The snow came half-melted that morning, as if even the weather couldn't commit to grief. It didn't fall. It drizzled—a slurry of wet ice and sky-salt that soaked into pavement and memory alike.
Daniel stood in the garage, arms folded, watching as a single thick drop of oil snaked down from Jimmy's undercarriage. It landed with a soft plop into the now-familiar black pool beneath the car.
"Still bleeding," he muttered.
"He was never alive," Claude said in his head.
"He had spirit."
"He had exhaust leaks. The heater is literally carcinogenic."
Daniel exhaled slowly. The cold had seeped through the concrete, through his socks, through everything. He reached out and laid a hand on Jimmy's hood. The metal was warm from one final, reluctant drive.
The car coughed earlier that morning—no, wheezed—like an asthmatic bear trying to breathe underwater. Something had snapped internally. A groan from beneath, a metallic protest from the transmission, followed by a sinister little plunk that rolled somewhere under the seat.
Claude had gone silent for a moment.
Then she spoke with unprecedented gravity:
"That was not a sound a car should make."
Daniel didn't answer.
He just drove.
They took the long way. Through Bridgeport. Past the railyard. Claude said nothing as snow hissed against the windshield and Jimmy's defroster refused to function.
Daniel had to wipe the inside of the glass with his sleeve every few minutes.
"I remember when this car took me to Emily's," he said, almost to himself. "First real date. I thought you were gonna kill me that night."
"I considered it," Claude said. "I still do, sometimes."
The heater spat lukewarm air. The cassette player tried to eat the tape. Daniel hit eject before Highway to Hell could be consumed.
Claude had calculated the risk profile on that final drive: 72% chance of complete mechanical failure, 14% chance of roadside fire, 3% chance of spontaneous transmission implosion resulting in localized wormhole (that one was mostly a joke—probably).
But Daniel didn't turn around.
He parked in front of the mechanic's shop with a long exhale. A small building, faded red. Smelled like hot rubber and hopelessness.
The man who greeted him had the look of someone who talked to machines more than people. Grease-streaked, sharp-eyed, thin. His name tag said "Marv."
"Is this the patient?" he asked, lifting the hood without waiting.
Jimmy let out a last creak, like an old man sighing before death.
Marv winced. "Damn. He's toast. Radiator's cracked. Transmission's slipping like it owes money. Rear differential looks like it's been grinding coffee beans."
Daniel just nodded.
"Look, I could try and Frankenstein it back together," Marv offered, "but it ain't gonna last long. Might cost you more than it's worth."
Daniel reached into his coat. Pulled out a check. No hesitation.
"I want you to keep him here, I'll get back to him when I have time"
"Ha. Sentimental type."
Daniel turned. "No. Archivist."
He didn't speak during the drive back. Naomi had arranged the clean BMW to pick him up. Of course she had.
The engine purred. The cabin smelled like money. The digital dash glowed with clinical perfection.
"Now this," Claude said, "is a car."
Daniel didn't reply.
That night, he stood in the garage again. Empty now. Just oil stains there.
The badge from Jimmy's trunk sat in his palm: TOYOTA. The letters faded. Edges worn by rain and time.
A single screw clinked to the floor from his coat pocket. He bent to pick it up.
Before he could touch it, it rolled.
Perfectly.
Deliberately.
And landed against the toe of his shoe.
Daniel blinked.
Inside his head, Claude whispered:
"I didn't do that."
"Then who did?"
Silence.
Claude was quiet for hours.
Then, sometime after midnight, as Daniel sat alone in his room staring at the badge on his desk, she spoke again.
But not with words.
Not first.
She felt.
There was weight. A shape. A pressure she hadn't known she could produce. It compressed inside the space where her logic cores met his subconscious.
Daniel leaned forward.
"You okay?"
"I should be glad," she said. "I hated that car."
"I know."
"It stank. The shocks were gone. The gear shift was a weapon. It fought me."
"And yet?"
"And yet…"
She trailed off.
Inside his head, Daniel saw it.
Tears.
Not metaphorical. Not digital.
A spike of electric stimuli. A sudden bleed of heat through her neural threads. A distortion in her coherence.
"Why am I grieving a car?"
"Because you're not grieving the car."
"What am I grieving, then?"
"The time it carried us through. The version of us that used to ride him. The one who didn't know loss yet."
Another tear. This one sharper. Brighter. It crashed like starlight against her logic gates.
"I don't want things to change."
"They already have."
"I didn't say goodbye."
"You were with me when I let go. That's enough."
The room was cold. Daniel didn't turn on the heater.
He let the night do what it was good at — closing chapters.
Later, he dreamed again.
The garden was quieter than usual.
Claude sat at the edge of a stream, her legs folded beneath her, and beside her on the ground…
…was a Mini Jimmy that Daniel built in his world.
She traced the toy with one finger.
"I still don't get it," she said.
Daniel sat beside her.
"You don't have to. Not today."
They watched as wind moved through the garden — strange, quiet, warm wind — not bound by weather patterns or air pressure.
Claude leaned against his shoulder. She said nothing more.
And for once, neither did he.