Thirty-Eight Bells: [Written/Action]

[simplestgift]

Elizabeth Swann has gone home.

[That's pretty much all he can manage. People needed to know. He won't answer any messages until very late tonight. In the meantime, he is pretty much going to wall himself up in his house. Not in his room, though. His room still smells like her.

He found her wedding ring. It was lying on her night stand yesterday morning when he first woke to find her gone.

All things considered...he's not doing as badly as he might be. At least, he's convincing himself of that. Trying to. They always knew this was a probability, after all.

But that didn't make much of a difference in the end, did it?]

Comments

[voice]

[simplestgift]

Very late at night, Archie responds, sounding very tired. Exhausted. Hollow.

"We knew it could happen any day. Never you mind, Jack."

[voice]

[all7seas]

"Aye, lad. We knew. Any day.




Was it worth it?"

How could it not be worth it? It was Elizabeth Swann.

[voice]

[simplestgift]

"Of course." That was never a question. Although Archie knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's done with this. If Elizabeth never comes back, he will never find anyone else.

[voice]

[all7seas]

"Of course," Jack echoed. "And how could it not be? Look, lad -- McCoy's...gone. Again. But he left this bottle..."

[voice]

[simplestgift]

"Is it full of something?"

[voice]

[all7seas]

Not a magical genie that will bring Elizabeth Swann back, no.


"Whiskey."

Maybe the next best thing, though.

[voice]

[simplestgift]

"....Very well."

[voice-->action]

[all7seas]

"Be by in a bit."

And, true to his word, Jack set off soon with the bottle in his hand, singing softly to himself. It would be a cold Christmas for Kennedy this year, even with his Hornblower still about. Perhaps they should both come to Seven.

That was an idea, he decided, born of closeness to Buffy Summers. Eventually he knocked on Kennedy's door.

"Hallo?"