#<- i dont like how i wrote this tag the firdt time i used it but by now im too lazy to change anything

[aleki-lives-here]

I keep returning to one of the first short scenes I thought of and the first one I wrote down for the fanfic. It belongs in the middle of the story if not closer to the end, so technically it's spoilers, but it's the kind of scene I really love writing and find the motivation for the whole story in. So why not share? (I know a dozen reasons for why not but it's likely gonna be weeks or even months until I start posting the fanfic (if I do write it) and I don't feel like waiting that long for the gratification of having people read my stuff. So) Beware slight spoilers for an unwritten fanfic.

“I know you.”

Mensah smiled. “You do.”

“But I can't remember you.” Except for the impressions left in my neural tissue. She looked terrified in the most persistent of those, and I didn't know how to ask what that was about. I had a feeling I wouldn't like the answer. “It's unsettling.”

Mensah thought about it for a few seconds. “Would you rather not be in my company?”

I hesitated. Her presence caused all sorts of weird reactions in my organic parts, which I didn't like. She was a human, more than that, a human proclaiming to have been my friend, which was still a ridiculous notion. I didn't know if I could trust any of them. I sure as hell wasn't about to stop feeling on edge in their presence.

(Granted, hers was easier to be comfortable with. She hadn't glanced at me even once this whole conversation, even when I stared at the side of her face with my own eyes. She let the silence stretch while I thought and, somehow, made it feel not awkward.)

I think Mensah picked up on my wariness. She smiled at the wall again and moved to get up. Maybe this gesture, this willingness to leave me be without demanding answers or making additional unwelcomed remarks was what made me say, “No. It isn't completely awful.”

Her smile had been sincere this whole time, I was pretty sure, but my words made it wider. That wasn't awful, either.

And yeaaah, that's (most of) the spoiler in question, memory purge! A new one, cuz I'm very kind to my favorite characters :>

I'm 72% sure that with how I'm planning to structure the story it's going to be a spoiler for the first chapter. Maybe the first thousand words. The current structure I'm thinking about doesn't include any pre-memory purge scenes until much much later in the story.

Which means that the plot includes PresAux and Murderbot building a relationship kinda from scratch, but not really, and with a whole new and exciting set of shitty circumstances to deal with. PresAux members definitely get a chance to try again and do better (at least enough to not have it disappear the first opportunity it gets), but also they would rather not. Especially not for this reason. Nobody's having a good time here.

Very fun to think about.