Resolve

Chapter 1: Divergence of Fate

An: (Y/n) is a cue to insert your own name. Happy reading.

     You let your eyes open slowly, the pounding in your head an awful distraction. You sat up from your standard issue Hyperion bed and swept your legs over the edge. Peering at the half full bottle of moonshine on the table, you contemplated drinking it. Mentally rolling a d20 in your head, you picked it up and drank it. There wasn't anything happening today that was going to affect this loop too much. Then you pulled on the Hyperion yellow shorts that were almost too short for your tastes before pulling the matching shirt over your head and looking for the belt that held your shield and pistol holsters. You felt that when this was all over, when Jack was Jack again, you were going to try and convince him the color scheme of Hyperion needed a change. You were getting sick of yellow and felt a little like the cheerful color mocked every failure you made.

     Sidestepping a spill on the floor in the hallway, you continued on your merry way to your own office. You were still working on making it up to Jack for telling him off about Gladstone and the other scientists in this loop, but he had promoted you nonetheless. You were as good as Wilhelm in his eyes. Which still meant you were expendable, but useful. At this point in the loop, the vault hunters were preparing to get ahold of an upgrade for their Claptrap and if you were careful, you could spare Mordecai's bird from death without losing anything. Once you'd gone over to the other side, trying to protect Jack with your influence as one of the vault hunters and it hadn't worked, but you had discovered that...you and Mordecai belonged together. To a degree. It had been such an easy relationship and you loved Bloodwing, too. You had even gone as far to tell Mordecai everything. The time traveling. The mental anguish. Your thoughts that Jack could save the world with all his money and technology if only he were less prone to murder. It had been one of the harder loops to abandon. You could've just kept going, built a life with him and Talon. It was your least favorite part of every loop. Dealing with him. Remembering. Him not remembering.

     Your office was mostly empty, apart from papers detailing maintenance on control core Angel. You had gotten Jack to give you this much. You felt like in another couple loops, you'd be familiar enough with the technology to really move forward with your plan. You were going to free Angel. Repair her relationship with Jack. But first, you had to think of a portable Eridium delivery system to keep her alive because you were never able to stop Jack from doing what he did with Angel. You were close, but all the loops you had spent learning coding to get put in Jack's department hadn't helped so you were now studying robotics and mechanics, all the good little bits of computer technology that made up Angel's containment fields and life support. You looked up when some engineers passed by in the hall, talking excitedly about the bird they'd caught circling over the Reserve. You frowned. Today wasn't supposed to be the day Bloodwing got caught.

     You opened the drawer containing a watch you'd gotten from Roland because you were never on time that one loop you spent as a vault hunter. It read...Well if it was still right you'd been unconscious an entire day. It was indeed time for Bloodwing to be caught. You stood so quickly your chair skidded into a wall and jerked over. "Damn!" You were two steps out the door when Jack came around the corner and you hit him, falling back on your ass.

     "Ah, language, (y/n)!" You corrected yourself. "Where are you off to in such a hurry? We've got somewhere to be."

     You bit the inside of your cheek. You knew just where you needed to be going in Jack's eyes. You had hoped to get there first. You could lie now, say you needed to do something personal, or you could go along and try to stop everything from happening; right under Jack's nose. You carefully considered based on past loops and reactions. Lies were never good with Jack, so you sighed. "I was coming to find you. Is it Bloodwing? I heard some engineers talking about a capture at the Reserve."