Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn was...

...Well, she was still a little bit fuzzy and a little bit dizzy. But less so. She could think properly again, and speak properly, for the most part. The dream was so much more chaotic than it had been up to that point; even in the beginning, with the black water and the mismatched reflections of the sun and moon, even then, it had made more sense, the stars had been achingly familiar. Now it was as wild and disarrayed as her thoughts had been up until she slept.

"I..." Her voice echoed oddly around the space, as though it was so much smaller than a lake. It hadn't done that since right after her phasing test, she thought, though she was still a bit muddled and might've forgotten something. But at least it wasn't as slurred and incomprehensible as it had been when she was awake, though she didn't really know enough what she'd been like to appreciate that. "I dunno. Think we did it right, but...maybe it...was...a bad idea."

Looking out at the meandering nightdark water, she could faintly see the buoy in the distance, and the two figures that were by it, dead still, locked there instead of swimming or even treading water. A sudden feeling of desolation took her and she hung her head. "I din't forget anythin' after all. It jus' made it worse."

A long beat of silence followed, and Quinn averted her eye from the distant head that she could somehow tell, even all this distance away and with all the darkness between them, was blonde. In lieu of that, she mirrored Quinnlash, staring down at her hands, curling them in and out almost meditatively.

"I don't unnerstan.'"

Her voice was slightly choked, though as usual emotions felt far away here, so there was no chance of her crying again, not really. "I don't unnerstan,'" she repeated, almost blankly, "why am I thinkin' these things about her?"

Amygdala Circuit

You're a great daughter.

Slowly, gradually, Quinn's crying slowed, then abated altogether, as Besca kept on talking.

"Jus'..." she mumbled, suddenly feeling like the weight of the world was laying on her eyelid, "Jus'...closhe my eye...'n breathe..."

Her body stopped trembling, and she seemed finally to relax, uncoiling her body and leaning her head a little close to Besca's hand as though to keep it there. And that eye, the one that felt suddenly like it had the weight of ten thousand oceans pressing down on it...it flickered, like she was blinking it a hundred times. The huffing hyperventilation of a mid-freakout Quinn slackened off, to be replaced with the deep breathing that Besca taught her how to do, months ago now. Not yet the slow deep breaths of sleep, but a marked improvement nonetheless, and she could feel sleep bearing down on her like a freight train regardless.

You're a great daughter.

The last of the tight muscles in her face relaxed, and she let her body go limp now, but for one hand that kept clutching Besca's. Her eye drooped lower, and she less mumbled now than murmured ever so softly.

"G'night Beshca."

And then, even more quietly, barely more than a whisper

"I love you."

Then her eye slid shut, and her hand fell limp.

You're a great daughter.

And Quinnlash slept.

Amygdala Circuit

Lying down was nice. And the darkness was nice too. As the door to the pilot's dorms had closed behind them she'd flinched like she'd been struck, and that flinch seemed to reverberate around her body like a shiver. By the time she'd lay down, it had become a shiver, and tremor that ran through her. She felt the covers dip and turned to see what it was, even though it was dark and she couldn't see very good right now. But she was still coherent enough to realize after a few moments that it was Besca, that Besca was next to her, was stroking her hair, rubbing her hand on her cheek.

"Look at that, you did great. I’m not goin’ anywhere, so you just close your eyes and sleep. I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound, yeah? Be right here with you."

That's right. Besca was there. Besca was there. Besca would make it all better.

Quinn curled in on herself, almost wrapping herself around Besca. She was still crying, and crying hard, in that deep, raw way that came with all restraint being torn away. Her eye stung like fire by now, and as she lay there, her quiet, disoriented slurring continued, growing more and more distressed as she went on.

"Beshca, why did they leave me? Why do they hate me? Ish it 'cause I was bad? Did I do shomethin' bad?"

She reached up and grabbed Besca's hand on her cheek, pulling it down to her chest and holding it in both hands as she wailed quietly, piteously:

"'M I a bad daughter?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn's head spun like a top.

