increasingly human ☾✧･ﾟ

The woman asked, thoroughly exasperated with the man standing in front of her.

Nines opened his mouth to argue, but Connor spoke up from behind him, sounding almost as tired as the lady who had been forced to deal with his brother for the past twenty minutes.

"Nines, Trouble has his insurance card in her wallet. If the cost is so high that Sixty cannot pay it, I have no doubt that she will have them run the information. Now will you please sit down before you get us all kicked out of the hospital?"

Nines scoffed but did as his brother asked, glaring as he made his way back over to where you sat beside Connor, your six month old held firmly to your chest by his wrap carrier as your five year old slept soundly on his uncle's lap, drooling slightly against his t shirt while Connor continuously rubbed lightly at his back the very same way he had done when he was just a baby.

"If she runs that insurance, she'll have to deal with whatever copayments they ask for, as if it isn't already ridiculous enough that she pays for his insurance out of her own pocket."

Nines muttered to his brother as he sat down beside you, causing Connor to sigh and shake his head,

"She uses the money that Hank left her and you know that, if she were paying for it herself I would have long since put a stop to that."

Nines scoffed,

"The money that Hank left her is supposed to be her money, Connor, not another way for her to keep supporting Sixty's bad habits."

Connor opened his mouth to reply, but you cut him off, more than a little fed up with being talked about as if you weren't there at all.

"Would you two just leave things be? We've only been here for twenty-five minutes and I have a feeling it's going to be a long morning, so I really don't think we should start it off by arguing."

Nines sighed audibly from where he sat beside you, clearly still unhappy with the insurance situation, but Connor simply gave you an apologetic half-smile before he nodded in agreement and changed the subject entirely.

"You know Nines, I didn't realize you were back from your trip already. I thought you were scheduled to be away for another six weeks."

Nines let out a low hum of acknowledgement before he finally spoke, keeping his explanation brief and vague, as per usual when it came to his job.

"I finished early. They gave me the wide time frame assuming I would need longer than I actually did."

Connor nodded, but pressed a bit harder regarding the stipulations of his brother's job.

"Well I'm glad it didn't take as long as projected. Though, I am surprised that they sent you out on a trip they believed would take two entire months to complete. Weren't you placed on a short distance travel list after Finley was born?"

Nines stiffened a bit from where he sat beside you, and you raised a brow at him in response to Connor's words.

"What?"

You asked, hearing Connor let out a quiet "Oh" from your right as he fixed his gaze downward.

"I didn't realize that you hadn't told-."

"I inferred, Connor."

Nines snapped back quietly, causing his older sibling to sigh before he returned his focus to the child on his lap, clearly wishing he were literally anywhere else.

You turned toward Nines,

"You messed with some of your work contracts for me?"

Disbelief and shock were evident in every word you spoke as you tried to make sense of what Connor had said.

Nines was an FBI agent, that much you knew, and because of that he had strict contracts that he resigned every year stipulating where he could go, what he could do, what his pay would be, and what would happen if he were to not come back from a mission.

You knew that because every year he had to call you asking if you were okay with being put down beside Connor as his next of kin, meaning you would be notified if and when something happened to him...

And every year you had to verbally confirm that yes, you were alright with that, no matter how much the idea of ever actually receiving that dreaded call from his superiors terrified you.

But you also knew that the distance that Nines had once been willing to travel greatly bolstered his pay check. When he had been gone for the duration of your pregnancy with Finley, he had made enough money to buy his expensive car in cash and then attempt to fund both of your sons' college accounts.

So why the hell would he change his distance contract for you?

Nines sighed,

"I was unhappy with the circumstances that I had to work with while you were pregnant with Finley. Being unable to support you throughout the process while being forced to get updates through letters addressed to random P.O. boxes is an experience I would rather not repeat, so I told them not to send me so far away that I might be gone for more than a certain amount of time-"

"How much time?"

You asked, voice shaking as you attempted to keep yourself calm. Time and time again you had begged this man not to sacrifice anything else for you and your family, and time and time again he'd ignored you in favor of putting himself last for the one millionth time.

Nines sighed.

"I asked them to not send me away for longer than six weeks at most unless absolutely necessary."

He looked down at you, his voice stern and his expression serious as he spoke,

"And I will not be asking them to change that anytime soon."

You groaned, tossing your hands up in the air exasperatedly while being careful not to jostle the baby who was still sleeping soundly against your chest.

"You are impossible."

You muttered, hearing Nines chuckle a bit as he looked down at you in amusement,

"Only when it comes to your profoundly foolish requests for me to stop taking care of you."

