thisavrou | [Voice]

[With all of the quantum shenanigans Elizabeth has ever been involved with, this has to be the one that feels the strangest.]

[The doctor and nurses had been uncomfortably nice, even though Elizabeth had reassured them that they didn't have to treat her delicately. If this was a tragedy, she had no point of reference to mourn it. Seeing them give each other significant, sad glances was only irritating. What was possibly even more annoying though was that Elizabeth waited for the memory of her previous self to come back to her... but it wasn't. If she'd been here before, if she'd broken the rules again, memories of what she'd been like, what she'd said, how she'd died-- they would have been there. Sooner rather than later. But days went by and nothing came. She wandered around the hospital, the staff asked if she wanted to contact someone ("Who do you suggest?" she'd ask, and they would usually shrink back. No one knew who to call), and the day the 'Ingress technician' stopped by asking to talk to her she smelled a scientist and refused to let him in the room. The next day they suggested she go back to her apartment.]

[They drove her to a nice place, that they informed her she'd purchased, and once she'd been inside for a few minutes and her vitals remained stable, they took their leave to let her "get reacquainted".]

[And there she was with the strangest feeling in the world: not knowing what happened to her here.]

[There's an entire room of books-- which makes sense immediately, but the collection is the most eclectic thing she's ever seen. There are clothes in a hamper, rotting food in an ice box, dying plants on a porch, a wadded up blanket and many, many empty mugs. She was lonely, even before her apartment went abandoned for days. Did anybody know her?]

[The basic functions of the device on her wrist were explained to her on the ride to her apartment, but she's still unsure and careful as she makes selections and sets up a broadcast.]

This is Elizabeth DeWitt, formerly of the Moira's crew... [There's a long pause, and she finally realizes there's no way to avoid being straightforward.] ...I'm looking for anyone who knows me. There was an accident-- [Or incident, probably.] --and I've been told I left my timeline months ago and have been living elsewhere. Anyone who can shed some light on where I've been and what I've been doing... I'd like to speak with you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's a year longer than I remember. Did you ever come to my apartments?

I don't think so. I mostly just saw you at work, and sometimes getting food.

Would it be strange to invite you to tea? I'd like to know more about the collection, whatever you could tell me.

That would be alright, I think. Where are you?

[Elizabeth sends him the address, encrypted of course.]

Your guess is as good as mine as far as getting here goes.

[Ginko looks over the address with a quiet hum.]

I'll figure it out. Give me a few minutes.

[Sure enough, it takes a bit of figuring out the transportation system, but eventually Ginko finds his way to the provided address. He knocks on the door hesitantly, then steps back, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting.]

[Elizabeth cracks the door open a fraction, then opens it wider with a slight smile.]

Ginko, thank you for coming. [He looks like a sweet, if not shy, boy. Elizabeth steps back to indicate he should come in.] I hope finding this place wasn't too much trouble?

[He shakes his head as he steps in, glancing around curiously.]

No, it... it wasn't too hard. Um. Thanks for... having me come over.

[That's what you're supposed to say, right?]

I think I should be thanking you for coming over. [She shuts the door after him. The apartment is perhaps a little odd-looking. It's not entirely bare, but it does have the feeling of somebody trying to move in and make it a home... and failing. Personal effects are around, but at a minimum. There's furniture, but there's one armchair too many and none of them show particular wear. It's more sad than unnerving, though Elizabeth doesn't seem to notice.]

Almost everything went bad in the icebox, but I have tea?

'S not like it was too much trouble.

[Ginko looks around curiously; he doesn't really have much of a sense of how living spaces are... supposed to look, really. All he knows is that it doesn't look like Angela's house, or where he used to live with his older self (which, even now, is still weird to think about), but those are the only living spaces where he's spent all that much time.]

Tea is fine. [He hesitates for a moment. If he's supposed to be helping her remember what happened, that might actually be a good place to start.] Um... actually, you made tea back when I and a couple other people started working at the library, too.

I can believe that. [Elizabeth smirks faintly-- plus ça change...] Tea has always made me feel a little calmer, I imagine I was nervous about meeting my first-ever coworkers. [But as hard as she tries to remember that, it must not have been intense enough to shake her brain.]

[She leads Ginko to the kitchen and she starts pulling out boxes of tea. There's a lot. Maybe she was more stressed than she'd originally guessed.] That was probably my first job, honestly. Black, white, or green?

If you were, you hid it really well. [Even though that had been-- what, two years ago now? He remembers it clearly enough.]

Uh... green. What did you do before then, if you didn't have a job?

I should pat my past self on the back, then. Nice job hiding what was undoubtedly a severe case of nerves.

[She puts the other two boxes away and pulls down a couple of mugs.] Traveled, mostly. Seeing the world, that sort of thing. [She glances up a moment to flash him a brief smile. It's more or less the truth, even if it leaves out the fact that she was travelling between timelines looking for purpose and connection. Not working a job that would fund this travel.]

I know you definitely did better at that than I did, anyway. [Aaand that would be about the closest Ginko usually gets to making jokes. It's true, though; he has no doubt that he must have come off as kind of a nervous wreck.

Probably because, you know. He was. Even more than he tends to be now.

He tilts his head thoughtfully at that. It sounds similar to his past situation, but... probably more intentional.] Yeah? What kind of places did you go?

Then... I hope I made you feel comfortable. As much as I could, at least. [He's just a young man, after all, and Elizabeth couldn't have been quite so jaded in the direction of a younger mind. She knows herself well enough to feel at least somewhat confident in her past self's aversion to scaring kids.]

Paris. [She smiles faintly. It was a place, it had been beautiful, but nothing like what she'd imagined.] I'd wanted to go to Paris since I was a little girl. See the Eiffel Tower, the cinema, the cafes, the Seine... But I didn't realize one of the most important things about traveling. [She drops the bags into the mugs and pours the hot water over them.]

Going alone can be very hard.

...You did. [As much as she could. Only so much could be done to make Ginko comfortable anywhere, especially back then. But he'd been a little less scared after that first conversation.

He gives a quiet hum of agreement. He doesn't recognize a lot of her description of the specific place, but. That last part is familiar, for sure.] I used to move around a lot, back... where I used to be.

[It's hard to think of it as 'home' anymore.]

It was a lot better on the ship.

By yourself? [Elizabeth frowns and brings the mugs over to the table. She'd been too young to do it, Ginko was probably definitely too young to be wandering around the world by himself.]

Sometimes. I'd go with my teacher, when I had one, but-- [He hesitates. Looks away, lips pressed into a thin line.] It wasn't like I could stop just 'cuz I was on my own.

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