revenance_rpg | ☆ I'll think about it.

Entry tags:

☆ I'll think about it.

Who: York (

guerriera).
What: A certain conversation about 'After' is overdue. York decides to see if Carolina's ready to talk yet.
Where: Carolina's Apartment - Tram District, Twilight Town
When: Early-Mid morning
Warnings: Season 9 and 10 spoilers for Red vs Blue! Also, general Freelancer warning. Potentially lots of feels too.

The advantage of living in the Tram District was the proximity of that one little dead end alley. The one that seemed to refill itself with crates and boxes every now and then, just in time for someone to breeze through and smash them all. It made the perfect place to toss out the empty storage crates from the warehouse beneath the apartment she'd wrangled out of the moogles.

She hadn't had it long and hadn't really bothered to do much with it yet. But once she'd started clearing the unused building beneath her new place, Carolina realised she had found something to focus her attention on when the (seemingly futile) search for magical jewelry proved unsuccessful. And it also meant that she didn't have to think about topics (and people) closer to home..

She'd managed to avoid revealing where she'd holed herself up since quitting the hotel, but that couldn't last forever.

Lounging out front across the red pathing, Dax and Lela napped in the 'morning' sunset-shine, unbothered by trams that rattled on by and well out of their Person's way as Carolina cleared out their new living space. Though clad in her armor, she hadn't bothered with her helmet so close to home today, and the extra strength boost meant she could shift some of the heavier crates with ease.

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York headed towards Carolina; he got the need for space, but they were long overdue a chat. And he needed to move out; now that the MoI was safe, maybe he would join up with North and head there. Sparky and Max trotted ahead, flopping down next to Dax and Lela. York raised his hand to wave. "Hey, good morning."

Hey, they'd chatted plenty when prancing around Ponyville! ~~What do you mean that didn't count..~~

She'd just finished dumping one of the larger cargo boxes in the alley when York appeared, Carolina's head turning sharply as he waved at her as she half-jogged down the short stair. "York," she replied, somewhat neutral, willing herself to relax. He was alone, which was a good thing.

Right? Right.

Dax twitched a tail in greeting when the other spirits appeared, but Lela leapt to her paws, immediately nudging and nuzzling York's companions in greeting before making a beeline for their Person.

"How are you settling in?" It looked like she was still moving stuff out; he could give her a hand with that, not that she'd need one. What were friends for?

Max barked happily and trotted after Lela, while Sparky flopped down next to Dax.

"Well enough," she shrugged, mindful not to step in the way of the delighted spirits. Dax flipped his tail again at Sparky, approving of naps, before glancing at the Persons. ..Nah, they didn't need supervising.

"You missed most of the heavy lifting." Men. Good thing she's so self-sufficient. Moving again, she rounded the corner, then shoved at the large door that led into the warehouse. If York wanted to follow her, that was up to him. "But it's been unexciting. It's not like I have a lot of belongings to move around to begin with."

York headed in after Carolina, taking in the space. "Pretty nice space, though. What are you thinking of doing with it?" Training, probably. No, that wasn't a nice thing to think, even if it was probably true.

"Training."

Absolutely accurate guess there, York. In some ways, the Carolina of old hadn't changed that much. (Just some of her, in arguably the worst ways.)

It was not the brightest of spaces yet but there wasn't as much dust as there had been, and the stack of boxes and crates had been moved to one side. A punch bag had already been suspended from the ceiling (with moogle assistance), and its twin was tucked into the corner of the room out of the way. Unused shelves were dotted about, with a counter running along one corner. Next to it, a broom rested against the wall, while a large round table was propped on its edge. And at the back, a staircase headed upwards - to the actual apartment space.

Not that anyone would blame York for believing Carolina was staying down here. She'd all but lived in the training room aboard the MoI back in the day when there weren't missions to run. "Figured it'd be good to have a space where nightmares weren't likely to show up every 10 minutes."

Edited 2013-12-24 13:36 (UTC)

"That sounds like a good idea. Less waste this way." York checked the place out; he knew Carolina liked training but he didn't think she'd live in a training room. She'd have wanted to have a place to work out right next to her home, though. "Living space is upstairs?"

There was a pause to her step, before Carolina shot York a Look over her left shoulder. One that said, quite clearly, Yes, York, upstairs, without an invitation attached to it. She calmly kicked aside one of the leftover boxes as she resumed moving across the floor. "It'll do. How's life in the hotel?"

