vN The First Machine Dynasty(98)

"I've missed you," Javier said, before he could think. "God, I've missed you."



She paused in mid-step, one foot raised, and pivoted slowly to face him. "How could you miss me? I've been right here."



"I've never known you without her," he said. "And I've never known you without the island. I've never known you, Amy. Just you."



Amy knelt. She gave him the look, the one that went right through him, straight down to the molecular level, right to where all his priorities were written. "Do you want to?"



He nodded. "Oh yeah. Real bad."



Her lips did that funny thing that they did when she wasn't sure whether to be proud or embarrassed. "I thought you wanted…" She nodded over her shoulder. "You know: them. Humans."



He forced himself to look at the lights hovering in the middle distance. He thought of ports and cities and people, of laughter and coughing and off-key singing. He thought about the same thing, over and over, the same conversations, the same surrender. He thought about all of his boys sleeping in the same house, on real beds under a real roof in the shadow of trees so hard no saw could slice them.



"I'm tired of loving humans, Amy," he said. "I'm so fucking tired of loving them, because I know how it's going to end before it even starts, but I start it anyway because that's how I'm built."



Amy sat back on her knees. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but he could swear the tree shifted a little to give her more shadow and better hide her face. "You mean you've finally forgiven me?"



He leaned forward. "For what?"



"For letting Portia win."



Amy's eyes rose. When they blinked, the first tears he'd seen on her face in a long time rolled free of their lashes. He reached for them automatically, and his fingers threaded through her hair. He had been here, before: another night, another sandbox, watching her level cities before building new ones, the emotions (so human and so real they twisted him, even then) rendered perfectly on her face. Javier could do now what he wanted to do then. He pulled her to him and kissed her. She was new at it, uncertain at first, but she followed his lips when he rested against the tree and cuddled into him like she'd been doing it all her life. All her hunger came with her, and he smiled through the kiss as he remembered his fascination with her lips and her teeth, after that first bite that bonded them. He had taken a long time in making his choice. Then again, it was the first choice that was truly his to make.



"There's nothing to forgive," he said, when Amy paused to look at him.



The tears returned. Other vN had a crying jag that came as a plug-in, but Amy had all the little fits and starts and snags of an organic woman. He'd heard these tears outside Sarton's office. Then as now, he felt a deep and persistent motive to stop them. Strange, how she kept opening underutilized programming in him.



"You're not supposed to cry when I kiss you," he said. "I mean, unless I'm really fucking this up."



"You're not."

He set his chin on her head. "What were you working on, before?"



She pulled away, smiled, and extended a hand over the skin of the island. With one finger, she sketched a face. It was simple and fat. When her hand rose, the face popped out into three dimensions, solid and real and deeply familiar. He knew this face. At least, he knew the older version. He looked at her.



"Will she have your eyes, or mine?"



Amy beamed. "I'm not sure. I'm not finished, yet."