[locks, then telepathic broadcast]

[radars]

[ Locked to Erik Lensherr ]

I don't suppose I have a right to ask for this, given how I've treated you since we've both awakened.

But. Do you think we could wipe the slate clean?

[ Locked to Shepard ]

Should we speak?

[ Telepathic broadcast / significantly later ]

ooc ; If you'd like your character to feel this, assume they get slammed by it; if you would rather them not, assume that Charles' mind skipped over theirs somehow and only hit a portion of the population.

[ Early afternoon on Thursday, particularly psychically susceptible people might suddenly feel an agonizing, splitting pain down the center of their skull. Psychic overload, if any of them have experienced it before, drowning in a stream of information too much for one person to handle.

Brief impressions: the ship, no, the other ship, go back for them, four more, woke them up, the first, the first.

The contact cuts off as abruptly as it was made. ]

Comments

[action]

[femshep]

[Ah. She gets it now.

There's a brief silence. Then, quietly:]

What if that's what it takes?

[action]

[radars]

I don't want to be that sort of man anymore. I truly, truly don't.

[action]

[femshep]

Now you're contradicting yourself.

[action]

[radars]

Am I? I want to save lives. I don't want to hurt anyone. Everywhere around me, there are boundaries I cannot and should not cross.

I volunteered, you know. When I was a boy. The War Office found out that I was psychic, and I volunteered for service. I wanted to save my country. Instead, I ushered in an era in which my kind were universally reviled, simply for having power.

[action]

[femshep]

[She listens, but by the end of it, she's shaking her head a little.]

I didn't mean all that. I meant here, now.

You said you could force some of them to listen. You acknowledged the truth in the fact that stopping one won't stop them all. And then you refuse to stop them all.

[A pause, thoughtful almost, and then:]

I have no doubt in my mind that you could do it. But you can't sit there and tell us we're wrong for fighting if the only other option drags you through choices you refuse to make again.

[action]

[radars]

[ Charles flinches. His footsteps falter, and he leans back against one of the rubble walls. Rubs his palms over his eyes, with a long sigh. ]

To be perfectly honest, I don't know how to walk this balance. I've never truly tried before. I've been the man who forces or kills to make a point. But there must be a middle ground. There must be a way to be the psychic I am without hurting someone else. It's that hope that's keeping me going.

Otherwise I might as well start my quest for world domination the brutal, old-fashioned way.

[action]

[femshep]

[She didn't mean to make him flinch. Honest, she didn't. But if he was going to start throwing around assertions like 'we can end this without violence' and make people question the need to even learn to defend themselves, she was going to figure out exactly what his plan of action entailed.

But now that he's stopped, she's stopped too. And she's listening, and trust me, she gets it. She's walked an interesting middle ground for years now, between arguing for an end to the war against the reapers and flat-out fighting for it face-to-face. It's not quite the same, but it has that crucial similarity--that balance that needs to be achieved.

So there's a few moments of contemplative silence before her answer finally comes.]

What if I said I could help you?

[A pause, and a head-shake.]

I'm no psychic, not by far, but I know a thing or two about what you're fighting with. And I think I can find you a balance.

[She's had her gaze on some nondescript chunk of pavement so far, and now she looks to Charles in the corner of her eye.]

If you'll let me.

[action]

[radars]

You can certainly try.

[ He's not all that hopeful of success. ]

I'm not sure what you expect to do. You've already shown you've no tolerance for psychic powers.

[action]

[femshep]

But that's a personal problem. That doesn't mean they don't have a place. A purpose.

[But it's more complicated than she can pull together an answer for on the spot, so:]

I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out.

[And that's that. For now. But it occurs to her that this whole conversation's been a little one-sided, so now she's offering:]

So I've spent the last three conversations grilling you with questions. [Counting the one where he was anonymous.] If you've got any, I probably owe you a few answers.

[action]

[radars]

[ He gives a little shake of his head. ]

No, it's all right. Questions are -- clumsy. Counterintuitive. I'd rather not.

[ Out-loud conversations are often, for him, an exercise in patience. The same information could be conveyed quicker, clearer and better through psychic means.

If he can't have that, he'd rather keep her at arm's length. ]

I'll be going, then.