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]

"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."

[not_every_mage]

"I think I also told you that you didn't know what love meant," Anders reminded her. "It wasn't my finest moment. I was still angry at -- everything, really."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's what I mean when I say I have trouble distinguishing reality sometimes," she said, unexepectedly grateful to the painful memory for serving as an example. "Sometimes I can't tell if someone is saying something out of anger or hurt or if its true. I assume it's all true, especially if it confirms something I'm already afraid of."

She looked in his eyes, hoping he could understand. "I was so wrong before, and yet so convinced that I was right that now I can't really trust myself. So, instead, I use what people I trust tell me to kind of...build up my worldview? And my view of myself. Am I making sense?"

[not_every_mage]

"You are," Anders reassured her. "And I wouldn't have said it if I'd realized you were coming back. I was just ... getting it all out while I could. Remember, we thought you were only there for the weekend."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Neither of us did," Kathy said, giving him an understanding smile. "I thought it was the end for me, too. Hell, I thought I was in a grave somewhere, with a bunch of other people who hadn't made it. I didn't think they'd..."

Let her keep walking.

"And I really am sorry, because what I'm doing isn't fair, exactly. You don't deserve to have the burden of knowing that I'm using every off-hand comment and emotional outburst to try to put everything together." As Dante had learned, to their mutual chagrin. "I just don't know any other way to do it. I don't trust what I'm thinking or feeling as accurate, because I was just so damn wrong before. A lot of my confidence in myself was stripped away and it's slow to come back."

[not_every_mage]

"See, but now I'm worried," Anders said, leaning back in his elbows. "I don't always think all that much before I talk. What if I said something dumb that's hurting you, and I don't even know it?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, thinking before you speak isn't a terrible habit to cultivate," Kathy said, giving him a good-natured poke. "But it's hard as hell, I know. And, honestly, that's where I have to be better about speaking up. I need...I need to trust you guys more. I've been so afraid of making you mad and reverting to, like, the early days that I've just stayed quiet a lot. And that's not fair to any of us. Not to me, but not to you, either."

[not_every_mage]

"No, but I understand why you're doing it," Anders said slowly. "I don't suppose telling you to worry less will help at all, even if that is what I'd like to say. But I do want to know what's scaring you, even if you think it'd be hard for me to hear."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh god, so many things," Kathy said with a self-conscious little laugh. "That you haven't entirely forgiven me and as soon as I make you mad, it'll all come boiling back to the surface is one. That you'll get fed up with my little sad girl bullshit and bail is another one."

Those were the easy ones. There were others that left her feeling a lot more vulnerable.

[not_every_mage]

"Not bailing, love," Anders promised. "I'm in way too deep."

He was more thoughtful as he answered her other point. "I can't say I've completely forgiven. But I do feel like there's too much water under the bridge to keep holding your worst decisions over your head, even if I'm angry."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Water under the bridge how?" Kathy asked. It was a tough question to ask, but she needed to know the answer. If Anders hadn't yet fully forgiven her, she'd feel more comfortable knowing exactly the constraints she existed under, rather than trying to guess.

[not_every_mage]

"Mainly in the sense of time," Anders shrugged. "It's been almost half a year. I graduated. We figured out how to do this with Dante. And knowing how tormented you still are about it, it seems -- cruel, almost, to drag up Los Angeles if we have a disagreement."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I agree, but then, I would," Kathy said, turning his words over in her mind. "But I guess I'm wondering--do you still get mad about it? Or upset, maybe? Is there anything I can do to help you get...past it, I guess...that I'm not doing?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders thought about it, but shook his head. "It'd be easier if I could tell you something, I know, but -- no. Of course I get upset if I think about you leaving, but the whole thing is upsetting. It's not something you can change now."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Don't worry," she said with an understanding smile, "I know all about wishing you had concrete information to give and coming up empty. A lot of the answer is just 'give more time' which is both true but tiring." She sighed and shook her head, thinking about all the times she'd had to give that unsatisfying answer. "Do you think about it a lot?"

[not_every_mage]

"Not most of the time," Anders said honestly. "Sometimes, if something reminds me of it, but I wouldn't say I'm preoccupied."

He glanced to her. "I'd ask you the same, but I feel like that'd be a stupid question. It's with you every second."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Kinda," Kathy said. "Sometimes I can go for awhile without thinking about it. But it's always just kinda there, waiting for me to trip over it again." She shook her head. "I trip over it most when I'm with the people I was closest to," she continued. "Which is the worst, because you're all the people I want to remind the least about what happened. But, like, talking to you, I can't help but think about what I gave up, what would be different if I had stayed, everything I did wrong. And it's not your fault I do that," she added quickly, giving his hand a squeeze. "I just...you deserved so much better and I let you down. I can't but feel that keenly."