Twenty-two bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

[simplestgift]

[Filtered from known villains and Grell, 100% unhackable]

[The handwriting is disguised and the picture is obscured.]

For the benefit of the new feathers: if you feel unsafe somehow in your own home, you may go to the Welcome Center and be placed in a safe house until you can get back on your feet. There does not have to be a reason. Even if you have returned from a kidnapping and do not wish to be alone, this is available to you.

[/Filter]

[Later, another written message, without the picture obscured.]

To anyone who volunteered to help build the ship:

We will begin work on Monday, at eight o'clock in the morning.  We will meet at the fountain and walk from there.  It'll mostly be cutting and transporting lumber at first, I'm afraid, and that includes building a cart to transport the lumber in.

Thank you,

Lt. Kennedy

[Then, written more hastily a little while later:]

If anyone has stories about Dr. McCoy, I should like to hear them.

[Today, Kennedy is stopping at the grocery store and the smithy, hoping someone with experience at the forge will be up to the challenge he has in mind.

Tonight, he is back to work at Cloud Nine, mostly waiting tables and looking fairly miserable. It's his first night of work since Dr. McCoy left, and since he dislikes the job anyway, he's not doing great at it tonight.

Before he goes home, he will stop by house 7. He will be home late.]

Comments

[simplestgift]

[He gestures to the abandoned halves of the sandwiches.] Do you mind?

[herotypical]

Help yourself. You are, after all, the one who brought them. And I've learned long ago not to stand between a sailor and his sandwich.

[simplestgift]

[Archie flips the halves over on each other and shuffles the sandwich into his hands.]

Do you still have enough things from the bakery, or should I bring more in the morning?

[herotypical]

"...Don't sweat it." She waited, now, to talk between bites. "If Jack has any say in the matter? I'll eat enough muffins that I'll have to order a whole new wardrobe from Shiki. One size up. Looking at him, you'd swear all the world's problems could be fixed by blueberries."

A shrug. She sought solace in sweets just as much as the next person but she was a little worried about Jack's...proximity to going overboard.

[simplestgift]

He wants to help you, is all. It's easier to help others than yourself.

[herotypical]

Not for Jack, I don't think. Or not usually -- he's so different than what he used to be, I think. This place has changed him. It changed Bones, too. It's changing me.

[ and then she looks at archie. appraisingly. ]

[simplestgift]

[He was sinking into deep thought before he noticed the look she gave him. Now he looks at her, a little startled.]

...Yes?

[herotypical]

Just...nah. It's nothing.

[simplestgift]

Buffy.

[herotypical]

You must've been changing too. That's all.

[simplestgift]

...Nine months ago I'd never have spoken to an admiral the way I have to Norrington.

[herotypical]

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[ thin ice for her, here. she likes norrington an awful lot. ]

[simplestgift]

Quite a bad thing, although...I believe things are getting better.

[herotypical]

...Better? Better how?

[simplestgift]

Well, we had tea today. Speaking at all without tearing each other apart is certainly an improvement.

[herotypical]

[ buffy looks actually....surprised. ]

That is. It is an improvement. He -- he kinda takes a while to warm up. I've noticed.

[simplestgift]

I wouldn't call him warmed up. He wanted to know about Leonard. It was natural to invite him inside for tea. Diplomatic, if you will.

[herotypical]

Thawing, then. It's like someone left that poor man in a deep-freeze for too long and he's gone and grown some sharp, hurty freezer burn around the edges. But I'm glad...to hear it. About the diplomacy.

[ the return of buffy's food metaphors! ]

[simplestgift]

I can never tell what to make of him, Buffy. I can't tell you he treats me like a lieutenant if I treat him like an admiral, because that wasn't the case from the beginning.

[herotypical]

Just...treating him like a man worked for me. [ she isn't sure how one treats someone like an admiral or a lieutenant, anyway. ]

[simplestgift]

Yes, well. That didn't work, either, not for me.

[herotypical]

...Some nuts are tougher to crack than others. But I believe there's a good man in there. He's been -- very fair to me. Very, very fair.

[simplestgift]

...You're a woman.

[herotypical]

I'm a woman who lied to him purposefully and repeatedly during the first few times we met. And then threw him in the river.

[simplestgift]

It doesn't matter. You're a woman.