Gekko Sapiens

@technicolor-laura​

He sits alone at a desk in the middle of a bright room, lit from above by LED panels in the ceiling. He writes something in a manila file and does not look up when she enters the room. He speaks as if musing to himself, perhaps practicing a speech, “I have heard it said that home is ‘where the heart is’. We both know this to be fallible logic but I think there is a degree of truth to the notion that home - the place we return to, is the place which contains the people we know and who know us,” she finally shifts his gaze, staring directly at Laura with eye contact like he is sizing her up, “So … welcome home.” 

Laura freezes in the doorway.  For a moment, she just stares, eyes wide, breath not even held so much as forgotten.  Twenty-six years, and he doesn’t look the same, but she still knows him at a glance, even before he lifts his gaze to hers.  The assessment there resonates, familiar, in her bones.  She has wondered about this moment, but only distantly, not as something to expect.  Certainly, not here.  Lately, it hasn’t even crossed her mind.  Time starts again, and Laura breathes in, swallows.  Her eyes don’t leave his as her mind begins to rearrange what she knows to accommodate this new information.  Another crack forms in the dam of her composure.  “Why are you here?” 

“Grief, dear, it’s grief,” said Moira, her tone softening as she looked down at the mutant. She pitied the girl. But she did not pity Laura enough to tell her the truth. After all, Laura was a piece in a much larger game, “Talking to a professional will help you understand and overcome the feelings you are facing right now. They’re like a doctor, but for the mind. I’ll have an appointment set up for next week.” 

Beth practically chokes on her next sob, the surprise at Laura’s blunt words not helping. “Yeah…yeah. She’d probably just want a cremation with one supervisor present to confirm it. this is all too…much. What do you wa-” she cuts the the question short, and clarifies quickly, “For when you’re older? You know, for when old age …?” 

The stylists had insisted on pinning Laura’s hair up beneath a hat for the ceremony.  Apparently, its natural shade gave the wrong effect when paired with her all-black funeral attire.  She wasn’t sure what that meant.  Truth be told, for once, she hadn’t really been listening.

The full on wailing had had the grace to wait until she’d made it back into HQ.  There’d been tears, of course, running freely throughout the reception–good thing the stylists had had the foresight to use waterproof mascara–but the shaking and the gasping and the keening she’d managed to resist.

@technicolor-laura​

“I understand that this might be a lot for you … emotionally. If you would like a therapist I can have one called in.”

“It didn’t- It didn’t feel real before.”  They were waiting on the mall, the ground squelching lightly beneath Laura’s black shoes.  “I...”  Her voice faltered.

Seven Languages.  Laura could speak seven languages, and each with an impressive vocabulary.  She had words for everything–observations, explanations, introductions, misdirections, comparisons, questions, suggestions, jokes...

“I...”

@technicolor-laura​

“i wonder what she’d think of all this… all this spectacle.”

She waited a day, two, for them to settle, for a quiet moment, for the grief and the panic and the maelstrom to ebb enough to think about gratitude.  Even then it was hard, not to swallow her pride–Laura has no trouble with that–but to remember, to put in words that so many people died in such a short time, and I would have been among them twice over if not for you.

“I think,” she set her tea down, leaning on her elbows, crutches resting on the counter next to her.  She could have sat down, but that would mean asking someone to carry the tea for her, and Laura would take the chances she had to be up on her feet.  “I need to thank you twice.  And I’m sorry it’s taken this long to do so.”  She wasn’t sure what else to say.  “Would you like some tea?  There’s still hot water in the kettle.”

        ‘  i  wanted  to  thank  you,  laura,  ’      his words still have the familiar stilt to them, even if he looks somewhat different than the usual edie. he hasn’t looked in a mirror, but he can feel it, or at least he thinks he can. his brain is unsure to react to such an unusual series of events.  ‘  i do not remember everything, but i know you helped me.  ’               @technicolor-laura​

“Of course.  It was–”  not nothing, but it hadn’t even felt like a choice at the time, the alternatives too distressing to even have considered.  “–the only thing to do.”

“I envy you your forget, though” she muses, yet there is a seriousness to the sentiment hidden from her tone.  In the short time since the attack, she’s been plagued by memories of fire and blood and all the ways she couldn’t help.  “I think I’d rather not remember it all.” 

@technicolor-laura​

“TANGO… SORRY.”

It’s the first thing he can think of to say when he sees Laura. It’s been a day since they’ve arrived at the house, and it’s been wonderful and awful all the same time. Wonderful, because there’s a yard and interesting smells and Evelynn is back. But awful, because Cesare is somewhere else and everybody is sad and most of them smell like injury and ache.

