Archive of Our Own ^beta

August 19th, 2516.

In all honesty, I'd expected tonight would be difficult. August was when the Foundation fell.
I don't remember much of it, most likely because I died after about a day, but from what I do remember... it was bad. Worse than any other event - even Site 19. Reality turning itself inside out, the horrifying nausea of living darkness and slavering light and ancient creatures so powerful and angry that only another creature of their kind would be able to so much as buy time with their lives and people ripped apart but still alive and the laws of physics breaking so badly that the craters from the different sites being ripped in shards out of time and space are still fairly fast and loose when it comes to gravity and light. My head spins dizzily with the memories and I know that repressing this isn't going to work. The amulet - not 963, I don't call it that now, just the amulet - glows a dull red in the near-darkness of my apartment as I prop myself up against a wall and wait for the vice to let go of my chest. It doesn't, and the memories keep coming.

White coats and white floors and white walls and white lights and grey morals.

An open plain with horses and flashing shadows and secrets.

My family. Gone.

Three eyes and a ukulele and a lazy grin.

Steel grey eyes and kindness where you least expect it.

Pale blue and a reminder to be kind, be gentle, in the worst place for him.

Roaring flames and too-loud laughter and a yell of "I can do anything!"

Golden brown, fur bunched awkwardly against a labcoat, too-bright just-cut metal.

Orange jumpsuits and thousands of faces, each with the same mix of fear-hate-apathy.

Blank visors hiding broken hearts, hiding metal hearts, hiding no hearts.

Red on white, red on orange, red on black, red on red.

Hazel eyes and scruffy jackets and the smell of a darkroom.

Whirling butterflies and steel.

Soft hands, soft laughter, secret smiles.

Shit.

Remembering him hurts like a knife to the stomach - worse, even, because the knife wound heals or kills but this doesn't. It just roars on and on and on and I don't ask what I did to deserve this because there's no point. I know, I don't know, he's gone. I'm not crying, not anymore, but I wish I could. Okay, it's okay. I'm okay. I know how to deal with this. Focus on the good things.

The day we met, in an item locker.

Talking and drinking coffee over work.

Late nights, sleepy smiles.

Half-sarcastic plans for after the Foundation.

Clef getting stuck in an elevator and serenading the entire facility with his take on "Country roads".

Gears telling me his name. The dignified Dr Charles Gears snorting tea out of his nose after one of my worse jokes.

Getting hit in the head with a ukulele after asking if Clef had a sister called "Treble".

My little siblings, before the foundation. TJ colouring outside the lines, building huge castles out of wooden blocks with Claire.

Mikell, always there, no matter how begrudgingly. Even as a member of O5.

Rights replacing everything in the communal break room with "novelty marital aids" on April Fools'.

The constant support of other researchers, the community formed on "this is a shitty situation but we're damned if we're letting it beat us".

The clenching in my chest eases, slowly, and I flop onto my bed. It's difficult to break the habit of only sleeping for an hour or two at a time; the fear of having nobody as lookout. Four hundred years have helped. Memories have helped.
I'm still lonely, still alive. Still stuck in the amulet. Probably going to be okay, though.