Britannia, NY

It is Ivy's birthday, and she is not remotely ashamed of the fact that it is one of her very favourite holidays. It's also a Saturday, so she doesn't even have to give herself the day off work, and she woke up very early in the morning to go out and buy ridiculous baked goods (cannoli and chocolate croissants) in Old Forge, then came home to make an offering to Kuan-Yin as part of her new daily ritual (her mother's suggestion, but Ivy is open to almost any idea by now, and her mother sets a great store by Kuan-Yin).

After that she heads out again to one of the greenhouses to buy plants--only flowers, because Ken always gives her a tree as a special gift on her birthday. She unloads things, then stops in at Cup of Tom for coffee before she goes back home.

She knows Ken is busy even on the weekends, so she settles down in the garden under one of the trees from one of her past birthdays, with a romance novel she's read about three times before and one of the croissants. It's shaping up to be a beautiful day, and she doesn't have any real plans.

Karen is having one of those mornings where it seems that nothing will ever go right. She was late getting in to work (her sleep is so mucked up at this point, she may as well not even try anymore), she broke two mugs, and she scalded her hand making tea for someone who just didn't seem to have the common decency to order coffee.

She's just finished her shift, and can't think of any reason she ought to go home. So she's staked out at Habitat, with a red eye close at hand, pretending to do the New York Times crossword. Even a Monday puzzle is too much, but it really doesn't matter, either way.

It's 3 in the morning. He dimly knows this, but this is important and he's afraid he's going to lose it. It's like a song he needs to write down before the melody goes out of his head. He doesn't know what he's going to say, not exactly. He just knows he needs to talk to Cecilia. Right away.

What will scare Larry later, when he remembers this, is the blurring between his old self and his new one. And he's not sure which of them initiated the phone call.

Around ten o'clock, Gary emerges from the studio and goes into the living room, shedding his clothing, paint streaked into his hair, up his forearms, and a smear of green on his cheek. He's a little bit hoping that Mike won't talk to him, or that Mike will, or something, he doesn't know what but he's not feeling bad, just a little shaky and uncertain in his stomach.

"Hey," he says, quietly. "You want a beer?"

It's a really good day--he hasn't had nightmares in a week, he's managing to keep things cool with Mike (it involves effort, certainly, but he's making that effort, and he's been able to be friendly but not more than that for quite some time), and his intermittent dates with Laurel have been going really well.

So when school lets out for the afternoon he grabs his things, wraps Sheila's lead around his hand, and is out the door almost as quickly as the kids, heading back towards Laurel's shop.

Ken, while often annoyed, is seldom angry. It's only happened a handful of times since she met him. But this morning, angry is the only word for his expression, for all its coolness and control.

He needs to have a word with his wife.

Ivy is beginning to have her doubts about this whole thing, but she owes it to Arthur, and to Ken now too, she thinks, so she makes sure Arthur gets the invitation and on Friday evening she gets home early, does her best to clean the house (or at least the first floor) to something reasonably decent, and brings home rib steaks for Ken to deal with.

A tiny part of her, more Ivy than Ragnelle, wants to impress the King, the High King of Britain, just a little. The only outward result of this is the fact that she's wearing the nicest dress that she can get away with for the occasion, Ken's favourite green one that looks like summertime and greenery and a kind of sweet eternity, and has her hair done up much fancier than usual.

Apart from that she seems no different from usual, ridiculously exuberant as she tumbles down the stairs shoeless and starts setting the table for supper.

Spring is coming, truly now, and Cecilia finds her mood improving. Warmer weather is always welcome, and soon enough things will cease to be terminally grey and bland. And it's not just the weather; things have gotten a little easier since she managed to tell Larry exactly how she felt, and though she misses him now, she's content.

Her dreams are still heart-twisting, still waking her up at strange hours, and some days she feels more like Morgause caught up in the wrong time then she feels like herself. But by and large, she goes to work, and helps out patrons, and takes long walks after her shift is over, and tries not to dwell on it.

Most days, she succeeds. But today is not one of those days. Today started out all right, and her workday went by quickly. Now, though, she doesn't want to go home and so she's walking down the main drag, without her jacket, trying to decide between a cocktail or coffee.

On Good Friday Jacob took his father to the senior medical centre in Ithaca, and it's official--Mr. MacNaight has Alzheimer's. Jacob listens to the talk quietly, takes in what the doctor has to say and files it away in his memory, and spends the rest of the day reading with his hands in fists, trying not to be angry at God.

