gipsy_danger | for striker

It isn’t just guilt about tormenting Hercules, either. Gipsy partially blames herself for what happened to Yancy. She couldn’t protect him, couldn’t save him – and she hadn’t been able to react fast enough to shield Raleigh from being connected to Yancy when he died.

And now she’s hurt someone else important to her – and Gipsy can barely take it. Guilt gnaws at her and leaves her emotionally spent and exhausted and knowing she’s left him feeling the same way makes it so much worse.

I’ve hurt you.

She knows she has. Even if he’s not saying it, she knows it. The Drift is a fickle thing sometimes, betraying emotions and thoughts and ailments like it does. Despite it all, she feels selfish – she doesn’t really want him to leave her, but she knows he needs to.

Go, before I hurt you more. She can’t bring herself to shove him out, though. Not yet.

He'd tell her that it wasn't her fault that Yancy died, that it was a risk all pilots took every time they set foot in a Yaeger and walked out to do battle, that Yancy and Raleigh both knew what it was they were getting into. But he won't, because he knows she knows that, just like he knows that guilt often doesn't pay any attention to logic or reason. He still feels guilty for Leslie's death all those years ago, and he quite literally had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

He shifts his arms on her and kisses her hair, stroking her back slowly as he wrenches himself out of the pained haze such powerful memories put him in.

It's okay, love, I don't blame you for it.

There's no point in denying what she's said; she's right. She did hurt him. But he doesn't exactly mind. She couldn't help it. Everyone gets caught by their memories once in a while.

I'm not leaving you, Gipsy.

…Everything he’s doing…it just makes it so much worse. It’s making her insides feel all twisted up like a Kaiju had torn her from inside out and left pieces of her scattered on the ground. Her ‘heart’ feels shattered; that piece of her that allows emotional capabilities, that important piece that allows her to Drift and connect with her pilots feels fractured and flawed -- she feels like a disgrace, a failure. She’s hurt a pilot – something that she’s not ever supposed to do. She wouldn’t be terribly surprised if she’s entirely reformatted after this, time permitting.

You should blame me.

She’s more insistent now, pulling out of his arms and trying to stand. The image flickers, but for him – she maintains it, and allows the avatar to remain. It’s the least she can do – give him someone to look at, to get angry with, and to hate.

Go, Hercules. Before I disconnect myself.

Hercules has had a lot of unwinable arguments in his life, quite a lot of them with his wife when she was sick, when she wanted him to leave her so that he and Chuck wouldn't have to go through watching her die slowly and painfully. He knows how to do this.

So instead of getting angry at her, he just lets her push out of his arms, lets her stand and try to make him angry. It won't work.

I don't want to go. His head hurts. He should go. He should disconnect and go lie down and look back on his life choices. But he doesn't want to. And I won't blame you for this because it's not your fault.

That wasn’t the answer that she wanted. Not even remotely. It would almost be easier if he were angry with her, because then everything would make sense. How he’s reacting simply isn’t processing correctly. He should be angry, but he’s not. He should want out, but he doesn’t. He should hate her, but it’s so far from that emotion that Gipsy’s own processor is beginning to ache.

. . .

Godammit, Hercules!

Pulling from the language she’s both seen and heard from him, it’s Gipsy getting angry with him now. It isn’t fair – how is he so calm when he should be furious?

Go! You’re making it worse! Just – go! Please!

Edited 2013-07-18 15:48 (UTC)

Apparently Gipsy knows how to fight dirty. He was quite willing to stay when he knew he was only hurting himself, but if he's hurting her...

He's pretty sure she's just lashing out to hurt him, but he doesn't want to risk it.

Gipsy... He's on his feet now but he doesn't remember standing, his hands outstretched in supplication. I don't want to hurt you. If I'm just making it worse...

She is – she’s lashing out, because she thinks it’ll be easier this way. He should be mad – he should be livid. He should never forgive her.

It’s not what she wants, but…it’s what should be happening. He’s so inherently stubborn that he’s not following what logically should happen. It’s fucking with her processor and she doesn’t know how to deal. She understands the concept of forgiveness – if Raleigh arrived, he would immediately be forgiven for leaving.

She just doesn’t think it should be extended to her in this particular instance.

Goodbye, Hercules.

With a low, metallic whine of pain and hurt and anguish, she severs their connection, leaving him alone in the pod and her alone to her thoughts.

Enjoy the bitching out you’re going to get, Hercules. It’s probably going to really suck.

Hercules isn't unused to this kind of bemusement, it's an emotion he wore often enough when he fought with Leslie. When he's not entirely certain what just happened, but that he's pretty sure it's his fault. Or at least, that he could have done something to fix it, but didn't, and now everything is more than a little fucked up.

