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Captain Rebecca stands before the hallway window, stiff and still and quiet as the dead. The morning light pouring in through the glass is pale and brings her no warmth. There’s no one else there, no other guards around, and the only thing by her side is her own shadow on the freshly waxed floor.
At least, that is until familiar footsteps draw near, dress shoes clacking quietly against the linoleum. She turns to face them.
“Doctor,” she says, stunned to see them anywhere outside their office so early. “Are you all right? What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you,” they reply, voice still raspy with sleep before they quickly clear their throat.
“I see… Did something happen? You look exhausted…” She steps closer, head tilted like a curious animal.
Doctor hums, holding their gloved hands low when they tap their fingers together. The bags under their eyes are deep violet.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about yesterday’s procedure.”
Rebecca sighs. “You too, huh… Is that why you aren't in your office?”
They shrug. “Sort of. I… wanted to speak to you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she says quickly, dismissing that worry as soon as she can. “You can always come to me about anything.”
That gets Doctor to relax, just the smallest bit. They motion slightly with their hands as they speak. “Yesterday, you mentioned the garden. I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
“You can see the garden from here,” she says, looking back to the window. Doctor tilts their head as they get a closer look; the morning mist fogs up the glass, but they still make out the shifting shape of green-leafed trees above little dapples of orange and purple and pink.
“When I have the time, I like to stand under the awning and admire the plants there. It isn’t like the landscapes I see on my hikes, but it’s still surprisingly scenic.” She turns to them, her next words soft and small. “I’d really like it if you saw it up close.”
“Well then,” Doctor says. “Shall we?”
There’s a pause as what they’ve said finally clicks in her brain.
“….Wait,” she balks. “Really? You… you’re serious??”
“Yes,” they confirm, looking to the ceiling. “But I don’t want to be outside of FORMAT’s detection range for too long. She will be very worried if she notices I’m not there.”
Rebecca pauses. Because, they have to be joking. Right? They’ve never said yes, not once, not a single time she’s brought it up to them. She could never tell if their interest was genuine or if they were just being polite, if they only agreed to gently nudge her away from discussing it further.
“What’s wrong?” Doctor asks. “Do you not want to anymore? I understand if you’d rather not…“
Doctor isn’t sure what they were about to say. Rather not what? Rather not accompany them? Nonsense. Even after what they did to her subordinate, it’s not like she’d ever want to avoid them. They couldn’t possibly cause her any pain. Even if they did, and it was all their fault, it simply doesn’t make sense. They’re friends. Friends don’t hurt each other. That’s not supposed to happen. That can’t happen. It can’t.
“Oh, no, I’m just… surprised.” Her meek mumbling cuts through their thoughts. “In a good way! I never thought you’d… I mean, I didn’t think you’d want to, uh….”
Her ramblings get the corners of their mouth to turn up. That’s the Rebecca they know. Their dearest friend.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’ll show you the route I normally take. It’s a little farther down here.”
Rebecca leads Doctor down the hallway, and they follow close behind.
~▼~
A white sky hangs over the humble assortment of flowers, grass and trees. A curved walkway slithers through the plants and cuts the space in two, three trees on one side, three more on the other. The flowers here are small and shy compared to the extravagant arrangements in Doctor’s office.
Doctor sees some snowdrops and lavender stalks and morning glories, other flowers too far away to tell at a glance. They’re most impressed by the white rose bush. It’s charming—nothing remarkable, but it’s charming. Comfortable. Safe. Somehow, despite everything they’ve ever learned saying otherwise, Doctor feels safe outside. Perhaps it’s because their friend stands right by their side.
“I know they’re not as extravagant as the flowers you normally order,” Rebecca says, like she’s heard their thoughts. “But I think the garden has a nice selection. They’re all grown here. Our janitor is in charge of watering them in the mornings and afternoons, so long as it’s not raining. But… I don’t think we’ll see them today.”
The beginnings of rain pitter-patter against the awning above and the smooth stone below. Doctor looks at her, but says nothing. Their hands are folded neatly behind their back, standing straight, shoulders tensed. Not relaxed. Rebecca notices and tilts her head like a sad puppy.
“Is… something wrong?” She asks. “Do you not like it?”
Doctor breathes in. The outside air fills their lungs—crisp, clean. Wild and unfamiliar. New. It doesn’t ease their nerves much.
