every street lamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning

[sassguard]

WHO: Shepard & Kasumi
WHERE: A rooftop somewhere in Heropa.
WHEN: Late evening, pre-Thanksgiving.
WHAT: Kasumi wants to talk to Shepard for a heart to heart. Some things never change.
WARNINGS: References to canon-typical tragedy, nothing else I think!

[ On the Normandy -- both of them -- it had been a matter of course that anyone could drop the Commander a line if they had something on their minds. Whether it was to blow off steam, debrief their last mission, or even just to shoot the shit and share a drink while staring at the galaxy whirling by, Shepard's always made time for his crew.

So when the message from Kasumi comes in, telling him to meet her, he doesn't think twice about accepting. There's the slim possibility that she might be out to get revenge for him tricking her and Jacob into the same room, but even if she is, he'd probably readily admit that she deserves it.

Arguably, being the proverbial straw to break their couch is probably some kind of payback anyway.

When he gets to the rooftop she'd indicated in her message -- not somewhere he's been before, but her instructions were fairly detailed -- he doesn't see her when he looks around. Not that he expected to. It really gives a peculiar sense of deja vu, and he waits for her to announce herself. ]

Comments

[stealwithit]

[ First of all, Shepard, the couch was in no way her fault. How can anyone possibly blame the only one sitting on that couch who weighs less than 200 pounds.

Luckily, the reason for Kasumi's calling Shepard to come out this evening has nothing to do with having tricked her into confronting and subsequently reconciling with Jacob, and it has nothing to do with Couchgate 2016, either. Rather-- Kasumi's been doing a lot of thinking. Which she does on a regular basis, even if she doesn't seem like the type. Anyone who knows Kasumi better than anything surface-level knows that she's a contemplative, reflecting kind of person. Most of the time it comes through with her nostalgia. Other times... Or more like rarely, she actually thinks about the future. Recently she's been doing more of the latter. (The two, however, are not mutually exclusive, of course.)

When she finally makes her appearance to Shepard, she the faint glimmer of her tactical cloak intensifies to a blink of light as she becomes visible on the parapet. She's sitting parallel to the edge, legs bent at the knee and her arms around them much like how she used to sit at Port Observation on the Normandy. She seems to be looking down at the street below even as she's addressing Shepard. ]

Hey, you found the place. Nicely done, Shep.

[ Then, she turns her head to him with a small, enigmatic smile. ] Hi.

[sassguard]

[ Of course Kasumi would be sitting on the most precarious spot on the roof when she materializes, but Kasumi's proven more than once that heights don't bother her. Shepard makes his way over to the edge and (carefully) seats himself next to her and following her line of sight. ]

Hi yourself. Hope you didn't call me up here just to watch you jump off.

[ He's reasonably sure that's not it, though he wouldn't put it past her to do it just to give him a bit of a heart attack. ]

What's on your mind?

[stealwithit]

[ She's a little surprised to find Shepard joining her at the parapet, or at least that he's taking a seat on it instead of standing next to it, shifting his weight to one leg and folding his arms and tilting his head like he always does. But-- it's a welcomed gesture. She gives him a smile that's a little less mysterious, more genuinely glad to have his company, and casts him a sidelong glance. ]

Ever wondered what it might be like to leave this place and go back to where we came from?

[sassguard]

[ We don't have to wonder, Shepard could point out. We've both been through it. Of their crew that's still here, both he and Kasumi have experienced that for himself. But he's Commander Shepard, not Commander Smartass (most of the time) and he knows a mostly-rhetorical question when he hears one. ]

Yeah. [ He pauses. Is he supposed to say more than that? ] It's hard not to. You can't really ... forget it, even if you know it's not going to make a difference.

sorry i'm so slow orz

[stealwithit]

[ If he'd pointed it out, Kasumi would have argued that she meant something different. That she meant something more finite--but then she would also realize, remember that each time gets ported out they wouldn't have the slightest clue of the finality of something they wouldn't even know happened.

But-- it was rhetorical. And common sense has never, ever stopped Kasumi from thinking too long and too hard about things. ]

Right. You remember what I was like when you met up with me again on the Citadel after you left Earth, right?

[ Hesitant to help. Hesitant to even really live outside of the world she had created for herself and for Keiji's memories. ]

That's-- that's what I would go back to, you know?

NO APOLOGY NEEDED i am the empress of slow tbh

[sassguard]

[ Shepard remembers, all right. It hasn't been that long ago, in his memory, but the presence Kasumi has here, alive and vital the way you can only be when you think you actually have a future to look forward to, has pushed that memory back a little.

The war wasn't kind for a lot of them. But he'd been surprised how Kasumi had changed on the brief time they parted… or perhaps she'd just been better at hiding the loneliness, playing it off with a smile and a wink, or a nostalgic story. For someone who could vanish at will, Kasumi could be astoundingly opaque. ]

You know I'd drag you out again. [ He offers. It's not much comfort, but he can be fairly certain he would not let any of his friends ever wallow in self-imposed misery. Not his version of himself, at least. The poor bastard that Joker remembered might've been a different story. ]

Is that what you're worried about? Going back to that?

[ He asks it cautiously, not certain what to make of her mood, but with it comes the unspoken, yet obvious implication he's asking her to confirm : that being here has changed her perspective. ]