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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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."

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."

"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?"

"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."

Her jaw gets stiff as she clenches her teeth, but she doesn't look angry s much as frustrated. "Kaya, I've been trying to put my past behind me for years. It comes back whether I want it to or not. And I know the only thing I can do with it is take responsibility for myself like an adult, instead of laying in the background waiting for it to go away like a host."

"I'm not saying you haven't been, Eva, just that its something that's going to weigh heavily on you, and something that could swallow you. I know that you're in here because whatever it is you did, you feel like you have to be punished for, I get that much. But what I'm worried about is when something dark tempts you, you might think you don't have any choice. I...I'm just worried you'll think you're not made for anything better than what you were. If I had my choice... you'd be safe and sound, and free to be who you wanted."

She wouldn't say it, couldn't...not when so many she thought that way had left her.

"That's the problem, though. Choices. Muchacha, for seven years I didn't have the choice whether or not to blink my eyes, and suddenly I have choices whether to let people live or let them die." Or what methods of interrogation is best. "I couldn't listen to my impulses to breathe if Edriss decided to hold my breath, and now I have these urges..."

She stares down at her hands, her weapons. "Too many choices. That's the problem."

"It takes time, to manage the choices you make, especially when you've ben surrounded by situations where the most extreme choice saved lives. And there's always going to be times where the worst choice will be attractive. You know what I'm capable of, and making sure I didn't use it to harm others has been a battle. I've seen some pretty bad people and bad things: you don't just learn overnight not to abuse your position."

But she had faith in Eva. "Besides, unlike then, you wont be alone in those decisions anymore. You have a lot to live for, and I'll bet Im not the only person who's visited you today, am I?"

"You're capable of it but you have to be forced to do it. I...I went beyond what anyone thought I was capable of and had to be forced to stop. I'd have killed the man, twice, if Dr. Jackson hadn't been there. I wanted to." She shakes her head. Possibly she's giving Kaya too much detail.

"No, you're not. And everyone seems to have a different opinion on what I've done, which makes it hard to repent anything."

Well there was a piece to the puzzle that Kaya had wanted to know. She had come close to killing someone, and thats someone, she bet, was no doubt a cultist. "I came close to losing it on someone too, to be honest. In the med bay, someone cut up Anwei pretty badly, and it was all I could do not to keep hitting him until he was severely injured. It happens to the best of us, especially in the face of pressure and cruel people."

"Is that so?" Kaya said, looking intrigued. "What are they saying?"

She nods. "It's different, in a war that attacks your home. I could be angry as all hell when Edriss razed the Anati system, but there's only so much hate you can feel by proxy. They attacked us, here. Our friends, family and children."

There's thick anger in her voice even now. The last time her home was attacked it was much more personal, but even the ship is home enough.

When did the ship become home?

"Some people are just saying I lost my head and it's understandable. And the person who was there finds it unforgivable. I tend to lean towards his interpretation."

"They attacked our worlds, yes Eva. But one of the biggestr struggles we face, and I have thought of this many times, is what they can do to twist us. One of the things that have always plagued me is that one day I might have to kill: not just an Ohm, but an actual person."

She sighed. "And I know your anger too: I feel it everytime I find out the Ohm have killed one of us, or leveled a planet. But I also know I can't let those feelings eat me alive."

It was home to her: it had been home for awhile.

"You know yoursef better than other people would. And I wouldn't like to think you would be so cruel you would kill. But maybe the thing we need to as is why it happend at all?"

Eva smiles sadly, then opens her mouth to say something and stop. She can maintain Kaya's image of her a little longer, can't she? How can she tell Kaya that not only has she been cruel enough to kill, but to do so premeditated?

So she doesn't. "It made sense at the time. Almost. I didn't want to stop. That's why."

Kaya wasn't as naive as she seemed: being on the ship, she started to pick up on crew member's feelings, small things that were really bigger. Her first teacher, Sheeana, had taught her during the Nightmare King, enough so Kaya could draw conclusions that accurately reflected what was one feeling.

