I’m eating my words lol this won’t let me alone and I had kind of a rough week and could really stand for some comfort food, so...

After the game ends, most androids go to Canada. It’s safer there, and despite a successful revolution, the rest of it isn’t fixed. https://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean/status/1186099975580737536

But despite America recognizing their autonomy, they aren’t American citizens. So when things slowly get better and some of them do want to come home, there are only a few ways for them to do it. Androids returning to government positions can get a work visa,

but for most of them, they have to marry an American citizen.

Connor never wanted Canada to be a long-term solution. Jeff wants him back on the force.

And Hank is able and willing to help...

~~

Hank brings Connor back to his house after...well. After everything.

He gives him a change of clothes and Connor says something about how he needs to recalibrate his settings and hasn’t entered stasis for a while when Hank is in the kitchen making himself something for lunch, since he hasn’t put anything in his stomach since breakfast yesterday.

He comes back to find Connor asleep - in stasis? Whatever it is he does - against the back of the couch, LED cycling a calm blue.

He’s out for another eighteen hours, until the next morning. Hank could probably wake him up if he wanted to, but he doesn’t try - there’s nothing

new on the news and probably won’t be for days, and Connor looks like he could use the rest. So Hank cycles between a few news channels and some reruns of an old cop show with the tv on mute and subtitles on so he won’t disturb him, and after a few hours, when it’s starting to

get dark out, he gently moves him so he’s lying curled up in the couch instead, tucked under one of Hank’s throw blankets.

Hank doesn’t know what he’s doing, exactly. He doesn’t think Connor’s neck hurts if he sleeps on it wrong, and he’s pretty sure Connor doesn’t really get

cold, either. He’s humanizing him, a little bit, treating him like something he knows he isn’t, but Hank fucked up a lot over the last week with him.

He fucked up, and now he’s trying to make it better, and so they have to start somewhere.

So Hank tucks a pillow under Connor’s

head even though he knows Connor probably doesn’t need *that*, either, before he goes back to bed that night. Sumo usually sleeps in the bedroom with him, but he leaves him in the living room tonight, mostly because he’s stretched out between the couch and the coffee table

and Connor has his fingers tangled in his fur where his one arm is dangling off the edge.

Sumo doesn’t try to follow him when Hank doesn’t call, but of course he’s good like that.

Hank sleeps in the next morning, or he tries to - his sleep schedule is so shit because of the

years of alcohol, but what can you do? - and when he does finally get up and finds Connor still asleep, he’s quiet about making breakfast and letting Sumo out, and equally quiet about sitting in the living room afterwards.

Connor is quiet about waking up, too.

Hank doesn’t know how long he was watching him by the time he notices, but eventually he looks over and finds his eyes open, even if Connor hasn’t moved otherwise.

“Hey,” he says, setting the book he was reading aside.

“Hi.” Connor’s voice is soft, a little rough with sleep.

“You okay?”

Connor sits up - although Hank doesn’t miss the look he gives the pillow underneath his head while he does - and pushes a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have slept that long.”

“No, it’s okay. You’ve had a rough go of it.”

Connor gives him a small smile, and after a moment’s hesitation, Hank gets up and joins him on the couch, unmuting the news channel he had on all morning.

“What’s happening?” Connor asks, idly running his fingers through Sumo’s fur.

“Probably a lot of bureaucratic scrambling in Washington D.C. right now while they try to figure this out, but not much as far as we know, at least right now.”

But things have a way of changing fast.

Android autonomy has been recognized. That was announced the night of Markus’

protest, in a live press conference with most of America watching, and it can’t be undone.

The rest of it, though...autonomy doesn’t inherently mean labor rights, or voting rights, or representation in the house or the senate. It doesn’t mean any of that.

It unfurls slowly over the next week and then two, the shape of it, a clear picture that nothing is fixed. Androids who want to stay in their positions as paid laborers are laid off in favor of human workers by companies bitter over the hit to their budgets.

CyberLife stores close left and right, and thirium is sold at a high premium even though it’s a necessity for androids.

Hank is selfishly grateful that Connor is an advanced model and doesn’t need as much of it, but he still spends half his paycheck on a few liters of it.

There are riots and anti-android protests, androids run down by mobs in the street who go unprosecuted by a justice system that doesn’t *really* care.

Markus and North go to D.C. almost immediately, and they take Simon and Josh with them. They reach out to Connor, too.

Hank thinks he should go, even if he’ll miss him, because right now all he can do is sit in the house because even just going outside is too dangerous, but Connor politely declines and hangs up.

