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[psychic_hotline]

[Sara is sprawled on her couch, waiting for Charles, chatting to the voice in her head. As you do.]

We do not permit this.

Of course you don't. [She might as well talk out loud. Nobody else is around to listen in on the fact that she's apparently a crazy woman having a one-sided conversation, and it helps to keep her thoughts separate from its assertions, as disturbing as it is that she even needs to draw a line.] But since you're prepared to talk about it, why not?

It is not yet time.

Yeah, I'm not so sure I accept that reasoning any more. Actually, I think I've just about fucking had it with living on your timetable according to your rules and not even knowing what you are.

When it becomes necessary -

No. No more of that. You chose me, and I'm saying it's necessary right now. You know I've been asked more than once why I'm not here to destroy you, and I'm starting to wonder myself, frankly. I mean - that would make more sense than using my deal as an insurance policy for all the lives you've ruined, wouldn't it? Making it so you don't exist. Hell, making it so you never existed.

You cannot.

Can't I? I know you're - God only knows how powerful, but if you had to mix it up with the Admiral I'm not betting on you.

[There's technically no response, but the constant background chattering in her head flattens to a dead silence and for the first time in a long while she experiences a moment of total peace. It's kind of eerie, and she's not sure if this is a victory or if she's about to need to redecorate again.]

There is much here you do not understand.

Then help me understand. Let me understand.

[What follows she could only categorise as a thoughtful silence.]

Your guest is here.

[She still jolts with surprise when she hears the tap at the door.]

Comments

[wedonot]

[Charles honestly didn't know what to expect, going into this, and there was a part of him that wondered if this was going to be a terribly, terribly bad idea. He understood what Sara had meant about the symbiote understanding when something was happening without her knowing about it versus her consenting to it, but it had still been a powerful psychic presence, more powerful than anything else he'd ever run into. And it was different from someone like Shaw, whose mind had been like a slippery eel he was trying to wrestle and hold onto in muddy water, because while Shaw had had defenses and it had hurt holding him still, he still wasn't a psychic. The Witchblade was, or at least had some kind of inclination to it, and he knew if he made it angry, it could crush him like an insect.

But the part of him that was incredibly curious to find out more about it, and the part that did honestly like being helpful to people - and, really, Sara was potentially doing him a huge favor, this was the least he could do in return - drowned out his concerns, for the most part.

So he isn't particularly concerned when he knocks on Sara's door and waits for her to answer, despite every reason he probably should be. He can be a bit of an idiot, when it comes to this sort of thing.]

Sara? It's Charles.

[psychic_hotline]

[She comes to the door seconds later to let him in. She looks like she hasn't slept, and although Charles won't know the difference she's picked up anything that might get snagged on a wheelchair.]

....hi. Come on in. [She steps back to let him through.] Sorry about the mess.

[wedonot]

Don't apologize, I have three teenagers currently calling my house home, I can promise Sean's room is messier than yours. [Which was honestly fine by him. It made the mansion look lived in, which it never really had even when he and Raven were kids.]

How have you been?

[psychic_hotline]

Fine. [Don't lie to the telepath, Sara.] ...nervous, mostly. I've actually spent the last six years trying to keep people out of my orbit like this, but then again this place is full of pretty extraordinary people.

[wedonot]

That's certainly one way of putting it. [And he wouldn't argue, really. He's met a lot of interesting people, even if some of them haven't exactly been the friendliest people in the world.] Would you like to begin?

[psychic_hotline]

...yeah. Yeah. [She sits down on the couch, and she feels fidgety and weird because for absolutely no reason she feels like she's twelve and in the psychiatrist's office again.]

Listen, before we do anything. I've....we've got the green light here, [she thinks,] but if anything goes wrong or even if you think anything's gonna go wrong....do what you've got to do, okay? [A beat.] And if anything goes badly wrong, then Chromie's probably the only person on the Barge who can put the brakes on. If anyone gets hurt doing this I'd rather it was me.

[wedonot]

I'll do my utmost to ensure that isn't necessary. [He doesn't really register just how arrogant that sounds. As if he's really going to have control over the situation if things start to go badly. But being confident in himself and his abilities is fairly second nature, by now, and so it's easy to make such statements.] But I understand.

