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Android burials were different from human burials. Depending on the how and why the android died, their hardware was recycled and biocomponents were incinerated. They did not decompose naturally and as a whole the norm in android society was to cremate any other remains along with the bio component.
It was just as painful to receive an urn as it was to place a grave marker.
It was only a matter of time before police work caught up with Connor. Rupert hadn’t particularly liked the fact that Connor was active in the field. But he understood why Connor wanted to be a police consultant and eventually a detective. He loved solving crimes, loved using his programming to connect dots and collect evidence. He always said he felt like he was making a difference, making the world a better place.
Connor had been on a standard case. He was investigating the murder of a woman who had washed up from the river. They had been able to identify her and when Connor and his partner Hank Anderson went to question the family the husband had been spooked. There was a shootout and Connor's Thirium pump regulator had been critically damaged. There was nothing that could have saved him or brought him back. His systems had overheated frying his circuitry.
It had nearly killed Rupert when the police informed him that his husband had died.
Afterwards, he went into deep stasis for days at a time, only emerging when Ralph became too concerned for his well-being. Those days had been bleak, colorless. They had all morphed together in some abstract time where he was grieving the loss of his love. More than once he had to go to the clinic due to dehydration of saline from the tears that seemed to overcome him.
His grief had crashed over him, beating him down on metaphorical stones. It wore him down and until all he could feel was an overwhelming nothing. A catatonic state where the only indication he was still activated was the gentle whirring of his internal fans.
Eventually, he saw color again. He was working in the greenhouse that he volunteered at. He was the only one who made it to the greenhouse because a snowstorm had come through the night. He wanted to make sure the months of planting and watering didn't go to waste, he wanted to make sure the greenhouse still stood. It had become his sanctuary and he couldn't lose that too.
He remembers how bright a cardinal was against the freshly fallen snow. Then the carrots in the greenhouse became more vibrant in his hands, like a veil had fallen from his eyes and he was able to see again. He sobbed, realizing he was feeling something else for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.
Rupert knew this walkway well that he was on. He had taken this stroll many times over the last few years. In the beginning, he couldn’t make it all the way. He had often stopped halfway and turned around before he could leave whatever offering he had.
Now his steps were steady now as he found his destination. Kneeled down in front of the headstone, he gently wiped the leaves from the cold, grey stone.
Connor - Mark (I)
RK800 #313 248 317 - 51
I am, I was
Died September 28th, 2044
Rupert places the white lilies along the base of the stone. Though Connor had been cremated, Hank had wanted a tombstone to be placed next to his other son's. Rupert moves to clean that headstone as well, placing white lilies on his grave when it was clean.
“I thought you would be here today.” A gruff voice says from behind him.
He hums before saying, “It's been three years now.”
Rupert stands and turns towards Hank. A few more wrinkles had settled by his eyes but he wasn't any worse for wear. Hank and him had a tenuous relationship at first but over time they had become friends.
Then Connor died.
Together they had become survivors of sorts, bonding over their mutual grief. The days Rupert could make it out of his home, he had gone to Hank. At first they didn't talk much but the more time they spent together the more each had opened up.
“I understand that feeling intimately but,” Hank had said, when Rupert had described some of his darker impulses he had been having lately, “I've already lost two sons, I don't want to lose a third.”
And Rupert didn't want to lose Hank either. So they stayed close and found solace together.
Hank moved around Rupert setting down his own flowers that he had brought. Sunflowers. Bright and beautiful.
“I miss him.” Rupert found himself saying “I still have days where it's difficult to function properly.”
There was a quiet pause as Hank rearranged the flowers and then he said, “Me too, son.”
They walk together out of the cemetery, finding their way to a park nearby. The autumn changed the colors of the trees, yellow, red, and mostly brown leaves remained. Leaves that crunched under their feet as they talked and reminisced together.
It was painful but there was also laughter with the stories now.
Connor had been alive.
He had lived.
And now he was remembered.