Jaime Davies (monologuinghero) wrote in expresslogs, @ 2012-11-19 07:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | jaime dorny, lily evans, raymond leon |
Upon Arrival
Characters: Jaime, Lily, Ray, NPC
When: Monday Morning, upon arrival at Point Placid
Location: PP
Warnings/Rating: None really
Summary: The train arrives and the adventure may be over ...
Status: Complete/Gdoc'd
When the train stopped, Jaime wasn’t sure what to expect. They’d been cruising through Panem, and then they were stopped. A glance out the window was enough to indicate it wasn’t a normal stop, either. Because people were looking like they could see it. She guessed it was lucky the train had landed on a beach. An empty beach at that. Habit made her check her device, but all she saw on the home page was -- apparently -- their current location. No warnings, no duration, no other information. Nothing like normal. Was it possible they actually had been rescued? Jaime stepped off the train and onto the sand, looking around. It was a nice place. Her heart thumped a little faster in her chest -- did she dare believe this might be it for real this time? That she and Ray might get their happily ever after? That Lily and Logan might be sticking around? That this could be forever? “Is this the Orient?” The voice caught her attention and she turned to look. “Yeah,” Jaime replied dazedly. “I mean, how many other huge ass trains were you expecting to crash land on your beach?” The man laughed softly, but didn’t seem offended. “We never expect ‘em, lass. They just happen.” He gestured toward their small crowd with one hand, urging them to follow. “C’mon then. We’ll get you lot settled in. I imagine they’ll be around for their train soon enough and t’send the rest of you who aren’t stayin’ back home again.” Jaime hesitated. “Is this …” She glanced up to Lily as the younger witch rested a hand on her shoulder. “I mean, listen.” She meant to go on, but she was afraid her voice wasn’t going to stay stable through the whole thing. “They tried to stay behind before, somewhere else. But the train pulled them back,” Lily explained softly, glancing over toward Ray. “This isn’t like that, is it?” The man shook his head. “How long has it been?” “Almost a year,” Lily replied. “For some of us.” She rubbed Jaime’s back lightly, and she could feel the smaller witch trembling. “It’s over now, lass,” he said gently. “It’s over.” He turned his gaze toward the train. “They’re coming to reclaim it, make sure it can’t do this again, all right? You’re free now, little bird.” A sound left the brunette witch, a cross between a laugh and a sob, before she nodded. Falling in with the others, Jaime followed the man with the Scottish accent to be sorted and registered and whatever else she needed to do to start a new life here. ____________ Jaime looked curiously around the apartment. It was furnished, which was nice, and it was temporary, which was nicer. As soon as they all got jobs, they’d opted to go in together on a house. It would be a few months, maybe closer to a year, but it was just nice to be able to think long-term like that. She knew it would be ages before she stopped expecting to wake up on the train -- if she ever did -- but as time wore on, she knew the train would fade from her mind. She was here, Ray was here, and alive. Lily and Nick were their apartment mates, and Logan had agreed to stick around for a little while -- they’d set him up in a shack on the beach for now. A few others were staying -- the ones who knew they had nothing to go back to, or those who’d found things more compelling to stay for on the train. There hadn’t been many left at the end, and Jaime knew a few had gone home. No one she’d miss too much though. “Do you think it’s real?” It was hardly the first time she’d asked that -- let alone the first time in the past hour -- but she couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it was finally over. She turned her pale blue eyes to Ray, wondering what variation of the answer he was going to give her this time. _____ “Strangely enough, I still do,” he replied with a smile, arching his brows, and for the most part he meant what he said. There was still a little part of him that was concerned this was some sick joke the train was pulling, but overall, he thought it felt real. The train seemed to have been having some sort of meltdown prior to this, losing power or control maybe, and perhaps it had been because of whatever they did to get it sent here. The apartment did seem nice and it was almost difficult to imagine having the ability to just live a normal life. While he definitely would have kept trying to get off the train, after China, there was a part of him that stopped believing that it was ever going to happen. Now here they were, and soon they would have jobs, a house with their friends, and a chance to live without the train taking away their memories or trying to kill them. Stepping towards her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. “You better ask me again in five minutes though just in case I change my mind,” he teased her gently with his lips still close to hers. _______ Jaime laughed faintly, shoving at his chest when he teased her. She knew she was being