"Just been trying to clear my head a little after all that's happened."
That answer is honest enough, but it's not the whole truth, and Nick is sure Rey knows it. It's hard to miss things like that when you live with someone and consider them as close as you can get. They're family.
And that means they should talk about that whole week they spent actually thinking they were. He slides out of his coat, hanging it by the door before he makes his way over to the table and slides into the chair across from her.
"You all right?" he asks, putting her first, as always.
There's no question what it is that Nick needs clearing his head about, as Rey is well aware. She watches him carefully as he seats himself right in front of her, his reply a silent affirmation of what she already suspects.
"Not really," she responds in earnest, conscious of the fact that Nick, like herself, knows better. "Will have to be, though. Don't really have a choice."
And that is a truth as well. They don't have the luxury to not be all right, or at least appear so. Rey has to be focused, resolute.
She can't let herself be distracted by her own problems when there is a very real, imminent one ahead of them.
Nick's eyes flick to Rey, the creases of his face illuminated by their bright glow in the dim light. He does his best not to let it show, not to let how he's feeling wear into his features; it's nearly impossible, especially when he's faced with someone he knows can see right through him. His brow knits tightly, his mouth cutting a wide frown across his face. He wants to insist he will be fine, but what he says is a harsher truth that mirrors Rey's answer:
"Not really... but I have to be. With these Null showing up on the network again, we've got bigger problems to worry about than all the clutter on my mind these days."
Unfortunately, said clutter is wearing on Nick, and the longer he leaves it unresolved, the worse it'll get... and deep down, he knows it. He has to be okay for the people of Hadriel, for the Guard, and most of all, for Rey -- and to do that, he has to keep himself in some kind of working order, no matter how much he wants to put others first.
He sighs. Leaving his answer at that wouldn't have gone over well anyway, and so he continues. "There's just been a lot that's happened recently that hits too close to the old heart."
The honest answer comes with more gratitude than Nick probably knows. Or maybe he does, just as Rey had extended the same honesty to him. There's no sense in lying when one would just as easily call the other out on such a feeble bluff.
Rey grimaces at the mention of the Null, both knowing that there's more going on and exactly what it is that troubles them about their enemy. It's a familiar battle to her, too. Synthetics, driven mad by emotions. Only they want to destroy the very force that manipulated them, rather than become more than what they are. Still, she probably understands the nature of this beast better than most, with Nick being an exception.
She lowers her arms as Nick continues, hands crossing over each other on the table.
If not for the fact that he had already told Rey about his -- the original Nick's -- lost love and how she died, it would have been easier to dismiss these last couple months as being typical grief. There's nothing 'typical' about this, though, and she knows that. She also still feels those wounds, still fresh and bloody, and can imagine what the pain must be like for Nick. She's been there. She still is.
"I'm sorry," she tells him, like she's the one to blame for his pain. It was her mother, after all. The woman he had put down, and then subsequently lived a life where they were happy husband and wife -- however the hell that worked. "I brought that in. It was my..."
Not her fault. Feels like it is, though. Her mother's fate is on her conscience. Nick shouldn't have to share it.
She knew that response was coming, and there it is. He's well aware she'll blame herself, no matter how much he tells her she shouldn't. After all, he'd do the same: the real Nick did, and the synthetic Nick still does. No matter how many years pass, he can't forget what happened to Jenny Lands. He can't change the past, can't erase from his mind the memory of her murder... and his failure to prevent it, to keep her safe, to bring her killer to justice.
Nick's fingers curl against the table, the bare metal scratching the surface. They're just another reminder of how inhuman he is, even if, for a week, it hadn't mattered. For that week, he'd felt as though he fully belonged somehow: he'd had a home, a family, the kind of life he'd never had the chance to have -- that he, the synthetic, never really could have. He should be used to that by now; he should be used to having memories that aren't his weighing him down. That's one thing that he and Rey -- unfortunately -- have in common.
And there's not a damn thing they can do about it. They didn't ask for this. They didn't ask to be made, or ask to have someone else's memories shoved into their minds. They didn't ask for the ghosts of the past to show up. She didn't ask for her mother to come back.
But Undine did come back, and she'd asked Nick to shoot her; he obliged out of love for the only family he's ever known. That's on him. He can carry that weight -- she shouldn't have to.
"This isn't your fault, Rey," he insists again, his eyes on his hand. He closes them as those flashes of memory return, fragments and images of events he hadn't lived mixing with ones he did. It's that much harder to separate what's real and what isn't when the gods are involved.
It's not her fault. She knows that it isn't. And yet, seeing Nick right now, pained in a way no soulless machine would be if he was just that, she can't help but feel that she brought it on him. That it was her involvement in his life that has caused him this much grief.
Rey never asked for this, or to be 'born'. But she also never asked to share in that pain, either. She had become so accustomed to being alone that it's impossible not to feel guilt for the sake of the one at her side.
