[ He gives himself a day. Time to re-acclimate to reality, to go outside and feel the sun on his skin, to be entirely alive in his own body. Time to start to take a check of himself.
He'll need more than a day. He knows that early, after the high-low mess of the first few hours eases into the fog-minded vacancy of the next many.
But while there are plenty of people he can hold off on reaching out to, there's one who can't wait. For reasons both practical and personal, late morning of the day after they were all set free Clarke's implant will alert her to an incoming request for an audio feed from one Stephen Strange. ]
Edited (thank you for that dreamwidth) 2020-06-18 20:51 (UTC)
[Clarke's first day in coming back involves taking inventory, both in Red Wings and in her apartment. Unsurprisingly, long branches and vines have poked into her apartment. The good news is that both Clarke and Bellamy have experience in getting rid of unwanted greenery. For better or worse.
The call comes when she's in Red Wings, though. She's taking notes on where they'll need to clean up, and ensure water is, in fact, going down the drains without problems.
She accepts the call.]
I really hope you're not downstairs right now. But if you are, I can head out so this isn't weird. [Clarke can only imagine that Stephen needs the space, so she won't force a one on one. Well, directly, aynway.]
[ The call out is enough to surprise a huff of laughter out of him. ]
I'm not downstairs.
[ How much smalltalk is appropriate for a situation like this? Polite conversation never has been his forte. Then again, neither of them have ever much gone in for it. ]
I'll be staying above ground as much as possible for the forseeable future.
[ Spoken wryly, but it's a good sign for as much as it might speak to short term struggle. An acknowledgement of needs and limitations. He didn't spend even one night in that safehouse where before he never spent a night outside of it. ]
Yeah, apparently repeated underground trauma can do that to someone.
[Clarke isn't only referring to what happened to Stephen. What's happened to him falls in line with what happened to her mom, to Octavia, to Miller and all the rest.]
I'm guessing the daily Stephen location report isn't why you're checking in?
You're not used to being ... this, are you? You were a doctor, sure, but something tells me that you've never had to account for this many people before. Not like this, anyway. It's new to you.
[While it started with a question, it doesn't end with one. Clarke's stating her observations out loud. If she's wrong, he can correct her, but it sounds like she doubts that she is.]
I'm used to leading fellow practitioners. People trained in the mystic arts and adept in their use. We very rarely mobilize en masse but when we do we share a common language.
[ Soldiers, in other words. Of a kind.
The problem lies in that Stephen Strange is not a soldier here. He's not a doctor, he has no magic. Before the simulation, there hadn't been many situations in which not having fully come to terms with that had made too much of a difference.
And then Judas. And he'd weaponized the only tribe he had left, ignoring that their commonalities aren't the ones he's used to. Ignoring that he's no longer the sorcerer he was. ]
I understand what you mean. [It's something that she had preached to Damian back in the day: they can't assume like minds just because of similar circumstances and situations. They won't have the same values, and they can't force those values on one another. There are so few of them that remain the same.]
It's hard to realize the moment that everyone in the room doesn't see things the same way, but thinks they do. I thought that because you kept me from making a mistake all that time ago that you'd know how to act with restraint when I asked you to. [A beat.] But I guess you knew what I was doing at the time because you recognized it for what it was.
[ She's right. Neither of them saw the disparity - but Stephen should've. That's one of the jobs of a leader: to analyse one's own instincts and keep them in check, acting in service of those who follow you.
Just as he couldn't be sure that he would find answers past a certain point, he also couldn't be sure that he wouldn't. That small loophole was big enough for him to fit through and in hindsight his squeezing through it was inevitable. He should've foreseen that. ]
I should've gone alone or I should've stopped it sooner. I hope you're not trying to make my actions into a mistake you made.
[ There's a lot of I in what Clarke's saying. Either she's telling him off - justified - or she's taking some degree of ownership. Or both. Whatever the case, that's not going to happen without resistance. ]
I did. At first. [Even before the consequences came to light, Clarke had her doubts. It's why she had another way, why she needed another way.]
