san_fransokyo | and i'm feeling like a ghost (openish?)

and i'm feeling like a ghost (openish?)

An overcast sunset. Perhaps not the best time to visit San Fransokyo's burial grounds, but it was a time when there were few if any visitors. Which meant it was at least a good time for someone still dead in a sense, even if his original 'death' had been revealed for the falsehood it was.

They hadn't yet removed his memorial, though. It was starting to run down from time, but it was fitting that it still remained in place.

He certainly didn't feel alive.

Robert Callaghan gazed down at the plaque with an unhappy expression. It wasn't so much the fact that it was present as how useless it all felt. Pointless. Abigail's, at least, had held some actual meaning...even if it, too, paid homage to a soul who wasn't actually lost.

And wasn't that a thought that brought mixed feelings. He shook his head and turned away, the few microbots with him pressing a bit deeper in to the back of his neck. He reached up to push away at them irritably, wholly unsurprising when their response was to skitter on to his hand and up his loose sleeve.

He was getting used to them, at least, and the thought necessary to keep the mass away.

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That's probably a good thing. Robert, on the other hand, remembers it still very clearly, from starting the blaze to pulling the alarm to first ordering the microbots to shield him- and then, after it became an inferno, making his escape.

It wasn't as though he'd any family who would mourn him at that point. Tadashi, on the other hand...

He's not going to a keep along the subject. Instead, he's going to try and use this opportunity.

"I meant to ask," he says, stepping again - but this time, so that he's half-facing Tadashi, hands in his coat pockets. "What do you remember about waking up...?"

The subject change jolts Tadashi out of his morbid thoughts, and he frowns down at the ground as he works over the memory in his mind. He and Hiro have been over the bare bones if it all once or twice, but neither felt terribly motivated to explore the subject too far. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all. Krei Tech was the easy assumption to make, but no one they'd managed to get into contact with had been particularly forthcoming.

"... I ran into the building. I couldn't see much and it was hard to breathe... I started to panic. Then there was weird sensation." He rests one hand in the center of his chest, fingers curled to form a loose fist. It hadn't been pain, but as unsettling as it had been, pain might've been better. A sense of something unnatural, something wrong.

"I thought I was going to be sick, and then I was just... outside. Except it was daylight."

And months had passed, but that part's obvious enough. Tadashi finally looks up at Callaghan again.

"I didn't know what'd happened until Hiro told me." After a very understandable fit of near hysterics, of course.

So much for learning the grand secret of life and death. Robert Callaghan has never been a particularly religious man, but he hasn't utterly dismissed the possibility- after all, all fiction is based upon some sort of fact, and there will always be new things to discover and learn. Perhaps one day, they'll know for certain what - if anything - happens, but there doesn't seem to be much knowledge to be gained here.

There is the knowledge that something happened, something all but unheard of until now. But more than that...

He watches Tadashi closely, face unreadable. Not too long ago, he might have entertained the whim of asking if he'd seen Abigail; but Abigail had never died, had she? She'd been lost, yes, and dead to the world, and she would have remained in that state for who knows how much longer if things hadn't gone as they had.

...that doesn't mean things couldn't have gone better.

"You weren't hurt at all?" Burned, he means. If they could find out what happened, and reproduce it...it would be quite the advancement, ethics put aside for the moment.

Tadashi's a man of science, but he's always kept himself open to the alternatives. Indulged in them or let them pass with no worries about direct evidence or mystical consequences, because really... who could know for sure? Why fear the unknown when you can take comfort in possibilities instead?

That said, things would probably be easier if he'd seen something a little more stereotypical. A bright light, maybe a choir of angels... but no. Just fire followed by sudden sunlight.

He shakes his head. Once of the first things he'd done after the fact was check himself over for injuries. For some kind of evidence of the fire that was so close in his memory, but there hadn't been so much as a singe on his clothing. It was like...

"It was like nothing happened."

"And like no time had passed."

Too bad he was never much in to time travel. And any interest he had in teleportation...well, that faded rather quickly after a particular accident. 'Mistake'.

