3321/(Intermezzo) It's Cold Outside There's No Kind Of Atmosphere

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(Intermezzo) It's Cold Outside There's No Kind Of Atmosphere
Date of Scene: 10 September 2020
Location: SPAAAAACE
Synopsis: Terry and Donna have some time to talk. Donna's already done all her freaking out, so Terry has to catch up!
Cast of Characters: Terry O'Neil, Donna Troy




Terry O'Neil has posed:
Stardate: 86753.09
Captain's Log, Supplemental:


~My crew and I have been adrift in the inky black depths of space for an indeterminate amount of time. Our vessel is short on provisions but has plentiful water. To save energy, we have restricted life support to only a small number of areas, while our Chief Engineer and our Science Officer effect repairs and assess the possibility of using the lander craft to reach one of the nearby inhabited planets.~

Vorpal limps slightly along the corridor, his fur highlighted by the dim and unnatural light of panels. "... so you and Cait found some medical supplies... so it stands to reason there might be other goodies we can use. Or maybe something we can salvage around in one of these areas..."

~My First Officer, Counselor Troia, is clearly trying to hold it together. As am I. We don't know if we will ever see Earth Again, we haven't spoken of it, but the possibility is there. And so we must contemplate the question of what are we to do?~

"While we're on the lookout, tell me if you see anything I can use for my ankle. You'd think I tried to steer this damned thing with my foot or something," he mutters, limping lightly from his right foot. He's removed the sneaker from that foot, and there's a generous amount of swelling. It's undignified. His mental distraction of narrating everything in his mind like one of those cheesy science fiction shows that he likes to watch is wearing thin in the rather bleak atmosphere of the trashed Dreadnought.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Bandages?" Donna suggests. "How bad is it, think it needs to be immobilized? So far we've got a phenolic antisceptic, something approximating a petroleum gel, something highly alcoholic that I don't suggest you drink, and lots of bandages. The stuff in the medical cabinets is pretty limited, I guess it was for immediate triage before sending someone down to medical. Which is missing. I can bend a bit of metal for you, if you like."

    Donna is carrying a stack of seating cushions ripped out of a meeting room in a now closed-off and depressurized part of the ship. It's the closest they're going to be able to find to matresses. She dumps the stack of cushions in the middle of the floor and sits on a table to face Vorpal.

    "Look. Ummm. Earlier... I'm sorry about that. I kinda lost it a bit for a few... you know. Jabbing the buttons. I'm good now. Just... tired. And when I was out of it, I had a kind of disturbing dream. Not gonna happen again. We're going to get home, okay?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Cheshire cat glances at the Amazon, and he raises an eyebrow. He finds an upturned piece of furniture upon which he can rest his foot, ad then pretends he's striking a stylish pose. Over his left shoulder, he has a makeshift bag carrying ragged-looking blankets taken from what appeared to be a sanitation room of some sort.

"Donna... you don't need to try to reassure me." He lets the bag slide down to the ground where it makes a quiet 'pfff' sound. Gods he hopes those are actually blankets. "This... isn't an optimal sitch. We're up against astronomical odds... but considering we've repelled two alien invasions, we've gotten kinda good at that?"

He exhales softly and looks at Donna. "You had weird dreams too? So did I. I saw G-..." and this is where that cool feline mask of 'I've got it together' slips a little, when his voice cracks just a bit, "Gar was in it."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Apologizing more than reassuring," Donna says with a shrug. She nods her head in the direction of Vorpal's ankle. "Anything beyond bruising? Torn muscles? A cast may be tricky to manage, but we can work out something if it's needed. Might have to just wrap metal around it until you can't move it. "

    She glances out the window, where that bizarre arch of frozen fire fills half the view. "I don't think weird dreams are exactly unexpected in the circumstance. Stress, you know. Normally after a big battle I'm just out like a light. Don't think I dream. But this... when you find yourself in a situation that is radically different, your inner mind... subconscious I mean, it doesn't know how to process all the experiences of the day. Dreams are more chaotic. Though for you, I don't know. I mean chaos seems to be pretty normal for you."

    She gives the cat a grin and shakes her head. "Maybe you'll have really mundane dreams. A day where nothing happens. Gary ruins the coffee, the world nearly ends, the normal every day things."

