hexaflexagons | [psl] Church/Tex reunion

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[psl] Church/Tex reunion

There are several choices for Tex after she crash-landed at Valhalla. She knows that Maine is pursuing her, and she knows her presence in combination with Omega and Gamma being there as well will draw him there. No one can account for the choices we make. In most cases she would have chosen to stay there, face him, and fight, yet there's one thought that keeps running through her mind, and that's Church's complete vulnerability.

She has no idea about the fact that the time distortion unit caused it to take a year for the ship to crash. She just absconds as soon as the ship is down. She makes her way back to Blood Gulch. She tells herself it's just exploratory, just to check on him, make sure things are okay, but she finds that he's gone. How can he be gone? She roots through the computer systems there, figures out it's been much longer than could ever make sense, and finds Church's relocation orders.

And so she's gone again, traveling with her invisibility on to avoid drawing Maine's attention. She reaches the base Church had been assigned to only to find that it's crumbling, the wall damaged. At least that makes infiltrating easy. She doesn't trust that he won't have some kind of protection—Flowers is dead, but surely the Director intends to keep him under guard. So she enters the base and stalks around, intending to kill anyone she finds inside besides Church, but there's no one. No one at all.

This is weird. He must be under surveillance, she thinks. She needs to meet up with him, but she needs for it to be without the Director knowing, so she exits the base and sets a charge off in the rocks outside. The plan is for him to notice the explosion and to go investigate. She positions herself behind the barrier there and materializes, waiting.

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Church smiles at her.

“Well, that’s good. If you were just my stress, I dunno what I’d do.”

‘Cause he knows that, even if she was, she would still be too important for him to just let go of. He’s gonna be on the Tex ride as he long as he can, whether it’s a good idea or not. Even if it gets him hurt or killed or... broken again.

And then he sighs.

“Okay, fine, let’s go.”

And he starts moving again.

She starts following, then passes him to ensure that she's the one in the lead.

"You're taking this better than I expected," she remarks.

“Well, internally, I’m freaking out,” Church says. “But you told me not to do that soooo... though I can’t make my mind behave, I can make the rest of me stay in line.”

It’s not something he excels at but with Tex here to steady him and the threat of her disapproval to worry about, he’s finding it surprisingly easy. ‘Cause she’s a solid presence and he cares about her opinion - far more than he normally allows himself to admit.

And he likes obeying her orders, even though he makes a big fuss about it and questions her at every turn. ‘Cause it’s comforting to let his mind fall away and let her take the reigns for a bit. ‘Cause he knows she can handle it, that she’s got it under control.

He follows her through the caves, glad to let her stay in the lead.

"I'm glad you're not taking it out on me," she says. That was what she'd most been worried about when she launched into telling him what had happened.

Soon enough she finds another entrance to the cave, and thankfully they've been traversing the underground in the right direction. They're merely 12 klicks from the city now, and they have the ability to make a straight shot of it.

"Here," she says. "We need to stay in under the trees as much as we can." And as this is a different environment than the one where his base had been—it's a forested area—that should prove simple.

“Well,” Church says, pursing his lips. “It’s not really your fault, is it? So I don’t see why I’d take it out on you.”

And he loves her more than he’s willing to admit, and he needs her there to comfort him - in her own Texy way - right now.

“Alright,” he says, his voice a whisper, once they arrive in the forested area. “I can do that.”

"Good," she says, voice hushed as well. "Let's go."

She starts leading the way, following the map on her HUD, and skirts the trees, dodging any obstacles along the way. They don't really need to talk, not unless Church speaks up. Tex figures it's best to hash out the rest of the details once they're on a transport off the planet. She's still surprised at how well he took the news, but part of her wonders if he fully understands it, considering how fast she told it and how many details she left out.

“Okay,” he says, and then follows her.

Church is not sure if he understands it, not fully, but he thinks he has the basics of what she told him down, at least.

He’s an AI. He’s a copy of someone’s brain. He somehow made Tex. He was put under great strain and fragmented.

He knows all of that. Maybe not fully what it means but he knows the bare facts, at the very least. And he supposes, for now, that’s enough.

Twelve kilometers is a good distance to cover, especially with the eight they've already covered, but they make it. Eventually they make it, and Tex pays for 2 tickets for them to get off the planet. She's almost afraid the Project will track them down at the spaceport, but no one comes. They are free to make their way onto the transport and find their seats.

Tex knows they are conspicuous in their armor, but no one here seems to have any idea the two of them are wanted. She settles into her seat and watches Church for any signs of what he's feeling or thinking as they are finally able to rest.