You opened your mouth to protest the idea that he had any responsibility to do such a thing at all, but then the doors to the emergency center opened, and out stepped a doctor who called a familiar name into the empty waiting room, which remained devoid of all life save for your small and atypical family.

"Is anyone here for Caiden Anderson?"

He asked, causing all three of you to stand immediately, though Connor took a moment longer than you and Nines did as he adjusted Atlas properly in order to do so.

The doctor regarded the three of you with a nod, not bothering to ask the relationship that Connor and Nines had to Sixty and moving straight on to you and your boys.

"What is your relationship to the patient?"

He asked, and grimacing, you spoke the same lines you had already said so many times since long before you and Sixty had even started dating. He was an accident prone man, and you and the boys had needed a way to make sure you could get inside of hospitals to see him without issue.

"His fiancee."

You said, hoping that the doctor took your nervous body language as worry rather than the discomfort it truly was.

Because as many times as you had said those words, both truthfully and untruthfully, you didn't think it would ever stop hurting to say them now.

The doctor nodded, gesturing toward your children,

"And the kids?"

"Our sons."

You said, tone a bit more confident this time, and despite how displeased he looked to be bringing so many visitors into one room, the doctor motioned for all five of you to follow him into the room they were monitoring Sixty in.

Walking into the space though, you struggled not to wince at the sight of him, taking note of how pale and sickly he looked bathed in the white hospital lighting, his veins obvious beneath his skin, as if he were made of glass.

You shuddered slightly, staring at him for a moment until Connor, who had just set your son down in one of three available chairs, gently took your hands and guided you toward another, offering you a kind and encouraging smile as he and his brother stood behind you in spite of the fact that there was still one other available chair.

They preferred to stand anyhow.

Sixty had always been the one to sit with you.

The doctor sighed as he fully entered the room behind the five of you, closing the door and taking a look at the tablet within his hand to ensure he was looking at the right patient's chart before he spoke.

"So, it appears that Mr. Anderson managed to pop the stitches and re-injure the stab wound he came in for the other day."

He said seriously, and immediately your eyes grew wide and your hands felt clammy.

Stabbed?

Sixty, your Sixty, the too beautiful jokester with the too pretty smile had been stabbed?

You swallowed thickly, trying to stop your eyes from growing teary at the thought as you continued to listen to what the doctor had to say.

"So, the good news is that he hasn't sustained any new injuries, and that this was likely just an issue of him doing too much too soon. The bad news is that the area already seems to be infected, and while we are trying to treat that to the best of our ability, he will likely require at home bed rest for several weeks afterward. As you likely know, this is far from his first run in with infections, and at this point treatment is starting to become a lot less effective than we would like."

You felt your hands shake as you nodded numbly, wishing so hard that you could shake the sleeping man on the other side of the room awake and scream at him until he told you why he was doing this to himself, why he was doing this to you.

He had been a sickly kid, all four of you knew that, and in taking all of these risks with his health he was bringing himself closer and closer to an early death than you hoped he realized.

"To be clear,"

The doctor began solemnly, looking you in the eyes as he removed his glasses,

"If Caiden does not become more serious about his health soon, there may very well come a day when he is brought in here and there will be nothing that we can do but make him comfortable."

You blanched, watching as the doctor sighed,

"Look Ma'am, if I may be so frank, I have no idea what is going on with your fiancee. Hell, I don't even know if you two are actually engaged. But what I will say is that looking at his chart, he is playing a dangerous game. You can't do the type of drugs he's done and live the kind of life he's leading and expect to make it very far. And I think you're fully aware of that."

You nodded again, avoiding eye contact with the man as you did so,

"I am, of course I am."

"Then for your own sake, either get him to stop doing whatever the hell it is that he's been doing, or let him go. I don't like saying this, and I wish that things were different, but in the end if he won't take care of himself, and you can't make him, this can only hurt you and your children."

He sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders, and then he stood, his expression still solemn and his eyes sympathetic.

"He should be waking up soon. When he does a nurse will come to inform him of his condition. Whether you stay or go is entirely up to you, just don't disturb any of the other patients please."

And with that he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him as the room filled with a tense kind of silence that you knew all too well.

"Did you guys know?"

You asked quietly, already aware of what the answer to that question was deep down.

"Did you know that he was letting this happen to himself?"

Their responding silence was deafening.

It was all that you needed to hear.

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If you told those who knew him presently about the boy (and even man) he had once been, they would scarcely believe you, but truthfully, he had never been anything but kind and understanding toward you for nearly your entire life.

