#sorry for any typos i'm kind of running on fumes

[solar-siren]

Angstpril Day Nine: Devastation

“Able!” 

Yori’s voice might be the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. The program he’d thought he might never see again plows into him with an embrace that nearly knocks them both over. Under better circumstances they might laugh. Instead she pulls back too quickly, desperation in her eyes. 

“Do you know anything? Have you heard–”

“He’s here,” Able says, lowering his voice. No one else is around, but they can’t be too cautious after what happened today. 

Yori all but sobs in relief. 

“He is? Oh, thank Alan–”

“I wouldn’t,” Able says, squeezing her arm. “Yori. It’s bad.”

  Yori makes it a few steps before she can go no further. Watching from the doorway, Able can’t see her face—only the way she’s rendered completely immobile, not even daring to breathe.

Tron is laid out on Able’s desk. It was the closest thing to actual accommodations they could manage. (Tron can’t be upstairs; Able’s betas are there. And besides, it was enough work getting the program settled here.) Even from halfway across the room he can see the network of injuries crossing the monitor’s frame. They glow in the dimness, brighter than his circuits. 

Maybe Yori is bracing herself, taking in the devastation from a distance. Maybe she’s testing his claim that her counterpart is now half blind. 

He should already know that she’s here—should be able to sense her. But Tron is still and silent save for the ragged sound of his breathing. What’s left of his face is angled away from them. He’s half offline, oblivious to everything outside his own world of agony.

For a long moment Yori stands frozen. Then she steps forward and joins him there.

  Yori looks down at the broken form of her counterpart. It’s a testament to how damaged he is that he doesn’t register her standing over him. She touches the undamaged side of his face, tracing his jawline with her thumb. She smiles far too easily when he begins to stir. 

“Hey.” She can’t keep the tears from welling up, but she holds them at bay. 

“Yori?” His remaining eye drifts towards her. The pain there is all too clear. His expression crumbles as she grasps his hand.  “You’re alive.”

[Grief] floods through his touch. She restrains herself from returning it. 

“You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” she asks. He’s too weighed by guilt to accept any attempt at comfort.

“I’m sorry–”

“Shh.” Yori lets all traces of levity fall away as she cups his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It isn’t your fault.”

She releases him just as carefully. For a long moment neither of them speaks.

Able clears his throat. 

“I sent Cyrus out to get some more energy,” he says quietly. Tron flinches. He must not have known he was there.

Yori distracts him, one of her hands trailing to his shoulder, feather light. “Friend of yours?” 

“‘Saved me.”

“I’ll have to thank him.”  

Her true intent is revealed as her fingers curl against his back, like a request for permission. “Can I see?” she asks softly. 

For the first time in nearly as long as he can remember, Tron considers denying her request. “You can, but—won’t do any good. Virus. Can’t heal.”

He would break the news more gently if he had the energy. As it is, it’s a struggle to get even that much out.

“I can try,” she says, eyes glinting. She doesn’t understand yet; she won’t until she sees for herself. He relents. 

Yori eases him up enough that she can retrieve his disc. After that her ministrations are half-hearted, distracted as she combs through his code. Tron allows the world to blur out of focus again. He doesn’t want to watch.  

It’s bad. Maybe worse than he or Able had said, and they’d both been pretty bleak. Looking at this, Yori thinks it’s a miracle he’s alive at all.

Whole lines of code are missing. Gashes run through entire sections. It’s like someone took a blade—

It doesn’t bear thinking about. 

She could fix some of this—probably enough to keep Tron from derezzing. But she can’t remove the virus that lurks behind the damage. Without that, any repairs she made would be temporary. Tron’s injuries would keep coming back, over and over again. He would always be in pain. He would never be able to fulfill his function. And eventually, even those repairs would fail. As bad as things are now, over time they would only get worse. 

She can prolong Tron’s suffering, but she can’t really save him.

“Yori,” he says, and there is far too much emotion in that one word. Exhaustion. Vulnerability. He’s willing to stay if she wants him to. He’s ready to go if she’ll let him. 

Yori sets the disc down, returns her full attention to him. 

“I know,” she says. She stands taller, steels herself even as she smiles through tears. “Ok. It’s ok. It’ll be alright. You did what you needed to, the most important thing you could’ve done; you saved Flynn. He’s alive because of you. And the rest of us—we’re going to finish Clu off together. 

“I’ll keep fighting. I promise.  Always .” There’s heat behind her words, but her voice never wavers. She holds his hand; strokes his hair. “You can rest now. Just rest.

“All that is visible…” she starts, and Able can’t stand it any longer. He leaves them alone for the rest.

  When Cyrus returns, Able keeps him from interrupting the others. Nothing they can do now will help. Tron and Yori deserve their space to say goodbye.

Eventually Able and Cyrus end up sitting on the floor outside his office, leaning against the wall that faces the door. They both watch for any sign of movement, but there’s nothing to see. Everything is still. The silence in the hall is deceptively peaceful.

They wait together for a long time. Cyrus rolls an energy canister back and forth beneath his hand, quiet and guilty. Able would say something if he could think of anything useful. 

Instead, he plans. From what the beta’s said, no one will be looking for him. Clu’s forces think he died in the crash that ‘killed’ Tron. And Yori… Admittedly, Able isn’t glitched enough to know what goes on in Clu’s mind. If he had to guess, he’d say the Admin either thinks she’s dead or hiding somewhere in the Capitol. 

And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

No one is watching a little garage at the edge of the Grid. No one will question Able if he happens to have two more mechanics after today. They’ll need someone to take them under their wing—somewhere safe to hide. To live. He owes Tron that much, at least. 

  Nearly an hour later Yori emerges alone, a white disc clutched in her hands. There’s a kind of dullness to her—a vacantness to her expression that Able has never seen. He rises to his feet. Cyrus is only a moment behind.

“I’m so sorry,” Able says, voice low. He and Tron hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but they’d respected each other. And he knows how much he meant to Yori. He starts to come closer until she stops him.

[There is no comfort,] she asserts, pragmatic and agonized. Her demeanor does not reflect a byte of the turmoil he senses just from that ping. Cyrus watches their silent exchange. Eventually his eyes gaze drops to Tron’s inactive disc.

“What do we do now?” he asks quietly. And before Able can respond with his carefully laid plans, Yori lights the cutting edge. Its light reflects in her eyes. 

“We keep fighting,” she says. “We kill Clu.”