The first thing it remembered was pain. It's ship had crashed, and in the devastation that followed it had been rended in half. It could survive for a few hours like this, but then it would die, alone and forgotten on an alien planet, its mission far from complete.

Then there was a boy. A small member of the invading organic species it had been ordered to wipe out. Rage filled its circuits, an emotion its makers had implanted specifically to fuel its merciless genocide. In idle moments it had wondered why it required such an imprecise and messy drive when it could just be given a mission, it had been programmed to follow orders without question after all. Idle moments were few. The half of it still capable of movement chased the boy through the trees.

In his panic, the child ran and climbed right up to the other half of it without even noticing. It would have considered it luck, one final step towards its mission goal before it died, but it was not to be. The boy was out of reach. They were both stuck there.

The child spoke for hours, both to it and to a machine on his wrist. It never learned the speech of the creatures it was tasked to destroy, there was no reason. For the first time, it was reconsidering that course of action. These invaders might be so alien that both it and its creators could barely understand them, but some communication might help it at least fill the pained echoing in the back of its head, if not allow it to get within reach of the boy.

There were two key pieces it was able to pick up; the child's name, Will Robinson, and the word 'danger'.

Night had fallen and a fire raged, possibly sparked from its crashed ship. Will Robinson was terrified and certain he was going to die, that much was certain even to something like it. Something happened after that, when the certainty of death settled into the child, he focused on it. On how its lights were fading and how it could barely keep upright, on the pained hunch of its shoulders. Will Robinson noticed and cared for it, a thing that was some scant hours ago trying to murder him. Will Robinson saw how its other half was attempting a reconnection it could never reach, a reconnection that would save its life. It watched confused as the child cut through the branch holding this half of it so that it could reunite itself and heal.

Will Robinson resigned himself to death even as he saved his would be murderer.

It shuddered as it reconnected, everything resetting and restoring as the fire raged around them. Where was it? What was it doing here? All it remembered was the tree and the boy. Its memory banks were compromised from damage.

It looked up, Will Robinson was still in the tree, waiting to die. That death would not come. The boy had saved it, and now such would be repaid in kind. It leaped onto the branch and picked up the helpless boy.

"Danger, Will Robinson," it said, trying to communicate that it would save him with the only words it knew how to say.

It leaped out of the tree and ran.

On a cliff overlooking the forest, the fire in full view but unable to reach them, the Robot looked down at the scared boy who had saved it. He was still afraid, of it perhaps? It shifted, combining its four arms into two, changing the structure of its feet and legs, so that its form more resembled that of Will Robinson's. Although still shaken, the child had relaxed.

What now though? It remembered nothing. A flash of a crashed ship, then the tree. It didn't know anyone other than this boy, if it left to search then it would be alone without purpose, and Will Robinson would be helpless again. The boy who had saved it in spite of all danger posed to himself.

This would be its purpose, then. Until its memory banks were restored and its original mission was regained, it would protect Will Robinson.