So happily I spend your time when I've lost time...

[surgicalshot]

Who: Dr. Kenzo Tenma surgicalshot and Jubilee thelittlestbub
When: Saturday, May 21st, Evening.
Where: The House of Awesome
Summary: Jubilee offered an ear, and Tenma said he'd bring the beer. The guy is crushing hard.
Warnings: Language, maybe? It's just talking.

Comments

[surgicalshot]

"Not just one person. So many others. Families, children, groups of people..." Tenma muttered. It was what everyone had told him; it wasn't his fault, it wasn't his responsibility. Turn yourself in to the police, we can figure something out. In the end, he'd been on the run for two years, and he wasn't any closer.

He knew that Nina felt responsible, but he couldn't put it on her shoulders. At least she could have a life after this was over. He wouldn't. Tenma looked up at Jubilee and gave a small smile.

"If you had a choice, would you have chosen not to?"

[thelittlestbub]

Jubilee understood. He wasn't a person that had gone through what her life had been. He didn't - couldn't - understand. Not that.

"No, I would have chosen to."

The words were cold, almost completely unfeeling. If she'd had the choice to make over, she still would've done it.

[surgicalshot]

Tenma nodded, looking down. It made sense, in some way. At least she had stuck by whatever she chose to do. Tenma wasn't even sure if he could do that.

"At least you stand by what you did, no matter what. Even if you were given another choice. That's respectful, right?"

[thelittlestbub]

"That's it, there wasn't any other choice." She shook her head. "They were children whose bodies were dead and whose minds were being kept alive by technology. They were being tortured by bastards who didn't care."

The House of Correction. She hated to think about it.

"Standing by your choice is a sign of respect, sometimes. Sometimes, it's just a sign of stubbornness. I dunno which that decision falls under."

[surgicalshot]

"I think...it falls under kindness," Tenma said slowly, trying to figure out what the right thing to say was. He'd done what he did; he'd killed a man, only to find out he'd never killed him at all.

"You were doing what you thought was right. Even if you didn't like the choice you were forced into."

[thelittlestbub]

She shrugged. "It's the way life is."

House of Correction - those twisted broken children....

"Did you hear what you just said? 'You were doing what you thought was right. Even if you didn't like the choice you were forced into.' Why does that apply to me and not to you?"

[surgicalshot]

'Because you didn't take an oath to do no harm," Tenma said after a moment. "I took that oath, and I became a doctor to help people, not harm them. And now I'm on the hunt for this person who's my patient, in the end. It's going against everything I believe, everything I've ever thought about myself."

He paused, sighing. "It's been a nice respite, here in Siren's Port. But I can't forget what I have to do back home. And if he ever comes here, then I'm going to prison for life. And I deserve it."

[thelittlestbub]

"And how many people will be saved once you find him? Once you stop him? How much flesh is sometimes sacrificed to save the life of the person because of cancer or whatever?"

Jubilee smiled a bit and squeezed his hand. "Sometimes, to do the greater good, something has to be sacrificed." She took a deep breath. "I know a doctor who sacrifices helping others to live amongst superheroes who don't listen to him, who go out and throw themselves into explosions, and who generally try to get themselves killed on a regular basis." She grinned. "And yet, Hank puts up with all of us and sticks around. And when it's needed, he's in the fight with us. Maybe this is your way of fighting right now."

[surgicalshot]

He gave her a small smile. "Except we don't have superheros back home. We just have boring, ordinary people like...me. And all the other doctors I worked with, and all of the people I've met."

He laughed under his breath. "Maybe they're not all the greatest people in the world...murderers, robbers, paid assassins, everything you could think about when it comes to the seedy underbelly of the underground, but they're...they're nice people when you get to know them."

[thelittlestbub]

"Hey ordinary people are better than superheroes. They do everything on their own without fancy powers." Jubilee picked up her beer again. "And being a superhero is usually... not that great. People hunting you, thinking you less than human..."

She sipped her beer. "It's just the way it is."

[surgicalshot]

"Maybe. I guess it's not at all like it is in the co-- science fiction books," Tenma coughed, looking away in embarrassment as he drank some more of his beer.

[thelittlestbub]

Jubilee grinned. She waggled her beer bottle at him. "You, sir, were going to say 'comics'. Admit it." She teased.

Jubilee knew that in at least one world, she was a comic book character.

[surgicalshot]

"Some of my younger patients used to read comic books when they were in the hospital, and... I might have checked out the pictures once or twice..." Tenma shook his head, taking a sip of his beer.

He didn't know anyone here could be from those. They were real, here, and comics, books, movies; they were all fake. That's just how it was.

[thelittlestbub]

Jubilee giggled. "Ask a guy named Sam Winchester. When one of him was here before, I totally had to convince the guy that I was not only real, but I wasn't faking who I said I was." She shrugged. "In his world, I was a comic book character."

She put her beer down. "It's all about the alternate universes and learning to roll with it a lot."

[surgicalshot]

"A comic book character?" Tenma tilted his head slightly. "That can't be true. That's like saying in someone else's world I'm the world's best doctor on a television show."

He finished off his beer, looking down into the empty can for a moment before shrugging. "I know about the alternate universes, but it's...I'm not exactly a physicist."

I want you to know, I almost said Timey Whimey, but I refrained.

[thelittlestbub]

She shook her head. "Don't discount it, Doc." She had to warn him.

"I'm totally not a physicist, I leave that to Hank, but from what I understand, all of the universes have some sort of overlap. Meaning, I'm a comic book character in one, but the people who read those comics are actually book or tv characters in another..." She shrugged. "I don't, exactly, understand it all, and Hank would be giving you flow charts, and math equations and all that fun stuff right now, but I figure the universes are great big balls of stuff that sometimes crosses over."

She waved. "Places like this are just tiny little, like air pockets in all that stuff."