Tomorrow I'll be stronger, running colorful, no longer just in black and white [Week 6, Open]

[dead_black_eyes]

Who| Linden Lockhearst and Open!
What| After this altercation, Linden had to spend the night in jail. Encounter him at any point during the 24 period during and after this less-than-glamorous ordeal.
Where| Jail, later on the District 6 suite.
When| Week 6
Warnings/Notes| The normal ones for Linden! References to drugs and death are likely.



I. Jail

Linden stares past the rigid plastic handcuffs at his black shoes on white tile. It was only a matter of time, perhaps... withdrawal and the ensuing hell that was sobriety has been rough on him. For the first time in over a decade, he's been forced to look at some of the experiences that have shaped the person he is without the haze of Morphling or alcohol influencing it, resulting in the emergence of a deeply sad and very angry man. Having numbed these emotions for so long means that his ability to deal with them isn't great; an already tense situation with an admittedly horrible District 7 Mentor had escalated and though he'd blacked out past a certain point, he's pretty sure that he hurt the guy. Possibly even enough to need stitches. At that point, it didn't matter who you were or what you'd been through; you at least had to spend a night in jail as a token punishment, and past that, even if you were lucky and the media didn't catch wind, it was inevitable that you'd have to deal with some kind of therapy or conflict-resolution seminar at some point.

There's a forcefield keeping Linden from walking out of his cell, but it's possible to hear through it, even smell through it. There's coffee brewing somewhere nearby, and he approaches the forcefield and tries to get the attention of the nearest Peacekeeper.

"Hey... hey, is that coffee? Can I have some, please?"

The Peacekeeper sighs. "Try to sleep. You can't leave until morning at the earliest, and it gets boring as hell in those cells. It's supposed to, this is a punishment."

"Then let me bum a cigarette."

He's left behind with a brisk, dismissive shake of the Peacekeeper's head.

II. The Next Morning- Bail Posted

"Rise and shine." the Peacekeeper in charge disables Linden's forcefield, and he sits up quickly, having not actually realized that he'd fallen asleep.

"What's going on?" he asks blearily, already reaching for the wastebasket he'd requested they leave in his cell with him. Since quitting Morphling, he's queasy in the mornings sometimes.

"Morning, and someone's posted your bail. Congratulations; 6 must really want their only Mentor back."

"Who was it?"

"Beats me. I'd suck up to them big time, though, they did you a hell of a favor."

III. The Next Morning- District 6 Suites

Linden probably shouldn't have been allowed to return to work so quickly after snapping so obviously and so badly, but he is 6's only Mentor right now, and he's therefore needed. A sweet-voiced woman in a nurse's uniform had stopped by his cell before his bail had been posted and given him a stack of pamphlets, commending him on his efforts to get clean but assuring him that there were more ways to quit than recklessly going cold turkey. She urged him to consider tapering off to avoid a situation like the one he'd ended up in, and explained that mood swings and aggression were common side effects of coming off of a persistent Morphling addiction, and he is broodingly considering it.

He's also considering how the fuck he is going to apologize to Jason Compson. A written apology was one of the conditions for his release, after all, and he takes a deep breath, trying not to clench his fist around his pen and staring at his attempt to write something acceptable.

Dear Mr. Compson,

I'm sorry you're a sadistic brat

Stupid

have the self-control of a rabid warthog in front of an all-you-can-eat truffle buffet


I'm sorry that I lashed out at you. It was entirely my fault to expect you to be as refined as your bloodline would suggest when you are clearly an Avox-hitting sow of a-------------

Fuck you, you spoiled


It's not going particularly well.

Comments

[dead_black_eyes]

He stares at the words on the page, rereading them several times as though disbelieving what he's seeing, or at least really wanting to.

"You can't find Stephen?" he asks, setting his jaw, teeth creating a nasty sound as he grinds them briefly. "That's no good... he's supposd to be available for just this kind of situation."

