Chuckling, North passes her a handful of unsalted peanuts. "Here, give him that and he'll love you forever. I'll go get the coffee."
It takes him about the same amount of time that it takes Theta to scarf down the treat to come back with two steaming mugs. "There's cream and stuff on that coffee table by the fireplace. How's it going?"
CT gladly accepts and offers the little guy his peanuts. It's sweet, really, that North was so attached to his AI that he named a critter after him. Makes her a little sad she never met the real deal.
She stands up and shrugs her coat off once he gets back, accepting the mug with a thank you and drifting to the table by the fire. "It's going... pretty good, right now, actually. We've just about got Ellen moved in, which, speaking of—"
She passes the bag of various small garden tools. "Found these in one of our cupboards, they're of more use to you with a farm than to us. Figured a late housewarming or holiday thing was better than nothing."
Anyway. She clears her throat a bit. "But I'll admit that I'm mostly here because I heard about South going and moving in with Carolina, of all people."
North brightens slightly, about to thank her for the tools--- he has quite a few of his own, left behind by the previous residents, but more never hurts, especially for the smaller garden pots around the back that he plans to grow herbs in----
But then South comes up. "Oh, yeah, uh. Yeah, we're... kind of, uh. We had to take some time after the, uh, the dance thing. Something happened."
She kind of hates to knock him down again so quickly, but not being honest about the majority of her reason to come today specifically would feel worse.
"I think I have an idea about what," she says, tone empathetic. "Between Carolina and this eldritch thing in my head I've had a lot of... vague information about the future sprung on me. It's actually why I was worried, before. Why I brought in Valdis at all. I thought, if she could hurt you, then..."
Why would anyone else be off the table? Physically harming North like that should have been impossible for the South she knew.
"...I'm sorry. Both that it happened and that I didn't say anything before, it just didn't seem my place. But I wanted to check on you now, after I heard."
"That boss of mine who I accidentally set on her? That's her name—Valdis. She's... I don't actually know what she's been up to, recently, but she seems to have stayed away from poking the bear again, so— small mercies?"
She'll take that much victory where she can get it. She sighs, sitting herself down with her coffee and finally putting in her requisite amounts of sugar and cream. Lighter, than she used to have it toward the end of the program.
"I'm still sorry about that. I should've come to you."
"Oh, her." North tries to sound casual, but he's clearly none too pleased. It's hard to actually get North to genuinely dislike another person, but even this subtle annoyance is rare, as North Dakota is by all accounts pathologically agreeable.
"Yeah, I heard about that. Wasn't super happy with how she talked to South. I mean--- I know South was being an asshole, even if she did kinda downplay it, and maybe I'm misreading the situation because I wasn't there, but it sounded a lot to me like she showed up waving her chief of police title around and undermined my sister. I swung by to try and clear things up after a few days, but I guess she was on some kind of leave? I dunno. I left a message, but I don't really trust cops anyway. ...No offense."
CT laughs, shakes her head. "None taken. I didn't really expect to find myself in this position either, I ran afoul of the cops back home plenty of times. Taking this job was... a practical thing."
Best access to the resources she needed to try and figure this place out. It's paid off, mostly, but she has no intention of keeping this position once the barrier goes down.
"I tried to find her around the same time for my own reasons and found out someone else was acting as interim Chief, so, I'm as lost as you." Sigh. Valdis, what happened... "Valdis is going through... something, and she's always played hardball, but I didn't expect her to play it quite like it sounds like she did. And I really am sorry about that. I'd had her vet Carolina before and that went fine and with what I knew about what had happened and that stupid stone call I just... had to be sure, you know. But I should've checked with you."
Raising his hands and opening his mouth, North is half a breath away from accepting her apology and reassuring her that she has absolutely nothing to be sorry for, but then that last bit---
He narrows his eyes suspiciously. Not of CT, but rather in an "oh god, what happened now" kind of way. "What stone call?"
Ah, well. "It was weeks ago at this point. Honestly I'm surprised it didn't wake you up, she was shouting pretty loud but— she called me at like, three in the morning, clearly drunk and just started laying into me for leaving her. I explained myself and she hung up when she realised she wasn't getting the reaction she wanted from me. I'm not even sure what she did want except to convince me of the lie that she actually hates me."
"I'll be real with you, CT, the first couple nights of getting the barn set up were so exhausting that I could've slept through the end of the world," North jokes, half-heartedly laughing. God, that's embarrassing. South, what the fuck.
