Gela irons a hand up over her face, pushing on her forehead, fingers inching into her hair. She sighs again and says, "Okay," quietly, as if cajoling herself. One more time then:
"He asked that I tell you I am cursed," sounds very dramatic, but it is the truth. He was precise with his wording. "And that I present danger to other people because of it, so that you can..."
Here, she trails off. Even in the practicing she's never quite decided what she thinks Cosima will want to do with this information. Order her banned? Or locked up?? Perhaps. She adds quietly, "I'm sorry, to come to you so suddenly like this, but the other option was that he report me to the Commander and have me removed, and I—" don't want to go. Despite the curse and all the danger. It is so selfish.
Even without knowing the specifics, she can't help but immediately think of Ruby, all those years ago, convinced of her own monstrous nature. (You must hate me. How much that wasn't true.)
"Hey, hey. It's alright, you don't have to apologize. What kind of curse?" She wants to reach out and catch Gela's hand, but it seems like the contact might be overwhelming, so she holds off for the moment.
She lifts her chin at last, but only so the tears blurring her vision won't actually fall. Sitting there, blinking carefully, her lip curls ruefully; so much crying, even more dishonesty. Gela isn't usually like this.
"I'm a werewolf." At least it comes out much faster than it did with Rowntree, and she doesn't trip over the words. "I have been for a long time, nearly five years. Nobody knows."
Amending almost instantly, "Rowntree knows. So does Dr. Strange."
"Shit. I'm so sorry." She pulls out a handkerchief and offers it to Gela. "God, you must have been so stressed all the time. Is it ... the legends at home tied it to the moon, is it like that here? I'm afraid I'm not familiar in Thedas."
Gela blinks. A big tear falls despite her best efforts, skipping down her cheek.
She takes the handkerchief held out to her automatically, holds it in her lap, not looking at it, her fingers plucking at the edges and idly smoothing, all little comforts.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop she says, "Pardon?"
"Oh, shit, sorry, is it ... maybe it means something different than I'm thinking? But my understanding of the werewolves is that it's a pretty horrific thing that happens to a person, I assume Rowntree sent you here to see if we can do anything to help. We've got legends at home, but I shouldn't have jumped there." She looks lightly wary, in case she has genuinely misstepped somehow, but otherwise still genuine.
"No," she says, still sounding lost, "I—you want to help?"
What? It's clashing so hard against her assumption of how this moment (and each before it) would go that she can't think of anything else to say. Can't bring herself to hope for the best either, even though... it, for some reason, seems like it will be okay.
"Of course I want to help." She aches, a bit, for how clearly this is a surprise. "Look, I can't promise results, with speed or ever. But we've got some really clever people in the department, and you're not even the first person in the organization who's had to deal with involuntary transformations into a dangerous animal. Well. I guess were still technically the Inquisition then, but that's not the point."
She leans forward, her hands on the desk in lieu of reaching too far. "I'm really sorry you've been going through this. We'll work something out. You don't have to hold it all on your own."
It does seem as if Cosima is reaching out to her, which Gela is having difficulty parsing through; she's just told her she is dangerous and Cosima doesn't seem to mind at all. She isn't even asking what happened or what danger she could be in (though she brought up the moon in the exact way that Strange did, so, with the moon still waning now, she must think she is safe?). Gela does not reach back. Ideally, she should be feeling greatly relieved.
"Oh my god, hey." Cosima gets up so she can come crouch in front of Gela's chair. "Hey, it's gonna be OK. We'll figure something out. And in the meantime, we'll figure out how to make sure we're reducing the risk and we'll keep everyone safe. Including you, alright?"
It's embarrassing, but she finds she can't stop even when Cosima comes to her, kneeling to catch a glimpse of her face beneath all her hair. Tears leak out. What Cosima said, about not having to hold it all on her own? She has been, for a long time. The kindness is a shock.
Telling Jude was like this, too.
‘Figuring out how to reduce the risk’ should probably concern her, the wording of it, but Gela finds she can't possibly focus on it now. Using the handkerchief to blot hastily at her eyes she nods, the lump in her throat too big to speak around.
She puts a hand on Gela's knee, lightly, unable to resist offering at least some sort of contact. "Hey. Can I get you a glass of water?" As Gela already has the handkerchief, presumably.
No, it's nice. Thoughtful of her. Gela inhales a quick, short breath and says, "I'm sorry," in a little rush. "I haven't been sleeping well." This will explain the weepy behaviour.
She wipes her eyes thoroughly with the handkerchief.
