Jaune and the Real Girl.

Chapter 12

Androids don't cry. Sometimes Penny envied the ability to create tears, partake in that cathartic action of simply weeping. Her eyes remained dry but the odd heavy feeling in her chest remained.

Ironwood has ordered her confined to her quarters for the next day or so. The beginning of her punishment for disobeying his orders to remain with her father during the intruder, likely he wanted time to think up some more fitting form of discipline. So far being confined to her room was proving a very effective punishment in her opinion.

She had read every book, memorized them as she would everything. Her positronic brain never forgot anything, unlike regular humans she remembered everything with perfect clarity. Her mind recorded everything, and could even be downloaded and viewed by others. And within her involuntary solitude she found herself only thinking about Jaune and replaying his last words to her in her mind.

Despite spending the last week confined in Atlas Academy she'd rather enjoyed herself. Enjoyed her days with Jaune, walking the academy, watching movies and talking about small meaningless things that didn't have any real consequence to their lives, about movies and comic books and anything else they thought of.

But it seemed he hadn't been feeling the same way about her and their time together. Go bother someone else! Those words he'd yelled at her echoed through her mind. She felt weighed down by them as she sat here alone in her room. Jaune was probably out running missions or huntsman contracts now that he was cleared again for duty. But right now she was stuck here alone to think about his last words.

Penny had considered trying to take her mind off the knight. She had tried rereading the book series she'd borrowed from Blake. Even though she remembered the novel perfectly word by word she'd hoped for a small distraction by trying to read it again. Sadly it proved to be a fruitless attempt, Jaune wouldn't leave her thoughts and the story didn't grip her interest half as much now. As Blake had told her the book left her with a cliffhanger, with the romantic triangle between the princess, the knight and the spy left in a rather awkward scenero. The more explicit scenes that Blake had warned her about didn't interest her as much as they first did the first time she'd read through the novel. And the moments of tender kisses, romantic words just made her feel sad.

She'd thought about watching the movies she'd downloaded but it only made her think about the number of movies she'd watched with Jaune in the past week.

She also considered simple letting herself enter into sleep mode. To limit her cognitive functions for the duration of her time confined to her quarters until they were done. But she dismissed the idea, it wasn't real sleep, not like humans experience, her functions would only be limited but not halted, it felt like being suspended in a dark void with only her thoughts and limited as they'd be she knew the knight would be there in her mind.

A knock came at the door, surprising her. No one had ever actually knocked on the door to her room before, usually they just called if they had any actual need for her. "Who is it?" She asked not really sure if she should let anyone in considering she was being punished currently.

"It's me," Winter's voice informed her. "I have the General's order for you."

"Come in," Penny said hoping that the General was about to release her from this solitary confinement.

The door opened and Winter stepped in giving a casual glance of her room. She'd never been inside her room before, few people had really. The door closed behind her and she fixed Penny with her usual icy stare. "Starting tomorrow you are to spend a week of patrol duty in Mantle."

Penny nodded. Patrol duty wasn't particularly excited most of the time, she usually just flew around the city and listened into the police scanner dealing with whatever happened. Usually petty crimes and normal accidents, nothing challenging or interesting. "Alright, beginning tomorrow. Is that all?"