[ it's late. so late marta doesn't even dare check what time it is, but by now the adrenaline from the attack has seeped out of her veins and the desert's unforgiving chill has reached her bones, making her lips pale and her teeth chatter. still, she doesn't think to return back to her room at thornbush inn, instead dragging her feet to the saloon like she's being drawn there by some magnetic force.
her body tells her she rest, or if not that then at least tend to the gash above her brow, still dripping blood down the side of her face. there's blood all over the rest of her too, staining her nightgown and her hands, but it isn't hers. it's why she's here, doing what she's about to do.
(not because she's scared, not because she knows he wouldn't be.)
she knocks once, twice. a third time for luck, though it seems a silly thing to wish for now. ]
[ normally, he's a light enough sleeper, enough that whatever attacks had begun out in the town, he's have heard it. but having had another long night at sindown, another in which he'd only drowned himself in whiskey, rather than go along with his original intention in taking some company up to a private room, he'd easily passed out in his room at the saloon, only barely even getting there with the drag of his feet, along with only managing to yank off the liquor-stained shirt, still in his trousers and boots when he collides with the stiff mattress.
another dream tonight, a nightmare as is the typical routine β the ash, the fire, the gunshots, the corpses β it's no different as any other night, like he's simply repainting every detail by vivid memory, replaying like it'll never stop.
it's only the sudden knock at the door that jolts him awake, shuddering like someone had shoved him directly. another knock, and then another, before he finally pulls himself out of bed, nearly forgetting that he's still half-dressed, as his eyes peer to the window to note the darkness still outside.
he wipes at his face right before opening the door, a squint aimed at marta's direction, prepared to mutter what the hell she was doing here at whatever hour it is β until his eyes go wide, falling upon the blood stains at her eyebrow, to the matching crimson on her gown and he moves before he can stop himself, large palm cupping at her neck, thumb braced against her jaw as he studies her more hastily now, along her face and her body, searching for the injuries, for the source of all that blood. ]
[ what she expects is this: a sleep-haggard kovacs, grumpy over the disruption, ready to roll his eyes at her frayed nerves before quietly assuaging her worries. or a kovacs already awake, dusty and dirty from a tussle with some bandits, really to fling himself into bed and let the exhaustion of the evening claim him.
she doesn't expect this. the look in his eyes, the concern that floods them.
his hand is warm, so warm against the icy chill of her skin that it sucks the breath right out of her, shoves her words back down her throat to get caught right where his palm rests.
for a second she forgets why she'd come there. for a second she forgets even them. for that second it's just his hand, her skin, the words in her throat struggling to break free like the wild beating of a heart.
she gasps. ]
βFine. I'm fine. [ she's bleeding. ] It's just a cut. [ there's blood all overβ ] The rest isn't mine.
[ the hand she'd been using to knock on his door had been left to hover in the air, but somewhere between his words and hers it had found a seat along his wrist, feeling the erratic beat of his pulse on her thumb. (did she do that?)
[ it's all plenty jarring, being woken up so suddenly, dream still faintly colliding into reality, lost in a dream of war and death and waking to find marta rattled before his eyes, coated in blood. for a moment, he thinks he's still dreaming, that his past has just overlapped with his present, that his dream has gripped marta and placed her right into the battle of stronghold, another victim amongst the clutter of envoys.
but when he touches her, palm braced in the space between neck and cheek, she's undeniably warm, hardly a dream with the heated softness of her skin beneath his touch. he can feel her nerves there, presumably thrummed up by whatever frantic emergency has brought her here, her pulse thumping against his fingers.
his eyes peer over her in search of the possible wound, finding her eyes again when she suggests the blood isn't hers, stilling when her fingers curve against his wrist.
for a moment, he doesn't even move at all, just a few seconds that last longer than they should as he looks at her while he reels himself back to being a little more focused, alert, now that he's awake. ]
Come on. [ he eases his hand away, as if the touch hadn't even been there at all, instead nudging them against her back to urge her inside before he stands in front of the doorway, looking out to make sure no one's been chasing her and followed after her.
shutting the door, he turns to her, shaking his head. ] What the hell happened out there?
