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scribblemyname) wrote2013-09-22 07:54 pm
Fluff, Relationships, and Traditions
So characters have habits, ways they interact with certain people and situations, things they do and like to do, stories and histories together. I've known a lot of my characters' for a long time but getting them all into fic is interesting, particularly for the ones I don't know that for.
I've got about five novelettes I want to turn out plus a short story, created out of the 5 Things Meme and then the whole Pieter/Ashen dynamic that originally played in my head before I even wrote that first Ashen drabble (and it is awesome to me, but got sidelined drastically with a deluge of other prompts), but, but, but...
I'm on day 265 of my challenge and story count 157 and I'm still plying angles and there's all those little things above that I'm itching to nibble at. Want to help a girl out?
Particularly of interest to me are things like where does Wesley work (not sure actually), and then relationship things that I haven't gotten to like how Justus always recognizes Shift regardless of her current form or demeanor, friendships, sibling relationships, Ilsa and her husband, etc.
Calling for prompts, as promised:
- character(s) and/or canon/fandom
- random word, quote, or other prompt
Oh, and I'll try to keep it short and fluffy or sweet. Try is the operative word. :grins:
Prompts
- Meld, couples, prank war
- Justus + Special Unit
- From thecatisacritic's fluff-fest
- Justus' family + Shift, Rachelle
- dancing, quotes, and not without you
- who is Justus when he's Rachelle's?
- undercover Justus
- more quotes
- From Daily Scribble post 1 AND from previous promptfest
- Ilsa prevents
- the work they do
- finding Justus, about that memory
Ficlets
Seven Days
- Wesley/Lena: Shall We Dance?
- Wesley/Lena: Stubborn
- Wesley/Lena: You are My Photograph
- Wesley/Lena + Angelita: Learning to Tango
- Wesley + Connor: Just Saying
- Wesley + Connor: On Practical Uses for Journals
- Wesley + Connor: A Spaghetti-Flavored Aftermath
- Wesley + Connor: Maybe Next Week
- Wesley + Connor: The Apple Don't Fall Far
- Wesley + Mom: The Joys of Motherhood
- Connor + Ashelynn + dogs: On the Acquisition of Dogs
- Connor + Ashelynn + dogs: Girls
Kingdoms and Thorn
- Shift + Team ensemble: That'll Work
- Shift + Meld: Soon
- Sear + Meld: Bone-Weary Need
- Rachelle + Meld: Between
- Rachelle + Meld: The Leash
- Rachelle + Special Unit: Anywhere But Here
- Rachelle + Heather + Shadow: An Absurdly Dangerous Shadow
- Rachelle + Joseph: What the Emptiness Fills
- Justus + Joseph: Cracking the Ice
- Justus + Team Ensemble: In the Business
- Justus + Larique: The Unsuspecting Suspect
- Shift + Justus: Self-Preservation
- Sear + Justus: Gratitude in an Off Note
- Rachelle/Justus + Heather: Backfire
- Rachelle/Justus + Sophocles: Comfort Objects
- Rachelle/Justus + Sophocles: On the Care and Feeding of Cats
- Rachelle/Justus + Sophocles: The Taste of Coffee
- Rachelle/Justus: Living with Hope
- Rachelle/Justus: Tiny Significant Pieces
- Rachelle/Justus: Side Effects
- Rachelle/Justus: Remind You to Dance
- Rachelle/Justus: Family
- Rachelle/Justus + Red Wolf and Whisper's kids: Cure to All That Ails
- Storm + Red Wolf + Anya: We Can't Have That
- Red Wolf and Whisper's kids: Don’t Forget the Ice Cream
- Red Wolf/Whisper: The Fox and the Wolf
- Red Wolf/Whisper: Taste of Regret
- Red Wolf/Whisper: Business as Usual
- Red Wolf/Whisper + Ashen: A Gift Well-Chosen
- Red Wolf: Rearranging Assets
- Storm + Minder: The Five W’s of Declaring War
- Storm + Minder: Tell Me in the Morning
- Storm + Minder: Moral Support
- Storm + Mirage + Surge: Waiting for Blood
- Hasheni/Ilsa Killinger: Homework
- Hasheni/Ilsa Killinger: Catalyst
- Ilsa Killinger: Linger
- Ilsa Killinger | Special Unit: Reality Check
- Keeper/Brushfire: When Memory Burns
