attempt to act as normal as possible, quickly turning off the holographic message.

"Get over it Rip" she said, "she couldn't stay with us forever, of course"

Rip realised his attempts had failed miserably as Sara could already sense the sadness in his eyes.

With a pale smile on face he said, "despite so many years of working together, even now I am still awed by your observation skills, Ms. Lance"

"All thanks to my League trainings" she replied with pride.
"Jokes apart, Rip", she added, "tell me why is it taking so long for you to accept her death? Not that this is the first time you're witnessing a tragedy. Besides, you two never even got along!"

"Sometimes things get complicated, Ms Lance", he replied wearing a dead look, "hard to explain"

"Try me", she demanded

Rip, however, chose to remain tight lipped and kept calmly staring at the huge Computer screen infront of him.

"Its not about DarkFire, is it?", Sara asked thoughtfully, "in fact you're missing Gideon as her memory chip is gone for good"

After getting no response from Rip's side, she started again, "its ok Rip, you know you can trust me with your feelings"

"Do you think I am betraying Miranda by thinking about her?", Rip finally opened up about the guilt that was ripping him apart from inside.

"Whuh!?", Sara exclaimed, "how does missing an artificial intelligence is equivalent to betrayal to wife's memories?"

Rip, of course for obvious reasons, did not bother to clarify how he started to consider both Gideon and DarkFire as one single entity and how he was missing DarkFire herself.

"Your repeated silent treatments are giving me headache", Sara protested impatiently, "Miranda was your family and so was Gideon. There's no point in imagining them as rivals to eachother as they both mattered equally at two separate stages of your life"

Sara, although unaware of which Gideon exactly Rip was talking about, somehow made so much sense!

"buckle up, Captain", Sara added, "Jax is done with repairing the ship. Once the system is back online, we are good to go"

"Repaired already?!" Rip exclaimed, "I thought majority of the programming codes were damaged in the battle! How did he manage to restore them?"

"The ship automatically backs everything up remember?, She said. "each and every information from every electronic device on this premises; even Jax's android games!", She winked

Rip watched silently as she chuckled and left.

The Computer screen was now showing a bar reflecting the installation stage in percentage of that unknown software; 95% to be precised. Rip kept staring at it absentmindedly for an uncertain period of time, while trying to process and digest all the events that took place within last 24 hours. Then all of a sudden something clicked in his mind!

"The ship automatically backs up all the datas from every device on it!", he thought, finally taking the trouble of paying proper attention towards the screen.

"Of course!", he whispered, "the memory chip must also have a backup copy saved somewhere in the system, awaiting to get reinstalled followed by an auto activation as soon as the system successfully reboots!"

He egarly looked at the computer screen. The installation had ended by then. Soon, a notification popped up with a familiar name on it. He saw the green dot re-appearing by that name and a thin smile simultaneously appeared on his face.

"Gideon?", He whispered

"I am here, Captain"

The black hole inside his heart instantly filled with joy as the ever familiar metallic voice echoed throughout his cabin making him realise once again that he was not left alone in this world on his own after all!

"You always are Gideon — you always are"