[ she'd come here for a purpose, spurred by whatever adrenaline she'd had left from the scuffle to make her far braver than she would normally be. but the second she's ushered in, and the backdrop of the evening falls away with the quiet close of the door behind him, marta feels her fear returning to her, manifesting in a slight tremor to her hands that she tries to smother with harsh grips to her arms. ]
Bandits. They came in late last night while everyone was asleep.
[ now it's her turn to look him over, searching for any evidence that he'd been out there too. there's nothing accusatory in her look, just the same sort of concern mirrored back at him. ]
They're gone now. Chased away or... or they got what they came for.
[ something almost more stern appears in his expression as she mentions the bandits, the reaction less intended to be directed at her as it is to the very idea of them appearing in the first place. why didn't he hear them? he, who's typically so ready in an emergency, those instincts of his always having him primed to be on the defensive. how deep in his nightmare had he ended up? ]
What? Why didn't β ? You should've called me.
[ though he's more frustrated with himself for not being there, especially with that cut above her brow. along with the blood on her gown β
his eyes fall to it again, swallowing. ] Whose blood is that?
[ she's surprised at the relief that floods her to hear he hadn't been there. she had never seen his skills for herself, but she can intuit that he's more than capable of handling an attack like that, and yet here she is letting out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. she can sense the frustration rolling off of him in waves, but for now she lets herself be comforted that'd he'd been safe, away from all that. ]
Andy. Sheβ [ marta's gaze drops to where kovacs is staring, and only now does she see just how much blood there is. she has to swallow back the sudden wave of nausea that comes with a vivid recollection of what had happened. ] ...She's fine too.
[ there's a subdued quality to her voice that doesn't match her words. she's relieved the other woman is okay, of course, but by all accounts she shouldn't be and... and marta still doesn't really know what to make of that.
she starts to look around his room, wanting to take her eyes off all the blood. ]
[ he's not sure of the extent of the attack to know how vital his presence could have been, of just how many people were even involved in the fighting in the first place, but at the very least, he could have tried to prevent this, keep marta herself from getting involved in it. he'd promised her, after all, before they ended up in scorpion's bend that she'd be alright in this mission. hard to assure her of that if she'd nearly gotten killed out there. ]
Yeah, she ... would. [ hearing that andy's the source of the blood is a strange kind of relief, but it's only because he's seen for himself the kind of way that she self-repairs, having held her lifeless in his arms once, wound to the neck fatal to the point that even in kovacs' own world, there'd be no coming back from that. but he'd seen her get right back up, his own arms and clothes covered in her blood the same way marta's are right now, perfectly intact like the damage had never been there at all.
but even if andy's health isn't too much of a concern, he can see that marta's still plenty shaken from it all, and he nods turning on his heel to peer around the room, too small to provide anything comfortable aside from the bed itself, holding out an arm to gesture her to it. ]
Yeah, come on. [ rather than immediately follow, he instead goes to a corner of the room where a small stand holds a bowl filled with water, prepped there daily by the saloon workers as a means for him to wash his face in the morning. right now, he takes the cloth at its side, dipping it into the water. ] You get hurt anywhere else besides that cut?
[ marta knows better than to assume his promise of protection had extended anywhere past the inconvenience of her silly little affliction. that was what she'd come to him about, and that was what he'd told her he'd help her with. that already had been a big ask, from marta who so rarely wants to be another person's burden to worry over. the last time someone had made her problems his... well. it hadn't ended well.
she has no reason to imagine any other time will be any different. ]
No... just this.
[ even the cut feels so insignificant. it looks worse than it is, the laceration just deep enough that the initial blood flow painted the side of her face. but already it had stopped, and in the end it's nothing at all compared to what she'd seen. ]
I don't know why I went out there, I — I was just in the way.
