[She isn't quite right. It's not how Georgia wanted to die. She didn't want to die at all. She wanted to keep living and keep writing and not leave Shaun alone. Ever.]
Thank you, Clementine. I'm going to continue to treat it as I have been: discussing it if it comes up, but not making a particular effort to bring up the topic.
[Nobody wants to die but everyone does. It's terrible. She wishes Georgia could have lived longer, could have lived to the proper way for someone to die. Is that old age? She doesn't know. She's never experienced that death but all the rest, she's seen. Clementine wants her own death to be quick, to be for a reason like saving someone else.]
That sounds like a good way to handle it. I won't tell anyone. It's yours to talk about or to not talk about, and for what it's worth, I think it's total bullshit that you die. I hate it a lot.
[This is probably the part where she should assure Clementine that she's glad she's here too, that she doesn't want to go back to her fucked up world. But she can't. It's too complicated to really be the truth, and Georgia doesn't lie.]
Pretty sure every world's a little fucked up. I'm not sure things were actually that much better pre-Rising. All we can do is try to use our time to make it a little less fucked.
That's why I do what I do. Get rid of the lies, get rid of the fear, give people the tools to rise up and break free.
I'm not going to be any good at that in my own world.. You seem sorta like a hero to me, and I'm not there. But I want to help to make things better here. It's why I'm going to need your help writing once I get all the information together. I haven't been in school in a really long time, and when I was, we weren't writing articles. It's important this is good so people can stay alive and be stronger and better so they can survive.
And you're the journalist. You'll know what I do right and wrong. So never hold back with me, Georgia. I know how important it is to get it right.
[Oh, this precious child. Georgia doesn't consider herself to be a particularly maternal person, and it's not like she's suddenly consumed with the need to start procreating, but she does feel a twinge of... something. Some sort of fondness and protectiveness. She wants to keep Clementine safe and help her grow as both a person and a writer. Goddammit, Shaun's going to make fun of her.
She doesn't feel like a hero. She's not like her parents, who she may hate but she knows were heroes of the Rising. She never meant to give her life to a cause, even if that cause was getting out the truth. She doesn't know the first thing about how to be a hero to a kid who looks up for her. She's pretty sure the first step isn't disagreeing about whether she is one or not.]
I never hold back. [Her critiques are as honest as everything else she does. Anything less would be insulting.] And I commend you for tackling it even though it's hard and out of your usual skill set. That's how you learn. And I am happy to help with the process.
[A beat. She sends a follow-up text.]
We never really got to the point where we thought about hiring interns for our site back home. If you want the position here, though, I can talk to Shaun.
[More of a formality than anything else. Even more so than usual, where Shaun trusts her judgment, here their site doesn't even exist as it should. Still, it seems like the thing to offer.]
[Emotion wells up in her sharply, acutely at the offer. She hasn't thought much about anything beyond surviving for so long. It's hard to think she could have been given a purpose beyond that, beyond fighting from one moment to the next in this whole other world, which traps most of the people dragged into it. It doesn't feel like a trap to her. It feels like a possibility of being more than the girl with blood on her hands.
And she's been given it by someone who Clementine already admires so much, someone who believes in something bigger than herself, who believes in making the world better, who died because of that belief, and that will always hurt like hell to think about, because someone as Good as Georgia should live to do more good and to better the world even more.
There's a pause in any response because she's almost too overwhelmed to do so (stumbling over questions of Can I? more than anything else. Can she make the world better? How many people are dead because of her? What did Carver say? He compared her to him. They're the strong ones. They're the ones that can make the decisions about who lives or dies for the good of the group, what to share and what not to share--
She types out the response quick before fear prevents her from answering with what she wants.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text
Thank you, Clementine. I'm going to continue to treat it as I have been: discussing it if it comes up, but not making a particular effort to bring up the topic.
text
That sounds like a good way to handle it. I won't tell anyone. It's yours to talk about or to not talk about, and for what it's worth, I think it's total bullshit that you die. I hate it a lot.
That's not pity. It just. Is.
text
But you're not wrong. It is total bullshit. And I hate it too.
text
Total bullshit. The world's fucked up. Yours, mine, this one too, but I'm glad you're here.
text
Pretty sure every world's a little fucked up. I'm not sure things were actually that much better pre-Rising. All we can do is try to use our time to make it a little less fucked.
That's why I do what I do. Get rid of the lies, get rid of the fear, give people the tools to rise up and break free.
text
I'm not going to be any good at that in my own world.. You seem sorta like a hero to me, and I'm not there. But I want to help to make things better here. It's why I'm going to need your help writing once I get all the information together. I haven't been in school in a really long time, and when I was, we weren't writing articles. It's important this is good so people can stay alive and be stronger and better so they can survive.
And you're the journalist. You'll know what I do right and wrong. So never hold back with me, Georgia. I know how important it is to get it right.
text
She doesn't feel like a hero. She's not like her parents, who she may hate but she knows were heroes of the Rising. She never meant to give her life to a cause, even if that cause was getting out the truth. She doesn't know the first thing about how to be a hero to a kid who looks up for her. She's pretty sure the first step isn't disagreeing about whether she is one or not.]
I never hold back. [Her critiques are as honest as everything else she does. Anything less would be insulting.] And I commend you for tackling it even though it's hard and out of your usual skill set. That's how you learn. And I am happy to help with the process.
[A beat. She sends a follow-up text.]
We never really got to the point where we thought about hiring interns for our site back home. If you want the position here, though, I can talk to Shaun.
[More of a formality than anything else. Even more so than usual, where Shaun trusts her judgment, here their site doesn't even exist as it should. Still, it seems like the thing to offer.]
text
[Emotion wells up in her sharply, acutely at the offer. She hasn't thought much about anything beyond surviving for so long. It's hard to think she could have been given a purpose beyond that, beyond fighting from one moment to the next in this whole other world, which traps most of the people dragged into it. It doesn't feel like a trap to her. It feels like a possibility of being more than the girl with blood on her hands.
And she's been given it by someone who Clementine already admires so much, someone who believes in something bigger than herself, who believes in making the world better, who died because of that belief, and that will always hurt like hell to think about, because someone as Good as Georgia should live to do more good and to better the world even more.
There's a pause in any response because she's almost too overwhelmed to do so (stumbling over questions of Can I? more than anything else. Can she make the world better? How many people are dead because of her? What did Carver say? He compared her to him. They're the strong ones. They're the ones that can make the decisions about who lives or dies for the good of the group, what to share and what not to share--
She types out the response quick before fear prevents her from answering with what she wants.]
Really?
Yes. I want it.
text
Let me know if you have any more questions or if you need help.