22} writing wrongs with a brand new pen (i will not say goodbye)

[theresalwayshope]

((dated post-kid!flood))

[VIDEO;public]

[It's late in the morning when Allison finally clicks on her feed. She's dressed, made up, put together. She still manages to look fragile and pale...

And she's packed.

There's a small duffel beside her, she's got her jacket on, and Duchess's things are packed up beside her, including Duchess herself nestled in the dog bunny purse she procured for her in Amsterdam. She's sitting on her couch, she's rubbing her hands together, and her comm is propped up on the coffee table as she offers a wan smile.]

Hi. Me, all grown up again. That was...not as weird as being a guy, or Robin Hood. Or even a werewolf.

...anyway. I know what you're all thinking about me and the bags and stuff...look what happened the last time I left. This time, it's real. I'll be in my cabin another hour, I'll leave the comm open...then I'm gone. I need the time away, more than I ever did.

[She hesitates, lowering her gaze as her eyes glass over.]

Before I explain...I owe a lot of people a lot of apologies. Too many to name...I became a vampire, and I'm not going to allow myself to be excused for the things I did and the people I hurt. I want--I need you all to know how sorry I am for the thing I became.

And because I'm leaving right after this...because I can get some distance...I'm going to explain exactly why everything went down that way.

[Her voice shakes a little, her gaze still lowered. She stops to take Duchess out of her bag and put her in her lap. Duchess allows this, nestling contentedly atop her legs.]

Jerry came after me on the Mirror Barge. Not many people know what he did to me...what he's capable of...but his power was uncapped over there. He came after me, he fed me his blood...and he drank from me. His blood...it's like a paralytic, or a hypnotic. I couldn't move, couldn't scream, I don't...my memory of it is even sort of hazy. That and...um...a falling out with a friend of mine got me a little crazy, so I was gonna leave. Take a breath...make sure I didn't get myself demoted.

[She blinks hard, sniffing. Her voice cracks now and again as she continues.]

I was still packing my things when he caught me in a stairwell. I was...upset, not paying attention...I thought he was still in Zero, I was so out of it, you know? He, uh...he grabbed me, disarmed me...he drank my blood, again, and he turned me.

[She reaches up to brush a few silent tears from her face. She still can't look directly into the feed...until she takes a breath and finally lifts her head.]

The day I became human again, I killed him...and I saw the thing that will help me get my revenge. For me, for my friends...for everyone he's hurt.

Including himself. Because I saw him for a minute when he died, I saw his human face. Maybe even the man that spent a month aboard this ship, that left us the knowledge we needed to kill a vampire. This is my revenge: exposing him.

Somewhere in there, Jerry Dandridge is still human. I don't believe we can ever save him, I don't think we can ever completely trust him...but he can be helped. This is not altruism, this is revenge I'm talking about. And, maybe on a smaller scale, respect for the human that some of us weren't fortunate enough to get to know.

[She lowers her gaze again, only this time she's lifting a single wooden stake into the feed, one of the bunch that the mirror version of Jerry left for her.]

The Jerry Dandridge that may not be on board this ship anymore...but is still one of the best wardens we ever had. At least I think so.

So, while I'm taking a break...because I will be back...I'm the one saying this, so take it to heart.

Don't hurt Jerry. Don't let your guard down if he's not in Zero...and remember that living well is the best revenge.

Work on the problem while I'm away...let's all make sure that Jerry doesn't leave this ship until he's living well. Then we can all have our revenge.

[Setting Duchess back in her bag, ready to drop off with Duke before she leaves, she sends a few private messages before she lets the comm stay on for one more hour before it goes dead...and Allison is gone.]

[PRIVATE; Tig and Duke]

You two have a homework assignment while I'm gone: take care of each other. And you're both responsible for taking care of Duchess. Brownie is my spy: if you fail to complete your mission? She'll tell me, and I'll be pissed.

[A couple of tears roll down her cheeks, and she brushes them peevishly away as she gets serious.]

Please do this. It'll help me miss you less while I'm gone.

[PRIVATE; Lydia, Scott, Stiles, Kira, Isaac]

Jackson can't see this, because he isn't from our time frame...and I'm messaging you all because I'm praying that at least one of you will tell me the absolute truth.

I've been careless with my own safety for a while now, and what happened with Jerry made me realize a few things about why. First? I'm sorry for making all of you worry...and I'm sorry for what I'm about to ask, but if I'm going to make this right for myself? I have to understand more about...how it all ends. What brings me there, what happens to Stiles...if I was doing more than just saving my best friend.

I want to understand. Maybe then, I can explain it better to all of you...but I'm going to do it with respect to your feelings about my safety.

