when did this place become like home? [closed]

[encourage]

They'd gotten back. In the end, that's all it felt like. A group of thirty had gone to a planet, have things gone poorly since being greeted, then found themselves lied to, exploded, and abducted in the same twenty-four hours. Then they'd set up a confrontation that'd taken days to reach fruition, broken into teams to achieve mission objectives that were, at heart, still not entirely the mission, and ended up in a fight involving clones of themselves, clones of people on Galilee, and the clones who ran everything under the guise of not having been clones at any point at all.

Here she'd thought Orochimaru had come up with a convoluted way of attaining immortality.

Still, they were back, she didn't have any official duty to file anything, she ached and hurt like hell, and after the shower she'd just taken (she'd discovered far more bruises, nicks, cuts, and really taken a look at the big burn on her upper thigh) she was ready for some selective downtime before reporting back in for duty at Medical Bay proper. She figured she needed to look at the Active Crew registry, too, after hearing mention of a recent pod release.

It just felt like effort she wanted to postpone spending for a good half hour nap or something, to take the edge off the uncertainty of walking into open combat with this group of misfits in the future. They'd survived, but they'd been lucky. No one'd been unscathed, and they weren't even facing the Ohm. Four days on one world, and this is how they'd come out?

Walking gingerly into her room, towel wrapped around her, she contemplated reviewing the files Kanner had left on the datapad she'd found in her medical kit. Different from any of the ones they had on ship, but there none-the-less. Actually...

Sakura looked over to the medkit itself, part of what she'd dragged back without paying attention once everyone had been sorted out to where they needed to be. It reminded her to do the responsible thing and finish dressing her wounds, if part of her grumbled and knew that the only reason she wasn't doing this in Medical Bay was a stubborn wish to be disassociated from the alien (familiar, she couldn't lie anymore) environment for a little while longer. "I hate breaking new boots in."

Yes. Focus on the simple realities. "The blisters you get are so annoying." She moved toward her bed after closing the door firmly behind her.

Comments

[encourage]

She nodded, clasping her hands in front of her. It was a little defensive, if not as much as if she'd crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't entirely closed off.

"You know about everything up to when we lost comm contact. That night the hotel was bombed. Right before the explosions, half the team was kidnapped by the CLF, Clone Liberation Front. They spoke with the leaders, and ultimately contact was reestablished between both groups. It took a few days to set up the means to get into the hospital and tag machinery, get the ship, and get the teleportation pads in order, but then it boiled down to staging a confrontation between government and CLF using the crew as a focal point. They revealed the clones of us right about the time the memory upload was successful. We fought them down, got on the teleport pad, got on the ship, and got off world."

She shrugged. "I can explain what the memory upload was, if you want."

[livestoannoy]

"Nah, I think I can guess," Marco said. "I've seen something similar back in my universe. You remember that Iskoort from XaXing?" He still couldn't beleive that Guide had showed up there. With a mustache.

"Who won the confrontation? And who were you fighting - the government, the CLF, or both of them?"

[encourage]

"The one buying everything? Probably nail clippings," she muttered, though really, why hadn't she thought of that?

Two inches of hair was probably enough.

"I was tagging things for teleporting out of the hospital. By the time I was involved in active fighting, it was after the government released our clones." Thus just the government, if she hadn't been enamored of being kidnapped by the CLF.

[livestoannoy]

"What?" Marco said, blinking. What the hell was she going on about nail clippings for? "No, I mean they buy and sell memories. They have this viewer thing that lets them see other people's memories."

Marco frowned, trying to get a picture of what had happened. "So you were just fighting the government's clones, is that it? But what about generally? Did the others end up fighting for the clone rebellion?"

[encourage]

"Yeah, I heard about that. It's why Zetta ended up with so many credits, from what I recall." She still thought it was weird. "Just, I don't think that gives you an exact sense of the person whose memories you're viewing, right?"

