fragment:target-audience-13

Link to article: fragment:target-audience-13.

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[[a class="style01-link" href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/target-audience/offset/12" target="_parent"]][[span class="style01-plaintext animation03" style="--content: 'Return to previous page';"]]Return to previous page[[/span]][[/a]]

----

[[=]]
[[span class="style04-plaintext animation04" style="--content: "Chapter 13";"]]Chapter 13[[/span]]
[[/=]]

Few people understand true loneliness.

After I lost Haley, I became intimately familiar with just how soul-crushing loneliness could be. I was sure I would die alone—just an empty husk of a man.

Then I met Vera and I wasn’t alone anymore. But then I foolishly pushed her away, and now I had lost her too…

And so here I was, alone in our— my quarters, refusing to see anyone. Our coworkers wanted to offer condolences, but what was that even good for? Vera was dead, and no kind words could change that or make me feel better.

Hell, it would just make me feel worse. After all, despite her accomplishments, Vera had been a major headache for the Foundation—firstly for being an anomaly that they couldn’t forcibly contain, and secondly for blatantly disregarding their precious rules and protocols. For all I knew, the Foundation had assigned her to handle dangerous anomalies precisely because they wanted her dead. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them were celebrating her being ‘decommissioned’ at this very moment.

I buried my face in my hands.

If only she had listened to me. If only she could’ve been content with our life before the Foundation. And if only I hadn’t pushed her away.

Yes, she may not have loved me the way I loved her, but she did care about me in her own way, and that should’ve been enough.

Why couldn’t that have been enough for me?

[[=image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/target-audience/Lovelace_scene_17 style="width:600px;"]]

And what was I supposed to do now?

I didn’t care about the Foundation and its mission, and I certainly didn’t want to work for the people who had gotten her killed.

But I knew that if I quit, they would amnesticize me. They’d make me forget about Vera, taking away the only thing I had left of her.

I looked over at the knife holder that sat on the kitchen counter.

I wasn’t going to work for these people, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to give them a chance to amnesticize me either.

But for now I grieved and reminisced about the life Vera and I had shared—its humble beginnings, all of its ups and downs, and the way it had crumbled at the end.

Oh, how I wished that I could’ve taken back those last few days.

Yes, she had been manipulative and driven by selfish desires, but she had been so good to me in ways that no one else ever had. Not even Haley.

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t been driven by selfish desires too. After all, isn’t the need for companionship fundamentally selfish when you really think about it?

Vera had filled my needs to the brim, and I had done the same for her, or at least in part. She did crave so much more than I could give her, after all, but she had never made me feel like I wasn’t enough for her. She wanted me at her side, even as we left our comfortable, gilded cage.

If only I could’ve seen that before I lost her…

“Huey?”

I froze. There was no way I just heard that.

Was grief finally driving me to madness?

Suddenly, I felt her presence behind me and I was pulled into a hug.

“What’s the matter?” She asked. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

“Vera?” I turned around to look at her and sure enough, there she was.

Or maybe I was actually going crazy?

I stared at her for a good while, afraid that if I questioned her being here, she would go away.

Finally, I asked “Is… Is it really you?”

“Of course it is, silly,” she chuckled. “Who else would I be?”

I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her chest. “I… I thought you died…”

“Oh, so that’s what happened. Fascinating,” she said as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Well, turns out I can’t die.”

I looked up at her in disbelief. “How… How do you know that’s what happened?”

“I mean, after being torn apart the way I was, there was no way of coming back without respawning.” She nodded towards the digital clock on my bedside table. “And judging by the time, there’s been a gap of at least eighteen hours between that and when I woke up. So… go figure—I’m immortal.”

“Stop acting as if everything’s fine!” I shouted at her. “I… I thought I lost you…” I glanced at the knife holder on the kitchen counter. “I was going to kill myself because… because I couldn’t bear to go on without you…”

“Oh Huey,” Vera cooed as she cupped my cheeks. “You could never get rid of me. You’re mine forever, and I’m yours.”

There it was again. The possessive language.

I took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

“I thought that’s what we’re doing, silly buns,” she replied jokingly.

“I mean about everything that happened before you… died,” I clarified.

“Oh, that,” she replied as if our falling out hadn’t impacted her at all.

“It’s important,” I stressed.

“Okey dokey, well then let’s talk.”

She teleported to the far end of the sofa, where she sat casually crossing her legs. I sat down on the other end and took a deep breath to steel myself.

“First of all, I apologize for the way I treated you and for pushing you away,” I began.

“It’s okay, Huey. I forgive you,” she replied, her eyelids raised in a smile.

“... And?” I asked expectantly.

She tilted her head to the side. “And what?”

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

“Why would I do that?”

I stared at her, completely slack-jawed.

I tried to remind myself of what I had learned from reading up on her kind—the fact that most of them were completely and utterly incapable of experiencing regret or remorse. Even so, seeing her act like this hurt.

Seeming to pick up on how I was feeling, she said “Don’t get me wrong, it was never my intention to hurt you, but all I did that night was to tell you the truth.” She tapped her fingers on the back of the sofa. “Like, I could tell you ‘I’m sorry’, but I respect you too much to lie to you.”

“But you think it’s fine to manipulate me?” I asked.

“I just don’t see what the big deal is,” she replied. “I mean, isn’t communication in-and-of-itself manipulative? After all, through words and signs I put thoughts and emotions in your head.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Why not? Can you explain the difference?” She asked.

“Manipulation is specifically about gaining a desired outcome,” I explained. “In a healthy relationship, honesty is important, and that sometimes requires you to disclose painful truths.”

“Yes, but in doing so, you still get a desired outcome long-term,” she argued. “So it’s still manipulative.”

