More Tarrick headcanons please! You see my “he’s a pathetic wet cat” vision
So like. I just wrote an entire basically fic about the Tragedy. Because he is Tragic.
But 90% of my thoughts are like this:
He built his wife a healing tank. He achieved more with less than anyone could be expected to. He survived being kidnapped and he was alone...
Except he went into town. And he hung out with a group of day laborers, because he had to make money for food.
They taught him Spanish. They taught him that you don't cry for the dead--your tears weigh them down while they walk to the gates of Heaven. They taught him a thousand random jobs, and it's a great change from medicine, he's a medic but burying the bodies of aliens and humans alike when Area 62 fell, the desperate attempt to put Santura in cryostasis before brain damage set in...
Medicine seems second best to just working with your hands now.
And then he discovered the Sporags.
Tarrick couldn't go back at that point. Miguel and the others, they'd know. So he abandoned them. He abandoned everyone.
Mucus and Slyther didn't count. Mucus was a failed Sporag--she had no aggression, just annoying stupidity. Slyther was just a warrior, anyway.
And then Santura woke, and everything went wrong. And then he discovered that the death and horror that changed everything--
It wasn't complete. Amelia lived. The janitor lived.
Tarrick showed up at Amelia's workplace, the day after the dust settled. Santura got shanghaid by the medic about ten minutes after the Rafkonians found them, and she was still being healed (the machine Tarrick built didn't heal enough of the brain damage; Santura was still severely impaired, it was why she was aggressive and had mood swings).
And then suddenly there's Miguel, and the day laborers, helping Pop-Pop with the landscaping, and Miguel looks up and sees Tarrick.
And Tarrick suddenly realizes exactly how screwed he is--
Miguel grabs him in a hug. And he tells him, Gracias, Dios, you didn't get killed!
Tarrick realizes someone is laughing at him at this point.
Gringo, didn't we tell you not to do stupid shit? One of the others demands. And what do you do but go play with alien weapons--
Tarrick's not totally sure how he gets through that conversation. He's fully prepared for Earth to hate him. But he's kind of getting the feeling they aren't?
This is your daughter? Miguel asks, gesturing at Amelia. Good! You've got a good girl here! She takes care of her abuelo, she always says nice things to us, she's a good kid.
She saved my life, Tarrick says honestly.
Tarrick could have passed for human before. When Rafkonians go public, though, he ends up one of the faces of it.
Sometimes. Other times he ignores it and goes to work with Miguel again. Because he needs to work with his hands.
He and Santura aren't fighting. They're staying with Pop-Pop and Amelia. And they're doing okay.
Just, you know, not talking much.
Finally Pop-Pop tells Tarrick, you know, you should just go make love to your wife. It's a good deed, you need to try and reconnect.
And then Tarrick learns a week later that Santura is pregnant.
He kind of figures out that SOMEONE has it out for him at this point.
It turns out that healing is a lot like this. People aren't always happy about him, but sometimes they forgive. And sometimes it doesn't seem to matter, all the knots he tied himself into to become Void Knight. And honestly, half the time he suspects someone is laughing.
By the time Mucus and Slyther come back, he's not even surprised. And by the time they defeat Zedd, he doesn't even protest when Santura remarks that hey, Tarrick never introduced Amelia to her younger sister...
Poppy is a blessing. And Tarrick is still not sure how he ended up with his wife, his daughters, a Jewish grandfather, and a Sporag daughter.
But he'll put up with the laughing for it.