hadriel | tenth. text. (and if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me.)

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tenth. text. (and if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me.)

[He's put off doing this notification as long as he can, hoping against hope that she'll turn up again, that her physical absence and alias's disappearance from the directory are mistakes, that there is another explanation waiting to be found. But it's been three long days, and no sign of her. She has friends, and they probably deserve to know, too.]

Sharon's gone.

[Yes, he's upset. No, he doesn't want to talk about it.]

I'm taking over maintenance of her emergency supply cache network, but I could use some help.

[Grieving? What grieving, there's work to be done.]

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I am not. I will be there shortly.

[She is true to her word, getting there in no longer time than it takes to make the walk from Spire 1. Another person might greet Mello with words that will help just the way he needs them to, but Brennan is not under the illusion that she is capable of that. Instead, what she does is approach him silently and stop a meter or two away.]

I am ready to assist you.

[Mello is doing his best, but in all honesty, he is a certified Wreck at the moment, and he's not taking as much care to conceal this fact as he might have done a year ago. True, he's experienced plenty of loss in his relatively short life - his father, his mother, L. But he barely knew them, even his mother, and though he loved them all, he didn't love any of them the same way he loved Sharon. When he turns to face Brennan, she'll be able to see, underneath the hair he hasn't made the effort to brush out of his face, dark circles under his eyes that speak to three nights of emptiness and sleeplessness, a mouth pulled into a tight line, a raw, open vulnerability in the way he wears the pained expression settled across his features. His arms are wrapped tightly around himself, as if to make him feel less alone. He nods in acknowledgment to her greeting.]

Do you know what the emergency caches look like? They're marked.

[His voice is quiet, dull, hollow, containing no trace of the passion it usually carries. He's trying, but just continuing to exist is a Herculean task.]

[There's no hiding the effect the sight of him has on her, the sympathy and concern in her eyes and the frown that carves lines across her face. Her subconscious mind remembers all too well that he was her son in the false world, but would the ache in her chest be any duller if it didn't? Bennan knows Mello as strong-willed and self-assured, and this is the exact opposite.

Is this what she looked like in the middle of the night, not twelve hours after Vincent died? It certainly seems like how she felt. Back then, she'd needed so badly to be held, and Booth had been there. Does Mello have someone like that? She does not want to send him fleeing now that he is talking to her, so she stays where she is and nods. This is the choice with the lowest probability of failure, the least amount of risk. It will do for now.]

Yes, I have seen them. I have not opened them, but I can surmise what they might contain. [Not fresh fruit, which would ripen and fester too quickly to be of any use during an emergency.] I can work independently if you are willing to teach me. I can... shadow you. Unless you prefer another method.

[She is trying, but she has a sinking feeling that she is failing.]

[He doesn't have anyone else. Sharon was the first person he'd let in close enough to see all of his vulnerabilities; he keeps people at a distance because it's what's necessary in order to survive. He learned that after his mother died, at the first orphanage that took him in, before he became a would-be successor to the world's greatest detective. He learned how to read people, how to figure out what they wanted and how he could use that to his advantage, how to pretend to be a person instead of an imperfect problem-solving machine, but as far as true human connections? Mello has very few of them. Fewer now, with Sharon gone.]

That's fine. I can show you what's inside - there's one not far from here. You'll just need to pick a few and keep an eye on them. Remember to check them regularly and replenish what's missing. This way.

[He points to the left and starts off in that direction, walking slowly so Brennan can catch up to him.]

[She follows without hesitation and remains silent for about a minute. This is far from her forte, knowing what to say at a time like this. She tries to think of what Booth would say, but nothing comes to mind, not when she is so logical and he so often speaks from his "heart"-- that is what makes what he says so touching.

But she is not Booth. She is herself, and all she can think to say is what she has so often put into practice.]

When I am in some way upset, I-- I find it quite... soothing, to focus on a task.

[...that was terrible and she knows it, but the words are out there, so all she can do now is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Past data shows that the result will likely skew to the worse end of the spectrum.]

