It's... been months, now, since she's been able to look Carolina in the face for any length of time. Seven and a half months, actually, as the Eye helpfully informs her (including the exact date and time just because it can). Hearing it set out like that, it feels ridiculous. The only two people from their world in this place until not even two months ago and they can't even hold a conversation. How stupid is that?
And how much stupider is it that it's only South goddamn Dakota that's brought her to her doorstep today?
Before she approaches, she stands out on the street beyond the property line of Carolina's little farmhouse and looks through the eyes she feels inside. Based on height (and the colour of the bangs trying to fall into her face) it's definitely Carolina and there's no sign of the ridiculously tall, emotionally volatile blonde anywhere in her makeshift bedroom. And, when she flicks her eyes to the part of her strange, magical HUD that controls her radio connection, she doesn't hear her anywhere else around the house either. Good. That's what she needs.
Bundled in her winter gear and with a bag over her arm, she knocks on the door and tries not to look like she's feeling as weird about this as she is.
Mornings are a lot more eventful when you've got an impromptu guest sleeping on your couch. In some ways, it feels bunking in the MOI— which she isn't used to. In other ways, it's like babysitting— which she's even less used to. She's learned tip-toeing around the living room in the early hours of the morning doesn't matter, because more often than not South sleeps like you just ripped the soul out of her body. Carolina sometimes cooks breakfast, and confirms every time that she hates cooking breakfast— hates cooking anything for anyone— and has, maybe, snapped once or twice at whoever dares walk into the kitchen.
The alcohol weening is going— okay. South hasn't died yet, though sometimes she looks at Carolina like she'd prefer that over the state she's in now. It's hard. One day at a time.
Gerry's taken onto her new guest well, and having an extra set of helping hands is nice. Sometimes South cleans. Sometimes South can be coaxed into the field to help her hammer stakes for the fence. Sometimes they train together. Is any of this helpful? Carolina hopes so.
She's in the middle of drafting a grocery list when she hears a knock on the door. With no special eyes to see through layers of drywall and wood— through the pupils of another person entirely— Carolina answers the door blind, sort of— still in her little rectangular reading glasses. (Fuck you, Dad, for the bad genetics.)
The last person she expects to see— the absolute seventh-layer-of-Hell-rock-bottom of the list— is Connecticut, bundled up with a bag slung over her shoulder, the Santa that comes to remind you of everything you've done wrong in your life. Someone she hasn't seen in— Jesus Christ, how long has it been? Carolina's brow pinches. Her jaw goes slack.
"Oh—" she says out loud, like an idiot. "Are you... here for South? She's out."
Reading glasses. Huh. Cute. (Makes sense, too, she supposes, given her old man. A little uncanny, really, seeing those eyes behind those frames.)
"Hah, no, not exactly. I still don't think it's a good idea for us to see each other again just yet. I was actually hoping I'd catch you while she was out."
She glances past Carolina into the house like she's checking for just that, like she doesn't already know. Better, she's found, not to tell people you're using their eyeballs unless you have good reason to or they notice something's up. (Which is easier than she'd like it to be, the way her eyes flashover gold without her say so at even the lightest touch of her new abilities.)
"But I am here because of her. I— figured we might want to compare notes."
That's a frankly terrible way of putting it given her actual emotional investment in the woman she's talking about, but well, talking to Carolina is still... complicated. All of this is complicated.
"Keeping tabs on her?" It's intended to be a joke, but comes out flatter than a newly terraformed planet. Great start. God. She has to physically stop herself from pinching the bridge of her own nose.
Compare notes floors her a little, enough to say— "what?"— although she shouldn't really be surprised. It isn't unlike CT to put herself at a distance, emotionally or otherwise. "I don't have any notes," she says, taking her seriously, then steps aside to let CT in.
CT winces just a little, at the not-quite-accusation of keeping tabs—in part because she can't actually deny it, she has been keeping an Eye on things over the last month and a half or so. Not too closely, trying not to be too invasive, but closely enough to get a sense of everything that's been going on.
