In the absence of sun (Open)

[JULIET]

[/i]. “You are safe here.” Suddenly, suddenly this had gone from a happy conversation to something that might blow Quebec’s mind.[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

"No," Quebec replied, although he seemed uncomfortable just saying the word. "I mean. Not no to you. But... " He frowned, trying to get all his thoughts in order. It felt now like they were moving too fast for him to keep up with.

"I can!" He said, suddenly, when the pause had drawn out just long enough to be awkward. He smiled as his thoughts fell into line. "Like... like Echo. She used to not understand things and now she does. Not... not everything. But some things. I can understand, I know I can. If I can get my hand to make the paintings look right, I can understand."

He was still smiling; he had absolute confidence in his ability to eventually equal his original personality in complexity. People were complex; he had heard that before. Who had said there where he could hear? Someone, he thought, after they had agreed to put Andrew back on the shelf and let Quebec stay. People are complex. You can't assume what they're going to do.

"I am afraid. I don't like bright lights, or getting shots. I am afraid of those things," He responded to her, but his voice sounded a little distant, though excited at the same time. He had hit on something important, he thought; he could be complicated.

He just had to learn how to be complicated.

He shook his head, slowly.

"This is the safest place," He said. "I... I do not know if that is the same thing."

[JULIET]

[/i]. Maybe those stories were right and Rossum had found a way to make Butchers read minds, so maybe those Butchers could read the minds of everyone down here… everyone except for the unaware dolls, of course.

Suddenly, a light flicked on in her mind.

Juliet grabbed a piece of paper from beside Quebec (without asking, but she was sure he wouldn’t mind) and dipped her paintbrush back in the blue. She looked thoughtfully at the back of her hand and then placed her paint brush on the paper. From the brush’s tip came flowing lines that connected and made letters. They were flowing, and Juliet hadn’t realized her handwriting had improved that much since regaining her previous identity. ‘Heat-signatures’ the handwriting said. Below the title she drew a square roughly like dollhouse, with a vague 3D shape.

Then she dipped her paintbrush in red paint and outlined a few spots in the box, her eyebrows knitted in concentration. “I think I found a way to help the House.” She declared, putting the brush into the green paint next. Next to the picture she wrote a few words that would remind her of what to say when she went to speak to DeWitt and Topher. Topher would need to help, if this worked. As of yet, she didn’t think DeWitt had tried to mask their heat signatures; Juliet was sure that, with all the technology going around, Rossum could use heat-detectors to find that this Dollhouse was still up and kicking.

She set her paint brush down and looked at Quebec curiously, “I think you helped me.”
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

Her voice was soothing, and his shoulders relaxed at it. This was the way the staff spoke to him, and while he knew there was something wrong with it, some hint of it not being the way they spoke to each other, it was still nice for her to sound so very pleasant. She had sounded pleasant before, but pleasant in that way that made him nervous.

He calmly watched her grab the paper, and leaned over closer to her so he could watch over her shoulder at what she was doing.

The same blue as the spiral, he thought, wondering if he should try and keep this memory. It might be important, but they might all be important. He guarded what few memories he had, all of them from after the sunlight. Every single one. He remembered engagements from the back of his mind, remembered...

He watched her make letters, letters that made words. He knew that. The people they put in his head were always able to read. Always. He just had to think...

He smiled at Juliet, his head tilted slightly. He thought of the way some of the people he had met had touched his face, sometimes, or spoken to him, or...

"I am glad to help you," He said with absolutely sincerity, turning to look at what she drew.

"It's a house," He said thoughtfully. Then he leaned closer to the paper, almost too close. He bit his lower lip, thinking.

He could be complicated. He knew it, he absolutely knew he could be complicated. He just had to gain the things that those who were complex had. Andrew had been able to read. Andrew had read the words on the tiny plaque on the wall while they argued with him and finally gave in and put him back in the chair. Quebec had heard him...