Whatever Krei was calling it now.

He shakes his head as well; in any other circumstance, he might become devoted to unraveling this mystery. To pursuing it to its' end point, in which they would know, and from there? Well, only time would tell, but the trip itself would be worth it as long as they found something, anything out of the ordinary. But now?...now he still feels a curiosity, but it's dulled. There are other things on his mind.

Still, he rubs his nose, sighing once. And a bit of loss for that lack of enthusiasm; this should be fascinating to him, exciting and exhilarating. He should be finding some sort of colleague or expert in whatever field his first theory decides to go, to either confirm or deny those first few hypotheses.

Maybe Tadashi has. "Have you started any investigations?" he asks, adopting the familiar if somewhat dusty role of a mentor before his student. So you've found something interesting. Now what are you going to do with it?

"We did approach Krei Tech, but no one we've managed to talk to has been particularly helpful."

Tadashi finally looks back up at Callaghan again, wearing a strained, false sort of smile that doesn't belong anywhere near his face.

"I'm not sure I really want to press my luck anyway..."

Whatever happened, however it happened, should he really be doing anything other than being grateful for his second chance? There'll always be that natural curiosity, of course. A scientist's curiosity, but with the knowledge of what had happened to him, along with what his death had driven his family and friends to do...

What right does he have to analyze this gift?

"Figures." He's not surprised. He is utterly unsurprised, even, and not sure why he expected anything different. Krei is extremely good at covering up his 'mistakes', after all, and acting as though they'd never happened.

...is this really a mistake, though?

His dubious experiments, then. But that look on Tadashi's face has Callaghan pressing his lips together in an unhappy frown, and only so willing to push it further. Tadashi, of everyone, has the right to determine how much to press, and if he won't...

The former professor is clearly not pleased with his response, but accepting, if nothing else, with a slight nod. He may look in to this while digging as deeply as he can in to Krei's offenses, but he won't make it a focus.

"Back to school, then?"

Unless someone's gotten their degree while he was...out of the loop.

That false smile fades, but the little frown that follows probably isn't much better. It's still so easy to fall into the student role to Callaghan's teacher, and like any dedicated student, he can sense the displeasure hidden beneath that acceptance. That resignation. Maybe it's not specifically directed at him, but it's definitely there.

A small part of his mind nags at him, reminding the rest of him that he doesn't have to feel this way. Not for this man who still seems so unwilling to try and fix the mistakes he's committed. Callaghan isn't Tadashi's professor anymore. Popular opinion would probably insist that he shouldn't be Tadashi's anything, and yet...

("And yet" seems to be a running theme with Tadashi at this point.)

He nods again, a new smile forming that's much closer to his normal fair, if not a bit chagrined. No need to mention the lies he'd had to tell the school board to get himself readmitted, or the stares he gets from certain lab mates who aren't in the know. Or the fact that he hasn't managed to make a single major improvement to Baymax since his return.

"Uh... yeah. I missed a lot, though. I've got some catching up to do."

That involves acknowledging that he was the one who made the mistakes. And it's awfully hard to, when the closest thing he made to one is right before him, very much alive and well. Perhaps he shouldn't question it, either.

Or why Tadashi hasn't yet walked away.

Nonetheless, he doesn't, either, allowing this surreal sort of conversation continue. There's still a normalcy to it, one he's lacked as of late, and has, perhaps...missed.

"Still? I'd have expected you to hit the ground running." There's a jest he could make there, something about Tadashi slacking off, but even with the reach for something of the past he still falls short of the goal. No amount of pretending or ignoring will change the fact that things aren't the way they were before, and likely will never be.

Edited 2014-12-03 16:58 (UTC)

Just because Tadashi's currently alive and well doesn't mean that a mistake wasn't made. It doesn't make the suffering that everyone else went through invalid. Callaghan's pain doesn't void the pain of others.

He chuckles a bit, absently bending the brim of his hat this way and that as tries to keep things light.

"I've had some things to take care of at home."

Slipping back into life with Hiro and Aunt Cass, for one. Convincing Hiro to let his big brother out of his sight once in a while, for another. Then came convincing the necessary organizations that he was who he said he was...

