2.17 - Text + Voice

[breakingmyheart]

[Warden Filter; text]

Jesse's fallen into a coma.

We're both in his cabin. Level 7, room 6.

I'll stay with him until someone brings a stretcher from the Infirmary.

[Private to Derek; voice]

[This comes a bit later.]

Hi.

Ah -

I've been thinking. About - what we talked about.

Comments

Spam

[breakingmyheart]

[She chews on her bottom lip for a few seconds. Toshiko's felt angry and afraid for weeks, even if it's just been on a low boil; she hasn't so much as raised her voice since the first time she talked to Jesse. Her adrenaline hasn't got a look-in for a long time, though.]

And you can teach me that? To control it?

Spam

[smilederek]

Yes.

[But he won't yet, because she's not got the first flushes of the change yet, and he doesn't want to overload her yet.]

Spam

[breakingmyheart]

Good. I don't...

[Yeah, her legs are going out from under her now, and she sits down heavily on the sofa.]

I don't want to hurt anyone else.

Spam

[smilederek]

You won't.

[Derek sinks with her, down to his knees beside the couch, staying close.]

I won't let you. We'll be there for each other from now on, all right?

Spam

[breakingmyheart]

Yes.

[There for each other. It's an immediate sense of connectedness, and she hasn't felt it for so long - not love or desire but the sense of being genuinely relied on, of being a part of something, of mattering.

Her eyelids are fluttering and every time they close it takes a little more effort to reopen them. She feels simultaneously energised and drained, like the combined exhaustion and adrenaline after a sudden sprint.]

We will.

[It becomes more than she can do to keep her eyes open, and already the paranoia that should accompany being vulnerable to a virtual stranger is being swallowed up by something else, an instinct that Derek isn't a stranger any more.

Everything blurs and then goes dark.]