Fic - Closer to War
Jan. 6th, 2009 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teddogI normally don't post these things publically. That said, I'm getting tired of locking these things. So, you know what? Don't like fic, don't read this entry. Good? Good.
Closer to War
Rating: PG
Fandom: IP&S Alternate Mirror Universe, which makes it Trek but not.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Notes: This is a trade fic for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slwatson, set during one of our RP skits. It's all a strange and somewhat unsettling character PoV piece.
It was clear that the doctor didn't think of Nance as an adult. While the others raced about, following Clayton's orders and tending to matters that directly affected Scott's survival, Nance's role was simple and absolute; she was, for all purposes, a pillow.
Clayton had tried to explain why supporting Scott's head played an important part in his treatment, that what she was doing could save Scott's life. The explanation had to have been off the cuff, but the tone was gentle and kind without talking down. There was no reason for him to think that she was older than a teenager; The body she had borrowed was from a young looking ShadowKnight member in her 20s, after all, and she wasn't about to explain that she was really over two hundred years old and literally sitting beside herself. He was simply playing the part that he did at work.
And still, Nance respected the way that Clayton had treated her and the others, even after being kidnapped and dragged across the city by wanted criminals, all to rescue a dying man who was more a mystery than anything else. Clayton still hadn't asked about that shoulder joint, after all, and focused purely at the danger at hand. It bothered her that as kind as he was, Nance couldn't remember what role he played in the war.
The eventual fate of the hospitals was grim; when their forces started failing, the augment soldiers turned their guns on the people they were supposed to be protecting. The early ShadowKnight and connected rebels informed many of the hospitals beforehand; losses weren't as dire as they could be because of their inside contacts. Nance could barely remember that in her weak, borrowed brain, even though it was factoid that always stuck with her; one of the first examples of ShadowKnight using their information gathering skills on a large scale. Dramatic enough that it shaped her dealings with the medical community even now.
Exact names involved in the event couldn't be cross referenced, not without her memory banks. For all she knew, Clayton could had been the contact at the children's hospital.
With a sigh, Nance rested her head against the wall of the drain. It wasn't the first time she had ended up like this and probably not the last, but it was the first time she felt it; the dark and the damp circling around them as night reached deep into the tunnel. Even without a window to the outside, Nance knew what time it was, the stress and the cold seeping deep into her body.
She hadn't bothered asking for blanket. Scott needed as many as he could get. If there were any extras, Clayton, Andy, Rick, Shayna, they all deserved them more. She was simply a computer, after all. A very powerful computer in a borrowed body but the gesture wouldn't have the same impact. It meant kindness, but the warm fuzzies from the blanket would only be temporary, probably long forgotten after she returned to her proper computer form.
Besides, she was still their leader. It was her job to make sure that Scott and Andy were well rested and recovering, as well as watching over Clayton, who was simply a civilian, and her Rick and Shayna, who were her parents, for heaven's sake. It was so hard to tell how they were feeling, and she couldn't demand an answer out of them.
She had exchanged a few words with Andy; the man was clearly stressed, pushed to the brink. Even on walk over to the hospital, there was a desperate, feverish look in his eyes. Fears about Scott set him on edge the whole time. When she said she was sorry over at the hospital, she meant it; that Scott came with her because she had asked, before she had any idea about what was going to happen. The whole ambush played out worse than she could ever imagined, with a couple of dead supermen, and Scott near death.
Not that she particularly cared about the augments. Old habits died hard.
It also should have dawned on her that they'd take sick much easier here than at home. Clayton mentioned Scott's immune system failed and given all of the precautions that her teams took exploring different planets, that should have been the first thing on her mind. After all, the Red Cross was just an arm of ShadowKnight masquerading as part of the Empire. She could have picked up on the problems with time travel and medical shortfalls from chatting with Boyce. Or should have picked up. Nance couldn't get sick before and her fears were more at what could happen to the timeline rather than the physical complications, which had slipped her mind.