Something about you, his "baby" sister, seemed to soften his usually logically driven and unemotional heart, and with each developing medical dilemma, he was always trying to make things easier for you. In fact, he had even spent several of his formative years yearning to become a doctor so he could help find out how to make that insufferable pain that seemed to constantly exist within your eyes go away.

But who could blame him?

You had grown up so lively, so adventurous, and so very much the opposite of your brother, that you had all but dragged him out of his comfort zone simply by virtue of existing at his side.

You were his other half, and he yours, and until you were around nine, you had done almost everything possible together.

But then the sickness started.

Some strange form of anemia at first, something your doctors had believed to be curable and simple, except it had just never gone away.

Some days, things were perfect, exactly as they once were, but on others, you were bedridden or passing out on the playground of your elementary school as your friends rushed to try and find your brother and get him to help.

And this constant struggle with your health, the seemingly endless back and forth of it all took its toll on your body rather quickly.

Soon enough, you were informed that it just might not ever truly end.

Sure, treatment existed, and it would make living easier, but it seemed that stressors, be it emotional or physical, played a critical role in the severity of your symptoms, and there was little that could be done about any of that.

So, you adapted.

Your entire family did.

And your entire life changed because of this.

Most of the time, you were trapped inside, not allowed to experience every day stress the way that others did at the order of your parents, and not allowed to risk your safety by doing those activities you had once found so much joy in participating in.

And all you'd had left was Elijah.

You saw him every single day, and even when you knew he was busy, when middle school became high school and grades became real and important things, he never ceased to spend as much time as possible at your side, both within and without the hospital room you found yourself occupying with increasing frequency as you grew older.

But what you had failed to realize, was how frustrated and angry your brother had become with the social and medical world around you, how upset he was with the ways that they had failed to make you better and keep you safe.

And thus came the obsession with more, the obsession with better.

The obsession with androids.

He had never told you much about his new fascination, nor his determination to make the world a better and more accepting place for you, not until after he had gone to college and you had gotten slightly better after moving away from your parents and living on your own.

The new environment, paired with the emotional control you had developed throughout the years, seemed to do you well, and until your early twenties, you had very few dangerous medical emergencies (though notably, whenever you had, Elijah, even with his increasing fame and popularity, was always at your side when you woke up at the Detroit Medical Center).

But when your parents died, things had taken a far more drastic turn for the worst.

You hadn't anticipated it, nobody had, it had been an accident after all, but even so, your heart hurt, and your body suffered the consequences.

Hospitalization after hospitalization followed, until it seemed that only the importance associated with your last name was keeping you alive.

Elijah was all that you'd had left at that point, your sole living family member, and the only person around to help take care of you, except you both knew that he was far too busy, and far too antsy to remain with you for long enough to help you get better.

So what did he do?

He built you not one, not two, but three care taking androids to watch over you for him.

One was built to emotionally soothe you, the other to physically protect you, and the final one to keep you happy, entertained, and comfortable.

They had differing assigned priorities and tasks, and it seemed, differing personalities as well, though you always wondered if this had been done intentionally, or if it was a result of their designated duties.

Connor, Sixty, and Nines became your everything at that point, in lieu of Elijah's once almost permanent seeming presence.

And after a year or two, everything had gotten so much better.

Sure, your androids acted strange from time to time, their once so artificial seeming emotions and reactions slowly but surely becoming more realistic and personal... but who were you to complain? It was nice to spend time with them, and even more so as they began to seem so much more human.

Of course, you missed Elijah, who seemed to have far less time for you now that he knew you were medically stable and had the androids to keep him updated, but there was a happiness to your life that you had not felt since the freedom of childhood.

You felt alive again.

That is, until the unthinkable happened.

Elijah disappeared.

And your health had crumbled at the news.

Two FBI agents had arrived at your apartment door, eyes downcast as they told you the news about the CyberLife CEO.

About your brother.

The only family that you'd had left.

Except they weren't telling you to make sure that you found out before the media did.

Rather, they were telling you because they didn't want the media to know at all, and they needed someone to make things seem okay.

And who better than his sister to attend events in the great Elijah Kamski's stead?

You were a Kamski, weren't you?

"I'm sorry, did you say Kamski? As in, Elijah Kamski, CyberLife founder and CEO?"

The woman sitting at the front desk in front of you asked, causing you to nod numbly in response, that question you had asked yourself so many times after your visit from the FBI repeating itself rapidly within your mind.

You were a Kamski, weren't you?

With all of the gravitas that the name carried now, you weren't so sure anymore.

