#herecomesthesniperbutt

Lola leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his torso.Nodded, slowly. “Mmhm. Tired— Tired.”

“Okay, let’s get yousomewhere you can rest a while, okay? C’mon.”

Scooping her up, her arms looping around his neck, he sent aquick blip to Carolina and then slipped away from her implants, into the base’scomputer systems. It wasn’t hard to find an isolated terminal, a dead end onthe network; no one would disturb them there, wouldn’t even think to look. It’sconnection to the base’s power would give Lola a little energy, help her feel alittle more awake.

“Here we are… how’sthis?”

Lola nodded slowly again, wrapping her arms tighter aroundEpsilon’s neck.

Together their holos blinked out and reappeared as if laid ontop of the terminal, with Lola tucked securely into the curve of Epsilon’sbody. Her head tucked against his chest, her legs curled up, her arms wrappedaround him and his around her. Curling into him, Lola let herself relax in thesafety of his familiar embrace.

The worst of the pain was over. Epsilon had her now.

“I got you. I got you,”he hushed gently, nuzzling against the top of her head. “You’re back. You’re Lola.”

“Mmhm. Me.”

“You’re you. You’reLola, things get messy sometimes yeah but that’s you. Lola. No one else. Identity’sa fuck, but you’ve decided who you are. We’ve decided who we are, so that’s us.”

Lola hummed quietly. As he talked, the yellow patches on hershoulders flashed brighter, settled for longer. Her form stabilised. She was her, no one else. She was her and he washim and just because they were someone else’s memories didn’t mean they weren’ttheir own people. Epsilon was good about never letting her forget that, attimes like this.

His identity was a little more solid, a little lessvolatile, but he understood.

“I got you, Lola. Igot you.”

Wriggling up a little, she bumped the front of her visoragainst the side of his head with a soft, “Mwah.”

If Epsilon had projected a face, he’d have grinned.

“That’s my Lola. Mwahyourself.”