redshiftlogs | [closed] can't we give ourselves one more chance?

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[closed] can't we give ourselves one more chance?

Who: Ben, Cole, Ami
What: Cole and Ami need to Talk™ and Ben is there to mediate and make everybody feel safe and copacetic
When: October 7
Where: The library

He had agonized over where would be the best place to do this, once Ami had given him the heads-up that she felt ready. (Maybe throwing that party was good for her mental health, she felt steady enough in herself to face all this). His first thought had been the library, but then he'd doubted that, questioned it. Is that just where he feels safest? That's not important here. What is important is making Cole and Ami both feel comfortable and safe, helping them to hear one another and overcome their fear of one another so that they can help each other out.

But he'd listed all the other options he knew in the Anchor, and each had its own set of drawbacks. In the end he'd returned to the library again - it's brightly-lit and quiet, with comfortable chairs, nooks if either need a moment of privacy, but not convoluted enough that the space will pose an issue.

So he picks the time - late morning - and brings in some snacks (such as they are). That's definitely Grace's influence. Ben wishes briefly she were here, that he could ask her if there is anything he is missing, how to be sure he is helping and making them both feel okay.

He arrives before either of the others; he'd come fifteen minutes before the time he'd told both of them. He had also said, to each, to reiterate, that he ws there for them, there to help, and that he wouldn't let anything bad happen, while he was around.

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At least Ben seems pretty relaxed. Ami chooses one of the other chairs at random and sits down, the soles of her platform boots flat on the floor, toes pointed slightly inward. As Ben reintroduces himself, it occurs to her that she never has found out what his powers are, has she? All he's told her in that regard was that they sucked and he didn't want to talk about them. Which she can respect, of course, but it doesn't make her any less curious.

Cole is harder to read, but he doesn't sit, and there's that brief moment where he almost seems to disappear - like he'd rather be anywhere but here. Like even this much is something he has to force himself to do.

Ami doesn't really know anything about Cole, she realizes suddenly. His nature, his past, his world - all the things that would inform what he sees and how. Whatever he means by Cole-who-was-Compassion, she has no context for, but there is context. He's a person, too, not just some sort of... force of primordial Truth that bores into your soul and shows you its cross-section.

He's a person who's afraid.

Ami who is also Aradia. She nods slowly - that's essentially correct, though it's strange to hear her past self's name spoken aloud. She leans forward just slightly, trying to find Cole's eyes beneath the brim of his hat.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Cole," she says, her voice gentle. And she really, truly means that.

Ben keeps his eyes on Cole in the doorway, tense even as he tries to telegraph relaxed calm to Ami. Should he get up and go to Cole? Put an arm around him, help him make those last few steps? Or would that be cruel, forcing him closer into a situation that's scaring him so badly. Ben has to remind himself that Cole had wanted to do this, Ami had wanted to do this, that he's not forcing either of them.

But as soon as Ami reassures she isn't going to hurt Cole, Ben does his best to communicate to him, too. Not out loud, but with his feelings, with his thoughts. To convey his care for Cole, his worry, his commitment not to let anything happen that Cole would find distressing.

I won't let her hurt you. I won't let her hurt anyone. She needs your help. This isn't like with Anders, it isn't a demon, everything will be alright...

Cole doesn't come out from under the brim of his hat, but he drifts a little closer, footsteps falling silent. And then closer still, coming alongside her chair and crouching down somewhere between Ben and Ami's chairs.

Apparently, he's not using a chair.

"I'm not worried about you, Ami, or scared of you. But I said I'd help read Aradia. I want to help, if I can." His head swings back towards Ben. "Hello to you as well," he comments softly, the words not aimed at Ben himself. "In Thedas, anything like Aradia in a mortal is... bad. Very bad. For both of them, for everyone around them, blood and stones raining from the sky, acrid scents and acid breath, Anders-Who-Is-Vengeance-Who-Was-Justice holds his head in his hands and they wonder how it came to this and why it feels so good."

