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Reconnoiter // for Jack
23 October, 2019
Anne returns to the white clean rooms called theirs carrying the pineapple she bought at the grocery store, and finds the place empty and quiet. She and Jack went out separate, the only form of plan or arrangement being a return before dark. She knows he can handle himself, and she knows more than ever this city's dangers aren't the sort to which they're accustomed. Whether that means he's more or less likely to fall into some trouble she can't really say, but it don't serve her in particular to worry over it. Never been like this before, where being apart at all felt so unsteady. But with everything else gone, they're all they've got.
She remembers the little device they'd each been given—'phone,' they call it—and how it's supposed to let them communicate across distances, just like that. Most of the contents of her welcome packet are strewn across the little table in the kitchen, and she fishes through it for the phone, holding it up and poking at it a bit. She hates it, the smallness of the images and the words, the way it produces its own light, the colors. It don't feel right, feels like something that shouldn't exist. She sets it back down. She'll wait for Jack like normal.
She clears some of the mess up, taking her time gathering the papers into a neat pile which she can set aside. She sets the pineapple in the center of the table, and after staring at it for a moment, goes to fetch herself some water. Feels strange, just always having it run freely from this faucet. She still feels certain it'll run out eventually. And she ain't used to the taste. But being out all morning's taken its toll, so she fills a glass and sets it on the table as well. Then she sits.
She waits like that, occasionally sipping her water, for what feels like a long time, and probably isn't. When the door finally opens, she looks up quickly and then gets to her feet.
Anne returns to the white clean rooms called theirs carrying the pineapple she bought at the grocery store, and finds the place empty and quiet. She and Jack went out separate, the only form of plan or arrangement being a return before dark. She knows he can handle himself, and she knows more than ever this city's dangers aren't the sort to which they're accustomed. Whether that means he's more or less likely to fall into some trouble she can't really say, but it don't serve her in particular to worry over it. Never been like this before, where being apart at all felt so unsteady. But with everything else gone, they're all they've got.
She remembers the little device they'd each been given—'phone,' they call it—and how it's supposed to let them communicate across distances, just like that. Most of the contents of her welcome packet are strewn across the little table in the kitchen, and she fishes through it for the phone, holding it up and poking at it a bit. She hates it, the smallness of the images and the words, the way it produces its own light, the colors. It don't feel right, feels like something that shouldn't exist. She sets it back down. She'll wait for Jack like normal.
She clears some of the mess up, taking her time gathering the papers into a neat pile which she can set aside. She sets the pineapple in the center of the table, and after staring at it for a moment, goes to fetch herself some water. Feels strange, just always having it run freely from this faucet. She still feels certain it'll run out eventually. And she ain't used to the taste. But being out all morning's taken its toll, so she fills a glass and sets it on the table as well. Then she sits.
She waits like that, occasionally sipping her water, for what feels like a long time, and probably isn't. When the door finally opens, she looks up quickly and then gets to her feet.
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Jack moves on from that too quick for her to answer aloud, and she lifts her head and arches a brow when he starts in about a man who knew their names and drew Jack's flag. Must be a man from this world, or something near it, for Jack to be speaking of it so keenly. Anne begins to see the full shape of the events that led him to his good mood, the mood she's well shattered by now. Something so difficult to imagine, that hundreds of years from now—from then, she supposes—their names will still have meaning. That across all that time and in an entirely different world, those names may be known by anyone. It's all Jack has wanted, and now he's been taken away on what might have been cusp of it all.
She waits, still, until Jack is finished. Watches as he abandons you and me, leaving an empty space she doesn't know how to fill, and not for lack of trying. She wonders if he fears that an end to their career means an end to them. She told him: 'til they put us in the fucking ground, and she'll mean it until she's there. But that don't mean she wants to race toward it.
Her gaze holds on him for a few moments beyond his final remark, and then finally drifts away. She's quiet for a long time, just patiently thinking.
"I want that future for us," she says slowly. "I won't stand in its way, Jack. Won't stand in your way. If that's our future, then it's ours, and we'll get it together. I just—"
She huffs out a sigh and shrugs, folding her arms on the table, looking ponderously at the oddly smooth grain of the wood before finding his eyes again. "If we're gonna have that Nassau, then I want to live to see it. And maybe I want to see what else is out there, without having to scrape and fight every day just to survive it. And I don't want any of that without you there to see it with me." She wants to stop talking, when every word feels so hard, when it all matters so much. She wants to sit here and eat this familiar fruit with him and ask about this library and this man he met. She wishes she hadn't taken that away from him so fast. But they're talking, and it matters, and she just needs a little more.
"You lost Charles," she says softly. "I don't want to lose you. All right?"
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He nods, and takes in a breath that is shakier than he'd been expecting it to be. Even now, mention of Charles feels like too much, like the grief will swallow him if he focuses on it for too long.
