simplestgift | Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

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Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

On July the 4th, 1776, one Horatio Hornblower was born in Kent. If you see him, bid him many happy returns. He will most likely grump about it all day and act ungrateful, but don't allow it to discourage you. He does appreciate it, he simply does not know it.

[For most of the day, Archie will be running around trying to furnish a bedroom in the house for a new housemate. He'll end up in the library, Good Spirits, the grocery store, then finally the Battle Dome, mostly staring in bewilderment at the controls before deciding this is too scary and leaving. At some point, he'll also take a walk in the woods, rain or no rain, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat but no coat. After a while, he'll get back on the journals.]

[Filtered away from Grell, 44%]

If you wanted to surprise someone dear to you, to cheer her up when she returned from being kidnapped, what would you do for her?

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Her sister too, last I recall. Is she anything like her sister?

[He hesitates, gives a few false starts as if about to ask a question, then stops.]

I've never...spoken with anyone who understood, Jilly. Not ever, not that I know of. Some were understanding, but they did not understand.

[Oh dear, you just asked Archie to talk about Dawn. Get ready.]

Not very much at all, in many ways. More beautiful. More learned, more thoughtful, well-spoken and well-read but still witty. And so, so kind, William, I've never known the like, I don't think. She has a heart for everything, but she's playful and quick to laugh and loves to make others laugh. Has her feet on the ground, no nonsense about her. She's always introducing me to these newfangled desserts. Always putting others before herself, but never anyone's fool.

[As he talks, he sounds a tad melancholy.]

[she nods. She doesn't need to ask what he means]

It's not something you ever want them to understand. Not really. But...

[her fingers tighten on his, briefly] No one should be alone, either.

[and there it was. That was maybe the biggest difference between them. Because Jilly had always known she wasn't alone in suffering, even if it had taken 17 years for someone to help her find a way out. But Archie? He carried it like it was a sign of weakness. Like the torture he'd suffered was somehow his fault.

...and what else could you believe, if you're the only one you know who had to face it?]

[Deep breath, Jilly.]

I was... I was three when it started. I think. You don't really remember those years clearly, I guess, but it seems right.

[it was never an easy story to tell, but this was easier than telling Jack. Magic aside, she'd been terrified Jack would reject her.

This time, it's just sharing.]

[If William were a crueler sort, he'd tease Archie mercifully. But there is not much cruelty in his heart, and what is is reserved for those on the wrong end of his sword. And, most of all, Archie's obvious pleasure is infectious.]

Sounds like you've found the perfect girl.

[No, you don't wish it on anyone. You just wish someone would stop pretending it wasn't a problem.

When she spoke, his chin jerked up a little and his eyes widened slightly. He blinks rapidly, and holds on to her hand like he's keeping her from falling. There is a definite, shocked horror to his voice.]

Three.

[It makes him wonder, somehow, what he has to complain about.]

[The slight melancholy lifts.] I think you may be right!

When's the wedding? Hope not soon; I've just been to one, and my uniform hasn't shown up yet.

Don't.

[She looks him in the eye, blue eyes catching blue.] The when doesn't matter.

[it's not the horror that bothers her. She'd felt the same for him. It's the comparison that she can see lingering in his eyes]

Come now, it's a bit premature for that.

I don't bloody know, do I? For all I know, you've been courting her for ages.

[He does not look convinced. At least he can remember a happy childhood, but...God, who would hurt a three-year-old girl?]

Who?

[and here is where things will become clear. She knows it even before she answers]

My brother.

He was...is, I guess...quite a bit older than me.

Edited 2011-07-06 23:46 (UTC)

[That was the moment when Archie realized he had been dating Dawn for five months. In their time, marriage was a perfectly reasonable thing to expect after that long. But...why was it premature?]

It...I don't even know who would marry us, here. Not to mention one of us could disappear at any moment.

[Even that does not hit the nail on the head. How did he unthinkingly stray so far from the familiar? Well, besides the fact that he's never properly courted anyone at all before.]

[Her brother.

Her...

God in Heaven. He can remember when they were twins, reaching out to embrace her after her nightmare and her leaping back.]

Your brother. [It's all he can say.]

Horatio's a bloody captain, he could marry you. I'm sure there's a priest around here somewhere, if that doesn't suit. They've got everything else.

[William doesn't see why Archie's making such a big deal out of this, it's just a lady. Lady business. Business involving a lady. Not that kind of business. Marrying business. Boring, unnecessary business.]

[her mouth is dry. She notices it now, talking about it, or, maybe it's just nerves, but she reaches over to pick up the wine glass with her free hand, sipping just a little before continuing]

I was eight when my mother walked in on us. I guess that would make him 16.

[a pause. There's a little bitterness in the next part, but it's small, mostly masked by resignation that's come with years of learning to cope] She walked back out again until he was finished. Then she took me to confession.

[Is it Buffy? Buffy will kill him if he takes things at any pace other than the one she deems acceptable, and right now, that pace does not include marriage or sex. It's just that there's something so unhurried and lovely about it simply being what it is, right now. But what if Dawn has been waiting for this? What if he's been misreading everything?]

What if she doesn't want it?

But why? Surely she could see--

[See the wanton little girl who won't even put up a struggle? How many times has he wondered if he will go to Hell because he did not fight hard enough? But it had been his own reaction, not the abuse itself, that had caused everyone to judge him. In a court-martial, he would only be a witness, unless Simpson managed to convince the court-martial that he had consented. Did Jilly's mother believe she had consented? If so, why did that make her more guilty than her brother? She was a girl. Girls and women are to be protected. It's men who are the perpetrators. As a man coming from a time that produced Pamela and Mozart's Don Giovanni, it's beyond his scope to immediately understand.]

It's nothing at all... It's always wonderful, to have a reason to be happy.

[Sorry, Archie, William is really not the guy to talk about women or marriage. He can really only understand women in the context of sisters or prostitutes; there are precious few inbetweens, those few inbetweens that remain are still unmarriable (barmaids).]

[So he shrugs and blinks a bit, and picks up what will make a nice covering for the dresser (it's a towel).] Ask someone else. I don't know. I don't want a wife, never have, never will. Ask someone who's married.

[William stops.]

But not Horatio.

[He thinks about this.]

Mr. Hughes is married. I shall ask him.

I don't know.

[time made no difference in that, really. She couldn't comprehend what would make someone blame a victim so completely]

She didn't have much love for us girls. Me or my sister. I don't know why.

[she releases his hand to cup both around her wine glass, taking another sip] It kept on for awhile. I think my father wanted to stop it, at first..but in the end he didn't really do anything about it. Just...stopped looking at me.

And then I started running away.

[A mother could afford to be harder on her girls than a father, but this was... Her brother, good God. Archie had had two brothers and a loving father, all good people to grow up with. Somehow, such crimes might be unsurprising from a father in the least savory parts of Dover or Portsmouth, but a brother, somehow, even more one's kin than one's father, he couldn't think of.]

I tried making money with my drawings. I liked to doodle, even back then. But...I wasn't very good, and no one was going to pay money for scribbles on scraps of paper. So I started stealing.

I got caught, of course. I wasn't very good that that, either. And they sent me back home. I would have rather gone to juvie - that's a kids' prison. In my time - but my parents had filed a missing person report with the police. God only knows why. So they sent me back home.

It repeated a few times, me running away and then getting sent back, until my family stopped looking for me and I started going through foster care.

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