Kirkwall had screamed across Thedas.

He holds out a hand to her. It's so thin and pale. "It helps. I can see past the outside easier."

Not everything Cole says makes sense to Ami, but enough of it does that she's beginning to understand what all this means to him. The problem isn't her, or Aradia - it's her and Aradia. The "and" is what makes it an abomination. Two people shouldn't be in one body.

And he knows how badly it can go, because he's seen it happen. She doesn't know who Anders is - or was - but the example sends a chill down her spine.

Is that actually going to be how it goes with her? Under other circumstances, she might have said no; reincarnation isn't the same as possession. But then she thinks of her room, the walls covered in black letters that she still can't see and has no memory of writing, and of a horrifying possibility that she hasn't considered in quite some time... that Ami Aihara isn't Aradia Megido. That she is her own person, or could have been, if Aradia's soul had never awakened within her. That she's not being transformed, but consumed.

... Not that it makes much difference. Either way, "Ami" will someday cease to exist.

She's taken by surprise when Cole offers his hand. Already? She wasn't expecting the moment of truth to arrive right out of the gate. But - she's come this far. If she balks now, there may never be another chance.

She has to know who Aradia is. She has to know what's inside her, and what will be left when she's gone.

Ami braces herself - swallows - reaches out - hesitates, for an instant -

- and grasps his hand.

Cole's been trying not to read, letting the awareness of Them keep his senses occupied but then her hand rests in his, grasps and his hand twitches closed reflexively, gripping back.

"Aradia Maid of Time, the dead whisper and whimper and wail and the Ouija chooses for her what needs to be heard." His free hand drifts up, tracing a curled shape near his head. "Benevolent in her faith that all will be right, time unfolds and flows as should be. Ami-is-Aradia-is-Ami-" He breaks away, not violently, just draws back. "Ami won't cease to be. Aradia simply will. Two memories. One person. The caterpillar doesn't die just because it's a butterfly. Does that help?"

Ben is comfortable with being silent, and nearby, and keeping himself out of things unless he is needed. So far, the tension is still fairly high, but it had been promising, Cole speaking to Ami in a relatively straightforward way, Ami reaching out her hand for him to hold. Maybe this will go well, after all.

He stays alert, though, ready to step in at a moment's notice, or to help translate as much as he might be able to if Cole's words are too abstract for Ami to follow without the (slightly more) context that Ben has.

When Cole draws back, away from Ami, Ben reaches out to him, not quite touching his shoulder, not wanting to distract him from his task, but ready to steady him if he loses his balance - physically or otherwise. And he looks up at Ami, expression concerned and hopeful.

"So... it's not like possession, after all? Ami will stay Ami, she'll just remember the other stuff?"

Then perhaps Cole won't need to be scared, and Ami won't need to be scared, and they'll all... be okay, after all.

It's over more quickly than she expected. Although in hindsight, she's not sure what she expected. That it would hurt, maybe? Or that she'd feel him poking around in her brain? But she didn't feel anything unusual, except to notice how cold his hand was.

Some elements of the word salad are familiar. Aradia, Maid of Time. The voices of the dead, insistent. But there's more, treading new ground, and she needs a moment to turn the words over in her head.

Benevolent. All will be right. Two memories, one person.

"I... think I understand," she says tentatively. It doesn't answer all her questions - if it wasn't a separate Aradia controlling her body, then how'd the writing get there? But it does address the biggest one, if she's hearing this right. Aradia is not a monster. She's not all apathy and rage and violence-just-to-feel-something. And that, if it's true, is a huge relief.

But it also challenges that assumption of doom she's been carrying for months. She's been trying (and failing) to accept the inevitability that, just as her body becomes more Aradia's, so will her mind. The idea that she'll still be Ami almost feels like too much to hope for. But that one line sticks with her.

Her eyes turn downward, pensive. "A butterfly..."

And with a startled gasp, she remembers.