Something pink shot past her and collided with said empty cardboard box, sending it surfing across the floor before it toppled 'upright'. It seemed some things never changed regardless of universe: few things had greater allure for a cat than a box.

"Pretty good. We haven't had any problems lately." York paused for a moment. "You know, we said we'd talk sometime but we haven't really gotten around to it."

No problems. Except in the form of one white-armored man who had an unfortune future ahead of him.

The slope of her shoulders stiffened beneath her armor, relaxed air evaporating at once. No beating about the bush today, it seemed. "I said I'd think about it," she corrected York, mindful to keep her voice even.

"Is that a no?" York paused. On the one hand, it wouldn't be right to force her to talk about it, but on the other hand, not talking got them into big trouble in the past. "I don't want to ruin your day, Boss, but I'd like to know what came up after I died."

Only after?

Her lips thinned, but she did not reply right away, neither confirming or denying how she thought this conversation might turn out. It couldn't end as badly as those from their distant past, at least. (They already knew how that story had ended.)

"I'm not answering everything right now." But if they were going to talk, it wasn't going to be down here.

She turned sharply, stride taking her towards the staircase at the back. "Stay," she said firmly to Lela when she surfaced from her box to stare at the humans, the spirit looking surprised before wilting back down, ears very droopy. Only then did Carolina jerk her head, indicating for York to follow.

York headed up the stairs after Carolina. He wouldn't mind discussing things from before he died, but it was after that got him really curious. It wasn't like he could change things, no matter when it was from. Everything had fallen apart because everyone had done the wrong things; he just wanted to know how they'd turned out for everyone else.

He paused at the top of the stairs to look around.

Carolina left the door open behind her for York to enter, moving across the room before she then turned to face it and him directly.

The first impression the apartment gave was that it that still needed a lot of work. It was clean, of course, but exceptionally spartan, with only a battered leather couch for guests, and two smaller arm chairs set either side. There wasn't a kitchen table, but then, there wasn't much of a kitchen to go with it, and the doors leading off to other rooms were firmly closed.

Carolina folded her arms over her chest, resisting the urge to drum her fingers against the armor on her upper arm. Without her helmet on, it was a little more difficult to hide her mood, but for the moment, her lips remained pressed into a thin line.

She didn't know everything. Some specifics would likely require Epsilon and Wash - she wouldn't tell their stories for them, save in briefest passing. But she'd say what she could. "What do you want to know?"

Now that he was here, he wasn't sure. He was never great at facing her when she was upset, and he'd been the one to start this right now. "What happened to everyone?"

He might not have been great at it, but he'd often been the only one to try back in the day. That didn't make things better, though.

Carolina wasn't entirely surprised by the question, even if she looked intensely uncomfortable for a moment, and she briefly closed her eyes as she considered her answer.

Funny, that he should ask her instead of Washington, when the latter had been here longer. Weren't they best friends? "Dead. For the most part."

York had asked Wash, but Wash hadn't really dealt with anything well, and he wanted to know how Carolina would talk to him about it. In a terse way, apparently. "Somehow I guessed that part."

She could do her best Wash impression if you really wanted her to, York. Be glad she's at least willing to (try and) talk. The flat look doesn't change a hair.

"Those that didn't die were arrested after the UNSC oversite committee finally realised that the paper trail they'd fed during the war didn't add up after it was over." Except for the Director. And she still hadn't learned what had become of the Counselor, come to think of it. But that man was less important to her in the grand scheme of things.

"Then they shut the Project down." And filed it away where no one would look for it.

Edited 2014-01-04 01:20 (UTC)

"What about D and the other AI?" This was something he didn't really want to know, since it could only end badly. In the best case scenario, the project would be taken over and they'd all be put in storage indefinitely. York felt Delta shudder in the back of his mind; storage would be as bad as being deactivated, alone in the dark with your thoughts.

She knew she could answer this one with equal terseness but the fact that she was reluctant to answer was clear. It wasn't just York she would be telling, after all, even if Delta had thus far kept himself out of the conversation.

When Carolina finally spoke, her voice wasn't gentle. But it held a note of apology to it that would be easily missed when the weight of her words actually sunk in. "Epsilon is the last one left."

York wished he could be more surprised, but he really wasn't, at this point. No point in asking Carolina how she felt about that; the project had taken everything from her. Had she ever found out what Tex really was? Would it have mattered to her? That wasn't something he was ready to ask her even now. "Do you know what happened? Wash loses it when anyone even mentions Epsilon and told him off about talking to me in general."

