Silent Legacy
by elfin & Tomy
 

"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I expect to find him laughing."
- lyric by Depeche Mode
 

One
 

“…he was an inspiration.  To all who knew him and worked with him, he was a hero and a friend.”  Michael swallowed back against the lump in his throat.  “To me… he was unique.  Someone who can never and will never be replaced.  He was my friend, my partner, my confidant.”  He wiped the tear from his eye, fighting to hold himself together.  “And I loved him very much.  He’ll be missed, by all of us.”  His voice failed him on the last sentence, and as he stepped away, back to Nick’s side, Bonnie squeezed his arm in support.

It was a beautiful day.  The sun shone down on the group from a clear blue sky.  A gentle breeze brushed over the grass, drying Michael’s tears on his cheeks.  There were about thirty of them, all in black, who had come to the service to pay their last respects.  Michael could hardly believe the people who were here.  Bonnie, Devon, Nick and Alex were gathered around him.  Justin and Swan stood across from them.  And a little way behind the group, Michael had spotted Bear looking uncomfortable but like he felt he had to be there.

Peter, the Semi’s driver and their friend, crouched to lower the small, rectangular mahogany box into the deep grave that had been dug at the cemetery.  They’d wanted somewhere they could go, they’d said.  As Peter stood, Michael threw the white rose gently down so that it landed atop the coffin.  He whispered his words of love and goodbye before standing, accepting Bonnie’s squeeze of his hand and the support of the squeeze of his shoulder.

Very slowly, the crowd filed away from the grave, leaving Michael behind for a moment with only one other at his side.  A thousand thoughts were cascading through his mind, unease, upset, even hope.  He’d seen the look in the eyes of those who’d been standing here.  Sorrow in the faces of those close to Kitt – Quinn and John especially.  For those who had surprised them by turning up, those who would be told later, the tears were real, and that had shocked him.  Had Kitt really made such a lasting impression on so many lives?

Michael sighed to himself, staring at the white rose.  The one next to him crouched beside him, a comforting hand on his back.  He turned to the dark blond man, feeling the odd emotions that they were sharing right now.
//that was very unnerving//
//you weren’t the one being buried//

*

They held the wake at the Foundation manor.  The charade continued there, as it would until the last car pulled away.  Even then, only those most trusted would be told the truth.  Today, it had to look real.  Nick knew of course, Devon, Bonnie, Justin and Swan.  Bear would be told – Nick trusted him with Karr and that was good enough for Michael.  But the others would have to wait, would have to mourn until the one for whom this elaborate trap was being set took the bait.

It was strange, speaking to people about Kitt in the past tense when Michael could feel him, alive in his mind.  The AI had been to the funeral but had vanished as per the plan between the church and the manor.  Nick had helped in that.  Kitt was back at the warehouse and an hour into the gathering, Nick too made his excuses and left.  Michael remained to the end, accepting sympathy that he knew, had this been for real, he couldn’t possibly have coped with hearing.

When it had been real, when he’d believed his beloved partner gone from him forever, there’d been no funeral.  Bonnie would have seen to that but Michael wouldn’t have been present.  If Nick hadn’t have intervened, he would have ended his lonely life for good.  But only those who knew what Kitt and Michael really were to one another had realized that.  They had it on good authority that those for whose benefit this was being played out didn’t know enough about the partners not to know the difference.

Finally, Devon closed the door behind the last of the guests.  They’d already had the manor swept for bugs and microphones, phone taps and surveillance equipment.  With all the guests gone, he, Michael and Bonnie stood and looked at one another.
“How are you?” Bonnie asked him, not having to add the word ‘both’.
Michael gave her a smile.  “A little freaked out,” he admitted, “but otherwise fine.  I can’t believe how moving the funeral was.”
The other two nodded their agreement.  “Let’s just hope it was worth all the pain we’re causing.”
Michael could only agree with Bonnie.  He looked around, at the sympathy cards and the empty spaces the mourners had filled.  “I hadn’t realized how many people he’d touched over the years,” he murmured, almost to himself.  Crossing the room, he picked up one of the envelopes and opened it, reading aloud.  “’Michael, I know it’ll never be enough, but if there’s anything I can do, call me.’”
He looked up to see Devon’s expressive eyes regarding him with concern.  “This is just the start, with any luck.”
Michael nodded.  “I know.  All we can do now is wait.”

*

Rhian Margot leaned down chest first to rest her elbows on the large dining table.  Next to her, Danny was laying out the 8x10 prints of the shots he’d taken at the funeral earlier in the day.
“Touching.”  She smiled, reaching out to touch the edge of a close-up of Michael next to the graveside, alone but for one young man.
Danny watched her movements.  “So who’s the blond?” he queried, a hint of interest in his voice.
“I have no idea.  I didn’t expect him to allow anyone else so close, after what Mom said.”  She frowned.  “Can we find out?”
Danny leaned forward to focus on the photo that had caught his attention.  Lacing his fingers in front of him, he tipped his head to one side.  “That’s a very good question.  I have no idea.  We’re running the face now, but,” he shook his head, “I don’t think we’ll get lucky.”
She glanced at him.  “Why?”
“Because this man,” he tapped his finger on a tall figure in another photograph, “is one Nicholas McKenzie.  He’s a ghost.  The only reason I know his name is because one of the guys at the shop recognized him – said he’s a dangerous, clever man.  The computer turned up nothing.”
“He’s obviously close to them.”
“That’s what worries me.  There are the usual suspects,” he pointed each person out to her, “Devon Miles and Bonnie Barstow, obviously.  Quinn Campbell and John Landes are on the board of directors.  Justin Turner was Kitt’s personal mechanic, although we don’t know the girl with him.  The others came up clean – people they’ve helped over the years.”

Rhian took in the photos for a time, looking from face to face.  Each time, she came back to the blond who had stepped to Michael’s side at the grave.  “You think he’s something to do with this Nicholas McKenzie?” she asked him.
Danny turned a suspicious expression on her.  “Why are you so interested?”
“Because now Michael is exposed, unprotected.  We’ve destroyed the most important part of his life.  Time to destroy the rest, piece by piece.”

*

Michael sat at the bar, nursing his drink, looking for all the world like a lonely man mourning a great loss.
//you okay?//
//yeah, Beauty.  I have you here.  Just stay with me tonight?//
//I was hoping you’d come home//
Michael smiled.  //every night to you//  He was startled from his thoughts by a woman coming to sit next to him.  //I have company//
//just remember – it’s business//
It felt like old times just for a moment.

“Can I buy you a drink?”
He turned his head to look at her and found himself surprised.  She looked vaguely familiar; very young, twenty years old at the most, probably more like eighteen.  Yet she dressed older, very sophisticated.  He felt Kitt back out of his mind and that slight loss enabled him to school his features.  There were times when he hated this, now, when there were so many other ways he and his partner could be spending their time.  But someone had threatened them, someone had carried out an attack on the car they’d imagined still held the AI.  Michael and Nick had assisted with the attack of course, in order to bring out whoever was behind the threats being mailed to them at the Foundation.

Michael dropped himself into the persona with ease, shrugging as he accepted her offer.  “Sure.  Beer, thanks.”
The girl at his side ordered two beers and turned to dazzle him with a stunning smile.  She was very attractive, he had to admit.  Piercing blue eyes, long, sweeping blond hair, an almost classical, sculptured face.  He touched the implant and for a swift, disorientating moment, he drew Kitt forward into his mind.  //find out who she is//  It was quick, but as Kitt used his own eyes to see, and he was forced from the front of his own mind he felt a moment of sheer panic.