He tries to call out to her, but she stays resolutely silent, and even Herc knows better than to try and reestablish the Drift after what just happened.

So, reluctant as ever, he climbs out of the cockpit and makes his way to the control room on slightly-unsteady legs. He knows just how much trouble he's in, but at least Hercules is able and willing to stand up and face the music when he has to. It helps that he knows that Stacker will yell and rail and threaten him with permanent grounding, but then he'll pour them both some scotch and they'll sit quietly in his office and lament the direction their lives have took.

Gipsy sits in silence, resolute and unyielding in any attempts to drift with her by anyone. Hercules leaves and anyone else that might try and step in is automatically rejected. No one can reach the Jaeger, not right now. It’s annoying, especially to Tendo and the others that are trying to get this crazy Jaeger completely functional again and it’s an arduous process that is completed from the outside in. They’re only able to judge what they can see – anything mental isn’t really reparable – it’d be like trying to ‘fix’ the human psyche. You just can’t take a wrench to it and bang out the problems. Human brains don’t work like that and apparently, neither do Jaegers.

It’s going to be a long couple of days.

After a day off to rest and recuperate — honestly, he could use more than a day, but he's got things he needs to do — Hercules tells Tendo to stop throwing rookies at her, since she'll refuse to drift with them; he'll do it.

Or at least, he'll try. Gipsy rebuffs him when he tries to speak with her, won't even beep or whirr at him in response, and he gives up after twenty minutes of trying to coax her into letting him in to her cockpit.

The same thing happens the next day, and the next, until he just throws up his hands and tells Tendo he's on his own to fix this, dammit, he can't think of anything else to do and he's got other things that need attention that aren't childish and stubborn Jaegers. (It's possible her stalwart refusal to speak to him has hurt his feelings. He'll never tell.)

He stops coming to visit.

She thinks that this is the best way to handle things – it’s for Hercules, honestly. Gipsy thinks that separation from her is the best way to keep him safe, or at least as safe as possible. She knows how Striker can be, and he’s not like her – he won’t hurt his pilots. Not like she’s hurt Hercules.

It’s when his visits stop that she really and truly begins to grieve and rethink her life choices. Was pushing him away the best course of action? Of course it was.

Or was it?

She has this war and argument with herself often in the silence of her own mind. She has a lot of downtime these days – refusing to drift or practice with anyone infuriates the Marshal, but Gipsy doesn’t budge. She’s still trying to sort things out and putting a pilot in the middle of her mess isn’t the wisest course of action right now, and he knows that.

Damn sentient Jaegers.

The radio silence continues – on Gipsy’s end as well as Raleigh’s. It’s becoming clearer to her now that he probably isn’t going to be coming back. That hurts too, and it added on top of everything has a dull ache settling into her very core.

The longer Hercules stays away, the more Gipsy reevaluates.

Hesitantly, Gipsy reaches out in the most subtle way she knows how.

By blasting at obnoxiously high levels Player’s BABY COME BACK. It echoes through the entire Shatterdome, reverberating off the walls and making everyone’s teeth rattle in their heads.

Baby come back
Any kind of fool could see
There was something
In everything about you

Baby come back
You can blame it all on me
I was wrong
And I just can’t live without you--

And honestly, if that wasn’t bad enough, Gipsy has an entire slew of songs that she feels are appropriate to the situation, especially if Hercules doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing and come immediately. N*Sync is next, followed by Taylor Swift.

If you could see that I’m the one who understands you
Been here all along so why can’t you see you belong with me~

…Which promptly segues into an angry—

I knew you were trouble when you walked in
So Shame on me now--

Hercules keeps himself busy now that Gipsy has broken up with him, as it were, spending his days training at singlestick with the other pilots in the dome, going over strategy with Stacker in his office, playing fetch with Max in one of the unused hangar bays. He'd never admit it, but he feels oddly lonely now that Gipsy is refusing to talk to him; these past few weeks have been really nice, having someone else to talk to, someone who doesn't resent him (Chuck), or view him as some kind of mythical hero (the rookies), or a washed-up has-been (some of the other pilots). Gipsy has the most solid AI of all the Jaegers, and so talking with them just isn't the same.

Plus he feels oddly like he's cheating on her when he drifts with the others, so...

He's in the gym, working with the loose weights when he feels the first reverberations of music. At first, he thinks it's another attack — there isn't any precedent for a noise of that caliber — but then the lyrics start and he actually drops his weights on the ground. The other people in the room look just as surprised as he feels, staring at him with wide eyes as he slumps back against the bench and covers his face with his hands.