[ she's talking more to fill in the gaps of silence. when it had once been a familiar friend it feels like a stranger now, judging her in its emptiness. scolding her for forgetting her place.
andy had picked herself up from the attack like nothing had happened and — and maybe that should matter. maybe that should be enough. but she fell because of marta. this blood is still literally on her hands.
she looks up at him, searching for something she can't quite name yet. when she talks again, her voice is a soft crack of a whisper, broken before it even had a chance to form. ]
[ it's almost impossible to imagine the point of view of someone who isn't as familiar with the violence, not when he's seen it before his eyes since he was twelve years old, since he held a gun in his own hands and pulled the trigger himself. but seeing it in her face tells him all he needs to know, the uncertainty of it when she speaks out and even not having been out there, he can see the kind of terror that might have been featured in her face when she'd been out there.
for a moment, he says nothing at all, making sure the cloth in his hands is well wet before he wrings it out, leaving it plenty damp before stepping across the room to her, sitting beside her on the bed, knee gently nudging against hers as he turns to face her. ]
When I accidentally called you from the shower, you came running. [ his voice is quiet but calm, mimicking the same kind of composure he always bears even when he's the one on the other side, when he's injured, skin stained with blood. ]
You didn't ask questions. Didn't think about what you'd find. You just showed up as quick as you could because you thought I was in trouble. [ he gives the cut above her brow a close look before he lifts his hand, carefully dabbing the cloth against the skin around it. ] Whatever you must've heard out there tonight, however dangerous β you ran out because you were ready to help people, whatever the risk.
[ he doesn't need to have been there to be able to tell. enough time with her and he can see the difference between her more routine nervous behaviors and the kind of intensity she gets in her look when she's ready to be a nurse, ready to mend a wound, ready to look after someone. wet cloth wiping gently at the dried blood, he exhales a breath, eyes peering at hers. ] That's the kind of person you are.
[ 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. ]
[ from the moment they'd met, marta had always been one of the easier people to read, whether it's because her nerves could so often be interpreted in the anxious twist of her lips or the timid curl of her fingers upon her lap, or even the way she'd had no experience with filtering her thoughts away, letting the honesty slip unchallenged between exchanges of dialogue. the fact that she can't apparently even lie at all makes her more of an open book, even if she's never given much of an impression that she'd ever intended to be all too manipulative in the first place anyway.
but right now, there's another fall of the veil, cracks in the way he's often seen her try to hold herself, like she's consistently worked hard at being strong, at keeping her walls sturdy. it shatters with her sob, with the confession of what's shaken her most, like maybe the bandits out there hadn't been the thing to scare her most tonight.
his fingers slow even as they continue to gently graze the lightening crimson trail along her face, wiping away the evidence of the attack to show the flush skin beneath, though his eyes are looking instead to her, to the eyes that don't hide away anything at all, soaked up in a kind of vulnerability that he so often forces to be swallowed down himself. ]
I know. [ his voice is barely even a whisper, a soft breath of understanding as his movements still, gaze lingering on her.
it's ... hard. being the one left behind. he remembers her words, when he'd confessed his nightmares, and right now, it's as if she's confessing her own. ]
It's never going to be fair. When you're willing to do what it takes to protect people, but then they beat you to it. And ... that's why a lot of us are here in the first place, right?
[ harlan, she says, and he knows she spoke of a friend she's lost, an obvious weight heavy on her shoulders that it's easy to stitch together why she might be here in the first place, pushing as hard as she can even when the fear vibrates across her shaking skin. ]
You went out there to help. Andy was doing the same. I've seen her take some tough hits and get right back up. I can tell you that, when it comes to her, it wouldn't have made a difference if you were there or not; she'd have still charged right in. But what you're doing here, Marta, it's not a waste.
[ he reaches for a hand upon her lap, larger calloused fingers curling beneath smaller ones, gentle in their touch with a rare sense of care that isn't often taken with everything else he does. but he guides the cloth down to brush it over her blood-stained skin, damp fabric gliding over her knuckles and wiping soft across her fingertips. ]
We need people like you. The ones that aren't tainted by the violence, the ones that are here to heal and not hurt, the ones that still know what it means to be good. [ without intention, his fingertips graze light against her palm. ] The ones that remind the rest of us ... the kind of people worth saving.
[ marta echoes the word like it's something foreign, like the very concept of it being attributed to her feels wrong, out of place. the ones that still know what it means to be good. is that her? can she claim that?
(because you have a good heart.)
her eyes fall to the hand over hers, to the crimson-stained cloth working hard to clean her hands. he doesn't know, she thinks. he doesn't know how stained with blood they really are. ]
I told you before I came here, that I'd lost a friend.
