recinerate | ic

"There was a port," he says, "a carnival resort, and the wardens were all forced into sideshow performances on their inmates' behalf, to satisfy a debt. Those performances were nearly impossible to survive, but either successful completion of the series of performances or death of the performer was what was necessary to pay off the debt. Or there was a third option - offering a trade of a memory to the Ringmaster running the place. Inmates also had the option of trading places with their wardens in the performances, and that's what Shiro did." A slight frown creases his expression as he remembers everything that happened in that port, all the upsets his own actions had caused. "She was killed, and she fell into a coma for a while. When she awoke, it was as Aceman."

A trauma like a violent, bloody death would seem like a logical cause for jarring an alternate personality to wake even for anyone who didn't know what Beyond knows of Shiro's history, what he's been able to glean from her memories - that Aceman developed as a direct result of the tortures Shiro had endured.

It makes her shiver, the thought that someone could be so fundamentally different than you expected-- without the other person even knowing that it was happening.

"But you're still close now," she posits, tilting her head, biting down on the inside of her lip in thought.

"We are," he says, nodding. "I'm not upset with her over what happened. Sometimes ... you end up hurting the people you care for, despite your best intentions." He understands this now, even better after time away from the incident. He's made his fair share of mistakes and hurt those he was close with, too. It's part of the tradeoff for deciding to embrace emotion, he's learned.

"I think that was the only time we've seen that side of her since she's been on board."

Her eyes flash with something that might be pain-- it would have been clearer last week, during the flood, but now he can only guess at what it really means when she looks back outside, at the window.

"Thank you for telling me," she says, lightly. "It's good to be prepared."

"Of course." Beyond's attention shifts to the cat, now re-emerged from underneath the bed. He drops his hand and wiggles his fingers to call her over, and she complies, rubbing her face along the side of his hand. "I don't wish to alarm you, and I'm sure you already know what a dangerous place this is. But information is necessary in order to be prepared."

He glances up at Elizabeth again, silently studying her for a moment. It was right to be completely honest with her; he's certain of that.

"Did you have any particular thoughts about the month ahead of us?"

She looks back to him, flicking her eyes from the cat to Beyond's hand to his eyes.

"Yes," she says and then bluntly follows it with: "I need a weapon. I have no way of defending myself right now, and I need something."

It's not an entirely unreasonable request, especially given what he's just told her of Shiro and Aceman. Beyond hasn't forgotten what it feels like to be held captive as an inmate against his will in such dangerous surroundings. He hadn't wanted a weapon for himself, but Mello did. Beyond can understand how a weapon can feel like a small measure of control amidst the world of chaos the Barge frequently can be.

"What did you have in mind?"

"A firearm, if you can get it," she says, sounding like they're brokering a business deal. "But anything lethal enough, if that doesn't work. We're going to be somewhere dangerous, from the sound of it, and I deserve a way to defend myself."

"I don't disagree," he says. Her reasoning is sound, even if some might say that weapons might be useless in a place called the Land of the Dead. "Have you trained in how to use firearms before?"

She won't know they're useless until they get there, though- she wants to have every opportunity to defend herself until it's proven to her that she doesn't need it.

"I have," she says, firmly enough that it'll be obvious she won't explain more than that.

"All right." He's curious, of course, as to the circumstances of how she knows how to use a gun, but he won't press the question. "I'll see what I can do. As long as it's strictly for the purposes of self-defense, of course."

He trusts that Elizabeth is smart enough to recognize that the consequences of launching an attack, even a (temporarily) fatal one, would far outweigh any benefit that might be gained by an act of aggression using a weapon. The cat slips away toward the bed and hops up beside Elizabeth, approaching cautiously toward her hand. Beyond watches, but doesn't comment on it.

"Is there anything else you need - say, for your cabin? And have you already been shown everything on the ship?"

There are things: there are always things. But he's thinking of items, and apart from a gun she doesn't need anything like that, nothing that material. But the other things would mean she's putting too much into this relationship with him, and that's never a good idea.

He might get the idea that she cares, or is letting him care for her. She's just using him, and he shouldn't forget that.

So she shakes her head, even as she puts her hand out, palm-up, for the cat to sniff at. "I don't need anything, and I've been everywhere but the engine room."

