starlogs | in a world you've grown

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in a world you've grown | OPEN

WHO: Agent Carolina + OPEN (+ state-named castmates)
WHERE: various
WHEN: Jan 5-9 or so?
WHAT: get adjusted + making friends
WARNINGS: n/a for now

a | check out the new training room fixture

[ in terms of familiarity, she'll take what she can get. the training areas are a damn good place to feel at home on a strange ship, so she's going to wind up a regular within her first few days.

there's a lot of time in the rooms set up for martial arts training, beating the shit out of a punching bag or pushing herself through drills. there's even more time on a treadmill, eyes ahead and focused on just keeping herself moving so this feels less strange unless someone takes up a space somewhere around her, when she'll give them a nod. if you're here two days in a row at the same time she is, she might comment on it. if you look like you know what you're doing with any particular skillset... well, she's probably going to comment on that, too. ]

b | being a loner in the atrium

[ it's been so long since carolina really had to be social. chorus doesn't count, being a warzone and all, so there was never anything as bustling as the common areas of this ship there. and besides, a war zone means never having to bother being out of her armour, but it's too weird to wear it here and so she isn't, but then she just kind of winds up feeling naked. there's no way to not feel weird about being here.

the shopping centre reminds her of having a life back before project freelancer went to shit. the residential areas remind her of the mother of invention. she can't live at the gym and her new job. so she's here, looking terribly awkward as she wanders the atrium, eventually finding a place to sit next to a pond and dip her hand into the water. if she looks like she can't quite remember how to enjoy a scene like this... well, it's because she can't. ]

c | she leaves wash alone for like ten minutes and this happens [ closed ]

[ at first it's just the this feels like the moi sensation that has her thinking that the man down the hall, a leash around an uncooperative cat, is someone she knows. surely, surely, wash isn't here and trying to walk a cat. but then he talks to the cat and oh god, it is him. on one hand, it isn't entirely out of the question that if she were dragged here, he would be too - they'd been fighting together back on chorus, along with the local armies - but on the other: really? ]

Washington. [ it's the explain command tone, coming from behind him, carolina's arms folded across her chest. it's not meant to question his presence here, just the cat. ]

d | fun police wildcard

[ maybe you're running in a potentially dangerous public area. maybe you're messing up a store's front display. maybe you're just being loud outside her room when she's trying to sleep and it's really getting to her. regardless of circumstance, you're suddenly getting a hand on your shoulder or a glare-down by a scary-looking redhead. ]

You need to stop.

[ or! if you're lucky, carolina's just lecturing someone else. hopefully she doesn't make that one npc cry in front of you. could be awkward. ]

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Back. [ she echoes the word dumbly, expression blank.

nothing about being here makes too much sense but carolina's been willing to accept everything up to this point. she's here, she can't get back to chorus, wash is here playing nanny to cats. it's not exactly par for the course, but it's not so unreasonably impossible to do more than confuse her a little.

but maine, a person she could once count on for anything, a teammate she'd vouch for regardless of the situation, the one she'd passed up sigma for only to have them toss her off a cliff for dead... he can't possibly be here. she's scowling before she can even begin to process what she's feeling. ]

You're kidding me.

Hard to believe isn't it?

[ It's a rhetorical question. Wash knows that it is. The first time he'd seen him, he'd thought he was going insane again. Hell, he still thinks that sometimes. Even though he knows it isn't a dream, a part of him refuses to accept that it's real.

He shrugs, tilting his head to the side in a gesture that doesn't really have a meaning. It's an expenditure of nervous energy more than anything else. ]

Sigma and the other AI did a number on him, but it's him. [ There's a pensive cast to his expression, but it's only because there are so many emotions tied up in this that it's difficult to sort through them. And he certainly doesn't want to do it in front of anyone else. Or at all, really. ] It's really him.

[ it still sounds like he's kidding her. she wishes this was wash from years ago and there was any way this could be considered funny so she could believe that he was, for just a second. but she can't, because wash isn't kidding, and at first, all carolina can muster is a soft, ] Fuck.

[ of course, that's not really something wash can respond to, so carolina finds herself staring at his cat without really looking at it as she tries to sort through memories and feelings to settle on something useful. ]

Does he still have the AI?

[ all of them? any of them? that answer will change things. ]

No.

[ Wash shakes his head sharply. Thank fuck for small favors. ]

They were destroyed along with Church when the EMP went off. [ His voice is tight when he says it, whatever emotion he might feel at recalling those events choked off by his unwillingness to feel them or acknowledge Church's memories. ] The Alpha, I mean.

[ Because too late he realizes that that might be a bit confusing with Carolina's partnership with Epsilon. And that's another thing he tries not to think about. ]

It's just Maine. He survived the fall somehow.