And because all of the gifts that everybody had sent Tango over fifteen years… all of them are back at HQ, probably being torn apart by the monsters from the portals.

“TANGO NOT… PROTECT. LAURA GIFT,” Tango moans, upset. All of the things she’d sent him – the postcards, the blanket, the warm scarves and fun-smelling incense and little figurines. All of it, gone. “LAURA… MANY EFFORT. TO SEND. TANGO LEAVE BEHIND.”

Laura looks up at him from where she’s trying to get the blood stains out of the lining of her cast, wiping with little frenzied movements that aren’t doing much besides shredding the bit of paper towel in her hand.  “No...no you don’t have to be sorry, Tango.”

She doesn’t want to say they’re not important.  In the grand scheme of things, they aren’t, not compared to what they’re dealing with now, but they were important to Tango, and sending them had been important to her.  “If they made you happy, then they served their purpose.”  She pats his head, “Now you’ve just got room for more.”

It’s his last statement though, that almost makes her laugh and just as almost makes her cry.  “Left behind...”  She says it more to herself than to him.  This isn’t a good time for this, but she doesn’t think there will ever be one.  “I’m the one who should be sorry.”  

“It was organized. I was never meant to survive Deluge,” she said, her words simple and tone flat, as if she did not understand the weight behind them, “I followed orders and took a dive.” 

“Why?  From whom?”  In contrast, Laura’s delivery begins to pitch into something uncharacteristically frantic as she speaks, as something else inside her begins to crack.  “Were you actually dead?  Where have you been?"

@technicolor-laura​

“i heard how you injured your leg. what you did was valiant. that teen and their family are very thankful.” 

“Thank you.”  She barely hears the complement, too distracted by the questions weighing on her tongue.  For once, she doesn’t hold them back.  “Eve...How-”  

How did you know to get us?  

How are you alive?

How could I not know?

Where does she start?  

“Just, how?”

Flashback

Damien set her back down, trying to get her to lie back, and God, there was so much that he could do before he could break down. “The kid’s fine, she’s a little rattled, but it’s fine, Laur,” he replied, trying to see if she needed any more help. At least the panic got her to wake up, even a little bit. There might have been some damage that he couldn’t see from the smoke, but he wasn’t sure. He should’ve thought about asking Beth for lessons. “You’re a big damn hero, Laura Smith. I might buy you a cake or two when you make it out of this, but keep your eyes open kid.”

“Okay.”  She nodded a little as she let him resettle her, going limp again as the adrenaline spike subsided.  “Okay...”  Things were okay, so she could rest now, right?  Her eyes flutter.  No. She forced herself to listen to Damien, forced herself to keep her eyes open.  She needed something to hold her attention.  “Cake is good.  What- what kind of cake were you thinking?”

Flashback

Beth laughed lowly under her breath, a sound to fill the space with some comforting but undemanding noise. “Anytime,” she promised, setting a gentle hand on Laura’s shoulder, “Yeah, good plan. Any ideas of how exactly we got about doing that? I’m used to averting crisises and even wars, but this feels different? It doesn’t feel like an attack. At least not int he same way as the bug men from mars. There’s no communication, no threats, no ransom. How are supposed to fight this when we don’t know what is it?” 

It was a good question.  Perhaps better suited to a leader like Cesare or Will.  Laura pursed her lips as she thought.  “Well...” And then she realized that the answer was exactly what she had been doing for the last fifteen years.  “We start by figuring out what it is.”  Checking her daggers were securely in their new holsters one last time, Laura cocked her head toward the door.  “And we start now.”

@technicolor-laura​

“Hey, Laur. Keep the eyes open, come on.” Damien tried to clamp down on his feelings, fear, anxety, anger, shoving them deep down so he can actually focus on what what had happened. “No sleeping, the hospital’s just nearby. Keep your eyes open.”

It was hard to focus.  There was so much happening, and so much of it contradicted itself.  She was freezing, but her lungs and throat and eyes burned.  Her leg ached but she couldn’t quite feel her toes.  Something pinched beneath her knee–a tourniquet?  Damian was speaking, but the ocean roared in her ears.  Or was it her heartbeat?  He wanted her to keep her eyes open but why?  She was tired.  She’d sprinted through the whole shipyard with a scared- “The kid!” She tried to sit up, but fell back down as her ribs protested and she fell into a coughing fit.  Her mouth tasted like saltwater and smoke.  “Is she okay?  Is- is everyone okay?”