Kelly Ansell (enhancedsenses) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-06-14 22:39:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! log, kelly ansell, valya zhiglov |
WHO: Kelly Ansell & Valya Zhiglov
WHAT: A fun little chat about Kim.
WHEN: Friday afternoon, after training and before the Taki debacle.
WHERE: Valya's (and Alex's) room.
WARNINGS: Probably none.
She'd considered staying holed up in her room all day. Feigning sickness. Kelly certainly felt sick. She hadn't imagined that life at IVI could turn into more of a nightmare than it already was, but she'd woken this morning praying that her conversation with Kim hadn't been true. That it was all a bad dream. Reality was sometimes even worse than dreams. Kelly kept replaying her conversation with Kim in her head. It seemed to get worse and worse every time. She felt trapped. Her sister was in over her head, involved with a terrorist group with no desire to pull out. They were coming to IVI. As much as she tried to examine the various angles of this problem, Kelly could find only one singular answer: she had to stand by her sister. She'd abandoned her once, allowed her to run off on her own at only sixteen. A decision Kelly had spent the next five years regretting. She wouldn't do that again; she couldn't. She had to support Kim in any way possible. Even if the repercussions of that might be -- would likely be -- severe. It was a terrible puzzle and it made Kelly's brain ache. She didn't want to be around anyone but she went to training anyway, too afraid of being forced to have a meeting with the Dean right now. She didn't want to sit across the desk from any IVF employees -- she even went out of her way to avoid Thayer at training, which was more difficult. At lunch she made a quick excuse and locked herself in her bedroom, laying in the dark and feeling the panic build before she had to return for a final 3 hours of misery. By the time they were released, Kelly's face was blank. She knew that Valya could tell that something was wrong. She'd avoided talking to him all day. Kim had even encouraged Kelly to talk to him about it, but she didn't know how she would even start with a thing like that. Hey, so, I know your brother was killed in a terrorist attack, but guess what, my sister belongs to the VR! She was dreading the conversation. At the same time, she longed to confide in him about it, to unburden herself of the secret. And so Kelly had agreed to go back to Valya's room after Barn Swallow was dismissed. She followed him silently to the door. Once they were safely inside, Kelly let out a nervous breath of air and went to take a seat on his bed. Valya locked the door to his room before joining Kelly on the bed. It was like shrugging off a cloak -- his composure sagging beneath apprehension and concern once they were by themselves. Kelly’s behavior had thrown him, not that he’d let it show. The flat response she’d given to his attempts to say good morning, let alone cheer her up, was a stark difference to their usual banter. Even before they were together, when he’d tease her and she’d roll her eyes at him and try to put him in his place, he had never actually felt rebuffed. The sudden avoidance put him on edge, and he could do little more than act like it didn’t bother him. The last thing he and Kelly needed, as members of Vol Underground, was for someone to pay them more attention than usual. So he’d joked and trained and pretended nothing was out of the ordinary. At a different point in his life, he might have been content to roll with it for the duration - to let Kelly work things out on her own time. He might’ve even tried to read her memory to get a better idea of the situation before she had to say anything. But he didn’t do that with Kelly, and as he reached for her hand, he decided she looked awful enough that it might do them both good if he broke the odd silence between them. “If you’re going to break up with me,” he said, attempting levity, “I am going to have to erase every single student’s memory to keep my dignity. So I hope I haven’t done something wrong.” "No!" Kelly squeezed his hand hard. She felt instantly guilty. Of course he would assume that she was upset with him for something. She hadn't exactly given him any clues. "You didn't do anything wrong, I'm sorry." Kelly closed her eyes and felt his hand in hers. She was tempted to just suggest that they lie down and take a nap -- go to sleep and put this problem off for later. “Don’t be sorry,” he told her, lifting her hand and kissing the back of it in a silent display of his relief. “I like to think that I am faultless too, but occasionally people disagree with me.” The curl at the corners of his mouth was easier to manage, though Kelly wouldn’t be able to see it with her eyes closed. He nudged her gently, mentally thumbing through the list he’d compiled of potential problems. “What’s wrong then?” he asked. “Is, ah, the extra training bothering you?” He meant Vol Underground, of course, but IVI’s newest decision made his vagueness appropriate. He was settling into the undernet quite easily, enjoying trainings and the potential being realized, but he knew Kelly was not as comfortable breaking rules as