Now when I look at the clouds across the moon...

[creator_man]

WHO: Flynn and legacyguardian
WHEN: Very shortly after this thread (yes, backdated)
WHAT: Reunion
WHERE: The Grid copy of Flynn's Arcade
WARNINGS: There shouldn't be any. Other than some ouch veering towards angst.

Comments

[creator_man]

Flynn's laughter... wasn't, much. Too much gasping, maybe a little bit of choking. "Alan..." Nearly breathless. Again. He forced himself to swallow, to steady as much as he could.

"It was supposed to be perfect, you see. The perfect system. For programs and users. Perfection as it really can't exist... I thought then, out in our world. Order. Control. And then... the isomorphic algorithms. New... new species, man. Evolution. In here. Profoundly naive. Infinitely wise." His voice too tight, he trailed off for a few moments, then managed to take a deeper breath. "Some of the original programs got along with them. Some of the basics... didn't."

"I didn't know how bad it was until my system administrator, Clu, struck out. Struck at me, first, that's... that's what happened to Tron, he protected me. And when I was out of power... he destroyed the ISOs."

After a few painful moments of silence, he looked over at his friend, eyes dark and deep and blocking as much of the pain as he could.

Not enough.

"That's how much of an idiot I am. That's... that's what my dreams come to."

[legacyguardian]

Oh, Flynn.

This, now, this was easier for Alan to take. Somehow, he didn't look too closely at how, maybe because it distilled all the remarkable and heretofore impossible things down into something personal and intimate: the pain of a friend. But this was easier.

He reached over and brushed the long (long!) strands of Flynn's hair back, just for the touch. The long hair was more remarkable than the Isomorphic programs. "I remember you talking a little bit about the Isomorphic... I thought, we all thought it was just theory." But he'd taken his username from that. Pulled down a part of a memory of Flynn to keep him alive, if nothing else than in his own thoughts.

"Not all the ISOs, though," Alan pointed out. "Unless you expect me to believe Sam just met that very beautiful, very... strange young woman on the street." Quorra was many things, but ordinary, she was not. This explained a lot about her, even as it brought up several more questions.

The rest, well. He wasn't sure what to say or where to begin. The easy parts were the physical ones, rubbing his shoulders, pulling him halfway into a hug again, as much as their seated positions would allow. Whatever else he'd done some things remained constant. Flynn was his friend. And his friend was in pain.

"You were, are. A brilliant idiot." Which, in some ways, explained why the mistakes were so terrible too. Nothing on a small scale.

[creator_man]

Less in pain and more in guilt. A lot of guilt. And yet, yet he couldn't help leaning into Alan. He'd... wanted, despite his estimation of what he deserved, this touch way, way too long to be able to reject it.

"No... not all," he finally managed to croak, then held his breath and tried to continue more steadily. "Poor Quorra. Last of her kind, and has been for all this time. Stuck out in the wilderness with only me for company." Him and his madness, to be precise.

Flynn leaned his forehead against the side of Alan's head, working to put himself back together at least a little bit. "I messed it all up, Alan. Let down every single person, ever. No brilliance can make up for that."

[legacyguardian]

One hand rubbing his shoulder, holding him tight and close. Steady. Some things didn't change. "I could be wrong, but I think I missed the part where anyone asked you to." Make up for it, that is. He certainly wasn't. Or at least, it hadn't crossed his mind. He hadn't even expected to see Flynn down here, had hardly ever expected to find him again, that was its own miracle all by itself. Asking for anything else would be too much.

"You're here. That's... that's good enough for me, you know. I'm easy." Half-joking, half-real. Quiet. Thick with emotion, but still quiet and steady. "I didn't think I'd get that much, so I'll stick with just this."

[creator_man]

It took a while for Flynn to fully grasp Alan's grace. The first thing that sank in was his friend's refusal to help him beat himself up over things in the past. And then the rest. The... quiet... gratitude. Acceptance. Joy.

Joy at his presence was still something to get used to. Especially from somebody who could see the whole picture, the way Alan did. How... how do I deserve people like him still being this close and running away with horrified screams?