Linden's not exactly proud of it, but he kind of is Stephen's mess to clean up, and has been since the second they started working together years ago. Suddenly it's uncertain whether or not he'll get bailed out after all. He can rely on Torin if he needs to, he supposes, though he would be humiliated if it came to that. 6 can only afford so many staff scandals in a calendar year, and even if Linden's plight is sympathetic, especially to those who know about his idiosyncracies or dislike Jason and feel he had it coming, this absolutely won't go ignored in the Capitol.

"Oh?" he seems disquieted by the news, and now he's angry too. This is repeat behavior? For heaven's sake. It makes no small amount of sense that a gentle creature like Nill would find such treatment of Avoxes completely abhorrent; a lot of outworlders seem to, even if in Panem it's seen as strange to treat them like people. At best, it's permitted to acknowledge that they feel pain and weariness like any other beast of burden. "It probably wasn't wise," he says softly. "I think he has a lot of practice running and crying to his mother, but it's still likely for the best that he called for the Peacekeepers before things escalated further, or we'd be in here together."

Which... might not actually be the worst thing, would it?

His mouth twitches slightly at her latest question; it's not the beginning of a smile, more of a shattered tic that communicates more about his stress level than any words possibly can. "I'll be fine, Nill. My reasons for wanting to defend an Avox are at least known to the higher-ups, and this isn't actually the first time I've been in jail for assault. This will blow over; it always does."

[reassures]

I thought he might be with you.

It's sort of one of the reasons she was so concerned when she got here. It's one thing to have a friend to be missing for a not, and while not ideal it was an average enough occurrence for people. It's another thing entirely for the somewhat self-destructive and temperamental mentor going through withdrawal and the person who usually kept him out of trouble to be missing at the same time. It's pretty easy to assume the worst in a situation like that.

Nill huffs a derisive breathe, but even the steam behind that is quickly leaving her.

if it escalated I would have hit him back.
I already spend most nights with you.

Only real difference would probably be lack of a view, and of cigarettes if the guards took hers. ...and possibly having her pencil swapped out for crayons if they were concerned enough. The idea doesn't seem to bother her much.

She's already writing more while Linden answers her last question, and if nothing else it does earn him a very small smile, at least until something about what he says catches her attention. It gets tacked on to the bottom.

I can try to find Harley in the morning. she's out right now.
what do they want you to do if not go cold turkey?
what are your reasons?

Though perhaps she should have, Nill never watched any of Linden's interviews from before or after his Arena, at least not at that age. She might have watched one or two from recent years after she was finished with the Arena, but she hadn't bothered otherwise. Whatever he was like at fifteen-years-old didn't matter if he had changed over the years. All she knows about his background otherwise are what he himself has told her.

[dead_black_eyes]

Linden shakes his head restlessly. That would be something if they were together, it would make this much easier and alleviate a lot of concern. While Linden and Stephen have both had their nights where they've vanished in a wisp of smoke to destinations unknown, it's never been simultaneous like this, and Linden rakes a hand through his black hair in frustration.

His demeanor softens a little at her ensuing words. She's right, but when it's put like that, it sounds different than it is, and again, he's moving to ensure that his back is blocking the camera's view of her notepad. Her lack of concern is touching, but his is restless and building. As a seasoned addict, he knows that every high means a steeper dip and a harder crash, and every time something Nill says raises his heart and his hopes, he endeavors to temper it.

"They want me to taper off until I'm taking smaller doses, and to focus on one thing at a time. Morphling first, then alcohol, that it's too much of a shock to do it all at once. So."

His eyes are downcast and tired. It's strangely relieving to know that he won't have to be completely sober right away, but it's still like letting go of a dream. His crippling dependencies aren't going away overnight no matter how much he wants them to. At her final question, though, he blanches at least a shade paler than bone, and his eyes dart furtively back and forth before he's beckoning her closer to the forcefield. To hide his mouth and speak at a volume the mics can't pick up, they both have to practically be touching, or as close as the field will allow them to come to that.