“That day… After I lost consciousness, I awoke for just a moment to hear you speaking with FORMAT. I don’t recall ever hearing you so upset before.”
Time all but freezes around them as Rebecca tries to form a response.
“I… I’m sorry, that you had to hear that,” is the best she can do.
Doctor shakes their head. “Don’t be. FORMAT denied something you wanted. That action hurt you, didn’t it?”
Rebecca looks down like she’s ashamed to admit it. Then, she nods.
“It’s a natural response for people to be defensive when they’re hurt,” Doctor continues. “I’ve seen it thousands of times. I think you’d say something like, ‘it’s human nature’. I’d be surprised to see a reformation target that didn’t try to defend their most vulnerable memories.”
“I know,” she says, timid and small like she’s about to be scolded. “But, all of us at HOTFIX, we go through such strict training to assure we won’t be held back by our emotions in the case of emergencies. As the captain, I should be more adept at that than anyone… But, I… I still…”
The shadow over her face conceals everything—her eyes, her nose, her mouth. It hides her quivering lip, the saline droplet trailing down her cheek.
“Even though you were in danger, even though I’ve trained so long to prevent that… I still… At that moment, I hesitated. I couldn’t—I didn’t move. I froze. If I waited any longer, you would’ve…”
She presses her palm to her eyes, fingers curled. Her breath audibly hitches, just once.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, it’s very inappropriate of me to be so—“
“Please, enough of that,” Doctor urges with a wave of their hand. “Enough of the professional talk. …You’re my friend, Rebecca. I want to discuss this with you. I want to know your thoughts.” They speak in a voice that sounds more like a stranger, one that’s raw and tender. Nothing that a Mindhacker ought to be using.
Rebecca realizes they used her name. Her first name. The name of their friend. She swallows to quell her nerves and it doesn’t help at all. Her mouth is dry and her throat is tight. Nevertheless, she talks.
“You remember him, don’t you?” She asks. “The HOTFIX guard in charge of protecting you, up until that first incident with a Class 1 BUG.”
Doctor never knew quite what to call him, nor did they care to ask. Luckily, his antlers made him stick out from the rest, whose faces all blurred and blended together in their memory like watercolour paint.
“It was hard for everyone to grapple with losing Koreeda so quickly, but then… Having that happen so soon after we lost him… I already felt like I was betraying Koreeda by trying to move on so quickly. I can’t do that again. Not just yet. I can’t betray Shogo more than I have already…”
Rebecca puts a hand to her heart and breathes out slowly, shakily.
“I just…I miss him. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I miss everyone we’ve lost.”
Doctor hums in quiet acknowledgement. The weak wind whispers nothing. Rebecca continues;
“When you lose someone you care for, the first thing you forget about them is their voice. We’ve lost so many, I’ve forgotten so many voices…” She sighs again. “I’m just, not ready to move on from Rooki—Shogo, just yet. I want to sit with these feelings for a while… for as long as I can.”
A pause. The fragile flowers stand strong against the gentle breeze.
“His blog is still up,” she says, not finishing her last thought. “Any one of us can read his posts at any time. But… I wish I’d spoken to him a little bit more, so I could hear his voice more clearly in my head when I read them. If I’d spoken to him just a little bit more…”
Her voice falters, unable to finish that thought either. She starts another one instead;
“In his remains, I found his dog tag… a little piece of metal with his name permanently engraved in it. When I first gave it to him, he looked so happy, even though he knew what it was for. Or, maybe it was exactly because he knew what it was for. Maybe he was just glad he’d be remembered at all, if the worst really did happen. I wonder if he still felt that way in the end…”
Her voice breaks and falls into a weak whisper. Doctor has to lean closer to hear her.
“When I heard the way he spoke of himself, I heard the same things I’d thought to myself before. But, that’s just it, wasn’t it? What made him so lonely was that I thought of my memories first… That’s not what he needed. But, I never tried to look deeper into his own… I was afraid to touch his old scars.”
Doctor recalls what they felt from him—the loneliness in Komagome’s soul was like a gaping wound, yawning wide and bleeding sharp BUG particles into every little crack of his mind. It hurt to breathe in there. No matter how loud the screaming got, nobody heard him. Perhaps it was always so loud that he could never hear anyone else.