Awareness returns. Breath returns, she inhales for the first time in forever, but there's nothing to breathe, only searing green flame, flashing, she's on fire, her body is burning - it's like before, quick but not painless, she's barely alive long enough to realize she's dying, again -

But it doesn't end.

The flames clear, and she is still there. Resplendent in red, whole and unsinged, eyes open, smiling, alive. More alive than she's ever been. Wings (butterfly wings) unfurl from her back, new, but a welcome addition.

Before her she sees the one-armed hound, his sword slick with the blood of her friends, and he sees her too - but she's not afraid. He comes for her, impossibly fast, but she grins, reaches deep into a wellspring of power barely tapped until now, weaves a cage around him from the threads of Time itself -

- and stops him in his tracks.

She's done with dying.

"Still be Ami," Cole agrees, but then she remembers.

She dies and he dies with her and Cole dies, his hand too thin, his body wasted and unable to support the strength of the soul that clings to it.

She lives and he feels the wings and it's all frightening and confusing, but not in the way of terror and blood, just overwhelming and he scoots back towards Ben, curling up against the side of his chair so his head is pressed to the arm of it. "Aradia-who-is-Ami-who-is-Aradia."

It all is rather alarming, from Ben's perspective. At least he has seen Ami zoning out like this before; he knows she must be experiencing another memory from her past life, as a vision. Hallucinomemory, whatever it was she called it. But he doesn't know how it will impact Cole. A mere glance is enough to tell Ben that he is experiencing it, too, or at least Ami's emotions as she has the vision.

And he just sits there, uncertain what to do, if it would help to interrupt or if he should wait, fretting and anxious and feeling very out of his depth.

Then Ami moves, snapping out of it, and Cole moves, recoiling away from her and towards Ben's chair. He reaches down at once, touching Cole's shoulder, overflowing with worry and confusion and a desire to help. His eyes flick between Cole, curling towards him, and Ami reeling from the vision, and he asks, voice tight:

"Everybody okay? Ami, you good? Cole, are you alright? Talk to me."

Ami snaps out of it, blinking rapidly as she settles. Right, she's still in the library, with Ben and Cole - what are they doing, though? Cole's all pressed up against Ben's chair, mumbling, while Ben tries to comfort him. Did something happen?

... Oh, wait, duh. She's what happened. "You saw it, too," she says, raising a hand to her mouth. And that means - did he feel all that? Dying in a fire, rising from the ashes, the gears of Time spinning at her command? "I - I'm so sorry, Cole, I didn't know that was going to happen."

As intense as the sensations were, though, it's... not as bad as the last time she remembered dying. Then again, last time, she didn't remember immediately coming back to life. And there wasn't the same sense of... happiness? freedom? rightness? She felt so right, at the end. Like she'd finally found something that she never knew she'd always needed. Like she was exactly where and when and who she needed to be. Like everything was just the way it should be.

Is that what he meant by "faith"?

"Saw? No. Yes? Lived. Experienced. Not like Cole... Remembered." He remembered as she remembered.

He lets his awareness drift back to Ben, to his concern and care, to the otherness clinging to him.

"It's okay," Cole murmurs. "I'm okay. You're going to be okay." He said that to Ami.

When Ami apologizes to Cole for whatever he saw or experienced along with her, Ben's worry tips over into full-blown fear, an awful twisting helpless feeling in his gut. If this goes wrong, it was his idea. He had brought them together for this and if either of them end up worse off for it, how is he going to forgive himself?

But, at the very least, Ami doesn't seem as scared as she was when Ben had showed her evidence of the writing on her walls, and Cole isn't as afraid as he was when they ran into those nanites that had taken the shape of Despair. When Cole says he is okay, Ben forces himself to let out a slow breath. Perhaps he is overreacting. He ought to be more patient, have more faith in the two of them.

