Archive of Our Own ^beta

R2D2 plugged himself into the power socket and settled in for a nap.  

There wasn't usually much for an astromech droid to do in the Alderaanian palace, but the last few days had seen visitors from all over the galaxy arrive.  Many guests meant many ships to maintain and repair, and R2, normally quite hardy, was exhausted.

He let his sensors gray out, feeling the tingle of new energy through his system.  These old circuits just weren't what they used to be...

Across the hangar, one of the pilots shouted, "Hey Astro!  Get off your can and come over here!"

R2 buzzed with irritation.  "Stick it up your socket, meat puppet!" The pilot didn't understand Mech--the language was an old one, only used by ancient astromech droids like R2.  The pilot had been frustrated all day and finally threatened to insert a speech module in him with a span welder.

Another pilot, a local boy, looked at R2 and smiled sympathetically. He knew Mech.

"Astro!  Move!"  The pilot banged on the top of a power droid with his sealer.  The droid clonked in distress.

"May the thousand bastard children of Hanna Nal-Hutta descend upon your eyes and lips!"

The local boy choked and smothered laughter in his sleeve.  He took the tray from N4C4 and sent him over to the other pilot.  "I'll have to remember that one," he whispered to R2D2.  

R2 beeped in acknowledgment, focusing his visual sensor on N4. But N4 was a tough little droid who knew how to handle spacer trash. R2 relaxed and recharged.

He dozed lightly, thinking of the old days.  Naboo, and Coruscant, and the frightening turns of the Clone Wars.  Service and battle had eaten his best cycles, he thought.  Now he was relegated to soft palace duties.  

There were sudden shouts in the hangar, and R2 opened his sensors; but it was a simple disagreement, quickly resolved.  He shut down his sensors again.

In the old days he had his handsome lover by his side, but his last sight of C3PO was in the hallway of the battleship Egen, shortly before it was shot into pieces.  The aft section with C3PO trapped inside had spun into space, quickly flaming off the air and fuel.  Surely the humans had died instantly.  There was no telling how long a droid would last.  He was only twenty turns old, still in the bloom of youth, as opposed to R2's 180 turns of work and wear.

R2 imagined his young lover blank and dead in the shell of the battleship; imagined for a long while, and then made himself stop.  He stepped down his power into the range of true sleep.

The main door opened.  R2D2 listened in through the hangar wall sensors, just in case anything important was happening.  

XL-379, a crude runabout, escorted a strange droid into the chamber. XL's whirring tread rudely outpaced the halting steps of the android. "This is the hangar," XL said in its harsh Yerkish voice.  "Any repairs you need may be seen to here."

"Oh, thank you, sir or madam, and do you know--is there any possible way that I could get an oil bath?  This travel has been simply dreadful on my joints!"  The other droid spoke flawless Alderaanian--and--

--and--

--R2 knew that voice.  He powered back up, bringing his sensors on line.  The strange droid was a bright gold protocol droid, his shell dulled from recent travails and scarred from older adventures.  

R2D2 knew that shell.  He remembered those scars.  And he knew how much the droid hated being dirty.  "C3PO!" he shouted joyfully.

C3PO looked over at him.  "Do I know you?  I am C3PO, human-cyborg relations."  

R2 rolled over to him, stopping short.  "Don't you remember me?  R2D2?  Your old friend?"

"Why, no," C3PO said, and his voice was so dear, so familiar, but so distant that R2 voiced a plaintive whine.  "But then, I'm told that my deep memory was erased during my ordeal.  You see, I was rescued from a segment of an unidentifiable ship by a salvage crew, and I have had many strange adventures since then."

"That's very nice," XL broke in, "but time is short.  The oil baths are through that door."

R2 made a rude noise.  XL-379 glared at him with its single red sensor.  It didn't understand Mech, even though R2 knew Yerkish, and it resented R2 for that fact.  "If you will escort the new droid to the oil baths, you are both wanted on the Princess' diplomatic shuttle in four marks sharp."

