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[tongueamok]

Hello, this is Carlisle. I mean, it's not Carlisle as in I'm actually answering you right now, so if you're trying to reply to me at the second, you should probably save your breath because I'm not really here. This is some kind of a recording of my voice, but this is my communicator. I'm going to assume these devices are as common here as they are in other places — not my world, but others, ones more technologically advanced than where I come from— so if you'd like to leave me a message, then you may do so here, or er... Right. Here is fine. So just leave yo— [beep]

Comments

lemme fix dat real quick.

[dedikated]

( There's no answer for a long time.

Actually, there's no answer until the next day, when she wakes up on the clinic rooftop with a stotting headache. And-

Well, okay, that wasn't her proudest moment. Even if it's true, all of it, it's still... She should know better than to dump on people. She so rarely does. Only after too much, and too much to drink. )

Wanna meet up?

( She should work, but not like this. )

Feelings are haaaaaaard

[tongueamok]

[Given how she hadn't answered, he'd assumed he'd offended her terribly and that that'd been the end of the conversation. He's a little surprised at the response the next day.

And against his better judgment:]

Talking in person would be easier than trying to do so through this device.

that explains why they're friends so aptly

[dedikated]

( Thank god. )

I'll come to yours. Say... 10 minutes?

Truth.

[tongueamok]

That will be fine. Glacius is not home, if you were hoping for privacy.

> action

[dedikated]

( She doesn't bother to answer that text, and in 10 minutes, there's a knock at the door, Kate stood outside, downing a bottle of water as she waits to be let in.

Look, she learned some manners, okay? Or maybe she just wanted to sober up, because those bags under her eyes and her half-undone hair, clearly left in overnight, aren't exactly the picture of someone who's doing well in the aftermath of everything. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle can tell as he opens the door and gets a look at her; given what she said happened, he is not surprised. He's not exactly in fantastic shape himself, his fatigue evident in the absolute colorlessness of his skin, the dark circles around his own eyes, the constant furrow of his brow. Even the sweater he's wearing is wrinkled, a surefire sign he is not at his best.

But who is, in these times? He steps aside to let her in. Despite his weariness, he remembered his manners, as well -- there's a teapot on the coffee table, as well as two cups.]

[dedikated]

( No one, really. The monsters in this place were never really the worst of it. It was when the gods dug in, dragged out the secrets and the awful things.

(She's still a little bitter about the dreams, even all those months later). )

Hey.

( She doesn't say anything else until she's in the flat, sat down, staring at the cup with her elbows digging into the thighs and fingers threaded together. )

... Thanks.

( It's awkwardly said, but it's said, and that's far more than she'd have done or managed months ago. )

[tongueamok]

I'm not sure what for, other than offering you my time.

[And having some level of concern for her and Faith. Listening to Kate unload her emotional baggage on him. Having helped her in the past. Making her tea. There are a lot of reasons she could be thanking him.

On the subject of tea, he pours some into each cup, sliding one toward her, while placing the other on a piece of paper before him -- there's a glyph drawn on it. That one is for him.]

I take it things are as well as can be expected at the house.

[You know, the place he doesn't live anymore.]

[dedikated]

For the tea.

( And for all of that other stuff, too. But the tea, in this moment and time. )

Quiet. ( Faith's a mess, trying to make things better, to make up for her double, crying, spending time out. Kate just drinks until she can stop focusing on the things that happened, on what her double brought to the surface, on watching Faith die. Drinks herself into dreamless sleep that allow her some sort of rest. )

I should have saved her.

( Things that need to come out? That, for one. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle could help her with that dreamless sleep -- he needs those often, himself.]

Perhaps, but whether you should and whether you could are often two very different things, and at times, we are only allowed one.

[He would know all about that. There are so many times he's considered the world would be better off without him, that he should rid this existence of his presence. But could he?

Well... he's still here, for better and for worse.]

[dedikated]

( Maybe they'll have to get onto that topic later. )

Then what the hell good am I?

( Genuinely. As far as she's ever known, even as a kid, it's always been look after Marc, some half-whispered mantra from her parents and his. Make sure he gets out of the house occasionally. That no one picks on him, because smart kids-

Smart kids.

And she failed him, from the second he said I want to join the Agency to the moment she froze when he was in danger.

And Faith's always been so upbeat, so seemingly unbreakable and Kate failed her there too. Their doubles did too much, they managed to kill her.

