[ her lips twitch into something cordial, distant. she nods. ]
Yes. My vitals are good, levels are... levelled.
[ she pauses distractedly, obvious her mind is not entirely on the conversation at hand. she feels strangely small, standing there in front of him, in a room that had gotten used to the shape of them for the past three days. she can't quite put a name on the feeling that's churning inside her, like something has slotted out of place, askew. but her edges feel raw, making her jaw clench, her shoulders tense. how she wishes she had one of her large comfy sweaters to disappear in right now.
she gives the pillow one last fluff before moving towards the doorway, but pausing just a foot away from it after finding he's still situated right there within it. it would probably be good to tell him about the wound, how it's healing; he'd be concerned about it, she's sure, and she knows he's just as skeptical about magical healing as much as she is. but when she opens her mouth to speak again, all that comes tumbling out is— ]
[ he nods at her answer, trusting that she's gotten better care here than when she'd been in the middle of scorpion's bend working with limited resources. he'd come with a broken arm after his own first mission and it patched up a lot faster than it normally had. besides, it's not like his eyes have steered far from her too often since they've been back, knowing (and making sure) she'd been on the path towards recovery.
watching her begin to step away, he parts his mouth to say something, anything, like he isn't certain of what to really do now that she's in the clear to go, like he hadn't prepared for it. but the question that comes out of her mouth isn't one he expects, stilling again as he raises his eyes to her, eyes caught almost like she'd just asked him to help her shower again. ]
She's — [ fine? it's a basic question, but it carries a different weight in the context. he hadn't been sure she'd seen him leave the room with her, but he's also not sure that it was ever really supposed to matter. and it's in realizing that it does matter, that what marta thinks about that matters, that makes him come to terms with knowing what he needs to say.
he swallows, discarding her question all together as he stands a little straighter. ]
[ marta knows it's an unfair question the moment she asks it; the look in his eyes when they meet hers is just a punctuation on a very condemning sentence. she honestly regrets asking, and she very nearly takes it back, laughs it off, only holding off with the knowledge that doing so would only make the situation more awkward than it had started. kovacs has nothing to answer for, and marta has no business asking.
she half-hopes he tells her as much, but what he does end up saying winds up feeling far, far worse.
marta had never been very good at guarding her emotions. what you see is what you get, and no amount of working by his side for two months has done anything to teach it out of her. so he's privy to the way her expression shutters, lashes fluttering against an invisible blow that leaves her standing shock-still, breathless.
jesus christ, she thinks to herself, a distant, shameful voice. get a hold of yourself. ]
[ sometimes they fall into silences like this, a fleeting stop of the moment where gazes meet from across the room, where no one says a word but the space between them becomes suffocating with everything that's not being said. speaking up again is his aim to shatter it, this dangerous in-between of theirs, convinced that what he tells him might just very well put a stop to it altogether.
(And it's for the best, he thinks. Is it? asks quell from a corner, but he doesn't look for her.)
he knows she isn't expecting it from him, sees it in her expression like he's struck her with something stronger than the question she'd posed at him. it adds to his nerves, but he's a lot better than she is at not showing it. ]
Yeah.
[ he's not sure that it matters where they are for this. ]
[ funny how just a month or so ago, that silence had been a comfort. in many ways, it had even been a crutch, something she leaned on heavily and abused in the hopes that mere looks alone could convey all that she didn't yet know how to articulate (or all she was too afraid to put to voice, like somehow speaking it would be overstepping a line she wouldn't — shouldn't — cross).
now it almost ridicules her. reminding her of a fantasy that's been left behind.
it seems right that he would choose to do it here. to let it end where it ostensibly began. (not that a nothing could begin in the first place.) but what he ends up mentioning is so far away from her expectations, her resigned nod pauses mid-bob, and she's left staring up at him like she's waiting for the punchline of a joke that already doesn't sound like it'll be funny. ]
[ whatever she thinks he's going to tell her, he knows she won't be able to figure it out on her own, not when it's such a complicated secret, one that he hasn't really said out loud before — not before just a few minutes ago, anyway. and even with what he shared with clara, he'd been selective about his words.
trying to find which words to use in telling marta feels like an entirely different challenge of its own. ]
We all came here cause we made a deal with the orb. But they give us an option — for a price, we can make a change to the deal. We can ask for something else.
[ his eyes steer away for a moment as he pieces together how he'll say the rest. it isn't out of shame; kovacs doesn't regret what he's done, and he'd still make the same choice if they gave him the option to take it back. but there's something different in bringing marta into it, in letting her see into a part of him he'd kept hidden because he assumed it'd never matter.
he'd been wrong.
his eyes peer up again, locking his gaze more steady this time. ]
A few months ago, I found out that Clara's life was in danger in her world. In a way that there's no coming back from. So I made a choice — I changed my deal with the orb to save her.
