‘I knew nothing of the world but him. And now I know more of the world, and I understand that all I need is him. At the time I had the two confused. I thought it was emotion, the trappings of the human being I had not yet acquired, and that would make me feel whole. At times they did, when he would mention my progress or spare me a glance untainted by any emotion other than pride and… sometimes… respect.’

    For the first week after the battle with the trio of mega deuces, the worried and anxious Norman confined Roger to his bed. Dorothy took charge soon after his wounds were treated, since Norman needed to overhaul Big O again. Big Ear had contacted the manor three days after the battle with the simple words, ‘Duo lives.’ Both android and butler knew what that meant, and had begun preparations to rehabilitate both Big O and its pilot as quickly as possible.

    Upon waking from a state of slumber that lasted two full days, Roger opened lucid eyes to see Dorothy’s face hovering just at the edge of his field of vision. His reaction, though silent, was immediate. His muscles grew taut and his eyes widened with fear and a vigilant guard, his only response to her queries a frightened look as though he expected her to attack him. She did not understand his response; it was as though he wasn’t really seeing her or the area around him.

    Slowly he had come to accept her presence, but it was still another day before he would take anything from her. She did not alert Norman so that the butler would remain calm and continue his work on the mega deuce. Soon, however, she began to fear she had made the wrong decision in not telling the butler of his charge’s actions.

    Roger, restless, had been sullen and withdrawn to the point that Dorothy began to think that he would not recover confined to the gigantic prison of silk sheets and thick, firm cushion, and allowed him to walk the room. Slowly at first, with her body pressed close to guide his weaker one, but soon she allowed him to walk around by himself, giving the tortured soul back part of its freedom.

    Somehow the wound in his arm had caused some damage to his mind in the form of resurfacing his memories, and so doing, some debilitated form of his once healthy emotions. The stress had caused what would have been called before the Incident, a breakdown.

    He could do little else by himself, despite his wishes, but pace slowly the circle of his room and bathe himself, since his arm was still mending slowly. His pallor was sallow and greenish still on the fourth day, and Dorothy wanted to call a doctor. She said as much to Roger, who had spoken very little, if at all, in the four days she had been tending him.

    He immediately protested, and she relented. He was finally well enough to function on a semi-normal level, and so she allowed him to leave the room and act on his own accord. Her one requirement was that he wear a sling for his wounded appendage, to which he agreed morosely.

    She brought the logic to mind that it was a small price to pay for the liberty of movement he lacked while forced to keep his upper body still so he would not jar his wound. She relented in her constant vigilance at his side, and went back to her own room on the fifth night, only to be awoken from her blank-state by noises from his room.

    She entered the room quietly and stood near the bed, a familiar post since the battle, but without her normal nonchalant indifference. As she watched he began to struggle more frantically, one hand going to the shoulder of the wounded arm, as though to keep it still. His movements were in vain, however, and so she intervened. She sat down gently on the bed next to him and put a hand to his forehead in order to wake him.

    His eyes jerked open and he stared at her in a mix of wild fear and incomprehension. He was guarded - body tense and shaking.

    “Roger, you were having a nightmare,” she said slowly.

    It took several more minutes to assure his battered wits and bruised psyche that she was, indeed, R. Dorothy Waynewright and this was his home and it was four in the morning. She did not ask why he was having the nightmares, she could tell it was from when he received the bullet wound to his arm, and she refrained from commenting on the fear in his eyes. He had not mentioned what transpired, so she did not inquire after the facts. She felt it best that way, but was saddened that he only had the skittish and guarded look in his eyes when he looked upon her.

    For the following week things progressed normally. His arm began to heal properly and swifter than it had been, though his color was slower to return to its normal healthy tone. He continued to have restless dreams at night, and Norman, ever vigilant, once got to the room before Dorothy had roused herself in time, and then came directly to the door of her room, where he requested she look in on Roger since he could do nothing for his ailing master.

    The dreams were not always the same. Sometimes he did not see the imprint of her face in the hideous mask of Red Destiny; sometimes it was memories that returned to him. Long distant things he had believed he had trapped away for good on the day that Fate abandoned him. He saw his mother, yet again, and imagined Dorothy her image, protecting him, and then still other things. The day of the murder, the look of those green eyes staring lifelessly at some far distant point he could not even imagine, the body soaked in blood… and the impression of a building he could not quite make out… all things he sequestered in a vault at the pit of his soul in order to protect himself. Demons he believed long perished.

    All the remaining scraps of his hidden self strung themselves out in his dreams, and the only being that made him feel even a bit of emotion woke him from their taunting haunting of his mind. He looked up into her eyes, those saving, damning eyes, and he sometimes cried. It dismayed her to see him like that.

    She was more at ease with him when he did not bear himself to her, but his façade - the trademark of the Negotiator, his laid back and impassive personality. She more enjoyed the barbed version to the truth. It was against her previous decision, but she wanted the old Roger back.

    She had, from time to time, been curious to know what shaped the black clad Negotiator since she had started treading within the cage bars of his rules, and she finally had her answers, but they were not those she was looking for.

    It had been a basket of flowers she had expected, perhaps a few weeds, but not the den of the lions. She could almost feel the dark figures prowling around her, they invaded her thoughts at times these shadows of his past should not have, and eventually, realization dawned on her. She was feeling all of these things he was experiencing. She was sympathizing, or at least empathizing with his pain instinctively.

    She cared about him.

    Roger Smith.

    The louse.

    She cared for the old Roger Smith, and was working her hardest to bring him back out of the petrified shell he had raised up when the memories washed over him. She wanted him back to his normal self. She yearned for even the smallest glimmer of hope that the person he once was lie hibernating inside him somewhere. She…

    And she began to wonder if her synthetic body could hold a soul. It certainly held a heart.

***