SIRENSPULL - contact.

[reassures]

[Cue mechanical answering machine voice.]

"You have dialed the number for N-I-L-L. This person is unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep."

[...BEEP]

Comments

[reassures]

[It opens without so much as a pause, and Nill reaches out the moment the door is open, though she stops mid-way.

Seras still remembered everything. She remembered Shika, all the memories that no one else here had of him but her. She remembered, she knew.

She pauses this time, before quickly pulling Seras into a hug.]

[bloodthirsts]

[Seras returns the hug immediately, gently gently, though she wants to cling as tight as she can. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks.]

I'm sorry, Nill...

[reassures]

[Nill shakes her head a little bit, and though she's not hugging Seras back quite as gently, it's not very tight, either. Just enough to maybe be a little bit relieved.]

You don't need to apologize.

[The only one that needed to wasn't here to do it.]

[bloodthirsts]

I know, I just... I...

[Seras wants to get the words out, as much as she knows Nill can read her thoughts.] He never would have wanted to. That blasted machine.

[reassures]

[A machine? nill isn't sure what she means, but it doesn't totally matter. She hugs Seras tighter, and nods. Never would have wanted not to come back... That's not entirely true, but he wouldn't have left her. Nill knows that. He'd never have left if he had a choice.]

[bloodthirsts]

[Seras meant the Core, which determined that any of them could come and go at anytime, no warning, no time to say goodbye, nothing. Her hand gently pets Nills hair as the younger woman holds her tighter, she's quiet for a while after that...]

[reassures]

[Nill doesn't believe the core was to blame for this at all, which is why she doesn't immediately catch on to what Seras means. But if that's what she wants to believe about this, then Nill will let her, because the truth (or what she thinks the truth is) isn't really all that much kinder.]

Thank you for coming.

[bloodthirsts]

[Seras smiles a little, bittersweet.] You were his friend too, I think his very best friend. And you're mine, Nill.

[She pauses to rub at her eyes, brushing away the moisture.] I... I feel like we should do something for Shika.

[reassures]

[Hah. Nill could never fill the gap that her senpai had left for Shika-- but shika had definitely been her best friend, if that was the right word to use. She's not sure it was, but it felt as close as you could get.]

Like what?

[bloodthirsts]

[Seras thinks about this for a moment.]

There's the memorial... [She brushes her fringe out of eyes, made redder from tears. She smiles a little.] Maybe we should spend an afternoon appreciating the clouds.

[reassures]

[The memorial didn't mean a great deal to Nill. It was just a stone, with the names of most (but not all) of her missing loved ones. She supposes it should mean something to her - that it should be a symbol, but it's just a rock.]

Clouds.

[bloodthirsts]

He liked watching clouds. [She says softly, or he had, once upon a time.]

[reassures]

He never stopped liking that.

[Life just got a little too heavy to sit outside and watch clouds. But they used to do that together a lot.]