When he drew back, Kitt stroked his warm presence over Michael’s, soothing, wanting to reassure his lover.  The girl was watching him as he smiled, a little self-consciously.
“Are you okay?”
Michael nodded.  “Sorry.  I’m not great company tonight.”
She shrugged.  “It’s okay.”  She thanked the barman.  “Want to talk about it?”
He sighed.  “A friend of mine… was killed a few days go.  It was his funeral today.”  He glanced at her face, saw the sympathy there.  Saw that it didn’t quite touch her eyes.
“Was he a close friend?”
Michael nodded, picking up his beer and taking a long drink.  Kitt would pick him up later, when he needed a lift.
“What happened?”
“He was murdered.”
“I’m sorry.”  Pulling a packet of cigarettes from her pocket, she offered him one.  He almost turned her down, but decided against it.  He’d given up a couple of years ago, but for some reason he felt like it tonight.  She lit it for him, and he held it loosely between the first two fingers of his right hand, his fingers spread on the bar.  He looked the epitome of misery.

“I understand grief,” she told him carefully.  “I lost my Mom when I was only a year old.”
Michael glanced at her.  “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, holding the cigarette, idly caressing the butt with her thumb.  “Don’t be.  I was close to her despite it.  She left me a lot.  Money, her diary, a house… I feel I know her, despite the fact that I never did.”  Almost self-consciously, she looked at Michael.  “I apologize, the last thing you need to hear about is my loss.”
He shrugged, not making an issue out of it.  Her life history was exactly what he wanted to hear about.  They’d had a hunch, and it had played out.  He was almost certain now that she was involved with the case.

“What was your friend’s name?” she asked quietly, sipping her beer.
“Kitt,” he murmured, savouring the name that seemed to be his entire world, that seemed to have been for as long as he could remember.
“Kitt,” she repeated, and he thought he caught a hint of a smile in her voice.  “It’s a beautiful name.”
Michael smiled and nodded.  “Yeah.”  Sometimes it amazed him just what that name did to him, the emotions it evoked.  Years and years ago it was safety and protection.  Later, it was friendship, comfort.  Then the link had activated and suddenly it was so very much more.  These days, it was everything.  Love, desire, family, home, partnership – Kitt was his soulmate, a fact he’d stopped questioning a long time ago.

He finished his beer and indicated her half-full glass.  “Another?”
She nodded.  “A Gin and Tonic, thanks.”  Michael caught the barman’s attention.
“What brings you out here?”  They were in a bar in the busy town close to Michael and Kitt’s home, several miles from the village that they usually referred to as their local town.  He was glad.  He didn’t want this on his doorstep.

“Drowning your sorrows,” she stated as he started the next beer.
“It doesn’t work, does it?” he asked quietly.
“Alcohol never solves anything.  It doesn’t even make the pain go away.”
Michael wasn’t going to disagree.  There weren’t too many times he’d hit the drink just to null grief.  If he’d taken that course, he’d have lost it years ago.  But once or twice he’d had enough to give him a serious headache the following morning.  Kitt had never been very understanding on those occasions.

*

Sitting cross-legged on the hood of the Stealth, Kitt was starting the search for the girl keeping Michael company tonight.  He’d downloaded into his laptop the image he’d stored when he’d been in Michael’s mind, seeing through his eyes.  Nick was upstairs, doing something or other.  Kitt suspected he was keeping an eye on him, despite the many arguments he and Michael had had over the years about the man’s protectiveness over them.

Karr was a silent comfort in his mind, seeming to know he was needed without being asked.
<_Who is she?
<_That’s what I’m trying to find out
The search results through the Federal databases came up blank, so he tried alternative sources.
<_Kitt?
The AI glanced back at the dark silky presence in his mind.  <_Karr
<_What did you feel at the funeral?
<_I felt Michael’s emotions
Kitt’s tone definitely implied ‘end of conversation’.  His own funeral had been an odd affair, and he’d been glad not to be at the wake.  But he’d been open to Michael’s own strange feelings for the whole day, not wanting his lover to endure this painful pretence alone.

The laptop bleeped once, the result coming up.  One match had been found.  A name; no address, no details.  But the picture confirmed they’d found the right person, and it sent a shiver through Kitt’s sensory network.  Karr couldn’t help but feel his brother’s distress.
<_What’s wrong?
<_The name.  I know the name

*

Michael rubbed his eyes.  It was gone one am and he’d had a long day.  All he wanted, suddenly, was to curl up with Kitt in their bed, kissing and cuddling, just feeling his lover close.  She seemed to know.  “Listen, you want to… come back to my place, get a coffee?”
He kept his smile to himself; how many times had he used that line?
“No.  Thanks, but… I’m beat.  It’s been a… bad day.”
She shrugged.  “All the more reason to have some company.”
But he shook his head.  “Like I said, I’m not great company tonight.”
“Okay.”  She gave up.
He waited a beat.  “You could give me your phone number though, and maybe even tell me your name.”

She smiled, reaching across the bar for a beer mat, taking a pen from her bag.  She scribbled a number and handed it to him.  Leaning over as she did, she touched her lips to his, slightly disappointed when he didn’t respond.  She didn’t let that show in her expression.
“My name’s Rhian.”
He nodded, taking her outstretched hand.  “Michael.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Michael.”

They parted outside the bar.  He watched her walk down and cross the road, getting into a car that was parked too far away for him to catch the plates.
//Kitt, come pick me up?//
//thought you’d never ask//

*

Michael’s eyes closed as he murmured something unintelligible.  It didn’t need translation.  The happy, contented smile on his lips and the warm, fuzzy feelings in his mind were enough communication.  He lay on his front on the clean, fresh sheets he’d just put on the bed that morning.  The duvet had been kicked onto the floor and had landed in an untidy heap.  Michael was naked, his cheek rested on his folded arms, his toes curling every now and again into the feather pillow.

Straddling his hips, Kitt was using his ass as a cushion while he worked the muscles in Michael’s shoulders and back.  The warm, slightly scented oil and the magical touch of Kitt’s fingers were heaven on Earth.  Only once had Michael moved in the last half-hour and that had been to take in the sight of his partner above him.  Kitt was wearing nothing but one of Michael’s white shirts that was too big for him.  Every button was undone and the material hung loosely, sensuously over his upper body.

The sight had been enough to pool Michael’s blood in his groin, something Kitt was now trying to alleviate by relaxing his lover.  Fingers pressed into aching muscles, easing the tension, turning Michael to mush.
“God, Kitt,” he murmured, “you were wasted as a car.”
Kitt smiled, moving down his lover’s spine, one vertebrae at a time.  “Do you miss me being there?”
His mind freed for a time from any other concerns, Michael found it easy to contemplate Kitt’s question.  “Sometimes.  It’s odd, not having the car talk back to me in the morning.”  He felt his partner’s chuckle.  “When they attacked it this time, I still felt something.  I knew you weren’t there, I had you in my mind but…”

Leaning down, Kitt touched his lips to Michael’s shoulder blades, left then right.  “Do you think perhaps Devon was right? that I should never have evolved….”
Twisting, tipping Kitt off him, Michael sat up, facing his lover where he sat back, tucking his legs under him.  Michael reached out, drawing a single fingertip down the centre of Kitt’s smooth, bared chest.  “You and I were made for one another.  At the time, I needed you in that car.  I wouldn’t have accepted a human partner, wouldn’t have accepted an android partner either.  You were exactly what I needed you to be, even if I didn’t know it at the start.  But now, this is what I need you to be.”

Kitt felt the shiver through his sensory network as Michael’s long, simple caress touched him.
“When are you going to tell me who she is?”
They’d come home, Kitt driving and Michael summing up what she’d told him.  Kitt had offered a massage and Michael had accepted.  The night was theirs, there was no rush.  But he could feel Kitt keeping it from him, and by the way his lover’s thoughts kept almost touching something then backing away he knew there was something wrong.