“Perhaps, but sometimes it can lead to the end of a relationship,” I noted.

“Do you //want// to end our relationship?”

I felt as if she had just jabbed me in the heart. “What? No! Of course not!”

“Then my honesty got me what I wanted,” she pointed out.

I huffed a laugh. “So you really are just a psychopath?”

“Of course not, silly. Psychopaths are characterized by their lack of empathy and inhibition,” she replied. “I, on the other hand, am what the Foundation refers to as an ‘amoral, parasitic empath’.”

I blinked. “They… They actually diagnosed you with that?”

“Yeppers. Pretty early on, actually,” she replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Well… You already had so much else on your mind, and it’s not the kind of thing you just bring up out of nowhere.” Vera replied. “Besides, they put it in my file, so I just kinda assumed that you knew.”

“I never read it.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Why not?”

I let out a sigh. “Because I didn’t want to see the Foundation dehumanize you the way they do all other anomalies.”

“I mean, their files are a bit clinical for sure, but they’re nevertheless a fun read,” she said with great enthusiasm. “Like, yours was super informative.”

“Wait, you… read my file?” I asked. “I thought access to the files of regular personnel were supposed to be restricted?”

“Oh, like I’d let that stop me,” Vera laughed.

I couldn’t help but huff a laugh at that. She had always been so determined when it came to learning and figuring things out.

“So what did it say?” I asked.

“Oh, a bunch of stuff. Most notably, it said that ‘you are to be kept away from other sapient anomalies as there’s a significant risk of you being emotionally compromised’,” she revealed. “I’m paraphrasing, of course.”

I shook my head. Only the Foundation could frame compassion as an undesirable quality.

“Sounds about right,” I replied bitterly. I then regarded Vera for a moment and asked “So what does you being a ‘parasitic empath’ mean?”

“Well, it means that I’m highly empathetic, but only attuned to a specific range of emotions and mental states, in addition to being indifferent to what you call morality and ‘manipulative with a particular focus on self-gratification’,” she explained.

“I can’t believe we lived together for twelve years and I never noticed…”

“Well, neither did I, silly,” she replied with a chuckle. “I’ve always just been ‘me’ and I’ve never seen anything wrong with that. It wasn’t until I got that diagnosis that I realized just how different I was compared to everyone else. I mean, aside from the obvious.”

I let out a sigh. “So if we resume our relationship, you’re just going to go back to manipulating me?”

“Again, I’d argue that all interactions are manipulative, so if we’re going to interact, then yes,” she replied. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to lie to you—well, aside from withholding classified information, that is. I’ve always been honest with you, you know that.”

That was certainly true, but even so… “The thing I’m worried about is how do I know you actually care about me?”

“Of course I care about you, silly!”

“No, I mean as something more than just your primary source for human interaction,” I clarified. “I mean… I was about to kill myself out of grief when I thought I lost you. Would you grieve me if I died?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she replied. “It wouldn’t hurt me whatsoever if you died. I wouldn’t even feel sad about it. Not because I don’t love you, but because I’m not able to feel that way. I honestly don’t even know what it’s like.”

I felt as if Vera had just ripped out my heart, thrown it on the ground, and stomped on it.

I turned away from her, burying my face in my hands, and if I could, I would’ve cried then and there.

She reached out to stroke my hair. “But I would miss you. And I would forever cherish all of the memories we’ve made together.”

I looked at her.

“I may not love you the same way you love me—I’m simply too… selfish and possessive—but I respect you, and I feel an immense amount of gratitude towards you,” she continued. “So many of my kind are pushed away and ignored by their human hosts, but you welcomed me with open arms. You spent every waking hour with me and you did it gladly. You taught me how to sign and how to count, and you showed me the immense beauty of this universe and how to understand it. You helped get me into Harvard and make friends online, and I got to become a real scientist because of you. And then you gave up everything you knew to come work with me here at the Foundation.”

She took my hand.

“You went above and beyond for me, and I want you to know that I’m willing to return the favor. If you don’t want to be with me anymore—if you truly don’t—then I’ll leave you be, even if that would deprive me of my favorite human,” she continued. “But if you want to stay together, then I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make this relationship work. And when you one day get old and infirm, I’ll take care of you—I’ll even stop working so I can be with you and assist you with whatever you need. And if you don’t want to die, I’ll find a way to keep you around for as long as you want.”

I huffed a laugh at that last part. “You’d really do that?”

Vera nodded. “I would for you.”

I considered her words carefully.

She would be manipulative, but truthful. Possessive, yet love me in her own way. She was willing to make compromises in order for our relationship to work, and she would be there for me until the end of my days.

For a being such as her, what more could I possibly ask for?

“Okay,” I finally said. “Let’s see if we can’t make this work.”

She perked up. “Really?”

“Really.”

Vera giggled and teleported beside me.

“I love you, Huey,” she whispered as she nuzzled my cheek.

[[=image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/target-audience/Lovelace_scene_18 style="width:600px;"]]
[[=]]
----
@@ @@
++ [[a class="style05-link" href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/target-audience/offset/14" target="_parent"]][[span class="style05-plaintext animation02" style="--content: '“I ';"]]“I [[/span]][[span class="style05-plaintext animation02" style="--content: 'love ';"]]love [[/span]][[span class="style05-plaintext animation02" style="--content: 'you ';"]]you [[/span]][[span class="style05-plaintext animation02" style="--content: 'too, ';"]]too, [[/span]][[span class="style05-plaintext animation02" style="--content: 'Vera.”';"]]Vera.”[[/span]][[/a]]
@@ @@
[[/=]]

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fragment:target-audience-13

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