(no subject)

[cryobiological]

Matt's gone.

Matt's gone.

"It's not my fault," she murmurs quietly, over and over like a litany, like she's trying to convince herself.

Because she is trying to convince herself.

She's not supposed to do something stupid like wreck the empty cabin, the way she did when Scott left. The barge had lost its grip on Scott. That's what Jean had said. The barge is a living thing, and it loses people, sometimes. It's not always intentional.

But even if it isn't, even if the barge's grip - such as it is - is random, even if Matt didn't mean to leave ...

Why the fuck does it keep happening to the people she gets close to?

Something heavy lurches in her stomach and she's caught between wanting to slump against the wall, right outside his empty cabin, and just start crying; and unleashing her power at its full force. She still wants to do that. She still wants to, so she doesn't deserve the title she's been bestowed. She doesn't deserve to graduate, not when she still has such violent impulses. Not when she can do so much more damage with the power cap lifted.

Ice spikes form around her hands, but ...

But there's nothing to do with them. Wrecking rooms won't solve anything; it'll just hurt the barge. It'll just break things. It won't even make her feel better.

She slams her ice-covered fist against the wall behind her, letting the pieces shatter, instead of punching a hole through it. "You stupid barge," she mutters, choking on the words as she closes her eyes and tries to ignore the sting behind them. "You stupid, stupid barge."

Jean would help. But she's not here anymore, either. Neither is the other counselor they had for a hot minute. No one is left. This is what she gets for trying to get close to anyone, ever.

Frost wants to shut down and never talk to anyone again. Just keep pushing them all out. Make them all hate her again so she doesn't have to deal with fucking losing people.

Snow wants to find anyone that might remotely consider her a friend and unload everything to them, most likely over a copious amount of alcohol.

She takes out her communicator and her thumb hovers over the entry for Barnes. She scrolls all the way down to Rory. Back up. Back down.

Christ, she let herself fall in love with Matt.

What a stupid, stupid thing to do.

Comments

[routemistress]

Iris is patrolling, which is a thing she does at least once a day. More, if she's exceptionally bored that day. It's partly an attempt to get in front of trouble, but also a ritual touching of every part of the Barge, like beating the bounds, twining herself ever deeper into the Barge's life. On a quiet night, it becomes a kind of mobile meditation, a clear space in which to let her problems solve themselves.

The sound of shattering ice pulls her out of her introspection, and she runs towards it.

"Caitlin?"

It's not a fight, but everything about the girl's body language tells her - not details, but it tells her all she needs to know.

"What 'appened, sweetheart?"

[cryobiological]

Caitlin looks up at the sound of the voice; she hadn't even been paying attention to whether anyone else would be around, and she's not sure if that's better or worse - if she wants to be genuinely left alone or if she's craving attention.

Considering the messages she was debating sending the guys, it's probably the latter.

She scrubs at her eyes in a vague, halfhearted attempt at making it look like nothing is wrong, but that's more out of habit than genuine effort. "Matt's gone," she says, like that explains everything.

[routemistress]

The thing is, Iris has been on this boat six years. It does explain everything. She doesn't even like Matt, but that's supremely irrelevant. Her face falls, and she hurries to Caitlin's side.

"Oh, lovey, I'm so sorry. Come on. Let's go get a drink, and you can tell your auntie Iris all about it. Or we can not talk and just get drunk, whichever you need. Being miserable's a lot less miserable with friends and gin. And 'ey, an awful lot of 'em come back."

[cryobiological]

"Auntie Iris," she echoes, with a wry, sad laugh and a shake of her head. It doesn't make sense to her how this woman could immediately understand what she's going through, and also immediately know exactly what she needs. Getting drunk sounds great, about now, and it feels like it's exactly midway between the messy catharsis of vomiting feelings all over one friend and the self-immolation of asking the other one to fuck her, hard.

She accepts the embrace and nods, pushing pale hair out of her eyes. "More of a whiskey girl, if you've got that," she says, but something catches her attention as she tries to pull herself together. "But ... they come back?"

Jean had not told her that.

[routemistress]

Iris knows because in six years, the ones she has loved and lost now take up two memorial corkboards in her cabin.

"Not always. But a lot of 'em do. My Vic didn't come back for a year, but a lot of 'em come back inside a few weeks."

She puts her arm around Caitlin's shoulders, gently steering her for the Lounge.

"I sort of hate to try and give you hope. In some ways that just hurts worse, I know. But there is hope. 'E's not dead in'is own reality, is 'e?"

[cryobiological]

"I don't think so," she replies. They'd talked about that -- how she had died, how he thinks this is probably closer to Purgatory than Hell. All their conversations, over all the weeks, all the time they'd spent together just seems to blur together in her mind right now. It's fuzzy. She's terrified she'll forget him.

She leans into the arm around her, hoping to maybe pull a little heat for comfort, but Iris doesn't seem to have the excess that most people do. That's fine, though -- Caitlin's less likely to hurt her if she doesn't even try to sneak some here. "He didn't say he was leaving. He would've told me." She's sure of that, as sure now as she is that Scott would have done the same. "God, I'm so stupid."

[routemistress]

"Well, that's good. That means, worst case, we can go visit 'im. "

She has no idea where or when Matt came from, but she enjoys detective work.

"Stop that. You're the opposite of stupid. People are worth it and any road, you will see 'im again, lovey. It's just a matter of when."

They reach the Lounge, and Iris snags two bottles of high-end bourbon and some glasses. She gets them settled near the fire.

"I'm 'appy to go look for 'im, lovey, but I'd rather wait a few days if that's all right? Only if 'e's due back just when I go looking the barge gives me such a headache. I didn't know you two were friends."

Really, she didn't know anything about Matt, except that she'd wanted to like him, even when the Jedao fiasco made it nearly impossible.

"'Ow did that 'appen?"

[cryobiological]

Caitlin straight up shoots the first pour, and after pouring a second one that she plans to sip instead, settles easily into the seat by the fire. The alcohol and the warmth both help calm her down a little, and Iris's reassurance that they'll be able to go back and visit is ... promising. Confusing, but promising.

"We were lovers in a breach," she explains. "That's how it started, anyway. The one -- I guess it was almost a year ago, now, where we were all ..." 'Fantasy' means nothing anymore, so that's a poor descriptor. "... fairies and demons and werewolves and things. When we came out of it, I asked him out. That ... hmm." She remembers the easy way that he flirted right back to her, pleasant and genial, like the kind of guy who would be willing to at least give it a shot and see where it went. "We didn't really go out, per se, but ... we were friends. We spent a lot of time together. And he didn't care which part of me was in control. I think he knew even before I did that I was always me. He was patient. Kind. He really -- he really cared. He cared about people and he cared about his job here and he -- he would've been a really great warden for someone. But no -- no one really gave him a chance, and now he's gone." Her voice is starting to wobble a bit, so she takes another drink and blows out a long, slow breath to try and steady herself. "He pissed off someone that a lot of people really like, okay, sure, it happens. But he wasn't malicious, and people shouldn't just -- just write him off entirely because of that and hate him forever."