Church lets out a relieved sigh.

“Finally. We can relax.”

He is not aiming to be subtle about how he feels, not at all. There’s no real reason to, he thinks. Sure, he’s not gonna blab everything with strangers around but he figures conveying just how relieved he is won’t cause any issues.

She doesn't chastise him. She feels the same way, really, except that he doesn't keep his robot in as good of condition as she does hers. She's probably not as tired as he is. She waits until the transport is moving before saying anything else to him.

"We can't really relax, you know. We can rest for now, but we have to make sure we're moving as soon as we make planetfall."

“Alright, fine,” says Church, annoyed. “We can’t relax. But resting for now is better than constantly running the way we were doing earlier and I really appreciate the break.”

He wonders if she does too, or if she, unlike him, is far more comfortable in motion than at rest. Knowing her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was.

“And I’m gonna enjoy it for as long as it lasts.”

"Do that, then," she says. She relaxes back into her seat, letting her head press into the headrest. If Church wants to talk, or ask any questions about what she had told him, he had better be discreet about it, she thinks. But if he doesn't she's liable to try to grab a nap.

Church also decides to grab a nap. Sure, he’s curious but he’s also sleepy and ultimately, his tiredness is what wins out - mostly ‘cause he thinks he’ll have more chances to ask questions than to sleep.

Eventually the transport begins to land—it's been hours, but the thing about being in a robot body is it's very easy to set it to rest, conserving power, for many hours on end. But the setting Tex set her body on makes it so she starts to wake up when re-entry procedures begin. She stirs and nudges Church.

"Wake up," she says.

Church makes a noise of complaint when Tex asks him to wake up but he does so anyway.

“We’re there?” he asks, his voice still bleary with sleep.

"We're about to be," she says. "You doing all right?"

Church nods.

“Yeah, I’m doing alright. Mostly, anyway,” he says.

Which is, he thinks, the most alright he can be doing in this situation. Yeah, sure, fully alright would be much better but... he doesn’t think he can be fully alright till he has a safe place to stay and has processed everything he’s learnt today some more. And he doubts that’s happening anytime soon so he’s gonna settle for “mostly.”

"Good," she says. "I have a lot more to tell you about, but we're going to have to find a place here we can hole up in first."

She hates the fact that most of what she's going to tell him involves her leaving him behind here, but this is the only chance she has to do something about the Meta. She already failed at saving him once; she's not going to let that happen again.

“Okay,” Church says, smiling at her. “And having a room over my head again does sound nice.”

He can’t think of any objections to what she said, and though he’s tempted to try, just for the sake of his pride, he can’t think of any that won’t sound stupid - even to him. And making a dumb protest would cancel out the desired effect of attempting to make one so he decides to not to bother with objecting to what she said.

When they manage to disembark the transport, Tex downloads a map and works out the location of a hotel some 5 klicks distant from the spaceport. She'd prefer something farther, but this will have to do. She needs to make it back to the planet they had left as soon as possible.

When they make it there, she pays for a long-term stay and then leads him to the room. Two weeks should be enough for her to make it to the other planet, fight off the Meta, rescue the other AIs, and make it back. And if she fails? Well, she doesn't plan to do that.

"Here we go," she says, opening the door.

Church flops down on the bed as soon as she opens the door. He is glad that Tex plans on them staying in the hotel for two weeks since that, he thinks, means that she thinks that’s how long it will take for whoever is looking for them to find them and means that he will have time to truly relax there.

“Finally!” he says, the relief evident in his voice. “A bed!”

Yeah, he’d pretty much woken up from a sleep but he’s still tired and part of him had been worried, before they got here, that he wouldn’t ever get to sleep in a bed again.

"Don't break it," she teases dryly. "I'm not paying that part of the bill when it comes."

She comes into the room after him, shutting the door, and sits down on the chair that's near the bed. She rests her elbows on her knees, considering how to tell him what comes next.

Church sighs.

“I don’t weigh that much.”

Yeah, Tucker had said he was getting fat back when they were in Blood Gulch but even so, Church doesn’t weigh enough to break a bed just by lying on it.

"Sure you don't," she says, still teasing, but half-heartedly. She pulls off her helmet—it's the first time she's done that since receiving this body, and she doesn't know what she looks like underneath, but unlike the robot she was given on the Invention, she basically looks identical to Church. She figures being able to look Church in the eye will help what comes next, though.

Church then blinks, feeling utterly dumbfounded.

“You’re... you’re... me,” he says, as he removes his own helmet.

So, now, it looks like two Churches staring at each other.

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