[ at this point, she's no longer sure they were even having the same conversation in the first place. anything she had expected him to say was so vastly different from the words that actually come out of his mouth that she's left staring for far longer than is considered polite; even when he meets her eyes again, she hasn't blinked yet.
he gave up his regret.
she's not sure why that's the part that's sticking to her the most right now. they were all here for a reason, a reason important enough to warrant living through missions like scorpion's bend. kovacs has been through three. but if he were able to let himself let his initial regret go just like that, does that mean it wasn't that important to him?
don't be stupid, chimes a voice in her head. her own voice, as honest as the rest of her. it wasn't that the initial regret wasn't important. it's that clara is even more so.
and just like that, it makes sense. of course he'd save her. a heart that big only knows how to speak in selflessness.
slowly, marta half-settles onto the infirmary bed beside her, rumpling up the sheets she'd worked so hard to set tidy just minutes ago. it helps to feel something else other than the ground at her feet. especially when she has a feeling a rug will soon be pulled out from under it.
now she's the one to look away, needing that moment to reset herself.
marta does the math. if this is what's fresh on his mind after his chat with clara, she can only assume that this is what they'd discussed. and if she knows kovacs at all, it's doubtful he'd told clara or anyone else about it, which means he'd had to admit to it just now. and if clara had been the one to ask to speak with him, it's unlikely he had wanted to.
when she looks back to him, her jaw is a little more set. ]
[ he doesn't know what she's going to say her, so different than all the times he's grown used to the kind of ways she'd respond to just about anything he says, like he'd memorized those details about her after enough weeks in her company, used to her habits like they'd somehow become an extension of his own.
but this — he doesn't know where it's going to go from here, out of the realm of the world they built, the bubble that brought them into that dingy old office again and again, sharing drinks in a tequila-drenched saloon, dancing until his eyes had gotten lost in hers. he thought he could get away with it, with just letting himself exist in that with her, like if he was gonna forget anyway, why couldn't he at least have one last good thing?
it was selfish. unfair. especially to her.
are you alright? how does he even answer a question like that? lately, the only times he's found himself "alright" was during those late nights, in the crummy corner of their office fighting the cold, her fingers curling around his own to hush away the bulk of the nightmares still haunting him.
swallowing, he spends a long moment saying nothing at all before he whispers, barely audibly, looking up at her. ]
No.
[ the truth. that's what he owes her now, nothing but the truth from his mouth, which is why he doesn't stop there. ]
Marta, changing your deal here has a cost. [ he takes a deep breath before sighing, trying not to avert his eyes from her. ] To save Clara, I'm ... every month, I'm losing memories.
[ she doesn't push for his answer, even when the silence that follows her question drags on for long enough that she almost worries he hadn't heard.
when he finally does speak, she's surprised by the sheer honesty of the response. that single word so heavy the small room feels more like a confessional than an infirmary, and despite all the white noise of the medical equipment around them, that little whisper of his pierces through like a knife.
a deal for a price. it makes sense. she knows firsthand now how cruel these orbs can be, and yet she still isn't expecting to hear what he tells her. isn't expecting to feel the weight of it like a punch to the gut.
memories are precious even to a regular person. but to a man who can't even rely on the comfort and consistency of his own face, his own voice, let alone those of the people around him — what else but his memories could he hold onto to keep him afloat? to remind him of exactly who he is? ]
How many months?
[ she doesn't mean to sound so harsh. aggressive, even. but she's already back up, on her feet, moving to rummage through one of the drawers in a nearby cabinet beside the bed. she glances up briefly when he doesn't answer her fast enough — which at this point could be as short as a second. ]
[ it's the first time he says it out loud, lying to clara about the cost, knowing she'd be furious if she knew what he was giving up for her sake. but after what they were confronted with in scorpion's bend, he can't find reason to keep it from marta, knows that he has to tell her, whether it's because he feels the guilt in what she's done for him, or simply because that's not who they are to each other. maybe marta has had reason to be compelled to only say the truth, but it's never about that either; they just don't lie to each other, like they just never needed to.
which is why this confession feels more important here, more than it might be anywhere else. and when she almost seems angry in her tone, he doesn't even question it, like it almost makes sense for her to be even when on the surface, it probably shouldn't.
he swallows when she demands a quicker answer, his response out of his mouth before she even finishes the question the second time around. ]
Three.
[ a simple number, but it carries something else in it. three months — two and a half of it had been spent between them in scorpion's bend, and the half that remains before that was the short time in which they'd met. it says everything about what they are, what they've been — a comfort in a time of crisis, in more ways than she's realized.
quietly, he adds, ]
I used you, Marta. [ his eyes peer up at her, caught between trying to stay stern and serious while fighting away the vulnerable ache that always slips through. ] I knew what was happening to me and I was ... I was ready to just deal with it, let it just eat me whole and leave me as nothing, because it didn't matter anymore. I didn't matter anymore. But then — then I woke up in this room and you were there. You were reading that damn book, and there wasn't anything spectacular or enlightening. It was just — you in that chair, all quiet and curled up, and I —
[ his eyes turn away now, both almost bashful and bearing the guilt that forms in a lump at his throat he's forced to swallow. ]
I realized I didn't want to do it alone. All the shit I've done in my life, all the people I've lost, and I was gonna waste away, and it didn't matter. But you were there, with your hope and your dolls, and I felt selfish. I wanted — Before I forgot everything and became something else, I wanted someone to remember me as I am. I wanted someone to remember me as something better, the way that — [ he peers up again, catching her eyes. ] The way that you see me. Even if I don't deserve that.