Aaah, the details she wasn't there to see play out in reality. "The others were split between tasks, but the teams fighting were fighting each other. Which means we were fighting government and CLF, if only seriously against the government. We had a no kill order, but you can guess how long that was followed once our own clones were around."

[livestoannoy]

Marco shrugged. "I don't know. I never used it myself. But Kaya ended up with memories from someone else, but from what I've heard, it didn't make her the same as them. Who knows how the hell it's supposed to work?"

Trying to figure out what made a person a person was more Cassie's area, not his.

"So you were just trying to get the hell out of there?" Which would make sense. Sometimes, you just had to bail.

[encourage]

She wanted to know. Then again, she usually did.

"I'd have preferred just to get out of there from the start. The CLF didn't need us. The government didn't need us. Most of what we stole might not even be usable."

Such a net win.

[livestoannoy]

"That's what the GIA wanted, right? They tech?" Marco said. He scowled. "And as long as they get their hands on it, they don't care what happens to us, apparently."

He stopped, then titled his head, looking at Sakura. "You haven't started healing your leg yet," he said suddenly.

[encourage]

"You haven't started singing." If she narrowed her eyes, glaring at him pre-emptively. "That's not an invitation to start."

Addressing his last statement first. She figured they both knew the implications behind the GIA, much like the creators of their ship. Hell, they'd already mentioned it, and she really didn't feel like feeding into his paranoia -- rightful, shared, or otherwise.

"Unless you want to get thrown out the window."

Sakura speculatively eyed him and the open window.

[livestoannoy]

"I could just morph and fly away if you tried," Marco said, grinning. Okay, he could really morph that fast, but he knew she'd never actually throw him out the window. Hit him with a book maybe, but not that. "But hey, if singing's what you need...well, you asked for it."

And with that Marco leaned back onto his hands, and started singing. And unfortunately for Sakura, Marco wasn't particularly good at singing.

"This is the song that never ends, and it goes on and on my friend..."

[encourage]

Oh, he knew that, did he? Sakura stared at him in disbelief. It was one thing to have people with anything like talent singing at you, even if what they were singing was utter nonsense. It was an entire other thing to have someone with no talent for singing start singing at you.

Some people shouldn't have started singing it, she thought to herself, not knowing what it was, but more than happy to see an end to it forever just because!

Sakura spun back around, using her good leg to support her as she leaned over to grab her pillow. A moment later she was happily introducing it to Marco's face with a thwack that didn't quite pass for good natured. ... Or playful. (Okay, he might have been right about her not tossing him out the window. If she lived on the first floor, all bets would have been off.) "Oh no you don't!"

[livestoannoy]

"Some people, started singing i--argmmmf!" Marco's attempt at singing was quickly cut off by a sudden pillow to the face. He caught the pillow as it fell down. "Hey, you're not supposed to end the song that never ends!" he said, throwing the pillow back at her.

[encourage]

She caught the pillow -- more with her shoulder than anything else. It's not like he had to throw it far. "No, I think the only thing you can do is end it as soon as possible."

Her shoulders were tight with accumulated stress, she was looking more grumpy than amused, and the stupid part was she knew he was right. She just didn't want to deal with it, and above and beyond the reason she told him, she didn't know why. She wasn't used to that much personal self-reflection, if she could have used time to do some of that right now.

"I mean it." Pillow left on the bed she pointed -- very incriminatingly -- at Marco. Then she poked at him, aiming for whatever was convenient. "Right out the window."

[livestoannoy]

"Or you could just stop being an idiot and fix your goddamn leg," Marco said, crossing his arms and prodding her with his foot in retaliation for that poke in the shoulder. He narrowed his eyes.

"Or are you masochistic? Is that it? Do you just want to make yourself suffer?"

[encourage]

"No," she said shortly, shifting back until she'd moved back enough to be sitting. "I'm not masochistic."

She was to an extent, if she wasn't aware of it. Yet she was finding herself in a relative catch twenty-two, if the term didn't exist on her world. (The concept certainly did.) Prove his point in not doing anything, or capitulate to the smart choice but be capitulating.

