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video, @chronicler
(The feed flicks on facing a large tank, propped up on a desk. There's a slight shuffling; a hand appears on the side of it, and then Lucretia pops into view, peering through the glass. Those who already know her might be surprised by her altered appearance: she is noticeably older, and looks around fifty instead of her previous late twenties.)
Where did it go?
(She makes a face, then reaches out to her camera as if to end the feed: thankfully, what she had lost comes swimming into view at that exact moment in a blur of purple and electric blue, pressing against her cheek. It's a small jellyfish, hovering in the air. Lucretia chuckles, cupping her hand about it as she faces the camera.)
I thought I'd take a moment to introduce everybody to Junior. It's a voidfish– a kind of... (she pauses, gesturing vaguely with one hand as Junior curls a little tendril around her ear,) fish-esque alien, I suppose. From space? (It's complicated.)
It enjoys consuming memories, and specifically enjoys art, so I thought I would extend a request to the network for any kind of media they might like to share with it. Usually, giving it something to eat would erase whatever is given from the minds of everybody who has not drunk of its ichor, but I think the climate here doesn't agree with Junior's powers. Not according to some tests I've been doing; the memory loss is very temporary.
But I digress: it loves all things creative: paintings, music, poetry... So if you'd like your work to be judged by a fish, there's always that option available.
(She makes to turn the feed off, then pauses.) Oh, and if anybody knows where I could find an optometrist in this place, I'd be really grateful. My prescription has... changed some what.
Where did it go?
(She makes a face, then reaches out to her camera as if to end the feed: thankfully, what she had lost comes swimming into view at that exact moment in a blur of purple and electric blue, pressing against her cheek. It's a small jellyfish, hovering in the air. Lucretia chuckles, cupping her hand about it as she faces the camera.)
I thought I'd take a moment to introduce everybody to Junior. It's a voidfish– a kind of... (she pauses, gesturing vaguely with one hand as Junior curls a little tendril around her ear,) fish-esque alien, I suppose. From space? (It's complicated.)
It enjoys consuming memories, and specifically enjoys art, so I thought I would extend a request to the network for any kind of media they might like to share with it. Usually, giving it something to eat would erase whatever is given from the minds of everybody who has not drunk of its ichor, but I think the climate here doesn't agree with Junior's powers. Not according to some tests I've been doing; the memory loss is very temporary.
But I digress: it loves all things creative: paintings, music, poetry... So if you'd like your work to be judged by a fish, there's always that option available.
(She makes to turn the feed off, then pauses.) Oh, and if anybody knows where I could find an optometrist in this place, I'd be really grateful. My prescription has... changed some what.
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[ Cisco feels awkward, asking, but he doesn't want to just... leave, now, and the aftertaste really is quite atrocious. As she goes to make it, Cisco pulls out his phone, glancing at it quickly just to escape from the tense reality of the moment, for a few seconds. He sees Lucretia's post on the network, sees various messages from other people. Chatting about the voidfish, joking, being friendly. Even Taako. Cisco's stomach twists into an even tighter knot of guilt. ]
You said- [ Cisco starts speaking quickly, without any idea what he is even going to say to explain. , He falters, eyes dropping away from Lucretia, hands twisting together and fidgeting uneasily in front of him. More slowly, he goes on. ] -when we were talking, before, you said that I don't know you. And that's true. You were right. Especially now, I mean...
[ Cisco trails off, gesturing up and down at Lucretia. A vague gesture, but it should be easy enough to guess that he means since she had changed. She is the same person he'd been starting to become friends with, it's true. But she looks decades older, and the changes to her personality and demeanor are even more stark than the physical changes. Before, even with all the cycles, she had felt like a peer to Cisco. Now... she doesn't. Which is just another one of the tiny things that are all adding up to make this so complicated. ]
...but you also don't. Um. Know me very well, either.
[ Cisco can't bring himself to look at Lucretia as he talks. He looks at the floor somewhere near to her feet, crossing his arms over his chest. He hears the faint noises coming from the machine that he'd made, as the voidfish continues playing with it, an odd sort of accompaniment.
Perhaps he should just go. Is it even worth trying to explain? He'd be well within his rights, probably, to just leave her with that explanation and nothing else. And yet, Cisco stays where he is, keeps on trying. ]
I know a lot of the time, I come off as this... friendly, happy-go-lucky guy without a care in the world, but. Trusting people isn't... something I'm good at. Like, at all. Like, it's... almost impossible, for me.
