forty-second jump;

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: There's a strange sense of contentment that greets you as you wake from the jump. Deep and certain, it doesn't warm you or cloak the unpleasantness of the stasis fluid on your skin and the disorientation spinning in your head. It feels disconcertingly distant, instead, a sense as though an answer has been decided on - and that you won't much like to experience it coming to fruition...

New arrivals will find messages spraypainted across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.


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There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥ ＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

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Comments

[betterangels]

I'm fine.

[ Just to clarify. Daryl's appearance is fairly self-explanatory, and there's a still a touch of strain pulling lines at the corners of Rick's eyes at rueful smile that emerges. Humour, too, in skeptical glance back at the expected amount of Things To Say that Daryl has for this situation, before he looks back down to Carl.

(It's probable that Rick will get it the most, even if he doesn't get all things Daryl Dixon. The quiet rooms had been a similar hell, when he first arrived alone.

They go manfully shoot at the shooting range and drink some space beer, later.) ]

Matter of time, I figured. [ This next part is harder. It should be easy, but it's not. So it goes. ] He's from after us, isn't that right. [ Does he have to say the thing? He's going to say the thing. His tone has a wry, self-aware note, as he says the thing; ] From the future.

[nokidstuff]

...Hey. [directed to Daryl of course, after some pause. Don't get him wrong, he's really happy to see him here, but it takes a moment for the surprise to fade. And he'd like to say as much, too, but considering the place they're in and what happened just before the jump with all the monsters, it doesn't feel right saying it now. So instead he provides a wider, more awkward kind of smile which speaks his thoughts more than enough for him, before turning his attention back over to his dad.

Although he doesn't need to be told anything, he's already got the gist of the 'from the future' business by just looking at Daryl. Hard not to notice the longer hair and all, so he fails to see where the explaining is going exactly. Still, he nods his head anyway, showing he understands, though with a questioning look growing in his eyes.]

Okay... but... why are you telling me? What's happened?

[Because. Until now, he thought his dad didn't think future things were good to share. So with it brought up now, he's rightfully a little confused.]

[slurpeesinhell]

[Once he and Small Grimes have completed their low-key manly greeting, Daryl readily takes a back seat to dear ole dad's delivery of important family news. He nodded when prompted by Rick—isn't that right, yes sir, it is—and now does his part to throw it back at him with a look. These are your words to drop, bro—and Daryl's most at ease being involved simply by being around, anyway.

That and scrutinizing father and son for damage, for any changes, anything wrought by the ship or otherwise that isn't so obvious at a glance. Rick's in pain, that's easy enough to see; he often is. Carl, not so often. The kid's smiling like nothing's immediately wrong, but Daryl looks anyway, just to be sure.]

[betterangels]

[ Rick allows a beat to transpire there like Daryl might jump in and do this for him, but he doesn't entirely expect it of Daryl, doesn't hope for one thing or another, and the task is left to him all the same. Which is probably good and right. Daryl did his part.

He stoops down, as he is sometimes wont to do with Carl, taking a knee to speak on level like his son is still eight instead of growing into the man he is, or will be not so long away from now. ]

It's Judith. She survived.

[ His eyes are very bright and clear and serious and direct. ] He says it was Tyreese, and Carol, that got her out, kept her safe all this time. She's alive, back home.

[nokidstuff]

[Carl looks fine beyond the few scraps and scratches visible on his arms below where the sleeves end at the elbow. And any amount of attention to the marks will easily discern that they're already healing and fading thanks to the nanites. So nothing to worry about, really.

Except for maybe the beat and seriousness that transpires. Carl feels uncomfortable the second Rick kneels to eye level because he is sure it can only be about another bad thing that has happened. His mouth tugs back to a thin line, ready to be told whatever it is.

And so he's not ready at all for hearing the happy opposite: Judith still being alive? The look he'd been ready to hold immediately crumbles, shock filling his eyes, as all the pain he's been holding back since losing her resurfaces at the mention of her name before washing away when he realizes the news for how good it was.]

... What. Judith's alive? But-

[A small part of him is still in disbelief, but he knows Daryl would never lie so he stops himself short of letting the rest of the question slip out and add more fuel to his doubt. In it's place an immense and overwhelming sense of happiness bubbles to the surface as tears threaten the corner of his eyes. A new smile also tugs at the corner of his mouth again. What it feels like is more of a whiplash of emotions to him, though.]

Tyreese and Carol did that? Where are they now?

[slurpeesinhell]

Carol's with us. [If only.] With the group. Tyreese...

[Daryl glances at Rick, shifts his weight to the other foot, squeezes once at the bow strap. Looking down at Carl, his hair hanging all in his face, he gets through the last of his fidgeting by turning his chin a little toward his shoulder so his gaze becomes more comfortably sidelong. By now the pause alone will have said enough, but he can't leave them hanging:] Walker bit him. We tried to stop it, like with Hershel, but...

[But. This blank's an easy one to fill. (Daryl didn't have a direct hand in the attempt to save Tyreese's life, but we's become a reflex.)

—No, he's still fidgety, swaying where he stands, eager to get out of the hallway's oppressive vastness. Whenever it seems least awkward to do so, he murmurs to Rick,] That the room?

[Obviously it is, but he's struggling for a segue here, okay, give him a break.]

[betterangels]

[ Like with Hershel. The image is vivid, and Rick's expression is-- blank. Processing. Knowing future knowledge of Judith's survival is one thing; confronting a theoretical future death is something Rick is even less sure what to do with. It doesn't hit him like it should. It's not real.

And yet he's not saying anything, having twisted a look up at Daryl before settling it somewhere on the ground, hands curled lax, settled into his kneeling crouch.

But. Blank. Daryl had said it -- a lot's happened. ]

Yeah, [ he affirms, a nod. Dismissed, in a way, before Rick looks back up at Carl, a hand going to grip his arm in a companionable clasp. They still have family out there. More than the easy we and us that constitutes their people. ]

[nokidstuff]

[Likewise. Knowing Judith is safe but one of her savors was bit? Carl, too, isn't able to process it either. So instead his gaze falls to the floor for relief exchanging for grief. (After all, Tyreese was a good man. Strong. And Carl can only imagine how bad it must have been for him. For the group. In the future.)

It's only a momentary lapse of emotion though, like silence for those fallen in war, before being boxed away with the rest of the same and his attention is brought back around by the both comment on the room and the hand on his arm in a comforting sort of way.

His eyes move back up to Rick and he takes a deep breathe in as if to say he'll be okay. At the very least he felt better now knowing Judith was alive and safe. And Daryl is largely to thank for letting them know that so his look moves on to him quickly enough. Also, in a small way, yes, moving away from the mix of emotions created by the good/bad news is something he could use to do. Right then--]

You gonna stay with us?

[slurpeesinhell]

Kinda. I'm takin the next one down. [He's not yet standing at the next door down, but raps his knuckle on the wall nonetheless. See, kid, just a knock away.] Don't want your dad's snoring cuttin in on my beauty rest.

[Delivered with a quiet levity that he doesn't particularly feel except out of obligation. Maybe it's insensitive to be quipping so quickly, but maybe it isn't. Death is so familiar anymore—it's more a part of their lives than ever before, not a threat but an inevitability, a passenger asleep in their blood, and anyway none of this feels real to begin with.

Soon enough, by loitering in that direction, he does reach the next room over, and when the door slides open for him it's like looking in on his own tomb. Two beds, a bureau, and the crushing weight of emptiness caged in windowless walls.

If this ship had a face, he would punch it.]