Title: Becoming Human
Description: She can grow to like this new world, and help him to once more. Sam/Quorra.
Pairing(s): Sam/Quorra
Word Count: 3,110
Notes: Another one-shot, what do you know. Though this one has the open possibility of being continued—maybe. It hasn't been beta'd/britpicked/edited or whatever you call it, so all mistakes are my own.

This story's got a lot of theories I have about the grid that are most likely as far from the truth as you can get, but that's what fanfiction is for, right? There are so few fics for these two, even though they are canon, so I though I'd contribute.

After living her life in fear, in the shadow of a once-glorious kingdom, the human world comes as an immense shock to Quorra.

She's never known real light before. She knew glow, and the shine that came when Flynn arrived, but they are nothing compared to the light here. Her life thus far has been lived in gloom, in darkness, in doubt; and she knows that it will take her many weeks to finally adjust to the brilliance of this world.

There was no temperature in the Grid, either. Even Flynn, a user, did not radiate heat the way Sam does here. And as she clutches to his back, closing her eyes in content and letting the sun warm her face, she feels her own body begin to warm up as well. She likes the warmth.

Colours are a particular favourite indulgence for her. Bright blues and oranges are the only colour she has ever known, and while it may not be as vibrant here, there are more shades and more colours than she could have ever hoped to imagine. They are warm, blending nicely into one another to provide the landscape with a look nothing short of beautiful.

She does not let go when Sam stops outside of his lodging. The sun, which she could have sworn was just rising, was now on the other side of the sky. Time will take some getting used to as well. Holding fast instead, she smiles against his back.

"Enjoy yourself?" Sam rumbles, his voice deep and travelling through his jacket to her face.

Quorra squeezes tighter in response.

Easing her off of him so he can stand, Sam looks down at her with eyes that seem to try so hard to mask a mournful expression. He extends a hand to her, setting his helmet on one of the handlebars. "Come on. You can't stay out here forever."

She follows him. He opens the great hatch of the room and exposes the sky, the yellow-orange glow of the setting sun welcoming them.

"And you get this all the time?" she breathes, awestruck.

Sam laughs. "Yeah, well, once you have it for every day of your life, it kind of loses its effect." He runs a hand through his hair and shrugs, and Quorra turns to him, suddenly serious and shaking her head.

"Don't take things for granted, Sam," she warns him. "Because they can escape us at any time."

Crossing his arms and glaring off into the distance, she sees his eyes darken. "Yeah, I know that already."

Losing Flynn will take a toll on them both, she knows that much. She doesn't know much about familial relationships—the ones within her species were far more detached than the ones explained in Flynn's books and stories—but she feels his pain regardless. Being the last of her kind, she of anyone is more than capable.

She reaches out, taking Sam's hand in both of hers and looking up at him. His hand is warm beneath hers, and she allows slight comfort in the heat before speaking. "You already lost him once," she guesses, and by the shadow that crosses his face, she knows she has her answer. "Losing him again was much harder."

Sam shrugs again, such a nonchalant gesture. She knows now is not the time to try it out here but she promises herself she will later. Learning to act like a human will be both trying and fun, she realizes. "I was a kid the first time he disappeared," he tells her, his voice soft. "I never stopped believing he'd come back. And then after years, I just accepted that he was gone." He takes a deep breath, eyes glittering with emotion. "Now that I really know, it's…different."

Quorra nods, letting go of his hand to reach out with hers and hold his face. They've both lost so much.

"It'll be okay," she tells him, her voice firm. She's sure of it it. And she knows that deep down Sam is too.

He makes up an extra bed for her, setting it up near his own, but she's already crawled into his and has the covers pulled around herself. Sam lets out a sigh of indignation, settling in the cot himself for the night. Quorra stares out at him from the fortress of blankets she's pulled around her face, smiling.

"Good night, Sam," she tells him.

He flips over. "'Night."

They don't even make it fifteen minutes before Quorra pads over to the small cot and curls herself in beside Sam. The cot is small, barely big enough for Sam on his own, but Quorra doesn't care as she presses her head against his arm and takes his hand in hers. She realizes it's a painfully intimate gesture, but to be perfectly honest, she could care less.

Sam shifts once or twice, trying to make himself more comfortable, before slipping an arm around Quorra and pulling her close. She smiles against the shirt on his chest as she feels warmth dance along her once-unfeeling skin. Sam's breath is hot against the top of her head, and within minutes she is asleep.

She doesn't know how she got back into the bed, only that there's an empty spot beside her on it that's still warm. Rolling over onto it, she brings the covers up around her face and revels in it. Light shines around her, pouring through the windows and reflecting on many of the surfaces.

It's beautiful here.

If she didn't pay attention to smell the day before—she couldn't blame herself; the city, the vehicles and even some of the air did not please her now-sensitive nose—she does now. Wonderful things that she can't really find the words to describe are in the air around her now, and she reluctantly gets up to follow the smell.