"You got it." She rises and moves to a side table where she has a pitcher of water, some cups and mugs, and a variety of accessories for tea. The water she pours Gela isn't cold anymore, but the metal pitcher has kept it a little cooler than room temperature.
She comes back and offers the cup to Gela. "There's nothing to be sorry for. It's a lot to deal with."
She nods mournfully, tucking one leg up underneath of herself, becoming small in her chair while she tries to calm down. The cup of water is taken and sipped slowly; it helps. She keeps tight hold of the handkerchief, anticipating a future need for it yet.
Explanation tumbles out of her. "I haven't told anybody about this, for years, and now I've told three people in two weeks."
She leans against the desk, giving Gela some room. "Look, I can imagine why you wouldn't have been eager to volunteer it at first. Who else, besides me and Rowntree?"
"Strange," she supplies. "But he swore doctor-patient confidentiality." The strongest of oaths. "... Jude first," she adds a little softer, setting her cup down onto Cosima's desk, "But he was gone soon after."
And then nobody knew again. It had felt like being given a chance to test it out but Gela had sat on that for months and said nothing more, not until she had to; she failed.
"Does everybody have to know?" Her fingers tap nervously near the cup.
"Not fully my call," she says, quietly honest, as she rubs one arm with the opposite hand. "But I think you can make a stronger case for not the more we know about the risks. I feel like a jerk asking you to press against a bruise, but if you know more about what's triggered changes in the past, what you remember about before and after a change ... the more we know, the more we can calibrate our caution. Riftwatch generally, but in this case, the leadership."
"No, I understand." They need to account for this now that they know it. For some reason, nobody has yet been angry with her for holding this information at bay until now, so of course Gela will cooperate.
She says carefully, "Well, I've only changed once. And it was the spell, that triggered it, so..."
That seems very easy to avoid: simply don't cast any werewolf spells on her. Thank you.
"OK. That's good, then. A ton of things have happened to you between now and then, right, so all of those are things that don't trigger it. And if it's only a magic thing, maybe there's some way to block it. I'm not ... I don't really understand the specifics, but I know Templars can shut down magic, obviously, but I've also read that anti-magic wards are a thing. Maybe there's something to that we can explore on the research side."
She reaches for a notebook so she can jot something down. "I can't promise what the other Div heads will think, for security purposes. But as far as research goes ... I can try to work mainly with Strange, since he already knows. But it might be helpful if we could reach out to a mage who's from here. Maybe Derrica? But if there's anyone you definitely don't want me to involve, that's a line I can stick to as far as it's research-only."
Derrica? They don't know each other too well and Gela doesn't yet know how to feel about telling her, or even somebody telling her on Gela's behalf (implied in the we could reach out). Even being made to tell Cosima so quickly felt like it was all falling outside of the scope of her careful control. She says, "Okay," but she doesn't sound okay. She sounds tense and stressed, voice clipped.
"Can it wait?"
Can she have time, to get her feet back underneath of her first? Surely enough people know by now that if something terrible happens — if the terrible thing happens, at last — Riftwatch will be able to handle it.
"I can see how far Strange and I get on our own first," she says, softer and not without compassion. "Since you've been here so long safely already, I'm not alarmed, but ... Rowntree takes security seriously." It is his job, so. "He may want to take some precautions, especially if we're keeping it quiet. But I won't tell anyone else without letting you know before I do unless it's an actual, immediate emergency."
She knows a promise with qualifiers probably isn't thrilling. On the other hand, it's a promise she's confident she can keep, and she plans to.
"No, I know. And I've been—" a breath in before she pushes on, muscling through her own awkwardness, "I lied to him about it, I let him think I was a mage because I didn't want him to think poorly of me. He was kind to me about it... so I'll do anything he thinks I should do, to make up for that."
And if he wants her to tell Derrica, she will grit her teeth and feel awful but she will tell Derrica. It's the least she can do.
"OK. We'll see how we go, and I promise I'll keep you informed."
A pause where she hesitates over the next bit, but she hopes it will help: "It's not at all the same, and I'm not saying it is. But ... I do know what it's like to have a condition that means you feel like your body isn't ... that someone's taken something fundamental about yourself away from you. And I'm really sorry. I know it's violating in a way that can be hard to describe. I just want you to know that it's important to me that, while we're keeping the organization safe, that we're not making decisions about you without you. Okay?" It's quiet and soft, not as if she's walking on eggshells but rather as if it's a situation she thinks deserves some gravity.
She thinks that's the end of it, is gathering herself to stand and leave when Cosima opens her mouth to keep talking. It makes Gela pause half out of her chair. She sits again, listening, still. Her eyebrows knit together in concern, but she doesn't ask. She'd like to know some more, but she understands what it's like to have to tell these things; another time, she might.
