foolishwren | 032. Video

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032. Video

_{[Beep beep! What's that, Lassie? An incoming message?! Oh, looks like it's coming from one Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich's PokeGear! How lovely. What does the nerd have to say toda-- .... HEY, THAT'S NOT OTACON!]

[The screen blips into life on a face that's bruised, scraped, and... freckled?]

[Once its owner is sure the thing is on, she withdraws-- making herself a little easier to identify. Sheepish smile and all.]

[Behind her appears to be a standard little camp set up in the woods-- nothing... really fancy. But she's not the only one there-- somewhere behind her, there's.... some shirtless guy wandering around and his indistinct bitching about something or other can be heard.]

[The mat-furred, sleepy Growlithe in her lap just looks content to be there, although it's obvious he's had it as rough as his owner.]}

So. Uh.

_{[Her voice is a painful-sounding croak-- hardly more than a shadow of what it is normally.]}

Apparently I'm a wanted criminal.

... Anyone know what I did? ... Was it awesome?

I love that mugshot. It's so majestic.

_{[Yeah, she's making light of it, but her heart's not... really into it. Though it's sort of hard to tell the difference between that and the plain old exhaustion that's obviously leaking into her every movement and word.]

[... Meanwhile, in the background, Liquid has noticed that the camera's on and has started flexing his manly man-muscles at it in true Photobomb fashion. Heather doesn't notice yet.]}

Uh... anyway... I'm not... sure how long I was gone, and my 'Gear is uh... pretty thoroughly broken-- Hal's off in town getting stuff to repair it with, so... if anyone... like, tried to contact me, m'sorry, I probably didn't get it...

I uh... really hope everyone's all right.

_{[She probably doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about that fog. Now that she knows what had happened wasn't real, and that others had experienced their OWN nightmares... well, let's just say she's really hoping she didn't knock anyone's skull in. ... And the question "DID I knock anyone's skull in?" is implied at the end of her statement.]}

......

_{[And around that time, her Heather Senses pick up on Liquid's trolling behind her, so she reaches out to turn the camera off while looking over her shoulder.]}

Liquid, get the fuck out.

_{[End feed.]}

[Locked to Kaito and Rise]

[Another video feed, a little later than the first one, but not by too long. Otacon apparently was able to fix the 'Gear enough that Heather could receive those two messages that had been waiting a good week and a half to be received by this point.]

[And... judging by her hardly-disguised guilty expression, she's more than feeling the weight of guilt for worrying her friends. Especially since she saw Rise just the previous day and hadn't... even known how ... candid a message she'd left days before.]

[After a couple seconds, she breaks into a sheepish, crooked grin.]

Uh... hey, guys...

... I got your messages...

[Locked to Harry, James, and Mary]

_{[This one's in text, because she knows good and well that James at the very least will be freaking out over how she looked in that video feed, and she's not sure she can take his quiet concerned expressions.]

[But she can't avoid sending this-- if she saw Silent Hill in that fog, then she's... pretty sure that they'd have seen something similar. ... Well, she's not sure about Mary, actually, but given the connection... better safe than sorry.]}

are you guys alright

(typing is hard, sorry for no caps)_

-heather

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[MOMENTARY MOMENT OF PANIC--]

[--well, shit.]

...urk.

_{[That weird look he'd given her, the bruises... it didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.]

[Heather gasped in sudden, horrific realization and clapped a hand to her mouth, her unbandaged eye widening.]}

_{Oh god ...}

H-hey, hey, it's not that bad! [Fluster fluster fluster!] I kind of asked for it, really. _{I should have gotten a clue when you kicked that police guy.} [He chuckles, oh so awkwardly.]

_{[She was shaking her head in disbelief, the bruise around her eye making her horror seem even more evident. Unfortunately, Phoenix's word seem to pretty much go in one ear and out the other.]

[Her voice is hushed and trembling.]}

No... no, I-- god, I didn't know! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

_{[Everything changes when you put a face to the victim-- it wasn't that Heather was proud she'd apparently beaten up random civilians and generally caused havoc-- but the fact that she had no idea who any of them were and figured she probably never WOULD. But this face happens to be one she's fond of, and now it turns out that she's the one who covered it in bruises.]