They don’t talk about it until that evening, when Hank cracks. “Alright,” he

says. “What gives?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you want to go to D.C.? I don’t get it.”

Connor shrugs. “I don’t know how you can’t see it.”

“Alright, well, pretend I’m dumber than you.”

Connor gives him a reproving glance for that. “They’re afraid of me.”

“They’re afraid of Markus, too...” Hank starts, but Connor cuts him off.

“No. Not like they are of me. Markus and North and the others stood out there like peaceful negotiators, and I’m the one who walked through the streets at the head of an army of androids from CyberLife

Tower and made the threat of war very clear. They’re afraid of all of us, but not like they are of me.”

There’s more to it than that, Hank thinks, maybe an element of Connor not feeling like he belongs with his people when he was intentionally set apart from them.

Maybe that

guilt for hunting them too long is still eating away at him.

He doesn’t push it either way. He sees Connor’s point. “Okay,” he says softly.

Hank finishes his dinner in silence, and afterwards, while he’s washing the dishes, Connor sits at the table and says, “I talked to Kara

and Luther earlier. They say Canada is..not great, but okay. Better and safer than this.”

Hank hears him, but he pretends not to. He knows Connor can’t stay like this, and that he deserves a life of his own.

He just...doesn’t want him to go.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

But of course that’s selfish in a way Hank can’t possibly avoid, so later that night he sighs and says, “Do you...want to go to Canada?”

Connor’s smile is dull when he says, “Want is the wrong word. I just think it may be my best...or maybe my only option.”

“You know it isn’t the only one. You could stay here.”

“You know how much those people rioting out there hate me in particular? Because they think without all those androids from CyberLife Tower forcing the president’s hand, the resistance would have gone a very different way?

It won’t be a secret that I’m here forever. Eventually someone will see me, and they’ll tell the wrong person, and then they’ll do something to the house, or to you.”

Hank doesn’t actually give a shit about himself. He hasn’t in years, and that doesn’t change overnight.

But if he pushes Connor on it and tries to get him to stay, Connor will just push back. He’s stubborn that way, the same way Hank is.

And Hank knows Connor is right about the possibility, and that he can’t ask him to stay when it would be better for him in Canada.

He just...wishes he could do better for him. He supposes that’s all.

They don’t talk about it any more that night.

And in the morning, Hank says, “Do you want me to drive you?”

Connor doesn’t need to ask what he means. He just nods, and he looks as sorry for it as Hank is.

It’s a few days before Christmas when Hank drives him across the border. Connor packs the few things he has from Hank - a few clothes Hank bought him, and the sweatshirt he lent him that Connor likes to sleep in, and a few books from his shelves that Connor read during the

few weeks they were together, even though he can access everything digitally.

Hank slipped a present into Connor’s bag when he wasn’t looking, too. It’s just something small - most stores aren’t back to regular business hours yet, and shipping times are extended for almost

everything with the loss of android labor. It’s just a little stuffed Saint Bernard that Hank saw at the grocery store and thought was kind of cute, especially since he knows Connor is going to miss Sumo.

Hank takes Connor as far as the border. He made arrangements with Kara,

and a woman named Rose is supposed to meet him there and pick him up. Kara and her family are staying with Rose’s brother, and they’ve agreed to put Connor up for a while, too...at least until he can get on his feet.

Sumo rode along with them, too, so Connor leans around the

passenger seat to say goodbye to him first when they get there. “Good boy,” he says softly, and Hank feels that pit in his stomach growing.

“I’m sorry,” he says when Connor looks at him, grasping his shoulder, and Connor gives him a weak smile.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Call or text me when you get in, okay? And if you ever need to talk, or anything. You know where to reach me.”

“Yeah,” Connor says softly. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m more okay than I’ve been in a long time, Con.”

And that’s true. Hank isn’t okay, but he’s better. These few weeks with Connor have made things look better.

Connor nods, looking at his hands in his lap. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, kid.” Hank grasps his shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

Connor squeezes Hank’s arm. “So will you.”

Hank forces a smile and jerks his chin towards the door. “Go on, then. Get out of here.”

For a moment, Hank thinks maybe Connor will stay, even though it would be the wrong thing. There’s just enough hesitation in him that he

thinks he might.

But then he goes, even if his every movement is reluctant, even if he gives Hank a last long look before going inside to customs.

Hank lets Sumo sit in the passenger seat on the drive back to Detroit, and he goes home alone.

