July 9-20: Operation: Sundowner

[lysistrategic]

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.]

Comments

[chesspolitik]

It was utterly exhausting to keep up a facade of normality but Anatoly didn't know what else he could do. Showing his grief and anger at the island would do nothing to change things. He could rage and weep all he liked, Lex would not remember him and think he was a fool in the bargain.

No, it was better that he kept his emotions in check and went about his day. He was out of practice at that, it was true, but he would remember the hang of it soon enough. This was much better than than holding out hope for something that might never happen. If the island decreed that Lex was never to remember what they had, then he had to accept that. He might even come to believe it was for the best.

Until he reached that stage of acceptance, he had to keep himself busy and towards that end, he walked. Late night, early morning - the time didn't matter. If his brain needed quieting, then he got up to wander.

[iliketodruitt]

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.

[wizard_errant]

Dairine's gone looking for Joan. It's computer-related mostly, though that's not the only reason; she meant to give her one of the other two Musketeers but couldn't quite bring herself to, which meant building a new laptop out of all the parts she's collected over time. Which was nice, as projects go; sensible and uncomplicated and easy the way it seems like nothing is.

The point is, she's been looking for Joan. And after a while, she finds her.

[thinkimstrange]

Jonas didn't need to be an alien to know something was wrong with Joan. She seemed distracted the few times he'd seen her this month but he'd tried to just leave it alone. To ignore the things he'd noticed when he'd spoke her to, to act like nothing was wrong. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done but he was willing to do to give her her privacy. She had her husband and people from home to help her. She didn't need a meddling Kelownan as well.

So when he found her in the kitchen drinking coffee one morning, Jonas still tried to pretend all was well as he joined her with his own cup of tea. "Good morning Joan. How are you?"

[just_hormones]

It's pretty hard not to notice something's been going on this month, even for Aphrodite, who is a lot better than she used to be at looking outside herself but still has her periods of self-centeredness. Never knowing whether someone she's supposed to know will remember her is totally annoying, and Aphrodite will be so relieved when the whole amnesia thing goes away, hopefully sooner rather than later. It's bad enough she's got to deal with a place where the majority of the population either doesn't know or doesn't care how to properly treat a goddess.

On her way to the compound, she spots a familiar face coming out of the school. "Hey, Joanie!" she calls with a bright smile, waving at her friend.

[damnfinecup]

Dale had always felt an affinity for those people he ran into while out running in the morning, some kind of secret runners' society where they never had to talk about their membership, it was just understood. And of course, he knew Joan in other contexts as well, so when he saw her out on the paths with him in the hours before the real heat of the day hit, he gave her a wave and a smile and, as they were going in generally the same direction on this particularly day, matched pace with her.