On Holy Saturday he helps to decorate the church and fasts again, mostly just wishing Mrs. Sanford hadn't given all her workers a long weekend for the holiday.

Come Easter, he goes to the service--both services, the early and the late, plays with the kids, helps with the egg hunt, cleans up afterward with the ladies in the altar guild. He goes home to check on his dad, but everything's okay, at least for the most part. Ruth talked about visiting, but she's got her daughter-in-law's family to tie her up.

At six o'clock he puts his dad to bed, and by seven he's at the bar, the only place in the whole town that isn't closed for Easter. He's never done this before, but then again he's never felt this sense of loss before. First his father, then the brother he never met--then Heliabel, then his witch-woman in the forest. After that Galahad, and he bore all those losses steadfastly, trusting in God. But he still doesn't have Galahad; he's alone in this new time with his memories of the old, and his brothers and sisters are scattered across the continent, and his dad is disappearing in pieces, like an onion that gets peeled down, one layer after another.

He nurses a beer. The combination of fluorescent signs and low lights makes his head hurt, and the only people in the bar on a day like this, in a town like this, are the people who don't have anywhere else to go.

The latter part of Karen's shift was quiet -- which was both good and bad. Good because it meant she got out in time to make herself look slightly more presentable before Daniel came back to meet her for drinks; bad because it gave her way too much headspace to over-think things.

Ultimately, she's decided to just run with the fact that it's only a drink or two, and essentially meaningless, and anyway -- she needs to know more than three people in town. And so, at 4:30 she's sitting on the bench outside waiting for Daniel to show up.

For the past two days, the music students at Britannia High School have been left in the hands of a substitute-- much to their delight, Daniel is sure. He's not just playing truant, which he has admittedly been known to do. But in this case, avoiding sleep as much as possible for God knows how long does have a tendency to catch up with a person.

It's the dreams, of course. Since they've stopped being fun and a bit exciting, he's stopped mentioning them to anyone. He's reconsidering this strategy, now. Now, that is, that the first thing he does once he feels alive enough to venture outside is to immediately head to Habitat to begin caffeinating himself in preparation for mission: avoid sleep. Which is probably less than healthy, but there he is that afternoon, drinking one of those improbably large cups of coffee, a little paler than usual, the childhood Scots accent coming out stronger when he speaks because he's too tired to hide it.

Who does one go to, he wonders, if one wishes to complain about crazy dreams? He'd hardly know how to begin such a conversation, anyway; a lifetime's practice has made him perhaps too good at talking a great deal without saying anything at all.

It's her lunch break, and Elaine is writing. Or attempting to do so, at least; her focus just isn't happening today.

That happens, when you're scared of sleeping.

She almost feels like it's a Jekyll and Hyde sort of deal, these days. For all Cecilia says she shouldn't fight it, she hates not knowing what she's done, or what she's capable of doing. At least Lexi's gone away; a small part of her is hurt, but most of her is relieved, because Lexi made it worse. (And, of course, Lexi had hurt her, here-and-now her, but that wasn't really something she wanted to be thinking about either.)

She'd thought by now she'd be long gone. But she can't quite seem to go. Instead, she's sitting on a bench about a half block away from the store, with a notebook open in her lap, blank.

Karen's dreams have always come in strange waves, and this has intensified somewhat since she moved to Britannia. She'll have a few nights that are tolerable, or even free of the dreams altogether; then a rash of the bad ones, the really awful ones, full of fear, of grief and desolation and a kind of angry loneliness that she never wants to admit to feeling when she's awake in her own life.

The worst of these is always the one where they come to fetch her out of her rooms, and she's heard all the commotion so she already knows where they're taking her, and they take her to that strange, cold little room and show her his corpse. And the only part of any of it that makes her feel strong is that she is so angry, so brokenly angry, that she feels if she were a man she'd take their blades from them and drop them all where they stand. But all she can do is be the harridan they all know her for, and flash and rage at them, and drive them out of the room so they'll leave her alone with him. Leave her alone with him and he isn't even there anymore.

It's this one she wakes from, and Karen feels it can't have been more than twenty minutes since she lay down, exhausted, to go to sleep, even though the clock tells her otherwise. She's doing that weird crying thing she hates where she can't get her breath and she feels like someone's taken everything out of her chest. It's an emptiness that's vicious, and she is alone in this house that's too big for one person, and for just a minute, she fucking hates it here.

But then she thinks, no, he's here and I can go and see him.