    "Me though... ah... " She rubs her cheek awkwardly. "I'm still carrying a lot of guilt, you know. When the team... after Doomsday. I blamed myself a lot for it. Thought people would resent me for not being there. You remember I was nervous about that when I came back. Nobody blamed me at all, just like Cait told me would happen, when she came to Themyscira. I guess what I didn't really figure out was that it wasn't the other Titans I needed to persuade to forgive me, it was myself. I'm... I've been having a recurring dream ever since I got back. Like once a month or so. It's... the symbolism is pretty obvious, really."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal nods a little, "Okay, I see... it doesn't really matter what we tell ourselves until we actually start to believe it, eh?" He decides that resting his weight on one leg is too much for now. After all, he's been putting his weight on that leg all day due to the limping, and his calf feels tight. He slowly lowers himself to the ground to sit, extending his leg with the sprain. He thinks for a moment.

"Tell me about how Amazons treat... you know. the falling of a comrade. Over in Themyscira?" he asks, watching Donna, "Although... I guess you probably didn't have much of a chance to see that when you were growing up?"

An island of immortal women. Would funerary rites be considered a historical curiosity to them? Something they once may have done in the past, but no more?

The notion of immortality-within-time was something he couldn't fathom. Wonderland was different. Continuity there was... more fluid. Days didn't necessarily have to come one after the other- sometimes they stretched for an infinity, sometimes they'd come in a great big bunch all at once to get things over with, and sometimes days decide to not show up and it was a common thing to go from Tuesday to Saturday without he inconvenience of the intervening days.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Immortal, not invulnerable," Donna reminds Terry. "Funerals are not common, but they happen. "I guess one thing that makes it different is that if an Amazon dies, it is not... for no reason. From old age. She has died because sometimes duty comes with a price higher than simply the time it takes.

    She lifts her legs up onto the table, and leans her elbows on her knees, looking thoughtful. "There are public rites and private rites. The public rites... everyone takes part in, to some degree. The body is placed on a bed made from wood and gold. From sun rise to sun set, she stays there so those who knew her can say goodbye. Those who are closest... her family, or if she died in a particular action, those who were serving with her - will have a meal together, at sun down, in the same room. All the dishes used in the meal are broken so they can never be used again, and placed in a box. During the night, she is moved to a tholos... a burial mound. There is a procession, with fires lit along the route. Many people will line the route to watch. There she is buried along with the box of broken dishes, and usually a few small items, things that were important to her in life. Sometimes those who were closest to her leave a gift in the tomb with her as well."

    "Then it is down to the private rite. Everyone who knew her must determine what that is. There are no rules, nothing is set down, but it is important to do, you know. The public ritual is about society. About recognizing that she was part of... part of /us/, that we have lost, but not forgotten. The private ritual is personal. It is not healthy to allow the death of one you have loved to weigh on you. So... you go to the tomb. You do what you feel needs to be done. Say some secret you wish you had told her in her life, or place your hands on the tomb to be close one more time, or lie on the ground and watch the stars and think of her. Voice your regrets or your fears. Or just say goodbye."

    Donna falls into a somber silence for a few moments, then shakes her head as if to snap herself out of it. "I did that for Don and Kole shortly after I came back. The equivalent. One night I went down to the memorial room, just to spend some time with them. To say the words that needed to be said. Rae... she... Rae came with me. You don't know her yet, Terry. She's not what you think she is. Even most of the original guys don't really know her."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I wish I could say I knew her at all, Donna." The cat shrugs, "I get the impression she only really shows herself to those she has enough respect for, and of all of us that seems to be you." He then grins, "And I also get the impression that neither Gar nor I will ever be on that list as ong as everybody else is still alive- up to and including the cleaning robots."

He looks down at his ankle and frowns for a second. Then, he reaches over and starts tearing at his costume, using his claws to tear the top right off, battered as it was, so that he at least has his shorts left. The top was ruined from the battle, anyways, "And don't bother with metal. Let's save material for when we actually need it." He starts working with the fabric to create some sort of compression bandage around his ankle, wincing as he does so.

