Pidge Gunderson (hackedthat) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-09-06 20:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, matt holt, pidge gunderson |
WHO: Matt & Pidge
WHAT: Memory Updates
WHEN: Backdated to August 24th
WHERE: Pidge's room in the Holt Residence
WARNINGS: Mentions of battles, injuries, timey wimey, subjugation/mass murder, etc.
NOTES: That feeling where "wait I didn't post it... you didn't post it... what..."
Moving was weird. Matt was both taller and broader than he expected to be, and yet… exactly as tall and broad as he expected to be, at the same time. His mind had not reconciled that quite yet, apparently, which he discovered as soon as he actually got out of bed. Also, the clothes he pulled on were definitely a few inches too small. But he really needed to find Pidge, so that was a problem for later. He ran to her room, tripping only once over his own feet and managing to catch himself. But once he was there it occurred to him that she might not have gotten any kind of an update, or even if she did, she might not be awake yet. And really, all he wanted to know was that she was here and she was okay. So he opened the door, quietly, and looked in. -- While Pidge had not fallen from outer space to earth, something she had started experiencing with a sinking sensation in her stomach, she had woken up to the much shorter distance of falling from her bed to the floor. Something about living that long in a single snooze had made her move around more than normal. It left her groggy and staring at her blurry hand, as far from her face as it could be… and looking the same as it ever had. Except the bruises she felt were not entirely explained by the short fall. Her glasses were so far away. Movement came from her left. Half-blind and having just moments before been in the middle of a battle, Pidge grabbed for her bayard rather than her glasses. Her mind also reached for the Green Lion but, even more than before, she felt its absence. It was not simply not on earth. It was not in the solar system or however far away their lions had been when they had been stranded in the middle of nowhere. The sound of her name - and Matt’s voice - kept Pidge from electrocuting the tall person standing in her doorway. Even partially obscured, they were definitely not how she remembered her brother looking. Pidge stood properly and grabbed her glasses from the nightstand, pushing them on quickly. Her attention stayed on Matt because it was more clearly now Matt. Someone had grown. Her pajamas, on the other hand, still fit her. She blinked then bound across the floor between them in a couple steps and hugged Matt hard, the bayard still in one hand. “I am so glad you’re still alive, Matt,” Pidge greeted him. They had both aged, by the look of him. So much had happened, but Pidge didn’t know any more about his whereabouts since his last communication with their parents. -- Matt hadn’t called out her name when he opened the door, because he hadn’t been sure she was awake. When he saw her startle and reach for her bayard, however, he had spoken quickly, knowing that he only had a few seconds to make it known who he was before he got electrocuted. She really was incredibly fast. And, in retrospect, it wasn’t really that surprising that she hadn’t recognized him. He hadn’t looked at himself in a mirror yet, and hadn’t really looked at many mirrors while he’d been in space either, but based on Tony’s reaction to him, the difference was dramatic. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her up -- yes, she was definitely smaller by comparison, again -- and held her tight, equally relieved. “I’m glad you’re alive, too,” he said, into her shoulder. “I was looking for you, and the rest of Voltron.” -- The hug hurt some because she had bruises around her body. The fight had been none too kind (none of them seemed to be, really). But Pidge didn’t care. Seeing Matt again felt so good. She had not been able to reach him before or during their long slow return to earth. Nor while on the planet, for obvious reasons. The multitude of microcommunications devices her dad had launched - she still barely wanted to give the Galaxy Garrison that much credit - had been the only message and a weak one at that since Sendak destroyed most of earth’s satellites. “Turns out this is not the only place where time and space can get… wonky,” Pidge replied. She sighed. “We fought Lotor and that went in and out of the quintessence field, and that nearly tore the universe apart. And we fixed that…” Pidge sighed again, “But time dilation was a consequence of that. We had to blow up the Castle of Lions just to close all the tears. And the lions were nearly entirely depleted, and well, we weren’t exactly able to just swoop back in without a teleduv or full engine power. Even our communications abilities were limited.” It had turned out fine in the end. But it had left Pidge cut off from her family, again, no matter how much time she had spent fiddling on communications. They had reached earth, something she had imagined back in their universe and in this one. And it said something that Pidge’s arrival here was somehow more like she imagined it than the one they had. Sneaking onto an occupied earth in a galra ship. Pidge squinted her eyes behind her glasses. “This is like the opposite of time dilation now.” -- Of all the possibilities that had occurred to Matt over the two years he’d been looking for Voltron, time dilation was, amazingly enough, not one of them. But it did explain the disappearance, the total absence of them from anywhere even at great distances from where they should have been. “That… makes sense,” he said slowly, wonderingly. He carefully put her back down on the ground, so that he could watch her face as she explained. “So… are you… is everyone okay?” -- Pidge wondered if given a few more