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31_days2008-01-25 11:10 pm
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2008-01-25 11:10 pm
[Jan. 25] [D.Gray-Man] End of Days, Part 25
Title: End of Days pt. 25
Day/Theme: Jan. 25/I like your silence; the more it shows off your wonder
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs.
Rating: R
Part 24
Jamie had never been a chatterbox. When she was young, a weak heart and shortness of breath made her guard her words; speech was a chore, and she soon learned that it wasn't all that necessary.
One day, along with the monthly check that arrived from some charity her father had worked for, two men arrived. One, of course, was Rondine. The other was a kind looking woman in her forties. Rondine had done all the talking, gesturing so broadly that at first Jamie thought he was parodying an Italian accent and manner.
At first, Jamie had assumed that the woman, sad-eyed and deferential, was the man's servant or secretary. She stayed two paces behind him, and looked around nervously as the neighbors decided it was as a good a day as any to sweep their walks or weed their front gardens. The Darks weren't very interesting--a near-penniless widow and her invalid, old-maid daughter--but visitors, and one with an Italian accent at that? No one wanted to be the one who said they had heard it all second hand when they could say they heard it with their own ears.
When the man asked if they could come in and talk to her--in private, Jamie nodded curtly, then stepped back and to the side, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. Just the trip from the sofa to the door had left her winded.
Mum came down the stairs just then, and Jamie could still remember how her bright We have visitors? Who is it, Jamie-love? Tell them to sit down and I'll-- cut short with a cold snap of her jaw.
Jamie watched and said nothing, her eyes flickering back and forth from where her mother stood halfway down the stairs, hand white from clutching the banister, and where the two strangers waited, one calm and resolute, the other trying not to cringe.
There was going to be a Scene, Jamie knew it, and it was going to be between her mother and this fat Italian. She wanted no part of it, and neither did the woman. Their gazes met, and as one, they quietly headed towards the kitchen.
That was the signal for the yelling to start. Variations on the nerve of you people, showing up here and you tell that miserable old baggage to leave my daughter alone blended with please just listen to me and I know what happened, and trust me, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.
Jamie lit the stove and pulled the tin of Tetley down and measured two generous scoops into the pot. Then, defiantly, a third scoop. There was another round of yelling from the hallway.
"Miserable old cow," Jamie muttered with a glare towards the door, shocking a gasp from the visitor. It was worth the shortness of breath to slam the kettle down on the stove.
"Your own mother?" The woman sounded more sad than offended, but it was Jamie's turn to gasp in surprise.
The woman's accent wasn't as thick as the man's, but it was there, and it was definitely German.
"That's why you didn't talk," Jamie said. She knew she had little chance of defending herself, but she sidled a bit closer to the knife block.
The woman smiled nervously and ducked her head in apology. In the light through the kitchen door, the flecks of gray in the woman's hair stood out harshly.
"The war is a horrible, horrible thing," she said quietly. "For both sides. No one wanted this."
"Then why'd we get it? Wasn't us what attacked you lot." In the past ten minutes, Jamie had spoken as much as she had in the past ten days.
"There was someone who wanted it." The woman sat up maybe a little bit straighter, and though her hands still twisted and pulled at each other, and the circles under her eyes made it look as if she'd rubbed soot underneath, there was steel in that wavering voice. "It doesn't matter to him who dies--German, British, Canadian, Belgian... All it matters is that they die, and we suffer."
Jamie didn't ask who 'we' was. Clearly the woman was some sort of pacifist nutter.
Of course, Jamie's body chose that moment to make her feel woozy, so she pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down heavily. This, combined with Jamie's habitual silence, the woman took as an invitation to keep talking.
"I am so sorry to bother you," she said rapidly, and Jamie noticed that she didn't reach out to put a comforting hand over Jamie's, the way the ladies from the Women's Aux. did when they brought by bland nourishing meals--the kind that were well seasoned with condescension. "We never would have come, not like this unless we had to, but we need your help."
She begged as if she expected Jamie to refuse, and Jamie was going to refuse. She was going to yell at the woman to shut up and get out, but out in the hall, Jamie's mother yelled those exact words at that exact moment.
Then she heard her mother stomping towards the kitchen, calling out her name stridently.
The stranger sighed, then pushed back her sleeve, revealing what Jamie at first thought was a wristwatch. The woman touched it, and a circle of golden light rushed out from it, capturing Jamie and the woman in its circumference.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have the time. Except, now we do," she said, and there was the smallest flicker of humor there.
