noteasytobepink | Even when there's no walls or windows...

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wheelsy

Even when there's no walls or windows...

Who: Clarice, the Timebroker, Bill?!
When: After the end of Grant.
What: It's like coming home...when your home doesn't exist any more.

She groaned and cracked an eye open, immediately wincing at the harsh light. She was either back in the hospital or...

"Easy, Clarice, you're hurt," the Timebroker sighed, reaching back to pluck pillows out of thin air behind him. "Careful, that's a girl..." he helped prop her upright before patting her hand. "I lose you for a few years and look what happens!"

"...alien," she noted automatically, trying to breathe carefully. Time to take stock: broken ribs, she'd probably at least sprained her wrist, knee hated her, black eye...

"I already set your nose and three fingers," he offered helpfully.

...broken fingers and nose then. Headache. Thankfully no bleeding gut wounds or anything, that would have taken the wormy cake wouldn't it? "Getting soft," she chuckled carefully, licking her lips to clear away the grit of dried blood.

"No, getting lost without a proper team," he chided. "That level should have been a full team, not one crazy mutant backing up a town."

"So...why no team?" she asked, shifting to look at the short man standing beside her bed. Once upon a time a series of kitchen tiles standing alone in a desert would have been weird. Now? Now it was just where the Timebroker lived, and now there was a bed set on the tiles. How thoughtful.

"...because I can't watch everything." The Timebroker settled on a chair that hadn't been there a moment ago and held out a thermometer. Thermometers were important parts of ensuring wellness! That was what observation told him anyway. "There's more than just me out there, I'm a fixer, I meddle more than I should and I care about those that get lost. You fell...right out of my territory. A timeline and reality far past anything I can see. I knew I'd find you again if I watched for you, but the broker in that area was...less than happy."

"...I didn't go there on purpose."

"I know. You saved your team. That's what you do. She just...should have told me. She's the angry sort though. Anomalies are...discarded. So she didn't let me know one of 'MY' anomalies was wandering around in one of her worlds." He...didn't like his own kind much honestly.

"And Wheelsy?"

"Safe," he assured. "For good this time. It was a two event, one defeat, two defeats, out."

She leaned back on her pillows, letting that information trickle through her mind. Good. She didn't ask about Bill; she couldn't. His place was safe. His world was safe. It would be alright. "My team?"

"Still scraping along, you won't be up to joining them for a bit but Morph is saving a spot for you. Speaking of..." he held up a Talus unit, this one a bit more form fitting it seemed. "You lost your last one. I didn't know that was possible."

"Psycho mutant with a knife and super strength," she pointed out, holding up her left arm. That was a faint, almost hidden starburst of a scar on her forearm. The place the last had attached.

"Yes, well, this one is made for you," he assured, sliding the metal and gem sleeve on. "There, how does it feel?"

She had winced slightly when it went on, but she didn't even feel it attach like she had the last. A moment more and the metal had warmed to her skin temp, that was better. A poke revealed she could...feel through it. Huh. "A lot more user friendly," she noted. "It's like a second skin."

"I should hope so," he noted. "It took some time to work up but this one can't be taken from you, I promise. They won't even manage to cut off your arm if they tried."

"...that's reassuring," she chuckled, wincing as her ribs bit. "Don't...want to do that again." Get lost. Get involved.

"I know," he patted her cheek and looked out over the tiles until a kitchen showed up for him. "You rest. You've had a rough time, but you're safe now. We have you back. I'll get some soup going."

"Sorry to make you worry," she noted, already drifting off.

That was for the best. The soup could make itself, yes. The short little man was...pulling on a cloak suited for desert travel and going to trace down the other anomaly. He could send the man back to his own realms, but as he'd mentioned, the broker there wasn't kind to those who slipped between the cracks. If he was smart he'd just send the man away and let Clarice move on; Bill was from a world set where mutants didn't even exist after all!

But...he'd looked after Clarice. That earned him some credit in the Timebroker's book. It was a bit of a walk; being attuned Clarice had shown up where he was, but Bill? Bill had no place now so anywhere in the lost sands.

The Timebroker was good at finding things though. It wasn't long before he was nudging a sandy leg with his boot, "and what are we going to do with you?"

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"My head... " he snorts. "Fine, keep on not makin' any sense."

Shaking his head in frustration and annoyance he removes the cap and takes a thirsty drink from the canteen.

It's been a long, long damn night, and in addition to all of his aches and pains he's also dehydrated on top of it.

"Unfortunately I make a great deal of sense, you just don't care for the information shared." And that led stubbornness, refusal to think, and being overemotional. Yes.