"...But, uh, yeah, I'm sorry about that. You guys used to be, you know, pretty close. She took the whole insurrectionist thing pretty hard, and even after we found out it wasn't like that, I think she still took it personally that she hadn't been in the know. You were pretty special to her."
"...yeah. She— she was special to me too." She really was. South was by far her best friend at the program by the time it was all over, her trust in Wash shattered much earlier by his wilful ignorance. Even if they never figured out what they were, never took a chance, it did hurt to leave her. "I know she cared about me. I think she would've done just about anything for me if I asked, except the one thing I needed her to. You know? You know what she's like. If I'd tried to tell her the truth and that one day I'd have to leave, she would sooner have told me to drop it than help or come with me. She's not... a big picture sort of person."
Another sigh. It's not like she likes feeling this way about South, but even South herself couldn't deny her assumption once she laid it at her feet.
"And that's... this is all why I wanted to see how you were doing. I know what it's like to love that amazing, infuriating woman and still be stuck standing here not knowing how I'm supposed to help her without— throwing myself on the railroad tracks. You know? I can't do that, I won't—but if I'm feeling it, then I know you must be feeling it worse."
Oh, CT, you have no idea. You're speaking to the man who died on those tracks, woke up, and laid right back down.
"Yeah, well. None of us got out of Project Freelancer without getting messed up. That's why so many of us are here, I figure," he jokes hollowly. "You seem like you're doing better here. New girlfriend and all, so I hear."
"You heard right. That's Ellen. Who South also— picked a fight with, actually, but—" A shake of her head, they've already covered that South's behaving in deeply embarrassing ways, no point in dwelling on another example. "Yeah. I've had chance to get settled. Despite everything I'm doing pretty well. But the first few months are always rough. And you're dealing with more than most do before their first big— nightmare."
Trying not to let him deflect too much. The twins have missed the more dramatic monthly occurrences by virtue of arriving at the tail end of the year where things are, comparatively, blissfully, quiet, and stumbled into their own personal problems instead.
"...I guess I'm just trying to say I at least kind of get it, if you need to talk to someone who does. I don't think anyone else at the program knew her like we did."
Christ. There's still things he needs to know, but the longer she's talking to him the more worried she is it'll only do more harm than good right now.
"I don't think anyone in the universe ever knew South like I knew her, but you came pretty damn close," North says with a quiet laugh. "I really appreciate it, CT. You're good people. It's just--- complicated, you know?" A beat. "Did you ever find out what exactly happened?"
There's a quiet understanding in her eyes and the smile she gives—no, she could never know South exactly as well as he did, it'd be impossible, she understands that much.
"I know. I don't think this could be anything but complicated," she says, because it's true. Her relationship with her own brother was too, in its way; but that was a relationship that ended when she was only a teenager and he ran off to join the actual Insurrection. "But no, I don't know the full story. All I got was that she led the Meta to you."
"That's the gist of it. She wanted Theta gone. And she wanted it so bad that she put me in harm's way, knowing it'd devastate me to lose Theta, knowing that I might not survive. And what do you know. I didn't." North sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face in thought and frustration. "I--- In a lot of ways, I do forgive her. You know? She was getting treated unfairly by the project, and she really didn't have any reason to understand why Theta meant so much to me. But at the same time, I'm like--- how could she do something so stupid? How could she take such a huge risk? She complained all the time about wanting to be her own person, but one time I end up with something that's just mine and she's willing to risk getting me killed over it? Or was she just so damn overconfident that she didn't think anything bad would happen?"
CT manages to hide her wince at treated unfairly by the Project, words that are entirely accurate and said without knowing even knowing the true horrifying extent of it. Christ, how is she meant to tell him?
She doesn't hide her wince at the whole story in itself. "Jesus christ, that's... I don't know if that's better or worse than what I was imagining."
Both, maybe? Better than shooting her brother in the back in cold blood, something Carolina's limited knowledge didn't rule out, especially considering Wash, but worse in other ways. Worse in how fucking thoughtlessly selfish it is without being, by South's own twisted logic, intentionally malicious.
"Knowing her, the overconfidence had to be at least half of it. She always did make herself do things the hard way, always so sure she'd pull it off." Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. "I bet the possibility that you'd actually die never crossed her mind until it was too late and that's... well, that is stupid. Just— unbelievably thoughtless."
It's spoken with the kind of frustration that only someone who knows some of South's patterns all too well would feel. No venom, just... exhaustion and exasperation.
She chews the inside of her cheek. "...she really said all that to your face? The complaining, I mean. I... for some reason I thought whenever she vented that at me she was, well, keeping it away from you. I mean, she'd talk to me about you guys— pretty much any time you had an argument or you jumped in front of a bullet for her or something."
