simplestgift | Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

[any laughter that had been in her eyes before was gone now.

She nodded once, at his permission, but she makes no move to ask questions. She doesn't ask for clarification. She doesn't look doubtfully at him when he describes Simpson. There's an understanding there.

What he did doesn't matter. She knows the type too well to disbelieve]

[He takes a deep breath.]

And I was his favorite. [He stops for a second, not quite sure how on Earth one can elaborate on that.] He...didn't like anyone who was younger, or brighter, or more popular. He was...creative, in some ways, but not in others. He had something he called "the proceedings of the inquisition." He'd beat your entire story out of you, till he had something he could use against you. I...hadn't done anything I was ashamed of, when I was fourteen. I sometimes think I should have lied to him just so he would stop, but if he'd ever found out it would've made it worse. And... [A slight, helpless widening of his eyes.] He had nothing. Nothing he could hold over me and make him do his bidding, not from a boy of fourteen. I suppose he...took matters into his own hands, then.

[Another pause, as if considering whether or not to elaborate. Then he lets out a breath, giving her a glance, trying to determine from her face.]

[What do you do to shame a boy of fourteen? There might have been any number of things to fill that gap. A different time... a military setting... maybe a beating would have been enough. But she knows that pain. She knows that shame, unbidden and undeserved, for a crime they didn't commit.

He hasn't confirmed it, but she doesn't ask him to. It's the worst thing she can imagine, and it's what she thinks she sees in his eyes. "It was a long time before anyone could look at me like I was an officer."

If she asks, he could deny it. But part of her already knows what his answer would be...and she can't bear to make him say when there's no need.]

I'm sorry.

[so soft. It's not pity. To pity him is to pity herself, and she doesn't do that either. But there is pain. And a deeper understanding than either of them should have had.]

[Then understands already.

It was easier to tell her than Dawn. If he had to say why, he might try to say it's because he knows, for certain, that Jilly will never judge him for something like this. But if he really thought about it, he might say that it's because he's now told this story to three people who've then made it into his list of "completely trusted." The more he tells, the less difficult it is, although it is not easy. Her soft statement causes him to bob his head in acknowledgment, but he can't say anything to it. Not at this moment. He can feel the vibrations beginning in his bones, not yet visible as shaking, but likely to get there.]

I, ah. [He takes another drink of wine.] I told one of the lieutenants what was happening, and he laughed. He said that I was lying, and if I was not, and I was not able to...to handle it, then I was not fit to be in the navy. So I...I gave up. Everyone had given up by then. A-and it continued, until...until I was sixteen. [She doesn't need the details--Simpson being transferred for his acting-lieutenancy, then coming back a few months later after failing his examination. That isn't necessary.] Horatio came aboard, then, and we were friends almost immediately. Simpson...took to beating him more than the rest of us, though he never--he didn't. With... [Okay, this got so awkward just now, and he sets down his wine and clasps his hands to keep them from shaking.] Horatio challenged him to a duel. Just so he could have an excuse to kill him legally. And-and one of the older midshipmen, he used to try and look after us, when he could. He knocked Horatio over the head and fought in his stead, and died that way. It's...not a story I'll tell, but it's important you know Horatio tried to bring this man to justice and failed.

One night we were commanding the jolly boat of a cutting-out expedition, and I was...I was ill, I suppose you might say. [Telling her about the fits is too much for one night. She knows how bad it was without it.] I was lying asleep in the jolly boat and when I woke up, I was adrift, with no one in sight.

Edited 2011-07-06 06:53 (UTC)

[She hasn't touched her wine, and she doesn't start now. Rather, when his shaking starts, she carefully sets the glass aside and tentatively leans forward, reaching out. Her hand hovers near his, but not on it. Not actually touching. She looks to him for permission, first, because they both understood. It wasn't something you took for granted.

When he doesn't pull away or shake his head to move her she places her smaller hand over his, holding tight as if she could calm the tremors that way. She knows she can't...but it's all she can do.

She can almost picture them, young and angry and hurt and broken against a system that gave them no way out. A century between them and her, and it breaks her heart that, somehow, the story stays the same. And she can see the threads reaching out to today, the filaments stretching through the years, wrapping themselves around Grell and Jack and Luceti until they were tangled up in them again.