But a friend helped me come to my senses. I do feel responsible, though. I feel responsible because I should have—could have—stopped you, and I didn't.
That won't be the way things go from this point forward, Stephen.
We're business partners. [Okay, that's probably not clarifying much.] But our business isn't just—it isn't a selfish hope. I don't even care for all the credits we get. [It says a lot, too, that Clarke seamlessly has always referred to them as credits. Her introduction to fiduciary comfort is the end result of being a part of this world. And she hates it.]
I stepped in because Markus cared about the Displaced, and I care, too—maybe not enough, maybe not to the point of calling them my people, but I—we—know what we owe to them. You and I. That means we can't be blind to what we're doing, what we can have others do, from this point forward.
Mm. [ A quiet noise of receipt. After a couple of seconds to organise himself: ]
This isn't the first time it's taken a catastrophic mistake for me to realise how capable I am of making them. [ More than one of those times have been here, though none this big. It lends weight to her point, as if it needed any extra. ]
If there is a next time, I'll hear you.
[ They're partners. The next time she uses her voice, he'll listen. And not just through the filter of his own perspective. ]
It's easy to justify something by the ends, even if you think you're the only one hurting from it. [Clarke had evaded responsibility by feeling she was taking it all onto herself. Her first attempt at escaping had been that: set out to find answers without the limits of what were set on them as they moved from one part of the city to another.
It was foolish and nearsighted. She can't be that narrow in her focus. Even "my people" versus "the Displaced" is foolish, isn't it? Does it matter when it ultimately becomes the same as long as she's here?]
I need to change, too. I said it just then, right? That maybe I don't care enough. But I'm in this with you until I get what I want, which is to do right by this world so I can bring my people here. [A goal she set out once she got back, a goal she won't be pushed away from. At least for now.]
I won't go to the lengths I will for my people, but that doesn't mean I'm not in a position to be responsible. We both have to face up to who we are to them, and do our parts.
[ It's odd to hear it put into those words. We both have to face up to who we are to them.
Stephen's been a lot of things. A strategist, an expert in most things he puts himself to, a genius. He's been responsible for lives on all sorts of scales: brains under instruments; the development of spells and medical techniques that have and will go on to save thousands; the safeguarding of reality itself. All of these things, in one way or another, have made thematic sense in his life. The products of a brilliant mind.
He can count on one hand the number of people who might have marked him for a community leader.
So she'll have to forgive him the time it takes him to dredge up his reply. It's spent rifling back through his life here, through both of their lives here, clocking in the memories of troughs and turning points. To bring him, inevitably, to his conclusion. ]
It's amazing what an extended stay in another universe can do.
[ There's fondness in the remark. It's by no means a dismissal. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@stephen.strange, audio. backdated to the day after the sim ended.
He'll need more than a day. He knows that early, after the high-low mess of the first few hours eases into the fog-minded vacancy of the next many.
But while there are plenty of people he can hold off on reaching out to, there's one who can't wait. For reasons both practical and personal, late morning of the day after they were all set free Clarke's implant will alert her to an incoming request for an audio feed from one Stephen Strange. ]
no subject
The call comes when she's in Red Wings, though. She's taking notes on where they'll need to clean up, and ensure water is, in fact, going down the drains without problems.
She accepts the call.]
I really hope you're not downstairs right now. But if you are, I can head out so this isn't weird. [Clarke can only imagine that Stephen needs the space, so she won't force a one on one. Well, directly, aynway.]
no subject
I'm not downstairs.
[ How much smalltalk is appropriate for a situation like this? Polite conversation never has been his forte. Then again, neither of them have ever much gone in for it. ]
I'll be staying above ground as much as possible for the forseeable future.
[ Spoken wryly, but it's a good sign for as much as it might speak to short term struggle. An acknowledgement of needs and limitations. He didn't spend even one night in that safehouse where before he never spent a night outside of it. ]
no subject
[Clarke isn't only referring to what happened to Stephen. What's happened to him falls in line with what happened to her mom, to Octavia, to Miller and all the rest.]
