Rory flushed when she realized he'd noticed her second mistake. It was like they couldn't talk about anything from their past anymore. Was it healing?
"Uh. Yeah. Okay. D-Did I ever thank you for the... for the presents? I can't remember. The Breakneck one... that was really sweet of you." She rubbed her arm, then picked at her nails.
"I just didn't — I'm sorry I keep forgetting. I just don't know if everything is healed enough for the good memories... the neutral memories."
"You don't have to worry about forgetting," Jude said, more quiet than usual. "I don't want to forget. I don't know if we're ever going to find out what happened back there, but... I don't want to forget. I want to remember them, and everything about them."
Even if it hurt. He wanted to keep thinking about them, no matter what.
"So you don't have to worry about... about not mentioning things around me. But if you want, I won't mention things around you."
"Nah, I don't want to forget. I mean, it hurts pretty bad, yeah, but I like remembering them and what they did for us. I didn't always appreciate it back then, was always too scared of letting anyone fuck us over, but I really did respect what We The People did for us. Taking us in after we screwed up so bad."
Then Rory laughed. "And how DeadManSwitch would come down to our base to play games, or just watch TV. Or how Chameleon did the same thing. God, he was so good at messing with us!"
She breathed out in a short burst. "They were all great."
Jude grinned at that. Good memories. Things that would never happen again, but still good memories. He tried to keep it up, tried to maintain the smile, but it faded away anyway.
It still hurt.
"Maybe I'll get Erione to do more busts. I have... hold on."
Jude scooted out from under Rory, and then reached up to the top of his bookshelf, pulling out three small figures.
"Finch, Armorer, and Teegan. I got them for Blade, since, uh, family isn't exactly a thing for her."
Rory watched as Jude went off to grab even more of those little glass figures. She quirked a brow, before hearing the end of his sentence. She frowned.
"I hope she comes around. I mean, we never got along well, but you were close to her."
Rory knew it was more than likely that they would never find Blade, assuming she'd even went through the portal.
Jude was pretty confident she'd gone through--if only because We The People wouldn't have allowed her to stay--but he considered the odds of finding her pretty low.
"It's not fast," Jude said, setting the little figures down on the table, "but when I have the money, I think I could put out... I don't know. Billboards. Most likely she's either in America or Japan. Online advertisements seeking her? Something like that. Maybe she'll see them and then we can finally meet up."
Only Blade wasn't a supernatural. Would they even allow her on the island? No, that was a stupid line of reasoning--she was from another world, so she definitely qualified.
"Billboards?" Rory asked with no small amount of disbelief. "I guess maybe it could work. I don't know, if we find her that'd be great, but it's a low chance. She'd blend in too well."
Which of course Jude knew. "And I'll be honest, everyone is so fighty here that I'd be worried about her being here. She's too prone to fighting back and without any powers..."
"Well, digital billboards," Jude said. "Online ads or whatever. I assume the underworld here works a lot like the underworld back home. There's got to be some kind of underground for people like her to take jobs, and..."
Jude grimaced at that, sitting himself back down on the bed as he did.
"Honestly, I can't imagine she didn't go back to doing what she was raised to."
He wasn't going to touch the point about her fighting everyone on the island with a 20 foot pole.
Rory flushed when she realized he'd noticed her second mistake. It was like they couldn't talk about anything from their past anymore. Was it healing?