18047/The Past doesn't stay Past

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The Past doesn't stay Past
Date of Scene: 24 May 2024
Location: Living Quarters - Four Freedoms Plaza
Synopsis: Reed and Sue discuss trying to rekindle their relationship, and Reed's idea for an invention for memory recovery.
Cast of Characters: Reed Richards, Susan Richards




Reed Richards has posed:
Reed had said that he wanted to talk something over with Sue. That certainly could mean anything, from a serious confrontation to something more simple about wondering where some old shoes ended up. Though his tone, when he said it, carried no doom and gloom (or DOOM!). Still, Reed is capable of making insane things seem normal, as well. Wormholes into twisted realities are normal for those who are Fantastic.

But Sue had some things to do, and she runs the risk of Reed getting pulled back into some project or other. And it may seem that he has, because he has a holo-projector object, one of the BIG ones, rolled out into the living space near the dining table. He's ignoring the 'no inventing at the table' rule for the minute, though perhaps he is skirting the rule since he is using it to display, not actively do 'work'. At the moment he is skimming through an insane display of code banks, searching out the settings he wants.

Susan Richards has posed:
Comfortable without being stodgy, the clothing of the moment.Sue wiggled out of the white dress with a little bit of difficulty, and once it was off, she was able to breathe. To really take a breath. Taking stock of the room, her eyes land on little bits of life lived here and there; their room, their suite is //comfortable//. For all its size, it conveys that sense of //home//.

And it makes her eyes well momentarily from that sudden feeling.

Still, she has to emerge, right? Reed had said that there was something he wanted to talk to her about, and from the sound of it, he's happy about it. He's looking forward to the discussion, which means- yes, definitely something he's learned, gleaned, studied, created? That, too, is home.

Emerging from the room in a comfortable pair of sweats, pink and darker pink edging, her hair is down and brushed out. The projector in the middle of the room, set up near the table. "Reed, you know.." she begins but stops, a funny look creasing her face; there and gone before she finishes the cross towards the table and where her husband is working.

She restarts, and her words are quietly deliberate, "What is it?"

Reed Richards has posed:
"Yes yes, no developing inventions at the table," Reed says, in his 'oh yes but give me a moment to explain' voice. "This one is completed, dear." He's still working, but automatically stretches an arm across to usher her in, palm light on her back and far shoulder. Drawing her to walk up and join him at the big thing. The 'dear' was just as automatic; decades of comfortable speech that he slipped into so quickly. "Here we go."

He has keyed it up. It isn't something he hasn't shown before, it's not new. They've looked at old footage from twenty years ago before. He has picked a charity ball that they went to, and a recording of them on the side of a large dance hall, enjoying dancing together. The hologram figures spin, and focus on a part where Sue put her head on her husband's shoulder to tell him something.

Reed watches the hologram, but then more observes Sue, with a smile that suggests he's going to narrate, but is giving her time to absorb first.

Susan Richards has posed:
"Even when the kids' projects got too big for the table," Sue reminds softly, a hint of a smile coming to the fore inthe memory. "It was their rule too." Everyone gets it equally applied!

If it's completed, though, well.. from the way he's acting, it's something she won't put up a fuss about. The touch of his hand on her brings a warmth to the spot, a tingle of her skin beneath. She eases towards him, to lean into him; behavior born of a life lived together. "Show me."

As the holographic display of their life begins, Sue settles in and rests her head on his shoulder. She remembers this dance, just as she remembers all they'd ever attended together, from galas to auctions, to school gym fund raisers where they'd baked cupcakes. Falling under its spell again, she can almost feel the music enchantment all over again.

Reed Richards has posed:
"The muting is intentional," Reed says, to clarify that it's not a mistake that there's no sound, only a visual. He isn't easy to lean into at first but rapidly adjusts; he had just been focused on the display and things going how he planned, but takes a moment to hug her around the side, and set that outward hand curved up under her elbow.

"I was looking back on this, and the recording doesn't keep what you were saying then," Reed begins, as if this were part of the explanation, or what he wanted to talk to her about. "I remember this, but only because I have watched this hologram recording a ...number of times. I wanted to... pull these memories forward. Live in that place again, where we were."

"I've developed something that could pull an image from that time, forward, reconnect and refresh the brain based on the readouts I have from a time-traveling incident." Reed's going off the deep end here, but knows it at least.

