versusnurture | twenty-nine ♢ private & video

twenty-nine ♢ private & video

private } ben

[She's shaking-angry when she goes to sleep, but when she wakes up the next morning, it's like everything's gone. Resentment lives under her skin, but she isn't consumed anymore, like she might go up if the flame of her anger isn't doused. She feels safe. She feels whole.]

[She gets up, goes to the bathroom, washes her face and brushes her teeth on autopilot. She's already gotten used to having a bathroom off of her cabin. It's amazing how little time it took, how used she is to something that was a luxury a month ago.]

[As she turns to head out the door to meet Scott at the clinic, her fingers brush across the Go stone, Ben's item, to pick it up, to take it with her - and she freezes.]

[It's ice cold.]

[In a flash, she's dropped it on the floor, run out of her cabin, and slammed the door. She pulls out her communicator with shaking fingers, calling the only person she trusts to help her in this situation.]

Ben? I need you.

private } elena

[This is the part she was dreading. She tries not to, though. She knows that what Elena said before is true. They're both strong people, and they can only get stronger with time. Nobody can keep them down anymore.]

Elena? I need to talk to you.

video

[Everything is, in its own way, a production. Even this. She's posed herself carefully, sitting on her bed and framed in light from the window, so that she looks older, more poised than she feels. What she feels is afraid. Overwhelmed. Not ready.]

[But she has to be ready, which is why she makes herself smile like nothing and nobody can touch her anymore.]

I'm not as good at telling stories as Ben is. But I want to tell this one, if that's okay, because it's important to me. Some of you know it. If you do, I hope it's all right that I repeat it.

[She looks down for a moment, at her hands where they twist together in her lap, and then up at the camera. The smile reaches her eyes, now, because she can feel the strength coming, making her spine straighter and her breath come smoother.]

Just over two years ago now - two years ago for me - my dad died. He'd killed a bunch of girls who looked just like me, and I had helped him. Because I didn't know what else to do, mostly, and because if I didn't, he said he was going to kill me, too.

I didn't want anyone to know what I'd done. I didn't want anybody to think badly of me. I worked so hard to keep myself safe that I ended up killing somebody else, and then . . .

Some of you remember Hannibal.

[She clears her throat, forces her hands to flatten out on the bed beside her.]

It's so easy to trust the wrong person. It's so easy. I trusted so many of them, and I got so many people hurt. I want to apologize, but most of the people I hurt are gone now. For those of you who are still here, I'd take it back if I could. I'm sorry for making the wrong decision.

But I'm not sorry for surviving.

[Now her eyes blaze with confidence, her words coming stronger with every breath.]

Ben saved my life. You all saved my life. So thank you. I'm going now.

I'm going to kill Hannibal.

[She hopes beyond hope that he comes back here. But that part she won't say out loud, just biting her lip, smiling, waving - and killing the feed.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Graduated.]

[She stares as the bathroom door blinks out of focus, then comes back, as though it can't be unmade. As though it doesn't want to be unmade. As though it's her right, not her privilege, to have such amenities here on the Barge. As though she's equal to any warden.]

[She is equal to any warden, as of right now.]

[The thought makes her head spin. Graduated? She can't have graduated. She leans heavily on the door frame, seeking out Ben's eyes to see if, maybe, just maybe, he's made a joke.]

[For a long few moments, he does not look at her; he's nominally looking at the door but it's merely a target for his physical attention while his mind works, while his thoughts blitz from one point to the next. Graduated. She graduated. She can leave, now, she can go home - or anywhere - and be safe, she cannot be taken advantage of ever again, she can...

Finally his eyes tick over to her, he sees her, his fingers closing reflexively over the alabaster game piece; he is not joking. He doesn't look like he knows what to think.

Then his lips twitch, first a misfire, then a small, pale smile.] You graduated.

[For a moment, she's terrified that he's angry with her. She has no idea why he would be, but the fear is still there - she doesn't think it will ever go away. Anger is the most frightening emotion, besides cool calculation, and if he were to hate her for graduating and leaving him here, she wouldn't be able to stand it.]

[But then he smiles at her, and she can't help it: she starts crying, just a few tears falling down her cheek as she smiles back at him, then laughs, wide and bright and happy and sad all at once. She did it. She did it..]

I can't believe -

[She can't believe any of this. It's been so long and so horrible and so beautiful and she can't believe she got here.]

