[network] @Spoiler; ??? [filtered/open/action] Morning 144

[spoileralert]

[ Action, open to anyone in the Hospital ]

[ She fell asleep in a warm, comfortable bed wrapped around her boyfriend, safe, content. The apartment Bruce Wayne was (temporarily) paying for was surrounded on all sides by a variety of alarms and traps. Several weapons lay within 3 feet of her bed, and the house was full of experienced fighters. It may not have been as safe as the bat cave, but it was as well defended as a fortress.

She fell asleep safe, contented, warm, loved, in her own apartment.

She awoke as though in a dream, in a poorly lit room, surrounded by shiny, cold-looking metal. The metal looked cold, but she could not feel it. She couldn't feel fabric covering her body, or air against bare skin. She couldn't feel the hard metal slab she lay on, either.

Where is she? Looking around she realizes she recognizes the room. It's the hospital morgue, in the ice tunnels.

She remembers dying. She remembers Al screaming her name. She remembers the last five months in Norfinbury, cold, scared, often alone, with a sense of reality. She also remembers falling asleep next to her boyfriend, and the last year in Gotham, with that same sense of reality. Compared to those memories, her current reality seems fake.

Is she dreaming? Do dead people dream? What's real, and what isn't? Either way, she knows what she has to do next. ]

[ Filtered to Al, Zell and Zach ]

Hey, I'm... alive, I think? [ She's not at all sure, but if she isn't it can't hurt anything to say she is anyway. ] I'm in the morgue at the hospital. Um... how long has it been?

[ Open Video ]

Hey, uh... has anyone ever... gone home? [ She makes a face. That should be an obvious answer. ] I mean, have you ever dreamed while you were dead, or whatever it is?

[ She huffs, runs a hand over her face, then rest her chin on the hand. This whole not feeling thing is so weird. ]

Okay. Implanted memories?

I'm sorry, this is not making any sense. I know things I shouldn't know, and I remember a year that I didn't remember... two days ago. I'm just as confused as you are, I promise. Please help?

Comments

[filtered] @zd; voice

[swatsflies]

[ Oh hey, it's Steph.

Wait! ]

WHAT!? You died!? What happened? [What is being chill? He scrolls back through the network to check the last set of obituaries. ]

[spoileralert]

I'm... not totally sure, actually.

[ No, wait, he's talking about the dying thing. ]

There was an anomaly, I remember that part.

[swatsflies]

[ Please hold, friend. He's just going to mutter some curses. ]

You aren't on the frickin' obits. The last one was a couple days ago with Ecks and Shiro.

[ So it hasn't been long, right? ]

[spoileralert]

Does that... [ He didn't know she died, so it has to have been recent. ] That means it's just been a couple of days, right?

I think I... dreamed, maybe?

[filtered] @zachtastic; private; video

[majorlazer]

[Zach is...well, floored. He's shocked - her name wasn't in the obituaries, and Zach has been spending so much time in the tunnels with Kesara, trying his best not to pay attention to too much that he...missed Steph dying?

Goddamnit.]

You - you weren't on the obit. You - Shit, Steph, you okay? What happened? Was it the Joker?

[spoileralert]

No, I'm-- [ Well, 'okay' is definitely not the word. ]

It was an anomaly. I just... feel like it's been months, not days.

[majorlazer]

Shit, Steph, no, it must only have been a couple of days. Were you with Al? Is he okay?

[Zach is horrified, like he could have known, like he should have known.]

I should have checked in, Steph, I'm sorry. What do you want to do? Do you want to come up and hang out with me and Kesara?

[Zach hates that she might alone, and that he's completely unable to get to her in any kind of timely fashion. He can't leave Kes, but he knows others are coming, and could keep her safe. She'd understand.]

I mean, I could come down, but it'd take me a few days. You just say the word.

[spoileralert]

No, no, it's okay. I mean, I'd like to see you. [ Does she still have a boyfriend? She's so confused. ] But Al is fine, and he should still be close by.

audio; private; @LELRIC

[armoured]

[He failed.

He keeps saying that he's not going to fail again, that he'll keep his friends safe. It's easier to tell himself that it's not his fault and there was nothing he could do when they're travelling apart from him, but this? This was his doing. He was right there, just Steph and him, and he still let her down.

Hearing her voice doesn't make it any easier, it just makes the guilt swell inside him so severely that it's almost as if he's choking.]

--I'm sorry.

[It's not an answer to her question, but it's all he can choke out past the strangling feeling in his throat.]

[spoileralert]

Al. [ His name is a sigh of relief. It feels good to see him, like maybe she really has been away for a year. She hates that he's hurting, but she's so glad that he's alive, relatively well, and presumably nearby. ]

It's okay. I'm-- [ Not okay, really ] --confused, mostly, but it's okay.

[armoured]

No, it's not.

[The point isn't that she's back now, or that she'll try and tell everyone that she's okay, it's that she had to die in the first place.]

I promised I'd protect you.

[spoileralert]

You did, and it was sweet, but not really realistic. There was nothing either of us could have done.

@gardenGnostic; video

[eclecticbassist]

[ !!! ]

Yeah, a few weeks ago! I don't know how much time passed in my dream, though.

[ Jade hasn't talked much about her last informative nap at all, mostly for Brian's sake. She also wasn't sure if this could even happen to anyone else - seeing things when you die is kind of a Thing in her world. ]

[spoileralert]

[ She didn't even have to explain, that there is a slam dunk. ]

Yeah! But you still remember everything that happened? I think it was about a year, for me.

[eclecticbassist]

Mm-hm. Things just picked up where they left off, and I didn't remember any of my time here. Like I was never gone.

[ Come to think of it... ]

I also guess I'm older now? Enough time passed for a city to be built, which has to take a while even with my powers.

[ Not that Jade looks very different - her height peaked at thirteen, for instance. ]

[spoileralert]

Yeah, I think I'm eighteen? As much as someone can be any age when there's time travel involved.

So... You think it's real?

@ASolomons; audio; morning 145

[devoutish]

Does it feel like a dream, or does it feel like a memory?

[spoileralert]

It feels like a memory. Just as fresh and real today as it was yesterday.

[devoutish]

You just went to bed one night and woke up the morning with an extra year in your head. Yeah? Did you remember Norfinbury at all during this?

@Mnemosyne; voice

[bookofnope]

I realise you've just been over this with others, but grant me making sure - you remember spending a year home without any memory of Norfinbury, but your experience of Norfinbury is otherwise continuous - yes? No gaps in your memories of the city, as far as you can tell. Everything is the same as when you left it, days ago.

[spoileralert]

Pretty much. No gaps in any of the memories, actually. Like, two days ago I was slogging through snow with Al, and two days ago I was training with Batwoman and the team.

[bookofnope]

And you can't discern any difference in the way the two sets feel. That is, I assume the memories of slogging through the snow "feel" as though this happened a year ago from your perspective, but nothing otherwise. No blurs or sense of dissociation.

Video | @Summoner

[ninjainviolet]

Does it feel like that time when we couldn't tell which memories were real not too long ago?

[spoileralert]

A little? But it's more... like, it's not going away. I remember not remembering it.

[ninjainviolet]

That's...weird. But other than that, you're feeling all right? Nothing else seems wrong?