[ she honestly hadn't expected there'd be more for him to say. that the news about the cost of his new deal was confession enough, but it seems there had been something even heavier weighing on him this whole time.
strangely enough, marta finds it a far easier thing to process. ]
You used me?
[ it's a ghost of a whisper, but there is no pain in her tone. rather, she sounds confused — no. indignant.
suddenly whatever she'd been looking for is abandoned, forgotten in the face of a new emotion gripping her. she crosses the short distance between them to jab a finger into the square of his chest. once, twice for emphasis. ]
You listen to me, Takeshi Kovacs. You didn't take anything I didn't want to give.
[ her words are clipped, exasperated. hushed only because she's still aware of where they are, but shaking in a way that speaks to how loud it could be, were they anywhere else. ]
I've been used before. I know what that feels like and that—
[ she knows how much it burns. that kind of betrayal, that kind of shame. she's looked in the eyes of people she once trusted and seen how they truly saw her in the reflection of their eyes. that's not what she sees here. and she absolutely refuses to let him think he's anything like any of those people. ]
We're friends. [ finally, finally, she dares to put a label on what they are. months of dithering, of avoiding it even in thought, and the answer winds up being so very simple. regardless what else they are, regardless what else they could be — they're friends. without a doubt, without a price, they're friends. and the more she says it, the more the desperation in her tone rises. ] This is what friends do, they lean on each other. Take care of one another.
[ as if she hadn't leaned on him just as much. as if she hadn't been just as selfish for wanting to hold onto the way he saw her for her. it didn't matter that she didn't know the full story. no one ever truly does. ]
You didn't use me. What you did was let me help you.
[ when he first met her, marta was modest, quiet, and always looking ready to hide into the nearest crawl space to just stay out of the way. teach me, she'd asked him once, to be tougher, to speak out for herself, like she somehow needed him to show her how. except she never did, moving on her own in all those times that she raised her voice at him, blurting out a series of swears in spanish which he only assume were some flowery words aimed in his direction, holding no restraint in putting him in his place when he tried to call the shots.
she does the same here, her voice only partially quiet like she's remaining aware of how loud she is in a public space, but he can hear the sharpness in her voice, the kind he hears when he knows she isn't backing down on what she thinks and making sure he knows it.
even more of the message comes across when she uses his full name like she's somehow reminding him of who he is, all at once.
friends — it's not a word he uses often, not because he doesn't believe in it, but because he tries to resist getting too cozy with it, always prepared to lose those that earn the label. he knows he has friends here, knowing that in the endless hours they spent side by side, familiarizing themselves with each other, marta became the best of them. it doesn't make him feel any less guilty. ]
I lied to you. [ he shakes his head, pulling that out like it's one of the things that's bothering him most in this confession, like it matters more than the fact that he changed his deal or that he's losing his memories, that this is where it's all gone wrong. ] I didn't tell you what was happening to me and you — you almost died for me, Marta.
[ and there it is, the crack in his attempt to speak calmly, distraught in his eyes as he leans forward towards her, using his own finger now to point at himself, like hers wasn't enough, his voice raising slightly. ]
My fate's been sealed and you still risked yourself for me. After everything else, I can't go on losing you too! I —
[ it's more than he means to say. biting his tongue, he falls silent for a moment, straightening up and collecting himself before speaking up again, a little more quietly. ]
You once told me you'd hold on to hope in my place. But if it also means you get hurt in my place too, I ... I can't let you do that for me. Please.
[ as he continues speaking, she finds it's less what he has to say that overwhelms her, and more the way he's saying it. he's never once raised his voice to her, or even really around her, so it's a startling thing to hear for the first time, most especially when she had been careful to keep her own voice level. that strain in his tone, like something strangled and desperate. it sounds so out of place on someone who she's used to relying on for stability when she would get caught up in her own uncertainties and anxieties.
she really doesn't know how to feel about the fact that the one to cause it is her. ]
Am I supposed to be mad at you because you didn't tell me the whole truth? [ in direct response to his growing intensity, she sobers up and her voice softens. ] Is that supposed to make a difference? Like I wouldn't have still done what I did?
[ before anything else, before he goes on to put yet another weight on his shoulders, he has to know: ]
I don't regret what I did. Just like I know you don't regret doing what you did for Clara.
[ she has always been honest, and sometimes to a fault. sometimes at the expense of herself, in revealing feelings she won't yet name, ones she hasn't even really allowed herself to think too long on, but airing it all out there for anyone to make the connections themselves.
later, later, she'll think back on this and be rightfully horrified. she'll recognize the selfishness in herself, for standing firm where he clearly wants her to waver. certainly, it would be easier that way, wouldn't it? to let him make his peace and slip back into the den of solitude and loneliness he had prepared for himself. and maybe before, she would have, but now she's grown greedy.
(in a way, it's kind of poetic. thanks to him, she's learned to want a little harder for herself.)
she lets out a huff of a laugh, exasperated. ]
Estúpido.
[ him. her. ]
Did you think you would mean any less to me, if I knew how much less of you there'd be?