Despite this, she reaches out. Noticing Nick's fixation on his metal hand -- the very real, very constant reminder of what's underneath that skin that is Nick Valentine -- placing her own over his. Her fingers curl around the metal. Though she isn't certain how much he can feel on the sensory level, the deeper, emotional pain is one that is all too clearly etched on the lines of his face.
At one point, she would have been repulsed by it, just as she had been when they first met. Here she is now, embracing what he is for the sake of who he is. A person. Family.
"Not yours, either," she points out. "You know that, right?"
He might have pulled the trigger on her ghost, but it's what Undine would have wanted. Whether it actually is or not... It doesn't matter.
Nick doesn't meet Rey's eyes, his hand tightening beneath hers; that likely tells her all she needs to know.
Undine wanted him to put her down to save Rey. She knew he'd pull the trigger, given he'd do almost anything to protect his family, just as he'd have done almost anything to save Jenny. Yet, both Undine and Jenny Lands are both dead, and there's not a damn thing he can do about it -- there wasn't then, and there isn't now. And what about that 'brother' of his, who might not have ever even existed? He'd tried to help his family, and look what happened to him.
It's harder and harder for Nick not to think of how much fault lies with him, especially when the memories are getting so muddled up in that rusty processor of his.
"The gods had some nerve," he says lowly, "making your mother my wife in that... made-up world they stuck us in." The remorse is evident in his voice, his tone graveled, somber despite the fire undercutting it. "After what happened with her when she was here... after what I had to do..."
His hand shakes, his lip quivering as he tries to steel his temper. His memories of Undine in that fake town and that perfect life are still so strong, and just similar enough to those of Jenny that they blur together. One moment, he's remembering dancing, being in love, stolen kisses by the waterfront; the next, it's a body next to the river, the corpse so stained in blood that he can hardly tell which woman is lying before him. There's anger, and loss, and a hell of a lot of emotions he can't even begin to parse.
It's all too close, and the gods had to have known that.
At the very least, Rey would rather see the blame be placed where it deserves. It doesn't ease the pain they've suffered, but it's better than watching Nick berate himself in ways that are beyond his control.
"Thank you," Rey blurts after a moment of quiet, watching as Nick's thoughts translated on the lines of his expression. "Don't think I ever got to tell you that. For what you did for me." Her voice shakes when she speaks; her throat tightens. "So thanks."
They're not easy words to say, but they need to be said. How could she feel grateful to someone for killing someone she loves so that she could live?
Love is a terrible thing like that. It defies logic. Becomes twisted and confusing. Rey's mind is a swirling mess of just that.
She'd like to think, in some way, that Undine would have told Nick the same thing, though. Maybe she had. But he still has to know. Has to hear it.
It's the least she can do. He deserves to be thanked. To know that his pain means something to her.
Undine had thanked him, and just like her, Rey's gratitude might as well be a bullet through his own, mechanical heart. Though Nick knows Rey means it, that her sincerity is as real as the ghost of Undine's love had been for her daughter, there's something about being thanked for killing someone that doesn't sit well with him. It can't to someone like Nick, who lives for justice and doing the right thing.
There was no 'right thing' in this case. There was no justice; only gods hungry for emotions, and taking them any way they could, no matter who they had to damn along the way.
His eyes hit the table before he closes them; he puts a hand to his brow, struggling to deal with the images that keep coming to the top of his computerized mind. The longer he dwells on them, the harder it is to keep what happened to Jenny separate from Undine. He knows they were two separate incidents in two different times and two different worlds, but the heartache feels the same.
"I know you'd have done the same for me," he utters from behind his hand, "but I don't deserve thanks for what happened. I don't think I want it."
It shouldn't come as any surprise that Nick wouldn't accept Rey's recognition for what he's done for her. He might not want to see it, but she can't ignore it, either.
Reluctant, she slides her hand away from Nick's for the moment, her mouth tightening into a frown as she struggles with her warring feelings regarding what has happened to them and between them in all the time they've known each other.
"You know, we never got to live together. Not really," Rey says in a quiet tone. Several moments of silence have passed before she allows herself to speak again. "Was still underground, and she was... gone, by the time I ever saw the surface. Barely even got to spend much time outside of that damned glass cage they had me in."
She scoffs despite herself, thinking about the many conversations she and Undine had during that time. How most of it was academic and not, say, about relationships, what they were eating that night, what Rey wanted to be, who she wanted to be...
Her jaw locks up. "I'm not happy with what they did to her. What they made you have to do. But I... I never got to do the things we were able to do together then. Have dinner together. Walk in the park. Just talk. Never got to have that, and never will. All I have is that memory of her that was here."
Undine was here. She died here as well. Hell, she might have even been born by the logic that this place manipulates.
