The Roof, Saturday night

[notmyownage]

Claudia had spent a fair chunk of her time over Thanksgiving alternating between harassing Artie and her brother on a frighteningly regular basis and going out to the Causeway to try sending various objects across as many different ways and at as many different points as possible.

So far, she'd learned pretty much nothing at all, other than that sometimes the objects came back and sometimes they really, really didn't.

She'd taken the time to add Peter and her mystery caller to the new bulletin board and scan it, looking for patterns, then had grabbed her guitar and headed to the roof. She was too stressed out, right now. She needed to decompress a little. As usual, she'd picked a song rather before her time to try her hand at.

She was cut off by the buzz of her Farnsworth, which she'd taken to carrying with her everywhere. She pulled it out and smiled. "What up, Art-man?"

"I was going to ask you that," Artie said, his usual dry sarcasm in full effect. "I haven't heard from you in nearly two hours and was beginning to get worried."

"You're all heart," Claudia said. "I was going to get around to calling again, soon. Myka and Pete good?"

"You're going to get angry at me when I say I don't know who they are, aren't you."

Claudia felt the now familiar cold sensation wash over her. "Lena?" she tried. Artie frowned. "Mrs. Frederick?!"

"Claudia --"

Claudia closed the Farnsworth rather harder than she should and yanked her cellphone from her pocket. Her fingers were shaking hard enough that it took her several tries to call up Joshua's number.

No answer.

She tried his work number. She gave it 18 rings before she hung up and tried the CERN public relations office.

Nothing.

Claudia threw her phone across the roof with a howled "No!".

[ooc: open roof is open. Claudia's howl is pretty impressive (at 1:29).]

Comments

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That was a pretty impressive "No!" Enough for Jack to push back his usual fear of heights to go to the roof.

When he saw Claudia... well.

"Bad news?" he asked sympathetically.

[notmyownage]

Claudia looked up at him through her hair, then swallowed and nodded. "Did -- did you ever find anything on your -- on Zoe?"

Asking about that was easier than saying that she couldn't contact her brother, just now.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack winced a bit. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "She's-"

He couldn't finish. He looked down at his feet and let out a sigh.

"Is it your brother?"

[notmyownage]

Damn him and his astuteness.

"He's gone. I just talked to him this morning, but now I can't -- he's not --"

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack's head dropped as he stepped closer to put his hand on Claudia's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said feeling lame for not being able to say anything better.

Then again there aren't any words that would make it better.

[notmyownage]

"Yeah." Claudia swallowed hard again. She was only a few inches of crying on him, half-embarrassed under the freakedness. "This totally sucks."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I know," he said quietly. "I know it does. Anything I can do?"

[notmyownage]

Claudia bit her lip. "Can -- can we hug?"

She'd found it was usually best to ask first.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack gave her a small smile and opened his arms. "C'mere."

[notmyownage]

Claudia glomped on tight. "I'm sorry about Zoe."

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack returned the hug and patted her sympathetically on her back. "I know. I'm sorry about your brother," he whispered back. "Hopefully someone will figure out something soon."

He didn't want to think about the alternative,

[notmyownage]

"Ye --" Claudia choked up again. "Yeah. I just -- I don't know how."

She was pretty used to having an idea where to start, at the very least.

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

"Shhh," he said softly. "It's all right. Don't worry about the how now. We'll figure it out. Soon."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully had been downstairs in her room, window open, trying to work. Repressing for all she was worth. But that kind of yell... she couldn't ignore it.

She stopped at the top of the staircase when she saw who it was. "Claudia?"

[notmyownage]

Claudia pushed herself to her feet and went over to grab Scully into a huge hug.

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully hugged her back, afraid to ask what had happened. Just hanging on tightly.

[notmyownage]

Claudia choked on a sob. "He's gone. I just tried to call and he's gone and I can't do this again!"

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully squeezed her eyes shut, and hugged Claudia tighter. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... We're going to fix it. We have to."

[notmyownage]

Another sob, and Claudia held on tighter. "I don't know how --"

How to stop it, how to get everyone back, how to do much more than hug Scully and cry just now. "I just --" Deep breath. There was something she was missing. "The Causeway let you come back."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"Yes. Yesterday evening. I'm sorry, I should have called..." Scully's throat tightened. She stroked Claudia's hair. "I was in shock. I just went back to my room and collapsed."

[notmyownage]

Claudia pulled back a little, trying to get a look at her face.

"Oh god, Mulder."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully closed her eyes and looked away, face screwing up. She didn't quite have the stoic down as well now as she'd used to, though.

"I don't know what happened. I was holding his hand." She gave a tiny shake of her head.

[notmyownage]

Claudia pulled Scully tighter against her. "This stuff isn't supposed to get them. Fandom isn't supposed to hurt people back home."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully nodded against her shoulder, clinging all the harder. "I worry about him so much, all the time, that he'll get in trouble because I'm not there... but I never imagined him just-- not being there." She let out a slow breath, thinking of how alone Claudia was, and hugged her harder. "I'm glad you're here."

[notmyownage]

It was a regular mutual clinging society, right here. "I don't really have anywhere else to go, any more."

Artie was still there, but without Pete and Myka and Lena and even Mrs. Frederick to keep him grounded, he wasn't going to be the Artie she knew. And the Warehouse wouldn't be anything but empty if Claudia went back, even if every single artifact was in its assigned bin.

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Which gave Scully the courage to admit: "I'm afraid to check on my Mom. I- I don't want to know."

Mulder would expect her to keep going. Her mom....

[notmyownage]

"Schroedinger's cat," Claudia said. "If you don't know, then she's still out there."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"Exactly," Scully said, grateful that Claudia got it. And put it like that. "If she's there, it's all good. If she's not..." She shook her head, jaw set. "It won't help to know."

[notmyownage]

"Someone put up a board out front. To -- to track everyone who's --" Claudia let out a heavy breath. "I didn't see a pattern yet, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully rubbed her head, nodding. It was hard to look at this objectively. But it had to be done. "I'll put Mulder up there," she said quietly. It hurt. Only the belief that absolutely nothing could keep Mulder down made it possible to say that. "I don't know why the Causeway let me across when it did. I just walked." Tears pricked at her eyes, and she blinked rapidly. "Halfway across, I was alone."

[notmyownage]

"I've been testing it all season. I --" She wasn't going to mention Mulder again. He and Joshua were too close to Scully and Claudia for them to be able to deal with rationally. "I didn't find anything. It seems pretty . . . random."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"Monitoring. We need to set that up," Scully said, thinking aloud. "Remote cameras on the Causeway? We can check the timing?" What else? "Someone should compile Portalocity data... all my physics reading didn't turn up anything obvious, but if we can estimate what's happening out there, from the number of diversions, maybe, or the number of delays..."

[notmyownage]

"Assuming they'll let us have the data. I'm not sure the observations of the people who've made it back would be enough for an accurate data set."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"True." Scully grimaced. "Maybe that's something to have someone in authority get started on, though. Demanding answers." She sighed, hugging Claudia again. "We'll find them." Answers, or Joshua and Mulder, or both.

[notmyownage]

Claudia sobbed once and clapped her hand over her mouth. She nodded. "I found him before, right? It nearly killed me, but I did it."

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Scully said quietly. "Mulder got me back from... a lot of things. We'll do the same."

It was a lot easier to deal with a friend there to hug, though.