[With watery eyes, she turns to Ben and holds out her hand.]

Can I hug you? Please?

[It is a kind of agoraphobia, maybe: Ben is someone who likes to know what to expect, likes for things to be as predictable as possible, likes to have answers. He remembers his own graduation, the sudden realization that his world had expanded past the point of his comprehension all at once - walking out of a corridor and into a wide open space.

Abigail has graduated, and not only does she have so many more options, but now so does he. He is not angry with her. He is terrified for them both.

Terrified, and proud. His lips actually catch in the smile this time, and he turns fully to face her, reaching for her hand.] You did it.

Yes. Yes, you can. [A real smile, then: a smile like other people smile. One that, at any moment, might shatter apart into laughter.]

[That's all the permission she needs. There is so little space between them, but all of a sudden it's far too much, and she runs, runs, runs into his arms, catching her hand on his first, then burying her face in the solid wall of his chest, wrapping her arms around his back. He is so steady and unsteady all at once, so dangerous and safe, her Ben, her warden, but not anymore, but always.]

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're amazing, you're my best friend, and I could never have done this without you.

[She would have died a thousand times from her own mistakes without him there to protect her, and show her how to protect herself.]

[His only answer at first is that he folds her in close, and his arms are tight around her in return; he has learned, in the past weeks, to overcome his own discomfort and offer exactly the kind of comfort this is to most others. He has learned to be solid and to trust, to let her lean in the security of his arms as long as she likes.

There is no telling how much longer he will be able to do this, so he does it now, his eyes closing, listening to her voice thanking him and letting the knot of emotion dispersing slowly in his own gut warm him from the inside out without analysis. There is too much, for this moment.]

Abigail. [Just her name, next. Everything he could ever want to say in it: that he has meant every word he has ever said to her, that he loves her, that he always will, that she is his friend, she is his, she is]

I love you. I always will. [He says it above her head, where he has tucked her under his chin, where he holds on tight as she has helped him to know, as she has helped teach him, too.]

I know.

[She does know. He's the first person who's ever loved her without wanting something in return. Her father wanted her compliance and her life, Alana wanted her to be innocent, Will wanted her to be his daughter, and Hannibal . . .]

[But she doesn't owe any of them anything anymore, and it's because of Ben. It's because of him that she's found herself again, that she's no longer lost in the woods far away from any hope of safety. It's because of him that she can go do what's right now, without fear.]

[She looks up at him with watery eyes, grinning and grinning and grinning.]

I love you, too.

[Because Ben is always thorough - because he as born with an optimist's soul but run through the meatgrinder of practicality - there are things he is thinking and feeling about this that are less than positive. Some of it is attached solely to him. Some of it is wrapped up in the knowledge that Abigail will go - she must go - she won't stay and he knows that. But she grins up at him and he loosens his arms enough so that she can; she grins at him and he finds himself smiling back.

She knows, and he finds he does, too.]

I have something to tell you. I meant to do it before...

I have something for you. [It is the first thing he can think of to offer. It is what she must know before, inevitably, they must decide what to do next. (Before she must decide what to do next because she is free, now, she makes her own decisions, she goes where she pleases and does as she pleases.)]

[Looking up at him with wide eyes, it takes her a moment to wrap her mind around what he's saying. He has something for her, something more. She can't imagine what more he could possibly offer. He's already given her everything. But she's excited for it all the same, her eyes bright, back straight as she cranes her neck towards him, still refusing to let go.]

What is it?

[Normally, Ben knows all too well, this is about where he would begin to feel claustrophobic, where his deep-seated fear of being confined would begin to eat away at his very real desire to be close, to be loved. He can feel it tickling at the base of his gut but he has learned how to hold that off, and it's easier now because she will go, maybe as soon as their conversation ends, maybe not, but maybe.]

This place has become home for me. It was the Good Place I always dreamed about, full of people who could be family, and I have more here - both physical and not - than I have ever had anywhere else. When I graduated, of course I was going to stay. Of course I was going to return the blessing.

I never had use for a deal with the Admiral. As far as I have always been concerned, I am earning back the opportunity I have here, not the other way around. So I decided very soon after we were paired that I would give my deal to you when you graduated.

You can ask for anything, Abigail. It is your right.

[It is the only thing he can think of to do for her, now. He cannot go with her, he cannot tell her what her life should be - nor would he try if he could - but he can make room, one more time, for her to make her own decisions. She is the only one that will have to live or die by them, and it is the one simple, unalienable right she was never allowed.]