So...after I spend a little time in Zane's world, I'm going home for a while. And I need one of you to tell me everything you know...so I can come home before I put myself at risk.

So I can avoid it...I need one of you to tell me exactly how I die.

Comments

[ Video : Private ]

[theresalwayshope]

[She's surprised by the message from Dean. She knows how abrasive he is, how cold and how hard...she knows she really never sees him, and she gets the distinct impression he doesn't like her.

Or rather, she did. Now, she's run screaming with delight through the corridors, firing foam arrows at him. She's waged playtime war against him, and conspired at his side when it got out of hand.

Now, she knows who Dean was before he became an inmate...she knows where he started.

And she won't let the hardened man staring at her through the feed ever make her forget that.

So she smiles a little, understanding that he has to speak up, and nods.]

I know.

[She hesitates, unsure of what to say, then finally smiles a little more.]

I'll see you when I get back, Dean.

[ Video : Private ]

[surfaceshine]

[He isn't surprised, of course; she won't run because like he told Clementine, these kids have seen some shit but they haven't seen more than they can handle yet. They've been able to beat anything they've seen without compromising themselves yet, they haven't had to sell off pieces of their soul for the victory or the chance at victory.

They still bounce back. She'll come back, and she'll remember who she was, and maybe she'll be a little more cautious but she'll still be who she is. His eyes harden.]

Don't be stupid. This place has already pushed you across a line you shouldn't have crossed, that you had no control over crossing. You still get to leave after that. Don't be stupid enough to come back and give it another chance to take it from you.

[ Video : Private ]

[theresalwayshope]

I don't get to leave when my people still need me. People like my pack...people like you.

[For her, it's that open and shut. It's not about her life, it's not even about beating Jerry or what he put her through. It has nothing to do with being the stronger person.

It's thinking about that reality: leaving the Barge, going home...and the insidious, clawing panic that squeezes her lungs when she thinks of her friends without her to protect them...about people like Tig, like Dean, the lost souls wardens like her are there to help, more vulnerable for being so close to the edge.

She can't leave them alone. She won't.]

[ Video : Private ]

[surfaceshine]

[Dean's protest had been, while sincere, mostly for show when he opened this line.

Now, her words are igniting something in him like actual frustration, like anger. (A little like fear). He ignores the way something in his chest twists peculiarly when she includes him in her motivation, as if people like him - as if Dean himself - can even be helped at this point.

Which is his entire point.]

You're not listening.

You do get to leave. You are leaving, because your people need you and you're not you here. And that's great, that's fine, that's fucking fantastic because you still get to go be you somewhere else, some when else, with your people. Your actual people, not whoever or whatever the fuck these people are.

Think about that. Think about the fact that you can't be who you are here, not without all of this going down. And fucking heed that warning.

[His expression hasn't changed much - it doesn't, these days, as though all the muscles that knew how to make all the ridiculous faces she laughed at until she couldn't breathe have atrophied along with the muscles that knew how to smile and how to laugh himself - but his eyes are darker, his voice harsher, his cheeks vaguely flushed with the same fervor that makes his teeth flash and his voice rasp as he gains momentum. And then he just stops.

He just stops, except one last thing.] Think about your priorities. Think about what your people need - not people like me.

[ Video : Private ]

[theresalwayshope]

[She gets it. She feels it, that kernel of something real and frenetic in every word, in that rise of color, in the way something stirs in his eyes, and she knows what he wants to do. She knows she's supposed to run, supposed to forget, supposed to be cowed into revelation by that energy.

She knows she's meant to run...but seeing something in Dean so close to concern...all it does is give her hope, even now.]

Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes.

[The statement is quiet, matter of fact, and though her features are stern, her voice is gentle.]

People like you, Dean, are my people.

[ Video : Private ]

[surfaceshine]

[He's baffled by the French of course, and it shows that he doesn't understand a word of it; what he does understand though is the tone. He feels sick because he knows what her answer will be already, what it must be, and his throat suddenly feels thick because this is exactly what he was trying to warn her against. He did it badly, she doesn't understand - possibly willfully - and she can't. No one can, not until they're on the side of the kinds of changes he's talking about as he is.

The gentleness chafes, makes him scowl because he doesn't need kid gloves while people tell him patiently, carefully how he's wrong. He's not wrong. He knows he's not wrong more than anyone left alive ever should, but no one listens. No one believes.

His voice has gone cold when he replies.] I don't have people.

And if I wanted any, they wouldn't be this goddamn stupid. Go home, girl. Go home and stay home while it's still there.

[And then Dean cuts the feed. He's not interested in hearing how he can't possibly know about things he's already survived.

He's not interested in watching himself fail to stop it from happening to someone else, again.]