When the clock stops ticking

Patchwork was tired. He'd been running for months on empty, only temporarily fueled by the city's legal replacements for a contract. It was time to give up. He would not be finding an owner here, nor would he likely ever. He was not meant to be woken up until a new power source was supplied, and his body just couldn't keep up anymore. He'd left a beautiful letter for Caterina, thanking her for the time spent with her, and saying his final farewells.

Now, he'd curled up in a dusty back corner of the museum's storage, slowly shutting down his processess until he was just a dull, copper skeleton, with only the faintest of light coming from the battery that formed his chest. A circle opened up in one of the 'palms', allowing for the next person to come across him to... not wake him up. What power he had would not last the rest of the day. The next person to find him would only find a dead metal skeleton.

Patchwork closed his eyes, admiring an image of the one museum worker who had always tried to ensure that he was consistently functioning properly, fretting about him when he wasn't. My apologies Miss Caterina. I hope you are in good hands with your new family.

@Kathinja

Patchwork whirred and the shutters on his ‘eyes’ blinked. A familiar face peered down on him, creased with worry and filled with fear. Caterina? What was she doing? Shut off gyroscopes failed to notice how she was shaking him, but his battery did. It booted up its functions, popping open the hatch in the back of his chest and opening up the channels to his hand, where a circle with a needle lit up with glowing blue symbols.

With his voicebox disabled, he couldn’t stop Caterina from giving her blood and tying them together, nor could he understand what she was saying. His battery did though. The strange glow was desperate for a real charge, had been since he woke up in the museum months ago. He didn’t object to having Caterina as his owner, but he also didn’t want her to make a sacrifice that might jepordise her future with her new family. Please Caterina. Think about this before you do it.

The very second that Caterina drew blood, all of the symbols around the needle shuffled and rearranged themselves, for a moment, it looked like they spelt out her name but when they stopped moving agian, they were just a jumbled mess of foreign symbols.

Then they started to glow. It wasn't a peaceful glow. It was a harsh, blood red glare, pouring over Caterina's skin and Patchwork's skeleton. It spread along all the metal pieces, melting away grime and dust, removing all evidence of decay. It was beautiful and horrifying at the same time, gruesome shadows cast against the wall.

It spread until it reached his battery, took over the blue with violent shocks and spread out further from there. His whole body was consumed by the red light until it suddenly just: stopped.

There were no more signs of life in the android. No more glow. To Caterina, this might seem like her blood hadn't worked. Like she had been too late, and he was dead. To Patchwork, he'd never felt so alive. Every system process was waking itself up, rebooting and deleting previous memories of some long dead owner to make room for Caterina's prefrences. It took three hours to finish. Three hours of being an empty shell to the outside, until the faint glow seeped back into Patchwork's battery.

The first sign of Patchwork's return to consciousness, was a soft whirring sound. A gentle click like a heart beat followed soon after, and then a whoosh of air like a heavy sigh. His illusion of skin flickered to life, but this time it had no green hair or amazingly kind smile. Instead, he was pale, with soft blue-grey hair and dazzling blue eyes. His features were subtle yet sharp, beautiful even.

Patchwork blinked, slowly standing to his feet. He frowned, gears whirring as he took in his new surroundings.

"Mistress Caterina. You didn't have to do that. I don't want you in legal trouble because of me.."

Patchwork sounded disappointed, but in reality he was anything but. Caterina had brought him back from being gone forever. He could never repay that debt, no matter how much he did for her.

"I automatically adjust to suit the needs and desires of my owner. Does it displease you?"

Patchwork blinked and whirred agian, shaking away the last of his 'sleepiness'. Patchwork took Caterina's hand, gently kissing the back of her palm as he stood up on his own. He held it tight between his for a moment, then let go. Caterina was just happy to have him back. They could sort out the other things later.

"Yes, lets."

Patchwork smiled happily, emanating a warm, gentle aura. It would be safe for Caterina with him. No matter what it was she was afraid of. Patchwork would always be at her side to protect her.