That familiar flash of validation rushes through her and she pats his hand in the moment it's there on her arm as a quiet acknowledgement, barely biting back a smile. She's trying. She's really fucking trying and it's— it's nice to be able to start showing it.
"Uh— you go ahead. I mean, there's, like, other shit, but... you go first. Sure I need to hear it."
After everything, it only seems fair. He had to set the terms of all this, after all, so... she braces, a little, to hear what he has to say, but she's ready as she'll ever be.
"So, CT came by while you were away. And before you freak out---- we weren't, like, talking shit. She came to tell me about something she found out, uh. Before she died. About us."
That's... not what she expected. Couldn't concretely say what she did expect—more talk of their communication problems, maybe, or how North wants her to handle certain things—but it wasn't that.
It's hard to miss the way she does, reflexively, bristle at the mention of CT—can't help the reflexive recoil at being talked about behind her back—but she gets that under control quickly enough, if not without a bit of effort. (Still, progress, right?)
North takes a slow breath. "So, uh. As it turns out, the stuff the Director and Counsellor were doing... The leaderboard, the missions, the AI. It was intentional," he says bluntly. Might as well get it out, no point in sugar coating. "We were an experiment, I guess. In what would happen if a matched pair of agents had one person treated with favoritism and the other sidelined. Basically for no reason, just to see what would happen."
The silence that falls over South is stark for how it contrasts everything else about her. She stares back at him, mouth just barely ajar, for a long, unnatural moment of what must seem to be calm before an inevitable storm, until, finally:
"...what?"
The word tries to die in her throat, caught by the overwhelming and yet unidentifiable emotion that strangles her, and so it comes out tight and small. She is still frozen in place.
Carolina told her, once, weeks ago, that she thought the way Command had always treated her was targeted. She hadn't known what to do with the feeling that hit her then, when it was just a theory, when it was just about her, when it was easy to write off as just another example of the ways people always saw her as a troublesome element needing punishment. But this—this is more than that, this is so much worse than that, this is—
Finally, motion. Sudden, but not violent—South seizes up from her seat and drags her hands over her face, through her hair, barely resisting the urge to grab and tug at the roots. Emotion that needs an outlet, the way she's always been, and yet so determined right now not to even risk lashing out.
"They— they were— they fucking broke me on purpose?!"
"...Yeah." North forces the word out. It makes him feel sick to see her like this. He reached out, dragging his knuckles over her back. "Yeah, they did. They drove a wedge between us. Tortured you for god knows how long, all but guaranteed I ended up paying for it. So they could watch. I--- I'm sorry that I didn't--- see it sooner."
Her muscles tense for barely a flash and then relax, looser than they were before, just that touch enough to sooth—not completely, no, but it's something. It's something.
The horrible, cruel part of her that she's got choked on a leash wants to bite back at him, snap that yeah, he should be fucking sorry, should be sorry for a lot of things— but no, no that's not how she feels, that's not how she really feels and she throttles that piece of her until it shuts the fuck up. The effort leaves her breathing heavy. For a split second, he might even recognise the way her hands draw back like they're going to ram against her skull, before she wrests them down without letting it happen.
"I— I-I thought... I-I thought I was going nuts. I knew I felt something, I knew... but none of the rest of you ever fucking saw it. There goes South, getting in fucking trouble again! What a pain in the ass, won't listen, won't— but I did good work. I did. But every time I made any fucking mistake—"
Mistakes other people never got permanent marks on their record for. Mistakes that should never have been enough to outweigh the work she did. What the fuck. What the fuck.
And worse than that—
She looks back down at him with his own eyes and swallows, hard. "...t-they turned me against you. I— I let them turn me against you. I— Di—"
"N-no, I... In a lot of ways--- I did see it," North confesses quietly, ashamed. "I just... thought it was more of the same. Y'know."
That double standard that had followed them their whole lives. It had grown so normal that North didn't think to do anything about it, no matter how frustrated he was. All he could do was keep supporting her, but the angrier she got, the less he wanted to. Like a boiled frog.
He should've stopped it.
"It wasn't like that," he insists. A goddamn hypocrite. It wasn't South's fault, she couldn't have known, but he should have. South, a victim. North, complicit. (Maybe he deserved to die for what he let them do to her.) "You didn't let anybody do anything, you were manipulated. It was a set-up. I-I mean, it's--- It still happened. You still made some bad choices. But you're not a monster for being a product of what was done to you."
South sits, stands, sits, buries her face in her hands and tries to breathe. Wants to pace around the room (wants to hit something) but doesn't want to walk away from him, right now; the idea of it feels wrong, of turning her back on him for even a second.
"But I did. I-I could've— I could've talked to you, I could've— I-I could've fucking trusted you and I didn't, I didn't. Fuck, they had me working fucking Recovery, told me to track you down, and I never even fucking told you!"