[ wash clarifying which church he meant was probably a good call, because carolina's so wrapped up in thinking about maine that there's a missed heartbeat in there for the first explanation. epsilon is the only person or ai answering to her family name that she gives a shit about. destroyed isn't a word she wants to hear associated with him.

but it has to be a good thing that the fragments aren't here with maine. she focuses on that, working her jaw a moment before she looks back to wash's face with a nod. ]

I guess that's... not so hard to believe.

[ considering the cliff she survived maine throwing her off of, she means. ]

[ Wash rolls a shoulder in a half-assed, uneasy shrug. ]

I guess I've seen weirder.

[ It's not completely honest, but it isn't wholly bullshit either. He has seen weird shit. Between the Covenant and the disaster on Kholo, the fiasco with Freelancer and what the Director did to the AIs, everything he's seen with the sims, and this place? Maybe it's weirder than a guy who's always been notoriously hard to kill coming back from the death. What does he know? He tries not to think about it too much. Otherwise, it'll drive him crazy.

Crazier. ]

He's trying to deal with it. [ He shifts his weight. ] It's a work in progress.

Right. [ she just needs to acknowledge what he's saying, to give herself a few more seconds to figure out how to wants to respond to this. the truth is that she doesn't want to respond at all, wishes she didn't have to try to parse out how to react to this after everything that happened, after how hard she's worked on looking ahead and not behind her. ]

Has he been talking to you about this? Or... not talking, but- you know.

[ It takes him a few seconds to respond to that. They've spoken, insofar as how they communicate can be called speaking, but it's been... haphazard. Hit or miss. And rife with distractions. ]

Sort of. We don't really... [ He trails off, then shakes his head. ] It's complicated. And I don't want to push him. When he wants to talk about it, I guess we will.

[ carolina gives a short nod, but it's jerky and awkward and this conversation is so stilted that another pause from her where she bites the inside of her cheek in uncomfortable thought for a moment probably won't slow the pace at all. ]

Then I'm glad you're looking out for him. Sounds like he might need a friend at some point.

[ and she's not sure that either of them will want it to be her. ]

[ The whole situation is awkward, but that's Project Freelancer—still fucking everything up even after its destruction. ]

I imagine he could use several.

[ Wash says it mildly and leaves it at that. It isn't his place to push either of them. He knows what the Meta did to Carolina and he won't urge her to do anything she doesn't wish to do. If the two of them are able to repair their relationship, he'll be happy for them. If they don't, he won't blame either one and won't force contact. Only time will tell which it is. ]

You want a cat? [ Apropos to nothing, but he jiggles the cat's leash in her direction. ] I hear pets are supposed to be good for displaced soldiers.

[ For traumatized soldiers, but if he acknowlesges that any of them might have PTSD he's going to have to acknowledge that he's got it too and that just isn't happening. ]

[ the idea of being friends with maine again is either one carolina wants to embrace or punch someone over and she isn't sure which way it'll wind up going if she winds up seeing him here. which is probably only a matter of time, unless wash is making it up. maybe that's all- maybe this is just the way wash has finally gone nuts.

she forces herself to stop thinking about it, making a face at wash and his cat instead. ]

No, I don't want a cat. Aren't they supposed to be small, anyway?

[ It's a valid question. And so much easier to answer than anything about Maine. If he hadn't been pleased by the cat's presence simply because he likes cats, he would have been pleased after discovering it serves as a distraction. ]

I don't know. I guess alien cats can be whatever size they want to be. [ He glances down at the cat doubtfully. As if knowing that they're talking about it, the cat stretches so slowly it looks deliberate. ] So far it hasn't started breathing fire or spawning tentacles, so I'm guessing it's all right.

[ Or maybe it only does those things if it gets wet and is fed after midnight. Who knows? Not Wash. ]

They don't exactly have an encyclopedia of species at work.

[ "Work." ]

[ she gives him a flat, unimpressed look. it is so much easier to be dry and even-keeled when they're talking about wash and his cat habits instead of supposedly-dead friends. ]

So far. Does that mean you do work with fire breathing cats? Or is it only the dragons at the shelter that do that?

[ please don't say if you do have dragons, wash. she doesn't want to know. ]

No fire breathing cats yet. [ Really, he hopes there aren't any. That would just be a disaster. And he'd rather just worry about scratches instead of scorch marks and singed eyebrows. ] Or dragons.

[ He huffs a low laugh at the thought. ]

Can you imagine? What a sight that'd be. [ Glancing askance at the cat, an idea occurs to him and he slants a look at Carolina. ] You wanna come back to work with me, I can introduce you to the rest of them.

[ wash could probably take a dragon if he had to, carolina finds herself thinking for a moment, but then she isn't sure if it would just be to take it down or to treat it like one of these cats he's obviously attached to. it's not a helpful thought, so she shakes it off. ]

I... Sure, Wash. [ she sounds hesitant, in a this is going to be dumb sort of way, but it'll be a nice distraction in place of trying to think about maine. ] Let's go meet some cats.

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