entrancelogs | + It's good that we can't see what isn't there +

Who: EVERYONE
Where: Wonderland and adjacent dimensions!
When: Friday, April 21st to Monday, April 24th
Rating: PG-13, warn if higher!
Summary: A place to list your tears throughout the event, and describe the worlds that can be seen or accessed through them. Event Post.
The Story:

While invisible zombies ravage Wonderland, tears are popping up everywhere! Through them characters can see versions of themselves from alternate universes. Some of them show a different version of Wonderland, some a different version of their home. Some are as benign as a character drinking coffee instead of tea, others are as drastic as somebody's entire personality changed completely.

On day one tears are so small as to barely even be recognisable. Faint voices and melodies can be heard through the tiny cracks if you step really close, but these brief and indistinct glimpses are barely even worth describing.

On day two tears have opened up wide enough to recognise them for what they really are. Yesterday's melodies will sound clearer, and the voices will become decidedly familiar, belonging to people characters know, sounding perhaps even like the characters themselves. Look through the tears and they may catch sight of home, or something that merely looks like another part of Wonderland. The tears are yet narrow and instable though, and the field of vision is correspondingly poor.

On day three the tears have grown a great deal. The worlds beyond them can be seen and heard, though most cannot be interacted with at all. Only the biggest ones are already stable enough for characters to stick their hand inside, and pulls through any objects within reach.

On the fourth and last day some tears have finally become large and stable enough for characters to pass through whole. Not all tears will reach this stage, but those who have can be visited, and the world beyond them explored... at each character's own peril.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It wasn't his fault." The implication beneath being that - it is Tim's, most assuredly. He may not have literally pulled the trigger the way his quantum twin did just now, but he may as well have, because he did this, he did all of this. And worse.

All that blood's on his hands, and there's nothing he can say that will fix it.

It's more complicated than making mistakes. But he's said enough as it is. He can let her - let her draw whatever conclusions she may. Let that sit, and not pursue it any further.

It's safest that way.

"...never mind," he mutters. "Sorry. 'M sorry."

"You don't have to apologize. It's alright. I didn't want to turn this into an attack or anything." She should leave, she thinks, or diffuse this somehow. He's nervous, and her nerves are starting to fray. "I meant what I said, though. I trust you that you're not lying to me now. Don't think I'd be in any place to punish you even if you were."

She lets her own arms drop from where they're crossed, finally looks more in his direction. "You gonna be alright?"

"Yeah." No. He's not. And he's pretty sure that's real damn obvious, but what else is he gonna do? He could press back and insist that it's all going to hell from here on out, but that would be a lie in and of itself too, wouldn't it? Things have been bad for a long time, and there's not a thing he can do to fix it. There's not a thing she can do to make any of it better.

And telling her about it, he's pretty sure, would just make her feel like she owes him, weighing her with a completely unnecessary burden of guilt.

So he's already turning away, shifting back.

"I'm fine."

Nothing worse than what he's already been through.

There's plenty of things Shepard feels she should feel guilty for. Mercenaries that stood in her way, bureaucracy she's shattered to do her job, the fact that a lot of the people who've faced her probably didn't need to die for the crime they were committing. But it's moments like these that hit her the worst- when someone is in pain, when she's talking to them, and she can't find the words. Like they're on opposite sides of a brick wall, a thousand miles away.

It makes her think of the woman on the docks, crouched behind a shipping container with a pistol, who hadn't known a kind word since she was a child. The juxtaposition of her and Shepard, with the backdrop of the Normandy, a palpable symbol of strength. But all she had were her words, and careful steps, and whispered promises. That's all she ever has.

In the end, she holds out her hand towards him.

"You don't have to take this now, but I wanna make this clear, alright? You need something, you reach out. I'll be there. Here's the hand... uh, literally." This is cheesy, and she knows it, but she can't think of a better way to get the point across. "I don't have a lot of people from home either. It'd be easy not to let anyone in because they don't know. But if you need help, I wanna give it. Alright?"

Maybe it's cheesy. Disarmingly literal. If he were predisposed to smile at that, maybe he would have. It's...he'd hesitate to call it something Kralie-esque, in how completely devoid of subtlety it is, as that'd be nothing short of the meanest insult. Maybe that was intentional on her part, mimicking his flair for the dramatic.

But for all the presentation that reminds him, blazingly, of someone long gone, the naked sincerity brings another face to mind. Jay only ever wanted to help. He only ever wanted to fix things for people, even if the man was a wreck himself.

One corner of his mouth twitches, in something that was going to be a smile, or perhaps a grimace.

"Fixing other people's problems isn't your job," he says slowly. "You...know that, right?"

She doesn't even know how much it mirrors for him. Sure, Alex was forward, didn't have much of a filter, but most of the people she's been around have been the same. But she's willing to do what she has to if it helps, if it does something. It will have been worth it, if it does.

"Doesn't have to be. I just figure if I can, I should. And I thought I might be able to." She shrugs, as if she's pretending to keep it light in a situation that is anything but. "I know I would have appreciated it, when I needed it. So maybe you would, too."

"You can't." Maybe it's said a bit roughly, but the sentiment is sincere. She can't fix this, or help him, or anything. There's nothing to help. No matter how she might want to, there's no escaping the elongated shadows stretched across his life in a great, deepening scar.

That's harsh. Too harsh. Why be such a fucking pain to the only people who've ever been kind to him, huh? Tim winces, one hand going to the back of his neck as he glances away.

"Guess it - means something, though," he adds in a low mumble. "That you'd try."

Her facial expression doesn't change when he speaks, but she can feel the wheels in her head turning, the familiar feeling she gets in her heart when someone says what she's reaching for is impossible. It's part anticipation, like a fluttering feeling of testing her own boundaries, but it mostly feels like a subtle ache in her muscles, like a call to action left on pause.

There are plenty of things she probably can't do. But very few she won't. And even less she won't try.

"I hope so. Nobody should have to be alone around here. If you need to talk, or I can help, I want to." She still probably shouldn't stick around here. Neither of them should. "Take care of yourself, alright? I'm here for you."

It's not a laugh; he's not cut out for that. It's a huff through his nose, a low exhalation. He can't quite look at her, the sincerity of the claim, the fact that she means it. She shouldn't. She shouldn't be bothering. But despite everything he's done and is capable of doing, despite everything Alex has done to her and to Max and to whoever else got in the line of his fire - here she is, offering a stupidly literal hand.

"Yeah," says Tim, but the vagueness of his tone, the way he can't meet her eyes, is as solemn an indicator as any that he doesn't quite believe her. Or at least, he knows better than to inflict himself on someone who genuinely wants to make things better. There's no fixing him, or anything wrong with him.

There's just learning to live with the weight on his shoulders.

One last glance in the direction of the tear, where Alex Kralie still lies motionless, his stare open and glassy, and Tim turns aside.

+ It's good that we can't see what isn't there +

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