Eventually, he managed to make his throat sort of work again, choked up and thick. "Easy? I'd say amazing and exceptional, instead." He took a breath to start telling the rest - because there was more, there was always more, wasn't there? But he couldn't continue, a slow, choked sob shaking his shoulders, surprising him with the weight of relief against a fear he had lost hope of getting respite from.

[legacyguardian]

It didn't even occur to Alan as grace. Or that anything about this attitude was unusual or exceptional. It was simply what he thought. Everything Flynn did was impossible, impossibly bratty or impossibly amazing or something entirely else. And then, it had become impossible that he would come back from wherever it was he had disappeared to.

Not of his own free will. Alan never believed that.

But that, just accepting this, letting it be what it was, that was easy, to Alan. As was turning and drawing his friend, shaking and overcome, into his arms. Hugging him tight. It was unthinkable to do anything else.

[creator_man]

Flynn... didn't cry. His eyes were dry so bad that it almost hurt. But the dry sobs kept shaking him for some while, clinging to his friend until his breathing evened.

"I'm... I'm sorry," he grated, after. "I'm usually better than this. More... Zen." It was almost humorous, that.

Almost.

A little more time, and he was ... up to the rest of it. And Alan wasn't going to be happy of the next part, either, he was pretty certain. "Clu... my administrator. Let's say that he was very much created in my own likeness. He... he's me, in a way. The system needed a part... of my will, if you wish, to keep it stable. I took a while to design and create him so he'd be able to run things when I wasn't in, which, with the time differential was most of the time. When things went wrong - well. The only way to destroy Clu would be reintegration, which would off both of us. And much of the Grid, too. With nobody knowing what happened - you can see some of the reasons why I wasn't willing to just do that." No, Flynn hadn't been suicidal.

"Eventually, a while back, as far as I can tell Clu managed to send a pulse out. Which you got. And it got Sam looking into more detail in the Arcade and he wound up here. Quorra was in the City and got him to me. We... ended up making a run for the Portal - for the exit, to get there before it closed. But Clu waited for us there. He wanted out. With his army, if he could manage it. Alone, if not." He took a deep breath. "Quorra and Sam made it out. Clu and I reintegrated." His voice quivered at the memory of that. Goodbye, kiddo.

"And then I woke up in the Outlands - the... the wasteland outside the City. With no memory who I was." No, he wasn't going to let Alan have to process that part too long. It was bad enough with knowing what went next.

[legacyguardian]

Alan only snorted softly at the apology, the demurral, whatever it was. No need to be sorry, really, he didn't mind. Didn't say it out loud, though. Now was time for listening. Even if it was just to the silence and his breathing.

And eventually Flynn did start up again, and he listened. Tried to assimilate yet more new information, some of which made sense if he put it in terms he was more familiar with, other parts of it just seemed unreal. Not much more unreal than this whole place, this whole situation. He felt almost like he was living in a dream again.

Oddly, or perhaps not, the part about Sam grounded him. Quorra and Sam made it out, and that explained where she had come from and why Sam had suddenly seemed to have regained some vitality or hope or something. Some quality he had lost. That Alan hadn't realized he'd missed in the young man until he was calling him out to the old Arcade in the middle of the night and making him the new Chairman. All fired up again.

"I went to Sam's place..." He didn't tell Flynn Sam's place was a collection of boxcars, garage, cargo containers. But he could fill in some of that. "I suggested he go ... god, I was going to go, and then I thought, no, Sam should be the first one to find anything. If there was anything to find."

And, god, there had been. All this.

Anyway. "But you got your memory back, yes?" After all, he'd recognized and remembered all this so far.

[creator_man]

"Yeah. It... took a while. But I'm pretty sure it's mostly back." And by 'a while' he meant cycles. Years. Enough time to have the confidence, even without the disc, that he had what he needed.

