Helen Magnus (britishcharm) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-03-22 00:34:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, helen magnus, varric tethras |
"It’s confidence, you know. I’ve got that in spades."
Who: Helen & Varric
What: Talking/Feelings
When: Couple days ago.
Where: Their house
Rating: PG-13? Brief mentions of character death & the intent to murder another man's child.
Status: Complete!
The dreams had been gaining in intensity, becoming more frequent. She felt no differently about their place in her life. She hated them.
But now, everything made sense. It all fit together, the last piece of the puzzle sliding into place. They were no longer jagged fragments of memory, but a complete picture of a forgotten life.
A life she ached for. A life she didn't want.
She almost woke him, almost didn't want to be alone. Almost. Quietly closing the door behind her, she made her way into the kitchen.
Varric had long ago been resigned to his dreams. He’d even accepted them as another part of himself, and embraced them. There had been nothing else to do. To reject them would be to reject a part of himself.
Helen didn’t want to accept them, regardless of what they might be able to tell her about herself. And yet, she was beginning to realize she may not have a choice. There were too many similarities. More than she would have liked.
Sighing, she crossed to the sink, putting water on to boil. She didn’t bother to turn on the lights, taking comfort from the shadows.
“Helen?” Varric asked, stepping into the kitchen several minutes later.
She looked up. “Did I wake you?”
"Yes. Is everything okay?” He took her hand as he walked closer.
Forcing a smile, she nodded, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. But she couldn’t really lie to him. “I remember being her.” She hesitates, corrects herself, “Being me.”
"Is that good or bad?” He stepped away to get something out of the fridge.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She braced herself against the counter, considering the best way to explain it. What she finally settled on didn’t really explain anything at all. “I watched my daughter die. And when given the opportunity, I did nothing to stop it.”
“Why? What was the reason? The context? There’s always more to it than that.”
“It wasn’t my place to change her fate.” Her reasons, sound as they were, made little difference in her mind. She had allowed her daughter to die. Not once, but twice. It should have been unforgivable.
“If you had changed her fate, could you imagine how other fates might have changed?” Varric was trying to make a point.
“I couldn’t have known. 113 years, I waited. Not knowing what I would find.” She leaned more heavily on the counter, closing her eyes. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? Watching every mistake you’ve ever made play out before you?”
“No, I can’t imagine every mistake. Just some of them. And in a way I’ve watched them play out, though not like you have.” He thought of the video game he’d played. Not every part was accurate, but it was close enough. “You could have made things worse. Save one person, lose a thousand.”
“Or it could have changed very little. What does it say that I wasn’t willing to take that risk? Not even for her?”
“Lets say you saved her. But it altered the course of events and thousands die? Would that have been worth it? Would she have wanted that?”
"My daughter's life?" Yes, her life was worth more than the lives of a thousand strangers. To Helen. But it would have been selfish, and she knew it.
“Yes.” He wanted to hear her say it.
"No," it was almost inaudible, "She wouldn't have wanted that."
And hadn't she intended to rob Adam of the same chance? To save his daughter. She had been prepared to kill the girl for the sake of preserving the timeline. How could she justify her desire to save her own daughter when she had been willing to take the life of his?
“You can’t beat yourself up over decisions that were made in another life. You just have to accept them and move on.”
"I did terrible things."
“A lot of people did, how is this different?”
“Because it isn’t who I thought I was.”
Varric tilted his head, looking at her. “Are we ever?”
“You say we’re the same. We aren’t. She understood what she was doing, believed it was for the best.” She shook her head. “And she wouldn’t have done anything differently. She didn’t regret her choices. But I regret them.”
“So you believe you’re better than her?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” he pointed out.
“I believe we’re different.” It was a little more insistent, her frustration obvious as she crossed to the opposite end of the room, refusing to look at him.
“Look at me, Helen.” He gestured at himself. “I’ve changed. Physically. And so have you, in ways that aren’t entirely obvious.”
She still didn’t look at him. “But you’re still you. Who you are hasn’t changed.”
“I don’t know.” Varric sighed. “I feel like it has. I look at the world differently.”
She didn’t answer right away. But then she sighed, moving to slide her arms around him.
Varric didn’t say anything either, and he waited for her to actually talk.
“You haven’t changed. You’re still the man I fell in love with.” She pulled back slightly, but she didn’t let go of him. “It doesn’t feel like we’re the same person. She doesn’t belong here.”
“I think she does.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“I just am. It’s confidence, you know. I’ve got that in spades.”
That managed to draw a small, tired smile. “I know. It’s a confidence I wish I shared.”
“You do have it, if you’d just let yourself.” He sounded a little frustrated.
She pulled away again.
“Would you have me give into her, accept her life as my own?” Having two distinct sets of memories was more complicated than one might think. And she was intent on keeping them separate as long as she was able. The alternative terrified her. It would be far too easy to lose herself. “Perhaps then I would have the confidence you insist on seeing.”
“If you keep fighting it,” Varric said. “You’ll split yourself in half.”
“And if I stop, I could lose myself entirely.”
“Or you could find yourself.”
“How?” It was almost pleading. She wanted to believe him. But she didn’t know if she could.
“I can’t tell you that.” Varric shook his head. “Only you can.”
She was really beginning to hate that answer.
"What if I forget which reality I belong in?" She was already finding it confusing. The average mind wasn't equipped to handle three centuries worth of memories and experiences, and though her physiology might have changed to allow for her apparent longevity, she still wasn't certain she trusted it. "What if I can no longer tell what's real and what isn't?"
“Just accept it as real and love the parts of yourself that you can touch and feel.”
"I can't." She was afraid. So afraid. If she couldn't trust her own memories, how could she trust anything else? And trust was already one of her weak points.
“These things happened, Rabbit. It’s best to accept them and move on.”
“How can you adjust so easily?” Because she honestly didn’t understand. Granted, she also wasn’t trying incredibly hard.
Varric watched her, and shook his head. “I’ve been writing crazier things my whole life.”
“My life has been dull by comparison.” She offered a weak smile. “I’m finding I rather preferred it that way.”
"You can't go back to the way things were," Varric said, gently. "There's only moving forward. If I can accept no longer being human, so can you."
After a moment, she nodded, reaching for his hand. “Promise me. Promise you aren’t going to let me forget who I am.”
“Never. Alice won’t either.”
“Okay.” It’s the best he was going to get. But she was tired of fighting him, her past, the memories.
Falling quiet, she listened carefully a minute, then squeezed his hand, drawing him closer. “There’s probably time yet before she wakes.”
Varric tilted his head in question.
“Let’s go back to bed,” she answered softly.
The dwarf grinned. “I like the sound of that.”
Chuckling, she shook her head, starting back toward their bedroom and tugging lightly on his hand for him to follow. “I thought you might.”