"But I could not ignore the /why/ I was looking at this. That I feel I am losing that which I value so much. That it saddens me to come to bed and find you are not there. And I know that I... left you alone too long there."

Susan Richards has posed:
Even without the music on the recording, Sue can hear it, relive those moments. How could she not be moved by it? If her heart was hardened, was at that point of apathy, it'd be much different, but--

She's watching the movements, the spins, the gentle holds during the particular dance, the barest hint of a smile present in the face of the memory. Shaking her head, Sue cants her head and tries to see what it was whispered in that moment, but can't. That, she doesn't remember. Not clearly, anyway.

"What?" The words are absolutely English, but it takes her a few heartbeats to change tack, to work out what it is he's saying to her. She moves a little in her space, just enough to look at him, "You did that? When?" It could have been any time in the last, who knows? She'd never have noticed, and obviously didn't.

It's that last bit, however, where the confession tugged from his heart is laid there, before her. There is silence, though Sue can feel the thudding of her heart within her chest. Right, wrong, there's no way to honestly place blame at his feet, though the welling of //something// within wants to yell that she wants nothing more here, to depart.. and the only outward response, for those heartbeats is the welling of her eyes once again, the heaviness without the fall of a tear. "I don't know why," she begins softly. "Or how, or when, really," Sue begins softly, willing the words, "I miss you, and you're here. I miss my life, and I don't know why I'm not living it." She shakes her head, "You haven't changed. I never wanted you to change."

Reed Richards has posed:
"I keep trying to apply science to this. That if I study patterns, I can find a solution to it. And there are some things that are measurable-- that when I don't care for a garden, it suffers. But I still have to know the right amounts of water, or fertilizer, or..." Reed pauses, and chuckles softly.

"I know you are not a plant. There I go again, trying to quantify things, instead of /asking/ you. Like a doctor forgeting to talk to a patient, when that is the most critical thing of all. The listening part."

Reed is coming at this from eight directions at once, but that's normal, and how he solves problems so quickly. But when the answer is not coming, he keeps coming at it. It's important to him to solve, to figure out what he can do. "I think a change I didn't want crept up on us. And I think that... going back into the place we loved the most could help inform our today. But I did not decide to do it without speaking to you first. Because I think it would be a sort of deep torture if I were to return to the headspace of that dance.... and not have you in that same place with me again."

Susan Richards has posed:
Susan can hear it, the frustration when science and technology can't solve something, can't make everything better. How many times have they talked about //that// particular topic? Many times, particularly when the children were younger. Sometimes logic just didn't apply. She lets him talk, lets him reason everything out; that's what helps more often than not. And when it doesn't help talking to Herbie, she's there. She's always been there. Been there before.

Now? Recently?No.

So many emotions, however, are taking hold, fighting for primacy. Embarrassment, love, sorrow, fear, but finally when it all come down and lands? Melancholia and a desire to find that which she'd lost. They'd lost. "I wish there could be a way to go back," now there is the beginning of a trail of wetness on her cheek. "We were so in love, so obvious and we just didn't care who knew it." Or who saw it. "I want it back, have wanted it for a little while, but so afraid you didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't."

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed turns his head-- a bit up and back (because Reed can do those bizarre physical gymnastics with his neck that would probably be creepy if it hadn't been the norm and a huge part of who Reed is for the past 40 years). He spots her tears and feels them cut as if they were ice in his chest. But the do not seem like angry tears. Sad or love tears... those are okay. They can build after letting those come forward.

"May I explain what I discovered, and how it works?" Reed asks. He's checking himself, checking himself strongly, because if she said no, she'd rather just be held for now and not hear a bunch of science... he will put her first.

Susan Richards has posed:
No, no, they're not angry tears. They're tears of hope, tears of wishes that things could be just like they were when they were younger, and so obviously in love. They're tears of the fear that something is lost that simply can't be regained. Susan chuckles through them, however, to see how easily, how natural he moves. It's part of him, part of them. Others might have been shocked, disgusted, but Reed? He is.. him. Simply him.

