(no subject)

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

WHO: tooksteps and YOU!
WHERE: NOHoPE
WHEN: Thursday
WARNINGS: Possible discussion of suicide.
SUMMARY: Red's seventy-two hour hold is over and she can have visitors.
FORMAT: Parapsychward to start, whatever after.

In a corner of the rec room a small dark-haired girl sits, her comm device clutched in her fingers like it's a lifeline. As is stands, it's her only connection to the world outside, as much as she tries, she can't... connect the way she used to. The way she should be able to. The entire online world was hers to explore, learn and manipulate, and now there's nothing. Silence. Void.

It's enough to drive her mad, she thinks, although not in the way the doctors seem to think she's mad. Doctors and those city representatives, the ones from "Child Services" that say she needs help and guidance. As if she were some frail human thing. And the more she tells them that, the more they look at her with that strange look on their faces, like they all know things she doesn't.

She hates this place. She hates the idea that she can be controlled. She hates her human shell.

And she feels so alone.

[ooc: Wanted to get this up, but I also wanted to let you know that replies will be slow - I'm fighting off a plague of blah and a fever. So if I disappear, I'll get to everything as soon as I can.]

Comments

[theprimerprime.livejournal.com]

When Sentinel shows up at the hospital, they're reluctant to let him in. He supposes he can't really blame them for that; not since he showed up nearly seventy-two hours ago demanding to see their newest patient and being spectacularly rude to all that refused him. But he stands his ground. They said seventy-two hours and that's how long it's been. And they've both been seen publically enough as members of the police force that they know he works with her and has every right to visit. It takes a few minutes of his exceptional arguing skills and bulldozer stubbornness to wear them down, and they grant him access.

On entry, he spots her immediately, physical changes nonwithstanding. Human faces still mostly look alike to him anyway, but he knows her. Recognizes her for what she is, an inorganic like him. Not Cybertronian, but in this world no less of a kindred spark.

He folds his arms and looks at her, disapproval masking compassion.

"I'll have you know, because of your little stunt, I had to spend two hours debugging the surveillance system today," he says. "I hope you're happy."

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

She looks up, almost flinching with her voice oddly flat. "I apologize. Should my abilities return, I will do a complete systems diagnostic and refresh."

[theprimerprime.livejournal.com]

"Of course you will." His tone is brusque and dismissive, but also solidly and reassuringly certain.

He looks her over again, contemplative, before sitting down opposite her. The gesture seems weirdly casual, by his standards. He's in civilian clothing, for once.

"You should have told me what you were planning."

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

"I did not wish for you to become implicated should something..." She drifts off, not wanting to finish that sentence. She remembers the cold and the darkness and it frightens her.

[theprimerprime.livejournal.com]

"That's not a good enough excuse," he admonishes. "Do you forget that I'm not like the rest of these meatbags? I've done exactly what you were trying to do. If you had just told me...I could have helped."

There is, perhaps, some hurt within the chiding. He isn't honestly certain whether there was anything he could have done to help or not. But at least he understands, and she deprived him of his chance to support her through it.

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

"I believed I had everything under control." And she had, her only miscalculation had been not arranging for life support equipment to keep her body going long enough to complete the data transfer.

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. Some of the doctors would misinterpret her next statement for certain. "I will not make the same mistakes again."

[due-punishment.livejournal.com]

The moment Frank had found out that they were holding the Red Queen at NoHoPE he'd been searching for a way in. In the end he'd decided to just try the front door and surprisingly it had worked. He'd just told them he was a friend from the prison and that he'd been concerned about her. Not a lie in the slightest and they'd bought it. Of course, he'd had to disguise himself a little bit. It was amazing how different he could look with just a shave and a new suit. He would have gone for a change of hair color, but he wanted to make sure she could recognize him.

Finally after making it past all the security and having an attendant point her out to him Frank carefully approached the girl. She looked so different, could it really be her? Only one way to find out. "Excuse me, but do you remember me?"

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

There may be the ghost of a smile on her face as her former inmate came up to her. "Did you bring me cookies this time?"

She should shout for a guard, for the police, he's still a wanted felon but... the system, the government hasn't endeared itself to her lately and so she stayed silent.

[due-punishment.livejournal.com]

Frank just smirked and handed her a small package. Inside are a few chocolate chip cookies he picked up from a little bakery he found out during his patrols. "Took some convincing, but they let me bring them in. They treating you alright?"

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

"I have not been injured." She took the package and opened it, pulling out a cookie to nibble on.

His question was an interesting one, and aside from the obvious, she's unsure how to answer.