[ when she speaks, there is a strange steadiness to them that she wouldn't have thought would be there, but perhaps third time's really the charm. (the first to ransom, shaky and scared; the second to benoit, strained and worn.) now here, to kovacs, quiet and defeated. ]
The whole truth is I killed him.
[ official records will say otherwise. science and a signed confession are now on her side, but marta knows technicalities can only say so much. marta knows, deep down, she could have saved harlan. if only she were braver. less selfish. more confident in her skills. more than she is. ]
I was his nurse. I thought I messed up and gave him the wrong dosage. I thought he was going to die. I wanted to call the ambulance, even though I knew there wouldn't be enough time for them to do anything, and he stopped me. He didn't want me to get in trouble, to lose my license... my family.
[ what is kovacs' world like? do people still hate and fear each other like they do in her own? ]
My mother was in the country illegally. If the police looked at me — us — closely enough, they would've taken her away.
[ would people in kovacs' world hear her accent and look at her skin and think, you. you don't belong here. ]
Turns out I didn't mess up. Someone switched the vials hoping I would, but I wasn't paying attention to the labels and just went with my gut and wound up giving him the right medicine after all. [ it sounds so fantastical still to say it out loud. like it might as well have been ripped right out of harlan's own stories. the old man would have found it funny; he always did have such a morbid sense of humor. ] But I doubted myself. I doubted myself, and I got scared, and selfish, and...
[ good? the word keeps echoing in marta's head like a siren, a taunt. she looks up, finally, seeking out his eyes again. wondering how they see her now. ]
I watched my friend slit his throat so I wouldn't have to be blamed. I let him die for me, Takeshi.
[ finally, a crack in her voice. that steadiness giving way to the despair she feels still, the very same one that keeps her up at night, that brought her here, hoping despite it all that there'd still be a chance to fix what she'd already ruined. ]
[ his fingers still with a pause when she makes that sudden confession β i killed him. it's the way they suddenly leave her lips, words that don't quite fit coming from someone like marta, like she might just simply be reading out dialogue from one of her books rather than referring to something pulled from her own past.
when it comes to killing, kovacs has no place for judgment, and even in light of the death of a friend or a sacrifice, his experiences hold plenty of weight. but this is hardly about what he's used to, or even what he feels about it; there's a pulsing grip on her as she speaks through it, recounting the details with a visible pain in her eyes turned away and searching before they seek to find an answer in his, with the tremble of her voice that comes paired with the recollection of the memory.
he knows what he thinks even before she's done with her story, but his lips say nothing, waiting for her to seek him out in this, until she presents him with the question that finally tells him something that's been unspoken in all the time he's known her β how she feels in looking upon her own reflection.
so often, she looks at him when he speaks, assures him of things like worth and hope, but so little does he see how she takes it upon herself. ]
You didn't let him do anything. [ he responds quietly, finding her eyes with a returning soft gaze of his own, steady and focused. ] He made his choice. And it sounds like β like however differently things might have gone, he still would have made that choice for you. Because he cared about you.
[ giving up your life for someone else, making that decision without a sliver of doubt, just for the assurance that they'll be okay, that they'll be protected β he knows that more than he's wanting to confess. ]
We're always ... going to be handed some really shitty cards, Marta, and the β the curse about this place is that, the whole reason we're even here, it forces us to torment ourselves with the question, "what if?" or "why couldn't I make the better choice then?" but, the truth is, it's not about whether what happened makes you a good or bad person.
[ he lifts his fingers, free from the cloth, to bring his own bare skin upon her cheek, a mirror to the way she'd done the very same to him in recent days, his own not quite as soft as her own in their texture, though the care in the gesture attempts to make up for the difference. gently, he brushes back the dark, tousled strands of hair, wild and loose from the night's chaos, thumb stroking a touch along skin now freshly cleaned of blood. ]
It just makes you human. [ made of jagged little pieces. (just like him.) ] And it's okay to let yourself be that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
is that a gun in your pocket;
her body tells her she rest, or if not that then at least tend to the gash above her brow, still dripping blood down the side of her face. there's blood all over the rest of her too, staining her nightgown and her hands, but it isn't hers. it's why she's here, doing what she's about to do.
