pacing around in a circle. thinking about how simon must be so used to being lied to. from eden. from the C.O.I. that man was probably told such harrowingly few truths in his life that it's a wonder he has the ability to trust anyone at all.
and yet he keeps asking. and then i'm free? if i do this one more thing, will you let me go? because that's what you told me the last time. and the time before that. and the time before that too. is this the time that words will actually mean what they say? is it? because you keep telling me that over and over again, and it's getting harder to believe you still think i'm a person.
i'd say it's naïvety, and maybe it is, deep down. but i can't describe it as anything else but hope. that this time will be different. that words will finally have meaning, that he'll have finally earned the right to be told the truth. it is simon's singular shining quality, one that twinkles under the roughage of personality he has both naturally acquired and purposefully put up as a defense mechanism– it's the fact that he never gives up. never gives up hope.
because it's all he has left. as much as he hates to admit it, all he has left is the hope for a tomorrow that was brighter than the last because everything else has been violently taken from him, time and time again. hope is the one thing he refuses to give up no matter how many times people say that he should, the one thing that he knows he can cling to and not have it physically ripped from his grasp.
"how many times are you going to use me before you let me go?"
thinking about how ava knew what she was doing when she put simon in the SM-13. knew for a fact that she was lying to his fucking face, way before simon had ever called her out for it directly. and i think it's because she knew. from the moment she came into contact with him i think she knew– that if there was anyone that would have been able to get something from a trip in the iron lung, it was going to be him. because he just keeps fucking fighting, thrashing against the hand that holds him down– her hand.
how many eden prisoners do they have aboard the station? how many of them have enough will to keep living, let alone to dare think that there could be something better out there for them? for everyone? simon said it himself, that eden hasn't "deluded" themselves into thinking that there's still something out there. so why should he? why should he keep fighting for a future he knows will never come?
because he doesn't really believe that that's true. he keeps telling himself (and everyone else) that he does but i think it's because daring to hope means hardship. it means not giving up the ghost and reaching out for a line as thin as sewing thread itself in the hopes that it'll hold your full weight. it's foolish. it's unthinkable.
and that's what makes him perfect for this. there was simply no other way that things could have turned out– not this well, at least. because simon has a drive rivaled only by ava's herself, and the ability to use it effectively– something that very few people from eden (or even the C.O.I., for that matter) seem to possess. and she sees that. she sees that when they first send the sub down and he keeps yelling at them anyways. she sees that when they manage to establish connection with him after four fucking days of thinking he had suffered the same fate as every single other pilot before him. she sees that when she argues with her own second in command in his favor, when she sends herself down there because hope is all she has left, too.
so she lies to him. over. and over. and over again. even after he tells her that he knows that she's bullshitting him. even after she knowingly condemns him to a fate no other person, "deserving" or otherwise, has escaped. because she knows what hope can do to a person. it's all she has left, after all. and if she can wield simon's hope, something so reactionary and volatile that even simon himself doesn't seem to have a good grasp on it, into a useful channel then maybe she can find a way out of this mess for everyone else. even if it means simon is sacrificed in the process. even if she is sacrificed in the process.
simon has done terrible things. undoubtedly, she has too. and despite it all, they are humanity's last fighting chance. no matter how many times simon says otherwise. no matter what she has to do to get him to finally believe it with his full fucking chest. the ship they were on was sinking before it even left shore. the last thing they can do is deploy the lifeboats in the hopes it'll help someone else, even if it means going down with the ship anyways.
"simon, please... not everyone gets to be saved."
