SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-four ━ to understand

He didn't know what he say though, so he said nothing at all, quietly kneeling next to her and setting down his jacket to his side.

The sounds breaking the silence in her vicinity made Mia turn her head abruptly and immediately grow aware that an insistent dog barking tore the veracity of her image of home apart. She couldn't quite bring herself to care, not while seeing Connor there with her.

There was only so much adrenaline could do, and she was rather certain it drew the line at having her get herself to the car and drive to what looked like a pet shop she had never in her life been in before, all while hallucinating him. No, Mia gulped down her dry throat the denial. It is time to accept the possibility...

In fear that she'll either start crying or have the words stop in her throat and choke her out, Mia hurried to ask, regardless of how broken and faint her voice would come out. "Are you really here?"

Connor needed no scanners to tell him that she was sincere and actually seeking a honest reassurance from him, he had eyes and ears that knew Mia well enough to know that whatever she had been through while he was away had not been easy. "I'm here," he took her hand resting in her lap and gave it a light squeeze, accounting for the possibility that she may have required a more physical proof rather than just a soft-spoken confirmation.

The tears blurred her vision before she could stop them. She was so tired that she doubted she could have held back the sob that followed even if she tried. Those shivers, she has held them back behind a shield of hope, valiantly denying herself the relief of this outlet for sorrow, even as her belief decayed into despair.

Looking away was her attempt at holding her dignity while her shoulders shivered, movement growing her pain to match the mounting heaviness on her chest, and her hand held a little tighter onto his.

"I missed you," Mia muttered past her trembling lips and Connor felt, for the first time since the first memory he had ever recorded, how a rare programming protocol was on the verge of being initiated and the small pocket of Thirium dedicated to human behavior emulation was getting filled behind his eyes. He felt sad watching the fragility with which Mia presented herself to him, and his processing unit associated what he felt with the yet to be used function of crying.

Connor blocked the command and redistributed the Thirium out of those pockets, focusing instead to remaining the calm anchor Mia might need more in that moment than an unstable android dealing with a status of livelihood. Raising his free hand to her face, he brushed his thumb under her eye to wipe her tears as they formed.

"I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her, knowing it would be much more beneficial to her breathing patterns if she didn't cry, and believing some comfort to be the best way he could ease her in letting her cheeks dry. "But I need to take care of your shoulder first. I've downloaded all I need to know about wound cleaning, bullet removal, stitches and bandages, as well as human anatomy, so I believe I am as qualified as I am ever going to get, however, I must warn you that I could not find any local anesthetics and this... will not be a painless process."

His calm clashed in an odd contrast with her borderline breakdown over her dying hope's last breaths of madness finally being rewarded. There they were, her crying because she thought she'd never see him again, never hold his hand and feel some warmth trying to hold her too, and him telling her how he's going to take care of her. It was enugh to stun her into silence.