She's distracted from that faint sting by the absurdity that sounds like Carolina taking her literally. I don't have any notes, really? Oh, my god, Carolina— "I don't mean literal notes, Carolina. I mean— talk, see if there's anything worthwhile we can do for her or North by putting our heads together."
It's hard not to feel horrible for both South and North, in all this. Carolina has South's trust here and now, but CT knew her better back in the day. There has to be something she can offer.
Something feels strange, about stepping over the threshold into Carolina's home, disorienting enough to distract her from answering the actual question for a solid extra couple of seconds before she becomes conscious of the weight on her shoulder again and clears her throat.
"Oh, this is uh— well, it's a spare blanket. I know this place only has the one bedroom, so you must be putting South up on the couch, which probably means you're having to sacrifice a layer off your own bed and I had a spare, so... here?"
The broad, argumentative part of her longs to get into it. Seven months, a man's assassination on the horizon, harassing each other's party guests without actually trading a word themselves (her own fault— fuck, why didn't she say something?), and now Connecticut wants to appear, after her sort-of-ex-situationship and twin brother barrel into the picture. Carolina knows the anger that rises up her throat is unwarranted. You fucking killed her for God's sake, she so kindly reminds herself, and smothers that itch to argue.
It's kind of hard to be combative, anyway, when someone's literally handing you a gift. Carolina tilts her head, takes the bag almost as stiffly and awkwardly as CT gives it to her. "Do you know the general layout of everyone's house, or just the people you're involved with?" Again, meant to be a joke. Failing to sound like one.
Another wince. It's not as if she can call any of the implications behind Carolina's words unearned, and yet there's still a bite to it, something that stings. It's not as if Carolina's sought her out, is it? (But then why would she, CT had always made Carolina operate under her terms of engagement, before.)
"I pay attention where it matters," she says, not really an answer. She's always been good at those, answers that aren't really answers. "And look, I'm here now, aren't I? I'm— sorry for the radio silence, genuinely. The last couple months I— haven't even really felt human."
Mostly because strictly speaking she isn't, anymore.
"But this is a unique situation, and we're the only people who understand even half of what's happening here. And despite South's— recent behaviour, I do care about her. So. Here I am."
Breathe. She bites the inside of her cheek and levels herself out.
"...I'm not entirely sure where to start, but I do have one big piece of information that I haven't even been able to tell North yet. I'm worried it'd only make him run back to her before he's ready."
I pay attention where it matters. Whatever that means. Why the number of bedrooms in her house matters— okay, relax. Reel it in. It's a nice gesture, and now she's saved from spending the last few weeks of winter huddled under a top sheet. CT's right about one thing, too. The last few months have raged harder than some of the worst battles she's experienced.
"Yeah, no— I get it."
(Still feels like she's finding dog hair throughout the house. Picking blood out of her teeth. The coffee helps.)
"Shit," she says, brows raised. "Okay, start there." What the hell could that be? Meanwhile, Carolina nods her over to the couch and sits at the opposite end. Better, she thinks, than standing awkwardly in the entry way.
CT tucks herself against the arm of the couch opposite her, sitting normally with her feet to the ground—mostly because she has her boots on, otherwise she'd probably have reflexively sat cross-legged.
She starts fiddling with her bracelet, the way she so often does.
"...the twins were one of the Director and Counselor's— experiments. Like letting you give Maine Sigma. Letting you take two AI. Inserting Texas into the team like they did. You remember how they started assigning South based almost entirely on North's specialisation? How once she took that hit on Bjørndal she never climbed more than a couple places when they needed to punish someone else instead? That was all build up to making sure they always had a reason to never give her an AI."
"They screwed her," Carolina says slowly. "They shot her ego down and made her believe it was her fault." Fuck. Of course.
"South was the easier— variable, yeah? They knew her background, her psych-profile. They knew she'd feel the lack of AI harder than North would. I mean, right? They chose her specifically to press the buttons they already knew existed... And—" the word, elongated by realization. "If North finds out it wasn't totally her fault— yeah, I see how that creates a problem."
