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Tweak says, "You should see me in the mosh."

River Tam is in your post confusing you (notmymemory) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2012-10-04 11:29:00

Entry tags:

jacen solo, river tam

Who: Jacen Solo and River Tam
What: The lack of consistency doesn't make River happy
When: 4 October 2012 late morning
Where: Medbay
Warnings: TBD
Status: Incomplete

Stability. It was something very important to River. It was necessary. Calm. Patience. They stole her childhood. Her ability to filter things out. She had her good days and she had her bad. Being stuck in the medbay for over a week? That tended to lead itself to the bad side of things. The teen hated it in here. There were too many reminders. But she was dangerous. The weapon had come out and they couldn't trust her. Because Mara was still here. Luke. So she was in isolation. Nothing was wrong physically but mentally? Something was very wrong.

John had been the first to go. Four days. But he hadn't been there. Not really. Shouldn't be there and so he left. Everyone was calmer now that the ghosts were gone. No more taunts. No more pain. No more questions. But John left and Anatoly took over. He reminded her of Simon. The patience. The calm. But he was pulled in all directions. Elena. She had been Anakin's mate, his dopple. But she went home all broken and trying to hold herself together. So it was River and the Russian doctor. They played chess. She liked it. It focused her mind, focused his. It started because time needed to be passed. It was turning into more. Because he read the board like she read people. And she needed to find out the secret.

But then the blond came in. Kimberly. Anatoly wasn't allowed to come in anymore. Because he was exhausted and his family needed him. Family. Her family was mismatched. And not here. Simon was gone. Zoe. The Captain. Luke and Mara tried but they were distracted and she was alone.

She hadn't given much of a response. Merely repeated Kimberly's words. Not coming in for a week. And now there would be a cycle of 'doctors', people who didn't understand. She may not have screamed, may not have thrown things as if completely unhinged, but River wasn't okay. Not by a long shot.

"Two by two. Vanish away...put down the stray before she attacks you..."

The words were spoken to the air. River had claimed the counter of her isolated location, sitting on it, curled away from the people. Safer that way. At least in theory, anyway.

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jeditraitor
2012-10-05 04:19 am UTC (link)

Jacen could feel the pain from the young girl. Waves upon waves of it, even from as far away as he was, and he was unable to just let it lie. Especially now that her doctors had changed. Anatoly needed to be off, he knew that. He understood it perfectly. But it was affecting River, and so for whatever good he would do he had gone to the medbay as soon as he could and planned just to sit with her. To talk and keep her calm and focused.

Her words as he stepped around the corner worried him, he understood little about the reference but he wasn't about to ignore her because she had attacked. Her mind had been used, twisted and she'd been made a weapon, and he knew a little something about that. It had been done to him in a different way, and of course he'd done it to Tahiri, to Ben.

River was his chance for some amends, and truth be told he cared about the poor broken psychic girl. He projected calm and focus, as much as a former Sith Lord could at any rate and sat down at the chair nearest her though she was still facing away from everybody, as if she didn't want to let anyone near her, or perhaps let herself near anyone. Well, he was here to try and help her through.

"River, its Jacen. Do you mind if I sit here with you for a little while?"

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notmymemory
2012-10-05 04:52 am UTC (link)

Calm and focus. It was almost like the home she shared with Luke and Mara, only different. It was familiar from when she had first shown up, when Jacen and Tenel Ka had taken her in because she'd had no one from home. No Simon. No Captain. No Zoe or Kaylee or Wash. Preacher man was gone and so was Inara. Not even Jayne. Jayne who looked better in red. Jason who looked better in red. No. She couldn't think that. Couldn't think back to the park, the sparse images of memory that poked through the haze of that day at times. But he had anger and aggression and had been so much like a Reaver in that regard. And she had to stop them. Stop the secret from getting out.

The secret that wasn't her and continued to burn in her mind. She had stopped trying to claw it out after a time.

When Jacen said who it was, the teen peaked through her hair, watching. He wasn't a threat. No. Jacen cared in his own way. Wouldn't hurt her. And he was Jacen again, she could tell. Just as she had known when his inhibitions had been lowered and he'd felt wrong.

"Up to you..."

Given she wasn't hiding in herself now, well, mostly, her gaze flickered to her unfinished chess game. The message. What message? She'd been trying to get it out, to explain why when she herself didn't know exactly why she had snapped. Why she had attacked. She remembered the chaos, the uncertainty. The poking of her subconscious. The shadows with the taunts. She remembered the questions on her mission. A mission that didn't matter here. Why didn't it matter? It tugged at her, bugging her. She hated it. She still at least hadn't tried to cut anything out of her as she had earlier when John had left, when the first change in her stay here had happened.

