She gave a pleased sigh, but didn’t say anything—just held him tighter.
And in that silence—without fanfare or diagnostic—he let the data sit.
Didn’t try to control it.
Didn’t try todeserveit.
Just…let it be true.
The room around them seemed to settle deeper, quieter. Her body was curved against his, the thrum of her heartbeat slowing. For once, he didn’t reach for a system report or scan—he simplyfelther there.
Then his curiosity got the better of him. “How do you know you love me?”
He felt her laugh. “Because before I met you this way, I was talking to you in the shower for months. Because you risked your life for me, on more than one occasion. Because I knew if anything happened to Nex, during surgery, you’d keep metogether. And because all of those things are still true—and? I can be quiet around you,” she said, before lifting her head up before using it to give his chest a soft tap. “Nex is the only mind I don’t mind hearing—but it’s kind of nice to…not. I feel like I can truly rest around you, Xen. And I don’t think you know how rare and precious that is to me.”
“I think I am beginning to,” he told her, and she rose up and gave him a sad smile.
“I’m sorry we rushed up here after everything and left you alone,” she said. “If that made you think you didn’t matter?—”
“I read your vitals. It was the right choice. You are much calmer now.”
“Yeah?” she teased. “Did I feel calm earlier? When your fingers were inside me?”
His processors kicked up again, warmth blooming beneath his exo-shell. “Elevated heart rate. Dilated pupils. Irregular breathing.” He paused. “I assumed it was arousal, not distress.”
Sirena laughed softly, then leaned down to kiss the spot on his face where his mouth would be, if he had one. “You assumed correctly.”
SIRENA
I smiled down at him. “What would make you happiest, Xen?” I asked—and I could almost feel parts of him thinking. Not literally, no, but things inside his chest spun up and then slowed.
“I have never considered that,” he admitted.
“Huh,” I wondered softly. “Then how can you think you lack something, if you’ve never defined it?”
That led to more processing.
“I think…I defined it by its lack. I think…there is something missing inside me.”
I brought up his hand to my lips to kiss. “Nex told me that once.”
“And then?” he asked, ever so earnestly.
“I helped him find it. But it wasn’tinme, Xen. I’m not magic. I’m just…” I started, and then drifted, trying to figure out how best to explain love to him. “Willing to share.”
“Share what?”
“Everything,” I said, rising up on his chest, taking his cheek in my hand. “All of the good times. All of the data I promise you’re about to get from me. But—all of the bad and frightening times, too. All of the fear of losing someone you love very much, not because it’s about to happen, just because your body gets scared and you’ve had a bad day. Sometimes, things with me will be very, very good, Xen—but I’m always going to be at least part-human, and I can’t promise to be good, or smart, or wise all of the time.”
“And that’s before you even count environmental factors. Like plane crashes or plagues.”
I double-blinked. “Well . . . yes, I suppose,” I said, with a grin. “Meat-shells are somewhat frail, comparatively.”
“I do not believe so,” he said, tilting his head back to study her. “Technically, yes—your biology is fragile. But that fragility renders your choices exponentially more meaningful. Statistically, the risk of your death increases every time you leave shelter. Ice. Infection. Vehicular impact. Random acts of entropy. That you persist regardless—that you choose to love, to hope, to act—is a kind of resilience I can only aspire to emulate.”
“You don’t have to emulate it, Xen. You already do.” I put my chin on my hand on his chest. “How sure were you of my attention, when you got here? Be honest.”
He thought again. “Ninety-seven percent.”
