theboywhowaits (
theboywhowaits) wrote in
trans_92012-01-01 03:14 pm
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Entry tags:
Down Time [Closed]
"I never thought I'd be glad to see one of these." The words were wry, one hand tugging a bit on the plant suit as he got used to it against his skin. "Last time, it was easier to focus on being naked."
This time had been a mass of chaos and trusting that Sakura knew who he should be shooting at. He kept the gun in reach, not quiet able to trust that things were safe just yet. Wars weren't something that ended cleanly, and any of those little robots could be hiding around here.
"Are you alright?" He kept his back to her, arranging the plant suit and figuring out how to holster the weapon.
Unlike some on the ship, he didn't have any powers, but he was a good shot. Better to not let go of something that could save his life.
This time had been a mass of chaos and trusting that Sakura knew who he should be shooting at. He kept the gun in reach, not quiet able to trust that things were safe just yet. Wars weren't something that ended cleanly, and any of those little robots could be hiding around here.
"Are you alright?" He kept his back to her, arranging the plant suit and figuring out how to holster the weapon.
Unlike some on the ship, he didn't have any powers, but he was a good shot. Better to not let go of something that could save his life.
no subject
Or healing.
Or...
"SHODAN started her attack when the ship was undergoing repairs. The Daligig are still here, locked in another section. She started executing people in the pods a few... might have been days, but I can't tell you. Time and all around here," she said by means of explanation, waving her hand around (despite the motion going unseen).
"You okay?"
no subject
Killing people in the pods, well, that had almost been him then, hadn't it? "It was disorienting at first, not...slow like we did at first, all at once. Deep asleep to the middle of a fight. No room to wake up properly. I'm fine now, though." He smiled halfheartedly in an attempt to be reassuring. "Do you know about any of the others? Molly? Amy? Conner? The Doctor? Howard?"
He had a large pool of people, he knew where Tim was, knew that Jamie could look after himself and that the Doctor wouldn't let anything happen to the others.
But his family was another matter.
no subject
Which meant a lot of capable people, and pointed toward part of her role here. Sakura wasn't technologically gifted. She didn't try to fit in there, if with some prompting, she wouldn't be half bad.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think they're in one of the safe points. People started defending the defensible fairly fast, shutting off areas from SHODAN's control. Amy's smart. She has to have Molly somewhere safe before she'd be getting into anything."
Sakura hopes.
"The Doctor is around. Howard was down in Medical, then he's been doing what he does best. Keeping himself as out of the way as he can. I don't know about Conner."
She ran a hand through her hair, twitching instead of wincing. Aah, those ribs of hers...
"You can call them up on omnicomm if you'd like." Digging for hers on hr hip, she offered the battered device to Rory.
no subject
That was reassuring, the thought that there was somewhere safe, confirmed a few moments later when Amy told him. "Yeah, she says they're safe. Where she is I don't know, but."
The Doctor could look after himself, so could Conner. Howard was good at keeping his head down and while Amy might be reckless at times, she would make sure Molly was taken care of.
He stopped himself from asking after River.
"So safe zones, she can be kicked back. What happened in the pod caverns before I woke up?"
He frowned when she twitched, giving her another once over. "Where are you injured and why didn't you say something?"
no subject
"The caverns was a set-up. SHODAN moved in robots as soon as she had control and had them hidden and on standby. We'd been defending the main platform for days, or who knows how long. Enough time. When the robots broke through us there, we found far more of them waiting down here. That's when SHODAN started the pod killings. She was accessing the listings the ship has for who's in here," another point Sakura wasn't all right with, if her mind wasn't holding on to that thought so well, "And killing them on display. Broadcasting live is the phrase I want, I think."
Rory had been intended to be one of those live sacrifices, if that much went unsaid.
Sakura frowned, tempted for a moment to say nothing. Instead she spoke. "Cracked ribs I've already rapped, second degree burns on my arm I've been treating, broken toes I've wrapped and set best I could before the nodes started being deactivated. My foot's fine now," she said, shifting to her better one and lifting the appendage that had been broken. "Temporary hearing loss in one ear, probably a mild concussion due to collateral damage from the fighting before nodes went down."
no subject
"How many?" His brow furrowed briefly, watching Sakura. Who had been lost?