Wow. North was literally taking bullets for her, only to find out she was complaining to CT about it. What overwhelming gratitude. North grits his teeth and sighs, refraining from commenting.
"Yeah, no, she said it to my face. Said it was annoying how we got lumped together all the time. How she just wanted to be herself, and not us all the time. I dunno. I didn't really understand it, I don't think."
She catches that subtle clench of his jaw, but prying into exactly what part of what she said got that reaction would be... more invasive than she'd like to be, however helpful it might be to her ability to have this conversation.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But— I don't know, I think... I always got the sense that she wasn't even really angry at you, exactly, just... angry at everything. Everyone. Sometimes it was like she only spoke the way she did because she didn't know how to do anything but go on the attack."
When you don't know how to process your emotions, sometimes it's easier to turn even things like worry into anger.
She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough she almost tastes iron. She can't let this sit any longer, she just can't. "...look, North, I don't even know how to get into this, and even when I do, it doesn't change what she did, but... there's— something you don't know yet, about the program. About the program as it relates to you and your sister specifically."
Thank god she had a test run of this with Carolina. Even then, it's harder to figure out how to say it to the man's face.
For a split second, her eyes sheen gold, and then it's gone and you could think you'd never seen anything amiss at all.
"You know how the Director and the Counselor liked their little... experiments? Letting Carolina take two AI. Inserting Beta into the team as Texas. The whole existence of the leaderboard. You and South were— another one of those experiments. Not from the beginning, I don't think, but from soon enough in I'm not sure when exactly it started. I know I noticed the way all your joint assignments favoured only your specialities at some point, but—"
She shakes her head, waves the details off. Focus on the important bits.
"I do know that knocking her rank down after that mission on the oil platform was part of it. As was every other knock to her rank she took after. They needed her to rank as low on Alpha's roster as they could get her so that they had an excuse to never, ever give her an AI, no matter what happened. All while knowing they'd give you one as soon as your number came up."
You know those cartoons where someone has a life-altering realization that changes their entire idea on their world, their choices, the events of their life, and the people around them, and the animators choose to illustrate this with a graphic of a pane of glass shattering behind their head?
Yeah.
North just kind of... stares at CT dumbly, not saying anything.
CT's first thought is the near absurd: Oh, god, I broke him.
Her second is similar, but a lot more eloquent, an awareness of the weight of the information she just threw through the metaphorical window like a brick. If she'd been shocked to see it in the files, and Carolina had put together the pieces so quickly, then... what must be going on in his head, she can't begin to guess. (And she refuses to look. Stop trying to tempt her.)
"I'm sorry. I know it's— a lot. But I also know that you deserve to know the truth, even if it doesn't... undo anything, or make what happened any less horrific."
"No, no, I uh... I appreciate the heads up," he says, as if he was just informed it might rain during his jog. Yeah, he's coping.
Suddenly everything is lining up. The assignments, the leaderboard, the AI, the way the Counselor and Director talked to South---- if those were the things they said while North was present, what did they say when he was gone? South was already prone to envy.
North already knew his death was engineered. But he did not realize to what extent, or by whom.
"Do you want any beer? I think I'm going to get one out of the icebox."
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It takes him about the same amount of time that it takes Theta to scarf down the treat to come back with two steaming mugs. "There's cream and stuff on that coffee table by the fireplace. How's it going?"
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CT gladly accepts and offers the little guy his peanuts. It's sweet, really, that North was so attached to his AI that he named a critter after him. Makes her a little sad she never met the real deal.
She stands up and shrugs her coat off once he gets back, accepting the mug with a thank you and drifting to the table by the fire. "It's going... pretty good, right now, actually. We've just about got Ellen moved in, which, speaking of—"
She passes the bag of various small garden tools. "Found these in one of our cupboards, they're of more use to you with a farm than to us. Figured a late housewarming or holiday thing was better than nothing."
Anyway. She clears her throat a bit. "But I'll admit that I'm mostly here because I heard about South going and moving in with Carolina, of all people."
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But then South comes up. "Oh, yeah, uh. Yeah, we're... kind of, uh. We had to take some time after the, uh, the dance thing. Something happened."
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She kind of hates to knock him down again so quickly, but not being honest about the majority of her reason to come today specifically would feel worse.
"I think I have an idea about what," she says, tone empathetic. "Between Carolina and this eldritch thing in my head I've had a lot of... vague information about the future sprung on me. It's actually why I was worried, before. Why I brought in Valdis at all. I thought, if she could hurt you, then..."