He doesn't have to explain the connection. It's as good as spelled out, in her mind.

When he speaks of being adrift, though, the connections become less clear. This was less familiar territory, and all she can do is nod for him to continue, a small chill settling in her stomach]

Edited 2011-07-06 06:57 (UTC)

[when she touches him, he initially looks a bit more alert, chin raising, then grasps her hand, fully for support. It is so, so rare now for him to be unable to withstand any sort of physical contact, but it does happen sometimes. From women it's automatically easier. He steadies somewhat, though he tries to remember not to hold her tiny hand too tightly.]

I didn't learn the rest of the story for two more years. I was captured by the Spanish--neutral, at the time, but they didn't know what to do with me. So they kept me in one of their prisons. Five times, I tried to escape. The last time, they... [Okay, absolutely no one in Luceti knows this except for Horatio. He lets out a breath. It's part of the story.] They put me in a hole in the earth with no room to stand up or lie down, and locked me in for a month. When I came out, I could not walk and I was half-mad. And shortly after, Horatio...carelessly wandered into the midst of the Spanish fleet after they'd allied themselves with France, and he and his men were sent to the same prison.

[There is a long, long pause, during which his voice evens out.]

I think I knew that...I think I'd reckoned by then that Simpson had cut the mooring line during the attack, and set me adrift, and that it would not have happened had Horatio not stood against him. He thought he had no hold over us anymore, and so tried to kill me. So when Horatio came, good God his was the last face in all the world I wanted to see.

He told me Simpson was dead. He'd tried to kill us both, that night, and he and Horatio fought another duel over it. Simpson fired early and so had to stand and take fire, but Horatio couldn't shoot him in cold blood. He fired into the air instead. Simpson almost stabbed him in the back for his generosity when Pellew gunned him down himself. Horatio never forgave himself for it, Jilly. He still hasn't. He believes he owed it to me, somehow, as if it would have made any difference. He tortures himself over it to this day. But when he told me, all I could hear was that Horatio Hornblower has all the luck in the world, saved by his captain, and already acting-lieutenant while I rotted in a Spanish cell.

[it's a lot to take in. The events that were burned into his memory were foreign to her, so that only bits filtered through as she tried to process it and keep up with him.

Some are painfully clear. As he describes the imprisonment and the torturous hold, she can't help the look of horror that flashes across her features. It's not that she hasn't heard worse. Worse or similar or less doesn't matter. It's that it was too much.

"Why do some men break and others just...don't?"

He'd asked her that,too, and she could have answered why, tonight. It was because they were given so much. More than anyone could take and remain sane. Beaten and tortured and left for dead... it was a wonder they ever came out the other side.

The rest of the story, though, was where their paths diverted. Because the resentment he mentioned was familiar...but not for her. It was an altogether different echo, and her sorrow and sympathy was for both young men...one the fortunate unfortunate...and one left to suffer a worse fate far out of fortune's reach.]

Edited 2011-07-06 07:29 (UTC)

[This pause is longer, to let the story sink in. The shame over his old hatred of Horatio lingers in his voice as he continues.]

I hated him, Jilly. I hated how he talked of escape and of going back to the Indy when...God, even if I'd wanted to live, I wouldn't know how to live on a ship again. Among people. Among real men. I wanted to lie in my bed until I died of it and I wanted to do so in peace, instead of with him there, charming the Don and his lady guest. Taking walks outside, on parole, which he always kept. I couldn't even walk, and I did not wish to. He spoke so often of escape, but would not do it until I was strong. He shamed me, telling everyone I was the one keeping them there, as good as his intentions were. I did not want to go back, and I was keeping him and everyone else from going already, I wanted to die, and I was too weak to accomplish it any way but one. So I-I gave my food and water to a cellmate when Horatio wasn't looking. God, Jilly, I wasn't even a person, then, and I knew it. But he did not. I almost died one afternoon. I don't remember very much about it, but I woke in the prison's sick berth, where he had carried me after begging the guards to let him. We fought--

[His voice catches, and he lets out another breath. His eyes are glassy, lost in a memory, so occupied with staying calm through the story that he's not quite sure why he's telling it any longer.]