Because Epsilon had let him know that Carolina was alive.

"I don't. Not everything," she corrected herself, lips pursed a moment, before shaking her head slightly. She let herself lean back against the wall by the window. "I know that the Meta was involved, that he-- It had managed to obtain most of them one way or another." A Maine-shaped shell, certainly, but what was left of the man they'd known wasn't human anymore, not at the end.

"The records I obtained stated an EMP blast wiped out all the electronics in the UNSC facility that Epsilon was originally recovered from. Anything more exact.." A shrug. "Also meant they didn't have as much evidence to throw the book at the Director as they wanted, but just enough to move in and shut things down."

Mentioning Wash twisted her expression, Carolina not quite masking her scorn at York's words. He'd told her, back when she'd first arrived, that Wash's PTSD was severe here, and he hadn't been wrong, but she had little patience for it now. And Epsilon had told her he'd threatened him.. "He doesn't seem to have a tolerance for anything."

"I think he was pretty close to his lowest point when he came here." York paused. "I hope so anyway, because if this was the upswing, I don't know what his lowest point looked like. He's a lot better than he was, but some stuff is off-limits. I don't know; I made a lot of mistakes. Pushing when I shouldn't have, keeping my mouth shut when I should have explained things." He looked away from Carolina. "I don't know if not pushing him was the right thing."

Of course, the odds were that he knew who was behind that blast. If it wasn't Carolina or the Director himself, that left one likely party. "Of course he might have had other reasons."

Carolina said nothing, neither agreeing or disagreeing with York as he talked. He couldn't meet her eyes and she couldn't look away. Eventually, however, she had to say something. "At least you pushed." Too little? Too late? That's hard to say here and now.

"Better that than do nothing." Nothing but watch how the cards fall and who else might get caught out as they tumbled.

"Maybe," she said evenly. "I don't know either way." And if she cared, she wasn't prepared to admit that, not even to herself.

Edited 2014-01-07 02:30 (UTC)

"Were you alone all that time, until you met up with him again?" York asked. Did you trust someone else enough to let them in, or did you keep yourself closed off for all that time? Did you let someone try to help you, or did you stew over the mistakes you made, over the way everyone hurt you and left you.

The question did not quite get under her guard, but the first ripples had begun, and Carolina felt herself sinking into her habitual glare. She didn't try to fight it.

"Yes."

When you're bleeding out from head wounds in the snow, emptiness present where once two voices shrieked a cacophony, and no one comes for you, not your team (what should have been left of them), not the support staff, not your father, not the UNSC.. When you're left for dead in the ice and all that giving everything for a cause you'd believed in gets you is a passing footnote in reference to the Project's decline...

That's when you learn the hard way that trust is a commodity that would only try to kill you as surely as Sigma had done. "I survived."

York shifted, looking a bit started. "Well, of course you did. You're the best." It's out of his mouth before he thinks about it and he instantly flinches. She was always the best to him, it wasn't about leaderboards, Tex could never have managed a team the way Carolina did. Tex was great at being a soldier; she cared more deeply than most people could see, but being the best fighter wasn't the same as being the best.

Not that being the best should have mattered. It wasn't about that, someone's value wasn't tied to how useful they were but he could never put that into words, much less do it in a way that Carolina would understand.

"Best?"

Her voice was sharper than she'd intended, wound tightly, but she couldn't help that - she felt as though York had slapped her through sheer force of words that he hadn't meant as an insult. For a moment Carolina was genuinely torn between harsh laughter and shock, as given by the flicker of -- something, anger maybe, or hurt that dragged her away from her propped pose against the wall.

She didn't believe him. Surviving was hardly an achievement, they'd be trained for that. So, best at what, exactly? At failure? At never making a Goddamned difference?

...She didn't want to talk any more. "Get out."

He should leave. He'd messed up everything again, but...she couldn't keep pushing people away. That was what had made her so tense and brittle in the first place. What would have happened if they'd gotten together and dragged her aside to talk with her? What would have happened if they'd tried to talk her down before she pushed them too far away for them to reach her? York shook his head. "No. I'm sorry, but...this is a talk we should have had a long time ago, and I need you to hear me out." And not toss him out.