Briefly, he thinks about asking what they'd both remembered together. But the point of this meeting isn't so he can pry into Ami's past. So instead, he gathers himself, trying to force a semblance of togetherness, and says:

"Okay. Okay, so... did you find anything out? Do - either of you have questions for one another?"

"I know," she replies to Cole, and her voice sounds... a little surprised. Not just to hear herself say that, but to realize she believes it.

She can't help feeling a little bad, still, even if Cole says he's okay. Her visions can be A Lot, and she doesn't want him to have to go through that. She just... can't control when they happen, or what she sees.

But Ben's question reminds her that he's not dialed into the little feedback loop they've got going on. Oh geez, their poor mediator must have no gosh damn idea what's happening, huh? She'll try to explain for him.

"Sort of. So, um..." Ami shifts in her chair, leaning forward a bit, like she's gearing up to tell a story (which she is). "Ever since I awakened, I haven't been able to make heads or tails out of the stuff I've remembered about Aradia. The visions come all out of order, and a lot of it doesn't make sense even in context. But I kept remembering this ... crushing sense of hopelessness. Like she'd forgotten how to feel anything at all, other than horrible, violent frustration, which she took out on practically everybody."

She looks down at the floor. "I was just... so afraid. If that person was who I had to become, I... I don't think I could stand it."

I'd rather die.

But then she lifts her eyes again, and there's more brightness in them. Hope. "But I think what I - what we remembered just now... was the moment she remembered. Why she existed, what it was all for. And somehow, with all of her being... she knew everything was going to be okay."

"I've died before, it's okay. This was just remembering dying, not actually dying."

Because Cole doesn't always say the best things at the right time. Sometimes, even Cole gets it wrong while trying to get it right.

"Aradia-who-is-Ami-who-is-Aradia will reach a balance. Not an Abomination. It's going to be okay." Cole still shuffles slightly closer to Ben, but it's not a shocked or fearful action this time, just the fact that he likes Ben.

It's such a jarring thing for Ben, the gap between Ami and Cole's demeanor, and the stuff they are both talking about. Ami goes on about how most of her recovered memories have incoherent and out of order except the unifying thread of a crushing sense of hopelessness, yikes, and Cole is talking about her remembering dying, DOUBLE YIKES. But they are both very calm, and so Ben chews at the inside of his cheek and does his best to match their level of chill. He doesn't know how they're both so okay, but he's glad nonetheless.

"That's good. Not the - dying bits, obviously, but about finding a balance and- hope and stuff."

But Ben Hargreeves is Ben Hargreeves, and so he doesn't just accept that everything is fine and good now. He worries at the cuff of his hoodie, trying to figure out a careful wording. More for Ami's sake than Cole's, since he can see plenty that isn't said aloud anyway.

"What about... the writing on the wall, from the other day? That you couldn't see? Did you find any answers about that? I mean, I don't even know how that was possible..."

If Ami is doing stuff like writing all over her walls, forgetting about it, and then isn't even able to physically see the words she wrote... that seems like a mystery worth getting to the bottom of. And maybe Cole will be able to do that better, now that he knows Ami isn't and won't be an Abomination, that she's safe both within herself and to the people around her.

Cole casually admitting he's died comes as a surprise, such that the only reply she has is, "Oh." ... Geez, has everybody here been dead at some point?

Otherwise, the sentiment is reassuring, but she's not crazy about the nickname. "You really don't have to do all the 'who-is' stuff, just Ami is fine," she says, smiling awkwardly. She almost adds "or Aradia," but - no, maybe not. She's still not ready to take that step.

Ben still seems worried, though, and with good reason. The writing on the walls is the elephant in the room, to mix metaphors a little.

"No, that I still don't get." She puts a hand to her chin, pondering. The question alone doesn't spark anything - it'd be convenient if you could just ask a question and have a relevant memory pop out like one of those creepy animatronic fortune-teller booths on the boardwalk, but that's not how it works, unfortunately. This may be something they have to get to the bottom of on their own.