He was only trying to get me to drink a little water. I remember telling him I did not want to hear from everyone how Horatio Hornblower had rescued his shipmate from prison. And he said a lot of rubbish, about how they all needed me to escape. But then he said...I'm not sure I could tell you all the words, Jilly, but he told me I was still part of the crew. That I could not let him down. And I remember him holding the cup to my lips and I drank.

I don't remember why, exactly. I think it might have been the first honest thing he'd said to me all night. And...seeing him see me as a man, I think part of me did not want to let him down. It didn't change much--I still wanted to die. But I don't remember anything until I woke the next morning. I'd had a little water, so I'd slept well, and I felt hungry. And strange as it sounds, it felt good. I hadn't been hungry in a long time, you see, after a day or so you stop feeling hungry and you simply feel weak.

So I ate. He fed me, actually. And I slept again, and woke feeling a little stronger. I told him something useful to him. Small things, such small things, but by the end of the day, I was alive and a little better. The next day was much the same, and the next, and once I caught myself daydreaming about going outside the next day, into the sun. I hadn't thought like that in...

[He blinks rapidly a few times, breaking out of the near-trance, and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. Then he squeezes her hand briefly and releases it.]

["Are you me?"

Luceti had made them twins for a week, but what they really shared...

The similarities were painful.]

[He has barely looked at her all this time, not quite able to do so, and hasn't caught on to her signals. After a pause to collect himself, he takes another drink of wine and continues.]

Then it was...goals, you might say. One day, I would try to stand. The next, take a step. Sometimes they would carry me outside so I could sit. Horatio shaved me and tied my hair in a queue and brushed off my uniform so I could wear it and feel a bit more tidied up, and it did help. Little things, Jilly. I began to teach him Spanish one day, when he asked me. I'd come to see him as the only rope keeping me from drowning, and it sounds shameful, but it was true. I was like an infant, I had to re-learn everything you can imagine. But he was never impatient. Sometimes...sometimes I wept because I did not understand how he could be so kind. [Just talking about it thickens his throat, and he pauses again.]

We were not in prison very much longer. Horatio performed a few heroics and we were all released for it. I must have been his shadow to everyone else, once we were back on board the Indy. It was a long time before I could stand on my own, as it were. [He rubs his eyes.] Now you know everything, Jilly. God help me. I didn't mean to go on so long.

Oh, Archie...

[her voice seems distant in her own ears, and the words stick in her throat. In the end, all she can manage is one though, snatched from the end of his tale]

...It's not shameful.

But I am ashamed. [That lovely dichotomy between what you've heard is true and what you feel.] I think I always will be. But...but I am not ashamed of him, or of his friendship. That a man like Horatio Hornblower would see me as a man even in such a state as I was, Jilly! That alone I can take pride in, if nothing else.

[Shaking off the mindset he'd escaped back into while telling the story isn't easy. He finally looks at her face, reasserting the person he has become since these events.]

He didn't see anything that wasn't already there.

[but the words are heavy, and her eyes are troubled as she says them. It's not that she doesn't believe it. She does. He could tell her everything... he could even have told her about the seizures that had shaken him to the core and left him helpless and still in the boat... and it would not change who she saw, except to make it more extraordinary how far he'd come.

But she remembers those months with Angel. She remembers the shame and the self-loathing and the guilt and she knows just how incredible it is to have someone see through all of that and find something worthwhile to hold on to. It's a special gift that so few had and even the act of reassuring Archie feels hollow - like she's dismissing what Horatio did with trite and empty words of reaffirmation and no understanding.

Having listened to so many social workers with similar dialogues, she can feel the familiar distaste in the back of her mouth.

It wasn't true that you had to live it to genuinely offer empathy. More difficult maybe, but Jilly had friends who'd proven their kindness regardless of background. But understanding? That was something else entirely. No one could ever understand.

Until they'd stood there, too.]

[The softest of laughs, more an ironic sound than anything.] I think by seeing it he put it there to begin with. [He looks at her.] I don't mind.

[He does not stop looking at her, now, seeing how drawn she is. He wonders now if he mis-stepped, spoke too much and too close to home. He knows she has been through much, though he knows no details, and if he just blind-sided her with anything he's going to feel like an enormous jerk. Softly, he places a hand beside hers, asking permission, reminded very keenly of those ten days during which he had never been as close with anyone as he was with her. Twins. He speaks almost in a whisper.]

