A/N: Posted in (unworthy) homage to J Peterson's "Moments In Time" because, just, hell yeah go read.
Trigger warnings: description of a panic attack, some physical roughness, buckets o' angst
She's got that look again. Kat's getting better at spotting it. The pattern's getting pretty obvious by now, so it's easy to know when to check.
Normally so cheerful, chipper even, though to describe anyone like that is just straight-up insulting. Anyone called her chipper, they'd be searching the bushes for their spleen.
Curie's not chipper now. Quiet. Pale. The shakes are going to hit any minute. They're not going to make it back in time. Need an alternate… there. Burned out truck, have to do.
She doesn't bother saying anything, just limps into the truck, the heavy scraping tread of her armor echoing alarmingly off the stained and rusted flooring. Curie, dutiful as always, follows her in right behind. Even with the helmet on, Kat can hear how her companion's breathing is off.
Find a corner, turn. Out of the damned armor; it always feels like a funny kind of birth into the world – into the heat or coldness, dryness or rain; the suit's a mobile house, usually full of her stink despite the circulators. Bathing being optional in the Commonwealth, one of the things it's been hardest to adjust to.
"Hey. Pull up a pew. I think we need a break." Managing to keep the pain out of her voice but Curie doesn't respond, just stares back out of the open end of the truck, not seeing much of anything. Kat aborts her cautious attempt at seat-taking and slides herself slowly into Curie's line of vision. Quick movements aren't quite the thing at this stage; things have escalated badly more than once in recent weeks using the blunt approach. No - slow and gentle, alien, unnatural, not-her as that feels.
Curie's eyes start flickering everywhere, she's wheezing, she's trying to say something but can't organize her voice. "Hey. Here. Look here, at me. I'm fine. Everything's ok." Eyes wide, locking onto hers. Green, like all the forests that have vanished from the world. Beautiful echoes of dead beauty. Dangerous. Balance, Kat reminds herself. Balance what you want with what you can't want with what you have.
"Breathing first. Like we practiced, remember?" Guiding her down to the floor; this one seems especially bad and she's fainted before. "Sit here with me, and breathe." Curie's eyes flicker in panic to the open rear of the truck, then to the blood.
"It's ok. I can see out, and I'll hear anything coming a mile away. It's ok. We can patch me up once we get back. No, don't look there, look at my face." Sitting now, facing her, holding her hands, gently, always gently, remember, like with the baby. The terror of accidentally breaking. This version of Curie is still tough, but terribly human, the entire problem, the problem that's getting worse. No. Pack that fear away for another look at another time, the thoughts are wrong. Feelings that are so damned intrusive and wrong. They need to just fuck off.
"With me. Breathe. In," slow, but not too slow because Curie can't hold onto it, "out; fast as you like." A puff of breath across her face, they're quite close, one hand on a hand, one now on the back of Curie's neck, supporting. "Keep focusing on my eyes, Curie, you're doing fine. Try to let your body-" Head shake. She's not. She's far too intelligent not to know exactly how she's faring, which makes it worse; blazing intellect no match for biology and it terrifies the woman today as much as it did day one.
Curie's tensing up, breathing shallower and shallower, hitching, hands beginning to claw at Kat's forearms this one's going to be a fainter.
"I got you. I got you. I'm here." Repeating over and over, Curie panicking, so Kat's pulling her in, holding onto her, vast if diminished strength forming protection, not restriction. Balance.
Curie's eyes are glazing, focusing on Kat's mouth, in the last few seconds before she passes out. A spastic jerk forward teeth banging painfully on teeth, half a second of the clumsiest attempt to kiss ever recorded or something else, impossible to tell before the eyes roll back and she's limp.
The change is immediate and magical, even as Kat's laying her down, elevating her feet, Curie takes a deep shuddering breath, out with a whoosh, then progressively quieter sighs and her breath hitching less and less as her body resumes normal operation without the interference of a panicked cognition.