Kitt shifted, moving closer to his lover.  “Her name’s Rhian Margot.”
Michael caught his breath.  “Margot?”
“Yes.”  Kitt felt Michael come closer through the link, and he met him half way, wrapping around the amber presence, holding tight.  “According to records Karr and I dug up, she’s Adrienne’s daughter.”
Michael could barely believe what he was hearing.  Adrienne Margot, the woman who’d died with Garthe Knight and his creation, Goliath, at the end of a long nightmare.  Kitt, he knew, had a particular hatred for her.  She’d not only been responsible for tearing him from the car, but while they’d been held by Garthe, she’d apparently threatened him with transplantation into Goliath.  Michael had had his own worries at the time, but to this day her name evoked dark, private emotions within them both.

They moved closer to one another, almost unconsciously, finding comfort in one another’s nearness.  “So she’s after revenge?” Michael guessed.
Kitt reached out, touching Michael’s hand where it lay on the sheets.  “She was only a year old when her mother died.  How could she know who we were?”
Michael sighed, spreading his fingers to allow Kitt’s between them.  “Maybe she left a legacy of hatred towards us.”
“Very poetic.”  Kitt’s voice was quiet as he leaned in to steal a kiss.  “Nick placed a file in to the federal database of agents tonight, my picture and the name ‘Christopher Black’.  It was accessed at eleven fifty-five, while she was in the bar with you.”
“Think it was an associate?”
“Perhaps.  She believes she’s killed Kitt, so who was the guy with you at the funeral?”
Michael met his lover’s eyes with his own.  “You think she’ll be curious about you.”
“I’m hoping so.”

Reaching up with his free hand, Michael slid his palm along Kitt’s jawline, his thumb caressing the smooth cheek, fingers fanning out over his throat.  “Adrienne hurt us both, and now her daughter’s trying to finish what she started.”
Kitt snorted.  “She didn’t start anything that we didn’t finish.  She’s dead.”  He dropped his parted lips over Michael’s and licked his tongue along the outline of the firm mouth.

Michael murmured into the contact before he responded, accepting and returning the kiss at once.
//how do you do this to me?//
//I know you//
Michael couldn’t help his smile at Kitt’s sly answer.  No one knew him as Kitt did, no one ever had.  He felt himself being pushed back and went with it, wrapping his arms around his lover’s body and pulling him down until Kitt lay atop of him, toes curling around one another’s, Kitt’s fingers tangling in the dark curly hair on Michael’s head.

Whatever happened, whatever anyone said, this was something he wouldn’t give up for the world.  The body wrapped over his own was supple and warm, and the fact it was an android hadn’t bothered him from the moment he and Kitt had first kissed for real and Michael had experienced the sweet, heady taste of his lover.  For all his questioning of his actions when Kitt had been in the car, now he didn’t care.  Kitt was human in every way that mattered and if it happened that the cock he sucked on whenever he got the chance was man, or woman, made, what the hell?  It tasted perfectly masculine.  And all Michael had wanted for many years was to climb inside his partner and lose himself.
 

Their lovemaking burned out the emotions left by the day’s events.  They had one another and while that remained true, it was the only thing they needed to go on.  They lay diagonally across the bed, Kitt lying peacefully on Michael, the duvet hauled up over them.  Amazingly, Kitt was still wearing Michael’s shirt, even if it was slightly more creased that it had started off.  Michael’s arms were under the light material, flesh to flesh, and there was something about the site of his partner wearing nothing but that shirt that still managed to stir something within him, despite his body’s sated state.

Closing his eyes, he drifted into a contented sleep with Kitt held to him like the most precious thing in the world.

*

For months afterwards it had been the same.

The two men enter the room without a care.  One grabs his wrist and the other his shoulder, with no concern for his pounding headache, and the needle is plunged into his arm.  The searing pain shoots up to his neck and around to his spine, wrenching his already throbbing head.

Once they have completed that task, he is lifted off the floor and deposited on the bed in the middle of the room.  Then they leave.  And he is left shaking in fear with no idea what they’ve just injected into him.  His hands clutch the edge of the bed and slowly he slides back, securing himself so that he doesn’t slip off.

It creeps up on him, almost so slowly that at first he doesn’t feel it.  His arms begin to tingle, then it moves across his chest and into his head.  His vision begins to cloud over, appearing like a fog floated into the room.  His thinking begins to slow.  That's when the panic hits him.

He tries to move, but his body feels too heavy for his brain to control.  To move at all requires a great deal of concentration and strength that he doesn’t believe he has.  He shifts again, feeling himself fall back against the covers.

"Kitt?"  His voice sounds strange to his own ears, slow and disjointed.  His breathing and heartbeat echo inside his head.  He keeps finding himself focusing on those rhythms.

He vaguely hears the door close.  But at the sound of rustled clothing, he forces himself to sit up.  It takes time and a great deal of effort and it leaves him almost panting and struggling to clear his vision.

When it finally clears, his breath catches.  He blinks, thinking even in the dream that he is dreaming.  He has to be wrong.  It can’t be her!  He can hear his heart pounding in his ears now, the haze in his brain making his reactions slow to non-existent.  He wants to get away.  But he can’t.

She moves in closer, talking to him, but his brain is too far gone to understand what she is saying.  He swallows hard when he feels her touch him.  His body tries to jerk away, but his muscles refused to respond.  He is forced to watch as if through a tunnel, as her hand slides down his chest, opening his shirt.

In his mind, he’s screaming for her to leave him alone, to stop, but no sounds come.  Even his cries for his partner are muted here.  Her hands travel over his torso in light, teasing caresses.

"Adrienne, stop."  And for the first time he hears that voice that sounds like his own.  She says something in return, but again, he can only hear her voice, not understand her words. She leans closer, her lips on his neck.  He is sure that he hears himself groan.

His body is beginning to take control.  He can feel himself growing hard as the haze in his head turns into a thick fog.

And now dreamlike images pass into his brain.  Her taking her clothes off, then his, before joining him on the bed.  He moves over, making room for her, then reaching for her, touching her body as she climbs over him.  His body aches with arousal, the haze focusing on that one emotion.  His mind is still screaming for this to stop, but his flesh is accepting her, begging for her touch and he is powerless against his own need.

His heart beats double time in his ears, his breaths merge together.  He feels her move against him, take him.  And he feels his own response, one he no longer has any control over.

It’s over fast, the blinding surge through the thick fog, then encroaching darkness.
 

Michael bolted upright suddenly, causing Kitt to drop from where he’d been lying over his lover, disturbing their mental presences where they were entwined with one another.
“Mi?”  Kitt felt his lover back away from the implant, leaving him empty and cold.

Michael’s mind was still reeling from his dream and for a moment he couldn’t answer.  Second by second he calmed, feeling Kitt's waves of concern and warmth in his mind.  His heart slowed and his breathing returning to normal, the cold sweat dying on his body. "Mi?" Kitt's voice penetrated the panic.  "That was some nightmare…."

Michael swallowed, wide-eyed gaze settling on his partner.  He could still see the images, as if finally his subconscious had allowed him to remember, to bring back to the waking world that which had eluded him for too long.  The questions that had never been answered, that had faded into the past, were now back at the forefront of his mind.  And now they had their answers.

"Did you see it?"
Kitt shook his head.  "A few images, but nothing concrete."
The words rang in Michael's ears.  It was like hearing himself, almost exactly what he had said to his partner nearly twenty years before.
"Kitt, I need you to..." he paused, not quite believing what he was about to ask his lover to do.
"To?" Kitt prompted.  Whatever Michael had dreamt, it was still bothering him, badly.  Kitt could sense the dread rising within himself and squelched it.
"I need you to compare her DNA..." Michael dropped his voice, afraid of the outcome of his suspicions. "With mine."

Kitt sat up and back, eyes wide, staring at his bed mate. "Mi?”  He watched Michael take hold of the edge of the duvet, and reached across to pry it from his fingers, kneeling up to take his lover’s hands into his own.  “Talk to me, please.”
Michael glanced at Kitt’s almost angelic features and looked away.  Why now?  Why did the past always have to return to destroy the happiness of the present?  Why couldn’t it just stay dead?
“You remember, about eighteen years ago, Devon was kidnapped and I vanished for two days?”  Kitt nodded.  "When you found me, I remembered being with a woman and the Doc said I’d been drugged and had sex.   I couldn't be sure of what happened."

