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Is that so?

[anna looks over, turning a little bit so her body can face her sister's. she's happy. she really is. 2B deserves the chance to discover herself. anna notices that gesture and gives it a bit of an imperfect mirror; for her, of course, it's her silent signal to A2 that she's thinking of her. it's different, she thinks. it must be.]

What place have you been finding? [maybe she's being a little unnecessarily clever with her words.] Did you end up going to the same place as I did, maybe? The other Trench?

[might as well come out with it. she doesn't want to sit around making small talk when there's other things that they stand a chance to catch up on that are maybe a little more urgent.]

[ 2B sets her jaw and lines her lips, straight-lined and stiff. not that it would successfully hide the subtle traces of tension on her features— she was never exactly good at hiding things, as much as she’d always do. it helps less, when she not only feels more, but all of that is irritable as of late.

she is still confused, and all at the same time warmed to her core and icing over it with frustration. ]

For some time. I, [ it sounds fond, empathetic at the tip of her tongue; she bites it back. ] stayed, willingly.

[ but then came the hurt. physical pain that felt too insignificant in comparison. then there had been the mental anguish. that, perhaps hurt more than any open wound she would have. a few fingers curl at the edge of her dress. she smooths it out and says: ]

—They never showed us that side of humanity on Bunker.

Edited 2022-10-21 00:19 (UTC)

[anna nods along, thinking about the things in the other trench that she saw. the people. dinah. woe. the face-scarred man whose name she never knew. but she sees 2B's hand curl around her dress and she reaches out to place her own hand on the back of it. and she thinks about... more. about the other side of humanity.]

Yeah. It got... dark, over there.

[her black box heart is pulsing more rapidly, and there's anxiety buzzing in the back of her head, but she can't place the reason for it. she just doesn't know. if she thinks too hard about it, she remembers dinah, she remembers woe, she remembers walking towards the ritual, she remembers her saying—something, and then there's. there's black. there's darkness. there's panic all around her, the cold wet ground and a terror she can't name, and—]

[she's inside her own head, but her eye is wide, and she's holding 2B's hand far tighter than she means to. she's aware, awake, but she feels like her heart is going a thousand miles an hour and could explode at any second, and her head is pounding, and her chest is heaving, and she doesn't know what's happening to her. she needs help.]

[ 2B doesn't so much flinch on contact as she does go completely still— even any breathing has been held in favor of guiding her eyes downward at the weight upon her hand. she doesn't squeeze further, doesn't unfurl her fingers. it's almost as if she's treating the touch much like a spider has crawled on her and she prefers not to startle it to bite her. the reality of it was that she didn't know what to do. maybe she knew what she wanted to do, when the bundle of pumps, tissue and muscle inside her jump more than her frame lets on. the immediate act upon it is retarded, and such was the life of an android with too many feelings and hardly the impartiality to be comfortable with it.

but . . . anna squeezes. anna goes far, far away by the time 2B lifts her gaze and realizes. the pressure around her knuckle joints is tight. it doesn't hurt her, but she feels it. she does not pull away but now reacts, with a gentle hold that hardly means a thing to tension around it. ]

Anna?

[but the thing is that... the gentle hold is almost all that anna needs right now. she has someone here, where she didn't last time. and her brain recognizes it's different. she hears her name, and she recognizes it as her name. and she's... not stable, no. but she's not losing herself. her other hand slowly comes over and presses against 2B's hand too. her eye's still closed and her breaths are still shaking but she... she has help. she has help, this time, and it's fine. it's okay. it's good. it's good and she'll be okay. breathe. breathe like your lungs still matter.]

[she doesn't know how long she stays like that without saying anything. it feels like a while. she wishes it weren't. she's sitting there with her shoulders shaking with her breaths. it takes too long for her eye to open again, but when she does, her vision is cloudy. she's still looking dead in front of her, but her field of view is blurry and full of sparks.]

I'm here. I'm here. Sorry. [another shaky breath.] I think something bad happened down there. I think something really, really bad happened to me, and that's when A2 came out. Maybe to try to protect me.

[ she isn't good at this— but she can't recoil from anna. she sees her face, knows or at least has an idea of what's happening up there in her mind's troubled eye. pod picks up vital spikes, but reads the room enough to not comment on it. besides— 2B was already on it. ]

From what?

