who: Takashi 'Shiro' Shirogane & Alice Quinn when: June 24th, before the Midsummer Plot where: Holt House What: Alice breaks up with Shiro. warnings: None status: COMPLETE.
She'd made her mind up while she was in Seattle. As she leaned against the railing of a ferry boat, with Max in close proximity, her eyes had cast out upon the water and her mind had found itself wandering away from the far reaches of Washington all the way back to Texas. She had accepted the invitation to get away with swiftness out of a desire to do something that she'd known her brother had expressed interest in, to spend time with her friend, and to try to get away from the problems of both home in another universe and home here in Texas. And she hadn't really succeeded. Her mind remained focused on the same core dilemmas that it had been cycling over and over for weeks now. She'd simply changed the scenery.
When she'd gotten home with Max that evening, she'd decided she needed to stop delaying. Barely inside the apartment for more than five minutes, she was going around picking up things that were Shiro's. She'd allowed for him to begin to nest in her space and there were remnants of him everywhere. It was nothing too intrusive and it had been welcome after all. It was things that made it easier for him when he would stay the night. Gathering them into a bag, she swallowed and tried hard not to think about what she was doing. If she thought too long about it she was afraid she was going to backtrack upon her decision.
With the bag slung up the crook of her arm, she headed out of the apartment, with a slight wave in Max's direction as she left. She didn't try to get a lyft or utilize a portal. Instead, she walked the distance between his place and hers, making it so she arrived rather late in the evening. She stepped up to the door and gave a quick knock, hoping and praying she wasn't met by one of his teammates instead of him.
…
Shiro was the one to answer the door. He normally would have left it to one of the Holts, still feeling that he was living in their house rather than his own space. But he had seen that it was Alice coming up the walk, so he headed out to meet her.
“Hey,” he said with a smile.
…
There was a back and forth feeling immediately upon seeing Shiro. A part of her was grateful that it had been him to answer the door instead of one of the siblings while the other part felt her stomach give a tumble at the sight of his smile. She moved her arm and the bag slid from hanging along her elbow to dangle down at her wrist, while her free hand moved up to swoop her hair back behind her ear, the way she always did when she was full of nerves.
"Hey," she replied. She had a moment of regretting not telling him she was coming or asking if it was okay. She usually always did. Hesitating, she glanced past him inside of the house, trying to see if she could see Matt or Pidge nearby, before looking back to peer up at him. "Is now a good time?"
…
There was something a little off that made Shiro worry, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He scanned her, trying to figure out if she was upset -- and not unaware of the bag that she was holding.
He felt like he’d been doing a lot of that lately. Some of their ease had dissipated in the last few weeks. Shiro had always enjoyed the way that so many things from his past seemed to lift when he was around Alice, and that still seemed to happen for him, but not in the same measure for her anymore. He didn’t know why that was, and he had been trying hard not to push her when she didn’t want to talk. He wasn’t entitled to know everything, and he knew that. But still. He worried.
“Of course,” Shiro said, stepping back so that she could come in. He paused and then asked, “Are you okay?”
…
Her gaze moved back inside and there was a hesitation to follow. Just as the decision to come here now, tonight as soon as she'd returned, stepping inside the house felt like a point of which she couldn't come back from if she took that step. Casting her eyes down, she took the step forward and moved into the main room they'd come to. Eyes lifted and she listened, trying to hear for the others, before looking to him.
The question he'd posed to her was ignored completely. "Are we alone?"
…
Shiro’s concern only grew when she didn’t answer the question. When people didn’t answer that question, it tended to mean the answer was no.
“Yes,” he answered, watching her carefully.
…
They were alone. She nodded her head for a second, ending it by letting her gaze fall down to the floor, as her fingers moved to tug at the bag around her wrist, pulling it down into the palm of her hand. When she looked up, her hand was extending and holding it out to him.
"I'm sorry," was what she chose to say, though it didn't explain what for or where her mind was. Part of her hoped the actions would say what she needed to instead.
…
Shiro’s gaze dropped down to where the bag was. He reached out to take it from her and opened it, both surprised and not to see his own things in there. It made sense because of how she was acting, but it didn’t make any sense at all because he wasn’t really expecting this.
“Alice,” he said, looking back at her.
…
She wanted to look away from him again but that didn't feel fair. This was a decision she'd come to. She needed to stand by it. With the bag out of her grasp, she let her hand fall down by her side and her fingers curled up to press into the center of her palm, pressing tight. She gave a shake of her head at the sound of her name.
…
“No,” Shiro said. His voice wasn’t unkind, but it was the one he would use with the team when he knew he was about to ask a lot of them and expected it in return. “I want to know why.”
