( There's visible relief in Gideon's expression when Ray opens the door, Gideon physically seeing the proof that Ray is alive again. She'd known that he was back, had seen his latest dream and it had concerned her. At least she'd waited until day time before coming over to him )
Doctor Palmer. ( She also sounds more relieved than any artificial consciousness has the right to be, but when has Gideon ever done anything properly ) I'm pleased to see that you're here.
[ it takes longer than he'd like for ray to put away his blatant surprise and remember his manners. he shifts the deflated blow up something to his left hand and opens the door wider to let gideon in. ]
Best place to find me. Watch your step, I just started cleaning up this morning.
( She isn't ego enough to feel any guilt, it's too much a human process, but if she were -- would his fate have been any different if Gideon hadn't gone to see Rip? If he hadn't been able to force her to answer his questions, to give him information on the Legends. Would anything have been different? But these are questions that Gideon doesn't ask, nor even think of.
Instead she's relieved to see him, though she does at least know that he isn't okay. It's why she offers help over anything else, and she's not the best at comforting )
( Whether she believes it to be his doing or not... well, she can tell from the mess that it isn't solely him. His room on the Waverider was never so bad )
But it may help for the moment. Where shall we begin?
Thanks. [ he doesn't answer right away, like he normally might. he stops distracting himself to meet her eyes for a quiet moment. instead of fighting against her momentum, ray decides that he'll just let it push him along. ] If we can move most of the larger debris out of the way, it'll probably make everything else a little easier.
( She gets straight to the debris, no confirmation given to what he says. The tables are simple to right, and though Gideon pushes them up slowly it's not due to any struggle that she has with their weight.
She lets silence drop for a few minutes, righting a few more tables, before Gideon breaks it, attention on a machine as she speaks )
I know what you did, Doctor Palmer. With Captain Hunter.
[ for his part, ray had done very little. he pushed some debris around aimlessly, for the most part. he did rescue his dinged-up espresso machine from what seemed to be the remains of his spectrometer, and he grips it tightly as he turns to face gideon. ]
If you're here to tell me how stupid I am, just-- I've heard it all, Gideon. And if I could go back and change it, I wouldn't. I'd do the exact same thing over and over again until he chose help, OK? Yes, it was worth it. Yes, I get that dying hurts my friends. And Sarah. And I'm sorry that's a fact, it doesn't make me happy to see people upset.
[ he hadn't meant to go on that long, and now ray realizes he's just clutching the stupid coffee machine to his chest. he tosses it into the pile of junk in the corner. ]
Call it selfish or arrogant, but I needed to be better. Better than we are at home. I needed to try.
( She had stopped, and there was even a few seconds of silence before she spoke.
Gideon straightens herself up, resting her hands on the table she'd just righted. She can see what he'd said, knows why everyone had called it a stupid act.
It had hurt, knowing that Ray had died, not just in part to how it had happened. It would surprise some to know that she'd felt that, and that she cared for her team. Her family. The few people that she'd come to know and care for.
It had hurt when Ray had died, had saddened her and caused her worry -- caused her to keep checking until he'd returned. It also hurt to hear what he thought of himself )
I know why you did it. It wasn't arrogant, perhaps misguided doing it alone but... ( And there's a brief pause, something that's not normally in Gideon's speech. One of the slight differences from Wonderland's changing of her. She's thinking carefully on her words ) I'm pleased that you tried. I wish too that the outcome had been more favourable, but you needed to try.
( And there's a couple more seconds before Gideon adds )
Thank you.
( Small, honest. Telling? Gideon had mentioned to Ray once that she found this situation difficult, that Rip was important to her but she hadn't elaborated. As saddened as she was that what happened happened she's more pleased that someone tried to help Rip to begin with. It means a lot to her )
[ gideon's words grab ray's attention. they aren't simply unexpected, they're ... exactly what he thought he'd wanted to hear. what he thought would lift some of the weight from his chest-- an acknowledgment that despite being misguided, his intentions had been good.
but his chest still feels too tight, his stomach still queasy. he's grateful, of course, and that it comes from gideon is actually no small thing. she doesn't speak words just to make people feel better, the way humans do. and yet the way she says them now seems very much human. ]
Oh. I-- I probably should have asked you for help, huh?