Playing both sides. At the time, she figured they didn't know she was with North, already, that they just believed her when she said she was on her own and willing to turn him in if she ever found him. Of course, she never did. She used them for information, and kept trying to convince North to leave Theta behind. And yet she never warned him. She came up with her stupid fucking plan, instead.
"They— they turned me against you. An-and I. Let them. And I-I hate that. I hate it. I hate—" me, fuck, she hates herself for letting this happen, at the same time as a part of her feels... vindicated, by the truth. They did this to her. They did this to her. It wasn't just her. It wasn't just her.
Breathe in, out.
"I-I hate them. I hate them. And I hate me. And I don't hate you. I can't— I could never hate you. Even back there, on the run, when I was so fucking angry with you I-I could never... I could never hate you." Maybe that comes out of nowhere. But it feels so suddenly important to say, in the moment.
South winces, drops her head back into her palms so she doesn't have to look at him. "...yeah. Since— since a few weeks after we left."
Should've told him the first time she explained this. (He's going to be hurt again. He's going to want her gone again—)
"They called me one night, when you were asleep. They didn't seem to know we were already fuckin' together, so they... assigned me to finding you and Theta. Promised me an AI if I did everything they asked. Honestly I— I didn't even believe that part, I just— figured it'd get me information. And so long as they didn't know I was with you. I-I could use that to keep us safe until... until I convinced you to give Theta up. Obviously, I know that was fucking stupid, now. Every fucking plan I made was fucking stupid."
Admittedly, that wasn't a bad plan. Using them for info. But why didn't she tell him?
Ugh. Whatever. He doesn't want to deal with this. He compartmentalizes it as just another facet of the whole "getting him killed" debacle and stamps the package with "As Dealt With As It Can Be." Moving on.
"Just one more tangle in this fucking knot, I guess," he grumbles, scrubbing his face. "Listen, I just wanted you to know. The whole thing, it was--- engineered. And I don't wanna waste any more time resenting each other when we didn't do it. They did. But we're stronger than that. And we're not gonna let the bastards win."
She drops her hands, eyes him a little nervously in her periphery. Hoping she hasn't planted another bomb that's going to blow up in her face again. She doesn't know if she could handle another fight, like before.
"...yeah. I— I don't, ha, I don't— feel, very strong, right now, but I don't wanna let them fucking win. We— we won't." She digs her teeth into her lip, then lays her hand on the table face-up next to him. "...I'm sorry. I-I'm sorry for every bullshit fucking lie, and— and every horrible thing I fucking said, and getting you hurt, and... and everything. Even— even if it was them. I'm sorry. I-I wanna be better."
South lets out a bitter little laugh and squeezes his hand tight. "I— I don't even fucking know, that's the stupid thing. You... you were right, when you said that shit, I was being impossible. I uh—"
Something on the other side of the room is suddenly very, very interesting. But she needs to tell him this just as much as she needed to tell him about the alcohol.
"...'Lina— 'Lina talked me through a lot of shit. And she said— she said she thinks I'm... ill. You know. Up—" she lifts their joined hands to gently tap the side of her head with his knuckles. "Here. And that's... that's why. Why a lot of things, I guess."
South blinks at him for a solid three seconds before— "...jesus christ am I the only fucking idiot who didn't think this was a fucking option for me? Lina saying that shit was like— like a fucking kick in the head! I thought— fuck, Di, I thought I was just fucking broken. That I'd always been broken."
Right from the start. Some inherent piece of her that had never formed right, that could somehow explain why everyone hated her from the jump.
"...but I— I wasn't. Right? I wasn't always this bad. Was I? I... I actually, ha, I can't. Remember." She flinches at herself. "S-Sorry. Stupid question."
"No, you're not broken. And it wasn't always this bad. It kinda happened over time, starting when we were kids, but it wasn't this rough till we were in the military," North explains. "And I mean--- like I said, me too. I got like. Probably some kind of anxiety disorder? I never had time to look into it, I just sorta figured out how to work around it. You can, too. And we can even do better, we can actually try and figure this shit out for real, you know?"
It's hard not to start feeling like she's constantly the last person to know things about her own life, right now. She has to take a second to let the words sink in through the barrier of the contrariness that feeling inspires, squeezing North's hand tighter again as she does.
Anxiety disorder. Sure. That makes as much sense as anything, for him. (How did she go all these years not realising how deep it all ran, in him? Fuck.)
"...I don't even know what it could be," she says, finally. "Lina pointed at the, uh— intense emotions and uh. Codependency. But that's... kinda it. Probably why I get so fucking jealous. This uh..."
Her grip loosens, feeling suddenly embarrassed and like she should pull her hand away but not actually wanting to.
"...Theta— Theta wasn't the first time. Just the worst."
