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

[noteasytobepink]

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?"

Comments

[noteasytobepink]

"Hey yourself," she noted, tucking her spoon in her cheek so the Timebroker wouldn't grump about her pausing with her soup. "Not what you imagined huh?" Best get that out of the way...right?

[wheelsy_sheriff]

"Not quite. Didn't think there'd be so much sand, for one," he admitted, giving a small half-smirk.

"How're you?" he asked, pushing up in the chair with a wince.

[noteasytobepink]

"Everything is worn to sand," The Timebroker sighed. 'Everything. "This is a between in time, stress reduced it all to sand."

"Alive. Still broken, not magically healed, it'll be a few weeks." She wasn't sure how to ask him how HE was though. He was....not suppose to be here.

[wheelsy_sheriff]

That wasn't a very comforting thought, and Bill frowned slightly before refocusing on Clarice.

"At least this time you won't have Doc Mitchell breathing down your neck?" he offered. It was meant as a joke, but it only succeeded in being even less comforting than the Timebroker's words.

"I'm sorry that things went so bad."

[noteasytobepink]

"Hey, I don't mind doctors!" she yelped softly. What? She didn't? The awkward thing had been trying to explain mutants to the man! "And this isn't 'going bad' Bill. This is...normal. For me."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

"Sure, you say that now, but how many times did the man have t'threaten to hog tie you?" he countered.

Normal.

Right.

"I know." Timebroker had made that plenty clear before. "Still, was the mess in my town that got you hurt like this."

[noteasytobepink]

"Liking doctors and being willing to just stay in bed are different things," she sniffed carefully."

"Though hogtying is an idea," the Timebroker mused, setting a bowl of soup beside Clarice's for Bill.

"Also normal, Bill. Been waiting for it since I got there."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

Bill saw that a place setting had been made for him, and so he finally got up from the chair and made his way over to her.

"Thank you," he said, looking at the soup.

"I know you were." And he never did listen.

[noteasytobepink]

It was probably combination of chicken chili and a stew? But at least it smelled okay?

"It's not your fault, Bill. Anyone else, hell everyone else, would believe like you did. How often does that kind of nightmare come back?"

[wheelsy_sheriff]

It did smell alright, and since he hadn't even in who knows how long, he dug in.

"Yeah." His worry now was what if it came back with him gone.

[noteasytobepink]

It was full of things that were good for an injured and exhausted body?

"Kind of hard to come back from what we did this time," she noted easily. "Can't worry about a place that you can't return to, it'll eat you alive."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

He nodded, staring into his bowl. He probably wouldn't ever stop worrying about Wheelsy, but at least he left it in capable hands.

"So where's your team at? You seen any of them, yet?"

[noteasytobepink]

Yeah, she didn't expect that to fix it, it was just what she could give him. Advice so he didn't tear himself apart.

"No, not yet. They're on mission, and we rarely stop here between. I'll join them when I'm able." She had no idea what he was going to do yet. "Timebroker tells me you two chatted?"

[wheelsy_sheriff]

Bill lifted his head and glanced over at Timebroker.

"Yeah... a bit." More like a lengthy argument, but she didn't have to hear that. "He explained t'me what happened. How come I'm here and what this place is."

[noteasytobepink]

"And what comes next," the Timebroker noted softly. "I have some situations that will take a two man team rather than the group, I'll run you on those for a while."

Clarice stared at the small man for a good long while before returning to her soup. "When?"

"When you're healed."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

Bill glanced over, watching for her reaction. That she didn't immediately protest said something, right?

"An' I'm in no hurry, so no need to push yourself," he joked.

[noteasytobepink]

"I don't like it," she said simply.

"You don't have to, Clarice. I can't get you matched up to your team without them losing members right now and we can't place Bill."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

Bill frowned, looking her over.

"It'll be alright," he tried to assure her. Of course he had no way of knowing or making it true, but it was in his nature to try and comfort her.

[noteasytobepink]

"You really don't have a reference for this life Bill, no offense," she noted softly.

""we spoke," the Timebroker pointed out. "He is aware."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

"That doesn't mean I can't handle it," he replied, then nodded to the Timebroker. "We did. An' I'm willin' to take the chance t'see."

[noteasytobepink]

"No," she agreed. "I'm just not certain you'll still be yourself if you do."

"He loves his home, Clarice," the Timebroker sighed, "and he is a small town soul. He won't get that back and every child must leave such a small nest at some point."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

He didn't appreciate being called a child, but picking another fight with the Timebroker wouldn't help Clarice right now.

"Been through a lot already, Clarice, an' I'm always still just me."

[noteasytobepink]

"No, I bet you wouldn't recognize the you of five years ago. Of ten. Everything changes us, we're just there for the changes so we don't really see them," Clarice pointed out. That was possibly the broken bones talking though. "You don't like who and what I am, what I was born and what my life made of me. I don't want you to look in the mirror and have that same feeling."

"No option, Clarice," the Timebroker pointed out. "He's made his choice and no amount of wishing him a better life will make it so. I'm sorry dear."

[wheelsy_sheriff]

Bill opened his mouth to speak, then held in his words. He was tired of having this same conversation, the same argument over and over. He loved her, but it seemed he'd never convince her of how complete that was if they were going to keep coming back to this same subject.

He'd tried, and hard, to accept who she was, let go of his personal fear, and to stop trying to push her to give up hers, but if she still believed he was against her and everything she was, the effort had failed.

"It's how it is," he said, trying not to sound as defeated as he felt.

[noteasytobepink]

"Eat, Clarice," The Timebroker sighed. "What's done is done. The answer to your question is yes, but you couldn't have stopped this from the moment you set foot on that world, you're not the type to stand back and let people die." And that would have been the only answer really.

"And he's lived with you for years now, at least he has heard of many things that would otherwise make him crack. He is in better standing for this situation than he would be otherwise."

"...they better build him a statue," she muttered, looking down at her soup.