Hand covering her face, shielding her eyes, Rey releases a shaky breath as she continues. "I never got to have a mother and father and family like that, and I never will... And. The worst part? The worst part isn't that none of it was even real -- it's that I got to have something I'll never have--" Teeth clenched, she hisses: "--and I want it back if it could have been real."
That life, that family. Her mother. Even if it wasn't real, and something so far beyond her reach, she was happy that such memories far beyond her own imagination even exist.
It's Nick's turn to reach out; he puts his hand on Rey's arm, and though he can't muster up a comforting smile for her, there is sincerity in his eyes, the kind one anyone might mistake for truly human. It's one of those things that makes Nick Nick, that gets folks to trust him despite his artificial body. He might be manufactured, but he's got more of a soul than a lot of people. It gives him empathy, allows him to truly feel.
And what he feels right then is a connection to the family he's found in Hadriel.
"I know none of it was real," he says as quiet, muted pain tugs at his features; it tightens his brow with worry, putting knots in it as well as his heart. "Not any more real than I am the original Nick Valentine. Had a bunch of memories shoved into our heads, feelings you can't tell if are yours or someone else's programming..."
His eyes lodge themselves on the table as he pauses, his nose wrinkling. It's rare that he's at a loss of words; he tries again.
"What I'm trying to say is... I know how you feel. I never had a family until this place. The only memories I had of one are Nick's, and even then, they're vague, blurry, incomplete... and not even mine anyway. Hell, if I'm being honest, it felt good to have one for a change. It felt good to have you, and be settled down... the kind of life a machine like me is never gonna have."
And while he's not proud in some ways to admit that -- to admit he liked that fantasy world the gods cooked up after all the heartache they've caused -- he isn't about to lie to Rey. If she's feeling pathetic, then he's pathetic, too.
But at least they're pathetic together. They're family, and Nick wouldn't have it any other way.
Birds of a feather, as they say. That's what they are, despite all of their differences. At the core, there's not much that sets them apart.
Her throat tightens as Nick reaches out. Her hand draws down her face to look him in the eye when he speaks. The way he brings himself down again by not being the real Nick, by these memories that belong to neither him nor her -- that isn't something she can really abide.
"It wasn't all fake," Rey tells him after she gathers her thoughts for a few seconds. "At least, I don't think it was."
The feelings she had about Nick, her mother... It was a nice dream, but there was some truth there as well.
Hell, even Maketh...
Rey locks up her thought there. She'll figure out the deal with Maketh eventually.
Thankfully, Nick gets what Rey's implying. He graces her with the slightest of smiles, its appearance only a bare curl at one corner of his mouth as he meets her eyes.
"Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Maybe not all of it." A lot of that fake world may have been dreamed up by the gods, but when it comes down to he and Rey feel about one another as family, well... either they were right on the money, or that was something genuine shining through. He chooses to believe the latter, in this case. The gods have meddled enough lately.
He sighs, pressing at his temple with his bare hand. He can't really get headaches in the traditional sense, and yet, he can feel one trying to gum the cogs in his head as his processor continues to struggle with all that's on his mind. He's been under duress plenty of times in his synthetic existence, had to handle complicated cases with no clear solution, had some situations end messier than he'd like. So much at once though, and not just for him, but for Rey -- it's taking a toll on his health, and he knows it.
Well, on whatever kind of health a machine can have that is affected by stress, at least. Nick reminds himself inwardly that he has to take care of himself to take care of her. That's how two people like them, folks who don't put themselves first, compromise.
"I'm still trying to sort it all out," he admits quietly, his tone gravely serious. "I'm not sure what it is, but things haven't been working as well as they ought to lately."
Not just as family, but as the one person who knows how to tend to his mechanical clockwork, Nick's response elicits some cause for concern. Because she knows it isn't always as something as simple as a psychological problem, or vice versa...
Much as she wants to assure him that everything will be all right, she doesn't want to fill him with empty assurances and no guarantee. Besides, there is a more pressing query in the back of her mind.
"How do you mean?" She leans forward, brows knitted as she studies Nick's weathered features. "What 'things' aren't working for you?"
"It's probably just my imagination," Nick reassures, his eyes flicking to Rey as he gives a little shrug, knowing good and well it isn't his imagination at all, "or maybe I just got too used to that easy life in Diamond City. Had a lot of cases, but it was nothing compared to all we go through here."
He pauses for just a moment; his inclination is to not worry her, not when Rey has been through so much in the past month or so, but his instinct tells him he should tell someone what's going on. If there's anyone he can trust with matters both mechanical and mental, it's Rey... and frankly, he's not sure which one this is. He's no doctor, and no technician -- hell, for all he knows, it could be both.
And while he's not keen on admitting that, he's got to do something. It's getting to be a problem.
"Things just haven't been processing well lately," he continues, his voice quieter. He taps the side of his head: "Up here. Memories of Nick's are getting mixed up with some of the things I've seen and done, bad enough to where it's hard to tell the difference. Can't shut 'em out as easily as I used to, either."