She put her hand up to Eva's cheek. "If you think this will help, maybe you might want to stay here. But more than that, maybe you should see one of the councilors. People here think no one's troubles are as bad as theirs, but some are worse, I've seen it. Maybe what happened was a result of you believing they would kill you, and your time as host brought out what I'm told is the classic 'fight or flight' decision. You fought, even though it was far worse than what most would have done."

"I'm already seeing Doctor Samson. And...no, there was no reason to believe the man would kill me." She stiffens a bit at Kaya's hand, then relaxes a bit and covers Kaya's hand with her own. She closes her eyes. "I don't know that this will help, but I don't know what even will. If anything."

She hates to seem so beaten down in front of Kaya. She shuffles her fingers together and tries to compose herself.

Kaya simply took the woman's hand to her cheek, closing her eyes. "You could tell me what you did, and what would likely happen is I would be bothered andd look at you differently. The truth is, I know you would beat yourself up about what happens in your life more than anything. So I won't ask: instead, I'm just going to give you a warning: you aren't getting rid of me easily. I don't care what happens, or what things Marco says to me: I care about you."

She smiled. "And in case you were wondering: its ok to be weak in front of me. Im not always strong all the time either."

She nods. If Kaya won't ask directly, she certainly won't volunteer that information. It's bad enough she'll have to tell Marco. "I know. I wouldn't dream of getting rid of you, muchacha. I care too."

But she shakes her head. That will never be true. She has a responsibility to the younger people on the ship, to her loved ones, not to show weakness. And unfortunately, that's exactly what she's been doing a lot of lately. She can't live up to that mother figure she's been striving for.

Kaya knew full well that Eva didn't want to really tell her: she even had an idea that what she would tell her would change the ways he looked at her, so for their sakes, she could keep that to herself. "I'm glad Eva: because I do look at you as something like a mother, and that means I'll do anything I can for you, all right?"

It was a secret she never thought she'd tell, but was meant to make her realize she would never let her stew in her own pain without a fight. Her responsibility was to be a person that could lend them strength however she could., and it went double for Eva.

"And you're something like a daughter, so I can't burden you unless it's painfully necessary." She can't say she's completely like a daughter - obviously, Marco will always come first and foremost in her world, more than Kaya, more than Tom or Sandy, more than even Peter, but that doesn't mean she doesn't dearly love Kaya.

Kaya understood her not being on the level as Marco: before knowing who she was, Kaya had made a distinction of brothers between Billy and Sokka. She had to be sure at the time that Sokka not be second fiddle to Billy, but one she knew who she was, it was ok.

"Marco can handle the worst parts, he's your son," Kaya said and meant it, making a face though because it was still Marco. "But I'll still take on the burdens you give me, because I care about you. I want you to be able to talk to me as candidly as you'll allow. Don't understimate me: there's a lot I've seen."

She puts a hand through the bars and strokes Kaya's hair. "I'm not underestimating you, dear. Not at all. But it's the way these things have to be."

Kaya, not being a parent, won't understand that deep in her core, but maybe she can accept that Eva sees her virtue coming from self-sacrifice.

"I know, I know, Kaya said, and she did, really. If she had done what she had an idea Eva had, she would likely have done the same thing, maybe even to a more severe degree. "I just don't like the idea of you suffering, if I'm honest about it."

She sighs. "I should probably get back to med bay soon. Still so many people to treat, and things are getting pretty senseless there."

At least there was Nokosi.

She nods. "Alright. You go do that. Don't work yourself to death, though."

She really does worry that not everyone on the ship puts their own needs as high up the priority list as they should.

"And thank you for visiting."

Kaya smiled. "I'll do my best, but there are a lot of people there. I'll be there for a very long time."

She was definitely right about that: Kaya had a tenedency a lot of the time to put the needs of others before her own. She didn't mind it much.

"Of course. Next time you see me, I hope you're in a better spot though. Just...please don't punish yourself unnecessarily."

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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