Fluff, Relationships, and Traditions
Sep. 22nd, 2013 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblemynameSo 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.
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Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 1/2
Date: 2013-10-21 04:56 pm (UTC)“You deal with crimes against your kind or involving your kind, right? Specials? That would be why they call this special unit, yes?”
The woman—the leader—looked over at Recall with suspicion, and Recall didn’t blame her for that. She wouldn’t trust a teal and black haired freak that appeared out of nowhere, looking like a mess. She’d managed to tear her jacket on something when she ran, and she’d been in no state for running in the first place. She still had a bit more processing to do, had to recover from giving Wolf his memories—she didn’t blame him for walking away, she knew why he had and she knew he was right to turn away from her path of self-destruction—but she hadn’t been given that opportunity.
“Our kind?”
The words were a bit clipped, and Recall almost winced when she heard them, knowing she’d said them first, causing the tension to start. “Where I’m from, we’re anomalies, but that isn’t the case here. People know you exist now, they know about the war and—idizo. I’m not—I knew I could and should come to you, but how much of what I should say I’ll get out before I lose consciousness is debatable.”
“You here to report that some ‘special’ did this to you?”
“No.” Recall reached for the nearest support she could find and almost laughed. In a way, a special had done this to her, though she’d done it to herself, truly, but she had Wolf’s memories, and giving some of them back to him had weakened her, but this wasn’t about him. He’d been better to her than he should have been considering what she’d done—raising his hopes, yanking that away, and lying to him about how much she got back.
She just knew that he couldn’t be the man he was, and she wouldn’t hurt him by giving him more than she had. That was the trouble with getting people’s memories—she knew them too well, and in some cases, she found herself caring for them when they saw her as a stranger.
“What happened?”
“I overextended myself, and someone brought me to the medical center, and I was kind of too weak to object to being left there. I don’t think it would have been a problem if a different doctor was on duty, but this one...”
“This one what?”
That harsh question came from one of the others, but the leader held up her hand and moved toward Recall, sympathy betrayed for a moment in her eyes, some kind of understanding. Recall would have hunted in Wolf’s memories for a mention of what this woman could do if she felt stronger—she thought he knew because she had to have gotten the idea to come here from him—or she’d gotten it from someone she bumped after her shirt tore, which was very not good because that meant more processing, and processing more than one person’s memories at the same time was unpleasant at best—and that made three, not just two. Two was bad enough.
“The doctor scared you. Why?”
Recall knew she didn’t have the strength to explain, not now. “When I collapse in a minute, don’t touch my skin. Please.”
“If you could just tell us what—”
“Would. Can’t. Ninamen,” she said and lost consciousness.
“Well?” Marc asked as he stood, backing away from the woman he’d just finished moving. She’d said not to touch her skin, and he’d been careful not to, but no one was going to leave her on the floor no matter what she said.
Jarrod leaned close to her. “She’s not registered. At least, not that I can tell.”
“Cate?”
“She’s got some kind of... shielding. I’d have to push, and even then, I’m not sure I’d get anything.”
Ilsa nodded, studying the stranger for another woman before looking over at her team. “Don’t touch her.”
Jarrod rose. “She didn’t say why we shouldn’t, and we don’t know anything about her.”
“I read fear and pain. That much was genuine,” Ilsa said. “Don’t touch her.”
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 2/2
Date: 2013-10-21 05:14 pm (UTC)“I said I would. I just... can’t stay conscious when I have to process stuff. Side effect of being what I am,” Recall said, not lifting her head. That would hurt too much. Her body already ached, and she missed Fracture—he would have carried her to bed or made her kapi by now.
“You’re hurting.”
“Am I that obvious? Idizo. That’s a shame,” she muttered, groaning as she shifted her arm out from under her body. “Yes, I’m in pain. It happens. No, there’s nothing you can give me for it even if you were willing to do so, which I doubt.”
“You’re unregistered.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Where are you from?”
She watched the young man for a moment, almost amused. Maybe he was what Talk could be if he was more gifted and less opinionated. “Don’t worry, giwizen. If I was from one of your enemies, you can bet you wouldn’t have this job now. I used to know a man that would have brought down your empire by himself for what happened to those children.”
That got a reaction, though not from him. “What do you know about that?”