What a mess.

And that's what's going to need to process. As it stands...

As it stands, Tadashi mentioning his home is a bit of a painful reminder of how far all the suffering's gotten them. Him. And even he can't justify needling him for that.

...and now his hesitation is bleeding in to awkward silence.

"Wish I could say the same."

Immediately, he realizes that it's a poor choice of words, and grimaces at them. Find something else.

"The others- Go Go and the rest. They're helping, at least?"

That's a new level of awkward that Tadashi didn't know they were capable of. This coming from one of two dead men who happened to choose today to visit their own graves.

He almost flinches and looks away again. His hands are itching to settle that hat back in its rightful place on his head, but he resists the urge. It doesn't feel right while they're still standing among graves, empty or not.

"Of course. They have a lot on their plates, too, though."

School, families, part-time superhero work... He can't expect them to be there all the time, and he doesn't. They certainly do seem to try, though. Tadashi looks back up before the awkward silence can sneak back in again.

"... What about you?"

Hopefully more than just this costumed business- but he can't make himself say that. This whole encounter has gone terribly wrong from the start, and Callaghan is already thinking of how easy it'd be to walk away, pretend he hadn't met up with the young man in the first place, go on and about...

Is the awkward silence really worth the familiarity? He didn't use to have those. He could talk for hours with Tadashi, or anyone else really, about whatever project they were working on. Or their own passions.

He shrugs off the question with all the grace of someone who is considering the best way to leave.

"Well, nothing special." Nothing he wants to talk about, that is. I may or may not be continuing some illegal activity, dealing with people who disgust me on a personal and professional level, and we aren't even going to talk about my 'family' life. Have I mentioned I may be bargaining for information about Krei? "I do miss having a well-stocked research lab, but that's what I get for roughing it, I suppose." There's a false, strained little smile on his face.

Too many false smiles with no point behind them. It's not as if the both of them can't tell when the other is putting up a front. When tender subjects are being avoided or outright ignored.

Nothing special. Tadashi doesn't have to know particulars to know he's being brushed off. It's not unexpected, of course. When will he learn to just stop asking?

"Are things still... volatile?"

On the bad side of town, that is. Among those disgusting people that Tadashi knows Robert must be associating with in some way in order to continue on while keeping such a low profile.

It keeps a fragile but precious front, a white lie- because to remove all pretenses is something that Robert, at least, is not quite prepared to do. That damn mask is becoming more a part of him than he'd care to admit.

But the smile does fade at the question, a bit of a pensive expression coming on to his face. Personal feelings aside...

"...I'm starting to think think they never weren't."

Not that things aren't bad over there, but- wretchedness aside, there's a certain fascination it holds. Were he a sociologist, he'd be in heaven.

"It's a different place there. Different rules." Ones he's still learning, but at least playing the silent type isn't too difficult to do when you have little to say in the first place. "Different...everything, really."

They're both trying to protect themselves, the difference between them being that Tadashi is still willing to cast that protection aside in favor of doing what he thinks is best for someone else. Even if that someone else wants nothing to do with it.

"You're being careful, aren't you?"

Because he has to ask. And imagining trying to survive among that crowd himself is just laughable. Even for the professor Tadashi had once known, it just doesn't seem to fit.

An odd question. Callaghan furrows his brow at it.

"Of course."

He mostly survives it by wearing the silent mask, letting his disdain and pride serve as shields- thankfully, it's generally accepted, and he speaks as little as possible.

But he is still speaking. "As much as I can," he amends, a moment later. "I told your brother- I'm not out to cause trouble, in case any of you can't sleep at night."

There might be a hint of bitterness there.

The incredibly intimidating army of microbots might also be a factor in his successful survival, at least on the physical end of things. Tadashi's still remembers what it was like to be tossed around by those things, and how lucky he was that Robert was there to help rather than harm.

That tone has him back to frowning, but this time right at Robert rather than at the ground.

"Is it really so wrong to be worried?"