What the hell good is Kate if she can't even keep the people she cares about alive and well? )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle leans forward and places a hand on the glyph beneath his cup of tea; it lights up for just a moment, imbuing the drink. There are so many times he wishes he didn't see so much of himself in Kate -- those are not the times when she's shoving 'educational materials' beneath his door, but when she turns on herself, doubting every bit of her worth. He knows what that is like, too.]

Is to protect her your only purpose in this life, Kate?

[dedikated]

( There's plenty of reasons Kate keeps herself busy - she hates being reminded that she's underground, she has always had too much energy - but the most pressing of all is that if she's busy, she's not thinking. She's being useful and there's no time to doubt yourself then. )

Not just her.

( But yes, it feels like it is. )

Don't matter how many people it is if I keep failing at it.

[tongueamok]

It's often hard for us to see our successes through the veil of our failures.

[He'd do well to heed his own advice at times, but it's so much easier to see clearly when he's the one on the other side of the confessional. He wraps his hands around the cup, his fingers a bit stiff as they flex around it. They've been better; they've been worse, too.]

Tell me, do you congratulate yourself for every time she isn't harmed when she's with you? Or for each calamity the false gods would bring upon this city that doesn't see me dead? Do you measure your worth by every person who comes through the clinic seeking aid, and leaves with it? Or by those who use the trinkets we make, sustaining themselves with an invention that wouldn't exist without you?

[dedikated]

( Infinitely easier, like she can yell at people for the same thing, but you should always hold yourself to higher standards than those you hold others to, right? Improvements are born through self-competition.

And maybe the prolonged silence Kate responds with is enough of an answer to those questions. Yes, she does, somewhat. Perhaps no congratulations, but she won't deny that she's spent too much time down here feeling less than useful when she's at the clinic, unable to do anything of note.

But maybe it's not about feeling worthy, but feeling like you're finally making up for the mistakes you've made, the crimes you've committed. )

So what if I do?

[tongueamok]

[He takes a sip as she considers his questions and presents one of his own, lowering the cup before he replies.]

Then perhaps you should hold yourself in higher regard. You do good. It is all around you, and yet, you seem to not see it, taking into account only your failures. Why is that?

[dedikated]

It's not enough.

( Her head hurts enough from last night that Kate doesn't even think about her answer. It's never going to be enough, nothing can really wash away the guilt of previous transgressions or failures, and failing to do better by the people she most cares about - failing Faith and letting her die like she did with Marc - just hammers that home. )

Thought it might've been.

( Months ago, Glacius told her to forgive herself for these things, for everything she did back in The Agency, and she tried. But-

How do you even go about forgiving yourself for deaths and pain caused to others? Can you forgive yourself for acquiescing to instructions that left a sour taste in your mouth for the sake of keeping a job? )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle would answer those inner questions Kate is having if he had the answers himself. Guilt is a tricky subject for him as it is, as he has lived nearly his entire life mired in it. It comes with the territory of being the failure of one's family line.]

When will it be enough, then? To what lengths would you go to protect those you care for? What lengths should you, or could you go?

[dedikated]

Death.

( The fact that she doesn't even hesitate to say that, even after her death months ago, even after Faith's reaction when she found her at the temple, or Sam's at 2 in the goddamn morning, is probably not a good thing.

She doesn't care. Faith can do more. Marc could have.

But she failed there. )

[tongueamok]

[Somehow, that was the answer he'd expected. Carlisle sighs, sipping at his drink.]

And even then, if we could ask your opinion from beyond the grave, I get the feeling you'd tell me it still wasn't enough. It may will be, but that is something you must accept and forgive yourself for, or you'll never believe you're worthy of anything.

[Spoken as someone who knows from personal experience. His voice softens.]

It takes a toll on you, and I'm sure Faith wouldn't want that.

[dedikated]

( How do you believe that you're worthy of things, when you've spent most of your life thinking that you have one real purpose and failing at that. How do you deal with the pressure you've given yourself and not living up to that?

Kate knows how to live alone, knows not to expect Marc's presence in her mind or his footsteps in the house. She knows how to survive losing him, but she's never really tried to cope with the sense of failure that she tries to ignore. It's been easy to ignore it back home, where life is less dangerous, more political than it used to be. She doesn't fear death in the same way for her friends as she does here.

She hasn't had to experience the death of her friends back home since The Agency fell, and all it does - losing not only a friend, but her best friend, the person closest to her since Marc was killed - is remind her of then, remind her of the ways she never managed to protect Marc, not just in protecting him from death, but all the things before that.

Shouldn't she have figured out how to stop losing people by now? )

Even if we keep making th' same fuckin' mistakes?