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That's true, (she replies, steady, even. She looks carefully at her hands as he continues, at her stiff knuckles, the little age spots dotted between her fingers like markings on a map. She can't pretend to need to skulk in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to brew any more, not when he's trying to level with her.
Lucretia brings their mugs over to the table and takes a seat, gesturing for Cisco to do the same.) Okay, (she begins, and sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. Pressure is building behind her eyes from her headache; she feels so tired.) I... I'm not entirely sure of what to say, Cisco. You don't have to trust me. (She glances up, gives him an uneasy smile.) Even though I would like for you to.
Is... uh, are there any questions that I can answer, maybe?
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[ Cisco stares down into the mug of coffee; the truth is, he knows he hasn't explained anything at all. Just saying he has trust issues is hardly an explanation. Who doesn't, to one degree or another? But the question is - should he tell her more? Would giving her more information be putting him at risk? Does she deserve a full explanation, after what she'd done to Taako? Would it make him a better friend to Taako, trying to talk out his own baggage with Lucretia, or would it be better for him to maintain the hardline stance that Taako can't because of his love for her?
In the end, Cisco settles on: ]
I... can listen, if you want to tell me your side of things. I've heard most of it from Taako, but I think you deserve a chance to, y'know. Defend yourself.
[ But Cisco realizes a moment later how that sounds, how it gives the wrong impression that everyone is speaking terribly about Lucretia when she's not around, when in fact the opposite is true. So he forges on, words coming more quickly, tumbling from him in a rush. ]
Not defend- I don't mean- I know that you and Taako are family and every time it comes up he keeps standing up for you, and telling me I can't understand and maybe that's true. I know I've only known him a few months, but... I care about him. A lot. And you hurt him, I mean.
[ Cisco looks up from his coffee, finally, meeting Lucretia's gaze, eyes dark, his expression not angry or accusatory, but quietly sad. ]
You really really hurt him. You do know that, right? And... it's just hard, because you were always super nice to me and I was really starting to feel like we were friends, but. You did that to him.
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It's okay. (She waves off his hasty attempt to clarify, even though parts of what he's saying is confusing to her. Taako's been... standing up for her? If she makes a face at that, it's only because her current take on their particular, complicated situation is at odds with hearing he's telling other people that they don't understand. It's... nice? She has no idea. It's all so twisted up and Lucretia is so heartsore, still so preoccupied with the fight that they had the day Magnus refused to inoculate himself.
So Cisco's next few words make her laugh, tight and humourless as she raises her mug to her lips.)
Yes, I know that. (She hasn't thought of much else for a long time now. There's been a lot she's had to reconcile with and mentally examine about herself following the arrival of the canister.)
It's... very complicated. (She's staring into her mug now, brow furrowed,) And I know that sounds like a cheap cop-out. Perhaps it is. But it's also the truth– it's a century long story, Cisco, and for me it isn't close to being over yet. And I have no idea how it will turn out. I've already– so many things have gone wrong, things that I didn't... it's already starting to fall apart. It isn't just Taako, either. It's– all of them. Lup, Barry, Magnus, Merle, Davenport. All I wanted to do was save them, spare them the pain of trying to fix our colossal mistakes because I was so certain I could do it. I... I think I still am. I'm not certain any more.
(She's rambling, gesturing aimlessly with one hand as she talks, her gaze still trained down, almost as if she's dictating.) Sorry. I'm sure none of this makes sense to you. I don't know how involved in this you'd like to be because... well, it's a whole lot.
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He can tell, that Lucretia's laugh is humorless, a defense mechanism more than anything else. But he still says, in a plain and quiet way that cuts much deeper than if he were to yell or rage: ]
It isn't funny.
[ But he doesn't push, just sits quietly as she explains, staying uncharacteristically still and never taking his eyes off her. The actual things she says are disjointed - not so much a narrative as vague excuses and justifications strung together without context. A tiny furrow forms between Cisco's brows as he tries to follow along, to make sense of what she's saying. When she pauses, apologizes, he says: ]
We have a saying in my world... that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. [ He lets that hang for just a moment before he drops his gaze and says: ] I've always hated it. I... think that actions mean more than the intentions behind them, but... intentions aren't nothing. You were trying to help.