As they approached the door, she found it difficult to walk, difficult even to stand. She didn't really know what was going on as they walked—or, well, as Besca walked, and she stumbled alongside her. She understood, in the loosest sense, that they were going back to the dorms to sleep. That was fine. Sleep sounded good. She felt sick, and the tears were still dripping down her face for reasons she didn't fully comprehend. So she just leaned her head into the crook of Besca's neck and let herself be guided. The familiar sights of the Aerie were weird, distorted, seemed a little bit unfamiliar and...off.

At some point after they left the commons but before they made it to the dorm, she found herself talking. Or, at the very least, what could be passably assumed as talking of some kind. Really, less talking and more mumbling into Besca's neck as her brain spun in her head. Her voice was a soft, piteous thing, still clogged with tears, as well as heavy with the anxiety and pain that she couldn't seem to hold down anymore.

"Beshca, 's...ish Dahlia mad a' me?" She fell silent for a moment, burying her face in Besca's neck again as they traversed the hallway that led to the pilots dorms. A part of her dimly realized that's where they were, and her crying grew suddenly louder and heavier.

"Are...are you mad a' me?" Her tears quickly devolved into hiccuping sobs as her thin, shaking arms wrapped clumsily around Besca. "I don' wanna be 'lone anymore, wha'ever I did I'm sorry!"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn's mind was full of fog.

Thick, sticky, sickly black fog, crawling down her throat, choking her from the inside out, smelling of brine and metal. The world swam in front of her eyes. Akihiro was gone. Everyone else in the restaurant was gone. Everyone was gone. She was alone. So awfully alone. Alone with the fog in her head. She dimly realized that she was still crying.

The door opened behind her. She wanted on some level to check why and who, but for some reason the thought couldn't quite cling to her mind, and her body wouldn't cooperate anyway. When she blinked, her eye felt thick, gummy. Then a warm arm wrapped around her shoulders. Quinn—jumpy as she tended to be—usually would've jerked at the unexpected contact. But instead she just let it hold her tight, steady her. She didn't feel quite right, and it was...nice, to let someone else hold her up instead.

"Hey, hun. Hey, it's me. Missed you this morning, just wanted to stop by to see you. How you doin'? You okay?"

Her head moved laconically almost without guidance, and she found herself staring blurrily into Besca's face. Her eye wasn't quite focusing properly, and it was plain to see in how she squinted up through her tear-stained face. The devastating loneliness that had been festering at her core for the past few weeks slowly began to wither. Her voice, when she spoke, was slurring, and wobbling with unrestrained tears.

"...Beshca...?"

She stared for another moment. Just stared. And the pain was more than evident in her eye.

Then she heaved a long, drawn-out, agonized sob and collapsed into Besca, wrapping uncoordinated arms around her and grabbing on like a life raft in a hurricane. Things that sounded like they were supposed to be words rushed out along with the crying, but they were half-formed mumbles at best and totally incomprehensible through the slurring.

Here and there, though, and infrequently, some things managed to be coherent, just enough to understand.

...dn't wann' rem'ber...

...hurt her...

...feel...shick...

...cn't go 'ome dn't wanna...

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn kept sitting there, looking at the bar, as the memories bit and snapped at the back of her mind. Akihiro's noodles—usually a point of love for Quinn, she'd never pass up an opportunity to scarf a bowl or three down—sat in front of her, glistening in the light of the faux lanterns. She'd just finished her second glass of soda, and a third one had been brought to her. She heaved in a long, sighing breath.

Then, as she looked up, she found her eye seeming to...lag behind itself. She blinked suddenly at the strangeness of the situation, putting the glass back on the counter after a long drink. Her blinking felt suddenly...clumsy? Was that the word to describe it? She somehow didn't know. She shook her head suddenly, like she was trying to shake cobwebs loose from it. Once. Twice. Her eye didn't seem like it was focusing right, and she blinked rapidly a handful of times. Nothing came of it.