"My parents," he whispers, daring it, deciding that he wants Nill to know. "Dissenters. They're here somewhere in the Capitol, but all I know is that they look like me."

[reassures]

Nill would be more wary if not for the finer details of the situation. Jason had actually hit her, not as hard as he had the Avox but hard enough to leave a red mark on her face, which the Peacekeepers saw. Luckily for Nill she has something of a good repertoire with the Peacekeepers. Her first day they had been cruel and mocking, and there have been jokes made in interviews about what she had against the potted plant she puked into after she was off the elevator. Since then she has intervened in at least three situations that might have required them, and ultimately saved them work. They wouldn't go against Compson and would need to arrest her had she hit him, but they definitely looked skeptical, especially since she was on the elevator before they even tried to get off. That he didn't hit her harder was telling enough. (The fact that Jason hit her at all doesn't register as something important to mention; it had barely even stung. It doesn't occur to her to be worried about the comment, either. There are already rumors floating around about them.)

you did really well. I never saw anyone last as long as you have.

But when she glances up from writing that note Linden is visibly paler than he was a moment ago, which Nill hadn't entirely thought possible. More often than not he's the one asking her difficult questions to answer, and it might be the first time one of hers has made him so wary. She looks a little concerned, but steps closer nonetheless, smoothing her hair down so no stray strands will hit the barrier by accident.

She's not expecting the answer he gives her at all, and for a moment Nill's eyes go wide, clearly broadcasting her shock. Thankfully Linden is taller than she is, and for the most part her face is out of view of the cameras, but Nill is quick to reign it in to something more manageable. It made a lot of sense. Linden was probably the first person here who actually said the word rebel to her, and that was maybe the second time they had spoken.

There's obvious hesitation before she dares to write anything, but when she does her handwriting is minuscule, and she makes sure to keep it out of the view of the cameras.

are they alive?

If he didn't know what they looked like outside of a family resemblance then they must have been here for a long time. Nill can't decide if being dead or alive would be kinder.

[dead_black_eyes]

Had Linden known that Jason had hit Nill in addition to the Avox, he would have some choice words about and for the man. It might be for the best that he doesn't, that the red mark gets a glance but doesn't appear as vibrant as it might through the forcefield and in the jail's poor lighting. Linden can only shoulder so much scandal and retaliatory violence before he's not just locked in jail, but carted away for a safer and more permanent solution.

Better to cool down. Rewind, reset, recharge. Deep breaths.

"I wanted to do better. I thought I could, for..."

You?

He rakes a hand through his hair again, hating the way he aches for his vices even weeks after quitting, in more ways than just physical discomfort. Their absence means he's looking for other ways to fill the emptiness, ways like Nill's eyes and scent and jotted, gentle words. But she's a person, not a bottle, and if he gets too thirsty, she might withdraw without giving him the option of tapering off.

He's almost touching the forcefield; it's a relief to say things he's had to keep a painful secret for years, but it's also terrifying, and he's not just pale discussing it in a voice so low he's barely breathing, he's practically grey.

"I don't know. I've been trying to find them since I came to the Capitol, they'd be... a matching set. Dark hair, dark eyes, more valuable together because they coordinate. I could try to buy them... but I've had no luck."

Worst case scenario, this gets out and I join them...

[reassures]

Nill, perhaps in what is her norm for disagreement, is very quick to shake her head and wave off his statement; there's not the slightest hesitation, and the words she writes come without pause. It's not a lie as far as she's concerned, and she doesn't leave any room for him to think that it is.

you were amazing. you are.

He had gone for so long, and if not for this he probably could have lasted even longer, even if it did mean the fuse on his temper was a thing that got progressively shorter as more time went on. This incident has not impacted her faith in him, even if it might be a more realistic and practical faith than a blind one. He did so well.

