Ninteenth Unused Utility Belt | Video, backdated to after the breach ends (cw: fire damage)

[hellofist]

[The feed comes on to show Cass... well, she kind of looks like crap. But more than that, behind her her room, her real room on the Barge, seems to be confused about what it wants to be. In some places it's a replication of what Merlin's room looks like - there's his bed in one corner, a large wooden table with a red rose in a pot, for example.

Other parts are what the inside of a burned down building would look like. There's smoke damage, blackened walls, the remains of a dresser. The big computer is halfway melted and warped, the screen cracked and beyond repair. Looks like the Barge couldn't recreate what home is for Cass because she doesn't even know herself anymore.]

I'm back.

[There's not... that much to say after that, really. She's back, yay, no she doesn't want to talk about it.]

It was... about a week? I think. Learned... lots of things. About me, about... what I'm for. Why I... was made. It's funny, how you can... be so sure, who you are, but be... completely wrong.

Anyway. Back.


[Private to Merlin]
Are you... working? Or in room?


[Private to Dean, Chris, and Cassel, sent separately]
Have... to give you something. Can I come over?


[Private to Stephanie]
I understand, now. Why... I'm not Batgirl. Why you are. I didn't really, before. But... I'm glad you are.


[Private to Kon]
[After far too long passes with no answer to Steph, Kon gets a slightly panicked message from Cass.]

Where is Stephanie?


[Private to Dick Grayson and Tim Drake]
I know... that you won't see this. You can't. I just miss you. I shouldn't, but I wish... you were here.

Comments

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[He's been collecting himself since she appeared on the network - has been trying to - can't, really. There are so many questions he simultaneously wants to ask and doesn't want to know the answers to, and what little she's said -

It's funny, how you can... be so sure, who you are, but be... completely wrong.

- it frightens him.

But for all that, he opens the door the instant he hears the first knock and all he wants to do is pull her close and tell her that she was missed, that she's loved no matter what, and yet...

He knows how much can change in a week. So at first he doesn't move at all.]

Cass.

SPAM

[hellofist]

[He doesn't move, but she does. She has to, seeing all of that in him and feeling as lost as she does, she has to put her arms around him and hug him tightly, face buried against his chest.]

I'm sorry. I didn't- I'm so sorry, Merlin.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

No. No, no, no. Please don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault.

[He wraps his arms around her, draws her into him, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head. He doesn't know how or why, not yet, but she's changed in ways even he can see.]

I'm just happy you're back.

[Happy you're home.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

[Her arms tighten around him when he says that and she nods, rapidly.]

Me too.

[She had always thought if she went home, it would be her choice. She'd be able to prepare for it, but she wasn't ready at all for what did happen.]

Are you okay?

Re: SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[He withdraws just enough to meet her eyes, so she can read him, so she'll know he isn't lying to reassure her.]

I am. I am now. I'm - worried, about you, but...I'm alright. [He smiles wanly.] I missed you.

SPAM

[hellofist]

[She reaches up to touch his face, thumb rubbing against his cheekbone. How could she forget him, when he means... everything, to her? How long will it take that guilt to fade?]

I missed you. I'm just... glad Barge gave memories back.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

So am I. I - I wouldn't have wanted what happened to me to happen to you too.

[He cups his hand over hers, strokes his fingertips lightly over her knuckles.]

Do - you want to come in? I know there are so many people you must need to talk to.

[So many people who love her, and he's glad of every single one of them.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

Later. Want to be here. Need to be.

[She doesn't think she can make herself leave now, not yet. Part of her aches because it's only been a week, a little more maybe, but it feels so much longer. It feels like lifetimes. She hugs him again, holding him tightly.]

Everything changed, Merlin. Everything... is gone. So glad this isn't. I love you.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

I love you too. I love you, Cassandra.

[It isn't as if he's really been able to deny her anything for a long time and he just holds her, hand rubbing across her back gently.

They're just like that for a while, quiet and still and together, but eventually he has to say it.]

If you want to talk about it...

[He wants to hear it, of course he does, he wants to know - but if it's still too much and too raw, he'll understand. Even if it never stops being that way.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

[She doesn't at all, but she needs to. He needs to know and she doesn't want him to worry about what ifs.]

We should sit.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

...Alright.

[He steps back, reluctantly, to let her into his cabin - to the table near the back of the room where they've sat together dozens of times before, eating breakfast, drinking tea, talking about nothing much. It's a small pool of normality to offer in a world that seems much changed, for her.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

[She stays right with him, close and secure, and her shoulders start to relax once she's inside, seeing this, feeling the comfort of this room again. She's safe here, Merlin is safe here. She sits with him, as close as she can be.]

Went looking for her, for Shiva. Learned... Ra's al Ghul, leader of assassins, wanted... assassins to start young. So they... would always protect, blindly, their master. There were... many, before me. Brothers and sisters. They all... failed. It was too much.

So, Cain and Shiva... had me. Was supposed to be... the One Who is All.

[She shakes her head, because how stupid is that title. Stupid and heavy, she still feels the weight of it after having it sit on her shoulders even for a day.]

When I found her... she had students. Was ready to fight them, but... they bowed. She expected me... to train them, with her. Help her. To... join her.

Re: SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[Bowed. He thinks of Finna, bowing to him, calling him the geat Emrys. But she expected something great of him, something noble.

He wraps his arm loosely around Cass' shoulders, not drawing her in but just making sure his presence is felt. He wants her to know he's here for her.]

What happened?

[He doesn't need to ask whether she refused that sort of an offer.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

We fought. When I asked her... if she was my mother, she-

[She stops there, takes a shuddering breath and holds it for a second to try to keep herself calm.]

