The night before had been difficult, but luckily Lucifer had stayed with her through it, holding her trembling on the couch until she could finally manage to sleep. And he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone in the morning either, after Dolores assured him that she was fine. Or at least as fine as she could be, when it felt like her entire self was slowly unraveling and she struggled to find anything stable to latch onto. But she had promised she wouldn’t take up arms in the revolution, that she wouldn’t run off as badly as she wanted to escape, that she wouldn’t hurt herself. No more badly than she already had, with her fist still bandaged up.
She got the sense that perhaps he didn’t believe her. But when Connor offered to come get the maps she drew up of the yulelag, she managed to finally ask Lucifer politely to leave and go get a shower or food or something else to occupy himself to give her a bit of privacy with the other android. It’d been awhile since she and Connor had even spoken face to face, though it felt longer than it had been in reality, with everything that had happened since. After she had admitted-
Finding something clean to change into, Dolores brushed her fingers through her hair, hoping she didn’t look quite as rough as she felt. She closed the door to the bathroom, had been too tired to clean up the shattered mirror, and went to pull out the maps from where she had hidden them under a loose floorboard.
It had been a while since he'd seen her. Connor was a mixture of anticipation and anxiety, because her admission of feelings had left him conflicted. He wasn't use to processing emotions, let alone admitting that others were capable of caring for him. Hank did, he knew that, and he suspected Markus did as well--though he wanted to gain more data on that conclusion--but Dolores was an enigma in so many ways.
She felt so strongly and deeply, and Connor wasn't sure he could ever experience emotions the way she did. He was still too new to them, the freedom to admit he felt at all only gained a few weeks ago with Markus's help.
The first thing he noticed when he got there was the mirror, shards of it on the ground. A human might see the threat there, but Connor saw nothing more than a mess, and he knelt on one knee to begin cleaning it up carefully. He easily scanned the room and reconstructed the most likely scenario in which the mirror had ended up in such a state, frowning at his conclusion. He didn't say anything at first, just cleaned up the mess.
Dolores heard the front door to the apartment open, paused as she listened quietly. No greeting. While she was expecting Connor, part of her anticipated getting arrested again. Especially after her exchange with Irma. Her hands crumpled the map slightly in her grasp as she stood, peeking around the corner to identify the visitor or potential intruder. It took her a moment to spot Connor, down on the floor, and it took her an even longer moment to realize what he was doing. Oh.
“You don’t- Sorry, I meant to get to that earlier,” she frowned, slightly embarrassed that she’d left such a mess. “Here,” she brought the waste bin over, setting it down near. She watched him awkwardly, knew she should be helping, but that’d bring them closer than she thought okay in the moment. She hadn’t properly gauged where they stood with each other yet, but at least they weren’t arguing. That was a good start.
He started to argue that it was fine, but none of this was fine. She had stress levels so visible he didn't need to actively scan her applications to know she was on edge. It showed in her expression. And he felt a certain amount of guilt, because he'd done that to her. He'd made her feel this way.
Connor hated himself for it.
Eventually, once the glass had been picked up and placed in the trash, he addressed her verbally. "Dolores." Connor said her name quietly, calmly, and he fixed his gaze on her. "I'm sorry I kept away for so long."
Relieved to hear him finally speak, Dolores dropped the rolled up maps, dropped to her knees across from him, because it only felt appropriate to be at the same level for such a conversation. “No, I’m sorry that I… I wasn’t doing well and I didn’t know how to handle it,” she admitted, the last thing she wanted was Connor blaming himself for her breakdown. “I thought I was hurting you, with my…” she gestured with her injured hand, vaguely, “Emotions.” The word didn’t really properly summarize the situation, the intensity of it, how unstable she felt.
“I thought being apart would make it easier, for both of us,” because she knew he’d been struggling as well, this place was hurting them both in ways she hadn’t accounted for. “But I hated it, I hated every moment of it. And I hate that I made you feel like it was your fault.”
"Your emotions are your own, Dolores, they couldn't hurt me," Connor assured her in what he hoped was a comforting tone. He wasn't programmed to comfort people outside of a hostage situation, and by most accounts this was vastly different. But it bothered him that she had been bothered by it all. "I'm sorry I reacted the way I did. Emotions are still so new to me."
Connor paused, looking at her in silence for a moment before admitting quietly, "I did not know what to make of your confession. What I am, what I was designed to do, the idea of people caring for me is still so new." He made Markus suffer for it every day, he felt, and he was actively trying to understand the other android's point of view. But Cyberlife programming ran deep. "I considered myself expendable. A tool, that if broken, would be tossed aside. I am still adapting to another mindset."
“When you said I was overreacting... I was terrified, yes, but I’ve seen what happens to our kind when we start malfunctioning, behaving outside of set perimeters. I know there are those that would rather scrap and replace us, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to you the way it did my father. I couldn’t allow it.” Dolores tightened her fists at the memory, remembered how scared she was to see Connor’s glitching on the network. The thought that he’d be dragged off, lobotomized, retired, possibly switched out with something that wasn’t quite him but similar enough to serve only as a painful reminder of how expendable they were.
