bye_felicia | and the best part about it is I'm the only who can do somethin' about it

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and the best part about it is I'm the only who can do somethin' about it

It hits her out of nowhere. One minute, she's berating a waitress for serving someone else before her, the next she's sitting there, staring open-mouthed at a girl near tears, the words still buzzing around in her head, sitting on her tongue, with surprise the only thing keeping them at bay.

The girl doesn't deserve this, she realizes suddenly. This is just the way that things are.

They're not home anymore. She can't treat people like this.

The girl runs away, escapes, and Victra doesn't see her again until she delivers her plate of food, so hot and fresh it's ready to burn her tongue.

But Victra can't pay any attention to her now. She has more important people in her life that she needs to apologize to. Her phone's already out and she's sending a mass text message with her location to everyone in her neatly cultivated contacts list.

I'm back to normal. Sorry.

And to Lincoln, an added:

Please forgive me.

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Victra fiddles with her phone, staring at it, waiting for a response from someone, anyone. From Lincoln. She gets a few, a few reassuring answers, but nothing from Lincoln.

The food she had ordered before her return to normal arrives, but now she can't eat. Her stomach twists in knots as she waits for something, anything to say that she hasn't ruined one of the few good things she has in her life.

She's so absorbed in her phone that she doesn't look up when the diner door dings the arrival of a new customer.

He knows he's risking her Razor again when he crosses the diner and drops down into the chair beside her without saying a word. It's a risk he's willing to take, however, one he'd been willing to take when he'd walked into her apartment that day and found her completely changed. Had he thought it would help, he would have stayed, he would have let her attack him if there had been even a chance that might bring her back.

But he had known it wouldn't. Better to keep his distance and make sure no further damage was done before she came back.

And now she has. There's no question of it, not when he reaches out to cup her cheek and really look her in the eye. This is the Victra he knows, the woman he loves, he sees it in a second, and the relief of it sends his heart pounding even harder.

"Are you okay?" he asks, taking care to keep his voice low.

Her heart sticks in her throat at the touch. Of all people, she thinks she's hurt Lincoln the worst -- physically and emotionally -- and he means the most to her. The fear that she had lost him, irrational as it was, played in her mind in the small amount of time since she's come back to herself.

And the first thing he does is touch her and make sure she's okay, and it's all that Victra can do not to let her eyes water with tears of gratitude. They shine bright gold, but that's all. She won't allow herself anything more than that.

"That's not the point," she says. "Are you?"

"I'm-"

He stops himself before going any further. He'd been about to say he's fine, because he is for the most part. The cut on his chest is healing, it's not going to scar, and even if it were to, it's not as if it would be the only one on his body. He understands it wasn't really her, not as she is now, and he doesn't know what happened to cause it, so he doesn't blame her, but that's different than giving her an honest answer about how he's feeling. He's not angry, really, but that's a different answer, too.

Because he's hurt. Hearing her speak to him as if she'd never seen him before, referring to him as the colour of his skin, it had all struck Lincoln hard.

"A little hurt," he admits. "But I'm okay."

She's always, always told him to be honest with her, from day one. It's one of the things she respects most about Lincoln. But in this instant, she wishes he wouldn't be so truthful. She wishes that his answer were something different. Because even the slightest bit of pain caused by her -- caused by her against her will and without her having anything to do with it -- pains her. It makes her angry, at the city, mostly, but irrationally, too, at herself.

"I'm sorry," she says, dropping her head. "I'm not that way anymore, Lincoln. You know that. I would never say those things anymore. I just-- What can I do to make this up to you?"

"Nothing," he says, looking at her and then he reaches for her face again, his fingers skimming her cheek. He wants her to look at him, he hates seeing her look down at the floor like this. "You didn't do anything."

This strange city had done something to her. In that sense, Lincoln thinks Victra has just as much right to be hurt as he does, maybe even more. It had been done against her will, some strange transformation he still can't make sense of. But maybe there's no making sense of this place. Not when it does something like that.

"I know you're not like that," he says. "I know it was something done to you. You don't have to do anything to make it up to me."

