[reverse darkest timeline] if i'm not beyond repair

[stilljustandrew]

Composing the note takes him the better part of an hour, and a great deal of cross-outs and scribbling.

Brix,

I was wondering if y
It's been a
How hav
You said if There's been some stuff and I wanted to

If you have some time to talk could you let me know? I'm doing I think I'm still doing better but something happened and I'm not I wanted to tell you about it.

Thanks,
Andrew

He writes out two clean copies of the note, leaves one at the Security desk and one with Bar.

Comments

[gothamsheiress]

"What was it that scared you?"

[stilljustandrew]

He pulls in a deep breath. "What if it didn't work and Nita got hurt worse. What if it did work and the demon got away and wanted revenge, what if it started to work and then I screwed it up, what if the others thought I did it on purpose ..."

A faint, unhappy smile. "I mean, I'm a coward, I know that. Everything scares me."

[gothamsheiress]

"Yet here you are with me."

Her own smile is equally faint, but more encouraging.

"It isn't wrong to feel, particularly not under those circumstances. Your friend was in danger. What did you do when you felt that fear?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Nothing?" A slight, cracked huff of not-laughter. "I mean, I did it anyway, I had to. And it did work, I mean --"

He pauses.

"There was," slowly, "there was one bad moment. I didn't think about it until I was almost up to it, and then ..."

This time his smile is less unhappy, and more apologetic. "I don't know how much sense this is gonna make. Do you know anything about how exorcism works?"

[gothamsheiress]

"I confess that I haven't studied it."

[stilljustandrew]

"It's ... I mean, I guess it's a spell. It's a codified passage in Latin, where you abjure the demon in God's name to leave the body it's possessing, and that forces it to go. But it doesn't make any difference if you believe in God or not, or if the demon does, it works anyway. I don't ... I don't know what that means. I don't know if God even has anything to do with it, or if it's just magic, or what. I don't think anybody knows."

(Calling on God at the first sign of trouble, the demon said.)

"But the thing is, the exorcism calls the demon by all kinds of different names -- impure spirit, infernal power, cursed serpent, legions of Hell, stuff like that. And ... and there's one place in the text where it ..."

A long beat.

"It calls him out directly. Vade, Satana. Begone, Satan. That, that's one of his names."


"I almost couldn't say it."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix listens closely, quietly, her hands wrapped around her cup of tea.

"What do you think was preventing you?" she asks, after a moment.

[stilljustandrew]

"I don't know. I ... "

His hands are closed on each other, gripping tight, as though he's trying to stop himself from grasping his own wrists.




"I wasn't allowed," he half-whispers, "to say anything like that to him. For the longest time. And for most of that time I wouldn't even have tried to, or, or wanted to. I ... wasn't sure I could."

[gothamsheiress]

"But you could, in this case."

[stilljustandrew]

"Yeah."

He looks up at her, with a small unsteady smile.

"I did."

[gothamsheiress]

"How did it feel to say it?"

[stilljustandrew]

He shakes his head slowly.

"Huge. And ... scary? Like for a moment I couldn't believe I did it. And then everything else was happening so fast -- because that's when it worked, like the next second, the demon came out."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix nods.

"That sounds -- powerful."

[stilljustandrew]

"Yeah," he whispers, nodding slowly. "It was."

Another tiny smile, this one a little crooked, like something's just occurred to him.

"Huh."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix tilts her head, raising her eyebrows for him o continue.

[stilljustandrew]

"I just ... it's dumb, but ..."

His hands come apart from each other, settling loosely on the tabletop.

"If all this were happening in a book, that would have been like ... some major climactic victory. Like, everything after would be different."

[gothamsheiress]

"Well."

She picks up her tea and sips is, considering.

"Life is rarely so neat as our stories, it's true. But this moment can still be important to you. It can still be something that makes things different."

[stilljustandrew]

"Maybe," he says, slowly, a little doubtfully.

"... I guess what I meant is, if this were a story it would make things different all at once. Like ... like being able to say that would mean I beat it for good. Like I'd be done."

A painful smile. "I'd really like to be done."

[gothamsheiress]

"Yes," gently. "It shows real wisdom to know that you aren't, yet. But neither are you where you were when we first met."

[stilljustandrew]

"Oh," and there's a sound that might be a laugh or a sob, "I'm really not. I know I'm not. I just ..."

He meets her gaze.

"I feel so much worse. And I know that means I'm doing better. And I hate that."

[gothamsheiress]

"How did you feel when you finished the spell? When you exorcised the demon from Nita?"

[stilljustandrew]

He swallows.

"Scared. Even after. Like ... like I did something wrong and didn't know what, and I was going to get in trouble."

[gothamsheiress]

She tilts her head again.

"Was Nita all right? And the rest -- Matt and so on? And you?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Yeah. I mean -- Nita was shaken up pretty bad, and ... I think it took a lot out of Ava to hold the demon while I, while I pulled it out, but ... everybody was basically okay, after?"

A beat.

Lower: "I mean. The demon wasn't."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix sighs.

"It is -- it seems regrettable that it would not compromise with you. But that is nobody's fault but its own."