(not because she's scared, not because she knows he wouldn't be.)
she knocks once, twice. a third time for luck, though it seems a silly thing to wish for now. ]
no subject
another dream tonight, a nightmare as is the typical routine β the ash, the fire, the gunshots, the corpses β it's no different as any other night, like he's simply repainting every detail by vivid memory, replaying like it'll never stop.
it's only the sudden knock at the door that jolts him awake, shuddering like someone had shoved him directly. another knock, and then another, before he finally pulls himself out of bed, nearly forgetting that he's still half-dressed, as his eyes peer to the window to note the darkness still outside.
he wipes at his face right before opening the door, a squint aimed at marta's direction, prepared to mutter what the hell she was doing here at whatever hour it is β until his eyes go wide, falling upon the blood stains at her eyebrow, to the matching crimson on her gown and he moves before he can stop himself, large palm cupping at her neck, thumb braced against her jaw as he studies her more hastily now, along her face and her body, searching for the injuries, for the source of all that blood. ]
Marta, what β ? You hurt?
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she doesn't expect this. the look in his eyes, the concern that floods them.
his hand is warm, so warm against the icy chill of her skin that it sucks the breath right out of her, shoves her words back down her throat to get caught right where his palm rests.
for a second she forgets why she'd come there. for a second she forgets even them. for that second it's just his hand, her skin, the words in her throat struggling to break free like the wild beating of a heart.
she gasps. ]
βFine. I'm fine. [ she's bleeding. ] It's just a cut. [ there's blood all overβ ] The rest isn't mine.
[ the hand she'd been using to knock on his door had been left to hover in the air, but somewhere between his words and hers it had found a seat along his wrist, feeling the erratic beat of his pulse on her thumb. (did she do that?)
when she swallows, he'll feel it. ]
Can I come in?
no subject
but when he touches her, palm braced in the space between neck and cheek, she's undeniably warm, hardly a dream with the heated softness of her skin beneath his touch. he can feel her nerves there, presumably thrummed up by whatever frantic emergency has brought her here, her pulse thumping against his fingers.
his eyes peer over her in search of the possible wound, finding her eyes again when she suggests the blood isn't hers, stilling when her fingers curve against his wrist.
for a moment, he doesn't even move at all, just a few seconds that last longer than they should as he looks at her while he reels himself back to being a little more focused, alert, now that he's awake. ]
Come on. [ he eases his hand away, as if the touch hadn't even been there at all, instead nudging them against her back to urge her inside before he stands in front of the doorway, looking out to make sure no one's been chasing her and followed after her.
shutting the door, he turns to her, shaking his head. ] What the hell happened out there?
no subject
Bandits. They came in late last night while everyone was asleep.
[ now it's her turn to look him over, searching for any evidence that he'd been out there too. there's nothing accusatory in her look, just the same sort of concern mirrored back at him. ]
They're gone now. Chased away or... or they got what they came for.
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What? Why didn't β ? You should've called me.
[ though he's more frustrated with himself for not being there, especially with that cut above her brow. along with the blood on her gown β
his eyes fall to it again, swallowing. ] Whose blood is that?
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Andy. Sheβ [ marta's gaze drops to where kovacs is staring, and only now does she see just how much blood there is. she has to swallow back the sudden wave of nausea that comes with a vivid recollection of what had happened. ] ...She's fine too.
[ there's a subdued quality to her voice that doesn't match her words. she's relieved the other woman is okay, of course, but by all accounts she shouldn't be and... and marta still doesn't really know what to make of that.
she starts to look around his room, wanting to take her eyes off all the blood. ]
Can I sit down?
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Yeah, she ... would. [ hearing that andy's the source of the blood is a strange kind of relief, but it's only because he's seen for himself the kind of way that she self-repairs, having held her lifeless in his arms once, wound to the neck fatal to the point that even in kovacs' own world, there'd be no coming back from that. but he'd seen her get right back up, his own arms and clothes covered in her blood the same way marta's are right now, perfectly intact like the damage had never been there at all.
but even if andy's health isn't too much of a concern, he can see that marta's still plenty shaken from it all, and he nods turning on his heel to peer around the room, too small to provide anything comfortable aside from the bed itself, holding out an arm to gesture her to it. ]
Yeah, come on. [ rather than immediately follow, he instead goes to a corner of the room where a small stand holds a bowl filled with water, prepped there daily by the saloon workers as a means for him to wash his face in the morning. right now, he takes the cloth at its side, dipping it into the water. ] You get hurt anywhere else besides that cut?
no subject
she has no reason to imagine any other time will be any different. ]
No... just this.
