Comments | giga_city: shoulda left my phone at home, cause this is a DISASTUH

experient in giga_city

shoulda left my phone at home, cause this is a DISASTUH

Jun 02, 2010 21:49

[The dead Zero is being moved by the medical team to proper containment, the Force Metal -- she'll have to ask X more about that later -- is in a sample tube for her to look at later, and as enlightening (or maybe not enlightening, but at least interesting) as it's been spending the past while in a room full of X's and Zeros, trying to figure out ( Read more... )

[x] tothexthpower, [zero] final_number, [alia] experient

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tothexthpower June 3 2010, 03:50:38 UTC

[Alia isn't the first person to have to get out of that room with it's too familiar corpse, the confusion and stress, and the creeping doubts about himself and everything happening. Down the hall, X leaned against the transparent window panel that looked out on the ocean. Aside from lights reflecting from the city on the water, it was dark out there.

X had needed to get out and try to clear his head. It was just too much to deal with at the moment. He had his eyes closed and was breathing in and out, just trying to clear his thoughts and push it all aside so that it wouldn't overwhelm him. He couldn't quite manage it.

There was a Zero in there who was dead. Without his core, he couldn't come back. Was he from the past? From the future? X found it didn't matter. He couldn't dismiss the body as a copy. The way he'd felt when he'd walked in and seen him there, dead... He'd known. Even without any logic or proof behind it, his... his heart had knownThe only think keeping him from breaking at that moment was that Zero was ( ... )

experient June 3 2010, 04:00:41 UTC

[She's not really expecting anyone to be out there, and Alia's got a lot on her mind, so it's only by a stroke of luck that she manages to not walk straight into X, and instead catches herself when she's barely a foot away.]

Oh -- I'm sorry, X, I didn't mean to --

I didn't realize you were already out here.

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 04:22:50 UTC

[X is snapped out of his thoughts at Alia's voice. Startled, he looks up and then straightens up himself.]

Alia- No, no, it's okay.

I was just-- I needed a moment.

experient June 3 2010, 04:27:22 UTC

[somewhere between dry and sympathetic] I think I can understand that.

[And after a pause, she realizes she's probably still standing a little close, and hastily takes a step back, turning to look out the window herself.]

I wanted to know if you were holding up alright anyway, so I guess it works out, right?

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 04:40:14 UTC

[X blinks a little as she steps back suddenly. He watches her for a second as she looks out the window. But when she asks him that he glances away, out the window, then down at his hands for a few seconds before answering.]

...As well as can be expected, I guess.

[Which was not at all, really. But he wasn't about to answer so bluntly.]

experient June 3 2010, 04:46:38 UTC

Given the circumstances, it wouldn't be fair of me to expect too much.

[She doesn't really want to pry, not directly, but she's pretty sure there's a lot he isn't saying.]

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 05:37:54 UTC

[There's not really anything he can say to that. He doesn't want to just dump everything he's dealing with on her.

She can't answer most of his questions. It'd be so much easier if she could. But it would be unfair of him to expect that from her.

There's a long moment of silence before he speaks again.]

...You know, I'm not even sure when you arrived in Giga City?

[Another, briefer pause.] I don't remember you ever coming here...

experient June 3 2010, 05:42:28 UTC

They've had a lot of turnover in their navigation staff recently; I was temporarily reassigned to help them train some more spotters. I've been here for a couple of weeks.

[pause] ...that is, if my own memories are to be trusted. But none of us seem to be missing anything, despite the differing timestamps.

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 05:52:31 UTC

[The mention of missing makes X's shoulders tense. He doesn't want to say it out loud - saying it makes it more real. But he couldn't hide from it or lie about it either.

He looks down at his hand and clenches it into a fist. And then he's talking without quite intending to, quietly, almost as if he's talking to himself.]

...I'm missing time.

experient June 3 2010, 05:56:52 UTC

[It's not a good sign -- as far as she knows, none of the rest of them are. But Alia doesn't want to suspect X of anything. Zero seems like he thinks they're all reasonably legit, and...it's X, she should be able to tell if it's not him, shouldn't she?]

...how much?

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 06:03:57 UTC

[He's not looking at her. He knows he can't be trusted because of this. He knows there's a good chance he's been compromised. But he doesn't want to see the distrust on her face.]

...Almost two weeks. Maybe more if my internal clock was altered. I can't be sure.

[He can't even trust that.]

experient June 3 2010, 06:18:52 UTC

[There is definitely a look on her face -- but it's worried, not distrusting.

It's not about what he might do, it's about what might've been done to him. It's about what just considering the possibility is doing to him now.

For all that he's a worrier, X has always been one of the surest ones when they're facing a fight. When he's on his way out for a mission, when he's communicating with her from the field -- there's always that confidence, that aura that says he knows he's going to win, because he won't let himself fail. And the rest of them feed on that. Every time he's out there fighting Mavericks, fighting Sigma, Alia's always believed he'll win -- because he believes it, and she trusts in him.

And when he's this worried about what comes next...]

...I hadn't really had the chance to bring it up yet, but I want to do some scans on you. Not just you -- all of you, Zero too.

[She can't help but feel like an idiot, still talking in professional mode when he's this on edge. She should be saying something more, doing something ( ... )

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 07:03:50 UTC

[Most people might not have caught how X was lacking confidence in himself right now. But how could he have confidence in himself when what he knows might not be true? How could he, when he might have been reprogrammed or bugged? This was not something he wanted to just dump on Alia, though. It would be terribly unfair of him to burden her with this. Even though part of him wanted, and needed, to unload and talk to her and let her make it all better... But there were no easy answers to this.

All the scans he'd managed on himself had come up empty. But he'd still lost two weeks - and was quite possibly in a past he didn't remember. A past where Zero died. And the only clue to what killed him was a piece of force metal that no one else seemed to recognize.

No. No. He was not going down that thought path. There was no way he had anything to do with that Zero's death. Just the merest thought of it made him feel horribly ill. He closed his eyes and swallowed thickly.

Think of something else. Anything else ( ... )

holy tl;dr batman! experient June 3 2010, 07:25:40 UTC

[That hope may not be enough to blot out the anxiety that's still rolling off him like radiation off that Zero's corpse. But it's enough to help Alia find a little hope of her own, and a little relief that maybe she can do something to reassure him, even if it's not the way she wishes she could go about it.

She's not sure what she'll tell herself if whatever she finds only makes matters worse. It can't make matters worse. It's always not knowing that hurts more, isn't it?

(But when she remembers the nervous feeling, faint but sharp, that she had back in the Sixth Uprising, when she only had the first, barest hints at who was orchestrating things, and then compares it to that strong, sinking feeling she'd felt when she realized she was right...she's not really sure if not knowing was better or worse then knowing. At least not knowing, there was still hope that she was wrong ( ... )

tothexthpower June 3 2010, 08:47:48 UTC

I'd feel better knowing I was in your hands, too, Alia.

[His voice was quiet, but the amount of relief and hope he was feeling at the prospect of finally having some answers was almost overwhelming. Which was good, because it was the only thing holding back the gnawing doubt and fear from eating him up inside ( ... )

experient June 3 2010, 16:38:47 UTC

[The smile helps. Helps a lot, in fact.]

If there's anything wrong, I'll find it for you.

[Half a step closer, and she just starts to bring her arm up -- he's just looked so upset about all this that there's some part of her that just wants to give him a hug and tell him everything is okay -- but she stops mid-motion. She's still got Zero's 'blood' all over her hands and -- adfsjdf. What was she thinking?]

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