As he works, he glances up at Donna, "But... Khole and Don didn't die for no purpose. Like when death comes for the Amazons, they fell in the discharging of a duty they accepted. So..." wince. He tightens a knot, "Maybe I'm playing armchair cheshire here, but you're very caring. You and Cait have a tendency to out-mother each other," he says, smiling a little, "... but part of the Amazon sisterhood is also bearing witness to your sister's fall. You know, being there. You didn't really get a chance to. You only were able to take part after the fact, but you were removed from the events. You didn't even find out about it until after it had happened..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "That does not change that I should have been there, Terry." She smiles thinly, and shakes her head. "I wasn't there because I ran away. Not from Doomsday, but from much smaller issues that I should have had the strength to face, and that I owed to other people to face. Before you even think to say it, of course I couldn't have known the consequences of my actions. If I had known, I would have stayed. But I didn't know, and I didn't stay. And they died. Maybe they died because /I/ failed /my/ duty."

    "In my outer mind I understand that the correlation is indirect. It is not a matter of causation. It should be a lesson to me that failing in my duties can have greater consequences than can be foreseen, but it is not my /fault/. Cait spent six months telling me that. Mother spent a year. They were wasting their breath, because I never really doubted that."

    "Problem is that kinda just makes it worse. Duty... is very important to me, Terry." She drips her legs back down over the edge of the table, and swings them idly. "To mother, to Themyscira, to the Titans. It's kind of... how I define myself."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"You know..." Vorpal says, eyebrows raised, "If I were Harley in one of her moments of astonishing lucidity, I would say that what we have here are is an example of the enormous psychological stress that can occur from having your inner kernel of identity being defined by your relationships with slash and obligations to others. Especially when you're a superwoman who is prone to taking the world on her shoulders, figuratively, in order to help save the world, literally."

The Cheshire taps his chin, and stands up very slowly, "Dury is fine, but... damn it, Donna, you're going to tear yourself... in fact, I wish I had something to show you-..."

And then, a lightbulb blinks over his head. It actually, /literally/ blinks over his head, and disappears. He didn't see any of it. "I've been an idiot. Give me one second..."

He hops over to Donna and grabs for her wrist- or rather the bracelet. Satisfied that he can see his eyes on the reflective surface, he intones The Words, and suddenly Vorpal is gone and it is Terry O'Neil who is standing in his place.

He sets his leg down, and grins triumphantly. "Not sprained! HAH! I forgot about that..."

He digs into his jeans and pulls out his Starkphone. Of course, it has no service, but the battery is full and there are a few things he has downloaded to the drive. "Sometimes we're a little deaf to the words from friends. If I've learned anything about life, is that sometimes messages can come to you from the most unexpected of places."

He passes through the music app, and selects a song.

Now playing >>>>"Wonder Woman" by Frankmusik, released (2019)*


The redhead then tosses the phone at Donna with a smirk, "Catch. And listen."

Of course he bought /that/ song as soon as it came out.




*Editor's Note: Different Earth, different continuity, true believers!

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's bracelets have reflected a lot of things over the years, but about 99% of them have been made of led. Having them used as mirrors is something Donna finds nonplussing. It's a sign that she trusts Terry that he could grab her wrists without ending up being thrown through a wall though.

    This state of nonplussocity continues through the whole process of phone scrolling, music-locating, and phone being handed over. It continues through a minute or so of the music too. Eventually she rolls her eyes at Terry and throws the phone back at him, but she throws it so he can catch it and grins a little too. "

    Donna shakes her head to forestall the start of a laugh. "Kinda," she says, "But also not. I mean you know, yeah. If I'd spent the last few months lounging on a beach somewhere instead of trying to save the world, maybe I'd have found time to process things better, and maybe I wouldn't still be having bizarrely vivid dreams where every niche in memorial room but mine has a statue in it. On the other hand, maybe the beach would have been blown up by aliens. So perhaps that's a small price to pay."

    "I don't really see how I /could/ have an identity without it being one defined by my relationship to others when you consider how defined I have been by it. I can see how people might think... well. My mother's Hippolyta, my sister is Diana, that's a hell of a lot to live up to, and maybe I'm just trying too hard. But that's not it. It's more like..."

    Donna turns her head a little from side to side, as if some way to express her thoughts might be written down somewhere in the room for her eyes to fall upon. "It's more like my mother is Hippolyta and my sister is Diana and that's... I can't even get my brain around it when I think about how incredibly, impossibly lucky I am. Most children lost at sea never survive. Most orphans are never adopted by a loving family. I'm adopted by Queen Hippolyta herself, and I get Di as a sister, just because I happen to be in the right place at the right time and maybe because I look a bit like Di and reminded mom of her. Then because of that the gods grant me immortality. And give me superpowers. Then I get a crazy notion to go to America when I really... wasn't prepared and was too young to make such a big change, and somehow I meet a bunch of incredible people and become really close friends with them and the Titans happens and people just give us the most insane place to live and the best toys to play with and..."