She finds Sam in the kitchen, making golden-brown disk-like things without the holes in the middle. When she approaches he turns to her and smiles, setting another onto a plate.

"Hungry?" he asks.

Quorra hasn't felt hunger before, but she's read about it in Flynn's books. "I don't know," she tells him, looking down at her midsection. "I don't know what hunger feels like."

Sam frowns. "It's not really pleasant," he explains. "It's like there's a hole inside of you." At Quorra's horrified look, he waves off the metaphor. "Though not quite that severe."

"What are those?" she asks, pointing to the things he's making. "Are those what smell so good?"

Nodding, Sam scoops one onto a plate and hands it to her. "Yeah," he says. "They're pancakes. Try them with the syrup over there." He points to a container with a bright red lid.

Quorra grins, sits down at the table, and pours an experimental amount of syrup onto her pancake. One bite, and she's well on her way to pouring the whole container on it.

"Hey, slow down!" Sam objects, grabbing it from her hands with a laugh. "You're going to drown it."

"It's not like it's alive or anything," Quorra objects, but eats it the way it is anyways.

Even taste was severely hampered in the Grid. It was like a ghost of what was there, dusty almost. But here, it's like flavour exploded on her tongue. She can't quite describe it, so she asks Sam to.

He's not very much help. He shrugs, grinning, and flips about three pancakes onto his own plate. "Sweet," he says at last. "They're sweet. Everything tastes different. There's bitter, acidic, hot, spicy, sour…"

Quorra doesn't quite know what the other words taste like, but she knows that she likes sweet. A lot.

After they finish, he takes her to a park. Brilliant colours are everywhere, mostly greens but with blues and yellows and red and everything in between. He calls the colourful little plants flowers.

"I've read about flowers before," she tells him, quite proud of herself as she picks a particularly beautiful light blue one. "They show up often in books." Grinning, she tucks it behind Sam's ear despite his groan of protest and goes about finding more. He's smiling, however, so she knows he's not really angry.

By the time they go home, she's got a bundle of flowers so big she can't hold them all. Sam ties a string around them to keep them together, tucks them into a backpack so they won't get damaged on the ride home, and bundles Quorra back onto the bike.

"I like flowers," Quorra tells him. "They're beautiful, and they smell good."

"Just don't eat them," Sam jokes, starting the engine before Quorra can joke back.

Watching the people around them, she realizes that Flynn acted a lot different than they do here. And because she was Flynn's student, she does as well. So she begins to follow Sam, imitating his movements and facial expressions, and getting a feel for what it's like to act normal in this world.

He finally realizes on the morning of the third day she's there. He's stretching one morning, arms raised above his head, as she does the same. Shooting her a look of what she's come to know as suspicion, he looks away again when she grins at him. He does so too late, however, and he jams his foot onto the underside of his dresser.

"Damnit!" he curses.

"Damnit," Quorra says to herself quietly.

Sam looks at her, incredulous. "What?"

"Damnit!" Quorra repeats, smiling. "It's what you said."

"I know that's what I said," Sam snaps. "Why'd you say it?"

She shrugs. "I don't know."

His lips beginning to play into a smile, Sam laughs and takes her hand. "You don't need to copy everything I do," he tells her. "It's okay to be a little different here. Nothing bad is going to happen if you don't."

"Didn't Flynn say that I was going to help the world?" she asks him, suddenly changing the subject. "That's why he sent me back, wasn't it?"

All traces of a smile on Sam's face disappear, and he looks away with a frown. "The world's changed since he was here," he growls. "They'd lock you up. Perform experiments." Shaking his head, he looks back at her. "It's better if people don't find out about you."

She feels a little dejected at that, but relieved, too. This world, in some ways, was just as cruel as the Grid. And if they treated Sam the way they had done for being a User, she didn't quite care to know what would happen to her here.

"Frankenstein," he mutters quietly.

"What?"

"People fear what they don't know," she tells him. "They'd fear me."

He runs a hand through his hair. "Something like that.

Nodding, she reaches over to straighten one of the flowers—now placed in a large glass—that has fallen over.

The one she put behind Sam's ear sticks out on the top. She put it there on purpose. It's the same colour as his eyes; blue, almost as brilliant as the light ribbons produced by some of the bikes back at the grid. Her own she knows are much lighter, almost gray in appearance.

There's a noise outside and she jumps, knocking over the glass with all the flowers. It shatters upon hitting the ground, and she immediately reaches down to pick them up, apologizing sincerely to Sam.

He reaches down to stop her but she's already picking one up, cutting open her palm in the process.

"Damnit!" she curses, turning her face to him, smirking self-satisfactorily. "Was that right?"

Despite himself, Sam laughs. "Yes," he tells her. "Yes, it is. Let me see your hand."

She's not ready for the bright scarlet that smears her palm. Looking up at Sam with anxiety in her features, she flickers her eyes between the wound and his face. "What is that?" she asks him hurriedly.

He looks perturbed, and Quorra panics a bit. But he grabs hold of her arm as she tries to jump up, and looks at her with an almost…hopeful expression.