She presses a forefinger and thumb to her closed eyelids. "I just don't get why. Why alienate twins and turn them against each other? What purpose does that have scientifically?"
For so long she's put her utmost faith in the Project— her father's life-work— to a point where unraveling it, then and now, turns Carolina's head around one-hundred and eighty degrees.
CT watches her process it with her own expression pinched tight, the kind of look that betrays a simmering anger of her own trapped behind it. To know this has filled her with a righteous rage since the first time she found the logs, and yet until now she could never tell a damn soul because warning the twins would just play her hand and get her killed.
"I don't know," she says, with a loose, defeated shrug. "Psychological experiments like that are completely outside the remit of the program even if they weren't also highly unethical, but things being outside the remit of the program never did stop them, did it? Probably they just saw the twins as— a unique opportunity to seek some sick, psychological insight. Especially with someone as reactive as South dropped right into their lap. But then I think about how every squad had its own set of twins, and..."
It starts to look a lot more coordinated, rather than purely opportunistic. Not that she can truly prove it—she wasn't at the program long enough to see both Beta twins get AI, was she?
She sighs. "They need to know. They both deserve to know, I've wished I could've told South since the day I found out, but I couldn't then, and I can't now. Not without making the situation worse before it can get any better."
She wants— fuck, she doesn't know what she wants. Wants to get up, pace around the room, feel her knees flex— wants to curl her hand into a fist and fling it where it doesn't belong; crack, flake, split the drywall— wants to shoot the Counselor wherever he's standing, right now; face gored, glass painted a disgusting sanguine. Who's to blame for this? Whose idea? His, or the Director's? How the hell did you not see?
"It's bullshit," she snarls pointlessly. "It doesn't make any sense. What insight is there that we don't already know? That people crack under pressure? That— that when you kick someone when they're down- when you keep kicking them over and over again- they perform worse? Hate themselves more? Of course we know that. Years worth of time and energy just for them to point to the sky and say it's blue—"
She's up now, crossing the distance between sofa and staircase, circling back. Questions with no real answer. No answer Connecticut can give— and nothing she'll ever rend out of the Counselor or Director's mouths. But she'll try. She'll goddamn try, with metal pliers and all.
She passes fingers through her bangs, palm to forehead.
"I wouldn't count on things getting better very quickly. South's..." she rolls her lips inward, thinks through her words. "...Struggling. Really struggling. And I'm trying. With the right encouragement, I know she'll pull it together, but. Well. You know her better than I do." A beat. "I didn't know it was this bad."
CT stays comparatively stock-still, sat there watching the frustrated energy burst out of Carolina in a rush of aimless motion. Sometimes she wishes she were as prone to physical reaction as the other women of Alpha Squad have always seemed to be—though South most of all, of course.
"There's no way you could've known. Even I couldn't prove anything until I found it in writing, and I was the one she actually talked to me about what she felt was happening. And even then, she didn't seem to really... believe herself? She was always so determined to fix it. To earn her way back."
It never worked, it never could have worked, but she tried. Right up until the day CT left, she remembers how stubbornly South tried, no matter how much it left her feeling worse at the end of the day for the lack of return.
She sighs. "...so, no, I'm not surprised she's doing badly. She's— a lot more sensitive than she'd like people to know, which I'm sure you've seen by now. She feels everything with the strength of a damn atom bomb and sometimes it catches other people in the blast radius. I'm surprised she even came to you for help."
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nebulously dated somewhere in the south soup
Date: 2025-12-22 03:28 am (UTC)It's... been months, now, since she's been able to look Carolina in the face for any length of time. Seven and a half months, actually, as the Eye helpfully informs her (including the exact date and time just because it can). Hearing it set out like that, it feels ridiculous. The only two people from their world in this place until not even two months ago and they can't even hold a conversation. How stupid is that?
And how much stupider is it that it's only South goddamn Dakota that's brought her to her doorstep today?