[ he isn't able to tone it down before it's already out there, like a half-confessed truth he'd been trying to keep swallowed for all that it's prodded and lingered in the pit of his stomach, gripping at his chest in the inopportune moments like it does right now. he'd managed to keep himself composed with clara just minutes ago, but right now, his heart pounds too hard from the burning desperation of his plea to think too clearly.
when it all does finally still, where even his breath seems to catch in his throat, it's when she says the things he doesn't expect, the things he'd rather not hear and, yet, latches onto them like he'd been so starved for it.
he watches her with a lasting silence, though his eyes scream out so much — surprise, relief, worry — everything at once like he's battling in himself how to feel over those words, undeserving of it and yet wanting to hold onto them without ever letting go.
it's the feeling he'd felt in that bar, the one that was ready to breathe her in and nothing else. ]
I didn't want you to care about me.
[ a quiet honesty that's not meant to judge her on how she might feel, silent again for a moment after before he takes a light step forward, closer to her. ]
When this started — [ he realizes as soon as he says it, the strangeness of those words. when this started. this, like what they are could be embodied in any sort of definition. ] I was only thinking of myself. I was selfish and I didn't think —
[ that anyone would care about me. that you would care about me. not like this.
he swallows, lump thick in his throat. raising his fingers, he grazes the tips light against her cheek, like he's resistant to giving in too much. ]
One of these days, I might wake up and not remember any of this. Everything we did, everything we said — just gone. I don't want the day to come where you see me looking at you any differently than the way I am now.
[ by now, she's spent enough time looking into his eyes that she can paint the color of them if she had to. she knows they're a similar hue to her own, but there's something sharper in his, older and weary. she's wondered before if she would be able to recognize him in any of his other bodies by just the look in his eyes, often guarded but yearning. if the eyes are really the windows to your soul, and your soul isn't dependent on the body it inhabits, then it shouldn't make much of a difference, right?
right now, it's like he isn't even trying to hold anything back. or maybe he's simply too tired to be able to. too raw and beaten, broken hands grasping at a hope too delicate to stay still.
she's wondered before: how would it feel to look at him and see a different face staring back? now he's got her fearing something else entirely — a familiar face holding an unfamiliar look. honestly? it sounds terrifying. but he's been brave for her before; the least she could do is be brave for him in turn.
carefully, she lifts a hand to settle it right behind his, letting her fingers slot and lace in the spaces left between his. fitting their pieces together. ]
It might happen.
[ her voice is gentle, but that's a reality that would be foolish to ignore. and despite it all, even if they both have their own separate ways to go about it, they're both still realists. a deal is a deal. and by now they both know how cruel these orbs can truly be. ]
But just because you forget, doesn't mean it has to be lost to you forever.
[ she leaves his side for a moment, moving to the table beside the bed to look through its drawer. it doesn't take her long to find what she's been trying to look for since he'd mentioned his plight earlier, holding the pen up between them when she reclaims her place before him. ]
You can write your story, Takeshi. Who said the ending has to be a sad one?
[ everything he says carries more than what's said, admitting to something even more than he had originally planned on, now that she's prodded at the man who tried to bare it all to her in mere doses, in a simplified version that confesses the truth without leaving it too stripped to be perceived as more than he'd want it to be.
but marta has the tactics for scratching and digging out more. with her, it's never about living in a fantasy, in dodging the truth for something prettier; she cuts him raw with every word, and in the past few months, it's forced him to turn and face exactly what he's been running from, from the memories he's losing, from the choice he's made to discard his own life entirely. she never even had to know the truth for her to point him in that direction.
and even now as he paints her the harshness of what could ultimately happen, what prevents him from wanting to give too much of himself away, she doesn't pretend otherwise.
for him, hope was always the idea of a joke, of wishing for something that can't exist. in marta's world, it's peeling back the dirty layers of the real world to find the little spaces in between of everything broken and taking hold of what's not.
he watches her move away and return with that pen in her hand, brows knitting with confusion at the move until she spells it a bit more clearly, his expression soon softening with the realization of what she's suggesting. ]
It's not going to be up to me.
[ it's a minor attempt to keep fighting, albeit a weaker one as his shoulders slouch, watching her eyes with an attentive, understanding stare. because she's not wrong. there's still a way for him to hold on, even if he doesn't want to rely on it. ]
Are you ... sure you still want to be a part of it?
[ a part of his story. the one with the ending not yet written. ]
[ it seems such a funny thing to ask, now after everything. after the whole truth has come out, and yet she stands here still, gripping the pen tight in her hand because his own hands have grown too used to letting go. doesn't that scream her answer loud enough?
but maybe that's not the point here. maybe he's asking not because her answer isn't clear, but because he'd never had the chance to ask before. that people already left, before he could even form the words.
so maybe, right now, it's more important what he wants. what he still gets to decide.
to know that, despite everything, there are still some things he can control. ]
since when has he ever really been in charge of his own story? whether it's pulling the trigger on his father or turning his back on ctac or standing with the envoys, the world has always moved him along with each step, pulling him one way or another until he's left with nothing but inevitable choices. any decision he's made for himself has never been made to last, everything he's wanted has never stayed.
— why would it start now?
but she's giving him the choice here, with her hand held out, pen clenched within her fingers, and she isn't shaking on her question.
his eyes linger on her without knowing for how long, knowing what awaits him with this deal, knowing what he may be dragging her further into, knowing that she now knows it all too. he's still looking at her when he reaches to curl his fingers around the pen and around her knuckles, holding both at once. ]
Yeah.
