( Even younger and unkempt? Also with a full head of hair? She can't help the smile that twists painfully at her lips — he's so different, but he's also so much the same. He's so young, he's so healthy and alive. Still easily fifteen or so years older than her, but compared to when she'd known him, he seems heartbreakingly youthful. He doesn't know. He has no idea what it's going to be like, how things are going to turn out — both for the world, and for himself.
And then he reaches out a hand toward her, and the through-line between now and a moment she shared with him a lifetime ago becomes so crystal-clear, it's like she's thrown back in time. Her hand moves of its own accord, wrapping around his like it did once when she was a child, only a day or so before she watched him die.
Because of her. Because he was around her. Because he was helping her. Because everyone she cared about from her time outside of the facility wound up dead. Every single person.
It's stupid, she knows, to miss somebody so much when you only knew them for such a short amount of time — but Charles left a deep impression, and she's had so few people in her life over the years, nothing about the way she forms attachments to people can be measured normally.
She had Gabriela only for weeks, and Gabriela was as close as she'd ever get to having a mother. She had Logan only for days, and Logan was her father. She had Charles for even less, and Charles was her grandfather. She gets snapshots of family, and they have to serve forever what they provide in no time at all.
She isn't crying, but her eyes do burn. She's got to blink away the sting in them once or twice before she's confident she's got it reigned back in again, and then she nods. )
I'm fine. ( And she sounds steady, perfectly level, convincing to anybody that isn't perceptive enough to know better. ) I'm just glad you're here.
no subject
And then he reaches out a hand toward her, and the through-line between now and a moment she shared with him a lifetime ago becomes so crystal-clear, it's like she's thrown back in time. Her hand moves of its own accord, wrapping around his like it did once when she was a child, only a day or so before she watched him die.
Because of her. Because he was around her. Because he was helping her. Because everyone she cared about from her time outside of the facility wound up dead. Every single person.
It's stupid, she knows, to miss somebody so much when you only knew them for such a short amount of time — but Charles left a deep impression, and she's had so few people in her life over the years, nothing about the way she forms attachments to people can be measured normally.
She had Gabriela only for weeks, and Gabriela was as close as she'd ever get to having a mother. She had Logan only for days, and Logan was her father. She had Charles for even less, and Charles was her grandfather. She gets snapshots of family, and they have to serve forever what they provide in no time at all.
She isn't crying, but her eyes do burn. She's got to blink away the sting in them once or twice before she's confident she's got it reigned back in again, and then she nods. )
I'm fine. ( And she sounds steady, perfectly level, convincing to anybody that isn't perceptive enough to know better. ) I'm just glad you're here.