[ A small concession, but a concession nonetheless. There is some difference, between hurting people accidentally out of foolish overconfidence, to the sort of thing Eobard had done - to hurting people intentionally because they were no more than objects to him. ]
A little of it makes sense. I know pieces of the story. I know you... erased their memories, and then watched them and did stuff to like... control where they would go and who they would meet. And then you hired Taako and Magnus and that guy Merle and... you had a plan so you lied to them every day and pretended-
[ But Cisco breaks off then, shrugging, body language hunched and defensive. The aspects he did and did not choose to emphasize are rather telling. ]
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Lucretia folds her arms tight across her chest as she considers Cisco, wondering the best way to go about this. If she's going to tell him the truth she's going to be diving into some very personal topics that she's not sure she can gloss over in the retelling.)
You know a little more than I do of the future, (she admits, leaning back in her chair to mirror his own posture, though she remains straight-back in contrast to his defensive slouch.) I can't confirm any of that, but the rest is correct. I am only trying to help.
(She sighs, and decides she may as well start from the beginning. Or– her beginning, at least. The events that changed everything, made her into who she is today.) During our mission, I... there was an accident, at the start of one of the cycles. Our ship was shot out of the air and we had to make an emergency landing; when I came to, everybody else was gone.
(Lucretia is trying to keep this explanation as clinical as possible, her voice flat, light, as if she's telling a story that isn't her own. Her hands clench hard on her arms, fingers digging in tight.) I had to do the cycle alone. Everybody else was dead, and I was being chased the entire time by the people who killed them; the ship was so broken it wouldn't run. I had to learn how to repair it on the fly. Everything went so wrong.
(There's a lot that she skips over that Cisco will have to fill in for himself. The crushing loneliness of it all, the constant, physical weariness. Not enough sleep at night, running and hiding during the day, never being able to find enough food. The handful of times the adjudicators had caught her and she'd had to fight tooth and nail to get away from them; the first time she ever killed another person. The obsessive terror of knowing there was no fail-safe protecting her or the rest of the planar system if she died, too.)
It was horrible, but it– I did it. Against all the odds I was able to survive. I fixed the ship and got it off plane before the Hunger consumed everything. I made it to the next cycle, all by myself. I wouldn't wish that kind of experience on anybody, Cisco, but... (she chews her lip for a moment before she continues, expression suddenly fathomless.) I knew that I could do it. So when things started to go wrong... how couldn't I step in? I had the means, Cisco. I made a plan to change it all, and I thought– I just wanted to put them all to rest for a bit, a year, just so I could sort it all out and stop them from hurting so much. They were so sad, and it pained me to watch them suffer and do nothing.
So I erased their memories. I left them all where I could keep a close eye on them, and I went off to reclaim the relics. And that was two years ago, now. Slightly behind schedule, but still... still achievable. (She looks at Cisco properly then, and now she really does look exhausted, doubt starting to creep in. Her throat aches when she swallows.) Or, so I thought. But Lup told me, the day I opened my canister– it will take me another full decade. Twelve years, I'll leave them like this. Not knowing each other, not knowing me. It changes everything. They can't forgive me– how could they, after what I've done to them? I don't expect them to, either. I betrayed them.
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The rest of her story is unexpected; he sits and listens silently, and he might not be any kind of expert when it comes to reading people, but Lucretia is so carefully calm about it that he can guess it's something pretty terrible. That guess turns out to be right. He knows, a little bit, how the cycles had messed Taako up. How hard they'd made it for him to feel like anybody other than his crew members were really alive, and real. Somehow, he'd been assuming that the same was true for the rest of the crew, but that they just hid it better.
Now, though, he's considering that of course, it would impact them all in different ways. For Lucretia, apparently, it had done this - made her only trust in her own abilities, make her feel like it was her responsibility to shield her friends, even against their will. More like a paranoid mother than a comrade.
As much as he hates any time he sees his own friends suffering, Cisco cannot entirely empathize. He can't imagine ever making that sort of monumental decision for someone else, even if he believed it would go smoothly, even if it were for the best possible reasons. The thought of having that much power over someone else, and taking away their ability to choose for themselves, makes him feel a little nauseous.
