[ Root has been operating on nonstop adrenaline ever since Harold let her out of the locked book cage at the library two years ago, and she understands perfectly what it's like to not take the time and space to process. You need safety for that, ideally a sympathetic ear or shoulder to cry on, and in her life there is just never any time.
Like there isn't now. This is an absurd, remarkable, miraculous second chance -- she still thinks maybe the Machine put her here on purpose, but maybe for more than one reason, now -- and Root doesn't think she'll get a third. She has to make use of it. She went from expecting to die in a war to knowing she already did. ]
We're lucky to have you, [ Root says firmly, keeping her hands clasped on his arms like she's bracing him. ] There's no one-- there's really no one else I could talk to about this.
[ Not like this. Harold isn't here. Even before she'd known they had something in common in this regard, Root had known Charles would be the right audience. ]
[ we're lucky to have you, she says, and charles' expression very nearly crumbles again — because as many friends as he can say he's made here in aldrip, he still fully believes the people who could say this to him could be counted with one hand, both here and home. because he's, well, he's spent all his life and afterlife hoping he could be good enough, that maybe if he makes people happy then it'll be enough —
he manages a nod, though, because he does get her, and this situation... is quite so specific, really, he can't imagine there are too many others here who would relate.
with a shake sigh, he says, ] Just, puts one old death in perspective, doesn't it?
[ so what happened to him, and what happened to root... horrible as it is that they're both dead, well. how does it compare, in any way, to what shaw and edwin have gone through? it doesn't, that's what. ]
[ Charles is such an unfailingly giving and kind person, it seems like he should have a legion of people lining up to say how lucky they are to know him, but Root wouldn't be surprised to hear he doesn't. However cavalier she sounds when she teases him for being wholesome, she knows there is a fundamental truth behind being that giving and kind: that you get abused for it.
She's used to being guardian for Harold -- a guardian who argues with him, disagrees and respects him simultaneously -- who let herself change and be changed by him. Root already knows what it's like to care for someone who tries to take care of everyone else at any expense.
Sometimes she gets impatient or frustrated with it, but ultimately, it's that kind of mentality that had made the Machine. ]
What happened to Shaw, to your friend-- it's senseless. It's cruel. [ Root takes a breath, feeling an old, old anger at the unfairness and injustice in the world well up inside her and threaten to choke her, and she has to think about Harold, alive because of her, to salve it. ]
I chose my death. With the life I've led, a good death is a privilege. I was lucky to have it.
[ and perhaps that is a surprising thing to hear him say, what with all of his endless optimism and cheer and kindness — but no, he knows all too well what a terrible place the world can be, how unfair, how unjust, how so many people die and no one cares.
but instead of letting that make him jaded, instead of letting that push him into cynicism, charles has made the conscious decision to let that make him better. that if no one else cares... then he will. that at least he will be as good and kind and caring as he can, because, well. change starts with you, don't it?
and yet, when root speaks of choosing her death... he can't help but bite his lip. ] Maybe. I mean, I get it, sort of. Would I rather have chosen my death than what it was? Yeah, sure. But good or bad... a death's a death.
[ When she'd first arrived in Aldrip, she was coming from a point when she hadn't known Harold that well. But now Root has spent over a year by his side and she knows him much better, realizes his distaste for ugliness isn't naivete or weakness like she'd originally thought. Charles is really starting to remind her of Harold in a certain way, that obstinate resolution for goodness wrapped up in a different package. So she's not too surprised to hear that from Charles, with all that time with Harold behind her; she knows already Charles isn't ignorant -- how could he be, if he's solving mysteries to put ghosts to rest? He must have seen all kinds of awfulness -- but she is relieved a little, and achingly warmed.
Root couldn't be this close to someone who didn't know how to look at the ugliness that's there. That sometimes she has to be the one to do.
She sees his reticence and prods at it mercilessly, her voice confident and strong. She'd learned a few things from Harold, too. ] The Machine once told me that when she was learning how to understand people, it was often the moment right before their death that told her the most.
In the grand cosmic scheme of things, sure, death is death. But if that's all I believed then I'd still be killing people for money, no questions asked. [ Root speaks bluntly of her own sins, ruthlessly. ] There are deaths people don't deserve.
[ And conversely, those they do. Root believes that wholeheartedly. ]
[ he looks away, for a moment, chuckles humourlessly. ]
What, right before their death? So what would she get out of a boy sacrificed to a demon, utterly terrified? Or a girl, stabbed through the chest and bleeding out on the floor?
