Taylor's up and dressed and making tea by the time he arrives, if still a little sleep-disheveled. And she looks calm. But the bees in the yard do not.
He definitely notices the bees. He's been around long enough to notice small things like that. "Does tea pair with cotton candy?" he wonders, setting the bag on the table along with her file.
"Just so we're all clear, I asked the Admiral for an audio copy of your file," he tells her. "So you can read it first all you want. You can fucking have this one if you want. But uh - I have my own copy."
Rags takes the tea cup and sighs. "Look, whatever you're worried about that's in there? I'm going to hear about it. And whatever the fuck it is? Isn't going to change what I think about you. You worked too fucking hard to force me to be your friend. I'm not going back on that now. So you might as well just tell me in your own words and not the Admiral's."
She sits, elbows on the table and both hands wrapped around her cup.
"It's- partially that. I've- been involved in some messed up stuff, and I talk around the edges of it a lot. But I'm also afraid it'll... answer a few questions. The kind I don't ask myself."
"Yeah, and the last thing we want to do is to answer hard questions," he says, leaning across the table slightly.
"You want to read it out loud or just sit there quietly to yourself while I stare at you?" he wonders, pushing the file towards her. But, he softens a bit, keeping his hand on it as he speaks. "This part is fucking hard, Taylor. This was the worst part with Kaz. And he was practically a fucking stranger then. I'm your friend, at least. And we've got all the fucking time in the world."
Taylor pulls the file to her, and starts flicking through the pages. It's in chronological order, so she doesn't have to get far to know - it's not here.
Whatever rubric the Admiral uses to tally up the things she's been responsible for in her life, her mother's death doesn't fall under it. She shuts it again, taking a shaking breath, and scrubs a hand across her eyes.
Taylor tilts her head, still fiddling with the corners of the file. "It's just- this breach and the small town one brought up... mom stuff. And my dad- so I was worried it would be in here.
"I was supposed to call her, at a certain time, and I didn't. So she was trying to call me, while she was driving, and she got in a wreck. It's not- like, I worried her. But I didn't force her to keep driving while she tried to get in touch. It's not reasonable that it was my fault. Still kind of was, though. But not in a 'I did it' way. I guess this agrees."
"Yeah. There's that-" She opens it again, turning the first two pages back and forth. "Happy, boring first-world childhood - one best friend, camp every summer. Nothing to complain about. Every privilege in the world."
"Yeah? And then?" he presses, because there's always a "-but" in those kinds of stories. Rags' own story was just one tragedy after another. T's is different.
"And then Mom died. And Emma - my- fuck it hurts to call her my friend, but she was, we were like you and me - She let me cry on her shoulder, was my rock... Until the summer. She stopped answering my calls. Got rude. And then we went back to school and she has this new friend, Sophia, and she told me, in front of everyone, that my dad had told her dad it was all my fault."
That isn't in the file, except in the bare details. 'Bullied by former friend, involving verbal abuse, theft and violence, escalating to an incident resulting in hospitalization and power debut.' She taps incident with her finger, biting her lip.
"It got bad. This isn't all in here, but it's important, because - it made Skitter. A year of bullying, until I was this... this small, dead thing. Didn't interact, didn't react, didn't try to make new friends. Didn't fight back. Ate my lunches in the bathroom. They found me there too.
"Then Christmas break." The hum of her bees in the yard pitches up a note, but she keeps them from coming to her. "They stuffed my locker - the cabinet the school gave me to keep my books in - with all the trash from the girls' bathroom, after class got out so I didn't know. No one knew, for the three weeks of break, and it just rotted in there. Then the morning we came back, they were waiting for me to find it. Everyone around me laughed, and then Sophia shoved me into it. Slammed the door. Locked me in.
"I still don't know how long I was in there. Felt like hours. I-" She inhales, enough to feel her chest expand, to know she has the space to do so. "I fought. I pushed out as hard as I could. Broke a bone in my wrist doing it, and at some point, the bugs- joined me. I just suddenly could feel these thousands, tens of thousand things in the dark with me. Twitching and moving and eating and wanting, every single one pouring all its senses into me. I didn't know what they were. It was like blinding noise and deafening light and every taste and smell all at once, while I was split into thousands and thousands of awful little bodies."
Rags knows bullies. He knows the concept of it because of the boys in the Clave who come at him with fists and words and everything else that they can do to get the scraps of coin and bread from him. It's why he learned to run and hide. Rags has always been little. Too small to defend himself. But he's quick. He's small. Able to find other ways to get away.
He doesn't understand some of what she's talking about. Some of it reminds him of the breach, but it's like a dream that slips through his fingers. Trying to collect mist in his hands. He doesn't have a clear picture of what she's saying.
But he can feel that anger. The despair. The isolation.
"That's fucking terrible," he says, but it sounds like an understatement. In reality, it's just an opportunity for her to keep going.