She was just so tired of capitulating. What about being stupid?

Frowning, she looked away. "I'm not."

[livestoannoy]

"Then why haven't you fixed your leg?" Marco said, raising an eyebrow. "And don't try to give me that 'I need it to remember' crap. You don't need an wound to remember."

Now he was pointing a finger at her, an echo of her earlier gesture. "If you're really not masochistic? Prove it."

[encourage]

Sakura turned back around to look at him, grimacing and swatting at his finger. "You're really annoying, you know that?" By now she sounded a mix of tired and irritated.

Still, he had a point. Mostly. Okay, she'd acknowledged he had a point, and she should probably listen. How do you feel about being an idiot yourself these days?

Without a word, looking away again, she brought one hand to rest over the gauze bandages. After a few seconds, the familiar green glow of her healing chakra manifested. Point to Marco, but like hell was she going to say anything about it.

[livestoannoy]

"Yup!" Marco said cheerfully, smirking. Sakura might not admit to the point, but that definitely didn't mean that Marco hadn't taken note of it. He'd won this round, and he knew it.

He considered gloating, but then decided it against it. Besides, his smirk was evidence enough of his victory. And at least now he knew she was alright, if still ruminating over that mission. Marco knew what that was like. In fact...now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure he knew of something that would definitely get her mind off of things.

"So," he said casually. "Want to hear what I did while you were away?"

[encourage]

Shifting a little, Sakura examined him out of the corner of an eye. It was better he hadn't gloated. It meant Sakura's mood didn't take a complete nosedive into shutting down and lashing out. "If I say no, are you still going to tell me?"

[livestoannoy]

Marco grinned slowly, not at all perturbed by her grumpiness. He just looked at her, with a mischievous glint in his eye. "I got a dragon morph," he said, ignoring her remark. Somehow, his grin widened. "I could take you flying."

[encourage]

Her eyes widened, thinking back to what dragons she knew on board. She wasn't quite jaded enough to not be curious as to the details. Or the temptation, if it was hard to imagine the current mechanics. "Who?" she asked, turning a bit more toward him. Followed shortly after was, "Really?" And a pause. "Just like that?"

No strings attached?

[livestoannoy]

"Celena. You know, the giant flying casino. You must have seen her flying around doing her crazy stunts over the city sometime," Marco said, still grinning. He had her attention now. "And why not? Flying's fun."

[encourage]

She had to think for a while before her brain came up with a possible match for who he was talking about. "I don't know," she said slowly, "That sounds like it could be a bit of a gamble."

She made herself smile, if it wasn't as forced as she'd expected it to be. "Trusting you to fly straight and true."

[livestoannoy]

Marco snorted. "Hey, you saying I can't fly in a straight line?" he said, teasing. But then he frowned slightly. The morph was still new, and he hadn't tried to actually carry anyone with it before. "Though maybe you should tie yourself on or something," he admitted. "You know, just in case."

[encourage]

She stared at him, eyebrow twitching. What a stupid... Sakura shook her head and smiled. "At least you're honest," she said, if the way she did made it seem like some general addressing of the space between them. If it was actually meant for him, or to describe him, was up for interpretation.

"What makes you think I have rope, anyway?" She pushed off the bed, moving back to the dresser. The funny thing in having anything meant to hold clothes she didn't have was the tendency that something fell into of collecting everything she did have, or found during the course of her movement around the city. So much of it was still unexplored, if she thought about it.

The thought was largely unrelated, if it occurred to her that at greater height, you could get a great sense of scope.

Part of her was glad for the distraction, since one thought caused another, keeping her from dwelling on the slow digestion of the last few days, and what had happened to everyone during them. The pod pop, the Tapestry that she didn't understand, and so many other things. Stupid arguments over healing her damn leg or not.

She pulled open the lower drawer, frowning as she looked at her rather interesting stock. (Sparse, too.) "This should work," she said, pulling out some kind of rope. Different material than anything they had at her home, but lighter, too. Strong, durable, and entirely bought on XaXing.