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I’m voting for Misty.

[there's a pause]

you are? why?

Because I’m not voting for you.

[ and a few other reasons, but it’s about that when it comes down to it. ]

Edited 2025-10-14 16:02 (UTC)

[another of those long, weighty pauses.]

why not?

Because I can't.

[ the ellipses appears and reappears several times as jackie types and deletes a few responses. eventually: ]

Look, if it were one of the others that were brought up, I'd wonder. I don't know if it would be enough to get me to vote for you but I know some of what you all had to do now, and I get it. I swear to God I do. But she brought up Nat. And you wouldn't, not to her.

[ there's a short pause before: ]

Did you know? About what Misty did to Ren?

[it stings, it stings and burns like eating too-hot meat, like swallowing it down still sizzling. shauna knows what she is, who she is, knows it deep in her bones, but to have jackie know too is -- awful. it's awful.

still. she chews. she swallows.]

no, i wouldn't. and neither would misty. she's us in a few more years, jackie. she's us when we get back and nobody understands. if it were me, older and with all of us to take care of, i'd probably do the same thing. no. but i understand why she did it.

[ her heart twists as she reads the words, because she knows misty gets it in ways that jackie can't. and part of her still remembers that younger girl, so eager to please and fit in and belong. as furious as she is at misty part of her still feels deep, aching sympathy for her.

but what she'd done had put a spotlight on them, literally. it had gotten natalie killed. it's gotten shauna implicated.

maybe misty protects them all in the future. but she doesn't have one. ]

Maybe you would. But it's not you. And she's not the one people are turning their votes on.

If it's you or her, I'm choosing you. I'm always choosing you.

[and that is the core of it: jackie has no future to return to, no potential to damn herself or protect herself or tell all, because her story ended a while ago. it's over.

and this, the core of shauna: she refuses to accept that. jackie is alive and bright and beautiful and in her arms every night. she doesn't want to give that up.]

okay. okay, then vote yelena with me. with us. if we all vote her, it's her and august. not august and me. i'd choose you too. i'm choosing you. i don't want to leave you and spend the rest of this month in a cage.

[or worse.]

[ she hates this. she remembers nat's anger, how she'd sworn she would rather die than help convict someone innocent. she doesn't know if yelena is, but as far as she can tell her only crime had been validating what wanda had had to say. she's still convinced it's why the name had been brought up, even if evidence does point to her as a possibility.

if it were anyone else asking, she would tell them what she'd told misty. but it's shauna. it's shauna. ]

Okay.

[there's a searing rush of relief, sharp enough it makes her knees weak. to shauna, the truth exists, of course, truth and justice and mercy and honor are all real. but she doesn't care, because there is no justice when you've knelt in the snow and buried your child.

so instead:]

i love you and i'm sorry. i don't know where you end and i begin. that's the last thing i ever said to you.

[ she doesn't know what else to say. aside from: ]

I wish I had heard it.

I love you, too.

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