[ his own conciliation, of a sort. he nods then, a little late but only once he's released some of the tension he'd been holding onto. this is all a bit much, and the fact that it doesn't make him feel what he thought it would is going to take a bit more time to process. quieter, then: ]
( His apology only earns him a nod, though she isn't ignoring it -- not purposely. Gideon simply is traversing something that she's never experienced before. Rip had snapped before, and she'd seen all manner of emotions from him but Rip and Ray were completely different. The outcome still stood -- Ray didn't need to apologise to her )
I wouldn't have been able to help.
( But, as much as it's its own story Ray doesn't need to hear about it now. It didn't help him, and it only posed its own set of problems.
Instead, Gideon steps away from her table, taking a few steps towards Ray )
But you do still have a team. Even if only some of the Legends are here there is always someone that you can ask for help from.
[ for once, he's not lying about his motivations and it seems he can't communicate it clearly. not when nobody asks so much as assumes. he supposed he can't blame people for that, though. not when he's so often guilty of it himself. ]
Things got tense so fast when he came back. He shot Nate, and Sara showed up and she was ... she was in bad shape. We all just keep looking for fires to put out, but this isn't the Waverider. Time doesn't move, and...
[ he's rambling without direction and sighs heavily. it occurs to ray that he isn't sure what he's trying to say. it seems to happen a lot lately. and so something true comes out of him; something he hadn't realized he was carrying still. it isn't even entirely relevant, except for the fact that he feels guilt from it. ]
The first time I spoke to him here in Wonderland, I told him he wasn't a captain here.
[ his laugh is a little hollow, marking cynicism where ray doesn't often express it. but ray does smile as genuine as he can manage in the middle of all this mess. ]
You know what? Yeah. I'll tell you. But you should talk, too. [ he'd noticed that pause before, if only because he watches gideon for signs of problems as a scientist. but more and more, his image of her holographic head is fading away to be replaced by this version of her.
he moves toward not the main door to the hallway but the one that connects to the room he shares with sarah, ushering her to follow. ]
C'mon. Though-- I haven't asked if you eat, yet, have I?
( Gideon's head dips a little when Ray turns the request back on her. Was it shame? Embarrassment? Perhaps guilt that Gideon had done what she'd promised not to?
Part of her did feel foolish to still have trusted Rip so implicitly despite knowing that he was a different man, but she couldn't ignore him, and if seeing him could somehow have helped him...
But it didn't. Instead the consequences had been worse than she'd imagined.
His next question brings her gaze back up, a hint of a smile at his question )
C'mon, we can at least sit in the living room and you can watch me eat an irresponsible amount of brownies...
[ he ushers her in to what's become a small apartment-- sarah's design is in every facet, but pieces of ray stick out. projects that made their way beyond the workshop and gadgets he built to make things better.
in fact, as ray passes the first vacbot he'd built, he not so surreptitiously shoves it under the chair so that gideon can't see its label. ]
( When they go through to the apartment Gideon does look around, though not in human curiosity but more an assessment of what items are in a room, and what he may believe she lacks if Ray was ever invited to her own room. Though he assisted her in finding a room it's still almost as bare as that day. She hasn't much use for what humans might use and hasn't brought anything else in.
This time, unlike when Ray invited her to his lab, Gideon does at least make the effort to sit on the couch, though whether or not she looks comfortable... still sat straight, perched on the edge. Classic Gideon )
[ he comes back with a little plate of snacks and a big old glass of water and makes himself comfortable on the floor at the coffee table, crossing his legs and looking very much like an overgrown child for a moment. ]
So you saw him?
