After March 9: the broken locks were a warning you got inside my head

[girlsolo]

Ever since she found Finnick screaming for Annie, Kate's been restless. Strung tight like she hasn't been for months now. Not even when she realized B (Buffy, not Bella) was gone so soon after William's Uncle Jack. That'd just been sad, in that slow, aching way that punching bags or bodies doesn't help.

She can't sleep, even with Declan, and since Bonny keeps him up about half the time anyway, it'd be a dick move to take up more of his sack time with trying to tire her out. It probably wouldn't work anyway. Running, swimming, surfing, training, chasing kids, playing hoops, target practice, nothing works, and it's only gotten worse since Bella fell.

If she does sleep, she dreams of Thad getting eaten by the Sorkel instead of Constantine, or seeing dad get blown up but turning into Jimmy at the last second, or Will turning into a Psillobar or not coming back after Kali, or Biggie dead and Magnus batshit and it really doesn't take her shrink best pal to work out the kinks in her psyche (not that kind, but he can probably figure those out too, which is why they're never, ever talking about it). She's freaked out about the roots she's putting down here. Even more freaked out about not having anywhere to run when it hurts too much to stay. And don't even get her started about not being able to protect the people she's let herself care about.

It's late, it's dark, drinking just makes her emotionally sloppy, getting high makes her think too much. She's sick of everything and crawling out of her skin. So what makes a blind run down to the Compound a good idea? The promise of a shower, maybe some tea, and a movie at the end of it. She can watch movies on her laptop, but she left it at Declan's and the last time Bonny licked her in her sleep, she had dreams of being trapped in a cave with a million squirmy worms.

So she's scanning the bookshelf for something decent to watch instead of choosing from everything she loves in her own space. The hot shower and tea have just managed to soothe the sharpest of her edges off when the light catches on reel in a shiny case, fallen on a diagonal in a gap between two others.

Kate freezes.

Sanctuary

Instantly the edges are gone and Kate busts out all over spines. Like a porcupine or pufferfish. But she can't help reaching for the reel. And the next one. And the next and the next and the next and the next. Seven in all. Kali, pts 1, 2 and 3, which she shoves in the hemp bag she brought with her. She knows what that is. Penance, she knows that from the script, and shoves it away too, all the way to the bottom. Metamorphosis, and maybe Kate's not the most educated person but she remembers the Kafka jokes from when Will was turning into that thing and that goes into the bottom of the bag with him dying to save the world from a giant sea spider, while she swallows back the acid and the chill. The Bank Job's pretty self-evident, and even makes her smile a little. If Will knew, if they hadn't agreed not to tell him, she could show him that reel. They'd had fun on that job. But she can't, so she bags it too.

The last one's called Acolyte and she can't think of anything that's happened that might get that title. The smart thing to do is bury them before they can fuck her up more, but it's like Danny with Grace. Kate has to know. She has to know what's happening to Hank and Biggie, to the versions of Will and Magnus, Declan and Tesla and herself that she left back home.

Wishing there were somewhere private to watch these things, Kate edges over to the projector, head low and trying not to catch the attention of any of the other night owls. She fumbles the canister open with shaking fingers and snaps the film onto the arm. It takes a couple of tries to get it fed through, but she does, starts the film, hops the back of the couch and then sinks low into it.

It starts with Will's voice saying "Previously on Sanctuary" and she laughs nervously. That dissolves at Magnus looking gorgeous and talking to Will. It cuts to a guy she doesn't recognize talking about Hollow Earth saying they just signed the Sanctuary's death warrant.

"Typical genre melodramatic bullshit," she mutters to cover the catch in her chest at seeing and hearing Biggie, then Will, Declan and Henry are driving through the jungle talking about Magnus and where is she?

Will shouts, "Magnus, come in. You've got to get out of there now--!" and then a hotel explodes. It crumbles like the Twin Towers to the sound of Declan, master of British understatement saying, "My God."

Credits roll, Kate can't decide if she loves the music or hates it, but she knows how this stuff works, so she's not panicked about Magnus blowing up. Not yet. But exploding buildings and people she cares about…yeah.

Half an hour later, she's seen herself come up from Hollow Earth - she's living down there? - to deliver a message to Magnus, interrogate some dude from species she doesn't know with Will (who says Hollow Earth is treating her well), find a bunch of dead humans and Abnormals and uncover a key piece of evidence in a terrorist plot. Biggie's brainwashed. "Fuck this fucking show! Goddamn it! It better not be real!" because she's crying and she doesn't cry and that's before she and Magnus get through the gate guards "the old-fashioned way," "Krav-Maga them" according to this Addison asshole, and she smashes Biggie in the head with a fire extinguisher -

To keep him from blowing himself and her and Magnus up with his suicide bomb vest.

