[For Annie and Auggie] Operation: Mistletoe

[lysistrategic]

Eight days. Joan has been here eight days, long enough to celebrate Hanukkah if she did, which she doesn't, and Christmas, which she does, but didn't, since it isn't Christmas at home and the one person she needs to see on Christmas isn't here.

Her thumb rubs against the inside of her wedding ring, thoughts of Arthur overwhelming her increasing uncertainty about this place. She misses him, even though they've been apart much longer than eight days for work. And she's worried about him, in the midst of the Operation: Lynx crisis without her there for support.

She worries about Annie, as well, and Auggie who probably doesn't think she'd even noticed the smoldering fuse he'd been hiding the day she arrived here. Her other operatives may have been in less immediate danger, but without her there, that may not last. Especially if Jai moves in on her job in her absence. He'll squander personnel resources with as much callous disregard as he did her budget and destroy Arthur's faith in him as well.

It's funny, but not funny enough to make her smile, that she worries more about Arthur's heart than Jai's treachery. Arthur will take care of her people in her absence. But who will take care of Arthur?

Her lips press tight together at the thought that Geena or Petra might move in to take her place as wife if she's gone too much longer. The books on the bookshelf mock her as her fingertips move across it - nothing useful about this place, or intellectually interesting, just row after row of romances, some of them erotic enough to be fun under difference circumstances but most of them just a reminder that whether this place is real or she has been captured or she's in a coma or dead, she may never see Arthur again.

Which, Joan realizes, is precisely why anger at Petra or Geena is a better turn of thought. Anger is stronger than fear, and anger can be exorcised. She spins away from the bookshelf, intending to be rid of this ridiculous dress and shoes and find some way to run or at least take a brisk walk to cool her temper.

She spins - and is stopped so firmly in her path that she immediately grabs a book to smash into the face of whoever's grabbed her. But there's no one. No explanation for why she can't move. Her heart slams against her ribs, but Joan forces herself to breathe calmly and take stock. There are other people in the room, reading, talking, and none of them paying the slightest attention to her. None of them seem stuck.

Head cocked, Joan rubs a hand over the side of her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a bundle of green with waxy white berries and a red ribbon overhead. She snarls to herself and spits out, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

A few people look up and start forward to offer their help but she holds up her hand. If this is a psych test to see if she will cheat on Arthur when it's expedient to do so, whoever's administering it will be sadly disappointed.

Comments

[farmgrown]

Eight days. Annie's surprised, but only to an extent - she hadn't attempted to try and lay low upon first arriving here, but that was only because she hadn't known anyone, hadn't made the deliberate choice to do anything but try and proceed as normally as possible - but she imagines that Joan had tried to get an idea of everything, not wanting to try too much attention to herself as a newcomer, even if people seem to have a knack for identifying the latest additions in spite of attempts to blend in.

"I was only here about a month before that," she admits, without missing a beat. "Almost a month exactly, if I'm remembering the dates right, but - back home, it was after I was - well, the trip that I took to Sri Lanka, you remember, but Auggie - he showed up from a point much later after that."

[lysistrategic]

Five months. Six months. And neither of them showing a single one of their tells for skirting the truth. She begins to ask which of the trips to Sri Lanka but if she's with Auggie then Annie must've had sufficient time to get over Ben, which makes the first trip highly unlikely. This just got a lot more complicated, Joan realizes. Even if she doesn't believe what she's been told about the island, she must interact with Annie and Auggie as if it's true.

"I remember," Joan tells Annie and then adds, "We had a conversation afterwards. The night you stopped over after work. Do you remember it?" Her mind reels. If these are the real Annie and Auggie and she is really here, as opposed to any of the other insane scenarios she's come up with (which, really, are no less insane than what she's been told), then the Annie and Auggie at home might be plants...

Which is a highly unhelpful train of thought, and Joan purses her lips to cut it off. She would've known. "Auggie, when did you see me last?" It's an awkward question, but considering the pace she's driving them out of "the Compound" at and the number of people they're passing, it's as innocuous and informative as she can be.

