empathicfault | IC Inbox

How old is she?

Nineteen. Old enough to figure herself out on her own.

Still young enough that she shouldn't have had to, though. I don't know when her father started hunting with her- fifteen, sixteen? Probably sometime around there. She often seemed more that age.

All kids fly the nest eventually. Even if she ended up somewhere else - my guess? You weren't nothing to her. What you did for her wasn't nothing.

I-

[ He doesn't want to talk about her. Not anymore. It hurts. He tries his best to picture her, older, talking with another woman. Smiling, happy. And not pierced through with antlers and hung up on a mounted display. That vision is still so strong, even with being a false memory. ]

I think I only made things worse. Or- me and Hannibal- between the two of us. We definitely made things worse. It's just. Sometimes you have to stop trying to fix things.

Especially when she figured it out on her own. I am glad, for that.

Mm, giving a crap always makes a difference.

[She pauses, then clarifies--]

It isn't always enough. It definitely doesn't always fix things. And yeah, sometimes it makes stuff worse. But if there's one thing I've learned from my current job; from my team at home - it still matters when you try.

If you were there, and trying, and she knew it? It meant something.

[Another pause.]

Don't beat yourself up about it, is what I'm saying.

[ He's quiet on the other side of the line for a very long time, just thinking it through, agreeing, and trying to convince the part of him that's not logical of the same thing.

At least he cared. It feels like a pretty shitty consolation prize, if he's honest. But hopefully it meant something to Abigail. ]

Yeah. Okay.

Thanks.

[This message comes relatively early on on the first day of the flood, when Shaw has figured out that something is off, but can't quite pinpoint what, beyond the occasional fake memory that sticks out like a sore thumb.]

Hey. You okay?

Uh...

Yeah. I think so. [ He does not sound sure. ]

Did something happen?

I don't know. Flood, maybe, but--

[She hesitates briefly.]

I'm remembering stuff weird. Anything strange going on with you?

[ 'You have been tampered with, Will.' The voice is right in his ear and he jumps back with an audible gasp. He sees Hannibal standing right next to him, frowning, and he breathes heavily. This is very Not Ideal. ]

Hang on a minute. I- uh. I've got to check something. My- my dreams. Hang on.

[ He mutes the communicator and goes into a mostly pointless and ultimately annoying conversation with his imaginary friend. It does not turn up much. He doesn't take more than 20 seconds before he's on the line again. ]

I- I think I've got some gaps. More gaps than I used to. No idea where, though. And I had nightmares, but that's normal. Nothing unusual, I think...

Yeah, has to be a flood. It's time, right?

[ Please let that be it. ]

The last one was earlier in the month, but, uh-- I guess they're not on any kind of exact schedule.

I'm gonna repeat that question now, though.

[YOU OKAY, BUDDY]

If I'm missing time, then...not doing great, no.

[ And now he's committed to figuring this out. ]

You said you're remembering stuff 'weird'? How so?

Pretty sure I've never teleported into somebody's bedroom because I wanted to take on her sadness. But I... did.

[She remembers that she did. It's so clear in her mind.]

What, uh-- what about you? You said more gaps than you're used to; are you used to some gaps?

[ It takes him a long moment to process that first sentence, because it barely makes sense. Teleported? And by the time he parses it, she's asking him more questions, and-- okay, they'll focus on him for a moment. He breathes out a laugh. ]

Yeah, I- I think I mentioned having encephalitis. There's a lot of lost time during that, and a lot of that time I was with Hannibal. Pretty sure he was messing with me while that happened.

But this is- I don't know where, or when, but there's some parts missing. I'm seeing it as broken pieces missing in a mirror.

[As they chat, she casually peeks at her warden item, checking on where on the ship he is right now.]

What about anything that's there that shouldn't be?

[ He doesn't have an early shift at the kennels today, so he is- thankfully- in his cabin. ]

Uh...[ A pause and a sigh. ] Honestly? It's hard to tell. I've got a lot of shadows in here already, leftovers from people I profiled and bits of people here. Um, let me focus on sense memory-

[ Another pause and then: ]

Well, I've never been to England before, pretty sure. Or fought off tentacle monster aliens...with folk dancing. So I guess that's a yes.

And you haven't been around enough to see more than one breach.

[She murmurs, mulling this over.]

Neither have I. Think we're getting stuff from past breaches that we missed?

Mmmm.

[ He presents himself with that possibility, and starts pacing in his room. It's not the best place to think, but it's probably the best place on the boat. ]

No- no. It doesn't have the right 'flavor' to the emotions. This one wasn't me, not even a different me. Feels more...light. Like a rainbow. Have you- wait, are you getting emotions through yours?

[She pauses before answering - twenty or thirty seconds from her, too.]

Yeah.

[ He waits quietly. All of this internal cataloguing tends to take a while, and he's more aware of that than most. When she confirms it, he blows out his entire breath in a sigh. ]

That's got to be strange, for you. Okay, so they're other people's, probably. So this small-town England one...

[ He trails off, sitting down and absently patting Winston's head as he replays it again. ]

Ah- Iris. It's Iris. Or it was Iris. I ended up testing out her touch telepathy- might be more like a supernatural empathy, actually. She felt like this, then.

Okay...okay.

[ He's trying to reassure himself- they have something here. They can figure it out. ]

Oh, god.

[She groans, kneading her forehead over on her end of the line.]

Fighting aliens with folk dancing - of course that was Iris.

Is it worse literally being in their heads, or doing your empathy thing?

Well. So far, all I've got to compare is Iris, and she's- she's not bad, either way. Her ability is more controlled, but- it's stronger than what I do. More raw, more direct.

[ If she wanted, Iris could do so much damage with it. He doesn't say that. ]

So you're mostly... losing stuff.

I can't really tell what I've lost. There's some gaps, but I don't know how much of that is just-- me.

Not...necessarily. I know how to look for missing memories, but I have so many times I've put myself in someone else's shoes, that have formed memories of their own- it'll take me some time to see if anything's been added.

You should be able to pick out the, uh, emotional memories, a little easier, I'd think. You already had gaps, though?

There was this whole... thing I went through at home. It left a lot of my brain kinda screwy.

[Truthfully, false memories and missing time aren't nearly as big an issue as she worries they might be - but the concern is still there regardless.]

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