Kat leans back against a crate, letting out her own breath with a similar whoosh, hands sliding back through her hair to tighten the ponytail that's not there anymore, like everything else isn't there anymore, before she reaches for her pouch and some dirty bandaging cloth. Hissing as she tightens it. Habit, automatic actions, her only answer to the surreal hallucination that her life has become. Balancing on the knife-edge of dysfunction every minute of every day except when she's killing. Killing helps, a lot. Keeps the unhelpful thoughts away. Keeps her safe from herself. And the progressive effect is positive - she's not even really human anymore, or never was and anyway now she's this… thing that kills.
She looks at her hands, bloody, grimy and so very strong. They've beaten fucking Sentrybots to pieces. She feels too big for her body, most days. Maybe she's mutating. Maybe she'll end up like those green horrors. But they seem content enough. Whatever direction she's headed, her humanity's dimmer every day. The thought that she was once a wife, a mother feels like a joke. Especially given how that all turned out.
Curie coughs and her eyelids flicker. Fuck. Curie, her come-lately Achilles heel, just when she'd thought she was safe, the unwelcome whiplash of caring that spins her brain around in its brainpan and she's over there and kneeling over her friend in a blink, like an idiot. It's important that she's the first thing Curie sees when she comes to, it seems to help. Balance, the demands of balance forbid her to dwell on her need to see the forest, it's not about her anyway. Have, can't have, want, must not want things that don't make sense given who – what – she is and what always happens.
Forests and she can't help the grin of relief and Curie's much less massive than her but still, it hurts a bit when Kat's back hits the crate with the force of the lunge and then she doesn't even have a back anymore because all she is, is mouth and Curie's mouth is moving on hers, full of need but like all the softness in heaven and Kat's humanity explodes so hard into her awareness that she's blinded by must-not and fortunately the steel wall of the truck behind Curie is smooth metal because she just slams against it with the force of Kat's shove, pulled at the last minute but not enough, but maybe it's ok, Curie's not hurt.
Like two wild animals, exactly like that, stupidly, they're staring. Curie, characteristically, breaks the silence first, "Many samples are necessary to form a hypothesis, if one is to have any semblance of rigor."
Any other time, maybe, Kat would have bust out laughing. But this? This is way, way too dangerous. If the road back to her humanity lies through this particular forest, she needs to just add it to the big ol' mourning pile and move on.
"I believe I must—"
"Stop. Please, Curie." Surprise. Then, uncharacteristically, heat.
"But no, I will not. We must talk-"
"You will stop, or we're done." Flat, absolute. Must-not. It's inevitable anyway. Being done, parting ways, maybe not in the too distant future, the thought of its inexorable imminence an almost-welcome blade in the guts, she's that fucked up.
Curie, slapping the side of her leg in frustration, "But I do not understand. I do not understand why these things are happening."
Kat does, too well. There's still too much humanity sloshing around in her head and she knows she'll need to kill something – probably many somethings, and savagely – before it'll begin to recede again. But anger never works with Curie despite how much she just wants to tell her to shut up and back off.
A decision, then. Make use of the humanity, while it's there. In dread, "Alright, you win, what things, exactly? We probably need to talk, yeah. You're getting worse. Sit."
Curie does, she's not at all mercurial, just… she can change mood so fast, robot heritage, instant transfer to a different subroutine. This one is intent, curious, concerned and shit there's that other look like Piper used to have and shutting down that thought takes everything out of her in a flash of hot pain. She feels obliged to slap the hands away from the bloody rag wrapped around her thigh, but it's a weak gesture and Curie ignores it.
Worst fears realized when Curie opens with, "Do you see? When you get hurt, it is as if I too have been hurt. If it is grievous enough, the breathing, it does not work properly, like just now. I do not understand this." Hands deft, supremely competent, setting the dressing to rights.
"I do not observe this in others, nor had I experienced it prior to being in this housing. Also, it is only with you. It seems like a defect, but also feels very correct. This is most confusing."
