Archive of Our Own ^beta

And then it happens. Player doesn’t have a visual on the room, but he doesn’t need one. His imagination takes the sound of bones cracking and breaths straining, and it paints him an all too vivid picture of what’s happening to his best friend. 

It’s an awful picture. Part of him wants to look away from it. Part of him refuses to — that part screams inside his own head too late too late too late! Help is coming, but too late for Carmen. 

So he bears silent, horrified witness to it all. And when he hears her wheezing and choking become shuddering, life-giving gulps of air, he nearly loses it. Only he can’t, he has to hold himself together, he has to save his friends. 

When it’s done, when Ivy and Zack are on their way to help Carmen, when the police are converging on that fateful, hateful room, when Carmen has woozily set down the new hard disk and is listing capital cities for him to prove that she hasn’t passed out… then he lets himself go.

Player silences his microphone, clenches his hands together over his knees, and rocks back and forth to the sound of Carmen rambling, “It’s Istanbul, not Constantinople, but the capital of Turkey is actually Ankara…” 

“Ivy,” Player calls, or rather croaks, after what feels like an eternity. After it sounds like Carmen’s been settled in the hotel room he deftly booked for them to crash in. 

“Hang on,” Ivy whispers. He does, and after a few seconds she explains in a more normal volume, “Okay, I’ve moved into the adjoining room. I can still keep an eye on Carmen, but I think I can talk without disturbing her. What is it?”

He gets straight to the point. “Carmen’s laptop. Would you set it up somewhere she can see it?”

Ivy hesitates. “I don’t know, man. She’s hurt bad. I was kinda hoping to put her on ‘rest and recovery’ lockdown. For as long as I can enforce it, at least.”

He bites his lip. It’s a solid point, and one that’s already crossed his mind a dozen times since he first thought of making his request.

Before he can start backpedaling, though, he hears Zack’s voice come in faintly from the outer range of his sister’s earpiece. “Is that Player? Dude, patch me in.”

A couple of quick keystrokes, and it’s done.

“I didn’t know you still had your comms in,” Player says, by way of apology for not including him from the start.

“Just had it muted. I went to pick up more ice for Carmen while Ivy finished patching her up. Didn’t think you’d want all that noise distracting you.”

“Oh,” Player replies tonelessly. He’s suddenly wondering if it crossed Carmen’s mind to mute her audio input. If she knew what might be about to happen to her, and wanted to spare him having to hear what he did. 

He’s picturing it again, now — Coach Brunt’s unstoppable, unrelenting arms coming down to wrap around Carmen’s limp body. Carmen’s fingers twitching, unresponsive because of the sheer volume of pain shooting through her nerves. Carmen’s expression as the woman she thought loved her and took her in as a baby, began to lift and then crush her… 

“Player. Player. Player!” 

“Wh-what? I’m here. Sorry, I just, um. I zoned out.”

There’s a pause, and when Ivy speaks again, her voice has lost its slightly peeved tone and softened into concern. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, too. I think we’re all on edge after what happened tonight.”

“Yeah, I always kinda thought Carmen was invincible,” Zack pipes up.

“She’s never been invincible.” Player is unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I warned her this was a trap. She walked right into it anyway.”

“You warned her about the danger of altitude sickness in Ecuador, too,” Ivy says. “You did what you could.”

She probably means it to be soothing, and her tone is indeed calm. But Player just hears too late too late echoing through his mind again. He should have… he should have planned things better, gotten Carmen to the shipwreck earlier so that she could claim the coin unchallenged, so that they wouldn’t have been forced to race up to Quito at all. He should have, but he didn’t, and Carmen paid for it. Just like right now.

“Player. You’re zoning out again,” Zack says worriedly. “And I can literally hear you blaming yourself.” 

Oh no. “Wait, I was talking aloud?”

Zack huffs. “Well, I was using ‘literally’… non-literally, but you just confirmed what I thought was going on.”

He’s stunned into silence.

Speaking slowly, as if still piecing his thoughts together, Zack continues, “I have a theory about why you’re acting this way. Why this is affecting you even more than it’s affecting me and Ivy. And I really hope it isn’t true?” 

His voice lifts at the end of the statement, that’s how tentative and careful he’s trying to be. It makes Player stiffen in his seat, tensing his muscles as if Zack’s next words were a physical blow to brace for.

“Did you… did you hear what happened to Carmen?”

Player still can’t speak. But he doesn’t have to, for them to know.

Ivy makes an abrupt, unhappy noise. “You had us on a separate channel so we could coordinate the red herring. But you were also monitoring Carmen, of course. I didn’t realise—”

“It’s okay,” Player interrupts, finding his voice only to stop her from inadvertently making it all feel worse, somehow.

“It is not okay,” Ivy counters. There comes the sound of something being unzipped, and then rustling as she presumably begins rummaging through Carmen’s bag. “Of course you should video call her, you need to see that she’s okay!”

She’s not okay, though, Player thinks to himself.

“I think it’s in the other pocket,” Zack says to Ivy quietly.

The rummaging ceases and Ivy unzips the correct part of the bag. She mutters her thanks and taps the trackpad, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary. 

Player is thankful for the interlude, even if he’s no longer sure about the laptop thing. “No,” he says, sounding feeble even to his own ears. “We should let her rest. I just wanted to… I don’t know. Be there when she wakes up, I guess?” 