[ it's not the biggest of intuitive leaps, but ray has to imagine it's a delicate subject for her. he realizes he's not even sure how long it had just been rip and gideon, before they'd assembled the legends. ]
I think I was hoping he was faking. He didn't kill Nate, he didn't come after any of us, he didn't do anything to remove hope entirely.
[ he shrugs. ]
I thought maybe, you know, he thought he could keep a better eye on Thawne or something. That if I just kept trying we could talk or I could get him to crack, or something.
( Not all of it. Perhaps Gideon had simply believed Ray when he'd told her of Rip's state, not having been here and seeing him from the earlier time point. They'd just gotten his memories back, she'd just saved him, yet it hadn't yet happened. That was easier to accept in the initial moment than the history.
Her tone has dipped a little, not quieter necessarily but lower. It's void of the usual emotion that a human may possess in their voice, but her speech also isn't the usual chipperness that Ray has come to know )
I had hoped that talking to him may have helped to bring some of his memories to the surface.
( They had spent an awfully long time together, and Gideon had always been there for him )
But I also know the current state of Rip's mind, and what Eobard Thawne did to him. Such a hope was foolish.
( Impossible. A simple conversation could never help, not with the bitterness and loathing that Rip seemed to possess; emotions that he also directed towards Gideon herself )
[ whether he's defending himself or her, ray figures it doesn't actually matter. lately he feels like the only one willing to keep hoping in the face of insurmountable odds. his voice is quiet still, calmer than it normally might be. ]
When it seems impossible, that's when it matters the most.
( If only because they've done it before. If they hadn't perhaps it would have been just hope, and sadness.
The thing is that Gideon isn't used to failure on a personal note. There have been times when their plans had failed; when Rip had almost died or the Waverider could have been destroyed. Those were easier to cope with -- she just looked for a new plan, something new to do. Failing with Rip... it was almost betrayal. No, it was. With how he'd acted, doing the one thing that he didn't do. That was betrayal )
Because we cannot lose him. Not with all of our efforts to help him.
( Both in their world and here. It just felt more difficult now )
[ he's been through the rip fix himself, and he knows it's the right thing to do. rip's a dangerous man and kind of a dick on a good day. but he'd proven himself a good person, too. one who despite all the pain he's suffered still has more compassion in his pinky finger than all of them put together.
if ray could help it, he wouldn't let that be taken from rip too. ]
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he'll never get this place clean will he ]
Gideon? [ huff puff and huff and puff ] What is it? Is everything OK?
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Doctor Palmer. ( She also sounds more relieved than any artificial consciousness has the right to be, but when has Gideon ever done anything properly ) I'm pleased to see that you're here.
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[ it takes longer than he'd like for ray to put away his blatant surprise and remember his manners. he shifts the deflated blow up something to his left hand and opens the door wider to let gideon in. ]
Best place to find me. Watch your step, I just started cleaning up this morning.
[ yknow. cause he actually couldn't until then. ]
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( She isn't ego enough to feel any guilt, it's too much a human process, but if she were -- would his fate have been any different if Gideon hadn't gone to see Rip? If he hadn't been able to force her to answer his questions, to give him information on the Legends. Would anything have been different? But these are questions that Gideon doesn't ask, nor even think of.
Instead she's relieved to see him, though she does at least know that he isn't okay. It's why she offers help over anything else, and she's not the best at comforting )
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You don't have to do that. [ he shrugs, folding his buddy up with a faint smile. ] Besides, it'll probably get all messed up again before long anyway.
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( Whether she believes it to be his doing or not... well, she can tell from the mess that it isn't solely him. His room on the Waverider was never so bad )
But it may help for the moment. Where shall we begin?
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[ ...gideon do u even lift? ]
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She lets silence drop for a few minutes, righting a few more tables, before Gideon breaks it, attention on a machine as she speaks )
I know what you did, Doctor Palmer. With Captain Hunter.