As for the timeline, it appeared that nothing happened to greatly upset it yet. Rick and Shayna were still alive, chattering over in a corner. Nance strained to make out what they were saying, only getting the tones of their voices with no clear words. It was hypnotic in nostalgic way, following the rise and fall of the young couple's voices. The only copies of them that existed the future were old home movies and photos made after the war, annually brought out for the holidays but otherwise boxed up to protect them. Nance never felt right about scanning and saving them as files on her hard disks.
It pained her to see Rick and Shayna a lot younger than the images she had access to, more like the mental images she only had faint memories of, even with her memory banks. Rick still had black hair and didn't need glasses, while Shayna had that mean streak that Nance could distantly sense when she was a kid. The woman got angry more than a person should, but never, ever took it out on Nance or Rick. She saved it for the people that threatened them, so it was no shock that it was bubbling to the surface here, directed at Nance and her team. Nance knew she could fix it with a few, tiny words...
Words that Shayna, in this state of mind, would probably misunderstand and use against them. With the stress from simply existing, Rick and Shayna were already at their wits' end and some things were better left unsaid.
And then, there was Scott.
The home in the tunnel was dimly lit. Clayton had suggested it to help Scott rest and no one was willing to argue with the doctor. The downside was that it made it difficult to see how Scott was doing. Everyone's comments and her own personal knowledge told her that any change would be long coming, over the course of days and weeks. No spontaneous recovery. From what she knew from Andy, that was a reoccurring theme with Scott.
In combat, the man was brutally fast. Fast thinker too, keenly observant and well aware of what was going on around him. She didn't doubt that despite his state, he had probably made some mental note about Clayton already. Recovery was a different story. He bounced back fast enough from light physical injuries, even after being medically dead. The deeper wounds, on the other hand...
Once in the aftermath of natural disaster that she had sent teams to, Boyce had mentioned to her the role that a person's will to live played in the recovery process. Medical help could only provide so much until it was up for the patient to decide to keep going. It seemed like such a simple idea, that the drive to live was enough to change the outcome. With Scott, it became so much more complex.
She had pulled him out of the reach of the Empire when they were hunting him, although she wasn't even sure herself if the gesture was out of wanting to protect the man or out of fear of her own guilt. From the bottom of her soul, she wanted to believe that it was an act of kindness and the family history was just a means to knowing about his existence. Someone needed to act to save him, after the Empire turned and with his history, she couldn't trust the rebellion at large to be honest and forward. Things had to be taken into her own hands.
Even if he was an assassin now.
If the Empire's records and Andy's accounts were claims that he was a hardened killer, the ambush proved it in the clearest terms possible. And for that assassin, she had staged a media circus, camped in the sewers until said circus died down, killed an augment, battled through an ambush, kidnapped a doctor, she even went so far to kill and revive him to buy some more time.
How far could altruism hold out?
Hell, how long would he put up with it?
Andy said that he had owned Scott for a year. Afterward, the end fate lied with just Scott and whatever road he felt like taking. Any plans he had against the Empire were gone, she couldn't promise his safety after he left Chara II, there wasn't anywhere for him to go. That year was down a few months now and all that Nance could hope was that the drive to stay with Andy for that whole year was enough to pull him through and not dwell on how hopeless everything looked right now.
Without Scott, her future, his future, their future would cease to exist. Andy had already said that it didn't matter that much to him, but there was no way that he could deal with it ending like this. Hopefully, under all of the emotional damage and severing, there was some fragment of Scott that could hold enough empathy to realize this. Not for her sake or the sake of the mission, but for Andy.
He was right. He was probably the only one who could break through.
Nance closed her eyes, fighting to shut down her brain. She never slept at home, had no reason to. The process still felt odd, to allow the body to control the brain and force it into standby for hours. Hours when anything could happen and the person would be totally unaware.
“Nice job you've done here,” a voice cut through the dark fog. It was familiar, a sound that Nance had been looking forward to since she had left Chara II.
Nance blinked awake, rubbing her eyes, pondering if ears had to be rubbed if the listener wasn't sure about what they were hearing. Must just be post-sleep logic. “Arnold! I didn't hear you come up” she gasped, her eyes now finally adjusted enough to make out her friend's face and the dark uniform of the Empire's security forces.