Jilly?

[and the brush of his hand, she takes it without hesitation. This she wasn't afraid of. She was fairly certain she could never be afraid of Archie. Any more than she would fear Geordie, back home. The things they'd experienced could have made them monsters...or broken them... but they'd come out the other side as good men. Better than.

Her fingers thread with his and she squeezes once, lightly, finding a smile to reassure him even if it doesn't reach her eyes. Her Angel. His Horatio. She understood.] I'm just glad you had him.

[His mouth opens a little to ask if she had anyone, but that would be prying. He remembers her telling him about her addiction, about people who helped her become a new person, but that wasn't the only thing. Even when Simpson was at his worst, Clayton had been there, though it had been some time before Archie had understood how much. But the fact of the matter was that it was not his business and would bring him little understanding of her, and that while he would like to be assured that she had some friend through the most difficult times, he could only ask the question for his own peace of mind. His comfort was not the issue.]

I was most fortunate. I before Horatio came, Clayton did what he could to...well. To protect me, I suppose. From Simpson. [He'll resolutely use the last name. "Jack" is no longer a name he wants to associate with that man.] Hundreds of boys across the navy must have endured the same thing and I had someone who at least tried to do something.

We fortunate few.

[it's an idle murmur, not quite the correct quote...but more apt than the original. Because they were not a happy band, with all they'd faced, but they were fortunate indeed.

For all that Archie restrains himself from questioning, it's with his comfort in mind that she searches his face. He'd shared so much while she stayed silent behind her careful walls. It was acceptable. There was nothing written that said they had to bare themselves entirely as a fair exchange...but he'd started this looking for understanding. It was something he had, beyond a doubt, but that did little good if he didn't know.]

I wish you could meet Angel. [the words slip out before she's really decided, still unsure where this might lead. She just knows it will lead somewhere] Protecting people is what she did...does. We called her the Grasso Street Angel.

[there's a small smile at that. It might have been just a coincidental nickname, but in the end there was no denying that Angelina Marceau lived up to it in every way]

Edited 2011-07-06 19:35 (UTC)

She did it for her livelihood, or simply as a way of life?

[Either way, Archie is in a certain awe of this person already.]

I don't think she separates the two.

She's a-

[a pause, considering] Do they have social workers, in your time? People whose job it is to help...kids like us?

[Kids like us. Oh, Jilly. He didn't know how alike she meant, but the nature of abuse didn't mean a thing. Kids like us. What a hushed thing it had been, no one ever admitting it or wanting to cause trouble, let alone banding together over it.]

No. If Lieutenant Eccleston had done what he should have, he would have taken it to the captain, who would see Simpson tried for...s-sodomy, it happened, sometimes, but I daresay not as often as it should have. [The two sentences run together to disguise the word he's long refused to use. He's not sure he could have told a court-martial his story, either.]

[her hand tightens in his, a silent reaction to the tension in those sentences. Just holding on.

It's easier, talking about Angel. It always was]

Angel...she had a rough past, too. There's a lot of hurt there. But she uses it to get kids off the streets. To give them a second chance.

[there's a small smile, remembering] There are a lot of social workers, when I'm from. It's...in some ways, people understand more. That this happens. But for all you could ask anyone on the street if they know it occurs, it's still so...hidden. People aren't any quicker to stop it than they've ever been, I guess.

So they created a job. To do what other people should do on their own. Only, it's never enough when people just do it for money.

[she shrugs] I mean, I'm sure most of them go into it with the best of intentions. They'd have to. It's not really the kind of thing that makes you rich or gets you a lot of fans. Most of the people you work with don't like you, don't trust you, and probably will never thank you. If you manage to help them at all. But most of those workers...they get worn down. They start just...going through the motions.

It's never about motions with Angel. It's personal.

[There's a long pause. This had been the sort of thing he'd really wanted to do, looking after the boys on the Renown, and even with the idea he'd presented to Rydia about the safe houses. He remembered telling Buffy that teenagers are too young to be taken seriously and too old to be looked after, so...so what did that mean?]

She was your Horatio?

She was.

My lifeline, really. She didn't know me from anyone, and she had no reason to trust me...but she did anyway.

Made you yearn to be worthy of that trust?

[a nod]

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