xp_logs | Clarice and Cecilia

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Clarice and Cecilia meet in the medlab during the wee hours and try to cope with everything that just happened but that they aren't supposed to talk about. (Spoiler: They talk about it.)

2am meant most of the mansion was quiet and after the horrors and losses and rebuilding, sleep was needed. Too bad it wasn't coming. Clarice sat at the medlab computer slowly filling in each box on the screen, double and triple checking her spelling that she didn't make a mistake. Not on this. She did it in silence, no music playing in the background as was how she preferred to work. Not for this.

A cup of spiked cocoa in one hand and a folder in the other, Cecilia slinked into the medlab. Despite her best efforts, tonight she wasn't going to get much sleep. Her eyelids shut, and behind them, she could see Billy going up in flames. For whatever reason, the image had stuck with her all night, and so she'd left a sleeping Pizza Dog to check up on some things. At this hour, she hadn't expected company.

The older woman stood at the door for a second, seeing the back of Clarice's head backlit by the glow of a monitor. She bit her lip and hesitated for a second before rupturing the silence. "Hey," she finally said, making a move past Clarice to a nearby desk.

"Hey," Clarice replied dully, clicking print and sending another sheet through the printer to lay on top of the others already there. She turned in her chair, "You should sleep," she advised needlessly. Cecilia was now in charge of the medlabs.

"Look who's talking," Cecilia responded just as needlessly. She flipped on a desk lamp she'd placed here for ambiance. "Nah, I had some things that were nagging me that I wanted to check on." She placed her mug on one corner of the desk and the folder on the other. "Couldn't get them out of my head. Why are you still up?"

"Death certificates," Clarice replied, "I know the world is sewn together and gods only know what chaos might happen if it rips again, but....they died and I can't ignore that," her eyes were red-rimmed against the purple, concealer didn't quite work with her skin tone very well, "So...I'm making death certificates and signing them. They didn't get funerals, we can't file them with the state or tell their families or or....honor them properly. So I'm making sure they're not forgotten," she reached over to hand Cecilia the most recent one she printed for Matthew Michael Murdock. Under 'next of kin' she'd listed 'Wade Wilson.' "I didn't know who else to put for him."

Cecilia took it from her hand, this inscribed threat to the world's stability, and studied it. "Oh, Clarice," she murmured, her voice tinged with a mix of sympathy, admonishment and pity. She was on the verge of chastising her, of yelling and shouting and ripping these to shreds. As if they needed more concrete reminders of what they'd already lost. But then her eyes lit on Matt's name. And so she stood, quietly, staring at the certificate, unsure what to say. Her emotions welled up suddenly, all at a once, and a tear started to form in her eye. She blinked it away.

"I don't — this will break Wade's heart," she handed the certificate back to her. "Just... just put me."

"I won't let him see it," she had no intention of letting anyone see them, but she had to do something and this...this she could do, "by law, I can sign them as a PA. And I declared TOD, so...." Clarice just shrugged, putting it back in the stack. "I've been an X-Man a long time, but I've never seen slaughter like that. I thought I was so badass in the ER in training having seen combat and my classmates had no idea. But this...can't get it out of my head."

"This wasn't combat," Cecilia shook her head, reaching behind her for her mug. "I've seen a lot of shit. Car accidents and fires and gang gunfights. God, Honduras was..." She just shook her head. "But this was just... something else." Her fingers found the mug's handle, and she picked it up, then wrapped her hands around it for its warmth. "I think... I don't know. This was like being in a war."

That confirmed what Clarice had already been thinking. "Yeah. That's...yeah. You think you did the right thing? Being an X-Man? We killed, Cecilia. We were killed. I was so close to losing control, to losing it all. Right there on the edge and I just...was totally willing to go there," a nose-boop from Arthur stopped her.

Cecilia was about to object that she hadn't killed, but she knew it wasn't really relevant to the point Clarice had made. "I think," she started carefully, "we were all exposed to very dark shit." She tapped her fingers on the porcelain cup as she considered what to say next. "And that we did the best we could."

"You know how they talk about how war can make you do things you normally would never do?" Clarice paused to get up and go get tea from a pot keeping warm on a bunsen burner, "I get it now. Completely. Even doing your best....it brings out the worst in people. And I don't regret anything I did either. I really don't. And that should scare me, but it doesn't."