The cat starts backward at first, then slowly re-approaches, sniffing experimentally at Elizabeth's hand for a moment before deciding to rub the side of her face against her finger with a quietly pleased meow. Beyond watches all this unfold, smiling at the eventual outcome.

"She likes you," he says. "Do you like cats?"

"I never had pets," she says, almost absently, as she scratches between the animal's ears.

She thinks she ate cat, once. A very bad winter, after the war, all the animals in the neighborhood had slowly disappeared. Her mother had brought home fresh meat and refused to tell her the source, but she always thought it was one of the strays that hung around the apartment building.

This one is nice, though. She just purrs and asks for more scratches by butting her head against Elizabeth's hand, and it pulls a smile from her.

"I didn't either, until I was here." Beyond watches her, wondering if this is what he looked like to Cassel when he'd encountered him as a cat.

"Do you think you might like one?"

"I think I have enough to worry about in this place," she says, pragmatically, as she tries to see what the animal does when she scratches it underneath its chin.

"Why? Would you give me one, otherwise?"

The cat closes her eyes and leans into the touch, purring louder, a deep rumbling that seems paradoxically large in relation to how small she is.

"If you'd like, yes. Cats do require some attention, but they're also fairly self-reliant. And ... sometimes it's nice to have a companion who doesn't demand much from you." Unlike people; a cat's needs are simple, straightforward.

"Cassel, my warden, gave her to me. It was not very long after I'd first arrived - before we were even assigned, actually. He said that sometimes, people who haven't been taken care of properly are the best at taking care of someone else." Beyond smiles wistfully at the memory. In some ways, even though he was younger, Cassel was far wiser. "You wouldn't think that would be true, but - I don't think he was wrong, at least in my case."

"Is that what you think about me?" She doesn't sound angry- in fact, she seems faintly amused. "That I'm someone who hasn't been properly taken care of?"

Beyond takes a moment to consider his answer before he replies. "I think that's probably true in some respect of everyone who ends up here," he finally says, "though more so for some of us than others." He knows it's true for himself, and he knows it's true for Shiro. Elizabeth, on the other hand ... he doesn't know enough about her to draw the same conclusion.

"But I'm not judging you, Elizabeth. That's not what I'm here for."

"And I wouldn't care if you did," she points out, resettling as his cat puts her paws on her thigh and stretches.

"But I'm not that kind of a person. I've been taken care of, Beyond. I haven't been alone."

Though she thinks of the way she grew up: no father, a mother who was ill, always struggling for money; and later, in a strange country, living with a strange man, with only really herself to rely on. So maybe it's true, in a way: she hasn't been taken care of by other people. But she's always taken excellent care of herself.

"And you're also a caretaker yourself." A mother, with two children of her own to look after, and quite dedicated to them, from what Beyond has seen of how she's spoken of them.

The cat finishes stretching and hops down off the bed, slinking off to another part of the room. Beyond watches her until she disappears out of sight, then refocuses on Elizabeth. "I don't think that necessarily means that a person can't or shouldn't still be taken care of by someone else. It's not as if there's a quota on caretaking, after all."

"The problem is that you seem to think I need taking care of now. You have no idea what my life has been like, no idea about what I can or can't do."

It's disrespectful, and it makes her eyes flash with anger now. It's so easy to come to the surface, when it's roiling underneath her skin all the time.

She's right; of course she's right. He doesn't know much about her, only the things she's chosen to disclose about herself already. Beyond nods in acknowledgement.

"It's merely an offer, Elizabeth. I'm sure I've said this before - I have no designs on forcing you to do anything, and that hasn't changed with this assignment. I'd like to know more about you, of course, but that's entirely dependent on you."

"You wouldn't know what to do with it if I told you," she says, scoffing a little before standing up, straightening her clothes a little.

"But I can assure you, Beyond, that no part of it means I need to be taken care of. Never mind the assignment."

He could argue that point, of course; the man he used to be might have challenged her to prove it, to tell him, to show her work. But being right isn't the priority it once was, so he simply nods his concession, saying "As you wish." He's serious about not pushing her into something she isn't comfortable with; the Barge has ways of making that happen anyway.

"I'll let you know what I hear back from the Admiral. And - if you do think of anything else you need, please let me know."

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