Tugging on her hair, River went back to staring at the wall for a while before she finally shifted and faced Jacen, tilting her head to the side.

"Everyone's flustered and frustrated...."

Even in the isolated room, with the block, she could feel it. It was radiating off of everyone in the medbay and tied to it. The stress was getting to them. It was her and Mara only, and yet... everything had gone crazy. The little blonds, they liked to dance. The smallest one at least. She had watched their nightly routine of saying goodnight to their father. The family unit, cohesive and stable and there. Nothing was stable anymore in River's life. She didn't like it. She couldn't handle it.

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jeditraitor
2012-10-05 12:19 pm UTC (link)

He knew the theory of the game at least. Chess, it was like a poor man's sabbac and he wasn't about to interrupt the unfinished game unless she asked him to. If she'd been playing with Anatoly then he knew it should stay that way. The man was a champion of the game, he knew that much. Maybe there was something to the layout of the board. Either way that wasn't why he was here. And as such the former Sith Lord moved to sit near her once she'd tuned to face him and watched her. Oh she wasn't okay, far from it, but he figured that came par for the course with what had been done to her.

"They are. Its a busy time, and a lot of people have a lot of reasons for the fluster. But its really hit down here badly. Anatoly has had to take some time to rest and see his family, and John..." Well, what really could he say there. Jacen didn't understand the man's grief. Not really. Oh he knew it happened, he knew grief well, he'd felt it for Anakin, Chewie, so many good friends lost. But to let it best you so completely. He didn't understand that. Perhaps he might have once, a long time ago. Before the Embrace, before Vergere and Lumiya.

"He's had to leave his work here." he finished simply. "So I thought I'd come see you. It was too busy before and you were still sleeping. But now that you're not we can talk, or I can try to help calm you if you'd like that? You remember what we used to do, with our minds. I'd show you how I do it, how I block out the voices and you'd copy me."

He'd taught the River before this one, they'd been making progress before the seal had snatched her and sent her from a time where she held no memory of being here, of him. It was probably for the best, at the start a part of him had seen her as a replacement for Tahiri. A weapon. But he was long since past thoughts like that now, at least past any thought of giving in.

"What would you like to do? I'm here for as long as you want me to be"

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notmymemory
2012-10-05 03:13 pm UTC (link)

"Family is important..."

Family was supposed to be. Stable. She had kept him from his family. Because they didn't trust her. Because they knew what she could do. Knew that she was far more than just a damaged girl who spoke in riddles. They wanted answers but didn't have them. Didn't have a way to get them because River didn't know the truth, just that she was made this way. That it wasn't fair because the memories weren't hers. The secrets. Why did she have to feel it all? They stripped it away, the ability to filter.

"Had to leave his work that he never should have started. They're upset because he left without a word and everyone had to cover. Upset because he did it before. He's hurting but won't stop. He wasn't here anyway."

She knew why. There hadn't been much progress made with the distracted doctor. After she had woken up, she hadn't really had much time. She just knew that he had known Simon. But he never should have been there when his mind was lost in its own chaos. So she nodded at why Jacen hadn't been there, tensing at the mention of sleep. She didn't want to sleep. She never wanted to sleep. Especially after being forced to. Because Dick spoke the phrase and didn't know. Because back home, it had been Simon before she had woken up here.

Twisting her hair more, River shook her head.

"Don't make me sleep again..I don't want to sleep."

Sleep was death. Sleep was the thing she feared right now. But she also did wonder if it was possible. Mara and Luke had tried in different ways. Had Jacen been able to? With her? Her with no memory now. She didn't know how that worked. It couldn't be put into scientific fact. It was like the Shepard's symbol. Turning into paper. Talking confused her, or it confused others. People tended to have a hard time following her as River usually just spoke a stream of consciousness.

"She doesn't remember but wants to see."

And sometimes it was speaking in third person. As if that would change who she was. But maybe it would help. Maybe she'd know what made her hurt people then. If it even mattered. If they didn't hang her for attacking. But no. They could have done as such after she'd been put to sleep. Could have made it permanent and one less danger to worry about but they didn't.

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jeditraitor
2012-10-11 03:19 am UTC (link)

He was often left stunned by how perceptive she could be when it came to it. Noting John had been here without being here, a lot of it just took a little more listening to than he supposed many were wiling to give. But Jacen would always have a lot of time for the girl, and would always have a drive to help her as much as he could. Though what he could do for her, he didn't quite know yet. He didn't run on calm thoughts, much as he wished he did. But he'd help River, if not quieten the voices then slow them, dim them slightly so it wasn't as much.