After a little while, it's almost morning, and so she puts on her coat and goes into town. She gets some coffee (she's off today) and goes to the park and lies down on a cold bench wishing that she had a stupid, self-destructive hobby to shorten her life with. Smoking, maybe, or base jumping. After she's finished her coffee, she gets up and walks to Gary's apartment building.

She would really much rather see him alive.

Jim is trying to put things back together after these last few months, and while his relationship with Mike is crashing down, at least the one with Laurel hasn't completely fallen apart yet. And he's trying very hard to do things right.

Which is the short explanation for why he shows up at her shop at closing time, holding a small bouquet of flowers--which makes him feel like an idiot, honestly, but there you are--Sheila at home, because he feels steady enough to do this, and he wants to look normal, like any other worthy man. He feels guilty about leaving her, but this is important.

He's also wearing his nicest suit jacket and the blue silk tie that he got at Nathan's urging. He wishes he didn't feel so nervous about this; it would be nice to be suave.

She has spent the weekend at home, with Larry. It was good to be together, for more reasons than one, though she supposed it was a bit of a mixed bag. Still, the weekend had done little to ease her anger; had done little more than give it time to cool into Morgause's hard resolve.

The morning after Larry leaves, Cecilia puts herself together carefully. She takes her time, weighs her need to exert her control against the risk that is obviously present. She's gone easy, with Gaheris, up to now. She's preferred to treat him gently, as Cecilia would. But there are limits, boundaries, and he has unquestionably crossed a line.

It's no great thing to get herself let into the building, and from there to suss out which apartment is Gary & Mike's. It's Tuesday morning, fairly early, and Mike should be out.

Her knock is not one you'd use for a friendly drop-by. It's short, and sharp. Authoritative.

Ivy is tired, but on the plus side it's also getting nice, the weather turning warm and windy, and the trees putting out green shoots. That's enough to be getting her blood warm and swift-flowing, turning over in her body, and it makes her feel energetic and cheerful and ardent.

The latter of which Ken's been feeling the results of, but the rest of it is more than shared with the rest of the community; her clients are seeing even better results than usual, and she has a lot more patience with people being stupid.

She's on her way home from work. The fact that the sun is still out at five-thirty is thrilling, and she's swinging her tote bag of files cheerfully, her long hair blown out of her professional ponytail, and she looks beautiful in the yelloworange sundress under her working blazer.

Karen's managed to secure a job at Habitat, and it feels good to be back in the saddle, so to speak. She's more than happy to take all the opening shifts they'll give her -- getting to work at five in the morning isn't really so bad if you don't sleep at night anyhow.

She's behind the counter, now, having just finished dealing with what passes for a morning rush in Britannia. Now she's putting on fresh drip coffee, wiping counters, and restocking cups. She feels at home. Settled, almost.

It would be easier if business was bustling all day long -- no time to think when she gets into the zone, where everything is muscle memory and organization. But you can't have everything, and at least she's got a job.

James is, of course, not sleeping well, which turns out to be a problem. After waking up in a cold sweat for three nights running, he decides to cut out the middleman and just not go to bed.

Which explains what he's doing signed into assorted messaging services at this hour, while he makes a half-hearted attempt at writing a paper in between fruitless Google searches. He's a multitasker.

Gary bangs open the door when he gets back home, shutting it too hard behind him, and throws his coat down on the kitchen chair. His nose is broken and his mouth is nicely smashed, and he's shaking with anger.

Without even bothering to wash off he gets a bottle of Wild Turkey out of the cabinet and sits down at the table to drink, eschewing a glass. The liquor burns when it gets into the open cuts, and he hisses and swears. "Fuck!"

Larry feels oddly like he's playing hooky. Granted, he got permission to take a long weekend off, and further granted, he's just finished a recording session and he won't start touring for another few weeks. But as busy as his agent's kept him, even if he hadn't gotten permission, he might have run off for a few days anyway.

This, though, is what he wanted. A record with decent distribution. Some radio play. A tour. No more day job. Easy enough to romanticize picking up and going at the drop of a hat, but harder to romanticize the menial series of jobs he worked to pay the rent in the meantime.

He tells himself he's happy.

Of course, he hadn't meant to come back to Britannia. Not really. He missed Cecilia, missed... whatever they were, he'd admit that much, but something about the place made him uneasy.

It's only for a weekend.

He walks from the bus station, guitar over one shoulder and small duffel in one hand. He's heading towards Cecilia's house, but taking his time. It's just a town. Nothing that should set his teeth on edge. Beside which, the sun is out and it's a nice break from the city.

Of course.