Sure, you had been born a Kamski, before the name held weight, but that version of your surname felt eons away from the one people heard you say now.

When people asked if you were a Kamski, they weren't ever asking if that was your last name, because of course it was, they didn't think you were lying about that part.

You're a Kamski?

Was never about what your last name was.

It was about what your last name meant.

It meant vast intelligence, even vaster wealth, and a sort of solitude known only to those smart and rich enough to want and buy it.

And you didn't feel that you quite matched up to what your last name meant anymore.

So, were you even a Kamski at all, in any of the ways that mattered?

You weren't the Kamski, after all, had no desire to be.

But here you were, his unwilling and unfitting substitute.

You opened your mouth to speak, still feeling numb, and suddenly infinitely more tired than you'd been just seconds prior.

Perhaps it had been unwise to consider all of the things that haunted you so, but when you heard the question of your relationship to your brother, the memories had come flooding back all on their own.

They were never welcomed, they were just too strong for you to force out, so much like the very nature of your illness in general.

So much like Elijah in their perseverance.

"That's right."

You said politely, forcing a smile upon slightly trembling lips as the woman's eyes widened at your reply.

You clarified.

"I'm just his sister, no one you have to worry about rolling out the red carpet for, I promise."

You joked gently, praying for once that someone might just let this go so you wouldn't have to endure the pain of your memories for at least the remainder of your evening.

It would do you no good to think of Elijah, not after all that had happened,

Not after all that you did not understand.

The woman nodded tightly, offering a far more nervous and forced sounding laugh as she frantically typed something into her computer before standing up rather suddenly.

"Well in any case Miss Kamski, I am terribly sorry for the wait, had I known it was you I never would have requested your billing information, nor would our technicians have requested your presence in person. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

You opened your mouth to correct her, to let her know that it was quite alright, that you even preferred it this way, but then the receptionist interrupted unintentionally,

"If you'd like, I can lead you straight to the room your android recently underwent repairs in. I believe the other rk800 model is there with him still."

At that, all thoughts regarding the way that people treated you, or the way that they thought of you based entirely upon your last name alone exited your mind.

You smiled as politely as you could manage, and nodded,

"That would be highly appreciated, thank you very much for the kind offer."

And with that, the three of you were off, the familiar and warm hand at the base of your back just about the only thing keeping you moving as you were walked in the direction of a large elevator that opened up to reveal an entire panel of buttons.

You watched as the receptionist scanned a card of hers and pressed a button before glancing toward you with a smile, her eyes briefly falling to the severe lack of space between you and Sixty before she looked away nervously, perhaps concerned about offending you by appearing judgemental or overly curious.

It took effort to not tell her how little you'd learned to care about the persistent stares of others when it came to the company you kept.

After what felt like ages of waiting, and what was perhaps the longest elevator ride of your entire life, the three of you finally stepped out into an almost hospital like wing located a great many floors above where you had once been, and from there, the woman led you to a room, one that was notably far quieter than the rest on this floor.

The sounds of technicians tinkering with machinery was loud here, though no more so than the bottom floor, and it filled you with some ignorance fueled dread to know that all operations has ceased in regards to Nines, at least as far as you could tell.

There would be no going back from whatever you saw on the other side of this door, no taking away any pain that the sight of him might cause.

You turned to Sixty nervously as the woman moved to push said door open, and he offered you a brief and reassuring nod, his hand still steady against your back as it applied the slightest of pressures, urging you to move forward behind your guide as she began holding the door open for you and your companion.

You thanked her quietly as you passed, the sudden absence of Sixty's hand going almost entirely unnoticed as you took in the sight before you.

There, upon something that resembled a metal table far more than a bed, was Nines, his chest open and his thirium pump exposed, as Connor sat in a chair located to the side of the bed, clearly having been asked to make himself as little of an obstacle to maneuver around as possible.

As soon as you entered and came into view, both android's looked immediately toward you, unwavering with their stares, though they were notably different.

One appeared to be of concern, as typical of Connor.

But the other seemed almost like disbelief, and seeing Nines wear such an expression baffled you so.

How strange it was, to exist within a world where he had not anticipated something.

How fitting, though, that said something would be you.

Slowly, cautiously, you took a step forward, allowing the woman and Sixty to fall behind you as you approached Nines' bedside, your eyes searching his even as you hung back a bit, as if afraid he might somehow move away if you got too close.

"Hi."

You breathed out softly, watching as the android looked between you, Sixty, and Connor over and over again before finally, he settled on you once more, though the words he spoke next were for anyone but.

"What is she doing here?"

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