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Notes:

More ETHEL! I love Ethel. Do you all love Ethel? Coz you should!

I headcanon her as being like subtly diabolical—I mean she’s friends with Milo!—like a prankster mastermind, so I need to add that in here more, but for now, she’s having a bad morning. XD

No Superhero AU talk in the ending notes this time – I need to focus! Maybe…

ROWAN

Who could that be,Rowan wondered?

He hurried to do up his pants, still feeling conflicted about what he’d allowed to happen, though it helped to see Milo watching him dress with fond fascination, and he’d certainly seemed to enjoy everything they’d done.

“Get dressed, okay?” Rowan said. “I’ll see who it is.”

Once Rowan was decent, he hurried to the door, just as a second chime sounded.

“Coming!”

It was Ethel, holding a limp Anabelle to her side, her fried A-model service bot that was twice her size and definitely should have been too heavy for her to support like that. There were only so many options for physical appearances with A-models, and Anabelle was medium in every way—height, build, skin tone, even hair length and color, like she was made from a single almond-colored Crayon—but to Ethel, she was everything.

Ethel must be stronger than she looked to keep Anabelle upright with as little strain as she was displaying.

“Rowan, you’ll still look at my Anabelle, won’t you?” she asked. “You said you’d try. Please?”

“I… sure, Ethel. Of course I can,” Rowan said, and the poor woman lit up at the prospect, though Rowan had very little hope anything could be done other than recycling the body, getting anew one, and downloading Anabelle’s backup from the Cloud. “I need you to understand though, I can’t promise I’ll be successful. She might still need a wipe—”

“Perhaps I can help.” Milo appeared from behind Rowan, dressed and pristine looking, like no debauchery had taken place.

“What do you mean?” Rowan asked, worried at Milo’s arrival, since he’d asked him to not be seen by anyone.

To Milo’s credit, he came forward looking stiffer, more reminiscent of his old self. “Perhaps I can back up Anabelle’s native memory to my own. We could assess the damage to her body, and if it is fixable, we could refurbish the bot without the need for a wipe. Then I could reinstall her current memories directly, without relying on the Cloud.” He turned to Ethel and added diplomatically, “Think of it like an organ transplant, Ms. Ethel, only in this case, I would be keeping her same memories safe before reinstalling them.”

“That would be incredible!” Ethel gushed.

“We may need some extra parts,” Milo continued, “and it will take time, but if I am granted permission to forestall some of my other duties, I might be able to do most of the work myself.”

Rowan was amazed, not only by the suggestion that definitely had merit, but that Milo was showing more empathy, showing more humanness, in how much he wanted to help both Ethel and another bot, while still managing to pretend like he hadn’t changed.

“Just leave her with us, Ethel,” Rowan said. “We’ll work on her as much as possible over the weekend, and hopefully have her back to you, the same old Anabelle, by Monday.”

Ethel’s face continued to beam with hope, and Rowan took Anabelle from her to pass the dormant bot to Milo. As soon as Rowan’s arms were free, Ethel dove into them, and he wasforced to accept the sudden hug. He supposed he didn’t mind too much. He knew how important a bot could be.

“Thank you, Rowan. And thank you too, Milo.”

“I will put Anabelle somewhere comfortable until we are able to work on her,” Milo said and disappeared back into the apartment.

Before Ethel moved away from hugging Rowan, she chuckled and said, “You and Milo both called Anabelle ‘her’ instead of ‘it.’ Did you teach Milo that?”

Shit. And Rowan had thought Milo had faked things so well, but if accidental gendered pronouns were his worst offense, Rowan considered it a win.

“I guess you’ve been rubbing off on us, Ethel. We’ll do everything we can.”

After she left, when Rowan first headed back inside, he couldn’t find Milo. He wasn’t in the living room where Rowan expected—though Milo had placed Anabelle on the sofa, lying there like she was asleep. It was a little eerie, but at least her eyes were closed.

Itseyes, Rowan would have said once, but after Milo… he wasn’t so sure what was right anymore, at least not until a day came when Anabelle could also make that choice.