Chapter Text
She doesn't know if she'd felt this much pain in the circus previously, but she couldn't begin to think about it over the agony of her digital bones rebuilding themselves from her corrupted code. Her time in the circus, her life before—it comes to her in flashes and waves. A glimpse of Kaufmo's makeup, a snippet of Ribbit laughing over something stupid. The scent of her mom's perfume, the way her first girlfriend's hair fell over her shoulders. She can't bask in nostalgia over the ear-splitting screeching, but the want is there, and she hopes that says something. That is, if there's any reason to say anything about her now.
All at once, though, everything comes to a disorienting stop—silence and darkness. Ever the pessimist, she allows herself to entertain the fleeting thought that she's reached true abstraction or something—permanent and final in a way her weird mind visits hadn't allowed to happen before. It had been a while since she'd visited… maybe it was her finally slipping into the reality of her choices.
But there's a weight to her body, so unfamiliar compared to the physical nothingness of abstraction, that begins to prickle at her senses—what the fuck happened?
"Jax?"
Of course. She happened. Like always.
She couldn't exactly see her in the dimly lit… tent? (Where were they?) But she could make out her being there, shadowy presence cautiously trembling at the edge of her vision. It takes her a moment to remember, to put a name to the form. Who…? Of course. How could she forget? Her throat closed around the syllables as she tried to speak, warbling her words. She cleared her throat, and tried again.
"…Pomni?"
A sharp inhale, and more silence followed. She was beginning to think that maybe this was just a really weird one of her visits, or that she was just dreaming. Can abstractions dream? It feels like one, as Pomni steps closer. Her eyes are wide, gently reflecting a soft light that Jax is beginning to realize is emanating from her own body. Holy shit.
She looks down on herself, and while she can't exactly say she looked different to herself while abstracted, there's certainly a difference now, discernible to her even in the low light. The purple fur that once covered her whole body is mostly matted, and in the worst spots, it's black and spotted, glimmering with colorful eye-like rings. Her overalls are shorter, and darker, and she's kind of terrified of all the changes. She feels her heart begin to pick up at the pace with which the new information seems to be overloading her. It's too much and not enough and she's panicking again, out of breath, feeling like she's abstracting all over again.
Ha—that would be something she'd pull, coming back from abstraction just to do it all over again. She'd laugh if she wasn't so terrified.
Arms are around her middle before she can twist this all into something it isn't, and she wants to sob at how quickly she begins to melt into the embrace. It's here she knows that something's different, as it's so foreign to her to be hugging Pomni outside her own mind, in as real of life as they get, her mind supplies, and it's all so undeniably tangible that she nearly hiccups herself back into a panic gripping at the girl in her arms. They stay encircled for an indistinguishable period of time—truly, as nothing beyond a few feet is really visible, and Jax'll be damned before she lets go to explore or some bullshit. The rest of the circus—hell, the rest of the world—can wait its damn turn.
"I'm so sorry," Jax bursts out, pushing Pomni an arms length away. She's crying—they both are, because of course they're always hugging and crying anymore, the fucking saps—but suddenly she's laughing, an odd sort of combination on her features but Jax still thinks she looks beautiful.
"What're you apologizing for this time?" She says, smile quivering.
"All of it. Literally everything I did, Pomni. Everything I didn't. Fuck, oh my—"
"Hey, hey—no working yourself up over pre-abstraction Jax right now. Let's just exist for a minute first, then we can work on the whole 'I-can-fix-him' thing, okay?" Part of her wants to say something, to the last bit, ease the knife from her ribs, but it feels selfish to even think of it right now. She can grin and bear the well intentioned grasps for levity in a clearly not so light moment, for Pomni—she deserves as much.
"…Okay. I still am, you know."
"What?"
"Sorry, I mean. I don't… I don't do apologies. Didn't, I mean. Not good at them, never have been. But you of all people deserve one from me."
"Wow, unabstracting and apologizing? Taking big leaps from our comfort zone today, are we?" Pomni says mirthfully, pulling Jax in again and crushing her in another hug.
"I'm really glad you're back," she says.
"Me too."