I don’t want anyone to think I’m skipping over their comments/reviews, but there is a lot to read here and I didn’t want to clog up the page with my own blabbing. 
So after you read through the rest of Chapter Nine, I’ll be happy to reply. 
Whew!!! I am so happy that I finally got the ball rolling again!!! This chapter was long overdue… aaaand you guys will probably kill me for what happens in this chapter. Honestly, I debated on whether or not to actually have this happen in the story for a long time, but after some thinking I decided it would work all right with the plot. I hope you guys end up agreeing!!
You can kill me after the story is over - how does that sound??
Okay, enough of my rambling… here’s the rest of (the long) Chapter Nine.
Chapter Nine
Part Two
She wondered how she could actually believe that he was a person to be trusted.
Any trace of trust in him had been completely shattered. But she still loved him.
With her head hung in sorrow, she trudged through the doors of McCrea’s cozy home one afternoon after spending most of it with Alex. Mo immediately noticed the agony written on her face and shot up from his seat as soon as she entered the house.
“Eve, what’s wrong? What happened?” he breathlessly wondered. Eve never looked up at the words and placed a quivering hand on the handle of her bedroom door. A tear silently rolled down her face and dripped off onto the floor. Slowly shaking her head, she let go of another desolate sigh.
“It’s over, Mo,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she spoke. “I had to break up with Alex.”
For several long, agonizing seconds, Mo was left shocked. She had to break up with him? The same woman who had loved him so passionately decided to break up with him?
His gut began to churn at the realization. He could have only done something terrible to her to make her want to call it off. It wasn’t a complete surprise - Mo and McCrea already knew it was part of his nature. Obviously, Eve never saw it coming. But what exactly he had done was still in the grey.
He was unsure of what to say to her for a long time. “Would you… want to talk with me about it?” he finally managed. “I know I’m younger than you, but I’ll listen.”
Eve wiped her eyes as dry as she possibly could and mustered a small smile. “I would love that, Mo.”
Idiot! How could you have just let her go like that?!
Alex had been battling with his own thoughts for hours after Eve had left, as well as feelings he never before had to deal with.
Why do you act that way toward her? You’ve never been this way before! Where did you get the idea that this was all right?
He pressed his face into the palms of his hands and heaved another exasperated sigh. I don’t know… it’s almost as if there’s something in me that justifies it.
Justifies? Your behavior is completely inappropriate and violates everything that you are! For once in your life, you departed from protocol and pursued that which was based off of a feeling! A mere feeling! When did it become standard to take action based on feelings?
Alex stood up and began pacing the room, a hand pressed to his head as he walked. I’ve never had feelings before - that’s the thing. By human nature, feelings can drive you to do things you otherwise would not have done. And… I never actually realized that until now. But something else in me seemed to believe that I could justify what I’ve done - as if a long-lost memory gave me that assurance… and that… desire. Protocol or not - I love her.
It was as if he were battling with two opposing personalities both residing in his brain. But she broke up with you. She doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore.
[i]She just needs time to reel from the initial blow. Things will even out eventually.
But what would[/i] you do if she never came back? What if she never forgives you?
Alex finally leaned against a wall, trying to keep himself upright. [i]But I… I love her… I can’t… let her go… If it weren’t for her, I would have never actually started thinking…
And it’s that same thinking that’s gotten you in trouble.[/i]
He knew he couldn’t win against his old self; that part of him that was so set in its ways. Something about straying from a uniform standard of behavior had never set right in his gut. Being a human, he had thought, would allow him these freedoms of thought and feeling that he had once only dreamed about. Yet the old self somehow longed for the days when thoughts and feelings were put aside and duty came first.
Only thing was, there was no longer any duty.
He was human. A new directive had to be found.
McCrea hadn’t heard anything of Eve coming home upset, as he had been working out in the fields with some of his co-workers for most of the day. As the sun got ready to set on the horizon, he wiped his brow and took a seat beside a piece of high-tech farming equipment. Out of the corner of his eye, he happened to catch a glimpse of Mo slowly walking his way, and upon seeing him waved him over.
“Hey there, Mo,” he said, grinning as the thirteen year-old came to stand beside him. “What’s up?”
Instead of smiling back, Mo’s already distraught expression turned into one of unease. “Can… can I talk with you for a minute?”
McCrea cocked his head, a bit confused. “Sure,” he slowly replied, standing up. Mo began to wring his hands as they walked away from the rest of the crew, and McCrea thought he heard the teen gulp as he prepared to speak.
“Uncle McCrea, there’s something I need to tell you about Eve,” he eventually managed, his voice now beginning to quiver.
“You don’t have to be nervous about telling me anything, Mo,” McCrea assured him.
“I’m not nervous about telling you,” Mo spoke up, raising his voice a bit as he spoke. “I’m more nervous about how you’re going to deal with Eve.”
Now McCrea was beyond confused. “Mo, can you just tell me what’s going on?!”
For several painful moments of silence, Mo refused to say anything. Finally he glanced up, his eyes round and filled with fear.
“Uncle McCrea,” he hoarsely whispered, “Probe1 just found out that she’s… positive.”
That was it. McCrea had finally had enough of that Alex O’Neill. He was ready to settle this score once and for all.
It was painfully obvious that the man hadn’t changed at all since he broke out of jail. McCrea had been lenient enough to give him the benefit of the doubt concerning Eve’s relationship with him, but this…? This had simply gone too far. All it did was prove that Alex never actually had deep, heartfelt feelings for Eve or respect for her well-being.
McCrea finally made a point of stopping at Alex’s house several weeks after the whole ordeal had transpired, intending to lay down the law with him. Alex had absolutely no forewarning about McCrea’s intent to visit and was surprised to see him standing in the doorway one rainy afternoon.