She offers him a flicker of a smile, and glances down at her notepad again. They're lucky today - thanks to the rumors circulating around them it's unlikely that anyone will find how close they are strange. It's not good in terms of the Capitol knowing far too much about them, but it is in the sense that having it mistaken as romance is safer than what they're actually talking about. And there could be so many worse things than people thinking they were in love.

(That may even be framing it more innocently than people assume for as often as they're together.)

There's a pause before she writes this time, but it's not because of hesitation. Her expression is clearly thoughtful; she's trying to recall if she's seen any Avoxes around the tower that might resemble Linden, but none come to mind. She's known very few people that were actually biologically related, and so those resemblances are easy for her to miss.

As sad as it is though Nill doubts that she's seen them. If they looked similar at least in terms of where they came from she wouldn't put it past some Capitolite to own them because they matched the decor, or something equally superficial and disgusting. Snow probably wouldn't let them in the same building as their son either, unless... it was a way to stop him from being sober.

tell me more another time?

It's a conversation that's just too dangerous for this place, and Nill doesn't want to risk them keeping him here longer. Or worse yet, taking him somewhere else, some place that she can't find or follow.

[dead_black_eyes]

The use of such a strong word, amazing, startles a fractured laugh out of Linden. Just barely hanging on, clinging and scrabbling to find purchase in the what so many others do so easily every day, he thinks that it's absurd to be proud of such a struggle. He spent years making it a struggle, after all, building up his tolerance until just getting through the day without being sick meant taking enough Morphling to quietly stop the heart of a first-time user. Or a long-time user, for that matter; hadn't his overdoses proven that much?

To an onlooker, it looks just like a pair of lovers whispering too each other through a forcefield, and while it nudges them closer to the rumors that already link them, it's preferable by far than what's actually happening, the words actually being exchanged in regards to Linden's unfortunate dissenter parents, snatched away from 6 years before their sons's Reaping. Had they known? Had they paused in their duties to notice that their son standing with the other Tributes and then flung into a death trap with them? He's wondered this frequently.

Maybe they're dead, and maybe that's better.

"Of course. You know I always have time for you," he murmurs with a brisk nod and a quick smile. At this point, is it even worth it to try to dissuade those rumors with imposed distance? The forcefield is doing plenty to keep them apart, and somehow without the risk of accidental-on purpose contact, speaking more freely about something safe like friendship suddenly feels very accessible.

"Whether or not you have cigarettes for me."

[reassures]

There will probably be pictures of this in one of the gossip mags in the next day or so. Hell, it might be why the peacekeepers haven't made Nill actually leave yet; why else would they let her stay when it's obviously far later than most tributes are usually even awake?

It can't help that when Nill is done writing this time one of her hands automatically reaches to try to hold his, and Nill remembers herself and the forcefield only a few moments before her fingers would have made contact with it. This time when she smiles it doesn't fade away after a few moments, fond and lingering.

it's the same for you.
even if we don't smoke.

After he's seen it, without a great deal of pause or the smile disappearing again, she adds another line.

before my first Arena I had a bruise on my forehead.
do you remember that?

She had it for almost a week before the Arena, but Linden wasn't doing well at the time at all, and Nill isn't sure if he recalls much of anything from then.

[dead_black_eyes]

There probably will be, but Linden will try to take it gracefully and in stride. He should probably do that with something in his life, after all. He glances down swiftly at the sudden ripple in the forcefield that occurs when she disturbs its surface. Linden Lockhearst is only so strong, and though he knows the day might soon come when he sorely regrets it, he allows his own fingertips to brush against that ripple, softly and briefly, and her smile coaxes his own more subdued one in answer.

The first string of words is pleasant and cheering, but the second causes his own smile to slip after just beginning to look solid. He does remember, even if it feels distant and faded. He had been high all the time, back then, and while some things stick out vividly in his recollection, others are blurry and indistinct.

"Yes, I remember."

