[ carolina nods, then drops her head again, not wanting to watch wash for too long. not when she's trying to compose herself, when now she's terrified of sharing what's happened to him. she had known about the memory sharing aspect of the new abilities that came with being displaced, but she hadn't thought much of it, hadn't thought to ask anybody how exactly it worked. wash is the only person she ever really touches anyway and he keeps her feeling so even-keeled that she's gotten less concerned with hiding feelings from him. even when he gets a flicker of something that might be damning, it's hardly as if his injury is the only thing she has to feel guilty about.
it's clearly mistaken now, but she thought she had to want to share memories. not just be stuck in her head and trying to let someone help her. carolina thinks she can avoid this in the future, probably - keep it tucked away in key moments the way she'd kept memories tucked away from her ai, when she'd had them. keeping things from epsilon had been futile sometimes and he still poked around wherever he wanted to, digging out snippets to fill in the blanks he got from the director's memories, but with the twins, it had worked. she'd hidden her least rational fears from eta, hidden the way york made her feel once upon a time from iota.
she can do this.
tugging her sleeves down over her palms, she takes a deep breath and starts trying to wipe her face off, adding to the mess around the wrists and ensuring that she definitely needs to do laundry before the day is up. it's a later problem. right now, it takes a while before she finds her voice again. ]
Before Tex engaged her, Connie was talking about how we'd all be paying for what the Director did by the end of the Project. How we already were. I feel like I've been trying to fix everything he broke forever and it'll never stop, I'll never catch up. Like I'm going to be trying to atone for Project Freelancer until it kills me.
[ carolina draws another shaky breath and looks up again, seeking wash's gaze. her face is splotchy, expression anguished, but she's gotten herself back under control. ]
no subject
it's clearly mistaken now, but she thought she had to want to share memories. not just be stuck in her head and trying to let someone help her. carolina thinks she can avoid this in the future, probably - keep it tucked away in key moments the way she'd kept memories tucked away from her ai, when she'd had them. keeping things from epsilon had been futile sometimes and he still poked around wherever he wanted to, digging out snippets to fill in the blanks he got from the director's memories, but with the twins, it had worked. she'd hidden her least rational fears from eta, hidden the way york made her feel once upon a time from iota.
she can do this.
tugging her sleeves down over her palms, she takes a deep breath and starts trying to wipe her face off, adding to the mess around the wrists and ensuring that she definitely needs to do laundry before the day is up. it's a later problem. right now, it takes a while before she finds her voice again. ]
Before Tex engaged her, Connie was talking about how we'd all be paying for what the Director did by the end of the Project. How we already were. I feel like I've been trying to fix everything he broke forever and it'll never stop, I'll never catch up. Like I'm going to be trying to atone for Project Freelancer until it kills me.
[ carolina draws another shaky breath and looks up again, seeking wash's gaze. her face is splotchy, expression anguished, but she's gotten herself back under control. ]
David... I'm so tired of it.