[ she should keep more of an eye out for her. she should be protecting her. perhaps she should've protected her, but where was she? ]

[anna lets herself feel the world around her. the breeze, the leaves, the tree. she takes in the smells and the sounds and she grounds herself with them. as she descends into her thoughts again, her memories, she pulls out flashes. she remembers—]

Woe. I met Woe, in the other Trench. [blood and death and rituals and cults.] I agreed to help her bring someone back to our side. And I said... I said something to her, and she did something, and my—[she inhales. she presses her palm to the ground and her fingers dig into the dirt. a moment, two, to stabilize herself.]

She did something, and my body stopped listening to me. It stopped working.

[ 2B had stilled, before. now, now the name causes her to freeze, inside and out. woe. woe, whose hands plucked her soul and gave her concrete reason to believe she truly had one. the hands that caused her to combust from the alien properties weaving in and out of her body. hands that weaved for her tissue, organic pumps, a heart— and the same hands that, after a breath of miraculous life, had sent her away. woe, who looked down upon her when she touched her face, and swiftly pried away to send her off.

conflict traps the gears that turn within her, and immediately she could no longer find a side to stand on. the feeling of being stretched apart, worried— torn. ]

Did she . . . Pull your soul—?

[ it's what she could manage to ask, with her caution. ]

[anna's throat feels dry, but she forces herself to hang on to that feeling. it's humanity. it's terror and it sinks her stomach and it's her. she shakes her head slowly.]

No. I don't think so. I think... I think it was...

[she's right there. she can get there. she knows she can. she just has to say it. she tries, and she tries, and her throat tightens when she attempts to remember it. and she stops after not too long. if she can talk around it, if she can lead herself up to it, maybe it'll be easier.]

The one thing I was most afraid of when I started getting A2's body was losing control of myself. I thought somebody could just shut her off like a switch and I would be there... I would be there helpless until someone turned her back on. And I think... I think that's what Woe did. I was... awake, I was awake and I could hear her talking but I couldn't move. I couldn't move at all.

[ being without control of one's body was terrifying. willing your limbs to move when they could not. perhaps losing that very control you have, swiped and given to an invasion of their system. it was one thing 2B feared to have become, had she stayed alive once being ejected from the bunker. her hand never leaves anna's.

her lips have become just as dry. ]

Why did she do this?

I don't know. [she can't even remember what exactly it was she'd been saying. but whatever it was... whatever it was had caused woe to turn on her so sharply that there hadn't been any chance to stop it.]

I don't know why she did it. But she scared me enough that... she scared me so bad that I couldn't be in my own body anymore. [she's shaking. touching 2B's hand. staying grounded. she has to stay grounded.] I think that's... I think that's how it happened.

[she's out of it. she's not there anymore. she's here. she's safe. she's safe and she's in the real trench and her sister is with her.]

I begged someone for help and A2 answered. She got me out of there safely. She must have.

[ the whirl of things that 2B feels at once is hard to contain. it's even harder when her paleblood boils so easily into irritation as she remembers— she remembers that she was sent away. if she had been there, she could've been the one to help anna, even stop the experience from ever happening. if only she had been there, if only she'd been there, if only woe hadn't just thrown her back through a portal after giving her a heart— ]

I should have been there.

[ 2B manages to graze the words through her teeth. she only does not seem to be squeezing anna's hand because she's containing it.

but her breathing is just a touch harsher through the nose. her limbs are stiffer— but she thinks of anna, she thinks of woe, and cloverfield's lonely touch drives her to stinging eyes she dips her face away from. ]

[anna jerks her head up, looks directly at 2B. this reaction isn't right, or it's not expected, or... something feels wrong. she pushes herself to her knees and doesn't really know the best way to handle this, but she thinks... she thinks there needs to be something else she can do here. maybe it's the idea of someone wearing a face that's already damn close to her sister's saying that she should have been there. anna's the one who screwed up.]

Hey. [she says it quickly, breathless, and she wraps her arms around 2B's shoulders and pulls her into a hug, tugging her head against anna's chest. 2B must know that there won't be a real heart below that metal chassis, but anna's holding her with such care that it would be easy to assume she still has a human heart in there.]

Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known. It's not your fault.