"I lost you. Not like Charles, but..." He abandons that track with a sigh and a frown. He doesn't want to blame her for falling in love with someone else. Max was what she had needed and, as much as it hurt, he was glad that she found that love for a little while. He can't fill that place, and now, without Max, he's not sure what Anne wants him to be. "I want you to be content. If that means you're by my side, I will welcome it. Forever."
The thought is nice, but he has trouble holding onto it.
"...but you can't be my wife, and if we abandon the Account we won't be partners in anything. What's left, after that?" He meets her eyes, but only briefly. He can feel himself falling apart. When he tries to blink away tears, they run down his cheeks instead. If he's not her husband or her captain, if he can't make her happy, what use will he be to her?
"I thought- I hoped that how we've been since we arrived here..." He sniffs and looks away. He had missed her pressed against his side at night, and missed waking up next to her. The past few days had felt hopeful, but he reminds himself that she doesn't want that from him anymore. Perhaps she's just been humoring him, or going back to old habits for comfort while there are no better options. "I wanted it to mean something, but it doesn't."
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She lets him finish, her eyes settling back on him at once when she hears the quaver in his voice, sees him looking away, the streaks of tears clear on his face. Her already gentle expression softens all the more. None of this would be worth getting angry over even if she was inclined. She knows exactly how long he's been carrying this, and it's so rare that he lays himself this bare she can scarcely even recall the last time it happened. She's not sure what she can say to fix it, but she has to try. More than anything, more than making him understand the things it seems she can't explain good enough, she doesn't want to be the thing that hurt him.
So she pushes her chair back and gets up, coming around to his side of the table and laying a hand on his arm. With her other hand she touches his cheek gingerly, coaxing him to turn toward her.
"It does," she says, soft but intent. "It does, Jack. Maybe it's not..." She purses her lips briefly, trying to work out how to put this. "It's not all I want, but that don't really matter now. I can't be what you want me to be, but I'm not lost. I'm here and I ain't going anywhere. It'll be death that pries us apart, nothing and nobody else." Her gut churns in the awareness of where she needs to go from here. She doesn't want to, but for Jack, she will. "She... Max knew it. She knew I'd never choose her over you, and she was right. About that, she was right."
It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, not just the mention of Max but the memory of that night, the ache in Max's eyes as she said what needed saying, braver than Anne could ever be for saying it. The words Anne had left her with, words she meant, words no one apart from Jack had ever earned before: I trust you.
Max had thrown that away and there is still anger and hurt boiling in the pit of her, but she can't let that through now. It's over. It's done. And it's more likely than not now she'll never see Max again. She just wishes that didn't hurt.
"I told you before," she says with no trace of recrimination, "we're partners. An' that means something to me. It means more than husband or wife. Whatever I felt about Max, it's... that's over now. You can't be what she was, but I don't need you to be. You and I are never over. Not ever."
She holds his gaze for a moment, her thumb tracing a gentle arc over the faintly prickly line of his jaw until she bends down and kisses him, soft and lingering. "Wherever we go now," she murmurs against his lips, "whatever we do, I'm here. And I want you longer than that life would've given us."
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She's right that none of that matters right now. She kissed him, and it felt like coming home. It felt like seeing her smile, for the first time. It felt like seeing her face, suddenly, after he thought he'd never see her again.
He tips his mouth back to hers and returns the kiss, but he doesn't linger. He's still unsure of where the boundaries lie in this new understanding of theirs, and he doesn't want to push for anything that she doesn't want from him. Instead, he pulls away a little and tips his head further into the hand she's holding at his cheek. He stays there a moment, eyes closed, letting himself be comforted.
"Darling," he takes a deep breath and pulls back to look her in the eye. The breath comes out as a shaky laugh, and he covers the hand on his arm with one of his own. "I have missed you so much, and you never left?"
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"I'm sorry, Jack," she says quietly, and runs her thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone. "Sorry I ever let you think..."
She's not sure how to finish. It's hard, saying so much, not knowing the exact right words. Not knowing how much she can take back, or how well he can understand. Not even sure what sort of promises she can make, when it comes down to it.
So maybe it's not fair to ask any promises of him, either.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brung it up," she murmurs, her eyes tipping away from him, to the bowl of familiar fruit. He'd been so happy to see it, so happy when he'd come home. She hasn't seen him like that in so long, and she wasted it. "Suppose it don't much matter now, now we're stuck here. When we get back, we'll... we'll figure it out. And we'll do it together. I'm staying with you 'til the end, Jack, whatever it is. I know what I don't want it to be, but it ain't all up to me. So maybe it doesn't matter. What matters is I'm here. We're both here."
It doesn't feel like enough of a comfort, but she's not sure how much more she can say. She looks back at him, lifts her hand to his hair, brushing through it once. "You don't have to miss me anymore," she says finally. "I can't change what you felt, or what I did, or any of it. This ain't about that. This is about the future. Because here, that's all there is."