"You're right, he hasn't been here. He misses his friend. Misses the life he had before everything went wrong for him. And I think mostly he's struggling to find a way back to the world.

As he supposed, was River. Looking simply for a place to be and a person to become. Looking for stability like she had never had. And while Luke and Mara had likely done a lot for the girl, they'd had their own battles to fight recently. Their focus had to have shifted, through no fault of their own. And the medical bay was just busy. It seemed always to be. Was that why she wasn't sleeping? Or was there more. And yes in theory, Jacen could make her sleep, he would never do that to her.

"I won't. No one will. I won't let them. No one makes you do anything River, do you understand me. Your life, these are your choices. And maybe, just maybe I can help you remember. Do some good with this power I hold. Would you think you'd like to remember? I could try and help you see if you'd be willing?"

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notmymemory
2012-10-11 02:36 pm UTC (link)

It wasn't that hard to tell and she knew she hadn't been the only one to see it. But people were too polite even as they got frustrated. Even when they got saddled with the extra work because the schedule had been made with him in mind though he didn't do anything, though he wasn't there. There was so much pain everywhere, but his was loudest. No one ever means to be the loud one, but it didn't just affect her because of how loud it was.

"Everyone misses people. Everyone loses people. Everyone hurts and cries and bleeds. Doesn't care. he doesn't see the damage he causes. The hurt others feel because he doesn't listen. Doesn't think and just does. Dangerous. Dangerous not like me but dangerous."

Because she was. She was dangerous. She was a weapon. A weapon with an unknown trigger though River was trying to find a way to pull the memories and secrets out. Chess had been working. It wasn't a conventional game by any stretch of the imagination. Not with what she had to say, but Anatoly was gone to his family because his family needed him and he needed them and the working all of the shifts beyond sleep was bad. She understood that. But he had also been stable in the medbay.

Maybe part of her reason for sleeping was because of the chaos. The tension. But mostly it was knowing that sleep equaled death. At least for her. Because people never got up. The images were burned in her mind even though she didn't have the information. Didn't know what they meant. Just that it was bad. Very very bad.

"....except the phrases." Because she knew that something had triggered her. She didn't know what. But something made her fight and something made her sleep. She had no control. She didn't like that. She didn't want to be dangerous. But there was no choice, not with the memory burning up her brain. She couldn't cut it out. She had tried before. So instead she just nodded some as Jacen asked if she'd like to remember. She did want to remember. She didn't understand why she couldn't right now when she remembered and felt far too much but she did want to.

Or even if she didn't, at least learn what she had before. She just had wanted to dance but now it was a far more deadly dance she did than she ever had learned before the Academy.

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jeditraitor
2012-10-26 02:45 am UTC (link)

She was so perceptive that it sometimes still stunned him. People assumed she couldn't see the obvious but oh she could. Better than most. It was all there in the things she said and if people would just listen. Because she had John Watson right. It wasn't that the grief was unfounded. He had every right to feel as he did. But he used people. Perhaps without thinking but he clung to them, hoping they'd see him through but not helping himself. And you could not have one without the other. He'd learned that the hard way. "He sees only his own pain. That's the problem of course. In a place like this, the people that are here, there's no time to be that inwardly focused. I believe the man needs help but I hope he's strong enough to take the rough with the smooth." he said.

And this poor girl thought she was dangerous. In truth she was, there was something in her powerful enough to make her attack without reason, to blindly hurt. A trigger, and he wanted to help her. Find that trigger, work out a way to disable it and go from there. Let River be River again, master of her own destiny.

"I'll try to help. I understand the mind in ways others don't and nothing I will see would shock me. You know me River, you know the other side of me and if you're willing to have me help you then we can do that. You and me, we can find a way to give you back the control they took from you. I think its the best thing to do, don't you?" He thought maybe it would be best if he had something to focus on. Something to be beyond the darkness or the thing holding it back. If he could help this girl then maybe, just maybe there was more he could do. "Talk to me, while I'm here, tell me how it happens, what you remember. I need to know the story that makes up you, and if you are willing to tell it then I will listen. You need fear nothing from me."

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notmymemory
2012-10-30 03:45 am UTC (link)

People never listened. Why would they? It took too much energy to make sense of things when they had all of the distractions around them. But River didn't mind it much. At least she didn't mind it when it wasn't a pressing situation where people needed to listen, to pay attention. To do so in order not to be hurt. But they wouldn't. The words were jumbled, yes, but there was always truth in them. Truth that she sometimes didn't even want to know, didn't want to feel.

"He's very loud."