[ even the cut feels so insignificant. it looks worse than it is, the laceration just deep enough that the initial blood flow painted the side of her face. but already it had stopped, and in the end it's nothing at all compared to what she'd seen. ]
I don't know why I went out there, I — I was just in the way.
[ she's talking more to fill in the gaps of silence. when it had once been a familiar friend it feels like a stranger now, judging her in its emptiness. scolding her for forgetting her place.
andy had picked herself up from the attack like nothing had happened and — and maybe that should matter. maybe that should be enough. but she fell because of marta. this blood is still literally on her hands.
she looks up at him, searching for something she can't quite name yet. when she talks again, her voice is a soft crack of a whisper, broken before it even had a chance to form. ]
I'd never seen so much violence before.
no subject
for a moment, he says nothing at all, making sure the cloth in his hands is well wet before he wrings it out, leaving it plenty damp before stepping across the room to her, sitting beside her on the bed, knee gently nudging against hers as he turns to face her. ]
When I accidentally called you from the shower, you came running. [ his voice is quiet but calm, mimicking the same kind of composure he always bears even when he's the one on the other side, when he's injured, skin stained with blood. ]
You didn't ask questions. Didn't think about what you'd find. You just showed up as quick as you could because you thought I was in trouble. [ he gives the cut above her brow a close look before he lifts his hand, carefully dabbing the cloth against the skin around it. ] Whatever you must've heard out there tonight, however dangerous β you ran out because you were ready to help people, whatever the risk.
[ he doesn't need to have been there to be able to tell. enough time with her and he can see the difference between her more routine nervous behaviors and the kind of intensity she gets in her look when she's ready to be a nurse, ready to mend a wound, ready to look after someone. wet cloth wiping gently at the dried blood, he exhales a breath, eyes peering at hers. ] That's the kind of person you are.
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.
no subject
but right now, there's another fall of the veil, cracks in the way he's often seen her try to hold herself, like she's consistently worked hard at being strong, at keeping her walls sturdy. it shatters with her sob, with the confession of what's shaken her most, like maybe the bandits out there hadn't been the thing to scare her most tonight.
his fingers slow even as they continue to gently graze the lightening crimson trail along her face, wiping away the evidence of the attack to show the flush skin beneath, though his eyes are looking instead to her, to the eyes that don't hide away anything at all, soaked up in a kind of vulnerability that he so often forces to be swallowed down himself. ]
I know. [ his voice is barely even a whisper, a soft breath of understanding as his movements still, gaze lingering on her.
it's ... hard. being the one left behind. he remembers her words, when he'd confessed his nightmares, and right now, it's as if she's confessing her own. ]
It's never going to be fair. When you're willing to do what it takes to protect people, but then they beat you to it. And ... that's why a lot of us are here in the first place, right?
[ harlan, she says, and he knows she spoke of a friend she's lost, an obvious weight heavy on her shoulders that it's easy to stitch together why she might be here in the first place, pushing as hard as she can even when the fear vibrates across her shaking skin. ]
You went out there to help. Andy was doing the same. I've seen her take some tough hits and get right back up. I can tell you that, when it comes to her, it wouldn't have made a difference if you were there or not; she'd have still charged right in. But what you're doing here, Marta, it's not a waste.
[ he reaches for a hand upon her lap, larger calloused fingers curling beneath smaller ones, gentle in their touch with a rare sense of care that isn't often taken with everything else he does. but he guides the cloth down to brush it over her blood-stained skin, damp fabric gliding over her knuckles and wiping soft across her fingertips. ]
We need people like you. The ones that aren't tainted by the violence, the ones that are here to heal and not hurt, the ones that still know what it means to be good. [ without intention, his fingertips graze light against her palm. ] The ones that remind the rest of us ... the kind of people worth saving.
cw: suicide mention
[ marta echoes the word like it's something foreign, like the very concept of it being attributed to her feels wrong, out of place. the ones that still know what it means to be good. is that her? can she claim that?
