let's call it a grand opening •

[spaceling]

WHO • everyone
WHERE • deck 2: corridors & mess hall
WHEN • day 1
WHAT • characters arrive
WARNINGS • please warn in the subject headings



[ you wake up on an abandoned spaceship in an unfamiliar quadrant of space, unhurt, but nauseated and dizzy, wearing whatever you were wearing before, with no possessions but what you were carrying with them.

the corridors are dark and grimy, dimly lit by lights that flicker now and then. it's cold enough to see your breath fog up before your face, but artificial gravity and life support seem to be working just fine.

welcome to your new home. ]

Comments

[fujita]

[ dorothy wants so badly to believe him, for his words to be true, but she knows that she can't. ] That happened days ago, for me. We went to Glinda, and she returned your memories to you.

[ for a moment, selfishly, she considers not telling him. she could keep quiet now, she could go into his arms and let him hold her and forget about everything else. part of her wants that, but she doesn't think she could forget his hands around her neck, choking the life from her, and besides, it wouldn't be fair to him. to either of them, probably. ]

You're her husband. [ there's bitterness in her tone. ] She's your wife, and you choose her over me. You tried to kill me because she told you to — [ there's anger, too, now. it's easier to be angry than to admit how much it had hurt. ]

[scarecrowed]

Days ago? [ How was it possible for his memories to be returned to him, only to have no memory of what had recently happened? ] How can you be days ahead of me?

[ The rest of what she says renders him speechless. Husband? He had a wife? Lucas shakes his head in denial. ] No... If Glinda was responsible for taking my memories, why would she make me forget her? I could have died in Nimbo not knowing her.

[ And as for trying to kill Dorothy... ] I would harm you for her because she is my wife? [ It's absurd, and yet... why would she lie?

It's a lot for someone to take in - to be told by someone you care about most in your world that you're going to hurt them in the future and you have a whole life you don't want with someone who brings out the worst in you. He flattens his palms against the nearest wall, steadying himself against it. ]

[fujita]

I don't know, but I also don't know how a tornado can transport me from Kansas to Oz or back, or how I'm here, and that all happened.

[ nothing makes sense anymore. dorothy's gotten pretty good at not thinking about how little sense her life makes these days, to just push past it and move on. if she thinks too hard about it, she worries she'll go insane. ]

I don't know why Glinda does anything, not really. I don't know the man you are with your memories, either. [ she hates that. he's still lucas, but he isn't. roan is someone dorothy doesn't know how to reach, and from the moment that he'd told her that lucas isn't his name, her chest hasn't really stopped aching. anger is a reprieve, but she can't quite manage to stay angry when he looks so confused, so broken. ]

[scarecrowed]

[ The man she describes isn't the man he is right now, but that doesn't mean he won't become him. It's his destiny, apparently.

He thought his biggest problem would be working out where he was and how to get home, but now it's living knowing what he'll do to Dorothy. ]

Tell me where I go from here. [ Because frankly he hasn't got a clue. They can't be like the team they were before, figuring things out together. Perhaps she never wanted to speak to him again... ] Do I avoid you? Keep my distance? Is that what you want?

[fujita]

I want —

[ that's as far as dorothy gets before she comes up short. what does she want? she wants the man back who would ask her that instead of choosing glinda over her, and he's standing right in front of her, but he tried to kill her and she can't forget that he chose glinda. he'll choose her again and again if the situation ever arises, if glinda ever shows up here. maybe even if she doesn't; if his memories come back, he will no longer love her like he (almost) said he does now. ]

I don't know. [ she shakes her head slowly. leaning against the wall of the corridor is a sign of something akin to trust, to trusting that at least right now, he won't reach for her throat again to kill her. it's not an overly vulnerable position, but it isn't openly defensive anymore, either. ]

What I want, I can't get anymore.

[ she wants to go back to believing that he wouldn't leave her. ]

[scarecrowed]

[ Lucas turns so one shoulder is against the wall, facing Dorothy, and he's within arm's distance, so it must be a sign that she feels like he isn't a danger to her, at least not right now. ]

We should have stayed. [ He says that softly. They have a habit of standing near each other - even in the beginning when they were strangers - in a way that's intimate, and this time is no different. ] At the farmhouse...

[ Speaking of the farmhouse, Lucas remembers their young companion, frowning with worry. ] And Sylvie? [ He cares far more than he lets on about the little witch. ]

[fujita]

[ the thought of sylvie hurts, too, if in a different way than thinking about lucas choosing glinda over her does. dorothy shakes her head, eyes closing for a moment. ]

Glinda made her fight a war. [ that's something dorothy can't understand: lucas choosing glinda hurt, but she can't say it was entirely unexpected. but lucas just accepting that little girls are being used as soldiers, as weapons? ] She survived.