She picked the glass up, took another—smaller—sip from it. Was this what being drunk was like? If it was, then it wasn't working. Her mom stayed lurking behind her, rubbing her hand slowly on her back to calm her down when she was upset. Her sharp inhalation echoed around her head.

Blink. Another moment passed. Or...was it a moment? The people around her had shifted around, she though. Someone hadn't been sitting in that booth, had they? Maybe they had and she was just...remembering it wrong. She felt...off, somehow. Slower, muddled. Like waking up after a long, long sleep.

But...

Blink. Blink. It seemed brighter, somehow. Like the lights were blurring together into a bigger light above her. She was swaying in her seat now. Why was she swaying? It felt like her thoughts were passing through deep water to get to her head. It felt like something was wrong. Something was really wrong, though she didn't quite know what it was. She tried to stand, but lost her balance and slumped back down into her seat before she even really got to her feet.

And yet...

She lay her head down on the bar. She might've groaned. Had she? She wasn't quite sure. Her hand was wrapped loosely around he half-empty glass as she stared down at the wood. She couldn't see quite right. Everything had gone vague and...and blurry. Not just what she was looking at, but everything. Everything in her eye, in her ears, and in her head were all mixed around and together, blurring into each other like smudged paint. The memories shifted and melted in her head, and she was left only with a background of pain and fear, horrible and awful but mercifully free of any specific image.

Or...less free of the images, and more...every time she thought of one, it skated off her mind. Though they were still there, and she could feel them, she couldn't really see them.

And everything felt like she was hearing and feeling and thinking it through cotton, so she didn't know when she'd started crying, or how loud it was.

She didn't much care.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn eyed the glass that Akihiro had set in front of her. She'd seen him pour a bit of a clear liquid into it from one of the bottles, she couldn't read it from here. Picking it up, she swirled it a little, watching detached as the pale green liquid sloshed around the sides. It looked just like the usual stuff, really. Didn't look like anything had been mixed with it. So, just like those months ago when it had been a bottle of crystal-clear water, she lifted it to her mouth and took a tentative sip.

She blinked.

It tasted like...like yuzu soda.

There was a vague burning aftertaste to it that she couldn't place, but it wasn't too bad, and it wasn't strong either way. So by the time Akihiro had come back with the menu, she'd already drained half the glass. Nothing happened. Maybe she hadn't had enough to drink, or maybe she needed to wait. Maybe both.

Either way.

She picked at the noodles, idly wondering whether or not she should, or could, eat them. Took another drink.

Idly flipping through the menu that Akihiro had set beside her, she closed her eye gently to his gentle gaze. She felt like she was suffocating. Drowning inside her own head. Falling back down in that well that she was trying so hard to crawl out of, and had been for so long. Enough that stringing words together came with some effort. "No, I'm—I can't—" A long pause.

"I—she—"

No more words came out. Her head dropped.

She took another drink.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn stared hopelessly down at the floor. If Roaki could've met her eye, she would've found not revulsion, not hatred, but pain. Deep, burning pain that ate at her newly-empty stomach and withered her lungs before breaths ever found them.

"...No. I'll...I'll come back later. I don't—I don't feel..."

She let herself trail off, and hauled herself to her feet, plodding to the door, pushing it the rest of the way open, and sliding out before shutting it behind her. As soon as she did, she fell against the wall, making her way wearily back through medical like she'd just been awake for fifty hours.

I'm sorry, Quinny. You can't go outside, you know it's dangerous out there! You can go when you're all grown up, okay, sweetie?

Her breathing hitched as memories kept seething up from the depths of her mind. She closed her eye tight and just stopped for a moment. This was a new pain. A different pain. A pain that stole her breath away. A moment after, she opened her eyes again and kept moving, managing to resume her feet proper this time.

Aww, Quinny, it's summer! You're going to get dehydrated, sweetie! Drink it all up, okay?

All these memories. They wouldn't go away. They kept playing back, over and over and over.

We're just worried about you, sweetie! Dad and I just want to keep you safe, make sure you healthy! So lie down for me, please?