- Anna/Lightsculpt: Dinnertime Distractions
- Anna/Lightsculpt: Needing a Break
- Anna/Lightsculpt: Worth Something
- Anna/Lightsculpt: Working Up the Nerve
- Anna/Lightsculpt: Would That It Were
- Sketch + Team ensemble: Something Other Than Smoke
- Shift/Kilter + Watcher: Wedding Gift
- Shift/Kilter + Elisabeth: You're My Heart
- Shift/Kilter + Elisabeth: The Answer to All Problems
- Shift + Elisabeth: Little Girl Reminders
- Surge + Maker: Embrace of Freedom
- Watcher + Team Ensemble: An Ounce of Protection
Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover:
Recall woke up screaming, and the tears tried to come right after that, the instant she remembered that Fracture would not be coming in to ask her about anything, to hold her or talk her into anibi for her nerves. He wouldn’t give her another blanket or bully her into giving him some memory so that he could make her popcorn or help her find misk. She was alone.
No, she wasn’t, but being stared at did not do anything to calm her. “I don’t suppose you have anything like anibi around here—tea. I think you call it tea. Can I have some?”
The other woman nodded, rising. “Does that always happen?”
“Rarely if ever, but I don’t do well when I pull from multiple sources. I should have finished processing first, but I... couldn’t sleep.” She drew the blanket around her. “I also can’t pick what processes first and what doesn’t. I still don’t know much of anything of use. Cut out the least useful one, but that doesn’t mean it’s done. Trying to figure out which one of them the scream belonged to, though I have my doubts about it being either of the ones I care about.”
“The ones you care about?”
“Poor choice of words, I suppose. I meant I don’t know if that was from the shifter.” She rubbed her forehead, hating the headache that came with processing. She shouldn’t say that she cared about Wolf. That would sound wrong to most people who heard it, and even he wouldn’t understand that. She just... She knew the good ones enough to call friend if not family, and she had a weakness when it came to them. Wolf was not Fracture, mercifully, and he’d walked away before things could be as bad as she’d gotten lost in her former partner, but if Wolf ever asked anything of her, if anyone who mattered to him did—she’d do it. Without hesitation. She’d do it. “Forget the tea. I won’t be awake long enough to drink it. I’m going under again.”
“That’s the second time she’s done that.”
Their witness had woke screaming again, but this time the tea was waiting for her when she did. Recall would have accepted it if she could have stopped shuddering, but she couldn’t. “I don’t know how any of you survived that.”
“What?”
“Processing,” the operative said. She looked at Recall. “You didn’t mention you relived the memories when you assimilated them.”
“If I do, it’s usually only as bad as a nightmare. Nothing to mention.”
“Doesn’t feel like nothing from here.”
Recall needed Fracture, but since she couldn’t have him, she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t take anything for the pain when I’m sorting through the memories, and I’ve only ever known one person who could heal me without flooding my head with memories and making it all worse. I’ll fall asleep again soon, I just...”
“What?”
She figured she ought to be betraying so much that the telepath knew all about the gaping hole in her that was where Fracture had been, but she was still not discussing that. She shivered in her blanket instead. “I can’t believe he volunteered for that.”
“What?”
“The shifter. He... he chose this.”
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: A Little History
Recall looked up sharply.
Ilsa had left Cate to keep an eye on Recall because she was the only one capable of doing so and the only one who had access to powers that weren't hers. Someone needed to be there if Recall needed anything.
