semifreakingnormal | ( 029 ) Ω ( SPAM + VIDEO )

[The breach ends and Scott is exhausted, from the drifts and the new memories and the attacks. He doesn't want to think about how many people got hurt there, because it's impossible not to think of that place as real. There's another him somewhere, piloting a Jaeger with another Clementine, and they're both fighting for their lives.

He makes his way back to his bedroom and drops face first onto the bed, not realizing how long he's actually been asleep. That's where he'll be found, but the usual conga line of visitors. Except this time, he'll probably wake up when people start talking around him.]

[Public Video, later]

[Scott looks really weirded out. Like. Really. For a moment he just stares into the camera; it passes, and he shakes his head like he needs to physically clear it.]

Okay, so...I guess I was asleep for a while. Sorry, if that freaked anyone out. [A beat.] It's totally freaking me out.

Anyway, I'm back, so if anyone needs me, uh, I'm here? I guess I never actually left...[He mutters the last to himself, and decides to turn the feed off there before he starts babbling incoherently.]

[Private to Clementine]

How are you?

[It's not a lead in to something else. It's not just polite small talk. When he asks, he means it. He's worried about her, because in the unlikely chance she needed him, he wasn't awake to answer.]

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...Like, amnesia? Have you seen a doctor?

Sort of, I guess? [He pauses, looks at his hands for a minute and then shrugs a shoulder.] I underwent a procedure called the Swipe. It erased pretty much everything that didn't happen within the last...week and a half.

Why?

[He thinks about that for .5 seconds and then makes an oh, duh face.] Right, erased. That's....that's crazy, dude. But you still remember your name?

[Thomas almost smiles at Scott's realization. Almost.]

We all get that much back. Usually within a day or so.

[It's weird, seeing that face just....not smile at him. Scott tries to roll with it, but now he wants to make Thomas smile. It'd be more natural.]

So there are other people who had this thing done?

Yeah. Quite a few of us. Maybe -- 60 or so.

Dude. And there's no one to tell you what's going on, or why?

It was -- part of an experiment.

[An experiment he'd helped design. An experiment that a lot of people had died because of. Thomas drops his gaze.]

What kind of experiment? Like, with memories?

[He notices the dropped gaze too late, and adds:] If you don't wanna talk about it, it's cool.

It was -- there was a virus. It was some kind of experiment to figure out how to cure people from it. But...I don't really remember or understand how.

That's...[Crazy is probably an insensitive thing to say, so he just winds up shaking his head.]

Maybe you'll remember? I mean, your name came back, right?