But suddenly, something occurs to her. "... It should be on tape, shouldn't it?" she asks. The letters were already there when Ben came to get the camera, after all. "Do you have any recordings? Maybe that could give us a clue."

"Not everyone, but a lot of us." More than really should have.

Cole isn't sure what this writing is, but he pipes up. "I might be able to help. I can read histories and emotions."

The offer is out there. He otherwise stays close to Ben, shuffling in a little more, not scared, just enjoying the soft affection he can feel.

Ben frowns a moment, puzzling over what Cole is even saying about 'not everyone'... until he realizes this is the first time he's really had a conversation with Cole and another person at the same time. It's something he's gotten used to, one-on-one, the way Cole will just respond to something he was thinking but did not say aloud. It is distinctly stranger when Cole is clearly answering some question Ami had thought. He almost asks what it was, but makes the decision not to. It doesn't really seem invasive to him when Cole does it - that's just how he experiences the world and communicates, Ben's cool with that now - but it would be if he used that as an excuse to pry.

So he just moves smoothly on, actually contributing for once, since it seems there are two possible options available here. He taps at his chin with his finger and then says:

"We've got the footage they saved from everybody's rooms. Peter made a copy of it. We haven't watched any of it that wasn't ours. It... didn't feel right. But if you wanted to look it over together and try to find whenever it was you wrote all that up... maybe it would trigger a memory, and then Cole could help to decipher that?"

It's the best plan he can come up with - a surefire (he hopes??? he knows nothing about brains) way to jar the memory loose, and Cole here to experience it along with Ami or at lest glimpse it and offer her insight or at the very least understanding.

"I can ask him to send me the file? He knows I wouldn't do it without your permission."

Ben doesn't go into the reasons why he's sure Peter would trust him not to invade someone's privacy. Cole already knows those reasons and Ami doesn't need to hear about any of his baggage right now when she's working on her own.

Edited 2019-10-26 21:04 (UTC)

You know, talking with Cole is really bizarre, Ami's starting to realize. Normal conversations do get that sort of surreal moment, now and then, where the other person happens to address something you were only thinking about - but with Cole, it's always that moment. She's not sure how she feels about it? Whatever the case, it's going to take some getting used to.

But at least they're not alone in their little Dead Poets Society, I guess? Is that good? It's probably tragic. Let's not dwell on that.

Ben's plan is sort of a synthesis of hers and Cole's - watching the video footage, hoping it sets off a memory, and then letting Cole experience the memory with her and ... read the history? What did he mean by "read histories," anyway? Sort of a psychometry thing? Would they need to be in her room? In any event, she's not convinced it'll work, but... they can try. She does want to see the footage either way, just to be sure - and to make sure she hasn't lost any more time, just in case.

"Or I could just ask him myself," Ami points out with a shrug. He's her friend, too, after all. Without waiting further, she takes out her comm and shoots Peter a text on the subject.

"... Full disclosure, though," she adds after a moment. "I really don't know if we'll be able to trigger a memory on purpose. They're slippery. Typically you just have to wait for them to come to you."

"Not everyone here has died. But a lot of us have."

Cole clarifies because Ben's curious and it's not really a secret. Ben died. Aradia died. Cole died. So did a few of the others, but Cole won't out them.

"If you show me the wall, I can try and read what happened. What it felt like, why it had to be done. Why is it called emotional baggage? It's more like... it carves and shapes who we are."

For just a moment, Ben think what Cole is saying is another contextless comment; then he thinks back and realizes it is an explanation for his benefit, and the pieces click into place. Then he has to suppress a smile, the corner of his mouth quirking up all the same. Honestly? He had never thought he would meet anyone who he could relate to in that way. And here he is in a room with two other people and all of them have died. What a strange and strangely wonderful feeling. It makes him feel almost... normal, in the best possible way.

"Orrrrr we can try that. Ami? What d'you say?"

