simplestgift | Seven Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN] Hat Day.

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Seven Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN] Hat Day.

[Citizens of Luceti may see Archie Kennedy wandering around with a new hat today. It looks a little like something a magician would pull a rabbit out of, but he seems to be enjoying it. He'll be around town today--the library and grocery store during the day, and Good Spirits in the evening. In the afternoon, he'll sit at the fountain to pen a few words.]

I believe morale might improve if we had some sort of goodbye ceremony for those who were returned home. Not a funeral, mind you, just an occasion to remember them, celebrate their return, and hope to join them soon. Perhaps once a month or so, for everyone who left during the month. It's the little things that help one cope, sometimes.

Also, who left a note under my door? I'm afraid I can't read it, or indeed tell if it was even meant for me. I live in Building One, in the first flat on the first floor.

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[it's tempting to put in something that'll shock him, but for all that she's rather curious as to what he'd think of modern music, she was careful in her choices.

She gives him a smile as she closes the cassette dock with a click]

I know this might not be what you're used to... I blame the words.

[if he hated it, she'd switch to something else quick enough...but she couldn't resist. And, as she presses play, Kansas begins to pour from the speakers, a steady drum beat pounding along with the lyrics]

...What in Hell?

[she laughs, reaching over to press fingers against his arm] Just listen. For just a minute.

[And so he does. He has trouble understanding the words for a bit, but the bits he catches make his face go unusually neutral.]

[she lets it play for a minute, then hits the stop button, the silence sounding unnaturally loud while she fastforwards to the next point.]

[there's a pause at just how still his face has gone. She'd thought of him, with the lyrics...but with what he'd been through, perhaps this wasn't the best of choices. So her finger hovers over the play button]

They aren't all so loud, but this one... it's more than a little sad.

[there's an unspoken question in her voice. Should she? Did he still want to hear?]

[He turns his head and eyes down, taking a breath as if bracing himself for the next song. He'll listen if that's what she wants.]

No.

[her finger moves, hitting the eject button, the cassette popping free. Her eyes don't move from him, though, worried]

Archie...

[He turns to her, suddenly breaking out of his trance-like thoughts.] What's the matter, Jilly?

I was about to ask you the same thing.

[He hesitates. He's not used to discussing his feelings every time he gets a little melancholy--maybe because everyone he was around back home would have simply understood why the song hit close to home. Talk of the black of the sea at night, of family he would never see again...]

I...I'm a sailor, Jilly.

I know.

[its' why she'd picked the song in the first place...the way she'd picked the fiddle music from their discussions and the way the third tape, settled off to the side, was opera. Because she'd wanted him to enjoy it, at least a little. But maybe it was the way his melancholy was such a contrast to the face he usually presented to everyone. She didn't want to add to it]

You asked me to paint a ship on your wall, remember. [it's light, almost teasing, but her eyes are still worried]

And sometimes I'm melancholy looking at it. Doesn't mean I don't want it there.

[she nods. It makes sense, but she's still careful.] Still, you asked for that. I don't want this- [she gestures at the tape player] to be too much.

[The tiniest smile.] It merely caught me unawares. I've had quite a bit of "too much" before and it wasn't anything like this. I'll be fine, Jilly.

[it's only a small smile back, but it's there all the same]

Promise?

[A weak chuckle.] If anyone can.

[she could switch cassettes, but she doesn't. Chosing to trust him. Because, for all that it's sad, she honestly thinks he'll like the next one.

Reinserting the cassette in the slot, she'll start the music again at the point where she'd left off. There are a few stops and starts as she finds the right place, and then Dust in the Wind begins to play]

[He's immediately much more relaxed by this one. The plucked guitar is more the norm. But by the end of the first chorus, his breath catches, and he turns his face away from her. He makes no motion for her to stop it. As the song is ending, he raises a hand to his face.]

[she doesn't say anything. She's got no need to draw attention to him while he grieves.

There's just one more...a last note she needs to end on before switching to something new. There's silence as she does her best to gauge how long to fastforward before playing new. Something a little more hopeful]

[The words only make the quiet tears come faster. A sudden, audible breath gives him away if there was any question what was going on. After the first line of the last verse, he speaks.]

Stop it. Please.

[she does. Immediately. Her finger had been hovering over the stop, and she presses down on it now, tears in her own eyes.]

...I'm sorry.

Please don't be sorry, Jilly, I'm not made of glass.

[Something he used to want to tell Horatio, even though back then, he sort of had been.

But instead of Horatio, he has this tiny, dark-haired woman sitting beside him, trying to bring him joy through music even though he hadn't known her three months ago. Three months ago, when none of Luceti had existed and he had. The time between January and now speeds up to a pace he can't even fathom, and suddenly he has no idea where the time has gone. He's trying very, very hard to love the life he's been given as a gift when he wants to have the old one back more than anything, and waiting until a friend who may never come arrives to cry instead of trusting anyone else with his tears. Even now, he's holding back, turning away in shame at his display when Jilly has been nothing but kind and understanding.]

[she's careful not to look directly at him. Not because his tears bother her...but because she can guess that they bother him. Instead, she watches her hands as they remove the tape, setting it down on the ground beside her.]

I never thought you were. I still don't.

[He'd faced so much. Death. The cost of his reputation among the men he'd valued so highly. The loss of his best friend. She couldn't think less of him for crying at that]

[But Archie isn't the type to think himself extraordinary for anything, even the level of his suffering. He knows he's been through nothing no one else has been through, and doesn't assume he's faced any more than anyone else. No, the difference is his own level of strength, his lack of ability to cope with it all stoically like a true officer. This is the longest time he's taken to cry in a long, long time, maybe since shortly after El Ferrol seven years ago.

When he speaks, his voice is so low that it's almost a grunt.]

Most would. Most have.

Most people do a lot of things. That doesn't make them correct.

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