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 Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 6:11 pm
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 8:58 pm
Her room was his first thought, and he spent at least ten minutes knocking and straining to listen beyond the door just in case. But that didn't seem to make sense if he put it under the lens and examined the reasoning: running meant away, it meant space. She'd stayed in her room far too much before, why would she go running there now?
The field, Owain suggested. Perhaps literally running.
But it wasn't the field, he learned. Jack unconsciously took the route he normally used when he remembered and had time to do a morning jog, a wider scope of the island that started and ended near the graveyard. (Of course it did, he was that sort of person.) And it was there that he saw the flare of color among the headstones.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:08 pm
Chel couldn't control her emotions. She was good at masking her problems with a smile but she could never stop herself from crying once she'd started. She didn't have it in her to be cold and distanced.
She remembered how her mother would tell stories of her as a baby. Baby Chel would cry over any small thing and she wouldn't stop crying for anything short of tiring herself out. When she scraped her knees she would even cry through being bandaged.
So when Jack came she wasn't sobbing as hard but the tears were still there. She was sniveling and every once in a while it would pick up in another round of wails. Chris wasn't a scraped knee.
She heard him but that hardly stopped her from doing anything she was doing before he arrived. She couldn't address him, didn't have time to hide it. She just stayed curled in herself and hoped Merlin hadn't abandoned her too.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:26 pm
He was glad he didn't have to shush Owain this time, though the giant's concern and sympathy bled through their connection. The same nameless something that settled over him whenever he sat his breaks among the dead clung to his shoulders as he approached. His foot accidentally nudged her phone in passing, an extra noise to announce his presence before he stopped beside her.
It was dark now, and Jack couldn't make out the name on the headstone without straining his eyes. The possibility of who it was hit him as he sat down, however, sending Owain into further quiet distress his master didn't partake in.
He didn't touch her and kept his cold hands in his lap, remembered how Oliver had recoiled when he reached out. The reminder was a good one: being there was usually the extent of his bedside manner that he didn't ******** up, and even that was sometimes enough to still be a problem. So he sat still and gazed ahead for some time before finally piping up. "What happened?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:34 pm
"Sorry," she told him between hiccups. "I-I probably got out of range of the golem." She wasn't sure why she was apologizing. It just felt like that was where she needed to begin. Atonement for taking Chris' life.
< It was rude of you, yes. Selfish b***h. >
Her eyes welled up again at Tenebrae's statement. "I'm sorry," she said again, not even realizing she was repeating herself. "I tried talking to Merlin I-"
She had promised to tell him if it came up again.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:39 pm
He turned his head to her and frowned. "Why?" he asked. Then after a beat, in a murmur as if in respects to their surroundings, "Merlin doesn't have control over the dead." If he did, Death and Thanatos would have no point.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:42 pm
Chel was quiet. Don't make me say it.
"Chris is-" She couldn't bring herself to say dead. She knew he was dead (a trainee wouldn't survive four days in the icy mountains with no supplies, no protection, no-
"-Missing."
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:46 pm
"Do you know anything else?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:48 pm
Chel tried to get more out but it just turned into silent crying.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:55 pm
He waited and waited, and the longer he did the more he felt removed from the sound, at once aware and conscious of it yet incapable of understanding how it was best tackled. It was the same thing he had experienced on Christmas, the same automatic drive to fix. (People are not all the same, do not treat them all the same, do not be so dense.)
Exhaling through his nose, Jack scooted closer and placed a cold hand on her back. Small steps.
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:00 pm
His fingers made her understand why he flinched every time she touched him without warning. Flinching did come, but then so did leaning in to his touch, indulging-
And then an abrupt stop. "I think you should stay away from me."
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:09 pm
He remembered the night she stayed in his room when he said don't and how long that had lasted--how he had leaned his head into her hand much like she turned to his now--and began to stroke her spine. "Reasons?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:14 pm
"Nothin' goes right with me."
<He'll die too. >
"S'always my fault. I shoulda stayed with him. I shoulda gone into that mountain with him. We coulda done something we-"
...
"I want you safe. Yer not gonna be safe around me." Simple math. Adding herself to anyone made it subtraction. "I'm everyone's problem."
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:33 pm
He spoke in the same undertone of a story by the fire, scoffing. "Safe. News flash, Chel: nobody's safe. There's always going to be a risk no matter what you do, so deciding to go alone is hardly going to make it better."
The stroking continued, and his fingers began to regain some amount of feeling.
"Quit acting like a ******** martyr."
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:38 pm
"If you're gonna make fun of me just leave Jack." But she leaned into his hand now. "I don't need two people sayin' I'm stupid."
Her voice was quieter still and it cracked at the end. "How come people leave me all the time then?" Her eyes were fixed on what was left of Nevada and she felt another wave of tears coming on. It was enough to throw all of her weight into Jack's shoulder, another thing she would apologize for later.
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