frost_jewel | 17 [action/written]

17 [action/written]

[On the border between afternoon and evening of the 31st, the draft ends for Mia. For a while, all she can do is look around at the village, standing still near where they all arrive. Then she takes what remains of her notes to the battledome. To turn them over to...well, whoever is there to give them to. She doesn't want to talk, at least not for very long.

Then she goes home, House 16, and checks on her housemates before taking what is perhaps the longest shower in her entire life. The water is freezing by the time she's done, and she doesn't care. The next morning, whoever wakes first will find the coffee is ready and there is no Mercury Adept in sight.

She's out for a walk. It's not a long one: back to the battledome, to check on people. Any people, but especially those she knows well. If there are questions she has to answer - and she doubts very much there won't be questions - then she will, as polite and quiet as she ever is. When she's through there, she'll head for nearby houses and apartments, without going too far. She knows her limits and is waiting to meet up with them.

That autopilot carries her until midafternoon. What follows isn't exactly a crash. It's a slow spiral, one that finds her walking back to the house at a glacial pace, as though she might find somewhere to hide instead. But she can't. Instead she huddles into a chair in the living room, finally opening the journal to write something.]

Thank you to everyone who was there to help us. [She doesn't feel the need to specify where. The next several things she tries are crossed out, until:] I'm sorry we couldn't do more, sooner.

[[ooc: Whew look at all that action! She's mostly bouncing from house to battledome, and if you want to run into her while she's walking or standing and staring off into space, that's great too!]]

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"I know." Gathering all the right words...it would take time. Was Katara really the person to hear all of this? She had seemed a little distracted herself lately.

But if not her, then whom? Certainly not anyone she lived with. They had been through enough. More than enough. None of them needed to hear the things she was carrying. "I don't...I'm not sure where to begin. That's all. What do you know about what happened to us?"

"I heard - I heard a lot from Aang." Zoro. "I know that a lot of people died. I know about the virus. You can tell me anything you want to."

At first, Mia folded her hands in her lap. When that failed to be enough she brought them to her chin instead, still folded. No aspect of this conversation would be easy. Where to start? With the worst of it in the beginning? She didn't know if she had the courage for it.

"I don't- I don't want to burden you with any of this." Anticipating - correctly - the look Katara would wear at that statement, Mia didn't take too much of a steadying breath. "I know that we...that we managed to find a cure and that nobody else in that village will have to suffer. But..."

But the stories. Reports that consisted of names, numbers, statistics. Fighting between people from different enclosures, more fighting about what decisions were right and which were best...

The faces of missing friends. The faces of present friends, bloody or wasting or- Mia shook her head again.

"So many people lost their lives before we...we could have saved them."

There was nothing to really say to that, though Katara's face went a shade more wan. There wasn't really anything to make that better. She put one hand on Mia's shoulder, "I'm so sorry."

"It was all so needless." Now she'd started, it didn't seem she could stop, though there were long breaks between thoughts. "They abandoned their own people to die from the virus. Those who were...who caught it early...most of them were killed."

It was faint, the break in her voice on the last word. Wear and worry had softened it so much already.

"They all needed us and we weren't fast enough." I wasn't fast enough. I failed. Familiar thoughts.

Mia shook her head once, slowly, forcing her hands back into her lap and her face into a steadier, calmer mask.

A calm that felt very much like dread settled over Katara. She knew this. She understood this feeling.

Jet.

Aang, falling.

So many times and in so many ways...

She let her hand fall down to the side and steeled herself. Because first, Mia needed to own this, "And you blame yourself."

It took almost two full minutes for her to nod her agreement. All of a sudden she couldn't meet Katara's eyes. "I, maybe I shouldn't. I don't blame the others."

And yet every time she walked down this path in her thoughts she came back to her responsibilities. That she could have fought harder to find a way to keep their infected patients contained until they had a real cure.

"But I broke promises." A quick breath. "I had a duty to these people and-" The mental war was visible on her face. Both sides of this internal debate felt right, the winning one just used more emotional ammunition. "I could have done better."

Katara frowned a little at that, "What promises, Mia?"

"To make sure that...that people would come home. Safely." Which was a promise she had never made specifically, out loud. It was, instead, the one she always made to herself. "To do everything I possibly could, once we started working together to cure it. I just don't know if I really...if I really did."

Quite a few things met in Mia's head in this office and tried juggling themselves around in her head. Failure, yes, but also a conversation with Aang, and a different one with Billy, and the constant pressure (from herself, from others?) to maintain the appearance of knowing what she was doing. Even when she didn't.

That was a healer's life, wasn't it? All of that clashed with the fear of not knowing if they would succeed. Of perhaps dying in an explosion, instead, a testament to their joint failure. The feeling that she had dragged down the effort with scattered moments of clumsiness.

"I'm not making very much sense, am I?" she whispered.

"No," Katara said quietly. "You're making perfect sense."

She glanced down at her own hands.