"That letter is an 'h'," he said, pointing to the first letter in 'heat-signature'. "Isn't that an 'h'?"

[JULIET]

[/i] probably didn’t know the whole extent of what she was getting into. She only that she was bad at math. This might not have to do with math but it made her nervous all the same… sort of like when her old math teacher (his name had been Mr. Boring) called on her when she knew the answer but still couldn’t say it. Plus, she didn’t mean anything against Quebec with not being able to comprehend.

He was, after all, a doll.

He said he was glad to help, but every doll said that, so Juliet was not surprised. She was, however, surprised that he leaned in closer still to study the paper. In particular he was looking at the words ‘heat-seeking,’ which made Juliet blink. When he asked if the first letter was an ‘h,’ Juliet’s blink gained a friend. He remembered.

A scarlet blush spread across Juliet’s face. This wasn’t just because of his knowledge of the letter ‘h.’ In fact, this had nothing to do at all with the blush painting her face strawberry. No, she was blushing from their sudden closeness. She had leaned forward to see what he was pointing at, and when she looked up, smiling, she realized how close they were.

There was barely two inches from her nose to his. Quickly, the young woman sat back in her chair with a sharp intake of breath. Her heartbeat had quickened considerably and the flush had not left her face. When she was a doll she had not been aware of sexuality. From the years between her seventeenth and twenty-third year, she had never known about sexuality, at least her doll-like mind did not. In a blast, the Juliet-that-was-Seraphim had to go through years of sexual decisions in only a few months. This reality had seriously confused her, as it was now.

“Yes,” she declared when she had gotten her breath back, but she said this slower than she had before. “That is a ‘h.’ Can you read it? Can you read what it says?” She seriously hoped he could read it, but then again she hoped he couldn’t. He was a doll, he wasn’t supposed to understand anything, especially her blush. But she had the nagging thought that Quebec had known why she had drawn back so quickly. Oh to be herself again. Sexuality was so confusing; was she attracted to Quebec—a guy who wasn’t even in his right mind—or was this… this feeling only because he was a guy?
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

Quebec's own stomach flipped, but he didn't understand why. Only that it had something to do with her hair and how close she was. Which he struggled to understand, since being near to the other dolls didn't seem to mean anything to him.

He frowned at the letters as she asked, studying them with absolute concentration. "H," he said again, but simply to reorient himself. To remind himself what he was looking at. It was a little hard, because his mind wanted to drift away from the letters. Focusing was difficult. He wondered if that had something to do with what happened when you were in the chair.

"... eeeeee...," He said, but very slowly, having to think about it. He had to consider all the words he had seen on anyone's wall, or in the books they had that he could not read. Things that the men they put into his head had known, but of course those people were gone. Quebec was the only permanent resident here.

"After 'e', this one is... is..." He sat back, eyebrows furrowed, then looked up at her. "I do not know. What is the next letter, Juliet?"

He thought to himself that he would very much like to be able to ask his 'original' personality a few things about life. Andrew might know how to handle pretty girls. Then again, Andrew might not. Still, it was confusing to have been a doll flagged mainly for romantic engagements with men, with that being most of his memories, but then to be so completely aware of the girl sitting so close to him.

Who was, in fact, not in the slightest bit like a man.

"Your face is red, Juliet," Quebec said calmly, but with a smile spreading across his face that seemed a little delighted. "Like someone painted it."

[JULIET]

[/i] head, and she’d written it, thought about it. What was she doing? She had been a doll once upon a time. Now she was going to present DeWitt with something that she wasn’t sure DeWitt would take… and she certainly wasn’t sure if it had been done yet. Besides, why would DeWitt talk to a former doll? Or maybe DeWitt had given her her personality back because the boss lady had thought that she could help? Juliet sorely wanted to help—standing by all day with nothing to do made her slightly crazy.