"You were always amazing in ways no one could ever touch. It wasn't about fighting, it was about the fact that you cared about your team, that you cared about the people who made up Project Freelancer. We all wanted to save our home from the aliens; that's why we were there, but you were the highest person in the program who gave a shit about anyone else. I knew that you'd be fighting even when the Project fell apart because I knew you wouldn't stop until you'd gotten your goal. Even after everyone...everyone but me wrote you off." York paused. And now she'd kick him out.

Carolina hadn't expected him to say no. That much was clear from the single blink she gave him, before her face shifted in anger. "I said, get. Out." She was already moving, not really listening in spite of York's request - she didn't need or want to hear anything more he had to say right now. It was a small apartment, making it easy to cross in a handful of strides. The prospect of her tossing York out the door and down that short flight of stairs didn't seem to phase him, and she could feel her anger swell as she reached to seize his arm.

Even if they weren't in their armor, Carolina had no reservations about the fact she could take him down.

Except he wasn't. He was still talking, talking about her specifically, and the redhead stopped, stared incredulously up at him even as her grip tightened. "And look at the good that did! For any of us!" she spat back, shoving York as she did so - at the wall, at least, and not the door. "Not a damned thing!" She'd done everything she could, everything humanely possible, and simply couln't complete. (A very cruel irony, knowing what she knew now regarding Texas.) "The Project crashed and burned any chance of doing our part to the ground. The war went on without us, York." The war ended without them.

The muscles in her jaw bunched, but she didn't say anything to his last statement. That much, she knew, had been true. And when he'd finally given up, that had been her fault too.

Edited 2014-01-08 05:32 (UTC)

York pulled back, shifting towards the door. "...I'll go. I just want you to know you're worth something. You're worth everything. I never knew how to tell you." If she let him go, he'd just leave now. Maybe she'd think about what he'd said, and maybe she wouldn't, but at least he wouldn't have left anything unsaid, this time.

Even as York pulled back, he wouldn't find himself going very far. For someone who had just made it clear she wanted him to leave, Carolina's grip on his arm didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Or maybe York didn't get to say something like that and then just walk away.

"No. I'm not." Her head shook for emphasis, heavy swathe of hair shifting into her eyes. Carolina didn't look at him, then, even as she stayed where she was. Maybe she had been, once. Her temper, now diverted, seemed to drain away. "I should have been," and oh, how she'd tried, and failed and failed and failed again, "but I wasn't." And the fact he had thought otherwise - still thought otherwise - simply made the weight of that much worse.

York sighed. "It doesn't work like that for everybody." It did work like that for some very important people in Carolina's life and he hopes that they suffer for a long time, each and every one of them. "For me, for all your friends, all you have to be is you. The good and the bad. We love you. Not some number on a board. I - we - don't count things up in columns and decide if you're worth our time."

I never should have stopped looking, but my faith wasn't strong enough he doesn't say, because this isn't about him. If he can make her see, if he can help her heal...he has to try.

That Carolina was uncomfortable was an understatement, because while she knew that York was not lying, what he had to say didn't match any of her life's experience. What was (apparently) normal for other people had never been so for her, and it was hard, so very very hard, to remove yourself from that. And being stuck here, in this dream, meant she couldn't finish what was started anyway. So close, and yet..

And yet, did it really matter, in the end, that they had cared -- love had been the word he'd used, and Lord knows she wasn't sure she really wanted to look closely at that when she didn't know what she felt -- when almost all her friends were three years dead?

So she didn't answer him, hand still on his arm and not really seeing what York wanted her to see. Not when her shoulders were already bowed by the weight of responsilities she'd taken on because no one else would. And because there was no one else to do so.

She hadn't meant to make this about her, not when he'd just wanted answers about their future.

"I should go," York said gently. She had a lot to think about. They could discuss it later, if she started talking to him again.

Carolina glanced up, green eyes half hidden by red hair, before nodding slightly in acknowledgement. After all, she'd told him to leave, hadn't she?

Part of her was still angry. But another part wished, wanted, to apologise. She hadn't been a very good friend at the end then, and she wasn't doing any better now. Reluctantly, fingers relaxed on his arm, before Carolina drew them along it and then away, leaving York free to move as he wanted.

At least she hadn't punched him.

"...I'm always around, if you need anything," York said. He headed for the door and the stairs. It would probably take a while for her to talk to him again, but that was okay. They'd get through this. They'd gotten through worse.

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☆ I'll think about it.

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