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‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ // SRC 1b

for @synth-recharge-challenge... it starts off angsty but obviously devolves into fluff, you know me :P

disclaimer - I know nothing about prison visiting in THIS universe but Humans is set in a parallel one so we’ll pretend this is realism!

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Before the trial, visits had been more frequent. Three a week, usually - one always claimed by Mattie, and the second usually Joe with Sophie or Toby. The third slot had been something of a wild card: Stanley had come a few times, as had Max. Representatives of the Mia Foundation occasionally dropped by, apparently viewing Laura as some kind of pilgrimage destination.

It was nice to see that people were still willing to fight, but sometimes those hours could drag. These were strangers, people who’d seen Laura’s arrest in the media and wanted to meet the woman who’d given up her liberty for the cause - they had no strategy to consult her on, nor would they be allowed to if they did. All visits were overseen by guards and recorded. Laura was forbidden to discuss Basswood and its impact with anyone other than her legal team. On visiting days, conversation was little more than small talk.

That was before. Since being charged with treason, Laura’s visiting privileges had dropped down to once a month, and now she clung to those precious moments with all her might. She had already missed the birth of her granddaughter, and although Mattie had brought the baby to see her as soon as she could and every month since then, it broke Laura’s heart a little more each time she was presented with evidence of how much she was still missing with each passing day.

Even worse were the feelings of guilt and grief that found her every night as she lay awake, treading at the corners of her mind throughout the day as well. Mia’s death was as raw now as it had been on the day of her arrest, a gaping wound that didn’t seem likely to close. It had been almost eighteen months. Laura still longed to hold Mia in her arms again, as she had that day by the bridge. In unguarded moments she found herself wishing she’d never warned Mia what the government was planning, that she’d just taken her somewhere safe and to hell with the rest of them.

She didn’t mean it.

But since it could never be anything but hypothetical, she was willing to admit, at least to herself, that she’d have traded almost anything for Mia’s life. That Mia left a hole in her own existence, so deep and hollow that she was almost glad she was stuck in this place: to live out there, in a world without Mia, would be too much to bear.

It was all the more painful because she’d never fully been aware of this while Mia lived; she’d never had the chance to say it. Perhaps one day, a life sentence later, with greying hair and fading eyesight, Laura would be able to stand at the memorial site and whisper such words to the commemorative plaque that bore Mia’s name. Perhaps she’d be able to run a wizened finger over the engraving, and pretend that it was closure.

But she’d never get to tell Mia to her face. It was all too late.

Laura watched the clock on the wall, waiting idly for the last thirty minutes to pass before her scheduled visit could begin. She couldn’t wait to see Mattie and the baby. As much as it hurt to see how much her granddaughter had grown in the interval between visits, it was balm to Laura’s soul every time she had the chance to see that rosy-cheeked little face.

When the door opened, though, neither Mattie nor the baby was behind it. Instead a prison orderly entered and planted a pale green slip of paper on the table in front of Laura: an outside correspondence form, which someone must have filled in earlier.

Sorry Mum, it read. Everyone’s fine, but something came up and we had to sacrifice visiting day. It’ll be worth it. Love you lots.

Mattie and Toby had signed their names amid a sea of Sophie’s trademark heart shapes. Laura read the note over again, trying not to feel hurt. Of course, they had other things going on, of course she couldn’t expect the world to stand still just because she had an hour free to see them, of course sometimes more important things would come up in one of their lives, but all three of them? And Joe, too? Couldn’t he at least have brought the baby if Mattie was busy?

Stop that, Laura told herself, stop being bitter about this. She couldn’t allow herself to feel like that: bitterness would only fester in a place like this one, and then it would take root and be all the harder to get rid of.

It’ll be worth it, she read again. Well, she hoped they were having a wonderful time.