"...usually when you uh, got— serious, with someone. Like, dating wise. Friends, sometimes, but they— they didn't usually take time the same way, I-I don't know."
She's cringing even as she admits it, humiliated by her own stupid emotions. It's not normal to be jealous of people around your brother, like this, and knowing it's something wrong with her brain helps rationalise it but... ugh.
"You never did anything wrong, you were just... living your fuckin' life and I'd sit there feeling fucking sick because you didn't have as much time for me and— it's fucking stupid. I never said anything because it was fucking stupid."
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That familiar flash of validation rushes through her and she pats his hand in the moment it's there on her arm as a quiet acknowledgement, barely biting back a smile. She's trying. She's really fucking trying and it's— it's nice to be able to start showing it.
"Uh— you go ahead. I mean, there's, like, other shit, but... you go first. Sure I need to hear it."
After everything, it only seems fair. He had to set the terms of all this, after all, so... she braces, a little, to hear what he has to say, but she's ready as she'll ever be.
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"So, CT came by while you were away. And before you freak out---- we weren't, like, talking shit. She came to tell me about something she found out, uh. Before she died. About us."
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That's... not what she expected. Couldn't concretely say what she did expect—more talk of their communication problems, maybe, or how North wants her to handle certain things—but it wasn't that.
It's hard to miss the way she does, reflexively, bristle at the mention of CT—can't help the reflexive recoil at being talked about behind her back—but she gets that under control quickly enough, if not without a bit of effort. (Still, progress, right?)
"...like. What?"
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1/2
The silence that falls over South is stark for how it contrasts everything else about her. She stares back at him, mouth just barely ajar, for a long, unnatural moment of what must seem to be calm before an inevitable storm, until, finally:
"...what?"
The word tries to die in her throat, caught by the overwhelming and yet unidentifiable emotion that strangles her, and so it comes out tight and small. She is still frozen in place.
Carolina told her, once, weeks ago, that she thought the way Command had always treated her was targeted. She hadn't known what to do with the feeling that hit her then, when it was just a theory, when it was just about her, when it was easy to write off as just another example of the ways people always saw her as a troublesome element needing punishment. But this—this is more than that, this is so much worse than that, this is—
2/2
Finally, motion. Sudden, but not violent—South seizes up from her seat and drags her hands over her face, through her hair, barely resisting the urge to grab and tug at the roots. Emotion that needs an outlet, the way she's always been, and yet so determined right now not to even risk lashing out.
"They— they were— they fucking broke me on purpose?!"
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Her muscles tense for barely a flash and then relax, looser than they were before, just that touch enough to sooth—not completely, no, but it's something. It's something.
The horrible, cruel part of her that she's got choked on a leash wants to bite back at him, snap that yeah, he should be fucking sorry, should be sorry for a lot of things— but no, no that's not how she feels, that's not how she really feels and she throttles that piece of her until it shuts the fuck up. The effort leaves her breathing heavy. For a split second, he might even recognise the way her hands draw back like they're going to ram against her skull, before she wrests them down without letting it happen.
"I— I-I thought... I-I thought I was going nuts. I knew I felt something, I knew... but none of the rest of you ever fucking saw it. There goes South, getting in fucking trouble again! What a pain in the ass, won't listen, won't— but I did good work. I did. But every time I made any fucking mistake—"
Mistakes other people never got permanent marks on their record for. Mistakes that should never have been enough to outweigh the work she did. What the fuck. What the fuck.
And worse than that—
She looks back down at him with his own eyes and swallows, hard. "...t-they turned me against you. I— I let them turn me against you. I— Di—"
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That double standard that had followed them their whole lives. It had grown so normal that North didn't think to do anything about it, no matter how frustrated he was. All he could do was keep supporting her, but the angrier she got, the less he wanted to. Like a boiled frog.
He should've stopped it.
"It wasn't like that," he insists. A goddamn hypocrite. It wasn't South's fault, she couldn't have known, but he should have. South, a victim. North, complicit. (Maybe he deserved to die for what he let them do to her.) "You didn't let anybody do anything, you were manipulated. It was a set-up. I-I mean, it's--- It still happened. You still made some bad choices. But you're not a monster for being a product of what was done to you."
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South sits, stands, sits, buries her face in her hands and tries to breathe. Wants to pace around the room (wants to hit something) but doesn't want to walk away from him, right now; the idea of it feels wrong, of turning her back on him for even a second.
"But I did. I-I could've— I could've talked to you, I could've— I-I could've fucking trusted you and I didn't, I didn't. Fuck, they had me working fucking Recovery, told me to track you down, and I never even fucking told you!"
Playing both sides. At the time, she figured they didn't know she was with North, already, that they just believed her when she said she was on her own and willing to turn him in if she ever found him. Of course, she never did. She used them for information, and kept trying to convince North to leave Theta behind. And yet she never warned him. She came up with her stupid fucking plan, instead.
