Semi-open

[theniputitback]

who ; Parker and the residents of the Shephut
what ; Parker's crew is gone, and staying alone in the empty apartment is not working out quite as well as she'd thought.
where ; Normandy Haus
when ; ...now? Now's good.
warning(s) ; Sad Parker. Which probably means Parker lashing out, at some point.

[She'd refused Shepard's offer to come stay at the

Comments

/regrets nothing

[notyourchauffer]

The house is mostly quiet save for one or two residents. Skyfire, who was going for some kind of record on sleep deprivation, is up at all hours of the night. Research never rests.

However, he requires a great deal of tea to keep him functional. The good part is, he rarely needs to turn on any lights and disturb the other residents. Just taking off his glasses does well to light his way.

As it is now, there's two points of bright, LED glow bobbing down the hall.

NOR SHOULD YOU

[theniputitback]

Skyfire showing off his glow-in-the-dark eyes over a tiny video screen is one thing. Actually seeing them in person, in the dark, in a hallway that she'd expected to be empty is something else entirely.

She freezes, still crouched on the carpet, thinking fast. She has no idea what those two points of light are in reality, but all she can think is ghost.

The lights don't appear to have noticed her, however. Maybe, if she's very quiet, they'll continue to not notice her and the ghost will float right over her, leaving her free to run to a more familiar (and hopefully non-haunted) location.

Carefully, Parker lowers herself flat and begins scooting towards the lights on her stomach in a soundless army crawl.

[notyourchauffer]

As he gets closer, the lights outline the curvature of a face and bare shoulders. He has no idea Parker is currently trying to shuffle under his feet, because if he did he could have avoided what happens next.

Something is clearly underfoot, but he realizes it too late, and with an unceremonious grunt of protest, Skyfire topples in a mess of flailing limbs, face-first onto the floor.

[theniputitback]

That...wasn't supposed to happen.

Ghosts float, everyone knows that, ghosts pass right through you, and ghosts definitely don't trip over people and fall half on top of them.

Parker shrieks in surprise as Skyfire topples over, kicking wildly in an attempt to untangle herself from him that really does more harm than good. In the darkness, she still hasn't recognized him.

"Get off! Go away, GO AWAY, you're not REAL!"

[savor_last_shot]

Garrus doesn't sleep very well. Or often. It's bad for him, but he makes up for it by catching cat-naps during the day. That might account for some of his paranoia, actually. When he couldn't sleep, he usually just moved through the apartment. He was still armored up - if he was awake, he was usually wearing his armor, after all. He glanced down the darkened hallway as he stepped out of the room he shared with Shepard, the slight glow form his visor providing some illumination.

He froze for a moment as he spotted Parker, hand moving for a weapon - and then he relaxed as he recognized her. He took a step toward her, voice low.

"Parker? What are you doing here?"

[theniputitback]

Parker backed up instinctively at the sound of footsteps, but she, too, relaxed when she recognized Garrus' voice. In a place where people could disappear without warning or turn into animals or suddenly become children again, Garrus had always been there. Even death hadn't kept him away.

She stepped forward, looking vaguely guilty. She really hadn't meant to wake anybody up.

"I..."

She hesitated, and then shrugged. It was hard to explain exactly why she was here, when she'd been so determined to stay back in her own apartment and wait for Hardison and Eliot to reappear. Finally, she went with the easiest truth she could think of.

"I couldn't sleep."

[savor_last_shot]

"I know that feeling," Garrus replied with a shrug. A solid night's sleep was hard to come by these days. Even so, he knew how to read people - even humans. Something was bothering Parker. Her body language practically screamed it.

"I think we still have some of that hot chocolate stuff in the kitchen if you feel like having some. Never understood the appeal myself, but the stuff also kills me if I drink it."

A poor joke, but Garrus found that poor jokes tended to break the ice.

"I can't sleep either and I could use the company, if you want to stick around."

[theniputitback]

Well, at least he wasn't mad at her for breaking in (again). Parker didn't smile, but she shrugged and then nodded in acceptance.

"Okay."

[modelscientist]

Like the other residents of the Normandyhouse, Mordin kept odd hours. Unlike the rest of them, he didn't actually need that much sleep. Only two or three hours a night, really. So he tended to move back and forth between the kitchen (midnight snacks for all) and his lab. So, when he nearly bumped into Parker, glass of water in hand, he was fully awake and lucid.

"Parker?" His free hand hovered at his waist, the other poised to hurl his glass into the intruder's face if it turned out not to be the human burglar.

[theniputitback]

Oh.

For all the time she spent at the Normandy base, Parker hadn't actually interacted much with the Area 51 alien Mordin. She'd spent a few idle hours in the vents overlooking his lab, poking at her wearable and half-watching as he did experiments she couldn't understand, but actually talking to him? Well, that was something else.

"Yes?" she replied, eyeing the glass he had clutched in one hand nervously. She didn't think she'd stolen anything from Mordin's lab (that she hadn't put back afterwards), but then, maybe there was something she'd forgotten.

[modelscientist]

"Ah. Parker." That seems to relax the alien doctor a bit. He smiles slightly, examining her in the dim light of the hallway. He's used to people coming and going at odd hours, so he doesn't seem too bothered by her presence.

"Humans require eight hours sleep a night." It's almost an aside, his way of asking why she isn't sleeping like everyone else (who isn't Garrus).

[theniputitback]

"What if they work the night shift?" Parker examines Mordin right back, still slightly wary. "Some people sleep during the day."

[thatisajoke]

EDI is happy to let Parker make herself at home, have a few words with a few others, and then...

"Welcome back, Miss Parker," Holographic interfaces are ubiquitous throughout all the bases. This might not be the one EDI is physically located in, but it's definitely the one she's watching most closely right now. After all, Shepard sleeps here.

"Are you finding everything you need?"

[theniputitback]

By this point, Parker's retreated into an empty bedroom (not her room, it is't her room because she doesn't live here, she lives with Hardison and Eliot) and is working diligently away at a bowl of Rocket-Os. She's just hungry, that's why her insides feel hollow and strange. That must be it.

"Yes," she murmurs half-coherently between bites. She hesitates, swallowing, and then amends her answer.

"...no."

[thatisajoke]

EDI is always watching± but Hardison's little cyber-base had never been one she'd cared to insinuate herself into. She could have, of course, but she was a product of Cerberus and though the shackles hemming her in were long gone, EDI still had some few compunctions about invading non-hostile, non-useful human databases. Still, it would be difficult for her not to notice that all activity in that region had gone dark some time ago.

Her avatar's idle animation cycled twelve times in silence.

"I understand," Of course, she understood. She still kept all of Joker's porn on file too, like some kind of perverted memoriam, "If you would like to talk about it, I am..."

Not lonely. Not. Lonely. Don't say "lonely"

"...always here. I am excellent, at keeping secrets."

fff sorry for the delay

[theniputitback]

"I don't have any secrets."

It's said a little too quickly to be entirely believable. The last thing Parker plans to do is open up and start sharing her feelings, though. To anyone. She munches her cereal silently for a few minutes and then speaks again, more cautiously this time.

"Shepard said...she said you could watch for them. And let me know i-when they come back."

It's not quite a request. Hopefully, EDI will understand and she won't have to make it one.