“More than I should. Got bumped in my homeland by a less than charming tourist—you might want to know where he is since I suspect he’s guilty of war crimes if not others since I believe he was involved in the Special Projects division—and found out about this place. I came here and learned a lot more.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t interested in repeating the argument she’d had with Talk before she left. He’d wanted her to go back to what she’d been before, but that wasn’t possible. “I got enough from him to know that the process took memories from the ones they put through it. Some more than others. I thought if they wanted those memories back, I might be able to help, and I needed a purpose at the time. It seemed as good as any.”
“You can’t bring the memories back.”
Recall knew the second woman was an operative, though she didn’t know what the woman had done before. She didn’t want to know. “I’m not someone who was created by a process. I broke during a trauma and became this.”
“What is ‘this?’”
She looked at the former operative. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“No.”
Despite the pain, Recall forced herself to move, needing to get away from her. “Bizh. You’re a telepath, aren’t you? I hate telepaths. I know you can’t get anything from me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when you try.”
The leader glanced at the other woman before addressing Recall. “You came to us for a reason.”
“I did.” She closed her eyes, trying to cope with the pain. She had to stay awake a little bit longer. “That doctor... he’s looking for unregistered specials. I’m not sure why yet—I need more time to sort through his memories, but if I hadn’t gotten enough to know he was dangerous and ran, he’d have me now.”
“You have that man’s memories? How?”
She looked at the man who’d spoken, lifting her hand and wiggling her fingers. “He touched me. That’s all it takes.”
“I ran background checks on all the doctors in the city while you were out,” the youngest one said. “Nothing that suspicious came up. A few minor infractions, that's it.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t come up in any of your checks. He could shape-shift.” She saw the doubt in everyone’s expressions and leaned back, shaking her head. “I can’t prove what I know. Ordinarily, I would. I’d just touch you and pass what I saw, but I have two—no, three—he would have thought of someone in Riving, not you—people that I need to sort out the memories of—and I can’t take another. I’m already damaging my broken mind with three. Touching one of you would mean taking more, and I can’t do it now.”
“You have to admit it’s a bit much to take on faith.”
Recall focused on the former operative. “I don’t know if you know him personally, but call Wolf. He’s—our arrangement is complete, and I am not asking for anything from him, don’t have anything else to give him, but he knows. He knows I can do what I say I can. He’ll confirm it.”
“You couldn’t have gotten anything back from before he was processed.”
She could fight about that because she had, but she didn’t have the strength. “He’s all the proof I can offer right now, and you’re going to have to excuse me because I can’t stay conscious any longer.”
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 2/2
Date: 2013-10-21 05:35 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 2/2
Date: 2013-10-21 05:44 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 2/2
Date: 2013-10-21 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture & Recall Crossover: The Wrong Way to Meet the Special Unit 2/2
Date: 2013-10-21 06:00 pm (UTC)I'm glad you liked it. I knew the second part was off, and I ended up having to cut pieces to make it fit in the comment, which probably didn't help, but I did like the idea of her bringing a case to the unit.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [1/?]
Date: 2013-10-21 06:51 pm (UTC)“Well?” Marc asked as he stood, backing away from the woman he’d just finished moving to an unfortunately too small chair. She’d said not to touch her skin, and he’d been careful not to, but no one was going to leave her on the floor no matter what she said.
Jarod rolled his chair out of the back corner and leaned close to her to get another look. He shook his head. “She’s not registered. At least, not that I can tell.”
Ilsa frowned but said nothing. It was not surprising. Registration was still spotty in the kingdoms at best. Most specials chose not to live in a kingdom that required it.
Marc glanced toward their frowning telepath. “Cate?”
Cate shook herself out of her reverie. She'd been staring at the woman—Recall. She shrugged. “She’s got some kind of shielding. I’d have to push, and even then, I’m not sure I’d get anything.”
Ilsa gave her a measuring look, but Cate's remained even. It wasn't entirely true. Any mental ability had built in shielding to other mentals, but that didn't mean Cate wasn't powerful enough to get something if she were really trying. But then, Cate had always been the most ethical of the telepaths. It would take some work to go after top-thoughts, the only kind she dug through without permission or a warrant. Asking her to turn that off was equivalent to asking a regular human to kindly remove their ears.
Ilsa nodded, studying the stranger for another moment before looking over at her team. “Don’t touch her.”
Jarod rose. “She didn’t say why we shouldn’t, and we don’t know anything about her.”
Cate almost reached out to throttle him. Touch-based abilities were sometimes traumatic and sometimes without an off-switch. You never touched a special who had warned you off—ever.
