week 5 - mary - saturday post-trial

[completelycrazy]

[Newt has to search for Mary for a long time before he's able to track her down. It's worrying, how good she is at hiding. And she is hiding, right? Nothing, like, happened to her...?

But then he does find her, finally. She's sitting under a clothing rack in Pegaso. He almost missed her, but he heard the sniffling just as he was about to leave.

He plops down on the ground in front of the rack, peeking through the long dresses hanging down around her. This would be a cute little fort if circumstances were different.]

Um... Do you want to talk about it?

[He is not good at this.]

Comments

[withsadness]

I feel like it's because everyone likes me that I deserve it.

[But she leans into Newt without thinking about it. Not hard to do since they're already squishes pretty closely.]

It's like Kaiba said...I wasn't worth it.

[But then, he didn't vote for her, either.]

[completelycrazy]

Hey, that's not true.

[He wraps an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her arm with his thumb.]

Kaiba's a smart dude, but that doesn't always mean he knows what he's talking about. [SOUND FAMILIAR???] I think, um... I'm sorry everything had to happen that way, but I think it's better that everyone knows. Now you don't have to hide it. It's like, everyone knows you did something bad, but that didn't even change anything, so it's like what we talked about the other day. People make mistakes.

[He shrugs a little, settling back against the clothing rack as he stretches his legs out. He doesn't really fit under here, but, eh. Good enough.]

You're just as real as the rest of us, kiddo. This kinda proves it.

[withsadness]

[She's real. Her eyes close. It will always mean so much to her, to hear those words. Like a fragmented piece of her fictional heart is being wedged into its proper place. Mary breathes, and her breath is a shudder.]

What if it didn't change anyone else but it did change me?

[completelycrazy]

[Newt sighs and rests his chin on her head. She's too smart for her own good, honestly. Newt had never really thought of being intelligent as some great burden, but this game is challenging that. It is, sometimes. But then again, maybe it's better this way, like how it's better that everyone knows already so the air is clear. The weight of what she's done won't sneak up on her someday. She can face it head on.

Whatever that means.]

Of course it did, you know? You, um. You killed someone, Mary. It should change you. I'd be really worried about you if it didn't.

[He squeezes her a little more tightly.]

Um. Did you really kill Ichigo just because Assassin asked you to? [...] What did you ask Max for?

[withsadness]

Yes, I did.

[She keeps her eyes closed, feeling a bit calmer wrapped in Newt's arms. He's an odd presence to consider comforting, but then, Mary herself is an odd presence.]

He asked me last Saturday, after the trial. He said Ichigo would get in the way of what he wanted, so I needed to take him out for him. I really loved Ichigo...so I wouldn't have done it for any other reason.

[There's another pause.]

I asked Max for something to keep Shinshin safe for even longer...so I don't know what I'm going to get from him now.

[completelycrazy]

[Hm. That's... upsetting, to put it lightly.]

And he, what, just wanted to get back at Akira for something?

[Newt hasn't really been paying attention to the interpersonal drama, but the grudge against Akira, well. That was very obvious.

But, god. None of this sits well with Newt. Every revelation about what happened with Assassin and Mary just makes him hate that jackass more and more, and this is no different. He can't begin to understand what Mary could've seen in him, but clearly it was enough to convince her to kill someone. A friend, at that.

He sets his teeth and takes a breath, trying not to wear his heart on his sleeve for once.]

Why would you do all that for him?

[It goes better than expected, honestly. But still. Not great.]

[withsadness]

He knew that Akira was a reaper...and that Akira helped Junko kill Eleanor. He was in love with Eleanor.

[Mary decides not to add that as much as she didn't really want to get revenge on Akira herself, it did hurt to know that he'd done something so terrible to someone that she cared about, as well. Eleanor was a nice person. She was the first one who promised to be Mary's friend until the end. And the end had come so, so quickly.]

It's hard to explain. Or, I mean...

[She cringes as she tries to put her thoughts into words.]

I don't know if you'd be able to understand. It was because, from the very beginning, we knew that we were just like each other. We were both...we were...

[She looks at her hand. She knows that she's already told Newt about what she is, but that doesn't make it any easier to talk about.]

We've both lived a fabricated life. We never knew what it was like to have a real family, and he understood how sometimes the way that I see the world is different from other people. He wasn't like the way that he was in public. He was, he was really...

[She thinks of how kind he was, and how warm, and how gentle his words and embraces were. It makes her heart squeeze, her throat tightening.]

It felt like having a father who was just like me.