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“One makes you sound like someone people shouldn’t fuck with, and the other could be an invitation.”
"Can't have that," he agrees. "Which is a load of bullshit. Half the people in my camp didn't even know I was sick until I was coughing up blood. And for what?"
"Some of 'em did. Dutch knew, but he never even brought it up."
He shakes his hand and waves his hand, like that might shake all of that off.
"Never mind my shit. You came here for Jake. About him."
"Hey, if you had been in love with him, I woulda welcomed it. You deserve something good in your life."
He slips down in his seat a little, resting his hands on his stomach and crossing his boots at the ankle as he thinks that over.
"I don't think that's what you gotta do, here. I can't make up for the people I killed, the lives I ruined. All I can do is try to be different now."
Pouring herself into dating feels selfish by comparison. At least everything else she could justify as survival.
"Yeah, but the Admiral didn't bring you here to cure the infection," he points out, a little more firmly now. "He brought you here for you. For you to have a life, and that includes shit like this."
"Then if you ask me, you still come first. You, outta millions - might just be random. And if it is, you don't owe anyone shit. And anyway," he says, shifting, putting a finger on the table for emphasis,
"If I can go home and live my life, why can't you? 'Cause your planet's fucked up?"
The urge to cave feels overwhelming, but he's not shutting her down like Joel did any time hope came up. Might as well tough it out.
"I'm just talking about taking a year or two to get a deal for them, not going back there."
"I know, Tess," he says, reaching out to her, and taking her hand. He wants her looking at him, because he means this very seriously.
"But it is not your goddamn responsibility. If you graduate and want to, then I'll be damn proud of you, and you'll have done a great thing. But it can never be the reason to graduate. You gotta do that for you, darlin', okay? It don't mean you're selfish. It just means you got your priorities in order."
She feels like she's tripping up on something invisible, and she gives Arthur a terse look, but she doesn't pull her hand away.
"I have no idea what having my priorities in order is supposed to look like if it's not making up for this shit, Arthur. None."
What's to say she wouldn't freak out and do something stupid if she graduated tomorrow?
"Why d'you wanna do it, huh? You wanna do it 'cause you feel you gotta? Or because you wanna help people?"
He's keeping a hold of her hand, feeling like she'd walk out if he gave her a chance at it. His calloused thumb is rough on her skin when he strokes it, just a few times, absently.
Being right has felt situational for a long time. If it’s all you can do in the moment, then you don’t have to fuck with miserable little feelings like guilt. You do what you can.
“I think I need to do something like that just to prove I can do something good without needing to be paid, or a gun to my head, or because I’m dead anyway. Otherwise I haven’t changed at all. I’m just me in a better situation.”
He lets his hand go slack around hers, so she can pull away if she wants - but he's happy to keep a hold of her. He doesn't think she realizes how big that is - and he hadn't known that's why she wanted to do it. Not out of guilt, or out of some sense of making up for all the misery she's caused. You can't make up for death by giving life.
But you can do good. He looks proud of her, and says: "You came to that realization all on your own, Tess. I'm sorry I thought it was - guilt, misplaced or not."
And apprehension, maybe, at abandoning something she’s good at when there’s little alternative lined up.
“It’s okay,” she replies. “It was just... shooting Edward, and I had a conversation with Ellie and realized how broken she is. And that stupid ranch, it was boring but it was a life where I was surviving on my own terms and not watching the world around me shrink...”
She shakes her head. She feels hideous somehow, the list of things happening to her mounting, the ability to do anything with it just out of reach.
“And you’ve been crazy patient through all this. I know I’m not exactly open.”
"That's got nothin' to do with anythin'. I'm honored to be able to help you at all, so it's - it's good, when you open up at all."
He means it. His thumb rubs small circles over her knuckles.
"Those things all came together for you, made you realize - you wanna do somethin'?"
That touch feels nice. Soothing.
“I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
"Without hope for something better?"
He understands that. Hope is indispensable.
A pause.
"But I'm good at it. And I can't walk away from what I'm good at if I don't have something else lined up."
"So that's the plan, then. You find something else you're good at, somethin' hopeful."
"That's the plan," she agrees. There's something unreal about that, trying to figure out what to do next... ideally for the rest of her life. "I can't remember the last time I planned for anything further than six months ahead of me, and even that was generous."
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