Where It All Goes Right And Wrong, All At Once

[duel_wielding]

So much happened. None of what he work up to made sense. For one thing, everything hurt. For another, he wasn't getting any status reports as to what had happened. HE remembered white. He remembered pain. He remembered... Not very much.

What he knew now was that he was lying on his back in the shade. That his whole body hurt so much. That his head kept spinning but eventually his head would stop doing that, right? If he just waited here, if he just rested, something would happen. South would be there, mocking him for lying down on the job.

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[recoveryagentone]

Washington had been close enough when North's recovery beacon had gone off that he'd actually managed to get to the scene before the Meta could finish North off.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been there in time to save South which was how he found the Dakota twins. The Meta had been about to put a round into North with his Brute Shot when Wash started to fire at him. After a moment's hesitation, it looked like the monster was going to engage him back but instead he activated his active camo and bled from view.

The reason he retreated without a fight became readily when Wash approached. There was blood leaking from the man's helmet and when Wash pulled it off, he could see the brutalized hole where Theta's memory chip should have been. "Damn it."

He grimly started to access the sniper's wounds and began to treat them as best he could on scene.

[duel_wielding]

It hurts. It hurts so bad, and everything feels fuzzy. Fuzzy around the edges where Theta makes it sharp. There's only so much he can do with that knowledge. Theta must be sleeping. Something must be...

He opens his eyes, doesn't know when they were closed. And what he sees above him isn't even possible.

"Hey," North coos out. "Theta, I'm seeing things."

[recoveryagentone]

If he was being honest with himself, Washington wasn't ready to be faced with North just yet. He'd had to respond to a few recovery beacons so far and seen the Meta's gruesome handiwork first hand but it had never been someone he'd been truly close to in the Project.

But this was different. North had been his friend, one of his best friends or so he'd thought.

That hadn't stopped him from leaving him in the end. Wash grimaced inside his helmet when the obviously delirious ex-Freelancer started to talking to his missing AI and just continued to treat the man's injuries. It didn't look like they were life-threatening which was good but he wasn't sure North would appreciate that fact once he became lucid once again. Especially not with South's dead body spilled in the dirt just a few feet away.

[duel_wielding]

"Theta," North repeated, frowning as he reached out. Reached up because if Theta was asleep he had to dispel the illusion himself. So he reached up toward Washington, knowing he couldn't be real.

"Miss him, Theta. We failed."

[recoveryagentone]

If Washington flinched just a little at those words, he could only pray North didn't notice in his state. He was so busy injecting some biofoam into North he didn't even notice the man reaching out to him.

Nope, he definitely wasn't an illusion.

"Just save your strength." Wash said gruffly as he tugged his arm back from North's touch.

[duel_wielding]

His fingers didn't pass through it. Didn't pass...

"Washington?" North asks, his voice broken from the pain, but there is still obvious shock. "You made it out. I've been worried about you. We all have."

No, South wasn't. She didn't care. She blamed Wash. Which was stupid, North was the one who helped with the first break in. Even getting to to remotely agree to the second was almost impossible. But here he is anyway, Washington. Bless whatever powers were out there.

"Where's my helmet? I don't remember..."

[recoveryagentone]

Sure he was so worried about him he left him to rot in Project Freelancer at the dubious mercy of the the Counselor and the Director. When Epsilon had gone nuclear in his brain and nearly taken his sanity with him.

"You've been attacked. I need you to stop moving around until I can stabilize your wounds." Wash shifted so he interrupted North's line of sight so the man couldn't accidentally look over and see his twin's body. "The Meta took Theta." No sugarcoating that pill apparently.

[duel_wielding]

Attacked? Maybe that explains the pain in his head. But the other stuff, Meta? Took Theta? That isn't... That isn't possible. Right? It couldn't be possible. Theta was...

"Theta," he croaks out, fingers reaching back to try and reach for his AI port. He can't be right. Theta has to be there.

[recoveryagentone]

He should have counted on North freaking out and immediately trying to claw at that bloody hole in his head. Wash caught his wrist and tugged his arm back carefully.