They get him out, but the hotel explodes anyway, their van rolls, and Kate sees herself unconscious, battered, bleeding ,and Magnus sounding terrified when she calls her name. Cut to Will sitting by a bed reading, her bed, she realizes, and they do the wake up dance. She's been out for a week, Magnus did two surgeries, Sally's been helping remap Biggie's brain and Kate's…

Running her fingers over a bracelet. The bracelet. The goddamned bracelet that was in her jewelry box. What the hell?

"Did the doc say when I'll be well enough to travel?"

"Calm down, okay? You just woke up."

"I just really should be getting back to Hollow Earth. People will be worried."

"Is that a… Herusan promise band? From Garris? I looked it up."

"Yes."

Yes?!

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"Oh, fuck me sideways." Kate pauses, her stomach flips over in a tight, hot knot and her voice is raw from crying. "Seriously?" She doesn't even know this Garris guy.

[[ooc: There's a youtube full episode here and a transcript here. Feel free to find Kate at any point of the episode. If you come before she starts the reel, she may not or may choose a different one, depending. Caveat: Cerie and Callie do not want Magnus and Will canon-punctured, so if yours are going to need to tell them, please don't tag. ]]

Comments

[girlsolo]

Biggie and Magnus are talking, so she doesn't answer other-Kate right away. Then the fade scene is Biggie at the door with that stupid rise up line and she barks a dark, bitter laugh. "Bullshit," she says to the screen, then gives herself a few seconds to pull it all back before she turns to face Kate.

"Maybe. Don't know if it's a story, if I'm made-up, or it's a documentary, you know?" She shrugs, tight, shoving down all of the questions, longing, everything, because that's what you do. You bury your shit and move on. "That's what life's like back home, though."

[everyone_takes]

"Are you okay?" Kate asks. She's not really good at this stuff and even now, she's having a hard time figuring out what to do with Effy, how to help her or when to leave her alone. She isn't good at this at all, but she can't just leave people alone when shit like this is going on.

"I mean... seeing this? The engagement, whatever that is?" she asks, because none of it really lines up with the Kate she knows here. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything, she knows that. Better than a lot of people, she knows that. Just because the projector shows a person doing something doesn't mean they've done it or that they'd do it here, given the chance.

[girlsolo]

"Yeah, fine." What's she going to say? It's not like other-Kate's any better at this shit than she is. Or like there'd be any magic words if she was.

She gets up to stop the reel from flapping and starts the rewind. "I can't imagine ever doing it. Getting married. Even though I love Declan. It's just not...I'm not that girl." That she was, in that other world, with Will, nags at her, but she shoves it back down along with the mysterious Garris. "It's just weird. That bracelet, the promise band? It showed up here back in January. I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

[everyone_takes]

Kate shrugs, her shoulders lifting, because the way she sees this place most of the time? Nothing means much of anything. Or it all means too much, which isn't something she wants to think about, so she goes the other way.

"Does it have to mean anything?" she asks, echoing what other people have said to her. "I mean, it's just doing this to fuck with you. All it means is that it thinks these things will do something, get some kinda reaction. I don't know if it has to mean anything else."

[girlsolo]

"Yeah," Kate says again but she's not convinced. It does get a reaction out of her. Every time. She's like lightning in a bottle when she's got nowhere to run to and everything to run from. "I just wonder about it. Who this guy is, you know?" Who he'd have to be, for her to want to get married to him. "What happened that changed everything so much for me?"

She shrugs, and even though it's not a so what kind of question. This bracelet's here. It means at least in some world, it's probably real. She probably is engaged to this guy. Just like in some world she got with Will and had a kid with him. Maybe it shouldn't matter, because Kate's always been a fuck destiny, I'll make my own destiny kind of girl. But it just does.

[everyone_takes]

"I don't know. Maybe you'll find out some day," she answers, curling her arms around her knees and looking over at the screen. Pursing her lips in thought, she wonders if it's like this for everyone. If, one day, it'll be like this for her. Seeing things that she can't remember, that only Lionel ever knew.

Lionel, who's gone now, back home to whatever shitty death awaits him. Kate doesn't like to think on that much, but when stuff like this happens, it's sort of hard not to. This is when everything comes crashing back, when she remembers that the island fucks with everyone. Everyone.

"Or maybe you won't. Maybe it's some alternate world that you'll never find out about one way or the other. I don't know. I'm like, the worst comfort ever."

[girlsolo]

Kate finds a smirk for that while she packs up the reel. "Since when have I ever needed comfort? And if you think you can remember a time, ignore it."

She doesn't want this episode around where Declan can find it, but she can't leave it here. Which means keeping it and putting it in one of her secret stashes. She bobbles it between both hands while she debates putting it in the bag where there are more, and calling attention to them.

"Times like this, I actually miss having a shrink dogging my every step."