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[ for his part, ray had done very little. he pushed some debris around aimlessly, for the most part. he did rescue his dinged-up espresso machine from what seemed to be the remains of his spectrometer, and he grips it tightly as he turns to face gideon. ]
If you're here to tell me how stupid I am, just-- I've heard it all, Gideon. And if I could go back and change it, I wouldn't. I'd do the exact same thing over and over again until he chose help, OK? Yes, it was worth it. Yes, I get that dying hurts my friends. And Sarah. And I'm sorry that's a fact, it doesn't make me happy to see people upset.
[ he hadn't meant to go on that long, and now ray realizes he's just clutching the stupid coffee machine to his chest. he tosses it into the pile of junk in the corner. ]
Call it selfish or arrogant, but I needed to be better. Better than we are at home. I needed to try.
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( She had stopped, and there was even a few seconds of silence before she spoke.
Gideon straightens herself up, resting her hands on the table she'd just righted. She can see what he'd said, knows why everyone had called it a stupid act.
It had hurt, knowing that Ray had died, not just in part to how it had happened. It would surprise some to know that she'd felt that, and that she cared for her team. Her family. The few people that she'd come to know and care for.
It had hurt when Ray had died, had saddened her and caused her worry -- caused her to keep checking until he'd returned. It also hurt to hear what he thought of himself )
I know why you did it. It wasn't arrogant, perhaps misguided doing it alone but... ( And there's a brief pause, something that's not normally in Gideon's speech. One of the slight differences from Wonderland's changing of her. She's thinking carefully on her words ) I'm pleased that you tried. I wish too that the outcome had been more favourable, but you needed to try.
( And there's a couple more seconds before Gideon adds )
Thank you.
( Small, honest. Telling? Gideon had mentioned to Ray once that she found this situation difficult, that Rip was important to her but she hadn't elaborated. As saddened as she was that what happened happened she's more pleased that someone tried to help Rip to begin with. It means a lot to her )
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but his chest still feels too tight, his stomach still queasy. he's grateful, of course, and that it comes from gideon is actually no small thing. she doesn't speak words just to make people feel better, the way humans do. and yet the way she says them now seems very much human. ]
Oh. I-- I probably should have asked you for help, huh?
[ his own conciliation, of a sort. he nods then, a little late but only once he's released some of the tension he'd been holding onto. this is all a bit much, and the fact that it doesn't make him feel what he thought it would is going to take a bit more time to process. quieter, then: ]
I'm sorry for blowing up at you.
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I wouldn't have been able to help.
( But, as much as it's its own story Ray doesn't need to hear about it now. It didn't help him, and it only posed its own set of problems.
Instead, Gideon steps away from her table, taking a few steps towards Ray )
But you do still have a team. Even if only some of the Legends are here there is always someone that you can ask for help from.
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[ for once, he's not lying about his motivations and it seems he can't communicate it clearly. not when nobody asks so much as assumes. he supposed he can't blame people for that, though. not when he's so often guilty of it himself. ]
Things got tense so fast when he came back. He shot Nate, and Sara showed up and she was ... she was in bad shape. We all just keep looking for fires to put out, but this isn't the Waverider. Time doesn't move, and...
[ he's rambling without direction and sighs heavily. it occurs to ray that he isn't sure what he's trying to say. it seems to happen a lot lately. and so something true comes out of him; something he hadn't realized he was carrying still. it isn't even entirely relevant, except for the fact that he feels guilt from it. ]
The first time I spoke to him here in Wonderland, I told him he wasn't a captain here.
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( Gideon may have read everything that was on the network but there was so much more that didn't happen there -- everything in the world.
It was also very clear to Gideon that there was more that Ray was thinking or feeling than what he'd already shared. Had he ever shared any of it? )
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You know what? Yeah. I'll tell you. But you should talk, too. [ he'd noticed that pause before, if only because he watches gideon for signs of problems as a scientist. but more and more, his image of her holographic head is fading away to be replaced by this version of her.
he moves toward not the main door to the hallway but the one that connects to the room he shares with sarah, ushering her to follow. ]
C'mon. Though-- I haven't asked if you eat, yet, have I?
