paradisalogs | [OPEN]

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)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

[Carolina nods, feeling heat in her chest at having admitted that maybe she does need a little help, but his answer does at least assuage her concerns that she could possibly do the same thing here in the Castle that she'd done back in the Project. Someone would call her on her bullshit.]

Thanks.

[However, despite the embarrassment, she does feel some comfort at having an extra measure of prevention. The Project isn't going to happen here, she can't allow it to.]

You know I'd do just about anything for you?

[Not everything, but as long as it doesn't involve compromising his own morals, damn near.]

And there's no one else I'd rather watch baby tigers with, either.

[Carolina smiles a little wider at the mention of the tigers, the movement of her cheek causing another tear to slide out unintentionally.] I know.

[He'll move in to hold her closely, not really needing to say anything else right now except to remind her that he's here and he's not going anywhere.]

[She buries herself against him, needing that comfort just this once. Tigers or no tigers, he's helping far more.]

[And he'll try to relax that way, though he'll have a rough next few days no matter what. But having her there definitely helps.]

[Carolina needs having him around for those next few days; it'll help both of them to just have someone else around.

Even if it's just to watch baby tigers with them.]

[OPEN]

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wrap?

sure!