Cosima's steady gaze, her soft voice: it is all incredibly reassuring. Gela lets out a breath she had no idea she was holding.
"Okay," she says. "Thank you, Cosima. I'm sorry too." For what happened to her, that lead her to be so understanding.
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"He asked that I tell you I am cursed," sounds very dramatic, but it is the truth. He was precise with his wording. "And that I present danger to other people because of it, so that you can..."
Here, she trails off. Even in the practicing she's never quite decided what she thinks Cosima will want to do with this information. Order her banned? Or locked up?? Perhaps. She adds quietly, "I'm sorry, to come to you so suddenly like this, but the other option was that he report me to the Commander and have me removed, and I—" don't want to go. Despite the curse and all the danger. It is so selfish.
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"Hey, hey. It's alright, you don't have to apologize. What kind of curse?" She wants to reach out and catch Gela's hand, but it seems like the contact might be overwhelming, so she holds off for the moment.
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"I'm a werewolf." At least it comes out much faster than it did with Rowntree, and she doesn't trip over the words. "I have been for a long time, nearly five years. Nobody knows."
Amending almost instantly, "Rowntree knows. So does Dr. Strange."
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She takes the handkerchief held out to her automatically, holds it in her lap, not looking at it, her fingers plucking at the edges and idly smoothing, all little comforts.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop she says, "Pardon?"
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What? It's clashing so hard against her assumption of how this moment (and each before it) would go that she can't think of anything else to say. Can't bring herself to hope for the best either, even though... it, for some reason, seems like it will be okay.
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She leans forward, her hands on the desk in lieu of reaching too far. "I'm really sorry you've been going through this. We'll work something out. You don't have to hold it all on your own."
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She doesn't feel much of anything.
Drawing a breath she manages, "That's... good."
And abruptly bursts into tears.
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Telling Jude was like this, too.
‘Figuring out how to reduce the risk’ should probably concern her, the wording of it, but Gela finds she can't possibly focus on it now. Using the handkerchief to blot hastily at her eyes she nods, the lump in her throat too big to speak around.
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She wipes her eyes thoroughly with the handkerchief.
"Yes, please."
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She comes back and offers the cup to Gela. "There's nothing to be sorry for. It's a lot to deal with."
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Explanation tumbles out of her. "I haven't told anybody about this, for years, and now I've told three people in two weeks."
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And then nobody knew again. It had felt like being given a chance to test it out but Gela had sat on that for months and said nothing more, not until she had to; she failed.
"Does everybody have to know?" Her fingers tap nervously near the cup.
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She says carefully, "Well, I've only changed once. And it was the spell, that triggered it, so..."
That seems very easy to avoid: simply don't cast any werewolf spells on her. Thank you.
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She reaches for a notebook so she can jot something down. "I can't promise what the other Div heads will think, for security purposes. But as far as research goes ... I can try to work mainly with Strange, since he already knows. But it might be helpful if we could reach out to a mage who's from here. Maybe Derrica? But if there's anyone you definitely don't want me to involve, that's a line I can stick to as far as it's research-only."
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"Can it wait?"
Can she have time, to get her feet back underneath of her first? Surely enough people know by now that if something terrible happens — if the terrible thing happens, at last — Riftwatch will be able to handle it.
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She knows a promise with qualifiers probably isn't thrilling. On the other hand, it's a promise she's confident she can keep, and she plans to.
skids in late
And if he wants her to tell Derrica, she will grit her teeth and feel awful but she will tell Derrica. It's the least she can do.
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A pause where she hesitates over the next bit, but she hopes it will help: "It's not at all the same, and I'm not saying it is. But ... I do know what it's like to have a condition that means you feel like your body isn't ... that someone's taken something fundamental about yourself away from you. And I'm really sorry. I know it's violating in a way that can be hard to describe. I just want you to know that it's important to me that, while we're keeping the organization safe, that we're not making decisions about you without you. Okay?" It's quiet and soft, not as if she's walking on eggshells but rather as if it's a situation she thinks deserves some gravity.
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She thinks that's the end of it, is gathering herself to stand and leave when Cosima opens her mouth to keep talking. It makes Gela pause half out of her chair. She sits again, listening, still. Her eyebrows knit together in concern, but she doesn't ask. She'd like to know some more, but she understands what it's like to have to tell these things; another time, she might.
Cosima's steady gaze, her soft voice: it is all incredibly reassuring. Gela lets out a breath she had no idea she was holding.
"Okay," she says. "Thank you, Cosima. I'm sorry too." For what happened to her, that lead her to be so understanding.
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