trans_9 | An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

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Somehow, Zouichi suddenly found himself choking on nothing at all. After he recovered from a brief bout of coughing, he gave her a mildly reproachful look. Because he couldn't give it to the rumor-mongers. "I would hope that wasn't the case. I try not to get myself into sordid entanglements with married women. You know."

He looked slightly askance. "...well. I'm sure he didn't mean it."

Sandy snickered and grinned, "Nah but if he hadn't calmed down that woulda been next."

She shuffled her feet, "I guess we won? It doesn't really feel like it but that's what people said."

Eva lets out a long breath through her nose. "We saved a lot of innocent people. That's a win, I guess. And we only had one casualty, which is close to a miracle."

But no, she doesn't feel it either.

She chuckles at his flabbergasted coughing spell - she didn't think that Zouichi needed air enough to facilitate a coughing spell, but lo and behold, here she is pushing the limits of science. Or something.

"Besides, that would make for your second botched date with Alastirra, if that gossip were flying around."

She heaves a grumpy sigh. "As long as he doesn't get put in here, I guess. You'd think he'd know better by now."

She tries to smile back, but it looks twisted and forced and ultimately unpleasant. "Is that what it was? I thought maybe I was just having a really bad hair day."

"Yeah..." Sandy looked down feeling guilty for some reason. "I heard about that guy. Is that why everyone's so down in the dumps? I mean...I get it I guess if the guy was someone everyone liked. I didn't know him..."

Well, Kaya's, you've reeled a laugh out of her. "Dragon lady? I was shooting more for Yellow Wallpaper. You know, hysterical mad woman scratching her way out the walls."

And somehow, Eva knows. She knows because she's seen it in her son time and again, that worry you feel from knowing something not right with a figure of authority, a parental figure, and not knowing how to appropriately address it. It's a familiar look.

She smiles sadly. "I suppose so. I just know it won't go away once I'm out of this cell."

The mental image her gesture provoked actually did give him pause for a moment. Despite his talk of Jayne lopping of ears, the mercenary never actually tortured anyone on Serenity, just threatened. His time spent with Niska gave him a dim view of torture.

But Eva looked like she was already beating herself up about it enough. He wasn't going to help her any by judging, and he wasn't in much of a position to judge.

Plus the phrase 'hand up your face' made him snort a small laugh despite himself. "Okay," he said. "So you're here out of guilt. Which, by the way, I can understand." Except that, looking at her, Wash didn't think she looked guilty. "He made you angry and you lost it. It happens to everyone, taking some time to cool off is a good idea - but shooting things is really good therapy and you know it."

Kaya giggled. "Nope, that won't work: your nails don't look THAT bad. You'll just have to settle for dragon lady: stinky and ferocious. Still, its pretty good!"

Despite the jokes, she can see that Eva is going to have to deal with this all on her own: what was more, she knew whe she was being protected from something too. Whatever Eva had done, it was too hard for her to think Kaya would ever look at her the same way again. In that way, maybe Kaya was glad that Eva cared about her opinion enough to keep it from her.

Besides, she WANTED to keep looking at Eva how she was.

"Maybe not, but you can always do things to atone. You don't have to stay the same person you were during this mission. You have the option of changing yourself again, do things different. In time, you'll change, even if the scars don't go away."

Man, why was everyone on his back about Alastirra? Whom he hadn't actually seen much of lately; he was beginning to think she was avoiding him. Which... actually, would be rather understandable.

"Put in here for threatening people? The way some crew members throw promises of bodily harm around, the brig should be brimming with them by now."

First the library, now the brig.

Eva certainly knows how to get into trouble!

The Doctor pops in sooner rather than later. Given she's somehow tossed herself in jail, he thinks she probably has more pressing matters than her shoes. Make that shoe. He hasn't quite found her other one and now probably isn't the time to say that the man-eating library is still on the loose somewhere in the TARDIS and he hasn't tracked it down yet. The only thing he's certain is it's in hiding, so it's safe(ish) in the TARDIs. Probably not safe enough to go hunting for Eva's other shoe, he thinks, and anyway, the shoe isn't really the important thing, is it?

