goneawaycomms | AGENT WASHINGTON

You don't have to soften it for me, Wash. I can tell you're pissed.

I promised York I'd behave, so I'm at least not going to kill Price.

[For now.]

[It's still not an answer.]

I don't even know what to say to that, Wash. That's...good? I guess?

But how are you, really?

[He doesn't answer for a little while.]

[When he finally does his voice is calmer. Less taut.]

Better now. Had a little freak out but York helped me calm down.

Oh. Well, I was on my way to find you, that took long enough.

You want to talk over dinner or anything like that?

I'm in the gardens right now. It's relaxing here.

[Letting him know if he wants to come but not actually asking him to.]

I'm honestly okay.

And you all don't have to worry so much about me. I mean, they hurt all of us.

What you makes you think this is any different treatment that any of the rest are getting?

[ But it is, kind of. North was out and about searching for him anyway, so he enters the gardens moments after sending that message off. He finds Wash and sits down next to him. He gives him a little nudge of his shoulder. ]

They did hurt all of us. It was different for you.

Yeah, I didn't wind up dead.

[He immediately winces, realizing how harsh that sounds.]

I mean that even if maybe we can avoid it this time, you all paid your own price. It's something you'll have to fight. We'll have to figure out a way to prevent it without breaking the timeline.

[Instinctively, he somehow knows that would be a very, very bad thing.]

[ He sits for a moment, letting Wash's own words sink in for him. He glances over at the second bit, though. ]

You think that's something we can do?

[His eyebrows furrow.]

You know that green guy? He pulled me aside and talked to me when you first showed up.

Apparently, he knows how to create time travel and interdimensional travel. Shocker, right? The little green man from the 31st century knows superscience. He said that if this is all over and he can get back to the technology back home, he can move us around different places and times, to do whatever we need to do.

[Which means they can zip and out of different times.]

The way I see it, if we can choose to move around places and times, at the end of the day, you only have to fake your deaths for 1 to 3 people at any given time.

The Meta and I, and/or South. There has to be some way to do that, right? There are people here that might be willing to help us. People that have telepathy, that can make illusions.

If you fake us out, you can walk away, and just show up again after the point in the timeline where I - where Carolina, Tucker and I - got pulled and go back to.

[A pause.]

Even the AI, if we grab them out of harm's way at the last second, keep the Meta immobilized some other way, and cover it up visually somehow...

Maybe everyone walks away.

Edited 2021-01-16 04:47 (UTC)

[ North thinks about this for a good long moment. ]

Why are you so concerned with everything being the same? Getting to Maine, that's what I'd want to do. Get Sigma out of his head.

Getting the AI out of his head doesn't fix him. I...worked with him. When I was -

When I was making bad choices. Apparently, according to Tucker, he turned on me the first chance he had to steal another AI. Like he's addicted.

The Maine we knew is gone.

[He'd changed too much.]

And with three of us from the future of the rest of you, changing our past might make us - this version of us - cease to exist.

Or might just...break reality or something. The green guy mentioned paradox.

Oh.

[ That takes another long moment of consideration. ]

I suppose this is the sort of thing that takes a lot of planning. To avoid a paradox. Of course, that's even assuming we'd get a chance like that.

[ He pauses, looking out in front of them. ]

So much death.

[ His own, his sister's, York's. Others. ]

I'd like to try, though. If we do get that chance.

I would, too.

Although I probably shouldn't get my hopes up.

[Bitterly.]

We might all get shocked to death before we have a chance to do anything about anything anyway.

[Ever the optimist.]

Honestly...I'm concerned about that happening.

[ A pause, then a deep sigh. ]

I try not to borrow trouble.

No need for me to borrow any when I already own it.

[He rips up some of the clover they're sitting on and tosses it away.]

[His expression is cranky and sour.]

[Being cynical rarely steers him wrong.]

[ North glances over at him, concerned. He never heard Wash act or sound like this until arriving here, and this is a stark example of this. ]

We all have our own allotment of trouble. You don't have any more than me or anyone else here.

[ Oh, if only he knew. ]

[If only.]

Personal experience says otherwise.

[When you outlive everyone, you acquire more trouble.]

[Like brain damage.]

[That people can use as leverage.]

That's a really...

[ North pauses and shakes his head. ]

It just doesn't sound like you, Wash. It's...

[ He sighs, unable to figure out how to finish that sentence. ]

[He pulls a face at him, but it's not a deeply rooted anger, more like an annoyed muppet face.]

He's gone. The person you remember.

[He doesn't want to keep being all dramatic and "Wash is dead" about things, but...]

Maybe I can be something new. Apparently, I became something different for Tucker and his friends and Carolina. But I doubt that person was exactly the same one I used to be.

He's gone and you're going to have to get used to that.

[Dopey rookie Wash could only exist before everything that happened.]

Yeah. Yeah, understood, and...I mean, I've changed over the years. It just seems so extreme in some ways. I hope it's not too bothersome to you, it's just hard to get used to.

[ But he sees it even in the way Wash looks—he has frown lines, and bags under his eyes, things young Wash never had. ]

Anyway. I don't want to become another cause of frustration.

I...I at least get where it's coming from.

[And he's slowly coming out of his haze of constantly on edge energy.]

You and York... you never wanted me to go through what I did.

[They may have left him there, chosen to save someone else or themselves. But he knows his old friends didn't actually want him to suffer.]

To be honest, I didn't really know until recently that you both cared that much.

[Which means he doesn't mind seeing that they do.]

That anyone did.

[His eyes drop to the clover he's shredding.]

Edited 2021-01-16 06:45 (UTC)

Of course we did, Wash. I would probably have tried to come after you if South and I hadn't fought to the point we did.

[ He pauses. Maybe Wash doesn't realize what extent that got to. ]

You know I shot her, right?

[That actually makes him look over, eyebrows raised in interest.]

[Dryly.]

Shame it didn't take.

[But there's not as much venom in it as in the past. He just is incapable of being anything other than catty.]

[Then he remembers he murdered her, whoops.]

[He winces.]

Probably shouldn't joke about that.

[At least not to North.]

[At least it's less bad when she's here now, capable of being, ughughugh, saved.]

Edited 2021-01-16 07:03 (UTC)

[ North shakes his head—the same rueful 'this is what I have to put up with' headshake he gave when South had outbursts in the classroom back at Freelancer. ]

Please don't.

[ He moves his legs to hug one of his knees. ]

Point being that I didn't just forget about you, Wash.

AGENT WASHINGTON

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