At least the canteen never seemed to empty? Lighten a touch, yes, empty? No. Though after a while the water developed a slightly salty tang common in sports drinks. Electrolytes were good for him!

He hesitated when the flavor changed, then kept on drinking. At last he lowered the canteen and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Where's Clarice?" Ignoring his own situation led him to finally start thinking about the rest.

Yes, well, good to see his body's needs could override the kneejerk reaction. That was good he guessed.

"Not lost." No, she was finally home, in a sense. He could play twenty questions? "Not in Wheelsy either. She'll never find her way back there."

"Where is she?" he repeated, not obliged to play the game. "I wanna see her."

Because if she was the one who'd pulled him from his world it meant she was here, too.

"If she was in the dunes and you needed to you'd have found her," he shrugged. "This leads me to believe you have less than altruistic reasons to seek a familiar face and good chunk of them may revolve around trying to force an injured teleporter to send you screaming back across the dimensions to 'home'." To die.

"What?! I'd never-- " he started to shove himself back onto his feet again but wasn't quite ready to get there. Beside that, he knew he couldn't lay hand on the man.

"I'd never force her into anything," he growled. "I wanna make sure she's alright. We were both fightin' Grant, an' I know what you an' this place did t'her before she came to Wheelsy."

"I have no proof of that," he pointed out reasonably. "You're just another lost soul screaming at the sky about things being unfair from this angle." Really, why should anyone take his word?

"As far as you're aware she's a fighter. Even if she's not here there's no reason to assume Grant could take her." Him and this place? Really? "You're not bothering to get a handle on 'this place' what makes you believe you can judge it or it's effect on others?"

"An' I ain't got no proof on you. You could just be some asshole with a mutant power out t'hurt her," he countered belligerently.

"Because I've seen what she's like. I know the nightmares she has, how for months she couldn't even sleep in a bed because she didn't feel safe not curled in a ball on the floor."

Now he did get up, the long held anger of what Clarice had lived through and what it had done to her finally spilling out.

"How she can't settle down an' enjoy life because she's worried about the next fucked up thing that's gonna happen t'her. She can't ever be happy because you and whatever the hell this is took that away from her!"

He'd tried. God, he'd tried so hard to convince her that it was okay, that this life was behind her. All he wanted was for her to settle down with him so he could give her the life she deserved.

But he'd been wrong. About everything.

"Difference being I haven't killed you and you're the one who's taken a swing even after being told I'm construct of the collective unconscious," he snorted. One of them did have better ground t stand on.

Or sit on as the case were.

"This place doesn't make soldiers. She came the way she is and as far as you can tell she'd better than many things she told you of her world. She's from an extreme and very good at staying alive despite losing ever anchor. You on the other hand seemed to enjoy ramming square pegs into round holes despite what you've observed and been told. How much did you hurt her I wonder, when you told her who and what she was was so terrible?"

"Wouldn't anyone say I didn't have the right," he growled about swinging at the man.

"I didn't hurt her!" he shouted. "Jesus Christ, I Love her. All I wanted was the chance t'make her happy."

Another outburst, and the realization of what was lost finished him. He managed to keep his feet this time, but everything was bled out of him; the anger, the fear, it all left him slump shouldered and frowning. Spent.

"I never said she was terrible."

"Many would actually. You're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy, the bigger universe doesn't care about what you think about it." Or how he believed it should work.

"Truth told you are in the wrong between. Your realities, and realities even vaguely related to yours, are very far away. I don't know if you can survive in these world sets, especially given you think what someone did to survive, and continues to do, is horrid and wrong. That someone being a soldier makes you angry. I don't know if you can be a fighter, no matter you fought when you had to."

"You don't know anything. And you sure as hell don't know me."

His eyes turned back towards the dunes, looking but still not seeing anything that might give him direction.

"It's what was done t'her that I don't like. How she grew up an' was treated all along the way. She's had everyone who was important to her taken away, an' now you're gonna do it again."

He shook his head, frowning as that sunk in deep.

"Collective consciousness," he pointed out. "I know a great deal." And really, was that how he saw it all?

"Did you actually ask her how she grew up?" he mused. "What kind of world it was and what everyone there was like? And life takes, yes, but it also gave her a chance to make connections and live, like it has given you now. She has important people. Many of them she will see again. Her team. Her adopted father when that world cycles through again. She never built her life on loss, so why would you only look at what she's strong enough to move past?"

"I don't know what that really mean," he replied. "You can repeat it as many times as you want to, I still don't give two shits."

Bill was who he was, and since he didn't know this man, the man couldn't really know him.

