lysistrategic | July 9-20: Operation: Sundowner

Entry tags:

plot: amnesia,
tr

July 9-20: Operation: Sundowner

The first time it happens, Joan wakes and curls toward the warmth of the sun on her bed, eyes shut tight against the sight of her husband not there. When she rolls, her hand touches flesh, a broad barrel chest; an arm lifts, and as she always has, Joan curls into the curve of his strength. She doesn't dare open her eyes and find it's just a dream, but it's so powerfully real, tears leak from the corners of her eyes.

"Joanie?" Arthur rumbles, half asleep but worried half to death.

She knows the tone and the reason, of course; she never cries and if she is, then something is terribly wrong. When she shakes her head, her tears dampen her hair and it sticks to him. He smooths her hair, catches her chin and makes her look at him but she's still afraid to open her damp, sticky lids. Finally, she does and his thumb sweeps against her cheek, questions in his eyes.

"I dreamed you were gone," she says, because she's a spy and she knows if he's confused then it has to have been a dream. Nightmare, the longest of her life. Months. Is Emily real?

"I'm still here." Confirmation, still.

She nods and he kisses her, in that steady, certain way that he has. It's always been her undoing. "Love me?" she asks, and after he tells her, "Always, my wife," he does.

Hours later, when they rise from bed well after breakfast to an empty kitchen - their own home, Emily and Matt moved out last week - Joan remembers. She knows the island's playing this trick, but Arthur will worry. So she leaves it at nightmare and moves on. But she spends the rest of the afternoon making notes about everything she knows on the island and everyone. At the top of every page in the notebook, it has her name and Arthur's, the date of their marriage, and Annie and Auggie's names. Just in case it happens again.

****
The second time it happens, she is doing laundry. Hers and a man's. She doesn't recognize the room she's in, but she knows her name and her job. There's a notebook in her back pocket, a dangerous crutch. She pulls it out, reads, and wonders...are Annie and Auggie the names of the children this cover are supposed to have? Practical, she puts the load in to wash and hops up on the washer (she's young still, she can get away with these things) and reads what she's written. It's beyond strange and she can't begin to imagine the stakes if she's ended it with It's all real. But she hides the notebook under the dry laundry and she runs with it.

It's not until two days later that her memories return.

****
After that, it comes and goes. Sometimes for as short as minutes, other times for days. She converts the notes to a locked file on the computer she's borrowed from Dairine and it pops up every time she powers it on. The password her first phone number, 4645215, which she keeps despite the temptation toward security change because the first thing in the file after Arthur is your husband is always Don't change the password, Joan.

It's terrifying, this journey back and forth in time. But she does her best to keep it to herself, not wanting to worry Arthur and Emily and Matthew, Annie and Auggie and Sarah, Anatoly, Jonas, Dairine, and John. Arthur's name becomes a mantra. A totem. The day she's at the beach and it takes her back to the hospital, she finds a pleasing shell and pockets it to rub with her thumb. When she finds her way back home (carefully, carefully, because something is obviously wrong), opens the computer and the file, she uses ink from her drawing class to write Arthur's name inside the shell. After that, she never leaves it home.

The worst are the days when she's ten and Daddy's gone again or in the field and Megan's missing, at least until she ends up back in the terrible six months where everything with Arthur was wrong. She finds the notes and knows they've made up and he never strayed, but the new ring on her finger sits wrong and it's impossible to pretend she's deeply, warmly in love when she wakes up wanting to strangle him for the brush of his fingers against her skin.

Most of the time, she's in the field again, which makes her think it's a coma she's in or a concussion on the lucid days. There's almost always an op she has to finish, some dire countdown or parcel trade or seduction. When she comes back around, memories restored to the present and all is well, it's not the tear-stricken days of her youth or almost losing Meg that kills her. It's almost betraying Arthur that - uncharacteristically poetic for her - rends her soul.

Eventually even her good days turn sour, filled with fears of forgetting. The coffee she always has in hand cools, forgotten while her thumb sweeps against the inside of the shell. Even when she remembers who she is and where, Joan's cast adrift on the stormy sea of memory. The island is responsible, she tells herself firmly, but the specter of Alzheimer's, sundowning, early onset dementia looms large, leaving her often raw, frightened, stripped bare.

