Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn closed her eye as Roaki spoke. When she responded, it stayed shut, and it took on that same melancholy that it'd carried earlier, something that was becoming more common to hear from Quinn. But it was a bit different this time; it was underscored with a taut, bone-deep tension.

"The problem is..." She didn't want to admit how she'd felt before, that awful feeling of hoping they were alive. Hopefully she'd just forget it with enough time. "...They weren't in Hovvi that morning, the only reason I could leave cause they left my door open by mistake. They'd gone to do some...science thing in Queenshand."

She sighed heavily, then leaned forward and opened her eye. "Until today, I was sure they were alive. But the stuff I read said they were going back when they learned the singularity would hit. So I don't actually know if they were there or not."

She smiled lamely. "And not knowing is so much worse. Dumb, right? But," she went on after a beat of silence, "what do I do about it? Now that I know, I wish I didn't."

Her voice dropped to a whisper then, and she pulled her legs up, resting her feet on the edge of the chair as she curled her arms around her knees. "And...I don't think I can forget them. Could ever forget them. They'll always be...there. They're, like, burned into my head." She made a muffled sound of distress, but didn't start crying again. She'd promised herself that. No more crying today. "See?" She motioned towards the door, held slightly ajar, forgetting Roaki wouldn't look at her. "I still can't do doors."

Amygdala Circuit

Another long silence followed Roaki's question, with no answer immediately forthcoming. For a brief time, there were only Quinn's soft, hiccupping tears.

Then, a bit later, she gritted her teeth, swiped her arm across her eye, and spoke huskily, "I don't..." The word know was on the tip of her tongue, when she cocked her head to the side as a thought struck her. Because she did know at least a little now. "Or, well...they're, or they were, modiologists. Really, really good modiologists. The most famous in Runa, I think." And maybe more than that; she thought she'd seen some articles in Casobani when she'd run her search.

She rubbed her eye and socket with her hands, and when she pulled them away, she looked down at the floor and spoke softly, giving voice to the thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind since she discovered their modiology: "Maybe I was just a science project."

She wished she could talk about this kind of thing with Besca and Dahlia too. But Dahlia was either asleep or in sims, and she was awake—as seen today—she was certainly in no place to help Quinn work through her own problems. Besca was in the dorm to sleep for three hours and then leave for the bridge before Quinn woke up; they almost only talked over the phone now. So Roaki was...she gave a weak, weedy chuckle. Roaki was her only confidante, and there was something sadly funny about that.

She shook her head vigorously then, doing her best to banish the thoughts. "I didn't mean to lay all that on you." She forced another laugh, still pained but a little less so. "It's just...on my mind today. Sorry."

Amygdala Circuit

"Okay, sure. Why’d they do it?"

Quinn went quiet again, though this time for only a few moments, as she screwed up her courage, forced herself to think back to Hovvi, and her life. The discovery that water was supposed to be clear was a memory as crisp and clear as it was painful to look back upon, and she sucked a harsh breath in through her teeth.

"When I...when I was a girl--a kid, I mean, or, a few months ago, before the Hovvi Incident." she started slowly, voice stopping and starting as she fought to string her words together properly. "...I thought water was supposed to have a dark tint."

As she went on her voice grew more constant, but also unsteady, shaky, like it always did when she was really upset. Yet she still forged on.

"I had no way of knowing. My...my parents, they didn't tell me anything, they cut off almost the whole internet, they told me everything was normal. Including the water." She closed her eye, taking a few deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm herself. "It would've tasted funny too, though I didn't know it at the time, really. Bitter metal and salt brine."

One more deep breath. One more long pause. Her eye grew hot and stung as she fought back tears, holding herself together as her voice quaked.

"...Modium. It was modium."

"They kept me inside so nobody would know and I wouldn't understand." She clung grimly on to her composure, even as her voice grew thick and tears started to build around her eye. "They cut me open to check if my insides were okay." She wasn't sure if that was true, but it was the only thing that made sense. "I didn't—"

She stopped speaking abruptly, and finally, her composure broke. Her thin shoulders quaked.

