Waking up is unpleasant and hard-coming. Amelia keeps consciousness for seconds at a time, then falls away again. Eventually her eyes open and she blinks a few times. It feels like time has passed but she doesn't remember falling asleep. Actually, that keeps happening.
Her first sight is the ceiling, flared bright orange and slightly purple, like a fading bruise. Caleb, you louse... Amelia knows those aura colors anywhere. There really isn't any reason for Caleb to have dragged Tara out here... Amelia's breathing goes up a little as she looks around. Where is 'here'?
"Right. Eh. Never liked that house much." Amelia's going to do her best to look 'normal', at least while there's other eyes here. She shrugs and smiles some. "Too small."
The fact that she woke up here almost exactly two years ago and will likely die here doesn't escape Amelia. The irony hurts. There isn't much that hasn't been ironic about her life since she woke up, though. She's trying to take that for the karmic balance it likely is. She looks over at Tara. "You've likely got somewhere... better t'be. For what it's worth 'm sorry."
No, she isn't happy about saying that. There's some part of her mind that says sense still could be made of this, that she could still be right, but the likelihood of that is small and it doesn't much matter anymore. She cracks a crooked smile that's fighting to stay that way. "Took accepting my brain's going. Couldn't rely on, on m'head. Took too long, I guess."
There's a brief glare in Caleb's direction. "Sorry he bothered you."
"I dunno. Maybe I was. Maybe I still am. Doesn't really mean anything after the fact."
She looks down in her lap. "Look, wasn't all some play for your trust. That just became convenient when the time came and I thought-- I thought 'if I do this, then everyone will see', and--" A breath. "I thought a lot of stupid things."
Amelia forgives very little and expects much the same from people. She's not trying to be short, but she still hasn't quite adjusted to being 'insane'. Other people tell her she is but she doesn't feel it. Then again, she never really felt twenty-eight, either. "There's no gap. Waking up was the next day for me, like nothing had happened at all. And I was wrong there, too. So if I keep coming up wrong, if something so stupid and stretched makes sense to me and no one else, if I was in the company of people that scared me stiff... I guess that means I am."
"I did ask. I--" She holds her head. How to explain? Amelia's gone over this a million times in her head and there's never a complete answer. "The answers weren't good enough. Or they didn't make sense. Or I was asking the wrong ones. I don't know! It doesn't make sense, I still can't explain I keep hitting walls and then something else doesn't--"
There's a sniffle but she keeps her head down. "I trusted Louis. I thought he had answers. And by the time I'd done everything all wrong I couldn't go anywhere but forward, I was too angry to back down. It all went out of control."
Fighting the crying hurts Amelia's head more than just letting it go, so she does. She's quiet and does her best to keep her face clear.
'Okay'. 'Okay'? It isn't okay, at least not to Amelia. There's a part of that she won't ever quite forget and she wishes she could, but it's a reminder. "I didn't take Crystal. I didn't give her away to them. Louis found her. You need to know that."
"I didn't before." She's still stroking her hair. "I know you were trying to protect him. But why did did you need to plow on through us to do it? What did I do to you?"
"Because they convinced me getting all of you out of the way would have to happen to get to Corrine. It was never personal, not against you. I thought it was 'nobody gets hurt'-- it was all non-lethal, I thought, everything, every one..." There's a mean laugh that goes with that. Amelia used to think she could tell when someone was lying to her, but then Angela and Louis did it plenty.
"I met Louis last January. He told me about Corrine, the thing sleeping, that it could kill, that she couldn't control it. I didn't really believe him, and then I could see It. That first meeting, rallying to rescue Caleb from Hell. So I went through with it. And afterwards I thought to maybe get Crystal and just get out of there, but she
( ... )
She moves the hand back to her hair then. "Just enough truth to get you in trouble?" The words are softer then thy were. "Insufficient data and fried relays made for bad computing. All right."
This is a heartwarming sight for the elder Zukov. He places a hand on Tara's shoulder, and gives Amelia a loving smile.
His eyes return to Tara. "It's easy to forget that inside the thirty year old frame is a fifteen year old girl, desperate to wake up from a cruel nightmare."
Her first sight is the ceiling, flared bright orange and slightly purple, like a fading bruise. Caleb, you louse... Amelia knows those aura colors anywhere. There really isn't any reason for Caleb to have dragged Tara out here... Amelia's breathing goes up a little as she looks around. Where is 'here'?
"Where'm I?"
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The fact that she woke up here almost exactly two years ago and will likely die here doesn't escape Amelia. The irony hurts. There isn't much that hasn't been ironic about her life since she woke up, though. She's trying to take that for the karmic balance it likely is. She looks over at Tara. "You've likely got somewhere... better t'be. For what it's worth 'm sorry."
No, she isn't happy about saying that. There's some part of her mind that says sense still could be made of this, that she could still be right, but the likelihood of that is small and it doesn't much matter anymore. She cracks a crooked smile that's fighting to stay that way. "Took accepting my brain's going. Couldn't rely on, on m'head. Took too long, I guess."
There's a brief glare in Caleb's direction. "Sorry he bothered you."
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...
"So you were insane?"
Somewhere in the hero manual, it says you have to learn to forgive those moments.
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She looks down in her lap. "Look, wasn't all some play for your trust. That just became convenient when the time came and I thought-- I thought 'if I do this, then everyone will see', and--" A breath. "I thought a lot of stupid things."
Amelia forgives very little and expects much the same from people. She's not trying to be short, but she still hasn't quite adjusted to being 'insane'. Other people tell her she is but she doesn't feel it. Then again, she never really felt twenty-eight, either. "There's no gap. Waking up was the next day for me, like nothing had happened at all. And I was wrong there, too. So if I keep coming up wrong, if something so stupid and stretched makes sense to me and no one else, if I was in the company of people that scared me stiff... I guess that means I am."
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There's a sniffle but she keeps her head down. "I trusted Louis. I thought he had answers. And by the time I'd done everything all wrong I couldn't go anywhere but forward, I was too angry to back down. It all went out of control."
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"Okay."
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'Okay'. 'Okay'? It isn't okay, at least not to Amelia. There's a part of that she won't ever quite forget and she wishes she could, but it's a reminder. "I didn't take Crystal. I didn't give her away to them. Louis found her. You need to know that."
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"I met Louis last January. He told me about Corrine, the thing sleeping, that it could kill, that she couldn't control it. I didn't really believe him, and then I could see It. That first meeting, rallying to rescue Caleb from Hell. So I went through with it. And afterwards I thought to maybe get Crystal and just get out of there, but she ( ... )
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His eyes return to Tara. "It's easy to forget that inside the thirty year old frame is a fifteen year old girl, desperate to wake up from a cruel nightmare."
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"That's not the hard part, Caleb, but thanks anyway."
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"I still have the perfect ass of a fifteen year old. Save the psychoanalysis for my eulogy."
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