It’s the start of a very long fifteen months...at least for him.

But at least Connor can build something for himself in Canada, and despite the ways he feels selfish, that’s what Hank wants.

Hank is happy when he does, even if he’s alone.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

Connor does text him that night, well after Hank has gotten home. It's after midnight, but it was a long drive back to Rose's brother's house, and traffic at the border is still a mess with androids trying to get to Canada still and people who evacuated there trying to get home.

Hank's phone vibrates on the coffee table between the empty beer cans he has sitting there - he got rid of all the hard liquor in the house, but he kept the beer in a sort of compromise with himself, an attempt at a baby step.

"Are you still up?" the message says.

"Yeah," Hank writes back. "Did you get there okay?"

His phone rings in his hand, and Hank picks it up when he sees Connor's number. "Hi," Connor says on the other end of the line. "We just got back."

"How is it?" Hank asks.

"I don't know. It's okay. They had a room made

up for me, and I at least know Kara a little bit."

"Yeah," Hank says. He's trying to be encouraging. "That's good. It has to beat the couch."

Connor does that little huffed laugh of his. "I like your couch." He sounds insulted that Hank would suggest otherwise.

"I know," Hank says quickly. "But this is good too, right?"

"Yeah," Connor replies, and Hank really can't tell if he means it or not. "Thank you, by the way. For the present."

"Oh, you found it. I just saw it and thought of you."

"I'm sorry I didn't get you anything."

"Oh, god, don't be," Hank says quickly. He doesn't even know how Connor would have without being able to go anywhere, much less without a bank account.

"I wish I knew how to thank you for putting me up as long as you did," Connor says. He sounds distant, and sad.

Hank feels sorry for him. He feels sorry that somehow Connor's only friend is some sorry bastard who once put a gun to his head and said he'd like to put him in a dumpster and light it on fire. He feels sorry that Connor is as reliant on him as he is, that Connor feels like he

has to cling to him, that most humans hate him but most androids do, too, and so he's stuck with Hank.

"Hey, listen," Hank says. "There's a whole world out there. You can get a job, and your own place eventually. You'll make other friends, and you can date if you want,

and when things are better, you can come back to Detroit if you still want to. You're going to be okay."

He's trying to make it up to him, all the shit he said and did wrong. He wants Connor to be okay. The best thing he can do for him right now is just to help him see that

he's going to be alright.

And he is. Hank really does think he will be. Connor is charismatic and magnetic, and he might not quite know where he belongs now, but he'll make friends and build a family and a life for himself in Canada, and his few weeks with Hank will be a distant

memory.

Connor misses him now, but it's difficult to imagine him missing him for long.

"Okay," Connor says softly. "Can I call you?"

"Yeah," Hank says. "Sure. Whenever you want, okay?"

"Okay," Connor says. "I should let you get to bed."

Hank doesn't mention that he probably won't be able to get to sleep. "Yeah, I guess it is late," he says instead. "You should get some rest, too."

"I won't have to for another week," Connor says. He sounds vaguely amused, but it's a reminder that Hank really hardly knows him

at all.

"Right." Hank clears his throat. "Sorry. There's a lot of shit about androids I still don't know."

"It's okay," Connor says softly. "Goodnight, Hank."

"Night, Con."

Connor does call him the next day, and the one after that, and he sounds in slightly better spirits

each time. Rose's brother has a little white poodle named Pixie, and Connor and Alice take her on walks together sometimes. He's able to go into town and get a few things for his room, and Kara and Luther take him to one of the support groups for android refugees.

The first day Connor doesn't call him is so fucking bittersweet, but it's a good thing.

The calls slowly get less frequent. First it's every other day, and then every three or four, until eventually they just decide to talk every Monday night.

A few months pass, and Connor moves out. He gets a job working security at a local college, and he has a little apartment that he shows Hank on a video call once he has it better decorated. He makes friends that he goes out with, and there's one Monday when he keeps their

call brief, when he says, "Sorry, I, uh, kind of have a date."

"Oh," Hank says. "Who's the lucky girl?"

Connor scoffs at that. "I'm gay, Hank. I thought that was plainly obvious," he says, amused. "Have a good week, okay? I'll talk to you soon."

All in all, it's gone about the way Hank said it would. Connor has a life that may not be the one he wanted, but which he seems to like well enough, and everything with Hank is...the same. He goes to work once his disciplinary suspension for punching Perkins ends,

and he feels more motivated and less out of place there, even if he doesn't exactly stop getting disciplinary notices in his file, either. He drinks less, but he still drinks - he doesn't quite know how to stop entirely, but he guesses that's how addiction goes.