Kitt knew.  Michael didn’t have to say any more.  “Adrienne….”  Kitt breathed the name.  “It was Adrienne, wasn’t it?”  Michael nodded.  He let out the deep breath and finally brought himself to meet his lover’s beautiful liquid eyes.
“I’m sorry….”
Kitt’s brow furrowed, and he squeezed Michael’s fingers, reaching for the amber presence.  “What have you to be sorry about?”
He shook his head slowly.  “Kitt… what if Rhian is…?”
“How about we prove it one way or the other?”  He couldn’t believe how calm he felt at the moment.  The real world, the truth that was waiting for them, was still outside, only touching the edges of their existence.  In the morning it would become real, then he knew he wouldn’t be this calm.  But tonight, while it was still dark outside, they remained just out of reach.

Michael moved back to curl close to Kitt through the implant, accepting the hold on his hands.  “How?” he asked quietly.
“DNA comparison needs blood, or some other fluid, saliva perhaps.”  He thought for a few moments.  “If she takes the bait, if she is interested in me, I might be able to get close enough to….”
When Kitt trailed off, Michael tipped his head to meet his averted gaze.  “To?”
“To kiss her.  I can stop my own saliva from being produced, meaning hers would remain uncontaminated.  Then we drop hers and a sample from you off at Otter’s place and she should have the results in a couple of hours.”  He’d purposely made his explanation long-winded.  That way he postponed, even for a few seconds, having to hear his partner’s reaction.

Michael could feel Kitt’s discomfort, his building distress.  “Hey,” with one finger under Kitt’s chin, he moved the blond head up and to the side.  The whiskey eyes flicked away from his face.  “Look at me,” he whispered.  As if ashamed, Kitt met Michael’s gentle regard.  For a moment, their silent exchange ran between them, along the bond that connected them.  And then Michael slid his hand under Kitt’s chin and held him as he leaned forward and captured his lover’s mouth under his own.  The kiss communicated his desperation, his confusion and fear.  All Kitt could do was accept the emotions through the link, pushing away his own, and try to calm Michael as best he could.

Michael buried himself in Kitt’s body, wanting, needing to lose his very being to this one person who meant everything to him.  They didn’t speak again that night.  Their thoughts and emotions passed between them on a deeper level.  They knew one another more intimately than they had ever – would ever – know another soul.  Each time they made love it forged that bond between them and now, more than ever, Michael needed to know Kitt was his and his alone.

If he and Adrienne had had a child… he brutally pushed the thought away.  This could tear them apart and he knew he couldn’t allow that.
//Kitt….//  His mental cry matched his first thrust into his lover.  He was being rough, he knew that, somewhere in the back of his mind.  But Kitt was just as desperate.  He wrapped his legs around Michael’s waist, clawed his fingers into the strong biceps taut with the tension of keeping his lover raised above him.
//God, Kitt… love you… love you so much//

Kitt didn’t answer.  He wanted this more than he could voice.  But there was something deep within him, something even the deliberate, deep thrusts couldn’t free him from.  He tried to keep it to himself, but failed.  He was so open to Michael right not that nothing could be kept back.  He felt his lover slow, then stop, still deep inside his body but watching him with a sorrow that tore at the AI’s heart.
//Beauty… I’m sorry…//

Kitt could feel the tears in his eyes and reaching his arms around Michael’s neck, he pulled his lover down to him, holding on as he cried silently into his partner’s shoulder.  Michael gathered Kitt into his arms, winding one leg around him as he rolled them on to their sides.
//I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…//  It was all Kitt could say.  Michael could feel the guilt in the AI’s presence in his mind, feel the subtle tremors running through him.
//why?  there’s nothing for you to be sorry about//
//so damn selfish//
//Kitt…//
//if she’s yours…//  Kitt didn’t finish, but Michael knew anyway.  Linked this deeply, he caught the sentiment as it rode the storm of Kitt’s emotions.  If Rhian was his daughter, Michael would no longer be Kitt’s alone.

Very slowly, Michael began once again to move inside his lover’s body.  He was gentle this time, achingly so, but he’d been wrong about what they both needed; not a release, but a joining.
//I will always, always be yours// he reassured, pushing every word into Kitt’s mind.  //no one else will ever have the claim you have//
//sorry….//
//ssh….//
Drawing back enough to kiss him, Michael deepened the contact as slowly as he was thrusting.  He felt the trampled desire return to Kitt’s responses, and he stroked over those sparks, igniting flames.

They climaxed together, their mental touches as long and luxurious as their physical joining.  It was comfort and reassurance over passion, but it was what they needed from one another right now.  Michael fell asleep in his lover’s arms soon after, but Kitt remained awake and online.  From where he lay he could see the stars through the floor-to-ceiling window behind their bed, and he was content just to watch them.

*

Kitt glanced over at the Stealth, reassured by its presence.  He could so easily have brought either of the cars, she’d never have known the difference being as she’d attacked a mock-up of the old-style TransAm.  But Karr had insisted.  Now, as he sat on the park bench trying to look relaxed in the warm sunshine, he was glad of his brother’s nearness.

<_Karr?
<_Kitt
<_Did we put any details in my file?  Any possible connections to Michael?
<_No, she should be curious about the funeral, but I doubt she will mention it
<_Thanks
<_For what?
<_For letting me drive
He sent a smile and felt Karr’s groan in reply.

Michael, too, was close by, mentally if not physically.  His end of the link remained wide open for his partner.  Usually at times like these they would lightly block one another.  But Kitt had asked Michael not to, and they both understood why.  What would have been a simple task for the human side of the partnership was stirring up long-buried memories for the AI.

<_She’s approaching you now from the North
Kitt acknowledge his brother and lifted his head, catching her out of the corner of his eye.  She was indeed coming straight for him.  They’d been correct in their assumptions that she was watching them.  How else had she known where to find Michael last night?

“Excuse me, Christopher?” she started nervously.  Kitt turned to look at her.  “May I join you?”
Kitt bestowed a dazzling smile upon her.  “Be my guest.”
“Thank you.”  She seated herself, legs crossed, arm over the back of the wooden bench, turned toward him.  “I’m sorry to intrude, but… I noticed you a few days ago, in the store while I was shopping.”  She’d introduced an innocent quality to her voice that hadn’t been there when she’d spoken to Michael last night.  This was obviously for his benefit, and now that he’d noticed, she’d dressed differently too.  Last night she’d been in tight black jeans and a low-cut white blouse.  Today she wore a knee-length skirt with a white, cotton top.  Feminine as opposed to sexy.
“You know my name,” he observed casually.
She blushed.  “I asked the lady who runs the store.  I hope you don’t mind.”

She was lying, he knew, but something inside him shivered.  For a moment, an image of Debbie Mckannon filled his mind, and all he could feel were her hands on him, his body betraying him….
//ssh… focus//
Kitt reached out, locking a tendril of himself around his willing partner’s presence.  He smiled at Rhian who didn’t look to have noticed his discomfort.  “Why would I mind?”  He glanced down, then back.  “May I ask why you’re so interested in me?”
“You caught my eye,” she told him shyly.

He tried to school his expression to one of embarrassment instead of the acute dislike he held for this situation.  He hadn’t realized how long the chilling emotions attached to what Debbie had done to him would hang around in his neural nets.  He’d hoped that over the years the pathways would deteriorate and the pain would fade.  Yet her words alone were causing the old paths to strengthen as every-so-often something did.  He felt vaguely sick, despite his partner’s never-ceasing caresses of his mental presence.
//don’t leave//
//I’m not going anywhere //

Kitt looked away, biting his bottom lip in a nervous gesture he hoped would catch her eye.  She was playing him differently than she’d played Michael last night, that was obvious.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” he told her, quite honestly.  “You’re the first person who has approached me in a park simply because I’ve caught their eye.”
Regarding him with interest, she reached out to touch his arm, a gesture that told of a confidence her current tone didn’t betray.  “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I just wanted to talk.”  She looked around.  “Would you walk with me for a while?”
He nodded and rose, letting his arms swing by his side as they headed away from the relatively crowded edge of the park and towards the duck pond and the woodland beyond.