Between her own experience and what she knows or Nick's, Rey is fairly sure that his imagination is probably not the problem here. But she doesn't say anything. Just lets him collect his thoughts and figure it out before she can come to her in conclusions.
When he does tell her, she can't say she's surprised. Knowing the limitations of synthetics, she can understand where Nick is coming from.
"You know," she finally says, a crease in her forehead. "I could take a look. Undine's... She was a very brilliant researcher. Did a lot of robotics and engineering work."
It's what attracted the attention of very powerful government officials, whose influence had landed her on the underground facility where Rey was born. Ultimately, she exists because of Undine's brilliance.
This isn't about her, though.
"She... showed me some things. While she was here." Things from Nick's terminal, no less. Things that helped her understand a little more of what might be wrong with him.
Nick's brow furrows, his eyes narrowing as he puts some thought into what Rey is offering. He's not warm on the idea of just anyone messing with his primary processor: after all, that little piece of hardware holds all that he is, both the synthetic Nick Valentine and the original who is copied there. It holds all his memories, all his experiences -- without it, he's just a metal shell of a man, something without a personality or a life of its own.
Hell, he'd be no better than the older synths set upon the Commonwealth by the Institute, mechanical monstrosities that only appear human from a distance. You get close, and it becomes apparent what they are, even more so the second they start talking. They aren't people. He doesn't consider himself a real person on most days either, but he'd still take what he is over what he would be without those memories, without Nick's behavior and personality wired into him. He can't just go get another copy; if his data banks get fried, that's it.
Of course, Rey isn't just anyone: she's handled his mechanisms before, put them back together, even replaced some of them when absolutely necessary. She's traded her time and skills for pieces just to keep him running, has got more mechanical know-how than most folks in town, and definitely has more of his trust than anyone else. There's always the suspicion that the Undine who came to Hadriel might have just been some shade the gods made to stir up trouble, one who couldn't have possibly helped Rey figure out something new... but he's willing to go with his gut on this one. If Rey says Undine showed her some things and thinks they might help, then he'll put his faith in her.
Nick meets Rey's eyes again, giving her a nod. "All right, then. Let's take a look."
The willingness to accept her help means more than Nick probably knows. Or maybe he does. Either way, she hates the thought of him suffering, physically or emotionally -- and he does have emotions. So much so that it's almost an affliction when one considers the mechanical nature of their being. But he, like Rey, is what he is; ghosts in smoke and mirrors.
"Thank you." Rey exhales as she pushes out of her seat, more relieved than anything not to making an argument out of this. Before heading to the office where the terminal is set up, she glances to Nick. "Hope you don't mind that we were using it, while she was here." Pause. She bites her lower lip. "She, um... She helped me with some things, you know? I don't know whether or not it was the gods or myself or maybe there was some bit of her that was in that..."
"What, the terminal?" Nick asks, catching her glance. He gives her as reassuring a look as he can muster. He knows the tone that's heavy in her voice. "I'm just glad it's getting use. All it is in my hands is glorified storage."
He means for notes, but in the right hands, it could be more.
"And if she managed to help you figure out some things," he continues, softer, "then that's good enough for me." He might never admit it aloud, but she helped him figure out some things, too -- things that went unsaid far too often between himself and Rey.
A wry smile forms. "Admittedly, it took some getting used to for us both. The interface is very..." Rey makes a circular gesture in the air. "...retro?"
Hard to think that Nick hails from a place so advanced to create sentient machines using operating systems for such old general-purpose computing. But she's not here to critique the old school style of his world's aesthetics.
"She was like that," Rey continues as she seats herself in front of the terminal in the office. Her eyes remain glued to the screen than to Nick himself. "Smart as hell, always wanted to help. Was interning for the project that eventually made me at seventeen. She..."
Her face reddens as she stops herself. She ducks her head, staring down at the keyboard where her hands are.
"Sorry."
Why is she apologizing? Why is she telling him this? Hasn't it hurt him enough without knowing these things?
Chest tightening, Rey goes back to focusing on the words on the screen.
Does talking about it really help? Undine used to think so. Rey isn't so sure, though.
Nick's insistence is firm; this is not her fault. None of it is. He's having a hard enough time reminding himself of that, given how jumbled those flashes of memory seem to be these days. Even as he says that, he can hear someone telling him the same thing, a long dead echo reverberating in the back of his mind.
This isn't your fault, Nick.
He'd been angry at the time, furious to hear those words. He was confused when he'd heard them again in the wastes, before he realized the synth he'd become -- the human he'd never truly been, despite those memories. Now, that reassurance just wears on him. Jenny hadn't been his fault, and in a way, Undine wasn't... but he'd been the one to put the bullet in her. He'd been made an accessory, used like a tool.
His hand is back at his temple as he takes the sitting chair near the bed; he's still trying to shut out the auditory feedback playing in his mind, but it's an old recording he can't quite erase.