Eva's shoe in hand, the Doctor tracks her down to the brig, materializing on the other side of the bars. He peers at them with interest, then at the human on the other side, as if seeing her for the first time and it's all really incidental there's a prisoner in here.

"Thought you'd give the brig a go?"

"No, you're having a really bad hair day today," Kang snorted softly, trying to get even the hint of a real smile from her.

"Wouldn't a dragon lady have long, pointy fingernails?" she jokes, making claw-fingers out the cell bars.

She breathes deep. In some ways, Kaya's a lot wiser than her years would suggest. In some, she's younger. The speech she delivers now seems like a combination of the two, hopeful, but not sanitized. "Wouldn't I have changed already if I could, Kaya?"

"Heh." She tries, but it's just not happening today. "You don't think I should return to Command service, do you?"

Eva doesn't mind at all. In a twisted sort of way, she'd rather worry about Cassie than the reverse. And yet as she acknowledges that, she feels guilty. She shouldn't be happy to see any more troubles on Cassie, young as she is, hurt enough as she is.

"I have a few bottles stashed under my bed, just to make sure none of you underage types get at it. If you could bring me one, that'd help take the edge off."

"Well, a little bit guilt and a little bit because taking responsibility for our actions is something we former hosts have to put on our little day planner to check off. It's too easy to run away from responsibility. It's like a muscle that's gone slack, to own your actions." She thinks she might have seen a pause there, but purposefully chooses to ignore it.

"As much as I agree about shooting things," she gives him a grin there, "I'm not sure I wouldn't fire when told to stand down. And that's why I'm here. I wasn't disobeying orders, exactly, but I would have if they'd been given to me."

Because it amuses them, Zouichi.

"Well, if anyone thinks he might actually follow through on it, then he might end up here. For the safety of whomever he's threatening. Although they might just end up here, if they're smart. I'm a prisoner but at the very least I'm incredibly safe."

"I think we probably go through a lull whenever we lose a member. Whether either of us knew him or not, he was a member of our community, and we're a small enough one of those as is." Hard to believe they live with only a few hundred others, maximum. Hard to believe they don't all know each other by now. "I didn't know him either."

Of all the unexpected gifts Eva's been brought here lately - and that includes Goliath's books - the most unexpected would have to be that damn shoe.

"Oh, Doc, what am I only going to do with only one shoe? Display it in my home as sculpture?" she asks, getting out of bed and straightening up her shirt and matted hair to look marginally less disheveled. Not that she knows if the Doctor would notice; he might find her current state of bedragglediness quaint, for all she knows.

Still, she reaches through the bars to take the shoe. At the very least, it's hers. She might as well keep things that are hers - books, shoes, bodies. Friends. She's allowed to own things, after all. "You know, I just thought this looked like the most charming vacation spot. Elegant in its simplicity, although I take it you're not horribly keen on minimalism."

Marco didn't know what to expect when he arrived at the brig. He'd come as soon as he could, after getting bombarded with people talking about what his mother might or might not have done on the comms. He still felt on edge, jittering with anger.

And fear. Most of the stuff people were saying was obviously complete crap, but the few things he had managed to figure out had really happened was her turning herself in, and that she'd resigned from her job. And it didn't make sense! Why the hell would she decide she wanted to get locked up? Leave her job? Something had to have happened, and Marco was scared to know what that might be.

He stepped into the area outside the cells, and stopped. She looked like a mess. He felt like they'd gone back to the Yeerk pool, back to when she was just the container for the Yeerks to execute Visser One in.

"Mom?" he said, hoping his voice didn't sound as freaked out as he felt as he came forward to hold onto the bars of her cell. He felt like he should say something else. One of the millions of questions swarming around in his head. Anything. But he found he just didn't have anything to say at all.

