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Who: The Freelancers and anyone else
What: Nightmares
When: Through the Nightmare plot
Where: The Mother of Invention
Rating: TBD, potential warning for torture or other really bad things, as RvB Freelancer era isn't very nice

This is the Frigate Mother of Invention. The home base of the UNSC's top secret Project Freelancer. As much as the frigate might have been lively before, now it's full of eerily empty echoing halls, windows into the empty blackness of space, and alarms that seem to be going off all too frequent. The training areas have grown a darker, more sinister air. As for the medical areas and the research labs? You really don't want to go there.

[OOC: Okay, there will be specific nightmare threads within this that I'll be linking on the main post and I will put warnings if any of those might be too bad. If you'd like to join in from outside cast, either hit one of those or start a new thread. We'll be tagging around, and I'll link any new threads you might set up.]

Locker Room (York) | Ranking Board (South) | Implantation Room (Washington) (Warning, not sure how bad this might be) | The Director (Carolina)

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South. [Carolina tries to speak more gently, to be less, well, Carolina for a moment or two, not wanting to scare the other woman. Looks like that's already happening, though, and it sends a ripple of guilt through her gut.] I'm not going to hurt you.

[South whips around and presses her back against the door, looking up at Carolina with all that unmasked desperation. Her hand is throbbing painfully and she's only aware of that and of the inability to escape.]

Yeah like you haven't done enough already. [she spits back, venomous, making a little motion towards the ranking board. Carolina bitched about losing one rank and South couldn't even get on the fucking thing anymore. She burned with hate and jealousy in that moment, a deep ingrained envy for the kind of recognition and admiration Carolina got from others, from North, where she only got pity at best. ]

York. [Carolina frowns, fear sparking up in her gut at his words. Maybe they weren't as secure as she thought they were. She leans up a little from him to regard him carefully. For a moment, she wonders if having the future constantly hanging over them is more of a roadblock than a help. At first she just wants to continue prying, to ask if there's anything else she should know, but she figures that's not the best avenue to take right now.]

I asked all those questions, asked Wash for a reason.

You've never been content to have half when you can have it all. I know that.

[He rubs the back of his neck, a sure sign that he's uncomfortable about what he's talking about. The physical contact with Delta's chip helps, as always, to soothe his nerves a little.]

And when you first got here, I know your mind was still back there all the time. Telling you about the Project and why I left it wouldn't have done anything but make you mad, even if I did have good reasons.

After you'd been here a while, well. I guess I just didn't want to think about it, because it's something you'd be going right back to. Better to focus on what we have here while it lasts. The rest will happen soon enough.

[Carolina watches him as he speaks, trying to be more relaxed about the words coming out of his mouth, but finding more fear surging into her belly. He's right, of course, but it doesn't make it any better to hear, no matter who it's from. The back of her mind quickly supplies that Texas was likely better at relaxing than her too, and a jealous anger storms into her chest, boots stomping.

He does have the right to withhold information from her, but she can't help but feel the pressure of the nightmare, South's fear of her, her fight with York, Wash walking in on her talking to the Director; all of it reminding her that this likely wouldn't have happened if it were Texas here. Texas, the one-woman cleanup crew, wiping up after Carolina's mistakes, the one the Director trusted more.

Her mouth presses into a thin line and she wonders if he can see the number two over her head. After a moment she just nods and slowly gets to her feet.] Want some water?

[South's words utterly shock Carolina to her core and she stares at the other woman, trying to not rip a new one into her. What had she done? Helped her team, reassured them when she could, protected them from the NOBLEs when necessary, put her life and health on hold at times. She thought she'd done everything to help them--

No, that's not right. Her inner voice chimes in that she did all of it for herself to make her life easier, to maintain control. ]

I'm not going to hurt you. [She repeats, more firmly, but her voice cracks just slightly, uncharacteristically.]

[No, if Tex were here, the nightmares would have been very different indeed. ~~Cough, retconning, cough.~~ The funny thing is, though? York's never seen Carolina as number two. It was probably because he seemed to effortlessly rise near the top anyway, but it wasn't, to him, the point of the Project at all. Especially not after he had Delta. So he frowns a little when she gets up, too, not being able to tell what's going on in her mind except that it's probably him messing things up again somehow.]

--Sure.

[Carolina pads over toward the kitchen to grab a couple glasses of water, silent as she does so. Her mind starts replaying the nightmares one by one. First Wash, then South, and when her mind cycles back to her nightmare with York, she clenches her jaw a little. Maybe it's really not a question of if she'll go over the edge but when and suddenly the weight of inevitability tugs on her shoulders.

She disappoints all of them at one point or another, tells them essentially that they're not as important as her. She's the number one, she's all important, the team can just go to hell.

When she finishes filling the second glass, she pads back his way, trying to offer a weak smile.] Here.

[It's not that he doesn't understand why she did what she did. It's just that he wishes she would have chosen differently.

But she didn't.

He'll take the water and try to tug her back down to watch baby tigers some more. It looks like their mama is trying to protect them from a hungry wild dog.]

Thanks.

[He drinks about half the glass in one gulp before setting it down on the side table.]

So. What do you say we do a lot of training this week? Try to force ourselves to be too tired to dream?

[Carolina settles down next to him easily enough, sipping her water a little more slowly as an attempt to distract herself. The tigers aren't doing as much for her as they had before, instead watching them with some jealousy and even more regret. How many lives had she inadvertently ruined already? If South and Wash remembered their nightmares... would either of them even speak to her?

His question barely fazes her and she shakes her head in response, going right back to her train of thought as she replies,] No.