If she wants to say more about it, she will. She's going to make a point, don't ask, be patient.

[reassures]

Nill isn't honestly sure if it's good that he remembers that much. She had never asked, and after the peacekeepers came to take her away he had obviously found his way until her return. He never mentioned the note. He must have been okay, even if only in not losing the rest of his ability to function. She hopes he was.

If nothing else it allows her to share this, to offer a point of proof that cannot be exaggerated when considering how bad the bruise was, or by forgetting her reaction to it. Anyone that questioned it at the time was brushed off immediately, and not everyone would see the shame the mark brought, but some must have, even if Linden was too high at the time for it.

I was training with my mentor. Harley.
she's nice. she wanted to show me what I could do.

Considering the tributes really can't get stronger given their circumstances, the best thing to be done is to figure out what they can accomplish as they already are. Harley was pretty intelligent as far as that went.

Harley is cheerful.
she was laughing, and she pinned me.
I broke her nose.

Her mentor assured her later that it was not the case, but Nill remembers the blood, and does not believe her for a moment even now. She hadn't meant to hurt Harley, and remembers the whole thing in snippets and pieces; it's clearest when she got to the roof and finally started crying, because her hands had shaken too much to even get her lighter to work.

It's not the kind of thing that Nill is proud of at all, and she's still very ashamed of it. But Harley had told no one, and Nill had never been in trouble for it. She knows that the situations are ultimately different, but also that Linden has a difficult enough time feeling any kind of connection with the outside world as it is. If she can help him feel a little more real then she doesn't mind telling him her shame.

[dead_black_eyes]

If stumbling around in the dark counts as finding one's way, then Linden did do that... but it was still monumentally difficult. Morphling eased it then the way he can't seem to ease anything now; he feels emotion in broader and more vibrant strokes these days, and he's still not sure how to handle it.

He presses more closely against the forcefield to read her writing, eyes widening slightly. "I see," he murmurs. He can see why she's bringing this up, even if the story's cringeworthy; it's a way to make him feel a little better about his own transgression, a reassurance that trauma can make people lash out wildly even if the context is only very slightly similar.

"You didn't get in trouble for it, did you? I hope that she was understanding of the situation, because that doesn't sound intentional at all, and anyone who knows anything would be able to see it for what it was."

[reassures]

Nill is quick to shake her head. Though Harley was very slow to really understand her comfort lines and how to work around them, since then she's been very good about it. She's even tried to help in a way that will make sure she doesn't react purely on instinct to similar situations in the Arenas, which might save her life one day.

no. I think she understood.
as far as I know she never spoke to anyone about it.

The smile is still on Nill's face, and it goes a little more hesitant here. It's not to the point of unwillingness, but a little more of that shame starts to show through, something on the edges of her demeanor while she tries to make sure her next words are careful.

when we were training it was hand to hand. you might never get to use something in the arena.
I remember living in very dangerous places in the past.
cities that had monsters.
things that would kill you and leave nothing behind.
I remember where I kept things to keep me safe in those places.
I know I reached for them when I was trying to get away from her.

Weapons, the word that would be too dangerous to use outright, that could be too telling. She could lie about it to the Capitol, make it sound like something unspecific and unique to that place, but there's no point to do that now. She wouldn't want to even if there was.

The detail she can't give is that she remembers being on the floor, feeling trapped and terrified and breathless - that she remembers looking at the weapons rack and the door to the stairs, trying to figure out which she could get to faster.

if something was in my hand it would have been used.

[dead_black_eyes]

Linden makes a quick mental note to make sure that should he ever encounter Harley, he'll thank her for her kindness and her patience with Nill. Even if he's sure that the angel-winged girl has already done this on every possible level, it seems appropriate to make his own appreciation known.

He wants to find some way to reach through the forcefield and somehow erase some of Nill's clear shame. He wishes he could plainly tell her that she has no reason to feel it, that her travels and experiences prior to Panem were ones she only had so much control over (usually less rather than more, by the sheer sounds of it.)

