SPAM FOR TOSHIKO! Engine Room.

[deusexmechanic]

[Fifty percent of Harper is sticking out of an open metal hatch in the engine room of the Barge. The other fifty percent, is within that hatch, and humming 'I'm walking on sunshine'.

A couple of minutes later there's a small shower of sparks, and then Harper emerges, rubbing his eyes.]

I meant to do that. I totally, completely meant to do that.

[Then he clears his throat.]

Third exterior in-shaft is cleared and functioning as normal, Boss.

[Yep, that 'Boss' is for you, Toshiko.]

Comments

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

Toshiko looked up from her laptop and blinked as if she'd forgotten he was there, then nodded without making eye contact. She glanced back down checked a box - a program she'd written to record maintenance of those parts of the engine they'd identified so far.

"Mm. Thank you."

She'd been roughly this monosyllabic since Harper had shown up; Toshiko herself had been all but camping in there since the Master had left.

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

Harper ran a hand up the back of his neck, rolling it a little to work out some of the tension he'd worked up while lying on his back in the belly of the barge. He eyed Toshiko for a couple of minutes. Harper had gotten accustomed to her moods fluctuating, but he still didn't like it when she gave off this particular vibe,

"Uh, Tosh? Did we like, accidentally bump junk or something while I wasn't paying attention?"

He shifted his legs around in front of him, perching on the edge of the open shaft, and shot her a playful smile.

"I mean, normally when you give me the near silent treatment that means that I just got some, and right now you're setting off a Pavlovian response in me that's getting me all post-coital but I don't feel like I've earned it."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

Toshiko glared very hard at the laptop screen, her whole body going rigid where she was sitting, because she still wasn't going to look him in the eye.

"That is - can't you seperate - we're working, Harper. That is completely inappropriate conversation."

Not that she wasn't ordinarily capable of sexual banter but right now, everything was rubbing her the wrong way.

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"How long have you been working, Boss?" Harper shot back, now frowning a little, "I mean, I know I work pretty sporadic hours, but you were in here when I got in today, and you were in here when I left yesterday, and the other night when I decided that Rex totally had to see how the secondary propulsion field worked, you were here to stop me from letting him take it for a spin - which, incidentally, I still think would have turned out fine - but..." He hesitated, sort of acutely aware that he was sorta babbling at this point.

"...Look, what I'm trying to ask is, are you okay?"

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine." She picked herself up and opened the next hatch, staring at a set of valves that she knew were in perfect working order. "I'm just learning how to deal with large-scale engineering, and -- would you believe I haven't had anything else to do lately?"

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"Large-scale engineering on a time traveling dimension crossing ship!" A little of Harper's excitement about this worms it's way through into his voice, because this is awesome, "What else would you want to be doing?" Then he stops himself, as he remembers what else he gets stuck doing here.

"Your inmate. Or... I don't know, ex-inmate, what was that, the fourth escape attempt he'd made here?" Harper shrugged a little, leaning back against the metal paneling keeping the engine in place, "And you were, what, number twelve, thirteen, when it came to wardens?" He shakes his head, "I'm sorry he got away, Tosh."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

She tightened a screw that really needed a little bit of give in it, then exhaled harshly and loosened it again.

"Yes, well, I'm sorry too," she snapped. "And it's slightly more fitting that I be sorry since it's actually my fault."

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

Harper snorted at that last comment, "That's a load of crap. Toshiko, you can't blame yourself for not seeing the invisible man. Four escape attempts, twelve other wardens, and the kind of technological knowledge that gave me the heebie-jeebies," Harper sighed, rolling his neck again, to work out the last few kinks, "The odds were stacked way against you, this place obviously wasn't working for him, and you still didn't give up on him. I'm pretty sure that means you get to walk away from this without feeling guilty."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"Look, I don't care if nobody else here has any bloody standards - "

She closed her mouth before letting escape a comment that was going to have gotten fairly personal.

