Closed A Little Peace and Quiet

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annasiel

annasiel

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Fucking.

Shit.

It could've been worse. That was what she kept playing in her head over and over as she sank back into the mountain of pillows and plushes, staring up at the ceiling. It could've been way fucking worse. They stopped the bombs - both bombs - and nobody outside of the terrorists were dead.

Wouldn't stop the tongue-lashing she'd probably get now that she was out of the medical wing. Lifting her hand, she ran her fingers over the raw nubs where fingers should be. They'd grow back fully in a few days, probably. The minor cuts and scrapes had already knitted themselves together, and her broken ribs, while sore, were at least in the proper place again. She healed. She got better. No harm, no foul.

Iris had been hurt pretty bad too - him, she was less sure about. She hadn't tried to find him, speak to him, hadn't looked at him at all. If he was hurt really bad, it was her fault, and she didn't really want to deal with fucking - fault, or blame, or mistakes any more than she was already going to.

Grabbing a Ditto, she held it to her chest, squeezed tight, and buried her face in the top.

It could've been worse. It could've been worse.
 
Rowan had already been fully debriefed. It'd happened the day after, once Hannah and Iris had been able to give their testimonies. The target had been in the truck with the first bomb, the one that had ripped down the highway. She'd never even laid eyes on him. Both explosives detonated, the second due in part to her call to let Gaz- Elixir, inundate the hallway with a paralytic. Cannonade hadn't had a mask, which she knew, or should have known.

Long story short, the op had been a fucking disaster.

She'd done her best to take some of the heat off of the others- she should have been quicker to confirm Davis' location, should have made a better call in the building- but ultimately, it didn't matter. Fault was not hers to officially proclaim, no matter how sure she felt on the subject.

All things considered, Rowan had walked away okay. Much of her body was sore from the second explosion and the jump from the workshop, as controlled as it had been, but she was otherwise unharmed. A better fate than most that had been there, she figured. Better than the Natural Sons that had been stationed there, certainly. Only one of them had been incapacitated as opposed to eliminated, and given he'd been put to sleep next to a burning building with bombs inside, she knew his chances were slim.

They may have been terrorists, but they were people still, somewhere deep down. Misguided, hateful, evil people, but...

Shooting someone was impersonal and detached. Rowan had shot someone before. It was part of the job. It was awful, but somehow, it was preferrable, and infinitely less convenient, than telling someone to do it for her. Watching as they struggled with their own mind, as their instinct got overwritten by her decisions. The look of abject terror, the bleeding noses- it'd all been seen in tests. It was all still terrible.

Three prompt knocks at the door, and with a decidedly tired and quiet voice, she called out. "Hannah? Can I...?"
 
Three knocks at the door. Hannah stiffened. When Rowan announced herself, though, she relaxed, sitting up with an idle stretch and a sigh. Grabbing a nearby sweatshirt, she threw it on over her underwear, then moved over to unlock and open the door.

"Hey, Ro." she held the door at an angle, standing slightly to the side, body covering the disorganized mess inside. Rowan knew about it, but that didn't make Hannah any less self-conscious. She looked her friend up and down. "You, uh - okay? Not hurt?"

She snorted.

"Fucking disaster, yeah? Just - glad none of us got hit too bad."

Still haven't checked on Iris. Still haven't.
 
A shrug, and then a nod. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just sore, but I'll get over that. Is your hand okay?" Rowan asked, setting her eyes on Hannah. She was, as usual, barely dressed, and she was trying to cover her room. She'd seen it maybe a thousand times to this point, so instead of saying anything about it, she just smiled.

"It went to shit, for sure. The debrief was... a lot." She took a pause, and then sighed. "No innocents hurt. Just us. Mind if I come in, or are we just standing in your door for the rest of the day?"
 
"Yeah. Sorry. Fucking idiot."

Hannah moved back from her doorway, stepping aside to let Rowan into the room. The entire place was bathed in a faint red glow from a pair of heat lamps in the corners, throwing the tangled mess of clothes, plushes, and other cast-off things in sharp, shadowy relief. The only light counter to the red was the bright glow of three monitors in the corner. At the moment, a blue-haired girl on a dragon rode across all three screens on the desktop, body mostly intact between the frames.

"Sorry for the mess. Would've picked up if - y'know." She always said it, and it was never true, but it was ritual at this point. As Rowan entered, Hannah stood stiffly, flexing her nubs between the whole fingers on her other hand instinctively.

The moment the door closed, though, she moved forward to hug Rowan tightly - if a bit uncomfortably. She pulled back just as quickly as she moved in, looking at her injured hand.

"I'm okay. Hand's - fine, I guess. It'll get better. Itches like hell, though. Broke a few ribs, too, so it'll prolly hurt to breathe for a bit." She glanced up. "You're not hurt bad, yeah? They didn't say you were, but - fuck, things could've gone so much worse. Almost did."
 