[ edwin, niko — unfair, unfair, unfair. he shakes his head. ] That's not what I meant. A death's a death — whoever it is that dies, whether they deserved it or not, however they went... there's no undo button.
[ because no matter what, that life... is gone. and it's not that he disagrees with root, not really — yeah, sure, there's deaths that people don't deserve, and deaths they do. there's deaths people choose, and deaths they don't. but in the end, ] I can't bring back anyone, can I? Every single unfair death, every ghost I meet, whether they deserved to die or not... there's no way to bring them back to life. There's enough death in the world without me adding to it. Maybe someone's fit to choose who deserves to live and who deserves to die, but as long as I can't make sure of the former, I'm not gonna do the latter, either.
[ Root meets Charles's eyes insistently, a full wellspring of passionate belief burgeoning up inside her. The dedication and devotion that she has, that she chooses to direct at the Machine, at Harold, at Sameen, and now a little bit at Charles. Someone strong enough not just to survive but to change. ]
If one person loves us, remembers us -- if we help even one person -- there's something that goes on after us. People die and they can't come back. We can't come back.
But there's a person I care about very much -- [ she stumbles a bit verbally, realizing the way she describes Harold has changed, that he's no longer the man who made god or the architect of the future, but in this context just-- ] a friend, the best I've ever had. He's alive out there because of me.
The world is harsh and terrible, but that doesn't make it pointless. Not like being killed over and over again, like a life is cheap.
[ She used to think that way, believed it fully as a way to protect and insulate herself, but she can't anymore. She just can't. It's been too many years with the Machine and with Harold. ]
[ he can't help but huff something like a laugh at that — because, well, obviously people don't end when they die, he's not-living proof of exactly that. but their lives sure do end.
but then she keeps talking, and charles can't help the way his eyes soften with sadness when she keeps speaking about her friend — it hits a little too close to home, that, even if ultimately it's hardly the same thing, how she died and how he did.
and yet... ]
Yeah, I know. Course it's not pointless. It's harsh and terrible, yeah, but that's why it matters what we do, right? [ so he gets it, he does, he does. ]
... I told you I died to defend someone, too, didn't I?
[ Obvious to him, maybe. To Root and her entire world, the afterlife is still a giant question mark, one she doesn't personally believe in. The only form of afterlife she knows is what she has here, and the assurance that her actions in life had meant something after she was gone.
But right now is not the time to be proselytizing the Machine's message, and Charles doesn't need to hear it. He's been nothing but completely respectful of her, so Root has nothing to prove in that regard, and this conversation isn't really about that. ]
Yeah. You did. [ Root meets his eyes with a soft painful kind of empathy. ] And I said we should trade stories sometime.
[ She'd already shared a bit of hers, so she stops there, leaves the air open. ]
[ trade stories? maybe. his isn't — it's not the kind of story he imagines hers might be, dying to protect a friend, choosing death because that's a better option than letting someone else die; his is depressing, really, and the two people he's told about it before, here... well, both had been angry about it, in their own ways.
he isn't sure he wants root's anger, or her pity, but at least speaking the truth of it all, to her, isn't making him feel like he wants to drop through the floor, so that's something. ]
Not much of a story, [ he says, tilting his head up, looking at the ceiling. ] There was this new guy at school, from Pakistan. And a group of blokes, some of my friends [ his voice does something strange at the word 'friends', there, brittle and yet huffing with something like humour, ] from the cricket team, they were picking on him, yeah? Except then it got... serious, and I thought, hell, I'm not any different from him, am I? So I stopped them.
[ and gave them a new target, really. he's not explaining the rest, the lake and the stones and how he'd thought he'd just get away from them, dry off somewhere, how it'd be fine. how he'd died of hypothermia and internal bleeding and hadn't even realised, until he was already dead, looking down at his own body. ]
[ Root is angry, sure enough, but she's not surprised. There's no ounce of surprise in her, so it doesn't turn to outrage. It's the same low-simmering anger she's carried with her all her life, it feels, since she was twelve, since Hanna disappeared and died and no one in their community dared to question the respectable man who'd done it. She's also expecting Charles to have some sad story like this behind his death. No one dies that young and has anything good behind it -- and she still has a weakness hidden a mile deep for people who died young. ]
They probably didn't mean to kill you, but you were dead anyway, [ she says matter of factly, because Root knows how easy and simple it is to kill someone without meaning to. She'd be a poor assassin if she didn't. Sometimes she's had collateral damage and in retrospect she feels ... regret. True regret. ]
What you did means something, Charles. It means you're a good person.