Why would anyone else be off the table? Physically harming North like that should have been impossible for the South she knew.
"...I'm sorry. Both that it happened and that I didn't say anything before, it just didn't seem my place. But I wanted to check on you now, after I heard."
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It's both for her and for himself.
Switching gears: "Who's Valdis?"
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"That boss of mine who I accidentally set on her? That's her name—Valdis. She's... I don't actually know what she's been up to, recently, but she seems to have stayed away from poking the bear again, so— small mercies?"
She'll take that much victory where she can get it. She sighs, sitting herself down with her coffee and finally putting in her requisite amounts of sugar and cream. Lighter, than she used to have it toward the end of the program.
"I'm still sorry about that. I should've come to you."
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"Yeah, I heard about that. Wasn't super happy with how she talked to South. I mean--- I know South was being an asshole, even if she did kinda downplay it, and maybe I'm misreading the situation because I wasn't there, but it sounded a lot to me like she showed up waving her chief of police title around and undermined my sister. I swung by to try and clear things up after a few days, but I guess she was on some kind of leave? I dunno. I left a message, but I don't really trust cops anyway. ...No offense."
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CT laughs, shakes her head. "None taken. I didn't really expect to find myself in this position either, I ran afoul of the cops back home plenty of times. Taking this job was... a practical thing."
Best access to the resources she needed to try and figure this place out. It's paid off, mostly, but she has no intention of keeping this position once the barrier goes down.
"I tried to find her around the same time for my own reasons and found out someone else was acting as interim Chief, so, I'm as lost as you." Sigh. Valdis, what happened... "Valdis is going through... something, and she's always played hardball, but I didn't expect her to play it quite like it sounds like she did. And I really am sorry about that. I'd had her vet Carolina before and that went fine and with what I knew about what had happened and that stupid stone call I just... had to be sure, you know. But I should've checked with you."
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He narrows his eyes suspiciously. Not of CT, but rather in an "oh god, what happened now" kind of way. "What stone call?"
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Ah, well. "It was weeks ago at this point. Honestly I'm surprised it didn't wake you up, she was shouting pretty loud but— she called me at like, three in the morning, clearly drunk and just started laying into me for leaving her. I explained myself and she hung up when she realised she wasn't getting the reaction she wanted from me. I'm not even sure what she did want except to convince me of the lie that she actually hates me."
She sighs, drinks some of her coffee.
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"...But, uh, yeah, I'm sorry about that. You guys used to be, you know, pretty close. She took the whole insurrectionist thing pretty hard, and even after we found out it wasn't like that, I think she still took it personally that she hadn't been in the know. You were pretty special to her."
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"...yeah. She— she was special to me too." She really was. South was by far her best friend at the program by the time it was all over, her trust in Wash shattered much earlier by his wilful ignorance. Even if they never figured out what they were, never took a chance, it did hurt to leave her. "I know she cared about me. I think she would've done just about anything for me if I asked, except the one thing I needed her to. You know? You know what she's like. If I'd tried to tell her the truth and that one day I'd have to leave, she would sooner have told me to drop it than help or come with me. She's not... a big picture sort of person."
Another sigh. It's not like she likes feeling this way about South, but even South herself couldn't deny her assumption once she laid it at her feet.
"And that's... this is all why I wanted to see how you were doing. I know what it's like to love that amazing, infuriating woman and still be stuck standing here not knowing how I'm supposed to help her without— throwing myself on the railroad tracks. You know? I can't do that, I won't—but if I'm feeling it, then I know you must be feeling it worse."
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"Yeah, well. None of us got out of Project Freelancer without getting messed up. That's why so many of us are here, I figure," he jokes hollowly. "You seem like you're doing better here. New girlfriend and all, so I hear."
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"You heard right. That's Ellen. Who South also— picked a fight with, actually, but—" A shake of her head, they've already covered that South's behaving in deeply embarrassing ways, no point in dwelling on another example. "Yeah. I've had chance to get settled. Despite everything I'm doing pretty well. But the first few months are always rough. And you're dealing with more than most do before their first big— nightmare."
Trying not to let him deflect too much. The twins have missed the more dramatic monthly occurrences by virtue of arriving at the tail end of the year where things are, comparatively, blissfully, quiet, and stumbled into their own personal problems instead.
"...I guess I'm just trying to say I at least kind of get it, if you need to talk to someone who does. I don't think anyone else at the program knew her like we did."