“It could be ages before then,” Zack points out, but out of concern rather than criticism. “When do you even sleep, anyway?” 

“If it’s nighttime in Poitiers, it’s still only late afternoon in Ontario,” Player replies. He fiddles with his fidget spinner half-heartedly, listening as Ivy drums her fingers over the keyboard. 

Zack draws a breath to call him out on evading the question, but just then Ivy speaks up. “Um, I don’t… actually know her password,” she says apologetically. “You can’t hack this thing, can you?”

“I encrypted it myself, so yeah, I can. But I wouldn’t.”

“Fair enough,” Zack concedes.

Hmm. But if he knows Carmen — and he does — she would have thought of this contingency.

“Did she leave us a hint?” Player ventures.

“Why would she — oh wow, wait. It says: Thirty second warning. You’re either a friend, or not welcome to pry. If the former, you can wake up my laptop by telling it what I sometimes wake up saying.”

A beat.

“‘The coat was empty’?”

“‘The coat was empty’,” Ivy and Zack agree.

Huh. Although tonight’s events have been… intense, to say the least, there’s that silver lining. Carmen can finally stop having that dream about her exam with Shadowsan. Realising that makes Player smile, for the first time since everything went terribly wrong. 

Carmen’s laptop gives a pleasant tritone chirp. That must mean they’ve guessed correctly.

“We’ve hacked into the mainframe,” Zack jokes. “Sorry. I’ve always wanted to say that.”

Player groans good-naturedly.

“Looks like a guest account,” Ivy narrates for Player, since he can’t see the screen. “Carmen says: Rude. I don’t say it that much. Also, apparently she types out the colon-P emoticon…?”

“She does that,” Player confirms. “Her first phone didn’t have emoji — I guess V.I.L.E. really are psychopaths — so she learned old school. And I wasn’t about to be the person who introduced Carmen Sandiego to the world of Unicode. I think she’d start texting law enforcement the details of her next theft, but entirely in emoji.”

That gets all of them chuckling. For a moment, Player closes his eyes and just soaks in the sound, the shared feeling. So this is what it’s like to have siblings. Or, dare he even think it: a family.

The laughter peters out all too soon when Ivy hushes her brother and they all wait with baited breath in case they’ve woken Carmen up. But no sound comes from the adjoining room.

The silence stretches on a little bit past comfortable. Finally, Player breaks it.

“She… she’s gonna be okay. Right?”

Ivy doesn’t patronise him by rushing in with reassurance and platitudes. He’s grateful for that. “Her ribs have taken the biggest hit,” she says slowly, thinking. “And I’m no doctor, but I’m worried about a concussion. Then there’s the bruises and cuts. It’ll take her time to heal, and get strong again. She’ll be frustrated. Stubborn.”

“She’ll need us,” Zack adds, unusually sombre.

She’s got us, Player thinks, and pushes away his follow-up thought, the insidious whisper of She had us tonight, and we failed her.

Someone, he can’t tell if it’s Ivy or Zack, yawns then.

“Tomorrow,” Player says firmly. “She’ll be out for a while yet, and you two need rest as well. It’s late, and it’s been a long night.” 

The other sibling yawns midway through his sentence, so they can hardly deny how tired they are. But Ivy still sleepily protests, “I should stay up and watch over her. At least for a couple of hours.” 

“We can do it together. Take turns waking one another up when we doze off,” Zack suggests. Without Player having to ask again, he adds, “Let’s get Carmen’s laptop set up, so Player can be here too.” 

Okay, he’s definitely going to arrange for bacon rolls for Zack’s breakfast tomorrow. And maybe donuts for Ivy. Painkillers and a Netflix subscription for Carmen? Unless that would be going overboard. But a hefty care package seems like the closest he can come to being there, with them.

Zack video calls Player on the laptop, then sets it down on a table so he can see everyone else.

Ivy settles in with the first aid kit, taking stock of their supplies. Zack kicks back with his earbuds in; Player only realises that he’s started following that podcast about exploring Proxima b when he pauses it to type out the highlights in messages to Player. Occasionally, Ivy turns the laptop around to read them too. She raises her eyebrows, looking impressed and nodding thoughtfully. For a while, all is quiet and peaceful.

Perhaps a little too quiet and peaceful. First, Zack falls asleep, lulled by the soothing audio. Ivy nudges him awake. A while later, she sets aside the first aid kit and tells Zack to give her ten minutes for a power nap. Ten minutes later, Zack glances at his sister, then at Player through the webcam. They shrug at each other in tacit agreement to just let her sleep. She’s out cold, clearly exhausted. 

Player only notices that Zack has succumbed to his weariness when he hears faint snores coming through his headset. He’s been distracted, staring at his basket and the words Express Delivery? while pondering security versus sentiment. To send or not to send? 

Zack makes a high-pitched whine. “Not the fish,” he slurs in his sleep. “Cats… eat tuna. I’mma… I’m a dog. A dog playing poker.”

Player smirks and bids his friend goodnight.

Then his eyes drift to the dark room beyond the doors, which Ivy has left ajar. The gap allows in just enough dim light for him to make out Carmen’s mane of red hair, poking out from the blankets.

After winding down with Ivy and Zack, that sight is enough to make his buzzing mind finally stop. After another moment, watching his friends peacefully asleep in front of him, his busy fingers still, and then pull back from the keyboard entirely.

This will do, he tells himself, and tries out another smile. This will last.