"It's OK," he says, the three spoken syllables sounding paltry and bare when compared to the lines of writing on her pages. "If the places you were before were just as dangerous as an Arena, no one sane would blame you for it." Considering Harley, maybe that wasn't the best possible choice of words, but Linden stands by it; to notoriously volatile and damaged Victors, "sane" often isn't meant literally, but is shifted to mean something more like "reasonable." There's a spectrum, and a lot of variance, but "reasonable" is not too much to ask of most.

"You trust me to tell me these things. I'm honored that this is the case."

[reassures]

It wouldn't be so much "less" as "never." It's one of the reasons she blames herself as much as she does for every thing she has ever done, because it's easier to be in control and hate yourself than unable to control anything in your life. Last time she started thinking that way it got her killed, as well as creating a drinking problem prior to that. One day when she actually can be in control she might be able to live with that knowledge, but for now she can't.

sometimes it was very similar to the arena.

She wishes she could say that the meaning is literal, that she was in this exact scenario before, and the main difference was that it was temporary - it ended eventually, and then she could go back to her life. On the other hand, the Quarter Quell was never-ending. It's not the kind of shame that one outlives.

Linden will probably recognize the very small, fond little smile that spreads across her face, and though she smile is genuine it's not carefree. The topic weights on her too heavily, but how much she cares about Linden wins out over it, even if not in entirety.

you are the person I trust most here.

[dead_black_eyes]

Linden has been in jail before, and is actually pretty used to it. This is the first time he's felt a pang of something other than annoyance or boredom at being behind bars. It might be genuine regret that he is inaccessible to someone who trusts him most. For someone like Nill, that's probably saying a lot, and he's grateful, even if he thinks he is woefully undeserving of any kind of faith.

I trust you is hard for him to say to anyone. The words stick in his throat and he hates that he can't perfectly balance and reciprocate the sentiment.. That scar slicing across his throat has ruined him for trust, and he recognizes that it's unfair to Nill, who hasn't even let him down like he feels Stephen has tonight.

"I... believe you must know my feelings. I worry often that they're so obvious that everyone does."

[reassures]

She doesn't expect him to reciprocate the small written gesture of faith, and when he doesn't her expression doesn't so much as flicker. It has taken her years after so much loss to trust again, and even then she was so careful about who she did trust. She's had a long time to learn how to give people that power over her again, and Nill doesn't think Linden ever had that kind of opportunity, save for maybe Stephen.

It takes her a moment longer to write this time, and she's obviously a little more hesitant than she was for some of the previous messages. Her smile doesn't fade, but it does take on a gentler note, maybe even just a touch more somber. When she holds it up again her handwriting is smaller, purposely angled this time so that he won't need to move to make sure it doesn't line up with the cameras. This time when she lifts her other hand to brush against the force field her fingers linger there.

I do.
they're complicated, but do you know mine?

They aren't complicated for the reasons that Linden has been told about. The trust that is saved specifically for physical contact is not one that Nill knows how to give most people, or to stop thinking about, and it might be a long time before she could manage much in that regard, but it's not the really complicated thing.

The thing that complicates it the most is the voice of a dead boy bouncing around in her head, "It's just you. And if you marry someone else I'm definitely not going to be happy about it. But I guess I'd try to understand. Eventually," followed by her own typed words, "I'm not going to marry someone else. That isn't something you need to think about."

It wasn't about marriage, not really, it was about love and he had been such a jealous person that Nill is certain he would never have understood.

She would tell Linden about him, that she loved him but only ever told him lies, that she never let him know about her if she didn't need to with the excuse of keeping him safe, but Nill is terrified that if she referred to him as anything other than the boy she got killed that the Capitol might try to bring him back. She would never be selfish enough to let them do that.