he was. "No." Kelly opened her eyes and looked at him. But God, I wish that was it. She knew that this guessing game was a waste of time; it seemed highly unlikely that Valya's next question would be to ask whether or not her sibling happened to be a member of a Vol terrorist group. Kelly moved in against him and rested her head against his shoulder. On top of her own conflicted and confusing feelings about what Kim had said, Kelly had no way to predict how Valya would react. Would he be upset? Would he push her away? Of course, she'd also considered the possibility that he wouldn't keep Kim's secret, but Kelly had discarded that notion almost immediately. For all of her pessimism, Kelly couldn't imagine a scenario which caused Valya to go running to the IVF. "I'm sorry I've acted so fucking weird all day" Kelly said softly. She felt a lurch in her stomach even as she said her sister's name. "I was trying not to, but... fuck, I just can't think about anything else." She squeezed Valya's hand again, holding it tight out of a worry that he might pull it away when he heard what was coming. "It's Kim. She's... Jesus, I don't even know how to say this. Last night she told me a bunch of stuff. I knew she had secrets, but I thought they were just... normal shit, you know? Bad things that happened while she was out there by herself. That she didn't want to tell me because she didn't want to make me feel guilty that i wasn't there. But I didn't..." Fuck. Just rip off the band-aid. Kelly looked at Valya, suddenly feeling like she might cry. "She's a part of the fucking VR," Kelly managed to say the words, though they were hardly above a whisper. Even though she knew that the room was free of bugs, there were other ways that things could be overheard. He’d remained quiet as Kelly spoke, giving her the time she needed to get everything out, but the actual revelation had changed his silence from patient to stunned. It stretched out for several beats before he licked his lips and responded. “Vols Rising?” he asked, in case he hadn’t heard her correctly, though he knew he had. The fragility of her voice left no question. He was surprised. Surprised, but not scandalized. He’d often thought about what he might do, were he still free -- “free” -- from IVI’s force field. He didn’t have any problems using his power on the typical population; he had been blessed with them for a reason. What was the point of having memory manipulation if he could not benefit from it? He and Alyosha had both felt superior because they were Vols, but they had drawn a line at real harm. A stolen iPod, a stówa, a telephone card -- it could all be replaced. Mass murder, on the other hand -- that was the immense error the VR was making, in his opinion, and one that might cost them, in the end. He understood not wanting to be confined and governed by people who did not understand vols, much less care to understand them. If things had turned out differently for him -- for Alyosha -- he might have been willing to join, or at the very least, to contract out his services. But Vols Rising had gone too far now, and he did not blame Kelly for worrying about her sister’s association with them. “She is...an active member?” It was a diplomatic way of asking whether or not she’d been involved in Vol Rising’s more notable plots before coming to IVI. Kelly looked like she might cry. Hearing Valya say the words was almost too much, and she looked down at her lap, ashamed. "I guess," she answered, her voice wavering. "Yes. She's still -- you know how her power works. She can get messages from them." “Mm.” He nodded. He tried to imagine what his own reaction would have been had Alyosha ever gotten involved in something like Vols Rising on his own. Being part of group who’d so nonsensically made themselves resented and disliked by most of the world would have been enough to make Valya want to shake some sense into his brother, but being a member at IVI posed a more immediate and dire set of problems. If Kim were to be outed, she would, most certainly, end up like Anika. He exhaled slowly through his nose and pulled Kelly close, pressing a kiss to her hair. Kim’s arrival at IVI had not been a happy thing, exactly -- how could it really be happy at IVI? -- but it had been nice for Kelly. He knew she was glad to have her sister close again. And he knew Kim’s revelation had probably ruined that for Kelly. She didn’t allow herself happiness like other people did -- it always came at a price, and Vols Rising was a large one. “She must feel confident, no?” he mused quietly. “That she won’t be caught. Did they -- is this something they planned? Her presence here? Does she, ah. Contact them often?” Kelly welcomed the embrace and buried her face against him. Sometimes she was reluctant to accept their relationship as something safe and reliable -- in Kelly's experience, very few things in life ever truly were -- but with his arms around her, it was clear that Valya was the foundation that was holding her up. She let out a shaky breath. "She wouldn't tell me much. But, her boyfriend? Jake? He's one of them. And I know she e-mails him." Kelly looked up at Valya. She was so relieved that he wasn't pushing her away. But there