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[credere]

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[yedinyy]

"It's hard," she agrees, stroking his hair again. Her own hair frizzes a little around the part, something that's only clear when you're that close to her.

"But it's better to live a hard truth than an easy lie, isn't it?"

[credere]

No, he wants to say. Not according to the evidence of his life so far.

He's at a crossroads right now. He could keep moving forwards, he could try to learn magic, he could take the inheritance that has been denied to him for so long. It seems like it's possible. But if he could go backwards, if he could crush the Obscurus under his breastbone and into his gut, if he could go back to his life of ignorance and obedience and abuse....

That would be very, very tempting, as well.

"I don't know," he confesses. "Ma'am, the - the breach, were you...?"

He doesn't know what to ask. Was she alright, was she hurt, was she anything like herself?

[yedinyy]

"I was a smuggler," she says, not bothering to correct him when he calls her ma'am again. "I brought medicine and other important things to communities who needed them. It was an exciting life."

She was fine. Nothing like what he experienced.

[credere]

He nods, visibly relieved.

"So you didn't -- " He halts himself, about to say something unnecessarily specific. "Nobody hurt you?"

[yedinyy]

"I got into fights, but no one used me," she tells him. She got hurt, but no one hurt her like that.

[credere]

"Good," he murmurs, "that's good. Fights with, um, other people? Other smugglers."

He knows it doesn't matter if Annie hurt her, neither of them were themselves, nobody can take the blame. He hates that he's even asking.

[yedinyy]

"Other smugglers, the Alliance..."

She trails off, and proves her earlier words: she's worried now, suspicious now. Why is he asking her that?

[credere]

But he's not meeting her eyes, because he knows he's not a good liar, and even worse when he's challenged.

"But you weren't hurt badly," he says, as if he's trying to underline it, like that's all that counts.

[yedinyy]

"I wasn't hurt badly," she repeats, and then asks him, point blank: "Why are you asking me this, Credence?"

[credere]

He fidgets.

"I....I found someone," he says quietly. "I don't want to say who it was. She...wanted to hurt a lot of people. It was all she wanted. It was all she could think about, it was - all the way through her, like she'd been - rewritten. She was hardly even a person any more."

[yedinyy]

"Did she hurt you?" That's her primary concern. Let the rest come later.

[credere]

He shakes his head.

"No, ma'am. she...everything she wanted to do, I...I saw it, first."

[yedinyy]

"Did you hurt her?" It sounds like he had more than a right to, and she wouldn't judge him.

[credere]

"No!"

His eyes are wide, as if he couldn't imagine anything more terrible. But that's him thinking of Annie, he knows, not that terrible creature that replaced her.

"I...I went looking for her," he says softly. "I didn't understand why, at first, it was just...it was very important that I found her."

[yedinyy]

"And you found her," she supplies, now bringing them both down so he can lean against her but she can lean against the wall.

[credere]

He nods, dreamlike.

"It was easy. She was...she didn't sound like anyone else I'd heard. I could feel her before we'd even landed. I don't think I would have left the ship for anything else, even though..."

Even though he was being tortured, daily, as a lab rat.

[yedinyy]

"And then what happened?"

[credere]

"I...helped her," he murmurs, still barely believing his own memories, his own experiences. "I had...before, I'd only ever known what people were thinking, but it was...it changed. I could reach into her head, and...put it right."

He'd been more than his tormentors had ever even suspected, stronger and more capable, but he hadn't wanted to do anything but heal.

[yedinyy]

"That's a good thing," she tells him. "You had the kind of power they wanted to abuse, and you did something good with it."

Just like she did, in a way. She had cunning and strength, and she did something good.

[credere]

It's not as if this has passed him by altogether, but he doesn't trust himself. Hearing Elizabeth say it - and why would she lie? - that makes it real.

"Are we...the people that we are in a breach...do you think we're like them?"

His own powers, as easily abused as they are, can they too be used for something better?

[yedinyy]

She sighs softly and settles a little more closely against him, unwilling to accept that she needs the comfort of comforting but reaching for it nonetheless.

"All the breaches I've been through- there are always parts that are familiar, parts that aren't. I don't know if I'm the same person in them, just with a different background- or if the Admiral is manipulating us."

[credere]

Credence's brow furrows.

"Why would he do that?"

Ma had often told him that God sent tests to the faithful - implying at once that he was among the tests rather than the faithful - but he doesn't like giving the Admiral such a promotion, even in his head.

[yedinyy]

"To teach us things?" She sounds like she's guessing, but she's also smiling a little, jostles him just a little.

"It's just the Admiral, Credence. Who knows."

[credere]

He smiles back, looking for all the world like he's halfway worried that the Admiral will strike him down at any moment, just for doubting his power. He controls everything here; it doesn't feel like there's very much 'just' about him.

"Did you? Um. Learn anything."

[yedinyy]

She hums softly and thinks it over, before telling him: "That I could be really good at flying a spaceship, if I had one."

There's more there. Of course there is- but as much as she can talk to him about his life, it's hard to talk about her own.