station72 | sometime after day 5

[ Sam’s never really reached out to the Nest in general like this before, but at this point - well, he’s running out of options. The work he’s done on his mental walls has paid off, and nothing escapes his thick cloud layer except his words, and the soft hint of wind and feathers that flavors his mental link. ]

( Seems like we got a bit of down time, and I’m looking to put it to good use. I’m getting better with my symbiote ability, but I need someone who’ll let me practice it with them.

Simple explanation is that it’s healing, with a side effect that means it’s gonna hurt. Most likely for me. I can get into specifics if you’re up for it. ) [ If it doesn’t bother them or they’re willing to overlook that it means Sam getting hurt, he means, but seeing as he’s communicating with the Nest in general, he’s not gonna say that.

He already knows more than who person who is bothered by it and never seems willing to let Sam use it on them. ]

( I’ll take as many as I can get, more training can’t hurt. )

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( Can't argue with that. How you doing now, huh? I know that exit was a little rough. )

[ He's not about to do anything at all to Bellamy. Sam hadn't thought he'd had to specify that when he said 'can I practice my healing ability on you' he hadn't meant 'can I injure you and then heal you.' But then again, look at what group he's talking to. In retrospect, he probably should have. ]

( Fine. I mostly needed the rest, like I figure everyone did. )

[ It hadn't been easy, whether it had been breaking out of the jail or neutralizing the threat they'd been brought to Concordia to deal with. ]

( Ilde was worse off than any of us. )

[ There's the faintest hint of concern at hearing that. He's talked to her more than once since coming back, and she hadn't said anything - but then, he hadn't asked and she probably wouldn't have. It makes sense after what he heard from Murphy. ]

( What happened? All I know is that it freaked Shiro and Bucky out and Darkling and Ilde said they were taking care of it. )

[ Which probably makes it obvious that Sam had gone investigating, at least a little. He won't push if Bellamy doesn't want to answer, but he's gotta ask. ]

[ There's a sense of hesitation as Bellamy considers the best way to regale Sam with this particular story. After a moment, he projects the entire debacle into Sam's mind from the debacle in the alley leading to their arrest, to jail, to scrabbling for contact with Nest and coming up nearly empty to the out and out destruction that accompanied the Darkling and Ilde's jailbreak.

He holds back exactly what they'd been doing with Kulap. She'd been a suspect. Sam can draw his own conclusions. ]

[ The projection is met with a hint of surprise - not at what it shows, but at the way Bellamy chooses to share the story. He's unused to memory sharing with more than a few of the Hosts closest to him. But he gets over it quickly, focusing instead on what Bellamy shows him.

He breathes out, slowly, and tentatively draws his own conclusions. ]

( So that was you. You know I had an in to see her, with her niece? ) [ Not that it'd mattered in the end, since she didn't have the information they needed, but that's not the point. ] ( We gotta get better at communication. )

[ It wouldn't have mattered. Nothing about Bellamy's mission had been centered around the mission they'd been brought to Concordia for. He can belatedly frame it as killing two birds with one stone, but he'd have accompanied Murphy even if the surgeon Murphy had picked out was unconnected from their suspect pool. ]

( It was a waste of time anyway. Shiro said you found your man. )

[ And that he hadn't made it. Which brings Bellamy to the point: ]

( Can I see what happened to him? )

[ It's phrased with the sense of lifting a book from Sam's hands. Bellamy's suddenly very present in Sam's mind, morbid curiosity coloring his interest. ]

[ That answers the question that Sam'd been about to ask next: was it worth it. It's a loaded one, and he's tempted to ask it anyway, but Bellamy'd already said it was a waste of time. And he's moving on, eagerly latching onto how the interrogation had gone, and Sam can't hold back the trickle of amusement at that sudden curiosity. ]

( Yeah, okay, if you want. )

[ The amusement fades as Sam pulls up the memory. He skims past the break in and himself taking out the guard, because it'd been barely a blip and ultimately unimportant. It wasn't an issue getting to Locke, the issue was getting anything out of him. The memory is clear but detached at first, Sam himself acting as intimidation as the younger Sam reports on the truthfulness of Loke's answers and Aoba gets ready to dive into the man's mind. After that is quickly when it starts to go wrong, when they start to question him more specifically about the mysterious man who provided Loke with what he needed and Loke starts bleeding from his nose, eyes, and ears.

Here some emotion starts to color the memory: Sam's desperation as he tries to keep Loke alive, first in general and then just long enough for Aoba to get out of his head, the difficulty in fighting his symbiote ability and trying to push it past its limits. Though Aoba gets out, they can't save Loke, and then it's a mad dash to get out of there as alarms go off.

He doesn't say anything when the memory ends; it's his turn to let Bellamy draw his own conclusions. Sam hasn't talked much about this, aside from the details important to pass on, and now he's reminded of why. ]

[ Deflecting still feels important. What few secrets Bellamy can manage in this arrangement need to be protected, and until they know more about these things in their head it's for the best to keep what he and Murphy had done to themselves as much as they could.

It isn't as if telling Lexa had gone so well.

But Sam's projection of memory shows Bellamy something different. Is that how ALIE's victims would have died? He remembers how she's ordered Ontari killed. It had been physical. Jaha had been her tool for it; ALIE hadn't been able to do it herself from the inside. Bellamy considers the gruesome picture quietly for a long moment before he responds. ]

( It's not what I expected. ) [ Is all he eventually manages to come up with. ]

[ It's a feeling that Sam can relate to. For all his general since of honesty and openness, there are many things that Sam keeps secret, as best as he can. Always has been, and the connection he shares with everyone here doesn't negate that. It just makes his desire to respect privacy more important.

He waits just as quietly as Bellamy processes that. Sam's not exactly sure what he thinks about it, either - whether Loke committed suicide rather than be forced to give more information or whether this Enemy that they're all fighting killed him before he could. ]

( It's not what I expected, either. ) [ There's a pause, as though Sam's considering just leaving it at that, but then makes the decision to let himself be a little more forthcoming, a little more vulnerable. ] ( I couldn't stop it, man, you get why I need to be able to control what I can do better? )

sometime after day 5

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