"Now... things're a little different. With the reintegration so close to the Portal, something went... off. It's open all the time. And it sometimes brings in people - programs and users - who haven't been to the laser. Sometimes programs who've died. Sometimes ones from different times. Sometimes different versions of the same. Those who have come from outside return to where they came from. But..." He shrugged. "I've no idea what would happen if I try to go out. Where I'd appear. Or when. Or... or if." His eyes were looking in the direction of the wall ahead of them but he wasn't seeing it. "Maybe I'll try it, one day. But on the off chance that it results in finishing me off... not yet." He looked at Alan. "Not yet."

[legacyguardian]

Slight, slow nod. And he tried not to be disappointed or sad at the last statement, nodding again. He could understand that. Especially with everything being a little broken.

He wasn't even touching the rest of it. A little too much unreality, or surreal, or magic, or whatever, he'd buried the needle on the weird-shit-o-meter for now. It was time to just nod and accept. Worrying about accuracy of thought or how to work with what he had came later.

"At least you're..." Alive. "Here." It came quiet and raspy, after a moment of thought. "Nothing says Sam and Lora can't come down, I guess. Again, in Sam's case. Maybe the two of you can show us around."

[creator_man]

Maybe that would make more sense to Alan when he'd have processed the 'different versions and times' part somewhat more. Those who came in went out. But those who were inside in the first place...

Flynn really didn't know. And he wasn't leaving his family... again. Or at least being accessible for his family.

.. annnd even though he'd faintly thought about that, Alan putting it as... almost matter-of-factly took him by surprise. "I'd... I'd like that. If either of them wants to. I..." God. He wanted them to. "Turns out that the laser can sort of be tuned in to ... this Grid. After one of the Quorras who had been to another Grid made it out and could return here with data about this oddly functioning Portal fed into her laser." His face softened a little, thinking about that Quorra. "She... she's from the future. Three years after she and Sam made it out. Well, a future, I guess."

[legacyguardian]

Alan blinked a couple of times at that. Still having difficulty with the concept. The important thing, he grasped, that he could come back and bring Lora and Sam with. Mostly Sam, who he was pretty sure would want to know his Dad was, yes, still alive in here. To the rest, all he could manage was "Huh."

"I'll have to make sure we get that..." Small smile, though. "You think either Sam or Lora wouldn't want to?" And then, dryly but still grinning. "You think Lora would miss the chance to kick your butt?"

[creator_man]

"I'll make sure you have the data."

Flynn's lips twitched at the last part, but then he sighed. "Sam... watched me do something that, as far as any of us knew, would result in my death. I don't imagine that was easy on him. On top of... everything else. But... no. I don't think he won't want to come. When he's up to it."

[legacyguardian]

"I'll talk to him." Was all Alan said to that, not willing to push further. Still, he didn't think Sam wouldn't want to come. He thought Sam would leap at the chance, but he didn't argue for it. That was for Sam to do.

"I don't think any of this has been easy on any of us," he added quietly, mostly thinking out loud. "Hopefully, now... we can change that."

[creator_man]

The concern in Flynn's eyes was for Alan himself, this time, and his arm tightened around his friend, in turn. In the stead of another apology. "Hopefully, yeah. I... we didn't get too much time to talk, Sam and I." And the baggage, with anyone, wasn't going away anytime soon, but.

"So... how've you been?"

[legacyguardian]

Alan... almost had to laugh with how surreal this was. Just the simple question, as though twenty years had never passed, as though maybe he had last seen Flynn twenty days ago and they were now reuniting after a long trip away.

"Oh, what a long, strange trip it's been," he muttered, on the heels of that thought, shaking his head and smiling. "I've... you know, I've been managing. It's been rough, sometimes."

Briefly, he outlined the history of ENCOM and himself, how it touched on Sam. How ENCOM wrote Flynn off as quickly as they conceivably could in the public eye and laid off the most promising (and most insubordinate, in their eyes) programmers. How he and Roy had tried to keep looking, and then Sam's re-emergence. And the personal details in there, too. Sam's graduation. Trying not to focus on the possibilities Sam had let go when he dropped out, instead focusing on Sam's stunts, keeping the board at least a little bit honest, keeping everyone on their toes.

"Rather like another young hotshot programmer I knew, once," Alan commented, a little bit dryly, a lot amused. "With a penchant for breaking and entering and general mischief."