I'm going home/Back to the place where I belong
Characters: Sky blue_shields, Bridge handy_psychic and Logan
Date/Time: Between July 1st, evening, and July 7th, evening
Location: The Fourth Floor, which has turned into their home, the Ranger Academy
Rating: G
Summary: Sky and Bridge have been kidnapped by the elevator and get to explore a very familiar place. (Learning what the S.P.D. letters stand for is with mod permission.)
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The elevator had jostled violently before allowing Bridge, Sky and Logan to leave it, making them drop their journals and trip over each other out the door, which closed before they could look back.
"... Damn it," Bridge groaned, sitting up and staring down at the pen still in his hand before pocketing it. Sky picked himself up and was about to offer a hand to Bridge when he stopped and got a good look around them.
"...No way," he whispered. Bridge began to ask what was wrong before he, too, looked around. The three were standing (or in Bridge's case, sitting) on a rather nondescript train platform... except the train right in front of them had a blue stripe and the familiar S.P.D. letters. The letters and a logo that looked like a dog's head were plastered all around them, in fact. Bridge stood up, gaping, and he and Sky stared at each other for a while, then around them again. Logan gave a confused mew.
Several mannequins in a few different types of uniform were bustling around, some of them marching in neat lines, others carrying things, some looking like they were simply in a hurry to get from one place to the other. Several feet away, there was a set of three escalators with four staircases on either side. Directional signs above them read things like "TRANSPORT BAY 6" with an arrow pointing right, and "S.P.D. COMMAND CENTER" with one pointing up and left.
"... Where are we?" Bridge whispered.
"I don't know," said Sky quietly. "But it feels..."
"...Right," Bridge affirmed. The elevator- or at least the familiar one that would take them back to Edensphere- was nowhere to be seen. "Might as well look around, right?" Bridge asked. He could feel his heart pounding with excitement for some reason.
"Yeah," Sky agreed. "We're not going back h- back to Edensphere until it wants us to come back," he added. Edensphere wasn't home, he reminded himself- it didn't matter how long he'd been there, how much it did FEEL like home in spite of everything, how at home he felt with Inara in his arms at night and his daily beat to look forward to. Except he couldn't quite convince himself of that... and this place was at once familiar and alien. Their distance from the place they'd come from due to the amount of time they'd spent in the Sphere, the things they'd experienced there, and the relationships they had forged with people from countless other worlds made it feel this way.
The two friends rode up the escalators to the highest level, their feet carrying them without much conscious thought through the immense, winding corridors. Logan paced and whined and took off when Bridge gave him permission to wander on his own. They passed by the area in one of Sky's memories where he'd argued with someone and been shot with a laser, breaking the S.P.D. bracelet he'd later found, gotten repaired, and then given to Inara to wear... but Sky chose not to bring it up. They could see a blue sky and what looked like an endless, bustling city out the windows on occasion, and even a river off in the distance. They stopped to look in a few rooms, but never for long, as though they were headed toward a familiar place and had no time to waste.
Finally, they lingered at what looked like a laboratory. It had equipment that was far more advanced than anything readily obtainable in the Sphere, including a computer console with several different kinds of microscopes and scanners attached to it. Sky wanted to move on, but he waited patiently while Bridge spent a long time looking around the lab, transfixed. There was a poster of the Periodic Table on the wall, racks and racks of test tubes and other lab equipment...
"This is the lab I saw in my first memory," Bridge finally explained when he rejoined Sky. "It's where Pinky and I rebuilt Logan."
"You gonna be alright?" Sky asked, seeing his friend's sad smile, and Bridge nodded.
"No use dwelling on it. I think we should move on; we don't know how much time we have here," he pointed out, and the two thus moved on. They rounded a corner and went through an open door, and both of them stopped, Sky actually giving a cry of surprise, as they faced an open room. In the center was a computer console with five stools surrounding it, and on each wall were more consoles with enormous screens and keyboards placed in front of them. At the back of the room, slightly raised, was a platform with a chair behind it, placed so that whoever sat there could easily keep an eye on everything happening in the room. On the wall behind it was a backlit version of the dog insignia, this time in the shape of a badge with the word "POLICE" over it, just like Bridge and Sky had inside their own badges. Bridge stood boggling a little while Sky walked up to the center console.