“Can I help you, sir?” he slowly wondered, immediately recognizing McCrea as Eve’s caretaker.
“Yeah, I’d like to talk with you for a minute,” McCrea bluntly replied, helping himself into the house. Alex surpressed a groan at the words.
A minute? This guy looks like he means business… this is going to take much longer than one stupid minute.
“Sure, whatever you’d like,” Alex found himself mumbling as he half-consciously offered McCrea a seat at the dinner table. “You… you want anything to drink?”
“Just sit down and stop being such a butt kisser,” McCrea angrily demanded, thrusting a seat out for Alex to sit in. “I’ve got something serious to talk about, and you know exactly what that is. So shut your yap and lemme have my say.”
Alex obeyed without showing any visible sign of reluctance, when everything inside of him wanted to lash back at McCrea just as hard. He never thought he’d have to endure another controversial confrontation with McCrea again in his life, but yet here he was all over again. Memories he had long since forgotten flooded back to him now as he blankly stared back at McCrea’s determined glare. Their eyes never wavered from the other; set intently on the pair staring back as if the meeting was solely meant to be a staring contest. Back in the day, Alex would have won that game.
“So you break out of jail; lie to Eve, pretending that you love her when you have other intentions; and give her a kid she doesn’t want… and you expect to get away with it all?” McCrea coldly wondered. Alex’s face went white at the words.
Break out of jail?! he wanted to sputter aloud, what’s he talking about?!
“I’ve talked with the police about you a while back, you know,” McCrea continued, “they say they haven’t been able to get their hands on you for months now. I promised if I ever saw you again, I’d turn you in… but when Eve told me that you were nothing like what the police said you were, I decided to give you a chance. So much for not being what they said you were, huh? You actually thought you could pull off the nice-guy, didn’t you?”
“But you’re completely mistaken, sir,” Alex insisted. “First of all, I have absolutely no knowledge of breaking out of jail. Secondly, I was never trying to-”
“No knowledge?!” McCrea yelled, almost laughing. “You’re the one who broke out! How could you not know that?!”
“Look, it’s a long story,” Alex sighed. “But you have to believe me - I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, so you don’t remember stealing from your former boss while working on buildings after the Axiom landing?” McCrea retorted. “You don’t remember those times when the cops pulled you over for driving drunk? Or raping and murdering that innocent woman? None of that rings a bell?!” He shook a finger at Alex as he continued to speak. “And don’t give me the whole ‘I suffered severe brain trauma’ crap, 'cuz I’m not gonna buy it!”
“I think that if you calmed down just a bit, we could talk this over more peaceably,” Alex firmly replied, keeping his cool as best as he possibly could. “As I said before, I don’t recall any of the things you claim that I’ve done. But maybe who I am now is completely different than who I was.”
McCrea was baffled at the words. “But you haven’t-”
“Do you consider me to be evil, sir?” Alex suddenly interrupted. McCrea sputtered for several moments before answering.
“W-well, well I-”
“Do you?” Alex asked again, more forcefully that time.
McCrea hesitated. “Y-yes…”
“So then you haven’t changed at all from who you used to be, either,” Alex smartly finished.
“What are you talking about?” McCrea cried. “This is my first time actually talking with you!”
“Oh, you know me,” Alex objected, his tone of voice dropping to almost a whisper. “You know me probably more than anyone else.”
McCrea was left speechless; part of him confused, the other part a bit creeped out. But the more he thought about that last sentence, and the more he recalled the information given to him by the police officers, he found everything eerily falling into place. He remembered first seeing Alex’s picture and how he was immediately reminded of the photographs of AUTO back in the Captain’s Quarters on the Axiom; and how the initials of Alex’s full name just happened to spell AUTO, of all things; and not only did Mo claim McCrea had already met Alex, but now Alex himself was making the same claim. It couldn’t be…
But it had worked with EVE and M-O.
“You believed that I was evil simply because I so strictly followed my directive, did you not?” Alex continued, breaking the uneasy silence. “And it seems to me that you believe I’m the same way even though I’m a completely different person now.” He paused for a good while, intently watching McCrea’s angry expression turning to one of shock and disbelief. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
McCrea slowly nodded. “Yeah… I think so…”
“You believed I had been shut down for good up there; but that was before you learned that I’m a human just like Eve and Mo are now,” Alex continued, retaining a calm demeanor as he spoke and slowly revealed the truth to McCrea. “So what was it you were thinking as you apologized for shutting me down just before the Axiom landing?”
“I… I guess I was thinking I was wrong about believing AUTO - err, you - were evil because you were willing to defend your directive no matter what it-”
“Exactly what I’ve been trying to say,” Alex interjected, sitting back in his seat. Finally, he was getting through that thick skull of McCrea’s. “So if I am indeed AUTO in human form - like Eve and Mo are - then wouldn’t that explain why I don’t remember anything you said that Alex O’Neill did?”
McCrea was left stunned; speechless once again. Alex leaned forward in his seat, locking gazes once again with a bewildered McCrea.
“Who said people couldn’t change the way they are living their life?” he asked him. “Do you honestly believe that I am completely evil? Or will you accept what I’ve tried to tell you and believe me when I say I know nothing about Alex O’Neill’s past? All I can give you is what I know; not what he knew.” He shrugged and sat back in his seat. “And… for the record… I think I’m smarter than him. Whatever I’ve done wrong I’ll attempt to right. You have my word.”
It had been just over twelve years since McCrea had argued with that adamant robot; and to this day, he still couldn’t win against him. No matter how he tried to present his argument as legitimate and viable, he couldn’t deny that Alex was telling the dead honest truth about his side of the story.
So many italic tags… sooooo many… 
little chef
I really hope you enjoy what I’ve written in this next section. (Just to warn you, it gets kind of melancholy. 
)
).