"They— they turned me against you. An-and I. Let them. And I-I hate that. I hate it. I hate—" me, fuck, she hates herself for letting this happen, at the same time as a part of her feels... vindicated, by the truth. They did this to her. They did this to her. It wasn't just her. It wasn't just her.
Breathe in, out.
"I-I hate them. I hate them. And I hate me. And I don't hate you. I can't— I could never hate you. Even back there, on the run, when I was so fucking angry with you I-I could never... I could never hate you." Maybe that comes out of nowhere. But it feels so suddenly important to say, in the moment.
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"You were working Recovery?"
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South winces, drops her head back into her palms so she doesn't have to look at him. "...yeah. Since— since a few weeks after we left."
Should've told him the first time she explained this. (He's going to be hurt again. He's going to want her gone again—)
"They called me one night, when you were asleep. They didn't seem to know we were already fuckin' together, so they... assigned me to finding you and Theta. Promised me an AI if I did everything they asked. Honestly I— I didn't even believe that part, I just— figured it'd get me information. And so long as they didn't know I was with you. I-I could use that to keep us safe until... until I convinced you to give Theta up. Obviously, I know that was fucking stupid, now. Every fucking plan I made was fucking stupid."
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Admittedly, that wasn't a bad plan. Using them for info. But why didn't she tell him?
Ugh. Whatever. He doesn't want to deal with this. He compartmentalizes it as just another facet of the whole "getting him killed" debacle and stamps the package with "As Dealt With As It Can Be." Moving on.
"Just one more tangle in this fucking knot, I guess," he grumbles, scrubbing his face. "Listen, I just wanted you to know. The whole thing, it was--- engineered. And I don't wanna waste any more time resenting each other when we didn't do it. They did. But we're stronger than that. And we're not gonna let the bastards win."
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She drops her hands, eyes him a little nervously in her periphery. Hoping she hasn't planted another bomb that's going to blow up in her face again. She doesn't know if she could handle another fight, like before.
"...yeah. I— I don't, ha, I don't— feel, very strong, right now, but I don't wanna let them fucking win. We— we won't." She digs her teeth into her lip, then lays her hand on the table face-up next to him. "...I'm sorry. I-I'm sorry for every bullshit fucking lie, and— and every horrible thing I fucking said, and getting you hurt, and... and everything. Even— even if it was them. I'm sorry. I-I wanna be better."
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A beat.
"...I wanna know how to be what you need me to be."
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South lets out a bitter little laugh and squeezes his hand tight. "I— I don't even fucking know, that's the stupid thing. You... you were right, when you said that shit, I was being impossible. I uh—"
Something on the other side of the room is suddenly very, very interesting. But she needs to tell him this just as much as she needed to tell him about the alcohol.
"...'Lina— 'Lina talked me through a lot of shit. And she said— she said she thinks I'm... ill. You know. Up—" she lifts their joined hands to gently tap the side of her head with his knuckles. "Here. And that's... that's why. Why a lot of things, I guess."
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South blinks at him for a solid three seconds before— "...jesus christ am I the only fucking idiot who didn't think this was a fucking option for me? Lina saying that shit was like— like a fucking kick in the head! I thought— fuck, Di, I thought I was just fucking broken. That I'd always been broken."
Right from the start. Some inherent piece of her that had never formed right, that could somehow explain why everyone hated her from the jump.
"...but I— I wasn't. Right? I wasn't always this bad. Was I? I... I actually, ha, I can't. Remember." She flinches at herself. "S-Sorry. Stupid question."
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It's hard not to start feeling like she's constantly the last person to know things about her own life, right now. She has to take a second to let the words sink in through the barrier of the contrariness that feeling inspires, squeezing North's hand tighter again as she does.
Anxiety disorder. Sure. That makes as much sense as anything, for him. (How did she go all these years not realising how deep it all ran, in him? Fuck.)
"...I don't even know what it could be," she says, finally. "Lina pointed at the, uh— intense emotions and uh. Codependency. But that's... kinda it. Probably why I get so fucking jealous. This uh..."
Her grip loosens, feeling suddenly embarrassed and like she should pull her hand away but not actually wanting to.
"...Theta— Theta wasn't the first time. Just the worst."
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"...usually when you uh, got— serious, with someone. Like, dating wise. Friends, sometimes, but they— they didn't usually take time the same way, I-I don't know."
She's cringing even as she admits it, humiliated by her own stupid emotions. It's not normal to be jealous of people around your brother, like this, and knowing it's something wrong with her brain helps rationalise it but... ugh.
"You never did anything wrong, you were just... living your fuckin' life and I'd sit there feeling fucking sick because you didn't have as much time for me and— it's fucking stupid. I never said anything because it was fucking stupid."