I'm guessing the daily Stephen location report isn't why you're checking in?
no subject
I'm going to need some time. I'm calling to discuss the logistics.
no subject
There's more than just the Red Wings logistics, Stephen. It's what happened in there. You know that, don't you?
no subject
I know.
[ Tired, chastened, Stephen leaves it at that and waits for a roadmap. Resistant in spite of himself. ]
no subject
[While it started with a question, it doesn't end with one. Clarke's stating her observations out loud. If she's wrong, he can correct her, but it sounds like she doubts that she is.]
no subject
[ Soldiers, in other words. Of a kind.
The problem lies in that Stephen Strange is not a soldier here. He's not a doctor, he has no magic. Before the simulation, there hadn't been many situations in which not having fully come to terms with that had made too much of a difference.
And then Judas. And he'd weaponized the only tribe he had left, ignoring that their commonalities aren't the ones he's used to. Ignoring that he's no longer the sorcerer he was. ]
no subject
It's hard to realize the moment that everyone in the room doesn't see things the same way, but thinks they do. I thought that because you kept me from making a mistake all that time ago that you'd know how to act with restraint when I asked you to. [A beat.] But I guess you knew what I was doing at the time because you recognized it for what it was.
no subject
Just as he couldn't be sure that he would find answers past a certain point, he also couldn't be sure that he wouldn't. That small loophole was big enough for him to fit through and in hindsight his squeezing through it was inevitable. He should've foreseen that. ]
I should've gone alone or I should've stopped it sooner. I hope you're not trying to make my actions into a mistake you made.
[ There's a lot of I in what Clarke's saying. Either she's telling him off - justified - or she's taking some degree of ownership. Or both. Whatever the case, that's not going to happen without resistance. ]
no subject
But a friend helped me come to my senses. I do feel responsible, though. I feel responsible because I should have—could have—stopped you, and I didn't.
That won't be the way things go from this point forward, Stephen.
no subject
... Okay.
[ It's an uncertain-sounding opening of the floor. What does she mean? ]
no subject
I stepped in because Markus cared about the Displaced, and I care, too—maybe not enough, maybe not to the point of calling them my people, but I—we—know what we owe to them. You and I. That means we can't be blind to what we're doing, what we can have others do, from this point forward.
no subject
This isn't the first time it's taken a catastrophic mistake for me to realise how capable I am of making them. [ More than one of those times have been here, though none this big. It lends weight to her point, as if it needed any extra. ]
If there is a next time, I'll hear you.
[ They're partners. The next time she uses her voice, he'll listen. And not just through the filter of his own perspective. ]
no subject
It was foolish and nearsighted. She can't be that narrow in her focus. Even "my people" versus "the Displaced" is foolish, isn't it? Does it matter when it ultimately becomes the same as long as she's here?]
I need to change, too. I said it just then, right? That maybe I don't care enough. But I'm in this with you until I get what I want, which is to do right by this world so I can bring my people here. [A goal she set out once she got back, a goal she won't be pushed away from. At least for now.]
I won't go to the lengths I will for my people, but that doesn't mean I'm not in a position to be responsible. We both have to face up to who we are to them, and do our parts.
no subject
Stephen's been a lot of things. A strategist, an expert in most things he puts himself to, a genius. He's been responsible for lives on all sorts of scales: brains under instruments; the development of spells and medical techniques that have and will go on to save thousands; the safeguarding of reality itself. All of these things, in one way or another, have made thematic sense in his life. The products of a brilliant mind.
He can count on one hand the number of people who might have marked him for a community leader.
So she'll have to forgive him the time it takes him to dredge up his reply. It's spent rifling back through his life here, through both of their lives here, clocking in the memories of troughs and turning points. To bring him, inevitably, to his conclusion. ]
It's amazing what an extended stay in another universe can do.
[ There's fondness in the remark. It's by no means a dismissal. ]