as_damaged | ☎ voicemail

what are you talking about?

where are you?

wait there

[He is, on the edge of a sandy precipice where the ground impossibly stops ahead of him, dropping down into a room that would look familiar if it weren't for the bird's eye view.

He can see right down Cuddy's top from here but not, as he'd implied, actually hear what's being said.]

[She isn't sure, anymore, whether she can take his word on anything; and so she runs most of the way, slowing when she's just out of sight. It isn't quite enough to banish the flush of exertion from her cheeks as she comes up beside him, looking at him and then past him.

For a moment it's a little dizzying, the uncanny sight before them, and she can't come up with anything to say. Though disinclined to believe that opportunities to go home are what they seem-- it's hard to argue with the evidence before her, that it could be as simple as stepping into the scene. It makes no sense and perfect sense. She looks at him.]

Edited 2009-12-05 20:03 (UTC)

Careful.

[He sets a hand against her shoulder, the angle and the images each enough to leave you lightheaded until you're used to them. He's been standing here long enough to think he has his bearings on the possibilities below. Long before that he'd walked the edge, looking into other worlds and vast spaces of nothing. Now he turns away to study her instead, slightly out of breath, eyes wide.]

I'm glad you came.

[Her first response is to protest that she isn't here for him, but she bites it back. Truth be told she isn't sure why she's here. She's still angry. Less because of what he did-- knowing he doesn't believe any of this is real, it's easier to understand why he'd press the button, though she isn't happy with it either-- than because he'd lied.

If there's really a way home... She hasn't fought it the way he has, she wouldn't hurt anyone to get her way. It doesn't mean she wouldn't like to go. Ignorance is bliss and she knows too many things, has had too much happen, here, to be happy. The last few days are just the tip of what she'd like to forget.]

I can't hear anything.

[Just the sounds of the woods and the sea and the City at a distance, though she should be able to make out what the moving lips below them are saying. She's not watching him anymore, eyes on the scene below. When is this? What would happen if they stepped in? Frowning slightly, she casts a sidelong glance at him.]

It doesn't strike you as suspicious?

No, but he was talking about you. There's this face he makes.

[Chase's voice is hushed, respectful of the moment, of chances. He doesn't want to go back to forget, but to live. To know for certain he's alive. Their surroundings may be nothing more than a creation of damaged neurons but they contain fictional constructs he's come to care too much about.

One of them, Eden, is on her way here, because he knows she's got nothing of her own to go back to and somewhere at the edges of his logic he wants to give her a chance.]

It strikes me as possible; we walked in here without any reason, why shouldn't we walk back out? [He chews the corner of his lip, a little twitch betraying the confidence he tries for.] It's also possible we walk out into something worse.

And end up when? Where? We didn't leave at the same time.

[Hesitation and excuses, mainly. She's tried to work all this out before and came to the conclusion that it doesn't really make a difference- if they get home, when they get home, they're bound to go back to where and when (and consequently who) they were.]

You're going to try?

[It's barely a question.]

[If they go back Wilson will be speaking to him again. He won't need to avoid House for fear of getting fired and Cameron... she'll still think he's a jerk, but maybe, if he takes something of the City with him, he'll do better with his second first chance. Maybe he'll do worse. At least the chance will be there.

He looks across at her again, tugged both ways by what ifs.]

I don't have the answers. It's probably going to be a mistake, but if we don't try and it was real...

[When they don't try, it will be. Still he's learned something from the last few days. He's learned to be afraid of the risks.]

Not without you. [It's chickenshit of him, but if he can't be his own moral compass, might as well check the best he knows.] They're leaving.

[He cranes his head to see Cuddy pick up a file, exasperated even from above. Freman fold his arms as he makes for the office door. One step forward to see better and the ground crumbles more under Chase's foot.]

[She'd like to not hate him. She doesn't hate him now, but things keep getting worse and worse between them, and though she can't stand it, it seems like there's nothing she can do to help things. As much as she'd like to convince herself nothing matters here, as long as she's here it's all that matters.]

I don't...

[How much is there to lose? By all reason, they have to go sometime. She remembers things he doesn't; he'll get home, at least. It doesn't seem like a stretch to think she will, too, sooner or later.

She looks down as their coworkers go, starting as the dirt settles, one hand reaching out reflexively for his arm. Touching him is nearly as startling, somehow, and she gives him a long, tired look, trying to make up her mind.

It could be something much worse, waiting for them.]

...All right.

[There's nothing here she can't live without. And too much she'd like to forget. It's worth a shot.]

Edited 2009-12-06 00:52 (UTC)

[His smile is quick and fierce with relief, absolution. To stand here and watch and then walk away from the second chance opened up to him would have been near enough impossible. Hope and bloody determination spurred him into the last misguided attempt to wake up, and trodden down as it has been it just won't die. He skids on the smooth soles of his shoes to face her, silhouetting himself against the sheer drop immediately behind. With the arm she's not restraining, he catches her wrist.]