…
She owed him an explanation and yet she'd almost been hoping that he wouldn't have demanded one. That would have been easier, wouldn't it? Her hands were free now and in response, her arms crossed over her chest, shielding her in the way she so often did, though rarely around Shiro. She had always felt comfortable around him and he'd been the one she'd often turned to when she needed. She had tried to be that for him, too. Only she did not know how to turn to him now. The chasm had been growing and it was likely her fault. Perhaps if she'd told him from the beginning?
Only, she didn't want to tell anyone, even though it wouldn't cause the same reaction from Shiro as it would her friends from home.
"You aren't going to like anything I have to say," she replied, as a statement more than an admission, but her tone was betraying her. It carried sadness and reluctance. Her arms tightened. "I'm not...I don't...things changed, Shiro," she said, even though it barely explained anything at all.
"I can't keep this up anymore."
…
Shiro didn’t know what he was feeling right now. This all seemed to be happening so quickly, and it didn’t feel quite right. It seemed as if she had already made up her mind and, yet, at the same time, it seemed strange that everything she end between them like this.
He stepped closer to her on impulse, about to press a hand to her face and then realized she likely didn’t want that and he likely wasn’t allowed to do things like that anymore. That was perhaps what hurt the most -- the construction of this boundary that had never been there between them. Everything had always been easy.
“Have things changed about how you feel about me?” Shiro asked, because he didn’t think that was it, but maybe it really was that simple.
...
Instinctively, Alice took a step backwards as he moved closer, not because she didn't want the feel of his touch but because she knew she did. That was what was making this so hard. She'd been rebuilding her life ever since she'd arrived in Tumbleweed. Bit by bit, she'd begun to feel more human again, and nearly every step had been taken with Shiro in close proximity. He'd been one of the first kind voices to break through to her in her rage upon arrival, when she was angry and felt caged in a form she did not want. He'd been her friend when she'd put up barriers between herself and her friends from home. He'd been so much and she'd begun to want this life with him.
And yet it almost felt like a lie. As if she was running from the world she'd always known. There'd been the first wave of memories upon the Cruise ship, which had washed over and brought her back into the very present threat back home, but it hadn't been enough to drown her with concern of her prior life. The second wave? The one she'd not been capable to telling any that had happened? It had pulled her down and it had succumbed her. All she could think about was what was happening back home and how easily it could happen here. It was why she had turned her attention away from her own private studies and full on to the Bureau. She was getting to a point where she was dreaming about that portal and it wasn't uncommon now to wake from a nightmare of the Creature showing up and leaping from form to form on it's hunt for those she loved most.
"I didn't say that," she replied, not unkindly, with a shake of her head. "Everything else has changed."
Shiro was a constant and she knew what to expect from him. She knew if she let him, she could unload every worry and concern she felt, and he would be there. But she wasn't going to do so. It didn't feel like a burden he needed to have upon his shoulders and it didn't feel fair to do so. He was the unchanged factor when everything else had been tilted on its axis.
…
His throat tightened a little at the admission that she still felt the same about him. It would have been easier if she just didn’t want anything from him anymore. That would have hurt, but he could have let that go. There was nothing to be done there, really, but respect her decision and take a step back.
But this was different. So, instead of stepping back like he had done every other time in the last few weeks when she had thrown a wall up, he stepped forward.
“Then let me help, Alice,” Shiro said quietly, and he did reach forward to gently wrap the fingers of his human hand around her wrist. “Don’t push me away, please.”
...
Her eyes glanced down to his hand against her wrist and she gave some slack to the tightness of her arms over her chest. She looked towards his robotic arm as he spoke and there was a thought of how she'd have reached down to take that hand, too, in any other scenario.
"This isn't a situation you can help with, Takashi." This was a truth that she believed. Even if she burdened him with knowledge, what was he going to do with it? He'd have no way of protecting himself against the Creature should it arrive and gain knowledge of the importance Shiro held for Alice. It would be a worry upon him without any way to solve it. And, perhaps, it would sully his view of her and lead him to think she was someone not to be trusted, which she felt would be a fair judgement. Only if he didn't trust her, and the Creature did come, how would she be able to protect him in that event?
"It isn't fair to you to even ask and it is better if you aren't around." It wasn't just the Creature that was a concern. Him not being around would be better for him in the end and it would rid Alice of one more person to worry about. She suspected his friends would sever conversation with her and as that thought hit her, she felt her throat tighten, as a flash of Lance bore across her mind. She didn't want that but it would be better, too, wouldn't it?
Somehow this made the tightness in her throat grow. And as far as being fair? Her mind was a mess now with memories and feelings of this world and her home world. There was emotions she'd buried here that were now blown wide open because of the portal and the memories. How was it fair to Shiro to ask him to stick around while she coped with that and tried to put them to bed? It felt like deceiving him.
