[ he takes his glass and a pastry, goes to get himself seated in turn. her tone earns an amused sound as he takes a bite and washes it down, but he shakes his head. ]
Actually, talking about it reminded me of something else I've been thinking about asking you. You're a biologist, right?
[ she's surely mentioned details before, but his grasp on the minutiae of the branches of biology are pretty fuzzy. ]
Yeah, that's right. I was working on a PhD back home. Evo-devo - uh. Evolutionary developmental biology. In simple terms, I was studying the way different environmental factors could affect the development of identical cells. I was thinking of slightly shifting my area of focus but ... that is maybe not what you were even about to ask, sorry.
[She doesn't get to talk about what she did at home much, and she misses it sometimes. With most people in Thedas, she has to start with what is a cell and very few people are interested to go much beyond that except as it has practical applications.]
[ god, but does he ever get it. he listens attentively, and when she cuts herself off, says, ]
No, that helps.
[ he's reminded, not for the first time, of dr. okoye. she'd like cosima, and he can imagine they'd have a lot of interesting conversations. ]
"Ask" might've the wrong way to put it. [ he takes another swallow of wine before going on, ] I have a medical implant. It normally needs meds, batteries, maintenance; but as long as I've been here, it's run on its own, glowing blue like lyrium. [ becoming clearer, maybe, why the blood plague reminded him of this. the implications of what it could've done to him, besides everything else, is an existential crisis of its own. ] I have no idea how the hell it works. I know you aren't a medical doctor, but you're more likely to understand it than about anyone else around here.
[ a pause, then: ]
But it's worked long enough that I doubt anything would happen, if it hasn't already.
[ so, you know. if she isn't interested in being aware of this, he's more than likely fine. ]
[She shifts forward a little, though she doesn't move to properly sit up per se.]
Well. You're right that I'm not a medical doctor, and technology in your time may be so advanced that I wouldn't be much help anyway. But ... if nothing else, I can sympathize a bit with finding yourself not dying in Thedas for reasons you can't explain. The first time I was here I was dealing with a serious genetic illness. They could keep me healthy with periodic spirit healing, which uh. Whole second can of worms, but I haven't had to do it this time. I found a cure at home, and it seems like it carried over but does that even make sense, because we're traveling through the Fade, and I don't think the evidence supports that being a physical trip.
[ he'd been about to mention, too, that tony knows about this -- but that's pretty distracting news, actually. there's a slight, sympathetic wince at the idea of relying on spirit healing. ]
[She pauses, not because she's worried about telling him, but there is so much context involved in answering the question, she's not even sure where to begin.]
Um. Okay. The short answer was an experimental stem cell therapy. I'm not sure how long of a long answer you'd like.
I don't have anywhere to be, [ said with faint humor. he adds more seriously, ] Whatever you're open to talking about. The point of this wasn't to make you tell me anything.
No, I know. I only don't want to take you trusting me to know about your implant and then talk about myself forever. I don't mind talking about it, but you were concerned about your own health.
It's more that I've started to think, [ wryly, ] that it might be a good idea for more than two people to know.
[ and derrica's a healer, but she's likely never heard of radiation poisoning in her life. and tony's from a more modern world, but he isn't a biologist or doctor.
suggested: ] You can tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine.
[She considers where to start, and decides to just go for it:]
So, the genetic condition I have. Had. It wasn't just bad luck, or not the way most people who get genetic disorders have bad luck. It was the side effect of a sequence put in my DNA to ensure infertility. I'm a clone, and uh, the cloning wasn't exactly sanctioned. So the people running the experiment didn't want to just unleash our genetic material into the population.
Yeah, that was, uh. Kind of my reaction. When I found out. You know, it's kind of wild, I've like ... told some people here. But they don't really have the context for it, you know? I can explain it, but it doesn't hit the same way.
But yeah. Unsanctioned human cloning in the 1980s. Most of us were either given to couples who thought they were just undergoing standard IVF, like my parents, or they were carried by surrogates and then adopted. These bastards had a whole thing about, like, shaping human evolution. And money, of course, can't forget the money.
