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[cactusy]

[For running across her in person.]

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[cactusy]

[That was absolutely not her experience. She can't conjure up any details - not now, not when she can't even conjure up her own name - but she knows that she had a stable, secure childhood.

Except--]

My father died, too. But not in a jungle, I don't think. No, he... he died in a car accident. I was there.

[Her mom had held her so tightly afterwards, squeezing her for what felt like hours.]

Okay, so your parents sucked. What about later, when you grew up?

[desperate_times_right]

[It's weird, like watching episodes from someone else’s life. She knows all these things are true, but can't remember her parents’ names, or the name of the school. Her father died because he cared too much, but she can't remember what about.]

Sorry. About your dad.

I don't remember how old I was now, but I ran away from the school eventually. Did shady jobs with shadier guys, and I couldn't count on any of them either. I learned that it's easier to rely on people if they want something from you.

People will support you for a while, sure, but there's always the next thing.

[cactusy]

There is always the next thing.

[That much they can agree on, even if they're coming at it from different angles. People always let you down isn't at all her experience, but Nothing and nobody lasts forever... that rings true.

The disembodied voice breaks in again - not so much interrupting the conversation as continuing it. "When you lost everything you knew and loved, how did you keep breathing?" ]

[desperate_times_right]

That's exactly why I try to never have anything I can't afford to lose.

“Sentimentality in this line of work’ll get you killed.”

[She’s quoting herself but she can't remember why she’d said it.]

[cactusy]

[She glances at the other woman, but the frown on her face is directed at the question itself.]

You keep breathing because you keep breathing.

[She says, her tone slightly frustrated.]

It's a bodily process, not a conscious choice. Does that question actually make sense to you?

[desperate_times_right]

It's just melodramatic bullshit. She means what keeps you from killing yourself when things get bad.

[cactusy]

I get the analogy, I just think it's a stupid one.

[Her fingers flex, frigid in the air, and she pulls her hands into the warmth of her parka.]

It's happened to me a couple times over.

[desperate_times_right]

Lost everything you knew and loved? That's rough. You remember it now?

[cactusy]

I remember I have small sample sizes.

[She says it slowly, the information coming to her only shortly before she voices it.]

'Everyone' is only ever a few people at a time, if that.

[desperate_times_right]

That's normal, I think. [Says the woman who can't really remember whether she has friends or not.] Smart.

You got a group now, you think? Looking for you?

[cactusy]

[She shakes her head, slowly.]

I did. They're all dead now.

[desperate_times_right]

Is that why you think you're dead, too?

I guess maybe we’re being punished.

[cactusy]

I don't think we are. I don't think their deaths and this have anything to do with each other.

[Her voice is dull - not quite bitter, but maybe in the neighborhood of it.]

But I still don't know how to answer that question about surviving. I just do.

[desperate_times_right]

Just keep on moving, huh?

[There’s something almost noble about it, even if in the case of wandering around the skeleton woods it is stupid.]

Do you remember their names?

[She barely knows anything else right now, maybe she can remember them too, with this woman.]

[cactusy]

[She didn't. But now, she finds the names coming to her, and she recites them like a litany:]

Liam Shaw. Niloufar Hanifnejad. Michael Cole. Joss Carter. John Reese. Harold Finch. Root.

[desperate_times_right]

[She repeats the names back. She doesn't know these people (or any people right now) but from the way this woman feels about them they deserve to be remembered.]

You loved them and they died.

I guess that's what she's asking you. I was a kid when I lost everything, so I didn't have a lot of choices about what to do with it. What makes you want to keep walking?

[cactusy]

I don't know.

[She says it quietly, but she means it.]

I just do. Like I said, it's automatic.

[desperate_times_right]

Do you think you could ever love someone else?

[Trying to avoid caring about anything enough for it to matter if she loses it feels like her own strategy.]

[cactusy]

Depends on your definition of love.

[She licks her lips, and then immediately regrets it as they go frigid.]

I'm not capable of it at all, by some people's definitions. But I can be loyal to other people. Other people can matter to me.

[She exhales a steady breath, finding herself thoroughly unsurprised by this new information about herself. It causes a few more things to make sense in context.]

[desperate_times_right]

And do you want that again? It seems like it's safer to keep to yourself.

[As if in response, the voice comes again: Do you survive for yourself alone, revelling in the solitude? Or do you hunger for a connection, seeking out others?

She makes an irritated sound, almost a growl, and kicks a bone out of the way in frustration.]

That's what I mean! Solitude is easier - not to mention safer - but something in me wants that connection. I get attached in ways I don't want to be.

[cactusy]

[She watches the other woman impassively, knowing that whatever she feels, it's definitely not that. All that fear, frustration, ambivalence...]

You're making it really complicated.

[It's not meant to be a criticism: it just is.]

Safety doesn't really come into it for me. I'll keep going if it happens. I'll keep going if it doesn't. Having people isn't something I need, but it was... nice.

Your way sounds like a headache - no offense.

[desperate_times_right]

None taken. It is, and I don't even remember all of it!

I've spent a lot of time wishing that I couldn't feel anything.

[cactusy]

I never spent much time wishing that I could. Not for any particular reason - I just didn't see the point in thinking too much about what-ifs.

[desperate_times_right]

You're not missing much. I've cried in airport bathrooms on every continent except Antarctica.

[cactusy]

Sure, I'm not missing much; only a fundamental part of the human experience.

[She says it lightly, and honestly, she means it lightly - she's never been one to brood and dwell, much less about something that she can't change. But it is genuinely how she thinks of it: as something near-universal that she's cut off from, something she'll never experience that most people consider essential.]