"I'm scared," Cecilia admitted. "I'm — this other me, this one from another time or another world or whatever. Her power was..." She shook her head, unable to keep from picturing the other woman standing above her, applying pressure in just the right spots. "The thought that I have that somewhere in me? What if I snap and become... that?"

"We all have that inside us though," Clarice pointed out, "We make choices and deal with the consequences. But you're not her. Her choices aren't yours and what shaped her and you are different. And if you snap, I'll kill you," she meant it too, "And if I do...same thing. We're healers," mostly, "'First do no harm.'"

"Yeah, I know." Cecilia shrugged, then sipped her cocoa. "Just to know that I can do any of that? Turn my shield into spikes. Torture my own nervous system. It's so... troubling." She looked back toward the folder on her desk, which contained a nerve conduction study she'd forced Amelia to order for her. Then, suddenly, her head whipped back around. "God, listen to me. How self-centered am I, sitting here, bitching about my powers? I mean, it doesn't compare to half the shit that happened – Murdock fucking died. And Barton, and... Billy Kaplan sacrificed himself to save Sefton and I, who might be two of the least-deserving people."

"And Yvette and Namor, Wanda, Sue and...the list goes on," Clarice tapped a page in her notebook with all the names written down, "And none of them deserved it, they were all too young," much, much too young. "And it could have just as easily been us if things were different. We all have powers, but none of us are invincible," she wiped at her eyes with the back pf her hand, "I just don't want it to be in vain."

"Meaning what?" Cecilia was legitimately asking. The same thought had occurred to her, but beyond its triteness and its obviousness, she had no idea just what it meant. "The world as we knew it is no longer. The enemy's gone. So, what's next?"

"We....go on. We soldier on," Clarice didn't know what else to do, "We make do and we continue on. And we figure out this new world," and how the hell she was going to get by being purple in this world with mutant registration!?

"This new world," Cecilia echoed. That wasn't particularly encouraging, but she hadn't really expected it to be. "Yeah. Great."

"Yeah," Cecilia wanted encouragement at 2am? Not likely. That was when inner demons came out. "I keep telling myself that nothing worth it is easy. And no one said it would be, but no one thought we'd come this far," she sighed, "Here, proof these, make sure I got everything right so I can sign them" she handed the older doctor all of the death certificates.

"Clarice..." Cecilia took the stack, looking down at the papers in her hand. She didn't want to do this. She had no idea how half these people died, and she certainly didn't want to relive the ones whose ends she'd witnessed. "I don't mean to be... you know, whatever, but where are you gonna keep these? How are you going to make sure they don't..."

"I have places," Clarice replied without hesitation, "I've had them for years now. Hidden storage lockers, inaccessible vaults....or well, boxes anyways. I can get in them with my powers, but between the location and the construction, it's not like you can hack the combination or anything. I started them for fun, but...now I store my most important things there." Where did people think she kept her off-season clothes?

Cecilia stared at her, a little stupefied. "I don't —" She started to flip through the certificates, each name feeling like a punch to the gut. "Clarice, I understand what you're trying to do, I really do." And she also understood that everyone grieved differently, and she didn't want to belittle that. "I think it's really nice, and really sweet, but... Xorn..."

"I'm not going to bother Xorn and his reality knitting," Clarice promised, "No one is going to know but me. And you. And that's okay if we know. But no one else, I swear."

Cecilia sighed, figuring it'd be the best way to complain the range of feelings she wanted to vocalize to Clarice. She figured they'd worked side-by-side enough, that the other woman would get it. "Okay," she nodded, continuing to flip through death certificates. Yvette's name came up. Then, Sue's. And then Clint's. She stopped at that one, reading it a little longer than the others, before returning to Murdock's at the top of the stack. Tears welled up in her eyes, and her lip quivered slightly. "These look okay." She passed them back to Clarice, looking intently at her feet.

Nodding, Clarice took them back. "It wasn't for nothing. It can't be for nothing, forgotten and passed by," she stated firmly, voice breaking as she set them back on the desk and then half lunged at Cecilia sniffling. "And I can't sit by and just....pretend like it didn't happen, you know?"

"I know." Cecilia wrapped her arms around Clarice, tears now falling down her cheeks. "I know."