But he can see the exhaustion and the sorrow in Lucretia's face, in the slope of her shoulders, and something in his chest softens. ]
That was a really, really, bad call. Not 'cause it didn't work and ended up taking too long, either. Even if it had gone perfectly... you just can't make choices for other people without their permission. No matter how good your intentions. It's wrong, one hundred percent of the time.
[ He might not have been in Lucretia's shoes, might not see the world as she does - but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it gives him some perspective. Maybe she will be able to really hear this from him in a way that she wouldn't coming from any of her friends. Things were too complicated between them all, so much tangled up love and blame and hurt and anger. But Cisco is an outsider, and right now, that might be what Lucretia needs.
Cisco gets up, coffee cup in one hand, ostensibly to be on a level with Junior who comes floating up past the table, almost as if it could sense Lucretia's unease. Cisco smiles at the glowing creature, and then after a second's hesitation, sets his hand down on Lucretia's shoulder. It's stilted, and small, but it's certainly a step up from pulling his hands away. ]
Everything is different. No point in wishing it weren't. I think - I think pretending it's not would be a huge mistake. But... believe me, you can love someone even if you don't forgive them.
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It's easy to see the part of her that will become The Director when she's like this: walled off, carefully hiding everything underneath layers of practiced calm. She does that now, and with ease, sealing that little open, raw part of her over as Cisco gets up from the table, rests a hand on her shoulder. The urge to shrug it off is quite high; she doesn't move.
You can love someone even if you don't forgive them. Can you?, she thinks bitterly, and, What would you know? She twists her hands tightly together in her lap, fingernails pressing into her palms. Nothing advances when she picks at what Taako says, though, and she'd rather Cisco leave her to her thoughts than stay and continue to lecture her about this, and so she says nothing about it.)
Mmm, (she hums, a neutral response.)
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A furrow forms between his brows as he tries to understand, to piece through the logic. Maybe she believes it was her poor execution of the plan, and not the morality of the plan itself, that caused all this. Maybe she fundamentally disagrees about taking people's freedom from them. Or... maybe she's just hurt, and on the defensive, and seeing every contradiction as an attack. Barry got like that, sometimes, when he was hurting, and it always led to terrible decisions.
It doesn't much matter. The end result is the same, and Cisco pulls his hand away, shoving his hands in his pockets and letting out a short sigh. ]
Okay. I can tell that's not what you wanted to hear, but... it's what I believe.
[ He walks over and scoops up his bag from where he'd put it down. Cisco slings the strap over one shoulder, sparing a quick smile for Junior as it goes floating lazily past. He thinks about just walking out like that, leaving Lucretia to her sadness and simultaneous regrets and yet certainty that everything she did was the right call. But something stops him. Cisco stands there, hands clutching the strap of his backpack, before he says: ]
For what it's worth, I am sorry. About losing your home, and the cycles, and running from the Hunger for so long, and- and what you said about that year you survived on your own. I can't even imagine how hard that must have been, without anybody there to help you, and the weight of everything on your shoulders.
[ He gnaws at his bottom lip, just a little shrug, looking somewhere a little to Lucretia's left but not quite at her. ]
I'm not gonna pretend like I know what you went through, but I do know that when you survive something bad, sometimes it changes you. And you gotta... make sure it doesn't change you into somebody you don't want to be.
[ Presumably, Lucretia doesn't want to be someone who hurts and betrays her friends. The advice might be a bit harsh (and it's certainly something he's struggling with, in his own life), but it's the best he has to offer. He raises a hand for a sad little goodbye wave, saying: ]
Thanks for the ichor. See you around.
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Lucretia has always struggled with finding herself to be proven wrong. It's harder still after all that she's done, all that she's sacrificed to try and pull this plan together. Even though it is hinting at falling to pieces she's still determined, still buoyed by the fraught success of her cycle spent alone. She still believes. To know that nothing will work out, that despite her best intentions everything will fall to pieces in her hands... she hasn't even really begun to wrap her mind around it. It makes her want to hunker down, to hug her reasons and her excuses tight to her until everything turns out right.
Cisco's parting words make her glance sharply at him. She mulls them over as he turns to leave, raising his hand for a goodbye, and that finally breaks her silence.)
Of course.
I'm sorry, Cisco. (For putting him in this situation in the first place, for scaring him. For snapping shut around herself in reaction to his words.) I'll see you around.