She knew Hannah's room almost as well as her own- mess included. Rowan stepped into that familiar warmth. "Hannah, it's fine. It's your room," she said, instinctively reaching for the collar of her turtleneck sweater. She wore it to hide the disruptor, and on account that it was often cold enough for layers, but Hannah's room was always kept warm- her specific manifestation required it- so she had fallen into a habit of removing it, when she stopped by. She was one of few she felt comfortable allowing the device to be seen around.

The door clicked shut, and she was wrapped into an embrace. Rowan would have responded in kind, had she been prepared, but once her friend explained the extent of her injuries, she though better of it. Instead, she resumed removing the sweater, revealing the disruptor, a security device against her manifestation, and the light, almost entirely faded bruising along her left arm from the fall from the building.

"No, I'm fine. Just, uh, a little sore, like I said. Had to jump from the second floor. Ravenir didn't have time to disarm it, with the fire and Gaz trying to slow down reinforcements. Not my most graceful landing," she said, somewhat sheepishly, pointedly leaving out when she had been caught off guard heading towards the stairs. "It... yeah. Could have been worse. I'm just glad you didn't... y'know. I know you were close to the truck."

In typical fashion, as she had done dozens of times, she began to walk the room, laying her sweater over a chair as she began to sort through the mess. Anything to do with her hands and keep her mind busy.
 
"Close to it? I was fucking in it, Ro. I almost -" her voice caught in her throat for a moment. To hide the silence, she scurried up beside her friend, grabbing the more embarrassing things off the floor and shoving them - in drawers, on shelves, anywhere - before Rowan could grab them.

Closing a drawer with a little more force then necessary, she turned around, teeth digging into her lip.

"Iris was with me. I don't even fucking know the guy. He fucking - pushed me down, when it went off. Covered me." That's my job, her tone seemed to imply. "I would've been way more fucked up, I think. I felt the heat. The fucking blast almost knocked me out. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see. Could barely talk."

She grabbed a handful of sweats and tossed them in the corner.

"Dunno how hurt he is. Haven't checked. I didn't fucking need that. I didn't fucking -"

Deserve that.
 
Rowan let Hannah speak, keeping her mind focused on collecting the mess. She wanted to say that she had checked in, that Iris was alright, he would make a full recovery, and it was just heroic instinct that pushed him to cover her. The truth was much more complicated. She'd tried to check, if only to tie up loose ends, but... no one knew anything. Or, no one was willing to share anything.

Instead, she cast a glance at Hannah. "I'm sure he's fine. It... ugh, this sounds extremely on-the-job of me, but if something happened, I'm sure it would have come up in the report. I'm just... glad. Happy, that you're okay. Don't like how close you were- how in it you were, I mean."
 
"Yeah? Would it, Ro?"

She paused in helping clean, leaning against her desk and staring at her friend.

"Cause they didn't tell us the bombs were ready to fucking blow. In fact, they said the exact fucking opposite. They didn't tell us our target was ready to fucking go. They didn't tell us we were gonna start shit loud until Mr. Fucking Cucksuit started blaring his compensation cannons. You and me? Alone? We could've gone in and out, cleared shit in the hour. Clean and fucking quick."

Her claws dug into the desk.

"And if anyone fucking got hurt doing that, it would've been me, and I could make sure of it cause I'd be with you all the way. Only me. And I'm good with that, Ro. But this throwing people who aren't ready to take - entire fucking lots of burning munitions, or face-blank fertilizer bombs - fucking, why was Gaz there? Ayla? Were they ready to blow up, if it all went to shit? Were they ready to fucking die?"
 
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Rowan stopped soon after, shaking her head as she took a seat on Hannah's bed. She was right. Their intel was bad, their approach was bad, the personnel were bad. If she didn't know any better, she would almost say they'd been sabotaged- but what they were actually doing was too important, for that. "I don't- sigh, I don't know, Hannah. You're right. Ayla and Gaz, at least, shouldn't have been there. I don't know who made that call, but... she wasn't ready for it. I should've- I dunno, spoke up. I should've taken the point, chose the approach on the building."

If she'd been a little more proactive, maybe they could've been more coordinated. She was too caught up in who they were after, what they were planning and what they had said and done to actually think. "It's just- there were too many, Hannah. There was too much area to cover. By the time we were getting there, we only had a few hours to get rid of the bombs and find Davis." Another shake of the head, eyes fixed on the ground before her. "He would've left, or the bombs would've been shipped off, before we could do both."
 
Hannah sat down beside her, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, glowering at the wall over her knees.

"Yeah. So the whole approach was fucked. The whole idea was fucked. But it's our fault everything went wrong, yeah? Nobody hurt, bombs fucking handled, but we're still the problem. I'm sick and fucking tired of being the problem."

She was quiet for a bit.

"You didn't have to speak up. You shouldn't have to. Not your fucking job." She glanced at Rowan. "You okay? I mean it. Really mean it. And don't say yes, cause I know that's a lie."
 
