"Oh, N'ika. You don't have to be sorry. I mean, it's your topic. I'm just sorry I can't seem to help you with it more."
He drops a soft, brief kiss on Nico's forehead.
"Sometimes feelings are like that. I wanted - I wanted to be dead for so long, just so I could stop feeling. I'm not saying...that the place I am now is somehow worth all those years, just - the awful and unbearable parts, it's not. It's the fault of emotions, not at the end of the line. It's the fault of your life being fucking awful, and part of you knowing that, knowing it's worth changing even though you didn't know anything else. You deserve a life you could have good feelings about. It's not your fault, not the fault of any part of you, that you didn't."
He takes one of Nico's hands in his, rubbing a thumb gently over Nico's knuckles.
"I think you could have it, with us. We have so many things we need to do besides the war. There's no point winning if we can't build a nation where they can live in peace. There's going to be so many logistics and I'll have computers, but you still know how I am. And none of the clones has any experience with it outside of war. You could be useful planning a million other things, population settlement, food production, transport schedules, anything. And there'll be clones young enough not to scare you - little kids who only know being scared and hurt and obedient. You could be a really useful big brother. You could tell them it's okay not to want to fight. Not many of their other brothers really know how to say that, and mean it."
He wants that. He wants to be able to believe Jedao. He suspects that's why he has such a hard time actually believing him. He'd known that his life was wrong, that it should be changed, because he hadn't been alone. The kids hadn't deserved to die like that, the definitely hadn't deserved to live like that. So he had wanted to change things, he could want that, without having to think about himself. It's easier to care about his own well-being when it's as an abstract cog in a machine.
A piece alone, one so easily broken, is far harder to defend. But he wants to try, and that makes the guilt hang even heavier.
"I don't have experience with - outside. I can't remember ever being in a place with more than a hundred people, not since I've been...like this. I lived in closed environment with limited people, people with files I could go through and from a world I mostly understood and a lot of the time I could barely manage that." The barge provides plenty of hints about how much worse it can be.
"I've managed propaganda and kept track of schedules and looked over some infrastructure stuff, but that's nothing. I haven't been outside, as myself, in over a decade. Almost three quarters of my life. I don't know how to do stuff. I don't want to fight. I don't think I'm any example of anything good."
"You're also brilliant, and you can learn systems as fast as breathing," Jedao points out. "We can put you on a station. You don't have to go outside and you don't have to fight. You can...I don't know, write computer programs and fix droids and monitor data traffic or anything. Just organize my files, eyefox knows I'll need it. You can be an example of learning a new life you never expected, because they're all going to have to do that. You can be an example of - just - valuing kindness. They've never had someone who told them that was good, before."
Three quarters of his life, Nico says, and it hurts in a completely different way than Jedao expected; he grips Nico's hand a little tightly.
"Cactusfucking hell. You're not even twenty. I know you never expected to live to see it, but - that's supposed to be just the beginning of your life. Twenty year olds are supposed to be learning and doing stuff they never did before. You can have that. All of you should have had that."
It sounds a little like a dream, if he knew how to dream like that. A life without fighting to survive every moment. Inside, with computers he can dream of to talk to and patterns to follow. Not trusting the people he worked for, perhaps, but not betraying them, either. Having a choice.
"Kindness is important. Dangerous, too. It changes people." He knows that kindness can destroy, but it's one of the few dangers that he holds onto, anyway. More proof of its danger, probably. Children should have a chance to know kindness.
He thinks about twenty, a moment. The idea of it drifts too far away for him to grasp. He considers the video of his possible future, thinks about the dates written on the board. "In my country, you were almost entirely a legal adult at eighteen. But I don't think I would be allowed to vote." It's been a long time since he's thought of age meaning anything, the split between children and adults is forged in his mind, unconnected to numbers. Still, the idea of dying before turning eighteen has a hollow sort of inevitability, the type he tries not to believe in.
"See? Exactly that." Brotherly wisdom. "And I can be mean enough for all of you," Jedao adds, whether or not that makes sense.
"For us - seventeen is old enough to choose a life, and twenty-two is enough to go live it without a safety net. Cadets are...not quite legal adults, not as faction members, but not legal children, either." Not that any of that really matters.
"You don't have to decide anything. But consider it, please?"
Nico nods, a little vaguely. "You know how dangerous being nice can be. Because the kid was worried about it." He's usually uncertain about mentioning Jedao the younger, in terms of suspicions he's put together about Jedao's life, it seems slightly rude. He tries to be polite, it's hard with such a range of definitions.
"Before, a lot of people went to college at seventeen. A stepping stone to being fully grownup, I guess, though not the same sort of choice." School is an even stranger thought, one he pushes away. That's not the point.
"I'll think about it." He would, just because Jedao asked, but that doesn't mean he won't fulfill the promise.
He hesitates, he probably should but exhaustion is settling back in as his adrenaline runs out and the lines between past and present are wavering again.
"...Not soup. Or porridge." He doesn't know if he could keep anything down, but at least he doesn't have to invite memories.