He means well; his assurance is even welcome. But guilt still grips its dirty fingers around Rey's heart that she brings such things up at all. Reopens the wounds that are still fresh in both of them.
"Right. Anyway..." She shakes her head, refocusing her attention on the screen in front of her. "We actually managed to figure out how to put together something that'll help me interface with your gear, but I'll need your help."
From a drawer in the desk, Rey extracts a long cord. One end is fashioned to hook up to the hardware itself, but the other end is a needle, half an inch in length, that appears to connect to something else.
Nick takes a look at cord, surprised by how much Undine's ghost managed to help while she was here. Her presence hurt like hell for both of them... but there was good there, too. It's important to remember that.
He takes the needle end, getting a feeling he knows where this is going from what Rey said. Interface, like a machine. "Just tell me what to do."
Whether the help came from Undine or Rey's own memory, the possibility doesn't cross her mind. Can't bring herself to even question it.
She focuses on the reality at present, now that it isn't just Nick's head that's at stake here -- but Rey's, to some extent.
"It needs to go here." She points to the back of her own head. "There's a port in the dura that connects to my brain. I'd do it myself, but the needle is a little bigger than the one my father used, so it's a little tricky."
One of the downsides to improvising with what they have here. That, and the process hurts like hell, but Nick might not like knowing that part.
Though his brow knits with discomfort, he takes a look at the back of Rey's head, trying to figure out where to plug the needle in. Rey might not say it hurts, but he gets the distinct feeling it's going to -- hell, some people would say that's the whole point of them.
After gingerly brushing aside some of her hair, he finds the port; he hesitates. "You sure about this?"
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no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 07:57 am (UTC)That answer is honest enough, but it's not the whole truth, and Nick is sure Rey knows it. It's hard to miss things like that when you live with someone and consider them as close as you can get. They're family.
And that means they should talk about that whole week they spent actually thinking they were. He slides out of his coat, hanging it by the door before he makes his way over to the table and slides into the chair across from her.
"You all right?" he asks, putting her first, as always.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-03 01:13 pm (UTC)"Not really," she responds in earnest, conscious of the fact that Nick, like herself, knows better. "Will have to be, though. Don't really have a choice."
And that is a truth as well. They don't have the luxury to not be all right, or at least appear so. Rey has to be focused, resolute.
She can't let herself be distracted by her own problems when there is a very real, imminent one ahead of them.
"Are you, though? All right, that is."
no subject
Date: 2017-08-04 08:27 am (UTC)"Not really... but I have to be. With these Null showing up on the network again, we've got bigger problems to worry about than all the clutter on my mind these days."
Unfortunately, said clutter is wearing on Nick, and the longer he leaves it unresolved, the worse it'll get... and deep down, he knows it. He has to be okay for the people of Hadriel, for the Guard, and most of all, for Rey -- and to do that, he has to keep himself in some kind of working order, no matter how much he wants to put others first.
He sighs. Leaving his answer at that wouldn't have gone over well anyway, and so he continues. "There's just been a lot that's happened recently that hits too close to the old heart."
no subject
Date: 2017-08-04 02:21 pm (UTC)Rey grimaces at the mention of the Null, both knowing that there's more going on and exactly what it is that troubles them about their enemy. It's a familiar battle to her, too. Synthetics, driven mad by emotions. Only they want to destroy the very force that manipulated them, rather than become more than what they are. Still, she probably understands the nature of this beast better than most, with Nick being an exception.
She lowers her arms as Nick continues, hands crossing over each other on the table.
If not for the fact that he had already told Rey about his -- the original Nick's -- lost love and how she died, it would have been easier to dismiss these last couple months as being typical grief. There's nothing 'typical' about this, though, and she knows that. She also still feels those wounds, still fresh and bloody, and can imagine what the pain must be like for Nick. She's been there. She still is.
"I'm sorry," she tells him, like she's the one to blame for his pain. It was her mother, after all. The woman he had put down, and then subsequently lived a life where they were happy husband and wife -- however the hell that worked. "I brought that in. It was my..."
Not her fault. Feels like it is, though. Her mother's fate is on her conscience. Nick shouldn't have to share it.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-07 08:56 am (UTC)She knew that response was coming, and there it is. He's well aware she'll blame herself, no matter how much he tells her she shouldn't. After all, he'd do the same: the real Nick did, and the synthetic Nick still does. No matter how many years pass, he can't forget what happened to Jenny Lands. He can't change the past, can't erase from his mind the memory of her murder... and his failure to prevent it, to keep her safe, to bring her killer to justice.
Nick's fingers curl against the table, the bare metal scratching the surface. They're just another reminder of how inhuman he is, even if, for a week, it hadn't mattered. For that week, he'd felt as though he fully belonged somehow: he'd had a home, a family, the kind of life he'd never had the chance to have -- that he, the synthetic, never really could have. He should be used to that by now; he should be used to having memories that aren't his weighing him down. That's one thing that he and Rey -- unfortunately -- have in common.