She meets his eyes a moment, nodding. Hers are dry, a little distant. "When I finally got out, I was feral. It's good I didn't know how to use the bugs yet, because I attacked everyone in reach. They took me to a hospital, and I spent a few days too drugged to know my name. Then I had some time to figure it all out. I lucked out, and never outed myself.
"Emma and Sophia never got in trouble. Thirty people at least saw them do it, and no one was willing to speak up for me."
Rags has never really had a good sense of justice, but that hits him hard. No one willing to stick up for her. No one on her side. She was alone and there wasn't anything to be done about it.
"Where are they now? Or, when you came here? What had happened to them?"
"Emma and her family left the city after Leviathan, but Sophia will be in here." She doesn't flip ahead to look though, mouth thinning. "I'm not the sort of person who takes revenge. But- But she got in our way, and I let... My team wouldn't have treated her the way we did if it wasn't revenge, in part."
She might not take revenge, but, boy, can the girl hold a grudge. Some things are worth holding onto, though. And Rags doesn't hold her anger against her.
She doesn't want to tell him. Not when he knows how deeply she hated Jacobi for what he did. Not when he'll see how much a hypocrite she is.
She exhales, leaning back from the table. "I wouldn't do it now, or allow it to happen. Maybe that's growth. I don't know. Maybe it's just being away from- from my team."
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"Just so we're all clear, I asked the Admiral for an audio copy of your file," he tells her. "So you can read it first all you want. You can fucking have this one if you want. But uh - I have my own copy."
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"It's- partially that. I've- been involved in some messed up stuff, and I talk around the edges of it a lot. But I'm also afraid it'll... answer a few questions. The kind I don't ask myself."
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"You want to read it out loud or just sit there quietly to yourself while I stare at you?" he wonders, pushing the file towards her. But, he softens a bit, keeping his hand on it as he speaks. "This part is fucking hard, Taylor. This was the worst part with Kaz. And he was practically a fucking stranger then. I'm your friend, at least. And we've got all the fucking time in the world."
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"I'll- skim it first. I just have to see if something is in here."
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Huh, she's right.
It does go with everything.
He'll let her look for whatever she wants.
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Whatever rubric the Admiral uses to tally up the things she's been responsible for in her life, her mother's death doesn't fall under it. She shuts it again, taking a shaking breath, and scrubs a hand across her eyes.
"Okay."
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"I was supposed to call her, at a certain time, and I didn't. So she was trying to call me, while she was driving, and she got in a wreck. It's not- like, I worried her. But I didn't force her to keep driving while she tried to get in touch. It's not reasonable that it was my fault. Still kind of was, though. But not in a 'I did it' way. I guess this agrees."
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"Yeah, that wasn't your fucking fault. You can't control other people's actions and shit. Just like -"
He swallows hard. "Just like Dane."
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"So this isn't going to list stuff that just... isn't my fault."
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That isn't in the file, except in the bare details. 'Bullied by former friend, involving verbal abuse, theft and violence, escalating to an incident resulting in hospitalization and power debut.' She taps incident with her finger, biting her lip.
"It got bad. This isn't all in here, but it's important, because - it made Skitter. A year of bullying, until I was this... this small, dead thing. Didn't interact, didn't react, didn't try to make new friends. Didn't fight back. Ate my lunches in the bathroom. They found me there too.
"Then Christmas break." The hum of her bees in the yard pitches up a note, but she keeps them from coming to her. "They stuffed my locker - the cabinet the school gave me to keep my books in - with all the trash from the girls' bathroom, after class got out so I didn't know. No one knew, for the three weeks of break, and it just rotted in there. Then the morning we came back, they were waiting for me to find it. Everyone around me laughed, and then Sophia shoved me into it. Slammed the door. Locked me in.
"I still don't know how long I was in there. Felt like hours. I-" She inhales, enough to feel her chest expand, to know she has the space to do so. "I fought. I pushed out as hard as I could. Broke a bone in my wrist doing it, and at some point, the bugs- joined me. I just suddenly could feel these thousands, tens of thousand things in the dark with me. Twitching and moving and eating and wanting, every single one pouring all its senses into me. I didn't know what they were. It was like blinding noise and deafening light and every taste and smell all at once, while I was split into thousands and thousands of awful little bodies."
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He doesn't understand some of what she's talking about. Some of it reminds him of the breach, but it's like a dream that slips through his fingers. Trying to collect mist in his hands. He doesn't have a clear picture of what she's saying.
But he can feel that anger. The despair. The isolation.
"That's fucking terrible," he says, but it sounds like an understatement. In reality, it's just an opportunity for her to keep going.
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"Emma and Sophia never got in trouble. Thirty people at least saw them do it, and no one was willing to speak up for me."
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"Where are they now? Or, when you came here? What had happened to them?"
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She might not take revenge, but, boy, can the girl hold a grudge. Some things are worth holding onto, though. And Rags doesn't hold her anger against her.
"What did you do to her?"
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She exhales, leaning back from the table. "I wouldn't do it now, or allow it to happen. Maybe that's growth. I don't know. Maybe it's just being away from- from my team."
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cw: suicide mention
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