postictal | ic inbox; entranceway

[She agonizes over what to say almost the entire day. She should-- she should say something, she fucking shot him for christ's sake. But ugh, this isn't necessarily a conversation she knows how to have.]

hey
i
are you
howre you feeling?

[Nailed it.]

[If it makes her feel better, she's not the only one who's done it. All told, he is grateful for one thing, and that's the fact that she's not the same kinda coward that he is, who couldn't bring himself to check up on her when the smoke finally cleared.]

[He really should've.]

could ask you the same thing

i'm not the one who had to live through it
besides I know how much it hurts taking a shot from one of those
but I dunno.
It's over.
guess that's all I can hope for.

i've been shot before
not a big deal

[It hurt, but most things hurt when they're lodged in your lower back and bleeding hot rivulets into your side.]

Not really something you do just because though.
Besides.
I probably looked like a fucking sight.
I wouldn't want to go toe to toe with me either.
I'm sorry if I scared you.

i think we both know it wasn’t really you

you told me you didn’t blame me for what i did while i was something else
do you blame yourself

[She could lie to him right now. She could. But she has so little fortitude as it stands.]

yeah, a little bit
managed to make it so far back home
never fell
I should've been able to handle this.
I'm sorry I brought it here at all.

yeah cause you definitely meant for all this to happen
i can see that

shepard, no amount of you feeling guilty and bad about what happened is going to change the fact that it happened

i know.
I mean, i know, but.
I thought it was over. like i'd finally gotten out.
guess that's a literal way of looking at memories following you, huh

you know how wonderland works
you think im not still waiting for my world to show up here one day?

yeah
yeah.
I always knew it'd show up eventually
if it makes you feel any better, solid two years
but i guess you can always keep hoping you'll go home before you hit the roulette

still.
didn't mean to shoot you
if you need some medicine or anything i have some to offer, but since its been a few days it might not be so effective

im getting it taken care of

[aka he's been to the clinic. He's not doing meat grinder surgery on himself here, because that would be the quickest way to paralyze himself from the waist down.]

wasn't your fault
seeing as i actually was in possession of the same amount of mental faculties i usually have [which is, in his opinion, not very much,] sorry i couldn't do more to stop you

I'm glad.
and it wasn't your job.
I asked Rick for a reason.
didn't want to put that on you.

you said you wouldn’t let them get you
you realize that gets way less reassuring when you make contingency plans and then don’t tell people that that’s a very real possibility.

I didn't want to worry anyone.
you needed hope.
everyone did.
i couldnt say i could fail.

and to be fair, i
really, didnt expect it
ive resisted them before. fought them back.
should've worked.

howd they manage it

[She did say it wasn't gonna happen. Was it just a matter of being overwhelmed - sheer numbers, in spite of everything else?]

I don't know.
could've been compounded with recent enough Reaper influence when i went home at the end of february.
could have been too many conduits
frankly
i think it was when that fucking thing woke up
was probably just a tipping combination of too much at once

i really didnt think
really. i thought id be okay.
rick tried to make a vaccine and he didnt get hit so i doubt it was that, but.
ill use his words here.
wonderland cheated.

you blame yourself for that?

[For Wonderland, for the Reaper showing up in the first damn place, for succumbing to its influence just based on sheer overwhelming odds, for any of it, any of it at all - from where he stands, he’d be shocked if she wasn’t a solid knot of ironclad fucking guilt at this point.]

[The fact that she contacted him at all says as much.]

don't blame myself for it happening.
but i do that i couldn't stop it.
i'm an against all odds kind of person.
this is what happens when i fail.
i was supposed to be... the one who saves everyone.
so.
fucked that one up.

so you're angry at yourself for failing to live up to an impossible standard
that you know full well is impossible

[Yeah, fuck being shot. Let's psychoanalyze this instead, because it's plainly more far-reaching than a couple bullets in the gut.]

[Damnit, Tim, you've got her in a guilt corner here.]

i beat impossible odds all the time.
no one should have even been able to kill the first reaper
or come back from the dead
or go beyond the omega 3 relay and return with a whole crew
i do impossible things every day
so why not now
why not this

[Whatever the hell an Omega 3 relay is. Does it really matter?]

they are called literally impossible odds for a reason
sooner or later your odds are gonna run out

you can hold yourself to a more realistic standard every once in a while
that won't kill you like pushing yourself to some stupid extreme will

ive never had reasonable odds.
i do the impossible because its the only way to survive.
i cant just be okay with the idea that my failure caused someone elses death
especially when ive done it before on equally impossible shit
i havent had limits in years.
it just
i dont get to have that
not the way my life has gone

then you need to fucking adjust
adjust to the fact that some shit here is literally impossible and if you keep focusing on some perceived fucking failure then that’s just going to keep dragging you back

and if it makes you feel better about it
these aren’t your limits
they’re wonderlands

I guess.
i wasnt so stupid that i thought i could save everyone
im not naieve
but i'm the one who moves the world.
when people have those expectations, when you're someone's last hope
i have to give it my all

text, backdated to later on 5/4

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