"Steamed rice? Or is that too close to porridge? Or crackers, those are bland but dry." And also simple carbohydrates, even if he can only get down a few.
"Not rice. Not steamed." Not that texture. He remembers Jude sharing a cup of applesauce not long after they'd met. He's not sure if they'd ever even had applesauce in the labs, but the texture had left him sick without any words to offer an explanation. Everything had been too close, then. The distance he'd built in the months that had come after seems to have crumbled, he just has to believe it can be rebuilt. "Crackers, if it's okay...?"
"Yeah, of course. We've got slightly sweet crackers, salty crackers, cheesy crackers, and nothing crackers," he announces, standing up to dig through the small crate of supplies he dragged in earlier. They are, of course, graham crackers, saltines, cheezits, and water biscuits respectively.
"Nothing crackers would probably be good?" He assumes that means lack of flavor, and a lack of sensory stimulation sounds the easiest to handle, at the moment.
"Nothing it is." He puts the sleeve of water biscuits - so named for containing nothing but flour and water - on the bed between them, and offers Nico a plain, round white cracker to nibble.
He takes the cracker, managing almost five before even that much effort becomes too much.
He slumps down, turning a water biscuit in his fingers a moment before accidentally dropping it when his coordination slips. "They're good." They're simple, and when the world seems full of too much texture and too bright colors, sometimes it's nice to have - simple. It's a retreat, of sorts, but better than some,
He blinks, not quite trying to jolt himself into alertness. Maybe this time he'll be able to actually sleep fully. He knows that's good, even if it's hard to remember he'll probably wake up again. "I don't think the food on Gallifrey is very good. But there's probably something. Are reminders always bad?"
"Reminders - of people?" he asks, not entirely sure he's following, catching the dropped cracker and offering it in case Nico wants to try finishing it.
"I don't know. People come with food, I guess - but that's thinking my level of technology. Places, maybe." He looks a bit blankly at the cracker, thinking of his own reactions to sense memory. "Sometimes it's all bad. Maybe not always."
"Not always," Jedao confirms, sounding perfectly confident about it despite being more confused than before, connecting the words and Nico's black pensive reaction to the cracker only ten, fifteen seconds later.
"Or maybe something from another planet. There are so many." He rubs his eyes. "I don't know if she enjoyed them. So much travel. Power. But you can still be locked away from it all." He's sympathetic to the idea, underneath the build up of fear and mistrust, he's always tended toward empathy. There's part of him that's uncomfortable - a type of resentment, he knows he could let build too much - with Time Lords and their powers (their freedom).
Jedao wonders if he should tell Nico to stop talking, but he isn't coherent enough that Jedao is actually learning anything new and compromising about Missy.
"There are so many," he agrees, vaguely philosophical. "And - sometimes people enjoy things because if they let themselves suffer, they wouldn't get anything done." Travel and power and entrapment - he doesn't know what they mean to Missy, but to him they mean threading a constant needle, striding on thin rails above the abyss of his own horror and bitterness until he finally stumbled. Sometimes everything goes together, good and bad.
"We haven't visited any. Just the moon. There are pictures." Maybe, someday, the people of his world will travel out among the stars. It might change how they see the universe. He has a hard time believing it'd really make anything better.
"Sometimes, it'd be better if people didn't get things done. But mostly not. I think it's why we're good at not suffering. Changing stuff in your head so it's okay. At least for a while." He doesn't know where he'll come down, if he ever reaches a future with choices. So far, there'd mostly either been nothing or orders to follow. "Do you have a favorite food?"
"I don't think about food a lot, except for wanting to get people enough of it. But...maybe steamed eggs. When I was little I'd bring the eggs fresh from the henhouse every morning, and my brother would cook them, with scallions and mushrooms, they'd set silky and warm."
Bright and hearty at once, somehow, Jedao and Nidana arguing about the sesame seeds, and Ro ignoring them both.
"There's never enough food." That's always true, even as the experiments meant he didn't feel hungry. Except it's not true. He remembers scrambled eggs, worse in taste and texture even then at school.
He thinks about steamed eggs, the shadows of the words. A childhood on a farm. A brother cooking, a family that's only memory.
"I'm sorry." He's sincere in sentiment, even if the reason is lost in his jumbled thoughts.
And that's a good thought to fade away on, even if it can't keep the nightmares away. He can't quite grant trust, but at least it can be true within parameters.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 08:27 pm (UTC)He drops a soft, brief kiss on Nico's forehead.
"Sometimes feelings are like that. I wanted - I wanted to be dead for so long, just so I could stop feeling. I'm not saying...that the place I am now is somehow worth all those years, just - the awful and unbearable parts, it's not. It's the fault of emotions, not at the end of the line. It's the fault of your life being fucking awful, and part of you knowing that, knowing it's worth changing even though you didn't know anything else. You deserve a life you could have good feelings about. It's not your fault, not the fault of any part of you, that you didn't."
He takes one of Nico's hands in his, rubbing a thumb gently over Nico's knuckles.
