The experience is so that when you leave, you will be making money. I'm willing to lie on a resume for you but unwilling to exaggerate on the behalf of a novice.

[When the elevator stops he holds the door with his umbrella to let Jesse off first.]

[He doesn't really feel like arguing this point, either, so he doesn't, but he mutters under his breath as he slouches out of the elevator.]

What, my sales background isn't good enough?

[He glances up the hallway and hesitates, tired eyes going cloudy. There's his door down there, 7-6, and that's no surprise, but to get there he's got to go past the blank, anonymous nothing that used to be 7-4, and that just makes him want to start getting wasted all over again. Maybe follow through on that weed Dracula mentioned...

Instead, he clears his throat and glances back at the Doctor.]

Mr. White's gone, by the way.

[There's something intent in his gaze, as if to say: get it now?]

[The Doctor's look is not a fond one, and he has to smear his hand down his face to keep it from setting in too deeply. He continues to walk with Jesse towards his room.]

He may yet get another chance. Some people return, even much longer later. I'm sorry that his absence coincided with Hoffman's graduation, but regardless of your opinions on Mr. Hoffman, he did work for his right to stay or depart the Barge as he likes. His sins are not yours and his progress isn't yours, either.

[But Jesse stops, brow knitting angrily.] And I don't? And he didn't?? No-- he didn't even get a chance to. He was in that coma practically since the day he got here.

[Even at the depths of his apathy, Jesse quietly went to visit Mr. White pretty much every day. He didn't always talk, he sometimes didn't do anything but sit. He almost never touched him, and some days he didn't even go near the guy. But he went every day. Because maybe it would mean something, maybe it would make a difference.

Except, hey, apparently not.]

I've been working my ass off, here, and now I'm still in this shithole and he's-- I mean, he's-- [He looks to the blank door again, distressed.] He's just--

[Dead. Say dead. He inhales sharply, breath shaking a little as he lets it out, and reaches anxiously for his cigarettes, still staring at the door.]

I knew a man that left here twice as an inmate and returned. He was actually not dead.

[But Dallas was.]

You can make a deal for him if you graduate. [But there's things that he knows about that man- Jesse will eventually have to find them out before he can make that decision. Not now, though. Not while he's recovering and volatile.]

But there is still that chance. And rather than looking at it as how unfair the universe is, if Amanda can move beyond her hate, if Hoffman can put forth the effort, then Mr. White might still be alive and even more importantly, even as an inmate you have a chance to change the circumstances of his life and your own because you know this place exists.

I rather think, though, at this moment, that Claire and your friends still here should take priority.

He is. He told me. The... cancer. It came back, and he hid it from me. From everyone.

[He's not oblivious to the irony of what he's about to do, but he lights up a smoke all the same, inhaling hastily and deeply. His heart is beating hard, his head still throbbing despite the pills, and he can't stop staring at the stupid door.]

After everything... everything I did... [With him. For him. He hasn't heard Mr. White's voice in months, but there's still a hole the guy left behind, a pit in his stomach. Some of it is grief, and loss, but most of it is failure.

After everything he did.]

[As irritated as he is, he can tell Jesse is hurting. Somehow. Benny always mocked him for his lack of understanding of human emotions- he understood them enough to manipulate them, but sometimes couldn't identify with them.

But he remembers something. Tegan Jovanka, dying of cancer long ago. He went to see her. He was a different man then- the memory sparks a different emotion than it had before. Rather than profound loss and melancholy, resentment that such a bold, wonderful woman would have to fall to that.]

If you'd like I could stay with you for a while.

[Comfort is something he's never been good at- he hugs easier than some of his other selves. His second and third both being ones to hold people when they needed it as well. But Jesse doesn't seem the type that requires that.]

Edited 2012-04-17 04:34 am (UTC)

[That finally gets him to take his eyes off the door and turn to look at the Doctor, and for half a second, his eyes look wet. He blinks rapidly to clear them and shakes his head.]

That's not...

[He's not getting any words out this morning, even though he's dimly aware he said a few too many last night. He sighs and closes his eyes, scruffing a hand through his hair.]

Look, I just-- I have been working my ass off. Since I got here. Since before I got here. You know-- what I did, for him.

And now? For Claire? You keep talking about making sure she knows, but she knows, okay? After everything I've done for that girl?

I know what you did for him.

But I also know any man that would ask someone else to do that to an innocent man, someone who had done him no harm and merely because he was expendable, is capable of doing you harm. What you need to do, you need to do for yourself. The people you care about will benefit from what you do for yourself.

For yourself. For the long term.

Hey-- [He darkens, instantly defensive, the way he always is when Gale comes up. But this time, he doesn't have an argument to make. What is he going to say? That he killed the guy to save Mr. White, when it ended up being worthless, when the guy died anyway? That it's all part of the game? It is, but up until now, he figured the Barge was, too. He thought he had the rules figured out.

Now he doesn't know what the hell is going on.

He grits his teeth, cigarette crinkling as he tightens his grip on it.]