[ he finally answers, spoken like a sigh. she's giving him the choice, but his gaze still looks to her like he's still asking the question in his every word. like he needs her to know she still has an out. ]
I ... want you with me. [ whatever that means, he doesn't know. he takes a step closer, quiet in his breath. ] Whatever happens to me after all of this, I'd want you there.
[ marta doesn't realize she'd been holding her breath, waiting on his answer with a slight flutter of apprehension. it strikes her then that it's been a long time since she'd felt she'd overstayed her welcome with him; that the worry of being a burden hasn't reared its ugly head since the first few weeks they'd settled into scorpion's bend. but for just that brief moment, she can't help but wonder — is it truly over?
was her place beside him as temporary as their stay?
maybe it might have been, once. but not now, not when he holds her hand, meets her eyes, tells her what he wants. what he lets himself want, for once. ]
I'll be there. [ emotion floods her voice, makes it thick. relief, joy, anticipation. ] Wherever you need me, prometo.
[ this close, it's so very easy to draw him into the circle of her arms. after nights spent huddled together for warmth, listening to the sound of each other's heartbeats for lullabies, it feels only natural to wrap her arms around him now, to rise up on her tiptoes and thread one hand into his hair.
i'm here, the squeeze of her arms promise. i'm here i'm here i'm here.
by his ear, without the weight of his eyes on her to make her shy, she confesses, ]
[ kovacs isn't used to getting what he wants, to earnestly ask for something and have it handed right to him. he's the one who makes things happen for everyone else — following orders, completing the mission, making deals. but just being able to stay close to someone? that's never been allowed, and even now, with marta making her promise to him, he't not sure how long it's meant to last.
rei, quell, clara — they either left or were taken. living longer than one should, you get used to the idea of impermanence.
but with marta circling her arms around him, holding him in close to her, he finds himself wanting to pretend this won't be like the rest, that it won't go wrong, that he won't lose her. that'll be a change for you, he can almost hear quell say, but her voice is drowned out by the gentle one at his ear, the one that draws him in to sink his face against the crook of her neck.
nothing else leaves his own mouth, bringing his arms around her, one hand splaying against her back as the other one still clutches the pen she's handed him. instead, he holds her, his sigh calm and slow against her skin, and lets himself believe she really isn't going anywhere. ]
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no subject
Yes. My vitals are good, levels are... levelled.
[ she pauses distractedly, obvious her mind is not entirely on the conversation at hand. she feels strangely small, standing there in front of him, in a room that had gotten used to the shape of them for the past three days. she can't quite put a name on the feeling that's churning inside her, like something has slotted out of place, askew. but her edges feel raw, making her jaw clench, her shoulders tense. how she wishes she had one of her large comfy sweaters to disappear in right now.
she gives the pillow one last fluff before moving towards the doorway, but pausing just a foot away from it after finding he's still situated right there within it. it would probably be good to tell him about the wound, how it's healing; he'd be concerned about it, she's sure, and she knows he's just as skeptical about magical healing as much as she is. but when she opens her mouth to speak again, all that comes tumbling out is— ]
How's Clara?
no subject
watching her begin to step away, he parts his mouth to say something, anything, like he isn't certain of what to really do now that she's in the clear to go, like he hadn't prepared for it. but the question that comes out of her mouth isn't one he expects, stilling again as he raises his eyes to her, eyes caught almost like she'd just asked him to help her shower again. ]
She's — [ fine? it's a basic question, but it carries a different weight in the context. he hadn't been sure she'd seen him leave the room with her, but he's also not sure that it was ever really supposed to matter. and it's in realizing that it does matter, that what marta thinks about that matters, that makes him come to terms with knowing what he needs to say.
he swallows, discarding her question all together as he stands a little straighter. ]
Marta, there's ... something I gotta tell you.
no subject
she half-hopes he tells her as much, but what he does end up saying winds up feeling far, far worse.
marta had never been very good at guarding her emotions. what you see is what you get, and no amount of working by his side for two months has done anything to teach it out of her. so he's privy to the way her expression shutters, lashes fluttering against an invisible blow that leaves her standing shock-still, breathless.
jesus christ, she thinks to herself, a distant, shameful voice. get a hold of yourself. ]
Sure.
[ she can't dread losing what she's never had. ]
Here?
no subject
(And it's for the best, he thinks. Is it? asks quell from a corner, but he doesn't look for her.)
he knows she isn't expecting it from him, sees it in her expression like he's struck her with something stronger than the question she'd posed at him. it adds to his nerves, but he's a lot better than she is at not showing it. ]
Yeah.
[ he's not sure that it matters where they are for this. ]
It's about this deal of mine.
no subject
now it almost ridicules her. reminding her of a fantasy that's been left behind.
it seems right that he would choose to do it here. to let it end where it ostensibly began. (not that a nothing could begin in the first place.) but what he ends up mentioning is so far away from her expectations, her resigned nod pauses mid-bob, and she's left staring up at him like she's waiting for the punchline of a joke that already doesn't sound like it'll be funny. ]
...Okay...