Jamie wasn't paying attention. She stood up, and turned slowly in place. Dust motes hung still in the sunbeam outside the circle. The steam from the kettle was frozen in mid-air, and a faint, sustained note from outside was a bit of birdsong, suspended and drawn out forever. The kitchen door was open a crack, and Jamie could see a bit of light brown: her mother's skirt, swaying out to the side and held there.
The woman respected her silence for what it was and did not seemed bothered or surprised by the lack of questions. She seemed more embarrassed by the situation.
"You stopped time?" Jamie asked, sitting down again to catch her breath.
"Yes!" The woman seemed pleased with her cleverness. "And now that we have time, let me introduce myself. My name is Miranda Lotto. I work for the same people your father used to work for, and hold on a moment..."
She unbuttoned her jacket. The gold cross on the shoulder caught the light as the jacket flopped open. Miranda fumbled with an inside pocket, and Jamie rather wished that the kettle had been inside the circle--she wanted her tea.
But then Miranda held something out to Jamie. "This used to belong to your father." For a moment, she seemed about to pull it back, about to apologize, then she extended her hand to Jamie.
Jamie didn't speak. She couldn't. She could only stare at the frozen light in the woman's hand and marvel at it.
It sang to her. It sang to her in many voices, and she wonderd if her father's was one of them.
Jamie lifted the bit of light from Miranda's palm. She didn't even thing before placing it against her throat.
The memory faded, but Jamie's fingers still traced the lump at her throat. It had burrowed under the skin. It had changed her, healed her. She could outrun most men and be barely out of breath. She'd carried poor Harry Banks away from the battlefield all by herself after that Road bitch had crucified him against a barn door in Belgium. It had made her invulnerable to Akuma's poison, and it had saved her sorry hide when a canister of mustard gas had exploded five feet away from her.
"Why doesn't she wake up?" Jamie muttered. For all she hated talking, the Innocence seemed to want to press her thoughts into speech. She stood by the foot of Miranda's bed, watching her sleep. It was still Miranda, but the hair was completely brown, and the crow's feet and frown lines were still years away.
The girl in the other bed eeped! in surprise, woken up by Jamie's harsh whisper. Jamie wondered if she'd accidentally put a little something extra into that last 'wake up.'
"Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you."
The girl's eyes were so red and puffy it looked as if she'd been rubbing salt into them for hours.
"It's okay. Do you know Miranda?" She coughed politely into her cupped hand, but didn't sound nearly as ill as the others Jamie had heard. The roughness in her voice sounded more as if it was from crying, not coughing.
Jamie looked at the too-young woman lying there, silent. She wondered how much of the Miranda she knew was there, in a body that was two years younger than Jamie's own.
If Miranda woke up, she'd only be disappointed. She wouldn't be able to talk to her about what Walker had said about her father. She wouldn't be able to ask the questions she needed answered.
"No. I don't." She turned and left the infirmary without saying another word.
She wondered if it was her imagination that made her hear a sleepy voice call out "Jamie?" but she'd had enough disappointment for one day.
* * *
General Klaud Nine found Allen as he was wandering around the hallways, and told him that he was free to go visit his friends in the infirmary if he wanted. It appeared that parasitic types were immune to the plague. He would still have to wear his mask--being immune didn't mean he wasn't a carrier. Allen just listened and nodded, and wondered at the sudden reluctance he felt at being told he could visit Lavi and Lenalee if he wanted.
"You may also want to know that it seems General Cross is recovering."
Allen greeted that remark with the silence it deserved.
Klaud looked at him consideringly over the top of her mask for a good long time.
"He really is like a cockroach, isn't he," she said wearily. "Nothing ever seems to kill the bastard."
To that, Allen just nodded slowly and emphatically. They were both smiling behind their masks.
Allen headed on to the infirmary, feeling that he had managed to make yet another friend here.
Maybe he didn't want to go to the infirmary after all. His pace slowed down until he almost stopped. His friends were there, and he wanted to see them. He'd heard that Lavi had almost died, and that Lenalee was showing mild symptoms of whatever this new type of influenza was.
But Kanda had died, and Chaoji, and Marie. Chaoji and Marie he barely knew. Kanda, he had disliked, and now he felt miserable over that.
Did being grateful that Lavi and Lenalee had survived mean he was glad the others had died?
Cross was going to survive. But he'd heard that Sokaro wasn't expected to last the night, and that even though he'd shown signs of recovery, Tiedoll's condition had taken a dramatic turn for the worse after he'd heard of his students' deaths.