"Jesus fucking Christ, are you kidding me."

That's when the laughter starts.

The laughter that follows him all the way from the gym up to the control room, where Tendo is looking just as confused as Herc feels. Stacker, thankfully, is as stony-faced as ever, but Herc can see the little twitch around the edge of his mouth that means his old friend is laughing at him. It only gets more pronounced when Gipsy segues into N*Sync.

And then Taylor Swift.

"Good god, man, can't you unplug her or something?"

Edited 2013-07-18 16:56 (UTC)

“No way. This is way too good.”

There’s no force on the planet that will make Tendo force Gipsy to stop. This is way too entertaining.

Meanwhile, because Hercules hasn’t appeared in the pod to ‘talk’, Gipsy continues her assault on everyone’s ears. Taylor peters out and is replaced by something else entirely.

It’s loud. It’s obnoxious. It’s awkward.

Tendo? Laughing his ass off.

As if Tendo practically collapsing on the ground isn't bad enough, Gipsy's next musical choice has even Stacker breaking down into startled guffaws.

Hercules is town between horror and hilarity.

He's pretty sure his face is burning right now, but that doesn't stop him from shouldering past all the frozen people in the control room to grab at the microphone that has a direct link into each Jaeger.

"Gipsy Danger, that is enough."

That's right, Herc, pulling out the Dad Voice is exactly the right response to this situation.

"Turn that racket off this instant."

Tendo is too busy wheezing with laughter to do anything about it at all. This jaeger. She's one of a kind, alright. Only imitated, never duplicated.

And that voice? Oh -- she hears it, definitely. Does she listen? Not at all. In fact, the music just gets louder, as if she's a rebellious teenager challenging her father.

This is mortifying. He'd rather she stuck with Taylor Swift, he will never ever live Boyz II Men down.

He growls into the microphone, his fingers tightening around the stem.

"If you don't turn that off right now, I won't come Drift with you."

It's probably an idle threat, because there's no way anyone can do any work with that cacophonous noise happening, but still. "Gipsy. I'm not kidding around."

Idle threat or not, the music stops instantly. Gipsy's form is as stationary and prone as it had been, but the massive robot seems to shrink back against the weight of those words.

There's utter silence, save for a few choked laughs around the Shatterdome. Everything else? Dead silence.

Edited 2013-07-18 17:42 (UTC)

Finally, the music stops.

Hercules lets out a relieved groan and lets his head drop down, his free hand coming up to cover his face. "For Christ's sake," he mutters, shaking his head. Thankfully everyone else is too stunned by what happened to be able to say much of anything, which is why he jumps a little when a hand lands on his shoulder.

"Better go see what she wants," comes Stacker's amused baritone, and Hercules lets himself groan again.

"How the fuck is this my life," he gripes as he gets his helmet and suits up.

Blame Stacker. It was under his orders he Drifted with Gipsy to begin with.

Gipsy Danger, whose avatar is pacing in her own mind, waiting for Hercules to make good on that perceived promise he'd just made her. Admittedly he never said he would Drift with her, only that he wouldn't if she didn't shut up.

Still, she hopes and waits.

He is absolutely going to blame Stacker. He is going to blame Stacker for everything.

Clambering up into the cockpit and hooking himself into the conn-podd feels alarmingly familiar and comforting, even with him being as mortified as he is. He doesn't think too much about it.

Initiating neural handshake in 3...2...1...

The neural handshake establishes quickly; the familiar rush of emotions and memories an easy transition, especially compared to last time.

When the dust settles, she's standing there in front of him, anxious and hopeful and worried.

Hercules?

He's a little bit wary, since he's been pushed away for so long, but yes he's here.

Hello, Gipsy.

I'm sorry. She blurts that immediately, hands dry washing together in front of her.

For everything. I--

She pauses to sort through her emotions before continuing. She's not really looking at him, instead she's more focused on staring at what passes for the ground.

I was wrong.

If she were a regular woman he'd probably try to hold out a little more to make her realize just what it was that happened and how it affected him, but while Gipsy is a giant behemoth of a fighting machine, she's also very young, and her consciousness is younger still.

Oh, it's alright, love.

He spreads his arms in a familiar hug-me gesture.

C'mere. I forgive you.

She rushes to him, avatar crashing against his body and holding him tight against her. Her face buries in his shoulder, cheek pressing against his neck.

I screwed everything up. I thought I was protecting you, but--

In the end, it had just made everything worse.

I just keep hurting you, don't I?

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