[Smoker's dark and displeased words from an earlier conversation were coming back and hitting her pretty hard now.]}

No, no, Heather, please-- [Her panic is NOT helping him much either, really. He really isn't mad at her, not at all, and this is exactly why he didn't want her to know. Fuu--]

It's alright, please, don't... _{It wasn't you.}

Phoenix, I-- I could've killed you!

_{[She's trying to remember, trying to see if she can work out just WHICH of the many monsters that had plagued her in that fog he'd been, but there was, of course, nothing to tie him to any of them. She hadn't been aware of even so much as a trace of the actual people some of her hallucinations had been hiding.]}

I-- god, I--...

_{[Her voice is choked and high, almost a little hysterical.]

[The severity of his wounds didn't really matter-- the fact that she'd attacked him at all while under the delusion that he was some kind of monster meant that he'd taken a very close brush with something terrible. Vincent might have been pretty off-the-mark with his reasoning, but he hadn't been wrong when he made his little commentary on the nature of Heather's treatment of the monsters. To them, she was a killer.]}

But you didn't. [He says this strongly, with that tone he gets during an especially difficult court case. It's determined, stubborn as all get out, and it somehow makes him feel as if he's defending Heather from herself. Like a lawyer should. The metaphor is as wildly innappropriate and weird as it is...encouraging.]

Heather, we were all hallucinating. No one was in their right state of mind. It wasn't you, and nothing you did under that influence was your fault. It wasn't.

_{[It's a pretty good metaphor, actually. After all, in the end, sometimes a person is their own worst judge. The fact that Smoker had rather bluntly taken her to task about her actions and irresponsibility for not taking the consequences for them really isn't helping her on the 'It's not your fault' front, because while she blew him off pretty thoroughly, now that she knows it was a friend she hurt... The marine, after all, had kind of had a point even if it was an extremist, unfair one.]}

That-- ... that doesn't matter, even if I was totally crazy, you'd still have been--!

... I .... _{maybe Smoker was right...}

[Phoenix was always one for sounding poetic in the strangest situations, even if it's only in his head. His expression is concerned, worried.]

I could have been, sure. But I wasn't. [He can't stress this enough.]

...Smoker?

_{[She shut her eyes, wincing, and raised a hand.]}

Just... this guy.

He wants me to turn myself in.

... I'm starting to think it might not be a bad idea.

_{[She wouldn't do it, anyway. Too chicken, and she's never been the poster child of taking responsibility for her screw-ups anyway. But now it didn't seem like such an unreasonable notion as it had earlier.]}

...

_{[There's a pause, and then she speaks up again, a little more weakly.]}

... I could have really hurt you, Phoenix. I don't think you fully understand.

...he isn't you. If you want to turn yourself in, that's your decision, right? [Odd words coming from a lawyer, but the circumstances are rather peculiar. It's not as if she REALLY hurt him. Really.]

Hm? Oh, yeah, well...it's not like this is anything new. [He chuckles a bit, genuinely amused.] Let's see...I've eaten glass, been beat up, threatened by the mafia, tazered...[He counts off his fingers as he does this, wincing a bit at the memory of that latest one. Manfred von Karma is NOT someone you want to mess with.] It's really alright.

[And, true, he does understand that he could have been hurt. Really, really badly. But he doesn't see it that way. It didn't happen, and that's what matters.]

....... I guess.

_{[After the initial hysterical response, logic is starting to seep back in. The LAWYER she beat up is telling her it's okay. That's got to mean more than some MARINE who doesn't even know what happened, right?]}

... You're telling the truth about not being too badly-hurt, right?

[Yeah, listen to Phoenix! He's only an idealistic fool, what could go wrong?] It's alright to feel guilty. But...don't let it eat away at you.

[And now he grins, and gently nudges his bruise, wincing only a little bit.] I'm fine, I'm fine. _{It's not as bad as it looks.}

_{[Well, he's an idealistic fool who's also an incredible defense attorney, so it can't go too badly, right??]}

... all right.

But Phoenix, if... if it ever happens again for some reason?

... Don't try to talk to me. Just run, okay?

_{[Admittedly, if it ever did happen again, she'd know better and would force herself to ignore the fight instincts and opt for flight instead, but... better safe than sorry.]}

[The 'incredible defense attorney' bit can be disputed depending on who you talk to, but no one can deny that he doesn't have a talent for the unlikely and idealistic.

