the book's space kidnapping scene is so... the two flashbacks about it (the actual space kidnapping & the being in russian jail which is actually pretty nice) feel so intimate. like, when stratt is talking about how half the world dying is a conservative estimate, and she details how exactly people will suffer, and it just. really hammers home that helplessness that everyone feels, that she feels. and how like... disgusted she feels that he won't die for this.
it's just. it's the them scene of all time. she stands impassive and guilty and angry and powerless. and he's not even brave enough to run.
the complete contrast of their two emotional states in that prison scene is exactly what gets me, because, like. grace states directly that this is the most vulnerable he's ever seen her. she's fully dropping her leadermode mask and really trying to give him a complete honest explanation of why she's willing to do all of this. she won't say she's sorry, because she isn't, but she thinks she owes it to tell him why she's this desperate. and he's just point-blank unable to accept it or let the gesture connect with him in a real way, because of course he isn't, she has him locked in a prison cell as he waits to shipped off for execution ft. a mind wipe, he's not in any kind of frame of mind to be receptive to her vulnerability or contrition. he tunes her out and dismisses it as "if that makes you feel better to think." he habitually closes himself off from people to avoid heartbreak, he slipped up and accidentally let himself trust her, she betrayed that trust dramatically and floridly, so now he's icing himself over to try and prevent any more glancing blows. and, like. she had to have known that would be the case and he wouldn't really listen to her, and she still tries anyway and simply gets no resolution at all. #theirparallelmiseries
