matt holt (encrypting) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-07-12 19:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, matt holt, pidge gunderson |
WHO: Matt & Pidge
WHAT: Working through some emotional stuff after Shiro's update
WHEN: July 2nd (backdated)
WHERE: Holt House
WARNINGS: Lots of emotions & survivor's guilt
During a break from working on Shiro’s arm, Matt took a deep breath between bites of pizza and finally managed to say aloud, “I think I’m ready to talk about why I got upset.”
It had been easy to explain it to Tony. It had gone much worse when he’d tried to explain it to Shiro, because he’d tried to avoid saying anything that would make Shiro too emotional, and therefore hadn’t really explained any of it in depth. Hopefully he could do a better job with Pidge, especially after having had the other two conversations, and also having had a few more days to sit with it and think it through.
--
Pidge blinked a couple times, marked her place in some code, and slowly looked at Matt across the table. It could have easily been two am or two pm, she hadn’t exactly been keeping track. Just… class, no class. Matt wanted to talk, about something that mattered. So the time of day was irrelevant. One hand rubbed against an eye, trying to rejuvenate it from looking at screens for hours.
Then she met Matt’s eye and nodded, taking a deep breath and another. He had her focus. “Okay,” Pidge said. She scooted a few inches sideways, so that the screen was not even really easily focused on. It would do what it would do. They could talk.
--
It was hard to start this conversation, now that he’d waited so long. Matt’s instinct was still to bury these emotions, to run away from them just to survive, so the weight didn’t crush him. But he made himself open his mouth and speak. “It was really hard,” he said, “Being in space by myself after Shiro saved me in the arena. Mainly because I couldn’t stop worrying about what was happening -- or had already happened -- to him.”
He lifted one hand and rubbed at the back of his neck. “And then it all went away when you found me and I saw him again, because most of what I’d imagined hadn’t happened. But still, the idea that something awful had happened to him while I was sleeping… it just… hit right on that spot. And I was really angry with myself for letting that happen. I’m sorry I took it out on you.” He let out a breath, and looked away. “The feeling hasn’t really gone away, especially since I know he did die, just not in the arena like I imagined. But… I’m trying to work through it instead of burying it, this time.”
--
Pidge knew something about worrying about what had or could have happened or could be happening to someone in space. It was something she had carried with her since the day Matt, Shiro, and their dad had disappeared. Progress toward finding them had been slow, and Pidge had been asked - had chosen - to set it aside time and time again in order to save this planet or these people or something like that. She had nearly walked away from the team in the beginning. And Pidge had worried that her choice not to prioritize them would get them killed when she could have done something about it.
She still remembered that sinking feeling, upon seeing the graveyard, and the guilt and pain and misery when she had found Matt’s grave. It had only been a few moments, before Pidge had noticed the incorrect date, which could have meant nothing, but they had felt like an eternity.
“I’m sure it’s different,” Pidge started, “because he saved you. But I do know what it feels like to worry. I never thought it was my fault you disappeared, but I was the only one who was going to look for you and dad. I felt responsible.” It was good to know they had found their dad, that they had gotten him back. That had eased some of her worries but only some of them.
“But Matt, it’s not your fault what happened to him. You haven’t let anything awful happen to him. Heck the whole team was there when he died, and we didn’t have any idea what happened to him. We didn’t realize it wasn’t… quite him when he did first… sort of… come back. But the point is, he didn’t die because he saved you. He got away, he got home, he got to choose what to do and to risk his life because it was worth it,” she pushed her glasses back farther up her nose. She got that Matt felt like crap about stuff happening to Shiro. He wasn’t the only one. But his reaction seemed more than just feeling bad that bad stuff happened to someone, something more than that.
--
“It is different,” Matt answered quietly. “Because I couldn’t -- didn’t -- do anything about it at all. I tried to convince the rebels to go back for him. But they couldn’t, the arena was impenetrable. Too many rebels had already died trying to break people out of there. They talked me out of trying to go back and get him myself, because even by the time they found me, it was likely he was already dead, had probably died only minutes after I’d gotten out of there myself. But I didn’t know that for sure and it followed me around, everywhere, the possibility that he might still be alive, and suffering, and I’d left him there. If you’re doing something to try to save someone, even if it’s only something little and it takes a long time, or even if you know nothing can be done, that makes it easier to bear.”
It had been an impossibly heavy weight. And it had felt like he shouldn’t have been the one that lived, that he should have died instead of Shiro. Or that they should have just died together in the arena if there was no other way out besides Shiro sacrificing himself for Matt. But he knew he couldn’t tell Pidge that part.