[dead_black_eyes]

He was afraid she'd write something like that. He swallows as he takes in those words, the ones that both confirm that he's been obvious and invite speculation on her own feelings. Either way, Linden believes that he's doomed; what answer can he give, what assumption is he free and bold enough to make here?

His own smile is a broken one.

"Complicated," he replies, each syllable crisply pronounced even in his undertone. "I know what I wish for, but don't worry. I know it's selfish and unfair, and I know I shouldn't ask for it."

I can be patient and kind without being jealous. I could do it even if this forcefield was permanent. It's OK.

"...but that's all still how I feel. I can't speak for you."

[reassures]

Nill is fully aware that her phrasing was poor, that it may have just hurt him more than it helped anything, but she didn't want to lie to him when the only thing she had ever done for that boy was lie. Even then it just made things so much worse. Her fingers curl against the forcefield before her hand draws away again.

it's not that.
I'm trying not to let a ghost stop me from living.

It's hard, it's so hard, because every single bit of self-loathing and pain screams that she should let the ghost do whatever it wants, that it should be the most important thing, that to do anything but that is moving on, tantamount to cruelty and betrayal, the worst possible thing. How dare she try to live. How dare she want to be anything that wasn't just death and misery.

I don't feel alive. I don't feel real.
sometimes I do when I'm with you.

There are so many phrases she doesn't know how to use and emotions she doesn't know how to convey in written form. All Nill has are this handful of jumbled words and they feel so incompetent.

[dead_black_eyes]

It isn't so much phrasing as Linden's own apprehension, the desire to say something competing with the desperation to keep their faces and fingers away from any nearby chopping blocks. For everything he'd like to say, every soft and tender sentiment that Nill stirs in him like no one else can, the spiny and brusque demeanor he's cultivated bristles up like a wall of thorns to remind him that he's a very dangerous person to care very much about at all.

You're a Victor, but you're still a Districter. You're just as temporary as any other mortal, and more disposable than you realize. Is it really worth a confession or a bold kiss to put your job and your life in jeopardy?

"I know just what you mean..."

He would have to, being the guy who has been living enslaved to the memory of a dead Tribute for over a decade since the tumultuous ending of his own Games.

"You deserve to feel alive and real all the time. If I could, I'd give you that. Even if I don't actually know how, I'd keep trying."

It feels worth it, right now.

[reassures]

Every word she scratches onto paper and every hushed phrase from Linden's mouth is one step closer to getting the two of them in a world of trouble. So many people assume they already are together, but the point of it all is that the ones actually in charge at least didn't seem to think so. It was probably the only saving grace they had between the two of them, and just for being here for as long as she has it's probably ruining everything they have tried to maintain until now.

The only thing that keeps reminding Nill of it is the fact that most likely if they were going to hurt either of them, the one they would decide to kill off would be Linden. His death would be the easiest, followed by a memorial, something about the dangers of drugs, and they would make his memory into a sham, all the while reminding Nill that it was her fault. How could she even be bitter, or begin to deny that? It would be her fault.

I know you would.

Too dangerous. Far, far too dangerous. She offers him a ghost of a smile, faint but genuine enough, before she goes to write again.

I should go try to find Stephen again.

[dead_black_eyes]

Too far? Too late.

Despite the realization, and knowing just as well as Nill how precarious and potentially fleeting his life is, Linden doesn't regret a word of it. She knows, and that alone is worth the risk.

"Right, of course," he answers, reluctant to see her go while recognizing the necessity of her timely departure. "If you find him, please send him my way. I don't want to be stuck in here tomorrow night, too... that would be utterly humiliating for 6."

[reassures]

If she could, if it would somehow not come back to bite their throats before they had a chance to do anything, Nill would just stay here. It's not an option though, not if she wants them to stay alive.

Though not happy about needing to leave Nill she still manages a very small smile for him.

I will.

She steps away from the barrier then, and lingers long enough to wave slightly before turning to leave. Even if she manages to find Stephen she won't return with him.