not_a_traitor | IC Inbox

[Gaeta nods. that's where he's at his best, he thinks. a larger cause. point him at a goal bigger than himself, and so long as he believes in it, he will jump to the ends of the worlds -- and beyond -- to ensure it succeeds.

he hopes to the gods this is just idle talk, and that Tayrey's all right. they'll get to her house; find her laid up with the flu, maybe, sleeping through all her calls. she'll be bewildered, and probably a little cranky that they dropped by with no warning, but fine. they'll laugh about it at poker night when she's better.

it's not self-delusion to hope for the best for a close friend, is it?

they keep walking, slow but steady. Gaeta doesn't say much else en route. when his leg starts to ache, he pointedly ignores it.]

[there's the house, and Fever just barely stops herself from breaking into a run - the expression on her face is that of a hound forced to stay at heel, and her eyes flick over the windows instead. no movement she can see. it's quiet, as it might be.

finally, they're up at the front, and Fever wastes no time rapping on the door, firm knocks to hopefully get her attention.

seconds pass. nothing.

she'll try again.]

[Gaeta steps to the side, shading his eyes to try and peer through the nearest window. no luck there, either.

he returns to the front stoop to add his own staccato of knocks]

Lieutenant? You there?

Tayrey, if you don't answer within the next twenty seconds, I'm going to unlock your door by force.

[that, called out, feels like enough warning. with no response forthcoming, Fever pulls out the letter opener in her pocket, crouching down to work at the lock. it's not magic, so she doesn't fear it blowing up in her face - it just needs to be jostled loose enough to slide free. ugh, she should have been practicing this.]

[when there's still no sound from inside -- not even a creak of movement -- that feels like an answer in and of itself.

Gaeta feels his insides curdle. he swallows, eyes fixed on the lock as Fever works. still, he tries one more time:]

Tayrey?

[there's no answer, and Fever feels a certainty creep over the back of her neck. the last time she felt like this, it was gazing into a bloodied, broken pod, and a vision was on the edges of her mind.

the lock gives, jostled into working. she turns the door handle, and opens it.

silence. she doesn't want to cross the threshold, but she will if he can't make himself go.]

[he tries to tell himself again: you're winding yourself up over nothing. there is no material difference between a house where a person has only stepped out for an errand, and one where the person has vanished altogether. it's an empty room either way. it does not -- it should not -- feel as if Fever has opened the door to a tomb.

and yet.

Gaeta has spent his life buried in the rational, focused on it so intently that he lost all sense of instinct. he let hundreds of people die because of that impulse. his brain might insist there is no material difference, but his gut knows that's a lie. and if he doesn't listen to his gut for once, then Tayrey --

so he makes himself listen. his breath shakes, but he frakking listens, and steps inside the empty house.]

...

[a pause just a few feet past the threshold. a whisper:]

She's gone.

[she knows he's right. but there's an emotion that tears itself from her, unwanted and unknown, until it asserts itself fierce and sudden.]

No - no she's not-

[darting in behind him, unclipped from her own leash, running in, into every room. opening the doors, even to the closets, as if she'd open one and find Tayrey right there, eyes wide and confused and wondering what all the fuss was about. anywhere. even in the strangest place.

where she falters is when she sees the pack that Tayrey had for emergencies. supplies, in case of anything. there's no reason for that to not be with her, and her not to be found. she wouldn't have left it behind, she was too prepared for that.

still full.

Fever doesn't know when she sunk to the floor. and still, there's thoughts in her head - we're messing up her order, we have to put it back - and it never, never gets easier. unless she took out whatever passed for her heart and got rid of it along with every other feeling. it's the same ache that she had to bear when she wrestled that one night with the idea of never seeing her companions again.

her chest feels so full. nowhere to put any of it. no way to let it go.

Tayrey's slipped away again.]

[everything feels curiously distant. he registers Fever moving past him like a whirlwind, but she only seems to be moving at half speed, her voice muffled as she goes from room to room. he turns his head to look around at the sparse, utilitarian space: he's never seen it before, but it's so familiar he could instantly mark it as military. as Tayrey.

some moments pass before he realizes her muted footsteps have stopped. he wonders, in the same detached way, if she's rounded a corner and found a body. if so, it's probably good he wasn't following her. he doesn't think he could handle that happening to him again.