“I'm sorry, but you're under arrest for treason,” the man coldly stated, grabbing hold of the woman's wrists and pinning them together against the cold concrete.
There wasn't enough time for Nance to react. She wanted to snarl at Arnold, take a swing at him, but the back of her sleepy mind still gripped hold of the idea that this was her Arnold, the one who was still waiting for her, Scott and Andy to come back home. It even didn't matter how many times she'd wanted to punch him or kick him in the past at a rude comment but couldn't due to her physical limitations; It simply shut down at the thought of kicking him to freedom here, although Arnold didn't seem bothered by attacking her.
“Might want to send the others over to Boyce for processing. I've got different orders for this one.” There was none of Arnold's usual quirk in his voice. True, it was always distant, but when they talked, Nance could always find some trace of thought, of feeling, of humanity.
And now that it was gone, she had no one to blame but herself for the catastrophic failure.
Nance pulled the blanket closer, her arms somehow free again. Maybe it was for a brief second before she was delivered to whoever had given the orders to capture her, although she didn't remember blacking out.
Wait.
Blanket?
Nance woke up. In a cold sweat, she clung to the worn out blanket. She let her eyes glance quickly around the room; Clayton had fallen asleep in a corner, using his lab coat as a pillow. Rick had fallen asleep at one point, but Shayna was awake now, guarding the camp with an intense gaze. Buried in blankets, it was hard to tell who was holding onto who. And Scott...
The one lump on the bed had become two. It had to have been Andy, clearly, who had gone to the only place that he truly belonged in this era. Which struck Nance as a horribly corny thought, but it was impossible for her to imagine him anywhere else.
While they belonged together, they didn't belong here. Just the same, she didn't either. She had been searching for some way to exist with her parents and her past, but it wasn't right. As much as she wanted to stay here, her friends back home needed her. That's the real reason they had come here.
It wasn't altruism, not in the classic sense. They were fighting together to protect a future that had no way to defend itself. It was closer to war, but subtle without the posture that she was used to. Every step had to be taken to make sure they lived through that war, because even one person could effect that outcome.
On that thought, Nance sighed gently to herself and slipped back into sleep.
Closer to War
Rating: PG
Fandom: IP&S Alternate Mirror Universe, which makes it Trek but not.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Notes: This is a trade fic for
slwatson, set during one of our RP skits. It's all a strange and somewhat unsettling character PoV piece.It was clear that the doctor didn't think of Nance as an adult. While the others raced about, following Clayton's orders and tending to matters that directly affected Scott's survival, Nance's role was simple and absolute; she was, for all purposes, a pillow.
Clayton had tried to explain why supporting Scott's head played an important part in his treatment, that what she was doing could save Scott's life. The explanation had to have been off the cuff, but the tone was gentle and kind without talking down. There was no reason for him to think that she was older than a teenager; The body she had borrowed was from a young looking ShadowKnight member in her 20s, after all, and she wasn't about to explain that she was really over two hundred years old and literally sitting beside herself. He was simply playing the part that he did at work.
And still, Nance respected the way that Clayton had treated her and the others, even after being kidnapped and dragged across the city by wanted criminals, all to rescue a dying man who was more a mystery than anything else. Clayton still hadn't asked about that shoulder joint, after all, and focused purely at the danger at hand. It bothered her that as kind as he was, Nance couldn't remember what role he played in the war.
The eventual fate of the hospitals was grim; when their forces started failing, the augment soldiers turned their guns on the people they were supposed to be protecting. The early ShadowKnight and connected rebels informed many of the hospitals beforehand; losses weren't as dire as they could be because of their inside contacts. Nance could barely remember that in her weak, borrowed brain, even though it was factoid that always stuck with her; one of the first examples of ShadowKnight using their information gathering skills on a large scale. Dramatic enough that it shaped her dealings with the medical community even now.
Exact names involved in the event couldn't be cross referenced, not without her memory banks. For all she knew, Clayton could had been the contact at the children's hospital.
With a sigh, Nance rested her head against the wall of the drain. It wasn't the first time she had ended up like this and probably not the last, but it was the first time she felt it; the dark and the damp circling around them as night reached deep into the tunnel. Even without a window to the outside, Nance knew what time it was, the stress and the cold seeping deep into her body.
