outer_divide | (no subject)

[Xavier is sitting on a cot in the Flop, hands clasped in her lap as she smiles into the camera. It's a weary smile, but a friendly one. Her hair is tied back in a low, messy knot.]

Hello. My name is Jocelyn Xavier, and I have a request of everyone.

I'd like to know some details about your home, your history. Nothing intimate, of course – just basic facts that might help us discern some sort of pattern in our abduction. Your statistics, essentially – and your skills, if you don't mind sharing.

I'll start us off.

I come from Earth. America, originally, but I've been traveling for several years. The current year is – was – 1956. I recently turned thirty years old. [Her expression tightens, just slightly, as her voice quiets.] Both of my parents are deceased. My step-brother and his father, as well.

[Her next words come quickly, as she forces old emotions away.] I spent eight years at Oxford University, in England. I have PhDs in genetics, biophysics, psychology, psychiatry, and anthropology.

[She hesitates, then, brow furrowing she glances downward; she seems to steel herself as she looks back into the camera.]

I was a soldier for three years. [It would be dangerous to admit, at home, and might raise suspicions here. But she's asking for honesty, and she's holding enough back already.]

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[The smile returns, just for a moment, faint and wistful.]

Interesting. Can I ask how you met?

He found me.

[There's a pause. He knows there's so much more he could say, but the idea of sharing it with a stranger, alternate versions or not, still doesn't sit well with him. So it's with some effort that he finally does manage to provide a few, extra details.]

I was hunting Shaw. Charles pulled me out of the ocean while I was attacking his submarine.

[Well, trying to.]

[Xavier waits quietly, patiently; she knows better than to push. Her brow furrows as she listens, and finally she nods.] Ada never mentioned that name - but I'm sure there's a lot she never said. [A lot Jocelyn may never hear, now.]

Your attack wasn't entirely successful, then?

[He tenses up with that question, voice harder now. No, Shaw was still alive. But that doesn't mean he's staying that way. Charles had already said as much.]

What do you think?

No, then.

[after a moment, quietly] I'm sorry.

[Pity is the last thing he wants to hear, especially from her. But he takes another moment to himself, to keep himself from snapping at her. No, he can be civil about this.]

I'm still going to kill him.

[It was a rash thing to say; that always happened, with Ada. She's not sure how to feel about it now.]

I don't doubt it.

I - he - might try to stop you.

I've no doubt about that.

[He's known from the start, long before their discussions over chess, that Charles doesn't think in the same terms as he does. He only sees right and wrong, black and white, and none of the shades inbetween.]

He won't change my mind.

I know.

[Her expression is resigned, but there's no condemnation there.]

It's possible...that he understands, even if he doesn't approve.

Did you?

[Approve of Ada's need to kill her tormentor? Get in the way? Help?]

...I understood. [Her smile now is thin and worn.] To say I've never felt murderous would be a craven lie, and I've suffered far less.

I don't believe - I cannot believe that taking lives is the right answer. But I won't judge her for doing so. [She shakes her head.] Who am I to do that?

[Her voice is soft, now, soft and frayed.] I've seen people kill for so many reasons. Ada's are not petty, or fanatic, or arbitrary. That does mean something, in the scheme of things.

You understood, but you didn't approve.

[He can still recall each conversation he's had with Charles. Specifically those that left them at odds with each other, courtesy of their ways of thinking. It only makes it that much harder to hear those options stated so clearly.]

If there are any similarities between our worlds, then she would have wanted you by her side, whether you agree with her methods or not.

She left.

[She says it simply, but her gaze falls; she remembers that last conversation, the quiet resignation of it, the aching emptiness it left behind.]

I could have followed. But what then? How could we do anything together, if we couldn't agree on how to do it? How could our friendship stand, if all we did was rehash the same old arguments?

You'd find a way to work together.

[Though he already knows that isn't possible; that at some point in his own future, his friendship with Charles is going to come to an end. He can't stay at the mansion with people who would rather wait for the war to find them than to take a proactive step in their favour.]

You're both too idealistic. Though you, at least, seem to realise that.

[She smiles, just slightly.] I wouldn't be much of a therapist, were I not perceptive.

You're a therapist.

[It's delivered in a nice, flat tone. While the job may work hand in hand with her ability, it doesn't make him feel any more comfortable with talking to her. Not if she's the type to try and analyse everything he says.]

Only on request.

...It's how we met. Ada wasn't a patient - she was a volunteer.

[No, that makes even less sense, as far as he's concerned.]

A volunteer where?

[Her voice is soft, now.] A friend of mine was running a clinic for Holocaust survivors in Israel.

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