Before she approaches, she stands out on the street beyond the property line of Carolina's little farmhouse and looks through the eyes she feels inside. Based on height (and the colour of the bangs trying to fall into her face) it's definitely Carolina and there's no sign of the ridiculously tall, emotionally volatile blonde anywhere in her makeshift bedroom. And, when she flicks her eyes to the part of her strange, magical HUD that controls her radio connection, she doesn't hear her anywhere else around the house either. Good. That's what she needs.
Bundled in her winter gear and with a bag over her arm, she knocks on the door and tries not to look like she's feeling as weird about this as she is.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-29 02:51 pm (UTC)Mornings are a lot more eventful when you've got an impromptu guest sleeping on your couch. In some ways, it feels bunking in the MOI— which she isn't used to. In other ways, it's like babysitting— which she's even less used to. She's learned tip-toeing around the living room in the early hours of the morning doesn't matter, because more often than not South sleeps like you just ripped the soul out of her body. Carolina sometimes cooks breakfast, and confirms every time that she hates cooking breakfast— hates cooking anything for anyone— and has, maybe, snapped once or twice at whoever dares walk into the kitchen.
The alcohol weening is going— okay. South hasn't died yet, though sometimes she looks at Carolina like she'd prefer that over the state she's in now. It's hard. One day at a time.
Gerry's taken onto her new guest well, and having an extra set of helping hands is nice. Sometimes South cleans. Sometimes South can be coaxed into the field to help her hammer stakes for the fence. Sometimes they train together. Is any of this helpful? Carolina hopes so.
She's in the middle of drafting a grocery list when she hears a knock on the door. With no special eyes to see through layers of drywall and wood— through the pupils of another person entirely— Carolina answers the door blind, sort of— still in her little rectangular reading glasses. (Fuck you, Dad, for the bad genetics.)
The last person she expects to see— the absolute seventh-layer-of-Hell-rock-bottom of the list— is Connecticut, bundled up with a bag slung over her shoulder, the Santa that comes to remind you of everything you've done wrong in your life. Someone she hasn't seen in— Jesus Christ, how long has it been? Carolina's brow pinches. Her jaw goes slack.
"Oh—" she says out loud, like an idiot. "Are you... here for South? She's out."
no subject
Date: 2025-12-29 09:09 pm (UTC)Reading glasses. Huh. Cute. (Makes sense, too, she supposes, given her old man. A little uncanny, really, seeing those eyes behind those frames.)
"Hah, no, not exactly. I still don't think it's a good idea for us to see each other again just yet. I was actually hoping I'd catch you while she was out."
She glances past Carolina into the house like she's checking for just that, like she doesn't already know. Better, she's found, not to tell people you're using their eyeballs unless you have good reason to or they notice something's up. (Which is easier than she'd like it to be, the way her eyes flashover gold without her say so at even the lightest touch of her new abilities.)
"But I am here because of her. I— figured we might want to compare notes."
That's a frankly terrible way of putting it given her actual emotional investment in the woman she's talking about, but well, talking to Carolina is still... complicated. All of this is complicated.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-29 09:36 pm (UTC)"Keeping tabs on her?" It's intended to be a joke, but comes out flatter than a newly terraformed planet. Great start. God. She has to physically stop herself from pinching the bridge of her own nose.
Compare notes floors her a little, enough to say— "what?"— although she shouldn't really be surprised. It isn't unlike CT to put herself at a distance, emotionally or otherwise. "I don't have any notes," she says, taking her seriously, then steps aside to let CT in.
"What's in the bag?"
no subject
Date: 2025-12-29 09:58 pm (UTC)CT winces just a little, at the not-quite-accusation of keeping tabs—in part because she can't actually deny it, she has been keeping an Eye on things over the last month and a half or so. Not too closely, trying not to be too invasive, but closely enough to get a sense of everything that's been going on.
She's distracted from that faint sting by the absurdity that sounds like Carolina taking her literally. I don't have any notes, really? Oh, my god, Carolina— "I don't mean literal notes, Carolina. I mean— talk, see if there's anything worthwhile we can do for her or North by putting our heads together."