“What’s your name?” he asked her as they moved away from the children feeding the ducks, around to the deep part of the pond.
“Rhian,” she told him.  She hesitated afterwards, and for a moment he wondered if she would tell him her last name.  But she simply turned to smile at him.  They were about the same height, he noticed.  Odd, being as her mother was tall and her father… he cut that line of thought, keeping it from his partner.
“It’s a beautiful name.”  She smiled, and for a moment he imagined it was a sincere expression.
“Thank you.  I never knew my mother or my father, so I don’t know its significance.”
“You’re an orphan?”  He met her blue eyes and it struck him how like Michael’s they were.
“I honestly don’t know.  My mother’s dead but I don’t even know if she knew who my father was.  I like to think that she did, that they loved one another.  But I don’t know if I believe it anymore.”

If her features reminded Kitt of Michael, her spirit did not.  She seemed to him to have already given up on a parent she didn’t know, if indeed Michael was her father.  He let that thought into his mind for a moment, keeping it shielded from Michael, but allowing himself to play with the idea a little.  How would he feel if it turned out to be true?

“What about you?” she asked, startling him from his thoughts.  “Are your parents still alive?”
“My mother is.  My father died when I was very young, only weeks after I was born.”
He felt her reach for his hand.
“I’m sorry.”  He didn’t respond.  The contact had sent further shivers down his spine yet he didn’t know why.  Michael wasn’t the only one to have touched him so familiarly.  Swan did it now and again, friends he met socially.  Why did her touch effect him so?  Because he didn’t know her?  Because it was unwelcome?  Because this was the daughter of a woman who’d been an enemy to the end?  Or because this might be his lover’s daughter?  But it was none of these things.  It was that when he listened to her, he had a distinct feeling of falseness, as if she were lying to him, even when he knew she wasn’t.

But she kept hold of his hand and he knew he had to allow it.  “I feel I know you,” she murmured as they walked.  “I feel a connection with you.”
He made up his mind and stopped them, using her hold on him to pull her around to face him.  “I feel it too.”
She smiled, dazzling, and reached up a hand to his cheek.  “Who are you really, Christopher?”
He didn’t answer.  Instead, he leaned down, closing his eyes as he touched his lips to hers.
//Mi….//
//Ssh… it’s okay, I’m here.  I love you//
Opening his mouth over hers, he touched his tongue to her lips and they parted willingly, invitingly.  Reaching around his neck, she quickly deepened the contact, pressing herself against him, wanting to feel his physical reaction.  She was surprised and disappointed when she didn’t.  In three years there hadn’t been a man she hadn’t been able to seduce.  She guessed she got that talent from her mother.

//hey, business, not pleasure//  Michael’s light tone in his mind only played across Kitt's taunt nerves.
//I need to be sure// he snapped back, regretting it immediately.
But Michael didn’t pull away, he tightened his mental embrace and eased his lover’s tension, silently promising to relieve it later.
Kitt broke the kiss and stepped back.  “I’m sorry,” he told her, “I have to go.”  With those hurried words, he turned and walked quickly back to the road, to where Karr was parked.  As he did so, he took the sterilised test tube from his jacket pocket and dribbled her untainted saliva into it.  Shutting down his body’s own fluids came in so useful sometimes.

She watched him walk to the black car and get in.  The windows were as black as the paintwork, and she guess that the plates wouldn’t be traceable.  She remembered what Danny had said about the other stranger at the funeral – Nicholas McKenzie – and found herself once again trying to guess where this Christopher fitted in.  The car peeled back and on to the road, heading South out of town, the opposite direction to the area in which she knew Michael lived.  She hadn’t yet managed to find an address, and the tail she had set up had been given the slip easily.

As she walked more sedately back to her own car, she tried to put together the few pieces she had.  But she felt that she was still missing half the puzzle.

*

Outside, the rain pounded against the glass of the large windows that ran the length of the dining room.  The sunny, warm morning had become overcast and the rain that had started during her drive home hadn’t stopped yet.

"That is him, huh?  I’ve been looking at these, he’s pretty tasty."  Danny peered over her shoulder as she held the picture of Michael and Christopher from the funeral, of them standing at the graveside, ready to walk away, side by side. Rhian made a disgusted noise, unable to look away from the paper in her hand.  “Mind you, I prefer blondes myself….”

Rhian glared at her friend, watching him back away, leaving her to her thoughts.   In her other hand was the tattered burgundy diary her mother had left in the safety deposit box for her.  Opening it, letting the pages settle as they may, she began reading:
'I loved him.  I knew it from the moment we met.  But then, as afterwards, his partner – a machine – came between us.’

Danny raised his eyebrows, folding one leg under him as he sat at the long dining table that monopolised the space in the room.  “Must have been some machine,” he murmured quietly.  “Pity you decided to blow it up rather than let me play.”

Snapping the tiny book closed, angry more with herself than him, she turned back to the table.  Danny was leaning over the spread of pictures again, focusing on the other photograph of Michael and Christopher.  Catching her movement, he looked up with disappointment.
"He kissed you huh?  Damn."
Rhian smirked.  "We're still missing something here, I know it.  There's a huge piece of the puzzle we don't have yet.  Who the hell is this Christopher, and what's his connection to Michael?"
Danny snorted.  "You're just pissed because he hasn't called," he teased.  It fell flat.
"I had this feeling... that I wasn't the one in control, even though I'd planned it, even though he made me believe that I was...."  Danny was staring at her like she'd lost her mind. "Just listen for a minute!" She continued, her mind thinking over his reactions. "I've kissed a lot of men, but none of them have ever been immune to..."
"Your charms?" Danny finished with an evil glint.
"Not even you."  She returned the sly remark.  "But he was.  Sure he kissed me, but, it didn't feel right."
"You're losing me."
"I'm not sure what it was, or how to explain it.  It was like his mind was elsewhere."

Danny regarded her for a moment, and then looked over the pictures again.  One in particular had been catching his eye since he’d had them processed.  "Rhian, look here." He waited a moment for her to join him.  "What do you see in this picture?"
"Michael and Christopher, leaning over the grave site, both hunched down, looking...." She leaned closer. "They look freaked."
Danny nodded.  "Not exactly the look of two people grieving.  But that’s not what I meant.  It’s Christopher’s hand on Michael’s back….  You don’t think that looks… familiar?"
Rhian spun at him. "Is that all you can see?  This isn’t some homosexual fantasy of yours!  Are you jealous?  Is that it?"
“Rhian, believe me.  I’ve been gay a long time, and this picture is of two lovers.”

*

Kitt rang the doorbell and waited.  Otter appeared behind the glass, grinning when she saw him.  “Kitten!  Darling!”  She flung open the door and gathered him into a hug.  She was a tall, masculine woman.  Perhaps because she was a man.

Kitt pulled away carefully and smiled at her.  “I have the samples for testing.”  He handed her the two test tubes.  “I just want to know if A is the father of B.”
Otter nodded, taking the test tubes with care.  “Kitten, you haven’t been two-timing me, have you?”  She looked passed him at the Stealth.  “And where is that gorgeous partner of yours?”
“Back at the barn, which is where I should be.”  Michael was waiting for him at home.  They hadn’t told Karr or Nick the complete truth.  As far as Nick was concerned, they were still trying to draw Rhian out into the open after her attack on Kitt.  “I’ll be back at five.”
“No worries, Darling.”