And she began to quietly cry.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn took a long, deep breath as she walked over to the chair that she had become a constant tenant of in the past couple month or so. As it always was, the air in here was thick, stifling. Not physically, of course. But Roaki's soft monotone mumbling dug into her heart every time she heard it. And her thoughts still being stuck on her parents' possible untimely death didn't have her feeling any better. So, unlike usual--very unlike usual--when she sat down, she didn't talk for some time. Instead she just...looked at Roaki. Look at her, and wrestled with her thoughts.

When she finally spoke, it was after almost five minutes had ticked by.

Through the conversations she'd had with Roaki, there was one question that, no matter how she was asked it, she always skirted around. She'd talked about her parents, of course. She'd talked about being kept locked up in one room for sixteen years, never allowed to leave, never even allowed to see out of it. She'd talked about the compact operating table being wheeled into her room, and being put under, only vaguely recalling anything about what had ever happened. She'd talked a lot, at Roaki's questioning. Answered every other question she'd had. Except one.

What she'd never talked about was...the water. But it was on her mind now. And she couldn't get it off.

When she spoke, her voice was most unlike its usual state as seen by Roaki. Gone was the bounce in it, the cheerfulness. There was no anger or sorrow. All that was left was a deep melancholy. "You asked me a while ago why my parents kept me locked up, why they operated on me, and I never told you because I said it was too painful to think about."

She hesitated.

It was still hard to talk about. So, guiltily, sadly, she redirected it outward, in a strange kind of delaying gambit. "Do you still want to know?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn wasn't a bodybuilder by any means, but the past few months had certainly been rigorous enough for her to pack some muscle on. Enough, at least, to gently wrap Dahlia's arm around her shoulder and carry her into Quinn's room, where she'd been before. She laid her ever-so-delicately down on the bed, being sure not to wake her. She stood there afterwards, looking down at her sister taking long slow sleep breaths, and her heart jerked in her ribcage. I'm sorry, Dahlia. I'm really, really sorry.

And it was making her training a little more difficult too. Dahlia and her sim spars had never been the most useful things, but now she found herself missing the kind of outside-the-box thinking you only got when you were fighting a real person instead of a collection of ones and zeroes. They still could spar; but she would never ask her sister to push herself more than she already was, and looking down at her sleeping form only made that feeling keener.

I wish there was another pilot on the Aerie for stuff like this.

Well, no point wishing for things that she couldn't change. She turned and left her sister, gently closing the door ajar. And she didn't really want another pilot, because being a pilot was painful, and she didn't want anyone else to need to be.

Speaking of sims, actually, she had her own to attend to today as well. She was already stretching the Board's patience. Better not their schedule too. So, shaking her jacket a little bit to resettle it back on shoulders properly, she left the dorms once more.

She was already in the commons when she realized that she was a little hungry, and should've eaten in the dorms. She could go anywhere she wanted, really, but it wasn't the same without Deelie and Besca. Another pang of that sharp, hungry guilt bit into her heart, sinking deep and twisting as she thought about what their lives would be like if she'd never come here. As she thought, she continued towards the sims, until she finally raised her heat to meet the hallway to...

...Medical?

She'd gotten so used to coming here in recent days that her feet had just taken her here on her own. But, she thought, if she was here...she fished the key to Roaki's room out from the chain around her neck. Might as well, right? Really don't want to miss a day, after all.

As she walked through the sterile looking-and smelling hallways of medical, she was barely given a second glance by those around her. She'd become such a regular fixture here, she was more or less expected. Still, it made it easier to get where she was going, at least; everybody knew already where she was going and that dissuading her was a really bad idea, so they just...cleared out of the way along the path to Roaki's room.

...Into which popped, after a moment's consideration on the other side of the door.

"Hey, Roaki!"

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia pulled away a little bit⁠—not far enough to leave Quinn's desperate embrace⁠—and smiled.

"Never sorry to me. I’m not sorry. I wouldn’t change anything. Made you a promise. ‘Cause I wouldn’t change anything."

Quinn stared up at her, almost uncomprehending. Didn't hurt me. Never hurt me, Quinn.

And just like that, the fervent energy that she gripped her sister with wilted and faded, and she just about collapsed into her, resting her face on her shoulder once again. Closing her eye tight, clenching her jaw, she tried her absolute hardest to not cry again. And she almost succeeded. Almost, but not quite. The love that Dahlia showed her. Her burning, cloying guilt. Her...her parents, and the new news that she'd been burdened with. She couldn't hold it forever. And once the first tears came, the floodgates opened, and she wept.

