Rachel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theresnodoor) wrote2011-07-02 09:11 am
theresnodoor) wrote2011-07-02 09:11 am
Entry tags:
OOM
After This:
Milliways is there for those who need it.
So they say.
I was dead.
I was dead.
And now I'm - well, not.
The door swings behind her and the grass beneath her feet is cool and soft. The sun is going down behind the mountains and the sky is streaked with color. All is green and cool and beautiful.
Last summer, it was boiling hot and every spare day was spent indoors or at the beach - not of a lake, but the Pacific Ocean, and they had to take a bus to get there unless their parents dropped them off and... and if she were there right now, there would be no buses and the beaches probably survived but not without their own scars and if she survived if she survived if she survived if she if and if.
Walk. Steps. One in front of the other.
If she had survived, what would she have said?
Trees up ahead, turn, the way is clear.
How would she have justified?
Move, just move.
Was. Was dead.
Run.
Jog, really. Just move. Until all of her energy is taken up with breathing and moving and staying upright.
Or just the last two.
Milliways is there for those who need it.
So they say.
I was dead.
I was dead.
The door swings behind her and the grass beneath her feet is cool and soft. The sun is going down behind the mountains and the sky is streaked with color. All is green and cool and beautiful.
Last summer, it was boiling hot and every spare day was spent indoors or at the beach - not of a lake, but the Pacific Ocean, and they had to take a bus to get there unless their parents dropped them off and... and if she were there right now, there would be no buses and the beaches probably survived but not without their own scars and if she survived if she survived if she survived if she if and if.
Walk. Steps. One in front of the other.
If she had survived, what would she have said?
Trees up ahead, turn, the way is clear.
How would she have justified?
Move, just move.
Was. Was dead.
Run.
Jog, really. Just move. Until all of her energy is taken up with breathing and moving and staying upright.
Or just the last two.
Was. Was dead.
no subject
Her first impulse is to scoff and deny it, this cheerful teenage girl with rainbow hair and ugly clothes, covered in scars and fresh to her old life, the bar, everything.
Her second impulse is to remind herself she doesn't know this girl, or what she means by 'war' or what exactly 'wasn't good' means.
But her eyes narrow anyway, calculating and cold with anger still.
"Whoever thought you deserved torture in return for it was wrong, if that's what you're trying to say. No one deserves that."
no subject
She's pretty sure, anyway, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. It is an ugly but very comfortable hoodie. Her jeans and the long-sleeved purple top she's wearing under them fit really nicely, though. (Goldilocks again.)
"But it was - I mean, it was a war. And he took me somewhere - I didn't know where. I couldn't help them. And Gotham was - burning." Her voice trembles the tiniest bit. "They did their best. They did enough. They saved me."
no subject
We have to win.
Taylor.
"No."
The word comes out hard, cold, and Rachel steps forward without another thought, putting herself directly inside Stephanie's space, blue eyes focused but not on the girl in front of her.
"No, okay? Somebody hurt you. And okay, it happened, and here are the reasons why but it's not okay, it's not an excuse. If they did their best and they didn't save you from everything, then their best is crap.
"You don't do enough for people, you do everything you possibly can and if it's still not good enough, you do everything you can to make it up to them."
no subject
"I'm not one of them any more," she says quietly. "They don't owe me anything. I got a lot of people killed."
no subject
But Rachel's eyes narrow and her voice stays cold. "You're human, right? And they're heroes? Supposed to save the world and stop wars?
"You're part of the world.
"The end."
no subject
"Supposed to save the world and stop wars."
no subject
There are people and images and situations that deserved all those words, and none of them include Steph. The blue eyes staring into hers were little more than a soundboard.
A soundboard that listened and heard and felt.
Rachel steps back and looks away, her throat tight and raw.
"Sorry."
no subject
She is shorter than Rachel, compact and muscled, her face freckled and tanned from the sun of another continent. It is a sweet face but there's strength in it, too, determination and courage, only highlighted by the deliberate patterns of scars. In spite of the silly hair.
"I'm just having a rough time right now. I'll get over it."
She will. It's what she does.
"We'll get over it."
no subject
But she does look at the girl for clarification, frowning at the words. "We?"
no subject
Sixten years old. Sixteen years old forever, watching her friends age and grow, hearing about her world falling apart, putting itself back together, moving on without her. Never needing to cut her fingernails or trim her hair. Seeing babies born and grow up, their parents develop grey hairs and frowns, knowing she'd never have that. Listening to that soft, whispering call from behind the Door, from Beyond.
"Short of a miracle, it pretty much keeps sucking. But you get better at dealing with it."
no subject
It does not get easier, it never will. It keeps sucking but you get better at dealing with it.
Such familiar words for such completely different situations.
I was dead.
Tobias upstairs, living breathing with a door he can see. Yrael, immortal but alive with a door. X and James and Jo and Ako, Milliways is so great and fantastic and they all. Have. Doors.
It keeps sucking. It never gets easier. This is her afterlife, not a party, not a reststop, and the worlds will turn and the clocks will tick but only outside the door she can't see.
And this girl, this stupid girl with her small, warm, alive hands running through her hair was dead, isn't now, and says we like anything she is can be related to anything in Rachel.
"Get away from me."
no subject
"Okay," she says, meaning to be friendly but with a bite to her tone in spite of her best intentions. Trying to be nice doesn't mean she has to be a complete pushover, after all.
She turns and heads back up the hill.
no subject
She watches her go and doesn't move until Steph is gone from her sight. Makes sure she's gone and won't come back, not now.
Without looking away from the door, she takes stock of the time and weather - Tobias might be inside right now. He's certainly not right above her head. And there's no one inside the bar she wants to see right now.
Jogging, sparring, training, nothing is going to cut it now but the old fallbacks.
It's getting dark. No one's going to notice an extra dolphin in the lake.