Like Clockwork (Part One)

My first real road trip wasn't to see some concert hundreds of miles away. It wasn't to go hang out at some distant beach. No, my first real road trip was done for the express purpose of not dying. Granted, that was a better reason for traveling hundreds of miles than any of the other ones I listed, but still, wasn't being a teenager supposed to be more fun?

Yet, there I stood, three o'clock in the morning at a Sheetz somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles, pumping gas into a stolen van. How could I have gotten away with this?

Somehow, I bullshitted my way into getting the all clear from my parents. I convinced them that I had planned to take Laura and Saberwolf to L.A., and that I had told them about this, but they'd just forgotten. They were busy enough that they believed me.

Not a lie, just altering the truth a bit. I did have aims to take my friends to L.A. at some point. I had a list of thing to do during our vacation that proved it. It just wasn't supposed to happen a week into our stay.

Laura walked out of the store with a bag full of foods that were mostly horrible for us, "I thought you did not need to eat," She said as she approached our ride.

"I don't, but I do," I explained, reaching into one of the bags to grab some fries, "I don't need to eat to live, but if I want to build any decent kind of muscle, I should. And when I don't eat, I am weaker than normal."

At least, these were the things that Dr. McCoy told me. We'd had a few sessions where he went over how my body changed after my powers manifested, trying to make sense of how I worked now. These were some of the conclusions he had come to after taking some time to study me, so I was taking it as fact. It was information coming from a person way smarter than me.

She nodded in understanding, before looking at the van, "Does Saberwolf require food for when he wakes up?" She asked, referring to the third member of our merry band.

I spared half a glance at our ride and scoffed, "He's a robot, Laura."

At that point, Wolf roused to life and stood, peering out of the open window at me, "I am an A.I." he responded automatically in offense to what I had said.

Duh. He only said it every time I made that mistake until I remembered. I only did it to prove a point, "I knew you were awake, faker," I said, pointing at him through the window, "I had to drive the last two hours all by myself."

"You did not need me to drive. Operating a motor vehicle is a one-man job," Wolf defended.

I felt like pulling a Zoolander and throwing gas at him, but then I'd have to ride with a gas-smelling Saberwolf for a few hours. It would have been even worse on Laura. In the end, I just continued to give out, "I could have used the company. Driving is boring and I've been looking over my shoulder since we left San Diego."

Wolf stuck his head out of the window and I shoved it back in, lest he scare someone who saw him. It was three o'clock in the morning, yes, but still, "You did not ask Laura to stay awake with you," He said, "She was in the front seat, and she is a superior conversationalist to myself."

That wasn't a high bar to set. They both sucked at small talk as far as I was concerned, "So what? She drove us down here in the first place. She was probably exhausted."

Laura walked around to the passenger's side to put our stuff in the van while I kept pumping gas, "I told you, I do not easily tire."

"And yet you were knocked out for the last hour," I offered as a counterpoint, "Just because you can go a long time without sleep doesn't mean you should. And before you say anything, I don't count, because I can't."

Filling up didn't take too much longer, and before any of us knew it, we were back on the road headed for Los Angeles once more. There hadn't been any trouble since we left Kimura to burn back at the border with Mexico, but one never could be too careful, so I took to liberal use of speeding to get us there faster. I hadn't attracted any attention from California Highway Patrol yet, which would have gotten us all arrested for the stolen van, so small miracles.

"How are you doing all of this?" Laura asked me out of the blue, just as I was becoming too bored to pay attention to the lines on the road, "I do not understand."

I looked over at her for a moment to find her studying me with a curious expression, "What do you mean?"

"This entire predicament," Laura continued to explain, "You are afraid. I can hear your heart. I can smell your fear. But if those methods were not available to me, I would not be able to tell."

First, Megan asked me why I was never afraid. Now, Laura asked me why I never showed that I was afraid. Two different questions, but in essence, they weren't that far apart, "Do you want me to freak out? To let you know I'm scared?"

Laura busied herself with looking out the window at the highway, arms crossed as she relaxed back in her seat, "Most people would. It is... normal."

I almost flicked her in the head, until she noticed my hand move and stared at it, "That wasn't what I asked you. Stop deflecting," I noticed Laura did that a lot. Instead of answering the question you asked, she would try to shift the topic just enough to move you away from what she didn't want to talk about, "I asked you, do you want me to make it obvious I'm scared?"

"No," She answered, "But I have never seen you show fear. I do not believe anyone on the Paladins have either."

Bravado was preferable to obvious terror. The latter did nothing for anyone, "Laura, I haven't had the luxury to show people I'm scared. Every time something's happened that scared me to death, there was someone else there who was scared too."

When the Reavers kidnapped me and I had to escape, Ruth was with me, and she was terrified. Crying, alone, unable to see anything in any way due to how they had blocked off her powers. She had been helpless for the longest time before I got to her. I had to step up by default.

When the Danger Room tried to kill us all, there was a room full of scared teenagers who didn't know what was going on. I'd already had my big freakout about it, and I was the only one who'd knew enough to get everyone as organized as possible. Again, I had to step up by default.

