worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

"No. The floor is nice and cool." She tips her head back against the wall, and forces herself to breathe evenly past the throb of bruised ribs. After a moment, she takes another swallow of water, then presses the bottle against her forehead.

"All right. Let me know if you need another one of those." He settles back into the chair, if he's not getting up from it yet. He looks her over, noting the careful breathing, looking for whether the previous tension's been replaced or if it's still there. "Feel a little better?"

The tension is muted, but not entirely gone. Still, she cracks one eye open to look up at him and replies, "I feel less like stabbing someone."

And then, with a small quirk of her lips, "Mostly because I am not sure I could get the knife where I am aiming, but it is better than nothing."

"Even a slight improvement is an improvement," B says. "Want to talk about it at all?" He's not even sure what brought this particular fury on, yet. He'll let it be if she doesn't want to say, but if she does, there's the opportunity.

"About my last owner deciding to make an appearance yesterday?" Yelena asks. "Or about the idiot who killed me deciding that the most important thing is how he feels about it?"

She rolls the water bottle to rest against her temple, where her pulse still throbs faintly from exertion. "I do not think talking about it will fix either thing."

"I mean, I've already had my own moment of rage over yesterday," B points out. "And I think we both know why that would upset you. But you didn't need an obstacle course yesterday when it happened. So I'm gonna go with the second one. Vash came to talk to you? Do I need to punch him, or did you already do that?"

"No, I needed a punching bag. Which is where he tracked me down." She gives him a wry little smile, suppressing a wince as it tugs at the split in her lip. "I did not want to give him the satisfaction of hitting him. I am still not completely sure that was the right choice, but it is the one I made."

"I think Vash is kind of an idiot," B admits. "I'm not surprised he managed to piss you off, honestly. I am actually more surprised you didn't punch him, though I guess maybe that's why you needed the course. Got to put that urge to damage something somewhere."

"It is," Yelena confirms. "And it is like I said, I did not want to give him the satisfaction. He is exactly the kind of idiot who would decide that me punching him means we are even now, and that everything is fine and there is no reason for me to not want to be anywhere near him."

"Or it might make you feel better, and remind him that actions have consequences," B comments airily. A pause, then an only slightly more serious, "But I shouldn't advocate for violence. Being a warden, and all."

"You are giving him too much credit," Yelena says with a little snort. She takes another swallow of water, smaller this time.

"But you are not wrong. Maybe I am losing my edge."

"Eh, you've still got more edge than most people on this ship. I'm probably biased, anyway," B admits. "I like you a lot more than I like him."

"Yes, but you have to say that," Yelena says, and there's a faint edge of teasing there. "You are my warden, it is your job to take my side when someone kills me. Or...kills a different version of me. Do you know, she was a warden in her memories?"

"I'd do it even if I wasn't your warden," B promises. "And you know, that doesn't surprise me at all. Wasn't she a doctor, too?"

Yelena nods slightly. "A pediatric surgeon. She worked in the infirmary, on her Barge."

She rolls the cap of the water bottle back and forth between her fingers, staring down at it. "The Snap happened in her world, too, only she survived it. Her husband and her little girl did not. So when the Admiral made his offer to her, she jumped at the chance to fix that. And then she died because even a different version of Vash is a self-absorbed, self-righteous idiot who does not have any problem executing people he looks down on."

She stops, rolls the cap the other way. "And I do not know if she was real, or just a delusion the Admiral made up to mock me. I do not know if me having the death toll is proof that it was all just pretend, or if it was bad luck, or it it means that if she was real, then dying here meant really dying, and everyone back on her Barge will just assume she is another person who vanished back to where she came from."

Which is a question that would always have weighed on her, but weighs even more heavily now in light of so many disappearances.

"Maybe dying here means she went back to her own Barge," B offers. "Or whatever ship it was. But I really don't know how floods square up with reality. Breaches and ports, I got solid opinions on those, but floods-- I don't know."

The thinks a moment, then adds, "I might have to decide at least some of them are real in some version of the universe, because if not, how do I know if A is actually my daemon? Maybe she's not."

"Maybe," Yelena allows. "But I hate not knowing."

Having her nose rubbed in the fact that she's the worst version of herself is bad enough.

She gives him a sidelong look, considering for a moment before saying, "With A, you were not...remembering being a B who always had a daemon, right? They were brought here?"

"That's exactly what I was doing," B nods. "I was a version of me who had a daemon all through the war and through HYDRA and through graduating on the Barge. Steve wasn't, he just had Jo briefly. Might be why he's not so broken up about not having her around more."

He hitches a shoulder in a shrug. "So I'm gonna hope that version of me was real, so if I do ask for a deal, I get to see A again."

"Are you starting to agree with me, that I am not going to graduate?" Yelena asks, stretching out her leg to nudge at his ankle with the ball of her foot, as though to convey that she's kidding.

Mostly kidding.

"There is no 'if I ask for a deal' here. If I do accidentally manage to fall through the Admiral's hoops, you are taking a fucking deal. Someone needs to get something out of all of this bullshit."

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