[ Maybe that's rudimentary, maybe it should be a foregone conclusion, but Root feels like it needs to be said aloud because it means so much to her when someone is good. It's not a foregone conclusion, it's not a certainty; people who are good like this are precious and rare and she wants to make sure they know that she recognizes that. That who they are is something special. ]
[ it is an easy thing, for him to nod at that first thing — yeah, that's what he thinks, too. that they didn't mean for it to happen; that's why he bristles at the times someone calls him a murder victim, because yeah, sure, they meant to hurt him, but... no, he doesn't think any of them did it with the intent to kill.
but then more words are spoken, what you did means something, and he's abruptly reminded of sitting on the floor in one of the rooms at the inn, leaning against the wall, his own voice faded away from telling the details of his death, junpei staring at the floor with blazing eyes and saying, fuck them, for real, you did everything right —
he can't quite help the way the words, different though they are, hit him in a similar way. except now he can smile at root, softly, and say, ]
You're the second person ever to say something like that to me, you know. That it wasn't for nothing.
[ Victim is such a loaded word. Has Root had victims? Technically, according to the criminal justice system, she's had plenty. But who gets to be a victim and who doesn't is something she's all too conscientious of. She's sure she was buried in an unmarked grave and that no one had even tried to track down the sniper who'd shot her. No one except Shaw. Whether or not someone counts as a victim is a story society tells itself to make sense of death. Root doesn't need it to make sense. It's messy and contradictory and she thrives in that kind of ambiguity.
She can also tell when she's hit something sensitive and immediately turns supportive. ]
See? [ she says lightly. ] The Machine was right. The moment before you died does say a lot about you.
[ there's a long beat of silence, longer than he usually allows for — but then he's ducking his head slightly, his nose twitching a little as he sniffles surreptitiously. ]
Is that right?
[ well, that's. he can exist with that, he supposes. and because words don't really cut it, not here, he just tugs root into another hug, mumbling a thanks into her shoulder. ]
... You remind me of him, actually, [ she says softly into his ear, enfolding him in a hug without hesitation. ]
The person whose life I saved. Harold. He's a sweetheart, like you.
[ It's funny, that she can say that now as the first, most important thing about Harold, instead of the fact that he'd made the Machine. Root of a few years ago wouldn't have been capable of that, wouldn't have understand a vital, fundamental truth: that the Machine is beautiful because she is a reflection of Harold. That she came from someone and somewhere who poured love into her in the most careful, delicate way imaginable, year after year.
That kind of steadfast commitment to kindness -- that's why Charles reminds her of him. ]
[ it is a surprise, to hear that — and yet, he simply smiles into her shoulder as he squeezes her close. a comparison like that, the implication in those words... yeah, it means a lot. ]
... Then, I'm honoured about that.
[ to remind her of someone like that, worthy of her giving her life for him.
he pulls back, and with a soft smile, says, ]
Well, if the moments before you die mean something, then — yours, too, yeah?
[ Being compared to Harold really is special. It means something to Root and isn't a comment she offers lightly. As she'd told Harold shortly before her death saving him, she'd walked in darkness for a long time before she met him. He hadn't set out to change her, hadn't tried in the slightest; Harold had even been terrified of her, reasonably so, for months after they'd met.
It was just being in his proximity that had affected her. His mere existence was enough. Root had come to believe it was possible there were people out there who were, actually, good code. As she'd once told Charles, they were rare and worth protecting.
As they pull back, she gives a short laugh. ] Mine means I'm a total badass, [ she says playfully, nudging him. ] I'll tell you the whole story sometime.
[ Not right now; it feels too raw, still. It hasn't yet become a story Root can tell like it doesn't touch her.
[ that comment is so very root, it makes charles chuckle in return, smiling at her gratefully &dmash; for the offer, for being here, for caring. for being herself, in the end; to him, that is the most important thing. that she is this: sharp and bright and smart and playful, a walking contradiction most times, and yet dedicated and honest and grounded.
he's really, really lucky to have her. ]
Think it means a bit more than that, [ he says lightly, but nods. ]
Yeah. Sometime's good.