Kitt slid into the driving seat, letting Karr drive as he settled back into the seat.  “A strange person,” Karr told him as he backed the Stealth in the driveway.
“Yes….  Nothing phases Nick, does it?”
“No.  Unfortunately.”  Kitt chuckled.  “Are you all right?” the older AI ventured.
“No.  Don’t ask any more.”
“Okay.”  The word was a rumble.  In his mind, Kitt could feel the emotions pouring from his partner.  He needed to get back to Michael.
<_I’ll drop you off
The offer straight into his mind was so normal he had to smile.
<_Want to tell me what’s wrong, Kitt?
<_No.  I… can’t.
Karr’s reaction wasn’t in words.  Kitt harshly ignored it.  There was too much at the moment, too much to deal with.  He was still burying his own emotions after this morning.  This was starting to tear into him.  He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this for.  He needed to know about Rhian, but he was so scared.  Viciously, he pushed that thought away.

*

With a promise to be back at a quarter to five, Karr dropped Kitt at home.  Kitt didn’t want to pick up the results alone.  He hesitated by the front door, feeling his driver’s questions.  When he stepped inside the house, he was surprised that Michael wasn’t waiting in the main room.  He jumped when arms wrapped around his waist from behind.  Michael dropped the mask from the link and drew his lover back against him.

“Beauty,” he breathed into Kitt’s ear, kissing his neck softly.  Kitt went willingly, closing his eyes, sinking into the offered comfort.  “You were brilliant this morning,” he whispered.  Kitt couldn’t voice his feelings.  There was so much.  His emotions were churning over Rhian and her possible relation to his lover and on top of that he couldn’t push the reawakened memories of Debbie from his short-term memory.

“I’m here,” Michael reassured.  “You remembered what Debbie did.”
“You always did this so easily.  You kissed the women without a second thought….”
“I haven’t been raped, Kitt.  I don’t have the terrible memories you have.”  Neither mentioned what Adrienne had done.  Kitt wrapped his hands over Michael’s arms.  “I guess now we wait,” Michael murmured, voice trembling slightly.
“It’ll take a couple of hours.”  Kitt’s tone was almost apologetic.
“So what do we do with those?”  Michael’s comment was accompanied by another kiss to the sensitive skin behind his left ear.  Kitt smiled and pushed back against his lover.
 

Kitt knew Michael wouldn’t lie around for long.  As they’d lain together in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Kitt had been able to feel the tension starting to grow in his lover’s mind.  After twenty minutes, he’d simply untangled himself from his partner and watched Michael silently rise from their bed.  Usually Michael would cast his eyes back once or twice to take in his lover lying amongst the white sheets, no matter how urgently he needed to be out.

This afternoon, he just pulled on his jeans and shirt and headed downstairs.  Kitt pulled the duvet over himself and settled onto his front.  Closing his eyes, he reached out, connecting with an external port in his CPU and accessing their network.  Linking to his laptop, he went up on to the internet, searching for more, anything he could get on Adrienne Margot.
 

Kitt walked out the patio door, sliding it closed quietly behind him.  Leaning on the railing he watched as Michael paced in the back yard.  Sighing, he knew Michael was going to need space, time to come to grips with this.  Yet, as he watched Michael striding across the lawn, mindlessly tossing a rock in his hand, he felt the agitation growing from the other side of the link.  He had to do something to break the downfall, before it engulfed them both.

"You can't blame yourself for this."
"Why the fuck not?!"  Michael turned, pitching the rock into the trees. "I killed her."
"We, Michael."  Kitt's tone held the patient calm he was trying to maintain.
"What the hell are you talking about?  You had no idea what I was doing!"
"I had a pretty good idea.  My scanning capabilities were well in order."
Michael glared at the man standing on the stairs to their home. "Of all the stupid things I could have done.  Of all the ways I could have resolved that problem, *I* chose to let them die.  Not you.  *I* subjected Rhian to a life without a mother."

‘Oh, now you feel responsible!’  But Kitt kept the bitter accusation to himself.  "There was no way for you to have known."
"Yes there was.  If I had listened to Devon, let him explain all the features the car had, we could have found out who I'd been with."
Kitt sighed.  "Did you ever consider the possibility that you weren't ready to know?"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Your unconscious refused to deal with that situation, masked it, do you really think your conscious mind could have dealt with it any better?"

Michael froze in rage, his body shaking. "I can't believe you just said that to me. I thought you knew me better than that.  Do you honestly believe that I'm that weak?"
"Weakness has nothing to do with this."
"Bullshit!  You really think I couldn't have handled the knowledge that I'd fucked Adrienne.  Or is it that you couldn't have?"

Reeling back, Kitt wrapped his fingers around the rail to keep his balance. The link was pulsing with rage and betrayal, feeding Kitt's own anger.
"How dare you?  You proceeded unwisely, as usual.  You refused to pursue the evidence.  You haven't changed.  You are still the same egotistical maniac with blatant disregard for those around you.  Now it's come around to bite you in the ass.  If she is your daughter, then the two of you deserve each other."  Kitt whirled around, storming back through the barn, stinging from the outburst.

Karr's form waiting for him did nothing to soothe his exposed nerves.  Dropping into the offered seat, he gunned the engine.
"I'll drive."
"You can drive."
Karr could feel his brother's rage, feel Kitt trying to keep it from him.  Kitt backed the car and floored it.  Even on the gravel, the car didn't miss a beat.

Michael watched the Stealth spray gravel as Kitt hit the accelerator.  The hole in his heart increased to include the hole in his mind.  What the hell had he just done?  Tearing into the one person he couldn't live without. How could he have let himself do that?  The shivering coursing though his body had nothing to do with the temperature outside.

Slowly he made his way back inside.  The house suddenly felt empty to him.  It had never had that effect on him before.  Pausing in the hallway between the kitchen and living area, he sank to the ground. His life was falling apart around him, and he seemed to be helping it.
 

*

Otter didn’t hug him this time.  He followed her inside while she talked at him.  “Kitten… you look like shit.  I never thought I’d be saying that to you, honey, but you do.”  He didn’t say a word.  “This must be something important.”
“What’s the result?”
Otter stopped, and turned.  “It’s positive.  A is the father of B.”  She watched him, but he didn’t let his deliberately schooled expression slip.  Shrugging, she left him in the hallway and went to fetch the two test tubes.  Handing them to him, she let her large fingers linger over his.  He didn’t seem to notice.  “Good news or bad?”
“Neither.  Both.”  He closed his hand over the tubes.  “Thanks.”
“Anytime, poppet.”

Otter watched as the young android left.  She loved him dearly, and to see him with the weight of the world on his slim shoulders bothered her.  She could only hope his lover knew how to relieve his tension.  Smiling to herself, she closed the front door.

Kitt dropped into the Stealth’s driving seat and he stared at the glass tubes in his hand.  He’d known, of course he had.  He’d seen Michael in her eyes, in her face.  She was his daughter and he’d been certain of it.  But to have it confirmed, to know that life would never be the same, felt so final.  He felt swamped, suddenly, overwhelmingly.  This was her revenge, he couldn’t help but feeling.  This was Adrienne’s last act of cruelty.  Nineteen years ago she’d drugged Michael and forced him into having sex, she’d taken him from his partner, and now the aftermath of that night was finally being realized.

He’d imagined that now, after all they’d been through, he could finally claim Michael as his own, he was finally where he belonged.  But Adrienne had once again torn that from him, this time from the grave.  Everything he was he’d given to his lover, and she’d still gone one better.  She’d given Michael what Kitt had never even thought about, couldn’t ever give anyway.  A child, a daughter.  Someone who could share Michael’s love.  He hated himself for being so selfish.