"Nobody knows about processing because we stopped everyone else we could from repeating the procedure," Cate explained carefully. "Even the scientists who initially developed the process didn't know it would hurt like that. I've stopped scientists trying to cure diseases because they didn't know."
Recall looked horrified.
Cate went on while she still felt some willingness to talk. "Processing is a fancy way of saying that they gave us a memory wipe, then they initiated genetic modification, which essentially breaks down every bit of DNA in our body and rebuilds it while incorporating the new material. The problem with that is if there's no regeneration or self-healing in there before you hit third threshold, you're dead. Simple as that. The DNA won't rebuild. Most scientists haven't the faintest idea that the survival rate is about one in thirty-two on average and one in seventy-two for the most desirable sets of abilities and only one in five hundred if the subject is not a child."
She fell abruptly silent. Most operatives remembered the pain—it went beyond any other pain they would ever experience for the rest of their lives. Most of them remembered the children dying around them. Cate remembered praying to die.
Finally, Cate added, "That's why reversing the process is fatal. It removes the self-healing that kept us alive the first time."
Recall shuddered and looked away. "He thought he knew what it would feel like."
Cate chuckled darkly. "Don't they all." She sighed and pulled over a yellow notepad. "So... male shifter. Volunteered with some information about what he was getting into." To Recall, "I'm inclined to think someone in the kingdoms is trying to rebuild their own version of the Thorn Republic's military." She shrugged. "I'm also inclined to think they don't know who they're up against."
It wasn't the Special Unit they would have to worry about. It was the teams. The teams, you see, had never gone away.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Perhaps Overreaction
Unwilling to process more when she knew that more memories of their processing were inside her mind, Recall sat with a cup of tea, thinking about what Cate had told her. She felt sick, and it was not just going through the memories or the pain that turned her stomach.
“We should go.”
The other woman looked at her. Recall almost laughed. She knew she didn’t look like it, had never looked like it, but she was an agent. She had to think like one sometimes, even if she hated it. She let Fracture do that most of the time, but he was gone, and she was here, and she’d gotten herself into something far worse than following him had ever been.
“You don’t look like you can go anywhere.”
“Probably shouldn’t, but we don’t have that kind of luxury.”
That amused the telepath, quirking her lips into a slight smile. “We?”
Recall laughed. “As good as your team here is, you know they’re not the ones that really need to deal with this. Someone else does. Someone else will. I don’t want to be the one to keep those someones from knowing.”
“By someone you’re referring to Shift?”
“Might need her, unfortunately,” Recall said, forcing herself to her feet, feeling a bit weak, knowing that she had to stay up, stay awake, and keep moving.
“Sit down.”
The other woman would have made her do it, but Recall knew they could not stay here. “I look and feel half-dead, and I know that. I also know that this has to stop here and now.”
“It will.”
She shook her head. “They managed to find a way to get that man to survive against those odds as an adult and you think they’re going to build an army.”
“Yes, but you can stay—”
“I used to work with a man who could rewrite his own genetics at will. He was... He was the Database without having to assimilate the genetics first. He could rearrange himself to have any ability he wanted.” Recall leaned against the chair for a moment, taking in a deep breath. “If these people aren’t just building an army for one of the kingdoms, if they’ve found a way to do this processing despite all your efforts to stop it, if they could get their hands on someone like Fracture—”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” The other woman asked, and Recall tried not to react to that, though the words hurt and made her want to collapse. “I’m sorry, but if he is, then—”
“I told you how I came to this place. That someone from your Projects was in my homeland. If I stop to think about the access they’d have there, hundreds of thousands of new test subjects—and with us, they don’t need a process. They might do the part that wipes the mind so that they can control them, but if they had us, if they had people like Fracture—”
“You’re assuming too much. You don’t know that they have anything in place to move to your homeland, and since your friend is dead—”
“Fracture was taken from his birth family when he was a child. He has several brothers and sisters and they all have kids. Any one of them could carry the same ability as he had. They don’t have to worry about percentages for them—for anyone in my land. It wouldn’t be one in seventy-two. It would be about fifteen for fifteen with one of the most unpredictable and dangerous abilities they could have—they can be anything, and if they had the same side effect as his ability—losing his memories—they’d be almost easy to control.” Recall forced herself to move, taking a step forward, ignoring the pain and the guilt. Sukut had wanted to reunite Fracture with his birth family. She had said no, had blocked that because he wasn’t ready to know those details—he’d had enough bad just with the man he’d thought was his father—and before she had felt he was, he’d been gone. “He never knew about his family, but he’d protect them if he did, if he wasn’t gone, so that’s what I will do. I’m a trained agent and while I don’t have a nice secondary gift like you do, I can care for myself. I need to call Sukut and have him find that man I bumped and get the location of the facility from the doctor’s memories...”
