★ it makes you burn to learn i'm with another man | sobbing on emily ;;

[11ady]

[In the months following the fallout from the holodeck fiasco, Une's been a bit of recluse. She's hardly ever seen outside HQ and her contact with the network is always kept to text. Faceless. It's easier to hide from the world in the midst of all that's happened. She's been betrayed by those she considered allies, thrown into simulated realities and toyed with. To enslave her mind like that was beyond criminal.

But she doesn't have the luxury of prolonged sabbatical. It's October. The holiday gala will be soon. A fire and ice ball to improve PR. Her engagement party...

For the first time in a long time, she slips into a dress.

Not blue; it reminds her too much of His Excellency's stare.

Not purple; it reminds her too much of her lost one-eyed king.

Not green; it reminds her too much of the uniform she wears while facing the challenge of duty.

No, she wears black. The color of mourning. It's a tight fit, hugging her curves in all the right places, cutting far enough above the knee to bare some thigh. The straps are thin and the neckline dips to show off some cleavage.

For the first time in a long time, she wants to be seen.

Clutching her purse, she walks down the street of the commercial district with no particular destination in mind.]

Comments

[thieving]

( It's terrible. Everything's twisted up, and Jim can't even lay claim to the reason. He's always pleased as punch when it's his fault, when he's the one who orchestrated the trap that catches the little rats and gives them a bit of a maze to run through. Being a rat in a maze of falsified memories and living an entire life - "remembering" that he lived this life - it was proving very difficult for him to come to grips with.

The mere sight of her disgusts him as much as the sight of himself does. It's a torrid of apathy and confusion he despises himself for feeling. It's a weakness, and Jim Moriarty doesn't need weaknesses. It's the only way he comes out on top. But, she's right there before him, and the part of him that is still recovering, still thinks he's someone else lurches uncomfortably against his ribcage.

Logically, he knows he has no such ties to her. Logically, he knows he lacks the emotional facilities to feel such things. Only a shallow mimicry, a reflection of emotions. Lies. Yet, whatever had happened to him in the simulation warped the chemistry of his brain. He feels something, and doesn't know whether or not he can handle this terrible thing that grows and grows and nearly takes him over, before he takes a look at the lady.

Her name is Une, but he knows her by another name, in another life. It was World War I, and he was a soldier. She was his wife. So, when she calls him by That Name, he reacts instantly. Jim despises himself for it: the way he twitches towards her, still possessed of this man who should have died when the bomb tore his legs from his body and left him to suffer in agony, sobbing a name in the muck of the trenches as he faded. And that name was: )

Elle.