PSL: Travels outside the Barge (w/Malcolm)

[empathicfault]

Piloting their new ship is a little difficult. It takes reading the (somehow enclosed) manual back-to-front and learning the control panel, now situated in what looks like a little closet on the window side of the living room. It's in the new hallway that leads to the small courtyard, which Will intends to decorate once they get this one chore done first.

Thankfully, the majority of the controls are intuition-based, going off the person who puts their hand on a small orb on the panel. The rest, as it turns out, is tweaking. And luckily (or otherwise), no tweaking is necessary for their first flight.

They're heading to Will's home world.

But Will doesn't specify where, just a year later than he left. he inadvertently brings them to where he'd left. The door opens from a wall of Hannibal's cliffside home, and looks out onto the driveway. The Dragon's wings are still there, staining the cement. They overlook the grey day and the churning seaside.

Will finds himself stuck in the doorway, unsure whether he's compelled to walk out and remember or slam the door shut and take them elsewhere.

Comments

[empathicfault]

"Hey, it wasn't me. Dogs are allowed to like you too, you know," he replies matter-of-factly.

He doesn't point out that Malcolm is much easier to get to, for a slower dog, now does he point out that our was Malcolm that saved him from the shelter. He just gets up, gives a couple of finishing pats to Winston and Buster, and starts heading for the console room.

"I'll drop off the phone number for Molly. Then we're headed for Virginia, to assault a government official."

[abrightboy]

When Will explains about the dog, he studies the puppy's face for a moment, like something will be revealed. But then Will mentions their next activity.

"We're fitting so much into a day!" He enthused, following Will to the console room, Franklin trailing after him clumsily.

[empathicfault]

It's easy to fit a lot into the day with this ship, and Will can't help but also be enthusiastic about their new home. He leaves the number in 'their tree' at Molly's, folded up into a flat cone shape and settled safely into a piece of broken bark.

Then he has to look through his old cell phone, because he's only been to Jack's house a couple of times. The last, Bella's misery nearly crushed him under its weight.

This time? When he tastes the stale air of dust and melancholy, he drinks it in. He opens their door into Jack's main hallway. As expected, Jack is not in. He sees the alarm pad next to the temperature controls, and he disarms it- it's fairly old and he's familiar with this model.

He opens their door again and waves Malcolm in. "We might have a long wait ahead of us. Feel free to come and rifle through his things. He certainly didn't mind going through mine, when the opportunity arose." Pointedly, he presses his thumb onto a light switch pad as he flicks the lights on. "They'll likely dust for fingerprints afterward, but I doubt you're in the database."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm grins.

“Let’s see what a self obsessed team leader keeps in his fridge,” he suggests, glancing around and heading for the kitchen.

[empathicfault]

"My guess? A box of baking soda, some sauces, and leftover pizza."

It turned out to be leftover Chinese takeout, but Will was close. There wasn't much in the fridge. The freezer, however, was full top-to-bottom with microwavable HungryMan meals.

Will's eyes flicker from item to item, cataloguing. The only charm in this place was infused by Bella a decade ago. The kitchen desk has FBI training programs and classes, the board is pinned up with new candidates, and there's a red tomato-sauce stain still on the stove.

"He's a ghost in his own life," Will concludes. "Haunting himself with his own workplace neglect. At least he holds himself to the same standards he holds others, unrealistic though they may be."

[abrightboy]

“But he doesn’t want more than that. Other people do. Or they might, but he convinces them otherwise when they’re vulnerable. Young…” He glances at Will. “Sick. Guilty.” He looks at the board. “Desperate. Ambitious. Hungry.”

[empathicfault]

Will practically takes a bow as Malcolm gets into the sick and guilty portion of vulnerability. He thankfully hasn't been either for a long time, now.

He continues Malcolm's thoughts. "Unable to say no, for whatever reason. That's his ideal. He thought he got me back by appealing to my family. Suffice it to say, he did the opposite." No going back to the FBI, no going back to the rubble of a life he'd somehow cobbled together into something functional-looking.

"I think he always knew he was sending me out there to die," he says, with a shake of his head. "At least if I got myself killed, he could be regretful to my corpse. Harder to do when a living, breathing person still exists. And when you know you're still going to use them."

He realizes his voice has gone flat. Part of this is winding himself up, but it's tipped over to being more angry and less fun. They might still be waiting a few hours, after all. "I'm going to see if we got lucky and he forgot his laptop here today."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm just follows him through the house, glancing around as they go, until he feels compelled to ask about it.

"When did his wife die?"