Log - Early/mid-June

[musicdied]

Who: Yelena and open
When: June 9-15
Where: ADI headquarters and housing, around Gloucester
Summary: Preparing to part ways.
Warnings: N/A

Headquarters
The dust settles surprisingly quickly, all things considered. It doesn't take much longer for Yelena's desk in the investigations department to...not quite empty, exactly. Her terminal is still there, the files she's been working on, a slim stack of research material. It's the personal items that vanish, the amusing mugs, the sweater she's kept draped over her chair, the little plastic dinosaur statue, the carefully kept notes.

For a little while, at least, she's still there - her reports continue, she remains a presence in the training gym, she eats the occasional meal in the cafeteria. If she's a little distant with most people, less quick to crack a joke or share a theory, well. She's hardly the only one.

Housing
At home - at what has been home for nearly two years now - the change in her demeanor isn't nearly as pronounced. She's still willing to joke and gossip with her roommates, and pull out a film for movie night. But here, her preparations are more obvious. Bit by bit, her belongings vanish into cheap plastic totes, neatly organized. She doesn't even need those - there's a duffle in her closet, packed with everything she absolutely requires.

She may intend to stay long enough to see to it that Zyrian Steel never has the chance to use another young girl as a cat's paw. She's prepared to vanish in a heartbeat, if she needs to.

Around Town
It's possible, now and then, to find her in a coffee shop, reviewing notes or photos - of aging buildings, mostly - over a cup of black coffee. It's possible, more rarely, to find her standing at the edge of the churchyard that once held an Eye cult, frowning to herself, apparently lost in thought, or prowling the perimeter of Dogtown.

Searching for more roaming signal towers, maybe. It's hard to trust that they're truly gone.

Comments

Around Town

[punched_hitler]

Steve seeks out Yelena off campus, as it were - it just feels better to talk on completely non-ADI-controlled ground, he figures, stepping up beside her table with his own cup of black coffee in hand. He's pretty sure they're thinking along the same lines, and he's talked to Winter some, but it'd be nice to have an actual conversation with her, now that ADI has decided its path forward and Steve's sure she doesn't like it any more than he does.

"Hey," he says, "mind some company?"

[musicdied]

"What if I said that I did?" Yelena asks, though it's apparently more out of idle curiosity than any intent to actually turn him away - at least, she follows it up by flipping her notebook closed and nudging the seat across from her out with the toe of one booted foot.

[punched_hitler]

"I'd probably leave you alone," he decides, lips twitching up a little as he sees that seat move a little, and reaches out to pull it out the rest of the way so he can sit. "But I'd just come back later."

He sets his drink on the table and looks at her for a minute, smile not entirely gone, but definitely a bit more subdued. Even wry. "I think we have a lot to talk about."

[musicdied]

She makes a small sound that only bears a passing resemblance to a laugh, and picks up her coffee to take a sip.

"Yes," she says, after a few seconds of silence. "I expect that we do."

[punched_hitler]

Steve nods. He waits a moment, but only a moment, before he jumps right in: "I definitely don't want to stay. I don't want to leave the world to burn, but I don't want to follow where ADI is going."

[musicdied]

"I think the next time someone implies that staying with ADI is the only way to fight, or even the best way to fight, I am going to punch them in the throat," Yelena says. Pleasantly, like she's commenting on a book she's read.

[punched_hitler]

Steve can't help but smile at that. "Well, if you do, I'd be happy to, what do they say. Hold your beer?"

He leans back in his chair, though he's not really relaxed. "I hate how ADI has so many of them under its thumb." His voice is quiet; he's going for the same kind of pleasant tone, but he definitely doesn't have her skill with that kind of thing. It sounds marginally casual, at best.

HOUSING

[bossyboiler]

Things aren't normal. Kate can feel it in the air. The tension here is less but on ADI premises, it's almost possible to cut it with a knife. They aren't all on the same page. Some want to leave, some want and need to stay. For Kate it's not an easy decision but she's made up her mind about one thing, she's not going to lose anyone else.

Dinner is in the oven cooking when Kate knocks on Yelena's bedroom door. She would never just barge in without permission. That would be rude.

[musicdied]

There's a small stretch of silence before Yelena pulls the door open. Behind her, there are neat piles of clothing folded on her bed, ready for transfer to the half-full tote beside it. Her head cants slightly, gaze flicking past Kate toward the common area of the apartment, wary.

It isn't just the disquieting turn sentiments at ADI have taken - given Benny's dramatic exit as groundskeeper, there's no more pretending that this is any kind of safe ground.

"What's the matter?"

[bossyboiler]

Yelena, you are going to have to be more specific. What isn't the matter?

"Nothing is the matter right now. I just wanted to know if you could talk. Or you can listen while I talk."

