[ Out of everything she could have possibly predicted, expected, all the arguments she's had years of experience countering—
Her own name hadn't been on the list.
The hand hovering before him tips, slender fingers curling into her palm as her eyes widen and the slightest tip of her head already gives way to her processing a multitude of threads, weaving together and looping through in colors familiar to her, and wasn't this everything she's battled with for months? Told herself she was foolish to believe, that she was projecting on this poor man who just happened to share a couple physical similarities and the particular intonation when he called her "doc"?
This man who's consistently thrown himself in her path even as he tried to keep his back to her, who's checked in and stopped to speak with her when she's been down, who's kept an eye out for her when others should have been.
No one else could say her name that way, with that stubborn force of will and even with his voice— changed? damaged?— she knows. It has to be him. It pulls the pieces together close enough to suture, and she wasn't looking at a rippled reflection with the right colors but the man himself, and her expression is searching, verging on hopeful and pained and confused all at once. ]
...Jack? It is you, isn't it?
[ There's no doubt in her voice, nearly so soft and wondrous to go unheard, but her hand is at his arm and she's gentle, pushing those few last inches and resting her other hand at his shoulder to steady him as she leans around to touch her toe to the button controlling the exam table, lowering behind him. Setting it at a height he can seat himself on without difficulty, trying to encourage him onto it so she can turn her gaze back onto red glass and really look at him.
She should be angry. Distraught. Lost. Vindicated for all her thoughts and suspicions proving true, furious for him having lied to her for six years and then all these months aboard the Moira despite his actions tethering himself to her further— even if by some stretch she's wrong, what would it matter now? He's free to laugh at her for holding out hope in a fallen hero. For seeing fate and signs where there were was only everyday life, no divine guidance in sight.
But she can't take the chance that it is him and she won't say anything. That this could be the one thing allowing him to accept treatment before he truly exsanguinates. Could she run back to her locker clear across the hospital, floors away, and be back in time before brain death? Would she be able to revive him should he pass of his own stubborn will? They'd lost such an ability when the Moira crashed, and the Savrii were unclear on the matter of resuscitating life.
And if it is him, what then? Once he'd been saved. ]
no subject
Her own name hadn't been on the list.
The hand hovering before him tips, slender fingers curling into her palm as her eyes widen and the slightest tip of her head already gives way to her processing a multitude of threads, weaving together and looping through in colors familiar to her, and wasn't this everything she's battled with for months? Told herself she was foolish to believe, that she was projecting on this poor man who just happened to share a couple physical similarities and the particular intonation when he called her "doc"?
This man who's consistently thrown himself in her path even as he tried to keep his back to her, who's checked in and stopped to speak with her when she's been down, who's kept an eye out for her when others should have been.
No one else could say her name that way, with that stubborn force of will and even with his voice— changed? damaged?— she knows. It has to be him. It pulls the pieces together close enough to suture, and she wasn't looking at a rippled reflection with the right colors but the man himself, and her expression is searching, verging on hopeful and pained and confused all at once. ]
...Jack? It is you, isn't it?
[ There's no doubt in her voice, nearly so soft and wondrous to go unheard, but her hand is at his arm and she's gentle, pushing those few last inches and resting her other hand at his shoulder to steady him as she leans around to touch her toe to the button controlling the exam table, lowering behind him. Setting it at a height he can seat himself on without difficulty, trying to encourage him onto it so she can turn her gaze back onto red glass and really look at him.
She should be angry. Distraught. Lost. Vindicated for all her thoughts and suspicions proving true, furious for him having lied to her for six years and then all these months aboard the Moira despite his actions tethering himself to her further— even if by some stretch she's wrong, what would it matter now? He's free to laugh at her for holding out hope in a fallen hero. For seeing fate and signs where there were was only everyday life, no divine guidance in sight.
But she can't take the chance that it is him and she won't say anything. That this could be the one thing allowing him to accept treatment before he truly exsanguinates. Could she run back to her locker clear across the hospital, floors away, and be back in time before brain death? Would she be able to revive him should he pass of his own stubborn will? They'd lost such an ability when the Moira crashed, and the Savrii were unclear on the matter of resuscitating life.
And if it is him, what then? Once he'd been saved. ]