[ she's honestly not sure what to do with that. ]
no subject
trying to find which words to use in telling marta feels like an entirely different challenge of its own. ]
We all came here cause we made a deal with the orb. But they give us an option — for a price, we can make a change to the deal. We can ask for something else.
[ his eyes steer away for a moment as he pieces together how he'll say the rest. it isn't out of shame; kovacs doesn't regret what he's done, and he'd still make the same choice if they gave him the option to take it back. but there's something different in bringing marta into it, in letting her see into a part of him he'd kept hidden because he assumed it'd never matter.
he'd been wrong.
his eyes peer up again, locking his gaze more steady this time. ]
A few months ago, I found out that Clara's life was in danger in her world. In a way that there's no coming back from. So I made a choice — I changed my deal with the orb to save her.
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he gave up his regret.
she's not sure why that's the part that's sticking to her the most right now. they were all here for a reason, a reason important enough to warrant living through missions like scorpion's bend. kovacs has been through three. but if he were able to let himself let his initial regret go just like that, does that mean it wasn't that important to him?
don't be stupid, chimes a voice in her head. her own voice, as honest as the rest of her. it wasn't that the initial regret wasn't important. it's that clara is even more so.
and just like that, it makes sense. of course he'd save her. a heart that big only knows how to speak in selflessness.
slowly, marta half-settles onto the infirmary bed beside her, rumpling up the sheets she'd worked so hard to set tidy just minutes ago. it helps to feel something else other than the ground at her feet. especially when she has a feeling a rug will soon be pulled out from under it.
now she's the one to look away, needing that moment to reset herself.
marta does the math. if this is what's fresh on his mind after his chat with clara, she can only assume that this is what they'd discussed. and if she knows kovacs at all, it's doubtful he'd told clara or anyone else about it, which means he'd had to admit to it just now. and if clara had been the one to ask to speak with him, it's unlikely he had wanted to.
when she looks back to him, her jaw is a little more set. ]
Are you alright?
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but this — he doesn't know where it's going to go from here, out of the realm of the world they built, the bubble that brought them into that dingy old office again and again, sharing drinks in a tequila-drenched saloon, dancing until his eyes had gotten lost in hers. he thought he could get away with it, with just letting himself exist in that with her, like if he was gonna forget anyway, why couldn't he at least have one last good thing?
it was selfish. unfair. especially to her.
are you alright? how does he even answer a question like that? lately, the only times he's found himself "alright" was during those late nights, in the crummy corner of their office fighting the cold, her fingers curling around his own to hush away the bulk of the nightmares still haunting him.
swallowing, he spends a long moment saying nothing at all before he whispers, barely audibly, looking up at her. ]
No.
[ the truth. that's what he owes her now, nothing but the truth from his mouth, which is why he doesn't stop there. ]
Marta, changing your deal here has a cost. [ he takes a deep breath before sighing, trying not to avert his eyes from her. ] To save Clara, I'm ... every month, I'm losing memories.
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when he finally does speak, she's surprised by the sheer honesty of the response. that single word so heavy the small room feels more like a confessional than an infirmary, and despite all the white noise of the medical equipment around them, that little whisper of his pierces through like a knife.
a deal for a price. it makes sense. she knows firsthand now how cruel these orbs can be, and yet she still isn't expecting to hear what he tells her. isn't expecting to feel the weight of it like a punch to the gut.
memories are precious even to a regular person. but to a man who can't even rely on the comfort and consistency of his own face, his own voice, let alone those of the people around him — what else but his memories could he hold onto to keep him afloat? to remind him of exactly who he is? ]
How many months?
[ she doesn't mean to sound so harsh. aggressive, even. but she's already back up, on her feet, moving to rummage through one of the drawers in a nearby cabinet beside the bed. she glances up briefly when he doesn't answer her fast enough — which at this point could be as short as a second. ]
Kovacs. How many months has it been?
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which is why this confession feels more important here, more than it might be anywhere else. and when she almost seems angry in her tone, he doesn't even question it, like it almost makes sense for her to be even when on the surface, it probably shouldn't.
he swallows when she demands a quicker answer, his response out of his mouth before she even finishes the question the second time around. ]
Three.
[ a simple number, but it carries something else in it. three months — two and a half of it had been spent between them in scorpion's bend, and the half that remains before that was the short time in which they'd met. it says everything about what they are, what they've been — a comfort in a time of crisis, in more ways than she's realized.
quietly, he adds, ]
I used you, Marta. [ his eyes peer up at her, caught between trying to stay stern and serious while fighting away the vulnerable ache that always slips through. ] I knew what was happening to me and I was ... I was ready to just deal with it, let it just eat me whole and leave me as nothing, because it didn't matter anymore. I didn't matter anymore. But then — then I woke up in this room and you were there. You were reading that damn book, and there wasn't anything spectacular or enlightening. It was just — you in that chair, all quiet and curled up, and I —
[ his eyes turn away now, both almost bashful and bearing the guilt that forms in a lump at his throat he's forced to swallow. ]
I realized I didn't want to do it alone. All the shit I've done in my life, all the people I've lost, and I was gonna waste away, and it didn't matter. But you were there, with your hope and your dolls, and I felt selfish. I wanted — Before I forgot everything and became something else, I wanted someone to remember me as I am. I wanted someone to remember me as something better, the way that — [ he peers up again, catching her eyes. ] The way that you see me. Even if I don't deserve that.