[musicdied]

Yelena picks up a stack of folded shirts and places them in a tote, then waves Kate to the newly-emptied space on the bed.

"Sit," she says. "I can listen."

[bossyboiler]

Yelena may come to regret asking Kate to sit and talk. She has a lot on her mind, a lot that she wants to say. Where does she even begin?

She sits down on the bed and lets out a breath. "So I know I made a mistake in picking who should run ADI and all..." Kate had known she had backed the wrong person when John had agreed with her. She doesn't want to be on the same page as him. It is worrying!

"But you can't just up and leave me." She has abandonment issues (with good reason). "I can't handle that. So I've made a decision, whether you like it or not, if you leave I'm coming with you." She says this as though Yelena doesn't have the skills to disappear without a trace if she were to choose that.

[musicdied]

"You did. But backing Nia is not a lifetime commitment."

She shifts another small stack to the tote, clearing a space for herself to sit down next to Kate and sling an arm around her shoulder.

"Do you really think I haven't been making contingencies for you to come with us? Or to get you out, if you ever needed to run?"

Headquarters/heading home

[worthallthis]

Winter hasn't changed his routine yet. But then, he doesn't have a lot of effects to remove from ADI headquarters: just the contents of his locker, really, and most of that isn't even all that personal.

He meets Yelena at the gym, as usual, for a workout. If he might be a little more forceful than usual, well, he's got some frustrations to work out on the heavy bag or in a spar with her. And after, he walks home with her. It's the safest time to talk, in neither of the places controlled by ADI.

"What did you think of the place on Lark Street?" he asks.

[musicdied]

Yelena's head cants slightly, and she suppresses a wince at the faint twinge of stiffening muscles - she's going to have a bruise along her upper back from a fall she hadn't quite managed to break as efficiently as she'd like.

"It isn't bad," she says. "It would need some work, to get it into good shape, but none of us is afraid of work."

She pauses, then adds, "If we stay in Gloucester. I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't."

[worthallthis]

It has working plumbing, which is the one thing Winter has taken to heart as it needing to have in place already.

His step goes briefly uneven at the idea of leaving Gloucester. He'd lose some of his people, if they did that. "What about the people stuck here. Who can't leave ADI yet," he says. "Rue and Cortana and Eda." And Hunter, that poor kid at the museum; he won't leave without his friends, Winter's sure.

[musicdied]

"Us staying here will not change anything for them," Yelena says, voice gone a little bit flat. While she's not entirely without sympathy, two out of those three have strained her patience to the breaking point already.

"It will just make it harder to actually be out from under ADI's thumb. And to build something that will let us extract the people who are actually willing to leave."

[worthallthis]

For a moment, Winter... looks uncertain. But it fades into blankness quickly enough, like usual, these days. He doesn't know if he wants to go that far away yet. Somewhere where he can't see his people still trapped here, if he wanted to. If they wanted to.

But he can't stay here by himself, either. He knows he doesn't have the skills to really live in the world alone. So he asks tentatively, "Where would we go."

[musicdied]

"Boston, maybe," Yelena says. "Further would be better - Chicago, Detroit - but that would keep us in closer reach."

She hadn't missed the uncertainty, before it was swallowed again by that blankness. More quietly, she says, "You don't want to go."

headquarters.

[ruevealing]

After half a year of taking every meal with their furrier half, Rue is still finding themself overwhelmed whenever they enter the cafeteria, momentarily pausing for Hob to catch up with them before remembering he just isn't there. But their eyes catch Yelena quickly, so the owlbear gets their allotted meal and moves over to where the woman is seated.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

[musicdied]

There's something wary in Yelena's expression when she glances up, but it vanishes behind a small, slightly-weary smile as she recognizes Rue.

"No," she says. "I don't mind. How are you holding up with all of this?"

[ruevealing]

"It has been most difficult, but I suppose that is applicable to all of us."

Rue returns that smile, weary and gentle, just a hint of their normal warmth, as they join Yelena at her table. It isn't quite owlbear-friendly, but Rue is used to making themself small for those around them.

"How have you been, my friend?"

[musicdied]

Yelena shrugs, a complicated motion for how small the gesture actually is. "No one has put a knife between my ribs, so I should not be complaining."

She hesitates a moment, then asks, "Have you heard anything from the people you're waiting for?"

[ruevealing]

Oh, that is quite the vivid description. Rue's feathery shoulders droop just every so slightly at that, a brand new worry to mull about in their head, but at Yelena's question, their beak clacks gently.

"No, not yet. It worries me deeply, but I am resigned that I must simply wait. Fretting over it only makes it worse. I'd much rather do what I can do help those who have remained."

[musicdied]

She exhales something that might be mistaken for a laugh. "You will have your work cut out for you, then."

She takes a sip of her coffee, fingertip scratching idly at the surface of the paper cafeteria cup, peeling away a thin curl of wax.