The longer Rebecca speaks, the more her face grows hot, damp with what little tears she allows herself. “I was afraid he’d make the same mistakes I did, so afraid he’d try to end it all like I did. So, I tried—“ she heaves a laugh, a painful one. “Oh, God dammit, I tried—to make sure he’d never feel as hopeless as I did.”
Rebecca’s hand finds its way to her face again. She hides her eyes beneath it as she remembers how to breathe. Doctor gets the urge—they don’t know why, but they get the urge—to lean against her shoulder and rest their head on hers. The best they can do is press themself slightly to her pauldron. They’re not sure she notices, but they listen close, and hear her breaths begin to steady. The rustling trees are only that much louder than her tiny gasps and sighs.
“…Doctor,” she croaks. “Often I wonder, how do you do it? You seem to have such confidence in yourself, like you always know that, you’re doing the right thing. How do you feel like you’re doing something good?”
Doctor pauses before they reply. “I go by what FORMAT tells me.” They answer, simple as that. Rebecca nods.
“That makes sense. I imagine it’s comforting to have an anchor like that,” she says, because she has imagined it. Yearned for it. Ached to have it again. Over and over and over. “But… suppose FORMAT wouldn’t be able to tell you what’s good and what’s not. Would you still know?”
Just like that, Doctor is back there—back when they were left all alone with Komagome’s life in their hands. And what became of him next? What became of him, because of what they chose to do? They chose to do that. They could have chosen to do something, anything else. But he wanted it, didn’t he?
Yes, that’s right. Even when he cried and begged for help, Doctor felt it in their heart, they did exactly what he wanted. Probably. Hopefully. He wanted the pain to stop, no matter what that entailed. No matter how much agony it caused the captain and everyone else. In the end, it was all worth it. All that spilled blood was worth it. It had to be.
“I… I don’t know,” is all Doctor can say, small and subdued, unfit for a proud, perfect Mindhacker. Their heart hammers and their throat tightens and they can’t hold back the words from spilling out of their mouth;
“I don’t know if I did a good thing, that day,” they blurt. They keep talking, and they don’t stop—“In his mind, I made him do it. I don’t know why. But, I did. I was trying to help. I think. I think… I did something awful, Captain. That was me, I did that. He wanted me to help him, and I…” Their voice dries up and they wring their hands together.
In the moment, they think, it was exhilarating. Exciting. So exciting, it was nauseating. So exciting, that Doctor still feels sick thinking about it. When that sharpened shard effortlessly sliced through his neck, swift and clean like shears gliding through fabric. They felt adrenaline electrifying every nerve in their body. They felt alive, and delicate, perhaps like Komagome did, right before it happened.
They watched him fall to pieces—visceral, bloody pieces—but the usual endorphine flood that once followed such destruction, like the springtime sun after an avalanche, never came. Even now, they feel cold. Terribly cold. Much like Komagome is, now.
Rebecca is quiet, too quiet, too goddamn quiet, because she’s always quiet as the dead when she thinks. She is still, and silent, and the leaves in the trees and the flower stems beneath keep on rustling away. Rustling, rustling, too damn much, like symbols smashing in Doctor’s ears. The cool breeze freezes them to the bone.
Doctor’s skin prickles and they clench onto their arms. They want to run back inside and hide in their bed, to wake up and realize that everything that’s happened ever since the first incident has all been one horrible dream.
And then they hear it, Rebecca’s voice, small and sad, and it says—
“…..If….if that’s really true, then…” She hesitates, like she has the time. She turns to them slowly, like she has all the time in the world to speak with them here.
“I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt, Doctor. I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt a lot, after everything I told you, after how much we trusted you to take care of him.”
Doctor nods, because it’s all they can do. Her straightforward words cut through them, warm and painful like a heated up kitchen knife. In their head, they commend her for keeping her voice so steady. They still hear it, of course—that tiny tremor in her words. It’s even more obvious after she lifts her head to stare right into them.
“But… I can’t resent you for it. I just can’t. Especially not when you look so pained.”
Do they? They suppose the speech that spilled out of them was strangely hard to say. And their chest does feel oddly tight, now. After Rebecca’s words finally soak in their brain like a washcloth sponging up water do they notice how blurry everything’s become, how much their eyes burn.
Do they hurt for him? Probably not. Doctor didn’t know him that well. But it’s never easy, watching someone die right behind the glass. Everything is changing too fast, they realize. They’ll never have the life they did before, a life where everything made sense, where every feeling could be explained in code. That life is gone now. That’s what hurts.
