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Thank you.

[He accepts the tea.]

I just want to see him treated fairly, that's all.

[Consequences when they're warranted, not passionate or disproportionate revenge. A chance, but nothing careless.]

And to make sure that you'll be all right. The double standard when it comes to inmates everyone knows are troublemakers and people who are supposed to know better can be....frustrating. And Barge public opinion never makes sense. I once saw someone admit to multiple counts of genocide and everyone basically said, "Well, try not to do it again!" You never know how this ship's going to take anything.

Well, speaking of that, maybe there's something you should see.

[He initiated contact with her, after all. On the off chance they run into each other again, Hange did the whole thing so people would know and could choose at their discretion whether they wanted to associate with her or not.

She reaches out a hand, wiggling her fingers.]

Pass your communicator over.

...

...

All right.

[He hands it to her.]

[Hange takes it and fiddles around til she finds her last post (cw for descriptions of torture and humans being devoured there I guess). Then she hands it back to Ford and sits back, expression inscrutable, waiting for him to look it over.]

[Ford watches the recording.

Eyebrows go up at the torture description. But he doesn't seem particularly shocked.]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. How many people actually decided they wanted to have nothing to do with you after they heard about that?

[He feels a little bit privately bitter, still, that other people's confessions of torture and murder get a chorus of "but I still like you!"s, while he, Ford, is a pariah for trying to hold the Admiral and Authority accountable for what the people on the Barge have been through. Yes, he knows the problem with it was that Ford didn't ask them if they wanted his help or were willing to take the risk, but still, it feels like...like there's some emotional note everyone else is hitting to get support for their mistakes that is out of Ford's range. Just another reason he's not normal.

But that isn't Hange's fault. And torturing someone and then realizing it was a bad idea is well within the realm of acceptable associating behavior. Ford's last boyfriend tortured him. On multiple occasions. Did Ford ever get a real apology for that? Did Bill ever feel true remorse for them, outside of a blood curse? Certainly not before they started dating. He's....Ford's standards are also a little fucked up.]

Mm-hm.

[The reaction didn't surprise her. She knew the barge populace had seen worse. Still, it's best that people know and have the chance to make their own decisions. Being forthright is its own kind of power.]

No one has. It's still better that people know. I shared this so nothing would come as a surprise to people. [She spreads her hands, shrugs.] Since we're speaking, I wanted you to know also.

[No one can use secrets against you if you don't have any.]

You made the right call. There are floods here that broadcast selected memories from your past onto the network. That might not have gone over as well, if someone who'd gotten to know you wasn't expecting it. Public confessions, on the other hand, tend to get you support.

[It was a shrewd move, and Ford respects it.]

[Ironic amusement touches her face.]

Actually, memories were getting splashed around at the time. Text excerpts... drawn sequences... video...

[She was very lucky friendlies found the bad bits. It became clear then that Hange needed to beat the barge to the punch.]

Ah. I missed that one -- I was off the Barge at the time. I decided when I came back that I wouldn't look. No one in those memories agreed to let them be shared, so what right did I have to go through them?

All the excerpts seem to have disappeared now. It's a hell of a way to get to know people.

Personally, I've given up on having secrets. All the worst parts of my past have already been put on display, and I'm convinced that if I tried to keep anything under wraps that could cause me trouble, it would just come out at the most dramatic possible moment.

So, I just try not to give the floods the opportunity!

Controlling your release of information rather than letting it come out on its own is generally good policy... I sort of got the idea that all things would be shaken loose here eventually. [Not that she hasn't kept some things private. It's less that they're such awful secrets, and more that she's not ready to start talking them yet - Hange has years of processing she's put off for simple lack of time.]

It's still an improvement on home for me. If I can pull this off it stands to protect a lot of people.

If the Admiral had brought me on as a warden by telling me this place was the only way to stop Weirdmageddon, destroy Bill, and save my niece and nephew, I'd probably have the same priorities.

[He gets it, he's not gonna "ok warden" Hange over a world-saving deal.]

It might have made this place easier to stand, if I was doing it for them. But I'd still have seen myself as the hero of the story then, and I'd be much more insufferable than I am now.

[He offers a weak smile. Ha ha, he's still difficult to be around, and he knows it. But past Ford was worse. Past him is an asshole.]

To succeed as a warden here, you probably have to invest in them. You probably have to love them. It's a job that predicated on caring about them and, probably, on being kind to them.

What if it were a job that called on you to torture them? What if to save my people I had to hurt and mutilate the inmates here?

[That's one philosophy, and one he's heard from Jon as well. It's a nice one, but Ford's not sold on that being part of the design of the system. If it were, there'd be safeguards against things like that one warden he's heard about using fear gas on inmates for kicks. Ford's real glad he missed that guy.]

I was hurt and mutilated plenty already without that warden requirement. What are you asking me? If I'd have stayed on as a warden if the job description involved torture, even if I thought it would save my world?

Well, because some wardens did it, should we all indulge in it? I realize that might not be a job standard around here, but I want to be good at this and I want to do the job well and treat these people as well as I reasonably can.

[It's very important that she impress this mission in herself. Hange knows she can be shady. She has to commit to doing her best to be the best or else she might be... the worst.]

I wasn't asking that, but now that you put the question that way, sure, I am.

No, I really couldn't tell what you wanted to know. I'm not the best at reading subtle social nuances, a fact that has gotten me punched and shouted at on more than one occasion.

I'll be blunt then. [In general, she means. Hange stares at him with her single dark eye and then waves a hand, dismissing the debate.]

There's no point in arguing it, really. You're still here, which means that you have your reasons in spite of how much you might dislike it, right?

I'd appreciate that.

And, yes -- aside from feeling like I should do something to help out around here, I have a much more compelling reason to stay. I can't go home.

Why not?

Because time stops shortly after I died.

... Why... is that?

[Is he some kind of nutty time person?]

Because my world turned out to be a pocket dimension, of sorts. I met the man who created it when Bill and I tried to reach the Authority. It doesn't go on past that summer. There's...no more.

[Turns out, this just massively confuses her. The barge has thrown in some serious outside context problems so far.]

What...? How can that be true?

....do you come from a world with computer simulations?

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