[That would have been her tried and true method, but with what she'd just experienced in the nightmare and just heard from York, she'd... she needed to hold the crazy off as long as possible.]

[York blinks at her, frowning a little. For once he was offering to do things her way and she didn't want to?

Maybe she's been affected as much as he has, and just isn't showing it? It's hard to say.]

No?

[It's as gentle a probing question as he's capable of right now, definitely nothing accusatory. "Why" would probably have been a better way to word it.]

No. [She just goes back to sipping her water, keeping her emoting to as little as possible, not to stonewall him, but she just doesn't know what to do. Obviously her usual methods, which she likely continued back home, only lead down the path to her inevitable demise, so she had to try and prevent that.

Somehow. Even though she hates the idea of sitting back and doing nothing. ~~And it might just drive her as crazy as if she trained for hours upon hours.~~]

Uh, okay.

[He's not going to ask if she's okay, because--well, if her dreams were as bad as his, there's no way. Instead his frown deepens a little and he reaches for her hand.]

Want to do something else instead? I don't--I mean, you don't have to spend it with me if you don't want to.

[But he really needs to not be alone right now.]

I want to. [Sure, she's not being the most social with the revelation that he didn't tell her because he didn't want her to leave, but she does still want to be here. With him. Leaving would just make things worse for both of them. Instead of moving, she stays right there next to him, trying to watch the baby tigers, but finding it difficult to distract herself.]

[He smiles weakly.]

Good.

[There's a long pause while he watches the screen blankly.]

I love you, you know.

[Carolina's breath hitches at his words, sounding more like a hiccup into her glass of water before she sets it aside. He loves her, after all of that. After--- her mind quickly replays the nightmare again. She nods weakly.] I know.

[She pauses, surprised when a tear slides right out of her eye and she tries to wipe it away in a hurry.]

Good. Remember that. I know I don't always have the right words to say, but just remember I love you.

[He turns to her just in time to see that tear, and squeezes her hand to tell her it's okay. Hell, he'd just had a breakdown in their room not too long ago. He's not going to judge her for a couple tears.]

[Carolina nods firmly, wiping another tear and squeezing his hand back.] I know.

[She settles down against his shoulder again, trying to watch the tigers and not let the Castle run her up against the wall. She's been training for months and not had a problem, why would one start now?

On the same token, why does she keep trying the same thing that will eventually possibly cause her drop into insanity?]

[It's not even the training. It's the "to the exclusion of all else" part, or at least that's York's expert opinion. If she'd been able to step back from the blue glow of the ranking board and see that there were more important things than higher combat scores compared to Tex--

--well, no use giving ifs. Here and now, there is no ranking board and there is no Tex - and no Director pushing them, for that matter. It's just the two of them, a couple of teammates, and Castle Wonderfuck.]

Okay.

You want any more toast, or you good for now?

No. I'm not hungry. [Carolina shakes her head, her appetite disappearing completely. It'd likely come back some time in the afternoon, but for now she just needs to get a hold of herself again. She doesn't like inevitability any more than she likes uncertainty and having a mix of both regarding her future at the Castle both pisses her off and upsets her.]

All right.

[He'll hold onto her, then, once again trying to focus on the movie and attempting to relax. His mind keeps returning to the dreams, though, first giving him flashes of a Covenant invasion in New York and then back to the Mother of Invention.

It was a small comfort to know he'd been responsible for shooting the ship down in the end.]

[York's touch does comfort her, more in the fact that he's not running, but knowing that he's afraid of what will happen still doesn't sit well as she starts to completely ignore the movie as she gets a little lost in her head. The nightmares aren't subsiding with the very real proof that she'll lose herself in the competition against Texas, put herself before everything else.

It's a couple moments before,] It won't happen here. What I did back in the Project.

[She'll fight. She'll fight like hell to keep it from happening, but it also means she'll need to let someone help when she starts to get jealous, to keep it from exploding out of control. The fact that she apparently doesn't have that self-control enough to prevent it herself disappoints her, though, on so many levels.]

[No, of course it won't. Not in the same way, anyway. Sure, she could still get caught up in competition (he sees how Carolina and Kat look at each other), but without the Director breathing down their necks the entire time it's very different. York had made it damn clear to her that he liked Carolina for herself - not for her rank, not for her skills, not even because she's totally hot. Hell, he took care of her when she was a chihuahua.

He's not going to watch her walk away again. Not while there's anything he can do about it.]

Even if Tex comes back?

[Well that's the clincher isn't it. If Tex comes back, she isn't allowed to call all bets off. She knows York dated Texas, but he's told her time and time again that if it had to come down to a choice he'd choose Carolina, and not because of any rank, but because he loved her for her. There wouldn't be any competition unless Carolina imagined one up.

But that's part of the problem in and of itself. She'd felt some of that competition with Kat and things had gotten hostile at a couple points before simmering down as the two women were both fiercely protective of their teams despite their alliance.

What seems to unsettle him most, though, was when she wasn't herself, for one reason or another: when she'd lost her memories of Freelancer, when she'd thought the Castle wasn't real. It's never been about losing the field commander or the number one, it's been about losing her.

She breathes for a couple moments before answering,] Even if Tex comes back. [Before amending,] But I may need your help if she does.

You'll have it.

[He doesn't even have to think about his answer. Yes, he did like Tex - obviously - but all those times he'd offered his help, silently or now, back in the Project and she'd refused to take it just showed that she was at least willing to change here. York would be the worst kind of hypocrite if he didn't wholeheartedly embrace that.]

That's a promise.

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