milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[oom: Guppy fails in his role as the fountain of all knowledge.]

Guppy makes it half way across the bar when he realises that a lot of the patrons are, well, kind of shorter and younger...

Hmmm.

He goes into the infirmary, and finds it as he left it (deducing from this that he has not gone back in time), except that one of his younger two (male) waitrats is attempting with limited success to feed a pair of tiny, eyes barely open half bald waitrats, still dressed in their now very oversized scrubs shirt.

"Aesclepius? Work Experience?" Guppy peers at the pair. The third waitrat, Backup, shrugs and hands him the syringe of milk.

"Wait, what happened?" he asks, but his remaining waitrat, tired by days of feeding every few hours, scurries off for a kip.

Five minutes later, he's got the two shrunk infirmary waitrats in a cardboard box on a warm towel, and is back in the bar looking for some answers.

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"We did," Teja says. "I..."

He sighs.

"It's not important now. I spoke about it with Valjean. He is wonderful, and even Javert admits he is a good man."

Pause.

"I spoke with Valjean again just now, and he decided to speak with Javert himself; that might help."

"Okay, well, you know where I am if you need me." Guppy says quietly.

It must be even harder for Teja with a baby involved.

"Yes, perhaps it will. Maybe in a controlled environment."

"I know not if they even have the concept of that," Teja says. "These 1832 people sadden me so, truly! I wish to help them, and it is slow going, in long painful circles; but I find I am piecing together more and more of their tale, even though I am not at liberty to speak of it all."

Pause, while he hides his face in his hair and hands.

"The addition of an infatuated vampire into the tale did not help."

"Who is the vampire infatuated with?" Guppy says.

Beat.

"I think we may need to draw a diagram."

Teja gives him a deep look, and sighs.

"Javert, of course," Teja says. "Was that not obvious?"

He sighs again.

"A diagram might be helpful at this stage. But it must be kept secret, for these are all people, and their tales are deeply personal to them, and they all hurt, and I feel sorry for all of them."

Gavroche and Éponine. Fantine. Javert and Valjean. Yes, and even Vlad.

"Okay." Guppy gets out some paper. "We'll use codes, and burn it at the end."

"Gavroche came here first so we'll start with him. His sister Eponine was killed by the opposition, and is now here, but was not killed by Javert. Valjean is an ally of Gavroche and not an enemy of Javert. Vlad likes Javert, Javert may or may not like Vlad - and I asked you that last time, so that's why it wasn't obvious. Correct so far?"

"Draw a cirle around Vlad, as he is not from the same world," Teja says. "Also, I take it Valjean had spoken with him, but they did not get on. How any does not get on with Valjean, I cannot fathom."

Pause.

"Éponine isn't dead yet; she is hours from her death, and Gavroche is wrestling with his conscience over what he should do."

Pause.

"Then, there is the woman Fantine, the seamstress, who died years before the others, but is connected, as both Javert and Valjean were connected with her death, and Valjean took in her orphaned daughter, Cosette, and raised her as his own. Cosette is a young woman in 1832, and loves a young man named Marius, who is with the revolutionaries that are friends of Gavroche and Éponine, and on whose barricade both died or die."

Edited 2013-10-19 22:18 (UTC)

"Wait, whose side is Valjean on?"

"Valjean went to the barricade to save Marius for Cosette's sake," Teja says. "That I learned from what Gavroche told me. We cannot draw strict lines; there are no simply sides in this tale, or we would not need the diagram."

Pause.

"Put Javert in the middle, though, for he is the one that needs our help most in this, and that is least likely to accept it if freely offered. Javert hates being in debt for anything, especially his life, or apparently, his sanity."

Which is what seems to need saving.

"... okay."

Guppy scribbles away.

"... this would probably have been more artistic if I'd let Fry do it." he says, turning it around to show Teja.

"It is very clear," Teja says. "The fangs, the dark face, and the axe distinguish us; and we are in circles as we are not, originally, part of the tale."

Pause.

"Valjean is worried of Javert, and Javert is scared of Valjean, to put it simply, because as they have known each other long and have been associates and enemies over the years. Valjean freed him at the barricade, when Gavroche recognised him as a police spy and the revolutionaries meant to kill him; and it seems that might have been what drove him to the river: - the overwhelming debt of his life, towards one that was an enemy, and not a good man by his books, which were ever strict and of the law. Now, Javert maintains Valjean is a good man, while yet running from him to another world in fright, and all his strict books of law inside his mind have come undone."

Pause.

"Also, I did not apprehend Vlad; I merely set him terms to make amends."

"I know, but it didn't fit on the page." Guppy says.

"This diagram doesn't explain what we do, mind."

"No, or it would be scribbled over completely," Teja says. "But yes, that does help."

Pause.

"I asked Valjean to come and speak with you, as you are Javert's doctor and should know whatever he would freely tell."

"Okay." Guppy nods. "Not that I've had much success."

"But you have sworn an oath, and have a code of conduct as a healer," Teja says, "which makes you trustworthy. I am not so much of Security in this, merely myself. I feel great sympathy with all of them, even Vlad."

"Make sure you take time to look after yourself."

"It is not a non-stop occupation," Teja says. "I do what I always do, and then I spin their story for these 1832 people -- at least that is what it feels like. They give my the unspun wool of their thoughts and feelings, and I try and make a tale, so that we may understand them, and help them where needed."

"We need to be careful how deeply we intervene." Guppy says. "And to acknowledge that whatever we do may not help."

"Thank you, Guppy," Teja says. "I had hoped you would say some such thing, some modern piece of experience, that would be helpful to an Ostrogoth that feels too much, maybe."

"Well as I said to Gavroche, we have to watch the butterfly effect."

"Butterflies?" Teja says. "That happens when?"

"There's a saying that if you go back in time and a butterfly flaps its wings a tornado occurs the other side of the world." Guppy says. "It means basically don't mess with the past, or you may not have a future to go back to."

Teja is silent.

"I think in Milliways, people do this all the time," he says.

"But if you know the future, it's different." Guppy says. "Stopping someone dying who you know in the future is dead is different from stopping someone dying when the future is unknown."

"I would not have the heart to tell Gavroche not to save his sister," Teja says. "Even though she is enamoured with the same Marius Valjean's adopted daughter loves, and if she lives, that might complicate things. But she cannot be let die merely to provide another's happy ending!"