While I still have plenty of writing material to use (aka a page full of one-liners waiting to have oneshots built off of them) this may be the last for a little while... I'm taking November (National Novel Writing Month) to work on my original work of fiction that I've been neglecting for far too long. Never fear, I shall return. Peter and Olivia don't like to leave me alone for too long. ;)
You remember colors the way that someone that used to be able to see does- shadows of their former selves. Pale imitations. Specters. The human brain rarely possesses perfect recall, especially in the visual aspect, and the entropy of what your brain is capable of rendering is inevitable. So the colors slowly fade away, taken over by the blue- the yellow of the sun loses its brilliance and turns a ghastly green; the pale softness of skin takes on an unnatural hue, harsher than it has any right to be; the vivid red of blood turns to an odd purple and then darker, almost black; everything you remember becomes contaminated, tainted by blue. You know what the colors should look like, but are unable to visualize them as such.
Except green. You can still remember green. Only in one place- not trees, grass, emeralds, or money. No, this is far less tangible and yet so much more important, and the part of your mind that is still human and hasn't been taken over by the tech clings to the memory and refuses to let it fade at all.
You still see green when you see her face. Her eyes. And they shine back at you in all of their brilliance, verdant points of light in a vista of monotonous blue. And even when you can't distinguish what made the blue of Etta's eyes so special, so different, you hold on the to green of Olivia's and refuse to let it go.
You don't think you've seen the sky since you were pulled out of amber.
It's most likely an effect of the Observers' atmospheric machines, you know- it's always overcast now. There is no blue sky to be seen, and everything you look at seems dull, leeched of color.
Which makes it all the more ironic that all you can think of is blue. Etta's eyes... and Peter's.
Etta's eyes were green when she was born. Like yours. Peter joked for the first few weeks that your daughter was a miniature replica of you, especially when it seemed as if she didn't want to sleep at night. And even though she was perfect in every way, that green still left you with the tiniest pang of sadness, because when you were pregnant you always pictured her with blonde hair and blue eyes, the perfect combination of you both. But by the time she was six months old her eyes had settled into that same brilliant hue as her father's, and you couldn't help but marvel at the little angel that stole your heart.
You miss her, terribly so. And you miss Peter too, even though you shouldn't have to. He should be sitting here with you right now, not in Etta's apartment plotting out timelines or wandering around the city in search of ways to foil Windmark. You can barely even look him in the eye when he is present, because the lack of emotion has left his eyes muted and drab, not the intense blue of the eyes that you've loved for so long, the eyes your daughter inherited.
And suddenly, the sitting and waiting for something too change is too much to bear. You have lost your daughter, your sister, your niece, your world. You can't lose Peter, too. Not again. Not like this. Not without a fight.
You want your husband back. History has a way of repeating itself when it comes to the two of you, you decide dryly, and you'll be damned if it's not going to happen again. Even if you have to rip that tech out of his head yourself.
You fight a constant battle with your emotions. They want to influence your thoughts, your decisions, your actions. The part of your brain that is run by logic wars with them, pushing them back to an increasingly smaller place in your mind where they cannot affect you, cannot cause you to make mistakes, cannot interfere with your logic.
That part of your brain, aided by the tech, is slowly winning. Is slowly taking over the rest of you.
Sometimes it feels as if there are two people in your head- one who embraces his humanity, with all of its emotions and flaws and clings to the memory of green eyes full of love; and the other, the logical one, who knows that he is superior to a human, knows that he can make unbiased decisions without e motions to influence them and revels in the cool blue that tints everything that he sees.
The human hates blue. Except for the memory of a girl who would be almost identical to her, if her eyes were green. But she has become his lifeline, because even as much as the blue-eyed one meant to him, her eyes no longer stand out in his tainted memories.
The stir of movement, the soft footfalls of boots on concrete pull you from your internal battle, momentarily at least, as you turn to see who it is. Your brow furrows for a moment- you didn't see this happening. She wasn't supposed to be here. Almost of its own accord, your mind begins running through timelines to see if it changes anything, and you look back down at your watch and then back to the fountain, waiting for Windmark to pass through. But she keeps talking to you, trying to reach the part of you that is still human, and finally you turn your head to look at her just to tell her to stop.
But something happens that you weren't expecting. Her eyes- those sharp green eyes that have always been able to see right through you- aren't the color you were expecting them to be. They are still green, but there is blue laid over them now. You're starting to lose that final color.
And the human part of you decides that it's had enough.
Even later on, you're not sure exactly how it happened. The blue flickers as disappears from your vision, and your emotions come rushing back. Your eyes are locked onto her face, drinking in every glorious detail of color, and you know that if you don't act now, you'll lose the chance.
And so with your eyes locked onto hers, you focus on the green and set to work getting the tech out of your head.
You're not sure how long you sit there in the rain, with Peter hunched over in your arms, clinging to you. All you know is that the implant that nearly took you from him lies several feet away, discarded, and you have your husband back. Being drenched to the bone is a small price to pay for that.
Finally though, he stirs, and you loosen your hold on him to allow him to pull back. And when he looks up at you, and his eyes catch the moonlight, the joy bubbles out of you in a laugh, and you throw yours arms around him again, because even if his eyes carry scars that weren't there before- yours do too, you know- they are, once more, that brilliant, shining blue.