Muse: Leon
Word count: 825 words
Prompt: and this is all a dream/and none of you are real/and I'd give anything/you know I'd give anything for
_coherent There was something in the air that smelled acrid, like she was laying in a pool of bitter orange peels. She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't figure out where everything was coming from--the noises, the smells, the smooth cool feeling under her arms.
She could remember feelings, that much was true. She could remember the feeling of the strong hands as they gripped her, dragging her away. She could remember the feeling of air bursting in her lungs as she tried so hard to scream through pressed lips, through cold gloved hands. She could remember the taste of her rapid pulse in her throat as she watched Mat run away as fast as he could, the sound of silent prayer as she tried to urge him on even faster in her head.
After that it was all a blur. There was the silver flash of needles in the back of a poorly-lit room, and then there was nothing but mindless sensation, nothing particularly pleasurable or painful, just... feeling. Scent. Taste. She couldn't see anything, and everything she heard was distorted, like someone outside herself was manipulating everything. Voices sounded low and slow, dragged out beyond human ability. She buzzed a little bit, vibrated at a faster frequency than they, and with her eyes shut tight there was no reason to try to look at them. There was nausea in the back of her throat and she couldn't cough.
That's when they came. The faces, stripped in bright light around her, asking her questions and some just staring stupidly. She knew they weren't real--she could still feel the coarse cloth of the bandanna on her eyes--but she didn't know what it meant, didn't know what to do.
"Name and rank," one demanded.
"What were you doing out there?" came another.
"Do you know why we arrested you?"
"Why did you leave him behind?"
She wasn't a soldier, not an official soldier so she didn't have a name and rank. She was crossing the street out there, trying to stay below the radar like everyone else did. She knew why they arrested her, but to admit that, to even think it, would cost her any chance at freedom, and probably her life. That was the way these things worked. She didn't know if they could hear the thoughts she was thinking, if there was a monitor of some kind hooked up to her head, looking at her thoughts, but she refused to think them anyway, just to be on the safe side.
"Why did you leave him behind?"
She hadn't left him. She had let him go, let Mat go because it was safer that way, because they didn't want him in the end and because she didn't know what else she could do to protect him.
"Why did you leave him behind?"
The faces were white, with barely distinguishable features. All their eyes were the same shade of gray, nothing looked different. They weren't real, and she didn't have to answer their questions anyway.
"Why did you leave him behind?" The voices were changing, and she realized that their lips weren't moving--they weren't asking the questions. Someone else was, someone different, someone real--but not real, because she wasn't listening with her ears.
"Why did you leave him behind?" The sea of faces parted, and there he was, looking plaintively at her with a hurt expression on his face. Every feature was perfect. She couldn't even describe them properly because there weren't words enough in her head, just the picture of him, swallowing her thoughts whole.
She didn't have an answer for him.
"Why did you leave him behind? Why did you leave me behind, Leon?" He had said her name, Mat had said her name but he wasn't really Mat. He couldn't be Mat because Mat had gotten away, Mat had run and she had stayed behind, trapped in the arms of the agents so he could be safe.
"Why did you leave me behind?"
She hadn't left him but she couldn't say anything to tell him otherwise. Her tongue was limp in her mouth and the nausea was spreading. The acrid taste wasn't so much like oranges but whatever she had eaten last, and she was shaking now.
"Why did you leave me?"
Her body lurched forward in the space of sensation and she felt the semi-liquid of vomit leak between her teeth as she threw up violently. She spasmed and twitched as it settled back on her throat and then she heaved again and again. She still couldn't see, but there were vibrations in the floor now as strong hands stopped her body and rough fingers ripped the bandana from her eyes. Blinding light filled the room and she couldn't feel anything any more.
She had left him behind because she had cared for him too much, because he was too important to her. That was why. She left him behind because she loved him.