    The rundown is interrupted when Donna can no longer hold back a laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. "Cait once said if I was a Disney princess they'd have to tone it down a lot for believability. It's just crazy how /lucky/ I have been. So you know? I want to give some of that back. That's what the duty is. To mom, to Themysicra, to the Titans, to the world. Giving back some of what has been given to me. Duty isn't a burden for me, it's a price I'm glad to pay because I know it is a tiny price for what I've got in return."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry catches the phone and sighs, with a level of exaggeration for added theatricality. "Donna... I know I've given you grief, but maybe it's time to let you know that you and the other guys were my heroes before I even knew who Wonder Woman was. To be honest, I tease you beacuse the first time we ever met, I embarrassed myself and acted like a total dickhole and I'm trying to forget." He smirks, "Do you realize what it feels like to know you were a total dork in front of someone you admired? I mean. Geez."

He walks, not limping anymore, and leans against a wall, crossing his arms. "Yeah, you have been incredibly lucky. Or maybe not. Until a few years ago, I honestly couldn't tell you if I believed in god. Or gods. But that's kind of... you know. Maybe you aren't lucky, Troia, maybe your gods looked at you and saw something special."

He tilts his head, "And yeah, it's amazing that you want to spread some of the good you've known around- again, maybe the reason you have those things is because the gods saw into your heart... and I'm not saying that chance doesn't exist and that bad people have bad things happen to them... we're talking about a specific thing, dealing with an island of immortal women. Created by, you know, your gods."

"So maybe it's not about the relationships that define you, maybe you are in those relationships because of who /you/ are. And maybe you need to start thinking a little more about you and refilling your tanks instead of running yourself ragged for the sake of others, trying to pretend you're going to be fine when you are as scared as I am that we will never see the people we love again. And it's okay to admit that."

He sniffles a little, his eyes looking a little moist. "Of course I think about it. You think you're the only one who's lost it? Donna, do you really think it took me thirty minutes to find towels? I had a quiet break-down in the bathroom..." he pauses. "God I hope that was the bathroom. Don't you think I'm having nightmares imagining how April and mom are going to react to the reports that I didn't come back? I haven't even /told/ my mom, so she's got like six shocks waiting for her." A breath. "Or Gar. God, Gar. He's lost everything /so/ many times, and he doesn't deserve it. He's all heart, and the thought of what he might be going through..." He lowers his voice a little. "You're an Amazon, and immortal. It's okay to also be scared and human. We can be scared together. And then find a way out of here or die trying. 'cause that's what Titans do, right?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives a big grin. "Let you into a secret. Cait already had a panic attack in the shower, and Vic edits his memories when he doesn't like them." She might even be telling the truth.

    She tilts her head to one side and shrugs her shoulder. "Nice try Terry, but your hypothesis is based on a 'maybe' and that null hypothesis is statistically... how many people outside Themyscira have ever been granted gifts like mine by the gods? Not so many. You want me to think that it might just be coincidence that the one child out of billions to be given such gifts happen to be adopted by the one person out of billions who you could pretty much guarantee would be granted the favor of those same gods? I was not adopted because of who I am, because I wasn't me then. I was a baby. I didn't have some good heart that the gods wished to reward. I was no different from any other baby, except that I was the one who got adopted by mom."

    "And that's /fine/. It's not something I resent, it's something that makes me /happy/. Maybe... maybe the gods are smart enough to know that mom would raise me to be worthy of the gifts they gave me, but it's not something /I/ did. It's not a birthright, and It's not something I earned. But it is something that I am earning now, and gladly. "

    She hops up off the table and walks to stand next to Terry, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "And listen here, Terry. I'm not scared the way you think, not now. Not that I have had time to think about it. Because when I had time to think about it, I remembered that I am Troia. And I am with Victor, and Caitlin, and Terry. " She laughs and gives his shoulder a squeeze. "C'mon Terry. You think the universe has a /chance/ of stopping us? We're going home. We exist, Earth exists, therefore it is possible, therefore we will do it. It is as simple as that. My only worry is that we have to be quick because if we take too long, I genuinely worry that Raven will break half of reality looking for us."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry lets out a laugh, a little louder than he intended, "Please, she'll come looking for /you/, I am pretty sure she might airlock me if I don't stick close enough to you," he jokes, but gives Donna a one-armed hug, cautious of any wounds in the way. And then he freezes as a realization hits him. "Oh shit... the switch. By this point I think the video may have gone out to... Gar. Lois. Harl. Colette... April... Don... shhhiiiiit...." he whimpers, "I should have set the interval to be longer." He takes a deep breath.

