simplestgift | Twenty Bells: [Action/Voice]

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Twenty Bells: [Action/Voice]

[He'd won her a stuffed penguin. She'd been hanging on his arm and squeezing it with a giant grin on her face. Everything felt, finally, like it was going to be okay. Like this trouble between them since sleeping together was just a little thing.

He turns away to grab a strawberry daiquiri for her, still holding her hand. When he turns back, she's gone.

He wanders Lucetiland for a while, looking for her, shaking, still holding the drink, but he knows what's happened. When someone dematerializes while you are touching them...

She was just there, grinning, cheeks rosy. The warmth of her hand hasn't quite faded yet.

He sits on a bench in the middle of the park, staring into space, and nothing in the world draws his attention until, mechanically, he draws out his journal. He's shaking too badly to write, so he has to voice it, and he sounds weak.]

Dawn Summers was sent home.

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[ she would tell him that she envied him his last moment but -- ah, no. he still has it worse. she would go back to her sister, assuredly. ]

If you ever need anything, Archie...[ you're still like a brother to me, sometimes. ]

Edited 2011-08-23 13:18 (UTC)

I know. [He can remember being her brother. It feels like he still is, right now, no matter the troubles that have passed between them since they thought they'd grown up in Luceti Valley.]

[ the fits and starts rumblings of a progressing relationship between the two of them -- her dawnie and archie -- had long ago put buffy in mind of what it might be like to be part of a larger family again. not strictly a brother-in-law, per se...but something. tied to her through her sister. it helps that luceti valley made the tie that much easier to imagine.

firmly, she holds archie's hand. ] It's okay to go a little crazy, you know.

[He shakes his head softly, disagreeing. He's been "a little crazy" before and it's in a hurry to go back there. But this doesn't feel crazy. It feels crippling, for now, but not crazy. Still, he squeezes her hand gently to communicate that he understands her intentions.]

[ she sees the shake of his head and shakes right back. ] No, I mean...it's okay to take off. Have some you-time. There's no rule book about this stuff that says you have to stay and talk to anyone. Or that you have to talk at all.

[He can remember talking with Pellew. Being lectured, more like it. It had been shortly after Ferrol, and he'd been distracted on watch. They'd nearly lost a French corvette. After a proper dressing-down, Pellew had hesitated, sighed and told him he understood how impossible it was to do what he asked. Kennedy barely knew how to function as a man anymore, let alone as an officer, and he was doing the best anyone could who had been through what he'd been through. But this went beyond him or Pellew or anyone else. He had to pretend he was whole, at least, or everyone on the ship could be ruined.

After that, Archie had noticed Bracegirdle hanging nearby more often during Archie's watch, usually reading by lantern-light or simply looking out to sea. When asked, the jolly lieutenant would smile and say he was just stretching his legs. Archie wonders to this day if he'd done that on his own or if Pellew had requested him to keep an eye out for a struggling midshipman.]

Me-time.

Just...don't skip out on town and run away for three months and change your name and never phone anyone. Dawn tells me this isn't the right way to deal with loss. I'm pretty sure she elbowed me in the gut for it.

[ it's...a rather poor, clumsy attempt at injecting dawn-based humour into the moment. her best mechanism for survival. ]

[Actually, Archie is pretty astonished by everything Buffy just said. It takes him a moment to recover.]

I'm sure I won't.

[A beat.]

What happened then?

[ she's not sure if archie is asking the before or the after -- so she diplomatically chooses for him: ] We hugged it out and she forgave me. Eventually. After much sucking up and me even giving her my good cable-knit sweater.

[ at least that is what buffy remembers. and she need only drive home to archie the fact that dawn is a young woman made up of memories -- that to hold onto what he has already had with her is the best thing he could do. but it will take her a while to reach that point. ]

[Right. It wasn't his business anyway. Buffy's life was so full of tragedy he never quite felt like he had the right to be melancholy around her. He doesn't think to ask if this is one of the real memories or one of the fake ones. He knows they feel the same to both the girls.]

I'll stay within the barrier, then. [Ha ha.]

Good man. 'Cause I don't think you want me elbowing you instead of her. She may be a terror 'cause she's vicious but I just can't help it.

[ buffy takes the liberty of taking a seat. ] It gets better, you know. It's cruel to say but it's true. The last Captain I...well, Bones' Captain? It took me a while to get over his leaving.

[ and then in a kind of confession that she'd never really managed to string together before now: ] Jack helped. He's good at that kind of thing -- he makes fun and distraction his mission in life. I'd bet my last dollar that he'll come looking to distract you as soon as he...as soon as I tell him.

[He remains standing for a moment, then starts doing what he knows he should do--making tea. There's this amazing device that heats water at the press of a button. It's his new best friend.] Everyone wants to give me help. I don't know what I'll do with all of it.

[It's a pitiful attempt at a joke. But he is grateful.]

You let them help you. [ another lesson she's learned the hard way; shutting the help out and standing too tall only worries them more. ] For a while. And then you remember how to breath. And then you remember how to stand. And then you remember how to walk. And what things you like pepper on. And how to button a shirt.

And then you remember how to run.

[Softly:] I know. [He really did have to re-learn how to walk, once. But most support he received from anyone other than Horatio had been somewhat disguised. It wasn't this intense.]

Do the next thing. [He opens the cupboard and takes out a teacup. His own is sitting on the coffee table, and while the water heats, he comes out of the kitchen and picks it up.]

And then the next. And then the next. But remember her. Always.

[ and then as buffy senses that all this help has become rather...pushy -- she asks for his help: ] Can you do that for me, Archie? As long as you can?

[Dammit, Buffy, you're gonna make him cry again, and he already had a hard cry once tonight. He pauses, his teacup halfway off the coffee table. The electric kettle starts rumbling in the kitchen. Then, he gently sets both cups down on the coffee table and sits by her, going carefully neutral.

Dawn is unforgettable. But somehow, to say it out loud would be shallow.]

You think...

[Remember her. It's just memories now. No bright, smiling face or nut-brown hair or long, pale legs or bubbly giggle.]

[ the slayer holds her hands loosely in her lap. one palm she presses lightly with two fingers. the palm she had once pressed into dawnie's. summers' blood. ]

I don't think. I know. [ it doesn't matter what archie was about to say. she interjects so smoothly. so assuredly.

the monks had made dawn out of her. her thoughts, her memories, her drive to keep something so precious so safe. but even where the two sisters were so similar they were also so, so different. perfectly so. ]

[He can hear that the water is ready. He lets it go.]

I couldn't forget her.

...And remembering's not the same as -- oh, I don't know. Fixating. Eventually, you're gonna remember that you've got your own life to live. Here. Even if she's not here. And that's okay, too.

[He lets out a breath. He can't think about moving on, but hearing about it serves to remind him that this isn't for ever. After a moment, he stands up and picks up the teacups, heading to the kitchen to make tea.]

Lots of milk and sugar in mine. [ she calls after him -- working admirably to keep her voice as level as possible. she's had lots of practice. ]

Edited 2011-08-23 15:25 (UTC)

[When he comes back, there's lots of milk and sugar in hers. His is kept black. It's a taste he acquired after the abolition movement really started getting heat. Here, of course, it doesn't matter.]

[ she takes the cup in two palms. ]

...Thanks.

You're welcome. [He sits by her again, setting his own cup on the table.]

...Is there anything you want to know?

[ her voice cracks on this next line: ] When Jack left, Norrington told me -- he had stories and things to say. They helped.

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