He felt a tear fall onto his arm and realised it was his own.  They hadn’t been sure and already this was ripping them apart.  They hadn’t fought so bitterly in years.  He could still hear Michael’s accusation in his mind, recorded and stored there forever.  He would have been angry, even back then, at her for hurting Michael, for forcing him into something he didn't want.  But now she’d hurt them both, almost as if she’d looked into the future and made plans to steal the unique relationship from them before they’d even known it existed.

“Why won’t you just die?”  Kitt’s hand spasmed as the emotional upheaval drove through the CPU, momentarily touching his interfaces to the android.  The glass was crushed in his hands, the shards cutting into the synthoskin.  The sudden pain was kept to himself because of the blocks, but Karr saw it happen, felt the spike behind his brother’s shields.  He knew as the fluid from Kitt’s artificial flesh dripped to his seat.

Kitt swore brightly and wiped the hand on his trousers, pushing small shards deeper into his palm but not caring.  His tears were running freely now and he leaned forward, dropping his forehead against Karr’s steering wheel and closing his eyes, releasing the pent-up negative energy the only way he knew how.  If he were to start breaking things, not a hell of a lot would survive.

Karr pushed hard against the blocks keeping him out of his brother’s CPU and they shattered under the pressure.  <_Kitt… please let me help you
<_You can’t.  You don’t understand
<_I know.  Help me to
<_I can’t
Frustrated, Karr wrapped a black tendril around his brother’s while light and simply hugged him.  There was little else he could do.
<_Take me home?
<_We’re on our way, Kitt.  Just…      He wanted to say ‘relax’, but it didn’t seem appropriate, so instead he just settled down to comfort his brother as best he could as he headed for the barn.

*

Michael sat in the dark house, curled into himself on the floor in the hallway.  Letting his head drop to his knees, his block held solid, he let the conflicting emotions run their course.  He had tried to ignore them, to work through all the ideas running around in his mind.  By containing them, he'd allowed them to coil slowly in his soul only to explode in Kitt's face at the least opportune moment.  His angry words rang in his head, the image of Kitt's hurt reaction burned behind his eyes.

But the fact still remained, he had been seduced and he most likely had a child he'd never known about.  Something inside him was screaming against that unfairness.  What man wouldn't want to be a part of his daughter's life?  Dear God, how could he have not known?  How many times had he dreamed it in the months after?  More times than he wanted too.  He had said her name.  He had known.  There were so many things he could have done differently.  If only he'd known half of Kitt's functions at the time.  If only he'd thought about trying to find the woman in his dreams.  He had been more concerned with knowing what had happened, not with whom.  He had thought it inconsequential at the time.  How wrong he'd been.  A child had been brought into this world.  His child.  A child he felt he had deserted; left in the clutches of a conniving woman.

But what would he have lost?  If Adrienne had told him, that night in the cell, that they had a child?  He would have wanted custody.  He would have wanted to raise his daughter - that would have required him to leave the Foundation, to leave Kitt.  Would he have been able to?  Now, looking back, he didn't believe so.  But at the time, when Kitt was simply his partner and his friend, he thought it was something he might have done. The thought of it cut through him, stabbed through his heart.

Closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, he considered his partner.  Kitt was willing to do whatever need be to gain this information.  And what thanks had he given?  To childishly lash out, striking at the other one who was most likely hurting just as badly as he was. Michael had felt pieces of Kitt’s struggle across the link.  His lover had done something he’d never wanted to do again.  Michael had promised him, no one else would ever touch him.  But he’d gone and kissed her, despite him being so repulsed by it he’d needed Michael to hold him.

For Kitt to know that there possibly was a child out there, one whose mother was a sworn enemy, whose father was his soul mate, it had to be tearing him apart.  Only because Michael knew it was tearing him apart.  He would never have known Kitt, never have known his encompassing love and incredible touch, never have even known the possibility of making love to him, never mind the experience.  Kitt was the one thing he could not imagine his life without.  But if he'd known back then, he'd have tossed it all aside for a little girl.  That didn't stop him from feeling guilty now.

He might have a child, might be a father.  Despite it going around and around in his head, it wasn’t getting any easier to believe.  She was his own flesh and blood.  A dream he had long given up, one he’d stopped giving thought to the day Stevie died.  To know now that he had accomplished something of this magnitude disturbed him.  It wasn't fair.  As childish as that sounded to himself.  For all the times he had been willing to give his life for others, how could the fates have denied him the love of his own daughter.

Rage mixed in with hurt.  He had not known such conflict within his own mind.  He hugged his knees, trembling.  That this could reduce him to such a state was crazy.

Why couldn't this have stayed behind them, a far off dream that came to him sometimes late at night?  A sweet dream that seemed so much like an illusion.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this dream, before they’d linked he was sure.  God, they'd been so happy, so lost in each other the other night.  Hadn't they paid enough of a price to have some undisturbed happiness?  Now he was cursed with the memory, to know exactly what Adrienne had done to him, that she’d known when she kissed him in the cell, yet had not let on.  Of all the things she had spoken to him about, their child was not one of them.  He used to believe that a man had a connection to the mother of his children.  How naive that notion seemed to him now. He hadn't even known they'd had sex when she kissed him.  No wonder she wanted it so badly.  And she'd died for it.  He'd killed the mother of his child.  He couldn't honestly say by accident either.  He knew what he was doing when he drove for that cliff.  The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.  Why didn't she tell him?  He might have been able to save her life.  Or was he just fooling himself again?
 

Karr pulled slowly up the drive, letting his brother out close to the entrance to his home.  "Will you be alright?"
Kitt nodded.  "We have... some things to work out."  With a silent nod and a hug he turned towards the barn, half dreading what he was going to find.  Both cars were still parked off to the side, he noted with relief.  He searched the link, finding it firmly blocked, but still the pulses of upheaval bounced behind clearly.  Taking a deep breath, readying himself, he opened the door.

Looking around the room, he spotted Michael against the far wall, curled into himself.  The image was very much like that of his own presence.  They were both hurting and yet they could not find their way passed this.  Deciding he had to at least try, he walked quietly across the barn.

"Michael?"  Michael lifted his head to find Kitt kneeling in front of him.
"Kitt.…"  He was just about to reach for the comfort he knew he could find from Kitt when he stopped short. "It's true isn't it?"  There was no reason to ask.  Kitt's face held all the answers.
"You're a father."  The words were spoken with a mix of jealousy and anger.  Hearing Kitt say it, knowing it to be a proven fact, it washed over his brain, part of him not wanting to believe it, another part cherishing this knowledge.  Reaching out again, he touched Kitt's face, a gentle, trembling caress.  Kitt leaned into it, afraid he'd never feel it again.  "I'm sorry for the things I said earlier.  I needed an outlet and you were it.  That’s not what should have happened."
"It happened.  You have every reason to want her in your life."
Michael blinked, stunned, hurt.  His hand dropping from Kitt's face. "I want to know her," he admitted. "But what about us?"
"What about us?"  Kitt heard his own flippant response and cringed.
Michael stared, unable to speak for a moment. "You can't mean that?"

Kitt's head dropped.  In the past he’d wondered how human relationships broke up, what it took to push two people, deeply in love, so far that they ended up hating one another.  Suddenly he was somewhere he’d never imagined he would be – with his whole life depending on his next words.  The thought of leaving Michael was almost too much to bare and he wasn’t even sure it was possible.  He looked back up, at his partner's fearful gaze.

His partner.

The magnitude of that word had increased so much over the years.

Shaking his head, he knew he couldn't betray himself to that extent, no matter what the cost. "You know I don't."  He heard Michael's shaky exhale.
"Why, Kitt?  How could you even think about throwing it all away?"
The fierce jealousy returned, turning back into anger. "I can't share you!  Not with her, even if she is your child."
"She won’t change how I feel about you.  No one, not even my own daughter could ever replace you.  You have to know that."
The snort that Kitt gave was one of painful disbelief. "You can't promise me that.  And if you did, you'd be lying."
"Listen to me.  Daughter or not, she tried to kill you.  That is not the action of someone I could ever trust."