“You can do that here.”
“No. I am not staying here any longer.”
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Perhaps Overreaction
"Excuse me?" Recall demanded.
"Who do you want to contact?" Then Cate shook her head, blonde hair flying. "Forget that. How do you want to run this—as an operation or a case? I did not politically rearrange an entire continent by jumping into something without thinking it through first."
A/N: Not done, but could you please handle Recall's answer? I'm not actually sure which she would choose.
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Perhaps Overreaction
"I should treat this as a case. I shouldn't put any of you through that again," Recall said, her hand going to her head. "I'm overreacting. This might not go anywhere near Fracture's family."
"That's not an answer."
Recall lifted her eyes to the other woman. "I needed a moment to know if I was capable of sending all of you down that path again, to know just what kind of monster I am. If Fracture was alive, we'd go do this ourselves. I'd treat it as an operation. This isn't my country, it isn't my life, and I've already done plenty of damage here, but I don't have to live with it. You do. What do you want?"
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Transition Redux
"We have one of them in your world, which means he's either a dimensional or has access to one." A small shrug. "Dimensionals are more common than people realize and like mentals are difficult to qualify without someone like the Database. You came here because you thought you could help with red serum victims. Admirable. I'm sure Red Wolf regrets your arrangement less than you do."
As she spoke, Cate wrote each item down in a bulleted list on her pad.
"Next, we have a shifter with a medical degree working at a center for special-type humans who volunteered to be genetically modified." She glanced up at Recall. "If you can tell who did the operation or anything about how he received and accepted the offer, that would be helpful. I have a short list of scientists who were getting close to independently figuring out how to do so at the time of the Rebellion. It was my field."
Recall just listened for a minute, trying to rest her body for a moment while she took in the basic details and the context Cate was able to provide without forcing her to process.
"Then, we have a possible leap of logic." She lifted her pen and looked at Recall again. "Do we know if the two cases are related. There's no particular reason they should be with one a Thorn citizen and the other of the kingdoms, but you would know best."
Recall leaned back and thought about it, grimacing when she realized she would have to process more to know. "I can't just choose what gets processed first."
Cate canted her head at an angle. "Reasonable. Nevertheless, you have Fracture's DNA on you. If you like, we can have Rachelle process it and determine if we have a special in our network who could make it easier for you."
"No. I don't want to drag anyone else into this."
Cate raised her eyebrows.
"I've already caused enough trouble. I never meant to stay so long, and this is all such a mess." Recall shook her head. "I don't want to make any of you do more of this work."
"Those who do it"—Cate shrugged again—"choose to. We don't want to kill you trying to figure this out. We protect our own."
"I'm not your own," Recall pointed out, annoyed. That was the sort of thing Fracture had always said. "I'm from somewhere else entirely."
"You're helping us," Cate stated bluntly. "You were almost hurt by someone who's after us, or didn't you know that the bulk of unregistereds are the former operatives?"
"Bizh." Recall hadn't known that.
"You're ours while you're under our protection and we're under yours, and they are just going to have to live with that."
