04 → [audio]

[fallforthesky]

[It's been a while since Lenalee has addressed the network. For lack of anything to say that wouldn't be a rehash of what everyone else has already long gone over, maybe. Something like that. There's only so much she can bring up with a group of people she doesn't know or understand, after all

Comments

[Voice]

[angryaffliction]

[Alex hears the post, but filters out most of it as he sets down a significant amount of medical supplies he'd stolen from a clinic near the edge of the city. It's definitely a lot more than any one person could carry, but he's not sure where to bring them now. He has no use for them, and he doesn't think the point would be to leave them out where any idiot could horde them. He'd seen that kind of thing back in Manhattan.

Then something the girl says catches his attention and so the virus opens up a feed.]

Other cities... do you know which way they'd be?

[Voice]

[fallforthesky]

[Well, it isn't as if she'd been expecting to get a birthdate from you, Alex. In fact, after their first (and last) conversation, she's surprised that he's still within network range- as in, not stored neatly away in Credinta's prisons with his PDA confiscated, or halfway into the middle of nowhere in some bid to test those limits he's so sure don't exist.]

I tried studying some maps at the old library in June, but... [her tone shifts to something more chagrined, and though he can't see it, she brings a hand up to rub her temple] the buildings disappeared shortly after and I haven't been back since.

I think- there were some much further North, though. [Maybe. Hastily adding:] But there's no telling how old those maps are. Half of them are so damaged they looked as if they might fall apart if I even touched them and I couldn't find a date that I [could read] recognized. The chance that the landscapes haven't changed over the years, or that other cities didn't come to the same fate this one did...

[She almost doesn't want to chance

[Voice] 1/2

[angryaffliction]

[It'd be a helluva task for just regular police to subdue Mercer when an army of black ops and infected couldn't bring him down. Besides, the virus has managed to calm down a bit, and understands his situation (though isn't entirely believing it). Running around aimlessly is probably not going to accomplish much, and if that brat Libitini has the power to bring him here, she could very easily drag him back.]

North...

[He repeats it, quietly.] So maps are needed as well.

[Voice] 2/2

[angryaffliction]

......

Wait...

[Wait for it...]

...They disappeared? [Let's give the boy a cigar!]

voice; filter

[looseleafbook]

I didn't get very many responses last time I tried that question myself. Still only know yours, Allen's, and Kanda's. [And Rhode's but she's gone.]

[A soft smile is audible in his voice.] Thanks, Lena. You can come up any time you want.

voice; filter

[fallforthesky]

Ah, you tried it? [See, rehashing. Unseen, Lenalee runs hand through her hair, smile twinging. In that same hoarse tone, with an optimism that sounds less honest and more automatic:] Well... maybe this time.

[Now that he's given the go-ahead, however, she pushes any negative feelings as far into the back of her heart as they'll go and heads for the landing. Her gift is all set, wrapped up in her uniform jacket for lack of anything else to wrap it in, and resting on a 'table' (as in, a crate with a slat of wood on top) near the door. She's already halfway up the first set of stairs, gift in the crook of her arm, by the time she replies.]

I'll be right up, then.

[She hesitates and glances down at her anklets with an almost rueful smile, then keeps on climbing.]

voice; filter

[looseleafbook]

Yeah, but it was in a bad time, maybe you'll have more luck with it than I did, Lena. [His soft and reassuring smile is clear in his voice.] I know you will. Nobody really wants to tell their birthday to a "pirate" yeah?

Take your time coming up, it's a long way and I'm not moving.

voice; filter

[fallforthesky]

[Or maybe not. Sure doesn't look like anyone here this time around feels like sharing- or is aware of any date to share. She's trying to tell herself she isn't disappointed, but... she is. Lenalee doesn't know of many ways to extend friendship to strangers (since everyone she's ever loved or lost were all within the same war), and it's proving to her, again that an Exorcist isn't conditioned to have friends. That getting over the conviction that someone who gets close is heading for that Rose Cross bulls-eye is going to be harder than telling herself "there are no Akuma here". But that little smile in Lavi's voice does help, and she laughs (slightly shaky) as she makes her way from one stairwell to the next.] You don't even look that much like a pirate.

And Lavi, it's five floors. I've run larger distances back home. [If he listens closely enough, he'll be able to tell that she's making good progress; light, quick steps up and up and up.]

VOICE

[foundanewdream]

A-ah, I'd like to help with wishing everyone happy birthday on their birthdays, if that's alright? I just have my cleaning to occupy me.

[Not saying a thing about her own, she doesn't know when it is.]

VOICE

[fallforthesky]

[Lenalee simply interprets her silence on that matter as not wanting to draw attention to herself. To be honest, she doesn't expect much to come out of asking for birthdays... not when most everyone whose dates she doesn't already know are the kind of people more likely to give her an earful about focusing on something that trivial rather than getting out.

