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[mothmansplaining]

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credit

"Stanford Pines. Leave a message."

Comments

[supposedtochange]

"No. We can only 'die' if our Gems are shattered. The corruption turned them into monsters. No consciousness, no voice, just...anger and pain. I've tried to heal them, but nothing works. All we can do is keep their Gems suspended so their bodies can't reform."

[mothmansplaining]

"Oh."

That's pretty horrifying. This sparkle-diamond-gem world is consistently surprisingly dark.

"That's terrible."

[supposedtochange]

She wraps her arms around herself, frowning sadly.

"...Yes. Yes, it is. I wish there was more I could have done. More Gems I could have saved."

[mothmansplaining]

There's quiet for a moment.

"Well," Ford says, "if it helps, I can assure you that the chances of that being why you're here are next to nothing."

And dramatic irony means theatrically ironlike, right, Stanford?

[smashandgrab]

She heads for her cabin because it's closer than the deck or the Enclosure or the mess hall. The metal door slides open for them, and letting them into a room that's fairly standard issue for a military spaceship. There's a makeup table bolted to the floor alongside the desk, cosmetics carefully stowed so that a period of null-gravity wouldn't make a mess of her makeup and nailpolish. All the color in the room is from ribbons and makeup and a couple dresses hanging in view rather than neatly tucked away.

Taura leaves the single chair in the room for Ford, settling herself cross-legged on the bed that was her one real furnishing indulgence, larger than anyone else's in the fleet. As such, it also takes up a bit more of the cabin than would be ideal.

"That was the first breach where I had a family," she admits after a moment. "And the first time I've had parents, in any life. You were a good one."

[supposedtochange]

"O-okay."

She looks at him hopefully.

"You said you might be able to work out why I'm here?"

[mothmansplaining]

He settles into the chair, facing the bed. Ford is frankly braced for a talking-to: a firm reminder that breaches are not part of their reality and that he is to pretend the breach never happened. He's ready for it, and it won't be precisely what his breach-self had been worried would happen gradually as Taura grew up and drifted away, and then, Taura tells him he was a good parent.

The resolute reply Ford had prepared, the assurance that he won't make it weird and will leave her alone, vanishes. His face turns from ready to agree to surprised; the wind goes right out of his sails.

"Oh," he says. "I, uh -- thank you."

He thinks? That that's right? How you respond to being told you were a good parent?

"I thought you were going to tell me not to have anything to do with you."

[smashandgrab]

"Oh." Her face falls a little. She hesitates, then asks, "Is that what you'd like to tell me?"

She'll listen, if it is, but will probably be at least a little hurt. Taura doesn't know what to do with any of the lingering feelings she has for Ford. She just knows that life is too short to stifle what you feel without a damned good reason.

[mothmansplaining]

That makes two of them with feelings they don't know what to do with.

"I don't know," admits Ford, brows drawn up in worry. "I'm usually pretty good at moving on from breaches, but I've--I've never had children, before. True, I have a niece, and a nephew, who I love very much, but it--it isn't the same."

[mothmansplaining]

"Yes. But it won't be the reasons you're expecting."

Ford takes a deep breath, arranging his thoughts.

"Did the Admiral approach you, or did you just wake up here?"

cw from this point; suicide

[supposedtochange]

"I just woke up here. If the Admiral had invited me I wouldn't have wanted to come. I'd made up my mind about passing on my Gem and ending my existence."

[mothmansplaining]

Gray eyebrows go up.

"You can do that, too? How exactly does one 'pass on' a gem?"

Sounds like reprogramming to him, but she's not a robot.

[14thcommander]

Ha ha, Stanford! [Hange gently prods her elbow into his side.] Did I say it was? But what if the little mite gets homesick one of these days?

[supposedtochange]

Rose smiles at that, soft and warm.

"I was going to have a child," she says. "With a human man. It's the first time a Gem's tried it, I think, but I know from Jasper that it worked. His name is Steven. He took my Gem, he has my powers."

[mothmansplaining]

What's the worst that could happen?

It puts on a little robe, draws a sigil in its litter box, and summons Cat-thulhu?

[14thcommander]

[There's a long silence as Hange walks along envisioning this...]






I want to see Cat-thulhu...

[mothmansplaining]

[He laughs!]

That'd really be something.

[fortunately, cat-thulhu doesn't exist.

....probably.]

[mothmansplaining]

"And you didn't survive the process," he says. It is a bit like reprogramming, but with human DNA.

Ford can't imagine wanting a child so badly that he would end his own life. Even now that he's had one in a breach, one he loved very much, one who he would have died for after the fact....well, it was her choice.

"Well, I can explain why you were brought here," Ford says. "The Admiral works for a shadowy organization I've only seen once. They're called the Authority. At least, he used to work for them -- before he stole the ship we're currently on and ran away from their headquarters rather than be decommissioned for running the Barge incompetently."

[supposedtochange]

"But that's - that's how I was brought here," she says softly. "It doesn't really explain why."

[mothmansplaining]

Ford looks at her, sadly.

"The Authority brought you here," he says, "because they thought it would be interesting to see what you would do on the Barge. I believe they're watching us, from their dimension. To us, graduation is life or death, but to them, it's a game. We're their entertainment."

[supposedtochange]

Rose's brow furrows.

"That's - awful. Is it true? Can you prove it?"

[mothmansplaining]

"I was hoping to, earlier this year," he admits. "But I got the dimension wrong. It's a long story, but rest assured, I won't be trying it again."

Not that way. Not without the agreement of the rest of the Barge, if they have to be involved with it.

"I don't have hard evidence," Ford says. "But there are too many coincidences for me to seriously believe this ship is what the Admiral says it is. Think about it: a system that was truly made to give people who did bad things in life a second chance wouldn't have so many who fell through the cracks. Last I checked, only one inmate in six made it out without disappearing and dying for good.

"So if redemption and resurrection aren't the purpose, what is? We have to look at what actually happens on the ship. I know you made it through the breach, but were you here on the 13th?"

[supposedtochange]

"I - yes," she says, nodding. "When there were ghosts? I remember."

[mothmansplaining]

"Yes, and the Barge was redecorated with narrower halls and spiderwebs, and you couldn't get anything clean if you tried!"

"Now, I'm sure you remember from the breach that the human month of October ends in a holiday called Halloween, and the number 13 is generally regarded as unlucky. The idea, as far as I can tell, was to turn the Barge into a haunted house, and have us be the ghosts."

He pauses, gathering himself.

"I had to relive every time I've ever died. I've died eight different ways, Rose. I'm sure the sound of me drowning, or dissolving, or being crushed to death all night was very festive. But what part of that is supposed to make us better people?"

[supposedtochange]

Rose sits with this for a moment.

"But you graduated, right?"