King/Tabitha

Tabita quietly sauntered up besides King. Quiet and somewhat bashful. She glanced at him and glanced away.

King's coin rolling pauses. Continues. "Your suppression rig is off."

Tabitha: "I feel better without it" she did in fact look less like death. Also a few inches taller. Fangs looked sharper too.

King: "Did you make contact with the numbers I left you?"

Tabitha: "Yeah. I got some basic stuff to hold me over. The cabin is nice."

King: "I'm glad you enjoy it. Did you ... Did you make a decision? On who to be?"

Tabitha: "It's strange. I don't know you. But I still have her feelings." A clear dodge of the question "She cared about you."

King: "She loved me."

King: "What's left of that, though. Hard to say. All kinds of fucked, this situation. Can't really say anything for sure."

Tabitha: "A lot."

King: "But it's still not you, is it. You hold feelings that aren't yours."

King: "What does that make them?"

Tabitha seemed much more lucid without her supression pack on in fact. She turned to regard King with a somber look, cradling his head with both hands "Look here."

King's coin rolling is given pause, as his head is cradled and turned to her. For a change, his eyes aren't emotionless. They're a weird mix of longing for her eyes, and the pain of knowing they're not her eyes. The rolling continues.

Tabi's forehead gently collided with King's "I know you'll be okay. We can figure this out."

Tabitha: "I want you to be happy. Don't care who's feelings those are."

King's eyes close as the foreheads touch; "I'll be okay. I don't really have a choice on the matter. But certainly not in nine days."

Tabitha's arms slipped over King's shoulders and hugged him tight, as much for herself as for him "Please don't be upset."

King's arms wrap around her. The grip's reluctant at first, but gives into it fully soon enough. "What else can I feel about this?"

Tabitha: "You know I have one memory. About you. Us. Do you want to hear it?" If King could see her eyes, they would be sad, human, famlliar.

Tabitha: "More like a dream really."

King nods. Barely, but nods. He's surrendered.

Tabitha: "I take your hand. I'm excited. We got to an outdoor cafe on a street corner in an old city. It's sunny and warm. I feel happy. We talk quietly."

King's coin rolling stops completely. His left hand clutching the medallion firmly; "I wish the memories I have were yours."

Tabitha: "Me too.." Tabitha withdrew looking slightly dejected. "Could you help me? I don't want to You're the closest thing I have to -- I don't want to be alone. I understand if you say no."

King he lightly snickers; "I want to help. But I always want to help. I just.. Don't know if I can."

Tabitha: "Tell me a memory of her."

King: "We.. went to Maine. A small.. Rental condo. Just spending the weekend, like normal people would. No ARGENT. No work. No war. Our only concern being where we get lunch."

The first time in recent memory Tabitha offered a genuine smile "That sounds nice."

King: "We hadn't really .. Started dating then. We'd just go on those little weekend getaways. Rhode Island. Maine. Alaska. But it was in Maine that I knew it was it."

Tabitha: "I'd like to go some day."

King: "How can I be with you when you're not her? I don't know if I can. I don't know if its a remedy, or just a fix."

King: "It terrifies me.

Tabitha: "I just can't stand being alone" she sank a bit but never broke her awakard beady stare. "You're the only person in the whole world I know."

Tabitha: "The only person who makes me feel human."

King: "So was she."

Tabitha: "What're you looking at?" The kaiju girl shifted her beady crystal gaze towards Deacon.

Deacon simply raised his hand in a light wave, silently. He diverted his gaze from the pair to the fountain.

King hasn't even opened his eyes. Still very much holding his position; "He's a friend. Knew her. Sort of."

Tabitha glanced Deacon up and down, almost accusingly after being told he knew Annie. "I don't know him."

King sighs as she slipped out and walked over to Deacon. His head turns to look at the ceiling. His eyes finally opening. And his left hand still clutching the medallion.

Deacon turned to peer up at her, watching her a moment before speaking up. "Apologies. Could head elsewhere if that would be better?"

King just leans back on his heels. Slowly tipping back aaaaand... THUD. He just falls flat on his back on the ground. Lying there. Eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Unblinking.

"Talk later" she blurted before retuning her attention to King as he fumbled backwards.

Tabitha: "..you fell down."

Deacon blinked just a tad, then shrugged his shoulders a bit. Fair enough. He pushed himself from the doorframe and stepped out. Space = given.

King: "Didn't really feel like standing anymore."

Tabitha laid down in kind besides King staring at the ceiling similarly. Maybe he saw something up there she didn't?

King: "Every day I have the same training regimen. I've had it, every day, for almost twenty years."

King: "She never knew of it. We never talked about my work. And I did it while she was asleep. I only need two hours of sleep. Can't sleep more than that."

King: "So two hours of sleep. Six hours of training. Four of which are simulated. And the simulations come with full sensory feedback. We practice enduring torture."

King: "There is only one way to shut it down from the inside. To force your mind to break through the simulation and put you back in reality."

King: "You have to focus with every part of your being on whatever it is that keeps you thethered to reality. Whatever it is that is so important to you, that it anchors you."

Tabitha: "This isn't a simulation."

King: "Since Maine. It was her. And for the last nine days, it's still her. So I punch the wall for an hour. To work through the pain."

Tabitha took King's hand and raised it into the air to examine the thing.

King's knuckles were wounded. Blunt force trauma to the point of breaking the tissue completely. The wounds are clean, however.

Tabitha brought the wounded hand to her lips and nursed it with a kiss before leaving it there to rest in silence.

King sighs; "I just don't know how to do this."

Tabitha: "We do what Annie and Marcus did. We help each other."

King: "I'm still Marcus. But you're not her..."

Tabitha: "And you're not yourself. There was plently about you in that file you know."

King huffed; "Like what?"

Tabitha: Tabitha rolled over onto her side. "Strength of character. Pragmatics. Methodical. Objectivist."

King: "All there."

King: "Unchanged."

Tabitha: "Don't see it."

King: "That's because it was also never me. It was my duty to be such."

King: "But I stand by my duties. Sober, aren't I? Still here, aren't I?"

Tabitha pushed herself to her feet, dusting off her skirt. "Guess the person I'm remembing is the one who's dead."

King just locks his eyes on hers. Once again they return to their normal, unbetraying state; "You don't want my methodical, pragmatic, objectivist character."

King: "She never did, either."

King: "Because it's the pragmatic that declared she died when you came to being."

King gets up onto his feet, and gets in her face; "It's the methodical that forces me to face the pain of that declaration day after day until it no longer hurts."

Tabitha: "I thought you could help me. But you can't even help yourself."

King: "And the objectivist that reminds me that accepting you or any clone as her serves only me."

King: "I already helped you more than anyone else did. What more can you ask of me?"

King: "I've answered every question even if I did not want it. I gave you the home I built for her even though I wanted it destroyed. I've done -everything-. And not because you were her."

Tabitha: "I told you when I walked in here. I want you to be happy."

King: "Happiness never comes without pain."

Crack right across the face.  Wake up call. "There's your pain." Tabitha turned for the door.

King grabs the incoming hand by the wrist, just staring into her eyes; "You are not her. I love her with every part of my being. But you are not her." He says. Calmly. And lets go.

Tabitha huffed a yanked away her arm before sauntering off.