years, she would grow any more like Matt was doing. Had continued doing. The only ways to find out involved letting them happen. She focused on his face. He looked older, a bit more worn. It frustrated her that after only having him back for, what, months or a year, they had been separated again. And worst of all, for much of it, Pidge hadn’t even known she was missing. Matt had gone missing before, and Pidge knew what it was like to search for her lost sibling. It was not an experience she had ever wished Matt would have. “Uh,” Pidge thought about Shiro. Blinked. Right, Shiro had already lost that arm and had all… that… happen here already. “Well, you know about Shiro and clones and being in the Black Lion and Allura putting him into Kuron’s body… So, discounting that, Voltron is fine.” Honestly, that was the largest news for the team. Pidge missed Cosmo already. Even if Keith got a memory update too, it was not as though that came with a dog. “Earth…” she glanced down then looked up and faced Matt. “A lot of people have died on earth and more forced into manual labor. By the end, all of the Galaxy Garrison bases were destroyed, though everyone left got on Atlas during the final battle. “A lot of people are not okay. Our family is, though. Mom and Dad and Bao Bao. We’re all okay.” Pidge still did not like the way their dad had been forced to live on the base, not permitted to leave it, his very life something secret and guarded until it had basically been too late. Most of the people responsible for that, including the admiral, were dead. “We saved everyone we could,” Pidge said. There was not anything more that they could have done. -- “Yes,” Matt answered. “I know -- I mean, I know that because he told us here. I didn’t know about it… there. I had no idea what had happened to any of you.” He had been trying, so very hard, to figure it out. It had felt like he was running out of time, like they might be long dead before he found them. There was something funny about realizing that he would have to search for years simply because they had skipped years ahead of him, and literally could not be found until he reached the right point in time, not just space. “Earth,” he repeated. “You went back to Earth?” He hadn’t expected that. He wondered when he would find that out. It sounded like he was going to miss the battle she was talking about. “The Galra attacked Earth?” -- Pidge knew they had not talked with Matt since before… Kuron had been revealed to be a clone and Shiro had come back. It had been one thing to hear about what had happened since she had arrived here. It had been another to live through, effectively, Kuron trying to destroy the ship when she didn’t know he wasn’t Shiro. Not that Kuron, of what free will he had, seemed like he would have chosen to that. Like, come on, he kept choosing to be a paladin every damn time in that game. Those had been the most normal Shiro-like moments. But as emotional as all that was, and Pidge still felt like she was reeling a bit, the news about earth had been brand new, with no previous breaking of the news to make it less sharp or painful. There was no body count yet, no statistics of how many people had survived in the end. It was lower than she would have liked. That was for damn sure. Traveling that long and hearing nothing until the very end hadn’t prepared her for it. “During the time we were gone, Sendak traveled to earth and conquered it. Other than one Galaxy Garrison base, which had still lost a lot of its senior and best pilots, he had control over the whole planet,” Pidge grabbed and squeezed one of Matt’s hands. The whole time they had been out fighting the Galra, they had thought earth would be okay. It was a backwater with limited technology and not many resources to offer the Galra. It wasn’t worth their time. Except that almost every paladin of Voltron was from it, and Altea had already been destroyed. “The long and short of it is that we returned and were able to save earth, with the help of and despite the stupidity of the Garrison,” Pidge concluded. “Oh, and we also learned how to bond with our lions well enough to fight with them without actually piloting from inside them, which is SUPER AMAZING. And someone weird showed up at the end. Who knows who that was. But we won, and earth will get to rebuild. And maybe we’ll actually get to send comm signals out farther into the universe now. But I don’t really know because I was falling toward some not great injuries when I woke up.” It was really hard to summarize everything that had happened, even on earth, hard when it had lasted so long and only one night’s sleep at the same time. But she looked at Matt, wondering how it felt to hear all of that in a moment. But it wasn’t like Pidge could not tell him right away. -- Matt’s mind reeled, trying to take in even just the first part. Sendak conquering Earth and controlling all of it, except for one Garrison base. The base which, presumably, contained their parents, although Pidge hadn’t specified. But since she’d said they were okay… maybe that was what that meant? Even if their people were okay, though, there had to be so many more who weren’t. Galra had conquered and controlled the Earth for… how long? Months? Years? It felt like Matt had grown up at least two years overnight, and Pidge had skipped ahead even further. Presumably. His brain hurt. And his heart, for all the lives on Earth that had been lost and destroyed by the Galra. Even if his family was okay, surely there were other people that he’d known who weren’t. All this time they’d been in space, and when he’d chosen to stay in space even though their dad was going back, it was to stop the Galra before anything like this could happen. And he really hadn’t expected them to be interested in Earth itself at all, although they had willingly taken humans for their arena, labor