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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

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[ukan]

Anytime Pagan refers to him as a mutt now gets a smile, even when Lark isn't aware he's smiling. Still, that's not the worst memory Pagan has. "She was asking too many questions?"

[crab_rangoon]

"Like I said, she wasn't pleased I was leading the Golden Path monkey down to get interrogated," he tells him. "And then she started asking questions about it. Telling me it wasn't right. Blah blah blah."

He rolls his eyes. "It was bullshit. But...at the same time...I knew it wasn't."

[ukan]

He's not surprised Anita protested. He has no idea why she's an inmate, but he's pretty damn sure it's not because she's morally deficient.

"Why wasn't it right?" he murmurs, because it's the first time Pagan has ever expressed something like this.

[crab_rangoon]

He throws his hands up in the air slightly. "Fuck," he mutters. "Just tell me the answer, Lark. Tell me why I can't just sit around and be angry all the time."

[ukan]

"Because it will give you wrinkles," he quips.

But Pagan also gets a real answer. "And because anger holds you to the past. If you ever plan to be anything more than what you are right now, you can't be angry all the time. Which isn't the same as forgiving. It's not the same as never being angry."

[crab_rangoon]

"It seems so simple as all that, doesn't it? But as much as I fucking hated that flood, I'd do it a thousand times over if I could just - have that back." And he only got that one memory of Ishwari that wasn't fucked.

[ukan]

If Alec had never returned here, if Alec had died like he's nearly done so many times, Lark knows he'd be saying exactly the same thing.

"We're going to save them," he says. "And if you ever do change your mind about being with them, I'll redraw the terms of the deal." A hesitation. "It matters to me that you come out of this place happier than you came in, Pagan."

[crab_rangoon]

"Happier? Lark, I'm not happier."

He puts his hands over his face. "Just fucked."

[ukan]

"Do you feel any different today--in any capacity--than the day you came here?" It's not a leading question, not rhetorical. Just curious.

[crab_rangoon]

"Yes," he admits. "Of course I do." Not much. But he does. Or at least he thought he did.

[ukan]

"Then I don't think you're as fucked as you feel right now." He doesn't point out that memories will spin anyone around, or that he'd worry if Pagan wasn't badly affected by it.

[crab_rangoon]

"Oh good, Lark. Thank you for that. Fantastic talk. You can go now," he tells him, sulking more than anything.

[ukan]

"I can," but Lark isn't. "Anita likes you, doesn't she?" He doesn't mean romantically. He's just hoping Pagan's circle of friends is expanding, and continues to include decent people who won't use him.

"It's hard to find someone who will risk themselves to pull someone off a cliff."

[crab_rangoon]

"I would not presume to know what goes on in Anita's mind. I would hope she does. Why?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "Lark, where are you going with this."

[ukan]

He purses his lips, thinking, then: "I'm saying Anita is probably not someone you need to be afraid to talk to. If not about your past, then about where you are now."

[crab_rangoon]

"And have someone else fucking hate me?" he mutters. "No thank you, Lark. I have enough people I've ruined by being - me. I'd rather not make it another."

[ukan]

Okay, yes. Anita wouldn't take some of Pagan's choices as easily as Lark has.

"Did that memory, that dream, change how you see her? Her objection to Paul, her willingness to grab you?"

[crab_rangoon]

"No," is the quick answer. "I wasn't surprised by it. Most people object to the way I do things. Most people object to, well, me."

Which is another affirmation of his own nonsense.

[ukan]

"People who dabble in grey morality like you fine," Lark says dryly. "And I don't think Anita would object to every part of you. She doesn't with me."

[crab_rangoon]

"Again, I have to ask, where are we going with this, Lark? Are you trying to get me to make new friends? Anita and I have been friends for a while," he says gently.

[ukan]

"You have. I'm just trying to understand what it means that you would rather jump off a cliff to wake yourself up than tell that friend something. I know what it would mean if I did it, and I'm not saying I wouldn't do it--there are plenty of people I don't want nosing around my past. But you aren't me and I don't want to put my motives in your mouth."

[crab_rangoon]

He tenses slightly. "Because I wanted it to be over with," he tells him. "Because I wanted it to end. What is so difficult to understand about that?"

And certainly not because she had been making good points. Certainly not because she had a point. Not because he was starting to feel like rethinking it.

[ukan]

Lark just watches him evenly, knowing that for the defensive answer it is. that's not all there is to it, and he's content to wait to see what Pagan says next.

[crab_rangoon]

Pagan stares him down for a long, long moment. "Lark..." he says softly, almost warningly.

[ukan]

"You asked me here," he says, just as soft. "Don't back out now."