The rift closes behind them, and the mothership is gone. It's not like his world's portals: Hathaway's rifts are limited, so they can't be opened up again. Not on a whim. After working with ALASTAIR for so long, Jin knows this well, and still he has to war with the urge to whirl around or send a fleeting look back over his shoulder, to see the last eighteen-odd months of his life in his periphery one more time.
But S-F's walls are impenetrable plate. The dense metal of the base's walls is the only thing behind him now, the spots swimming in his eyes the only remnant from the light of the dimensional tear.
"So, Jin."
Gods. He'd almost forgotten that it was Johnny who'd been sent for him. There's an expression on Jin's face that's almost panicked when he claps a heavy hand on Jin's arm; Johnny's chuckling to himself as he jostles him back and forth by the shoulder. Frozen solid, he lets it happen.
"You have a good day at multiverse school? Did you learn somethin' new while you were there?"
That does something for him, or, at least, it chips through that ice. Gradually, the training room comes into active awareness around him, and every glowing screen and humming monitor and livewire-pulse of his own heartbeat, detected and read automatically by the mechanisms, registers in a stark, too-sharp focus.
Jin laughs, the wind gone out of it, his eyes unsmiling. "A little bit, yeah."
It's a small fucking mercy that this room's enclosed, because he feels a little bit like he's cracked straight down the middle.
"Jin? Hey---"
---
"Transit clear. Vitals on both men are stable, General." "Thank you, Sergeant Cage." "There's still some traces of particles from the realm he'd been in-- some sort of temporal disruption-- we still gotta send the science and medical teams in, just to make sure nothing's up with him?"
Johnny, on the video display above her, signals something with his hand. Sonya presses her lips together tightly, thinking.
"Give it a minute." "General?" "Maybe the readings on those particles will stabilize." "...Got it."
With several keyboard strokes and the flip of a switch, the display blinks once, fading near-instantaneously to black. Cassie's mouth twists into a frown.
"Takeda, your ass better be in this room in the next 30 seconds, I swear to God..."
---
"How long?
...
C'mon. Hey, hey. You did good, kid. No snot on the vest, okay?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coming home.
But S-F's walls are impenetrable plate. The dense metal of the base's walls is the only thing behind him now, the spots swimming in his eyes the only remnant from the light of the dimensional tear.
"So, Jin."
Gods. He'd almost forgotten that it was Johnny who'd been sent for him. There's an expression on Jin's face that's almost panicked when he claps a heavy hand on Jin's arm; Johnny's chuckling to himself as he jostles him back and forth by the shoulder. Frozen solid, he lets it happen.
"You have a good day at multiverse school? Did you learn somethin' new while you were there?"
That does something for him, or, at least, it chips through that ice. Gradually, the training room comes into active awareness around him, and every glowing screen and humming monitor and livewire-pulse of his own heartbeat, detected and read automatically by the mechanisms, registers in a stark, too-sharp focus.
Jin laughs, the wind gone out of it, his eyes unsmiling. "A little bit, yeah."
It's a small fucking mercy that this room's enclosed, because he feels a little bit like he's cracked straight down the middle.
"Jin? Hey---"
"Transit clear. Vitals on both men are stable, General."
"Thank you, Sergeant Cage."
"There's still some traces of particles from the realm he'd been in-- some sort of temporal disruption-- we still gotta send the science and medical teams in, just to make sure nothing's up with him?"
Johnny, on the video display above her, signals something with his hand. Sonya presses her lips together tightly, thinking.
"Give it a minute."
"General?"
"Maybe the readings on those particles will stabilize."
"...Got it."
With several keyboard strokes and the flip of a switch, the display blinks once, fading near-instantaneously to black. Cassie's mouth twists into a frown.
"Takeda, your ass better be in this room in the next 30 seconds, I swear to God..."
"How long?
...
C'mon. Hey, hey. You did good, kid. No snot on the vest, okay?
...
Hear me? You did good. I'm proud of you.
...
Wait, where the hell'd you get a sword?"