--and at the question, he hesitates. Because Phoenix is a pathological helper, and he's not sure that if he were to give that promise and be able to keep it. Although...maybe if it does happen again, he'll have a better idea of how he can help without getting his ass royally kicked. So he grins, albeit a bit sheepishly.]

Alright, alright.

_{[Well, he's incredible enough to have a game starring him, anyway! It's gotta count for something!]}

I'm serious, lawyer-man, I don't plan on tweaking out again but-- I literally do not even know when I attacked you because whatever I thought I was fighting, there was-- ... it didn't look anything like you.

[Hey, his buddy Edgeworth got himself a game, too. It's not that hard!]

I figured that. [He scratches his head, thinking.] ...you really did think we were monsters. [A pause.]

...Heather, what did you mean by 'monsters'?

_{[The question doesn't catch her by surprise, but it does make her hesitate, brows furrowing. Normally, she'd be... reluctant to answer, but... after what she'd done, she kind of owed Phoenix an explanation, didn't she?]}

.... I meant monsters.

The kind that aren't supposed to exist.

[He senses her hesitation, and...hesitates as well.] One second-- [He fumbles with his Pokegear for a second, brows furrowing as he tries to find that stupid--ah, there it was. Since he had a feeling Heather wouldn't appreciate what she was telling him leaking out...he switches their conversation to private.]

...like, monsters? Er...the not-human kind, you mean? And not Pokemon?

_{[Yeah, it's not something she tells people lightly. Thus far, Otacon, Kaito, James, and ... kind of Rise are the only ones who know. Knowledge of Heather's background is sort of... scattered in bitty pieces between the people she trusts most here.]}

Well, I've met plenty of the human kind, too.

But... yeah, those weren't the ones I meant.

[And Phoenix is certainly getting that vibe. Which is why he's trying to handle this as gently as possible.

--after all, Phoenix has met plenty 'monsters' in his lifetime, too. At least his were only human.]

Monsters...[He furrows his brow again, trying to make this all make sense in his head.] But monsters don't--

[--then he remembers that he has a daughter here from two years in the future. anything is possible.]

...what happened to you, Heather? [He says this quietly, because, seriously -- he had firsthand experience with Heather's reaction to these monsters she seems so afraid of. She was obviously horrified by them, whatever they'd done to her back home.]

_{[She's not looking directly at the camera-- her brows are furrowed and she's sort of just... staring at the edge of the screen intently as the gears work away in her head.]

[She wasn't sure what she wanted to say. Phoenix was a good guy, but she still didn't know him too well yet. ... And she never, EVER had planned on telling a thing about what had happened in Silent Hill to any kind of lawyer. Not when she was on her own, her father dead and she was emerging from the wake of a turbulent school career and entanglement in a series of violent, unexplained happenings. Pshyeah right, telling a lawyer that stuff would have just been a one-way ticket to some kind of institution.]

[... But she did owe him an explanation. And he'd... tried to help her, when she was going crazy.]}

... A lot.

A lot's happened to me.

_{[It's a statement he's UNDOUBTEDLY already worked out for himself, but it's laden with meaning.]}

[Phoenix is probably aware that his job might be preventing Heather from being completely honest with him -- lawyers were never the most popular people, after all -- but he really wished more people understood that he was a defense attorney. Defense attorneys don't put people away, they protect them. It's a situation he's had to explain to quite a few people before, but he figures now isn't exactly the time to tackle that can of worms.

...instead, he just bites his lower lip worridly. He words are so heavy. And she was only in her, what, late teens? It was a kind of heavy that he'd seen in his client's eyes when they'd turned to him for help, in Maya's eyes when she'd kneeled by the dead body of her sister, in Edgeworth's eyes when Phoenix had seen his photo in the paper, seeing his friend for the first time in eleven years.

...all of this rolled together gave her words far more impact than she could have expected.]

...but look at you, Heather. You've beat that, haven't you? You're strong. _{Stay strong. Trust me, I...I can't even imagine what you've gone though. But ...} But whatever it is, you've beat it. The nightmares, too.

['Course, he doesn't know that -- he's just wildly guessing, here. but he sincerely hopes that she has]

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