Null Protocol || Ramattra x Reader

☙Chapter Nine❧

Her consciousness faded in and out, the food lulling her to sleep like a comfort meal should, and Ramattra let her sleep without a word. It was likely because he was too busy mediating to notice, but some small part of her wanted to believe it was because he was so comfortable in her presence that he didn't feel the need to remind her of all the tasks they had yet to do, he trusted she'd get them done in due time. But of course Ramattra was reserved by default so she tossed the thought aside. They weren't friends and he was still going to kill her, and lying to herself wouldn't do anything but make it all the more painful to stare down the end of his staff into his cold, merciless, beady eyes right before he finished what he started.

The thought pulled an uncomfortable frown to her lips – any hope of getting restful sleep leaving with it – so (Y/n) sighed and pushed off the wall to pull her toolbag closer and rifle through its contents. Today she was going to fix up his coolant hose with the rubber hose in her bag. It wasn't much, but it would do the trick well enough to get the coolant still in him circulating his body again. It would also mean her in-cave heater would disappear, so in preparation, she bundled up once more, leaving her bandana around her neck, goggles on the floor, and her mittens in her pockets to warm her hands whenever they got too chilly.

The cold had been brutal every night, and her cheeks in particular felt dry and her lips cracked from the lack of moisture in the air. Cold air lacked humidity and it only became all the more apparent when she couldn't escape it, but she was relieved she didn't have a mirror to see her dry skin looking back at her. The webbing between her fingers was on the cusp of cracking, and it was only going to get worse the longer she took to fix the omnic.

"I ain't sure you can hear me, but I'm gonna keep working on your coolant problem," she said, stashing her screwdriver in her pocket for later and grasping the coolant clamp she set aside. "With any luck, I'll be getting that there done today, then I can get to work on fixing the rest of your stomach. Once I close you up, we can reattach your Nemesis form so you can pulverize the ice boulder." When Ramattra stayed silent, too deep in meditation to hear her, she shifted closer to him, tentatively reaching forward to nudge his scepter out of the way. When he didn't react, she relaxed and started working, poking her tongue between her teeth as she focused.

It wasn't hard work, just tedious, and since his cooling system was identical to other omnics, she didn't need to prod him for help. She pulled the hose she brought along with her from her toolkit, meticulously lining it up with where the severed one was once attached, and after clamping it into place, she did the same on the other end and leaned back. It was a little short but it just about did the trick, and she reasoned he would go get it touched up after he made it home anyway.

She pinched some screws between her lips and pulled the screwdriver from her pocket, leaning over the omnic to find the holes for the screws to reaffix his engine more securely in place. The light from the sun lit the cave enough she could clearly see what she was doing, and with her mood improved from eating, she worked diligently, only pausing to search for her waterbottle – which she found topped off to the brim with water that she didn't remember adding. She glanced up at Ramattra as she sipped on it, tilting her head in a silent question of whether or not that was him, but he stayed deep in a trance. After downing the whole bottle, she went to retrieve more snow, then placed it beside the omnic for the last little bit of heat he could provide to warm it.

The entire day was spent on the finishing touches to his stomach, and now that everything was in place, she waved her hand around trying to feel if any heat was still coming off of him. It was vastly reduced to where she had to squeeze the tubes with her hand in order to feel any warmth, and the cold quickly settled in after it like shadows chasing the setting sun. She slid her bandana into place to dampen the fog she was creating with her breath, and she threw up her hood as the cold took hold of her once more. It wasn't long before she was shivering, the earlier chill seeping into her bones making it envelop her faster.