Allen wished Timcanpy was there; he needed to talk about this to someone, not just think about it.
Part 26
Day/Theme: Jan. 25/I like your silence; the more it shows off your wonder
Series: D.Gray-Man
Character/Pairing: Ensemble, with a few OCs.
Rating: R
Part 24
Jamie had never been a chatterbox. When she was young, a weak heart and shortness of breath made her guard her words; speech was a chore, and she soon learned that it wasn't all that necessary.
One day, along with the monthly check that arrived from some charity her father had worked for, two men arrived. One, of course, was Rondine. The other was a kind looking woman in her forties. Rondine had done all the talking, gesturing so broadly that at first Jamie thought he was parodying an Italian accent and manner.
At first, Jamie had assumed that the woman, sad-eyed and deferential, was the man's servant or secretary. She stayed two paces behind him, and looked around nervously as the neighbors decided it was as a good a day as any to sweep their walks or weed their front gardens. The Darks weren't very interesting--a near-penniless widow and her invalid, old-maid daughter--but visitors, and one with an Italian accent at that? No one wanted to be the one who said they had heard it all second hand when they could say they heard it with their own ears.
When the man asked if they could come in and talk to her--in private, Jamie nodded curtly, then stepped back and to the side, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. Just the trip from the sofa to the door had left her winded.
Mum came down the stairs just then, and Jamie could still remember how her bright We have visitors? Who is it, Jamie-love? Tell them to sit down and I'll-- cut short with a cold snap of her jaw.
Jamie watched and said nothing, her eyes flickering back and forth from where her mother stood halfway down the stairs, hand white from clutching the banister, and where the two strangers waited, one calm and resolute, the other trying not to cringe.
There was going to be a Scene, Jamie knew it, and it was going to be between her mother and this fat Italian. She wanted no part of it, and neither did the woman. Their gazes met, and as one, they quietly headed towards the kitchen.
That was the signal for the yelling to start. Variations on the nerve of you people, showing up here and you tell that miserable old baggage to leave my daughter alone blended with please just listen to me and I know what happened, and trust me, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.
Jamie lit the stove and pulled the tin of Tetley down and measured two generous scoops into the pot. Then, defiantly, a third scoop. There was another round of yelling from the hallway.
"Miserable old cow," Jamie muttered with a glare towards the door, shocking a gasp from the visitor. It was worth the shortness of breath to slam the kettle down on the stove.
"Your own mother?" The woman sounded more sad than offended, but it was Jamie's turn to gasp in surprise.
The woman's accent wasn't as thick as the man's, but it was there, and it was definitely German.
"That's why you didn't talk," Jamie said. She knew she had little chance of defending herself, but she sidled a bit closer to the knife block.
The woman smiled nervously and ducked her head in apology. In the light through the kitchen door, the flecks of gray in the woman's hair stood out harshly.
"The war is a horrible, horrible thing," she said quietly. "For both sides. No one wanted this."
"Then why'd we get it? Wasn't us what attacked you lot." In the past ten minutes, Jamie had spoken as much as she had in the past ten days.
"There was someone who wanted it." The woman sat up maybe a little bit straighter, and though her hands still twisted and pulled at each other, and the circles under her eyes made it look as if she'd rubbed soot underneath, there was steel in that wavering voice. "It doesn't matter to him who dies--German, British, Canadian, Belgian... All it matters is that they die, and we suffer."
Jamie didn't ask who 'we' was. Clearly the woman was some sort of pacifist nutter.
Of course, Jamie's body chose that moment to make her feel woozy, so she pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down heavily. This, combined with Jamie's habitual silence, the woman took as an invitation to keep talking.
"I am so sorry to bother you," she said rapidly, and Jamie noticed that she didn't reach out to put a comforting hand over Jamie's, the way the ladies from the Women's Aux. did when they brought by bland nourishing meals--the kind that were well seasoned with condescension. "We never would have come, not like this unless we had to, but we need your help."
She begged as if she expected Jamie to refuse, and Jamie was going to refuse. She was going to yell at the woman to shut up and get out, but out in the hall, Jamie's mother yelled those exact words at that exact moment.
Then she heard her mother stomping towards the kitchen, calling out her name stridently.
The stranger sighed, then pushed back her sleeve, revealing what Jamie at first thought was a wristwatch. The woman touched it, and a circle of golden light rushed out from it, capturing Jamie and the woman in its circumference.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have the time. Except, now we do," she said, and there was the smallest flicker of humor there.