Even so, she kept trying to force words out through it. No matter what her sister said...she still wasn't doing enough. So she kept going, voice small and tremulous, like the pathetic child that she was, deep down.

"I⁠—hic⁠—I made you⁠—sniff break...breakfast. 'S...hrrkkkg...'s in the fridge." Her hug once again turned tight, but less out of desperation this time. It was more out of...

"I⁠—I⁠—I love you, Deelie. I⁠—heugh⁠—I love...love you so much."

Amygdala Circuit

For just a moment, a beautiful, fleeting moment⁠—her sister patting her head, leaning against her, the hug so warm and comforting⁠—everything was right with the world.

And then Dahlia spoke, and the comforting warmth started to burn lower.

Just being there near Dahlia⁠—and the way she was talking, comforting, soft, like a real older sister⁠—was enough to cushion Quinn's pain. But...but the words she was speaking...they didn't sound right. She didn't sound right. She was exhausted. Exhausted. And it was all Quinn's fault.

The warmth burned away, leaving only fading embers, and her sobs stilled then, to shuddering breaths that she could speak through.

"Deelie...Deelie...please..." She squeezed hard enough for her arms to shake, like Dahlia would vanish if she left go. "You..you need sleep, Dahlia. Please. I know..." Her shuddering voice calmed to merely quivering. "I know you're worried about me. That's why you're pushing and pushing and pushing yourself." And then her voice went through another change. Went still, and flat, and hollow. "I'm hurting you again. Again and again and again, I just keep hurting you."

"I'm...I'm sorry..."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn hadn't really thought of Dahlia when she'd given vent to her frustrated scream. But, she reflected, she should've. As she met Dahlia's eyes with her own, another shard of guilt buried itself in her heart. She looked so tired. So stressed. So worried. Unable to keep eye contact any longer for the stabbing hurt, she dropped her head shamefacedly.

"Y⁠—yeah. I'm...I'm fine. Just..."

She hesitated for a moment. Didn't want to put more on Dahlia. But looking up into her weary silver eyes, she felt herself throwing herself into her sister's arms before she really even realized it, hugging her tight in return. Her eye closed, and she felt a thin stream of tears leaking out.

"I just..."

Another moment of hesitation. Another moment of thinking that she shouldn't burden Dahlia with this. Another moment of self-loathing. But being near Dahlia drew the hurt in her out like nothing else, stripping away the hero pilot, the burdened celebrity, and everything else, and leaving what lay, buried deep, deep down, at the core of Quinn: the lost, scared child.

So when she responded, there was a hint of tears in her voice. "Deelie, they⁠—they could've⁠—they might've⁠—died in Hovvi."

She squeezed the hug tighter, burying her face in her sister's shoulder. "They might be dead. They're probably dead. I'm free of them."

She screwed her eye tighter. "So why⁠—"

And then thickness in her voice turned into sobs.

"Why does it make me sad?"

Amygdala Circuit

As Quinn scrolled through her phone, she could hardly believe her eyes just how much people were talking about her. How much garbage they were spewing. There were some things that made her wince, like all the speculation attached to the duel and Roaki. There were some things that made her roll her eye, like the three different eyepatches, none of which actually looked like her eyepatch. There were some things that made her chuckle, and she tapped on the link for the pilot quiz. She'd take it later and see if she got herself or Deelie, or...or Safie.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

And there were some things that made her eye shoot open in sheer astonishment at the audacity. Secret relationship? Fad diets? Product endorsements I've never seen? Born on the MOON? She kept scrolling, and the results grew wilder and wilder. Until, finally, she saw it.

Locke and Sansean Loughvein... And just like that, they had names.

Locke and Sansean.

And they were...they might be...they could be...dead? They might have died in Hovvi?

Even imagining was...completely alien. Just...just the idea that mom and dad were...dead? Even now, it felt like breaking some kind of universal law. They had been her whole world, her whole reality, for so many years. It was almost hard to fit it into her brain. And something else smacked into her brain along with it, forcing itself in. Like a punch to the face, a lightning bolt to the chest, sending her reeling. Her breathing hitched. No. That had to be wrong.

Deep, sharp breath.