[ooc: find Joan anywhere on the island, any time between now and let's say the twentieth of July. Things she does regularly: her classes, cooking in her kitchen or the main one especially when she's stressed, laundry (and if you want to tag her off the laundry scene here email me because I only want one), drink coffee and read off her laptop, run in the mornings, yoga at night, help Matt with the garden he's putting in, wandering aimlessly looking for her targets. If you need a specific date/date-range, let me know. And if you want her without amnesia on one of the raw days, let me know that too. I'll decide what she does or doesn't remember for your thread. If you want to discuss in advance, drop me an email at technosagery @ gmail and I'll get right on it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's trying. He's trying so hard to not let everything fall apart. Ever since that day when Helen came and told him about the pregnancy, he felt as if his entire being was held together by frayed twine. It was his own fault, holding out hope for a woman that he had lost over a hundred years ago and was married to another man.

But it was Helen and he was John, and she would always be the only one for him. So now he was tasked with the job of trying to be himself with the knowledge that he would never be with Helen again. It was something that should have happened long ago but if he could change the past, there were more important things to consider.

The meditation was helping though. In lotus position on the beach, he breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. He enjoyed the wind ruffling through his hair and the calm sound of the waves. He was supposed to be blocking those things out, but for the moment he was taking pleasure in the small things. After all, that was all he had most days.

When he heard someone approaching on the sand, he opened one eye to see Joan running along the beach. Giving a small smile, he offered a wave to her. If she wanted to run on, that was fine with him, but it would be rude not to at least acknowledge a friend.

Today is one of the not-so-bad days. Joan remembers almost everything, except the last few amnesia days. The shell in her pocket with Arthur's name in it, and the ubiquitous notebook (tucked in the waist of her jogging shorts) remind her that it's happened, but her strides cover the ground strong and sure. Maybe today will be the last day, she thinks, while her arms pump and her lungs burn. Maybe tomorrow she can end this nightmare of play-pretend on top of her day-to-day operational play-pretend. It's like being a double agent, and she's exhausted with it.

A figure in the sand on the beach up ahead draws her eye and when she gets in range, he waves. It's John. She definitely remembers her husband's none-too-happy about this particular friendship, but he knows better than to stand in her way. She drops out of her jog to say hello, and depending on whether he wants company or not, maybe she'll sit and stay for awhile.

"Hello, John," she offers warmly, perhaps more warmly than usual with the gnawing concerns rubbing her raw.

"I would say it's a good morning for a run, but on a temperate, tropical island there aren't very many poor mornings for it," John said. While being stranded in an alternate dimension, one could certainly do worse than a place like Tabula Rasa for a locale.

He hadn't seen Joan in a while, but then he hadn't seen many people in a while. John spent most of his time with his experiments and in Rapture at the best of times, and lately had hardly been the best of times.

"You're welcome to join me here if you're at a point where you can stop for a bit."

"It's nice for a run as long as it's not December in Victorian London or high summer in the American West," Joan observes wryly and then wipes her face on the hand towel tucked into her shorts. "And I'd be pleased to stop for a bit, if you'd like the company."

Something about his manner seems off to Joan, and at first, she can't think what. She frowns, thinking it's a memory she's lost, but then it comes to her. Helen's pregnancy. Maybe that's what has him subdued seeming, not that he's ever especially vivacious, but his posture suggests more than a little ennui.

"Are you well? I haven't seen you what seems a rather long time for what is a very small island."

"Running for pleasure or even exercise was never very popular in Victorian London regardless of the month."

John watched as a frown worked over Joan's normally serene or pleasant features. Whatever it was she was thinking through she clearly arrived at its conclusion since it quickly went away.

"I have been spending quite a bit of time in my laboratory in Rapture. I had some experiments that did not produce the required outcomes that I had to look after."

Of course, that was because John had smashed them to bits and he absently rubbed the thin scars on his hands in memory. It was the truth, just not the entire truth.

Even in the midst of a crisis of memory, Joan is observant. She has to be. Details make the difference in the field between life and death. Details are an analyst and a manager's stock-in-trade. She's an intelligence asset (even when her own intelligence seems fragmented, emotions raw and strangely predominant), so of course her gaze tracks the movement of his hands to see new, thin scars.

