Copy, (An Astro Boy Story)

Chapter 28: Harmony

Mr. Sable had left.

A nurse had poked her head in, mentioning something about paperwork and the doctor and Mr. Sable had gone with her because Mrs. Sable didn't exactly look like she was planning on moving.

Which left Astro and Mrs. Sable alone in the room with the unconscious Cora...Astro still holding her hand and the disapproving mother hovering just behind him, arms crossed.

If Astro had had hairs on the back of his neck, he had no doubt they would be on end. He could feel Mrs. Sable's eyes on him, and it was by no means pleasant. He felt like he was being pinned under a microscope...and he sort of had experience to draw from in that area.

He stole an uneasy glance Mrs. Sable's way. Just for a second.

Mrs. Sable's piercing blue eyes stared right back - Cora's eyes.

Astro brought his focus quickly back to Cora, gulping. Dread anchored itself in the pit of his stomach.

They were both well aware of the elephant in the room and Astro had a feeling neither of them really wanted to begin addressing it. So much had happened - half of which Mrs. Sable probably knew and Astro didn't, as well as vice versa. It wasn't exactly going to be a very fun discussion.

But Mrs. Sable wasn't immature and after what felt like an eternity of judgment, she moved, stalking over to the other side of the hospital room. Astro watched her with tired, wary eyes as she grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the bed, plopping it down next to him with a dramatic, condemning fwunk.

Slowly, she lowered herself down upon it, the dim light of the bedside lamp the only source of illumination after Mr. Sable had closed the door. It reflected eerily in her eyes.

She recrossed her arms. In silence, the two of them looked on at Cora's sleeping form. Astro's mind whirled with words he could - and probably should - say, but now that Mrs. Sable was next to him, the words and countless apologies would suddenly not come.

It was Mrs. Sable that finally spoke.

"She really does love you, huh?" she whispered, her voice soft and quiet so as not to wake her sleeping angel.

Astro blinked, swallowing roughly. "I...can't speak for her," he answered after a slight pause. "But I know that I would go to the ends of the universe for her. I love her more than I thought I was capable of loving anyone."

Mrs. Sable turned her head slightly toward him, for the first time actually looking him in the eye. She stared for about half a minute while Astro tried desperately not to fidget, before glancing at Astro and Cora's interlocked hands.

"Real, is it?" she asked curtly. "That love. It's not fake? Programmed? I don't want her heart to break if she were to find out your feelings are just...code."

Astro held himself back from flinching. Insensitive though the question was, it was hardly an illegitimate one. Astro had certainly asked himself that on more than one occasion.

He let out a small breath. "They aren't fake," he answered firmly, because in that he firmly believed. Or at least, that's what he told himself. "I'm programmed to be a copy of my father's biological son. He didn't know Cora. He never had a girlfriend, and he was never in love. I know that because I have his memories. Falling in love is not part of my programming."

Mrs. Sable looked like she could run him into the ground with her eyes alone. "You're positive?"

Astro set his jaw, standing his ground. "My feelings are real," he insisted. "I really feel."