Quinn had never, even right after Hovvi, wanted to forget something so badly as she did in that moment. So...how do I forget?

If she thought about it for more than a moment, the answer jumped out at her. She'd read online that people drank alcohol to forget. Besca wasn't drunk often, but...when she was, she always seemed so happy. Quinn didn't know exactly what the process was, but she knew that it couldn't be too hard. Just drink something alcoholic, right?

For a moment, she paused, and wondered if this was really a good idea. But then another memory tore through her mind, this one of her mom telling her a bedtime story. A painful twist jolted from her heart. And then her mind was made up.

Skulking around the edges of the station—she didn't want people to see her in this state—she passed through the commons, and eventually found herself at one of her favorite haunts: Tohoki grill. It wasn't noon yet, so it was completely empty, as far as she could tell. Everyone was at work, or at CB Danes, which was a bit less of a sit-down place. Chef Akihiro turned to her with a smile, but it quickly turned into a confused frown at the way she was carrying herself. And, as she slung herself down, the frown grew a little more concerned.

"I'd like a yuzu soda," she said tonelessly. And a moment later, she waved behind the counter, where a dizzying array of bottles was pressed up against the wall.

"And put one of those in it, please."

Amygdala Circuit

Seconds passed like they were minutes.

Minutes like they were hours.

The stream of awful acid muck poured from Quinn in a way that was horribly, blindingly familiar, and, when it finally finished with her—when her stomach finally stilled—tears were pouring from her eyes again. And the memories were still there.

She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball in her bed now and do nothing for the rest of the day. But she couldn't. She just couldn't. She had so much to make up for. She had sims to do. She had to help Dahlia, whatever happened. She had to try and cause as little trouble for Besca as she could, and ignoring her training wouldn't do that at all. So she just had to...she just had to keep going.

She stayed kneeling there for a few moments longer, closed her eyes to the world.

Then she spat the rest of the stuff into the toilet, blew it out of her stinging nose, flushed, wiped her eyes, and slowly walked out back into Roaki's presence like there were a thousand pounds on her back. She righted the chair just as slowly, like all the energy had been sapped out of her. Sat down heavily, and placed her face firmly in her hands. Her voice was muffled when it came out, but it was clearly not happy. Not miserable, perhaps, but if not, then very close. And filled with pain.

"Sorry," she mumbled, pulling her hands away, sitting up straight, and looking at Roaki, trying to distract herself from the memories that were still lancing through her head."I was just remembering—something—I—"

She dropped her head again.

"Never mind."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn knew already that Roaki had killed her family. She'd fought duels against them, after all, and duels (almost) always ended with someone dying. But still, the plain admission had her hiss in a breath through her teeth, and a part of her wanted to yell at the younger girl for it. Her own family—the real one, at least—was so important to her that just the idea of killing family drove a stake into her side.

But Roaki was talking, and she shouldn't interrupt, she'd asked the question after all.

...And besides that, there was a part of her—not Quinnlash—that yearned, that urged upon hearing Roaki's words, to beat her parents black and blue before squeezing their throats until they stopped struggling and turn them into past tense if she ever found them alive. But every time she tried to picture it, tried to want it, all she could see was

Her mom looking lovingly down at her as she pricked the IV into her arm.

Sitting with Quinn and smiling as the little girl excitedly talked about all the places she wanted to see when she was a grown up.

The way she gently stroked her hand down her braid when she had a nightmare.

I love you so much, Quinny.

Then, before she even realized it, she was on her feet with a sudden burst of dry-mouthed panic. The chair crashed to the ground behind her as she lurched violently upward, eye wide in horror as she held a hand over her mouth with a vague panicked gagging noise, using the other to steady herself against the wall. Bile crept up in her throat, and she thought she might be sick.

"I—" she choked out as her stomach churned, "I—I didn't—I—she—it's not—"

And she got no further before she turned, stumble-ran into the bathroom, and emptied her guts into the toilet.