"I don't think I knew you had a laboratory in Rapture," Joan ventures as she takes a seat beside him. "You'll have to show it to me sometime. I've not even ventured down." At least, not that she remembers and there's nothing in the journal about it, but she seems to remember everything else just now. "What happened to your hands, John?" It's asked in the same tone, slightly more concerned perhaps, but without a missed beat and or any particular emphasis.

"Perhaps some time I can take you down there," John said. He didn't usually entertain guests as it were, but he wouldn't mind a bit of company. His place wasn't much to look at though. "But I would advice against coming yourself. I do not believe that I am entirely alone down there."

That would have been disturbing if it were not for the fact that John had likely faced far more dangerous things than whoever lurked down in Rapture. Not only that, but it kept him sharp and aware.

"And my hands, well, as I said some experiments took a nasty turn. It's nothing really."

"I'm considerably more resilient and resourceful than I look." Her tone's wry but there's an unassailable self-confidence there that she rarely displays on the island. With as raw as she feels, she isn't taking well any challenge to her competence. "But I'm sure I'd enjoy it more with company at any rate."

Joan dismisses that as best she can by returning to the subject of his hands. "Those look like glass cuts," she observes. They're somewhat distinctive. Once you've seen a human body after it's thrown through plate glass, you tend not to forget how it heals. "What were you working on?"

John recognized the tone in Joan's voice, it was one that he heard in Helen's all too often and he knew better than to push the issue. Any further attempts to convince her otherwise might lead to her visiting him just to prove that she could.

"All manner of things. Trying to recreate some of the comforts of home that aren't available here. I've managed to develop a rather passable imitation of Pepsi Cola for a friend."

"Let me know if you manage to replicate a decent chili dog," she says, lips curling up in a smile. "It's amazing the things you miss, isn't it?"

She stretches one leg out into the sand in front of her and brushes at the sand with her foot. She hates to ask so bald a question, it's not very subtle and this isn't an interrogation, but he doesn't seem inclined to offer an explanation either. "If you don't mind my saying, John, you really don't strike me as the type for seaside meditations. Is there something on your mind?"

"I imagine that would be very simple. It's not as if their is any particular ingredients list that you must strictly adhere to for the hot dog or the chili," he said with a bit of a chuckle.

He took a moment to ponder her question, or rather his answer to it. He didn't want to lie to Joan, and he wouldn't, but nor did he wish to share everything that he was going through. That was simply not how he did things.

"For the record, I spent quite some time in a monastery doing nothing but meditating," he said. John had been trying to find a way to control himself at the time and for a short time it worked. Unfortunately, it was only for a time and ended with the massacre of every monk in the monastery.

"But yes, there has been quite a bit on my mind lately and this is my attempt to clear it."

"You'd be surprised," Joan offers with respect to the chili dogs. She's had great and she's had terrible. The quality of the cuts of meat impacts everything. But he's already moved on to her observation about his meditation habits, so she lets it go, more interested in the other anyway.

She chuckles warmly at his correction and admits, "Touche. I don't know you as well as all that, but I did say seaside meditation, not meditation in general." It's a neat point, but it had been the waves that had struck her as an unusual fit for him for whatever reason. "I'm content to be wrong for the moment, if it means you're finding comfort from the practice."

Does she want to know what's on the mind of the man who was once Jack the Ripper? "God knows I'd be useless as a shrink--" Though not an analyst. "But if you've a mind to talk, I've a will to listen."

John realized that if he told her that he didn't want to talk about it, she would likely let it go. He also knew that he needed to say something to someone because holding it all in was not helping at all. To be honest, he was a bit terrified of how angry it made him.

"I had a therapist here on the island," John said. "Of course, he married the love of my life and I recently learned they're having a child which is... quite a blessing for them."

"But not for you." Clear, concise, but not unkind. She likes Helen well enough, and she still hasn't managed to meet Will, but what friendship she has to offer among the three runs to him, even with her reservations.

A quiet sigh, a nod, her eyes warm enough to match the hand that reaches to rest briefly on his arm. "I'm sorry, John. That must be very difficult."

"It is, but I had my chance years ago. I had foolishly hoped that... Helen badly wanted a family on the island and I don't believe that her husband did. I had foolishly hoped that this would become enough of an issue for them to separate."

In retrospect it had been desperate and foolish of him and could only end in the heartbreak he was feeling now. It was nothing short of what he deserved.

