Down Time [Closed]

[theboywhowaits]

"I never thought I'd be glad to see one of these." The words were wry, one hand tugging a bit on the plant suit as he got used to it against his skin. "Last time, it was easier to focus on being naked

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[haruno]

Sakura had managed to do some healing of her foot, if she was pointedly ignoring her ribs, the ear she couldn't quite hear out of, and all the rest. "I'm fine," she said honestly, since she wasn't incapacitated or unable to keep on as she was. If she was stiff, it was a matter of having fought for over a -- who knew how many days may have passed -- without respite or means to proper rest.

Or healing.

Or...

"SHODAN started her attack when the ship was undergoing repairs. The Daligig are still here, locked in another section. She started executing people in the pods a few... might have been days, but I can't tell you. Time and all around here," she said by means of explanation, waving her hand around (despite the motion going unseen).

"You okay?"

[theboywhowaits]

It was one of the things that he liked about Sakura, the simple fact that she knew how to handle herself without prompting, knew what information to give. He settled onto one of the benches, watching her and listening intently. "So how do we remove her? Has she blocked the sections off from each other or just the Daligig?"

Killing people in the pods, well, that had almost been him then, hadn't it? "It was disorienting at first, not...slow like we did at first, all at once. Deep asleep to the middle of a fight. No room to wake up properly. I'm fine now, though." He smiled halfheartedly in an attempt to be reassuring. "Do you know about any of the others? Molly? Amy? Conner? The Doctor? Howard?"

He had a large pool of people, he knew where Tim was, knew that Jamie could look after himself and that the Doctor wouldn't let anything happen to the others.

But his family was another matter.

[haruno]

Sakura shook her head. "The Daligig sealed themselves as far as I've heard. SHODAN's got to have some kind of operating point. Finding that and taking it out of commission is what anyone with the know how needs to do, and engineering is the least of all who's working on that

[theboywhowaits]

"They sealed themselves?" He frowned, hands hooking around the communicator as he watched her. "How and why? So they basically...left everyone to deal with this?" He nodded, thoughtful. "Well, that's for non-medics, I think."

That was reassuring, the thought that there was somewhere safe, confirmed a few moments later when Amy told him. "Yeah, she says they're safe. Where she is I don't know, but."

The Doctor could look after himself, so could Conner. Howard was good at keeping his head down and while Amy might be reckless at times, she would make sure Molly was taken care of.

He stopped himself from asking after River.

"So safe zones, she can be kicked back. What happened in the pod caverns before I woke up?"

He frowned when she twitched, giving her another once over. "Where are you injured and why didn't you say something?"

[haruno]

"I don't know, and we haven't had contact with them to hear anything official either way. Or if we have, I managed to miss it." Not unheard of around here. The Daligig weren't especially fond of keeping everyone in the know of what they were doing

[theboywhowaits]

"I swear, sometimes I think they're just sitting back with a bucket of popcorn waiting to see what we might do." He sighed, rubbing his face as he listened.

"How many?" His brow furrowed briefly, watching Sakura. Who had been lost?

Yeah, he would have been meant to throw Amy and the Doctor and others he had befriended on the ship. It was difficult to think or act when people you loved were dying.

"Best we can do until this is over and we can get you to medical." He nodded faintly, trusting her not to hide injuries, knowing she knew her body better than he did. "Any blurry vision?" The concussion was a worry, head injuries could sneak up on a person, take them out before they properly realized how badly hurt they were.

[haruno]

"If they are, I want some. Also the opportunity to do the same to them," she said, shifting weight to her good foot again and looking back over her shoulder.

She didn't want to answer his next question, but she did. With an exact count. "Possibly more, with how chaotic things just went. As far as public shows... just what I told you."

Just. Just showing people murdered and keeping records perhaps perpetually. Sakura doesn't doubt these will be backed up and stored on Stacy's normal drives like every other last thing was.

"Don't ask me to shake my head too fast, but things are fine otherwise. No blurriness, no more ache than you'd expect. Normal kind of tired given the amount of sleep we've all stolen lately." Still looking away, body tensing. "We have to finish holding those things off while the guys tracing SHODAN to her source get there and take her down."

[theboywhowaits]

"That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Watch them try to figure something out while we sat buy with valuable information. I don't know if I could do it."

He pressed his face in his hands, nodding wordlessly. Too many.

His own near brush with death didn't bother him near as much, he had experience dying. And coming back.

But he couldn't do anything for the dead.

"Well, I'll try to avoid any tasks that require head shaking, then." And make sure she slept a good long time after this.

And then, because he knew grief, knew the shape it took, he reached forward and touched her hand. "Who, Sakura?"

[haruno]

"I couldn't, but I've never been good at playing that kind of game. It pisses me off." It also made her sad.

He'd have his work cut out for him getting her to sleep. It'd be a while yet before she crashed, if when she inevitably did, she'd crash hard.

Her hand jerks, then stills again, part of a greater reaction to anything she doesn't expect. Sakura hadn't expected contact. Right now she expected it from nothing less than what she fought, or what was needed in order for someone else needing to stand or be taken out of immediate danger.

Support's new to her. Way too new. "People I grew up with." It sounds hollow, not enough of an owning of who they were, and so she clarifies. "My parents. It was fast."

Not fast enough for them to fail to recognize her, but fast enough they hadn't... exactly... suffered. Sakura knew the advantage of that sort of death.

[theboywhowaits]

"Me either. It's frustrating, and too much like being helpless yourself. Watching and waiting and hoping someone else finds the answer

[haruno]

Her agreeance this time led to her saying little else on the matter: she'd done watching, waiting, and hoping for years. Nowhere near as long as many on ship, but very much as long as the generally active young woman could stand.

No less tense than earlier, for the reasons he guessed, and for her own general lack of touch-therapy at this age, Sakura nodded. Didn't say anything, because she didn't know what there was to say. Rory's offer was generous. One day she might take him up on it, but the possibility was so far removed from the reality she currently operated in, with any of the goals that stayed strongly in the foreground, that she didn't think on that potential for long.

"We should get moving. Are you going to head to the City, or elsewhere?" Pod Caverns were her goal still, until the presence here was eradicated. She had faith in the abilities of the others elsewhere to keep the rest intact.

This was her waking nightmare. She wouldn't run away from it.

[theboywhowaits]

"Yeah. Still things to do." He gestured with her comm. "Amy's safe, Molly too, and the others I might have needed to look in on. Best to keep up with you."

He wouldn't make the mistake of coddling Sakura, he knew better than that. Their relationship was a professional one, and trying to stop her from going into battle to defeat the thing that had just taken her parents away from her was an exercise in futility.

The best thing he could do was make sure that she-like Tim- didn't get herself killed.

"So lead on, you still have a better idea of what's going on than I do." He lifted his weapon, offering a humorless curl of his lips that wasn't close to smiling. "We'll see it through."

[haruno]

She nodded to him, already focused on what she could do, what needed to be done. "Clear out the pod caverns entirely. After that, we'll help out where they need us most. Probably spread into the city."

She had an inkling things had gone poorly there.

With that basic plan in mind, Sakura started off again, at a reasonable speed to both be on watch and keep where Rory could keep up with her. Even if at times she disappeared to stealth forward and check on anything that might be coming.