milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

He isn't going to keep carrying around Baby's inert mobile forever. That'd just be morbid.

But he tried keeping it in his room upstairs, and that's worse somehow. It looks like a toy, sitting there. Like nothing that was ever really important.

So he's bringing it downstairs to try to find somewhere better to keep it. Maybe a shrine over the bar, like the memorial for Bernard and Tonks, if Bar herself wouldn't find that too painful. Or maybe in the Security office, in a storage closet there or something, so that if Baby ever -- if she ever does come back --

Right now Andrew's sitting by the fireplace, watching the fish swim in and out of the flames, with a mug of Irish coffee in his hand and a little metallic arachnoid in his lap.

Botherable.

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Beat.

Low: "Have you ever seen the Security office here?"

"Nope, somehow I haven't gotten arrested yet."

He barely reacts to that.

"Well, the cells there are run by magic. Sort of a ... very complex, long-term spell. Which ... a year or two after it was established, it sort of ... woke up."

He's getting to why this is relevant.

His eyebrows go up, intrigued.

"Woke up?"

"Developed intelligence. And a personality. She -- the guy who created her called her Baby, and the, the name sort of stuck. And she's been getting more so ever since then. This --"

He indicates the spidery thingamajig that caught the other man's attention. "This was her mobile unit. So she could explore the bar outside the office, and, and talk to people."

"Kinda like the Bar, huh?"

"A lot like. Yeah. Only she ..."

He swallows.

"Were you here at all, during any of the recent ... recentness?"

Epimetheus glances around.

Casually: "Nope, missed it."

There's a saying about how the brave die only once, and cowards die a thousand deaths.

But, you know, Epimetheus is immortal, so.

Andrew doesn't blame anyone for having missed it. Or even for having left when things started to look bad.

"Well -- the cells failed. At one point. And ... I don't even know if it's because of that or what, but --"

He swallows.

"She's gone. The cells are working fine now, everything's functional again, but ... she's not talking. Or responding at all."

Epimetheus frowns, putting the guitar aside.

"Just how alive is she?"

An unhappy smile. "I don't know. Define 'alive'."

He resists rolling his eyes.

"Traditionally it involves stuff about reproduction and growth and metabolism. All I'm interested in is whether or not she sleeps."

"..."

He blinks hard. "I don't know. I -- Bar sleeps sometimes, but -- I never asked Baby if she ..."

So Bar told Ava to take good care of Andrew and Baby for her. And Bar sees and hears a lot of things, or such is Ava's impression. (Honestly, Bar straight-up knows a lot of things.)

So when she notices Andrew in serious discussion with some guy she's never seen before, she keeps half an eye on it. Gradually, as they keep talking, she works her way into Andrew's line of sight.

And peers at him.

In concern!

Then she decides that's nnnnnot quite overt enough, and disappears from view only to approach a few moments later with a basket of fried paradoxes.

"Am I interrupting?" she says.

"I just-- brought snacks."

Andrew glances up, startled.

And, after a moment, oddly touched. "Oh hey, Ava. Thanks."

Epimetheus sits back and tips the newcomer a wave.

"Hiya. Snacks are always welcome."

Ava snags a seat on Andrew's couch and sets the basket down between them.

"Thanks," she says. "I still can't figure out what I think these guys taste like."

"They're supposed to taste almost, but not quite, entirely unlike onion rings."

He snags one, absently.

"Man, those things are great."

But for the moment, he's more interested in the question of the living-and-now-absent security cells.

"So you don't know if your cells -- what was the name? Baby? -- you don't know if she can sleep, so you don't know if she can be unconscious."

Ava is chewing on a paradox, trying to consider what almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike tastes like.

But when guitar guy starts talking about Baby, her attention changes. She glances first to him, a little sharp, and then to Andrew.

"Yeah," he says. "I -- I mean I guess it's possible she could sleep? I've just never seen it happen."

"Hm."

He nods at the thingamajig.

"So does she always occupy that, or just sometimes?"

"She doesn't really occupy it exactly?" He doesn't notice that he's using the present tense. "It's more like a waldo. She operates it at a distance, and she can sense the mobile's surroundings and talk to people through it."

Epimetheus nods.

"Got it. So where's she live? In the cells themselves?"

"Yeah. In -- she's sort of the whole office complex."