“I read fear and pain. That was genuine,” Ilsa said quietly, then repeated, commanding, “Do not touch her.”
Marc glanced at the woman one last time curled up into a chair not made for sitting in comfortably, let alone sleeping. "She'll be uncomfortable when she wakes."
Ilsa frowned but shrugged.
"They have a couch in the room outside Tech," Cate commented. Her tone was bland, but her eyes were sparkling.
Jarod gestured at his own long-sleeved sweater and Marc's short sleeves. "I'll take her down."
"There's hope for you yet," Cate teased.
He just shook his head and scooped the woman carefully into his arms. He was a scrawny fellow but stronger than he looked, and it didn't take him long to move her.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [2/?]
Date: 2013-10-21 06:51 pm (UTC)Recall woke to a voice that was clearly trying too hard to seem patient—and failing.
“You feel like explaining anything to us now?”
“I said I would. I just... can’t stay conscious when I have to process stuff. Side effect of being what I am,” Recall said, not lifting her head. That would hurt too much. Her body already ached, and she missed Fracture—he would have carried her to bed or made her kapi by now.
“You’re hurting.” The other guy, the more serious-looking one. He sounded ready to jump in and do something but not sure what.
“Am I that obvious? Idizo. That’s a shame,” she muttered, groaning as she shifted her arm out from under her body. “Yes, I’m in pain. It happens. No, there’s nothing you can give me for it even if you were willing to do so, which I doubt.”
A wash of disbelief that hurt. How in the world? She looked at the Special Unit then, who had gathered on various seats in what was clearly a waiting area. A telepath?
“You’re unregistered," the skinny blonde spoke again, mouth a straight line.
“I’m not from around here.”
“Where are you from?”
The head of the Special Unit shot him a warning look, and he subsided.
She watched the young man for a moment, almost amused. Maybe he was what Talk could be if he was more gifted and less opinionated. “Don’t worry, giwizen. If I was from one of your enemies, you can bet you wouldn’t have this job now. I used to know a man that would have brought down your empire by himself for what happened to those children.”
That got a reaction, though not from him. The blonde woman looked at her with hard face, hard eyes, and said softly, “What do you know about that?” clearly implying something Recall had said was wrong.
Recall didn't address the disagreement. She'd heard enough of that in her life. “More than I should." She grimaced. "Got bumped in my homeland by a less than charming tourist—you might want to know where he is since I suspect he’s guilty of war crimes if not others since I believe he was involved in the Projects—and found out about this place. I came here and learned a lot more.”
The young man opened his mouth, but the woman held up a hand, then lowered it again and said, "We're not the Thorn Republic. We're the kingdoms and I'm a former operative."
Recall had known that, the last part that is. The woman was familiar in appearance from Red Wolf's memories, even if she couldn't quite place her. So she merely let that go as information. The young man was not part of the empire. Fair enough.
"I'm Catherine April," she went on, "though everyone calls me Cate. This is Marc Rede…" She looked amused at his own amused expression. "He doesn't call me Cate." She shrugged. "That's Jarod, and the head of the Special Unit is Ilsa Killinger."
Ilsa leaned forward. "Why did you come here?" she asked quietly.
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [3/?]
Date: 2013-10-21 06:52 pm (UTC)Cate furrowed her brow. "Most of the operatives who wanted their memories back already took the anti-serums and cures."
Cate was an operative. Recall didn’t know what the woman had done before, but she didn’t want to know. "Not all of them had cures."
Cate leaned back sharply. "You wanted to cure red serum?" she demanded.
Marc glanced back and forth between the two women. Jarod looked stoic and was clearly listening intently. Only Ilsa seemed to actually know what they were talking about.
“I’m not someone who was created by a process," Recall pointed out. She didn't share their limitations. "I broke during a trauma and became this.”
“What is ‘this?’” Jarod interjected.
But Recall looked at the former operative. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
Cate shrugged. But her mind… A faint painful brush of projected memory Recall couldn't not pick up. Thought was ten when she calmly explained to the Database that she was a mindreader, and the Database calmly corrected her that she was not. Recall was close enough to a mindreader to be effectively the same.
Despite the pain, Recall forced herself to move, needing to get away from her. “Bizh. You’re the telepath, aren’t you? I hate telepaths. I know you can’t get anything from me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when you try.”
Cate blew out a breath. "Trying to read you would be pointless," she said. "I didn't know it would hurt if I just sent."
Ilsa glanced at Cate before addressing Recall. “You came to us for a reason.”