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Jack huffs a tired laugh and pulls back a little, enough to scrub his hands over his face and rub at his eyes. "You're right about that."
He pushes back his chair and stands, then grabs for the bowl of pineapple. His other hand rest for a moment at her arm as he considers really asking more, about what she wants, about the role she wants him to fill, but as much as they've said so far has already been exhausting. Instead, he squeezes at her arm and lets his hand drop.
"I'm glad you said something." That much is true. It's good to have a better idea of where they stand, and he's grateful that she's said so much to try to explain how she feels.
"Come on," he says, and goes over to settle himself into the corner of the couch. Finally, he eats a piece of pineapple and it tastes exactly how he'd been expecting it to. It's sweet, and good, and he's so glad that Anne brought it back for them. His shoulders relax a little, and he offers the bowl towards her. He smiles, a little wearied, but genuine. "What was the grocery store like?"
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His question prompts a little huff of laughter out of her. "You ought to see it yourself," she says. "There was so much there, don't even know what most of it was. Seems like they can get anything you might think of." She lifts a shoulder. There's more she could say, but she's keener to ask about his day, the bright mood she'd drowned out the moment he'd stepped in the door, like it was something cheap and easily earned. She hasn't seen Jack that exhilarated in a long time, she shouldn't have been so careless with it.
"What about you?" she says. "Tell me more about this library."
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"You would like it." He says, thinking of the busy quiet of it. There, it would be easy to be out among people without being bothered, and he can imagine her finding a good place to camp out and watch everyone coming and going. "In the least, I'll be able to learn more about this place, and what we can expect. There, and also-"
"Ah-" Jack bites his bottom lip, considering how to approach everything about Eliot. "The man who showed me the library, he might be a source of information too. He seems very hospitable to new arrivals." He nods to the discarded scarf. "He insisted I borrow that." He's still confused about Eliot's hospitality, but that doesn't mean it's not worth exploiting while it lasts.
"He-" Jack huffs a laugh, not really knowing how to approach this next part. "He calls himself a magician, and I think I believe him. He drew my flag without touching the paper." He looks at her, his lips quirking into a smile before fading away again, like he doesn't quite know what to do with his expression. "I know how it sounds, but I saw it myself."
"And...he knew us, my flag, our names. Two hundred years in the future and he knows us." Jack's smile returns, and this time stays in place. "He isn't a student of history, but he knew those things like they were common knowledge. What we've done has lasted." Jack tips his head and nuzzles into her hair for just a moment before returning his gaze to the bowl of pineapple. He's still not entirely sure that he believes any of it- Darrow, or magic, or their names being written in history books, but it feels like a good place to start.
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Jack's already moving on before she can make the suggestion, and she looks at the scarf when he draws her attention back to it. She'd almost forgotten about it; had almost been prepared to assume he purchased or otherwise acquired it on some kind of whim. She'd never have guessed that someone simply gave it to him, some hospitable stranger who insisted, and why? Jack don't even seem to know. Anne wonders if this man gives all 'new arrivals' some sort of expensive gift, or if that was for Jack alone, and further if anything's expected in return. She wonders, too, why Jack don't seem to be wondering that himself.
Of course he still has more to tell her, and if Anne is surprised (or perhaps, wearily, not surprised) that this recounting is now centered on this man Jack only just met, she quickly forgets all that in the wake of what comes next. She can't stifle a dubious snort at magician, then wrinkles her nose and stares in outright incredulity when Jack asserts that he believes it. Maybe it's ridiculous to doubt, what with all they've already seen here, when magic was the baker's explanation for all this in the first place — their impossible arrival, their impossibly thwarted escape attempt, all of it. And it's not that she don't believe Jack. More that she didn't expect it; didn't expect him to fall in with it so easily, and that it would play only a small part of the full story he's telling.
She'd supposed this miraculous flag drawing had happened after Jack had, for whatever reason, shared the sketch he keeps in his pocket; now she realizes it is far more startling than that. Two hundred years in the future and some hospitable, magical stranger knows their names, knows Jack's flag well enough to draw it, when Jack's flag ain't even been made yet. That has Jack's attention more than the rest of it, and Anne finds it has hers as well. Even as he goes quiet, nuzzling warmly into her hair, she struggles to find room to speak. No place now for an inquiry about the library, or the scarf, or the man or even his magic, not with the towering idea that they have a legacy. For all that it was Jack's greatest aspiration that his name be known, his story remembered, Anne has never found a great aptitude for imagining things so far in the future. It feels impossible to believe, somehow far less possible than all the rest.
"He knows us," she finally echoes, looking at him with a softer, more curious expression. "How much about us? For what?"
She can't articulate the rest, though she feels it keenly, each unuttered question like a stone in her gut: for what we've done? What we were trying to do? What's still to come?
For how we lived? For how we died?
She takes another piece of pineapple and eats it slow and contemplative while she waits for his answer.