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strangely enough, marta finds it a far easier thing to process. ]
You used me?
[ it's a ghost of a whisper, but there is no pain in her tone. rather, she sounds confused — no. indignant.
suddenly whatever she'd been looking for is abandoned, forgotten in the face of a new emotion gripping her. she crosses the short distance between them to jab a finger into the square of his chest. once, twice for emphasis. ]
You listen to me, Takeshi Kovacs. You didn't take anything I didn't want to give.
[ her words are clipped, exasperated. hushed only because she's still aware of where they are, but shaking in a way that speaks to how loud it could be, were they anywhere else. ]
I've been used before. I know what that feels like and that—
[ she knows how much it burns. that kind of betrayal, that kind of shame. she's looked in the eyes of people she once trusted and seen how they truly saw her in the reflection of their eyes. that's not what she sees here. and she absolutely refuses to let him think he's anything like any of those people. ]
We're friends. [ finally, finally, she dares to put a label on what they are. months of dithering, of avoiding it even in thought, and the answer winds up being so very simple. regardless what else they are, regardless what else they could be — they're friends. without a doubt, without a price, they're friends. and the more she says it, the more the desperation in her tone rises. ] This is what friends do, they lean on each other. Take care of one another.
[ as if she hadn't leaned on him just as much. as if she hadn't been just as selfish for wanting to hold onto the way he saw her for her. it didn't matter that she didn't know the full story. no one ever truly does. ]
You didn't use me. What you did was let me help you.
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she does the same here, her voice only partially quiet like she's remaining aware of how loud she is in a public space, but he can hear the sharpness in her voice, the kind he hears when he knows she isn't backing down on what she thinks and making sure he knows it.
even more of the message comes across when she uses his full name like she's somehow reminding him of who he is, all at once.
friends — it's not a word he uses often, not because he doesn't believe in it, but because he tries to resist getting too cozy with it, always prepared to lose those that earn the label. he knows he has friends here, knowing that in the endless hours they spent side by side, familiarizing themselves with each other, marta became the best of them. it doesn't make him feel any less guilty. ]
I lied to you. [ he shakes his head, pulling that out like it's one of the things that's bothering him most in this confession, like it matters more than the fact that he changed his deal or that he's losing his memories, that this is where it's all gone wrong. ] I didn't tell you what was happening to me and you — you almost died for me, Marta.
[ and there it is, the crack in his attempt to speak calmly, distraught in his eyes as he leans forward towards her, using his own finger now to point at himself, like hers wasn't enough, his voice raising slightly. ]
My fate's been sealed and you still risked yourself for me. After everything else, I can't go on losing you too! I —
[ it's more than he means to say. biting his tongue, he falls silent for a moment, straightening up and collecting himself before speaking up again, a little more quietly. ]
You once told me you'd hold on to hope in my place. But if it also means you get hurt in my place too, I ... I can't let you do that for me. Please.
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she really doesn't know how to feel about the fact that the one to cause it is her. ]
Am I supposed to be mad at you because you didn't tell me the whole truth? [ in direct response to his growing intensity, she sobers up and her voice softens. ] Is that supposed to make a difference? Like I wouldn't have still done what I did?
[ before anything else, before he goes on to put yet another weight on his shoulders, he has to know: ]
I don't regret what I did. Just like I know you don't regret doing what you did for Clara.
[ she has always been honest, and sometimes to a fault. sometimes at the expense of herself, in revealing feelings she won't yet name, ones she hasn't even really allowed herself to think too long on, but airing it all out there for anyone to make the connections themselves.
later, later, she'll think back on this and be rightfully horrified. she'll recognize the selfishness in herself, for standing firm where he clearly wants her to waver. certainly, it would be easier that way, wouldn't it? to let him make his peace and slip back into the den of solitude and loneliness he had prepared for himself. and maybe before, she would have, but now she's grown greedy.
(in a way, it's kind of poetic. thanks to him, she's learned to want a little harder for herself.)
she lets out a huff of a laugh, exasperated. ]
Estúpido.
[ him. her. ]
Did you think you would mean any less to me, if I knew how much less of you there'd be?
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when it all does finally still, where even his breath seems to catch in his throat, it's when she says the things he doesn't expect, the things he'd rather not hear and, yet, latches onto them like he'd been so starved for it.
he watches her with a lasting silence, though his eyes scream out so much — surprise, relief, worry — everything at once like he's battling in himself how to feel over those words, undeserving of it and yet wanting to hold onto them without ever letting go.
it's the feeling he'd felt in that bar, the one that was ready to breathe her in and nothing else. ]
I didn't want you to care about me.
[ a quiet honesty that's not meant to judge her on how she might feel, silent again for a moment after before he takes a light step forward, closer to her. ]
When this started — [ he realizes as soon as he says it, the strangeness of those words. when this started. this, like what they are could be embodied in any sort of definition. ] I was only thinking of myself. I was selfish and I didn't think —
[ that anyone would care about me. that you would care about me. not like this.
he swallows, lump thick in his throat. raising his fingers, he grazes the tips light against her cheek, like he's resistant to giving in too much. ]
One of these days, I might wake up and not remember any of this. Everything we did, everything we said — just gone. I don't want the day to come where you see me looking at you any differently than the way I am now.