And there's not a damn thing they can do about it. They didn't ask for this. They didn't ask to be made, or ask to have someone else's memories shoved into their minds. They didn't ask for the ghosts of the past to show up. She didn't ask for her mother to come back.
But Undine did come back, and she'd asked Nick to shoot her; he obliged out of love for the only family he's ever known. That's on him. He can carry that weight -- she shouldn't have to.
"This isn't your fault, Rey," he insists again, his eyes on his hand. He closes them as those flashes of memory return, fragments and images of events he hadn't lived mixing with ones he did. It's that much harder to separate what's real and what isn't when the gods are involved.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-08 02:36 am (UTC)Rey never asked for this, or to be 'born'. But she also never asked to share in that pain, either. She had become so accustomed to being alone that it's impossible not to feel guilt for the sake of the one at her side.
Despite this, she reaches out. Noticing Nick's fixation on his metal hand -- the very real, very constant reminder of what's underneath that skin that is Nick Valentine -- placing her own over his. Her fingers curl around the metal. Though she isn't certain how much he can feel on the sensory level, the deeper, emotional pain is one that is all too clearly etched on the lines of his face.
At one point, she would have been repulsed by it, just as she had been when they first met. Here she is now, embracing what he is for the sake of who he is. A person. Family.
"Not yours, either," she points out. "You know that, right?"
He might have pulled the trigger on her ghost, but it's what Undine would have wanted. Whether it actually is or not... It doesn't matter.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-08 08:17 am (UTC)Undine wanted him to put her down to save Rey. She knew he'd pull the trigger, given he'd do almost anything to protect his family, just as he'd have done almost anything to save Jenny. Yet, both Undine and Jenny Lands are both dead, and there's not a damn thing he can do about it -- there wasn't then, and there isn't now. And what about that 'brother' of his, who might not have ever even existed? He'd tried to help his family, and look what happened to him.
It's harder and harder for Nick not to think of how much fault lies with him, especially when the memories are getting so muddled up in that rusty processor of his.
"The gods had some nerve," he says lowly, "making your mother my wife in that... made-up world they stuck us in." The remorse is evident in his voice, his tone graveled, somber despite the fire undercutting it. "After what happened with her when she was here... after what I had to do..."
His hand shakes, his lip quivering as he tries to steel his temper. His memories of Undine in that fake town and that perfect life are still so strong, and just similar enough to those of Jenny that they blur together. One moment, he's remembering dancing, being in love, stolen kisses by the waterfront; the next, it's a body next to the river, the corpse so stained in blood that he can hardly tell which woman is lying before him. There's anger, and loss, and a hell of a lot of emotions he can't even begin to parse.
It's all too close, and the gods had to have known that.
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Date: 2017-08-09 12:09 am (UTC)"Thank you," Rey blurts after a moment of quiet, watching as Nick's thoughts translated on the lines of his expression. "Don't think I ever got to tell you that. For what you did for me." Her voice shakes when she speaks; her throat tightens. "So thanks."
They're not easy words to say, but they need to be said. How could she feel grateful to someone for killing someone she loves so that she could live?
Love is a terrible thing like that. It defies logic. Becomes twisted and confusing. Rey's mind is a swirling mess of just that.
She'd like to think, in some way, that Undine would have told Nick the same thing, though. Maybe she had. But he still has to know. Has to hear it.
It's the least she can do. He deserves to be thanked. To know that his pain means something to her.
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Date: 2017-08-09 05:31 am (UTC)There was no 'right thing' in this case. There was no justice; only gods hungry for emotions, and taking them any way they could, no matter who they had to damn along the way.
His eyes hit the table before he closes them; he puts a hand to his brow, struggling to deal with the images that keep coming to the top of his computerized mind. The longer he dwells on them, the harder it is to keep what happened to Jenny separate from Undine. He knows they were two separate incidents in two different times and two different worlds, but the heartache feels the same.
"I know you'd have done the same for me," he utters from behind his hand, "but I don't deserve thanks for what happened. I don't think I want it."
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Date: 2017-08-10 03:41 am (UTC)Reluctant, she slides her hand away from Nick's for the moment, her mouth tightening into a frown as she struggles with her warring feelings regarding what has happened to them and between them in all the time they've known each other.
"You know, we never got to live together. Not really," Rey says in a quiet tone. Several moments of silence have passed before she allows herself to speak again. "Was still underground, and she was... gone, by the time I ever saw the surface. Barely even got to spend much time outside of that damned glass cage they had me in."
She scoffs despite herself, thinking about the many conversations she and Undine had during that time. How most of it was academic and not, say, about relationships, what they were eating that night, what Rey wanted to be, who she wanted to be...