[She laces her fingers behind her neck, almost absent.] We beat them. Some of my sisters and I. But not before a lot of clones died.
[ in thedas, so much about their realities seem fantastical. it's hard to explain the parts that mean more, when even the basics of their lives are far beyond the experiences of people here. ]
What the fuck is it, [ he asks, indignant on her behalf, clearly drawing on his own experience too, ] with the mad scientists and the wanting to shape evolution? Never mind who they kill along the way.
[ and, she's right, can't forget the money. but even as he shakes his head, he adds, ]
I'm glad you did. I know it doesn't make up for what you've lost, but at least you stopped them.
Yeah. And the cure, you know so. That's what I was doing before I came back. Or, I guess, what Cosima prime is still doing, maybe, if we want to get into what are rifters, actually, but. I was traveling to get the cure to my sisters around the world. So they'd all have a chance at a long, normal life. Or whatever counts as normal, anyway, but a lot of them aren't even aware they're clones and I don't know if knowing would help them now that the danger's passed.
[ maybe the clone reveal should seem stranger to him. it does, as a general concept; but not in how he thinks about the woman in front of him. he has eight parents, he doesn't have a lot of high ground on the topic of normal births. ]
They deserve the right to find out, [ he says after a moment, quieter after the outburst of a moment ago. ] What they do with the information is up to them. Besides, having a cure to offer them can't hurt.
My partner and I are sort of playing it by ear in different situations, [she confesses.] But we always leave them a way to contact us. If they have questions later, if something changes. I don't want them to feel alone, you know? Even if I can't be equally close to all 270 of them, just practically.
That'd make holidays hard, [ he agrees faux-seriously, and flashes her a brief smile.
270 of them. and that's not counting the ones who died. that might not even be counting the ones she already knew about. cosima's mad scientists didn't do things by halves, did they. ]
It has to be fucking strange to be back here after all of that.
[ they've talked, some, about the way she missed time here. but he has context now for the life she'd had in the meantime, the meaningful work she'd been doing. to be drawn back here in the middle of that is no small thing. ]
Yeah. Yeah. When I was first here, I'd only found out the truth ... wow, less than a year before? And I had no idea there were so many of us, I'd only met like... five?
[A quick mental list: Beth, Alison, Sarah, Katja, Helena. Rachel? It's hard now to remember who exactly she'd met or heard of but it was a much smaller pool.]
I'm glad, though. That the cure carried over. I spent a lot of my first time in Thedas feeling like I was taking up resources, given how often I was in the infirmary. Scheduled and unscheduled.
[ is the main reason he's glad her cure carried over. he'd feel the same way in her shoes, if he was reliant on local resources. at least aboard the roci, in his system, antioncocidals are part of any standard medbay inventory. he runs through them faster than most, but they aren't so difficult to get. here, he's barely even tried to find out if there's any kind of equivalent regimen. he doubts it, and he hasn't had to.
after a beat, he volunteers, ]
I was lethally irradiated a few years ago. [ so, you know. ] We dealt with the short-term damage then, but it turns out you can't walk that off without some help.
[ dryly, but not acerbic. he does know that; but also, he can understand the concern. it's why he shrugs, keeps his tone light. also because this memory, in particular, has lurked so close to the surface since the attack of the undead. right beneath his skin, bruising. ]
Some sick fucks had rigged up hard shelters to cook people with radiation instead of protect them. They were infecting people with something that feeds on radiation. [ lowly, bitter. ] I walked into one of those shelters at the wrong time.
[ he's glad for the change in subject. eros is always difficult to talk about; its shadow has loomed large over him more than usual lately, between his experiences at tantervale and with the recent undead. ]
Honestly? [ there's a pull at one side of his mouth, makes the smile as rueful as it is lopsided. ] It's just an injection port. Dispenses the anticancers slowly so I don't have to be taking doses every day. Without medicine, it wouldn't normally be doing anything.
[Her expression clears a little. It's still a heavy and important subject, but this is something she can hold onto. She'd expected it to be something way beyond her understanding, and possibly the details still are, but she can understand what the device is for now in a fairly intuitive way. It's a more advanced version of something, for her, that already exists.]