He was glad that on some level she understood, and he knew why she was trying to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. But what the words felt like was that she was telling him he didn’t have to be as upset as he was, or even shouldn’t be upset. He told himself that she hadn’t meant it that way, because he knew she didn’t, and tried to swallow that down. “I’ve worked really hard not to be that useless, helpless kid anymore. It was the only thing that I could do, and I thought it was what he’d have wanted me to do.”
There was no real point in addressing the matter of what had actually happened to Shiro; he knew that was out of his hands, and not technically his fault. He was trying to explain why he’d gotten so upset with her the morning after, before he’d even known about any of that. He looked down at his hands, searching for the words to get the sentiment across. “When I woke up and found out something had happened to him while I was asleep, I just felt… completely helpless all over again. I know that sounds stupid. I don’t know how to explain it any better, though.”
--
“Not knowing sucks,” Pidge agreed. That was something at the root of it. The Garrison had lied about them being dead, and Pidge had been able to feel it, instinctively, and prove it when she broke into their records. That hadn’t answered what had happened. And every day that went by was a day that they could die, wherever they were, whatever had happened. And when she learned it was the Galra, when Shiro told her about getting Matt sent somewhere else, yes Pidge had grabbed onto any and every detail he was able to remember, sparse as they had been. But she hadn’t known, either.
She sighed. “I wasn’t always doing something, Matt,” Pidge admitted. “At the Garrison, yes, I was building things and listening to the chatter and trying to figure out what the heck it was all about. I almost left Voltron, early on, to look for you and dad. I was going to take a shuttle and go and find what clues I could find, and I don’t know, I don’t know if I’d have been able to find you or him any faster. I wouldn’t have had the resources of the Green Lion or the Castle, but it would have had all my attention. I still wonder if I could have found you faster.” Not that that part mattered now, not that she was lucky enough to get them both back, to know she would get them both back.
“And yes, I tried to fit in what I could around missions. But a lot of the time, it was nothing. I was doing nothing because Voltron was busy and I chose, I was choosing to do Voltron stuff over looking for you. If I think about how much time I actually spent on tracking down the clues I got that led me to you… it wasn’t that much, not compared to how long we were in space.
“Then I found your grave,” Pidge said and stopped talking for a few moments. She crossed her arms, sitting hunched against the table as she was. It was hard not to cry saying those words because they sounded like Matt was dead, even though he was sitting just across the table from her. “None of it helped,” Pidge continued. “All I could think was that I’d let you die while playing hero. And just then it didn’t matter that we’d saved a lot of lives because I’d let you die. Even though someone else had already saved you and you’d chosen to fight the Galra. I pilot one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, and I hadn’t-”
She shifted in her seat. “Maybe I was busier, too busy to feel like that all the time before I found you, but I don’t know what I would have done if it had been real.” Clearly a lot of people had died there. It wasn’t a massive grave hoax.
“And I don’t know how waking you could have helped,” Pidge said, “one moment Shiro was Shiro, as we’ve known him here, and the next he was all old and missing an arm. Shiro was helpless, I was helpless, we were all helpless. It’s not a stupid feeling. It’s just stupid there are some things we can’t do anything about.” Pidge tried to ignore those as best she could and do something anyway. Somehow that had kept working more often than not.
--
Matt was quiet through most of her explanation. He was biting his lip, although he hadn’t realized it, and watching her closely. He really wasn’t sure how much it was the same, but he didn’t want to argue, didn’t want to turn this into an argument about who had been through the worst thing. They had both been through hell. He knew that.
And the longer she kept talking, he realized that she really probably did know at least something of how he felt. It didn’t really make him feel better to know it; if anything, it hurt more. He didn’t want Pidge to have to deal with this feeling too. Even if she seemed more capable of handling it than he felt (but appearances certainly weren’t everything).
He was left not knowing what to say. He didn’t have anything else to contribute about his own experience, and it was hard to know how to comfort her about her guilt surrounding him, because he knew full well -- from recent experience -- that it hadn’t helped when Shiro had told him that nothing was his fault, that he didn’t need to feel guilty.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, instead. “I’m really sorry. About the grave. Having to leave the coordinates that way.” He wiped at his eyes; they were wet, though tears hadn’t fallen. “And it wouldn’t have helped anything, not in any real way, to be woken up when it was happening. Except that I wouldn’t have gotten upset -- not like this, at least -- and I could have started working with you right away. That’s all.”