[At first she can't believe what she's hearing. She didn't even know it was possible. Can you transfer your deal to someone else, make it so they can wish for anything they want? Even stranger is the possibility that this is her right. No one has ever given her anything like this, not even Arkin when he gave her the ruby. That was something concrete, something tangible. This is too huge to comprehend.]

[She looks up at him with damp eyes, not quite crying but not quite not, either, her shoulders trembling with the effort of contained emotion.]

Ben, I don't.

[She's about to say she doesn't deserve this, but knows he'd object; anyway, she knows it's not true, after a moment's thought. She does deserve this. She's worked hard, hard enough to be a little greedy for herself, for once.]

[Clutching onto his sleeve, she lays her ear against his chest to listen to his heart; standing like that, she speaks, her voice low and slow and intent.]

I don't want to bring anyone back. My parents are dead. They should stay that way. I don't want anything like that.

I want something practical.

[Once upon a time, Ben might have been a romantic; in many ways, he still is, but the airy lightness of optimism is bound now in the heavy steel frame of practicality. He is determined to make it work - he is durable in a way he understands, this way - but it leaves him at a loss when faced with such a wide array of options such as those a deal presents him. He would object if she tried to say she doesn't deserve it - they both know she does. That's fear talking.

But he is afraid she'll say she doesn't know what to do with it, and he has no answer for that, not really. I want something practical she says, listening to his slightly faster than human heartbeat, and he breathes out.]

Do you want to go back to where you came from? [He is not sure if it is home for her, so he does not ask that. It is, however, a way to narrow the field of possibility to something viable.]

[She can hear him breathing, and it makes her feel calmer - soothed and grounded. It might be the last time she gets to be this close to him, and she desperately wants to make the moment last.]

[The question is - well, it's complicated. It's the only home she's ever known, and she wants to succeed in it. Excel in it. But before she can, there's one thing she has to do, one obstacle she has to remove. She wonders if Ben knows what it is, if he'd approve. Apparently the Admiral does; she hasn't been demoted just for thinking of it.]

I want to go back. But I don't have anything there. I don't have resources. I don't have money.

[She cocks her head up at him, wondering if he'd disapprove of a deal being used this way. Somehow she doesn't think so; he's not so sentimental as some other people, at least not in the ways that count.]

[The problem is that Hannibal is impossible to escape, if she goes back; Ben knows that. He must either be run from or eliminated, and Ben's training has a decisive answer for that. His heart, though, would lead him in an entirely different direction. It would also be the direction completely opposite from any world with Hannibal in it.

Instead, he nods, and cranes his neck back to look back down at her.]

I know that was a concern of yours at one point. It is valid, and this would be the easiest way to give yourself that, if you intend to make a place for yourself in your world.

[An endorsement, but there's a note of something else there, too. Not quite sadness, but related to it, faint and fleeting.]

[Something in the undertone of Ben's voice lets her know how worried he is. She can't blame him, of course. What she's about to embark on is a dangerous, some might say absolutely foolhardy venture. But it's also the only way she knows how to move forward. She needs to reclaim her home; if she doesn't, she'll never feel completely whole again. And she needs to get rid of Hannibal to do that.]

[There's only one way to get rid of him. The law isn't strong enough to break him. Prisons can't hold him. She doesn't want to make him seem more powerful than he is, but the truth is, death is the only thing that's going to stop him for long.]

[She shakes her head at Ben, but it's not a no.]

I want to. I don't have to, but I want to. I won't have my home taken away from me for good.

[Ben never had a home; he created one out of fond wishes and fantasy, and then the Barge scooped him up and it became real. This place, though, was never going to be home for Abigail. He did not know that immediately but he has known it for quite some time, now.

She needs to go back to where she came from just as surely as Ben needs never to go back to the same. He only wishes, faintly and out of attachment to Abigail more than any real desire or expectation of being useful in her quest, that he could go with her. That, however, won't work either and he knows it.]

I understand.

Anything I can do to facilitate this, I will do so. You know that.

I know.

[She squeezes his hand and bows her head.]

This is really important to me. I'm glad you . . . support me. I'm glad you're helping me.

[There's pretty much no way she could have the courage to do this on her own.]

[He leans back a little now that they're speaking, though he doesn't go as far as he normally would. She bows her head. He tilts his, eyes still on her face, and leaves his hand in hers.]