"Bringing along with her the man on the island I hate the most when she told me about it did little to make the revelation go easily."

"I have some experience with loving someone who isn't available." It had turned out differently for Arthur and she, but she remembers when she hadn't believed it would. "It's challenging even if there's no history."

In all it's rather more than she shares with most people, although Emily knows more of the story and Auggie and Arthur of course. It's enough, however, to explain some of her sympathy for the situation.

"And when the other doesn't strive to make it painful. Why on earth would she do such a thing?"

"I am sorry that you had to experience that," he said, meaning it. He would not wish that on all but perhaps Nikola. If he thought that Nikola actually loved Helen as a person, it would have been perfect. John doubted that would be true.

"I believe she feared that I would be so upset at the news I would possibly harm her. Or for moral support. Either way, she had to know the choice of Nikola would be painful and insulting. Perhaps it was a message."

Joan tips her head in acknowledgment but it's clear from her reserve she has no need to discuss it further. It's too fresh with her recent journey in time backward to the months when everything had been so up in the air, as well.

Instead, she's frowning over Helen's behavior. "It is something of a strange choice, isn't it?" It's not really a question, more of a bemused affirmation of John's thoughts. "Will would have been awkward, certainly, but she could have met you in public." As she had with Geena. "Helen doesn't strike me as the sort of woman to deliver a message so backhandedly, although admittedly I don't know her very well at all. If she did have something to say, I suspect she would have said it outright."

"Perhaps it was her way of showing at this point that it simply did not matter to her."

That was his best guest. Kate would have been a much better choice, he respected and got along with Kate and she could handle herself better than Tesla could. No, Tesla had been a message of sorts, of that he was certain.

"But, that portion of my life is... completely closed to me now. Which is why I was here, contemplating what to do next."

"A task that would be considerably easier if there were more choices, or the possibility of going somewhere else to start over," Joan supplies, not at all without empathy. It's a choice she and Arthur have also been discussing, but it's easier to do it together.

It's difficult, today, with the specter of early onset dementia looming over her, but she manages a small, reassuring smile. "I managed to make peace with Arthur's previous wife. Maybe in time it will become easier. Not that it's much of a consolation."

"I will simply have to do the best with what I am given," he said with a shrug. A simple thing to say and a simple philosophy, but he knew that it wouldn't be nearly so simple to move forward with. It was almost enough for him to wish that he didn't have his sanity any longer.

"I'm glad that your particular troubles in that area are behind you though."

"They're not." It's a quiet denial, not casting aspersions at Arthur, but thinking of the notes she found from the day she'd spent back when she was convinced Arthur had been cheating on her with Geena. "Every time he sees her, still, I want to claw her face off. But we've forgiven each other for me being the wife he's staying with."

She's not entirely sure why she's picked John of all people to discuss this with other than conversational drift and the emotional exhaustion from days of pretending to be in love with her husband when she wanted to claw his face off. Today isn't one of those days, but she's still so tired.

"The island has been unkind in reminding us both of her lately," she confesses, but doesn't elaborate.

"I'm sorry, does he not remember that the two of you are together?"

John could only imagine how awful that would be, for one of them to know they loved the other but to have your partner forget that. It seemed the sort of thing that the island would indeed do to someone. A cruel trick to bring her Arthur, only to have him spend time loving someone else.

"Oh, no. Arthur's memory is fine." Not that she would've noticed, considering the gaps in her own. Now she wonders, suddenly, if she missed it and he's not well. But no, he would have told her. Wouldn't he?

She rubs her hands over her arms, suddenly chilled.

"I had...it was just an incident, a day or so, where I forgot back to their divorce," she admits, even though she hasn't told anyone. She supposes she can play it off as just the one or two days. "And then recovering it, I was forced to relive a rather unpleasant afternoon where I accused him of having a girlfriend." She lifts a hand. "Relive isn't exactly the right word. Recall vividly."

"I'm sorry, that must be maddening, especially if it comes and goes."

As least if she was stuck in the mindset of being in the past she could attempt to live some sort of normal life without much difficulty. She may be hurt or upset by what she thinks her husband is doing, but John is sure this is much more difficult, not knowing just who it is you'll be in a short while.

July 9-20: Operation: Sundowner

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