She realized his hand was still around her wrist and her gaze moved up from looking down at his arm to up at him.
…
Shiro’s chest tightened when she used his first name, the hurt in his chest spasming. She had been the first person to use that name in a long, long time. It almost wasn’t fair for her to use it now, when she was saying that they were over, but she was saying, in every way, she still cared.
“You’re not asking me,” he pointed out. “I’m telling you that I’m here and that I want to help. I meant it when I said that I wasn’t only here for when things are good and fun. I’m here for when they’re hurt and scary, too. I’m not afraid. I’ve seen a lot of darkness too.”
He wasn’t always sure if she could still see it him, and he wasn’t sure why. To him, that was a part of their similarities, the fact that he had come here aching and hurt and unsure of how much of him was still human. But she’d helped him find comfort in his skin and in the reality of day-to-day life again, and he was frustrated that he couldn’t seem to help her find her way back to that again. He knew he couldn’t fight for her, but he would always want to fight beside her, and he didn’t want her to sideline him.
“Please, Alice,” he said. “Going through this alone by yourself isn’t protecting me. Trust me when I tell you what I can handle.”
...
She knew he'd both seen and lived through plenty of darkness. It had been a fact she'd been aware of from early on in their association with one another. She'd been in the worst of it herself upon arrival and she'd found the similarities they shared to be a draw to him. She wouldn't undermine his experiences by trying to say that he should be afraid even if she thought so, if he only knew. She pulled in a shaky breath.
"Do you know what I have access to at home?" She asked him, though she didn't give him a chance to answer, as her arms unwound completely and she let her free hand point back behind her, gesturing in the opposite direction to emphasize home. "There's a memory potion right there on my desk and I could have taken it and then I wouldn't be in this spot. But I didn't and now I can't. I have to be willing to have anymore pieces of information thrown at me because if what is happening in my world comes here? I need to know I didn't cut myself off from important information," she explained.
"But do you know what other information I got thrown at me? Everything else. It isn't just the horrors going on in my world, the things that are my fault, but it's other memories too, Shiro. Can you handle being here while I figure that out? Does that sound fair to you?"
…
“It isn’t about fair,” Shiro said, perhaps with more force than he normally would have spoken, but he knew full well now that few things were about fair. If anything was fair, he wouldn’t have been captured by the Galra, and he certainly wouldn’t have been captured more than once.
“It’s about working through things when they aren’t fair,” Shiro said. It was easy to be by someone when the world was solid and safe, and people were acting happily and rationally. But that was so little of life. And Shiro knew it full well.
“I’m not going to turn and run,” Shiro said. “That’s not who I am.”
...
"It might not be but I don't feel right by it. I haven't felt right about it since it happened," she said, giving a little insight into the last few weeks now. If it wasn't clear before, it had to be clear now. These memories weren't suddenly available to her. They'd come weeks prior and the response had been the building of the walls.
"I'm not asking you to turn and run. I'm asking you to let me go." Saying this began with a level of confidence that she was typically good at displaying but it finished with her voice trailing off and the final words being spoke as a whisper.
…
Shiro’s throat went tighter at her last statement, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to say anything else. His will to reason with her had bloomed into full hurt. It just felt wrong for everything to end like this when he still cared about her so much and he knew that she still cared about him.
He breathed in hard, a breath she must have heard was shaky.
“If you ask me again, I’ll let you go,” Shiro said. “But please only ask that if it’s going to make you happier and better to not be with me. Please don’t do it because you think you’re helping me.”
...
She caught the shakiness of his breath and there was an urge to step forward, to wrap her arms around him, and hold him against her. She nearly did so but instead she dug her fingers back up into the palm of her hand once more.
"I told you, I can't keep this up," she whispered, as her gave him a heartbroken gaze. While she spoke those words, her arm pulled back slowly, but firmly, till her wrist slipped away from his grip. There was things she needed to figure out and there was things she needed to do. It wasn't about what was going to make her happier.
Happiness was something she accepted already wasn't in the cards for her. She took a step back from him now, though her eyes were still locked on him, and there was a look of regret already forming. But she only allowed it to show for a few seconds, before she seemed to realize it was breaking through her demeanor, and she quickly turned to head off for the door.
…
Shiro let her go when she stepped away from him, although his heart was aching in his chest. She had made herself clear.
Her expression was destroying him, though. Because he wanted to go after her still when she pulled away from him, but he didn’t know what else to say. He’d said everything he felt and she had still made her decision. But she was hurting, and it felt natural for him now to want to comfort her. But she had said that was no longer his place.
So, he didn’t. He made himself stand still, jaw tight with withheld emotion as he watched her go.