Once Dr. Lecter has been dealt with - [She hasn't said this, but he knows it must happen. He knows that.] - do you know what you would like to do?

[She is awash with sudden gratitude when he says that. Dealt with - it sounds so sanitary, but she knows he knows what is going to have to happen. That she is going to have to kill him. The same as all her other kills, and yet so different at the same time, purposeful, deliberate, a public service. This is not an excuse. It's simply a truth.]

I want everything.

[A warm smile, another squeeze of his hand.]

I want to buy a house in the country and never have to talk to anybody ever again. I want to save Will but I also want to never speak to him again. I want to go to college. I want to go to business school. I want to travel.

Do you think I can do all that? All at once?

[He suspects she will kill Hannibal, but he doesn't know it for sure; this is, in part, the whole point. No one but Abigail knows what Abigail will do. No one can. Her choices are in her hands.

And he expects that indeed, she will gut him as any hunter does their prey, but there is still room for something else. There must be. He lets there be, and tilts his head.]

All at once? Not likely. You are, however, capable of all of it. You will do all of it.

[He's searching her face now, memorizing it, this moment when she is still his Abigail, still young and intelligent and fierce and now hopeful, now free; freedom is so important, she'd said. It is, he'd agreed.

It is.]

You will do so much more than anyone thought you could.

[More, especially, than she had thought she could. Part of her has always held herself back, in case, in fear of . . . but now, she can't imagine what she was afraid of in the first place. She is a sharp edge, a giddy knife, but she is also the hammer, never the nail. She will form her own destiny.]

[This is what the Barge has given her. This is what Ben has given her. This is what she's given herself.]

I'm going to have a long life.

[She smiles at him, soft and sweet and dangerous, all at once.]

I have to fill it with everything beautiful.

Remember me? [Like this, poised to spring, to fight, to hunt: remember her all potential, trailing possibilities like endless shadows.]

[Ben smiles for her then. He smiles more often these days, more than he ever has in his life, he does so more freely than he would ever have imagined possible just out there in the open, out where anyone can see, less because he is not afraid and more because he never remembers to fear. But this is not that smile.

This is subtle and warm and affectionate, this is light behind his eyes and an easy exhale, this is love.]

I never forgot you, Abigail. I never will. [He forgets things sometimes, but not people; he loses time, but not friends.]

You are still the girl the beautiful soul, and I will tell your story to others that will listen, and I will remind others of you for as long as I am alive.

[He reaches, then, to touch her hair; not to do anything with it, but just to smooth his fingertips over top, to add a sensory memory to the utter detail of his perception.]

Remember me? [Remember, if he loses himself, that he once had himself and she saw it; remember that there is one person at least in all the worlds that never doubted her.]

[She closes her eyes as he reaches out to touch her, basks in his attention, his calming, gentle presence. She loves him so much; she wants to make the world a better place for him.]

[Barring that, she will remember him always, her heart soft with loving him, content with holding his memory within her mind.]

I couldn't forget you even if I tried. You helped me save my own life.

[She rests her fingertips on his wrist, light and soft. When her eyes open, they're warm with everything he's ever done for her.]

[Ben doesn't answer for a long moment even after she answers, after he nods. His fingertips over her hair smooth into his fingers, his palm, and he leans his forehead against hers before he breathes out.

They will remember each other. There isn't much more either of them can promise, not really, not now and not within the foreseeable future. It is, he finds, enough.

It has to be enough, and it is.]

I suppose that's it, then.

[Another moment, his thumb stroking against the crown of her head, and then he straightens back.]

You'll tell me before you go, after you've told the others? [Because of course she'll tell them, of course she has business to tie up. And she'll tell him if there's anything he can do when she's done, before she goes, before they're really done. That's it.]

[Yeah. That's it. This infinitesimal moment when they're touching will have to be enough to bridge the impossible gap of the rest of time. She looks up at him when he pulls away, and her eyes are swimming with tears, and even she doesn't know if they're happy or sad or some emotion no one has put a name to yet, in all of the many worlds represented on this ship.]

I'll tell you before I go.

[Because . . . she shouldn't linger. She shouldn't. But.]

Before I go . . . can you do me a favor? Can you just. Can you sit with me for a while? I want you to be the last thing I see before I go.

[Which will just make it hurt more. But she wants it anyway.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

twenty-nine ♢ private & video

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

Re: [ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]