[ and whenever that day comes... he will be here. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Like there isn't now. This is an absurd, remarkable, miraculous second chance -- she still thinks maybe the Machine put her here on purpose, but maybe for more than one reason, now -- and Root doesn't think she'll get a third. She has to make use of it. She went from expecting to die in a war to knowing she already did. ]
We're lucky to have you, [ Root says firmly, keeping her hands clasped on his arms like she's bracing him. ] There's no one-- there's really no one else I could talk to about this.
[ Not like this. Harold isn't here. Even before she'd known they had something in common in this regard, Root had known Charles would be the right audience. ]
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he manages a nod, though, because he does get her, and this situation... is quite so specific, really, he can't imagine there are too many others here who would relate.
with a shake sigh, he says, ] Just, puts one old death in perspective, doesn't it?
[ so what happened to him, and what happened to root... horrible as it is that they're both dead, well. how does it compare, in any way, to what shaw and edwin have gone through? it doesn't, that's what. ]
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She's used to being guardian for Harold -- a guardian who argues with him, disagrees and respects him simultaneously -- who let herself change and be changed by him. Root already knows what it's like to care for someone who tries to take care of everyone else at any expense.
Sometimes she gets impatient or frustrated with it, but ultimately, it's that kind of mentality that had made the Machine. ]
What happened to Shaw, to your friend-- it's senseless. It's cruel. [ Root takes a breath, feeling an old, old anger at the unfairness and injustice in the world well up inside her and threaten to choke her, and she has to think about Harold, alive because of her, to salve it. ]
I chose my death. With the life I've led, a good death is a privilege. I was lucky to have it.
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[ and perhaps that is a surprising thing to hear him say, what with all of his endless optimism and cheer and kindness — but no, he knows all too well what a terrible place the world can be, how unfair, how unjust, how so many people die and no one cares.
but instead of letting that make him jaded, instead of letting that push him into cynicism, charles has made the conscious decision to let that make him better. that if no one else cares... then he will. that at least he will be as good and kind and caring as he can, because, well. change starts with you, don't it?
and yet, when root speaks of choosing her death... he can't help but bite his lip. ] Maybe. I mean, I get it, sort of. Would I rather have chosen my death than what it was? Yeah, sure. But good or bad... a death's a death.
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Root couldn't be this close to someone who didn't know how to look at the ugliness that's there. That sometimes she has to be the one to do.
She sees his reticence and prods at it mercilessly, her voice confident and strong. She'd learned a few things from Harold, too. ] The Machine once told me that when she was learning how to understand people, it was often the moment right before their death that told her the most.
In the grand cosmic scheme of things, sure, death is death. But if that's all I believed then I'd still be killing people for money, no questions asked. [ Root speaks bluntly of her own sins, ruthlessly. ] There are deaths people don't deserve.
[ And conversely, those they do. Root believes that wholeheartedly. ]
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What, right before their death? So what would she get out of a boy sacrificed to a demon, utterly terrified? Or a girl, stabbed through the chest and bleeding out on the floor?
[ edwin, niko — unfair, unfair, unfair. he shakes his head. ] That's not what I meant. A death's a death — whoever it is that dies, whether they deserved it or not, however they went... there's no undo button.
[ because no matter what, that life... is gone. and it's not that he disagrees with root, not really — yeah, sure, there's deaths that people don't deserve, and deaths they do. there's deaths people choose, and deaths they don't. but in the end, ] I can't bring back anyone, can I? Every single unfair death, every ghost I meet, whether they deserved to die or not... there's no way to bring them back to life. There's enough death in the world without me adding to it. Maybe someone's fit to choose who deserves to live and who deserves to die, but as long as I can't make sure of the former, I'm not gonna do the latter, either.
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[ Root meets Charles's eyes insistently, a full wellspring of passionate belief burgeoning up inside her. The dedication and devotion that she has, that she chooses to direct at the Machine, at Harold, at Sameen, and now a little bit at Charles. Someone strong enough not just to survive but to change. ]
If one person loves us, remembers us -- if we help even one person -- there's something that goes on after us. People die and they can't come back. We can't come back.
But there's a person I care about very much -- [ she stumbles a bit verbally, realizing the way she describes Harold has changed, that he's no longer the man who made god or the architect of the future, but in this context just-- ] a friend, the best I've ever had. He's alive out there because of me.
The world is harsh and terrible, but that doesn't make it pointless. Not like being killed over and over again, like a life is cheap.