Mocked me. Asked... if I felt loved, while she... tried to kill me. She was pushing me, making me... angry, so I'd fight harder. There's a man, back home, with ice powers. He froze me, when I'd... almost beat her. Was stuck, then. Had to listen to their plans.

Ra's Al Ghul's daughter was there. She wanted... me to join her, too. Killed her father, wanted to... take his work, take me. Said Batman kept me dumb, to... keep me a tool. Said she'd teach me, show me everything. Just had to... join her. Kill people. Said no. Ended up getting away, with students, but they... all died. Were killed, by Mad Dog.

He kept saying... he saw me, like I see. Called me sister, said he'd kill me. Tried to protect someone, jumped in front. He... got me. Here.

[She presses her hand to her chest, right over where he ran her through.]

Last thing I saw... was Shiva.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[Gods. It's a little awkward with them sitting side by side, but he does draw her close then, a surge of protectiveness almost overcoming him that has no outlet now because this is all history, all past, she's faced it all and come out the other side.

He wishes he could have been there. He doesn't even know if it would have been possible but he wants to have been there, to have kept her safe.

He doesn't say anything yet; can't. If there's anything left to come - and he knows there could be - he doesn't want to disrupt her.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

[It's still very recent, so she turns to hug him back, trying not to cling but still clinging just a little. The telling is almost done, there's just a little more.]

While I... was dead, I saw Stephanie. She was... taking me away, I guess. To where... dead people go. Told me everything, about Cain and... Bludhaven, how it was gone. Showed me... how I failed. My city, my friends, the people I loved... gone.

[Her last moments with Brenda and Zero are clear in her head and she thinks she might cry for the chances lost there, the friendship and love that she could have finally had. Lost forever, now that she's back here. That may never stop hurting.]

There's magic in my world. A Lazarus Pit, it... brings back the dead. They tend to come back... wrong, insane. Very violent. Shiva put me in, and I... came back that way, too. She trapped me, waited til I... was calm. Then, told me everything.

She had me... so I'd kill her. To stop her. Said she killed forty-eight people, since I'd seen her. And she... wasn't going to stop. Told me she'd keep going...

So I killed her. She... thanked me, as she died. Then... I just left. Left everything.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[Now he knows she's done, and he understands.

How you can... be so sure, who you are...

Merlin's killed people. It has changed him. Every one of them, he carries like a hook snagging into his heart, Morgana most of all - but he did it, because his other options were too awful to contemplate, and if he could live his life over he knows he'd make the same decisions.

He knows Cassandra isn't like him, and he truly thinks she's better for it. One death was too much for her to bear. Two - her own mother -

He fears what this will do to her. What it's already done.]

I'm so sorry, Cass. I'm so sorry she demanded that of you.

[Because that's the horror of this, as he hears it. Shiva took the lives of everyone she'd killed and weighed them against the principles Cassandra had come to live by, and forced her to choose. As if any choice would have been right.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

[She leans back a little bit, reaching into her pocket to pull out a strip of folded black fabric.]

I can't... be who I was, anymore. I don't know how, after... everything. But it still means something. Needs to be remembered.

[She holds the scrap out to him now, the most important piece of her. It's the symbol from her suit, her symbol. She can't wear it anymore, so she cut it free and the only place it can go is into Merlin's care.]

Re: SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[He accepts the patch as if he's taking a sacred relic, and he doesn't tell her she's wrong. When Merlin left the lakeside of Avalon to return to the Barge he didn't think, either, that he could be anything that he'd been before. He'd had one task, in Arthur's protection, and failed at it completely.

It took him months to realise that there was something more, something beyond what he'd perceived as the end - and Cass had helped him come to that knowledge. Maybe she'll change her mind, eventually; maybe he'll help her do it. But it'll take time, as all wounds take time to heal.]

I'll take care of it. I swear.

[Until she's ready to reclaim it, if she ever will be.]

SPAM

[hellofist]

I know. There's a reason... you get most important part of me.

[They're the same in this way too, as horrible as that is. She wishes they weren't and that they had normal lives, no killing or dying or losing, but at every turn they've both been handed the worst possible outcome.

But Merlin is strong, and Cass knows she's strong too. This doesn't have to break her, she can find a way to move forward and become something new. The only question is what will that be?]

I don't... know what to do, now. When I left Bludhaven, didn't plan... to ever go back.

Re: SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[The most important part of her. Merlin knows. He gets her heart, because a long time ago he offered to protect it. He takes her hand.]

You don't have to know yet. I didn't. You know how long it took me to feel like there was anything left for me, after - after Arthur.

SPAM

[hellofist]

[She nods, leaning closer to him and squeezing his hand.]

I know. I have time, to... figure it out, here.

[But she wants to be different now because as it stands, the last thing she did was kill someone. Her mother. It feels like what defines her and she doesn't regret it.

There's a small, dark part of her that might not ever regret it. How can she when she's prevented the deaths of so many people? There might be blood on her hands, but doesn't the lives she's saved outweigh the one she took?]

I know I should... be sorry, for killing her. She was my mother. I am sorry that she... had to die. But not sorry she's dead.

Re: SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[He ducks his head.]

...I felt that way about Morgana. I know it's not the same, but -- I loved her, a little, a long time ago. I would have done anything to stop her, but...in the end, there was only one thing I could do. And I'm not sorry that I did it.

SPAM

[hellofist]

Merlin...

[She lets go of his hand so she can hug him again, wondering what it is about them that draws all the worst things the universe has to hand out to them. It may be worse for Merlin, Morgana is here, he has to live his days here knowing he might see her, have to confront that loss constantly. At least Shiva is far away.]

I'm sorry. I wish... things could be different.

SPAM

[takeyouapart]

[He returns the hug, leaning into her.]

So do I.