camps, and jails when presented with the opportunity. He searched his new memories, scattered as they were, for any recollection of even knowing about this happening. But there was nothing. It was definitely something he would have remembered. “That’s horrible,” he said finally. “But I’m really glad you won. And I’m sure whenever I find out about it, I’ll come back to help with the rebuilding.” Assuming, of course, there wasn’t a more sinister reason why he hadn’t come back already to help with the fight. -- Pidge nodded. It was horrible. It was beyond anything she had imagined about coming home. They would get to take over and redo the Garrison (as planned) because a majority of its staff, and all of its bases, were destroyed. That was a horrible reason to be able to easily accomplish her plan. There had not truly been time to contemplate and understand how many people had died, how much damage had been done, how… anything besides winning. It was frustrating to have experienced and learned so much and yet again be separated. Just you wait Pidge directed at the universe. Like it could separate them, permanently. If it thought as much, it would learn. It would learn. “I know you will,” Pidge declared, based on nothing more than who they were. She hadn’t had more previously. They had managed it once. They would manage it again. -- It bothered Matt that she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him. He was probably fine in the future. But it was possible that he wasn’t. Maybe the Galra had managed to track him down and kill him. It had happened to people he knew, people he cared about. All it took was a little bit of bad luck, even for the smartest and most careful of the rebels. But he was probably fine, right? There was just as good a chance that he’d survived. Especially since he’d gotten older, wiser, and stronger. There was no reason to jump to the worst case scenario. “Oh,” he said, remembering. He held his hand out to her, offering the painkillers that Tony had given him. “From Tony. For the headache.” If Pidge was remembering Earth being destroyed, he figured her headache was worse than his. And from the sound of it, she might even be a little injured, though he couldn’t see any immediate signs in the dim light. -- She blinked at the painkillers. Her hand reached out to take them, then paused. Lightly padding around to where her helmet sat on her desk, Pidge tickled the pokémon sleeping on it until it lightly woke up. “Hey girl,” Pidge whispered. “Could you help me out?” Comfey spun in a circle, briefly illuminated the room, and the gentle effects washed over Pidge, working more effectively than the admittedly much appreciated painkillers. She returned toward Matt with a living flower crown on her head. “How is yours doing?” Pidge asked. Her injuries would still leave bruises. But most of the worst of it was dealt with. And bruises didn’t bother her. “Though nothing really gets rid of the mental headache.” That wasn’t physical. That was just the effect of all the memories. Also, despite being the same size roughly, Pidge still felt a bit different. Less pudgy of cheeks. Or whatever. “Could you just… not leave yet?” Pidge asked. Even though she had seen him the day before, it also felt like it had been years. Again. And even if she knew he was down the hall, even if the chance of him disappearing through the portal just after a memory update was unlikely, Pidge didn’t want to be without him, not so soon. -- Matt had forgotten about Comfey until he saw her again. While they were talking about their new memories, he realized, his mind had gotten more into the groove of the things he’d known in that timeline, and he blinked at the visual reminder that they were in this world, where Pokémon really existed. Swan, he remembered, would still be in her pokeball back in his own room. He curled his fingers back around the painkillers, and offered her a smile. “Of course. I’ve missed you too.” He knew Tony didn’t expect him to come back, certainly not immediately. But he paused. “Do you have any water in here? Or do you want to come with me down to the kitchen to get some?” The headache really was starting to kick in now. He didn’t know if it was the kind of headache that painkillers could help, but it seemed worth trying. -- Pidge rubbed at her eyes again. Water was essential everywhere, so she usually kept some. Had she set her water bottle where she usually kept it? “Yeah, let me… find it,” Pidge looked at her nightstand, then found it at the end of her bed, where she had nested the night before, working on some of the plans for Shiro’s arm. Dad, we could so do better she thought. Especially something that didn’t need an Altean power source. Then she held out the water bottle to Matt, plenty of liquid still sloshing around in it. “Drink up,” Pidge said. Then, considering, Pidge pulled the blankets off the bed so they could curl up on the floor near enough to the large window to see the stars outside. “It’s just not fair that we’ve missed each other again, like this,” Pidge declared. Sure, she believed they would see each other again, probably on earth. But all those empty comm signals, sent where no one or just Galra, as the case sometimes was, heard them. It wasn’t any easier being on the missed side of things either. -- “Thanks,” Matt said gratefully. He took the bottle from her, popped the pills into his mouth, and drank enough to swallow them. Then he took another gulp, because he was thirstier than he’d realized. When he was done, he joined Pidge on the blankets and offered the bottle back to her. There was still enough water in it for her to have a good drink, if she wanted it. Then he lifted his arms slightly over her head to adjust the blankets around them, and pulled them close around both their shoulders. Under the blankets, he pressed close against her side, leaning into her