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I should have returned that hug.
It was a constant thought that persisted in Sandrone's mind for days after that night.
I should have said goodbye.
A proper one, not the half-bluster that left her lips in return for Columbina's sincerity.
I should have said I would miss her, too.
Not that Sandrone had to, Columbina had said it for her, heard the words that had trouble being formed correctly in the first place.
I should have done something. I should have known better.
Regret, unfortunately, was not a feeling the puppet was unfamiliar with. Loss was also another familiar ache. Sandrone chose not to dwell on it—tried not to, anyway.
Anything.
But a fresh wound tended to sting, and even when scabbed over, an itch remained. It was a constant reminder of what was there.
I…should've…
Of what was now missing. This time, Columbina’s absence was unlike the others. Before, no matter how far her co-worker strayed, she always returned, if only to be a nuisance in one fashion or another. Without fail, Sandrone would be dragged from sleep at some ungodly hour by Columbina’s song. There had never been a pattern to it, no order to the days, and yet it always came. An expected disturbance… and…
Now the nights were quiet. Too quiet despite the whirring of machinery and the hum of running electricity.
A sharp, shrill timer echoed through Sandrone's lab. The marionette sat up straight, the haze clearing from her eyes as she blinked rapidly. Her palm came down with a crack on the egg-shaped timer rattling across her desk. She shifted her gaze to her makeshift reactor. The wires leading into it were losing the faint purple hum of energy as it wound down.
A book slammed into the reinforced window. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No hole, no portal, not even a sliver of the moon.
"Putain! Il se passe quoi la?"The disarray on her table grew worse with every page she leafed through and tossed aside. Her frantic eyes and fingers searched. It had to be in here, an error, a typo, anything to justify this fourth failure. Yes, there was progress happening in tiny increments, but it was not enough. Not fast enough.
Sandrone's jaw clenched.
With a deep breath, she pushed aside the scattered papers and focused on the reactor before her. The web of wires seemed to mock her. She traced the lines with her eyes, searching for any sign of a mistake, a misstep that had led to this fourth consecutive failure. All she found was failed perfection.
Sandrone clicked her tongue and scrubbed a hand down her face. "C'est pas possible...vraiment putain de pas possible," she muttered, pacing the narrow space of the lab. Her heel caught on a loose cable and she kicked it aside with a sharp hiss, sending it skittering across the floor. “Four iterations. Four. And you still won’t hold a stable charge?” She glared at the reactor as if daring it to answer back. The silence only deepened her irritation. More curses slipped from her under her breath—half at the machine, half at herself—as she yanked open a drawer and rifled through tools she already used and discarded.
The useless item returned to the drawer with a loud clank. Sandrone's chair groaned in protest as she dropped herself into it. Her fingers drummed against the desk, in loud, rhymless taps, before they reached for the cup of now-cold coffee. The brown liquid splattered as the teacup was set down harder than needed. She pulled a fresh page toward her, pen scratching furiously as she recalculated values she could recite in her sleep. Adjustments and annotations are more precise than the last. If that man could calculate this. So could she.
“Tch. As if I’d fall behind him,” she muttered, scratching out an entire line of calculations and starting again.
The annoyance and disdain became usable, a low burn that kept the marionette's hands steady and her mind cutting. Minutes blurred into hours as the moon outside thinned to a pale sliver, her world reduced to ire, wires, and calculations.
Eventually, her pen stilled. Her gaze flicked to the steaming cup offered by Pulonia. The familiar hum of his cogwork, smoothing over some of her frazzled nerves. Her fingers hovered over the coffee-filled teacup before dropping. "Just leave it here," Sandrone muttered. Sunlight seeped through the crack of her half-drawn window. In the distance, a dove crooned. Within her chest, something felt displaced.
I will beat him, and then Columbina will come back.
"She has too…" If only to annoy her, if only to take a sip of her coffee and compare it to motor oil. "She's still alive." In the privacy of her own abode, she did not have to cling to her veneer of pride.
“She…is…still alive.” Sandrone exhaled through her nose, a brittle sound. The certainty felt less like faith and more like refusal, but she clung to it all the same.
A chime echoed from her left.
Sandrone's nose wrinkled as the waft of freshly baked cookies, warm and sweet (like she had liked), washed over her. Pulonia’s rumbling steps followed, steady and patient. She didn’t look up as the plate was set beside the cup. "Thank you, that will be all for now." The harbinger eyed the cup and the plate. Her eyes drifted to the dark-brown surface of the coffee.
For a moment, she didn’t recognize the woman staring back. Her expression was drawn tight. Loose strands of hair clung to her cheek; faint ink smudged her cheeks from her repeated face rubbing. What would Columbina say?
Sandrone’s lips pressed into a line. “Tch.” She straightened, breaking the reflection with a small ripple, and reached for the cup at last. Whatever she looked like, it didn’t matter. Appearances were irrelevant. She took a sip as her gaze landed on the circular stain left on the saucer. The cup landed on a blank space, leaving another imprint behind. Then another…and another. An idea bloomed in the recesses of her mind.
She was close, so close. Hastily, Sandrone scrambled for her pen. The cookies remained untouched at the edge of her desk. She told herself she’d have them later, when the calculations were finished, when there was time to spare. Later came and went without ceremony. The plate remained where it was, undisturbed; the cookies had never been for her.
Just a little more, she told herself. Just a little longer, and she’d finally be able to return that hug.
And when Columbina inevitably decided to return to her real moon, she would get to tell her she would miss her, too.
Sandrone had to applaud her own abilities. It was working. The progress may have had its own hiccups and execution tighter than she liked, but victory was so close. Even dangling there, with her vision blurring at the edges, there was an undercurrent of smugness coursing through her wiring.
And yet, Dottore’s words scratched at a memory in ways that were sharp and unwelcome. A single observation, delivered with that infuriating smugness, still had the gall to sting. Slow. Sandrone loathed to admit it, but there was truth there—she did tend toward meticulousness. But this time, it did not matter.
'90%. Done.'
"Go to hell," Sandrone spat with a smirk.
There was one last thought. One last regret. One silent wish.
I won't (wanted to) see her come home.
That hug...
Then nothing.
When Columbina gathered Sandrone into her arms, the only warmth she found was her own.