"It's hard... to realize that sometimes our best just isn't enough. No matter how hard we try... sometimes it won't be enough." She took a deep breath, "The important thing is that even knowing that, we never let it stop us from trying. And that we always get back up."

She looked back at Mia, wide blue eyes seeking a similar blue, "But right now the most important thing for you to do is find a way to let it go."

"I don't know if I can let it go." She could feel Katara looking at her, and so she summoned her courage and looked back. The mask was gone and she looked just about as cracked as she felt.

"In the end...near the end, people were desperate. There were claims that we were trying only to save our own, and to ignore the other villages' residents." I don't know if that was true. How horrifying, if it was. "You know they took our magic away. ...I felt like I had nothing left to fight with."

And if she didn't know about that, well, she would now.

Well. That was a horrible claim. Katara fervently hoped it wasn't true.

She slid an arm around Mia's shoulders then, pulled the other girl close to her. She didn't know what to say, not yet. She just wanted Mia to feel like she wasn't alone.

Mia rested her head against Katara's shoulder, more grateful for the hug this time than she could put into words. She was trembling, just a little, letting go of the need to maintain that facade of being okay. Katara was kind, to do this.

She wanted to tell those who had died that she was sorry they didn't get the chance to save them. Most especially she didn't want any thanks, feeling as though she didn't deserve it.

And she didn't want to feel like she was trapped by herself in her head anymore. Then, suddenly, she didn't. She moved next, turning the gesture into a real embrace. What she should have done at the start.

Katara returned Mia's embrace, hugging the other girl tightly. "I know you must have felt so scared," she said quietly. "I would have, without my powers. They're the first things I reach for when someone is hurt. And I know right now you're feeling guilty, because you feel like you should have been able to do more - maybe keep them from being hurt in the first place. Because that's the way I feel. And it's hard, it's so hard, to fight for someone and watch them slip away."

She took a deep breath, "And that's why you need to let it out, Mia. Because I don't want you to slip away. Don't let this poison you. What you're feeling is okay, just... let it out."

I can't, she wanted to say. I can't let go of failing in my duties. Even though she knew she could. She had learned that, and much more, through her journey at home, and through doing things here. That the "right" decision and plan wasn't always the one that was going to work, or even necessarily the best one.

And it was nice, it felt good, to be safe again. Katara did understand. It wouldn't all magically go away overnight, but that was okay, too.

"Thank you," she managed to whisper. She was right, of course - thinking like this would poison her. When she found herself weakly lifting one hand to cover her face, she realized that letting it out wasn't quite as hard as she had thought.

And Katara held her, eventually moving a hand to stroke soothingly over Mia's shoulders, above her wings. That's right. Let it out.

It stopped, after a while. Mia felt empty, unable to really keep holding onto Katara but too...something, too tired to let go. Above all she felt that she shouldn't have been so affected by what had transpired on the draft, that as a healer she ought to be better than this, and that she would find no judgment in this room.

"I'm so sorry," though there was very little left of her voice to say it with.

"It's okay," Katara whispered. "We can't... always fix everything. The important thing is that we don't let that stop us from trying."

"I know. I-I know better than this."

And for now, she was through crying about it. Eventually she would be able to recognize all that they did accomplish. To know that the wasting-away virus would not have a chance at doing to Luceti what it had done to Vaskoth.

"You've been so kind, Katara." Mia sat up, a little, reluctant to lose the support.

"I know I wasn't there," Katara said quietly. "But I know what it's like to feel helpless, like I should have done better. And that's not easy to carry."

She slowly let go of Mia, one hand coming up to touch her necklace. And she thought of a day, a long time ago, where she'd bended a map out of tea, and a man who'd reduced her to tears because of all she'd carried inside. She thought of a boy her age by the ocean, refusing to break, refusing to let himself feel. She thought of a different boy, screaming at her on a riverbank. And of still another one, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, who'd lost his only friend, who sought to give up hope.

"I know you'd do the same for me."

"Of course I would." It was unseemly to wipe her eyes with her sleeve but she did it anyway. That was quite enough of that. "I do feel better now."

"If you ever need to talk about anything, just let me know."

She can't help it, she puts her hand on Mia's shoulder again and squeezes.

"As long as I can be here for you, I will be."

"Thank you. I will. Do you...mind if I just sit here for a while?" She turned her sheepish blush toward the floor. "Or is there something I can help with? Something easy," she added, because it wasn't hard to guess what Katara might be thinking. "I know I've been working a lot but it feels strange to just...stop."

"I think you should just sit here for a bit and see if you can rest," she started to stand. "...but if I can find some sort of busywork that would put me to sleep, I'd be happy to pass it on."

Mia stood as Katara did, in order to hug her again briefly. It was what she should have done in the first place.

"I came here to visit some of those who were out there with me, and I think I'll still do that." With less of a strain on her conscience, too. "If it isn't too much trouble for you, though, I will sit here and compose myself first."

She knew her own limits, how reduced they would be for the next little while.

17 [action/written]

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