Granted, that still left the Ord and Breakworld situations. But I guessed all of that stuff had happened so fast, there wasn't time to be afraid of how big the situations were.

But then there was this brush with the Facility. None of those things applied here. These were well-armed, organized people. Laura had her wits about her, at least enough to make plans and react, so I didn't have to bear the full burden of keeping things on-track. There were plenty of lulls to think about what was happening, what had happened, and how much danger we were in, so the gravity of the situation had long since sunken in for me.

Maybe I was used to it at this point? Maybe I felt confident enough in who I had with me that together we would all be fine? Maybe I had snapped some time ago and just didn't care anymore?

"I will say though," I told Laura, "As much as it sucks for you, it's actually nice to know you get scared too."

Laura seemed a bit irked at the fact I took some solace in her feeling fear, "It is not myself that I am afraid for."

I spared a look her way before continuing to focus on the road. After all I'd actually survived, I didn't feel like dying in something mundane like a highway accident,"Sometimes I think you feel like you don't deserve to live," I said offhandedly, only to get a small growl in return.

Clearly, I had hit a nerve, because she was angry enough that I could actually see it in her, "I am not suicidal."

It had been a long day. If Laura was upset, I was cranky enough to not back down because of it, "Stop putting words in my mouth. That's not what I said," Like I told her, that deflecting shit wasn't going to fly anymore, "…Do you actually feel like you don't deserve to live?"

People liked to use the clone thing to compare Laura and Mister Logan. That wasn't fair. While yes, there were some similarities, there were a lot of other differences. For instance, when there was something Mister Logan didn't want to talk about, he tried to scare you off. Laura preferred to just clam up and refuse to say anything.

There was a reason for that. Whenever she talked about herself, specifically, anything that had happened in the past, there was a lot of pain there. Pain she couldn't hide.

Laura kept her eyes down as she spoke, "I have done terrible things. Killed so many people," A shuddering breath passed through her as she went into more detail, "I killed my first teacher, Bellamy. I killed my own mother."

I had no place to relate. I couldn't even try. Even now, I was just some stupid kid from the bay. I hadn't even seen a hint of this kind of world until a little while ago, "Not by choice, I'm sure. From the remorse, I'd say not by order either."

There was a bit of silence between us all as the only sound for a while was the radio playing. Eventually, Laura let me in on a little more, "Do you remember the vial you destroyed when you found me?" She asked, "Kimura threatened me with it. She told me she would find where I had been staying and make me kill the people I stayed with. The same for everyone at school."

I did remember. It didn't look like much, but hell, for all I knew, destroying it could have been dumb, "What's in it? Some mind control chemical? That's creepy."

"It is a chemical with a very specific scent. Unmistakable," Laura said, "I am conditioned to go into a berserk rage when I smell it. I will not stop until I kill whatever has the scent on it, no matter who it is."

A method of control more forced than the version she had already been subjected to?

"They MK Ultra'ed you?" Why? Wasn't she already conditioned to follow all orders and kill to begin with? These were some seriously amoral fucks, "Your background is more fucked up than I thought. And I never thought it was good to begin with."

Laura didn't disagree. How could she have? She had seen how normal people were raised, how they lived, "I am not a person to them. I am a weapon. At best, I am considered the same as a new species of animal bred in a laboratory," She said, "And I have not acted much like a person until recent years."

The more I heard, the worse I felt for speaking to her when we first became a team. I tried to make her believe everything would be okay eventually. I tried to show her that I was equipped to help her get past it. I was not. Not in any way. What was I supposed to do?

Listen. That was what. Listen to what she had to say.

Who else did she ever talk to about any of this? Logan, maybe? And how much even then? Because he didn't need to be told most of it. He was privy to the gist of it. He understood how Laura was treated, and could relate without getting the dirty details because of his own experiences. So the things she said to me went unsaid to him. They didn't need to talk about it.

I couldn't picture most of it. In my mind's eye, I had a very limited view of what she was telling me. So she had to explain, had to go into detail, had to delve deeper than she did with Logan. She had to actually talk about it to try and make me see, when she never had to before.

So I listened. Took things in from her perspective. I couldn't judge her the way other people probably felt they could have. This part of my being an asshole helped. Because I had no connection to anything she had ever done, I didn't really care that she'd killed. I never watched her do it. She hadn't hurt me. She hadn't hurt anyone I knew. She was my only connection to everything in her own life, and she was largely a positive one, so I would take her side.

Maybe that made me a fool? Maybe if someone knew this, they would see me as self-centered? Maybe they would hear this and wonder how I could be so callous in regards to the world around me? Was I heartless?

I don't know. I'm self-aware, but that doesn't mean I can justify myself to anyone else. We've all got our issues. Sometimes they leave scars. Ones you can't see unless you pay close enough attention.

So I listened. All the way into Los Angeles County proper. There was a lot to tell. And even though Laura hadn't wanted to talk about it, I'd never heard her speak more.