Fifteen Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN]

[simplestgift]

[Archie woke up yesterday.  How is this new?  Well, after getting some fairly critical stab wounds from Grell, he was put on a ventilator and kept under sedation for a few days.  The ventilator was exchanged for a less impressive-looking concentrator yesterday and he was taken off sedation.  He spent yesterday sleeping anyway, since anesthesia doesn't generally leave you bright-eyed immediately afterward.

This morning, he is talking and eating Jell-o, which is a new experience. The most important bit comes written on the journal network in wobbly handwriting courtesy of the heart monitor clipped on his finger.]

I have been informed that I may have visitors. I'd like to know everyone is all right.

Kennedy

[Anyone who comes in will find him looking predictably weak and pale but lucid and in good spirits, or possibly catnapping after a dose of painkillers.

OOC: Purely for the sake of mercy, Archie is unaffected by the event.]

Comments

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

Not a problem. [But she's a little more withdrawn now.]

Is it your turn?

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[A blink.] I've no idea.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[Nervous laughter.] We could just move on to checkers now if you like. I promise I do know how to play that.

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[He tosses down his cards as if they're yesterday's news.] Very well. What sort of game is checkers?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

Let me go get the box and I'll explain it to you.

[She leaves, and returns shortly after with said box, and begins to set up the board.]

You only play on the red squares, unlike in chess, and all the pieces move diagonally.

[simplestgift]

Oh, well, I do know this one! We call it draughts, where I come from.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[That brings her up short.] Draughts.

Well, that makes this easier. [She smiles with good humor and offers him his choice of color.]

[simplestgift]

Draughts. [He picks red.] Does your world have a name?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

Earth, [she says easily, turning the board so the red is facing him.] What about yours?

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Earth. Eighteen hundred and two. [He carefully sorts the checkers with his middle finger, which is not hampered by the clip attaching him to the heart monitor.] What year are you?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

1995. [Wow you're old. But that explains... well, a few things. She sorts her checkers as well, wondering how he'll react to the news that she's from 200 years into his future.]

[simplestgift]

[One of the first people he met in Luceti was from the twenty-third century, so he doesn't even blink. Instead, he starts placing the red pieces on their spaces.] American?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

Mm-hmm. [She finishes setting up her pieces and looks up at him.] Where are you from?

[simplestgift]

Scotland, originally, though I've lived on ships since I was eleven, and a ship is England in the navy. [He speaks like an Englishman, though. He glances up at her.] Does black go first?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think so. [She moves a piece forward.] What's it like on a ship? I've never been to the ocean.

[simplestgift]

[He moves one of his pieces.] Crowded, and horrible-smelling no matter how clean it's kept. It isn't the ship, you see, so much as the men and beasts. The wonder is when this ill-disciplined rabble pulls together and works together, and the ship makes it where she's going, and battles are won. These men, all different, many who don't want to be there, still take pride in themselves and each other. A crew, not simply a collection of souls being ferried off on the wind.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[Ingrid listens, the game temporarily forgotten, and when he's done she only remembers to move a piece (randomly and without thought) because her gaze went thoughtfully downward and rested on the board.]

That sounds... Well, it sounds rather exciting, actually, smells notwithstanding.

[She's read (and enjoyed) The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (not to mention Captains Courageous and etc.), but she's never heard sailing described quite like this, and though objectively she knows she probably wouldn't like it, the way Archie describes it she almost yearns to be on a ship herself.]

[simplestgift]

It certainly is, if nothing else. Keeps one on one's toes. It isn't all like that, but at the best of times, after dark, you can hear the men skylarking and bellowing out songs in the gun room, half of them drunk as lords. I remember my first few weeks as a boy on a ship. It took a long time to be able to sleep easily with the ship rocking so, but I would listen to their hearty little shanties and it would lull me to sleep better than brandy.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

...

[Softly:] You sound as though you miss it.

[simplestgift]

[A little spark of thought flashes in his eyes. After a moment of utter quiet, he moves a piece.] Parts of it, yes.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[She senses, far too late, that this was one of those things her college roommate had told her belonged under the category of "Questions That Don't Need To Be Asked, No Really 'Grid, I Mean It, Not Every Questions Is A Good Question."

She moves a piece without thinking about it, and puts herself in a position to be captured.]

[simplestgift]

[Which he completely misses and he moves a different piece. Drugs are bad, y'all. They make you lose at checkers.]

What did you like about home, if I may ask?

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[Without hesitation:] My father. He raised me, took care of me, saved my life, really. He invented this suit, taught me nearly everything I know. I... I owe everything to him. I miss him.

[Oh dear. She's slightly close to tears, but the only giveaway is the tiny quiver in her voice and the way she's staring at the board, not meeting Archie's eyes.]

[simplestgift]

[Archie turns a piece in his hand, then places it back on the board and glances up at her. He doesn't avoid her face, but he doesn't stare, either. His gaze is gentle enough to be nonjudgmental but hard enough to grant dignity. Then, he glances away thoughtfully.]

My father is a good man, and he loves his family. But I had a brother and a sister that were lost before I was even born. It happens, everywhere, constantly. But not with you. Your father must be truly exceptional.

[intangible-girl.livejournal.com]

[Ingrid appreciates the look, Archie, but the words bring up something even harder.]

It... did happen. I had an older sister with the same... problems, but she died before she was a year old. He-

[No. She will not go there. Not with a near stranger, not in her own mind if she can help it. Ingrid moves a piece randomly, smiling brightly up at Archie, no longer close to tears, but rather desperate for a change in topic.]