Why, just this morning she’d checked herself in the mirror three times instead of the normal two. She was losing her mind being cooped up with people who were always so cheerful. They were happily unaware of the world falling, crashing, burning all around them. But Juliet wasn’t, and that’s what worried her.

That and her sudden need to kiss Quebec. But he was a doll… he was a doll. He said he would be complicated, but there was so much more to being human than just being able to read. One had to feel emotions, and Juliet wasn’t sure he was ready for that little bit of fun just yet. Or maybe he did feel emotions and he was good at keeping them to himself. Juliet looked back at Quebec, into his eyes, and smiled an easygoing smile. She didn’t know where it came from, but she could feel the blush dissipate from her cheeks. “I guess I’m sort of new to my body is all. Sera, my other self, was only put back into my body a couple months ago. It takes a while to… adapt.” She said only half truthfully.
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

"Heat-signatures," Quebec repeated, then sat back, thinking. After a moment's pause, he shook his head, a little disappointed. "I do not know what that means. I know what heat is..."

If he let himself keep trying to focus on the words he didn't know, he could feel nervousness threatening to turn into something worse. So he simply put the worry that he couldn't read away and smiled at her again.

"I am afraid I am not my best with words," Quebec said, cheerfully. But that gave him an idea, and he wasn't used to having ideas come up so clearly and on his own, without any prodding or help.

"I know what to do," He said thoughtfully. He wanted to reach up and touch Juliet's hair, but there was some dim small part of him that said it might not be wise, that he couldn't rely on what the men they put in his head had done. He needed better information than memories that weren't his, that he hadn't even participated in. Who knew what someone like Juliet would like?

"I will ask Topher if the chair can teach me to read," He said, giving a little nod of conviction. That made perfect sense to him. People went into the chair and came out different all the time.

Maybe he could ask Topher...

But no. His doll's mind could not quite grasp the details of the sudden objection, only that somehow, he knew Topher was probably not the right person to ask.

"Did Sera really want to come back?" He asked, an innocent enough question, as he looked down now at the spiral on the back of his hand, the matching paint on hers.

[JULIET]

[/i] done whatever she wanted. She had retreated into the deep recesses of Juliet’s mind. Juliet was Sera, but Sera was not Juliet. Sera realized that she was a minority in a brain that had once been hers. She had faded into Juliet, becoming Juliet with no real consequences to Juliet as a whole. “Now I am Sera and I am Juliet. Really, it’s two names for one person.”
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

"But he might know if the chair can teach me to read," Quebec pointed out. There were other questions Topher might be better at answering than Ivy could be, half-articulated, barely present questions that nonetheless were pressing insistently on his mind.

"I would not ask him to use it on me. I suppose that would be unkind," Quebec said, trailing off slightly at the end. He could not understand just -why- it would be unkind. His doll's mind knew, at doll minds always did when they woke up from the chair, that Topher was one of the first they would see there.

For Topher to -not- be near the chair was something his instincts refused to acknowledge.

"I will ask him if it can. He will not remember me asking for very long, I don't think," Quebec continued. "Topher is not his best right now. If he tells me it can, then I will ask Ivy to help."

He thought about her explanation, smiling a little bit. It was something he could just grasp, the idea of two people in one, and only because he had gotten so used to being that way himself for the last year or so of the Dollhouse still being open for engagements.

"I wish that had happened to me. There are a lot of things I do not know that I think Andrew knows. I would like to know them, but not to be him. I like it here." He didn't mean the Dollhouse of course, but rather inside this body, his own body. In control of something he had grown to believe belonged to him alone.

"It is only that you say first one and then another. It... confuses me."

[JULIET]

[/i] in here. I think that’s how it would be if Andrew were living in your head as well.”

She couldn’t phrase it any better than that. In fact, she didn’t think anyone could phrase it better than that. She was Juliet. She was Seraphim. She was both, but she was one. They were the same person, and she couldn’t begin to explain to him what she meant by that. This was not the same as being on a mission and being semi-aware of whom you were, and that you weren’t actually the person whose personality was in your head. This was different… this was you.

