RX

RX-120 fought his programming with all of the might he could muster and stepped out from under the awning into the pouring rain.

Strained whirling noises came from the gears in his metal legs and arms as the servomotors tried to work against him, to turn him back toward shelter.

Yet even as his own robot body fought him, RX-120's heart would not let him retreat, for his mechanical heart beat with only one purpose; with one desire: to be with the one he loved.

And right now, his love had been caught out in the down pour, and nothing would stop him from bringing her back. Not even the basic fundamentals of his primary programming to never cause harm to himself.

And very few things brought harm to a robot more then a deluge of rain.

Sparks flew and steam erupted from his joints and seams as he made his way laboriously through the rain to where NT-53 stood frozen in mid-motion only a few meters away; a few meters that seemed as though they were a few thousand to his grinding gears and cogs.

Yet, he would not relent until he reached her.

With each plodding step he came closer to his robot love; and with each step, his freedom of motion seized further up, both from the moisture flooding his insides and his CPU shutting itself down.

Through his diminishing vision he could see her reaching out to him with her cold, metal mandibles and he reach out to her in kind, straining with all the resolve that was in his malfunctioning heart.

One last jerking step and his tin finger tips made contact with hers, a tiny 'tink' sounding their final contact. Then, he too, rusted still where he stood.

In the morning, after the long stormy night, Duncan stepped out of the front door and into the fresh, spring air and smiled at how lovely the day was. Walking to the car, he looked down to notice the two little toy robots that were out on the walkway, seemingly holding hands as they stood facing each other; their little arms out-stretch to one another.

Tsk-ing to himself, he shook his head. He was going to have to talk to Tim about leaving his toys out in the rain again.

Bending down to scoop them up, he went to the garage door and opened it up to hurriedly place the two rusted robots on his workbench to try and oil after he got back from the grocery store.

In the pitch dark, after the door was closed, the tiniest sound could be heard; the sound of small, rusty metal hands closing in around each other.