But what she said- specifically, that last part- is sickeningly familiar to her. It actually does make her stomach turn, though not by any fault of Rapunzel's. When she answers, her lips are set in a shaky, kind of desperate smile that she's glad no one has to see.]

I'd... hah... I'd like that a lot, really. I'm sure everyone else would, too.

VOICE

[foundanewdream]

[Truly she wouldn't mind! If she...knew her birthday at all. But Rapunzel isn't one of those that is so worried about getting out, she's adjusted to the fact that she'll simply go home when she's able to and until then she's got to survive. And making sure she doesn't break down means cleaning.]

Really? [Hopeful. Then so happy.] This'll be great! I'm sure that I can find something to fix up and give to whomever's birthday comes up next. Do you think they'd mind? I mean if I don't even know them and give them a gift saying it's from all of us?

VOICE

[fallforthesky]

[She's just never imagined someone might not know their birthday. Which is funny, given that two of her closest friends both have birthdates made up for the sake of actually having one at all.]

Yes, really. [A little of Rapunzel's enthusiasm gets returned in a short, wondering laugh.] I don't see why they'd mind. And even if they do, it wouldn't be any fault of yours.

[AUDIO; same filter]

[tothelastbreath]

[Allen simply listens to the feed with something a lot like relief. Of course Lenalee remembers, he's been expecting a broadcast from her all day; but what gets his attention is how she's reaching out to the other residents. Really reaching out, moving beyond answering questions or providing help to learn more about them. Maybe he needn't worry about her so much now.

He almost lets it go unanswered, but changes his mind at the last moment and picks up instead.]

If you do learn any of them [ assuming they'll be on the network for everyone to catch ], I'll try to remember too.

[AUDIO; same filter]

[fallforthesky]

[...Funny how a month later, she still can't bring herself to switch to video for him. Funny as in 'not at all'. She hovers a thumb over the function for a moment, but it's as if there's an invisible vice keeping her from pressing it- she tries but she just can't. Lenalee pinches her brows together, then folds her fingers around the PDA again and lets it be.]

I don't think many people are going to tell me. [Softer, less hoarse:] But... thank you.

[AUDIO; same filter]

[tothelastbreath]

[Allen notices this, but decides not to make anything of it. She did start the broadcast as a filtered audio feed, after all, which they're both keeping to. Nothing wrong with that.]

Sounds like you're making a good start, though! [ And he's privately hoping it'll lead to further conversation. Miss Rapunzel in particular may prove to be good company. ] I'm sure more people will respond eventually- It's a nice thing to ask.

[AUDIO; same filter]

[fallforthesky]

[Nothing at all! It's that she feels needlessly guilty about keeping to it that's the issue here.

And one person hardly seems like a good start to her, in this eternal state of pessimism, but she gives a halfhearted laugh anyway, saying in the same breath:] Y-Yeah...! Of course. [Though a nice thing to ask doesn't quite prove her worth the same way a helpful thing to volunteer would. The network sees about as much of her as she has to offer to them, in the end.]

There's a world of possibility, isn't there? [Literally, in her case.]

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[Kanda doesn't say anything. He...expects to hear something like this from Lenalee. She had always been big about birthdays at Home. Even if they were all trying to find a way out of here, just asking for birthdays for a simple 'happy birthday' made him think of the castle that they all - all the Exorcists - shared.

It was just like-]

-a little piece of home.

[...Wait, did he just say that out loud? Oops.]

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[Yes, he did. And going by the suddenly sharp silence coming from Lenalee's end, that little slip was the verbal equivalent of setting the OT3 down in front of her dressed in uniform with a mission outline in hand (and perhaps a map in Allen's). Of something close to (but not- never- quite the same as) seeing Komui open his arms for her that first step back inside the Order's halls after the mission outline becomes a mission statement. And from Kanda, of all people. The person who's been holding her at an arm's length for months for God knows what reason and has sent her into more anxiety attacks in that timespan than she's had in a year of fighting a rapidly slipping war.

She exhales- it catches on something tight in her throat- and as she starts a reply to his feed, that something gives, and she finds herself laughing, the sound bubbling and then all but streaming over. Really, honestly... laughing. The kind that's bone-numbing and comes from needing to for too long, but never quite getting to the point of actually managing it. She

[voice]

[promisedlotus]

[-wait WHAT HAPPENED did he miss something? Or did he just go and say something really really stupid again HE IS CONFUSED.

He doesn't get girls, seriously.

Uh........ Should he. say something? Or-

-or wait no she's done. He thinks.]

R-Right. [CAN YOU HERE THE CONFUSION? CAN YOU? CAN YOU?]

[voice]

[fallforthesky]

[You know what sucks, Kanda? The fact that you're the one to finally make her laugh long and loud for the first time in nearly four months, and you think you've done something wrong. Maybe because you didn't see her break down on Allen after Rhode left, or because you haven't really seen her in person since the fog settled in. But God, she'd been beginning to think she was losing you.]

So-sorry. I just never thought I would hear you say something like that.