(Dee and Tayrey were nothing alike, but he'd be lying if he said he'd never seen his dead friend looking back at him sometimes. when they laughed; when they drank. when they commiserated about things nobody else on the damn island would ever understand.)

maybe he should move anyway. as careful as if he were walking on the beach, Gaeta moves toward where he last heard Fever.

...it's not a body, but it might as well be.

he doesn't quite hear low, anguished noise he makes as he lowers himself to the ground next to her.]

[no one talks about how heavy an absence is. she had taken it for granted that they'd have more time, that before Tayrey left back to the Tradelines, there would be time to learn more about her world, her happiness - to be able to look at the stars the way she does, a little bit. everything that wasn't said piles up and up, and Fever closes her eyes.

in her mind, she writes out a name that she'll have to put to paper when she returns home. things will need to be done for her. this house shut up. someone might try and claim it and-

she can't allow it. not for a while.

Fever doesn't know how long it is before she speaks again, low and brittle.]

...did she tell you how we got out?

[the probe. the mission. the fight for a message from someone, anyone.]

[he can't speak right away. even if his mouth and throat would let him form the words, no language surfaces. just grief. that sinking, hopeless cloud of loss again, made all the worse because the island had begun to feel like a respite. even for all the horrors of this place -- at least if you die, you come back.

you're supposed to, anyway.

at last, in a cracked whisper:] Of the Eterna? Once. Said she put out a distress beacon behind the captain's back. [a convulsive twitch of his mouth] But she never wanted to talk about the ship too much. I didn't push.

She was clever. Risked everything for it. Without it, we may never have gotten free. Even though she knew it would piss a lot of people off. And she was brave enough to keep the names of those who were helping her to herself. Her entire team remained shielded, because of her.

[her words are still distant, but a little stronger. trying, trying to get this out and give shape to what's in her chest.]

I was on that team. I helped with sending out the beacon. And even though I questioned her, backed her into a corner several times, she never made me leave. She let me keep working on the project. Promised when we reunited that I wouldn't have to worry about any ill will that might have followed us here for it, even though the mission was over and done with.

[she exhales slow. no one gives a shit about that anymore - not when the results are here. no one has the energy to hold onto those grudges, those squabbles that were born of them eating each other alive to stay fractionally steady.]

I still think of her as our commander.

[it's a story Tayrey should've had the chance to tell him herself someday. not like the pieces she shared before, when the weight of their pasts crushed them until they could do nothing but gasp out the worst moments of their lives. something gentler that could've only been granted if she'd been allowed to frakking live for more than a few months.

she was so much better than he knew, and he should've been allowed by the universe, the gods, or whatever the frak, to learn it firsthand.

gaeta's so furious all of a sudden. his eyes burn. he tightens his fists against the unfairness of it all; tries to smother the sparks before they turn into a conflagration.]

[low:] I told her a couple times I would've been proud to serve alongside her. I would have been proud to call her "Commander," too.

I think you can. I think you've earned that right.

[the words are too loud in the empty room. all she can do is breathe, letting the silence resettle like the dust that will inevitably come to this place.]

...Godsdammit. It's not fair.

[it's no logical argument, but it isn't. it isn't fair that someone who could have been happier here, in a world that makes sense, isn't. it isn't fair to not get the chance to say goodbye, to have everything conclude abruptly, to just have items left and not a person theirself. no pictures. just memories.]

[for some reason, it's the plural that does it. gods. she's not even talking about the same gods, but it drops like a pebble in the stillness; ripples outward with its borrowed familiarity. it washes over the fury and extinguishes it as fast as it began.

another breathless, broken sound rips out of him, and Gaeta buries his face in both hands in a futile effort to stop it from becoming worse.

of course it's not fair. it's never been fair. absolutely nothing will make it all right that people can vanish so quickly, their whole existence wiped out between one second and the next. maybe Gaeta should be used to it by now, but he's not. he's not.]

Edited 2024-09-01 17:42 (UTC)

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