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[darkov]

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latest status update 3/6/2018

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[ct_7567]

[ Martin's lack of a reaction is even worse than if he had responded with a cry of pain, or with tears, or with questions. His response is the same as it always is instead, going still and cold and quiet, sorry for things beyond his control. Sometimes that's the way it has to be, though. However Martin deals with this is just the way it will be.

That doesn't stop him from watching the kid carefully, looking for any signs of what he's truly feeling. Sadness, of course - they'll all be sad about this, every one of them. But is he angry? Resentful that Cassandra couldn't stop it? Resentful that none of them could? Scared about it happening to someone else?

Ah, well. The rest will come. ]

I am too. [ He rests one hand on Martin's shoulder. ] You did well to make her last days more comfortable than they could have been. [ He'd been helpful. But more than that, to her very last breath, Cassandra had been talking about Martin. It had been her true self twisted beyond recognition, only her very base emotions remaining. ]

She loved you very much.

[darkov]

[were this Olvoski, it wouldn't be Rex telling him this, it'd be Alex. and the tone wouldn't be level and careful, it'd be cruel and snide. he expects the latter so much in this case, regardless of logic, that hearing Rex in earnest feels...wrong.

it's why he can't leave a good thought as-is.]

I made her sick.

[the back of his throat tastes sour just at saying that, the skin on his neck prickling.] I could smell it...

[ct_7567]

[ That's not the response he'd been expecting. ]

What? [ Is it that business with her hand, all rotted and blackened? He'd hurt some rumblings about that, of how Cassandra had found herself in its path. Nothing she would have blamed Martin for. Nothing anyone would blame Martin for. ]

Martin, she was expecting this. Her sickness... her sickness was within her.

[darkov]

[and i made it worse, he thinks, his expression getting grimmer. his mouth tugs in the little fight he has to keep placid, turning his head and looking toward the door.

Cass would barely acknowledge the part of this his blood played, palpable though it was. like it was just imaginary. but it wasn't. maybe acknowledging its role a little more would've satisfied the anguished, self-hating parts of himself enough then, but they certainly aren't satisfied now.

for a split second, Martin's lips draw back in a frustrated snarl, one that withers with the heavy breath he lets out.

he can't even bring himself to voice it. what difference would it make? she's dead.]

[ct_7567]

Martin.

[ Stars, he wishes Andy was here with him now to help him navigate this. But she's not. She's elsewhere, nursing her own wounds, sorting out whatever's going on in that head of hers. Not that she'd know what to say either, but at least he'd be in good company. ]

Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking.

[darkov]

[he feels a little beat of anger at the prompting, which brings his eyebrows back down to darken his expression again. the backs of his ears get pink as his face gets warm.]

I think...it doesn't matter. What I think. It doesn't change anything.

[ct_7567]

It matters to me. And it mattered to Cassandra.

[ For whatever that's worth in the moment. But Rex doesn't move his hands, nor does his shift his gaze. This matters more than Martin knows - this is what will dictate how they deal with this moving forward, what he tells Andy and his other allies, how he tries to make things better. He can't make them right. But surely, over time, they can make things better.

It's easier to think about Martin's life than it is to think about his own, with Cassandra no longer in it. ]

Whatever you're thinking... I won't be angry.

[darkov]

[maybe he should, though. even if Cassandra's fate was already sealed, adding a foreign sickness wrought from Martin's blood certainly didn't make matters easier for her or anyone, did it? he ought to be in trouble for that. if this were Olvoski, then...

his shoulders draw up slowly as he sits forward, elbows on his knees, completely obscuring the sight of Rex. it doesn't erase the feeling of being observed, though; Rex's gaze is like its own presence sometimes, and especially now.]

I think that. If I hadn't made her sick...then maybe it wouldn't have been as bad. I don't know.

[ct_7567]

Oh, Martin.

[ Some things, at least, slide into place. Is that what Martin's been thinking, all this time? That he's been the cause of it all? He can't say that he's wholly wrong - he did make an impact, sure as sure can be - but he's not the cause for her death.

Rex had wanted to keep how Cassandra died from Martin. Keep her memory pristine, or as pristine as it could be. And, he thinks, to keep him from knowing that the ones he holds dearest in his life had ripped each other apart.

He doesn't want Martin to think ill of him either, even if that may be the only accurate eventuality. ]

She was sick, yes. But it was not her body's illness that was the cause of this, lad. It certainly wasn't you. It was her mind that went.

[darkov]

[Rex always has some sort of absolution for him, doesn't he? somehow Martin desperately craves it while also reviling it -- those two pieces of him always in conflict between comfort and condemnation, fighting to be the sense of what is right and just. the last thing he wants to do is agonize over it now...

Cassandra's mind betrayed her first, Rex says. was that better or worse? what conclusions is he supposed to draw from that?]

So when she told me...she was going to take care of some business. And that she'd come back. [he peers back over.] Was she lying? Because of her mind?

[ct_7567]

She wasn't lying to you. She had every intention of coming back. I know that. And she would fight for you to the very end. What had happened to her...

[ How does he put this, when the wound is still so raw? Rex looks off to the side, trying to summon up the courage to do the right thing. Tell him the truth. It's what ought to be done. It's what Cassandra would want, in her right mind. Isn't it? She's always prized the truth over everything else. ]

She told me before she became ill that one of the hallmarks of her illness was a shift in personality. People like her would be driven to do things that they would never do underneath different circumstances. Cruel things. Violent things.