"I think you could have it, with us. We have so many things we need to do besides the war. There's no point winning if we can't build a nation where they can live in peace. There's going to be so many logistics and I'll have computers, but you still know how I am. And none of the clones has any experience with it outside of war. You could be useful planning a million other things, population settlement, food production, transport schedules, anything. And there'll be clones young enough not to scare you - little kids who only know being scared and hurt and obedient. You could be a really useful big brother. You could tell them it's okay not to want to fight. Not many of their other brothers really know how to say that, and mean it."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 10:14 pm (UTC)A piece alone, one so easily broken, is far harder to defend. But he wants to try, and that makes the guilt hang even heavier.
"I don't have experience with - outside. I can't remember ever being in a place with more than a hundred people, not since I've been...like this. I lived in closed environment with limited people, people with files I could go through and from a world I mostly understood and a lot of the time I could barely manage that." The barge provides plenty of hints about how much worse it can be.
"I've managed propaganda and kept track of schedules and looked over some infrastructure stuff, but that's nothing. I haven't been outside, as myself, in over a decade. Almost three quarters of my life. I don't know how to do stuff. I don't want to fight. I don't think I'm any example of anything good."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 10:30 pm (UTC)Three quarters of his life, Nico says, and it hurts in a completely different way than Jedao expected; he grips Nico's hand a little tightly.
"Cactusfucking hell. You're not even twenty. I know you never expected to live to see it, but - that's supposed to be just the beginning of your life. Twenty year olds are supposed to be learning and doing stuff they never did before. You can have that. All of you should have had that."
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 10:56 pm (UTC)"Kindness is important. Dangerous, too. It changes people." He knows that kindness can destroy, but it's one of the few dangers that he holds onto, anyway. More proof of its danger, probably. Children should have a chance to know kindness.
He thinks about twenty, a moment. The idea of it drifts too far away for him to grasp. He considers the video of his possible future, thinks about the dates written on the board. "In my country, you were almost entirely a legal adult at eighteen. But I don't think I would be allowed to vote." It's been a long time since he's thought of age meaning anything, the split between children and adults is forged in his mind, unconnected to numbers. Still, the idea of dying before turning eighteen has a hollow sort of inevitability, the type he tries not to believe in.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:08 pm (UTC)"For us - seventeen is old enough to choose a life, and twenty-two is enough to go live it without a safety net. Cadets are...not quite legal adults, not as faction members, but not legal children, either." Not that any of that really matters.
"You don't have to decide anything. But consider it, please?"
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:21 pm (UTC)"Before, a lot of people went to college at seventeen. A stepping stone to being fully grownup, I guess, though not the same sort of choice." School is an even stranger thought, one he pushes away. That's not the point.
"I'll think about it." He would, just because Jedao asked, but that doesn't mean he won't fulfill the promise.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:28 pm (UTC)"Do you think you could eat anything?"
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:39 pm (UTC)"...Not soup. Or porridge." He doesn't know if he could keep anything down, but at least he doesn't have to invite memories.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-13 11:57 pm (UTC)"Any of those sound better to start with?"
no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-14 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 04:16 am (UTC)He slumps down, turning a water biscuit in his fingers a moment before accidentally dropping it when his coordination slips. "They're good." They're simple, and when the world seems full of too much texture and too bright colors, sometimes it's nice to have - simple. It's a retreat, of sorts, but better than some,
He blinks, not quite trying to jolt himself into alertness. Maybe this time he'll be able to actually sleep fully. He knows that's good, even if it's hard to remember he'll probably wake up again. "I don't think the food on Gallifrey is very good. But there's probably something. Are reminders always bad?"
no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 05:56 pm (UTC)He knows how to live with the double feeling.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 06:39 pm (UTC)"There are so many," he agrees, vaguely philosophical. "And - sometimes people enjoy things because if they let themselves suffer, they wouldn't get anything done." Travel and power and entrapment - he doesn't know what they mean to Missy, but to him they mean threading a constant needle, striding on thin rails above the abyss of his own horror and bitterness until he finally stumbled. Sometimes everything goes together, good and bad.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 07:21 pm (UTC)"Sometimes, it'd be better if people didn't get things done. But mostly not. I think it's why we're good at not suffering. Changing stuff in your head so it's okay. At least for a while." He doesn't know where he'll come down, if he ever reaches a future with choices. So far, there'd mostly either been nothing or orders to follow. "Do you have a favorite food?"
no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 07:35 pm (UTC)Bright and hearty at once, somehow, Jedao and Nidana arguing about the sesame seeds, and Ro ignoring them both.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-25 09:00 pm (UTC)He thinks about steamed eggs, the shadows of the words. A childhood on a farm. A brother cooking, a family that's only memory.
"I'm sorry." He's sincere in sentiment, even if the reason is lost in his jumbled thoughts.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-03 04:49 am (UTC)"There'll be enough crackers when you wake up again. I promise."
no subject
Date: 2018-09-08 05:38 pm (UTC)And that's a good thought to fade away on, even if it can't keep the nightmares away. He can't quite grant trust, but at least it can be true within parameters.