02 || River Tam || Day 55

[enchangement]

The air tastes strange. [ River knows the video is on but she's not looking at it, allowing instead for the broadcast to show the hallway of house seventeen in the waning afternoon light.

An arm reaches out and a door swings open to a bedroom. Bed rumpled and several books scattered around but otherwise empty.

They took him and she doesn't know when. They took a note, the whole song is wrong now.

[ River sounds exhausted. ]

The air tastes strange. All the notes should be careful and keep themselves in tune.

Comments

[enchangement]

[ She won't be short, she'll actually think about it, she won't just say bring him back because that's not useful or fair. So after a little while of breathing in and out to a forced beat... ]

Will you teach how to bake?

[nedofpies]

[ Ned doesn't hesitate for a second before answering ] Of course. Any time. [ That was the best solution River could have chosen. Ned knows all about using baking as a therapeutic technique, about losing himself in the process to keep his mind occupied and far away from more painful things ]

Would you like me to come over now? I could come over now. Or later if now's not good. Whenever later is. Or maybe you can just send me a message when you feel up to it. [ Ignore the torrent of words, River. He's just eager to make the best of a bad situation and cheer her up, at least as far as he is able. Plus... if he is being honest with himself, he could use a distraction, too. A reason not to think about the fact that people are being snatched out of thin air, not to think about what might be happening to River's other friend, whomever he might be]

[enchangement]

Soon. However...long it takes. Might not remember till you're at the door, just come.

[ Whenever he gets his things together and comes over, she'll make sure she'll be there. ]

and --> action

[nedofpies]

[ It takes Ned almost an hour to show up at House 17. The walk is comparatively long to begin with, and there are other considerations. He doesn't know how their kitchen is stocked, so he brings as much as he can with him, looking rather ludicrous walking across town carrying a pile of things in a large kitchen bowl. He also wants to show up with at least the bare minimum of ingredients, which takes a certain amount of asking around.

Eventually, though, he's there and knocking on the door. ] River?

action

[enchangement]

[ An hour or more is fine, as it has given River the opportunity to regroup. Kind of. She got a hug, and she talked to Erik and Charles and Oliver and from all these people she's borrowing small coping mechanisms until later. Later, when she decides if hiding in Darwin's room will equate proper mourning ritual.

That said, it takes a few moments before he opens the door. Kirk is...somewhere and Cass is probably running around checking on everyone or scouting, so the house is otherwise empty. In River's mind it echoes in all the wrong ways, but who is to say if anyone else would hear the same thing? ]

Hi. [ She peers at the items he's carrying and then lets him past her into the house proper. ]

[nedofpies]

Hi. [ Ned ducks inside past her, wondering if he should say something about the man who has gone missing. He decides against it for the time being, and merely begins looking for the kitchen so he can put all of the things down. They are getting rather heavy. Once he's found the kitchen he sets them all on the counter and turns to get a good look at River and see how she is holding up. She'd seemed so distressed, earlier. ]

Sorry I took so long. [ He waits a beat, asks, quietly ] So, what do you say? Do you want to talk about it and then make pie, talk about it while making pie, make pie and then talk about it, or make pie and not talk about it at all?

[enchangement]

We'll start with pie. [ River gives him a quiet little smile and then moves to stand next to him.

This is her first great loss without Simon to parrot and shadow. She has to find her own response, either hobbled from all these other sources of better things in her life and mind, or from beyond all of them where things are herself and herself alone ore in multiples.

Which means she doesn't know if she'll end up talking at all. It's likely but she can't make promises, not even of whether or not any discussion to be had will be about Darwin directly or other things less directly. ] Don't know the rest yet.

[nedofpies]

Sure. [ Ned half-smiles at her, but it isn't a happy smile. He thinks that, though he might not be telepathic, he understands a little bit where River is coming from. After his mother died, he hadn't been up for much conversation, for quite some time. It's a comprehensible reaction. ]

Why don't you help me set everything out? [ He gestures towards the heap of items and starts shifting them out of the bowl and onto the kitchen counter. Ned wants to let River participate as much as possible, knows that the mindless, tactile aspect of baking is one of the most soothing things about it.]

[ Once everything is laid out, Ned rubs his hands together. ]

Ready to start making some pie? [ It's partially a rhetorical question; River can answer or not as she pleases ]

[enchangement]

[ River nods, so it's good that Ned is asking rhetorical questions - the first pie is in the oven before she deigns to say anything at all.

Ned will find that River is an attentive assistant, but she does, at times, stop and allow Ned to verbally explain his reasons for doing this, that, or the other. River finds a lot of comfort in hearing other people talk about the things they care about deeply, even if she knows the words before they hit the air.

But she's kneeling on the floor, peering at the metal door with it's obscured window in to the pie, when she turns her head towards Ned and smiles. ]

You're a good brother.

[nedofpies]

[ As they bake, Ned isn't at all bothered by River's silence. He can fill the air with sound all on his own, talks to her steadily as they work, tells her all his little tricks, spins off into anecdotes about how he worked them out, and about disastrously failed pies, incidents at pastry school, the best pecan pie he'd ever made; until the pie is in the oven and River finally speaks up. ]

I used to want a little sister. When I was very young. [ He'd been desperate for siblings, before his mother had died. Of course, he remembers, he does have siblings. Technically. They just don't know he exists, and he likes it that way. But he remembers all that River told him about Simon and recognizes the compliment for what it is. ] Thank you.