So what am I supposed to do? Huh? None of this shit is fair! I mean, he goes, him that only ever did anything to protect his people -- and me, I get it, I get what I'm doing here, but I'm doing my Goddamn time for what I did. But Hoffman!? Fucking mass murderers make it out -- what am I supposed to do??

Be quiet about Hoffman already. He tried. He's done horrible things, and he tried to become accountable for them. That's what graduation is for. To prove that you can become a better person than you were, that you know what you did was in error and that you very definitively won't do it again. Not to do time for a crime.

[He's mildly frustrated, but nothing like he was last night.]

Stop treating it like a system you have to get around, motions that you have to go through, and start working at it.

Edited 2012-04-17 11:27 am (UTC)

I am working. What the hell do you think I've been doing, all this time? Jerking off?

Then don't work at it as if you're a "mass murderer". He graduated his way for things he did. You're not just here because you killed a person. Your here for the entire mindset that led you to agree to it.

Yeah, 'cause all they gotta do is say they're sorry, right? Oh, they're real sorry. Are you deaf, old man? I asked you a question -- what am I supposed to do? 'Cause apparently that ain't good enough for me. Work, work, you keep saying -- work how? Doing what?

What're my magic words supposed to be? ["Sorry," he's said, to Gale himself, even, or what he thought was Gale, way back in October. And he's even sorrier now that he knows it was all completely for nothing. But that's not enough, apparently, for the Admiral, and underneath the anger he's pretty sure he knows why; it's what's keeping him, for all his insistence that he's working things through, as stuck as he is.

Because "sorry" isn't the same as "I'll never do it again," and he already knows -- Claire and Richie proved to him -- that he would. That he will. That he's no different from Arya, on that one. That the only work he's actually done is trying to make her better, not himself.

He presses on before the Doctor can answer, fists clenching at his sides, the remains of his barely-smoked cigarette falling to the floor.]

Did you ever think that maybe I'm not gonna be any better than this?

[He still addresses it, even if Jesse has moved on.] No, you don't have to say you're sorry. No more than a few days ago you were sorry for the drugs, and you came back for them. That that is precisely the attitude that needs to stop. That you can't be better than that. Is that what makes you so angry? That someone like Hoffman- like Amanda, that they can become better? There have been men that destroyed planets here, that did experiments on people, that they can become better?

There are things you don't really want to do anyway- that you know are morally wrong. What you need to learn is not to be sorry, but not to do them anymore no matter how badly you want to please someone.

So I should have let them kill us, that's what you're saying. Or I shouldn't have even tried to-- [He's hung over enough, not thinking clearly enough, that he almost says "get rid of Richie." He switches tacks halfway through the sentence, badly.] To, uh, get the guys back that got Tomas, Andrea's little bro.

That's bullshit, man. Half the wardens here would've done the same, in my shoes. Taking out child killers? Protecting your partner? This ain't about pleasing no one, jack, it's about family.

One of the wardens here is also a robot programmed to annihilate life on Earth. She's not you. Nor is anyone else.

Immediate self-defence is one matter. Premeditated, calculated, wilful destruction of someone's life is another. Recklessly harming the wellbeing and peace of mind of others because you become so despondent that you no longer care is another. This affects everyone you care about. And as much as you demand that drawing away from them will improve matters, it won't.

You hurt people by doing what you know, what you very much know. [He gestures.] ...Were you going to say something else?

No. And see? That's what I'm saying. This is bullshit. That robot bitch is better than me? Much less the folks who chose to off like twenty guys -- I mean, at least she's got programming to blame.

[He shakes his head, trying to move past the Doctor.] The NA thing was dumb as shit, I get that now, but the rest? Fuck that, man. Face it -- if that's my problem, I'm never getting out of here. Sucks to be both of us.

She's not better than you. That's like squabbling over whether or not the woman behind the check-out counter is better than you. You do have choices, you can choose not to do things.

If I didn't believe I could help you I would have asked for reassignment already.

Yeah? So how come evil robot bitch and evil cop asshole are wardens, then? That's supposed to mean they're better, right? You people are better. Otherwise, who the hell are you to tell me anything? Not like you know anything about slinging dope, or where I come from.

Edited 2012-04-19 07:51 am (UTC)

None of us come from the same place, Jesse. You can't make someone less than you by continually insulting them. All you can do is make yourself a better person.

I keep trying to tell you, you know where you come from. You know what is right and wrong. You know who you want to help and what you want to do.

But since I'm at least in a position of authority over you at the moment, contact Ariadne when you have a chance.

[He wants to argue further, because seriously, this is all bullshit, and the guy still hasn't answered his stupid question... But the world is starting to reel away from him in a way that means he either needs sleep or meth, so he gives it up with a frustrated, disgusted little sound.]

Fine. Awesome. I'll go be the art room bitch. Whatever. [He reaches into his pocket, like he's going to do it right now, and frowns. Where the fuck did his communicator go?]

[He reaches too deeply into a pocket and pulls out Jesse's comm, holding it out for him.]

...Thanks. [Bitch. >:| He takes it and shoves it away for later. With one last angry glance at the blank door, he slouches off for his own room.]