[He brought his hand to his temple, giving her a bit of a look as if to silently ask if this was alright before carefully - having learned his lesson the last time - trying to brush against her mind.]

[psychic_hotline]

[She closes her eyes simply because it seems weird to be doing this with them open - and she's aware of it, not just something in her mind but something else, and it's starting to feel a little crowded in her head. But the Witchblade doesn't lash out and she feels a lot of tension unwind that she didn't know was there to begin with.]

...it let me see something, once. The memories of a former bearer. Ann Bonny? I don't know if that's any good to you, but I figure those memories might be linked to anything else that's locked away in there.

[wedonot]

The pirate? [It's harder to talk out loud while you're gently starting to acclimate to and investigate another, but he's being careful, and now that there's some kind of jumping off point, he starts looking for that. It's... unusual, and different from just accessing old memories, but the hardest part is making sure he doesn't just get everything all at once, or stumble on something personal. So he still treads carefully.]

[psychic_hotline]

Yeah. The pirate. [She tries to call it up, and it's not difficult; she didn't see those memories so much as re-experience them, and it's there like she lived it - the smell of salt and gunpowder, the creaking boards under her feet, the endless ocean. And though she doesn't see it, can't feel it - the invisible bonds tying her to the women who came before and after, travelling both ways through history.]

[wedonot]

[It's not entirely unfamiliar, thanks to that Breach - Charles still sometimes has dreams about being in the Royal Navy, and almost being drowned by a siren - and for a moment, he's caught up in the details, the almost-but-not-quite familiarity, but then he's picking up on that thread. He reaches for it carefully, wondering if they'd be able to follow it or not.]

I think I may have found something.

[psychic_hotline]

Yeah?

[She can't even tell he's speaking straight into her mind.]

I can't -

[But she does feel it, something, like he's tapping at a glass bubble in her mind, brushing against a memory she's forgotten she ever even possessed. Like she's caught sight of something that she's seen before but can't think of where, and maybe if she can just hold focus for long enough she'll remember.]

[wedonot]

[Charles pauses for a moment, studying it, trying to figure out the best way to draw it to the surface. He wants to coax it, instead of just whacking it with psychic energy and hoping it will crack open, not wanting to break something and cause more problems, but it's being a little stubborn. So, carefully, he nudges it, pushing gently and finally feeling it give.]

[psychic_hotline]

[Something cracks, and then it shatters, and she feels her mind spread open like a suburban backyard becoming a vast wild plain. There are brief flashes of feedback that she can't know Charles might see -

- a green-eyed woman in the thick snows of Stalingrad, urging her comrades to move against the German guns -

- an elegant girl in a cream dress accepts a glass of champagne. A handsome white-haired man kisses her hand, but he can't take his eyes off her bracelet -

- Ann Bonny on the deck of her lover's ship, surrounded by demons with glowing eyes -

- a lone warrior emerges from her home to defend it from an army -

- a queen offers mercy, and she uses her blade-edged gauntlet not to kill her prisoner but to cut his bonds -

- a gladiatrix slaughters yet another man on the bloody ground of the Coliseum, and the crowd screams her name. She looks to the Emperor and there's death in her eyes -

And lone woman dressed in animal skins watches a star fall from the sky.

Sara's eyes are wide and glazed but she's not focusing on anything, or maybe there's too much. The Witchblade is spreading rapidly, tearing her couch to shreds, and it starts to reach out and curve in wide flat ribbons like it's forming a shell around her. But there's an alrightness to it; a sense of her being protected.]

[wedonot]

[Charles flinches, but holds on, trying to make sure the connection wouldn't be severed and interrupt the flood of images. But then he becomes aware of what's going on in the room, and opens his eyes, a little alarmed, despite the sense that this is alright, she's safe and this is supposed (?) to be happening.]

Sara?

[psychic_hotline]

I'm okay. I'll be okay. I need -

I need to understand.

[Then the cocoon closes, and the telepathic connection isn't so much severed as it simply fades and dissolves.]