She hadn't bothered asking for blanket. Scott needed as many as he could get. If there were any extras, Clayton, Andy, Rick, Shayna, they all deserved them more. She was simply a computer, after all. A very powerful computer in a borrowed body but the gesture wouldn't have the same impact. It meant kindness, but the warm fuzzies from the blanket would only be temporary, probably long forgotten after she returned to her proper computer form.
Besides, she was still their leader. It was her job to make sure that Scott and Andy were well rested and recovering, as well as watching over Clayton, who was simply a civilian, and her Rick and Shayna, who were her parents, for heaven's sake. It was so hard to tell how they were feeling, and she couldn't demand an answer out of them.
She had exchanged a few words with Andy; the man was clearly stressed, pushed to the brink. Even on walk over to the hospital, there was a desperate, feverish look in his eyes. Fears about Scott set him on edge the whole time. When she said she was sorry over at the hospital, she meant it; that Scott came with her because she had asked, before she had any idea about what was going to happen. The whole ambush played out worse than she could ever imagined, with a couple of dead supermen, and Scott near death.
Not that she particularly cared about the augments. Old habits died hard.
It also should have dawned on her that they'd take sick much easier here than at home. Clayton mentioned Scott's immune system failed and given all of the precautions that her teams took exploring different planets, that should have been the first thing on her mind. After all, the Red Cross was just an arm of ShadowKnight masquerading as part of the Empire. She could have picked up on the problems with time travel and medical shortfalls from chatting with Boyce. Or should have picked up. Nance couldn't get sick before and her fears were more at what could happen to the timeline rather than the physical complications, which had slipped her mind.
As for the timeline, it appeared that nothing happened to greatly upset it yet. Rick and Shayna were still alive, chattering over in a corner. Nance strained to make out what they were saying, only getting the tones of their voices with no clear words. It was hypnotic in nostalgic way, following the rise and fall of the young couple's voices. The only copies of them that existed the future were old home movies and photos made after the war, annually brought out for the holidays but otherwise boxed up to protect them. Nance never felt right about scanning and saving them as files on her hard disks.
It pained her to see Rick and Shayna a lot younger than the images she had access to, more like the mental images she only had faint memories of, even with her memory banks. Rick still had black hair and didn't need glasses, while Shayna had that mean streak that Nance could distantly sense when she was a kid. The woman got angry more than a person should, but never, ever took it out on Nance or Rick. She saved it for the people that threatened them, so it was no shock that it was bubbling to the surface here, directed at Nance and her team. Nance knew she could fix it with a few, tiny words...
Words that Shayna, in this state of mind, would probably misunderstand and use against them. With the stress from simply existing, Rick and Shayna were already at their wits' end and some things were better left unsaid.
And then, there was Scott.
The home in the tunnel was dimly lit. Clayton had suggested it to help Scott rest and no one was willing to argue with the doctor. The downside was that it made it difficult to see how Scott was doing. Everyone's comments and her own personal knowledge told her that any change would be long coming, over the course of days and weeks. No spontaneous recovery. From what she knew from Andy, that was a reoccurring theme with Scott.
In combat, the man was brutally fast. Fast thinker too, keenly observant and well aware of what was going on around him. She didn't doubt that despite his state, he had probably made some mental note about Clayton already. Recovery was a different story. He bounced back fast enough from light physical injuries, even after being medically dead. The deeper wounds, on the other hand...
Once in the aftermath of natural disaster that she had sent teams to, Boyce had mentioned to her the role that a person's will to live played in the recovery process. Medical help could only provide so much until it was up for the patient to decide to keep going. It seemed like such a simple idea, that the drive to live was enough to change the outcome. With Scott, it became so much more complex.
She had pulled him out of the reach of the Empire when they were hunting him, although she wasn't even sure herself if the gesture was out of wanting to protect the man or out of fear of her own guilt. From the bottom of her soul, she wanted to believe that it was an act of kindness and the family history was just a means to knowing about his existence. Someone needed to act to save him, after the Empire turned and with his history, she couldn't trust the rebellion at large to be honest and forward. Things had to be taken into her own hands.
