( open ) things are going to get brighter

[pitied]

CHARACTERS: Claire Saunders and OPEN
LOCATION: Oxygen gardens
WARNINGS: None?
SUMMARY: Claire is being Claire and attempting to deal with the past month.
NOTES: None.


[She's got a tablet in her hand, a pen in her other. It's quieter here. Most often she hides away in the med bay, keeping herself busy. But something has her drawn to the oxygen gardens. She's staying quiet, avoiding the other people. Crowds and people aren't really her thing. But she's here.

It's been almost a month, and she's tried not to deal with it. Aside from the day they woke up and talked to Alex. She could plot and make Topher's life worse. But what good would it do? She only tried to see if he had more tech, but a place like this, it was bigger and darker than the Dollhouse. She's no more closer to learning anything more about what happened to her and why.

So it's more about trying to get on? But there's a fear, a worry. This is all she's ever known, and she tried having a life here, only to end up having two weeks wiped from her memory. So what now? What can she do? Working doesn't cut it with most people asleep. Drinking seems like a viable option, but she hasn't gotten around to it.

So this is where she is, trying to write who she is.]

Comments

[secretlabtech]

[ Dexter had been a little standoffish most of the month, there wasn't much doubt about that. Everything since he'd arrived here had been a topsy turvy mess, but that was nothing to the arrival of his sister during the last jump.

The Oxygen garden provided for him the same kind of opportunity it gave Claire--quiet and time to think, to reflect. A moment to calm the tumultuous beat of black wings inside him that insisted that, though there wasn't a moon, it had been far too long since he'd spilled blood. Easy to feel viciously homicidal when his biological brother and borrowed sister were in a full turf war over him.

For now, though, he's simply taking a walk. Without work, without Miami traffic, it should be easy to relax, right? To not think about anything too complex or deeply concerning. To not have to talk to anyone for a while, which is difficult in the med bay when there's a lot of people floating around with not much to actually do but watch sleeping people float around too.

Still, even it seems in a mostly empty spaceship there are people to talk to. Friends, even, bizarrely enough, who would have no stake over their serial killer shipmates that they might want to spar with his relatives over. It's only for that reason - the possibility that he might actually have to kill one or both of his siblings for his own peace and quiet - that he takes the walk over to her to say hello. Besides, it would be rude not to. ]

Hi.

[pitied]

[She's battling inner demons and an urge to not murder someone, though there's already been an offer to do that. In this she can probably relate with Dexter, though there's a hollowness in her chest, something she tries to bury her fears in though it only gets deeper. It makes her something not human, something she can't change. Everything about her she can't change. She's seen as some evolution. That's what Topher thinks of it, an evolution from doll to human.

But she can never be normal, and that idea frightens her just as much as everything else. For what is there to adapt to? She can be changed, become mindless at the whim of any who hold the technology. Yes, he gave her the gun, but it means little. He would not just give it to her willingly. Tech that powerful?

No, he's up to something. But the more she prods, the less she gets. Not to mention she would rather pretend his existence is gone. That's easier. Maybe that's why she's in the oxygen gardens.

It's a list of fears she's written on the paper when she hears his voice. It takes a moment, since she met him before she was erased. But there's recognition and even a smile.]

You're not dead. [Said in the way one who is unaccostomed to social norms would say, part joke and part truth. After all, he had been in contact with some serious chemicals. She moves over for him, if he wishes to join her. He's one of the few that don't make her uncomfortable.

She only hopes he didn't see her as Whiskey.]

[secretlabtech]

By a gnat's tooth.

[ Actually that was probably true. Someone or something should have killed him by now, but Dexter was ever the resilient one--lucky with a side of fighting like a dog, and nothing could get him down, not even murderous relatives with guns.

Dexter offered a smile and approached, slipping down onto the bench beside her. Honestly, he wasn't about to question her in regards to what he'd seen in the network, and it wasn't like he wasn't around the medbay often enough to have brushed shoulders now and again. Now, though, it would be rude not to mention it at all, like it had never happened. As though he wasn't paying attention. It was a little like forgetting to tell a woman you'd noticed that she'd had a haircut.

That had gotten him into trouble last time, too.

Still, it came with a risk. The last person with multiple personalities had knocked him unconscious, thrown him in a basement with a freezer full of dead professor and decided that he was Satan incarnate. Really, she was doing pretty well compared to that. He was still going to tread delicately, though. ]

And you're you. That makes us two for two, right?

[pitied]

[That question is unnerving and it grates hard, like nails down a long chalkboard. She wants to lash out at him. What would he know about having the very person you are snuffed out of you, and you don't even know why.

But it's misdirected anger. It still leaves her bitter though. She may not lock him in a freezer, but then she doesn't have multiple personalities. She is Claire Saunders, a lie. A series of ones and zeros, programed according to certain stimuli.]