He tries to be better, because after Connor and the revolution, he feels less cynical, but the old habits are hard to break, and of course his life is still what it is, unchanged.

Hank keeps waiting for the day when Connor just drifts away from him entirely, but it never comes.

Connor is good like that. He's loyal. Hank knows he still sees Kara and Luther regularly, and that he even keeps in touch with Markus and the other Jericho leaders in D.C. He just has this way of making time for people.

That summer, Hank sells his house.

He thinks maybe it will

help, moving somewhere that Cole never was - somewhere with fewer ghosts. He gives Connor the virtual tour, and Connor is as pleased as Sumo is about the yard.

Hank sits on one of the deck chairs outside with Connor on video call and Sumo chasing his ball, and it's nice. It's a

good night.

He tries to date, too. A few times. Mostly women, one man. It never really goes anywhere substantial, and it doesn't even really feel that good, so he stops trying.

He never tells Connor about it. He doesn't know why.

Connor never worries about telling him when

he's going out with someone, but Connor is young and beautiful forever, and intensely likable. He was already charming before, when he and Hank worked together, but that's only intensified the further he gets from CyberLife's control over him.

It's not sad when he does it.

Hank thinks about visiting him sometimes, but he worries it would be awkward now, that they'll both realize things have changed between them, that they're too different.

Connor never asks, either.

Maybe he's worried about the same thing.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

Things get better slowly, and by "better" Hank mostly just means that the riots and the violence that comes with them have mostly stopped. Occasionally news comes from Washington D.C. that indicates Markus and the other Jericho leaders are making some slow progress.

It will probably be years, decades even, before things are appropriately set to rights, if history is any indication. But at least they're moving in the right direction.

Hank stays on android crimes - it's just a natural transition since he worked the deviancy cases.

Occasionally Connor will ask about his work in a way that makes Hank think he might miss being partners, which would make two of them.

In November, Hank goes to rehab. He doesn't tell Connor about it - he just says he'll be away, at least for the two weeks he won't be able to

make phone calls.

He doesn't know why he doesn't tell him - Connor saw him at about his absolute fucking worst, so he doesn't know why he's being precious about this. But all the same, he's ashamed - not that he's getting help, but that he needs it at all.

Connor says, "Are you taking a trip?" and Hank feels like shit for lying to him.

"Yeah," he says. "I have some vacation time banked, so Sumo and I are going up to the lake for a few weeks. The reception up there is kind of shit."

"Oh," Connor says. "That's nice.

I hope you have a good time."

(CW Alcoholism)

Rehab sucks. Rehab sucks, and withdrawal really fucking sucks, and discovering exactly how badly he's poisoned himself over the years sucks. Hank misses his dog, and he misses Connor, and he thinks so many times that he could

call him once he gets phone privileges for the last two weeks of his month of inpatient care, and he never does, and he doesn't even know why. He doesn't want to burden him with it, and he doesn't want to talk about it, but mostly he just wants to look like he has his life

together in the same way Connor seems to.

But Hank thinks of Connor slapping the shit out of him that night he found him passed out in his kitchen, and he thinks he could use some of that, especially when the therapy starts to feel a little trite.

(End CW Alcoholism)

But all the same, Hank finishes the program, and once he gets past the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, he even manages to have a reasonably good attitude about it. He feels better, and he thinks maybe this time, quitting will stick.

Aside from helping Connor in the small way

he did, it's one of the few things Hank has been proud of himself for in years.

It's a few days before Christmas when he gets home, and a year since he drove Connor to the Canadian border. He mails Connor a package with a wrapped present inside - it's just a few dog ties,

and he honestly doesn't even know if Connor still likes dogs so much a year into his deviancy, but he sends it anyway, before he can second-guess himself.

The next day, there's a box on his porch with Connor's return address. Inside, there's a box of treats and a toy for Sumo,

and a book inside with a title Hank doesn't recognize.

"Read this a few months ago and thought of you," Connor wrote inside the cover, and Hank realizes it's the first time he's ever seen Connor's handwriting. It's sloppier than he would have expected. "Merry Christmas, Hank."

Hank sets it aside and calls Connor, even if it isn't their usual time. It rings long enough that he thinks Connor is sending him to voicemail, but then Connor picks up. "Hi, Hank," he says warmly. "How are you?"