"Stop that. The last thing you need right now is an infection." Wash was trying to be a hardass, to try and maintain professionalism but the pain in North's voice cut right to his heart. He grimly tried to push all those emotions down and administered pain medicine in hopes it would knock North out for a few minutes so he could deal with South's body before the man started to question why his sister wasn't there with him.

[duel_wielding]

Pain medication with a sedative, yeah, it works. With the rushing of his heartbeats the medication takes effect faster, leaving North to go slowly limp before Wash, a lot of betrayal in his eyes. Theta was gone and Wash was hurting him. Where was...

"South," he mumbles, reaching. Where was she. Theta was gone, maybe... maybe Theta was with her.

The thought is the last bit of comfort he got before his hand fell to his side. Wash would get a few minutes of peace.

[recoveryagentone]

Maybe it was a coward's way out to drug North into oblivion so he can buy himself some time and space to think and deal with shit but it wasn't like there was an operations manual for this sort of work. Command had picked him because he'd been so damaged by Epsilon's insanity that they knew he'd never want another AI in his head again. They hadn't prepared him to be faced with North laying there bleeding in the dirt and South being murdered by the Meta.

Sure, he'd never been the biggest fan of her because she'd always been a bitch to just about everyone in the Project but she'd been North's sister so they'd all sort of tolerated her bullshit. But that didn't mean he wanted to see her dead.

Of course, SOP demanded that he destroy South and her armor but he didn't think North would appreciate him blowing her up with a shit ton of ordinance which was his usual method of body disposal. For now though, he opted to drag her body over the outcroppings of rocks and stripped the corpse. Maybe North would want to bury her. All he had to technically do was make sure her armor didn't fall into the wrong hands. It would have to do as a compromise. Once he'd removed the pieces of South's armor, he arranged her body in as peaceful a pose as he could manage and made sure to close her eyes so North didn't have to be greeted with the unsettling sight of that.

After that, he returned to North and finished treating his injuries as best he could before settling in to wait for him to wake up.

[duel_wielding]

It's well over two hours before North wakes again, the sedatives doing what his mind didn't: granting him some semblance of peace. By the time he wakes it's with a splitting headache, a pain in the back of his neck and...

Silence.

"South?" he asks as he comes awake. It's always her waking him, because she complains about him not doing his shift on watch, or staying in bed too long. Or it's Theta, and...

Something in his head keeps him from reaching for that right now. Keeps him from asking.

[recoveryagentone]

Wash had made good use of that time setting up camp. He'd stripped the man of his bulky armor plating, leaving him clad in his kevlar undersuit for now. Both North and South's armor were now stacked together ready to be disposed off.

He'd spent the hours debating his options and a course of action. He knew what his duty was, it was to turn North into the Project and leave him to their tender mercies. But this was North and no matter how angry he might be with the man, he couldn't reconcile that with his conscience so easily. Of course, he still had no fucking clue what he was going to do.

But he figured North would want some say in his future no matter how bleak it may be. "How are you feeling, North?" Washington was still wearing his helmet, a habit from his earliest days in PFL but right now, it was because he didn't think he could trust his facial expression to remain neutral or blank enough to handle what was to come. "Don't try and move too much or you might reopen your wounds."

[duel_wielding]

"Wounds?" North asks, because he's really only got questions right now. Like how Washington is here. Why Theta isn't here. Where's his sister? It's all so much...

It's so much pain, and he's a bit broken. Tries to will himself to understand what is going on. Except it isn't happening. It's all just... trying to grab at clouds.

"Where is my sister? Where is Theta?"

[recoveryagentone]

"You and South were attacked by the Meta. He's tracking down and murdering ex-Freelancer agents for their tech and their AI if he can get his hands on it." Washington explained with a scary lack of emotion in his voice. Where was the bumbling Rookie North and York had teased mercilessly?

"I've been tracking him for weeks but you're the first victim I'm managed to keep him from killing. He took Theta with him." That inscrutable shiny visor completely hid Wash's face from view. "South didn't make it."

It as better to do it quickly, right? Like pulling a band-aid off rather than trying to draw it out. "I'm sorry."

[duel_wielding]

None of it makes sense and North definitely looks a bit shocked. Then confused. And hurt. Because Washington is... he doesn't sound like him. And none of it makes sense.

