Abel (Ethan Lamaire) (
inthebiblicalsense) wrote2024-09-23 01:30 am
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[In a very serious, business tone, Abel's answering machine sounds after any attempted calls that aren't responded to right away.]
You've reached Abel. I am not available at the moment, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If this is urgent, leave the line open.
And if this is Fitz I hope you're having a good day.
You've reached Abel. I am not available at the moment, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If this is urgent, leave the line open.
And if this is Fitz I hope you're having a good day.
Re: 4WD
[She sighs.]
Yeah, I wish he wouldn't try to just erase it. I know why he started, but there's so much more for him now.
Re: 4WD
[But, rather than complain about Fitz's problems, this is a good opportunity to get some advice from someone who had seen Fitz in life rather than his In-between on the Barge.]
So much more- I'm curious what you mean by that.
Re: 4WD
Talking to anyone would be good, but when awful stuff happens to you while traveling like we did... Sometimes it's hard to talk to the people in close quarters. But there were options.
I wouldn't go to a psychiatrist in his time, and I doubt it would've helped him. But not everywhere is the 1950s. Honestly, he had enough reasons for counseling even before we started traveling together. He's not good at pretending to be OK, but he's great at pretending nothing happened.
Re: 4WD
I think he does understand the benefit...he encouraged me to start taking medication for my anxiety. But...he's not good at taking his own advice. Perhaps he doesn't think it will help him personally, but I don't see him showing up for himself like he can for his friends and I can't figure out how to get him to see that and see it as the problem it is.
Re: 4WD
[It can be very frustrating. Sam knows it's partly because she doesn't how not to try as hard as she can. She's old enough to know that she couldn't force him into it, but she can't turn off her concern even if she wanted to. It's kind of nice to talk to someone who seems to get it.]
...Has he ever talked about his mother?
Re: 4WD
[He does look a sick thinking about it though, the silences or pieces left out tell a story that makes him both upset and frustrated with a certain Doctor.]
I...I didn't even like my family and I still had the chance to say good bye when I enlisted. It sounded like things went to shit very quickly. You were around for that, weren't you?
Did he ever talk about it again?
Re: 4WD
She nods.] I was, though I only met her as herself briefly. Fitz never talked about her, afterwards. I know she loved him very much. [She hesitates. She had gone along with the Doctor because Fitz hadn't asked and she hadn't known him then, but now she's thinking back:] I don't know if he explained that she was taken over by outside forces when she tried to kill him. And then the group almost destroyed the world. But she came back to herself at the very end. Fitz wasn't there for that.
Re: 4WD
[Though that humor quickly fades as he frowns off camera.]
I- I guess it doesn't seem fair, all these impossible things happen like you say, and Fitz doesn't even get the chance to see his mother like he knows and loves her before she died.
The Doctor has a god damn time machine, doesn't he? What's the excuse for taking that away from him?
Re: 4WD
Even if it was possible... She screamed for him when she died. I'm not sure he'd want that to be his last memory of her.
Re: 4WD
If he could have been there, if she could have said goodbye herself, maybe she wouldn't have screamed. No one would ever know, because apparently that's how that story will always end.
Re: 4WD
[Fitz likes to skip over blood in his stories, so she's not sure what sort of picture he's painted of their travels.]
Re: 4WD
Regardless of how she died, it should be his call.
But he didn't get to make that decision, it was taken from him. And I could ask him if he has regrets about that, or if he would have chosen differently if he could have, but I don't think I'll ever know.
Because he has someone else who makes that choice for him, and tells him it was for the best every single time and he believes it.
Do you understand how hard it is to unlearn that?
Re: 4WD
Even the Doctor isn't bad enough when it comes to trying to comfort people to tell Fitz it was for the best. Which was lucky, as Fitz already had to deal with enough without having another lost fight on top of it.]
Are you sure we're talking about the same Fitz? He's not really into 'believing'.
Re: 4WD
W-what? Of course we are!
He's- his dependency on the Doctor? it's...y-you can't just miss it. He didn't even have to say anything and he's just about as obvious as I was when I was pretending I wasn't in love. That's ridiculous.
Re: 4WD
That's why I mentioned his mother [the flashback to her death had just been an unfortunate side effect of stirring up old memories]. After growing up like that, I don't think Fitz knows how to believe in people.
Re: 4WD
We...we were on different ships. Kidnapped by...space pirates actually. [Kind of fucking weird to say outloud.]
Do you know who Anri is?
Re: 4WD
[An alien abduction inside an alien abduction, that happens all the time.]
The Doctor would get caught up in something like that. [She shakes her head.] Never heard of them.
Re: 4WD
[Anri was definitely after, though he had been curious if they'd crossed paths at all. Any overlap. He doesn't even ask about compassion, but perhaps he should.]
She was probably traveling with them after you left...I don't have the whole story, just bits that Fitz tells me and sometimes I have to wonder how much of it that I'd find important he leaves out...
Re: 4WD
[Perhaps it's progress that it's noticeable? She had seen Fitz doing his best not to let anyone catch sight of his grief over his mother.
Sam has met Compassion, though it would be strange to think of her as one of the Doctor's companions.]
Fitz likes to pick and chose how he tells stories. It does make for better stories [to be fair to Fitz], but it can make is hard to tell which parts were important for him.
Re: 4WD
Mostly just in the case of a disaster so he can regroup.]
The closest I think I've gotten to get him talking about what was wrong was when he told me I would never understand even if he did, never mind that it wasn't the main point of asking, but- [He sighs.]
Fitz's stories might include him, but mostly the idea of him and nothing else.
Re: 4WD
I'm not sure if it's on purpose or if Fitz just wouldn't be able to stand actually including himself. [She thinks it's the second, because Fitz has a lot of problems and it doesn't really sound like he's gotten over them.]