milliways_bar | (no subject)

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A thirteen year old girl, black hair back in a low business-like ponytail walks into the room. She stops, black booted feet planted solidly on the floor, and glares around.

(A waitrat squeaks, cheerfully, and races up onto one of her shoulders--she relaxes slightly.)

After giving the bar a good look over, Helen moves off to find a table and maybe--just maybe--take a break from the work she's been facing this whole time.

[Sick, so please ping at TLvop first!]

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Jamie is just venturing out of the infirmary for the first time for some food, when he catches sight of a very familiar head of black hair -

- and promptly considers sidling straight back in. But he's hungry. Dilemma!

He's already been sighted.

"Jamie Hamilton," Helen says, voice strident as she walks over. "What were you doing in the infirmary?"

"Ah -"

For a brief, ignoble moment, Jamie considers staging a fainting fit to get out of this, then dismisses this idea as bound to only lead to more trouble in the long run.

"- it's important to have routine checkups for your health," he offers.

"Is it?"

Helen looks him up and down, unconvinced, and tilts her jaw up so that she is looking down at him. "What has got you so concerned for your health, then?"

"The rules aren't in effect anymore," Jammie tells her kindly, in his Explaining the Way Things Are voice. "They're not stopping me from falling ill now - if Joris stabbed me with his demon knife these days, I'd be right out of luck. I reckon that think a little extra care, don't you?"

And if Jamie is lucky, Helen will never know that Jamie hadn't worked this out from the moment after they kicked Them out of the Real Place!

"Of course they aren't," Helen says, dismissively, "but I did not expect you to care so much."

There is a pause, and then she looks angry again. "That means you've got no excuse!"

"Why shouldn't I care? I'm very fond of my health -"

Jamie attempts to look innocently confused and mostly succeeds in looking hunted. "- no excuse for what?"

"Do not pretend like you don't know," Helen crosses her arms, "I do not see what could be keeping you so long! Even if you are coming to Milliways for health exams, it is not like time passes."

Jamie heaves a sigh, and leans back against the wall. Not this old argument again!

"Helen, we've been through this! You know I visit as much as I can, but I honestly can't be dropping in every two months. I've got a lot of worlds to visit! I told you I'd be back in a year or so -"

"What?" Helen snaps, voice rising. "You said you would come right after seeing Joris! Not after a year."

"- I didn't!"

Jamie stares at her.

"I wasn't even going to visit Joris this time around! I told you both, I said I thought I had best go spend some time on some of the worlds that were further out from your circuit. Joris knows not to expect me in his world for at least another two years! So I don't know what you've got to complain about."

"You did not!"

Helen takes a deep breath, and tightens her jaw, looking marginally sideways before meeting his eyes again.

"The door has got us from different times. Hasn't it."

". . . I reckon it has."

Jamie takes a deep breath too, in unconscious echo of her, and reaches up to rub his forehead before taking a longer look at her.

"Now you mention it, if it's any consolation, you've grown a bit in the last year," he says, at last, and his voice is light. "You must be from right after we fought Them, aren't you."

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Well, fancy that. There's a pair of boots up on the table next to her.

They're brown, though. And the soles probably do not bear too close an inspection.

Their owner is making the acquaintance of a shot of whiskey, with his eyes closed to enjoy it better.

Well, look who is here.

Because Helen is polite, she waits until he has swallowed to say "You know Uquar, don't you?" accusingly.

They look too much alike to not be related in Helen's (not so humble) opinion.

He opens his eyes to blink at her.

". . . No?"

"Likely he has got a different name to you," she says, though the admission sounds like it must be dragged from her. "You look very much alike. You are all right?"

She has not been distracted from her original line of interrogation, but she hasn't seen him for months. He almost certainly has done something stupid, but he might have done something stupid that got him hurt! This is a risk of having friends.

He blinks at her again, and swings his boots off the table to sit up straighter and eye her. "He looks like me?"

Waving a hand: "I'm fine, I haven't gotten married in months and I got to help with a Vegas heist. What've you been up to, and why does it involve accusing me?"

"I'm not accusing you," Helen says, statement as defensive as it is untruthful (though admittedly she is refusing that truth!). "Jamie freed Uquar, and we defeated Them and destroyed Their Real Place, and I went Home. I have been very busy with sending out messengers and speaking to the Hands determining the affects of the reestablishment of the weather patterns on agriculture.

"Quite a bit like you," she continues, guardedly. "Not identically, I mean, just very similar. I should think you were related. And..." Helen hesitates. a little embarassed, "his name does mean before-sight."

He's about to grin and say You've been busy or something else equally casual.

And . . . now he's not.

Now he's just looking at Helen very closely.

"My brother has never gone by Uquar," he says. "That I know of."

There are some things even Helen tries to handle with tact. Unfortunately there are some things that can't be handled with tact, especially not by Helen.

Carefully: "I do not know how the worlds work. Maybe even great gods have reflections. But...has your brother," she cuts off, uncertain, and then scowls at her own uncertainty, "ever got imprisoned for exceptional lengths of time because he knew things while being--attacked by a bird?"

Epimetheus doesn't flinch.

Emphatically.

"Yes."

Helen's face stiffens, and she swallows, head ducking down in a way that would cover her face in hair--except it is back in a ribbon.

"I am sorry," she says, voice very quiet, inspecting the table. "I should not have asked."

He waves the apology away, still watching her.

"Your Uquar. That's what happened to him?"

"Yes," she says uncertainly, "They knew he knew how Reality works. So They--used his knowledge against him. To control it."