[theblindguy]

With everything that's happened so far, this part of the island's weirdness had barely even crossed his mind until Annie brings up when she'd come from. Was Joan from their futures then, since she'd shown up on the island after the two of them? Is that how the island works?

"I haven't spoken to you since I left on my trip to Istanbul to the jazz festival over there," he explains, and while it's not something he wants to think about (and has tried not to on purpose), he is curious if she'd know what he's talking about. If she remembers after it. He's admittedly glad he'd come from before the long talk he's sure he had to sit through after what happened. "I was on my way home when I ended up here."

[farmgrown]

"This place, apparently it can take people from anywhere in the timeline of - well, their life, I guess," Annie replies. She has the excuse of Auggie's arm linked through hers to squeeze her hold a little tighter, as if through some power or force she can ensure that he won't be going anywhere, even with the uncertainty that surrounds so many of them. She's heard about what happens when people leave - one day they're here, and then the next day they're just gone.

"It didn't take us very long to figure out we had a few months' worth of time - things that he knew about that I hadn't even been through yet," she adds, as they continue walking a little further, her eyes on Joan all the while. "But apparently, that doesn't mean that the - versions of us who are there are just some weird body-snatchers. They're still us."

[lysistrategic]

It's fortunate, Joan reflects as she walks, that their jobs make them experts at dealing with information on the fly. Also at dealing with disconcerting news without revealing it. The only indication that she's distressed by anything she's heard is that her steps grow quicker and sharper as she approaches the door. She is not above wishing that this surreal dream or exercise or whatever it is will end now that she has found her operatives, and when she pulls open the door to the London snow, there is a brief moment, a tiny flicker of disappointment, one no one but Arthur (Arthur) would recognize when she is not somehow back at Allen's.

She reins in a sigh, scans the street, and turns right. There's a teahouse there that will suit. "Let's stick to what we actually know as opposed to our speculations, hm?" she says, much belatedly, as Annie and Auggie catch up with her again. It's sharper than she means to be, and when she tugs her jacket closed, she tips a very mildly apologetic look Annie's direction. "I remember a good deal more than either of you. Whatever the reason for that is, I suspect I ought to keep that knowledge to myself except to tell you that you're both still alive and well and so are the people you care about." Although the situation with Parker is not as Auggie wants it to be and Joan suspects Danielle's marriage may be in trouble, but those are details she needn't make them privy to. Not now.

[theblindguy]

The way Joan's pace suddenly changes is more than enough to tell him how Joan is probably feeling right now. It's how he felt too, in some ways, in that first month or two he'd been here. Still, he feels compelled to speak up when what she says is something he has some disagreement with.

"What Annie said is one of the few consistencies this place has had in people's stories and experiences I've heard in the last few months, and I think that's something worth noting. It's apparently been that way since the very beginning - whenever the very beginning of this place was. Some people have apparently been here for years," he explains, well aware it isn't exactly something worth dwelling on, but it's certainly nothing to wave off either. Intel from other people could be flimsy at best sometimes, but he experienced it himself - twice now, apparently, since Joan is from some time in a future he doesn't know.

That it's the only thing that could explain how Annie - or he, for that matter, in Joan's case - could be here on the island and back home at the same time does make it more compelling to believe, too. There hadn't even been a second where he doubted the Annie he knew for the months she doesn't remember, and there's been no doubt the one on the island is the same person. People could be fooled by looks (here now, especially, with this place's ability to bring people who look the same), but the way he knew her (knows everyone) can't be perfectly replicated so easily.

And how far in the past is Joan talking? Weeks? Months? Years? He's sure Annie would've reacted if Joan looked different than what they remember, so it can't be too far. He can understand why she wouldn't want to share the information she has with them - caution is just what they do. Instead, he settles for quipping, "Well, it's good to know I haven't been driven crazy back home, at least."

He glances Annie's way as he says it, mouth quirking up in a small, brief grin, as if saying he's sure she would've been to blame for that if he had been. It's certainly no time to be joking too much, but the little bit of levity is nice to have anyway. Knowing the people close to him are still fine, too, doesn't hurt. He's been thinking of them a lot lately, with the holidays coming and going.