[due-punishment.livejournal.com]

"That's good." She hadn't answered his question, but Frank wasn't going to push. He'd come here to make sure she was alright, if she didn't feel like answering so be it. "They give you a time-frame for when you'll get out?"

[out_of_time]

Jack is waiting at the hospital before the seventy-two hours are up, his watch precisely calibrated. The instant the last second ticks down and the hour officially changes, he's moving. A few moments later he's in the ward and looking at her.

She looks so different, an entirely different girl, and not just because her body has changed. The way she clutches her device shows how desperate she must be, a desperation Jack never saw from her before. But that desperation must have been there before. Because whatever kind of girl she looks like, she's not a girl, has never been a girl, never wants to be a girl, and that's the real reason why all this has happened. Yet when Jack sees her, he can't stop his heart from reacting as though a real human girl was in pain in front of him. He steps forward.

"Red Queen." He almost asks 'are you all right,' but that's a damn stupid thing to say in this situation. "How do you feel?"

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

She hesitates before she answers. There are many things she can say, many of which would be lies, some only half-truths. In the end she simply goes with the first thing that occurred to her.

"I am disconnected."

[out_of_time]

Jack doesn't understand the way the Red Queen views the world, but has an idea of what those three words mean to her. "I'm sorry," he says. "That must be very hard for you to experience."

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

"It is... difficult." She shivers as she looks up at Jack. "They won't let me leave and I don't want to be here."

[out_of_time]

Slowly, Jack takes a seat by her in the corner. "Have they told you how long they want to keep you here?"

[reluctantlegend.livejournal.com]

It had taken Josh more than 72 hours to go see her. When he found out what happened to her he'd been frustrated and angry that she would do something like that. Josh knew she was going to do it, knew that there might have been a risk of something happening, but he hadn't really expected her to die.

And he didn't want to show up too angry at her, she had just died after all, so she'd gone through some bad stuff recently and didn't need him being selfishly angry that she'd gone and upset him with her dying.

He signed in at the front desk and they seemed to be pleased that someone closer to her own age was there to see her. Josh wasn't sure what that meant, but as soon as he saw her, he wasn't sure what exactly to say.

"You've done something different with your hair."

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

The Red Queen looked up, hand automatically reaching up to pull a lock of hair into her eye so she could look at it.

"I am unsure I like it, but it is what I am left with."

Looking up at Josh she had a hopeful look on her face. "Is Praetorian alright?"

[reluctantlegend.livejournal.com]

"It looks good," Josh said. Very different, but he was sure he could get used to it. She still sounded like Red Queen, which was good. If she had started sounding all chipper or just more emotive in general he would have been weirded out.

"He misses you, but he's fine."

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

Her hands unclenched and opened, setting the communicator on the nearby table. She looked at them, opening and closing. She didn't recognize the face in the mirror anymore. Granted, she shouldn't have a face to being with, but still, the point remained.

"He will not know me, I imagine I smell as different as I look. You will have to introduce us again. Please, sit?"

She motioned to a chair, she was tired of having people hover over her, like she was something to be examined.

[reluctantlegend.livejournal.com]

"I will. You sound the same, kind of, and maybe if you wore some of your old clothes or something you'd smell similar at first," Josh offered. He wasn't sure though, he didn't have a lot of experience with dogs other than the last while with Praetorian.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, sitting down.

[goryteller]

Katurian asks the doctors what she looks like, this new Red Queen, because he can't quite remember the blurred face on the television screen and he doesn't want to get it wrong. Once he sees her, though, sitting in that rec room, it's obvious enough. She's different in so many ways, but the same in a key few. Something in her posture. Her eyes.

He approaches her. A part of him thinks that he should wave, say hello, but his hands are tight at his sides and he can't open his mouth.

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

She doesn't speak for awhile, watching Katurian approach. They've rarely seen each other face to face, the occasional meeting at the jail, talking over the communicators. She's certainly never met him with this face.

"Hello, Katurian K. Katurian."

It's all she has to offer.

[goryteller]

"What were you thinking?" He can't keep the accusation out of his voice. It's all he has to offer. In her letter, he heard more than suicide. He heard a plan unrealized, an uncalculated risk, and all he can think of was Nigel telling him not to worry, telling him that death would make him better in the end, when it did anything but.

[tooksteps.livejournal.com]

She flinched. It was clear that Katurian didn't understand, no one really could, those who had always been organic, but his... blatant accusation was harsh. The doctors were all so calm and reserved, not like... this.

"This is not my normal state. I do not belong in this body. I... loathe it." Loathing. Hatred. Emotional terms, but accurate to a point.