It's hard not to feel horrible for both South and North, in all this. Carolina has South's trust here and now, but CT knew her better back in the day. There has to be something she can offer.
Something feels strange, about stepping over the threshold into Carolina's home, disorienting enough to distract her from answering the actual question for a solid extra couple of seconds before she becomes conscious of the weight on her shoulder again and clears her throat.
"Oh, this is uh— well, it's a spare blanket. I know this place only has the one bedroom, so you must be putting South up on the couch, which probably means you're having to sacrifice a layer off your own bed and I had a spare, so... here?"
Awkwardly hands over the bag.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-31 03:48 pm (UTC)"Now you want to put our heads together?"
The broad, argumentative part of her longs to get into it. Seven months, a man's assassination on the horizon, harassing each other's party guests without actually trading a word themselves (her own fault— fuck, why didn't she say something?), and now Connecticut wants to appear, after her sort-of-ex-situationship and twin brother barrel into the picture. Carolina knows the anger that rises up her throat is unwarranted. You fucking killed her for God's sake, she so kindly reminds herself, and smothers that itch to argue.
It's kind of hard to be combative, anyway, when someone's literally handing you a gift. Carolina tilts her head, takes the bag almost as stiffly and awkwardly as CT gives it to her. "Do you know the general layout of everyone's house, or just the people you're involved with?" Again, meant to be a joke. Failing to sound like one.
"Thanks."
It's sat on the couch.
"So. Notes." (Not real ones.) "What do you have?"
no subject
Date: 2025-12-31 06:22 pm (UTC)Another wince. It's not as if she can call any of the implications behind Carolina's words unearned, and yet there's still a bite to it, something that stings. It's not as if Carolina's sought her out, is it? (But then why would she, CT had always made Carolina operate under her terms of engagement, before.)
"I pay attention where it matters," she says, not really an answer. She's always been good at those, answers that aren't really answers. "And look, I'm here now, aren't I? I'm— sorry for the radio silence, genuinely. The last couple months I— haven't even really felt human."
Mostly because strictly speaking she isn't, anymore.
"But this is a unique situation, and we're the only people who understand even half of what's happening here. And despite South's— recent behaviour, I do care about her. So. Here I am."
Breathe. She bites the inside of her cheek and levels herself out.
"...I'm not entirely sure where to start, but I do have one big piece of information that I haven't even been able to tell North yet. I'm worried it'd only make him run back to her before he's ready."
no subject
Date: 2025-12-31 07:05 pm (UTC)I pay attention where it matters. Whatever that means. Why the number of bedrooms in her house matters— okay, relax. Reel it in. It's a nice gesture, and now she's saved from spending the last few weeks of winter huddled under a top sheet. CT's right about one thing, too. The last few months have raged harder than some of the worst battles she's experienced.
"Yeah, no— I get it."
(Still feels like she's finding dog hair throughout the house. Picking blood out of her teeth. The coffee helps.)
"Shit," she says, brows raised. "Okay, start there." What the hell could that be? Meanwhile, Carolina nods her over to the couch and sits at the opposite end. Better, she thinks, than standing awkwardly in the entry way.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-31 07:56 pm (UTC)CT tucks herself against the arm of the couch opposite her, sitting normally with her feet to the ground—mostly because she has her boots on, otherwise she'd probably have reflexively sat cross-legged.
She starts fiddling with her bracelet, the way she so often does.
"...the twins were one of the Director and Counselor's— experiments. Like letting you give Maine Sigma. Letting you take two AI. Inserting Texas into the team like they did. You remember how they started assigning South based almost entirely on North's specialisation? How once she took that hit on Bjørndal she never climbed more than a couple places when they needed to punish someone else instead? That was all build up to making sure they always had a reason to never give her an AI."
no subject
Date: 2026-01-02 07:59 pm (UTC)"They screwed her," Carolina says slowly. "They shot her ego down and made her believe it was her fault." Fuck. Of course.
