outsiderslogs

who. York and YOU!
what. for anyone who wants to talk to, see, or run into York since her injury
where. anywhere in Zeta District -- The Quad, York and Wash's apartment, somewhere in the markets, etc
when. anytime this week!
warnings. probably lots of feelings :(

It hasn't been a good week for York. It's the understatement of the century, really. The mission on Saturday with Garrus and North had gone so fantastically awful, she's still reeling from it a little. It's too fresh in her mind, still, even the admittedly blurry memory of the incendiary grenade going off in her face. Garrus and North had had to drag her out of there to the clinic, and she'd lost a good day to emergency surgery and recovery. And in the end, they'd botched the job. Nobody had even gotten paid.

Mordin had done his best, and honestly, considering the limited resources, he did a pretty damn good job. Especilaly for an alien. She wouldn't have figured a salarian could fix up a human face this nice. No, nice isn't the word for it. It doesn't look even close to nice. The wound is healing, but it's still fresh, an ugly red swath of skin around her left eye, pulling down her cheek. Even when it's bandaged, it's impossible to hide the way the damaged skin pulls unnaturally tight around her eye. And she can't hide the eye itself. Even once the skin heals -- if it even heals all the way -- her eye will still be that awful, milky white. She'll be lucky to get it back to fifty percent functionality, at this point. Last time this'd happened, she'd had UNSC medical facilities available to her; better equipment, more staff, more resources. Last time.

York's starting to feel like the butt of some cosmic joke.

It's bad enough to have a job go so fantastically wrong like this one did, to have her ass land in the hospital with such a severe injury. To have it become something permanently debilitating, to have to wear it like she does. It's bad enough that it hurts. But it's even worse that this has happened before.

The similarities are too eerie, so much they make her feel a little sick. She'd gotten the eye fixed back on Sacrosanct because she didn't want to be a liability. She wanted to be able to watch her own back, and without Delta, she couldn't do that, not with a busted eye. And now she's right back where she started -- worse, even -- and this time, she doesn't even have somebody else's Delta to understand. Maybe six months with a new eye and she'd gotten used to it. She'd gotten used to looking in the mirror and seeing the perfect symmetry of her face, to smoothing her hand over her left cheek and feeling only smooth, soft skin. She'd just gotten used to the delightful ease with which she could read and focus and see, with no headaches, no strain. She'd only just gotten comfortable with it. And what -- that's it? That's all she gets? Well, joke's on her for ever thinking things might be easy, for once.

But there's nothing York can do. She doesn't have Delta to help her compensate and Mordin's got the best care she can receive on the station on her paycheck. So York does what she does best -- she keeps moving forward, making like nothing's happened, because what's she gonna say, anyway? She goes back to work at The Quad as soon as she's able, because she can only stand to be laid up for so long and it's just her face, it's not like she can't walk, and her boss comments on her face in a way that's maybe supposed to be funny, but maybe she doesn't get krogan humor. She keeps going about her business, just like before, and she doesn't look in mirrors much anymore these days, but at least she's still moving.

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He's been meaning to come see her sooner than he's actually found himself outside her apartment. He hadn't been sure if she wanted to be alone, if she'd wanted to spend her time healing with Wash - because even though he hadn't spoken to either of them on the matter, he could tell there was something between them.

And that was their business, and no one else's. But he hadn't wanted to potentially intrude on anything.

He's been going over and over what he's going to say to her once she opens the door - ranging from I'm sorry to I should have protected you better to thinking that he shouldn't say anything at all. And once that door is open, once his gaze finds the gauze covering her left eye, his breath catches. Anything he might have said goes right out the window, and his fingers curl in on themselves just the slightest bit at his sides.

"Hey .. how are you feeling?"

It'd be so easy for York make a glib comment, something cool and distant so she doesn't have to feel it, but even now, she's conscious of the way North is looking at her. She doesn't know exactly what yet, but he feels something about what happened, and just based on what she knows about him, she has a good guess. She doesn't need to make him feel any worse.

"Not my top day of the year, but I've had worse," she says with a one-shoulder shrug, as noncommittally as possible. She doesn't want North to feel guilty, but it wouldn't do him any good to fake it, either. Not that she's sure she could, right now. She steps back out of the doorway, nodding her head. "Hey, come in. You look kinda like you've been through the wringer, too."

He doesn't really expect anything different from her. No matter what she's been through, he knows that deep down she's still the same person - and will find and utilize every excuse she can come up with to make light of a situation that is more dire than anyone realizes.