Mercifully, Rebecca turns away, back to the garden again. Doctor isn’t sure why they’re afraid of being seen.
“Ah… it’s funny, isn’t it?,” she muses, humourlessly. “You could tell me, you happily killed him with a big smile on your face, and I still wouldn’t hate you. ….Maybe I’m a bad person. I think I already lost the chance to call myself good a long time ago.”
“Maybe we’re both bad people,” they reply, like it doesn’t mean a thing. Rebecca’s arm has fallen to her side. Her hand is open and empty. Doctor doesn’t know why, but they want to coil their pinky finger around hers. And they do, and they feel her squeeze back, just the tiniest bit.
“But… so long as you’re with me,” they continue, “I think I’m fine with that.”
Gentle rustling fills the silence space between them. Doctor thinks they hear the bird that sometimes sings near their window. Rebecca draws in a breath.
“….You know,” she says. “You said you wouldn’t be able to tell what’s good and what’s not on your own. Yet, from what you just told me…” she turns her head. They don’t see her smile, but the a sliver of skin peeking out from her hood’s shadow is enough to ease the stiffness in their shoulders.
“I think you’re better at it than you might think.” Rebecca’s words are wistful, delicate, like she’ll be punished if she says them too loudly. Like Doctor will gladly take the first chance they get to crush her hope, deny her outright. They won’t. They can’t.
Rebecca’s ring finger brushes against Doctor’s knuckles—a silent plea for a little more connection. And they answer it, and they turn their palm flat and open against her own, threading their fingers between hers. They squeeze carefully like she’s made of glass, like she’s something easy to break.
“Maybe I am,” Doctor preens, unable to meet their usual teasing tone. “After all, I am a genius… or something like that.”
Rebecca hums and they both stop talking. There’s just rustling, rustling in the flowers and the trees. It’s a little easier to breathe now that neither of them are speaking. Doctor likes the feeling of Rebecca’s hand in theirs. The weather outside is comfortable. FORMAT will start to worry about them soon.
For a moment, just a moment, they half-expect the newbie guard to come running ‘round the corner in a hurry, dazed and out of breath, asking that they come back inside right away as per FORMAT’s request. But, he won’t. He can’t. They’re not sure why they forgot that.
“Captain—no, Rebecca,” they correct, once they find it in themself to speak again. “I want you to know, I am glad that we met. I am glad you’re my friend.”
Doctor feels vulnerable, like they’re being pinned down and dissected, all of their organs exposed. It’s terrifying. They’re not sure what they want Rebecca to say, so they just squeeze her hand tighter and hope she understands.
“…I’m glad we met, too,” she whispers, squeezing back. “Really, I am. No matter what happens, no matter what either of us do, I’ll always be on your side, Doctor.”
A warm feeling blooms beneath Doctor’s ribcage. There’s another pause after that. Not as long as last time, but still sizable. They don’t hate it, Doctor realizes. They don’t mind just standing next to her here. It will be just the two of them together for a while now anyway, before the next replacement comes. Just like it used to be.
“…By the way,” Rebecca says. “How do you like the garden, Doctor? I know the weather isn’t the best, but I think the flowers still look nice…”
“It is nice. I like it,” they reply, looking to her instead of the flowers. “Thank you for showing me.”
Rebecca feels lighter. Just a little bit. The weight in her chest feels just a little bit lighter, like it might not be completely impossible to carry now. Like she might not fail another person she loves.
“I should go back, now,” Doctor informs, looking over their shoulder to the door behind them. “FORMAT will start to worry for me soon.”
“Of course,” Rebecca complies. Despite how much she doesn’t want to, she slowly lets go of their hand and lets them step away. She watches them go back to the automatic doors, back to their normal routine. “I’ll join you in a second to walk you down the hall. And… please take it slow today. Get some rest, if you can.”
Before the doors open, Doctor turns to her and nods. “Thank you. You too.”
With that, they leave the garden, and the glass doors slide shut behind them. They’ll open again for Rebecca shortly and she’ll be right back at their side. For now, they leave her be, trusting that she’ll return on her own. It’s going to be a quiet walk back to their office, no more small-talk with a curious rookie, hungry to learn more about this sacred facility and its precious Mindhacker.
But, Doctor will live with that. They’ll be bored for a minute, but they’ll live with that. They have to. For Rebecca’s sake, they have to live with that.