"Space Patrol Delta," he read from it in a strained voice. "S.P.D."
"No way," Bridge whispered. Sky went back to his friend, and for a while they both looked around the room with a sense of deep longing before moving on.
They next came upon what looked like a game or relaxation room. There was a large window along the back wall, and the room itself was occupied with tables and chairs, couches, beanbag chairs, arcade machines, a big screen TV, a chess board, a foosball table, and a fish tank. There was also a computer screen set into the back wall next to the window, with pictures of food flashing across it. In addition, three more doors led off the left and right sides, only one of which was open. Bridge let out a tiny cry as they walked in, and immediately checked out the open door.
"No WAY," Bridge repeated, louder this time.
The room they'd gone into was obviously a dorm room of some type. The left side of the room was messy and disorganized, with a blue stripe painted on the wall and a bed with a blue mattress. The right side had a red bed and stripe on the wall and was neat and clean. Sky took a few steps and sat down on the red bed, looking around him. It was sparsely-decorated, with a CD player on the shelves above the bed, along with several books. The bedside table held the familiar picture of young Sky and his father. A laptop and a well-worn book with the dog-head emblem on the cover lay on the desk.
"Bridge," said Sky, barely audible. "Do you think... I mean... did we..."
"Live here?" Bridge finished in the same voice.
"Yeah."
"It's- it's possible," Bridge whispered. "It feels right. Just like everything else has... I mean, there's the picture of you and your dad, too." He stared with wonder at the blue side of the room. The shelves held many more books, a solved Rubiks Cube, and a small plastic dinosaur. The desk had a desktop computer with, of all things, a toaster attached to it. And there was something else... "Huh," said Bridge, reaching for it. It was some sort of oddly familiar wrist-worn device, with a throttle on the side and an X and O- like the inside of Bridge and Sky's badges- on the face of it. It was white and gold and bore the Roman numeral VI.
"What is that?" Sky wanted to know.
"Dunno," said Bridge, absently sticking it in his pocket, too distracted by this place. "You know, Sky... I never really thought about our home much after we'd been here for a few months. Sure, I'd think about it when I got a memory, but that hasn't happened for a while."
"I know what you mean," said Sky. "I thought the same thing when we got here. Part of me wants to say that Edensphere isn't our home, but I can't really, truly think that way. Not 100%. Now that we're in this familiar place, though, I- I kinda want to stay."
"I feel like we belong here," Bridge agreed. "Even though there're no real people here, just the mannequins. For the first time, I really miss home. To the point where I almost feel sick. Suddenly I don't care as much about going back home to everyone and to my job. I want to go back to where we came from. Get all my memories back, like nothing ever happened."
"Yeah..."
The two were silent for a long while, looking around themselves, before Bridge stared out into the room they'd entered from. The Edensphere elevator door had suddenly appeared. Logan stood next to it, a battered stuffed elephant in his mouth. Bridge stood next to Sky and nudged him; the other man stood up when he noticed.
"... Let's go, little buddy. This place- wherever it is- isn't our home. Just an imitation of it."
"Right," said Bridge, trying to banish the feelings of longing and loneliness, knowing they wouldn't do much good in the end. "...Yeah, let's go. We have people waiting for us." The three of them stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed. They were grateful when it took them to the second floor, but Sky swore under his breath when they stepped out. "What's wrong?" Bridge asked.
"Did you notice our journals are gone?" Sky wanted to know. "We dropped them in the elevator, but they're nowhere to be seen now. When we left, too, it was sunset; now it's early evening. That means we've probably been gone a day, at least. We need to find someone we know..." He hesitated, turning toward Wellspring Island, his mind still back in that unknown place, but his heart tugging him back to Edensphere. To his Commander, his Captain, his friends, and the girlfriend he loved more deeply and completely than he loved even himself. Bridge put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a geniune smile, correctly guessing what he was thinking about.
"Go to Inara," he said. "She's probably worried about you."
"Are you sure?" Sky asked, feeling relief and a tiny bit of guilt, too. Bridge nodded firmly, as did Logan, the elephant still clamped in his mechanical jaws.
"Yeah. I'll see if Ghost is home; we can talk about this later."
