Fifth Transmission

[allfunandgamesuntil]

[York's image comes up on the communicator, and even with armor on he looks fairly confused. He's sitting in the hotel, and Sparky's in his usual position on top of York's head.]

Okay, so I know I've been kind of distracted most of this week, but what the heck happened on the Mother of Invention? Is everyone okay?

Comments

[allfunandgamesuntil]

Yeah, there should be more there too. Truth be told I'm getting used to punching things to death these days.

[Maybe he should get more dream eaters. That would probably help the punching idea.]

[unrecovered]

You- what? Really? You don't even have a knife or anything?

[allfunandgamesuntil]

Of course I have a knife too.

[It's not like he's going into battle unprepared.]

[unrecovered]

Then why are you punching them?

[Something here does not quite compute.]

[allfunandgamesuntil]

Carolina was punching them. Using a knife would have been cheating.

[unrecovered]

Oh.

[And suddenly that makes a lot more sense. Carolina showing up has definitely shaken things up, especially with York, and Wash needs to remember that.]

Good luck with that.

[allfunandgamesuntil]

Thanks.

[And York has to ask, because he's not sure about bringing it up with Ziva herself.]

How's Ziva?

[unrecovered]

She's okay.

[Private channel now? Private channel now.]

She's...been better. She told me she was gone for a year, not just four days.

[Private]

[allfunandgamesuntil]

I'm guessing it wasn't a good year.

Permafilter

[unrecovered]

She won't tell me, and I'm not going to push it.

...but I don't think it was.

[allfunandgamesuntil]

Anything I can do, just tell me and I'll be there. I'll tell her that, too.

[unrecovered]

Thanks.

[There's a few moments of silence, then:] How do you...handle it? I mean, what do you do?

[Usually he's the one refusing to tell other people his problems. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, he's not 100% sure what to do. The last time he dated a girl who wouldn't share her problems with him...well, neither of them handled it well and the whole thing ended very badly. As unlikely as it is to actually happen, Wash doesn't want a repeat.]

[allfunandgamesuntil]

[York's silent for a moment. It's hard to know; even though he's friends with Wash and Ziva, it's still hard to know how to deal with that and he's not sure he can give the best advice.]

You tell her that you're there for her no matter what and mean it. And make sure she knows that you're always there to listen. And then you give her space. Sometimes...even if you care about someone and want them to let you help them, they feel like they can't, either because they feel like you can't understand, or because it was so bad that they can't talk about it, or because they're afraid you'd turn away if you knew. So if she talks to someone else, know that that's okay too, because she's talking to someone. It'll hurt, if that happens, but you have to put her mental health first.

[unrecovered]

[Wash is silent for even longer. It all sounds familiar, because it's everything he's been doing - avoiding bringing up his trauma to his friends; talking to Luna instead of them; keeping it quiet for fear that they'll disown him if they know the extent of what he's done. Karma, as it turns out, is a bitch.]

Okay. I think I can do that.

[allfunandgamesuntil]

[York doesn't want to be hard on Wash, but it really is the best advice he can give. He doesn't know if it is the right thing to do for Wash either, but it seems to be keeping things stable.]

I'm sure you can. And I hope it helps.

[unrecovered]

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

[The sentiment is, for him, oddly sincere. A vote of confidence is what he needs in this situation.]

Me too.