paradisalogs | IT'S A BABY-BONANZA!

It's rockets.

[York bites back a grin at that bossy tone. Sure does sound familiar. Even so, he doesn't want her to bully her little brother.]

Let him take his time. Are you in school yet, honey?

Of course I am! [And she'll start babbling a bit about normal second grade things.]

[Carolina can't help the light tug of a smile as well at that tone. Definitely sounds like someone she knows and Laura's babbling is a good distraction from the thoughts of the movie later. Jack slowly makes his way through his carrot rockets and his apple slices. Once he's finished, Carolina gently wipes down his hands again before he pushes back from the table.]

'Splorin time! 'Splorin time!

[York will take the trash from the meal and deposit it neatly in a nearby bin and then walk over to join the others. Laura takes his hand to guide him.]

The garden is this way! I saw a sign.

All right, all right.

[Jack eagerly bounds along York's other side, definitely wanting to help with this leading (and not knowing where the garden is). It's easy enough, though, to follow Laura's directions. Carolina doesn't exactly trail behind but she's not joining the hand chain of love anytime soon, so she'll stand just a bit apart, enough to still be in their general area without needing to really be all that close to York.]

[Hey, if she wants to leave both of the kids to him, he'll let her. At least the kids genuinely like him--quite honestly something York's been needing badly ever since Carolina decided to toss a pair of dogtags off a cliff. A little reassurance that his life here had some meaning to someone.

The garden, of course, is set up like a giant outdoor playground with a little bit of landscaping, and sure enough there's Hyzenthlay and her bunnies around here somewhere. True to the nature of kids everywhere, Laura immediately dashes over to a short slide.]

Look at me, Mommy! Daddy!

[Carolina wouldn't deny that his life has certainly meant something. She had loved him back then, he had helped her back then, but now she didn't want any of that. Now, he's more of a threat than ally.

Still, she can pretend as well as anyone else, with the inspiration of the slowly-emerging awfulness of her father's parenting.

She watches at Laura climbs up to the top of the slide, with Jack of course hot on her heels. Carolina offers a little wave and watches intently.] We're watching.

[If she thinks he's a threat, she really does need to learn the difference between her enemies and her friends. A threat is not someone who laughs and waves at little kids going down a slide or playing on a rocking-horse or playing spaceship with their chicken nuggets.

Even so, he does his best to keep his gaze firmly on the kids, as much as he wants to glance over at Carolina and make sure she's all right.]

[Like York, she keeps her gaze focused on the kids; it's easier to just full-out ignore him, even when she's seated barely out of arm's reach. As the kids play, though, her conversation with South begins to invade her mind alongside the one with Church.

It takes her a long few minutes of just watching the kids before she speaks in a low tone,] South asked if you were available.

[She doesn't turn her head, but her voice sharpens.] Anything you need to tell me.

[Oh no she's lost the ability to ask questions again.]

[He does turn his head, and his gaze is suddenly very focused on her. "Available"?

God dammit, South.]

No.

[Yeah, that's an answer to both not-questions.]

[The thought of him being with anyone else, despite her obvious dislike for him right now, sends another spike of hot anger and jealousy burning through her. Before she can think about it rationally, the part of her mind affected by both earlier conversations jumps to the conclusion that he must be lying. That she doesn't deserve York, just like she'd never deserved an inch of love from her father (and obviously why she'd never gotten any), just like she'd never deserved the team that she had loved once upon a time. She didn't deserve Jack and Laura, she didn't deserve to be here on vacation (she should be training, only training to be better), she didn't deserve to eat, she didn't deserve to breathe.

But she does still breathe. Her jaw clenches as her rational mind catches up with the rest of her and tries to tamp down those insecurities as quickly as possible. Her gaze remains in the kids' direction, but whether or not she's actually seeing and observing them is a different story; she can feel his on her.]

I was gone.

[She was supposed to be dead. South didn't want her here, obviously, and she was pretty sure York didn't either. Still, her response has the not-so-subtle underlying statement of You don't have to lie to me and a hint of I know you get lonely.]

[Is she actually accusing him of lying? ~~Spoilers he's not that good at it.~~ Wow, Carolina. Wow. He actually scowls at that.]

Not long enough.

[For him to get involved with anyone else, he means, though he's angry enough at her implication that she even needed to ask that he doesn't realize that could be taken another way.]

[Carolina goes very, very still at his answer, feeling the heat of his anger plainly. Not long enough. The irrational part of her mind pushes back against the rational with this new piece of ammunition. No, of course not. It would be better if she had died at the bottom of that cliff. It would have been better if she'd never come back, he'd said so himself ~~shortly after she'd thrown one of his few important belongings after a cliff.~~

She wonders if this is how her father felt every time he watched that damn video and realizes that there's a little bit too much of him in her right now. It hurts. If she isn't hurting, then she isn't reminding herself of her failure enough, she isn't doing the dead and departed honor by being happy. She's not working hard enough if she's not in pain.

Swallowing, she lets out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding and her gaze flicks down at the grass, going decidedly silent. So, this is what she's become, a piss-poor echo of her father. Except she would never build up a great military program, she would never come close to what he'd done with his life.]

Edited (htmlllll) 2013-05-22 03:48 (UTC)

[The laughter of children seems impossibly far away right now. York's too busy trying to breathe, trying not to explode in rage at her for even suggesting he would be seeing someone else so quickly after they--after what they'd had. It had taken years for him to get over her the first time, and given a second chance he wasn't sure he'd ever recover. Not fully, anyway.

When he talks, it's almost a mutter.]

Why the hell would I want to put myself through that again, anyway? Everyone I ever cared about left. And if they do come back, they either forget me or hate me.