They wasn't just a pronoun to the team members. It meant the ones who had modified them and served as administration within the Department. Not all of them were bad, but enough that the word had grown to include anyone trafficking in the creation or the bodies of special-type humans.
Cate's voice gentled. "The two cases might not be related. They probably aren't."
Recall grimaced but shook her head. "We need to know. I need to process."
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Transition Redux
I like how Cate calmed it down and especially how she extended the protection to Recall.
I kind of like the idea of her meeting Rachelle. I'm terrible. More into the mess.
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Transition Redux
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Transition Redux
Fracture would claim them if he was there to do it. Any friends of Recall's...
I think there's a legitimate reason why they'd have to involve Rachelle. Kind of. Maybe.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: A Worrisome Complication
“I think I am going to vomit. I might even have a fever.” Recall wrapped her arms around her stomach, closing her eyes and leaning back against the chair. She wasn’t sure when the others had come back, but she wished it was just Cate watching her now. She didn’t like feeling weak in front of others, and she still hated being watched. “I don’t think processing has ever felt like this. I don’t—I know I was weakened by having not finished processing the memories I’d gotten before, but I could have slept that off and—idizo. I’m an idiot.”
“I think you could say you’re under a lot of stress,” the young one offered, and she frowned at him. He made her miss Talk, and she didn’t know why she would ever miss Talk. “No one said you weren’t smart.”
“You better not think I’m pretty.” Recall forced herself up to where she could sit. “I should have seen it—the strange moods, the paranoia, my inability to stay asleep and process—”
“You’re pregnant?”
“Not. Funny.” Recall ground out the words, shaking her head. “Someone needs to put you through a bunch of sensitivity courses. I can’t touch without getting memories, and you think I can have children? Not amusing in the slightest.”
“Jarod,” Ilsa said in warning, and he almost managed to look sheepish.
Recall gagged, trying not to vomit. “He drugged me. I was running on adrenaline, and when I process, it’s painful and disorienting, so it’s not hard to see something as just a bad bit of processing, especially when I’m working with different physiologies, but with the way I was reliving things so intensely, the way I feel now when I should have been over the worst of the processing by now—he must have given me something.”
“You said you couldn’t take anything.”
“I can’t.” Recall pulled into herself. “I really hate being drugged, and if I start to freak out again... Idizo, Fracture, why did you have to die?”
“Uh...”
She cursed herself for saying that last part aloud. “I assume you have some kind of medical facility here? I’m not sure what is in my system, but... I can’t process anymore if I’ve got something in my blood. We need answers, and I need to process, but if I do it now...”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough. Vules would say brain damage.” She laughed. “He liked to scare me, though, so don’t take his word for it. Just find somewhere I can get tested and once we know what’s in me, we’ll know how long I have to wait for it to get out of me so that I can process again.”
“You think it’ll be that simple?”
“With the drugs they have access to, the things he might have wanted me for, my messed up genetics, and my bad luck?” Recall snorted. “No. It won’t be simple at all.”
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
"Since when?" Marc asked mildly.
"My field." She bent over and opened up one of the lower cabinets and pulled out a small green star and removed it from its sterile packaging. "These things weren't actually built for Rachelle; she just uses them—quite effectively. Now." She looked at Recall. "How much do you trust me?"
Recall's instinctive reaction was to say she didn't, but there was almost an excessive amount of trust still floating through her mind from Red Wolf. He was the only reason she was here at all. "You don't do anything to me until you explain what."
Ilsa added quietly, "I also would like to know before you implement anything."
"Fair enough." Cate tapped her temple once lightly. "I'm the only known telepath that doesn't have a easily defined radius. I've always been able to reach for anybody I know and trust and borrow their mental or sight-based abilities to blend with my own."
Jarod popped his head from the back corner out from behind his desk. He was always overly curious about how other specials' powers worked.
