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"You took me from all my friends. Just make sure you don’t become my enemy.”
So Mi remembers the moment she left Brooklyn like it was yesterday, a memory creeping across her mind like a freshly cut scar. Her time with the FIA may have taken her life, her humanity, but it could never take that moment from her, even if her memories were fading.
She remembers the looks on her friends faces when they laughed; when they cheered; when they cried. She remembers the exact layout of her apartment, the way the rug was threading at one end, lint covering the edges. She remembers how the sun looked over the waters of New York City as it reflected off of the glistening river; golden rays of sunlight cascading down the walls of her home.
She remembers the piercing red of the Blackwall. She remembers the cold darkness after being pulled out of a netrunning attempt, shivering and sweating, mind racing because of what she'd felt and heard and seen. She remembers the concerned looks on her friends' and lovers' faces when she told them about what she'd done; about how she'd done it.
She remembers Reed; how he showed up, offering a job she couldn't refuse. How he looked her in the eye and promised her, eyes darting around her small apartment in false hope.
"I won't. I promise."
"It's eating me, V. My memories, my experiences, my life. And I can't stop it."
Songbird doesn't remember the first time she had a birthday party. She doesn't remember the taste of real food unmarred by the metal in her head. She doesn't remember how real human flesh feels to touch exactly, electrical signals imitating every single second. She can't remember what it felt like to hug her friends, not anymore.
She doesn't remember her family - her parents, her grandparents, her cousins and aunts and uncles. Their faces are blurred mysteries, in fact, she's not even sure some of them even existed in the first place. No family dinners, or day trips to the beach, or hikes across upstate New York exist in her mind, lost to time or the Blackwall.
She wishes desperately that she could.
The FIA might treat Songbird like "family" - a cold, distorted version of one. Twisted by duty, loyalty and an unwavering faith to themselves. Does family stab each other in the back, hurting unlike anyone had ever hurt people before? Does "family" give people the right to treat her like scrap metal, to use and abuse and throw away when they don't care about her anymore?
Reed might think he's her colleague, her mentor, her friend; but she knows that at any moment, he'd throw her to the vicious wolves as soon as she made any wrong move in President Myer's eyes. Those cold, focused eyes. The eyes of someone who would rather kill than be killed.
Songbird's death will be on her hands; and she'll be annoyed to destroy yet another asset.
"Thank you, V. And I'm sorry... for everything."
Song So Mi remembers everything about V. Her eyes, sharp and forest green, a colour rarely seen in America anymore. A verdant twinkle in her eyes whenever she solves some problem, or thinks of a witty quip to call So Mi out with. Her hair, shaved on one side and long and red on the other, her cyberware continuing from those beautiful eyes through to an external neuralware cyberdeck intergration port. Her stance - one of power and confidence yet marred with the subtle yet noticeable lag of a body weary from combat and time and some other, purposefully-unnamed factor. V's jacket - an antique to be sure, but just so very V, the way the jacket speaks to her personality and ideals, the gleaming crystal blue of the collar illuminating her neckline and enticing Song's eyes up towards her jaw...
So Mi blinked, blushed and looked away over her shoulder. She hasn't felt this way in a long, long time; possibly ever. She doesn't believe that she's in any league close to V, that V wouldn't even give her a second thought; that she isn't worth it. Yet, no matter what happens or has happened, V looks her in the eye, hand on her shoulder, her cheek, her own hand and says:
"I trust you."
It's an affirmation, something barely notable in its own right - something standard and normal and supposedly frequent. But it's been a long time since anyone has actually said that to So Mi, even longer since somebody ever meant it. No, this is said with heart and character and trust from a woman so wonderous, so incredible that every situation she's involved in is seen as a spectacle - a woman who has done impossible things in impossible situations and has impossibly survived. Somebody who is worth the world but shall receive indifference from the city that tries to kill her daily. It's an affirmation - that's sure enough - but from V? It feels like a blessing.
And Song So Mi will never, ever forget her.