Yeah, he would have been meant to throw Amy and the Doctor and others he had befriended on the ship. It was difficult to think or act when people you loved were dying.
"Best we can do until this is over and we can get you to medical." He nodded faintly, trusting her not to hide injuries, knowing she knew her body better than he did. "Any blurry vision?" The concussion was a worry, head injuries could sneak up on a person, take them out before they properly realized how badly hurt they were.
no subject
She didn't want to answer his next question, but she did. With an exact count. "Possibly more, with how chaotic things just went. As far as public shows... just what I told you."
Just. Just showing people murdered and keeping records perhaps perpetually. Sakura doesn't doubt these will be backed up and stored on Stacy's normal drives like every other last thing was.
"Don't ask me to shake my head too fast, but things are fine otherwise. No blurriness, no more ache than you'd expect. Normal kind of tired given the amount of sleep we've all stolen lately." Still looking away, body tensing. "We have to finish holding those things off while the guys tracing SHODAN to her source get there and take her down."
no subject
He pressed his face in his hands, nodding wordlessly. Too many.
His own near brush with death didn't bother him near as much, he had experience dying. And coming back.
But he couldn't do anything for the dead.
"Well, I'll try to avoid any tasks that require head shaking, then." And make sure she slept a good long time after this.
And then, because he knew grief, knew the shape it took, he reached forward and touched her hand. "Who, Sakura?"
no subject
He'd have his work cut out for him getting her to sleep. It'd be a while yet before she crashed, if when she inevitably did, she'd crash hard.
Her hand jerks, then stills again, part of a greater reaction to anything she doesn't expect. Sakura hadn't expected contact. Right now she expected it from nothing less than what she fought, or what was needed in order for someone else needing to stand or be taken out of immediate danger.
Support's new to her. Way too new. "People I grew up with." It sounds hollow, not enough of an owning of who they were, and so she clarifies. "My parents. It was fast."
Not fast enough for them to fail to recognize her, but fast enough they hadn't... exactly... suffered. Sakura knew the advantage of that sort of death.
no subject
He didn't imagine it would be easy to get Sakura to rest, not until the situation was resolved, but he was patient.
Nearly two thousand years of waiting had seen to that.
He didn't move beyond that first contact, utterly still as she reacted. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea, she was still in fight mode. It had been some time since she had seen him. But worse than initializing contact would be to withdraw it suddenly.
People she grew up with. Well, that painted an odd picture of her relationship with her parents, didn't it? Not close enough that her first thought was for them as her parents, or else she was still closing herself off.
"I'm glad it was fast, then. There was at least that mercy." He gave her hand a squeeze, and then withdrew, letting his hands drop back to his lap. "I'm not going to ask you if you're going to be alright, Sakura, I know now's not the time to deal with it, but if you need to talk later..." He let the offer trail off unvoiced, voice quiet.
Sakura was his partner, and outside of Amy his closest friend on the ship.
If all he could do was offer her someone to listen, then that was what he would.
There were no proper words to encompass losing a parent.
no subject
No less tense than earlier, for the reasons he guessed, and for her own general lack of touch-therapy at this age, Sakura nodded. Didn't say anything, because she didn't know what there was to say. Rory's offer was generous. One day she might take him up on it, but the possibility was so far removed from the reality she currently operated in, with any of the goals that stayed strongly in the foreground, that she didn't think on that potential for long.
"We should get moving. Are you going to head to the City, or elsewhere?" Pod Caverns were her goal still, until the presence here was eradicated. She had faith in the abilities of the others elsewhere to keep the rest intact.
This was her waking nightmare. She wouldn't run away from it.
no subject
He wouldn't make the mistake of coddling Sakura, he knew better than that. Their relationship was a professional one, and trying to stop her from going into battle to defeat the thing that had just taken her parents away from her was an exercise in futility.
The best thing he could do was make sure that she-like Tim- didn't get herself killed.
"So lead on, you still have a better idea of what's going on than I do." He lifted his weapon, offering a humorless curl of his lips that wasn't close to smiling. "We'll see it through."
no subject
She had an inkling things had gone poorly there.
With that basic plan in mind, Sakura started off again, at a reasonable speed to both be on watch and keep where Rory could keep up with her. Even if at times she disappeared to stealth forward and check on anything that might be coming.