Her jaw locks up. "I'm not happy with what they did to her. What they made you have to do. But I... I never got to do the things we were able to do together then. Have dinner together. Walk in the park. Just talk. Never got to have that, and never will. All I have is that memory of her that was here."
Undine was here. She died here as well. Hell, she might have even been born by the logic that this place manipulates.
Hand covering her face, shielding her eyes, Rey releases a shaky breath as she continues. "I never got to have a mother and father and family like that, and I never will... And. The worst part? The worst part isn't that none of it was even real -- it's that I got to have something I'll never have--" Teeth clenched, she hisses: "--and I want it back if it could have been real."
That life, that family. Her mother. Even if it wasn't real, and something so far beyond her reach, she was happy that such memories far beyond her own imagination even exist.
How utterly pathetic she must be.
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Date: 2017-08-17 08:49 am (UTC)And what he feels right then is a connection to the family he's found in Hadriel.
"I know none of it was real," he says as quiet, muted pain tugs at his features; it tightens his brow with worry, putting knots in it as well as his heart. "Not any more real than I am the original Nick Valentine. Had a bunch of memories shoved into our heads, feelings you can't tell if are yours or someone else's programming..."
His eyes lodge themselves on the table as he pauses, his nose wrinkling. It's rare that he's at a loss of words; he tries again.
"What I'm trying to say is... I know how you feel. I never had a family until this place. The only memories I had of one are Nick's, and even then, they're vague, blurry, incomplete... and not even mine anyway. Hell, if I'm being honest, it felt good to have one for a change. It felt good to have you, and be settled down... the kind of life a machine like me is never gonna have."
And while he's not proud in some ways to admit that -- to admit he liked that fantasy world the gods cooked up after all the heartache they've caused -- he isn't about to lie to Rey. If she's feeling pathetic, then he's pathetic, too.
But at least they're pathetic together. They're family, and Nick wouldn't have it any other way.
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Date: 2017-08-20 01:45 am (UTC)Her throat tightens as Nick reaches out. Her hand draws down her face to look him in the eye when he speaks. The way he brings himself down again by not being the real Nick, by these memories that belong to neither him nor her -- that isn't something she can really abide.
"It wasn't all fake," Rey tells him after she gathers her thoughts for a few seconds. "At least, I don't think it was."
The feelings she had about Nick, her mother... It was a nice dream, but there was some truth there as well.
Hell, even Maketh...
Rey locks up her thought there. She'll figure out the deal with Maketh eventually.
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Date: 2017-08-20 06:30 am (UTC)"Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Maybe not all of it." A lot of that fake world may have been dreamed up by the gods, but when it comes down to he and Rey feel about one another as family, well... either they were right on the money, or that was something genuine shining through. He chooses to believe the latter, in this case. The gods have meddled enough lately.
He sighs, pressing at his temple with his bare hand. He can't really get headaches in the traditional sense, and yet, he can feel one trying to gum the cogs in his head as his processor continues to struggle with all that's on his mind. He's been under duress plenty of times in his synthetic existence, had to handle complicated cases with no clear solution, had some situations end messier than he'd like. So much at once though, and not just for him, but for Rey -- it's taking a toll on his health, and he knows it.
Well, on whatever kind of health a machine can have that is affected by stress, at least. Nick reminds himself inwardly that he has to take care of himself to take care of her. That's how two people like them, folks who don't put themselves first, compromise.
"I'm still trying to sort it all out," he admits quietly, his tone gravely serious. "I'm not sure what it is, but things haven't been working as well as they ought to lately."
And by things, he means himself.
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Date: 2017-08-20 10:20 pm (UTC)Much as she wants to assure him that everything will be all right, she doesn't want to fill him with empty assurances and no guarantee. Besides, there is a more pressing query in the back of her mind.
"How do you mean?" She leans forward, brows knitted as she studies Nick's weathered features. "What 'things' aren't working for you?"
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Date: 2017-08-20 10:51 pm (UTC)He pauses for just a moment; his inclination is to not worry her, not when Rey has been through so much in the past month or so, but his instinct tells him he should tell someone what's going on. If there's anyone he can trust with matters both mechanical and mental, it's Rey... and frankly, he's not sure which one this is. He's no doctor, and no technician -- hell, for all he knows, it could be both.
And while he's not keen on admitting that, he's got to do something. It's getting to be a problem.
"Things just haven't been processing well lately," he continues, his voice quieter. He taps the side of his head: "Up here. Memories of Nick's are getting mixed up with some of the things I've seen and done, bad enough to where it's hard to tell the difference. Can't shut 'em out as easily as I used to, either."
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Date: 2017-08-21 01:52 am (UTC)When he does tell her, she can't say she's surprised. Knowing the limitations of synthetics, she can understand where Nick is coming from.
"You know," she finally says, a crease in her forehead. "I could take a look. Undine's... She was a very brilliant researcher. Did a lot of robotics and engineering work."