"Darren's door is always open and she lets me use her shielding, which I can blend with Jess's intangibility..." Cate trailed off for a moment, eyes unfocused. "Etc. And that will allow me to clean your bloodstream if you're willing to let me. I've done it before."
Recall didn't even want to think about all the risks that sounded like it involved. She looked over at Ilsa.
"I do trust Cate," Ilsa said slowly. "I cannot share that trust with you however."
Cate held up the star. "But I also need to sample the drug. Jarod can run it against anything Rachelle's got in our system—"
"Which is everything," he muttered.
"—and then we'll at least know what we're dealing with. Sound fair?" She raised her eyebrows in question.
Recall fumbled for the nearest trash can and lost her tea. She was surprised to realize a moment later that Marc was very carefully spotting her while not touching her skin.
"You don't have a lot of time," he said quietly.
"I did call a healer and medic," Cate added, "but that'll take longer."
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
(sorry I keep editing my comments. the acuity's going, which is why I probably should've waited until tomorrow to get that sketch snippeted, but I knew you wanted to see it sooner, so I didn't.)
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
(it's okay. I'm sorry I've been such a nuisance. get some rest.)
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
Cate shook her head. “No.”
“Don’t have much choice. Most healers I’ve heard of or seen memories involving need touch, and I can’t be touched. Maybe if someone like Fracture, someone who could make themselves invulnerable to my skin and yet heal—maybe that would make a difference, but I doubt there’s much that your regular healer can do. Either way, we need to know what the drug is, so something has to be done.” Recall looked up, trying to swallow down the taste in her mouth. “Rede? I don’t think I can walk back to the chair myself, so if you could...?”
He nodded, and she realized she should have been more direct—she hadn’t wanted to be carried, no matter how sick she was. Carrying her was Fracture’s job, no one else’s, and he was gone. Still, the cop had her, and got her back to the chair, something she knew she couldn’t have done herself even if it wasn’t that far.
Rede stepped back to let Cate in. Recall watched her. “You’re sure this won’t do anything to you? No hurting, no—”
“I know what I’m doing. It only sounds risky. It isn’t.”
“Azha. He wouldn’t forgive me if I got you hurt.”
The other woman inclined her head ever so slightly. “He who?”
Dangerous question. Recall still had enough self-preservation left not to answer it. “If I start to babble after this—because I can and I might—disregard it. You won’t know who is really talking because one of the things drugs do to me is pull the memories out of where I’ve filed them. They’ll... I might not be me for a while if that happens. I’ll be whoever’s memory has surfaced at the time, and I have some... ugly people in my head.”
“This shouldn’t take long.”
“Do any of you pick up languages easy? I’m starting to think in dialect, and I can’t—”
“Recall, calm down.”
“Can’t. Might be the drug. Elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, hovering on the edge of panic... Ooh, I want my goopa,” she said, curling up as much as she could. The memories were coming, and she was losing consciousness, and that was a relief because she’d never stay still enough for Cate to work if she remained conscious. Recall closed her eyes and let go.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Cleaning
"We'll pull it back out when I'm done." Cate took in a deep breath. "Okay. Just... don't freak out, okay?" She gave a weak smile but no chance for Recall to really react.
Cate raised her hand and a wave of translucent gold light flashed from her hand and through Recall. It felt like something scraping through her insides, forcing anything not her out with its own passage. Cate closed her fist and the light formed a tight ball, which she tossed in the incinerator, then shook her head as if to dislodge something.
"That's done. Let's check the star."
Recall stared at her. She felt... fine. Her own words stumbled out. "How did you do that?" She had expected, well, to be healed.
Cate grinned as she sat in the chair next to her. "That's Jarod's line. I just took a shield, made it intangible to you and tangible to foreign substances, and ran it through you." She carefully removed the star and handed Recall a small bandage. "Brushfire named me Point. If an ability is mind- or visual-based, then I can use it by linking in telepathically. If it's physical like Rachelle's..." Cate shrugged and handed the star to Jarod. "I can't." She leaned in close and tipped her head in his direction. "He's smarter than he looks."