"She told me, when she'd wake up screamin' at night. I know she didn't say everything, but that only means things were worse than what was said." She his more things than he did, which was saying a lot.

"Because she deserves a chance at peace. I want her to be happy, an' from everything I've heard an' seen, she can't get that from you."

This man was proving to be more of a headache than Morph in one of his moods. "It means that below reason all living being share a connection and oft times information flows into such. I arose from that pool of knowledge and living memory."

"And Clarice is unique. Among hundred that fall through the cracks she holds on to life and happiness in moments. Her world was terrible, and some days I don't think she regrets it's ending, but that means she has no anchor point. She has no reality that can hold her and every moment she spends in another world she is fighting the factors that try to eject her. The Talus shields her from that stress somewhat, but I can't imagine how hard she struggled each day to stay in your reality without one. I'd be grateful you had years before her strength snapped or was needed elsewhere rather than being belligerent about how she has to live. Of course she probably never would have told you that, she doesn't focus on the pain or the trouble things take. She'd rather be alive."

Holding onto his word that he didn't care about the explanations he skipped it and didn't respond.

Hearing that Clarice had to fight to stay in his world sobered him some, though, and it was clear he was listening to that part of the man's words.

"Of course I'm grateful. Y'don't know what it meant t'me to have her there. She didn't tell me about that, but then she didn't tell me a lot." He wasn't stupid, it was obvious she had things she didn't share. He had them, too.

"I ain't gonna roll over, though, an' let you take her. So where is she?" If he really couldn't go home, then he wanted to be with her.

Explanations might help keep him alive. Shouldn't he want that?

"You say that like you think this is some kind of kidnapping," he sighed, not budging an inch from his dune. "She is asleep. She has three broken fingers, five cracked ribs, a broken nose, a dislocated knee, and a great deal of bruising. She did not puncture a lung, which is for the best." Very much so.

"Something like your Grant requires a trained team or it requires lives. She wouldn't give your life to it, but she didn't have a team. She needs her rest. A between place like this is not a place creatures like you can live, but you can rest for a time and she knows it. It is familiar to her, which allows her to rest well."

"Why the hell couldn't you just say that in the first place?!" he growled, his anger mixed over with concern.

"Is she gonna be alright, is someone lookin' after her?"

"Because you didn't ask and you weren't listening to anything I said anyway," he shrugged. What? Just because position in life had shifted meant that it was fine to just be a bull headed, angry mess of a man?

"I am. She will be fine."

"Sonuvabitch I-- " Bill cut himself off, chewing on his words for a moment trying to rein in his frustration and temper.

"That's the first damn thing I asked! All you said was that she was 'fine', an' obviously she ain't!"

Never had Bill wished more that he could hit somebody.

"I wanna see her."

"You didn't ask how, you asked where she's not somewhere you can be right now," he shrugged. "She's resting safe and comfortable, the bones that can be set have been set, and you do not need to be waking her up." And in his current state he couldn't even modulate his voice, much less be quiet.

"And what would you do if you did see her?"

"Ain't it just like an asshole t'split hairs," he grated. "Makes me a whole lot less inclined t'take your word for anything."

Not helping Bill like the man anymore was hearing that he couldn't see Clarice.

"I wanna make sure she's okay, an' let her know I'm here. For all I know she thinks I'm dead."

"Think about this William Pardy, Bill for short and you prefer the lack of formality with the people around you, would it be a good idea for her to know you're alive?" This was an important question. A very important question.

"Think. Don't react, don't immediately spit acid. Think. The realities I watch are full of super powers and life and death situations. Worlds that your reality would only ever contemplate in books. What you faced, twice? Is about on the moderate scale for what Clarice and her team face, often, to fix or save entire realities. Not a town. Not a person. They help something larger. In the face of that, Bill, what do we do with you?"

Bill's nostrils flared as he sucked wind, ready to bark his reply. But he held, and for the first time really listened.

Having his full name put to him along with his own preference was enough to cut through the hostility for a moment.

The question posed gave him a long pause, and the description of what was out there made him silent longer still. He knew the things Clarice got in to, what she'd survived. He knew the scars and some of the stories, knew her nightmares and the paranoia that had driven her all of these years.

This is where all of that came from, and quite suddenly Bill realized this was the fear he had carried with him all along come to life. He'd always known that he couldn't keep up with her, that if push came to shove came to super powers he'd be next to useless for her. For all intents and purposes he'd just died in a fight with the 'moderate', meaning he had no chance in hell against anything else.

What was he supposed to do, then?

Working his throat quietly, he turned and looked out at the endless dunes again.

"It can't be that bad. I could-- " Could what?

"Y'can't expect me t'just leave her."

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