Britannia, NY

Tiernay has settled in for the long haul at a little table by the window of the Round Table with her laptop and a legal pad.

She's working, but she's smiling, and glances up readily enough when someone comes near.

Jean Tiernay sits at a small table in a bar, contemplating her Mai Tai speculatively. She’s had only a sip of it. She would rather like another, but would her physical therapist have her hide for a trophy? A stuffed major to show other patients what happens when you mess up your pain management regime?

She sighs, and pushes the glass across the table to Mike.

When he woke up this morning Gary was still there, still rational, still with that gentle, patient good humor ... which is actually starting to drive Mike a little crazy. He's not used to being the one in this relationship who needs to be treated with kid gloves, and he's pretty sure he doesn't like it.

But at least Gary is more or less back to normal; and he slept better last night, curled back-to-front with Gary in the bed that's by now slightly fusty. Laundry, he thinks, resolutely mundane; pick up a few groceries, pull himself together. It can't be that hard.

He does still have a clean T-shirt, at least, and he's more or less presentable when he lets himself out of the building and starts across the tiny courtyard that opens onto the parking lot. His eyes look a little bruised -- but then so do a lot of people's, lately.

[attn: Arthur, open to the general public if they feel like dealing with him. XD]

Arthur's encounter with Gaheris... that is, with Gary, has left him shaken. He didn't expect anyone he knew to be alive, in any form. Maybe Merlin, if his luck was exceedingly great, but he hadn't counted on it. He'd appeared without a history, in the wrong country, and had assumed that something had gone wrong in his return.

But now he had to wonder. Perhaps it hadn't.

It was possible, of course, that poor Gaheris had been a special case, because of what happened. If someone were to believe in the idea of unfinished business for a soul, Gaheris would certainly be a reliable candidate. But then again, there were the dreams. He'd heard quite a few people mention odd dreams; he'd observed that even more people looked tired.

Perhaps, after all, he'd returned just as he was meant to.

Which, of course, raised the question of what it was that he was supposed to be doing, now that he was here. It had seemed so obvious, last time. Difficult, certainly, but clear. He wished...

But wishing never got him anywhere, then or now. But he's sitting on a bench, outside Adia's apartment, thinking. He's free for the approaching, however.

Tiernay is sitting on a large memorial stone in the front garden of Britannia First Presbyterian Church, her long, slacks encased legs partly obscuring the brass plate with the dates of the chapel’s restoration and the names of the primary donors. She has a small, heavy stoneware mug of coffee held casually in her hands, her elbows braced on her knees. The plate that held her coffeecake has been abandoned on the grass, fork crossed across it, and she is watching the church’s young minister play London Bridge with a bunch of kids, further out on the lawn.

Off to her right, at the line of tables set out for refreshments, someone is saying, “Edna, we need more coffee,” and someone else is saying, “It’s a shame we didn’t have a cantata this year,” and someone else is saying, “When are you and James going to baptize that baby of yours, Amanda? It’s been three months already!”

Tiernay smiles over her folded hands. Her shoulder is aching, but she shook the minister’s hand after the service, and something in her lightened up, loosened. She feels as young as the spring.

She hums a bar and sing songs to herself, “…The strength to build the city that has stood too long a dream…”

OOC: Nissa is also more than taggable on this post - provided, of course, a body is willing to deal with disgruntled kidlets deprived of their playmate.