And the fact that she's lost an eye, just like the York he knows, it just .. makes his heart sink a little.

He's going to feel guilty whether she condones it or not, but he's going to do his best to mask it. (He's never been all that great at bluffing, at hiding how he's feeling, and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she'll be able to see right through him at any given time, but it won't stop him from trying.)

But then she's asking him to come in, and he steps inside the door with a small chuckle and a nod. "Still a little sore, yeah .. but the burns are healing pretty well, so I can't complain." He pauses, and then the words are coming out of his mouth and he can't stop them.

"Still made it out better off than you. York, I'm .. I'm so sorry."

For a few moments there, it seems like it's going to be all right. Like North isn't going to make her talk about this, like they're just going to pretend it never happened and hang out as usual, just like York would prefer. But then he starts with the apology, and she looks away, like she's uncomfortable, pursing her lips.

"Man, don't -- you don't have to apologize," she says, shrugging one shoulder. She rakes a hand back through her hair, carefully avoiding catching the gauze. "It wasn't your fault, all right? C'mon, don't start with that."

He'd wanted to think that he wasn't going to talk about it right now. Because he knows the kind of strain she's been under and doesn't want to add to the stress, but the words are spilling from his mouth before he can actively think to stop them, and he ends up ducking his head with a small sigh.

She tells him he doesn't have to apologize, but he can't but to feel that he does. Because he hadn't been enough to protect her, and he doesn't like thinking that he could have done more if he'd just tried harder.

"It might not have been my fault, but .. I didn't help as much as I could have."

God, she can't even really be mad at him for it, not when it's North. She knows he's only coming from a good place, that it's all genuine. That even though he's technically only known her a few short months, he still feels responsible for her, like she's his York. That's just how North is. And somehow, that makes it even harder to take.

"North..." York half-winces, looking at him almost pleadingly. "I was on point. You did everything I told you to, and you sure as hell didn't slack off. If it's anybody's fault, it's mine."

She may as well be his York, for all the good it does in having him try to think of her differently. It doesn't matter that she's a different gender, that she's definitely had different things happen to her than his York has; in the few short months he's come to know her, he can't help but to feel close to her.

To feel responsible for her.

He finally raises his eyes to look at her again, and the sight of the gauze covering her eyes makes him want to wince, but he somehow manages to keep it to himself. "Yeah, I know. But I had a feeling. And I never ignore those. I should have listened to it. I'm .. sorry I didn't."

"Yeah, 'cause you were listening to me," York says, her tone more argumentative than firm. Christ, she doesn't want to do this. She can't stand him looking at her like that, can't stand the thought that he's going to carry this guilt forever. It's bad enough that Wash does it already. She can't stand the thought of someone else feeling so responsible when it's on her. "I was on point. I made the call. And -- Jesus, man, what's trying to take responsibility for it gonna do? It's not gonna fix my eye, that's for damn sure. It happened. Can't go back and change it."

"I should know better, now, than to listen to you. Because it always ends in you getting hurt."

He's saying this, really, more in terms of watching his York get hurt on the training room floor, but he doesn't need to say that out loud. It doesn't matter, anyway. He hadn't been able to help him, then, and he hadn't been able to help her this time.

There's a small wince for her tone, and for the fact that he already knows it isn't going to give her the use of her eye back, which does mean that he shouldn't remain being so torn up about it. "Look, I know nothing is going to let me go back and change it, but I can't help how I feel about it. That's just how it is."

"Yeah, 'cause it's not like I can take care of myself or anything," York mutters, her jaw tight. Okay, okay, not really fair of her to say to North, either, but damn it, she can't stand anyone feeling sorry for her. She doesn't want to snap at him -- not North, of all people -- but it's hard. Wash has been doing nothing but walking on eggshells around her, and the insinuation that she can't even be trusted to make the right call for herself, that she can't be trusted to give an order that's worth following... It's not like she's ever considered herself leader material, not like Carolina had been once, but come on.

"So why'd you even come, then?" York can't really seem to stop herself from asking. Usually she'd just let this drop, just let North feel sorry for himself if she can't convince herself otherwise, but -- something about all this, about the fact that she's now two universes away from home, farther than ever, that she's apparently doomed to have this mismatched face no matter how far she goes, that she's apparently the butt of some huge cosmic fucking joke, it makes her want to pick a fight for once. "If I can't even be trusted with myself, huh, why help at all? You knew you'd be takin' orders from me, so why come at all?"

OPEN;

yiiissss.

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convenient hair placement

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