[ the initial silence that meets her confession has marta regretting she'd ever said anything at all, as if it were the final nail in the coffin of just how wholly out of her depth she is in all this. they had warned her, hadn't they? everyone she'd spoken to about the past missions, each speaking so candidly about the dangers they'd faced. how some of them had barely made it through, and they so much more skilled, so much more prepared for what the orbs threw at them. of course she'd known none of it would be easy, but not for the first time she wonders if this has not just been one big mistake. it's one thing to endanger herself, but to be a liability to others here, who each have their own goal to obtain...
the old bed creaks gently at his added weight, stirring marta out of the hole she'd begun to dig for herself. she blinks, and suddenly he's right there, facing her, speaking calmly and with such conviction. for all that she'd been hoping for him to speak just seconds earlier, now that he does she can barely hear him at first, too overwhelmed by the dull buzzing in her ears when she realizes what he means to do with that cloth, what the light pressure at her knee means.
slowly, his words settle and process, and the wound on her head comes alive again at his touch. she winces but doesn't shy away from the gesture, letting him tend to her despite the gnawing guilt inside of her. ]
Sometimes help hurts.
[ sometimes, even the best of intentions lead to mistakes. in the back of her mind, she can hear blanc's drawl: does having a kind heart make you a good nurse? ]
Andy would have been fine without me there. She would have been better off. She got hurt because I was there, because she had to protect me. Like Harlan, she—
[ it hits her then, a wave of shudders that ends in a stifled sob, smothered behind a bitten lip. it takes her a few moments to be able to speak again, and when she does it's that broken barely-whisper again. but despite that there's an unmistakable resolve there, for however lost it is. ]
no subject
the old bed creaks gently at his added weight, stirring marta out of the hole she'd begun to dig for herself. she blinks, and suddenly he's right there, facing her, speaking calmly and with such conviction. for all that she'd been hoping for him to speak just seconds earlier, now that he does she can barely hear him at first, too overwhelmed by the dull buzzing in her ears when she realizes what he means to do with that cloth, what the light pressure at her knee means.
slowly, his words settle and process, and the wound on her head comes alive again at his touch. she winces but doesn't shy away from the gesture, letting him tend to her despite the gnawing guilt inside of her. ]
Sometimes help hurts.
[ sometimes, even the best of intentions lead to mistakes. in the back of her mind, she can hear blanc's drawl: does having a kind heart make you a good nurse? ]
Andy would have been fine without me there. She would have been better off. She got hurt because I was there, because she had to protect me. Like Harlan, she—
[ it hits her then, a wave of shudders that ends in a stifled sob, smothered behind a bitten lip. it takes her a few moments to be able to speak again, and when she does it's that broken barely-whisper again. but despite that there's an unmistakable resolve there, for however lost it is. ]
I can't keep letting people get hurt for me.