She thinks she should have been stronger. She should have such an iron will that even Darrow cannot mess with her. Her body is one thing. It's taken her abilities before and she's half-certain that it will do so, or something similar, again. But her mind is her own and this kind of intrusion hits hard.

"I just--" They're in such a public place that it makes her feel watched in some way. It didn't matter before. She had been too focused on making things right. But admitting something about herself versus talking about their relationship and things she had not meant to do were different things.

"Thank you. For seeing it that way." That does relieve her more than she can say. Because it isn't her fault, no matter how much irrational guilt she might be feeling. And Lincoln should be saying so.

"Of course." As far as he can tell, there's no other way to see it. As hurt as he'd been, as much as he had wanted to stay at her apartment and work to convince her she knew him, it had been fairly obvious right from the start that something had been done to her. If she had just decided she no longer wanted to be with him, she wouldn't have pretended not to know him. Victra is far too sure of herself to bother playing any games like that.

He notices her discomfort and he doesn't think it has anything to do with him, but maybe with where they are. There are people around, some of them looking at the two of them, and Lincoln smiles softly and drops his hand to Victra's.

"Let's go," he suggests. Right now, he's just so grateful to have her back. Anything else feels absolutely secondary in light of that.

Victra nods silently, moving her hand under his to push up from her seat and away from the table. She throws down some cash, not paying attention and for once probably giving a good tip, then heads towards the door of the diner, assuming Lincoln will be right there beside her. She doesn't hesitate.

Once they're outdoors, she steers them in the direction of her apartment. It feels safer to her there, even though it's the place of her last interaction with Lincoln, when she cut him and forced him mout.

"Have you ever had something like this happen?" she asks. "Have the city take over your mind like that?"

As they walk, he thinks about Victra's question, then shakes his head. What had happened to Raven was different, something from home, not Darrow in the same sense this had been. She had taken something to let that monster into her head and he doesn't blame her in the slightest, but it's also not at all what had happened to Victra.

"No," he says finally, reaching for her hand. She's back, she's the woman he loves, and the relief he feels is palpable. He wants to keep touching her, wants to not have to let go. "Not like that. I've seen some very odd things, but nothing that made it feel like this place was changing someone. Changing their memories or-"

He stops abruptly, then looks at Victra. "People have talked about gaining memories. Remembering things that happened after they've come here."

She takes her hand. She's not one for public displays of affection, really. She doesn't give a damn what other people think and would make out with Lincoln, under normal circumstances, in front of anyone and everyone if she wanted. But tenderness is another story. It happens, but less frequently. So now when she squeezes Lincoln's hand in hers, it means something.

"It's not that," she says, shaking her head. "It was forgetting. I didn't remember--" Her lips purse and, hinting where she can't say the words, she reaches a hand to rub lightly at the chemical burns on her body. "It was all gone, in my head."

It's not the same, but it's the closest he can think of, even if it doesn't quite fit, so he nods and squeezes her hand in return.

"I know," he says. "I thought telling you the private things you'd shared with me would help, but I didn't even realize those memories were gone, too. I thought you'd just forgotten me. This city."

But he'd brought up her sister and Victra simply hadn't known that. He almost would have felt guilty, except for the fact that her surety in herself had been so strong that she didn't seem all that bothered by the things he'd said. Just annoyed by his presence.

"Even when they had me captured, even when they were torturing me, I never let them take my mind like that," she says, her voice a rough, hushed sound as she leans in to Lincoln. Taking comfort from his proximity and keeping some semblance of privacy between them.

"The city or whatever can do what it likes with my body. But my mind, my thoughts and my feelings... It turns my stomach to think about it again."

"I'm sorry," he says. It doesn't seem fair, that a place can violate someone in this way, especially someone he cares for as much as he does Victra. It seems so wrong, one of the many things about Darrow he can't fix for anyone, no matter how badly he might want to. All he can do is be here in the aftermath, be the man he's supposed to be.

He doesn't know how to prevent it from happening again. It seems like once should be enough, more than enough, she shouldn't have to experience it even that single time, but now he's worried it might happen to her again. Or to someone else.

"I wish there was some way to protect ourselves against these things," he says.

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and the best part about it is I'm the only who can do somethin' about it

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