"South was the easier— variable, yeah? They knew her background, her psych-profile. They knew she'd feel the lack of AI harder than North would. I mean, right? They chose her specifically to press the buttons they already knew existed... And—" the word, elongated by realization. "If North finds out it wasn't totally her fault— yeah, I see how that creates a problem."
She presses a forefinger and thumb to her closed eyelids. "I just don't get why. Why alienate twins and turn them against each other? What purpose does that have scientifically?"
For so long she's put her utmost faith in the Project— her father's life-work— to a point where unraveling it, then and now, turns Carolina's head around one-hundred and eighty degrees.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-02 08:22 pm (UTC)CT watches her process it with her own expression pinched tight, the kind of look that betrays a simmering anger of her own trapped behind it. To know this has filled her with a righteous rage since the first time she found the logs, and yet until now she could never tell a damn soul because warning the twins would just play her hand and get her killed.
"I don't know," she says, with a loose, defeated shrug. "Psychological experiments like that are completely outside the remit of the program even if they weren't also highly unethical, but things being outside the remit of the program never did stop them, did it? Probably they just saw the twins as— a unique opportunity to seek some sick, psychological insight. Especially with someone as reactive as South dropped right into their lap. But then I think about how every squad had its own set of twins, and..."
It starts to look a lot more coordinated, rather than purely opportunistic. Not that she can truly prove it—she wasn't at the program long enough to see both Beta twins get AI, was she?
She sighs. "They need to know. They both deserve to know, I've wished I could've told South since the day I found out, but I couldn't then, and I can't now. Not without making the situation worse before it can get any better."
no subject
Date: 2026-01-13 08:44 pm (UTC)"This is bullshit."
She wants— fuck, she doesn't know what she wants. Wants to get up, pace around the room, feel her knees flex— wants to curl her hand into a fist and fling it where it doesn't belong; crack, flake, split the drywall— wants to shoot the Counselor wherever he's standing, right now; face gored, glass painted a disgusting sanguine. Who's to blame for this? Whose idea? His, or the Director's? How the hell did you not see?
"It's bullshit," she snarls pointlessly. "It doesn't make any sense. What insight is there that we don't already know? That people crack under pressure? That— that when you kick someone when they're down- when you keep kicking them over and over again- they perform worse? Hate themselves more? Of course we know that. Years worth of time and energy just for them to point to the sky and say it's blue—"
She's up now, crossing the distance between sofa and staircase, circling back. Questions with no real answer. No answer Connecticut can give— and nothing she'll ever rend out of the Counselor or Director's mouths. But she'll try. She'll goddamn try, with metal pliers and all.
She passes fingers through her bangs, palm to forehead.
"I wouldn't count on things getting better very quickly. South's..." she rolls her lips inward, thinks through her words. "...Struggling. Really struggling. And I'm trying. With the right encouragement, I know she'll pull it together, but. Well. You know her better than I do." A beat. "I didn't know it was this bad."
Another beat. Longer.
"I had no idea."
no subject
Date: 2026-01-13 09:21 pm (UTC)CT stays comparatively stock-still, sat there watching the frustrated energy burst out of Carolina in a rush of aimless motion. Sometimes she wishes she were as prone to physical reaction as the other women of Alpha Squad have always seemed to be—though South most of all, of course.
"There's no way you could've known. Even I couldn't prove anything until I found it in writing, and I was the one she actually talked to me about what she felt was happening. And even then, she didn't seem to really... believe herself? She was always so determined to fix it. To earn her way back."
It never worked, it never could have worked, but she tried. Right up until the day CT left, she remembers how stubbornly South tried, no matter how much it left her feeling worse at the end of the day for the lack of return.
She sighs. "...so, no, I'm not surprised she's doing badly. She's— a lot more sensitive than she'd like people to know, which I'm sure you've seen by now. She feels everything with the strength of a damn atom bomb and sometimes it catches other people in the blast radius. I'm surprised she even came to you for help."