OK. Huh. Well, I don't want to mess with it if it's working but ... best guess. Sometimes when rifters come through the Fade, they get -- oh, hey, wait.
[She gets up and retrieves her iPhone from one of the drawers in her dresser. She sets it on the table and taps the screen. It doesn't light up or appear to respond in any way, except that it starts playing "The Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor.]
[ he cants his head, but waits patiently as asked, much as he watches her curiously. the iphone is something both familiar and unfamiliar — not tech he specifically recognizes, but more like home than anything local to thedas. the shape and size reminds him of hand terminals, just rudimentary. ]
Huh.
[ he sits up so that he can lean closer to the table, eyebrows furrowed, as he looks at the device. the fact that it can still play pre-recorded music is much more than he would've expected. ]
That came with you from home?
[ a rhetorical question, really. of course it did. ]
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Actually, talking about it reminded me of something else I've been thinking about asking you. You're a biologist, right?
[ she's surely mentioned details before, but his grasp on the minutiae of the branches of biology are pretty fuzzy. ]
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[She doesn't get to talk about what she did at home much, and she misses it sometimes. With most people in Thedas, she has to start with what is a cell and very few people are interested to go much beyond that except as it has practical applications.]
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No, that helps.
[ he's reminded, not for the first time, of dr. okoye. she'd like cosima, and he can imagine they'd have a lot of interesting conversations. ]
"Ask" might've the wrong way to put it. [ he takes another swallow of wine before going on, ] I have a medical implant. It normally needs meds, batteries, maintenance; but as long as I've been here, it's run on its own, glowing blue like lyrium. [ becoming clearer, maybe, why the blood plague reminded him of this. the implications of what it could've done to him, besides everything else, is an existential crisis of its own. ] I have no idea how the hell it works. I know you aren't a medical doctor, but you're more likely to understand it than about anyone else around here.
[ a pause, then: ]
But it's worked long enough that I doubt anything would happen, if it hasn't already.
[ so, you know. if she isn't interested in being aware of this, he's more than likely fine. ]
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[She shifts forward a little, though she doesn't move to properly sit up per se.]
Well. You're right that I'm not a medical doctor, and technology in your time may be so advanced that I wouldn't be much help anyway. But ... if nothing else, I can sympathize a bit with finding yourself not dying in Thedas for reasons you can't explain. The first time I was here I was dealing with a serious genetic illness. They could keep me healthy with periodic spirit healing, which uh. Whole second can of worms, but I haven't had to do it this time. I found a cure at home, and it seems like it carried over but does that even make sense, because we're traveling through the Fade, and I don't think the evidence supports that being a physical trip.
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[ he'd been about to mention, too, that tony knows about this -- but that's pretty distracting news, actually. there's a slight, sympathetic wince at the idea of relying on spirit healing. ]
How'd you find a cure for a genetic condition?
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Um. Okay. The short answer was an experimental stem cell therapy. I'm not sure how long of a long answer you'd like.
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[ it was a reflexive question, really. ]
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It's more that I've started to think, [ wryly, ] that it might be a good idea for more than two people to know.
[ and derrica's a healer, but she's likely never heard of radiation poisoning in her life. and tony's from a more modern world, but he isn't a biologist or doctor.
suggested: ] You can tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine.
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[She considers where to start, and decides to just go for it:]
So, the genetic condition I have. Had. It wasn't just bad luck, or not the way most people who get genetic disorders have bad luck. It was the side effect of a sequence put in my DNA to ensure infertility. I'm a clone, and uh, the cloning wasn't exactly sanctioned. So the people running the experiment didn't want to just unleash our genetic material into the population.
[...so there's that.]
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a minute to deal with this. ]
You're a clone? [ what the fuck, man. ] Seriously?
[ he doesn't sound disbelieving, just. ]
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But yeah. Unsanctioned human cloning in the 1980s. Most of us were either given to couples who thought they were just undergoing standard IVF, like my parents, or they were carried by surrogates and then adopted. These bastards had a whole thing about, like, shaping human evolution. And money, of course, can't forget the money.