“I did.” Recall closed her eyes, trying to cope with the pain. She had to stay awake a little bit longer. “That doctor... he’s looking for unregistered specials. I’m not sure why yet—I need more time to sort through his memories, but if I hadn’t gotten enough to know he was dangerous and ran, he’d have me now.”
“You have that man’s memories? How?”
She looked at Jarod, lifting her hand and wiggling her fingers. “He touched me. That’s all it takes.”
Marc leaned forward, clearly taking over. "We ran background checks at the medical center we believe you were placed in but were unable to locate your treating physician.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t come up in any of your checks. He could shape-shift.” She saw the ripple of doubt or concern pass through their faces and leaned back, shaking her head. “I can’t prove what I know. Ordinarily, I would. I’d just touch you and pass what I saw, but I have two—no, three—he would have thought of someone in Riving, not you—people that I need to sort out the memories of—and I can’t take another. I’m already damaging my broken mind with three. Touching one of you would mean taking more, and I can’t do it now.”
“Riving,” Cate said slowly as she made the mental connection to... "Shift wouldn't have been at the center. She hates the Department."
Shift? The doctor was male. Recall focused on the former operative. “I don’t know if you know him personally, but call Wolf. He’s—our arrangement is complete, and I am not asking for anything from him, don’t have anything else to give him, but he knows. He knows I can do what I say I can. He’ll confirm it.”
“Wolf.” She'd clearly confused Cate with that one. "You read Wolf?"
She could fight about that because she had, but she didn’t have the strength. “He’s all the proof I can offer right now, and you’re going to have to excuse me because I can’t stay conscious any longer.”
Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 06:53 pm (UTC)Killinger got up and pulled a blanket gently over the woman, who was clearly still exhausted. "No one questions her when she wakes up. We can't overtax our only witness."
Jarod nodded grudging and impatient acceptance.
Marc frowned as he considered her. "We don't have her personal details yet."
"Sure we do." Cate headed toward the phone at the side of the room and lifted her hand, gaze unfocusing as she thew up a sound barrier over the room.
"How do you do that?" Jarod demanded.
"You need to stop asking specials that question," she retorted. Someone on the other end picked up. "Alpha, can you tell me the basic identity of a mindreader with black and teal hair?" A long silence while she waited.
The rest of the Special Unit watched her until she finally nodded, said thank you, and hung up.
"Recall." She grinned. "Nice handle."
"Catherine," Marc said admonishingly.
She blew out a breath. "He took her to Gloria's facility, which means she was at a Department medical center, not a hospital, but the real problem is the shifter. Registration aside,"—she looked pointedly at Jarod, who relied on certain hit-or-miss, by-the-book standards to a fault—"there are only fifteen known shifters in the entire world and Rachelle knows every single one of them."
Startlement flickered through Marc's eyes and Ilsa caught her breath.
"Which means," Cate finished with a very serious expression in her own eyes, "that somebody else has been experimenting—successfully."
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 07:16 pm (UTC)Ooh, I want more.
Recall probably regrets not staying in her own world, but I love that she's not there. :)
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 07:39 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 08:00 pm (UTC)I suppose I should be satisfied with the others, should just let you focus on them.
*sigh*
I need to get my head back in my own story, too. I just wish it was as easy as this one wants to be. Not that I can write the team, but Recall gave me more anyway. :/
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 08:22 pm (UTC):plunks chin on hands: Wish I knew a better solution.
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 08:29 pm (UTC)It's not that it's not good to get the others out. They are the more important ones. This is just... fun, I guess, and the others are real, key pieces, so they have priority. I'll be as excited for those others once I see them. I'm just feeling the loss right now.
Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
Date: 2013-10-21 08:43 pm (UTC)Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: And So It Goes… [4/4]
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From:Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover:
Date: 2013-10-22 08:05 am (UTC)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
Date: 2013-10-22 02:50 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2013-10-22 10:02 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2013-10-22 10:25 pm (UTC)"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
Date: 2013-10-22 10:44 pm (UTC)"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
Date: 2013-10-22 11:57 pm (UTC)"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
Date: 2013-10-23 12:23 am (UTC)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
From:Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Transition Redux
From:Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: A Worrisome Complication
Date: 2013-10-23 02:28 am (UTC)“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
From:Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Medical Options
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From:Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: Cleaning
From:Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: With a Clear Head
From:Re: Kingdoms and Thorn/Fracture and Recall Crossover: With a Clear Head
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