Wiping the tears with the back of her hand with an almost violent rub, Sue finds her grounding again. Nodding her head and sniffling a breath in, she exhales a barked, embarrassed laugh. "Yes. Talk to me. Tell me about it, please. I want to know." She wants to hear his voice. He could read the phone book for all she cared, but she just wanted to hear him. Hear him talk to her.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed twists like a funky pretzel to bear them to sit down at the table, while still having his arm around her. Reed doesn't believe in logical positions, he can be both hugging her and also in the chair next to hers.

Reed doesn't put a lot of focus on the tears, he sees them--of course he does-- but he doesn't pull them into something to talk about to add more embarrassment that he can already hear in her laugh.

"This is a combination of some research I had been consistently looking into. The first one was mainly for Ben's case. Various physical restoratives. Looking for a reversion, but lacking reference of his previous state. The best reference came from when we did time travel, because my database did a full DNA print. I had kept a full record from the time travel we did in 2001, when we went back to 1955." The dates aren't specifically relevant, he got sidetracked by fact. "I am not able to modify Ben's structure with this to before he was Thing -- I have no image of the 'before' as the scans I have are from 2001-- but, what else can I use those scans for? Well. I can bring that imprint and merge it with our //current// state. Merging the 2001 print with today's us."

"There would be some physical adjustment as well. But no more than a twenty year reversion." Reed has explained that he has figured out an invention to restore //youth//, without actually making that part of it the main piece, somehow. "Sort of a side effect I do not see a way to avoid."

A look at him will show he is FULLY AWARE, but also isn't sure if it IS good or not.

Susan Richards has posed:
Susan has never complained about the different and unique ways she can be held, and changes her own position for that maximum comfort, ready again to rest her head on him. The tears are done, if only for the moment, but the soft sniffles continue.

The words flow over her, around her, and she actually does have a basic understanding; his explanations make sense to her. It's probably because they've been together for so long, and she's had to explain, no, to translate for him in the early days when they needed money. (Seems like forever ago!)

The words, the tones, and she opens her eyes again, her brows creasing as she lifts herself up from the lean. Searching his face for an answer to unspoken questions, Sue does manage, "Did you just say that you can imprint a DNA print from the past and essentially overlay it to the present?" See? Not a dumb blonde.

How to restore youth. "What about memories?"

Reed Richards has posed:
"Yes, exactly," Reed agrees, beaming more that he's pleased he explained it well, more than anything. That bit of arrogance he can often have, in that he's more focused on his own performance than the quality of the audience: that if he just says it well enough, then anyone should get it!

But regardless, he knows Sue is no slouch. He didn't marry any dummy: that would never have worked! "Since there are no pieces from the overlay that didn't already exist, it would just refresh them. There's no evidence to suggest that it would overwrite any new memories at all. I'd say a hundred percent confidence in losing any data between the image and current time. Only fortifying and rejuvenating previous ties. So if there were things you had been glad to forget, perhaps regrets that have faded... THOSE would return."

Reed gets distracted by the next part the hologram is playing. The dance has ended, and they are just sitting now to a side while the presentor of the event mimes out his talk. Reed smiles and sets his chin near Sue's shoulder, not a complete mimic of the event (since the event he did not stretch any), but a similar vibe to it.

Susan Richards has posed:
"Well, all DNA ages, and when that happens, modifications come into play." Cancers, diseases, all those various and sundry hallmarks of age. "So," Sue understands what he's saying; overlaying //can// work because the code is the same, essentially. "But, I understand." She nods slowly, and amends, "the basics, anyway."

She, too, is somewhat caught up in the thought of it all, forgetting her own distress and emotions, if only for a moment. Beyond, the holostory continues, its scene of them sitting, side by side, undoubtedly their hearts bursting within the air of a lovely night. Susan falls silent again, letting the information, the news and the history all filter in, finding their places within. Finally, in the quiet of the room, with the pictures continuing just beyond, Susan asks softly,

"Dance with me?"

Reed Richards has posed:
A dance of sweatpants, comfy shirt for her -- and his half dress-clothes, half blue 4 suit at the neck, gloves left behind somewhere... a funny mess of two people well past 50 and well past caring about silly things like attire. A pair that would entirely embarrass their kids, should they come out to discover their parents having a dance in the living room not far from the table and the holo-generator usually forbidden from the table due to it's distraction properties.

No, just a different lovely night of memories that might, after all, be fading with time, but creating a new one here, after a lot of empty space and lack.

"Always," Reed agrees.