[She laces her fingers behind her neck, almost absent.] We beat them. Some of my sisters and I. But not before a lot of clones died.
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[ in thedas, so much about their realities seem fantastical. it's hard to explain the parts that mean more, when even the basics of their lives are far beyond the experiences of people here. ]
What the fuck is it, [ he asks, indignant on her behalf, clearly drawing on his own experience too, ] with the mad scientists and the wanting to shape evolution? Never mind who they kill along the way.
[ and, she's right, can't forget the money. but even as he shakes his head, he adds, ]
I'm glad you did. I know it doesn't make up for what you've lost, but at least you stopped them.
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Yeah. And the cure, you know so. That's what I was doing before I came back. Or, I guess, what Cosima prime is still doing, maybe, if we want to get into what are rifters, actually, but. I was traveling to get the cure to my sisters around the world. So they'd all have a chance at a long, normal life. Or whatever counts as normal, anyway, but a lot of them aren't even aware they're clones and I don't know if knowing would help them now that the danger's passed.
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They deserve the right to find out, [ he says after a moment, quieter after the outburst of a moment ago. ] What they do with the information is up to them. Besides, having a cure to offer them can't hurt.
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270 of them. and that's not counting the ones who died. that might not even be counting the ones she already knew about. cosima's mad scientists didn't do things by halves, did they. ]
It has to be fucking strange to be back here after all of that.
[ they've talked, some, about the way she missed time here. but he has context now for the life she'd had in the meantime, the meaningful work she'd been doing. to be drawn back here in the middle of that is no small thing. ]
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[A quick mental list: Beth, Alison, Sarah, Katja, Helena. Rachel? It's hard now to remember who exactly she'd met or heard of but it was a much smaller pool.]
I'm glad, though. That the cure carried over. I spent a lot of my first time in Thedas feeling like I was taking up resources, given how often I was in the infirmary. Scheduled and unscheduled.
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[ is the main reason he's glad her cure carried over. he'd feel the same way in her shoes, if he was reliant on local resources. at least aboard the roci, in his system, antioncocidals are part of any standard medbay inventory. he runs through them faster than most, but they aren't so difficult to get. here, he's barely even tried to find out if there's any kind of equivalent regimen. he doubts it, and he hasn't had to.
after a beat, he volunteers, ]
I was lethally irradiated a few years ago. [ so, you know. ] We dealt with the short-term damage then, but it turns out you can't walk that off without some help.
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[Of all the things he might need an implant for, that one hadn't crossed her mind.]
Radiation sickness is no joke. [He knows that, presumably.] Do you mind if I asked how it happened?
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[ dryly, but not acerbic. he does know that; but also, he can understand the concern. it's why he shrugs, keeps his tone light. also because this memory, in particular, has lurked so close to the surface since the attack of the undead. right beneath his skin, bruising. ]
Some sick fucks had rigged up hard shelters to cook people with radiation instead of protect them. They were infecting people with something that feeds on radiation. [ lowly, bitter. ] I walked into one of those shelters at the wrong time.
Thank you for your wild amounts of patience
[She takes that in, and finally says:]
So your implant. When it's not in Thedas, how does it work? I mean, I know you're not a doctor, broad strokes are fine.
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Honestly? [ there's a pull at one side of his mouth, makes the smile as rueful as it is lopsided. ] It's just an injection port. Dispenses the anticancers slowly so I don't have to be taking doses every day. Without medicine, it wouldn't normally be doing anything.
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OK. Huh. Well, I don't want to mess with it if it's working but ... best guess. Sometimes when rifters come through the Fade, they get -- oh, hey, wait.
[She gets up and retrieves her iPhone from one of the drawers in her dresser. She sets it on the table and taps the screen. It doesn't light up or appear to respond in any way, except that it starts playing "The Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor.]
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Huh.
[ he sits up so that he can lean closer to the table, eyebrows furrowed, as he looks at the device. the fact that it can still play pre-recorded music is much more than he would've expected. ]
That came with you from home?
[ a rhetorical question, really. of course it did. ]
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sticks a bow on this, y/n?