"Didn't make it where?" he asks, because he's already lost a salient detail here. Perhaps a few.

[recoveryagentone]

God damn it, North, don't do this to him. There was an audible sigh as the younger freelancer steeled himself.

"She's dead, North. The Meta killed her." He was doing his best to maintain his composure but Washington wasn't a needlessly cruel man. He didn't want to be the one to break this to him but he didn't have a whole lot of choice, now did he.

"You're lucky to be alive yourself. The Meta is a monster."

[duel_wielding]

No. No. No.

No that isn't possible.

And yet it fits with some of what's in his head. Bits and pieces. Flashes of white. Alarms in his armor. Armor he's not in. Theta shouting in concern. South being...

"No," he gets out, sounding like he's being strangled just to hear it. "No, she's not. She can't be... Wash, I know I failed you, but you can't lie like that. Please, where is my sister?"

[recoveryagentone]

Wash actually flinched at those words because the accusation that he would lie about something like this hurt. It also made him more than a little bit angry.

"I don't care what kind of asshole you think I may be but I'd never lie about something like that, North." The younger man had to remind himself that North was in shock, in denial of everything that had gone wrong. One heavily armored gauntlet reached out to touch the other man on his shoulder. "It's the truth, I'm sorry."

[duel_wielding]

It's denial. It's the fact that he can't handle the idea that his sister would be bed. It's... it's grief. It isn't personal against Wash. It's just unbelievable grief.

He's sitting up, jerking forward. Or at least he tries to. He barely gets up maybe half-way before the pain in the back of his neck, the pain everywhere forces him back down. North can't even begin to hold back the cry of mixed agony and sorrow.

If he's hurt this bad, South would be there. South should be there.

"No," he repeats, a half-sob tearing from him. "I'm supposed to protect her."

[recoveryagentone]

He understood that pain, he really did and no matter how upset or resentful he might feel towards the blond man, his heart still ached for his loss. Unfortunately, Washington had been so damaged by his own traumas that he didn't know how to even begin to know how to comfort him.

Even before Epsilon, Wash had never been very good with emotions and was a bit of a fuck-up. Now, with North sitting there with his world crumbling around him, he fretted for a moment before finally doing the only thing he could think of. He wrapped his arms around the wounded man and hugged him. Of course, considering he was still in full armor, it wasn't a very comfortable hug but it was the thought that counted right?

"I'm sorry, North. I wish I could have saved her too but I didn't get here in time."

[duel_wielding]

Perhaps it wasn't a comfortable hug because of the armor, but it was the thought that counted. And the offered comfort. Because... because it's so impossible. South can't be dead. He wasn't supposed to fail her like that. He swore, when he took her away from PFL, that he'd have her back.

And now what did he have?

"Who did this to her?" he growls as he wraps his arms around Wash. Yes, the younger Freelancer has told him before, but holding the salient details isn't exactly easy right now, his brain so freshly damaged by the forcible removal of his AI.

[recoveryagentone]

He was careful to keep his grip light because the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally reopen North's wounds in trying to give the man some manner of comfort.

Apparently it was the right move though because North moved to wrap his arms around him. Hearing that growl, the anger in the other man's voice had a shiver of unease crawl up Washington's spine. "The Meta." Not that North would know who that was. "He's been hunting down Freelancers and killing them for their upgrades and their AI if he can get his hands on them."

[duel_wielding]

The Meta. North would have his revenge. Once he... once he could think straight. Ow, he hurt so much.

"The Meta... is that where Theta went?"

[recoveryagentone]

North was in no state to exact any sort of revenge unfortunately. That would have to come later.

"Most likely, when I got here, he was about to put a bullet in you. When I got to you, Theta was missing as was your bubble shield generator. I'm sure you want to race out there right now and track the Meta down to get some kind of revenge but we need to get you to a doctor. I need to destroy your armor as well as South's so that they can't track you any more."

Wash looked away suddenly. "I'm supposed to recover you and take you in, that's my job these days. But I can't do that, not when I know you'll probably just end up behind bars. So as far as Freelancer Command is concerned, you and your sister both need to die."