Christ. There's still things he needs to know, but the longer she's talking to him the more worried she is it'll only do more harm than good right now.
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There's a quiet understanding in her eyes and the smile she gives—no, she could never know South exactly as well as he did, it'd be impossible, she understands that much.
"I know. I don't think this could be anything but complicated," she says, because it's true. Her relationship with her own brother was too, in its way; but that was a relationship that ended when she was only a teenager and he ran off to join the actual Insurrection. "But no, I don't know the full story. All I got was that she led the Meta to you."
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CT manages to hide her wince at treated unfairly by the Project, words that are entirely accurate and said without knowing even knowing the true horrifying extent of it. Christ, how is she meant to tell him?
She doesn't hide her wince at the whole story in itself. "Jesus christ, that's... I don't know if that's better or worse than what I was imagining."
Both, maybe? Better than shooting her brother in the back in cold blood, something Carolina's limited knowledge didn't rule out, especially considering Wash, but worse in other ways. Worse in how fucking thoughtlessly selfish it is without being, by South's own twisted logic, intentionally malicious.
"Knowing her, the overconfidence had to be at least half of it. She always did make herself do things the hard way, always so sure she'd pull it off." Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. "I bet the possibility that you'd actually die never crossed her mind until it was too late and that's... well, that is stupid. Just— unbelievably thoughtless."
It's spoken with the kind of frustration that only someone who knows some of South's patterns all too well would feel. No venom, just... exhaustion and exasperation.
She chews the inside of her cheek. "...she really said all that to your face? The complaining, I mean. I... for some reason I thought whenever she vented that at me she was, well, keeping it away from you. I mean, she'd talk to me about you guys— pretty much any time you had an argument or you jumped in front of a bullet for her or something."
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"Yeah, no, she said it to my face. Said it was annoying how we got lumped together all the time. How she just wanted to be herself, and not us all the time. I dunno. I didn't really understand it, I don't think."
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She catches that subtle clench of his jaw, but prying into exactly what part of what she said got that reaction would be... more invasive than she'd like to be, however helpful it might be to her ability to have this conversation.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But— I don't know, I think... I always got the sense that she wasn't even really angry at you, exactly, just... angry at everything. Everyone. Sometimes it was like she only spoke the way she did because she didn't know how to do anything but go on the attack."
When you don't know how to process your emotions, sometimes it's easier to turn even things like worry into anger.
She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough she almost tastes iron. She can't let this sit any longer, she just can't. "...look, North, I don't even know how to get into this, and even when I do, it doesn't change what she did, but... there's— something you don't know yet, about the program. About the program as it relates to you and your sister specifically."
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Son of a bitch.
Scrubbing his face with a hand, North sighs. "Oh god, what happened."
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Thank god she had a test run of this with Carolina. Even then, it's harder to figure out how to say it to the man's face.
For a split second, her eyes sheen gold, and then it's gone and you could think you'd never seen anything amiss at all.
"You know how the Director and the Counselor liked their little... experiments? Letting Carolina take two AI. Inserting Beta into the team as Texas. The whole existence of the leaderboard. You and South were— another one of those experiments. Not from the beginning, I don't think, but from soon enough in I'm not sure when exactly it started. I know I noticed the way all your joint assignments favoured only your specialities at some point, but—"
She shakes her head, waves the details off. Focus on the important bits.
"I do know that knocking her rank down after that mission on the oil platform was part of it. As was every other knock to her rank she took after. They needed her to rank as low on Alpha's roster as they could get her so that they had an excuse to never, ever give her an AI, no matter what happened. All while knowing they'd give you one as soon as your number came up."
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Yeah.
North just kind of... stares at CT dumbly, not saying anything.
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CT's first thought is the near absurd: Oh, god, I broke him.
Her second is similar, but a lot more eloquent, an awareness of the weight of the information she just threw through the metaphorical window like a brick. If she'd been shocked to see it in the files, and Carolina had put together the pieces so quickly, then... what must be going on in his head, she can't begin to guess. (And she refuses to look. Stop trying to tempt her.)
"I'm sorry. I know it's— a lot. But I also know that you deserve to know the truth, even if it doesn't... undo anything, or make what happened any less horrific."
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Suddenly everything is lining up. The assignments, the leaderboard, the AI, the way the Counselor and Director talked to South---- if those were the things they said while North was present, what did they say when he was gone? South was already prone to envy.
North already knew his death was engineered. But he did not realize to what extent, or by whom.
"Do you want any beer? I think I'm going to get one out of the icebox."
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