Explorean Resort, Cozumel, Mexico, Saturday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

She probably should have expected the nightmares. Raven's text had upended her sense of safety; even thought she wasn't on the island now, knowing that her home was gone and all of her supplies were inaccessible had messed with her pretty hard. Sleep had been long in coming, even as exhausted as she'd been, and when it came, it had brought old friends along with it.

She was back in the basement again. It's where she was kept, when Rodney wasn't using her body, staring at a wall. In the dream, those were the best times, even though she stood silent and unmoving, staring at a crumbling brink, cloudy gray eyes unblinking. Because when she wasn't staring at the wall, it meant Rodney was puppeting her body around, his mind overriding hers, his will dominating her body. She could feel him, like cold oil spreading over her brain and down her nervous system, stealing control away from her. She tried to fight him off, tried to keep him out, but it was no good. Rodney wanted control of her body and he could take it.

"No, no..." she whimpered in the real world, starting to thrash. "Leave me...don't make me...no..."

No matter what she dreamed, Kathy felt like a prisoner in her own mind. When she dreamed of being a free ex, she still had to watch as her body moved of its own volition, attacking anything that moved. Sometimes she killed and ate people. Other times, she remembered the pet store and the mess that had been left when she was done. But those were still better than the Rodney dreams, when she was literally enslaved to his will and he could make her do anything he wanted.

Like now, when he presented her with the bound forms of her friends. Anders. Dante. Eliot. Raven, , stuck in her vulnerable human form. Ringo. Alluka. "You think there's nothing worse than being controlled my me, puta?" Rodney asked, voice coming from her own throat. "Tell you what. Here, I'll let you go. See how you like that."

To her horror, Kathy felt the cold ooze steal back up and out of her body, leaving only the ex behind. And the ex looked at her friends and saw only meat--warm flesh and hot blood. She lunged at the closest of them--Ringo, no, please!--and bit and bit and bit while Rodney's mad laughter rang in her ears and her head.

"It's always in you, girlie. Always. Just waitin' to get out. This is what you are..."

The taste of blood filled her mouth as she struggled up towards consciousness, hitting and kicking and trying to scream but blood, so much blood she was going to choke.

[For the guy with her. Violence and such under the cut.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"Friends," Kathy said, unable to meet his eyes. "You. Dante. Raven. Ringo. Alluka. Eliot. Rodney dragged me out of the basement and then pulled back just enough for the ex to come to the fore while I was standing over all of you."

[not_every_mage]

"But that'll never happen," Anders promised, though his stomach was twisting at the powerful mental image. "It's just a dream. Bad old memories playing with your mind."

Religiously, he thought it was a bit more complicated than that, but he wasn't sure where nightmares about being an ex fit into the Fade.

[spin_kick_snap]

"He...he said--at the end of the dream, he said..." Kathy's hands shook. "He said that it was always in me. That it was just waitin' to get out. He said that that is what I am. Always."

[not_every_mage]

"But it's not," Anders said, earnestly. What she was saying sounded close enough to anti-mage propaganda to cut to the bone. "Alluka got that out of you, and it won't ever come back."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I know that?" Kathy said, though her voice wavered. "But it's hard to make myself believe it. Because... because what if it's not? What if it's still lurking somewhere, deep inside, and one day I wake up and it isn't me anymore?"

It was a stupid and illogical worry. But that didn't make it go away.

[not_every_mage]

Anders hesitated. "Do you want an honest answer, or a comforting answer?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Honest," Kathy said without hesitation. "Always honest. I have enough trouble--"

She paused, trying to figure out how to word it so it didn't sound like she was a different flavor of crazy than she actually was.

"I spend a lot of time trying to figure out if the way I'm reacting to people is right," she said slowly. "I spend a lot of time analyzing what they've said and what that might mean and how I'm allowed to feel about it. Telling me something comforting might be nice in the moment? But all it's going to do is make me wonder how many other times in the past you've told me a comforting half-truth instead of being honest. And that's a really quick way to make me doubt...well, everything."