gently. He was aware that he was even bigger than her now, but she was still very strong. Possibly even quite a bit stronger than she’d been yesterday. It was sobering, even a little depressing, to think about their future now. He had been happy about the first future news, that they’d finally found their dad. The news that Shiro had been dead since before Voltron had found him… that had crushed him. Now his mind was still full of the memory of worrying about Pidge and the rest of team Voltron, searching for them everywhere, and also trying to take in -- but also on some level trying to stay in denial -- the news about Earth being conquered and controlled by the Galra. On the one hand, it lent a great deal of weight to his decision to stay in space with the rebels after being freed from the work camp, and to the decision he and Pidge had made not to return to their father to Earth. They had been right to think that the war really needed to be fought. But also… maybe if they’d actually returned to Earth, things would have happened differently, and Earth might still be safe. That was a pointless what if, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help thinking it anyway. There was also another choice that could have happened differently. “Maybe I should’ve stayed with you,” he said. “And Voltron.” -- The water bottle turned in her hands, something better than a bayard to hold onto just then. Her experiences on earth, hearing what had happened before they arrived, knowing what had happened afterward (it had only taken one person not listening that the Galra could not be trusted to ruin everything, almost), there were familiar themes that were not altogether wonderful. The team had nearly come apart a few times while traveling. And earth, it was as dumb and as wonderful as it had ever been. Pidge didn’t know of any other ways that she and Matt wouldn’t have been separated long term, that Matt would have been there the whole time (possibly gotten SUPER TINY with the rest of them… which wow, he got larger, and all she had to speak for was getting even absolutely tinier). It had been his choice to work with the rebels, to do stuff hands on in the fight against the Galra. Pidge had supported it. And much as she wished he had been with them… “Don’t blame yourself,” Pidge said firmly, “It’s never been your choices that’s separated us. Galra kidnapped you guys the first time, and Lotor going batshit led to the time dilation effect the second time.” It was a decision he could have made, to stay. And Pidge would have supported him in that too. But she was certain he had been doing important work the whole time she had been gone, and the universe would have been a worse off place without Matt in it. “You’re always welcome to stay with me and with Voltron,” Pidge added, in case that hadn’t been obvious, “but no blaming yourself for what happened. Okay Matt?” She looked up at him, first looking at roughly his mouth because his eyes had shifted up higher, and she wasn’t used to it yet. But her look continued until it could meet his. She felt full of anger and rage, but none of it was with Matt. -- “I’m not,” Matt responded immediately, and then, after thinking about it for a moment, he repeated and elaborated, “I’m not blaming myself. Just wondering how things would have worked out differently. I mean, if I’d stayed, I probably would have gotten caught in the time dilation too.” And then he would have been with them when they went back to Earth, would have joined in for the battle. But instead he had been doing other important things, helping people, protecting them from the Galra. Good people, who didn’t deserve to die either. So he couldn’t really blame himself for it. It was just too bad that it had to come at the cost of being separated from his sister. Again. -- Pidge relaxed a little bit. They were all doing what they could. There was hardly a moment to do anything else back home. Less time to design arms or to advance science in ways that did not tie back into that war effort. Which was just sad and heartbreaking in its own way. There was so much more in the universe than that. “So many people died while we were gone, I know that,” Pidge sighed, “but if we hadn’t fought Lotor, if we hadn’t destroyed the Castle of Lions, the whole universe would have been wiped out.” So she couldn’t regret what she’d done, what Voltron had done, even if a lot of terrible things had also happened in the meantime. “Just wish we didn’t have to get separated so much,” she said. If they had to, they would. But Pidge didn’t have to like it. -- Matt considered that, thoughtfully. Even though he felt like things had taken a turn for the worse with the latest news, it was possible that things were working out the best they possibly could. That if they started changing things, they might end up in the timeline where the universe got completely wiped out. That timeline more than likely did exist somewhere -- or had ceased to exist somewhere. That was sad to think about. “I guess maybe things are still going as well as they possibly can,” he said. “Even if they’re hard. They could have been a lot worse.” He slid an arm around her shoulders and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “I wish that too. But we’ll keep finding each other.” -- It was tough to remember that alternate timelines were not necessarily better. For all the pain and death and terrible terrible stuff that happened, they could all have had devices in their heads to stop them from thinking for themselves (and that wasn’t even a Galra controlled alternate). Even with Sendak, it had been a blessing he had not taken an interest in earth until he did. Pidge leaned into Matt, taking a bit more time to find a comfortable way to do that. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then, after a thought, “I’m just really glad mom wasn’t mad at me.” |