"Thanks, Bridge."
And with that, the friends parted.
Date/Time: Between July 1st, evening, and July 7th, evening
Location: The Fourth Floor, which has turned into their home, the Ranger Academy
Rating: G
Summary: Sky and Bridge have been kidnapped by the elevator and get to explore a very familiar place. (Learning what the S.P.D. letters stand for is with mod permission.)
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The elevator had jostled violently before allowing Bridge, Sky and Logan to leave it, making them drop their journals and trip over each other out the door, which closed before they could look back.
"... Damn it," Bridge groaned, sitting up and staring down at the pen still in his hand before pocketing it. Sky picked himself up and was about to offer a hand to Bridge when he stopped and got a good look around them.
"...No way," he whispered. Bridge began to ask what was wrong before he, too, looked around. The three were standing (or in Bridge's case, sitting) on a rather nondescript train platform... except the train right in front of them had a blue stripe and the familiar S.P.D. letters. The letters and a logo that looked like a dog's head were plastered all around them, in fact. Bridge stood up, gaping, and he and Sky stared at each other for a while, then around them again. Logan gave a confused mew.
Several mannequins in a few different types of uniform were bustling around, some of them marching in neat lines, others carrying things, some looking like they were simply in a hurry to get from one place to the other. Several feet away, there was a set of three escalators with four staircases on either side. Directional signs above them read things like "TRANSPORT BAY 6" with an arrow pointing right, and "S.P.D. COMMAND CENTER" with one pointing up and left.
"... Where are we?" Bridge whispered.
"I don't know," said Sky quietly. "But it feels..."
"...Right," Bridge affirmed. The elevator- or at least the familiar one that would take them back to Edensphere- was nowhere to be seen. "Might as well look around, right?" Bridge asked. He could feel his heart pounding with excitement for some reason.
"Yeah," Sky agreed. "We're not going back h- back to Edensphere until it wants us to come back," he added. Edensphere wasn't home, he reminded himself- it didn't matter how long he'd been there, how much it did FEEL like home in spite of everything, how at home he felt with Inara in his arms at night and his daily beat to look forward to. Except he couldn't quite convince himself of that... and this place was at once familiar and alien. Their distance from the place they'd come from due to the amount of time they'd spent in the Sphere, the things they'd experienced there, and the relationships they had forged with people from countless other worlds made it feel this way.
The two friends rode up the escalators to the highest level, their feet carrying them without much conscious thought through the immense, winding corridors. Logan paced and whined and took off when Bridge gave him permission to wander on his own. They passed by the area in one of Sky's memories where he'd argued with someone and been shot with a laser, breaking the S.P.D. bracelet he'd later found, gotten repaired, and then given to Inara to wear... but Sky chose not to bring it up. They could see a blue sky and what looked like an endless, bustling city out the windows on occasion, and even a river off in the distance. They stopped to look in a few rooms, but never for long, as though they were headed toward a familiar place and had no time to waste.
Finally, they lingered at what looked like a laboratory. It had equipment that was far more advanced than anything readily obtainable in the Sphere, including a computer console with several different kinds of microscopes and scanners attached to it. Sky wanted to move on, but he waited patiently while Bridge spent a long time looking around the lab, transfixed. There was a poster of the Periodic Table on the wall, racks and racks of test tubes and other lab equipment...
"This is the lab I saw in my first memory," Bridge finally explained when he rejoined Sky. "It's where Pinky and I rebuilt Logan."
"You gonna be alright?" Sky asked, seeing his friend's sad smile, and Bridge nodded.
"No use dwelling on it. I think we should move on; we don't know how much time we have here," he pointed out, and the two thus moved on. They rounded a corner and went through an open door, and both of them stopped, Sky actually giving a cry of surprise, as they faced an open room. In the center was a computer console with five stools surrounding it, and on each wall were more consoles with enormous screens and keyboards placed in front of them. At the back of the room, slightly raised, was a platform with a chair behind it, placed so that whoever sat there could easily keep an eye on everything happening in the room. On the wall behind it was a backlit version of the dog insignia, this time in the shape of a badge with the word "POLICE" over it, just like Bridge and Sky had inside their own badges. Bridge stood boggling a little while Sky walked up to the center console.