"It's blood," he tells her. She recognizes the word from more than one of Flynn's books, but it doesn't hold any significance to her. He continues. "It's what Users have, rather than circuits and those little square-thingies or whatever the hell Programs are made of."

Quorra can't find words to say, so Sam stands up, telling her sternly to stay, and dashes to the kitchen.

Is she turning into a User? She looks down at her hand, looking at the bright red blood, and pokes at it with her other hand. It's like liquid, leaking slowly from the opening in her hand. Sam is right—there are no circuits, and she is no longer made up of digital energy. The blood is warm, and she marvels at it as it trickles down her fingers.

"Shit, Quorra, I told you to wait," Sam sighs as he slides down into the seat across from her. He's got a cloth in one hand and a red box in the other. "You're going to make a mess."

"Am I a user now?" Quorra presses, obediently holding her hand out to be examined by Sam. He presses the wet cloth on her hand and cleans the blood, pressing softly over the opening. She yelps and pulls back her hand. "That hurt!"

Sam rolls his eyes and holds out his hand again. "I don't know if you're a user or not. Now don't be such a baby and give me your hand back."

Glaring at him, Quorra reluctantly gives him her hand once more. He makes a face at her as he presses down quite softly, and she makes one back.

The process is interesting, and doesn't seem to do much. Apparently it has to be cleaned, and though it stings something awful Sam insists it must be done. He covers it in things called band-aids afterwards, and then dresses it in white cloth. When he's done it hurts only slightly less, and is not fixed.

"Can you not just fix it?" she asks him, eying her hand.

Sam shakes his head, leaning back against the counter. "We don't have those weird disk-things. I can't just reprogram you."

Grimacing at her hand, Quorra sighs and then turns her scowl to Sam. "It's pulsing."

"Yeah, that happens."

"It stings."

Sam waves a hand. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Can't you do something?"

Rolling his eyes again, Sam stomps over to her. She holds out her hand indignantly, though she is not expecting it when he lifts it and kisses it.

"There," he grumbles. "Better?"

Quorra eyes him skeptically, looking at her hand as it she expects the bandage to fall off and reveal perfectly healed skin. "No. Why would it be?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Sam shuts his eyes. "It's an expression," he explains. "To 'kiss something better'. It's…god, nevermind."

She stands up, resting her hands on his arm. "No, tell me," she presses.

Sam looks at her as if he doesn't know if she's being sincere. When she doesn't move, he sighs. "I don't know," he says. "Its just…mothers did it to their kids, saying that a kiss was better than any band-aid just to get them to shut up and stop crying. And usually they'd believe it." He grins a bit, a mere twitch of his lip.

Quorra watches him, and sees the sadness that's still settled in his face. She presses her hand to the middle of his chest. She can feel something—his heartbeat?—beneath her fingertips, thumping against his ribs. "Does it work?" she asks him, her voice surprisingly quiet.

It's deathly quiet, she realizes. Sam meets her eyes, something like curiosity settling there now. "It depends," he finally answers, his voice low.

All the books she's read, all of the time spent watching other ISO's, other programs, could never prepare her for this. She rests her other hand lightly on his arm, watching him, what he does and what he gives away. She knows little about humans, but after all her time with Flynn she likes to think she knows at least something. Though she doesn't have too much time to think as she pushes herself forward.

The brush of their lips is soft, little more than just that. Asking. Gauging his reaction. She's begun to think she's made a mistake when he does not move, but before she can pull away his hands are on her arms and he's pulling her close, closing the distance between them and pressing them together in another kiss.

For the first time in her life, her thoughts stop. There is nothing now, aside from the moment and Sam clutching her close and his lips on hers. A bomb could go off and she would not react.

He pulls away and she's opening her eyes, realizing for the first time that they were closed. His own stare back at her, somehow even more blue than before. Quorra's chest is pounding, and she wonders if he was right, that she really is turning into a User. She gives him a smile, breathless.

As if he can read her thoughts, he sets his own hand on the center of her ribcage, resting gently there as if he can still it. It does the opposite, though he doesn't seem to mind.

Sam's eyes shine at her, and for perhaps the first time, he doesn't look sad. She rests her hand on his cheek, and he leans his head slightly into the touch.

"Did it work?" she finally asks, her voice little more than a whisper. She knows she doesn't need to ask—the answer is plain as day on his face—but she needs to hear it for herself.

He smiles, the whites of his teeth just barely visible behind his lips. Leaning forward to plant a gentle kiss on her nose, he presses their foreheads together and rumbles a deep, "Yes."

The flutter of excitement she feels is foreign. Feelings are something that is going to take some getting used to as well. There was no doubt she had them back in the Grid, but here, there are more. They're more pronounced, there are more, and she doesn't know what to think of them all. Some day she'll ask Sam to explain them to her, to get him to teach her what they all mean, what they are like.

Although for now, she's content with the way things are. It's going to be a long road to becoming human, but she knows that with Sam's help, she'll make it there.