Daniel's mouth pursed but he held his tongue. He didn't need to point out she was in this "cage" in the first place, because, one, she'd reported herself before he could, and two, she was in there because she'd done something so incredibly wrong and brutal that Daniel still had a hard time wrapping his head around it. He'd never have considered her capable of such violence if he hadn't seen it happen right in front of him.

He could accept the apology but he also didn't see what good it did. It didn't make things right between them. At the end of the day, Eva had flipped out and tortured a man, and the man was dead. There were underlying issues, things Daniel had seen or figured out since XaXing, but he'd honestly believed she started to move forward. Not that it would ever come to this.

Some part of Daniel wanted to try again, the part that took knocks and kept on going, and he was willing to give it a shot until she continued. At least she didn't finish her sentence. Daniel knew where it was going even if she stopped herself. She might be saying she was sorry, but she still tried to justify why it was perfectly okay to go after the man the way she did. Some part of her didn't think she was in the wrong.

There was only so far Daniel could get pushed and Eva quickly found it. Disappointed and frustrated, he only shook his head at the aborted excuse. He didn't take the peace offering. "I meant what I said. Two weeks. Think about it?"

"Ok, you've got me there," Kaya laughed unable to keep up her end of the argument. "But I won't fail that next battle so easily!"

But onto more serious topics. "Only if you want to. I can't imagine all of the things you've been through, you and I both know that. What I know is this: that pain just doesn't go away, no matter what your duties are. I'd be stupid to say they did. But after some time, you have to decide how much of what happened in your past will ghost itself in your present and future. You are one of the strongest people I know Eva, and its why I'm not going to ask you what you did to put yourself here anymore. What I know, and what I can tell you, is that if you close yourself into a cell where you can see nothing but all the bad things you did, they'll stay with you and weigh down any options that make you the good person I know you are. If doing this is what you need to do, do it, but be sure it will make you stronger in the end."

Wash raked his hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. Eva seemed bound and determined to stay here and beat herself up about the whole thing. Once someone was trying to kill him, all bets were off as far as he was concerned, but from what Eva said that wasn't the problem.

She didn't feel guilty about killing the guy, that much was clear. Wash wouldn't feel guilty either. Eva seemed more like she was here because her conscience told her she should be here doing penance of some kind, or else she wasn't an adjusted human being.

"I don't think jail has been very good to you," Wash said. She looked awful, something he'd avoided mentioning until now. "Or you haven't been very good to yourself. If you need to work on controlling your temper, there are better places to meditate on the smudgy parts of your soul."

"I suppose. But as far as I know, no one's thrown him in a cell yet. So let's hope that continues." Mostly because he'd rather not deal with having to keep guard over Eva's son.

"Oh, well. Next time the ship is under attack, I'll remember to run to your location if I need cover."

"I don't know what you want me to consider." If it's that she needs help, she doesn't know what sort of help Daniel thinks would do any good, and she trusts he's smart enough to know that just going through the motions will do nothing but humiliate and demoralize her. "If you can give me an answer for that, then you have my word."

Not that her word must be much good to him now, she realizes. She may not have lied to him but she certainly misled him when getting the cultist alone. It's that misdirection she regrets more than the act of violence. Using people to accomplish her goals. She should be better than that. That's Yeerk behavior.

She realizes something.

"You think I'm here to martyr myself, don't you?" There's something icy and hurt in her voice. If being called crazy (in lighter terms) made her feel slapped than this is something else entirely, some awful miscalculation of her character that suddenly makes her feel so much more separated from Daniel than by just cell bars or experience.

She's here because there's no way to make amends with a dead man. She's here because she knew it was inevitable and wanted to go in on her own terms - even if that only meant ending up in a cell faster. And she's here because she knows that owning your actions is not only the example you set for your child, but the single greatest obstacle to recovery for hosts. But to punish herself and put her suffering on display, like it's a badge of honor to be admired by the public?

No. Never.

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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