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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[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.]

[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.]

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]

[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)

[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.]

[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.

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.]

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.

Is that...?

[He doesn't want to venture a guess.]

Foster care?

It's where families take in kids who aren't with their families. Temporary, usually. Sometimes the parents adopt.

[a small, sad smile] I'm sure there are good people who do it, but I was never that lucky. You get paid to take in kids, you see. The government gives you money so you can afford clothes and food for them.

...the homes I was sent, they were mostly just looking for a check. They weren't all awful. But they weren't good, either.

[a pause]

I stuck it out for awhile. I mean...there weren't a lot of other options, you know? Until one of the foster dads tried...well... he just had a lot in common with my brother.

We made a deal. He'd let me run away and I wouldn't tell the social worker what he'd tried to do.

[there's shame there. Like with Archie and Simpson, she knows what the price of her silence probably was. She's not proud of it]

I took it and I hid out in the city. Newford wasn't far and it was easy to get lost there, if no one was looking for you.

[At least he hadn't succeeded. It happening once didn't make successive times easier, not in the long run. But a girl on her own in a city? Hiding in plain sight, yes, but in plain sight of new predators. He didn't want to interrupt to ask if she had other family she could have gone to. He's sure if she did, she would have found them.]

I...hooked up with this guy. Rob. I thought he liked me, you know? And I was still pretty... pretty messed up as far as anything physical went.

[she looks down for the first time, focusing on her hands] But we started doing a lot of drugs. It took the edge off, but it meant that half the time I didn't even realize when he...

[she trails off, leaving that alone. She doesn't need to finish the sentence] Anyway. We ran out of food. And money. It's not like we had jobs. And then Rob got...[her eyes close, just briefly] he got the brilliant idea of... [she hadn't expected it to be so hard to say to Archie. But this...this is worse than admitting what happened when she was a kid. All her stupid decisions laid out in front of someone who had truly become family. The real kind of family.

She didn't want to see the reaction in his eyes to this] ...selling. Me. For a little cash.

[So a man who raped and tried to exploit her. If Simpson had tried anything like that, he would have...what could he have done? He's too afraid to ask if she agreed to this, and fairly certain she did not have to.

Even if she'd agreed to it, what did it make her now? After some thought, he decided, the same as she's always been, if she had been anything like he'd been when he'd tried to starve himself to death. But after everything, he cannot imagine her agreeing to it.

That does not make him feel better.]

[her voice has gone soft. These years have the most holes in them, for obvious reasons, and yet they were some of the worst.]

I was messed up...but not that messed up. He dropped it. Or, I thought he did. Except then he got a dealer to front him and waited until I was half gone already...and that was it.

[the fight was out of her voice as much as it had left her then] Three years. It took three years to get out, skimming money until I'd have enough to convince him it was worth letting me go.

Except, I didn't have anywhere to go. You aren't really free, at that point. Just a wreck.

That's how Lou found me. He was Angel's boyfriend and a cop and he found me curled on on some doorstep trying to pretend I had somewhere else to be.

...You were adrift. [That's all he can manage to say before his voice gives out.]

I was.

[somehow, she manages to look back up at him. Because here's where their stories line up again. Him as a prisoner, her as...well... a recovering junkie]

I didn't trust Angel at first, but I didn't really have any other options and she found me a place to stay. And then she had to stick out the withdrawl.

It...wasn't pretty. [quite the understatement] I couldn't eat and keep anything down. I didn't want to get up or get dressed or stay clean. And my moods were everywhere. I was angry and depressed and apathetic and violent...

[.....] I hit her. The Angel of Grasso Street and I gave her a black eye. I thought for sure she'd give up on me. I mean...what kind of ungrateful kid does that to the person who's literally picking them up of the ground, you know?

[there's a small smile finally. Not at her own actions, but because she can at least look back on this and see herself as something separate. An angry child that was not the woman she'd become]

I didn't realize a lot of them do. Lash out. A final defense, really, because you already know you can't trust anyone. Except she stuck it out and so did I and, somehow, I finished up school. And I got a job and I started college. Things that should never, ever have been possible.

[A final defense, because you can't trust anyone. Archie had said such hurtful things to Horatio, back then. He's back to shaking slightly, feeling very, very odd now that, with every word, he's slowly learning he is not crazy.

Things that should never, ever have been possible.

Like a midshipman who had fits becoming fourth lieutenant under a war hero.

I didn't want to get up or get dressed or stay clean.

Horatio shaved me and tied my hair in a queue.

You aren't really free, at that point. Just a wreck.]

It was a couple years but... I found a place.

[she can almost laugh, now, the relief of reaching this point palpable] I'll never be normal, I'm sure. But I'm me. And that's enough.

[His hand tightens around hers. There is a long, profound silence, during which he simply absorbs. This feels like a truly significant conversation, the sort he'll look back on as a game-changer, most likely, once the train of thought it's setting him on plays out. He really, truly is not alone.]

Thank you. For telling me.

[That he's not crazy.]

[she just nods. She can't really say 'You're welcome' and she can't quite bring herself to face how this might change things between them. She's hoping it doesn't.

Instead, she's just grateful for whatever relief it might have brought him. Meeting his eyes again, she'll squeeze his hand in return]

[There's another silence. He leans back against the couch, slowly realizing how much he aches from how tense he has been this entire time, but he does not let go of her hand.]

I'm always here, you know. Always. If you want someone who understands.

[As much as he can understand, anyway. That claim doesn't quite feel right for him.]

Edited 2011-07-07 03:06 (UTC)

I want my friend.

[she doesn't expect the same thing from him that she'd expect from Geordie. The same way she wouldn't expect the same thing from Geordie that she would from Angel.

She's already walked this path of coming to terms. Exposing herself to a world that didn't know her past was difficult...terrifying at its best... but it was a terror she was already familiar with.

Archie was facing something else entirely. She could lean on him and she knew he'd hold her up, but she didn't want that from him. She'd already learned to stand]

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