Juliet let a small half-smile grace her face and her clouded blue eyes cleared, if only a small amount. “Think of it this way, Quebec. If Andrew had wanted to come back, you would not have been sitting here having this wonderful conversation with me. If Andrew had come back, you might have been wiped away by his overwhelming force. You did say he was strong, didn’t you? Everything, and I mean everything happens for a reason. A wise person once told me that.”

Except, she didn’t remember if a wise person had told her that or if she had read it from somewhere. Either way, it was a good quote to pass on. Quebec didn’t seem like the person who might remember that, but at least she had said it. It might clear his mind right now.

Juliet had purposefully dropped the Topher subject. Quebec had said he did not like the Chair… so why continue to talk about it? Quebec did not understand that Topher was no longer Topher, at least not the Topher Quebec had known. This new Topher was volatile and surprising. It would not do to just have a doll go and ask Topher what might happen about the chair… when the chair was what messed him up, if indirectly.

“Are you done painting?” Juliet asked as she took the ‘heat-seeking’ paper and set it to the side. When it was finished drying, she would fold it up and place it in her pocket. It would be safe there.
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

"If he had come back, he would have left and gone outside, I think. And we might be dead."

The problem with blank slates was that they could -not- simply be mapped and put into the next person. If Quebec's body died, there was no Quebec-disk somewhere to load him up on to another body with. He was just this body. What this body could make with everything else removed.

There was a problem with the chair, too; just thinking about it made his stomach drop a little in a nervousness that was not at all the same as his nervousness with Juliet, something entirely unpleasant. But if it would let him know how to read and be able to help, he would not argue with it and he would even hold still when they tied his wrists down.

Anything they could give him to make him better able to help...

"I wonder what my reason is for happening," Quebec said a little dreamily. Then he seemed to be sort of startled out of himself by her next question, and nodded, picking up the painting of the people and the sun.

"I think I will not let them take this from me," he said thoughtfully. "I will put this in my bed. It is us, in the sun. I will keep this so I remember what we talked about. Are you done painting?"

[JULIET]

[/i] done painting?”
[/ul]

[QUEBEC]

"Okay, Juliet," he said, handing the picture over easily. "You can keep it if you think it's safer with you."

He wasn't -proud- of the picture by any means; he knew she could make better than that, and he would have to work on steadying his hand to be sure it -was- better. He would get better, and then he would be able to impress her.

Although her blush and her nervousness had faded, his own nervous stomach-flips came back to him full force as he met her smile with his own. He was beginning to think this was the sort of thing he might need to be worried about.

He rolled his eyes and grinned, looking slightly away from her, shyly. Then he stood up, slowly, to let his legs stretch as he did. He hadn't realized, but they had gone nearly numb from kneeling for so long and he had to let them stretch a little to start feeling again.

"You are nice, Juliet. I will try to be my best for you."

[JULIET]

[/i] hinted at it before, saying that he liked Leo, or at least Andrew did. Was sexuality something that could be switched on and off at will, too? Juliet was confused, like always. Juliet was always confused now. She was learning so much.

She took the picture from him, as he had given it to her easily enough, and rolled it gently so she could carry it easier. Then she checked on her own picture-thing, for it also had words and descriptions so it could not truly be called a picture. It was dry, and she folded it rather unceremoniously before stuffing it into the pocket of her sweatpants. She had taken to wearing the same clothes as the actives because they were more comfortable than, say, long dresses or jeans.

She had tried to ignore Quebec’s last statement, but when she was finished putting away her schematics, she found she could ignore him no longer. He was looking at her with those wide, innocent eyes. She sighed, wistfully almost. “Thank you, Quebec.” How could she say much more than that? Quebec was being a doll… but then again he had stated ‘for you’ as well. This was not normal doll behavior, and she feared what that might mean.

What would it mean? “You are already your best.” She answered, looking away, unsure.[/ul]