Maybe not vocally. Though that wasn't always the case either. But in terms to his emotions? Those were overwhelmingly loud. But it wasn't like people meant to be loud in their thoughts. No one knew how to control it. It was partially why she did prefer living with Luke and Mara. Because it was just them. There were less people and the two were good at staying calm. Unlike everyone in the complex with all the stories and pain and emotions.

Jacen was right, though. She knew. She knew the two sides of him. Had been able to feel it despite not being near him. Being in a completely different location. She understood that. The struggle, the internal fight. The desire to no longer be that man while knowing it was still part of him and would always be a part of him.

"It is..."

Because it was. River didn't want to be a ticking time bomb. Because medicines didn't work. They made her feel fuzzy and wrong, things weren't muted, she just felt sick. Sometimes there had been spurts of normal, functioning like a girl, but the chaos always took over again. But how did it happen? She couldn't place it. Didn't know where he wanted her to start.

"... I don't fear you..." And she didn't. She knew he was dangerous. Could do what Mara's ghost had done to her.. but she didn't fear Jacen. Shifting, River's knees folded onto one another, the teen rubbing her arm. It was in her file, at least the medical aspects. The experiments, the brain scans.

"Supposed to learn, they said I could dance.... be challenged where normal classes did nothing. But they were loud and there were dreams. Flashes. She doesn't know. Memories, so many memories but not her own. It's not fair!"

Getting agitated, River started rubbing her arm more.

"Wanted quiet, it was loud and I wanted quiet and its a haze. Went to the park. People were normal. Then they weren't. Then I was here."

Because she blacked out. She didn't know what happened. The memories pulled from her subconscious because of Dark's Carnival, the mirror calling on the price, trying to make her free. Of her subconscious showing her flashes of the subliminal message. Of a name being the last trigger.

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jeditraitor
2012-11-11 04:44 pm UTC (link)

She didn't fear him. And he knew that of course, he sensed it at the deepest level. This girl understood he carried a darkness within him but she understood also that he really was trying to push it back, and maybe by helping her, just maybe he stood a chance at actually doing some good on that score. She was staying with his Aunt and Uncle and he understood the logic there. They were calm. Without the cold clear maelstrom that seemed to swim just underneath the surface of Jacen Solo. And of River Tam as well.

She told her story and Jacen listened. There was a trigger in her brain, people that had put it there, changed the make up of her brain to make her their weapon. She'd been so young and she had just wanted to dance. It was cruel but he understood it too, it wasn't unlike something the Yuuzhun Vong would do, they'd done it to Tahiri in a way. Different, but so much the same. He wanted to help River rid herself of the memories, become something close to normal again. She was clever of course, a genius which is why they'd used her.

And the haze. Oh he understood that. "Its too loud isn't it, you try to block out the thoughts, everyone with their own wishes and feelings and internal struggles. You try not to hear but you always do, don't you. You always hear it because its impossible not to. You don't have shields. No way to block what you hear. That's what I'd like to help you with. This trigger, the thing that takes away your free will. I'd like to help you find it. I'd like to see if I can remove it, or lock it away where it can't be found. But first I want to make it easier for you to be around other people. Would you like that? Will you let me help you?"

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notmymemory
2012-11-12 07:23 pm UTC (link)

Perhaps that was why she had latched onto the Force users. Both now and the her from before, the memories she didn't have. But Jacen had said she had been his friend then as well. They understood what the others didn't. How loud people could be in their thoughts, they understood how it felt. And Luke and Mara were very good and very calm and that was something River hadn't had in a long time. Serenity had been home, but not calm. And certainly not quiet. But it had been better than the complex, only a handful of them and she was used to them.

It wasn't hard to understand. River had always been perceptive. The question on if she had been a reader before or after the experiments might never be explained. And even now, if the trigger was gone, the memories released so they didn't haunt her, she would still be one. They stripped away her ability to channel emotions, to filter, and so she would always know. But it was why she knew when people lied. When they were going to do something dangerous. It was why she knew things no one wanted her to and why she knew she could trust Jacen. He had his reasoning for wanting to help her. Redemption.

"Always loud..." Luke had put up the shield in the medbay and that was a good thing. Had isolated her room so that she wouldn't be subjected to everyone's thoughts and feelings in the complex, so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed. As Jacen said he wanted to help her with not only the trigger and locking it away, but on finding a way to be around people and not in pain, she peaked at the man through her hair. He said he had helped her before. The other her. He was truthful. She had her good days and she had her bad days, but oh the bad days were bad. She didn't remember how to be a kid, a teen. She had lost that. It had been taken from her and she sometimes had moments on Serenity but here...

So she nodded. She wanted to be a semblance of normal. Needed it more than she could ever understand.

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