Him. Her. Them. Everything.

[not_every_mage]

"Well, there's a lead-in," Anders said, with an uncomfortable little laugh. "All right. Honestly, Dante and I could both take you down if you -- went that way again. Even if we could find a cure again, it wouldn't be fair to put your spirit and body through it. Was rough enough the first time."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And considering whatever Alluka did last time wasn't enough to free me of it entirely..." Kathy surmised. "I--that does help. But I know you could both take me down, power-wise--"

Let's face it, a single zombie on her own without the element of surprise wasn't much of a threat.

"--could you? Could you kill me?" She was sincerely asking. She figured Dante could without flinching. But could Anders?

[not_every_mage]

"Hard to say when I've never had to do anything like it," Anders said, feeling his stomach twist in his body at the thought. "But if it was that or risk you taking innocent lives, I could."

He paused for a steadying breath. "Could you, if I was possessed?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "Not unless you did something drastic. But I've dreamed of killing you too many times to do it in real life, I think. I have the memory of killing too many people to make another."

She slid her thumb over the inside of her left wrist where seven tattoo'd hashmarks rested.

[not_every_mage]

"I hope I never have cause to feel that way," Anders said, sincerely. "But anyhow, I wouldn't want you to let me hurt anyone."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, I'd try to stop you, even incapacitate you," Kathy said. "I don't know how useful I'd be, but I wouldn't just stand around wringing my hands and saying 'Woe is me.' I just don't think I could kill you. Has anyone ever fought off possession in your world before?"

[not_every_mage]

"Not that I can remember, but I don't know everything," Anders said thoughtfully. "Besides, they're trying to convince us possession is bad. They aren't going to give us the escape manual."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Thus proving that, once again, abstinence-only education is a idiot's gamble," Kathy said, snorting. A moment later, she was serious again, looking up into Anders' eyes. "I know how much it hurts, coming back to yourself and seeing everything you've broken when you weren't you."

And sometimes what you'd broken when you were you. Wasn't any easier.

"I'd do what I could to keep you from hurting anyone while we worked to get you back. And if we couldn't and that was the only way--" She took a deep, shuddery breath. "I still can't swear I'd do it. I don't know if I could. But if I couldn't, I'd find someone who could and I'd stay till the end. So you didn't go alone."

[not_every_mage]

"Thank you," Anders said sincerely. It was a weird thing to be grateful for, but grateful was what he was. "I'd do the same for you, you know. Everyone should see somebody they love at the end."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah," Kathy said, suddenly wishing for a drink as her mind flashed back to those last, crazy days of LA. "Everybody does. But not everybody gets to."

[not_every_mage]

"You were alone, weren't you?" Anders asked uncertainly. "You said -- you told me they didn't get to you in time."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "Raven was there. And Nick," she said. "I wasn't alone. It was just Regenerator who didn't get there in time. It was still taking half a day for people to die of the virus, so he thought it was safe to leave me for a bit. He just forgot to factor in speedster, I guess."

[not_every_mage]

"Stupid superpowers," Anders sighed. "I'm glad you had Raven and Nick, anyhow. And a little sorry it wasn't me."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I..." Kathy frowned. "I'm not sure there's a way for me to respond to that that doesn't get me in trouble."

[not_every_mage]

"Go for it," Anders shrugged. "We're having a heart-to-heart in the middle of the night. Nothing is off limits."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Just, the last time I said something like that, you told me I was manipulating you and that you would rather I lied," Kathy said slowly. "So I'm not sure how to respond. I don't want to manipulate you."

[not_every_mage]

Anders sighed, weighing his words carefully.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," he admitted. "But if you feel like telling me whatever it is is just going to go badly, I'm not going to make you talk."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Back in January," Kathy said, frowning as she tried to remember. "You said something about wishing you'd stayed. I'd agreed, but it was the wrong answer."