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right now, it's like he isn't even trying to hold anything back. or maybe he's simply too tired to be able to. too raw and beaten, broken hands grasping at a hope too delicate to stay still.
she's wondered before: how would it feel to look at him and see a different face staring back? now he's got her fearing something else entirely — a familiar face holding an unfamiliar look. honestly? it sounds terrifying. but he's been brave for her before; the least she could do is be brave for him in turn.
carefully, she lifts a hand to settle it right behind his, letting her fingers slot and lace in the spaces left between his. fitting their pieces together. ]
It might happen.
[ her voice is gentle, but that's a reality that would be foolish to ignore. and despite it all, even if they both have their own separate ways to go about it, they're both still realists. a deal is a deal. and by now they both know how cruel these orbs can truly be. ]
But just because you forget, doesn't mean it has to be lost to you forever.
[ she leaves his side for a moment, moving to the table beside the bed to look through its drawer. it doesn't take her long to find what she's been trying to look for since he'd mentioned his plight earlier, holding the pen up between them when she reclaims her place before him. ]
You can write your story, Takeshi. Who said the ending has to be a sad one?
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but marta has the tactics for scratching and digging out more. with her, it's never about living in a fantasy, in dodging the truth for something prettier; she cuts him raw with every word, and in the past few months, it's forced him to turn and face exactly what he's been running from, from the memories he's losing, from the choice he's made to discard his own life entirely. she never even had to know the truth for her to point him in that direction.
and even now as he paints her the harshness of what could ultimately happen, what prevents him from wanting to give too much of himself away, she doesn't pretend otherwise.
for him, hope was always the idea of a joke, of wishing for something that can't exist. in marta's world, it's peeling back the dirty layers of the real world to find the little spaces in between of everything broken and taking hold of what's not.
he watches her move away and return with that pen in her hand, brows knitting with confusion at the move until she spells it a bit more clearly, his expression soon softening with the realization of what she's suggesting. ]
It's not going to be up to me.
[ it's a minor attempt to keep fighting, albeit a weaker one as his shoulders slouch, watching her eyes with an attentive, understanding stare. because she's not wrong. there's still a way for him to hold on, even if he doesn't want to rely on it. ]
Are you ... sure you still want to be a part of it?
[ a part of his story. the one with the ending not yet written. ]
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but maybe that's not the point here. maybe he's asking not because her answer isn't clear, but because he'd never had the chance to ask before. that people already left, before he could even form the words.
so maybe, right now, it's more important what he wants. what he still gets to decide.
to know that, despite everything, there are still some things he can control. ]
It's your story, Takeshi.
[ there are some people he gets to ask to stay. ]
Are you asking me to be?
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since when has he ever really been in charge of his own story? whether it's pulling the trigger on his father or turning his back on ctac or standing with the envoys, the world has always moved him along with each step, pulling him one way or another until he's left with nothing but inevitable choices. any decision he's made for himself has never been made to last, everything he's wanted has never stayed.
— why would it start now?
but she's giving him the choice here, with her hand held out, pen clenched within her fingers, and she isn't shaking on her question.
his eyes linger on her without knowing for how long, knowing what awaits him with this deal, knowing what he may be dragging her further into, knowing that she now knows it all too. he's still looking at her when he reaches to curl his fingers around the pen and around her knuckles, holding both at once. ]
Yeah.
[ he finally answers, spoken like a sigh. she's giving him the choice, but his gaze still looks to her like he's still asking the question in his every word. like he needs her to know she still has an out. ]
I ... want you with me. [ whatever that means, he doesn't know. he takes a step closer, quiet in his breath. ] Whatever happens to me after all of this, I'd want you there.
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was her place beside him as temporary as their stay?
maybe it might have been, once. but not now, not when he holds her hand, meets her eyes, tells her what he wants. what he lets himself want, for once. ]
I'll be there. [ emotion floods her voice, makes it thick. relief, joy, anticipation. ] Wherever you need me, prometo.
[ this close, it's so very easy to draw him into the circle of her arms. after nights spent huddled together for warmth, listening to the sound of each other's heartbeats for lullabies, it feels only natural to wrap her arms around him now, to rise up on her tiptoes and thread one hand into his hair.
i'm here, the squeeze of her arms promise. i'm here i'm here i'm here.
by his ear, without the weight of his eyes on her to make her shy, she confesses, ]
I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
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rei, quell, clara — they either left or were taken. living longer than one should, you get used to the idea of impermanence.
but with marta circling her arms around him, holding him in close to her, he finds himself wanting to pretend this won't be like the rest, that it won't go wrong, that he won't lose her. that'll be a change for you, he can almost hear quell say, but her voice is drowned out by the gentle one at his ear, the one that draws him in to sink his face against the crook of her neck.
nothing else leaves his own mouth, bringing his arms around her, one hand splaying against her back as the other one still clutches the pen she's handed him. instead, he holds her, his sigh calm and slow against her skin, and lets himself believe she really isn't going anywhere. ]