borderline ridiculous about it, but she couldn’t help it. A year of her life, give or take, had been spent on the train, and the idea of freedom had started to become foreign to her. The idea that she could live her own life without the evil train overlord holding sway over her, was strange. “I won’t believe it,” Jaime said softly. “Not … not right away. Maybe …” she laughed. “Maybe not for a year. You know? I don’t know if I’ll ever feel … if I can ever stop looking over my shoulder. Metaphorically.” She rested her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. “And I think I’m going to always be a little panicked if you’re not in bed when I wake up, and … it’s just been so much for so long that it’s going to take forever to really unwind, and …” Jaime trailed off, lapsing into silence as she listened to his heart beating. It was a comforting, familiar, safe sound, and she relaxed a little against him. “How many do you think are going to stay here?” She asked. “Besides the ones we know already.” Her arms twined around him, her palms pressing to his back through his shirt, stroking gently. _______ “I know,” he replied gently and he could definitely understand. It felt real, but the stop in China had felt real also. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her as she rested against him and he let one hand explore her back. Maybe it would be a year until they stopped worrying, but maybe it would happen sooner. Maybe a month, maybe two, and he imagined things would feel relatively normal. “I’ll try not to get out of bed before you unnecessarily,” he assured her with a little smile. Which wouldn’t be much different than it already was. He knew that she worried every morning that he would be gone and so he made an effort not to be out of bed when she woke. Eventually, assuming this was real, he imagined that too would fade. “It’s hard to say. I don’t know the others very well.” He knew which of their friends were staying. He did hope the train had at least kept some people that wanted to stay behind somewhere like this. It had shed so many people and he did know of at least a few that would have rather not gone home. Selfishly, he was just glad that he and Jaime had made it this far. Lily and Nick as well. He thought, after all this time, they deserved it. __________ She knew he knew, because there wasn’t really much about her he didn’t know. He knew what panicked her, and he knew that usually all he had to do was hold her for a little while and it would pass. She just … wanted so badly for this to be real, for it to really be over so they could get their real life started. Get married, find jobs, find a nice place to live, and just … be together. Unmolested by a rogue train. “Or just … wake me up if you do,” she said. She worked her hands under his shirt, but not with the intention of starting anything. She just wanted to feel the warmth of his bare skin against her palms. “It’ll … if it’s real … it’ll get better.” It would, too. Without the constant threat of the train, she’d be able to relax a little, to let go of some of the things she was holding so tightly to. She smirked faintly, but she supposed that was true enough. She was the social half of the pair. She knew everyone, and she had a decent handle on who she thought would stay and who would go. The Panem set would stay for sure -- they were all dead at home. There were a few others that she knew would be heading home, and some that might be a little on the fence … and in the end, it wasn’t going to matter. She was staying, and Ray, and Lily, and Nick were too. And Logan. The important people. “I should find Lily Luna or Harry, in case they’re going,” Jaime murmured. “Find out what my future holds.” Harry, she thought, would go. Lily though … she wasn’t sure. “Now that I’m not going to live it to find out,” she elaborated. She grinned a little as she drew her head back slightly. She gazed up at him, lifting a hand to stroke his hair before caressing his cheek. ___________ “Or that,” he agreed with a little smile, closing his eyes briefly as her hands slipped under his shirt. It was nice, just the skin on skin contact, the comfort of her hands against him. He knew it would get better, if it was real. After China, he knew they were all bound to be jumpy about this, Jaime especially. She had taken that extremely hard and he hated to think about what it would do to her if this turned out to be a trick. He was content to hold her for a while, until she mentioned finding out things about her future. Then he looked moderately sheepish. He had never told her what Lily Luna had shared. He had been waiting until the train had left them behind in China at the earliest and since it never had, he had never spilled it. “I actually know something about your future,” he admitted as he gazed down at her. “Lily Luna told me before China.” He imagined she would be able to work out why he hadn’t told her, and he hoped it didn’t upset her for some reason or another. He just didn’t want her to go to Lily Luna to ask and her to mention that he already knew something. He didn’t know that much but it was still something. _______ Jaime lifted a brow slightly as she regarded him. Part of her wanted to be mad at him for having a