022 - Before You Finally Go, There's One Thing You Should Know

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Misaki is in the bar, nursing--a cup of coffee. Plain old coffee, no alcohol added. It's not even coffee so much as drinkable mud. She looks tired and angry and upset, and vaguely like she's been crying and is trying to hide it. She stares into space for a moment, looks down at the mug, and then lays her head on her arms and to all intents and purposes falls asleep.]


[[SO Misaki traded her voice for one of the translation notepads. So she can't talk, but she can communicate! The pad translates whatever is written on it into an acceptable language for the reader.]]

Comments

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She nods and closes her eyes.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[taps the sides of her head to make Contact] How's this feel? Want to practice raising doors?

1/2

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Meep.] Weird.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

And that might be a good idea.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

All right, let's see. Try thinking about what you had for breakfast and blocking it from me with a door. Like it's a memory in it's own little box and you're locking it.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[...seems simple enough. Breakfast, meet door!]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[beams] And I can't see it at all.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

...that's it?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

Yep! Granted, I'll be going through your head, so if you start remembering something, it's because I accidentally kicked it up. You know how you clean your room and you find that teddy bear you lost a year ago and suddenly you remember the time you engaged in crane game wars with the Venusians? It's like that. You can put doors up for those, though.

1/2

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Deep breath.] Well. Shall we, then?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[and he starts going deeper through her mind, trying not to kick up too much dust as he does, though he's never been especially well practiced at this. It's especially difficult with Misaki, considering how scattered she is]

Blimey, you're all over the place. Like papers in a wind tunnel.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Twitch. It's harder to keep the doors closed on memories than it is on breakfast, especially when some of them have been rendered emotionally unimportant thanks to the seep of cold logic through her mind, or made overwhelming by a flood of emotions dammed up by the chilly advance.

Kanami kissing her.

Baseball with Sam.

The first time she saw a Contractor.

The first time she saw a man killed.

A stray dog she fed every day on the way to university.

There's no sense to it--it's hard for her to keep anything straight.

And then there's PANDORA, and she's in the thick of it all again--blood tests and wires and electroshock and watching from her plexiglass-fronted cell as they walked child Contractors by every day. The little boy and the new procedure--promising, promising! Could very well be able to change a Contractor's given ability.

She shudders, and then it's the memory of a chunk of glass in her grip, the little boy staring blankly at her, her returning the stare. Two scientists dead on the floor between them, and he says, "I don't understand why you did that."

She doesn't either.

She can't make a sound, but she grabs the Doctor's wrists--not really to stop him, just to have some sort of physical connection to something outside of that place, a reminder that no, she's not in PANDORA any more, and whatever happens next she doesn't have to go back.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[shushes her in her mind]

Shh. Doors, Misaki. Just close yourself off from it. That's not happening. You're here, with me, in a pub on the Astral Plane.

[closes the memory of PANDORA himself to help her come back]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Deep breaths, gulping, more deep breaths. She doesn't let go of him, but she does at least relax, especially once PANDORA is safely tucked away behind a mental barrier.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[in a calm voice]

Are you all right?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[There's a little surprise in it.] Yes.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[sounds happier]

Good. You'll have to learn how to put away memories like that.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Gives his wrists a tiny, unconscious squeeze.] I doubt they'll all be as difficult as... those.