ellectrical | (no subject)

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This time, Elle stopped running before she collapsed.

As she’d started about noon, it was now nearing dusk. The sky was a deep blue slipping further into black, and Elle had dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the grass near the shoreline of the lake, watching the sunlight along it dissipate as the evening deepened.

Her breathing, which not so long ago had been harsh and ragged, had evened out by now, deep and slow, so that she barely seemed to move. She didn’t flinch or even glance away at the sounds of others on the grounds, or to any sudden ripples in the water. Though her eyes on the water, she seemed to follow nothing at all, her expression not closed, but empty.

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"It was successful? Not thinking."

Beat.

"Against the telepath."

"Yes."

"You will need to do it again?"

"I'm still doing it."

"Oh."

Elle finally moves, turning on her side to look to X. Still, her face is expressionless.

"Does that bother you?"

"If you want to stop doing it and cannot."

Beat.

"Yes."

If she does not want to stop doing it --

Everyone is entitled to ways to cope. And it might be something like X's version of meditation.

Which --

It is effective.

"It's - easier."

Other than speaking, she's gone very still now.

"To remember some things like this."

"I don't know if that means I can't."

"I do not know how to find out."

X does not move her hand from Elle's arm.

She also doesn't move the rest of herself anywhere at all.

It --

It only makes sense. Not to move.

"I know you don't like it, but you don't have to know everything."

She says it so abruptly, with so little inflection, that it may not be clear until she's nudged X's hand that she means it as a joke.

X's eyes widen.

"But I want -- "

She cuts herself off as Elle's hand-nudge registers, her shoulders relaxing ever so slightly.

"I want to help. You."

Like Elle has helped her so many times.

Elle doubts her help often came from knowing a whole lot of things.

"I know."

After another pause, she adds -

"You do. Help."

"Okay."

X falls silent again, just for a few seconds.

"It is good that it is easier? To remember things."

She doesn't move again, but she answers more quickly now.

"It's different."

Beat.

"It makes me different."

"You do not like that?"

She wants to know.

It seems --

Important.

"I do."

It takes a moment, perhaps, for her to say it with such certainty, but then -

"It's - better."

X's hand tightens on Elle's arm.

"Good."

Her head turns on the ground so she can look at X, and this time, she didn't look away.

"Before I - sometimes I thought I -"

Though her voice breaks off, she doesn't shift, no sign of worry crossing her face. It's as though she doesn't really know how to put it into words.

"- there were these things I didn't know and I thought it was - because of me. I'd let him - I did something wrong and I let it happen."

"But that is not how it was."

It's not a question.

Should it be?

"I didn't let it happen."

She's gone very still again.

X's fingers tighten on Elle's arm a little more.

Then they relax.

Just a little.

"I am allowed to ask?"

Elle still doesn't move.

After a moment, she answers -

"I don't think I should. Right now."

X tries very hard not to look lost.

"Okay."

"X..."

Apparently, trying very hard didn't entirely work.

"It's - complicated. I can't just - think about it."

"How do you -- "

She cuts herself off again, thinking.

Then --

"How do you know what to do? About it. If you cannot think."

She worries.