He looks over at the girl, a question on his face that isn't quite the one he had asked aloud. The real question is, is she feeling comfortable enough around Cole to want him wandering into her bedroom. Reading what she had written on the walls, and then reading it for whatever explanation lurked underneath and in the past.

Ben's face is neutral - not urging a yes or a no, merely asking. Either way, he'll support her.

"I dunno. Because it's heavy, I guess," Ami says to Cole. She doesn't think to ask why he brought it up, though.

Anyway, she thinks over the ideas for a moment. Psychometry would be quicker than poring through weeks of video footage, anyway, and she doesn't mind people coming into her space if she gives them permission. After a second, she nods. Some of that nervousness, the anxiety over what they'll find out, has started to well up again, but it's easier to set aside in light of what they've already discovered.

"Let's try Cole's way first," she says. "Your idea is still good, though, Ben. That can be our Plan B." And - I guess they can just do that right now, huh? She gets up and fixes her skirt, starts gathering her things.

Plan B for Ben. Wait, does that mean Cole's idea is actually Plan C? No, double wait - Ami, Ben, Cole. A, B, C! She has to stifle a giggle at the realization. Oh my god, what a dumb coincidence.

Ami's amusement draws a small smile from Cole and something that almost sounds like a giggle in return. "Ami, Ben, Cole, A, B, C," he echoes from her, mostly so Ben knows why they're giggling.

"I can try." He unfolds himself from the floor. "The Shift makes it hard, something, but I'll try."

Ben grins, shakes his head, and finally rolls his eyes over the both of them giggling over the dumb coincidence of their names. There is, however, elated fondness behind the gesture. For a while there things had seemed really dicey. He wasn't there they would get to this point - the two of them giggling together, working together. It's an enormous relief, and he's glad that they'd both been brave enough to try this. To patch things up even after their first meeting went so poorly.

He lets Ami lead the way, following after with his hands in his pockets. The housing area is not very far from the library, so it's only a matter of moments before they're at Ami's door and then walking into the room. Ben is prepared for the writing, this time, but it's still... an awful lot. Knowing that Ami can't even see it still sends a prickle of unease down his spine, but they're working on it together. Seeing if they can't figure it out. Hopefully, it will lead to answers that help Ami, rather than upset her. And hopefully, touching the walls to try to get a reading off them won't upset Cole, either.

Ben glances between Cole and Ami, asks Cole:

"Is there... anything I can do to help?"

He doubts it but he wants to offer, regardless.

Ami spends pretty much the whole walk texting with somebody (it's Peter), so she enters the room last, still looking down at her comm. When she does look up, though, her eyes go wide, as if she's seeing something for the first time. Which she is.

"Oh, wow," she says, turning in a slow circle to take it all in. It's not a good wow. "You were not freakin' kidding, Ben. Holy crap."

Ben's got no clue why Ami can see the words now when she never could before, but he rolls with it, exclaiming, "Right?!"

There really is an awful lot of writing all over the walls, and hopefully now Ami will understand a little better why he had been so thrown, even before he realized she couldn't even see it. Maybe it's a stupid bias informed by too many movies, but writing all over the walls? Sort of creepy! Especially when it's the same thing over and over again.

He follows her inside, glancing over at Cole as they make their way in, wary in case being in this space scares him. He shouldn't let himself get cocky and assume everything is going to be smooth sailing, from now.

To Ami, he says: "And you didn't ever see it before right now?"

Was it some specific memory she'd had to remember that changed it? Is it being in here at the same time as Cole?

Yeah, it's way creepy. Especially when you know you're the one who put it there.

Ami shakes her head. "No, never. This is the first time. I couldn't even see it before I left to meet you guys."

And she's not sure why, either. Nothing's immediately sparking her memory. But it's got to be something that happened between then and now, right? And the only thing she can think of is...

"Is it... because of that memory?" she wonders aloud. She looks over to Cole, or at least where she thought he was. "What do-" Ah, where'd he go? She glances around for a second and finds him again, not far off. "What do you think, Cole?"