She folded the note along a neat, crisp line so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. They allowed her to keep paper correspondence, when it was just little, non-incendiary notes like this, but she wasn’t sure she wanted this one. Proof that they had all forgotten about her on what was supposed to be her one day of consolation.

The door opened again, and at first Laura did not even look up, her eyes glazed over in thought.

When she finally did lift her head, she blinked several times: clearly, there was something still wrong with her eyes. Clearly, they were not telling her the truth. But nevertheless they were sending a pretty definite message to her brain that lead to her throat closing up and her lungs gasping for air. Her eyes, traitors that they were, were still feeding her the obvious lie until they had filled so much with tears that she couldn’t even say for sure if the mirage was still before her.

“Hello, Laura,” said Mia.

Laura sobbed in utter disbelief, and practically flung her chair across the room by standing so abruptly. She wiped desperately at her eyes, willing them to end this hallucination, for surely that must be what it was.

“You…” Laura began, the noise only barely choked out through her hands, which had moved to cover her mouth instead. “It can’t be you.”

The person that couldn’t possibly be Mia smiled. “It can,” she said.

Laura’s heartbeat was throbbing in her head, and every time she blinked she expected Mia to disappear into thin air, but it wasn’t happening. She was still there. She was actually in the room. It was impossible.

“But you died,” she whispered, feeling the wrench of it all over again.

“Yes,” Mia admits. “But they brought me back. It took a long time, but they rebuilt me from an old copy of my root code. I have… most of my memories. Some of the more recent files were corrupted, but I know the facts of what happened. And I’m alive.”

Well, this is it, thought Laura, I’ve really gone mad. Faintly, she noticed that she was sobbing properly now, but she couldn’t stop or control it in any way: this was so obviously, undeniably far too good to be true.

When she felt Mia’s arms around her, her breathing suddenly hitched and paused. It felt so real. In eighteen months of lonely confinement, she had never been able to recreate this feeling in her mind, no matter how vividly she remembered feeling it before. She was… safe.

“You’re really here?” she said, when words returned to her.

“I promise, I’m really here,” said Mia. After a pause, she added, “I’m sorry I stole the visiting slot. I tried to tell Mattie to come as well, but she said something about not wanting to upstage me. I think she was joking.”

A laugh burst out of Laura from some high place in her throat that she had forgotten existed.

She drew back from Mia’s embrace, slowly and reverently. “Let me look at you,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it. I… can’t believe it. I’ve missed you so much.”

Mia smiled. “For me, it only feels like a couple of weeks. But I’ve missed you too.”

“Your family…?”

“This is mostly Niska’s doing. Max and Leo helped rebuild my consciousness. Mattie, too.”

“She never said a word.”

“They didn’t want to give you false hope. Apparently, up ’til a fortnight ago, they were ready to give up.”

“What made them keep going?”

“Hope,” Mia said.

“Oh, don’t,” said Laura with a grimace, “I can hardly stand that word. For while back there, Mattie was going to…”

“I know,” said Mia, “I’m so glad they didn’t. I think they made a much better choice.”

Laura thought back to the day Mattie and Leo had visited together and told her the name they’d chosen, and how she’d almost laughed in relief. Anything but Hope.

She felt a similar rush of relief now, only tens of thousands of times stronger. All the tensions and misery and darkness were melting away, the longer she looked into Mia’s eyes. Every moment of the last year and a half, every torturous second, was transformed now: it had all been building towards this, and it had all been worth the wait.

“I still feel like I’m dreaming,” Laura said after a silence. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Mia leaned forwards, until their foreheads were touching the way Laura had so often seen the Elsters do. She had never dared imagine that she same show of affection might be offered to her. It was an unfamiliar sensation in the physical sense, but somewhere deeper she felt her heart coming home, after many months at sea.

When she tilted her head just slightly, she found Mia’s lips waiting for her.

The words Laura wanted to say would have to wait.

#c4 humans #synth recharge challenge #hello i tried #miaura #angst with a happy ending :p #humans finale