Happy Hour

[lady_bols]

Alex had only intended to come down for a pot of tea and a plate of Garibaldis.  Maybe a book or three.  Instead, she's greeted with a napkin.  'I'm sorry, you want me to what?'  

Another napkin appears, this time, with a strange glyph that implies maternal concern.  'I'm not turning into a hermit.   I just -- it's been a difficult few weeks.'  To say the least.

Another napkin appears, this time, invoking the tried and true: Guilt.  

'Oh all right.  If it's only for a few hours, I suppose I can manage without mucking it up too terribly.  You go on and have a nice nap.  I'll mind the shop.' Another napkin implies gratitude and indicates where the specials board is.

'Right, then.'  Alex looks a little lost as she slips behind the bar.  First things first, an apron.  And then a white cotton towel to drape over her shoulder like a proper barman.  Taking up the chalk and board, she thinks for a long moment and then writes out in a careful, flowing hand:

Specials

Red or White Wine
by the glass or carafe

Boddington's Ale

Scotch whiskey

Pot of Tea or Coffee

She makes herself a pot of tea, and sends one of the rats off for her biscuits.  'Happy hour is up, you wretched hive of scum and villainy.'

It's said with all due affection. 

[ooc: Happy hour is up!  I'm in and out because I'm doing laundry, and I may decamp to a coffee shop later, but have at!  I have to call slow for a bit.  Back later.  Enjoy! Thread hop! Do what you do best, M'ways.  <3]

Comments

[lady_bols]

'2008,' she corrects, lightly. 'By way of 1983. It's a long story.' Her hands are folding the sack cloth bar towel, precisely, without a single crease. In half, and half again. And half, once more. It seems a self-soothing gesture.

'Though I did spend six months on secondment at Langley, in 2003.'

He would recognize the name. Home to the CIA, Langley, Virginia is not that far from the US Marine base that houses the FBI Academy, usually referred to as Quantico. They're both just outside DC, and about forty five minutes by car from Baltimore. It also places her on a level above the usual detective, even in the Met.

'And you?'

The towel serves as a resting place for her folded hands now.

[cook_the_rude]

"I didn't know the CIA had invented time travel, DI Drake," Dr. Lecter says, with a little smirk that clearly indicates he is joking.

Pause.

"It might well have, in your world. In Milliways, we must expect the unexpected. I am from early 2013."

[lady_bols]

Her lips twist in a sad smile. Her Molly would be sixteen this year.

'If only it were that simple, Dr. Lecter.'

Maybe this isn't the same man she knows from fiction. The movie came out in the early nineties, and the man from the film was older, much older, than the man who stands before her.

'Please, call me Alex.'

[cook_the_rude]

"Your time travel is much more complex, then, Alex?" he asks, looking at her with calm interest. "What happened?"

[lady_bols]

'I was shot. Killed in 2008.'

She reaches under the bar and pulls up a glass of wine she's already poured for herself. This isn't wise, sharing details with a stranger, but it's nothing that isn't already common knowledge.

'I woke up in 1981. I lived another three years. And then, I came here.'

There, nothing too personal, she thinks. Save for the part about dying. Twice. She turns and casts a glance at the large man sitting at the end of the bar, drinking whiskey and smoking.

'It's for the best, really. We don't all get the second chances we so desperately hope for, do we?'

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter's eyes follow her to the glass of wine, and to the man at the end of the bar, calm and interested.

"You got some second chances, but not all you desperately hoped for, I take it," he says. "Which is probably better than nothing."

[lady_bols]

Her eyebrows give a little shrug, agreeing with the sentiment.

'Indeed. And probably for the best, all things considered.'

She takes another sip of wine, eyeing him.

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to prattle on. Don't let me keep you.'

[cook_the_rude]

"You're not prattling, Alex," he says. "It's quite interesting. To be returned to a point of time when you must have been a child is quite an unusual fate."

[lady_bols]

Oh, he is observant.

'It was, quite interesting. Years of therapy, all undone in one fell swoop.'

She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand, again cutting a glance at Gene.

'Revealing, though. And -- more than that. Cathartic. In the true sense of the word.'

[cook_the_rude]

"Revisiting the point of trauma that literally is not a kind of therapy I can offer my patients," Dr. Lecter says. "It would be the most extreme form of desensitizing, and only the very tough might be able to take it and reach catharsis."

[lady_bols]

'I can't say it's entirely therapeutic.'

She looks at him a bit warily. Desensitization therapy is cutting edge, and dodgy at best, in her experience.

'But I survived it.'

[cook_the_rude]

"You would have needed your therapist along," he agrees.