secret, but since she’d made such a huge deal about not ever wanting to know, she would have been mad if he’d told her. So it was sort of a no-win conundrum sort of situation. Still, she did give him her best stern face. “I don’t know if I like you and Lily sharing secrets about me,” she chastised him with no real force behind it. “If she knows that I die or something, you can skip that part,” Jaime decided. “But I guess if you already know something, you may as well tell me.” Then, if it was interesting enough but without details, she’d go track down Lily or Harry to see what else they might know about her. It was curious though that Lily should be the one to know something. At her age, when would their paths even have crossed? Unless Jaime was just notorious for something and she’d been plastered all over the news. Then she guessed everyone would have a reason to know. “So?” She prompted as she regarded him expectantly. If nothing else, it was (temporarily) distracting her from the idea that this whole thing might be some vicious, exceptionally cruel train trick. ___________ He did his best to look contrite -- which was never an easy expression for him -- and he relaxed slightly when she didn’t seem too put out about it. He’d always sort of wondered if it was something he should have told her but then between everything else, it never seemed as important as just dealing with whatever the train was throwing at them at the time. “She said you were the Defense professor for her last two years of school. She doesn’t know exactly what happened that made you become a professor -- it sounded like Harry would, though. She was kind enough to point out that you weren’t visibly maimed, however, and that you were a good professor.” He was curious what she would think of that -- he knew how much she loved her job. It was difficult to imagine how he would have felt if he’d been injured and hadn’t been able to be a Timekeeper anymore. _________ Jaime smirked faintly, but there weren’t a lot of reasons people in her field went into another field. If they weren’t fit to do their job. If it wasn’t a physical injury, it had to be a mental one. Or maybe she’d just suddenly decided to go into teaching. Maybe she’d ask Harry, see what he had to say -- or maybe she’d just let it go entirely. It wasn’t going to matter, because it happened (would happen) to a her that wasn’t her. It wouldn’t happen here, in this world, where she was going to marry Ray, and live a life outside of her own reality. “Well. I was teaching people how to use magic … when the train decided to swap out all our powers.” She shrugged. “Maybe it became my calling.” She tried to play it off, but there was a slight furrow to her brow. She was curious, sure, but was knowing going to do anything good? Or would it just be something that tormented her, knowing her other self was so traumatized she couldn’t go on being a hit. Jaime shook her head before she drew back slightly. She realized then that going to see Harry meant leaving Ray, if only for a few minutes, and suddenly the idea wasn’t so appealing. Until she knew for sure, until things had settled, until the other train had come to rescue those going home and the Orient was gone from this reality … she wasn’t really interested in being away from him. At all. “Maybe I’ll send him a message,” she decided in response to her thoughts. _________ Ray could tell it was bothering her, and he understood. Even though it wasn’t something that mattered now, it had been her life in some other time, and he didn’t really have enough details to fill it in all the way. He thought it seemed like just enough information to allow her to come up with lots of possibly completely off base reasons that she’d quit being a hit to teach. “Sending him a message sounds like a good idea,” he encouraged. He had to admit he was curious as well, and it would be nice to have his curiosity satisfied. “It can’t hurt to know now.” He loosened his arms from around her when she drew back. “Then I’ll come up with a few things I’d like you to teach me in our new bedroom,” he added teasingly, a little smile touching his lips. _________ “No. Probably not. I mean, either way, it’s not going to matter now,” Jaime admitted. She managed not to add ‘if this is for real’ but it was on her face, she was sure. She also felt like apologizing in advance (again) for just how clingy she knew she was going to be for a little while. He knew though, and she imagined that he wasn’t that keen on her being away from him for long either. Not at first. It would be a matter of time, but Jaime didn’t imagine scars like the ones the train had inflicted were going to go away over night. She did laugh softly at his comment. “Are there things I haven’t taught you yet?” Her brows lifted as she moved her hands around to the front of his body, sliding her palms up his chest and pushing his shirt up. “Guess we can go see,” she decided. Talking with Harry could wait, she thought. He wasn’t going anywhere yet, and right now, she wanted to be with Ray. Stretching up a little, she claimed his lips softly and then a little deeper, letting that indicate her intentions even as she nudged him back toward the bedroom to get started on that teaching thing. |