Reflecting on First Mission

Josephine sighed. She was sat on the bench in the park, her legs curled up so that her chin was resting on her knees and her arms were wrapped around her ankles. She stared out at the pond in front of her, watching the gentle ripples on the top of the water as two small children threw bread out for the ducks.
Despite the tranquility of the area, the screams of the girl worker still echoed through her mind.

Juliet's motorcycle screamed down the road that day, headed straight for the park. Juliet had been meaning to get some studying done, but that 200-year-old scum's mission had gotten in the way of that. Now she finally had time and she was headed to the park to spend it. She turned into the park and parked her bike and the first thing she noticed was that Josephine was sitting on the bench where she normally studied. This made Juliet frown a bit because she knew Josephine usually liked to sit in the trees. "Hey Josie, what's up?" Juliet called as she approached the bench.

The dull look in Josephine's eyes was replaced with a slightly brighter one as she lifted her head from her knees and saw Juliet approaching her.
"Hey Jules." she replied, not answering the question that had accompanied the greeting. She unwrapped her arms from her ankles and put her feet on the ground, moving over to give Juliet some room to sit down.

Juliet plopped down next to Josephine on the bench, but she didn't pull out her study materials like she normally would have. Instead, she sat quietly for a few moments then looked at her. "Yu look like you have something big on the brain. Care to share?" she asked with her head cocked slightly.

Jo refrained from sighing again as it felt like she was being rather melodramatic. She then sat looking at her hands.
"I've just been thinking about the mission I went on with Riley and Derek."

"Oh, the scumbag took you on one too? How did you guys fare in the land of the past?" Juliet asked in an animated tone.

"We did fine according to Derek..." she replied turning her gaze to look at Juliet rather than her phalanges. She sat silent for a few moments before carrying on.
"There was this girl.... and she caught her leg in one of the machines..."
Josephine frowned as she remembered it. Though the screams were the most vivid thing she could recall, the actual sight of the girl's mangled leg still stuck with her.

"What? What happened? Unless you don't want to talk about it. If you can't, then don't worry about it." Juliet question, noticing how torn up Josephine looked.

"We..."
She paused again, trying to work out what to say exactly.
"We had to make sure that the girl hurt her leg... It was what we had to change."
Josephine turned from Juliet to glance up at the sky... or rather a small portion of the sky through the leaves and branches of the tree.
"It wouldn't have been so bad... but I saw her safe...."
Jo turned back to Juliet.
"She could have been fine."

Juliet sat quietly and absorbed everything Josephine was saying. She didn't know what to do, she couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to have witnessed something like that. "Josie that's.......... just... awful......." Juliet finally responded quietly. "And what did that scumbag have to say about it?" she asked darkly.

"He..." she paused, only now realising exactly what Derek had said.
"He said that it was much easier than having to kill a friend."

Juliet curled her fists into tight balls. How could that pond scum have been so heartless? She was slowly discovering a newfound dislike for that guy, on top of other things. Oddly enough, it normally didn't last. But at that moment she was fuming at him. "That's AWFUL!! How could he just RATIONALIZE death like that?!?!"

Josephine just looked back down at her knees, her hands having moved to hold her head. She didn't particularly care for what Derek had said. She just couldn't get the image of that girl out of her mind. The flesh of her leg torn to pieces and the blood from the wound covering the machinery.
Jo would try and think about something more positive... but then she'd just recall her screams again.
"The blood..." she whispered, sounding borderline insane, "All that blood..."

Jo fell into silence for a few moments, her hands moving back down to her lap before she declared;
"I can't do it."

Juliet gave her friend a moment to try and gather her thoughts, but was surprised by what Josephine announced. "What do you mean, Josie? Why not?" Juliet asked her confusedly.

"I can't do what that this Chronos guy expects me to do." she replied, looking up at the sky again with a look on her face as if she was torn in her decision.
"What if I'm on my own and something like that happens? What if it's my turn and I'm the one who has to push the girl into the machinery?"

Juliet was silent a moment, soaking up her friends words. "....That may be true, Josie, but what about when there are times that we need you? I'm sure Chronos will assign us missions that will pertain to our own personal skills. What if there comes a day when we need yours?" she remarked, looking at Josephine

"What personal skills could I possibly have that anyone else doesn't have? The only thing remotely interesting I can do is draw and that's hardly going to come in handy when fixing the threads of time."
Josephine was never normally like this. She should be all happy-go-lucky and laughing at seemingly unfunny things not depressive and suddenly putting herself down. One of the things Jo prided herself in was her art, so it was sort of a big deal when she cast it off as next to worthless.

Juliet was highly upset by her friend's demeanor change. She hit her lip to keep from upsetting Josie further, however.

"Hey, Josie..." Juliet began quietly. "That's enough; you know that's not true! You're super talented; I bet you're good at lots of things you haven't even discovered yet! Not all our missions are gonna be like yours were. Some might be even harder; but others won't be! We just gotta plow through and take it in stride, step by step, and you're definitely strong enough to take your next step; I know you are!" she explained reassuringly. "You've got to try everything before you know what you're good at; and we've just started. You'll see! We'll have lots of great adventures and we'll do plenty of great things to counterbalance the hard things, and even when it gets tough I always have your back!"

It was like a radically more emotionally mature Juliet had suddenly taken over. She was being noticeably more mature than normal; although that same boundless energy that she naturally had was still there. She just channeled and handled it better now; in a more calm and level-headed (yet still just as confident) way.

"And hey, you've got the special talent of being able to put up with me for an extended period of time, so that's a huge bonus in your favor!" Juliet added with a sly grin.