Britannia, NY

Alessio hadn’t seen Arthur or Enfys since the day he learned that he (likely) wasn’t completely insane, that his memories really were memories, that something really was going to happen (maybe), and had begun to half wonder if it even happened at all. He’s more than used to extremely vivid dreams, after all. And since that day, a moment he always imagined as being one which would completely upturn his entire life, things have been completely mundane. He had written the piece on that carpenter who’d been shot which was reprinted in several local papers (only based on hospital and police records—his editor had already learned that sending Alessio out for interviews never ended in anything useful), he had finished unpacking, he had learned his way around most of the town. At first it was an effort: don’t think about it, about him, because you can’t spend your time waiting around for something to happen. Fill the time. Occupy your mind. Unpack, learn the way to the coffee shop.

Today’s perfectly thrilling goal is grocery shopping. It’s easy to forget it now. The shiny floors, the air conditioning turned on too high, the list written out in his own overly-careful hand, every workaday detail seems to remove him one more step from the things Enfys and Arthur said. The world seems too average, in the midst of the cereal aisle, for things like that to be true.

It's going to be one of those weeks. Of course, it's already been one of those weeks, and probably it will be one of those months, too. Uncooperative witnesses tend to do that.

Sergiusz Jacek Nowak tilts his coffee cup (the ones the diner uses are just the right shape) swirling the dregs in an idle attempt to read his fortune in the grounds.

After a morning of unloading and unpacking and assuring his elderly mother that no, he's quite sure he doesn't need her help lifting that giant box of books, Alessio is almost halfway moved in and deems it time for a coffee break.

As he heads down the block, he considers the fact that he's feeling fairly confident. He has a new job, he's starting fresh in a new place, he forced himself to leave behind if not all, then at least some of his books on Arthurian legend in hopes of finally moving past that ridiculous hobby, he only has a few more boxes to go when he finishes his coffee.

He has absolutely no idea where the coffee place is.

He tries backtracking, then looping around, then trying a new street all together, because he's sure he passed one when he was driving in... though Alessio doesn't exactly make an effort in daily life to seem inconspicuous, he certainly doesn't enjoy attracting undue attention, which is probably exactly what his bewildered wandering is doing.

The universe, at times, has a very sick sense of humor. Laurel has been thinking about Nathan, how weird but not unpleasant her conversation with him had been, and about the woman she'd dreamed she'd been since she was a girl.

And Laurel finally admitted to herself that, deep down, she was irrationally afraid of falling for a man who didn't love her back. But Jim was not, in any conceivable way, the man she'd dreamed about. If that were even possible, which it wasn't.

She felt more than a little stupid, calling him, but she would feel worse if she wondered, for weeks, whether there was anything going on or not, and was finally forced to concede there wasn't when enough time had passed. She hoped it wouldn't come to that. She liked him - she wanted this to work.

So, thanks to Nathan, her dreams, and the sense of upheaval both have caused... she's listening to Jim's phone ring, telling herself that she is an adult woman and that there's no need to feel like she's seventeen again.

Laurel has decided to take the day off. As she has about a million old vacation days she never used, it's probably overdue regardless, but as it is, there's a part of her that feels odd being out and about in the middle of the day.

It's almost as if she's looking for something, as she wanders through the closest thing Britannia has to downtown. She's felt that way in her dreams, recently. Like she's looking something, that is. But the weather is pleasant enough, and even if she doesn't find anything... or anyone... at least she'll have had a pleasant walk.

( I'm searching rumors with my hollow plans/when all I wanted is what's mine/I'm lost and lonely in this foreign land/and left too far behind the lines/I want to tear down these walls between us/and I can't make it alone/a million spaces in the earth to fill/and here's a generation waiting still/We've got year after year to kill/but there's no going home )

Laurel is at her flower shop, a huge thermos of coffee at her right elbow as she goes through the outstanding orders. There hasn't been much foot traffic today, which is just as well because she's running on fumes. The dreams have gotten much worse recently, and she's trying to compensate for lack of sleep with an increased caffeine intake.

It's somewhat working. She looks tired, but the shop is in good shape, for the time being. She's idly considering calling Jim when she gets off; she's more or less finally convinced herself that his Southern sensibilities wouldn't be offended by her making the next move. But for now, she's still got half a shift to go.

I apologize in advance for lag time; my computer is in the process of being replaced. But feel free to stop by and get some flowers.

Jim is a man of his word, and he's a Southern ex-pat to boot. He shows up at Laurel's door with a small corsage, dressed in his nicest non-work clothes (he's the kind of man who puts on a dress shirt and then rolls up the cuffs), and his everpresent shake.

"Hey," warmly, when she comes to the door.

By now Jim has settled in, as much as he settles at all, and most of the people are familiar with him by sight if not from actual conversation; they know him by his scissored gait, walking around Britannia like a Southern Dr. House. The women in the town's two coffee shops know him best, and they like him best: some facet of his personality, something attractive and warm and funny, shows through when he's at the little table with his mug of black coffee, shows through as it does no other place. He's still dour and sarcastic during his classes, caustic with most of the other teachers, prone to making comments in so deadpan a voice that people don't realise he's joking.

But the barristas and the waitresses and the sweet-faced thirty-something man who bakes for Cup of Tom (tagline: Hey, baby, you look like you could use a tall one; run by Tom Oldham, a thickset old Vietnam veteran with a mildly bizarre sense of humour) are always on the receiving end of his moments of friendliness, are the ones who experience him as a flirtatious man who's not really as old as he looks. The baker even has a half-acknowledged relationship with him--sometimes, when the waitresses are busy, he emerges lankily from the kitchen and lingers by Jim's table, and sometimes his coffee-coloured hands drop to Jim's smooth brown hair, and sometimes Jim waits by the door for him on his way home. So there's at least two places where he gets a warm reception, and he takes advantage of the fact by spending most of his unaccounted-for time there.

Lately, though, he's been having dreams--his dreams have started. He's always nauseous afterwards, his stomach rocking gently, and a rough pain in his abdomen, as if something is clawing unhappily inside his large intestine, lost and trying to make a way out for itself. So it's a Tuesday after school; so he's sitting at his usual table, but he hasn't been his usual self. He's correcting papers, but he pauses frequently to stare off at the distance and lose his place. His dark eyes are bruised, and the harsh edge of Tennessee in his accent is coming through plainer than usual. His body shakes more than usual.

He reaches for his coffee cup, and his hand shakes like an old man's.

Laurel knows why she's on edge. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that weeks of sleeping poorly will result in nerviness and irritability. But it's getting to the point where she's been close to losing her patience with customers, and that will simply not do. Not when her livelihood depends on a solid customer base.

So after work, she makes herself up, throws on a nice jacket, and steps out into the night. It's still cool, but getting warmer, and she takes a moment to enjoy the weather, walking slowly. But eventually, she reaches the bar she privately thinks of, ridiculously, as hers. She's not been in awhile, but she'd always been fond of it; not too loud, and the sort of cozy place tourists never appreciated.

Jack and coke in hand, she settles in to try and relax if possible. She wouldn't even mind some company, if some turned up.