[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.

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[deathcountspushingthree]

Church is indeed outside of the base. He is bored, having pretty much nothing to do inside the base and no enemies to fight either, so he has decided to see if nature can offer him any entertainment. But, so far, nature is just as unexciting and unchanging as it was the last several times he went out in it. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised by that, it being how things had went before as well, but he had really hoped for things to be different - and figured that, if Command sent him here, they must have had some purpose for it.

But then, just as he starts making his way back to his base so he can be bored as fuck there instead, he hears an explosion and heads in that direction instead.

“So,” he says. “I guess I’m finally gonna find out why Command sent me to this fucking place.”

[a_shadow]

It takes a little time before she spots Church, though she can sure hear him coming. She makes sure she's hidden from the view of any surveillance at this side of the base behind the rocks, and when he's near enough, she calls out to him.

"Church!"

He just has to look behind this nearest rock to find her.

[deathcountspushingthree]

“Tex?!” Church says, feeling confused, happy and mad - all at once. “Why’d you explode a fucking bomb here? And why are you hiding from me? And why are you even here, come to think of it?”

“I thought you died.”

Explode a bomb, call out to him, and then not even bother to fucking show herself.

That was both confusing and utterly typical for Tex.

And he really wants to know what she thinks she’s playing at.

[a_shadow]

And of course he just starts yelling. Of all the things. Can't she just get anything to go right?

"Come back here," she growls out. "I was trying to get your attention without getting someone else's."

[deathcountspushingthree]

“Someone else’s? You mean, like, a fucking deer’s?” Church says, confused. “You don’t want the deer to know you’re here, is that it?”

Because Church has looked and looked around this place, and the only other living beings he has found are animals and plants. And Tex.

And Wyoming is dead so his attention can’t be an issue - unless there was a point in his timeline when he travelled here but Church doesn’t want to deal with the headache of figuring that time shit out right now.

[a_shadow]

She grunts and grabs his arm, dragging him back behind the rock.

"There's a whole lot of shit going on you don't understand about, okay?"

Now that they're both back here, she can face him better. And not have to yell to talk to him.

"We need to get the hell off this planet."

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church makes a protesting sound as he’s dragged behind the rock.

“Yeah, well, what is that shit? And why haven’t you told me about before? And why do we need to leave this place?”

He is still confused and angry.

Tex is back from the dead somehow, and even though he feels like it should be awesome, it instead just feels frustrating.

“Please, please, just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

[a_shadow]

Why can't things ever be simple with him? And why does he have to make it a big deal?

"I can't tell you. Not just like that. It's complicated. Just trust me, okay? We make a run for it and find a spaceport and go. We have to do it now though. I'm sure they're already mobilizing."

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church lets out a deep, resigned sigh.

It is clear to him that she’s serious now, and even though he would deny it forever, he really would follow her anywhere.

“Fine. I trust you,” he says. “But please, promise me that you will explain it later.”

There, he thinks. It’s a concession but not enough of one to hurt his pride.

[a_shadow]

"I promise I will," she says. "But we have to go now."

She reaches out her hand to him.

"No stopping in the base to grab anything."

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church grabs her hand.

“Alright. And there’s nothing in there I wanna take with me, anyway.”

He didn’t even have anything of his own back in Blood Gulch, really. Sure, he had possessions there but none of them were special and all of them were standard stuff provided by Command. Nothing sentimental at all.

Which, he supposed, is kinda sad. Sure, he doesn’t remember that much of his life before Blood Gulch but he thinks it says a lot that he, back when he did remember all of that, decided that nothing from his home was important enough to bring there. That, even though he thought the survival of his home and his people was worth fighting for, they didn’t matter enough to him for him to bring a piece of them to the battlefield.

[a_shadow]

She had heard it not long before they manage to take off—a Pelican flying in from atmosphere. She can't cheat and turn on her cloaking, because they'd get him. She needs to just lead him to a place where they can evade, and do it in a hurry. The city is about 20 klicks distant, she knows. It's the only city on this planet, but it's not too far.

When he takes her hand she starts in running, heading for the nearest cave system. If they evade the pilot in there, hopefully it'll head back for the ship. In the case that there are Recovery agents on board, though, they'll have worse luck. She hopes that's not the case.

She can hear the Pelican swooping towards them after a while of running. They haven't made it to the caves. She stops, turns, and pulls out her rifle. If she can damage an engine that'll eliminate the question of them being captured and taken back to the Invention.

[deathcountspushingthree]

“Did you know they’d be here when you came?” Church asks. “And if you did, is it ‘cause they’re following you or ‘cause they’ve been watching me?”

He’s sure that if they were watching him he would’ve noticed but who knows?