"Okay. Okay. The worst thing that could happen is that there are currently two or three people checking in on Gar. He wouldn't... he wouldn't go so far to the dark as, you know... mauling anyone, right? Not my Gar..."

He takes another breath. Calm down, O'Neil, "I'm going to have to make it up to a /lot/ of people who have just gotten a 'Hello I am dead' video..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Gar will probably turn into a bird and fly away, then turn into a small mammal and curl up somewhere in the dark," Donna says. "Somehow though... somehow I think this time it won't take him three years to decide that isn't for him. That it is not who he is. He will realize that the times in his life when he was alone were the times he was least happy, and the time he surrounded himself with people was the most happy. And he'll remember that he needs people and that people need him too. He'll remember that he has the heart to hold the team together, and he'll return to the tower and do exactly that. He'll be scared and sad behind his smile, but he'll hold it together and it'll take him days, not years."

    "And you know who he has to thank for that. Who persuaded him that his attempt to return was not a foolish dream, and stood by him and supported him when he made it reality. He will not forget what you did for him Terry."

    She beams a broad smile at him and releases his shoulder to walk back over to the window, leaning a hand against it. "We're... we don't even know where we are. A long way from home. We are in a broken spaceship, we have very limited supplies. It sounds tough. But you know what? Earlier today, we and a few friends took on a battle station forty miles across with thousands of alien warriors in it, and we /won/. You think the task ahead of us is bigger than the task we already achieved /today/? I do not."

    She nods her head towards the window. "Out there... out there are the answers. We've picked up drive signatures. We're not alone in this system. Below us, on that water world, there is an island with lights visible when it goes into night-time. We have no food, but life means food, so we go get it. We have no ship, but there are ships out there, so we go and get one. Step by step we solve these problems ahead of us, then we go home and have pizza."

    She turns to him, smirking. "Well, after you have called all those people and told them it was a mistake."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"When you put it like that..." Terry walks up to Donna's side, to look out the window, "It sounds totally within the realm of the possible. You know... if Vic can even get something like a probe with a camera to give me a view of the area, I can get us down there, I'm sure." He turns to look at Donna, "My Rabbit Hole's working again. It... won't take us home, it acts /weird/ when I try that, but everything else seems to work well."

He exhales a little and smirks, "Yeah... Hi mom, it's me.... April fools?" He shakes his head, "I'll work on it. At least I didn't send mom one, I sent one to April asking her to tell mom. So... you know, it would be in person."

He groans, "Which means she knows, now. And when we get back I'm going to get the nth degree about why I didn't tell her I was a Titan..."

He reaches down to grab his makeshift sack, "Okay, enough freaking out about that. Baby steps. Let's go take a few, and hopefully we can get down to that planet. Where there's water, there might be fish!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Do we even need a probe?" Donna asks. "I mean it's right there below us, just a few hundred miles away. We're doing an orbit about once every 80 minutes. Next time we pass over it, let's try getting some proper imaging, get Vic to enhance the image as much as possible. We'll be able to see... I don't know. Streets, buildings, I imagine. If they are there."

    She turns her back to the window, leaning against it. "They may have spare parts we could be using to get things here working. They will certainly have food, and that's a priority. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty hungry. And Cait... if we leave it too long, her grumbling stomach threatens the integrity of the hull."

     "So let's priortize that. Also, we will all feel much better when we have taken a first proper step. Found out where we are, the lie of the land. Got some food in our stomachs, got the ship stable for us to use as a base of operations. We get that done. We go find one of those space ships. We figure out how to persuade the owners to give us a ride - maybe just offering them this ship will be enough, it must have considerable scrap value. Maybe it turns out they are not friendly and they decide to attack us..." She claps her hands together in satisfaction. "Even better! Then we don't have to figure out how to pay, we just take their ship." The grin suggests she's not entirely serious.

    "Then Terry?" Donna stops leaning, straightens the oversized t-shirt she's wearing (it's one of Caitlins, it's not meant to be that oversized) and grins at Terry.

    "Then we go home. Simple."