To that...Robert manages to curl his lip, just slightly, eyes narrowing a fraction as well.

"The only one I ever went after was Krei."

All other times, he was simply responding to those who went after him - and returning the favor. Is he proud of what he did? Not particularly.

Does it mean he wouldn't do it all over again?

...he's not sure, in all honesty, and it's a question he doesn't much like dwelling upon.

Tadashi blinks, lines forming between his eyebrows as they furrow. That wasn't what he'd meant...

It's a valid concern, though, the things Callaghan might do. He's still far from being able to put the past behind him. Far from being able move on and live a life even close to the one he's already thrown away. Still too reliant on anger and lies as he pushes through each day. Still too quick to lash out, replaying hurt with hurt...

This is the same man that Tadashi caught sharing space with his bleeding brother after having broken into their home, after all. He has every right to be to be wary, and he is... but the slightly hurt expression that sneaks onto his face tells of more that simple suspicion.

"I meant worried about you."

He'd been caught up in preparing to defend himself, that he hadn't realized that Tadashi hadn't been on the 'attack' at all. It clearly takes him off-guard; he blinks once, the anger in his face draining away like water through a hole in a glass.

And for a long few moments, the only thing he can do is stare back, those words processing over in his head. His gaze drops for some of those, brow furrowing in - consternation, perhaps. A trace of guilt, maybe, because this is the boy whose first thought upon hearing he was still inside a burning building was to go in after him.

"...I'll be fine, Tadashi."

No bitterness there, no defensiveness. Just...resignation, if anything.

"You're not "fine"."

The retort slips out before Tadashi realizes it, surprise at his own words showing clearly on his face. He only waffles for a moment before forcing that surprise away and replacing it with that determination that Robert's so familiar with.

He may not have meant to say it, but he did, and he means it, so he might as well own it.

"I mean... we're standing in a cemetery with our own graves in it. Lying is pretty silly at this point, isn't it?"

He laughs a little, but it's flat and humorless. His body's natural reaction, trying to lighten the mood even as the young man behind it shoves what remained of his aforementioned protection aside.

"You don't have to lie to me."

This time, when his face tightens, it's not from anger. Frustration, yes, but...not outright anger.

"What sort of truth are you looking for, then?" he asks, demands really, making a vague gesture at the graves. "The kind that has me admitting this is essentially a midlife crisis?" A bitter laugh, and a hand reaching up to rub at his face. "I suppose it's better than lying on the couch all day, but- not by much."

Besides, he already went through that. Once.

"Things aren't fine. They will be. Eventually."

He has to believe he'll find a way.

"I just want you to stop trying to brush me off!"

The words come out louder than intended, and Tadashi quickly reins his voice in, but his expression doesn't change.

"I'm not stupid. I understand what's happening here. I hate what you did and I hate what you're doing." His hat crumples in his grip again, fingers tight for a few moments before they loosen again, the rest of his posture loosening with them. "But I don't hate you. I-"

He cuts himself off, drawing in a deep breath and holding it for a few seconds before releasing a heavy sigh.

"I just want the truth from you, whatever it is."

Because if anyone is owed the truth, it's Tadashi.

Tadashi's blindness is both touching and...well, even more frustrating. By all rights, he should hate Callaghan, for his undeniable role in the fire and therefore his death- his assaults on his friends, even if he was defending himself and his then-interests.

But he doesn't. He's still looking for the best in people. If Robert was a bit less tense about the entire situation - both here in the graveyard, and with life in general - he might be affected more than an unpleasant sensation in his chest. He knows exactly what it is, but he swallows, pushing it down, because this isn't-

"The truth is you should be staying away from me. You and everyone else. This isn't a matter of brushing you off, this is for your own safety!" Standard precaution, if something is dangerous, you treat it with caution, and if you have no need of it- you don't go looking for it!

Why can't Tadashi grasp this simple concept?

"Why don't you hate me?" he demands a moment later. "Do you think you can still pull me out of a fire, here?" Because the way he says it, he seems to rather doubt that.

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/I SHOULD GO.png

don't even think about it old man

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