Jamie wasn't paying attention. She stood up, and turned slowly in place. Dust motes hung still in the sunbeam outside the circle. The steam from the kettle was frozen in mid-air, and a faint, sustained note from outside was a bit of birdsong, suspended and drawn out forever. The kitchen door was open a crack, and Jamie could see a bit of light brown: her mother's skirt, swaying out to the side and held there.
The woman respected her silence for what it was and did not seemed bothered or surprised by the lack of questions. She seemed more embarrassed by the situation.
"You stopped time?" Jamie asked, sitting down again to catch her breath.
"Yes!" The woman seemed pleased with her cleverness. "And now that we have time, let me introduce myself. My name is Miranda Lotto. I work for the same people your father used to work for, and hold on a moment..."
She unbuttoned her jacket. The gold cross on the shoulder caught the light as the jacket flopped open. Miranda fumbled with an inside pocket, and Jamie rather wished that the kettle had been inside the circle--she wanted her tea.
But then Miranda held something out to Jamie. "This used to belong to your father." For a moment, she seemed about to pull it back, about to apologize, then she extended her hand to Jamie.
Jamie didn't speak. She couldn't. She could only stare at the frozen light in the woman's hand and marvel at it.
It sang to her. It sang to her in many voices, and she wonderd if her father's was one of them.
Jamie lifted the bit of light from Miranda's palm. She didn't even thing before placing it against her throat.
The memory faded, but Jamie's fingers still traced the lump at her throat. It had burrowed under the skin. It had changed her, healed her. She could outrun most men and be barely out of breath. She'd carried poor Harry Banks away from the battlefield all by herself after that Road bitch had crucified him against a barn door in Belgium. It had made her invulnerable to Akuma's poison, and it had saved her sorry hide when a canister of mustard gas had exploded five feet away from her.
"Why doesn't she wake up?" Jamie muttered. For all she hated talking, the Innocence seemed to want to press her thoughts into speech. She stood by the foot of Miranda's bed, watching her sleep. It was still Miranda, but the hair was completely brown, and the crow's feet and frown lines were still years away.
The girl in the other bed eeped! in surprise, woken up by Jamie's harsh whisper. Jamie wondered if she'd accidentally put a little something extra into that last 'wake up.'
"Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you."
The girl's eyes were so red and puffy it looked as if she'd been rubbing salt into them for hours.
"It's okay. Do you know Miranda?" She coughed politely into her cupped hand, but didn't sound nearly as ill as the others Jamie had heard. The roughness in her voice sounded more as if it was from crying, not coughing.
Jamie looked at the too-young woman lying there, silent. She wondered how much of the Miranda she knew was there, in a body that was two years younger than Jamie's own.
If Miranda woke up, she'd only be disappointed. She wouldn't be able to talk to her about what Walker had said about her father. She wouldn't be able to ask the questions she needed answered.
"No. I don't." She turned and left the infirmary without saying another word.
She wondered if it was her imagination that made her hear a sleepy voice call out "Jamie?" but she'd had enough disappointment for one day.
* * *
General Klaud Nine found Allen as he was wandering around the hallways, and told him that he was free to go visit his friends in the infirmary if he wanted. It appeared that parasitic types were immune to the plague. He would still have to wear his mask--being immune didn't mean he wasn't a carrier. Allen just listened and nodded, and wondered at the sudden reluctance he felt at being told he could visit Lavi and Lenalee if he wanted.
"You may also want to know that it seems General Cross is recovering."
Allen greeted that remark with the silence it deserved.
Klaud looked at him consideringly over the top of her mask for a good long time.
"He really is like a cockroach, isn't he," she said wearily. "Nothing ever seems to kill the bastard."
To that, Allen just nodded slowly and emphatically. They were both smiling behind their masks.
Allen headed on to the infirmary, feeling that he had managed to make yet another friend here.
Maybe he didn't want to go to the infirmary after all. His pace slowed down until he almost stopped. His friends were there, and he wanted to see them. He'd heard that Lavi had almost died, and that Lenalee was showing mild symptoms of whatever this new type of influenza was.
But Kanda had died, and Chaoji, and Marie. Chaoji and Marie he barely knew. Kanda, he had disliked, and now he felt miserable over that.
Did being grateful that Lavi and Lenalee had survived mean he was glad the others had died?
Cross was going to survive. But he'd heard that Sokaro wasn't expected to last the night, and that even though he'd shown signs of recovery, Tiedoll's condition had taken a dramatic turn for the worse after he'd heard of his students' deaths.
Allen wished Timcanpy was there; he needed to talk about this to someone, not just think about it.
Part 26