[ she only has embraced 9S in her life, and that was in plenty of his deaths. she remembers daniel securing her from a blood sport episode, carrying people, cradling a dead man she failed to save— it wasn't frequent, for her to press chests against others. anna would find that she hovers in a fraction of suspended animation when her arms squeeze her. slowly, her hands settle on each of anna's shoulder bones. her head rests on her shoulder and finally relaxes from a strain meant to keep it upright. their hearts were the funniest thing— anna's was mechanical, she could feel it whirring in its pumps, filters and gears. 2B's no longer was the same. she had lost her's in her combustion. she was woven another.

she's finally hugging her back, in what seems like a breakdown of her emotional stiffness. it's so much easier to these days when her paleblood gives her that extra push with the emotions she senses around her. ]

I don't— [ it wasn't her blame. it wasn't her fault. these things were all true, she knew this, and yet— ] I want to be. Whenever you need me— I want to be there.

[ i want to hear your call so i can come. ]

[god, she really does sound like—no. don't think like that right now, girl.]

I know, 2B. [she strokes the android's hair slowly while she talks. she wants to comfort her as though anna's not the one coming out of a panic attack. she wants 2B to be okay, and she can be the brave one who handles everything else.] But nobody can be everywhere at once. And it all happened so fast that nobody could've stopped it.

[that's not what 2B is saying, though, and anna thinks she knows that. her heart hurts just a little bit.]

I should be the one saying this stuff to you anyway. I should be the one who protects you. I'm older.

[ 2B snorts into the crook of anna's neck. she should be the one who protects her? comfort her right after what anna had been through? oh, anna. she's only not the one doing the comforting here because she's horrible at trying. and how it takes time for 2B to unwind from her stiffness into the arms that hold her and the body she holds. all of this— it's quite different. it's very new.

but she does not dislike it. there is a vulnerability in it, yes, she's unused to that, the closeness it creates when you lower your guard, just enough to feel it . . . was something. ]

That's hardly reasoning. [ she squeezes, now. just enough to keep their chests to one another's— anna's heart pumps, mechanically, and 2B's beats organically. how ironic— ] Please— call me. It doesn't matter what it is. I'll find my way to you.

Edited 2022-11-01 17:15 (UTC)

[anna breathes out, and her lips are turned upward, and it could be a laugh if she had the strength in her chest to make it happen. she's gotten used to the sensation of being close with another person, but this feels like... no. no, it doesn't feel that way, because you don't remember what it feels like to be hugged by your little sister, anna. this is something different.]

I'm bad at that. [she says it honestly as her hand moves up to touch the back of 2B's head, to tangle her fingers in her hair.] Kainé's been trying to get me better at it. I think I'll get there. But I don't want you to be saying that just because I'm a human, 2B.

[she wants it to be more than that. she wants them to be more than that.]

[ just because she's human. it makes 2B's voice clap, a sort of jostled gasp that can't quite accept what her ears tell her. the rise of fingers in her hair is a new sensation, fingertips to the scalp, carding through rather than simply cupping— a wave of something frightening and electrifying trails behind the touch. it does not cause her to retreat. she cradles her in her embrace as if frightened of losing her. ]

It's not because of what you are. [ she knows this— this, she knows. it fuels her desire to get rid of what binds her, but she could distinguish. ] It's who, Anna.

Edited 2022-11-04 18:08 (UTC)

[the smile on her face only gets bigger. she goes from shaking and struggling for control to just... beaming against 2B. they already are more than that. and it's not just because of who anna carries within her chest; she can tell that. she can tell it by the way 2B says her name. it is because of who she is, who she is. she breathes out and for a second it feels like she's going to start crying. she sniffles.]

God. I needed to hear that right now, 2B. [she pulls her head back, and her hand moves through 2B's hair as her touch gets gentler. she's halfway cupping the side of 2B's face, the smoothness of her skin not lost to anna's ruined fingertips, and anna is smiling, and things are going to be okay.] Thanks for seeing who I am. Even if you don't know everything about me yet. [a small pause.] I can tell you more, if you want.

[ what does she do? she doesn't do a thing, she doesn't know if she could if she tried, when the inside of a palm still warm enough to feel the curvature of her cheek holds it, allows her to set in it. anna's eyes glimmer with a veil of wetness and 2B sees it. 2B's hand wavers to lift, and when it does— her fingertips rest upon the top of her hand that touches hers. nothing bad happened after she did, but she couldn't lie to say that this amount of intimacy was frightening.

it doesn't scare her away, this time. ]

I'd want that.