Now she was being asked to think about what she was trying to avoid. Rowan couldn't blame her, wouldn't blame her. She would never. It wasn't Hannah's fault, what she could do, what was asked of her. It wouldn't be fair to put the blame on her.

With a slow shake of her head, she looked to her friend. "I... I got wrapped up, in who we were after. The Natural Sons," she said, nearly spitting the name out. "I just- knew. What we were heading into, who we were heading towards. Hannah, I..." Her voice caught, so she cleared her throat. If it weren't for the disruptor making her voice a warbled mess already, she would've been able to hear the concern and tears she was holding back. "I let myself be okay with... telling them. To do it. Gaz... he let out a toxin. Because I told him to, after he offered. And then I... told them to take off their masks, and to stop where they were. I reasoned it out, with myself."
 
Hannah touched Rowan's hand with the tip of hers, then pulled back, leaning slightly against her. She fucking sucked at this whole - comforting thing. Arm around the shoulder. Firm pats. There, there. That's how you did it, yeah?

"Look -"

They were subhuman pieces of shit. They deserved to die for what they believed in. They wanted war, we brought it.

"We had to. Yeah? We had to. Cause - they would've hurted a lot of people if we hadn't. So we had to stop them, so they wouldn't." She shrugged. "It makes you wanna - do it, yeah? Your whole... thing. It makes it feel good to do what you ask. So if you, like, think about it, you kinda made it easier on them, yeah? They were gonna have to die anyway, better to not be scared shitless doing it."

Hannah bit her lip, waiting to see if she'd said the right thing or fucked it up even more.
 
Rowan let her head slump further downwards, leaning into Hannah's weight. It was a kill or be killed situation, the whole op was a live fire zone. Hesitation had nearly gotten her killed once, during. But... they were still people, with lives and families. Maybe she could've convinced them, given time. But there had been an entire army of them.

"I don't- we didn't reach a conclusive verdict, on that. It compels, but... I don't know, if it makes it easier." Rowan couldn't ever be on the other end, and she made a point to not speak in that manner to people she cared about. At least, not on purpose, not again. "I could see it in their eyes, Hannah. They were scared anyways."
 
Hannah squeezed her, staring ahead.

"It's fucked." She almost growled it, voice a deep whisper. "Fucked they make you do this shit. 'Hey, you're a monster, but we can use you for good!' and then they turn around and make you do shit a hundred times more fucked than you'd ever do alone."

She stole a quick glance.

"They would've killed you too, though. In a fucking heartbeat. They don't - see us like people, and they want us all dead. So like - isn't that kinda fucked too? Like - yeah, it sucks you're in this sorta situation, and it sucks they're forcing your hand, but for those guys... I kinda think they got what was coming." Molt leaned back, her hood falling off, eyes staring at the ceiling. "You shouldn't be here, though. You don't deserve this. You're not fucked, you're not a bad person. But instead they've got you doing fuck-knows-what like some lab rat with a serial killer and telling enemies of the state to off themselves."

I wanna get you out.

"Yeah. Yeah - fuck, I'm gonna bring that up. I'm gonna fucking say something. You're right, we can say something. What're they gonna do, fire us?" Hannah snorted. "Good fucking luck."
 
"The issue isn't- it's not that they died. That I killed them. It's that... I think, part of me wanted to do it. Was looking forward to it. Those were people, Hannah! I can't just-"

Rowan stopped to let her continue, her frustration and concern only growing. Part of her, deep down, really, desperately wanted to agree, to say she didn't belong here, that she should be home with her parents, maybe just out of college with a degree, anything other than this. But not everyone was gifted like she was, like they were. No one else could do what they do, so she shook her head.

"No, Hannah, don't- don't worry about it. I'm fine. We're tough, we can handle this, right? It's our job. Like you said, no one else can do it like we can." She took a moment to breath, to let the panic that had risen sink back below the surface. And, after a moment, she spoke again, a little softer, a little kinder. "You know you're not a bad person either, right?"
 
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Hannah balled her hands into fists, but didn't immediately respond, instead simply letting the words mull over in her head. On one hand, Rowan got it. On the other -

"Yeah. People."

She glanced at her friend, again, before quickly looking away. She didn't acknowledge the rest. She didn't want to.

"Let's just... do something. I don't care what, whatever. I just feel like I'm like - melting into the fucking ground right now, and I wanna focus on something else, y'know?"
 
It never did take much to convince Rowan to go and do something. By the time Hannah had finished talking, she was nodding along, already retrieving her phone from her pocket. This conversation was tough, uncomfortable, and she felt they both knew there weren't any right answers. As she scrolled movie times and restaurants, she shot a glance to Hannah every so often, just in case she had any ideas.

"There's some movies playing nearby, like usual. We could go to a bar, or get something to eat? I know I usually have a plan but I wasn't sure how you would be feeling, so I didn't scout around yet." She stopped to fully look at her. Hannah was unreadable as ever, but she'd heard her vent sometimes, she knew how she felt, what she was thinking- or, she thought she did. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze, before going back to her search.
 
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