House knows about it, he'll tell Wilson. We just need to wait for Eden to get here -- I know it doesn't make any sense but I told her we'd try and bring her back.

[He pauses, but if there's anything left to say it needs to be said on this side, before things get wiped clean. Just shoving it under the carpet of memory, they never will be.]

I've been an idiot. Yesterday... and before. I--

[The statement goes unfinished. A shift of his weight from one foot to the other and the sand gives, slipping out from under him. His stumble is all it takes to trip from one side to the other, still holding her wrist.]

[She nods at the mention of Eden, though how she'll end up in their world is anyone's guess. By Cameron's logic, Eden ought to end up where she began-- the way out must be universal, rather than specific to time and space-- but it's worth a try, if Eden's willing to go. Wilson and House can take care of themselves, if they want to risk the tears.

When he slips, of course she loses her balance as well, tumbling after him with a little cry. On the bright side it's a shallow rabbit hole with nice carpeting, and what's dizzying is that she doesn't feel like she's fallen long enough when she finds herself on the floor of the empty room. The door's shut-- had there been enough time for Foreman to pull it closed behind him?]

So much for waiting.

[Chase is here, too. Which doesn't seem right. Shifting, she pulls herself off the floor-- maybe Cuddy's got a calendar on her desk.]

[Chase stays sprawled on the carpet, his fingers still circled around the absence of her wrist. Looking up. Where he'd expected a view into another world is just the same painted ceiling he's stared at a hundred times before when Cuddy's called them in to try and circumvent House's machinations. It doesn't feel right, though he tells himself there was no fanfare when he arrived in the City, why should there be anything to signify leaving.

And that thought itself is something to think about.

He twists, scuffing his shirt against expensive carpeting and pushing himself up on one elbow to watch her.]

Do you remember?

[He does. By all accounts he shouldn't. By all rationale he should be waking in bed, or a hospital bed, or under the car he figures he met six months ago on his way to get coffee. He's still the same as he was in the city, but this office, this world at first glance appears equally unchanged. Both can't apply at once.]

[Cameron nods at him, getting her bearings, then glances around the office. If it's an illusion, it's impressive; every detail seems identical, nothing out of place or provided by imagination.

Which makes it seem all wrong.]

I don't think we're home.

[No calendar at first glance, but there are patient files on the desk. She doesn't recognize any of the names or laundry lists of symptoms, but it all seems perfectly plausible. Cameron would desperately like this to be real. But it's logically impossible. Her hair, their clothes, haven't reverted; their memories haven't vanished.]

Don't you think someone would've heard us fall? They just walked out... Try the door?

We're right by the clinic, people are used to strange noises.

[It's a reason that undoes itself immediately by drawing attention to the quiet. No ambient noise at all, not even traffic noise. Far from the buzz of a busy hospital, the room seems to hold the hush of somewhere far larger, the kind of place that would echo their own voices back if they raised them. Chase has felt this way in cathedrals before, but not the ground floor of Princeton-Plainsboro. He nods at her suggestion and in a few seconds he's trying the handle, which rattles uselessly in his hand. After a minute he sets his shoulder against the door and shoves that way. Not even the faintest yield.

He tries but doesn't hide the worry when he turns back across the office.]

Wherever we are, looks like we're staying.

Great.

[She might have intended to deliver that with flat frustration, but the note of concern in her voice overwhelms her irritation. If they can't get out, and they can't get back-- there's no view of the City behind them-- well, Cuddy's office is not where she wants to live out her last few days.]

Now what? [Frowning, she looks behind her, at the windows, and goes to try one. It looks perfectly normal (though deserted) beyond the glass; but of course it won't budge.]

[Beyond the door it seems to be dark, as though the hospital has shut up shop and gone home for the night, left everything sleeping. Chase tries the handle again, putting the weight of his forearm against it and dropping, but all he ends up with is the possibility of a bruise later. There are already dressings under his shirt -- those fibreglass dragons don't mess about.

Exasperation slams his back up against the door next, rattling but not budging it. Damning his luck, damning himself for inflicting it on someone else. Again.]

Assuming I'm getting the hint, we wait. Maybe that's what this is, the waiting room. There has to be something more than just this.

Does there?

[She turns, annoyance a little more evident this time. She's madder at herself than she is at him, for agreeing to this. The City is never this simple; she knows better than to trust it. At least, she ought to.]

All that to lock us in a room? Considering we've all got apartments, you don't think it might be overkill?

[He's ready for the annoyance, so used to it it could be reassuring. Better she's pissed than afraid.]

No. There's got to be more.

You want there to be more.

[She lifts her chin, more contrary then pessimistic, really.]

Edited 2009-12-08 05:28 (UTC)

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☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere

☞ paradise is close at hand in images of elsewhere