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[dedikated]

you have reached the inbox of Kate Galloway. Leave a message.

status: [ available ]
location(s): [ spiral 2, house 1404 // the clinic ]
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[unitas]

[ a sick, dark satisfaction rises within her at the first text, though the guilt does it's best attempt to quell it. she hopes it causes as much hurt and pain as they've caused her.

may it linger like a dark, ugly bruise. ]

Good.

[ and then: ] I wouldn't have cared what you said to them about me. Fuck, I'd have taken the blame, Kate.

[dedikated]

[ To be honest, the option crossed her mind, but it went as quickly as it came. Code of destructive beings, or something. ]

It wasn't like they didn't already know you were involved. [ Considering the whole... network thing. ] No point in selling you out when you weren't even there to say anything for yourself.

[unitas]

[ kate, the bro. sharon both respects that, and thinks she's an absolute fucking idiot. ]

How much shit did they give you?

[ what more does she need to feel guilty about ]

[dedikated]

Nothing I haven't handled before. Probably nicer than I'm used to. [ BLUNT CITY BITCH. TEN TEN TEN TWENTIES ON YO'--

never mind. But yeah, interrogations were nothing new. ]

[unitas]

I'm sorry I got you involved, Kate. [ it all spiraled out from beneath her, and she should have known better. ]

[dedikated]

No one forced me. Did this in my own name. Being sorry about it is pointless. [ So should she. She knew exactly how difficult a task it was and pushed it ahead too quickly anyway. ]

[unitas]

I feel like I misled you. My powers have never, ever brought any good into the world and I should have known that it would have just given Fear what he wanted.

[dedikated]

We did what we could with what we had. [ she doesn't believe that entirely right now, but if she repeats it enough, maybe it'll come true? ] This place doesn't work like the worlds we're used to. [ no matter how eerily familiar being underground is. things are different. maybe sharon's power would have done something different, something good. ]

[unitas]

It sounds like bullshit. [ like excuses for their failure. they did what they could, but they should have done more. this place doesn't work like the world they're used to, but they should have been prepared. they were not prepared.

sharon did not prepare anyone for what would happen. ] We failed, Kate. We failed everyone.

I failed everyone. [ but she feels she failed Bianca and Kate, especially. ]

[dedikated]

[ it does, and kate knows it. on some level, she knows it, no matter how often she repeats those words to herself like a mantra. it's never worked before, has it? saying they were doing the right thing didn't make it the right thing. saying they did what they could is absolute bullshit, because kate knows they needed more time, that they needed a real plan and real research, not a half-rushed enchantment created by an exhausted person who hadn't taken the right amount of time to understand the power she should be controlling.

really, the fault lay with her for not explaining this well enough, for not being the voice of reason in the entire plot. wasn't she supposed to keep a cool head at work? isn't that what Dagny spent seven years drilling into her head? not to panic? not to lose sight of the facts? ]

Aye. We did, It was stupid and unplanned and I should know better than to try shit like that by now. Anything you did was managable until I made it worse. [ plenty of blame to go around. so stop that, sharon. ]

[unitas]

We were stupid. [ They both should have known better, but it's hard to see clearly when what little life you've known has sucked out from beneath your feet, and then dangled in front of you always just out of reach. Their lives have been taken from them, and who can really blame them for trying to take them back, even if it's just a piece. ]

But I want you to know that I... I really appreciate what you tried to do. You did more than a lot of other people were willing to. You tried.

Thank you for that, even though it was dumb.

[dedikated]

Was worth trying to get above ground again.

[unitas]

You don't hate it down here because of the gods, do you? [ it's likely some part, but Sharon gets the feeling that's hardly it. she knows there's a few people with claustrophobia, and it took her several weeks to adjust to the cave sky, but as long as she doesn't look up or think about it, she can easily pretend it's not as confining as it really is. ]

1/2

[dedikated]

Not just because of them.

[dedikated]

[ there's something about a fuck up of this magnitude, shared between people, that makes it impossible to lie about anything. no secrets, even without sorrow's guilt adding to the mix.

but describing this is difficult when kate isn't sure she fully understands the effects of hadriel on herself. when she doesn't fully know how to describe this to herself, never mind someone else.

she taps on her keys for a few minutes, and decides to go with the facts. ]

...

The work I used to do [ long before now, long ago when the thought of working in a constructive capacity seemed completely foreign. ] had me going underground a lot. Fighting things. Killing them, usually. We wiped out entire communities.

Couldn't take it any more. Left. Spent years away from it all, started feeling better.

[ had it all violently ripped away. ]

[unitas]

[ The implication of Kate's previous work is horrifying, but comparable to her own past. She finds it hard to judge the other woman for what she's done, and what she's gotten away from. They all have a past, and this place just likes to dig it up even after it's long been buried. ]

And then you got stuck here. [ stuck in an underground city with a fake sun and no sky, trapped effectively in a place that constantly reminds her of the things she's committed. Kate doesn't deserve that. ] You'll get out of here, you know that, right? They won't keep us here forever.

[ because she won't let them. ]

[dedikated]

[ The funny thing is? She wouldn't mind it at all if there was simply a sky. Not even the real thing. Just something that was close enough to pretend. She doesn't mind the people, and the fighting in the caves she could probably give up if she could pretend a little more.

But the message is appreciated. A lot. ] They'd be stupid to. All anyone does is fight them.

[unitas]

I think they'd be stupid to let us go. We may fight them, but it's never gotten us anywhere. We annoy them, at best. Why send home easy meals?

[dedikated]

They want their people back. Keeping us around any longer than they have to is pointless.

[unitas]

You don't see it, do you?

Without us, they'll grow weak, have less power. They all want power, and not just to bring back their dickbag friends.

[dedikated]

I see that, just... looking at it differently, I suppose. Doesn't benefit hope to have angry, scared people around who only want to go home. Wouldn't keep the food supply of someone I disliked around if I didn't have to.

[unitas]

They're not going to let us go. They need us, and we're weak, easily manipulated by them. They can tell us for the rest of eternity that they're trying to find us a way home, but, oh no, they just need a little more power from us.

and a little more. and a little more.

We're never going home through them.

[ which is to say that although sharon is in a state of absolute despair, she firmly believes that the gods are liars, thieves, and the only way home will be through them. not her, maybe, not kate, or bianca, but someone else.

gods will have to fall before they ever get to try for home. ]

[dedikated]

[ Maybe Hope will do them all a favour and just let them all die and not be revived. That would also work, really. Better than feeling like this again and again, at least. ]

I know that you're probably right. Just... it's tiring. Fighting is fucking exhausting.

[unitas]

I know.

It's easier to give up. It might be best to.

[dedikated]

Maybe.

Least we did try. [ things she's parroting from friends for 500, alex. but it's keeping her from giving completely into the misery. ]