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

[torrefied]

[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.]

Comments

[torrefied]

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.

[notimpervious]

[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.]

[torrefied]

[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.]

[notimpervious]

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.]

[torrefied]

[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.