003 - [Video] Happy Birthday, Chloe Price.

[helladoomed]

[It's a little after noon when Chloe turns her communicator on. She's sitting on an old white plastic deck chair, and from the look of the buildings behind her, probably on a roof somewhere in Nonah. She's in a worn old white tanktop with a skull on the front, her jeans-covered legs propped up on something, her coat hanging off the back of her chair. She's spent the morning avoiding people, not answering her texts, just...brooding. There's a cigarette between her lips, and she takes a drag off it before she catches it with her other hand, her attention mostly on the phone.]

You ever think about time 'n shit? Like, how it hella doesn't make any sense here? Like, okay, back home, before I wound up here, it was 2013 right? In October.

[She leans back in her chair, resting the phone on her leg, tilted up so all the screen really catches is her face and neck and the clouds.]

Suddenly I'm here, it's three years and a couple months later. Just, wham, welcome to the future except it's a weird fucked up cold war version of the future. And I get like, it's way worse for other people, right? Pulled from other centuries or other fuckin' planets with their own weird-ass calendars but.

Three years.

[She's not even really sure what she's going on about, honestly. She'd been puzzling this over in her head all morning and hadn't gotten anywhere, so maybe she thought rambling out loud would help. It wasn't really working.]

So here we are, right? March 11th, 2016. Shit had gone different, I'd be twenty-two today.

[She hesitates, her gaze distant, up on the clouds as she took another puff off her cigarette.]

Instead, I guess I'm twenty. Sort of. Minus a couple months. Still my birthday though. [And then she smirks, pointing the two fingers holding her cigarette at the sky.] Fuck you, universe. Chloe Price made it to twenty after all.

[She scooped up the phone again, and for a second is framed in the picture again, the camera half-covered by her thumb as she reaches for the disconnect. Her voice is quieter again.]

Didn't see that comin'.

[Click.]

Comments

[timecapture]

[A giggle.]

Good. I've missed you. Sorry I've been... well, keeping to myself.

[She'd just been trying (and failing) to process the events that occurred, up to and including the bombing.]

I'm in! I'll bring some movies over, and you can take your pick.

[Poor, naive Max, indeed.]

[helladoomed]

Hey, I get it. No pressure, we all went through...all that.

[Chloe isn't entirely honest as she says that, which Max can probably pick up on, but she's trying. She does tend to run a bit on the 'needy' side of the scale.]

Cool. Okay. I'll meet you and we'll figure stuff out.

[They aren't going to see much of whatever movie Max puts on. Sorry Max.]

[timecapture]

[She knows that tone.]'

I'm sorry, Chloe. I was... freaking out.

[To put it mildly.]

I'd like that! When do you want me to come over? I can bring your present.

[helladoomed]

[Chloe doesn't know what to say to that, so she just shrugs and smiles a bit.]

Hey, it's cool. Whatever.

I will...come by at [non-specific evening time] after work?

[And then a grin. Focus on the good things...]

So...a present, huh?

[timecapture]

Yeah! I'd like that.

Yep. I hope you like it.

[It's a mix of some punk rock from this version of Earth. Max hopes Chloe likes it - especially considering how Max really doesn't know punk rock.

She had to get help from the internet. It took forever.]

[helladoomed]

Perfect. I'll see you then, Supermax.

[Chloe will like it just for Max trying, even if she doesn't actually like it.]

[ooc: Do you want to switch to action/handwave?]

[timecapture]

I'll be there.

[ooc: Unfortunately, my life is still crazy busy right now. Sorry!]

[helladoomed]

[ooc: No worries! Someday life will stop being cruel. Just assume chloe instigated something not for all audiences.]