July 9-20: Operation: Sundowner
Jul. 7th, 2012 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lysistrategicThe 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.]
"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.]
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 10:55 pm (UTC)The point is, she's been looking for Joan. And after a while, she finds her.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 02:22 am (UTC)So she smiles when she sees Dairine coming into the kitchen carrying what looks like a laptop, if nothing like what she's ever seen. "Dairine--" Her voice is warm, her eyes clear and sharp. "New toy?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 09:23 am (UTC)"You won't be offended--" She holds out her hands for the computer. "--if I say that it's adorable, will you?" It is very cute. "Does it have a name?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-13 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 10:59 am (UTC)"You can customise her however you want, I didn't mess with that. There's a touchpad, so you can drag and drop and type all you want, but like I said, you can do it all by voice, too. Go ahead, ask her something."
no subject
Date: 2012-07-20 02:23 am (UTC)She set the computer down again and spoke to it, expression mildly quizzical. "Nittany, how do I view my file system?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-20 01:13 pm (UTC)"Descriptor renamed. Okay. Query: file system. Display. Okay." The screen seems to shiver, and a list of files and their descriptions appears. There aren't many, yet.
"Her syntax will adapt," Dairine adds. "She's still pretty new."
no subject
Date: 2012-07-20 08:56 pm (UTC)Expression turning thoughtful, she tips her gaze over at Dairine. "I haven't forgotten that I promised you dinner. Timing hasn't worked out yet, but we'll make that happen. I'd love for Arthur to meet you." And then, slightly more...not mercenary exactly but managerial. "I could use another one like Nittany, larger, maybe, more powerful as a gift for a friend. Would you be willing?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-20 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-21 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-22 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 05:28 am (UTC)