[scarecrowed]

[ Lucas doesn't seem surprised that she fought alongside Glinda, though he is relieved to hear she survived. He can guess what happened - Dorothy lost Sylvie to Glinda, too.

He wishes he could hug her right now. Instead, all he can do is regard her with warmth in his eyes, nothing of which she can return, but warmth nonetheless. ]

And you? Do you find a way home? To Lucas? [ It's weird using his name in this way but it is the name of her hometown. ]

[fujita]

[ he's right: dorothy lost them both to glinda in different ways and it hurts, but there's a part of her that says it shouldn't. after all, it isn't really surprising, is it? and yet, she was surprised. somehow, she'd started to believe that she could have this, him, a family of sorts. of course she was wrong about that. ]

Yeah, I did.

[ and she doesn't want to tell lucas, or she doesn't want to tell roan and that's who he is, she has to remember that even if he doesn't, but — she wants to tell someone. so she blurts out: ] I met my mom. My real mom, not who I thought was my mother.

[scarecrowed]

[ He wants to say he's glad she made it home but it would feel like a lie. Her being home meant not being with him and he wanted her with him always. She obviously chose home over him in the end, just like he chose Glinda over her. There were no such thing as happy endings.

Lucas looks surprised at the mention of her real mother, torn between feeling happy for her and a protective feeling of apprehension over the news. Did her real mother deserve a daughter like Dorothy? ]

Was she everything you thought she'd be?

[fujita]

[ dorothy wanted him to come with her. she hadn't thought it possible at all, but — there hadn't been anything tying him to oz, had there? until glinda, until he'd chosen glinda. maybe they could have had a happy ending. maybe it would have ended even if he'd come with her, maybe it wouldn't have worked in her world.

she doesn't know. she'll never find out now. ]

More so than Karen ever was.

[scarecrowed]

[ Lucas wonders if she's spoken about this with anyone. Probably not. He doesn't know whether to feel special, that he's the only one she can talk about this with, or it's simply because there's no one else. No one better. Her last resort.

This feels easier to talk about than what happened between them, though. He'd rather talk about her family issues than him betraying her. ]

Do you want a relationship with her?

[fujita]

[ she hasn't, and it's for all of the above reasons. there's no one else, but in a way, it's also because he's special. lucas is; he hasn't judged her for being someone not even a mother could love, not like west, not like dorothy does herself sometimes, wondering if there really is something wrong with her.

roan is another matter entirely. ]

I think so. [ she drags in a breath. ] But she lied to me. She said she'd go back with me. Instead, she only sent me.

[scarecrowed]

[ Lucas gets what Dorothy is saying: she didn't want me so she sent me away. Again.

The last thing he wants is for her to think she can't trust anyone, including him. ]

Maybe she had a good reason. [ He adds quickly before she thinks he's taking her mother's side: ] I'm not defending her actions. You don't need her. But people lie to protect the ones they love, when they're afraid...

You lied to me about the Wizard. [ He doesn't sound angry, like he's calling her a hypocrite, it's just an example. ]

[fujita]

She said it's to protect me.

[ dorothy wants to believe that so badly, just like she wants to believe lucas when he says that he loves her. years and years of knowing a different truth speak against it in her mother's case and lucas' actions against it in his. the more she wants to believe, the less she can trust herself that she has reason to.

dorothy drops her head against the metal of the corridor, uncaring of the grime it gets on her hair. ]

[scarecrowed]

[ Lucas cares - not that a little bit of grime on her makes her any less beautiful. He raises his hand a little to touch her face, but no sooner does he drop it back down again. Like she said before, she doesn't want him to touch her. He needs to get used to that. ]

I know I'm probably the last person you want to be stuck here with, but I'm here if you need anything. [ Whether it's someone to talk to or a human punching bag, he's here. ] Please don't forget that.

[fujita]

[ he lifts his hand and dorothy doesn't know whether she wants to lean towards it or shrink away from it. it isn't raised in anger or violence, but he'd seemed more sad than angry for most of their last encounter, too. desperate is the word that perhaps best describes it.

desperate people are dangerous. ]

Yeah. [ she swallows, looking away. ] Same. If you need fixing up.

[ even now, the thought of not helping him when he's hurt doesn't sit easily with dorothy. and yet, she'd been capable of leaving him with a knife wound in his side that she'd put there, bound on a cross. you got your wish — desperate people really are dangerous. that includes her. ]