Paige can’t play that song anymore. Each note makes her Remember. Each measure makes her Recollect. The wounds and hurt are still too fresh, too new to be comfortable. They still haven’t settled, haven’t become just another part of her, and she knows it’ll be too long before that finally happens.
She hasn’t touched her synth, either. But she still thinks in music. She still creates melodies when she doesn’t realize it, still processes her feelings through rhythm. The songs she generates have been angry, lately. More than a little sad. Hurt. Betrayed. Longing.
She associates these songs with Her too much, she thinks. Maybe in another time, another lifetime, they could have been something. Friends, perhaps. Maybe more. If they lived in another version of the Grid, cleansed of fascism. If She hadn’t lied. If She hadn’t turned out to be one of them.
If She’d stayed. If Paige hadn’t pushed Her away.
The songs become insistent. They flow through her, make her feel restless. She doesn’t want to… what? To create? To linger? To think about Her?
But it’s in something deeper than her code, than her hurt.
She picks up her synth and starts composing.