versusnurture | sixth ♢ public

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[She doesn't hear from Arkin all day on Thursday; she doesn't see him, either. By evening, she's concerned. Maybe he's sick, like the new girl in the infirmary. She brings him soup.]

[When she finds him in his room, she drops nothing. Just places it on the nearest flat surface with a sigh and pinches the bridge of her nose.]

[The announcement comes after a slight delay, during which she's thinking hard.]

Arkin O'Brien has fallen into a coma in his room. I need help getting him to the infirmary.

[Anyone who tells her to let them take care of it and go away may get knifed.]

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Oh. Good.

[She goes quiet and lets him explain. Once he's done speaking, she looks down and away, her fingers tracing the shape of the doorknob.]

He's going to be scared when he wakes up alone.

It's just how things are here. It's all right. [It isn't. And she wonders what would happen if Ben went into a coma and never woke up.]

Do you - want to come in?

Because of the man that attempted to kill him?

[Ben has been fortunate, he knows; many have people close to them that experience comas much more frequently than his people have. Of course, Aya is gone now. Zack is still here, but Ben isn't sure for how long anymore; his heart isn't here.

The X5 knows it's not alright, but there isn't anything he can do about that, and he has sufficient experience bearing it along with him anyway.]

Yes, please.

[Her eyes widen slightly. She isn't very surprised that Arkin told, although she doesn't expect that it was the same. He had shared his scars and she had bared hers, quite literally; it was the first moment that she fully understood that Hannibal had probably made a meal of her, or let herself understand.]

[Before saying anything further, she pushes her door open and lets Ben inside. Her room is untidy, although not unclean. She's picked up food waste along the way, but she takes most meals (or semblances of them) here now, and her bed is unmade and heavily slept in.]

[She sits at her desk chair and shakes her head.]

Because of the man who used him and then attempted to kill him.

[It's an important distinction, to her.]

[Ben follows her wordlessly inside, and he looks around as much out of curiosity as out of sincere concern for her state of mind. He knows this is where the most resounding clues to his own mental state have been, in the past; Abigail doesn't use the solid black and white of words written on walls, on skin, to remind herself how not to be insane. But there might be something else.

He's surprised by nothing he sees, or that he hears, glancing back to her as he follows her without trying to take a seat anywhere, stopping within an easy conversational distance.]

I understand. If anyone attempts to interfere with your visiting him, tell me and I will resolve the issue.

[It's the best he can do, really, although he doesn't think anyone would object. His concern is more for the other patients that might end up in there - for Hannibal, if he is killed as quickly as it seems like he might be.]

I have something for you.

Thank you.

[She doesn't expect anyone will, either, but it's a significant gesture all the same. Ben is on her side when it doesn't go against what he perceives as her best interests. He proves this over and over again.]

[When he says he has something for her, she sits up straighter. Her hand rests lightly on the crank of the gramophone, which is behind her, pushed carefully to the back of her desk.]

. . . What is it?

[Ben has never seen a gramophone before; this is significant for two reasons. One, he's not entirely sure what it is, two he's never seen one in here. It's new. But he's not here to investigate her, not here to question - she sits up straighter and he lifts his chin slightly.

He is irrevocably on her side, but he knows there are some - many - things that he's not good at. Anya has very recently proven one of them. Abigail has shown him, unwittingly, another. The problem is he's unsure this is what he should do about it.

Only one way to find out. He looks down at where he's kept his arm close to his body and, instead of answering her verbally, produces the bear with his free hand. He holds it out to her wordlessly, and without hesitating. Much.]

[She doesn't know what to say.]

[She doesn't know what to say or think or do, she is overwhelmed, once she registers what it is he's holding out to her, by his - not goodness, he doesn't like good, but his kindness. The thought that must have gone into this. She knows he is always trying, she does, but seeing concrete representation of it . . .]

[Hesitantly, she reaches for the bear, looking at Ben questioningly. Is this all right? Is it really hers? Can she take it? How is he real, she wonders, how, after everything she's done, does she deserve to have someone like him on her side?]

[There's a part of Ben's mind that registers that she's now the one hesitant to take the bear from him, and labels it Irony. His arm remains steady, however, as steady as his eyes on her, and he doesn't smile or nod or speak but he waits for her to take it and then lets go, pulling his hand back to himself.

She's overwhelmed and Ben is not familiar enough to know whether that's a good or a bad thing; he shifts his weight and there's the uncertainty, then again in the way he licks his lips and lifts his chin again, long before he actually speaks.]

