Reconnoiter // for Jack

[annebonny]

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.

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[annebonny]

She stays close as long as he needs her there, and only when he pulls back and speaks does she straighten up, keeping her hands where they are. She smiles, faint and soft and sad, at his answer. It's true she did leave, and she came back, and she thought maybe he'd understood what she'd told him then. But it wasn't enough, and that isn't even the leaving he's talking about. There's been a gulf between them, and she didn't see it, or she ignored it, let it grow, let the wound fester. She lets out a slow, soft sigh.

"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."

[jackrackham]

He takes a few steady breaths and sighs when Anne pushes her fingers through his hair, relishing the feeling. He thinks that, even if they do spend more time here than he's hoping for, this conversation may have to happen again. He's not all that she needs and, despite what she says, he expects that someday she may find someone who is.

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?"

[annebonny]

She's relieved when he heads toward the couch, and she goes along with him, settling herself in beside him and taking a piece of pineapple as he offers it. It's familiar, exactly what she knows it to be, and returns his smile warmly. She hadn't realized how badly she wanted something that was like home.

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."

[jackrackham]

"It was enormous. I haven't ever seen anything like it. There were thousands of books, and anyone can access them." Jack takes in a slightly shaky breath and shifts down a little in his seat, getting more comfortable.

"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.

[annebonny]

Anne smiles, small but lingering, as she watches him build back into the excitement he'd arrived with. Anyone, he says; it doesn't even sound real to her, the size of the place or the availability of its books, but most of all that even she'd be welcome to read them. Seems like it might be overwhelming, but she does want to see it, to see him there and to see what it's like. He's probably right to think she'll like it, even if it's beyond her imagining. Maybe they can make that their next venture out together. Certainly stands to be better than their last.

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.