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?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

"No," he agreed. "I am stuck in the position of deciding if it is healthier for her to think you never made it off your world, that Grant is gone and your world is safe and she can move on, or letting you currently die on her watch. Not pleasant choices." Not by far.

"Or you can be rational and you can help come up with alternatives knowing that returning to your world and some quiet existence is not an option."

"An' what happens t'me if you go on lettin' her think I'm still in Wheelsy?" he asked, wary but not confrontational this time.

He didn't like or trust this man, but if a decision was going to be made Bill was going to make it, and he needed to know everything before he could.

"She's left a lot of worlds and she knows she will never find yours again," he pointed out almost gently. "As for you, you have no template in my zones. No counterpart or hole to fill. Ironically that means you can make a home in a world and likely not be ejected from it because you're not wrong, you're just new and there are many realities that can adjust for that. You can have a life, it just won't be the one you know with the people you knew. There are quieter worlds. Places on the outskirts of my territory that you could be safe at. I'm not here to kill you, Bill. You wouldn't have made it to the sands if that were the case."

His anger was receding by degrees and was being replaced with the heavy weight of knowing he was never getting his life back.

Worse still was realizing that even though he'd gone with Clarice this far, he couldn't go the whole way. He'd be a distraction for her, one that might get her killed or would be a source of guilt when he was killed himself.

The thought twisted his guts and he could already feel the hole opening in his chest.

"Couldn't we both just live in one of those worlds? There's gotta be someplace where she'd be new to it, too." He knew the answer as he asked the question, but he had to hear it before he'd give up the hope completely.

"I'm afraid not. Most her team is composed of people that are just shaken loose. A big event, they went right instead of left and suddenly they're displaced. Find the right resonance, poke the right stress points, and they can snap back home where they were intended to be. I don't know why Clarice is so different. It may be her power, it may be the fact her world was negated and most other variants of her are dead, but nothing within my reach, hundreds of thousands of realities, can hold her. She shakes loose. I can keep that act from killing her, but I can't place her in a reality." And he was honestly sorry about that.

"Plus I don't know if Clarice would accept such of her own volition. She's a leader and a hero. Layer those on soldier and I don't honestly know if she could just settle down with anyone, even if she loved them. She'd have to be active in the world, saving people because it's what she does with her life." Surely he'd seen that? Three years outside his reach and she was as dangerous as ever when she came back. Bill had to have seen it.

"As for new, well, that's harder to define. Consider your world for a moment. Next door to either of your worlds will be similar ones, your best friend is a girl instead of a boy. You have a dog instead of a cat, but very much alike. A thousand down? You wouldn't recognize the world but there would be a you there. You might be a villain, or a space pirate, or any number of things, but you're not new, you're just different and depending on how badly the YOU that you are when you arrive is from what the you in that reality should be? That creates stress and friction and will push you clear, or destroy you depending. Your world is so far from these here that Clarice never existed in them, or if she does? It's as a fictional character. A story. A book, a comic book, a movie. Something not real. That's probably what kept her alive for three years in your reality? There she was new, but she also tends to break reality rules so sooner or later the stress of existing in your world would eject or kill her." That was how it worked really.

"You don't have super powers. You don't tear holes in reality. You can be 'new' somewhere and not get a whole world angry at your existence. She can't. Even so? I can't reach a world where you both would be new and guarantee you wouldn't break it between you."

Bill listened to every word and they all said the same thing, it was never going to work. It had never been meant to be. He would have lost her eventually regardless, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

"I was gonna propose to her," he said, quiet, all spent out of anger. "If I hadn't been too stupid an' scared I'd of done it already."

He still had the ring in his breast pocket where he carried it, hoping to find the courage and that chance to do the thing right.

"Just like me t'fall for the girl I can't have... "

He wondered if maybe one of those other versions of himself actually managed to find someone, or if heartbreak was a constant among all of them.

"I guess to answer your question; no, it wouldn't be good for her t'know I'm here." The admission killed him to make, but it was what was what he had to do, for her.

"If she can move on she outta. I can't be the distraction that gets her killed, or another one she blames herself for losin' by dyin'."

"Annnnd now he slides down into defeat," he sighed, looking at the painfully bright sky. "Anger, defeat, or anger destruction, those are the most common reactions just so you know." No one every really cared to learn everything had to change.

"And if you intend to not help me think of any alternatives then yes I'll just send you along. But I'll give you a few minutes to get your brain back online."

"What the hell else am I supposed t'do?! I can't run with her, an' she can't stay with me, an' you said we can't keep here," he replied, gesturing at the dunes around them.

"This is all beyond me an' everything I know. It ain't easy admittin' I don't fit in her life here, but like hell am I gonna put her at risk by tryin' to."

"I would suggest thinking," he noted. "Tell me, honestly, what you are capable of, emotionally and mentally. Physically we will list in a moment."

Bill shook his head, not understanding the question.

"I'm a cop, a sheriff. I look after the folk in my town, however I have to. If that means talkin' a drunk down off the water tower then I'll do that. An' if it means figurin' how to stop a fuckin' slug invasion then I'll do that, too." Only this time, he didn't walk away from it.

"I do my job, best I can." Did his job. That was something else he'd left behind.

"Stop," he sighed. "Don't get defensive. Sit down and think. Are you the type to talk to everyone you meet or do you avoid contact? Do you prefer to see the same faces every day or can you handle strangers? I think the term in your worlds are psychological profiles? Have you had one done as you stepped up as Sheriff?"

Grumbling, Bill looked around, then sighed and sat back down in the sand.

"I did, but I couldn't tell you what it said. I don't put much stock in those things." Especially not the ones made up after the first slug invasion.

"I'm always talkin' to folks, but they're mostly always the same people. We get strangers come into town once in awhile, but usually it's all the same folks." He thought about it a moment, the shrugged a shoulder. "Me an' Clarice got along alright right away, even with her crazy story an' all."

So at least he could handle some strangers?

"What's this got t'do with anything right now?"

"We need to decide if you are mentally capable of world hopping," he pointed out gently. "And emotionally. Generally you will be moving with a team, very few members of that team will remain the same as most will snap home after a few runs. You will meet the same people over and over who won't know you each new time you meet them in a new world. You will deal with everyone from common citizens to soldiers, to outright universe swallowing evils. You will rarely get time to rest. I try to make sure slides between worlds allow for some down time but nothing is perfect."

"We already went over this. I can't. I'd probably get myself killed day one."

For the chance to stay with Clarice he would try, if he didn't think it would end up hurting her in the end.

"I deal with all types of people, an' generally they like me." His easy going personality and amicability made dealing with people easier. When he was in control of himself and his temper, of course.

"I don't mind hard work. I've put in my share of it."

"No, we went over the situation as it stands," the Timebroker felt like bashing his head on a wall honestly. "We may be able to shift the physical requirements, or rather shift your physical parameters, but if you're not emotionally or mentally able that's another story..."

Edited 2015-05-06 04:55 (UTC)

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