[If he were feeling any less defeated, he might snap at her, tell her to mind her own business, insist that he doesn't need her help. But he's not so sure he doesn't need help. Without Sharon to anchor him, he is adrift in an endless sea.]

That's why I'm doing this. [No vitriol, just an explanation. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jackets and continues walking, eyes on the ground as he speaks.] It's what I've done since I was five years old. This isn't the first time I've lost someone I - [he hesitates, the word love on his tongue.] Someone I care about.

[Her breath catches for a moment, even though she is only listening. The sentiment is too familiar.

Her voice is quieter when she responds, noticeably lower in pitch.] I have also lost someone important to me. Many times.

[Her parents, her brother-- her mother a second time when her body was found. Vincent, on the forensic platform. Zack, only a few months ago, and this years after Gormogon tried to take him away from all of them.]

Only once to the Door, but it is-- never pleasant.

[It is an attempt at sympathy. The best she can give without opening her life to the stranger who was her son in the false world.]

No ... it never is. You never - you never quite get used to it.

[Despite how often you may lose those you love, even if it's more or less expected, it doesn't quite ever dull the sting of it, does it. Mello can tell Brennan is trying, honestly, trying to offer comfort and relate to him, and it's - it's unexpected. He's been nothing but awful to her, and he doesn't really deserve her kindness.]

I think ... this place is designed to cause us pain. I've been here a long time - not as long as Sharon, or a few of the others, but long enough to know what to expect. I should've expected this.

[The thing is, he may have been mean to her, but all she sees right now is a kid who is hurting after losing someone important to him. Brennan knows that feeling all too well. Add to that the fact that, quite honestly, her maternal instincts ebb and flow here, and the result is someone who wants to protect others more than she would normally.]

You may be right. It is... Expecting something does not make it hurt less, but the way this city operates-- Whatever their reason for doing the things they do to us, the fact remains that we are... being used. [Like test subjects, in a way.

To think she'd told Booth she would suppose that aliens are so highly evolved that they do not need to inflict suffering on others in the name of science or sustenance. What a cruel way of finding out that in at least this case, the opposite might be true.

And yet, she does not want to close herself off. That only leads to loneliness, and worse pain, in her opinion.]

I suppose... all we can do is persevere. We are, all of us, resilient. [She's quiet for a moment, and then...] I will persevere because I know that Zack would do the same, if he were still here.

[And, of course, because she wants to go back to her family. But knowing that some people come here moments before they die... she does not know what Mello's situation at home is, so she will not give him cause to think of it.]

[Maybe that's all he really is, under the bravado and the sharp words and the air of arrogance - a kid who is hurt. A kid who has lost. He was a child when he lost his parents, a scar that shaped his life in fundamental ways; he was a teenager when he lost L - and, some might say, a kind of innocence, because it was that event that shoved him out into the world on his own at not quite fifteen and set him on the path that led to becoming a criminal, a kidnapper, a murderer. He too is resilient; the scar over half his face is proof that he has survived things that have tried to kill him and failed.

He's quiet, listening to her speak and trying to understand without snapping in judgment of her words. He wants to ask for more information, but hesitates, because he probably doesn't have any right to ask, after how he's treated her in the past. Eventually, though, the silence becomes too heavy to allow it to continue.]

Zack is ... this person you lost to the Door, previously?

[He's guessing. He's trying - to meet her halfway.]

Yes.

[The silence was not uncomfortable for her. She assumes he needs it. She certainly had, after Zack disappeared.]

We are from the same world. He is... very important to me.

[And she has lost him already, in a way. Even though she took apart the metaphorical chains binding him to a horrifying life, she had been too late to save him. The Door brought those feelings back, and so does this conversation.]

But he is safer where he is now, and that helps me. I cannot say the same for Sharon -- I barely knew her -- but I imagine that she would want for you to persevere, once you have grieved.

[She understands now how healthy it is to grieve, to feel, so she will encourage people to do the same.]

[She's not exactly safer, if she's been returned to her home world, but she has a better chance at winning against the obstacles she's set against.]

She would. She knows I will. It's what I do.

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