It's what attracted the attention of very powerful government officials, whose influence had landed her on the underground facility where Rey was born. Ultimately, she exists because of Undine's brilliance.
This isn't about her, though.
"She... showed me some things. While she was here." Things from Nick's terminal, no less. Things that helped her understand a little more of what might be wrong with him.
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Date: 2017-08-21 02:41 am (UTC)Hell, he'd be no better than the older synths set upon the Commonwealth by the Institute, mechanical monstrosities that only appear human from a distance. You get close, and it becomes apparent what they are, even more so the second they start talking. They aren't people. He doesn't consider himself a real person on most days either, but he'd still take what he is over what he would be without those memories, without Nick's behavior and personality wired into him. He can't just go get another copy; if his data banks get fried, that's it.
Of course, Rey isn't just anyone: she's handled his mechanisms before, put them back together, even replaced some of them when absolutely necessary. She's traded her time and skills for pieces just to keep him running, has got more mechanical know-how than most folks in town, and definitely has more of his trust than anyone else. There's always the suspicion that the Undine who came to Hadriel might have just been some shade the gods made to stir up trouble, one who couldn't have possibly helped Rey figure out something new... but he's willing to go with his gut on this one. If Rey says Undine showed her some things and thinks they might help, then he'll put his faith in her.
Nick meets Rey's eyes again, giving her a nod. "All right, then. Let's take a look."
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Date: 2017-08-21 03:27 am (UTC)"Thank you." Rey exhales as she pushes out of her seat, more relieved than anything not to making an argument out of this. Before heading to the office where the terminal is set up, she glances to Nick. "Hope you don't mind that we were using it, while she was here." Pause. She bites her lower lip. "She, um... She helped me with some things, you know? I don't know whether or not it was the gods or myself or maybe there was some bit of her that was in that..."
Does it matter, in the end?
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Date: 2017-08-21 04:28 am (UTC)He means for notes, but in the right hands, it could be more.
"And if she managed to help you figure out some things," he continues, softer, "then that's good enough for me." He might never admit it aloud, but she helped him figure out some things, too -- things that went unsaid far too often between himself and Rey.
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Date: 2017-08-21 05:20 am (UTC)Hard to think that Nick hails from a place so advanced to create sentient machines using operating systems for such old general-purpose computing. But she's not here to critique the old school style of his world's aesthetics.
"She was like that," Rey continues as she seats herself in front of the terminal in the office. Her eyes remain glued to the screen than to Nick himself. "Smart as hell, always wanted to help. Was interning for the project that eventually made me at seventeen. She..."
Her face reddens as she stops herself. She ducks her head, staring down at the keyboard where her hands are.
"Sorry."
Why is she apologizing? Why is she telling him this? Hasn't it hurt him enough without knowing these things?
Chest tightening, Rey goes back to focusing on the words on the screen.
Does talking about it really help? Undine used to think so. Rey isn't so sure, though.
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Date: 2017-08-23 11:54 pm (UTC)Nick's insistence is firm; this is not her fault. None of it is. He's having a hard enough time reminding himself of that, given how jumbled those flashes of memory seem to be these days. Even as he says that, he can hear someone telling him the same thing, a long dead echo reverberating in the back of his mind.
This isn't your fault, Nick.
He'd been angry at the time, furious to hear those words. He was confused when he'd heard them again in the wastes, before he realized the synth he'd become -- the human he'd never truly been, despite those memories. Now, that reassurance just wears on him. Jenny hadn't been his fault, and in a way, Undine wasn't... but he'd been the one to put the bullet in her. He'd been made an accessory, used like a tool.
His hand is back at his temple as he takes the sitting chair near the bed; he's still trying to shut out the auditory feedback playing in his mind, but it's an old recording he can't quite erase.
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Date: 2017-08-25 02:27 am (UTC)"Right. Anyway..." She shakes her head, refocusing her attention on the screen in front of her. "We actually managed to figure out how to put together something that'll help me interface with your gear, but I'll need your help."
From a drawer in the desk, Rey extracts a long cord. One end is fashioned to hook up to the hardware itself, but the other end is a needle, half an inch in length, that appears to connect to something else.
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Date: 2017-08-25 04:34 am (UTC)He takes the needle end, getting a feeling he knows where this is going from what Rey said. Interface, like a machine. "Just tell me what to do."
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Date: 2017-08-25 09:13 pm (UTC)She focuses on the reality at present, now that it isn't just Nick's head that's at stake here -- but Rey's, to some extent.
"It needs to go here." She points to the back of her own head. "There's a port in the dura that connects to my brain. I'd do it myself, but the needle is a little bigger than the one my father used, so it's a little tricky."
One of the downsides to improvising with what they have here. That, and the process hurts like hell, but Nick might not like knowing that part.
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Date: 2017-08-25 10:47 pm (UTC)After gingerly brushing aside some of her hair, he finds the port; he hesitates. "You sure about this?"
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