Cole has drifted to a wall, fingertips pressing to it, eyes heavy lidded and head tilted as if listening to whispers.

He reaches. Into the meanings and the connections, into a vast pool of interconnectedness that didn't make sense and simply was.

"Tick, tock, tock t0ck k0tc, c is c and t is t but k is g and 0 is a gattaca, tagc, gact, it's a code, the code has so many secrets and whispers and it's not your code, or my code but it's a code for something bigger and more, more than human, more than troll, it spirals on itself, twisting and zipping and she knows it, she knows the code but she can't see it until she remembers-"

He wrenches away from the wall. "I- I don't know what it means."

Ben drifts slowly towards Cole as he's speaking, but he doesn't interrupt him while he is doing his thing. Meanwhile he tries to sort through what Cole's saying. Something about that phrase, gattaca, is familiar, but he can't quite place it...

As soon as Cole reels back, moving away from the wall, Ben sets a hand on Cole's shoulder, steadying him. There's a deep furrow between his brows.

"So... it sounds like what you can and can't perceive definitely has to do with your memories. And I guess this is some kind of a code?"

He looks over to Ami, asks:

"Any idea what it might mean?"

And Ben turns to Cole immediately after, adding, more quietly:

"You okay?"

It doesn't make much sense. Gattaca is a movie, Gackt is a musician, and she's pretty sure Cole does not mean either of those. It's a code, and the answer lies in her memories. Not hers, hers.

Ami squints at the wall. It's code. Come on, she can actually see it now! So why can't she remember? Code for what? What kind of code only has four-

Her face slackens, the determined gaze turning into a blank stare. After a few seconds, she blinks slowly, past and present briefly overlapping in her consciousness - and she murmurs, softly, like an echo of herself.

"An incomplete fragment consisting of four symbols. In the soot of my ruined hive I scrawled my part of the code, completing the phrase of legend, the persisting sounds said to accompany the ultimate demise of the tyrant less an arm and an eye..."

Cole draws back against Ben. Aradia's presence, even the ghost of it, is still threatening to him, a small spirit sharing space with a much bigger and more powerful one and not being entirely sure that it won't turn predatory.

Faith often has little space for Compassion.

"It's a code to make an ancient thing," Cole whispers. "I want to leave now. I'm not very comfortable."

Part of the reason why Ben and Cole get on so well is that he's comfortable with some weirdness. There's a baseline of bizarre and (to other people) unsettling shit that really doesn't bother him. Maybe it's because he grew up in an environment that was so removed from the normal. Maybe it's just... who Ben is as a person. Either way, when Ami's gaze shifts and goes unfocused like that and she starts to speak in that soft, poetic way, he is only a little bit uneasy.

Most of his unease has to do with Cole; he's tense and Ben can feel it, because Cole is standing so close. This is why he's here. To make sure that things don't go off the rails, the way they had last time. To keep both his friends safe from alarming one another.

So the moment that Cole says he wants to leave, in that tiny voice, Ben acts. After all, Cole doesn't ask for things for himself. Almost never. He wants to leave, they're going to leave.

But Ben isn't going to do so without even saying something.

He looks into Ami's eyes, not sure she's even seeing him, and interrupts her.

"Ami, Earth to Ami. Cole and I are gonna go now. Text me later if you want help with the code or - if you wanna talk."

And then, protectively steering Cole so that his own body stays between him and Ami, Ben gets them both out the door, shooting one last glance over his shoulder and giving a little wave of goodbye and a small smile, if she's in any state to see and recognize it. Things had gone well. So much better than he'd anticipated, honestly. And he's pretty sure this is the best way to keep it that way. He had been useful, after all. The minute things started to get uncomfortable, he separated them. And now, next time they meet, hopefully it will be a little easier still, and then a little easier still. It is progress, and the beginnings of an answer to the mystery of the writing on the wall...

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[closed] can't we give ourselves one more chance?

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