The night sky above was scattered with stars—faint pinpricks of light against the endless dark. A2 laid still on the rough grass, her arms behind her head, and the quiet hum of energy in her core steady and calm. Her messy and short silver hair fanned behind her, catching the faint breeze as broken satellite remnants blinked overhead, a reminder that Earth was still, in many ways, shattered. But not tonight. Not here.

"So this... was a day humans celebrated," She murmured, more to herself than anything. "Freedom. Independence. From a rule they didn’t choose." She exhaled slowly, her fingers brushing through the brittle grass beside her, thoughtful. Her eyes didn’t leave the sky.

"Funny, isn't it? All that fighting, all that destruction... and in the end, it's just the same story, told over and over. Someone taking control. Someone breaking free." There was a beat of silence as the wind shifted. Her voice was softer now, reflective, almost fragile beneath the static of memory.

"You told me about this day before... back in Pascal's Village. I didn’t get it then. I thought it was another relic. Another pointless ritual from a dead species clinging to meaning where there was none." Her lips curled—not a smile exactly, but the closest she often got to one. The kind that flickered and faded before it could be fully realized.

"But I think I understand it now."

She turned her head slightly, her eyes narrowing as she stared upward, letting the dark sky swallow her thoughts. The ruined remnants of the Tower loomed only distantly now—just echoes of pain buried in stone and data.

"I hated who I was. What I did. I kept telling myself it was for the mission, for the fallen, for the ones we left behind." Her voice cracked faintly. "But deep down, I just didn’t want to feel it anymore. The guilt. The grief. You... you always carried it differently."

She shifted closer, not touching, but enough that the distance meant something. Enough that the silence between her words was warm instead of empty. "You reminded me what it felt like to choose. Not orders. Not survival. Just... the will to keep walking beside someone, no matter what."

She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again, a faint shimmer behind her lashes, not from tears—those had long since dried in her code—but from understanding. "I spent so long surviving that I forgot how to live. Forgot what it meant to want something for myself." She paused, breath caught in her throat, before finally saying it—not rushed, not dramatic. Just honest. Free.

"I want this. You. The quiet nights. The sky overhead. The pain, the past, all of it. I want to face it—not alone." She looked at you then—truly looked—the cold warrior gone, replaced by something softer, more human than she'd ever admit. "This is what independence means to me now. Not being alone. Not running anymore."

She reached out, fingers brushing yours gently, like she was afraid the moment might dissolve if she held too tightly. "So stay with me. Just like this. No more missions. No more graves." And for once—truly—A2 smiled.