For the moment, it seems. [She frowns and shuts the notebook. The last words she sees are 'Whiskey'.]

I'm always me. Just this body isn't mine, technically I don't exist to have one. I don't have schizophrenia.

[secretlabtech]

[ Even despite his attempts at not being a jerk about it, Dexter had clearly managed to say exactly the wrong thing. He didn't know whether to smile apologetically or back off, but settled for staying if only because she still seemed interested in talking to him regardless.

He'd have to be careful, more attentive. Still, it wasn't as though he was supposed to know outright that saying that she hadn't been herself would set alarm bells ringing. Honestly--he had a hard enough time with the conversations people had under normal circumstances, and these were far from normal. ]

I never said you had schizophrenia. [ Only thought it. ] I keep hearing stories of weird things happening around here. Weirder than people sleeping in a little longer than normal. If I was going to place a bet I'd have gone with possessed, honestly. No offense.

[ Now the wry smile made its appearance. ]

I missed talking to you, though.

[pitied]

[She doesn't mean to be so volatile. When they met, she was finally doing something on her own. She had a life here, and foolishly, she trusted whatever it was Topher was doing. She let him be, adapted here. It wasn't easy, took her months to even feel secure here. But she had something here.

And now it was mostly gone. Only a few people knew beforehand what she was. People seem to walk on eggshells, and she hates it. Just like Boyd showing interest after it was let out that she was a permanent imprint. It makes her skin crawl. She closes her eyes before he says his last sentence.

She turns then, to look up at him. Dexter isn't easy to figure out. Sometimes he reminds her of the dolls, almost innocent, but there's something else there. Like a doll trying to fit in. How ironic, given her own circumstances. She softens at how genuine he is. It's easier like this, easier to regain her own life.]

At least you're honest. I'm-- what we call an imprint. A personality taped onto a body. What you saw was what is called the doll state, my personality having been wiped.

[secretlabtech]

[ Dexter should have been more surprised than he was, but they'd spoken a little about these things before. The thing that surprised him, really, was the fact that Claire thought that this was unique. That being a personality laid down on a vacant body might make you somehow less of a person, when, in Dexter's opinion, people were exactly that.

Empty shells with personalities taped on. Things that vanished when you killed them, and left behind only an empty meat shell. No better than a doll.

A barbie head in his pocket proclaimed much the same thing. ]

How?

[pitied]

[She feels a little differently. When all you've ever known is a lie, and what you are has been written by some child genius with no concept of humanity. It is a little troubling. What is hers isn't, what she does isn't her. It's constant battle between knowing who she is and what she is.

The frightening part is having to go through this over and over again. If the tech can appear or Topher has it, how many times is she going to go through this?]

Technology. It seems only capable in my world, though it's not widely known. A person gets wiped and then a programmer writes whatever the client wants. I was a mistake though.

[She gestures at her face.] Not my best any more. So they made me the clinic doctor.

[secretlabtech]

[ Well concepts of humanity is overrated. Maybe that's why the two of them get on so well. They're both a little warped, missing out on the important things that make other people more human than they are.

It would be frightening, though, to suddenly have yourself written over like that. He has to wonder, though, what she would do if she got her hands on the programming code or whatever it is that can change people--this technology. What would she program herself with?

He's curious enough that he has to ask. But first-- ]

Anyone can look like everyone else. Why would you want to? [ He brushes his own nose with his thumb, an awkward, nervous tic. ] It sounds like you could be anything. What would you program in, if you got your hands on it?

[pitied]

I don't. The scars are what kept me from being an active. If I didn't have them, I'd just be a doll again-- nonexistant.

[She looks at him then. The answer isn't a hard one.] Nothing. There aren't very many things I like. But I know who I am. And it wouldn't change anything. It would still be programming. Everything I do is based off of something I can't help. What would it matter if I was nicer or had the skills to be an assassin? It's not real.

[secretlabtech]

Sometimes I think it would be nice to feel things the way other people can. For it to be...easier.

[ That's almost honesty, and he gives her a look that demonstrates how unsure he is, even if her answer is clear. The thought clearly stays with him even as he looks away. ]

What about children? Children are real. They're something nothing and nobody can take away from you.

[pitied]

It would make it easier, but I would still be an imprint, still a lie.

[Her tone is gentle, vulnerable either. Claire's eyebrows furrow, a nearly pained look on her face. She doesn't like admitting this. It's a fault, a black mark she can't get rid of. But she sees the near confusion in his eyes.

But his talk of children makes her smile. She doesn't like most things that normal people like. It was all programmed to keep her inside. It's her first instinct to tell him she doesn't like them, but she thinks for a moment.]

I don't have any, and I have never been around them. I don't know if I like them or not, outside of the fact I've been programmed to dislike children, pets, crowds, people in general. The outside as well. Just-- all of it.