In the time that he’s known her, Syl’s never heard Courtney with a voice this small. He’s heard fear in her, of course– she’s expressed it before– but fear to Courtney Whitmore is like a cloud that briefly passes the sun. It might dim the light of her courage, might make the day seem a little darker, but it never lasts, and the sun is never truly gone.
What do I do now sounds awfully like the sun’s frozen over.
But Syl wonders if Courtney knows how smart she is even here.
She’s looking to him for structure, for sense, and there’s brilliance there– in the simplicity of her instinct seeking help instead of hellfire. Syl hadn’t been that wise at fifteen, but he isn’t fifteen any more, either.
When he speaks, his words are steady, voice gentle in this little bubble they’d made.
“If you’re up for it,” he murmurs, “you should get cleaned up first.”
It’s different from training, where he teaches Courtney manoeuvres, where he teaches her about the staff, where he says things like fact because they are.
I killed him, she said, and he knows if she had a choice, she wouldn’t have.
Nobody talks about the agency that’s stripped away in that split-second moment between life and death, of the powerlessness in the aftermath, of how much it breaks a person up. Syl offers some measure of it back to her in suggestions– in the promise that if this bubble ever breaks, it’ll be because she chose to let it.
They don’t have to leave until she’s ready.
But he does admit, his head dipping slightly to brush a kiss to the top of Courtney’s hair, “It won’t make the feelings inside go away on its own, but it’s a step. If you’ll believe it.”
god, she’s so tired. the whole day had exhausted her; physically, mentally, emotionally, all she had done was exert herself. and she’d fall asleep here, if she could. in this safe bubble, soft and warm, but she knows when she wakes up the blood will still be there, the world will still loom at the window. and she doesn’t want to move, but she has to. courtney has to try and wash this blood from her hands, all neptune’s waters invoked.
so she blinks softly, limbs moving with a sticky and cracking sense, that copper stench reemerging to remind her of what she did tonight. the staff chirrs low at her movement, small sniffles accompanying her steps to the bathroom.
she doesn’t turn on the light at first. her reflection is dim, barely visible. a shaking hand reaches out for the faucet, letting the water run. her eyes trace her face in that dark mirror for a moment; she can just about make out where her mask once laid from the blood on her cheek. she soaks her hands first, scrubbing in an attempt to clean them up enough to start on her face. she doesn’t bother with her cuticles and under her nails yet. a brief second passes before she soaks the pads of her fingertips for a second, before gently wiping her cheeks of residue. the blood has long since congealed, she supposes.
courtney really did consider asking syl for help with this cleaning up; he probably knows a process that’s easy and less traumatic. but this was something she needed to do alone. so she turns on the light.
and god, this image of herself is something she’ll never scrub from her mind. red-nosed, teary-eyed; that white star borne on her chest a cracked red. another tear falls down her cheek then and there, wiped quickly by an almost clean hand.
her eyes don’t move from herself in the mirror. “syl?” barely a whisper, but cuts through the silence the same. “can you-- do i have anything i can change into?” she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to shower. but syl was right; it’s a step. nothing is going to make these feelings go away on their own; nothing will fill this dull, hollow aching. but it’s a step.