Kitt waited, letting Michael's words sink in through the pain and fear.  "What if she doesn't know about you?  What if she all Adrienne left her was information on how we were enemies?"
"I don't understand your point."  Still on the floor, back to hugging his knees, Michael tried to remain calm, unwilling to allow this conversation to go the way of the last.
"What if she finds out you are her father and embraces that knowledge.  What about us then?"
Michael was incredulous.  "Do you think I would leave you for her?"
"Do you think she would accept an android as her father's lover?"  Kitt stood, walking back towards the living area.

Michael sat back, amazed.  Granted, this wasn’t a discussion they’d actually ever had.  But he’d never believed it was something that had needed to be said.  "Kitt, we have to discuss this."  Michael's voice drifted across the room.
"I know.”  Kitt wrapped his arms around himself, determined to hold his emotions in check.  “But it hurts, like I've never known before."
"I know it does, Beauty."  Michael had moved, had risen and was standing just behind him.  "Why are you so sure this will change the way I feel about you?"
"I don't know."
"Yes you do," came the soft whisper.  “Tell me.”
"I'm an android.  How you can love me…?"
Michael put his arms around his lover and pulled him back against him, kissing the crown on his head.  "Where did that come from?” he murmured.  “And what does it have to do with Rhian?"
Kitt didn’t try to pull away.  They’d fought enough.  He just needed Michael to understand.  "You've said it yourself, having an affair with a car isn't natural."
"You’re not in the car, and we've been through this.  Even when you were, I didn't think of you that way. I have always thought of you as a person."
"This," Kitt squeezed Michael’s forearms, "is beyond…"
 "…known boundaries?  I'm aware of that.  Your life is a miracle.  One I give thanks for every day."
"But we can't…?"
"Can't what?  Have children?”  He turned Kitt in his embrace, bringing one arm around to lift the slim chin with his finger.  “Like that is a consideration in our profession anyway.  I love what we do.  I need to be doing it, with you as my partner.  I had thought about that while you were out, and I have no clue as to where my life would be if I'd known about Rhian.  But the thought of not being here, of living without you, that thought alone is more painful than anything I've experienced."

Kitt sighed.  "But she is yours."
"Is she?  From everything we've seen of her, can you honestly say she's mine?"
"In blood only."  Came the quiet answer.
"You, Kitt, you are mine, like I’m yours." Michael closed his eyes, wishing for the link to open. "I can't live without you.  I can live without her.”  He drew Kitt closer, just needing the contact, the comfort.  “We're both reeling from this.  It doesn't have to effect us to this degree."
"I know."
"But it still does.  We can’t let her do this to us."
Kitt dropped his head against Michael’s shoulder. "It's rare for me to feel what I am."
"Tell me."
"Of all the things you say I give you, that is the one thing I cannot."
"But Kitt, it's not what I wanted.  I won't lie and say I'm not thrilled at knowing I have a child, but if that was really what I wanted in life, I wouldn't have stayed with the Foundation."
He felt Kitt pull away, and let him go, dropping his arms from around the slim body he knew so well.  "That's not what I'm trying to say."  Michael could hear the frustration in Kitt's voice.

Reaching again, Michael carefully placed his hand on Kitt's neck, sliding under the blond hair. "Then what?"
Kitt closed his eyes, the intimate touch instilling an immediate reaction, reminding him what he was fighting for. "I'm scared of losing what we have now.  It's finally just the two of us, living how we see fit. If she..."
"If she wants to be a part of our lives, then she has to accept our decisions.  This is our home, and I'm willing to open it up to her, for a short time only.  We've had to act like teenagers before, sneaking around to find the privacy to make love, I'm not doing that anymore.  This is *our* life. Our home. The thought of that changing...." Michael's other hand moved to hold Kitt's head as he moved in closer, aching for the physical intimacy, longing for the mental.

Placing a hand on Michael's chest, swearing he heard him moan in frustration. "What if I'm not willing to open up our home to her?"
Paused, so close to his lover, his emotions drawn tight, he didn't need long to consider Kitt's words. "Then we find another way."
Quickly he moved to capture Kitt's lips, before he had a chance to stop him again.  His mind was turning recent events over and over.  Always coming back to the same conclusion, no matter what, how things developed with Rhian, he couldn't give this up.  Kitt's hands slid over Michael's chest, coming to rest on his shoulders, still slightly unwilling to give himself completely.  The kiss was sweet, as always, but the blocked link was a reminder of their argument.

"Mi…." He pulled away, leaving Michael staring, confused.
"What is it you expect from me?"
"To know your own mind."
Michael's jaw clenched as Kitt stopped across the room from him again, leaning on the mantle. "Can you accept that I'm just as frightened as you are?"  The blond head bobbed once. "I can't give up on her until I know for sure."
"I know that."  Kitt's head dropped below his shoulders, out of Michael's sight.  His one arm, braced against the brick surrounding the fireplace was trembling.
"I don't see why you think this makes a difference in our life?  She's old enough to take care of herself, she obviously has been for a long time."
"Do you honestly see this as our life?"
"Yes, you know I do."
"And what if she is revolted by our life?"
"Can we cross that bridge if we get to it?"
Kitt spun, "no, I need an answer from you."
"Then we move on.  Kitt, you are my life.  If I wasn't sure of that, if you weren't, then we would never have reached this point.  Kitt please, drop the block, then you can know what I'm feeling."

Michael hit a nerve with his last statement.  In all the confusion of the past 24 hours, he had denied himself the one outlet, the only way he could be sure of Michael's feelings. He hadn't realized how much that block affected him.  Facing his lover straight on, he slowly lowered his blocks, the ones he had almost forgotten he had built to shield himself from all the fear, pain and anger that had nothing to do with them.

Michael's eyes closed, inhaling deeply as the warmth grew in his mind.  His immediate reaction was to reach for it, to wrap himself around it, within it.  He didn't need to, Kitt was already there.  Feeling his knees go weak, Michael crossed to where Kitt was standing, letting the link deepen.

Sinking to his knees, taking Kitt's hands in his, gently pulling downwards, encouraging him to follow.  As his lover came with him, he pushed the glass coffee table out of the way, wrapping that arm around Kitt’s waist, pulling him closer.  Finding Kitt’s mouth with his own, Michael pushed his hand over the slim shoulder, into the collar of his lover’s shirt and up the back of his neck into the silky blond hair.

Michael dropped to his knees and Kitt straddled them, mouth sealed over his lover’s.  How did they do this?  What would they have done if he’d remained in the car and this physical released wasn’t available to them?  Gone insane, most likely.  The kiss was ended, and as Kitt tried to find a reason for it he realized that he was being studied.  The heat in that gaze could have melted him.

Michael leaned back, hands dropping to Kitt’s hips.  God, he was beautiful.  Their fights had always endeared the AI to him, but now… these days they could make up in a way he’d never imagined.  The blond hair was swept back behind his ears, amber eyes burning into him.  His white shirt had fallen back, the buttons pulled up to the base of the sculptured throat.  Slowly, one by one, Michael unfastened those buttons, revealing the slim body that for some reason turned him on like crazy.

Tipping Kitt’s head back, Michael leaned in to place tiny kisses over the chest.  “There is,” he touched his lips to one perfect nipple, “no one,” opening his mouth he used his teeth so very gently, “on this Earth,” moving to the other nipple, “more important to me,” Kitt’s moan, his fingers in Michael’s hair, “than you.”
Moving forward, the AI pushed against his lover.
//make love to me//
Michael gathered Kitt to him, wanting more to join with his partner rather than possess.  Their lovemaking was always deep, always intimate, but always different.

This time it was slow, their need and pain feeding their desire.  They kissed, touched and moved together, perfect harmony like it had always been, even when they’d just been friends.  This nightmare was engulfing them both, and their only defence was each other.  They wouldn’t give that up.

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