Maybe there’s an equivalent of Tex’s cloaking for Pelicans or something. He’s no expert.

“And who are they, anyway? Freelancers?”

He’s scared but he doesn’t want to show it. So he asks Tex questions instead, hoping his fear isn’t evident in his tone.

[a_shadow]

"Shut up, Church," she says, wishing she had a grenade launcher and not just a rifle. " I told you I'd tell you, but right now I'm busy."

She fires and manages to cause one of the engines to flame up a bit—just a burst of flames that then disappears—and she decides they need to take the chance.

"The caves," she shouts at him, holstering her rifle on her back and taking his hand to run once again.

[deathcountspushingthree]

And Church gets running in the direction of the caves, holding her hand all the while.

“Fine,” he says, his tone making it clear that he’s still annoyed with her.

Willing to wait if that’s really necessary but annoyed nonetheless. He wants to know, dammit. Sure, he trusts her - mostly - but sometimes, it just doesn’t feel like enough.

[a_shadow]

"'Fine'," she imitates once they're safe inside, releasing his hand. "Like I didn't just save your life."

Not in the way he thinks. He's not in danger of being assassinated, but of being changed, mind-controlled, maybe even tortured again. She doesn't have any idea what the Project would do with him now that she's returned for him, but she doesn't imagine it would be pretty.

She gestures with her head deeper into the system. "They saw where we went in. We need to keep moving."

[deathcountspushingthree]

“Well, yeah, you saved me from getting killed by them,” Church says. “But I didn’t even know they wanted to until you came here.”

And if Tex was literally anyone else, Church would’ve suspected her of bringing them here on purpose. But since she’s Tex and he - despite his protests - loves and trusts her, the thought doesn’t even bother to cross his mind.

He continues into the cave, though, as he says it. But he paces himself to make sure he doesn’t get out of Tex’s earshot, even if it makes him go slower than he should.

“So it’s hard to be grateful to you for it, considering that.”

[a_shadow]

Tex doesn't stop and turn like she wants to—they really do have to keep moving—but she sends him a withering look and a scoff.

"You'll understand later," she says. "They were watching and they knew the only reason I'd seek you out would be to explain."

So yes, they're only seeking to catch him because she's here.

[deathcountspushingthree]

“To explain?” Church says, both annoyance and amusement in his voice. “Really? ‘Cause explaining is the one thing that’s the opposite of what you’ve been doing.”

If she considers this to be explaining, he’d like to know what she considers “not explaining” to be.

[a_shadow]

"Goddammit, Church," she says. "I didn't want to have to do it on the run."

How can she even broach this with him, who he really is, what they did to him? Who she is to him, and why she's trying so hard to rescue him?

[deathcountspushingthree]

“So, when and where do you wanna do it, then?” Church asks. “And do you think we’ll ever not be on the run?”

He is really getting the impression that she didn’t plan this out that well. Or, at least, not to his satisfaction, anyway.

“‘Cause if they can chase us anywhere, we might never stop running. And if we never stop to breathe and that means you’ll never explain this shit to me, I’ll never know what the hell I’m running for. And that’s just fucked.”

Sure, he’ll follow her anywhere but can he at least know where she wants them to go and why she wants them to go there?

[a_shadow]

He's right. She can no longer hear the Pelican, because they're deeper into the cave system, but that doesn't mean there aren't agents entering the caves to chase them down. So that means they really can't stop moving.

"Okay. Church, it's...going to be hard for you to accept," she says. "Just remember when I'm telling you about it that I don't lie to you. I let you assume things sometimes but I never lie to you."

[deathcountspushingthree]

Church takes a deep breath. Or, well, the robot equivalent of a deep breath.

He doesn’t really need to breathe but it’s reassuring for him to do this anyway. ‘Cause he remembers being alive and what taking a deep breath did for him then. And he needs that now, needs it to steady him before whatever he’s going to hear.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll remember that.”

He keeps his gaze focused on her, using her presence to ground him for the revelation that’s coming. And he tells himself that, since she’s here, everything will be alright. That he has nothing to fear with her here.

That everything he fears is probably way too scared of her to dare to encroach upon them.

[a_shadow]

Tex can't look back at him, since she's guiding their way through the caves, but she can feel his gaze on her. She really hopes this won't go over too badly.

"The reason you can go into ghost form isn't because you're a ghost," she says, deciding to offer up the most important information first. "You're an AI. That's why you can possess electronics, like the robot you're in."

[deathcountspushingthree]

“I’m a... what?” Church squeaks out, utterly confused.

He knows what AI are but he doesn’t see how he could possibly be one. But Tex says he is one so he supposes he has to believe her, even though it sounds incredibly improbable to him.

“How does that even work?”