downside

[arenaria]

Voice lets her go.

Shell doesn't know how long it's been. She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know how to get home, or if she has one.

She stands on Voice's doorstep. She blinks slowly at the brightness.

She walks in a random direction.

Downsiders aren't big on charity. It's not like it's going to kill her if she doesn't get help. It's not like she's unfamiliar with the effects of dehydration and hunger; Voice didn't always remember to take good care of the pet in the basement. Shell walks, and when she's tired she lies down on the ground and sleeps, and when she wakes up she walks, and every few days she curls up on the ground, waits to torch from thirst, and then gets up and goes on.

She doesn't count the number of times this happens. It doesn't matter.

She walks. She has nightmares. She walks.

On an unremarkable day on an unremarkable street after unremarkable stretches of years, she feels herself cross a telltale threshold of dizziness and headache: she cannot make significant forward progress towards Not Where She Is Currently Located until she torches or (less likely) someone gives her a lot of water. It's possible she'll be able to sleep through this torch. She sits. She leans on a wall. She should probably pick up the next sharp object she finds. Maybe a piece of broken glass will present itself. Then she can skip these parts.

She sits, and she closes her eyes, and she waits. If the buildings around her would ever have seemed familiar, they don't now.

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

Okay. Bell knows how to deal with paralyzed Sherlock. She reaches out and squeezes her shoulder and spins up to top speed and reads.

"Oh, shit," she murmurs. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit."

And she drops her hand and she takes five long steps in Shell's direction and she cups Shell's face in her hands. "Hi, Shell," she says softly. "Do you want to remember?"

[arenaria]

Shell looks up at Bell, and then over at Sherlock, and says -

"I said this morning, if nice things happened to me, that would be a nice thing I'd want, a really good memory - but - but I think I upset Sherlock, and she's very important -"

[she_sells_seashells]

"She is," Bell replies quietly. "She's very important and she loves you more than you can imagine and she wants only nice things to happen to you, ever again, forever - here -"

She spends a hex.

[arenaria]

Shell flinches as though she's been electrocuted, and her eyes fly wide open and then squeeze shut.

[sicaria]

Sherlock slowly drops her arm from where it was pointing at Shell.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Do you need a minute?" Bell murmurs to her counterpart. "I think you've got more memories to process than I did."

[arenaria]

"Just a minute," breathes Shell.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell takes that minute to go over to Sherlock and steer her in Shell's direction. [You don't have to react any special way. It's you she wants, not somebody following some script. But be there,] she says to Sherlock.

[sicaria]

She sits at the table that Shell is sitting on.

[arenaria]

Shell flings her arms around Sherlock and clings tight.

"I forgot you," she says, weeping. "I forgot you. How could I do that? I tried - I really tried - I kept you longest of anything - but I forgot you, I didn't even recognize your name when Strat said it -"

[sicaria]

Sherlock hugs her back, shivering very slightly.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell peers into Sherlock's head.

She finds the mental equivalent of wordless screaming.

[It's okay. It'll be okay. We'll figure out what to do with her, she'll be fine, it'll be okay, she doesn't blame you - I didn't think to look for anything like this either, it's not your fault.]

[arenaria]

"I love you," Shell sobs into Sherlock's shoulder. "I love you, I love you, do you still love me, please still love me - I'm so sorry I forgot you -"

[sicaria]

"I love you," she murmurs, almost soundlessly, almost tonelessly.

(it is her fault it can't not be her fault it will always be her fault she is wrong she is of no more than practical value and whatever practical value she has was insufficient to stop this from happening)

[arenaria]

This reply is enough to stop Shell from crying, if not instantaneously.

She does not uncling. She clingsclingsclingsclings.

"I used to wish you were there, it was terrible and I did it anyway, if you were there it would've meant you were dead, I'm sorry, I love you I love you."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell moves to sit at the table Shell and Sherlock are both sitting on. [It is not your fault. I didn't think of this either, I was in just as good a position to do so as you were, I could have scanned the memory of the wish for loopholes and I didn't, I could have wondered about the details of how resurrection works and I didn't, you and I did the same thing, we looked at me being alive and never hypothesized that somewhere Shell was being dead, is it my fault?]

[sicaria]

"I wish I was there too," Sherlock whispers.

[arenaria]

"No, no, you're alive, it's good that you're alive, I'm glad you're alive, and I found you, I found you, you're here, I love you," says Shell, crying again. "I figured out what happened right away before everything - my guide took one look at my apartment and thought you'd be a suicide but I knew better - I knew you'd bring me back and that was why it was little and I knew you'd be okay and Tony would be okay and Atlantis would be okay and that was all good but I'm just so selfish -"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Everyone at home is fine," Bell confirms softly. "Ranae and Shark never even found out. Tony did but only after I was alive. Coin and her helpers are all on the moon. Everything's just how you would've made it. I'm so sorry for never imagining you."

[arenaria]

"I -" Shell hiccups between sobs - "I never would've imagined me either. There's no way but through here to do anything to communicate with livelings - before I forgot everything I was going to see if there was a - a biography of you or something in the library - but I never did - and now I'm here and - and now what?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"...I don't know," admits Bell.

[sicaria]

Why can she not be hugging them both at the same time without ceasing to hug one in between? Maybe there should be two of her too.

[she_sells_seashells]

[I doubt that would help. You'd probably both still want to hug both of us,] Bell points out.

[arenaria]

"I should've never - ever - happened," says Shell, "it should just be you - how long has it been - what did I miss -?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Not much," Bell soothes. "Less than a year. Not much at all."