I had hoped she would be spared that. But she told us that she wished to be stopped from doing such things, whatever it took.

[darkov]

[Rex says those things, but it's hard for Martin to envision them. Cassandra is, of course, a very loud and aggressive person...to most other people. she shows a lot of restraint around Martin, but he can feel when she's holding back, biting off frustration or impulse.

none of that leads him to seeing her as violent or cruel. he can't imagine her wanting to be that way, let alone forced to.

his brow furrows.]

...Whatever it took. [he hesitates.] What does that mean.

[ct_7567]

[ Rex wants, very suddenly, to lie.

Back home, the boys had been mouthier than Martin is, but they'd adored him anyway. Respected him. Followed his word as though he appealed to a higher power, some days, or at least made it look that way. But after Umbara, after that failure, it had all changed - he had changed. And it shamed him to see the way they looked at him, like he was someone else, capable of killing those that they loved or not fighting hard enough to save them. He'd lost their faith. He deserved that, even if some of it was merely in the confines of his own head.

He's not ready for Martin to look at him that way. It would break his heart. It would be so easy too - they locked her up and she succumbed, or there had been an accident, or they'd managed to force the Porter to take her back, or something, as outlandish as that is.

He can't. Martin trusts them to tell the truth, and that's precisely what he deserves. He doesn't have it in him to mince his words. ]

If she crossed that threshold, she asked for someone to kill her, [ he says, simply. ] You didn't kill her. I did.

[darkov]

[breathless, Martin stays silent while a dozen-plus different feelings and thoughts hit him all at once like a locomotive. some of it plays on his expression, with the way his face colors and his eyes dart away out of fear and confusion. it takes a while to break through the buzz to get to some proper stream of thought.

how did things come to this? why -- why would something like this have to happen? whose fault is it? how is he supposed to know or, or even react?

why? because she asked. he said that.

but why? because she was on the brink of something awful and uncontrollable, beyond what Martin can understand or imagine alone.

...why?

slowly, Martin hunches forward, feeling nauseous and heavy, bringing his hands to his face to prop his head up, curling fingers tightly into his hair. the slow increase of pressure is as close as he can get to being able to yank out all of these terrible things, futile though it is. he doesn't know what else to do with them, and certainly doesn't want to feel them.

worse: his feeble imagination piecing together the image of Rex having to kill Cassandra. with what he knows of killing, it's nothing short of gruesome.]

[ct_7567]

[ Rex should... he should do something. Take Martin's hands out of his hair. Put his hands on his shoulders, or on his knees. Say something. Ground him. But he finds himself frozen in place. It wasn't so long ago that he had kneeled over Cassandra's lifeless body, not so long ago that he'd filled out the paperwork of her demise, not so long ago that he'd felt his finger squeeze the trigger that ended it all - and through his continued mantra I had to do it, she would have wanted me to, he has his doubts. Woden deserved death. They could have done something. They could have saved her. Perhaps that's what Martin's thinking now. And if he is, there's a chance that he's right.

Rex is supposed to have all the answers for someone like Martin, but they were never meant to deal with this. He opens his mouth and shuts it again, privately grateful he'd never mentioned Andy, knowing that Martin needs at least one rock in the wake of all this.

What can you say to comfort someone when there's no comfort to be had? This, too, is the same as before. He'd turned heel and went into his office. He had filled out the paperwork. He had done what needed to be done. And that meant disappearing from those who needed him most.

He can't do that to Martin too, no matter what's going through his head. ]

Martin -- [ Unseen to Martin, he reaches a hand out, then retracts it, thinking better of it. Voice hoarse, he says, ] She's not suffering any longer.

[darkov]

[really, this all makes sense in a rotten, twisted way. it's like Danger had said: a self-fulfilling prophecy. Martin still spends so much time dreading the worst of things -- even things he can't properly imagine -- that...it happens.

it was bound to happen. Cass had said as much, herself.

...but not like this.

there was nothing Martin could do to fix it, because all Martin does is believe in inevitable tragedy. despite all the desperate hoping against it...somehow, he just knows. it's just...what was bound to happen.

but why like this? how many people he cares about have to hurt before it's enough?


it's a while before he withdraws his hands, lifting his head with a weary, bleak expression, eyes forward and fixed on nothing.]

...I'm tired. May I be excused.

[ct_7567]

[ Rex isn't sure what he expected. Something like this, he thinks. It seems untoward to press Martin for his feelings and thoughts now of all times. If he wants his space, he should be granted that, even if all Rex wants to do is shake the lad, tell him to simply let him know what he's thinking now so that he can at least deal with it instead of lingering in the wondering. There are others, professionals when it comes to childrearing, who would probably say differently. To comfort him in some way, to provide some words of solace. Rex has none.

No matter. He was to do the same thing no matter how this talk of theirs went. After all, there's still much to do. No use in shirking his responsibilities, no matter the dread in his gut. ]

...yes. Yes, you may. [ To say he knows where Andy is if he needs her seems pointless. The same goes for any number of others who are looking out for Martin that he may call.

So he doesn't. Martin can figure that out himself. ]