The Drain // for Jack

[annebonny]

October 21, 2019

It's impossible to forget what's happened. She don't even get the freedom of dreams and a confusion on waking. It's a wonder she gets any sleep at all here, with the wrong-smelling air and the sounds both too much and too quiet, distant and strange and muffled. She wakes several times and each time she knows exactly where she is, the sheets damp from sweat and her a shivering mess, not just from cold. Jack is beside her, the only familiar thing in the whole world. He still smells right, still feels right, and even in this impossible nightmare he's still by her side, like whatever force made this happen knew even it wasn't strong enough to pry them apart. So she pulls close to him, stays close, sleeping fitfully with her head resting on his chest or burrowed in the hollow of his neck and shoulder. This is safe, has always been safe when nothing else was; now more than ever.

When dawn finally breaks, she lifts her head to look at him, waiting until he's opened his eyes before she says, "We can't stay here."

It's obvious. It doesn't need to be said. But she needs to say it, which is different. As if someone might be listening, someone who needs to hear her say it: "There has to be a way back."

As if speaking it aloud will make it so.

Comments

[jackrackham]

"There should be." Jack tips his head up to meet her eye, then lets his head fall back to the pillow. He sighs, his eyes closed, feeling the rough sheets and the soft press of Anne lying against his chest, and wishes that any of this felt real. He takes a moment, trying to think imagine that they're back in bed in Nassau, before they were plucked off the world, before he'd gotten himself captured, before Max stole away Anne's heart - but the outside world intrudes. He can feel Anne shiver, just a little. It's too cold in this room and the night before they'd only pulled off their boots and weapons before falling, exhausted, into bed. There's a faint hum in the room, and outside he can hear the whoosh of cars heading past. None of it fits, or really feels like something he can trust.

He opens his eyes again, brushes a hand over Anne's hair, and pushes himself up. He pushes a hand back through his hair, settling it, then sits on the edge of the bed and reaches for his boots.

"There must be a road out somewhere, even if it doesn't take us home." From what Greta had told them yesterday, it seems like nobody expects there to be a way out of here that's not arbitrary and out of their control, but one woman can't know everything about this place. "If there's a way in, there must be a way out."

[annebonny]

Anne sits up when Jack does, follows his lead in pulling on her boots, getting her coat and her swords set back at her hips. She didn't expect anything different, but she's glad all the same that he's moving on this. Jack's determination has seen them through plenty that was strange and dire before; nothing as otherworldly as this, but it's still a comfort.

Glad isn't the same as confident, though. That woman seemed certain of what she told them, and Anne can't entirely avoid a fear that she was right. The anxiety of it is embedded in Jack's syntax, even: when the way in was something invisible, something that shouldn't have been possible, somewhere they suddenly were and not somewhere they went, then a way out might only be the mirror of that, something they can't overcome, can't hope to understand.

But it don't serve anyone to think like that. So she just nods as she dons her hat, pulling the brim down as usual, before finally looking at him again.

"Then let's find it," she says decisively.

[jackrackham]

"If nothing else, we can see what's stopping us from walking out of the city." Greta had said that there's some sort of barrier, but he doesn't want to take her word for it. It's hard to even conceptualize what that would be. He hadn't seen any great walls or barricades surrounding the city, but he doubts it will be that simple- their arrival by sea had but sudden and startling and impossible. What then, is this barrier like?

They walk out, and Jack directs them towards the train tracks. The train hadn't been how they had arrived, but they are how many people arrive in Darrow and, it seems, the only clear way of travel beyond its borders. It's still cold and Jack draws his coat around himself, wondering if maybe this journey should have waited until they both have some warmer clothes, but everything still feels so uncertain. He can't help but wonder if there's some window of escape that's rapidly closing.

He looks at the strange businesses and cars with a mix of curiosity and wariness as they pass, and soon enough they're beyond the city. The tracks themselves are unfamiliar, but he likes the crunch of gravel underneath his boots and the blue-grey of morning sky. After the tumult of their arrival, this trip doesn't feel safe or good or certain, but doing something feels necessary.

[annebonny]

Nobody stops them when they leave the city. Anne almost thought someone might, thought Greta's claim that it's the city what keeps them here, rather than anyone in it, was too ridiculous to believe. But no one seems to care what they do. They follow the tracks out into the more open space beyond, the first part of the journey done, too easy and with too many unknowns still to cross.

Anne hunches her shoulders tight against the cold, part of her wanting to pull close to Jack for both the comfort and the warmth, but she keeps a slight distance. If something happens and she needs to draw her weapons, to protect him, she'll need freedom of movement. Not sure what could happen out here, but it's that which keeps her ready, on a constant alert and she scans their strange surroundings, hardly more relaxed out here than she was in the city itself. It is quieter out here, but still unfamiliar, still an open question. Anything might happen to them after yesterday, when they endured the impossible.

Looking ahead, there is no visible change in the horizon, but there's little solace in that. Just as she cannot anticipate what dangers they might find, she knows too readily that this 'barrier' may take a form they don't recognize. And there's another question underlying even all that: if they can breach it, what next? How do they return home the way they came, when the way they came was an eye-blink across time and oceans?

These questions are better pondered by Jack. Anne can scarcely keep up with them. But Jack is silent beside her, and while ordinarily their shared silence is a comfort, now it is difficult to bear. Her mind grasps for some sort of focus, lost in the swirl of this mad thing that's happened to them. It's the same for him, no doubt. But she wishes he would talk about it, if only to quiet her own disordered thoughts. The awareness that she doesn't and can't know what to expect weighs down on her, a heavy pressure on her back, a burden she can't hope to ease on her own. She shivers with cold and omnipresent tension.

Finally, needing something, she just grunts and speaks the obvious: "Don't see any wall out there." Even if Jack has no further thoughts on that than those she's had already, she wants to hear him put them forward. To listen to him try to untangle it, instead of trying on her own.