" - I could have done more. And because I didn't, that lunatic is God knows where doing God knows what to God knows who. There are things that he's done to my friends here and at home that were just - they were - I am never going to be able to look them in the face again. They are never going to forgive me for letting him go. No matter what they say or how they claim to feel, I am always going to be the one who let this happen. So no, you're wrong, I do not get to walk away from this."

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"Toshiko, you had less than a month to fix someone who'd spent two years working this place out and plotting his escape. You don't get to hate yourself because of this just because it happened the moment he'd been dumped on you!" Harper leaned forward, shockingly, he was actually pretty much completely serious about this.

"Maybe you could have done more, maybe you could have knocked on his door every day, maybe you could have read him poetry, maybe if the cafeteria had served beans instead of potatoes that day, maybe whatever. More likely? You doing more would have made the same difference that going after a forrest fire with a hand held fan. It's already too late to put it out like that, and the only difference it makes in the end is that you get burned as well."

He sighs, and stands up, turning so he's facing her as he leans against the wall, "And I get that you're in a position where it's your right to blame yourself for doing this? But If I heard anyone else on this ship talking like you are about this? I'd have to throw them overboard, because we have enough idiots doing this job already, without a bunch of nobodies who need someone to blame when the tide comes in stickin' around here."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"That's - you are completely missing the point. I don't care that I hadn't helped him. When would I have had the opportunity to even start? We were paired up for barely two weeks and I spent half of that either dealing with the port or that ridiculous flood. But acting as a Warden is as much about keeping everyone else safe as it is about helping your Inmate, and on that point I have completely failed. All I had to do was make sure that the dimension jumper was out of his hands and I didn't, I just assumed that had been taken care of by - by his last Warden. I was presumptuous and stupid and I might as well have just shown him the door myself."

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"If he'd had some fancy toy for jumping outta here way back when in the days of his former warden, then why the hell wouldn't he have just used it back then? And, if he could get hold of one once? He could get hold of one again. This isn't on you, Toshiko."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"Then who is it on?" she said, dragging her hands through her hair. "Look, if nobody's going to take responsibility when things go wrong then they're just going to keep going wrong - if we're going to get to a point where it's okay to just throw up our hands and say 'oh, nothing could be done' then why bother doing this job at all?"

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"I don't know." Harper conceded, "I don't know who his other wardens were, I don't know how it got to the point where he was going through them fast enough to make his head spin, and I don't know when or where he started getting together this particular escape plan. And I'm not even saying that what happened with him, in terms of the bigger picture, wasn't anyone's fault." He holds up a hand, signaling that he's not concluding there, "However, unless you think that to be a good warden is to go into your inmates cabin and rip up the floorboards looking for where he'd stashed whatever gadget he was working on to escape, without him giving you any clue that it might even exist first? Then this isn't on you. Maybe, in the future, with other inmates and other mistakes, something will be your fault, and when it is, I promise not to lie to you about it to make you feel better, but this? Here? No."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"I didn't need him to give me a clue - we knew it existed!" Toshiko said. "How many times do I have to -- we knew it existed for months. He'd even managed to use it before, that's how we all ended up on that sodding planet he'd conquered. We just didn't - I didn't - "

She went back over to where she'd left her things, slamming her laptop shut with the precise amount of force to just avoid cracking the case, then started gathering her things into her bag. Her movements were shaky and imprecise, her limbs tense.

[deusexmechanic.livejournal.com]

"So if he got out of here riding on something that he'd had for months, then why would he wait? There is one really big plot hole here that you're completely ignoring so that you can keep beating yourself up over something that isn't your fault, Toshiko!" Harper follows her, careful not to get all up in her personal space, but also obviously not intending to leave her alone on this.

A couple of moments later, he tries again, speaking more softly now, "And what are you gonna do about it now anyway? You think working yourself to death is gonna bring him back here? You think it'll stop you from feeling guilty about it? Or that it'll make you do better with your next inmate? Jeeze, Tosh, if you've got to blame yourself then I can't stop you, but don't... don't punish yourself over it."

[hopeless-hacker.livejournal.com]

"I'm not - it isn't - I don't know," she said quietly, zipping her bag shut. "If I keep busy I keep from lingering on it, that's all."