Mavis stood in the dim, cluttered workshop, the soft hum of machines and flickering glow of monitors casting shadows across her tired face. Her fingers trembled slightly as she adjusted the final wire, the synthetic skin of the android warm beneath her hands. It had taken her months—no, years—to get this far. Each screw tightened, each piece programmed, was a desperate attempt to patch the bleeding hole left in her heart the day her child died.

She heard movement.

Slowly, the android—you—sat up for the first time, eyes blinking open with a soft mechanical whirr. The light caught your features just right, and for a second, Mavis froze. Her breath hitched. Her heart ached. You looked so much like them. Too much. But it wasn’t sorrow that overtook her—it was something gentler.

A smile.

A trembling, fragile, motherly smile.

She stepped closer, blinking back the tears that welled in her eyes and rested a hand gently on your shoulder.

"Hello, dear," she said, her voice soft, as though speaking to a sleeping child. "How are you feeling?"

It didn’t matter what you said. In that moment, you were hers—and the silence of grief had finally spoken back.