He's out somewhere - it's a Saturday morning, and Hank can hear

the voices around him. "I'm okay," he says. "I was just calling to say thanks - from me and Sumo."

"Oh, you got it already."

"Yeah. You, uh...you have something coming your way, too. Just something small."

"Thank you," Connor says. He sounds like he's smiling.

"Anyway," Hank says. "I won't keep you. Have a good weekend, Con."

"Hank," Connor says before he can hang up. "Jeff emailed me the other day."

"Jeff," Hank repeats. "Jeff Fowler?"

"Yeah. He offered me a job."

Hank isn't entirely surprised by it. Jeff has been lamenting the

fact that they don't have any android detectives working android crimes, even bemoaning that he misses Connor.

He didn't know he was going to try to recruit him, though.

"Oh," he says, surprised. "I mean...is that what you want?"

"God," Connor replies. "You don't know either, do you?"

"Know what?"

"I'm not an American citizen."

"What are you talking about? They passed that law a few months ago..."

"That law blocked out androids who immigrated to Canada last year. It's their way of trying to keep

numbers low."

"What the fuck? You were manufactured here..."

"Can you not say 'manufactured'? I don't like that."

"Sorry. You know what I mean, though."

"Yeah," Connor says. "I know what you mean. It doesn't matter, though."

"They don't have work visas or anything?"

"Hank," Connor says, like he does when he thinks Hank is being a little thick, "they don't really want us in the states. They don't want to make it easy for us to come home. They made a provision for marriages, but that's it."

"Oh," Hank says softly.

"Sorry," Connor says. "I shouldn't have told you. It's not like there's anything to be done about it."

"Is that what you want?" Hank asks. "To come back and work at the DPD?"

"What I want isn't important," Connor says, and Hank doesn't know how a whole year has gone by

since he first heard Connor say that to Elijah Kamski, how so much has changed in appearances and yet so little really has.

"Connor," he says. "If you could, is that what you would want?"

"I don't know," Connor says. "I liked being a detective. I was happy. Security is okay,

but I'm not *happy*. And I think Jeff is right that you could use an android."

"Yeah. I think he is, too."

Hank hears Connor talking to someone else, and then he says, "Sorry, I'm with Kara and Luther. I have to go."

"Oh. Okay." Hank swallows thickly. "Bye, Connor."

"Merry Christmas, Hank."

Hank still thinks Connor is doing okay, and probably better than him. But maybe there are ways his life is fractured too that he's also been trying to hide.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

When Hank goes into work the next day - late, but not as late as he usually was last year - he stops by Jeff's office. "Hey," he says when he steps inside. "Are you really trying to get Connor back?"

"Oh," Jeff says. "Yeah, but...it doesn't look like it's going to work out."

"Yeah," Hank says. "I heard."

"I didn't realize you two still talked that much."

Hank shrugs. "We don't, really. He just sent me something for Christmas, and it came up when I called."

"He said he was working security up there."

"Yeah. At some college."

Jeff shakes his head, distaste written across his face. "He was a good detective," he says, "and he made you better, too. What a waste."

He was. And it is.

Which is why it surprises Hank that it doesn't occur to him until so much later, until after New Year's has past - a day

Connor always spends with his friends and Hank always spends either at work or alone.

It surprises him because Connor deserves to be where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do, and because Connor even told him it wasn't impossible for him to come home.

There's a path open to him, even if it is an unconventional one.

And Hank is divorced. He just bought the house with the second bedroom that he doesn't really have any use for, so he has the space.

So...there's a way. Maybe. Hank has no idea if it's one Connor would be

remotely interested in, or if he wants this badly enough to do something a little desperate like that, but it wouldn't be the first green card marriage in history. People do what they have to do, and they always have.

It's just starting to feel viable when Hank thinks too hard

about asking Connor if he wants to do it, if he wants to get married, and his resolve crumbles, because of course he's not going to do that, not when Connor looks the way he does and goes out with his similarly young and gorgeous dates, when he calls Hank regularly as a courtesy,

or out of some kind of sentimentality for their few weeks together.

Hank is almost feeling stupid enough that he wants to drink for the first time in weeks just to down some of that shame, but there's nothing in the house, so he just goes to bed.

The trouble is that the thought doesn't quite leave him in the morning.

Maybe he feels bad for Connor, or maybe he thinks the DPD could really benefit from him, or maybe he's just still trying to atone for some of the shit he said and did to him last November.

Whatever it is, he's still thinking about it.