"Space Patrol Delta," he read from it in a strained voice. "S.P.D."
"No way," Bridge whispered. Sky went back to his friend, and for a while they both looked around the room with a sense of deep longing before moving on.
They next came upon what looked like a game or relaxation room. There was a large window along the back wall, and the room itself was occupied with tables and chairs, couches, beanbag chairs, arcade machines, a big screen TV, a chess board, a foosball table, and a fish tank. There was also a computer screen set into the back wall next to the window, with pictures of food flashing across it. In addition, three more doors led off the left and right sides, only one of which was open. Bridge let out a tiny cry as they walked in, and immediately checked out the open door.
"No WAY," Bridge repeated, louder this time.
The room they'd gone into was obviously a dorm room of some type. The left side of the room was messy and disorganized, with a blue stripe painted on the wall and a bed with a blue mattress. The right side had a red bed and stripe on the wall and was neat and clean. Sky took a few steps and sat down on the red bed, looking around him. It was sparsely-decorated, with a CD player on the shelves above the bed, along with several books. The bedside table held the familiar picture of young Sky and his father. A laptop and a well-worn book with the dog-head emblem on the cover lay on the desk.
"Bridge," said Sky, barely audible. "Do you think... I mean... did we..."
"Live here?" Bridge finished in the same voice.
"Yeah."
"It's- it's possible," Bridge whispered. "It feels right. Just like everything else has... I mean, there's the picture of you and your dad, too." He stared with wonder at the blue side of the room. The shelves held many more books, a solved Rubiks Cube, and a small plastic dinosaur. The desk had a desktop computer with, of all things, a toaster attached to it. And there was something else... "Huh," said Bridge, reaching for it. It was some sort of oddly familiar wrist-worn device, with a throttle on the side and an X and O- like the inside of Bridge and Sky's badges- on the face of it. It was white and gold and bore the Roman numeral VI.
"What is that?" Sky wanted to know.
"Dunno," said Bridge, absently sticking it in his pocket, too distracted by this place. "You know, Sky... I never really thought about our home much after we'd been here for a few months. Sure, I'd think about it when I got a memory, but that hasn't happened for a while."
"I know what you mean," said Sky. "I thought the same thing when we got here. Part of me wants to say that Edensphere isn't our home, but I can't really, truly think that way. Not 100%. Now that we're in this familiar place, though, I- I kinda want to stay."
"I feel like we belong here," Bridge agreed. "Even though there're no real people here, just the mannequins. For the first time, I really miss home. To the point where I almost feel sick. Suddenly I don't care as much about going back home to everyone and to my job. I want to go back to where we came from. Get all my memories back, like nothing ever happened."
"Yeah..."
The two were silent for a long while, looking around themselves, before Bridge stared out into the room they'd entered from. The Edensphere elevator door had suddenly appeared. Logan stood next to it, a battered stuffed elephant in his mouth. Bridge stood next to Sky and nudged him; the other man stood up when he noticed.
"... Let's go, little buddy. This place- wherever it is- isn't our home. Just an imitation of it."
"Right," said Bridge, trying to banish the feelings of longing and loneliness, knowing they wouldn't do much good in the end. "...Yeah, let's go. We have people waiting for us." The three of them stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed. They were grateful when it took them to the second floor, but Sky swore under his breath when they stepped out. "What's wrong?" Bridge asked.
"Did you notice our journals are gone?" Sky wanted to know. "We dropped them in the elevator, but they're nowhere to be seen now. When we left, too, it was sunset; now it's early evening. That means we've probably been gone a day, at least. We need to find someone we know..." He hesitated, turning toward Wellspring Island, his mind still back in that unknown place, but his heart tugging him back to Edensphere. To his Commander, his Captain, his friends, and the girlfriend he loved more deeply and completely than he loved even himself. Bridge put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a geniune smile, correctly guessing what he was thinking about.
"Go to Inara," he said. "She's probably worried about you."
"Are you sure?" Sky asked, feeling relief and a tiny bit of guilt, too. Bridge nodded firmly, as did Logan, the elephant still clamped in his mechanical jaws.
"Yeah. I'll see if Ghost is home; we can talk about this later."
"Thanks, Bridge."
And with that, the friends parted.