[He sees her on the Admiral's announcement post. He sees the way she shuts down Snart. He sees what her first and main concern is, remembers their first meeting in the dining hall, the way he still sees her eat, like it's going to be her last meal or like she can't believe she gets an entire plate of food.
It would take someone far less observant than he is to miss what all of that adds up to. So he gives her a day, and then, just to test the waters:
[He considers pushing voice at least - his presence is his best card to play in any situation - but decides to follow her lead for now and switches to text as well.]
It's not in me to be an optimist. It's also not in me to accept things as they are when I don't like them.
But I'm willing to take you seriously, and I've never starved, but I've seen plenty of other things that other people like to ignore me about because it makes them feel better.
I did this for 14 years, and I told you how to get through it. Eat less. Save things now. Conserve your energy and get blankets. Starving to death is cold.
[That hurts, seeing it typed out in neat letters that she can't erase, and she throws her communicator across the Falcon, pulls her legs up to her chest, and presses the heels of her hands hard into her eyes.
It was stupid, thinking she'd have somewhere that would stay as good as the barge is. Never too hot or too cold, there is always food, she's come to care about people here.
Han is alive.
Letting go of Jakku had been harder than she ever lets on, and now it feels like she never left. She's still stuck there, food is still her biggest hurdle, and right now she would take the oily feeling of Unkar Plutt's eyes running over her if it meant knowing he had food and all she had to do was trade some salvage for it.
Only now, she might have to watch the rest starve too. Luke, Han, Tommy, Leonard, Rohan, Jolyne, even Lila. Even Furiosa. People she has come to care for, people she finds she wants to learn more about. She never thought she would have anything like them.
Being abandoned on Jakku still would be better than this.
[He waits several minutes, but honestly, he guesses she isn't going to reply within the first of them. He thought she might not when he sent it. So he doesn't wait overly long, and maybe she'll respond eventually and maybe she won't, but the next time she picks up her communicator there will be an audio message from him: his voice is even, and quiet, and as steady as he can make it.]
The marks on the back of my neck, the lines, are called a barcode. Back where I come from, there used to be stores full of supplies: food, water, furniture, paper goods, technology anything you can imagine you could buy if you had the money, anything you needed to have a comfortable life. And each of these items had a barcode, too, so the computers that scanned them would know how much each item was worth.
That's what I had instead of a name for most of my life. I was raised to make the lives of humans better, to fight so they wouldn't have to bleed, to die so they wouldn't have to grieve. I was raised in a facility where we were locked in every night, supervised all day, coached, trained, and changed to fit the specifications of the untouchable, unknowable entities that ran the program, with the eventual intent that I would trade everything I am so that people I would never meet could have a better life and a second chance. I wasn't a person. I was a bargaining chit.
A week before I died and came here, I escaped. I got to be just a person, with my own name, my own intentions, my own freedom, my own life for eight days before I was hunted down, killed, and came here.
It's not the same. I'm not trying to say it's the same. But I know a thing or two about thinking you're done with something you hate, that you actually get a chance now, and then waking up with it staring you in the face every day of your life, and not being able to explain to anyone around you how that feels so they can understand it. To know that they're facing it now, too, and just don't know it because it may never happen to them.
[It's funny, the way he describes exactly how she feels with the end of that message. Down to the very last sentence it's a perfect reflection of how she feels and she hadn't expected to ever hear it spelled out that way before.
She replays it, and then one more time. An hour later, maybe a little longer, she replies.
Her voice is tight, but clear, and the message is short but it means everything.]
[Thing is, as calm and matter of fact as he managed to come off sounding, even though he didn't tell her anything he hasn't told at least one other person on board, it cost him too. It cost him something he's not sure how much of he has to dole out, a finite, untried reserve that is precious to him because he doesn't have a name for it but it's his, it was always his to use as he saw fit.
So he's satisfied by her response, even as delayed as it is, and he opens the feed but closes it again without saying anything at all to acknowledge it. But he doesn't reply until the next afternoon, giving them both time to edge around it.]
[If it had been the night before when all of this was still raw, she would have said no. But she knows what it takes to let yourself be honest about something so deeply personal, she can guess that this isn't an easy thing for him to do.
And it had helped, knowing there was at least one other person who understood where she was coming from. Why this was difficult.
So she answers, and surprises herself a little in the process.]
I don't know yet, but I've never been the roll over and die type. You don't really strike me as that either.
There are plenty of people here that think they aren't but have no idea how bad things can get. I'd rather talk to people like you and me, like Furiosa and Max, and see what we can come up with than trying to get others up to speed.
[Honestly, her plan from the very start had been to collect the people she did actually care about here, make sure they had water, and keep them locked safely in the Falcon should there end up being some sort of danger that made staying in the rest of the barge impossible.
