[She's not at all sure how to respond to that. A number of prompts and instincts collide, and it's rare, very rare, to see her at a complete loss for words.]
[Finally:]
Oh, I'm sorry - I thought the idea of it was expressing care and affection, symbolically, I didn't...I mean, I do care and I do feel considerable affection towards you, it's just...
[She clams up again for a long, awkward moment; reddening quite a bit more than before.]
I wasn't trying to...I mean, I'm a...
[She leaves the 'I'm a machine' unsaid, barreling on. Awkwardly. She stops, an exasperated look on her face. She finally brushes past the presumption that that fact alone would disqualify her in organic books.]
This is all very hard to express. I had no intentions other than saying I cared and you are Alice and thus special for reasons I cannot entirely put into words and I didn't mean to upset you and I can see how you would presume otherwise since you are aesthetically pleasing and wonderful company so this must happen a lot so that should have been an obvious connotation I would foresee and I should just...go, shouldn't I?
[You have flustered the murderbot. Achievement unlocked. She starts to stand, her mind very full with thoughts on the nature of feelings and how in the verse humans ever figure out where the borderland is between one kind and another.]
no subject
[She's not at all sure how to respond to that. A number of prompts and instincts collide, and it's rare, very rare, to see her at a complete loss for words.]
[Finally:]
Oh, I'm sorry - I thought the idea of it was expressing care and affection, symbolically, I didn't...I mean, I do care and I do feel considerable affection towards you, it's just...
[She clams up again for a long, awkward moment; reddening quite a bit more than before.]
I wasn't trying to...I mean, I'm a...
[She leaves the 'I'm a machine' unsaid, barreling on. Awkwardly. She stops, an exasperated look on her face. She finally brushes past the presumption that that fact alone would disqualify her in organic books.]
This is all very hard to express. I had no intentions other than saying I cared and you are Alice and thus special for reasons I cannot entirely put into words and I didn't mean to upset you and I can see how you would presume otherwise since you are aesthetically pleasing and wonderful company so this must happen a lot so that should have been an obvious connotation I would foresee and I should just...go, shouldn't I?
[You have flustered the murderbot. Achievement unlocked. She starts to stand, her mind very full with thoughts on the nature of feelings and how in the verse humans ever figure out where the borderland is between one kind and another.]