simplestgift | Sixteen Bells: [WRITTEN/VOICE/ACTION]

[Filtered against known villains and Grell, 100% unhackable]

[The handwriting is disguised, and the picture obscured. The message is as anonymous as possible.]

If there is anyone returned from a kidnapping or being threatened who does not feel safe in his or her home, speak to anyone at the Welcome Center and they will direct you to a safe place to stay until things are better.

If you wish to volunteer to house someone, you will need a reference from a trusted member of the community.

[/Filter]

[A few minutes later, he uncovers the camera and starts a new message, spoken this time.]

Alexis Rodgers has been sent home. At least I assume as much--no one has seen her and her flat is empty. It's good. She was very homesick, and...

[A pause. There's nothing really to say after that. He doesn't sound greatly distressed, but there's definitely a certain melancholy.

He'll be at the library this afternoon, and Good Spirits tonight. Missing Dawn, mostly. He'll occasionally walk through the item shop, killing time looking for little gifts to pick up for her. At some point, he'll go see Ingrid in the clinic. In the evening, he'll pay a visit to Jack Sparrow's house on the beach. He's there to see Horatio, of course.]

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She might not be in a cage, you know. It might not be so bad. It isn't always....

I'll be watching for you.

[Again, the "for you" strikes him as strange, but there's an odd comfort in it. Jack is respecting what this is putting him through.

Jack. Respecting. What this is putting him through. Treble the oddity. Unsure how to respond, he latches on to the first thing he said.]

...Have you been captured, Jack? What's it like?

[First off, Archie, the cells are cold. Very cold. And you can hear things---what they do to fellow captives. And screaming. And your own screams, later, when it is your turn.

And they didn't even ask any questions.]

Aye. It's...difficult. But not so bad...

[There's a long pause.]

Don't patronize me, Jack.

What do you WANT me to say, Kennedy?!

Tell me what's happening to her.

[There are assorted grumblings coming over the wire, Kennedy. Assorted grumblings. Jack is talking to himself, arguing fiercely, though it probably sounds garbled over the journal.]

Jack.

...Why do you want to know, Kennedy? It's best you don't.

Because if I don't, I can't stop myself from imagining the worst.

[There is a very long pause indeed. Then:]

They keep you caged, in a prison cell. At least they did me. It was cold, the walls were white. There were chains. I could hear voices of others, captured, but they couldn't hear me. They fed me at times. Then there was a large table, and they tied me down upon it while they----

[He stops, fumbling for ways to talk about this that are less alarming.]

[Archie is actually holding his breath.]

They never asked any questions of me.

Torture?

[Just...silence. Then:] I've had worse, I suppose. Beckett and all.

...And you remember it all?

A man doesn't soon forget that sort of thing, even if this time there were no permanent reminders, Kennedy.

She's strong. Dawn. She's a strong girl.

...She is strong.

[I'm not. It may as well be him in that cage.]

Edited 2011-06-27 19:36 (UTC)

[A strong girl whom Jack had taught how to shoot.]

Buffy will be in tatters.

[It was a smooth answer to Archie's unspoken thought. A reminder.]

Buffy is also strong. She was at Dawn's flat, when I arrived.

[On the surface, maybe, she puts on an excellent show.]

Aye--even had she been there during the kidnapping, there would be nothing she could do. No one can resist the metal men.

I know. But she wasn't the one taken.

Are you suggesting you might have stopped them? Because that's not what "Actualizing Your Authentic Self" would call "constructive thinking," mate.

The one taken was Dawn, Jack. And no matter what Buffy feels, or what I feel, neither of us is as hurt or frightened as she is.

...Constructive thinking?

Another one of those modern-type terms that it might be better not to try to explain, really. [Because, God, how he had failed with Ayumu.]

And that's just the thing: I cannot help her. I can endeavor to...make things not so bad for you, or for Annie.

[voice]

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