[everyone_takes]

"Really?" Kate asks, wrinkling her nose. There's nothing appealing about having a shrink following her everywhere and she knows, having had one follow her for awhile. Of course, Shoshana was sort of her mother, too, but it had still been weird. And Kate's experience with the mental healthcare system in general wasn't a very positive one. They'd fucked Tara over time and again, making it pretty clear to Kate that doctors weren't much good for anything.

"You're on your own there," she says.

[girlsolo]

For now, Kate shoves the reel in with the others and cops a squat on the arm of the couch. "It's kind of different when he's your best friend, too." She gestures to the empty screen. "Will, the one who was sitting there waiting for me to wake up, he's a shrink. A profiler. Like the best guy in the world, too."

Seeing him sitting there waiting for her to wake up like that stings. If something happened now, would he? They're trying and doing pretty good, but it's different.

She shrugs tightly. "I'm not big on talking, but Will's really good at helping me sort shit out. What sucks is, he's here, but I can't tell him about this and I really want to."

[everyone_takes]

"Well, the only shrink in my life was also my mother, so I've had just about enough of those," Kate says, although she's glad that there's someone here who can help her with this stuff she's just seen.

"How come you can't tell him about this?" she asks curiously. If she found something like this, the first thing she'd do is run and tell Marshall. He might not be happy about it, but she's not good at keeping secrets, so she'd have to tell someone and it would get back to Marshall eventually anyway. It just cuts out the middle man to tell him first.

[girlsolo]

Because he's hers now, Mr. Boss, not Matchstick or Freaky Eyeballs or any of the things she used to call him when it was just them and Henry. Kate purses her lips, pressing down on the emotion that wells up with that, because it's not fair. She's just missing how things used to be because of what she just saw. Missing home.

She shrugs it aside and answers, "Because Magnus took it really hard when some of her friends found out they had reels. And Will...Will kind of hates lies. So if he knew, he'd have to tell her or lie to her. I guess I'd rather if someone has to be lying to her, it's me, not her husband."

[everyone_takes]

It makes sense, even if it sucks and Kate nods. "Guess it's not the same if you talk to another one of the shrinks here, is it? I mean, not like I'm ever gonna recommend something like that, because... well, mostly because I think mental healthcare is seriously fucking lacking, but it probably wouldn't even be the same anyway, since they're not your friend and I'm seriously rambling now."

And she's pretty sure she's not helping either. Which should be okay, she's just not great at this stuff, but she doesn't think Kate expects her to be good at it either.

[girlsolo]

"Yeah, it's the best friend part not the shrink part I'd be after, but--" Kate feels sort of like she has to defend Will, like after seeing him sit there with her, for like a week, he's earned even more of her loyalty than he had already. She shrugs and tosses back, "As shrinks go, he's the best there is."

Maybe it's because of all the work he does with the Abnormals or something. Kate's not sure, but he never makes her nervous or feel judged whenever she does need to talk to him. "Even when he's being shrinky, he just sort of listens and asks questions and makes you feel like it's okay to not have the answers."

[everyone_takes]

That sounds exactly the same as every other shrink Kate has ever known -- not that she's known that many personally -- and so she shrugs a little. "I'm not exactly a big fan of them," she says simply. "The were always the same as far as I could tell. One second they're all convinced they can help my mom and the next they're blowing her off and not helping her at all. Or they're just drugging her so she'll shut up, basically." Which she thinks is a pretty shitty way to deal with a patient.

But it's like none of them have ever been able to handle Tara.

[girlsolo]

Kate shrugs. It's not like she has a dog in this fight except defending Will. "I dunno. He's not a big fan of drugs at all, and he really doesn't think of it as fixing people or anything. Not that I've ever heard. I guess it's because he's a profiler, you know? He's more about seeing what's there than changing it. Mostly he just helps me see things more clearly."

It makes her laugh, soft. "It's funny, me defending him. I'm always telling him not to get shrinky on me and I hate Talk to me, Kate more than almost any other words. But I guess I got used to it. It's good knowing there's someone who cares and who's just really good at seeing all the things I don't."

[everyone_takes]

Kate figures that even though they say they make a career out of it, most shrinks don't actually see the things they're supposed to. But maybe Kate's friend is good at it, which isn't entirely impossible, even if it's rare.

"It's good, then," she says. "That he can help you see stuff more clearly or whatever. I mean, I've never had to go to one, I've just seen them with my mom. Also, I've seen my mom think she is a shrink, so there was that, too. Which pretty much sucked. The last person you want trying to analyze you is your mom, right?"

[girlsolo]

"Sex partner. I think that has to be worse," Kate says, but she's thinking about that and has to shake her head. "Or mom. Both of them are always trying to 'fix you' anyway."

It makes her mouth quirk wry, and she has to shrug. That just makes it weirder that in some alternate universe, she and Will had a kid.

"I don't even want to think what my mom would've said. What was yours on about?"