fireincarnate | 31 - Video - Backdated to 4th

31 - Video - Backdated to 4th

[It's amazing, what playing with life and death will take out of you.

She's not sure what she did, exactly - just that she fixed something that was broken, and it took near everything she had. And it came on top of everything else - a month of being helpless, the chaos of the collision, the loss of everyone on Mirror Barge, their own people still missing.

(If she thinks about it took hard - about where Anya might be, if she's even alive - she thinks she might break.)

So she's just been resting. Recovering her strength, regaining her equilibrium. Talking to Morgana helped and hurt in equal measure, but it gave her the push she needed.

She knows how to put on a good face - to look calm and assured, even when she's twisted up inside. Her smile is warm and open, lit by the fire dancing round her fingers.]

I know we're all recovering right now. For those who don't know - I'm something of a therapist. If anyone wants to talk, I'm here.

[Current Patients]

How are you doing? Do you need anything?

[Wichita]

[Her smile turns rueful.] I'm sorry it took me this long to check in. Did you come through everything okay?

[Emperor]

[This is the first time she hesitates. She's not sure how she feels, now, about the choices she made on Mirror Barge. About how she's changed and what that means. About what his goal really was, in guiding her.

But ignoring it would be cowardly - and whatever his reasons, he helped her. He made her feel strong, secure, in ways she didn't think possible.]

I wanted to thank you. [Yes, that's true enough.] I know you had a bigger agenda, there, but I - I think I would have been a lot worse, without you there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm so tired it's better I write everything down. And you don't have to see me and answer me. Not until you're not tired. [Or ever.]

[a few hours later]

[She's been putting off coming back to Jean, not knowing if she should admit what she's about to, but someone has to hear it so they can tell her she's wrong.]

I think I'm supposed to be here, and I don't want to believe that. I had a long explanation, but this is the simple version that you'll actually want to read instead of skim.

[She can't deny the rest is nice, as she waits - laying in her own bed, surrounded by her own books and trinkets and photos, her oldest teddy bear clutched to her chest.

But it doesn't take her long to respond, when Touko answers.]

[Text]

I want to read anything you want to write, Touko.

But it never hurts, cutting to the heart of things. Why do you think you should be here?

I don't fully understand why, but I treated the Barge better than my home while we had guests, and when it was trying to destroy itself I tried to make it the older, better version I knew. I've never cared about somewhere before, not even places I should have been proud to live.

[She isn't ready to talk about what the mirrors held up to her, what she now knows about herself and Syo and why they can't ever really separate. She has to prepare Jean first, starting with the smaller ideas.]

Do you know why you didn't care before?

No one there mattered to me. I never had to see my parents at school, but if there was ever anyone I wanted to see, they always disappeared, no matter where I was. I made them disappear. Maybe I have a reason to wake up here.

A lot of us push people away to protect ourselves. But all it does is hurt us more, in the end.

Learning how not to do that - I think that's a good reason to be here. It's not a punishment.

I don't know if you understand it yet. I didn't just push them away. I killed them. Or she did. But she helped me while everyone else was here.

[Oh. Oh.]

...I understand.

[Dark Phoenix knows nothing of love!]

She protected you?

I don't know if you can. If you push someone away, you can still see them. Death was always final until I was here.

She kept me safe. I was so afraid after I came back to myself that I asked someone I

[She doesn't want to say it yet, that makes it real, or at least real to Jean; they would have to talk about it and Touko wants to make that part go away.]

thought I could trust it I could stay with them. They were going to do something disgusting to me before I drew blood on them. Syo told me about the rest.

[Her stomach turns, and not just because she's pondering the possibilities.

She remembers when Mesmero took them. She remembers him bending her mind like a broken toy.

She remembers what he wanted to do to her, and she remembers Phoenix stopping him.]

Neither of you was wrong, not you or Syo. If they had done something - it wouldn't have been your fault.

She's happy. She did what she was made for, she said. What she wished she could have done before instead of just using men who had only broken my heart.

[The above is typed in a rush, like she wants to get Jean to (what is to Touko, at least) the exciting part, that she gets it now. She rereads each of the next sentences before committing to the one after it. Neuter pronouns for Needy so Jean can't imagine who it was, sentences phrased to deflect any discussion of the Mirror Barge: but she doesn't go back to look at the first, find the other confession that she would like to talk about even less.]

I don't want to talk about it now that they're gone. It's only going to color what I thought of them, and that wasn't really them.

[She doesn't reply right away, taking a moment to consider. Would pushing Touko be good for her, right now?

No, she doesn't think so. If she ever decides she does want to talk about it, regardless, Jean will be there.

It's bad enough when it's someone you hate, someone who disgusts you. To have a friend twisted into something that would do that - ]

I understand.

...Touko, do you know what - created Syo in the first place? Why you needed to be protected?

One time she told a boy she was the positive side to counterbalance my negativity, and she was the "s" and I was the "m". Both are close enough to true I wanted to leave it there.

I don't think I can leave it there anymore, not when I've been honest with you about what she told me.

It's your choice.

But I think accepting the truth, and sharing it with people you trust, is a big part of moving forward.

[Jean listens, or reads, without saying anything harsh about her, but while Touko isn't stammering over her words her heart beats hard enough that she may as well be. She doesn't want to hear the simple "it isn't your fault" she heard before, and even if she's much less to blame for this than anything that happened with Needy she still thinks she isn't going to hear the whole truth.]

I'm not outlining every detail, and you don't have to read it yet if you aren't ready. I know how much everyone has gone through this month, so this can wait longer if you aren't ready.

My classmates always thought I was ugly and strange, and I think my mothers did too. There was someone who thought I was cute, though, and he wanted me for himself. I didn't know what to think. I knew it meant he thought I was different from other girls, that I was special to him. But at the same time, I was afraid of what else it meant. Syo started out protecting me from that, so I didn't have to see it. As time went on, she became more and more protective, telling me stories about how much fun it was to get rid of any boy who might get close to me again.

I don't think I need to tell the rest of the story. It won't matter if I go home, since he's almost certainly dead. Most of the people I knew from back home probably are.

[It's not hard to read between the lines.]

I think he targeted you, Touko. Because you were lonely, and vulnerable. And Syo - she's the part of you that wouldn't be touched, or used, or manipulated. She became everything you couldn't be.

But she's just as young as you are. She lashes out because she thinks it's the only way to keep you safe. And she enjoys it, because it makes her feel powerful.

I know what he was really doing to me now. No one had bothered to tell me the truth before him, so I didn't know that that was a way unrequited love could look. I always thought it was like staring across the ocean for someone you knew would never come back, not that you could be right next to them and

[There seems to have been a "send" key hit here, since the next message sent is pure random letters.]

Touko?

We can take a break, if you want. It's okay.

I want to get this over with. So I don't have to think about it anymore.

...Would it be easier if I was there with you?

You're tired.

[yes]

Not too tired to find your room.

Actually, I'm already moving. Too late, can't stop me now.

you don't

[and someone's already there. When she looks at her security feed the bush of red hair tells her it's safe to open the door, and she wilts, opening up with as little effort as she can.]

I said you needed to rest.

[Jean smiles, soft and warm, even as she leans against the doorframe.]

You're more important.

What can you do here that you can't do lying in your bed?

[Now that someone's there with her, a woman who wants to hear stories even more intimate than she ever told Makoto, she doesn't know how to answer her. The narrative demands tears or embraces, but she isn't about to give the one or ask for the other. She isn't about to break down now when none of what she has to say matters anymore.]

31 - Video - Backdated to 4th

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