The Barge is... not a safe place. It has been good to me in many ways, taught me many things, but it is not safe. I can't change that. I can't change that Hannibal Lecter is here and I can't change that the people here do terrible things to other people here and that someone may try to do something terrible to you.

I will do my best to intervene and to prevent it, but I am not... skilled at making people feel safe. In general. I'm not proficient at comforting the way most people need comforted. I thought... I hope. This can help.

[In the end she takes it, holding it secure before Ben lets it go and then pulling it tight to her chest. Tears start, but die away quickly; she swallows them down. Instead of crying, she stands, somewhat unsteady, and crawls into bed, crossing her legs and clutching the bear tightly as she drags her comforter over her lap.]

I think this is the nicest - the kindest - the most helpful thing anyone has ever done for me in all my life.

Thank you for . . . for not acting like you can change the things that you can't, and for doing the things that you can. You make me feel safer than I've felt in a really, really long time.

[She tucks her chin up against the top of the bear's head. It's soft and good-smelling. She decides this is what holding Ben would be like, if it was something he liked, and that it's good enough to be going on with.]

[Ben isn't sure what to make of the tears, either, but at least he's learned by now that they can be good sometimes, too. She stands and he steps back immediately, giving her space, watching carefully in the event she moves towards him.

But she doesn't. Instead she takes a position that he, too, sometimes assumes for self-comfort; and then she says what she says and after a moment of earnest bewilderment, Ben smiles. Not a large smile, not a bright one, small and reserved and swift, ducking his chin, but a smile nonetheless.

He trails after her after a moment, and nods.]

Good. It is my intention to be honest with you, and to do my best for you. That isn't always consistent or effective, but I will always try.

[Abigail thinks I'm going to remember that smile until the day I die. And then she realizes with a start that this is the first time she's thought of herself as alive since she arrived here. Technically she isn't. But she feels it.]

[Ben didn't make that happen on his own, of course. Arkin's helped, as has Elena, as have both Harvey and Two-Face - she's still surprised by how far Ned pushed her to the brink of life, until she was teetering on the edge. But it's Ben smiling that decides her: she wants to live.]

[It's a little like falling, in that she feels weightless.]

[She smiles back at him and pats the bed.]

You can sit. I won't try to hug you or anything.

[There's a change in Ben, one he hasn't noticed because there aren't many people he feels comfortable enough around to let it happen; the smile is only the most obvious sign. His shoulders and spine still clearly advertise military, but the crisp angles are less crisp as she invites him to sit down; the careful neutrality of his expression is still in place, but less perfect.

He does sit down, carefully, lightly, perching as he glances sidelong at her, hands folding neatly in his lap.]

I'm just not good at it. Hugging. [He knows she knows but he admits it again, an explanation instead of an apology. He can't make himself good at comfort, but he can recognize that he's not. He tugs idly at the sleeves of his field jacket - another subtle relaxation of his rigid self discipline.] Are you... how are you?

[She nods. She does know - but it's easier to say some things explicitly, to make them clear.]

Not everyone has to be good at everything. You give comfort in other ways. It's . . . easier to just hug someone, it takes less effort. Less thought. It's easier to fake it.

[Readjusting the bear in her lap, she thinks about the question carefully.]

Better. More stable. Still not stable. Nothing like good. But better.

It takes less effort for most.

[A mild correction, one he doesn't expound upon, listening instead to her second answer. It would probably inspire concern in most, but Ben is not now nor has he ever been most. He recognizes the effort it takes, sometimes, to reach the smallest step for others.

The X5 tilts his head very gently to one side, still watching her.]

Good is a fluid state of being, and only vaguely defined. As long as you are moving in a positive direction from where you were yesterday, I am pleased for you.

For me, [she clarifies. It's easier for her to fake. It's easier for her to lie, with her face and her body. But Ben doesn't lie.]

[She smiles hesitantly at him. As well as not being a liar, he's so often right. She nods.]

I am. A little bit. Every day a little bit.

[It is difficult, at times, to remember that Ben and Abigail are not the same person; the differences, of course, are clearcut and obvious. She is a liar. He never meant to. Abigail manipulates. Ben is manipulated. She is human. He is transgenic. Civilian, soldier; daughter, brother; too complicated to understand herself, too simplistic to be understood.

But he hears her say things like "every day a little bit" and he remembers the painstaking climb out of the pieces of himself that had always sought to drown him; he remembers losing time and being alone in the world of enemies; he remembers knowing, without doubt, that it would never get better and he has to remind himself that they are not the same person.]

Good. It is my sincere hope that this trend continues. And if it does not, that you will inform me, so that we may work out a solution together.

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