(because you have a good heart.)
her eyes fall to the hand over hers, to the crimson-stained cloth working hard to clean her hands. he doesn't know, she thinks. he doesn't know how stained with blood they really are. ]
I told you before I came here, that I'd lost a friend.
[ when she speaks, there is a strange steadiness to them that she wouldn't have thought would be there, but perhaps third time's really the charm. (the first to ransom, shaky and scared; the second to benoit, strained and worn.) now here, to kovacs, quiet and defeated. ]
The whole truth is I killed him.
[ official records will say otherwise. science and a signed confession are now on her side, but marta knows technicalities can only say so much. marta knows, deep down, she could have saved harlan. if only she were braver. less selfish. more confident in her skills. more than she is. ]
I was his nurse. I thought I messed up and gave him the wrong dosage. I thought he was going to die. I wanted to call the ambulance, even though I knew there wouldn't be enough time for them to do anything, and he stopped me. He didn't want me to get in trouble, to lose my license... my family.
[ what is kovacs' world like? do people still hate and fear each other like they do in her own? ]
My mother was in the country illegally. If the police looked at me — us — closely enough, they would've taken her away.
[ would people in kovacs' world hear her accent and look at her skin and think, you. you don't belong here. ]
Turns out I didn't mess up. Someone switched the vials hoping I would, but I wasn't paying attention to the labels and just went with my gut and wound up giving him the right medicine after all. [ it sounds so fantastical still to say it out loud. like it might as well have been ripped right out of harlan's own stories. the old man would have found it funny; he always did have such a morbid sense of humor. ] But I doubted myself. I doubted myself, and I got scared, and selfish, and...
[ good? the word keeps echoing in marta's head like a siren, a taunt. she looks up, finally, seeking out his eyes again. wondering how they see her now. ]
I watched my friend slit his throat so I wouldn't have to be blamed. I let him die for me, Takeshi.
[ finally, a crack in her voice. that steadiness giving way to the despair she feels still, the very same one that keeps her up at night, that brought her here, hoping despite it all that there'd still be a chance to fix what she'd already ruined. ]
What kind of good is that?
no subject
when it comes to killing, kovacs has no place for judgment, and even in light of the death of a friend or a sacrifice, his experiences hold plenty of weight. but this is hardly about what he's used to, or even what he feels about it; there's a pulsing grip on her as she speaks through it, recounting the details with a visible pain in her eyes turned away and searching before they seek to find an answer in his, with the tremble of her voice that comes paired with the recollection of the memory.
he knows what he thinks even before she's done with her story, but his lips say nothing, waiting for her to seek him out in this, until she presents him with the question that finally tells him something that's been unspoken in all the time he's known her β how she feels in looking upon her own reflection.
so often, she looks at him when he speaks, assures him of things like worth and hope, but so little does he see how she takes it upon herself. ]
You didn't let him do anything. [ he responds quietly, finding her eyes with a returning soft gaze of his own, steady and focused. ] He made his choice. And it sounds like β like however differently things might have gone, he still would have made that choice for you. Because he cared about you.
[ giving up your life for someone else, making that decision without a sliver of doubt, just for the assurance that they'll be okay, that they'll be protected β he knows that more than he's wanting to confess. ]
We're always ... going to be handed some really shitty cards, Marta, and the β the curse about this place is that, the whole reason we're even here, it forces us to torment ourselves with the question, "what if?" or "why couldn't I make the better choice then?" but, the truth is, it's not about whether what happened makes you a good or bad person.
[ he lifts his fingers, free from the cloth, to bring his own bare skin upon her cheek, a mirror to the way she'd done the very same to him in recent days, his own not quite as soft as her own in their texture, though the care in the gesture attempts to make up for the difference. gently, he brushes back the dark, tousled strands of hair, wild and loose from the night's chaos, thumb stroking a touch along skin now freshly cleaned of blood. ]
It just makes you human. [ made of jagged little pieces. (just like him.) ] And it's okay to let yourself be that.