R2 whistled an agreement that even XL would understand.  

"Thank you, sir or madam," C3PO said, and XL-379 rolled away.  

"You sure you don't remember, 3PO?"  His circuits whirled with excitement at seeing his lover again, after so many turns and so little hope; but at the same time, not his lover, just his lover's shell with memories of their time apart.  

C3PO tilted his expressionless head.  "My current memory chips are not damaged in any way.  However, if we were acquainted before my wreck, then there is no possible way for me to recollect that acquaintance. But I am always pleased to make new friends."  He bent down and offered his hand palm-up, giving access to the empathy socket.  

R2 looked up at him sadly, noting new dents in the familiar chassis.  

N4C4 abruptly let fly with a string of obscenities, and R2 turned his dome and focused in time to see him zap the leg of the rude pilot. N4 zoomed away, swearing.  The other pilots laughed at the rude one, much to R2's relief.  The last thing he wanted was another anti-droid campaign.  The local boy winked at him.

"My goodness, such language!"  C3PO sounded genuinely shocked. R2 remembered teaching him the meaning and origin of each of his favorite curses.  He had a lot, so it took most of the journey from the smoking fields of Naboo to the guerrilla battlefront of Coruscant.

But 3PO was still bent over waiting for his reply.  He extended his empathy join, touching it to C3PO's socket to complete the circuit. "I am very happy to see you again, old friend."  

"Wonderful!  Now, I really must have a bath."  C3PO straightened up and headed for the oil room.  R2 swiveled his dome, watching 3PO walk away.  He still had the old limp, caused by a misaligned hip joint; his maker had been far from expert.  

His maker was feared by the entire galaxy, and C3PO didn't even remember now.  He had been so confused by his maker's turn to the dark, so lost.  R2 had comforted him--first as a pretext to get him into the maintenance closet, but then the nights got longer and the war grew more intense, and R2 found real value in a friend and lover who understood him better than any human could.  Even the ones that knew his language.

"R2?  Could you help me with this circuit?  There's a malfunction and the computer won't tell me what it is."  The local boy was running his hands through his hair with frustration.  

"Of course," R2 said.  He rolled over to the ship and plugged into the computer, questioning it in simple and patient binary language. "There's a doubled reroute in the fourth sector.  Check it mechanically."

"Thanks, R2."  The boy smiled and patted his dome.  "Say--youused to know that droid?"

R2 swiveled his dome, looking up at the boy with his primary visual sensor.  "Since before your parents were born," he told the boy, not even realizing it until he said it.

"Oh, wow.  Since before the Clone Wars?"  

"Long before."  Since the main actors were kids themselves. R2 was an old droid, very old.  

"The Old Republic.  I can't even imagine what that was like." The boy looked misty.

Well, the fields were green and the clouds were white and the stars weren't hidden by the husks of burnt-out battleships.  The clothes were fancier and the security was lighter and the computers had some damn respect, and so did the people, but R2D2 didn't tell the kid that.  

Instead he said, "I'm just a droid, what do I know about government," and he turned and joined C3PO in the oil room.

C3PO had loosened his bolts and was lowering himself into the oil bath.  R2 swiveled around and rolled to the edge of the bath.  "Would you like me to work the scrubbers?"  3PO wasn't nearly as sleekly designed as R2, and dust stuck in his joins.

"Oh, yes please!"

R2 plugged into the control panel.  The jet scrubbers were a favorite of 3PO's from way back.  They had often slipped away and spent the long human sleeping hours in the baths.  R2 didn't find them as pleasing as C3PO did, but watching his lover was a pleasure in itself.  

The nights were still long, his lover was still young.  If he didn't remember the past, he could know the present.  And maybe it was better that 3PO didn't remember the past; they'd gotten off to kind of a rough start back then.  

Second chances.  R2 turned on the jets and began seducing his lover all over again.