chosehumanity | Near a Hospital, Bristol, Saturday Evening (Reply)

"It's a lot to take in, I know. But it's about being another option."

Mitchell smiled at Josie as he settled in to feel the wind in his hair. She was looking thoughtful - had been, since she'd spoken to Herrick about fifteen minutes ago. He could understand that: it really was a lot. Eternity, over mortality...

"If I agreed..." she said, tentatively, "What would happen? Would I get better?"

He smiled, because that one was easy. "Instantly," he promised. "And not just you, everyone!" The old hospital behind them stood imposing still, and Mitchell gestured at it. "Places like this would be museums. It'll end all famine, all war--"

"Oh, please, please, stop the spin."

Thrown out of his utopian ideal, Mitchell blinked a few times to get his bearings. Josie wasn't looking tentative now, just sad, and he didn't quite understand why.

"I don't know who you are when you talk like this," Josie said, shaking her head. "Even if... if I did it, I wouldn't-- I'd be like this. I wouldn't be young."

Mitchell swallowed. "No," he said. "You'd be--" In her sixties, forever. But still--

"Frozen, like a photograph?" she asked, but now he could practically hear mockery in it, somehow. "With you? Forever." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, but--"

He had to salvage this, somehow. "No, it's okay, it's okay, it was the same for me at the start--"

"No," she said, catching his eye. "No, that was different. Mitchell... Being human means being mortal. It means dying. You can't rob people of that."

She clearly hadn't understood this right, he clearly hadn't been specific enough. "No-one's being robbed, don't you see?" he said. "It's a choice--"

"It's a trick!" Josie snapped, firey. "Christ! Mitchell, just because they're handing themselves over voluntarily, doesn't mean it's not a con! You're offering something you have no right to! Of course people want eternal life, people want capital punishment, that doesn't make it right!"

Taken aback for certain. How-- why? Mitchell frowned, grasping back to some of the things Herrick had said, some of the reasons why this was better, better than what humanity had made of itself-- "It's evolution," he said.

She stared at him. "Never a birth, never a death?" she asked. "That's not evolution, that's a full stop!" She tilted her head, as if examining him, trying to get in his head. He flinched a little. "Getting him to approach me, was that really your idea?" she asked. "The Mitchell I knew would never have dreamed..."

He swallowed.

"I wanted to save you," he said.

"No, I don't think it was that," she said, pulling away from the railing. "These people you live with, your friends... Do they know about this?"

No. They didn't. Nobody knew, Mitchell had made sure of that. They wouldn't understand, they wouldn't--

"I think that's why you asked him to talk to me," she said. "Because you knew I'd tell you this."

...

Maybe.

---

An hour or two later, George found himself interrupted mid-flirt with his girlfriend; pulling on his scrubs, Josie hissed a, "I need to talk to you," and no amount of spluttering on his part got her to lay off.

Another hour later, and George leaves Jack Priest a voicemail.

"Er-- hi. This is George, you might... remember me and OKAY LOOK, there's this thing and it's... it's bad, with Mitchell, and his ex is here, and apparently there's evil vampires trying to take over the world! How bloody cliche is that! ... What do I bring? Crossbows? Garlic? I don't know how to fight vampires! I should have watched more films!"

A beat.

"Oh, and, er. Help?"

Click

[[ tbc, nfb, nfi, ooc-okay, taken from Being Human episode 1x05! ]]