Recall watched as Jarod did suddenly turn very professional, tapping away at his portable computer and inputting what he got from the star. He whistled low and long. "Nasty concoction. And better yet, it's warrantable."
"Is it now?" Ilsa said with a small smile.
Cate sighed. "And that's our cue."
Marc clipped on his sidearm.
Cate glanced at Recall. "You coming or you need to process?"
"It'll take me a few minutes to get all the warrants, people," Jarod commented with some exasperation.
Ilsa leaned over his shoulder, reading off the panel for herself. "When does our medical crew get here?"
Cate's eyes unfocused. "Five, ten minutes."
Ilsa nodded and glanced at Marc. "Take Cate and do a search and arrest at the medical center. Cate, can you get Rachelle there with you? We need matching DNA if it's a shifter."
Cate furrowed her brow. "If it's a shifter, their DNA will shift with them. But..." She looked thoughtful. "She could be helpful. I'll ask anyway." She picked up the phone and called.
Recall wondered why she didn't just use her telepathy. Maybe Rachelle disliked telepaths as much as she did.
Ilsa added in an aside, "I think you should wait for the medic."
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: With a Clear Head
She closed her eyes, drawing her legs up and leaning back as she adjusted to the lack of the drug. She was almost overwhelmed by the relief she felt. She wouldn’t normally have cared so much about how that had happened—at least not to make a fool of herself asking about it like the kid would have, but she wasn’t with Fracture who could do anything. She didn’t know all of what these people could do. She hadn’t finished with Wolf’s memories because of the drug.
She really hated those things. They made the worst of memories thousands of times worse, though she knew that the memories of their processing would have been bad regardless. That was horrific, and she would have offered to take the memories away completely if she could have. She knew it might be possible. She’d never done it before, but she thought she could. She considered offering, but she didn’t think Cate or any of the other former operatives would take her up on the offer.
Not that she wanted more in her head. She already had enough.
“I called you as soon as I saw him.”
“Yet he’s gone.”
The technician wrapped his arms around the clipboard. “It would have been risky to go after him anyway. He wasn’t the one that was hurt.”
“He would have been worth it. We don’t even know if she has anything of use. You said you couldn’t find her in any of the databases.” He studied the woman with coldness. “You didn’t assume it because of her hair, did you? None of them would be stupid enough to advertise like that.”
“She was with Wolf, though.”
He nodded. “She might be useful, then, even without an ability.”
“And if she has one?”
“Then maybe she can live.”
Recall’s eyes opened, and she held up a hand. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Check on Alpha. I don’t think they would have tried for him, not overtly, but they didn’t want me. They wanted him.” She put a hand on her head, feeling a bit of a headache from the latest memory. “What did they give me? What was that drug?”
“Why?”
She stifled a curse. “I think I’ve just been playing my least favorite role. I hit Fracture so hard when he said it, hard enough to make him fracture to heal, but he was right. I am good at being bait.”
“Bait?”
Recall shook her head. “I’m not deluding myself that I mean anything to Wolf. I’m still a stranger to him. I don’t matter, but what if I was only sent here as... a distraction? Where would someone in my position go? To the police? To Special Unit? What if they just drugged me up so I’d create a situation that Wolf or Cate or even Rachelle might end up walking into and getting taken? It’s not like they could go after a former operative without advance planning, but they knew him, and if they did—”
“Recall.”
“I know. It could be another leap of logic, and I should be done with them without the drug in my system, but I couldn’t just let you leave without saying something.” She leaned back. “I think I should go with you. I know I’m a liability, but if I can get anything more from processing these memories, a call could be too late.” She ran her hands over her arms. “I... Where is the Silent Kingdom?”
“Why?”
“That... It may be where the shifter grew up.”
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: With a Clear Head
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: With a Clear Head