[ She used to think that way, believed it fully as a way to protect and insulate herself, but she can't anymore. She just can't. It's been too many years with the Machine and with Harold. ]
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but then she keeps talking, and charles can't help the way his eyes soften with sadness when she keeps speaking about her friend — it hits a little too close to home, that, even if ultimately it's hardly the same thing, how she died and how he did.
and yet... ]
Yeah, I know. Course it's not pointless. It's harsh and terrible, yeah, but that's why it matters what we do, right? [ so he gets it, he does, he does. ]
... I told you I died to defend someone, too, didn't I?
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But right now is not the time to be proselytizing the Machine's message, and Charles doesn't need to hear it. He's been nothing but completely respectful of her, so Root has nothing to prove in that regard, and this conversation isn't really about that. ]
Yeah. You did. [ Root meets his eyes with a soft painful kind of empathy. ] And I said we should trade stories sometime.
[ She'd already shared a bit of hers, so she stops there, leaves the air open. ]
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he isn't sure he wants root's anger, or her pity, but at least speaking the truth of it all, to her, isn't making him feel like he wants to drop through the floor, so that's something. ]
Not much of a story, [ he says, tilting his head up, looking at the ceiling. ] There was this new guy at school, from Pakistan. And a group of blokes, some of my friends [ his voice does something strange at the word 'friends', there, brittle and yet huffing with something like humour, ] from the cricket team, they were picking on him, yeah? Except then it got... serious, and I thought, hell, I'm not any different from him, am I? So I stopped them.
[ and gave them a new target, really. he's not explaining the rest, the lake and the stones and how he'd thought he'd just get away from them, dry off somewhere, how it'd be fine. how he'd died of hypothermia and internal bleeding and hadn't even realised, until he was already dead, looking down at his own body. ]
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They probably didn't mean to kill you, but you were dead anyway, [ she says matter of factly, because Root knows how easy and simple it is to kill someone without meaning to. She'd be a poor assassin if she didn't. Sometimes she's had collateral damage and in retrospect she feels ... regret. True regret. ]
What you did means something, Charles. It means you're a good person.
[ Maybe that's rudimentary, maybe it should be a foregone conclusion, but Root feels like it needs to be said aloud because it means so much to her when someone is good. It's not a foregone conclusion, it's not a certainty; people who are good like this are precious and rare and she wants to make sure they know that she recognizes that. That who they are is something special. ]
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but then more words are spoken, what you did means something, and he's abruptly reminded of sitting on the floor in one of the rooms at the inn, leaning against the wall, his own voice faded away from telling the details of his death, junpei staring at the floor with blazing eyes and saying, fuck them, for real, you did everything right —
he can't quite help the way the words, different though they are, hit him in a similar way. except now he can smile at root, softly, and say, ]
You're the second person ever to say something like that to me, you know. That it wasn't for nothing.
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She can also tell when she's hit something sensitive and immediately turns supportive. ]
See? [ she says lightly. ] The Machine was right. The moment before you died does say a lot about you.
And I really like what it says.
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Is that right?
[ well, that's. he can exist with that, he supposes. and because words don't really cut it, not here, he just tugs root into another hug, mumbling a thanks into her shoulder. ]
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The person whose life I saved. Harold. He's a sweetheart, like you.
[ It's funny, that she can say that now as the first, most important thing about Harold, instead of the fact that he'd made the Machine. Root of a few years ago wouldn't have been capable of that, wouldn't have understand a vital, fundamental truth: that the Machine is beautiful because she is a reflection of Harold. That she came from someone and somewhere who poured love into her in the most careful, delicate way imaginable, year after year.
That kind of steadfast commitment to kindness -- that's why Charles reminds her of him. ]
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... Then, I'm honoured about that.
[ to remind her of someone like that, worthy of her giving her life for him.
he pulls back, and with a soft smile, says, ]
Well, if the moments before you die mean something, then — yours, too, yeah?
FINALLY done
It was just being in his proximity that had affected her. His mere existence was enough. Root had come to believe it was possible there were people out there who were, actually, good code. As she'd once told Charles, they were rare and worth protecting.
As they pull back, she gives a short laugh. ] Mine means I'm a total badass, [ she says playfully, nudging him. ] I'll tell you the whole story sometime.
[ Not right now; it feels too raw, still. It hasn't yet become a story Root can tell like it doesn't touch her.
But she thinks that day will come eventually. ]
🎀 gently puts a bow on this, go us!!
he's really, really lucky to have her. ]
Think it means a bit more than that, [ he says lightly, but nods. ]
Yeah. Sometime's good.
[ and whenever that day comes... he will be here. ]