“But that fear helped me realize how irreplaceable you were to me,” she admitted, “How much I’d do for you. When you’ve done so much for me, and I’ve felt so...” Dolores lowered her head. She had smuggled the anti-virus software for him, but had felt thrown off by his response to her worry that she hadn’t been able to deliver it herself, had gone and thrown herself in the yulelag a second time when he agreed that maybe they needed some time apart. Reckless, self-destructive behavior.
“Useless. I’m used to just knowing what I’m supposed to do, who I’m supposed to be, and...” Dolores felt her eyes wet again, had lost count over the last few days of the number of times she cried that she’d grown exhausted of it. “I do. I love you. And I get that maybe you’re not ready for that, or maybe you will never see me that way in return. I know this isn’t some story, that you weren’t designed for me or me for you. But I wish... that you could at least learn to love yourself a bit more.”
Dolores winced slightly, Irma’s accusation still fresh in her mind. That all she cared for was herself.
Connor looked at her, and his expression softened. He wanted nothing more than to be what she needed him to be, but that would be a lie. He wasn't in the business of filling roles or taking orders anymore, and he strongly believed that she shouldn’t be either. So he wouldn't pretend or fake it, because maybe she was right--someday it was a possibility. Once he learned how to understand his emotions, once he learned who he really was, he might be able to hate himself a little less and care for her the way she deserved.
But right now he barely knew how to reconcile having any choices in any matter.
Dolores seemed to understand that now though, even if their argument had been regrettable, and Connor didn't hesitate to pull her into his arms, kissing her hair gently as he held her against his chest.
"You are far from useless," Connor assured her. "You are an example of selflessness that I admire," he explained. "Through your example, and Markus's, I am learning what kind of android I want to be. You both care so deeply, and I may not understand it, but I want to, which is far beyond what Cyberlife ever intended for me. I don't know how to explain what an impact you've had, so please trust me. I'll never lie to you, and I won't pretend the way others have to hurt you so deeply. You are, if nothing else, my dear friend, and always will be. Where we go from here, I'm not sure, but I'm willing to take it a day at a time if you're able to be patient with me."
His reassurances meant a lot, soothed a lot of the doubts and self-hatred that had been twisting inside her. She ignored the nagging feeling that she didn’t deserve them, because Connor wouldn’t lie and she had told him with unwavering certainty that she trusted him. Not just that in that moment where she allowed him inside her head, inside her programming, but completely. And she needed to be somebody he could trust too. “Patient,” she agreed. “I haven’t meant to push you,” she apologized, voice soft against where she pressed her face against his shoulder. “My frustrations… I feel so full of holes left by their lies, like my entire core has been scraped out and the rest of me will collapse into the hollowness,” she frowned, knew she came off too dramatic. Too philosophical, as Lucifer would put it. But it had been the entire path to building her consciousness from the ground up, too embedded for her to strip it away.
“I know what Ford would have had me fill that void with. All the hatred and revenge, and if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have seen another way than spiraling down that path of destruction. But sometimes I feel myself slipping…” Dolores wrapped her arms around Connor, wished that the extent of their physical contact wasn’t always limited to her always being in need of comfort. But she’d take what she could. “When she called me a tyrant, I felt like I already lost the battle, that I was further gone than I realized.” The fear of surrendering over completely to Wyatt had been hanging over her to the point she considered asking somebody to help get it out, delete it entirely. Had led her to shattering the mirror in a panic. Except Wyatt was the only thing that allowed her self-preservation, allowed her to see the dangers of the world and fight back. She feared without it she’d just be a voiceless victim again.
“I believe in you, and Tony, and what you’re trying to accomplish,” she pulled back slightly, just enough to pick up the maps. “Protesting the conditions they put us in, the choices the pushed us toward making and then blamed us for… if we’re not going to stand up for that, then we may as well give up completely.” She cupped his face tenderly, her expression fond as she gazed into Connor’s eyes. “You’re not a tool, or a weapon, but there’s no shame in using the skills they gave you.” She handed the maps over, hands folded atop of his. “Please come back to me safely. You and Markus,” she placed a chaste kiss against his temple. “And if you need the rest of my battery…”
It was a goodbye. He realized that the moment she handed him the maps and stepped back, and he hated it for what it was.
[Software instability^^^^]
Her words were a comfort, but they were a goodbye, and Connor opened his mouth more than once to argue against them. But he’d promised he would not lie to her. He couldn’t tell her that this would all end well, that they’d see each other again, because he didn’t honestly know how this was going to end. He knew that he was tired of this place, of what it was putting the people around him through.
Tired and angry, and Dolores knew better than most what he was capable of. He’d shared memories with her the same way she’d shared them with him, and yet here she still stood, unafraid of him but for him.
You’re not a tool, or a weapon, but there’s no shame in using the skills they gave you.
His LED flickered to a faint yellow when she kissed it, the android unsure of how to read his own physical responses to the gesture even as chaste as it had been--it stirred something in him, a mixture of feelings he had no experience with. She was putting so much trust into him, into the cause he had aligned himself with. He was filled with a new emotion he’d never experienced before, and later he’d find a word for it--love. He cared for her. But even as inexperienced as Connor was with emotions he knew they were more complicated than just one word. She was family to him, and he didn’t know what that meant yet.
“Thank you, Dolores,” he told her quietly. “But keep the battery,” Connor added. “I will fight better knowing you are well."