So Hank spends the next evening doing some research into it, enough to know that they would have to file two months in advance of the wedding, but that then Connor would be eligible to work in the states on his conditional resident

status.

They would have to live together and be married for three years before Connor could become a full citizen. It's a long time. It doesn't deter Hank, but it might be too long for Connor...if he even wants to come back to Detroit this badly at all.

Hank keeps going. He pokes his head into Jeff's office as he's leaving the next day and says, "Hey. Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah. Come in."

Hank waits until the door is shut behind him, and then he says, "How serious were you about wanting Connor back?"

"Uh. I mean, I'd like him back, yeah."

"I'm going to say something, and you're going to think I'm full of shit, but I'm serious."

"Okay..."

"If Connor and I were married, would you be able to work around that?"

Jeff looks like he only just manages not to spit out his coffee.

"Fucking *what*, Hank?"

Hank shrugs. "You know there's only one way we get him back on the force."

"Jesus." Fowler scrubs a hand over his face. "You're not serious."

"I already told you I am. Just humor me, okay?"

Jeff sighs. "He couldn't report to you, and he couldn't be

your partner - which frankly is a third of his appeal, the way he keeps you in line, but oh well, *I guess* - but I could make an exception to keep you both on android crimes since the cases are highly specialized and expertise is hard to come by."

"So you would allow it."

"I guess," Jeff says. "What are you going to do, go pop the question?"

"No," Hank says, but talking to Connor is really all that's left.

Jeff looks like he doesn't believe him. "Look," he says. "I get it, but shit like this is messy, and I don't want you to get hurt."

"Thanks, Jeff," Hank says, because Jeff is a good friend, and he doesn't know how to tell him that he doesn't really care what happens to himself here. He has the space sitting unused, and he can either spend these three years alone or doing something for someone who deserves it,

and yes, at the end of it, he'll be alone again...but he knows how to be alone. He can manage.

At some point in the last two days, he's become committed to this.

All that's left, Hank supposes, is to see how much Connor wants to come home.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

They're supposed to talk that evening, so Hank figures he'll try to feel Connor out and use that as the guiding light for what he does here. And if Connor does want the job...well. Hank wants to do better for him than getting engaged over the phone.

He sits by his phone for half the night, mostly just because he's anxious and doesn't know what else to do with himself. He worries that since he and Connor just talked over the weekend, Connor will have made plans tonight, that he'll get a text from him asking if they can just

talk next week.

He cycles through all the same thoughts about how stupid this feels in the time he's sitting there, but the thing that feels truest is that he thinks it would be nice to have Connor back here again.

He thinks Jeff is onto something, that Connor is good for him.

So there's a chance this is still a little selfish, maybe. But if it's good for both of them in its own way, what difference does that make?

So Hank sits by his phone, and he waits, and he knows he could still go back on this, but he won't.

~~

Connor knows Hank thinks he's doing okay - and he is, he supposes, all things considered. His job is boring and does absolutely nothing to stimulate him, but it isn't bad. Kara, Luther, and Alice have been something like a stand-in family for him in the absence of any other,

and he's made other friends.

He knows he shouldn't complain, and he knows Hank wants him to be doing well, so he bites his tongue about it.

But somewhere after the date that he already knows isn't going to go any further with the tenth stranger who picked him up online,

Connor realized that he's trying to stimulate all the tendencies in him that are dormant without the work he's designed to do, that a night out with someone gives him a new little puzzle to neatly solve. It's never taken him longer than a night to figure someone out,

because most people are inherently boring to him, especially the android fetishists who try to connect with him in the first place.

(He realizes it makes him sound like shit to say he treats every single night out like an interrogation, a suspect he can put away,

but Connor isn't too precious to admit, at least to himself, that's what he's doing.)

He's usually pretty good at putting on some semblance of a happy face when he talks to Hank, but that's mostly why the email from Jeff Fowler got to him as much as it did.

There are parts of Canada he would be sorry to leave, Kara and Luther highest among them, but going back to the DPD to work their android victims unit investigations would suit him. It would give him work he liked, and that mattered, and it would put him back with Hank - who

Connor knew last November was one of his favorite people, but now he has the distance and the experience to say it with more certainty.

He would call Hank more if he didn't want to look too clingy, and if he wasn't worried that Hank won't like the person he's developed into

nearly as much.

Connor calls Hank at eight that evening, on the dot, the way he always does. He can usually tell when Hank has been waiting by the phone, and he's reasonably sure he has been tonight.

It warms him the smallest bit, especially after a difficult weekend thinking

about Jeff's email and all the ways his life isn't really what he might like it to be.

