Room 302 [afternoon]

[pasunereveuse]

After her technology class, Celia found herself far more intrigued by computers and the like than she had been up to this point. Yes, of course they provided ample resources to educate herself further -- but there was simply so much, and such a steep learning curve, that she didn't exactly know where to start. It had been nearly a hundred and fifty

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[nobloodymessiah]

Eleanor lingered in the doorway of her friend's room. "Are you falling prey to the siren call of electronics?" she asked. "Joker keeps insisting I need some kind of portable telephone. Apparently so I can play games on it."

[pasunereveuse]

"Wouldn't you mostly need to use it for telephoning people?" Celia wondered, looking up. "It's so strange how they still refer to those devices that way, considering how secondary or even tertiary a function the phoning part is."

[nobloodymessiah]

"It isn't as though I make terribly many phone calls," Eleanor said, shrugging her shoulders. "Apparently they play music, as well. I suppose that might be useful."

How she'd place a disc inside a telephone was beyond her. They didn't seem nearly large enough for that.

[pasunereveuse]

"There's something called an iPod that does that," Celia said, pointing to a brightly-colored little rectangle on one of her pages. "I don't know that I knew the phones could, too."

She glanced up again, looking a little abashed. "I'm taking a technology class this term. Rather tiring to always feel a step or fifteen behind, you know?"

[nobloodymessiah]

"It is," she agreed. "And if it's tiring for me, it has to be downright exhausting for you. And even more so for your beau."

Celia being from the past meant she was allowed to use old-fashioned words like 'beau.' Hush.

"I wonder if it's the reverse, with Joker," she mused. "How infuriating it would be, to be in the past, without what we consider modern conveniences."

Thinking of Joker made her grow serious again. Especially thinking of their last argument.

[pasunereveuse]

"The learning curve does seem rather sharp, as time goes on," Celia admitted. "I don't think I'd feel so lost if I went back in time by a century and a half, but it's terribly jarring to go forward. I must seem like a caveperson to Joker."

She took a brief moment to ponder that image before noting Eleanor's solemnity. "Everything all right?"

[nobloodymessiah]

Eleanor didn't bother to insist that certainly, her boyfriend didn't think ill of her friend for being from the past (though she was quite certain he didn't). Instead, she took a seat rather absent-mindedly on the edge of Celia's bed.

"I think I need help," she said. "Your help. Joker is ... he means well, but he's going to get himself killed. And I can't ... I can't bear the thought of it, and I don't know what to do."

[pasunereveuse]

Celia shoved the catalogs aside with a wave of magic, far more concerned with Eleanor's statement than with gadgetry, suddenly. "What in the world's happened?" she asked, eyes wide. "Of course I'll help."

Not that she had the foggiest idea how she would, but hopefully that would be explained.

[nobloodymessiah]

Eleanor folded her arms over herself, and took a steadying breath.

"I ... I made a decision," she said. "I wasn't going to tell anyone. I'm -- I'm going back to Rapture. Just to get Grace, that's all. Barry's making me a sub. I can get her and leave again. I know I can."

[pasunereveuse]

...and somehow, that hadn't been what Celia had expected. She stared at her friend, her disbelief stark and bare on her face.

"You're going back?"

[nobloodymessiah]

"I know," Eleanor said. "I'm sorry. I wasn't even going to tell you, or anyone, not until I'd gotten back already. So you wouldn't worry. Please, please don't worry. I can do this. I know how to do this. I'll be fine."

[pasunereveuse]

"Wait, how's Jok -- oh, damn it, he knows, too, and is insisting on going?"

Celia at least seemed to agree with Eleanor that that was a terrible idea. There was that. But then she fairly thought the whole thing was a terrible idea, so it wasn't anything against Joker himself.

[nobloodymessiah]

"He can't," Eleanor said, firmly. "He says he'll stay on the sub, and -- I bloody know how good he is at what he does, but I can't risk it. Splicers get onto the sub and that's it, and then he's dead and I can't --"

She had emerged from Rapture. Father hadn't. She couldn't, she didn't dare drag more people down with her again.

[pasunereveuse]

Celia was already shaking her head, reaching out to steady Eleanor by the hands -- if not for her benefit, then for Celia's own. "He won't. But you're not going down there alone, Eleanor, he's right."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes as her mind raced.

But she already knew what she was going to say, even if it was a terrible, terrible idea.

"But Joker, while he can...do whatever a submarine does, is not who you need watching your back down there. You need someone who can match splicers."

[nobloodymessiah]

Eleanor stared for a few seconds before she grasped her friend's meaning.

"Bloody hell," she said, softly. "Not you, too."

[pasunereveuse]

"When do we go?" Celia was already trying to move multiple steps ahead -- it was only the first week of classes, they wouldn't miss much, at least. They'd need more in their party than just herself, of course, though she wasn't sure who.

But she knew, as well as she knew her name or how to pull glass from air, that she had to go. Eleanor wasn't diving back into Hell alone.