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Part of her did feel foolish to still have trusted Rip so implicitly despite knowing that he was a different man, but she couldn't ignore him, and if seeing him could somehow have helped him...
But it didn't. Instead the consequences had been worse than she'd imagined.
His next question brings her gaze back up, a hint of a smile at his question )
I don't. But you should.
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C'mon, we can at least sit in the living room and you can watch me eat an irresponsible amount of brownies...
[ he ushers her in to what's become a small apartment-- sarah's design is in every facet, but pieces of ray stick out. projects that made their way beyond the workshop and gadgets he built to make things better.
in fact, as ray passes the first vacbot he'd built, he not so surreptitiously shoves it under the chair so that gideon can't see its label. ]
Make yourself comfy, I'll be right back.
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This time, unlike when Ray invited her to his lab, Gideon does at least make the effort to sit on the couch, though whether or not she looks comfortable... still sat straight, perched on the edge. Classic Gideon )
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So you saw him?
[ it's not the biggest of intuitive leaps, but ray has to imagine it's a delicate subject for her. he realizes he's not even sure how long it had just been rip and gideon, before they'd assembled the legends. ]
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( There's only a couple of seconds pause before Gideon clarifies more )
I had kept in mind your words, but knowing his mind as I do I had wanted to see how it had been altered.
( Okay, she already knew how it had been altered given her previous venture into his mind but she hadn't had the opportunity to speak with him )
Knowing what he thinks may have provided us with more information in order to help him.
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I think I was hoping he was faking. He didn't kill Nate, he didn't come after any of us, he didn't do anything to remove hope entirely.
[ he shrugs. ]
I thought maybe, you know, he thought he could keep a better eye on Thawne or something. That if I just kept trying we could talk or I could get him to crack, or something.
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( Not all of it. Perhaps Gideon had simply believed Ray when he'd told her of Rip's state, not having been here and seeing him from the earlier time point. They'd just gotten his memories back, she'd just saved him, yet it hadn't yet happened. That was easier to accept in the initial moment than the history.
Her tone has dipped a little, not quieter necessarily but lower. It's void of the usual emotion that a human may possess in their voice, but her speech also isn't the usual chipperness that Ray has come to know )
I had hoped that talking to him may have helped to bring some of his memories to the surface.
( They had spent an awfully long time together, and Gideon had always been there for him )
But I also know the current state of Rip's mind, and what Eobard Thawne did to him. Such a hope was foolish.
( Impossible. A simple conversation could never help, not with the bitterness and loathing that Rip seemed to possess; emotions that he also directed towards Gideon herself )
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[ whether he's defending himself or her, ray figures it doesn't actually matter. lately he feels like the only one willing to keep hoping in the face of insurmountable odds. his voice is quiet still, calmer than it normally might be. ]
When it seems impossible, that's when it matters the most.
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( If only because they've done it before. If they hadn't perhaps it would have been just hope, and sadness.
The thing is that Gideon isn't used to failure on a personal note. There have been times when their plans had failed; when Rip had almost died or the Waverider could have been destroyed. Those were easier to cope with -- she just looked for a new plan, something new to do. Failing with Rip... it was almost betrayal. No, it was. With how he'd acted, doing the one thing that he didn't do. That was betrayal )
Because we cannot lose him. Not with all of our efforts to help him.
( Both in their world and here. It just felt more difficult now )
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[ he's been through the rip fix himself, and he knows it's the right thing to do. rip's a dangerous man and kind of a dick on a good day. but he'd proven himself a good person, too. one who despite all the pain he's suffered still has more compassion in his pinky finger than all of them put together.
if ray could help it, he wouldn't let that be taken from rip too. ]
I'm glad it was just me.
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