tucky | IC contact for lastvoyages

[Not. Happening.]

I told you already -- it's up to you. I don't know how much more clearly I can say that.

Well, I'm not gonna do it, because I'm not gonna make your decisions for you! I'm not gonna be that kind of person either! I'm not gonna take people's choices away; I won't!

[She hears the rise in Tiffany's voice, but she's too worn out to care. Fine -- let her figure out why Nina has hit her limit with this.]

Maybe I can't decide. Maybe I think about it differently from you. Maybe I'm choosing not to make any choice at all.

[She finally has all of her things gathered, and she closes the bag and holds it in both her hands.]

So? Should I expect to hear from you?

That's different from this. They're different kinds of choices. I'm not gonna choose one person to stop listening to. That ain't the same as-- as this.

I'm worried that you don't wanna talk to me, but you're gonna suffer through it anyway 'cause you think I'm gonna try to make you.

Not at all. I don't think of it that way.

[Which is both true and shrewish and mean. Screw it.]

Well, I don't either.

So, then?

[She's waiting for an answer.]

So I will still talk to you, if you'll talk to me. And if you won't talk to me, I won't hunt you down and make you. And if I talk to you and you talk back, I'm gonna trust that you're making your own choice to do it, and I won't say I'm gonna avoid you for your own good or anything stupid like that.

And I won't tell anybody what happened in here today, with you and me.

[She swallows.]

And I won't stop feeling about you the way that I feel.

So, no, you won't stop. That's what you're deciding.

Stop talking to and listening to dangerous people? No, I won't.

To me. No ifs. That's what you're deciding?

Nina!

[She flops back against the couch with a strangled groan of frustration.]

We are two fucking people, and I'm gonna make decisions for me, but I'm not gonna make 'em for you. No, I'm not deciding that I'm gonna talk to you - no ifs, no buts. There are always gonna be ifs and buts! You want everything to be this or that and nothing in the middle, but it's not!

[She blinks, completely shocked by that, and not for any reason she might have expected. She actually lets out a short, startled laugh.]

That's what you think?

[She barely even knows what to say to that; she doesn't know the word flabbergasted, but that would really sum it up for her if she did. She stares at her for a second and then sinks back on her heels, still stunned, but nodding to herself as if something has suddenly and finally cleared in her head.]

Well, now I know why I can't get through to you -- because you don't understand anything about me. Not a thing. You haven't heard a word I've said this whole time.

[Which actually makes this, ironically, very simple. Maybe the most black-and-white anything has been in a while. She shifts her bag to one hand and makes for the door.]

Good luck, okay? Maybe I'll see you on the other side.

It's what I think right now, 'cause it's how it feels like you're talking! 'Cause you're telling me I gotta decide whether I'm gonna keep trying to talk to you or not, and you won't tell me what you want! How can I make a fucking choice about talking to somebody when I don't know what they want?

[She tenses up like she's about to jump to her feet, but she doesn't move.]

You don't owe me nothing, you don't owe me answers, but don't ask me to make choices about you when I don't know what you want. You told me how much you hate it when people decide to make your choices for you, and I don't wanna do that.

[She scoffs, almost outright rolling her eyes. She feels calm, now. Angry, tired, but somehow settled, like she can let it roll off her back now instead of stewing and simmering in it.]

That's not what that meant.

[It's like Sinjir, she realizes: she had been afraid of him, and now she's not at all. She's never been afraid of Tiffany, but there's always been a profound influence there -- both over Nina herself and over the rest of the Barge, as she sees it -- and suddenly, just like that, it feels like she can disconnect from all that tangle. If she put all that work into trying to get Tiffany to hear her, to understand her, and it failed this badly... well, then, forget that. It's not likely to ever happen the way she wants it to, and she already has every assurance that Tiffany won't use her connections against her -- she believes that much. So, yeah. Screw it.]

Maybe this is why you have such a hard time making decisions, yes?

[She pulls a face, tapping her ear.]

Listening skills. You want to hear more than you actually do. Maybe you even think you hear things no one is saying. It's like trying to listen to all the music in the world at once: it becomes all noise, no signal.

That's my theory, anyway. This, you can take or leave.

[And she really is leaving, herself.]

[She doesn't get up and follow her, or try to throw out a last-minute retort before she leaves the room. She just lets the words settle for a little while, and hours later, she calls her on the network.]

I'm taking it.

I don't wanna make any decisions for anybody here. Even little ones; even... talking. Especially not you. And I'd rather be too careful with that than not careful enough. I know you think I'm reckless and takes too many chances, but that ain't something I wanna be reckless about, ever.

You don't gotta answer this, but if you do, I'm here. But you know that already.

[She makes her own decision and does not, in fact, respond. The literal talking point is such a drop in the bucket compared to everything she had meant that it's been the last and least thing on her mind; but now that the scales have fallen from her eyes, she also has no investment in trying to explain that, or any of the rest of it, to Tiffany. Either she'll figure it out someday or she won't.

For now, Nina has Nina to think about.]

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