That list is very small, and the rest of the barge is not something she cares much about. She doesn't know them, they aren't her business. It's about survival now, and her plans are limited to people that matter.
That there's more than two is saying something.]
Furiosa is making good plans, but they're on a larger scale than I care for. I intend to save everything I can where other people can't get to it, so if you can lock your room against others and do the same that's probably your best bet.
[It's the same for him: there's a reason he's not making any public offers or joining in the main conversation, and that is because he expects most of these people to figure their own plans out or die. He isn't interested in splitting his attention away from himself or his (very) short list of people.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
[ Private : Voice ]
Date: 2016-04-09 06:45 am (UTC)It would take someone far less observant than he is to miss what all of that adds up to. So he gives her a day, and then, just to test the waters:
Hey.
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 06:50 am (UTC)Yes?
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 06:56 am (UTC)It's not in me to be an optimist. It's also not in me to accept things as they are when I don't like them.
What can we do?
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:00 am (UTC)Don't be surprised when they ignore you.
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:01 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:02 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:04 am (UTC)Prefer to use my energy taking care of the people who are having the hardest time and can help the most.
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:06 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:07 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:09 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:11 am (UTC)But I'm willing to take you seriously, and I've never starved, but I've seen plenty of other things that other people like to ignore me about because it makes them feel better.
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:14 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:17 am (UTC)People is the other one.
[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:19 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:20 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:30 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:32 am (UTC)[ Private : Text ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:45 am (UTC)It was stupid, thinking she'd have somewhere that would stay as good as the barge is. Never too hot or too cold, there is always food, she's come to care about people here.
Han is alive.
Letting go of Jakku had been harder than she ever lets on, and now it feels like she never left. She's still stuck there, food is still her biggest hurdle, and right now she would take the oily feeling of Unkar Plutt's eyes running over her if it meant knowing he had food and all she had to do was trade some salvage for it.
Only now, she might have to watch the rest starve too. Luke, Han, Tommy, Leonard, Rohan, Jolyne, even Lila. Even Furiosa. People she has come to care for, people she finds she wants to learn more about. She never thought she would have anything like them.
Being abandoned on Jakku still would be better than this.
Alec never gets a response. She can't do this.]
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-09 07:57 am (UTC)The marks on the back of my neck, the lines, are called a barcode. Back where I come from, there used to be stores full of supplies: food, water, furniture, paper goods, technology anything you can imagine you could buy if you had the money, anything you needed to have a comfortable life. And each of these items had a barcode, too, so the computers that scanned them would know how much each item was worth.
That's what I had instead of a name for most of my life. I was raised to make the lives of humans better, to fight so they wouldn't have to bleed, to die so they wouldn't have to grieve. I was raised in a facility where we were locked in every night, supervised all day, coached, trained, and changed to fit the specifications of the untouchable, unknowable entities that ran the program, with the eventual intent that I would trade everything I am so that people I would never meet could have a better life and a second chance. I wasn't a person. I was a bargaining chit.
A week before I died and came here, I escaped. I got to be just a person, with my own name, my own intentions, my own freedom, my own life for eight days before I was hunted down, killed, and came here.
It's not the same. I'm not trying to say it's the same. But I know a thing or two about thinking you're done with something you hate, that you actually get a chance now, and then waking up with it staring you in the face every day of your life, and not being able to explain to anyone around you how that feels so they can understand it. To know that they're facing it now, too, and just don't know it because it may never happen to them.
That's all. Good luck.
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-12 10:54 pm (UTC)She replays it, and then one more time. An hour later, maybe a little longer, she replies.
Her voice is tight, but clear, and the message is short but it means everything.]
Thank you.
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-20 09:29 am (UTC)So he's satisfied by her response, even as delayed as it is, and he opens the feed but closes it again without saying anything at all to acknowledge it. But he doesn't reply until the next afternoon, giving them both time to edge around it.]
Can we try again?
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-20 05:33 pm (UTC)And it had helped, knowing there was at least one other person who understood where she was coming from. Why this was difficult.
So she answers, and surprises herself a little in the process.]
We can. What did you have in mind?
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-20 06:09 pm (UTC)There are plenty of people here that think they aren't but have no idea how bad things can get. I'd rather talk to people like you and me, like Furiosa and Max, and see what we can come up with than trying to get others up to speed.
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-20 06:21 pm (UTC)That list is very small, and the rest of the barge is not something she cares much about. She doesn't know them, they aren't her business. It's about survival now, and her plans are limited to people that matter.
That there's more than two is saying something.]
Furiosa is making good plans, but they're on a larger scale than I care for. I intend to save everything I can where other people can't get to it, so if you can lock your room against others and do the same that's probably your best bet.
[ Private : Audio ]
Date: 2016-04-20 06:42 pm (UTC)And if we aren't able to stay with the ship?
[ Private : Audio ]
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