Hand shaking more, she reached back up to the search field. Missed it at first, scrolling past meaningless articles. When her trembling fingers reached, she typed in, Sansean and Locke Loughvein.

Article after article filled the screen. Those about her came first, of course. But they were few and far between as she scrolled down, met with something else entirely.

Genius Modiologists Presumed Dead?

Loughveins Missing After the Hovvi Disaster

Still No Word From Loughveins in Wake of Quinnlash's Duel and Absence - Are They Still Alive?

More and more, and each one she read delivered that same bolt to her chest. She stared at the screen for another moment, then tossed it to the floor and dropped her head into her hands.

She hated her parents. She knew she hated them. They'd done awful things to her for reasons she didn't understand and the search had made no clearer. They'd kept her locked up in one room for her whole life. Fed her poison. By all rights, she hated them with every fiber of her being. The thought of them dead should satisfy her, and she felt Quinnlash's satisfaction and even glee, certainly.

So why, then did that that bolt strike her? Did that thought punch her in the face?

Why did the thought of them dying make her so sad?

And at that thought, her confusion and frustration found their voice and she let out a raw scream, letting her palms muffle it and dull the sharp edges:

"Why do I care?!"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn stood in the middle of the common room, staring at the cracked door that Dahlia slept beyond. And once more, a razor-sharp shard of guilt buried itself in her heart. She was doing it again. Trailing behind Dahlia. Causing problems. Hurting people. Just like at Hovvi. Even now, making her own decisions cut her to the core sometimes, dug into that piece of her that she knew would always be there to some extent: the ignorant child, patiently waiting for mom and dad to come give her dinner.

A bolt of anger shot down her spine, and her lip curled up into a sneer filled with self-disgust. Wasn't she supposed to be a hero pilot now? So, what? She could fight Modir, and Roaki, and Casoban and Helburke by extension. She thought that she could maybe beat her sister in spar now. She already beat her in sims as long as they turned phasing off. But still...

The lunch she'd had before the interview with Mona played back vividly in her mind, and as she felt her stomach turn, she made her way over to her favorite blue chair and sank down into it, closing her eye and letting her body go limp. She'd made Dahlia order for her. Then she'd hurt her. Why couldn't she ever do anything for Dahlia when she was hurting? Especially when it was Quinn's fault anyway?

Why was she like this?

Her thoughts slowed. Why was she like this? And...why? What had happened? She knew her parents had fed her modium ichor for some reason she couldn't understand. She knew that somehow she'd lived though ingesting ichor, and been...fine, if sick. She knew that she had a smaller her within herself, that had been there for who knew how long.

So, she asked herself again: why?

She pulled in a long, slow breath. In.......out. Another. One more. And her eye snapped open.

There was something she needed to do.

But first, breakfast.

Quinn wasn't a particularly good cook, and she knew it. She messed up everything from eggs to soup. But, as she'd reflected that morning, even someone like her could make some toast, butter it, slather it in Dahlia's favorite jam, and cut an apple into slices that she arranged next to it. Into the fridge the plate went, and upon a discarded piece of paper, she wrote:

I made you breakfast, Deelie. It's not as good as yours, but...it's the thought that counts, right? It's in the fridge whenever you want it.

Underneath, she drew a heart, then slid the paper underneath her door so Dahlia would see it when she awoke.

That done, she took another long, long breath. Her heart was hammering in her chest, even harder than it had in Ablaze. Quinnlash was screaming in her head, some blend of fear and fury. But she ignored her as best she could. For months, she'd just...walked after Besca and Dahlia. Giving them more work, dragging them down. She wanted to be better. She wanted to figure out how she could keep moving forward without them, and so how she could walk alongside them instead. But to do that, she wanted...

She wanted answers.

This was a decision that she came to. That she alone could make, and she alone could carry out. Something that she couldn't wait for Besca and Dahlia to do for her, because she knew they never would. Something entirely her own.

So, nestling back down into her chair, she took her phone slowly out of her pocket, and tabbed over to the internet browser. Hand shaking so much she had to restart and delete several times, she finally tapped out what she wanted to search. What she needed to search. And so, heart heavy, blood already freezing in her veins, and taking one last breath, she searched it.

Because she didn't want answers. Not really.

She needed them.

Mr. and Mrs. Loughvein