[The second part being pretty much exclusively Carolina, of course.]

I don't hate you. [Not enough to want him dead, at least. She very strongly dislikes him, but the outright hate has at least waned some. Still, she's pretty sure he won't believe her, just like she won't believe that he actually wants her here or isn't about to drop her like a hot potato when the next hot girl comes along.

She's just broken goods, now, nothing near what she had been when he had--- if he had loved her, back then.]

[York snorts loudly. Bullshit.]

Right now the only reason you're within half a mile of me is the kids. If you don't hate me, you sure have a funny way of showing it.

[Which hurts, really. Especially after how close they'd been before, to have her actively reject him in the way she does without ever seeming to soften up--or if she does, like today, it's immediately followed by accusing him of chasing after other people?

Yeah. She hates him.]

You told me you wished I'd never come back the first day you saw me. Am I supposed to genuinely think you weren't over me leaving. [And then there's a small part in her that just snaps.] None of you wanted me to survive unless I could do you another favor. That's all I ever was to any of you: a means to an end.

[The Director hadn't been much different really. She had only been a soldier, a pawn, something to throw away when it was broken. She would never amount to more than that and the thought crushes her anger in a second, dissolving it in the swell of disgusting self-pity and self-hate. She looks out at the kids again, her expression crumbling.]

Yeah, I did say that! You want to know why? Maybe it's because you punched me in the face, said you never wanted to see me again, took the only thing I had left of you and threw it off a goddamned cliff! What the fuck, Carolina? [He's barely keeping his tone low enough not to alert the kids, although they're sure to notice before long that Mommy and Daddy are fighting (if they haven't already picked up on the tension).]

How dare you even think I didn't want you to live? I tried to get you out. All I ever wanted for you was to have a real life, and you think I was just using you? For what? A Project that I hated?

[Carolina rolls her eyes at him, from where her gaze is still somewhat centered on the kids. They've noticed and turned to watch their parents in turn and she tries to wipe the anger and discouragement from her expression.] I had to get rid of them for a reason. You just don't care about anything besides yourself and what you want. If I can't give you that perfect life and that perfect relationship, you don't give a fuck. You wanted me to live only if I could give you this.

[She doesn't mean to overtly gesture to the children, but it happens anyway and Jack at least reads it as a symbol to come on over. So, he scurries over from the slide.] Is it movie time?

You accuse me of being selfish? You? You haven't given a single fuck about anyone else since you got here.

[Whoops, kids. Better get that language under control.]

Not quite yet, Jack. It's still nice outside. We can still play out here for a while if you want, or go inside back to the ball pit?

[Jack grins up at York before letting out a joyful shout and hurrying back to keep playin with Laura and the other kids. As much as he wants to watch a space movie, he'd rather keep playing outside. Once he's back having fun, Carolina answers York in a low, dangerous tone.]

The team had everything to make them the best. I gave everything and they all abandoned me and left me to die. The Castle had everything they needed to evacuate in an emergency and they did nothing with it. Why the hell should I give a fuck about anyone but myself when all they're going to do is stab me in the back.

[York keeps his tone just as low, though real anger is beginning to show on his face.]

The earthquake lasted about ten seconds, Carolina. I made sure my tower was evacuated and then I went to help in the town, where buildings actually collapsed and hundreds of people were injured or worse. The castle was not only structurally sound, but it has the energy to rebuild itself if anything happens to it. I've seen it happen before. Given that we had no designated outdoor evacuation point, what the hell more was I supposed to do? Spend all my time making sure the people who were already safe were still safe while I left everybody in the city to die? Fuck that. And yeah, I have been trying to set up an outside evacuation point since then, not that you care.

And how the hell do you think coming back for you, trying to get you away from the ship, and then you knocking me unconscious while it crashed into a goddamn ice planet was me abandoning you?

[Carolina actually hadn't heard many details about the quake or the specific efforts to evacuate and help the town. She knows now that she's wrong about it but she isn't about to admit it.

The second part they've been over and Carolina doesn't want to waste her breath.] We've already been over this; you didn't come back for me, you came back for the Alpha. And crashed the ship to begin with. You ran away and then came back to attack us.

[Of course she's not going to admit it. That would mean York was right about something, and God forbid that.]

No, Tex went back for the Alpha. I helped her because it was the only chance I thought I had to get through to you. Obviously I shouldn't have bothered.

[That's how he remembers it, anyway. It is entirely possible there had been something about the Alpha in there, but if so the castle's wiped his memory of it.]

And you never bothered to ask why we ran, did you? Or did you take the Director's word for it? It's not like he constantly lied to us and manipulated us and kept information from us. Oh, wait. He did that all the goddamn time.

[Every now and then she does remember his loss and talking about it (and remembering her conversation with said Alpha), combined with the sudden anger at him talking bad about the Director gets her all riled up again.]

How would you even remember. You don't remember the Alpha. [Her voice is nearly a growl now.] The Director---

[She can't bring herself to say he's a great man, that he had done everything for them, as her mind reminds her of how he hadn't loved her, how she would never measure up to her mother or the agent who---

Allison. Texas had been somehow modeled after Allison. In impromptu fight, the Director had shouted her name. He would rather lose his daughter than ever face the loss of Allison again.

The steam and anger she'd built up disappears immediately and she deflates on the bench next to him just as quickly, not bothering to finish her sentence..]

The Director's not the Alpha, Carolina. [Because that's sure where her speech was seeming to go.] We both know that's Church.

[But oddly enough she doesn't seem to be able to continue her train of thought. He'd been prepared to give her numerous examples of the Director treating them poorly, but if she didn't want to push it he could save those for later.]

More to the point, he's not here and he never has been. You don't have to act like he is. That's just going to make it worse for you.

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