[she sees that 2B eventually succumbs to the parts of her that anna would insist are human. the soul, literally, or the heart, metaphorically, or whatever it is. but in this moment she feels like the two of them embody a twilight of existence, android and human both at once, and she's content with it. relieved. grateful.]

Well then. [she doesn't move her hand away.] My name is Annalise Amarande Lehmann. Born in 1992 in Germany, on Earth. In 1995, my sister, Beth, was born, and I love her so... so much. [she doesn't dwell.] In 2018, I met A2 for the first time when her soul started resonating with mine across ten thousand years. I still don't know the reason why she picked me, or if that's even what happened, but I think I have a couple ideas. She... saved me, really. [there's laughter on her breath when she admits it.] She kept me moving forward when I thought there wasn't anything else to live for.

[ the information is burned into her memory. annalise amarande lehmann. 1992, germany, earth. beth. 1995. contact with A2 soul fragment: 2018. ten thousand years apart. the why of its happening was no longer important. A2 was there, and would not do something she did not agree to. ]

If it weren’t for A2— I wouldn’t have been at rest. We have that in common. [ 2B pauses, and there’s something her fingers were so close to, before the pads lightly graze the side of her face. ] And your eye?

My eye.

[this one takes a moment. the corners of anna's mouth drop a little, a quieter smile tinged with far more regret than there probably should be. this is the most honest she'll end up being about it, she thinks. more than just going over the facts and hoping those will be enough. she takes her hand back and slowly reaches up to the band of her eyepatch, then removes it, careful not to bump 2B's hand while she does. she lets her hair fall into her face, then brushes it off to one side. both eyes open again, and underneath the eyepatch is the black-and-silver seaglass eye that she's kept with her for years now.]

I went on a trip down below the layers of reality, into a place where nobody really knew what to expect. I found a secret, hidden laboratory where I found out that people had been experimenting on soul magic for... years, maybe. Maybe longer. I found souls of people I recognized from my memories—Kainé, No.4, other people who just shouldn't have been there. [she thinks 2B's had been there, too, but she can't recall.]

I... got into a fight with a creature that was trying to kill me. A giant brain. I don't really remember how I killed it, but I did end up killing it... maybe it's one of those times that A2 saved me again, you know? But when I was on my way out of the lab, it had one parting shot from behind the grave, and it just... it got rid of my eye. It's like it wrote my eye out of existence or something. [she feels tension in her shoulders. she breathes in, and out, and in again.]

I had friends to help me recover, but it still... it's still scary, you know? Losing parts of my body like that. When I already have so little of my original body left. [she pushes her hair back again. it's a nervous gesture and god is she feeling the nerves. not-rose's question still echoes in her head, and she repeats the words quietly.] How many organs can I even lose before it doesn't matter anymore? I try not to think about that too hard. I can talk about how me and A2 work together and get along just fine, but there's always going to be part of me that's... afraid that one day I'll just stop existing the way everyone knows me.

[ it brings her pain. it brings her fear and in one quick moment, 2B had wished she didn't ask. that was, perhaps, before she realized the importance of anna telling her anything at all. her hands come back to her lap in waiting, watching, analyzing both the other woman's words and what was left of a socket filled with glass to damper the emptiness.

tentatively, once anna has finished speaking, her fingers rise again. she does not touch what's within it, but rather what was around it. ]

That can't happen.

[ she knows she could hardly relate all that much when she was born expendable while anna was born unique, only to be made expendable if her organic parts were taken from her. maybe she could begin to understand whilst standing on the opposite side of that fear and dipping her toes into the thin threshold that kept them apart. ]

You'll always be Annalise Amarande Lehmann.

[ with certainty. with complete confidence that that was the truth and nothing more or less. now, 2B takes anna's hand, and gives it a guiding pull from the fingers. it looks as if she wants to show her something and is asking permission in a silent way. ]

[anna has heard this from a handful of people before; she shouldn't be surprised to hear it coming from 2B, as well. but she has such a strange connection with the android, one that couldn't ever be simple, one that makes even the simplest things surprising in their own ways.]

Maybe.

[the word is quiet, like she's not sure of herself. like she wants desperately to believe it herself. she doesn't stop 2B from doing what she will with her hand. with their hands. she wants to know what there is to show her; there's anticipation in her eye and a hum within her chest.]

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