[ MEADOWLARK ] IC Inbox

[hardwearing]

@david.washington | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

Comments

@angela.roberts - evening of the 12th

[unlucky7]

I'm engaging Ephemera in the caves, he is armed with a pistol. Do not follow, steer clear of the area.

If I do not update within an hour, prepare for the worst.

[hardwearing]

Please be careful, Angela. I know he's your friend but he's doesn't exactly see clearly when it comes to this.

Let us know you're okay.

[unlucky7]

[An hour passes with no further updates.]

[hardwearing]

[ He waits another hour, just in case, then: ]

Angela?

@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

Have you got time for an extra shift tomorrow? We overlooked an event.

[hardwearing]

[ Moar work!!! Much appreciated since he's got more expenses now and Carolina's job hasn't started yet. He's been picking up the occasional match at the fight clubs for extra cash to get them both settled and isn't a fan of that. ]

I'll take it, yeah. What's the event and how rowdy do you expect it to get?

[rehandle]

Sports. [ He's more done with sports as a concept than he can possibly say, so he absolutely isn't going to go into more specifics than that. Open a sports bar, they said. ] There's a match of something obscure in one of the other cities and we've been booked for a watch party.

The booking was corporate.

[ Small corporate, nothing fancy, but corporate means business people. And business people means he's pulling in more staff, which is his best guess answer in and of itself. ]

[Drive-by action]

[unlucky7]

[Left by the front door of the apartment is a curious bundle inside a reusable cloth bag; it's an electronic cat, one of the blue and white ones that purr. There's no further message via neural tag or anything else indicating who might have dropped it off.]

text; @david.washington

[hardwearing]

[ Wash is heading out for a run before work when he nearly trips over something left just outside his and Carolina's door... he's wary initially, doesn't touch it, but when he peers inside the bag he recognizes the box and picks it up. It's the cat he was looking at in the shops. The high end model, that he decided not to waste the money on because there was stuff they needed, other stuff he wanted, it was just a toy.

...but it's an adorable toy.

He takes it inside and decides to skip his run, instead going through the little cat's manual and getting it running. Carolina gets a message not to freak out if she sees it in the apartment -- apparently it has a very simple AI kind of like a robot vacuum where it'll get used to the things in the apartment and be able to jump on on objects and interact with them. Wash sits and watches the robot kitten explore, smiling faintly. It really does move like a cat, if nothing else. Even if it doesn't have fur to pet, it responds to being touched.

And there's only one person who might have known how much he wanted one. He debates it for a minute, then sends Angela a very simple text. ]

Thank you.

[unlucky7]

For what?

@august.jónsson — april 6th, late

[bloodbathing]

Church is here. Not Epsilon. From same place I was.

[ This message is identical to one Maine sent to Carolina a few seconds earlier. ]

[hardwearing]

Alpha?

[ Since the other option is the Director, and Wash is pretty confident Maine wouldn't call him Church. It has to be Alpha. Which is... probably really bad news for him. Even if there was a version of him on the space station, he doesn't know how they got along or if Church ever forgave that person. Wash has never really forgiven himself. So he just asks Maine for advice, since he'd know the situation best. ]

What do you think we should do?

[bloodbathing]

Start by not calling him that.

[ "Alpha" is a hell of a sore spot, Maine knows. As for what else to do? He takes a minute to think about it. Takes a minute to consider Church's attitude towards Wash and what their relationship had been like on the station.

It's not a very productive minute. The thing is, Church and Wash had been complicated in ways Maine still doesn't understand. He doesn't know what problems were born on the station, or how many issues they brought there. He doesn't know what will even apply in this place. ]

Be patient? [ Shit, he doesn't fucking know. ] This memory shit's weird. Confusing. Frustrating.

[ Church might feel the same. Or Church might adapt far more easily than Maine has. Hard to say.

Maine is about to send that off when one glaring issue springs to mind. Something that had been a frequent source of tension on the station. ]

I'm dating him. Don't punch him.

@carolina.church

[leaderboards]

[ carolina's at work, which means she doesn't message wash without a good reason. this seems like a pretty good reason, though, when they haven't heard much from maine over the last few days. ]

Got a message from ME. Alpha's gone.

[hardwearing]

[ Oh.

Wash isn't sure what he's meant to say to that -- he never even spoke to the guy here, Maine insistent that he needed space and time to adjust before discussing maybe moving in with them, then the simulation. He can't even ask if Maine's okay because he knows the answer: no, but he probably doesn't want to talk about it.

Hmm. ]

He's going to need support. Might not want it.

[leaderboards]

That's what I figure. Trying to see if he'll take some company when I'm off work, but if not we can try tomorrow.

@august.jónsson | may 21st, immediately after the earthquake

[bloodbathing]

[ The ground has barely stopped moving when this message arrives: ]

Status?

[ Is Maine still avoiding his teammates? Yes. Did he most likely write this message during the quake? Also yes. Did Carolina receive an identical message? Yup. ]

[hardwearing]

[ Wash may have been about to text Maine to check if he's okay when the message comes in; he switches over immediately. ]

Safe. You?

[bloodbathing]

[ Maine lets himself take a breath of relief, feeling tension uncoil in his chest before he replies. ]

Safe.

@carolina.church | may 26

[leaderboards]

[ this message comes while wash is at work, a few hours after he knows she had plans with drake, because both of them are always keen to keep tabs on one another. carolina hasn't said anything about those plans involving confronting maine, but maybe if wash learns from a distance, he'll be less mad at her for keeping him in the dark. or more. it's really a toss-up, she figures. ]

We should have our third back on training rotation in the next few days. What time are you getting home tonight?

[hardwearing]

Uhh around nine. You talked him into it? That's great, but how?

[leaderboards]

He just needed to be reminded again that we're a team and no one beats me at hide and seek. Things should be better now.

@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

[ With the first draft already sent to Nate, Stephen takes the agony out of it and just copies it over into a conversation with Wash and hits send.

It says what it needs to and keeps his feelings well enough out of it. Nobody he hurt should feel obliged to talk to him until they're good and ready. ]

I'll be returning to Red Wings in the next week or so. I intend to work around existing shifts and I'll add myself to the schedule to make that easier on everyone, but I wanted to make you aware that I'll be back in the building.

There are no expectations. If you need to minimize the risk of an encounter, let Clarke know you're taking leave and I'll ensure you're paid.

[hardwearing]

So I still have a job?

I think we should talk about this, I was pretty sure that when you came back I'd be out. I don't mind seeing you around if what happened was just... that you were someone else.

[rehandle]

[ That's - not the reaction he was expecting. ]

You have a job for as long as you want one.

We can talk about it in person when I'm back, or arrange to meet elsewhere if you'd like to talk sooner. But no, your job isn't at risk. I killed you, not the other way around.