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To leave a message for the conductor of the Pain Train, press 3.

To purchase tickets on the Pain Train, pull some more of your stupid-ass shit.

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"Oh, I was pining for you," he teases back. "But I survived it."

Once she's done dressing he takes her hand. "I'll go down ahead of you. Just in case."

"I'm fine," she insists, laughing, and follows him to the stairs.

Turns out he was right to be worried, though. Halfway down, her leg buckles and she starts to fall, making a small, dismayed sound as she does.

He'd been turning partway every couple of steps, and happens to be half-turned in her direction when she stumbles; he quickly shifts to brace her with his shoulder, wrapping an arm around her ribcage. "Hey," he says, "you all right?"

Wrath clutches at the bannister with one hand, and North's arm with the other. Her voice comes out embarrassingly small and pathetic. "No?" Why is she saying that like it's a question. It's pretty much a fact that she's not fucking all right if she's losing it on the stares and---shit, that hurts, a lot, like one of the muscles in her back is trying to tie itself in a knot, and maybe that's why her leg gave way.

Breathe through it. Shit, that doesn't feel good. She's probably holding on to North's arm way too tightly.

Bracing her up is more difficult than it should be—the awkward angle and her extra weight from the augmentations force him to concentrate not just on holding her up but on his own footing and balance. But he doesn't let his difficulties show; he simply holds her there. "Okay," he says quietly. "I won't let you fall. Let me know when you're ready and we'll go the rest of the way down together."

Wrath nods a little and just focuses on breathing for a moment. "Okay. Let's go." She doesn't really feel ready, as such, but they can't just stay in this position. Better to just fight through it, get to the ground floor, and then she can just... sit. Or fall over. Or lay on the floor and cry. All of those sound like pretty good options right now.

Thankfully there aren't that many more stairs, and she doesn't even try to be dumb about this; almost falling already scared her, between the startlement and reliving (however briefly) the loss of physical control in the face of gravity. It's got her a little more afraid than she even should be, shaking with it, but she can fight through that until they're all the way down.

It's a trial but eventually they reach the bottom and he carefully releases her, but remains right by her side. "Do you want to hold onto me to get to the kitchen?" he asks.

If she's being honest with herself, she's not sure she could even make it on her own. She hates this. But she can also admit that it's good North is here. "Yeah. I'm going to need to."

Wrath leans against North a lot more than she likes to get to the kitchen. She's grateful to get settled down in a chair and leans back, eyes closed. She feels a little sick, really, not so much the pain but the shock of it. "Okay. I'm okay."

He watches her for a moment. "All right," he says, though he knows she's actually in a measure of distress. Moving on and pretending things are normal may help. "Potatoes, right? Have you ever used a peeler?"

She's grateful for that. There isn't really a lot to be done right now. She's in pain, and she scared herself, and she just needs a moment to deal with those things. Maybe getting a hug would help, but she also does have a certain amount of pride in her own resilience. She's already asked North for a lot of help.

"Yeah, potatoes. That's what you said." Deep breaths, Wrath. "Just give me a knife. That'll do the job just fine."

It's obvious that immediately moving on isn't doing it, and he bends to wrap an arm around her shoulder. "Okay, that's what I'll get," he says. "Don't be afraid to ask if you need something, okay?"

Wrath carefully leans against him. "Sorry," she says, rather nonsensically perhaps. "I... Don't know why that happened. I'll do better. Be more careful, maybe." The suddenness of it was what had scared her, though. It hadn't been a lapse in attention or anything so simple. That and the sensation of falling...

"I really don't like falling."

"Hey," he says, rather firmly, pulling back enough to put a hand on each of her shoulders and look her determinedly in the eyes. "What just happened was not your fault. You're recovering, and you're in daily pain, and I am here to help you. Don't blame yourself for failing when you haven't failed."

Goddammit North, you're not going to make her cry. She's been crying way too much lately, on opinion, even though she believes there's nothing wrong with crying as such. But her eyes are watery. She reaches up to touch his face.

"I'm not used to problems not being things I can just fix by working harder." And in a way, that scares the hell out of her.

"Sometimes work means different things," he says. "Right now your job is to heal up and get better. So you have to put the right kind of work in to make that happen. And that means not pushing through pain." He presses in on her shoulders and then rubs his hands down along her arms.

There's not anything to really argue with there. She knows it's the truth. She knows North is right. It's just so damn hard to remember that, to live by it. To watch other people doing things for her because she's not allowed to do them herself. The whole point, over two decades ago, of joining the Army and then the Militia had been service. She's supposed to be the one doing things for other people. She's supposed to be protecting them.

It's a lot harder than she thought, being on the other side of that. Would it be so hard if she hadn't been actively serving for twenty-six years? Probably not. Most civilians don't seem to have this kind of mental trouble.

"I'm trying," she whispers. "It's just a lot harder than it sounds."

Edited 2014-12-29 04:27 (UTC)

"I know," he says. If only in a measure, he knows. "I'll try to remind you when you seem to be forgetting." He runs his hands up to the sides of her neck and leans in to kiss her gently. "Okay?"

"Okay." She strokes his cheeks with her thumbs. "And... I'll try to be better about asking for help." She really will try. It's just another thing that's a lot harder than it sounds.

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