i try to keep my hands clean

[cantic]

Date & Time: Today, early afternoonish
Location: North Wing, Room 117
Characters: Tear Grants & Jade Curtiss
Summary: Team Mom and Team Embarrassing Uncle need to have a chat.
Warnings: Jade Curtiss

In her week since arrival, Tear has had time to settle in. She's used to doing things on the fly, adapting to new situations, but this...this is something else entirely. This is entirely uncharted territory. Still, she's gotten things in order as best she can. She reunited with Luke, the memory of his trembling hand in hers still makes her heart twist in a complicated mess of emotions. She's started the beginnings of collecting what information she can, and she's signed up to help at the clinic.

Since her network post the other day, the revelation that the UE has been using replicas has been weighing on her. It's time to talk with Jade about that, and about Asch, and about Luke. Her knock on his door is sharp and decisive.

Comments

[clinical]

Luckily, the room is lacking in either of its gangsters, or the juggler just now. Jade has been working, the small section of the room he has appropriated for his science a collection of papers and flasks. At the knock, he makes an estimate about the knocker, and calls, "Please come in."

(The door is unlocked because certain teenagers still feel the need to wander in at random.)

[cantic]

She opens the door and lets it shut quietly behind her, taking in the assortment of papers on his desk. It's a comforting sight, knowing Jade is applying his formidable mind to their problem.

For a moment she looks hesitant. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. If you prefer, I can come back later."

[clinical]

"Not at all. I can't expect the young to wait, can I?" Despite the tone of the reply, Jade pushes his papers into a neater pile, signalling that he's going to stop working and listen to her.

(He does not go so far as to stand and get her tea, however. There are limits, and Jade knows that the children of the group tend to take a certain comfort in the predictability of his superficial behaviours.)

[cantic]

She doesn't give any regard to his comment; Tear has long learned that the best way to deal with Jade is simply to ignore his remarks. Nor is she put off by his lack of hospitality. It would be more trouble than it's worth to expect Jade Curtiss to be anyone less than himself.

The surroundings receive a curious once-over as she takes in the similarities this room shares with her own, personal effects aside, before she gestures at one of the beds. "Do you mind if I sit?"

If the beds are off-limits, she'll sit on the floor.

[clinical]

"Feel free," he answers. So far as similarities and differences go, of course, Jade's rooms here are much like his office at home: anything particularly noteworthy and individual about it comes from other people who have shared this space. Jade offers little personality to his environment, and it takes none.

He waits for her to pose her questions. He already has some guesses about them, but he wants to see where her particular concerns will lie.

[cantic]

"I met with Luke," she begins once she's seated herself at the edge of one of the beds, careful not to mess up the covers.

Although their circumstances should be her priority, her immediate concern is for Luke and his wellbeing. Once she has that out of the way - once she can set aside the worry gnawing at her - she'll be able to focus more clearly on the larger problems.

"He seems well. How has he managed with our present circumstances?"

[clinical]

"I imagine that's a matter better discussed with Luke himself."

It isn't particularly helpful. At the same time, it is an indication that there is no cause for alarm, presently. Luke's opinions are his own; Jade is proud of him for that. But in matters that concern Jade, there is nothing to Luke that makes him feel the boy is at any higher risk than the rest of them, here.

[cantic]

"I know," she says automatically. Yet even so... "You said he's in good health. Do you mean his fonons...they've stopped separating?"

She's ashamed to be asking behind Luke's back, but he doesn't exactly have the best track record of telling them when things are bothering him.

[clinical]

Jade pauses, then adjusts his glasses. "If my understanding is correct, it would be more accurate to say they have completed their separation. Relative to his own time line, he has already died. I don't know much about the Initiative's resurrection technology, but it's most likely that the body Luke now lives in is a replica of Luke's own body."

Even for Jade Curtiss, there is distinct discomfort as he voices the probable explanation for how the Initiative can keep Luke alive.

[cantic]

The pronouncement hits her like something physical and heavy. Tear shoots to her feet, her body responding with vehemence even as her mind and heart struggle to comprehend what Jade is saying.

Luke has already died - no. No. Tear can't accept it. She refuses to accept it. Abruptly she turns and paces away from Jade, her hand clutching at her heart where she's sure she feels physical pain. She can't lose Luke as well as Van; she needs to believe in his return. And Luke - he's only seven. He's been through so much in his short life, shouldered so much pain and so many great burdens; no one deserves to live his own life, in his own body, as his own person, more than Luke does.

"He promised, didn't he," Tear says, a small tremor in her voice. "He promised to come back to us."

[clinical]

Even for the Necromancer, that face is a difficult one to meet impassively. He locks his fingers together, and he doesn not let himself look away. "He did. Unfortunately, we can't always keep our promises."

He has no desire to crush the hopes of the others. Otherwise, he might have told them how Luke is doomed twice over—how even without the fonon separation, Luke was destined for death from the moment he met Asch. Jade cannot pile that cruelty on all the other cruelties Tear has faced. But neither can he lie to her about this.

[cantic]

"He will," she says fiercely. "He has now, and he will back home."

It's said with absolute conviction in spite of all evidence to the contrary. She tries so hard to be calm and rational, to be an adult - but faced with the prospect of losing everyone she cares for, Tear feels like a little girl again. It was Luke who taught her that it was okay to be weak. It's okay to fight and claw against fate and hold on to irrational hope.

"If anyone can do it, Luke can."

[clinical]

Jade truly wishes he could believe that. He truly wishes that all his science is wrong, and that Luke will come back home.

But the dead cannot return. He knows that well enough. "Tear . . . At present, there is little purpose in us discussing that hypothetical. There is nothing we can do here to tip the scales."