collects_strays | [OOM] you favor the truth

[OOM] you favor the truth

He wasn't in the river.

Graham had been lying on his cot. Or had been asleep. Either way, rather than needing to retreat to the river, the door of his cell had unlatched. It's something that had happened before, and whatever state he was in, it hadn't concerned him. What he should do was simple, straightforward. He rose from the cot, stepped forward, and gently pushed the door open. The hall beyond his cell had been unrecognizable the moment he stepped out – he couldn't make out the ceiling, only scattered strips of light among dark branches; high dark trees climbed up along the walls; concrete petered out into small stones scattered among leaves and soil. Something glinting among the bars, and trees, before him.

On the other side, he's sitting on a rock near the Lake. Not making the same side trek through his mind has meant he's still dressed in the blue, numbered uniform. Graham isn't planning on entering the Bar.

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Dr. Lecter continues to call his name, as Graham looks away, over to Diana. Her fury swells up in him; it drags on him, and tastes bitter, and he feels like he needs to cough it down. He lowers his eyes, and murmurs, "It must have been quite a show for him."

Lecter has pried the gun away, and presses his hands to the other man's face, looking into his white eyes, checking his forehead. There's no response now - he doesn't seem aware of Lecter or anyone else in the room. Graham, now fully aware, glances back to the end of the table.

"I knew he was inducing the seizures," he says, quietly. "But something's wrong, I was - I was wrong -"

He hears Miriam Lass' voice on Jack's phone, I was so wrong -

"He's had a mild seizure," Lecter announces to Gideon, retrieving Graham's gun from where he left it on the mantle, and taking a step toward the table.

Gideon has been silent up until now, but at this, he observes: "That... doesn't seem to bother you."

Lecter looks to him. "I said it was mild."

The doctor takes a seat at the head of the table, across from Gideon, setting down Graham's gun and sliding it aside. "Are you the man who claimed to be the Chesapeake Ripper?"

Watching him, Graham's face changes. His mind runs up against the question Gideon asks a moment later -

"Why do you say claimed?"

"Because you're not."

"He would consider it rude," Graham mutters, over Dr. Lecter's answer -

"- and you don't know much more about who you are beyond that."

"Are you the Ripper?"

His eyes fall to the plate between them, the black feathers, the ravens collected over the stag's head as though it were a dinning table, this girl's killer thought that she was a -

"Terrible thing." Lecter looks up, not to Gideon, but over to where Graham and Diana are standing. Graham meets his eyes. "To have your identity taken from you."

The moment he turns his eyes from Lecter, Graham jerks away, untangling his hands from Diana's rope.

Diana doesn't flinch back, from Will, or from the memories (or from the memories of the memories).

She does, however, re-coil the Lasso and attach it back at her hip.

Quietly.

Then --

"Will."

Silence.

"Did that help?"

Graham doesn't answer at once. He steps back, silently taking stock of the soil under his shoes, the sound of waves lapping up from the lake, the sunlight that gets caught in his eyes. He lowers himself to the rocks again, and for a moment, sits with his head in his hands.

Then he asks, so similar to how they'd watched him ask it before -

"Is this real?"

"Your memory and Milliways, both, I'm afraid."

Her rage at what she saw does not fade, but she sets it aside.

For now.

"Does it make sense?"

Edited 2014-05-20 21:50 (UTC)

"The memory?"

Graham lifts his head, though his eyes stay down. "Or this place?"

"Start with the memory."

Her voice is only a little wry, and it doesn't last.

"Some worlds don't lend themselves to easily taking Milliways in stride."

He looks up to her, but doesn't meet her eyes.

"The memory," he answers, "made too much sense."

Graham presses his hands together, and unsure how else to say it, he murmurs: "Um, thank you. For - helping me."

Edited 2014-05-20 22:35 (UTC)

"I'm sorry," Diana says quietly, "that you had to live such a terrible thing twice."

So it goes, on occasion, but that doesn't mean anyone here has to like it.

"But if you need more help -- or a friend -- I keep coming back here. For what that's worth."

Which is to say --

"You're welcome."

Graham still doesn't meet her eyes.

But after another moment to himself, he quietly concedes, "I could probably use a friend."

"Well, then."

She doesn't reach out to touch him.

"Consider us friends. Though I have to ask. Will you take some time here to cope with what you've learned? It might be better than heading straight back into the fray."

Edited 2014-05-21 00:39 (UTC)

"I'll have plenty of time to cope," Graham mutters.

But then he lets out a breath, lowering his head.

"Incarceration is its own stressor," Diana observes, still quietly.

"Believe me, I know."

Uncle Sam had strong feelings about that, once upon a time.

"That's why I didn't want to get lost in a dream."

Sounding like he's still trying to convince himself, "But that's... not what this is."

"No," Diana agrees, shaking her head.

"This has consequences in ways that dreams do not."

Dreams have their own logic -- less constrained.

"It feels structured."

Even he seems aware this might sound like a strange thing to say about this place, as he glances to Diana and adds, "For my mind."

"It has its own story, flavored as it may be with pieces of ours."

She does not smile.

"It was an asteroid, once, or so I hear tell. I wasn't here then."

"An asteroid..." Graham repeats, softly. He leans forward, looking over the ground and reaching out to lift a smooth, flat rock, the kind that would easily skip over the surface of the lake.

Instead, Graham palms it.

"I - talked to someone I knew here," he says, as he straightens again. "That means... she was really here."

"Not necessarily from your time," Diana observes, nodding her head. "Or from your timeline, but. Yes. She was really here."

You're seeing him, are you?

"She's ahead of me," he murmurs, realizing. "She knew what would happen, and - thought she couldn't tell me..."

"Some people fear the consequences of too much future knowledge. I can't say who is right or wrong in that circumstance. Might-yet-be is possibly more accurate, and some find that thought more comforting, after a fashion."

But what Graham seizes on is simple - Alana knew something he didn't. For something only in one's mind, that shouldn't be possible.

"She would have thought -"

He presses his hand against his forehead for a moment. "She would've thought I was already a killer. My world doesn't have -" Graham lowers his hand, and then gestures toward her lasso. "- that. No one believes me, about him."

He takes a breath. Quietly, "And he's here."

Diana tamps down on her rage again, but the focus in her eyes gets sharper as her stance broadens.

Ready for action.

"Do you think he's already sought to do to others what he did to you?"

"I don't know."

Graham folds his hands, pressing them to his mouth. He thinks of Rae warning him about monsters, and neutral territory. No violence, no vendettas - and with no discernible motive, neither were necessary.

Lowering his hands, "I'm still not - entirely sure what he's doing to me." Graham closes his eyes, and shakes head. "But he'd -"

It's easier to feel than speak - composed exhilaration, driven in Graham's own mind by the still burgeoning acceptance that this be real, and with it a wide and - from his view - previously unwitnessed scope of creation. The kind of thing Graham felt like a sunrise on a cold morning.

"- he'd find this place - interesting," Graham finishes.

"There are those here who would find that man . . . . interesting, as well."

There's little warmth in her voice.

(With some of those powers, it may be a thing devoutly to be wished. In other cases, feared. So it goes.)

Graham presses his hands to his forehead, closing his eyes again. Her anger feels like armor - protective, cold, and apart from him. Her words string together differently in his mind.

It doesn't bring back those we miss, but it calms the nerves.

Finally, he murmurs, "I need to go back."

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