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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...Huh?

[ this barely registers. ] What? What about Dawn? Is she okay?

[There's a long pause. How can he reiterate this to Buffy?

Like an officer.

He clears his throat, his voice going low, but cracking a little.]

She-she went home.

No.

[ instantly, her voice gets thick. ] No. She can't have. I just -- we just talked. She came by the castle and we talked, dammit. She's here. You just...you lost track of her.

I was holding her hand. [He sounds distant.]

Then you let go and she got lost in the crowd. There's hundreds of us out here.

[ but now comes the sound of a great scuffle and of swearing and a grunt of pain as buffy tussles once again with the droids keeping her in this damned castle. ] Let me out. [ she shouts at them, pleads with them.

by now, she must be crying. ] Archie. You've gotta be wrong. You have to be wrong.

Archie.

[What else is there to say? At least right now.]

[That's exactly what he's been telling himself. He looked everywhere. But he can't forget the feeling of her hand vanishing in his. He rubs his fingers together slightly, but does not respond.]

[There's a long pause, as if he doesn't know he's being spoken to. Then, belatedly:]

Yes?

Archie? Please tell me you haven't checked her apartment yet.

[ but she understands. sometimes? you just know. like waking up without jack. like walking in on a kirkless bed. ]

[Blinking rapidly, his breathing becomes audible for a second.] N-no.

Then you don't know. Not for sure.

[ she clings to this tattered, wispy bit of hope. ]

[He knows. He knew the moment he stopped feeling her hand in his.]

Perhaps I don't.

...Perhaps.

[ a hard swallow. ] You check. I'll -- I'll find you once I'm out.

All right. [He's not going to check. He knows. And going to her apartment and seeing it empty will only seal it.]

[ hours later, a raw voice hits the journal feed: ] Where are you?

Where are you?

At-at the park, the one offshore.

[Everything just goes...so very quiet and still.

Giles sinks down against a booth, and the noise of the festival just...fades. It's meaningless. It means absolutely nothing, and Giles can't remember the last time he felt so alone.

And just like that, she's gone from being the bright, shiny twenty year old girl at a birthday party, aghast that he couldn't dance, to a pale, still form but for the blood trickling from her head, and he'd never know if she lived or died.

He'd never gotten the chance to tell her that he'd been considering asking Ginia to teach him...

...two to go.

Needless to say, Giles is trying so very hard not to cry when he replies.]

Th-Thank you for telling us.

[Archie doesn't respond. He lets the message wash over him along with the rest of the noise. But he'll be sitting on this bench until Horatio comes to take him home.]

I'll be there soon.

[He nods, not quite registering that Horatio cannot see it.] Thank you.

[He'll wait however long it takes.]

[It takes him longer than he likes.

He hasn't had to find his way to this place before, and he doesn't know his way around the park.

Still, he finally finds his friend. Horatio approaches wordlessly and sits beside Archie. His arm goes behind him, hand settling on Archie's shoulder.

There's nothing he can say.]

[The moment of contact, Archie breaks down. His head bows low, and his shoulders shake with sobs. He hasn't had a cry like this in a very long time--not since before the Renown, probably--but at the moment, he can't seem to care that he's completely losing it in public.

Dawn is gone. He may never see her again.]

[Horatio tightens his grip on Archie's shoulder and pulled him close.]

Archie.

[Warm, sympathetic, gentle. He can't think of anything to actually say, but he can hold him, let him deal with this, be whatever support Archie might need.]

[A hand comes up and clasps Horatio's shoulder, practically hanging on as he bends over.

No, no, no, no, no, no...

"Then you and Dawn can have a herd of small baby Kennedys and watch them run about the decks."

A fresh bout of sobs ripple out, and he raises a hand to wipe his face.]

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