Even if he was an assassin now.
If the Empire's records and Andy's accounts were claims that he was a hardened killer, the ambush proved it in the clearest terms possible. And for that assassin, she had staged a media circus, camped in the sewers until said circus died down, killed an augment, battled through an ambush, kidnapped a doctor, she even went so far to kill and revive him to buy some more time.
How far could altruism hold out?
Hell, how long would he put up with it?
Andy said that he had owned Scott for a year. Afterward, the end fate lied with just Scott and whatever road he felt like taking. Any plans he had against the Empire were gone, she couldn't promise his safety after he left Chara II, there wasn't anywhere for him to go. That year was down a few months now and all that Nance could hope was that the drive to stay with Andy for that whole year was enough to pull him through and not dwell on how hopeless everything looked right now.
Without Scott, her future, his future, their future would cease to exist. Andy had already said that it didn't matter that much to him, but there was no way that he could deal with it ending like this. Hopefully, under all of the emotional damage and severing, there was some fragment of Scott that could hold enough empathy to realize this. Not for her sake or the sake of the mission, but for Andy.
He was right. He was probably the only one who could break through.
Nance closed her eyes, fighting to shut down her brain. She never slept at home, had no reason to. The process still felt odd, to allow the body to control the brain and force it into standby for hours. Hours when anything could happen and the person would be totally unaware.
“Nice job you've done here,” a voice cut through the dark fog. It was familiar, a sound that Nance had been looking forward to since she had left Chara II.
Nance blinked awake, rubbing her eyes, pondering if ears had to be rubbed if the listener wasn't sure about what they were hearing. Must just be post-sleep logic. “Arnold! I didn't hear you come up” she gasped, her eyes now finally adjusted enough to make out her friend's face and the dark uniform of the Empire's security forces.
“I'm sorry, but you're under arrest for treason,” the man coldly stated, grabbing hold of the woman's wrists and pinning them together against the cold concrete.
There wasn't enough time for Nance to react. She wanted to snarl at Arnold, take a swing at him, but the back of her sleepy mind still gripped hold of the idea that this was her Arnold, the one who was still waiting for her, Scott and Andy to come back home. It even didn't matter how many times she'd wanted to punch him or kick him in the past at a rude comment but couldn't due to her physical limitations; It simply shut down at the thought of kicking him to freedom here, although Arnold didn't seem bothered by attacking her.
“Might want to send the others over to Boyce for processing. I've got different orders for this one.” There was none of Arnold's usual quirk in his voice. True, it was always distant, but when they talked, Nance could always find some trace of thought, of feeling, of humanity.
And now that it was gone, she had no one to blame but herself for the catastrophic failure.
Nance pulled the blanket closer, her arms somehow free again. Maybe it was for a brief second before she was delivered to whoever had given the orders to capture her, although she didn't remember blacking out.
Wait.
Blanket?
Nance woke up. In a cold sweat, she clung to the worn out blanket. She let her eyes glance quickly around the room; Clayton had fallen asleep in a corner, using his lab coat as a pillow. Rick had fallen asleep at one point, but Shayna was awake now, guarding the camp with an intense gaze. Buried in blankets, it was hard to tell who was holding onto who. And Scott...
The one lump on the bed had become two. It had to have been Andy, clearly, who had gone to the only place that he truly belonged in this era. Which struck Nance as a horribly corny thought, but it was impossible for her to imagine him anywhere else.
While they belonged together, they didn't belong here. Just the same, she didn't either. She had been searching for some way to exist with her parents and her past, but it wasn't right. As much as she wanted to stay here, her friends back home needed her. That's the real reason they had come here.
It wasn't altruism, not in the classic sense. They were fighting together to protect a future that had no way to defend itself. It was closer to war, but subtle without the posture that she was used to. Every step had to be taken to make sure they lived through that war, because even one person could effect that outcome.
On that thought, Nance sighed gently to herself and slipped back into sleep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 09:04 pm (UTC)I'm shocked, too, that it's readable if not cryptic. ;)