was still something left to say. Her voice was so soft, Kelly's next words were only a step above audible. "She says that they're coming. Here." Valya wondered if Jake was a part of Vols Rising first. Perhaps that was how Kim became connected with them. And even if it wasn’t, that was surely why she was keeping connected. As Valya was learning, it was easy to become close to other people when you were separated from family; Kelly was testament to that. “Wait. Here?” His brows lowered. “When? Soon?” It had only been a matter of time, he knew, but actually having the possibility confirmed caused a small feeling of thrill to run right between his shoulder blades. It was a chance to get out. If VR got in, people could get out. Kelly looked uncertain. "I don't know, exactly. She made it seem like it was soon. But... how would they get in? And even if they do know what they're doing, the IVF..." No matter what Vol powers the VR had in their arsenal, Kelly simply couldn't imagine a way that it could work. Every potential scenario that she concocted in her head ended in dismal failure. They also all ended terribly badly for Kim. "Fuck," Kelly swore. "I don't know what to do." “The IVF should be worried about that serum,” said Valya. “If that is not leverage, I don’t know what is.” He wondered if all of the soldiers would react exactly how IVI expected them to if they knew death was inevitable. Had IVF already started taking precautions against that? Building a defense somehow? “You can’t really do much, can you?” he pointed out gently, but frankly. He knew Kelly would never out Kim, and everything else seemed like a waiting game. “I think you have to wait. Until you find out more, or until something happens.” He paused. “Did she tell you very much? Did she say anything about Melbourne?” "She wouldn't tell me much," Kelly admitted. And honestly, Kelly wasn't sure how much she really wanted to know. She continued to talk but her voice wavered now, showcasing her unsteady emotions. "I never thought... she said they became her new family. I'm the one who should've been there. Not fucking Andrew Parish." “You cannot blame yourself for that,” he pointed out gently. “It was out of your hands.” And it still was, which he knew must be maddening for Kelly. Andrew Parish wasn’t any sort of reasonable role model. The decisions he was making were ill-thought out. Kim had more of an opportunity to realize that now; she was exposed to more Vols with different opinions. “Maybe being here will give her a new perspective.” Kelly let out a derisive noise. "I can blame myself, it is my fault for not being there -- for not fucking going with her." She pulled away slightly, although her hand still gripped Valya's tightly. "And if you think that anything changes Kim's mind once she's set on something, then you don't know her very well." With the last two words out of her mouth, Kelly's voice broke, followed by a rush of tears that she'd been unable to either foresee or ward off. "Fuck, I don't know what I'm saying. I obviously don't know her, either." He was about to concede that he didn’t know Kim very well when Kelly burst into tears. He did not consider himself to be well-practiced at comforting someone, but at least with Kelly the affection came naturally. “You do,” he replied softly, pulling her into a hug. “And it’s different now, but she still trusted you, yes? You’re important to her. Whatever happens...” He paused thoughtfully before continuing, “Don’t think you can’t have a say in it. She’s an adult, but she’s still your sister.” Kelly deflated in his embrace and felt her senses teeter out of balance. Everything went silent and she could no longer feel his arms around her. Everything was gone except the room. Her surroundings were crystal clear. Somehow, this had a calming effect. Silence, but clarity. Kelly took a breath and worked to set things right. The noise and smells and feelings crept back in simultaneously. Kelly wiped at her face with the arm that wasn't pressed up against Valya. "I'm just so fucking scared for her," she admitted quietly. "I don't know, maybe I should be mad. But I'm just scared." “I know,” he said, being able to relate to that very well. His faith in IVF was no greater than his faith in Hume had been, and he knew Kim was treading on extremely thin ice. He didn’t want her to take any kind of proverbial plunge, either, especially since he knew Kelly would follow her. And he, he thought a kind of grim acceptance, would follow Kelly. “We just have to wait for things to happen. And then...” One end of his mouth twitched. “We’ll see.” They couldn’t really plan for something about which they had no clue. He gave her another kiss. “I’ll do what I can. Whatever that may be.” She looked at him and thought about how lucky she was. Lucky had not often been a word that Kelly Ansell had used to describe herself, but now, nothing else seemed to fit. When every other part of her life seemed to be taking a turn for the worse, at least she had this. At least she had him. "Thank you." Kelly sniffled and wiped at her nose. "I..." Her voice broke off; what was left to say? Kelly moved forward to lean her forehead against Valya's. "Thank you," she said again. |