File #009; video

[unfringed]

September! This way! Now, you have to read this. It's incredibly important. Everyone, please listen and give your very best advice. I have tried to do what I can, but, well... [He isn't exactly the best person to ask about taking care of themselves. He even forgot to introduce himself-- Oh, he forgot to introduce himself!]

Ah! I'm Walter Bishop. Dr. Walter Bishop, a fellow inmate here. And this is September. No other name. Also a fellow inmate. September?

[September, the rarely seen hairless friend of Walter's joins the slightly taller man.]

Yes, Walter?

We're conducting a survey of the village to help you with the questions I cannot answer. And so I thought it would be best to hear from you, not me. Can you read this card?

[He nods, and reads--] 'Hello. My name is September'.

[Wait a minute.] Walter, you have previously established my name. [Anyway...]

'I have some questions about your personal experiences regarding sensations and things I cannot feel. Would you give me a few moments of your time?'

[There's a list, underneath, but here he stops reading and looks sideways at Walter.]

Go on! [Walter gestures September onward with a wide smile. This is totally the best way to get answers, right?] With so many humans and humanoids from different universes, we should be able to gather a great deal of information for you to choose from.

What is it like to have a family?
How does it feel to drink a milkshake?

Ah-- [Well, he could have answered those, but he'll let the others do it.] Additionally, if you have any other comments regarding what it is to be "human" for my friend, please do share. He's learning how, you see. Being stuck in a single timeline can do that. Oh! And if I might remind people that I am still collecting blood samples! Please do volunteer yours. Thank you.

[ooc; Joint Post with September (quantumtangled)! Walter is blue, September is orange. Specify to whom you're responding in the subject or ask for both!]

Comments

Walterrrr

[quantumtangled]

[In the lab, after the video is put out for all to see... September turns to Walter. Unsure.]

Are you satisfied now?

[unfringed]

[He is quite satisfied and sits on his lab stool, waiting for responses to come in. He hates waiting.]

Yes. Hopefully we can collect more data this way. A wider field will produce better results.

[quantumtangled]

[He could wait all day, standing here.]

I do not know if it was important enough to interrupt their day.

[unfringed]

Bah, it isn't like there's anything supremely important happening right now.

[Not like the village is on fire or something. Or suddenly a school.]

And people love to talk about themselves.

[quantumtangled]

How do milkshakes and families relate?

[unfringed]

They're both often described with the same adjective - sweet.

Although, I'd be interested in seeing what others think.

[quantumtangled]

I am interested in family, as of late.

[Milkshakes, less so. He'll never be able to taste.]

[unfringed]

Oh?

[Walter turns and puts his hands in his lap, curious as to why September focused on that.]

How so?

[quantumtangled]

Curiosity needs no reason.

[unfringed]

Ah, truth.

[But that makes Walter start to think about his family and all he did for them - and all he couldn't do. The things he should have done and wasn't able to because he'd gotten himself locked away for seventeen years. The things he should have said to Elizabeth and the things he shouldn't have said, and then That Day when everything went wrong and right at the same time.

And how it's all but destroyed his universe.]

You have observed my family for many years, have you not?

[quantumtangled]

[A touch softer:] Yes.

[unfringed]

Then you have observed the effects that love has upon a person. The lengths to which they will go.

[quantumtangled]

I have.

[He could tell Walter, who's going to forget it all one day... but he doesn't.]

That is what started it all.

[unfringed]

Yes. That is what it is like to have a family.

And to have that family taken away. [He looks at his hands, wondering if it'll ever be right again. All the terrible things he's done that have lead to all the terrible things being done. Can they ever be right? He starts and looks up, desperate to remind himself as much as to inform September of the following.]

T-There are good things of course! Wonderful things. The best things in the entire world. Nothing can compare to the moment when she says yes; or the one where you see your child take his first breath in the world.

[Or when they take their last.]

Family is made of beautiful moments all strung together until-- Until it's impossible to separate yourself from them.

[quantumtangled]

It must be better than all the other things you enjoy, for you to do the impossible. Perhaps I cannot understand more than I do now.

[Yet he's not satisfied with what he knows. He wants more, unlikely as it is.]

[unfringed]

Oh it is-- Was. It was. It was better than anything in the world.

Perhaps if Peter were here - or-- [No. He knows that people can be pulled out of time here, but he doesn't think he could ever face Elizabeth again. Not knowing what laid in store for her, and certainly not knowing that he was so different from who he had been. She might not even like him anymore and then what? What would he do?]

...

Perhaps one day, September.

[quantumtangled]

It is not over. It is, not was. [Why Walter would seem to think it was, he doesn't know.] There will be a way back to your home.

[unfringed]

Not as it was. It will never be as it was.

[When he could be a father and be loved as a husband. Peter left and even if he's back now, Walter lives everyday with the fear that some day he could leave again. They were so close to being a family like they had once been, and then it was all stripped away from him again.

He lowers his head into his hands.]

Sometimes I think I've done too much to be able to atone. Especially in his eyes.

[quantumtangled]

[What can he say, when he knows how it's all going to end for this Walter, and can't reveal the future?]

It has already been done.

[unfringed]

[Yes, that's true... What's done has been done and there's nothing Walter can do to stop it. Or atone for it. Some people will never forgive him and he isn't sure he deserves forgiveness. He single-handedly began the destruction of one world which may make him responsible for the destruction of them both.]

There's nothing I can do to stop it, I know.

B-but I have to try. Somehow I will find a way back, for both of us, and I'll find an answer.

[...Right?]

[quantumtangled]

[When in doubt, blatant honesty.]

I have seen several more years of your life than you have. There are things I cannot tell you. This is not a topic I am free to discuss.

[unfringed]

Seve--

[Several more years. So it won't end here, at least not in one timeline. But that doesn't mean it won't end eventually... They still aren't safe.

And that says nothing about Peter.

Walter feels panic rise up at the back of his throat and stares at September.]

What of Peter? Have you seen more for him? I don't care about me - what about Peter?!

[quantumtangled]

Peter is able to protect himself.

[Or not, when he chooses to do the right thing. But it may calm Walter down.]

He is not a child.

[unfringed]

He's my child!

[Walter stood up abruptly, recalling the moment when he first saw that drawing. Peter strapped to a machine, surrounded and consumed by smoke and fire and terribleness.]

I've seen the drawing! He can't protect himself from that!

[quantumtangled]

I cannot change it. I cannot say what will happen, whether it is good news or bad.

[He stares down Walter, enigmatic.]