--
Pidge hadn’t tried to make it about her. She still didn’t think it entirely was. The point had been that she understood, to some extent, how Matt felt, and Matt’s feelings were valid because feelings did things like that. And she didn’t blame him for being upset or worried or anything else. It didn’t matter that Shiro’s well being wasn’t Matt’s responsibility or that Matt’s wasn’t really hers (she could say that but it didn’t quite feel true), they felt responsible and having felt as much, the rest of what came along with that did too. Pidge had an easier time with Shiro, even as she strongly supported him and did her best by him, but she hadn’t ever put his life or well being as her responsibility the way she had Matt’s or Dad’s. The way Matt and Keith felt responsible for Shiro.
They were all incredible capable people who looked after themselves, and Pidge trusted Matt to go off on the rebels with his own missions, whether it was being apart during a battle or for longer periods too. It helped to be able to stay in touch, but she didn’t think of him as some fragile doll she had to keep in a case and protect. It was just… none of them were all powerful, and as that awful day had made clear, bad crap could happen. It kept happening.
“It kept you safe,” Pidge replied. She sighed again. “It did until someone followed me right to you.” Someone they had, fortunately, handled well. Pidge would have been angry with herself if she had gotten Matt killed or even seriously injured when he’d been safe before.
She scratched her head. “We really need to decide, as a team, what we want to do about these memory updates. They’ve happened to four people already. And while we all find out what has happened, it’s a lot more happened to whoever actually remembers it,” Pidge doubted it would be the last time someone got new memories, not if they all kept being here. “Shiro wanted time to deal with y’know, everything, and I was trying to do right by him. And maybe if we establish how we wanna do right by each other, we can do it better in the future. With less getting people upset, even if we’re all still worried. And then, whether you get woken up right then or later, maybe it’ll at least be less upsetting because we know how we’re doing that.” If that made any sense at all.
--
“Yeah, but we took care of them,” Matt answered with a smile. He didn’t know if that bounty hunter would have found him anyway, if he would have been able to take care of it himself, but it had certainly been easier with Pidge’s help. He tried to inject some lightness into his voice. “They really should have known better to try to take on two Holts at once.”
He was better, infinitely better, just knowing that Pidge and the rest of the team were around in space with him. Knowing that Voltron could get him home, after the rebellion was over -- or sooner, because they needed to do it. But mostly it was just the fact that he wasn’t alone in space anymore. Not that he’d ever been alone, because he had the rebels, but it wasn’t quite the same.
Quietly, he considered that. “I think that’s a really good idea,” he said, after a moment. “We definitely can’t expect it not to happen again.”
--
Pidge nodded. There hadn’t been much time between recognizing each other and fighting together for the first time. But it had gone as smoothly as coding, building robots, and anything else they had worked on together. No matter what else had happened, how else they’d changed, they still had each other’s back. And they talked, more than Pidge had talked with anyone else, even their parents.
“Lance, Keith, Shiro, Allura… If we’re all taking turns, it’s you, me, and/or Hunk next,” Pidge pointed out. If one of them did receive memory updates, if it wasn’t both of them, the other one could very likely feel something like they did this time. Not in the good way.
She reached across the table, as far as she could, then made a grabbing motion with her hand so Matt would meet her the rest of the way. “Sometimes things feel helpless,” Pidge said. That was okay. She’d been there. Visited time and again. “But never, I believe, hopeless.” She refused to give up, and even though some things she couldn’t help, like a heck of a lot that happened to Shiro, they could make a difference as they kept going. That sheer stubbornness and determination (and even anger) had gotten her pretty far.
--
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Matt said wryly. “But also, I don’t really know how it works, so maybe.”
He looked down at his hands, but caught the movement of Pidge’s arm towards him out of the corner of his eye, and looked up again. He reached out and took her hand in his, giving it a little squeeze. He wanted to agree with her, but in the period of time he’d been thinking about, he couldn’t quite say that he’d never been hopeless. The hopeless moments hadn’t lasted long, though.
He chose to ignore that, and mustered a smile. “We’ve got plenty of reasons to have hope.”
--
It seemed just like Shiro to get hit repeatedly with less than fun crap, so Pidge could believe that happening over and over again. It just… she wouldn’t have minded, ever, getting new memories. It was more information, more than they had. And that gave her more to work with. Not to mention that much closer to being an ‘adult.’ But that wasn’t how getting more memories worked either. It seemed.
Pidge nodded slightly. “Together, we can accomplish anything we need to,” Pidge declared. And meant it. They were better together than apart, which didn’t cast aspersions on either of them. It was how teams were supposed to work. Not all that different from Voltron really.