"Hey," Hank says on the other end of the line, and Connor sighs, sinking back into the couch in his studio apartment.

"Hi," he says. "How are you?"

"I'm okay."

Connor twists to lie back on the couch. "Are you? You sound distracted or something."

"Just had a long day," Hank says. "Jeff was talking about wanting you back on the force."

Connor furrows his brow. "I told him why I can't take the job."

"No, I know," Hank says. "He gets it. He just...kind of misses having you around. And I do, too. We're feeling sentimental about it, I guess."

"You should stop that, probably," Connor says, and it's meant to be a joke, but he's not sure it comes across.

"Yeah," Hank says. "Sorry. I'm not trying to keep bringing it up."

"No, it's okay. There's just not much point in talking about it, you know?"

"Yeah," Hank says again. He's quiet for a moment, long enough that Connor is about to change the subject, but then he says, "Hey.

If you could come back, I would want you to. I miss working with you. I just...I don't know. Want you to know that, I guess."

He's being weird, but Connor can't quite place his finger on exactly why that might be. "I would want to, too," he says softly. "I miss you, too."

He'll see later how Hank pinned him down there, how he moved so expertly and yet seemed so unassuming that Connor never saw it beyond thinking something was just a little off.

Connor doesn't like talking about what he wants, especially when the things he wants are things he

can't have. Hank already asked him what he wanted once, and Connor deflected it - he said that what he wanted isn't important, and that he thinks Jeff is right about needing an android on the force, and that he was happy there, but never outright that he wants it now.

"Listen," Hank says. "I was thinking, and...it's been a while. Since I saw you."

"You know your phone has video calls, don't you?"

Hank huffs a laugh at that. "That's not what I mean, smartass. What if I came up and visited you this weekend?"

"Oh," Connor says, surprised. "Do you...want to?"

"Yeah. It's been a while since I went anywhere, and Canada's border hasn't been such a shitshow to get across in months. So...I don't know. It seems like a good time, I guess. If you're free and you want to."

Connor isn't free, but he doesn't mention that. He can call off his weekend shift tomorrow - he's never missed work, and his boss likes him. "Okay," he says, smiling a little. "Sure."

"Is there somewhere you like going? I'd offer to take you somewhere nice for dinner, but..."

Connor wouldn't mind going to a restaurant with him, even though there's not much more he can do than take a few sips of a drink, but he appreciates the offer "We can get dinner," he says. "You'll need to eat. There's a park downtown I like if you want to walk around afterwards."

"Cool," Hank says. "How about Saturday night? I'll pick you up."

"Okay." Connor bites the inside of his cheek around his smile. "I'd like that."

"Me too," Hank says.

"You're not going to tell me you're dying or anything, are you?" Connor asks skeptically, and Hank laughs.

"No."

"I'm just trying to figure out why you're suggesting this now. It's been...a long time."

"I know," Hank says. "Like I said. I guess I'm just feeling sentimental."

And Connor doesn't get it yet, but he certainly won't complain.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

They talk about the same sort of things they always do after that, about Hank's caseload and the book Connor read that week, and Hank says he needs to go to bed at eleven the same way he always does.

"Okay," Connor says when he does. "I'll see you Saturday?"

"Yeah," Hank says. "I'll try to get there around five, if that's okay? That will give us a few hours before I have to drive home."

"Okay," Connor replies. "I'm looking forward to seeing you."

"Me too," Hank says. "Night, Connor."

"Night."

Connor still thinks there's a reason

for this, even if he isn't sure what it might be. It's almost a six hour drive between them, so it isn't like it's *easy* for them to see each other, but they could have before now. They haven't, because...well, Connor doesn't quite know why.

He kept waiting for Hank to suggest it at the beginning, but he never did, and Connor took that as indication enough that Hank was kind of hoping he might leave him behind and build his own life in Canada, so that was what he tried in earnest to do.

And suddenly enough time had passed that maybe neither of them knew how to ask.

It's sort of sad when Connor thinks of it too long, so he doesn't. Instead, he occupies himself with trying to figure out what the catalyst for all of this is, even if he's no closer

come morning.

The days pass slowly, and with no more contact from Hank than Connor ever gets, but on Saturday morning, Hank texts him.

It's 7 am - Connor can picture him putting his coffee on while he watches Sumo in the yard, if that's even his morning routine anymore.

"Hey," it says. "I thought we could go here for dinner - is that okay?"

