[psl] Church/Tex reunion

[a_shadow]

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.

Comments

[deathcountspushingthree]

“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.”

[a_shadow]

"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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.

[a_shadow]

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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.

[a_shadow]

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

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.”

[a_shadow]

"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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

“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.

[a_shadow]

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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.

[a_shadow]

"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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.

[a_shadow]

"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.

[deathcountspushingthree]

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.

[a_shadow]

"Well, they planned on you dying," she says with a scoff. "Not me."

She runs her hand over her face, though, momentarily. It's strange to think she looks like him. It probably will affect him more than her, though. He's the one who will have to look at her.

[deathcountspushingthree]

“So, what, did they think you were immortal or something?”

Church wouldn’t put that past them. He knows that, before Tex died, he certainly was willing to believe that she’d live forever. Sure, it was sorta unreasonable but she strikes him as being the kind of woman who could, if she really wanted to.

[a_shadow]

"Hey, it was unusual circumstances," she says. "Besides, I mean there in the canyon. They didn't expect me to find you, or for your teammates to call for me."

She glances off to the side. She can't put off telling him much longer. Which means she prefers to just jump in and say it.

"I'll be leaving in the morning," she says. "While I'm away, I don't want you to answer that door under any circumstances." Sure, it was unlikely for the Meta to work out who he was or where he was, but better safe than sorry.

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church frowns.

“You’re leaving?” he says, upset. “But we literally just reunited!”

And he doesn’t want to be separated from Tex again, especially not since he’d thought she was dead for a real long while before now. Sure, he’s not really that surprised but that doesn’t make it any better for him.

[a_shadow]

"You're not the only one I need to save, Church," she says. "I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but, you know, at least I took the time to escort you here."

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church sighs.

He has no idea what she means by that but he’s not sure if he wants to argue with her about it either. Not when there are other people that need saving, and she can do more about it than he can.

“Fine. But, please, come back to me when you’re done, alright?”

[a_shadow]

"Absolutely," she says. "I wouldn't leave you all alone. If I can help it."

She doesn't actually know if she can help it. Maine was a formidable foe without any AIs to assist him. What if she goes after him and gets captured? But she can't think that way. She's going to beat him. She has to cling to that.

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church smiles at her.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to make a joke of it. “I’m absolutely hopeless on my own.”

Even though he did just fine when he spent months at his base alone. Other than being bored of his mind, of course. That was not fine, not at all.

[a_shadow]

Seeing him grin at her like that is heartbreaking. But she smirks, beginning to strip her armor plates off. She needs to get some sleep before heading off again.

"That's right, and don't you forget it," she says.

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church smiles again, glad that it got the response he wanted out of her. He had a feeling that that would be a winner.

He begins to take his armour plates off so he can get some sleep too. But then, it occurs to him to ask, “So, do we share or... ?”

Sure, she is (or was, he’s not really sure which) his girlfriend but he doesn’t want to be too presumptuous. So he decided to ask before they go to sleep.

Even though asking makes him blush a bit.