Kat's rubbing the bridge of her nose, ignoring the bloody smears she leaves, trying to ignore the rushing sound in her head, wishing to Christ for the numbness, the animal kill-or-be-killed. Damned leg, otherwise she'd be up and suited and out and rampaging until this sloshing agony is shunted away again where it can't keep hurting like nothing else has ever hurt except Piper. And that's a must-not thought and this time she's done it and the rushing becomes a roar.
Curie's saying something, she thinks, but she's so far gone in her head she can't hear anything except that one sharp yell, the death of all her sleep since. Holding her in the hot blood, Piper's expression confused and then the worst, how her eyes light up and sparkle as they focus on Kat and she begins to say something Piperish but she doesn't even fade away, they're not even given that much, everything cuts off like someone threw a switch. Curie's face swimming into view right in front of her nose, tears streaming, what is this, she's asking what is happening, why is this happening, I need to help you I do not know how.
It's probably half an hour and pouring rain outside before Kat can say what needs saying, "You need to leave."
All that time to get it out and Curie just laughs. "No. I absolutely will not."
Thankful to her because that's the perfect response to let her be angry, now, blessedly angry, "You need to leave or you're going to fucking die, Curie."
"You make no sense. Why do you say this foolishness? Of course I will die, someday."
"Because, damn you, that's where this goes!" Got an echo, even with the drumming of the rain. "Trust me, you'll live one hell of a lot longer anywhere but with me."
There's a long silence after that as Curie processes. Save her from stubborn women, Kat can see the whole thing play out in that expressive face, so Curie's eventual flat declaration isn't surprising, "I do not believe I will ever leave you, unless it becomes provably true that you wish it."
She holds up a hand, forestalling Kat's line in the script, "It is not the truth at this time and you know it. What you are saying, about this leaving, it is what you are so fond of calling bullshit, yes, of this I am quite certain."
How her grammar goes all to hell, plus Curie's serious, earnest, stubborn expression pulls a snort out of Kat and for no good reason all the tension evaporates and she's too recently out of the latest grieving cycle for it to claw her down into the dark right away. The smell of the rain impinges, seems fresher than usual.
Curie with whatever robotic sixth or seventh sense she uses all the freaking time picks up on the change in atmosphere right away and pounces, "You will please explain what you said, however? What is the 'this' that will lead so quickly to my demise?"
The sigh wells up from some place deeper within her than measure. If there's a defining attribute of this creature, it's curiosity. She'll never let it go now.
"It's not complicated. My hypothesis, Curie, if you want to put it that way, based on 100% of observed outcomes, is that there's a direct correlation between caring and death, when it comes to me. I care for you, you die. You care for me, you die. Evidence. My family died - Nate, Sean. My friends died – Danse. Nick. Preston. And… and - others. They died too."
It takes a while before her voice settles. "And in this life," gesturing vaguely around, "it happens suddenly and it'll happen sooner rather than later. So either you need not to care, or I need not to care, or you need to get the hell away from me if we're both too fucking stupid."
"Care." Curie sounds out the word, tasting it. Watching the pieces click into place is fascinating and painful. It's the closest thing to precognition Kat can imagine. She's ready to jump in as the last connections get made.
"Yeah, bingo. That's what's happening to you. Why you hurt when I do. Human thing. You're beginning to care. About me, too much. It's a dangerous disease if you let it progress, Curie. Leads to love. It'll make you do stupid shit. Like trying to get between me and a shooter, to protect me. When you should be running for cover."
"But you do this thing you call so stupid, all the time, for me."
Kat just stares at her until Curie makes the last connection. When she does her blush is extraordinarily pretty, even in the dim light inside their tin can. The relief in finally admitting how she feels leavens, if only a little, Kat's heart-crushing certainty that she's just written another death sentence. But it's all just too damned late now. Balance shot to hell and she's not entirely sure she has the strength to say no to the must-not this time and it turns out she doesn't because it's amazing how fast Curie can move and her single Please shuts down the last of Kat's defenses and heaven's softness is there again, inexperienced maybe but the electricity of the passion in Curie's kiss is shorting out all thought and Kat's body isn't obeying and her soul cracks wide open and they both might be doomed but Piper is smiling and giving her a goofy thumbs up, just like she would.