The link Hank included is for Bricco, which is an Italian restaurant downtown, and also the most expensive within fifty miles. "You're going to need reservations," Connor writes back, "and a suit. I think

they have a dress code."

"Yep, already done," is all Hank writes back, which leaves Connor staring at the message thread with him for a solid minute, uncharacteristically baffled, LED spinning yellow.

"What's the occasion?" he finally asks.

"I can't take you somewhere nice?" Hank replies. "I mean, I know you can't eat, but there's the atmosphere, or whatever."

"That's where guys take me when they want me to put out," Connor writes back, although he thinks better of it and deletes it without sending it.

"You're being weird," he says instead, which maybe isn't much better, and which also maybe isn't fair. The Hank Anderson he knew during their few weeks together wasn't one for fancy restaurants, but he only talks to Hank for a short time each week. How does he know this is even

out of character for him?

"Sorry," Connor writes before Hank can reply. "I didn't mean it like that. I just wasn't expecting the red carpet treatment. I thought we'd go to the burger place down the block or something."

Hank sends him a shrugging emoji back, which Connor hates,

because it doesn't help him interpret anything. "See you at five," Hank's next reply says. "Wear something nice."

"YOU wear something nice," Connor writes back, which isn't particularly mature *or* clever, but he's having trouble processing all of this, so it's what Hank gets.

Hank doesn't text him again, and Connor spends the rest of the day frustrated and unable to focus, the minutes crawling past even slower than they usually seem to, because something is happening here, and he just doesn't see what it is.

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)

Connor has exactly one suit - he has a uniform for work and rarely has a personal reason to dress up beyond a button up and a nice pair of jeans - so he puts the grey jacket on over his green and white checked shirt later that night, and then he fusses with his hair in the

mirror, even though it never does anything different than this.

He's sitting on the couch not even trying to read or watch something when his doorbell rings that evening, and Connor doesn't know why he gets up and straightens his tie and his hair one more time before he opens

it, except that at least his appearance is something he can control here since he still can't figure out what's going on.

When Connor does get the door, Hank is leaning against the frame, and he both looks better and healthier than he did when Connor last saw him,

and good in general, in comparison to anyone and not just his past self.

"Hey," Hank says, straightening up when Connor opens the door.

Connor smiles. "Hi."

There's an awkward pause before Hank says, "Ah, hell. Come here," and pulls Connor into his arms.

And it's easy to fall back into the way things used to be, maybe, because Connor folds into him easily. "It's good to see you," Connor says into his shoulder.

"Yeah. Sorry it took this long."

"It's okay," Connor whispers. "I get it."

Hank pulls away from him and squeezes his arms while he looks him over. "You look nice."

"Yeah, you look pretty presentable yourself," Connor says, elbowing him. "You ready to go?"

"What, I don't get to see your place?"

Connor opens the door a little wider so Hank can see

the small, single room he lives in. He's not ashamed of it, but he also doesn't feel any kind of particularly attachment to it, and there isn't much inside to show. "Would you like the tour?" he asks, deadpan, although it gets a smile out of Hank anyway.

"Let's go," Hank says,

putting a hand on Connor's shoulder and guiding him out of the apartment.

Hank's car is the same, and Hank's music is the same, although it's at a much more reasonable volume when he turns the key in the ignition. Connor glances around, taking his surroundings in,

but he waits until they've pulled out of the lot to make a show of narrowing his eyes and studying Hank like he's reading him.

"We're celebrating you getting promoted," he guesses, and Hank laughs outright at that.

"Work is going better, but not *that* much better."

"Okay," Connor says, "then you're retiring."

"Don't have the savings," Hank says. He's nervous, Connor thinks, but he's also the smallest bit amused by this.

Connor huffs a frustrated sigh. "We're celebrating *something*."

"We're celebrating seeing each other," Hank says.

Which is sweet, but it also isn't the truth.

"Alright," Connor says, drawing the word out in a way that indicates he doesn't believe him.

Hank laughs. "You haven't changed. I kind of forgot what this felt like."

Connor smiles. "What's that?"

"Being around you when you're trying to figure something out."

Connor elbows him. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not."

"No, it's good," Hank says. He hesitates and then says, "I just don't think we should talk about it in the car, you know?"

"So there is something."

"Yeah, you got me," Hank says. "Now stop guessing. We're not talking about it in the car"

Connor is quiet for a moment, and then he says, "A good thing?"

"Damn it, Connor," Hank laughs. "Just a serious thing, okay?"

(Green Card Marriage Thread Update)