Work Text:
i.
Everyone calls you Elizabeth, at first.
Everyone, that is, except Murtaugh.
Which is not surprising in the least.
Even then, back in your first days at the Core, when you were more than acquaintances but not quite yet friends, he talked to you more than anyone else.
Which is not to say that he spoke very much at all.
This was before – before the Lighthouse and the portals and all the destruction that no one could have seen coming.
(Well, perhaps Mur could. He’s always known a great number of things, after all. Certainly more than he ever bothered telling.)
Not that you particularly object to it, of course. He says Liz and my dear Liz and you know full well that it’s a term of endearment, so you smile and answer to it.
You also start calling him Mur.
The first time you say it, it’s in half-joking retaliation, tinged with more than a little exasperation on a day when both the Lab (and him, if you are to be honest) have been more than a little frustrating. He’d wandered over to your workstation, managing to unerringly avoid all the wires snaking about on the ground despite the abstraction in his gaze, which is something you’ve learned to expect.
“Yes, Mur?” you’d said, scratching out one line of equations before looking up to find him returning your gaze, looking straight at you. Not three inches (or layers) to the left, but right at you, pale blue eyes startlingly focused.
Then he smiles, and that’s – unexpected, too, but not in a bad way.
(You can’t help but notice: the team at the Lab pick up the habit of calling you Liz easily enough, but even now you’ve never heard anyone referring to Mur by anything less than his full name.
Of course you notice.
You know, too, what the others say behind your backs. No-one had really understood it back then, not even you – the true significance of the layers still had been unknown, beyond the faintest inkling, but somehow everyone had known instinctually that Murtaugh is different from the rest of you, in a fundamental way.
You know it, too, but you call him Mur anyway.)
ii.
Mur falls to his knees, his eyes wide in mute horror, and you cross the distance between you, glaring anyone still holding up their weapons into varyingly grudging submission (they will respect you, you have ensured that much if nothing else).
“What have I done, Liz?” he says, in a voice barely above a whisper, eyes focused for the first time in what must be decades. “What have I done?”
You wonder – is it seven times worse for him, seeing the damage sevenfold over at once?
“Maybe you should just let them.” The words are still spilling from him, like a dam broken. “Kill me. Look at what I’ve d-”
“Which is why you’re going to help me fix it,” you say firmly, in a tone that brooks no argument. “And if I ever hear you mentioning that I should let anyone kill you again, Murtaugh, I will slap you so hard you won’t know which way is up, I swear to Shiva.”
“But–”
“Indulge me in a hypothetical exercise, since you insist. Say I let them kill you.” You’re right in front of him now – sitting, not crouching, you’re a practical person and this is already shaping up to be a long conversation. “What good does that do?”
The silence around you is weighted, a lever ready to tip on whatever answer he might give, but you know better than to expect that.
Not aloud, at least. You have never been able to fully keep up with Murtaugh’s thought processes when it comes to karma and the layers, no-one can, but in almost everything else you can manage a fair prediction of how he will think.
It’s why you had insisted that the confrontation be here, in the knot that holds everything together in more than seven ways. If Mur could be confronted with this and still not see how badly he’s erred, you would not have stepped in front of those who would end him; but you’d been certain that he would realise the state that your realities have fallen to, and he has.
Just as you know he will see another truth in this – that none of you can even have a hope of repairing the subnet, without the person who’d wrought the destruction in the first place.
It’s not too different to what you’ve been trying to tell him all this time. But Murtaugh is a prodigy, and an increasingly paranoid one besides; the only conclusions he will truly trust are his own.
What you needed all along was for him to convince himself, and from the look in his eyes when he finally looks back up you can see that he has.
…that only leaves everyone else around you (and their many, many guns) to convince, then.
Well. It’s not like you ever expected this to be easy, after all.
iii.
“Rule one,” you say, writing it clearly on a sheet of paper, “if I tell you not to do something, you stop immediately. No arguments.”
You pause and consider your audience briefly, then scratch out that last sentence with a sigh.
“Okay, arguments allowed, but stop first. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” answers Mur, but his voice is abstracted, and not in the layer-blinded way you’re more accustomed to.
The feeling of being closely watched finally dawns on you, and you look up to find – yes, Mur staring right at you, instead of the rules you’re writing up.
You raise an eyebrow at him. “What is it? I’m not one of your experiment samples, you know.”
“Is this how it’s going to be?” he asks instead. “You making all the decisions from now on?”
You don’t even bristle at the words – from anyone else, the question would seem derisive, even accusatory, but you know Mur is just asking it for the same reason he always has. Curiosity.
(You think, with no little amount of weary amusement, that this is what started everything in the first place. Curiosity and a cat. How fitting.)
“I think I can rather confidently declare that you making the decisions turned out fairly terribly the last time.” The gesture at everything around you is unnecessary, but you do it anyway; let it be known that you are not beyond being petty even to him. “So yes, the decision-making will be unilateral for now. Your comments are still welcome, though.”
He’s still looking at you with that startling focus, but you already know to expect that. Not so much the expression on his face, which corresponds in no way to the frankly rather insulting declaration you just made, and anyone else would have accused him of not paying attention but you also know that would be patently false. “My dear Liz. What did I ever do to deserve you?”
You cannot suppress a snort in response, and you do not try. “Shiva knows I ask myself the same question everyday. Now, are we going to do this or not?”