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Beatrice (measuredsands) wrote in nevermore_past, @ 2015-01-29 13:25:00

WHO: Andromeda & Lancelot
WHEN: Summer, 2011
WHERE: Somewhere upstate New York
WHAT: The meet-cute. (But not that cute.)
WARNINGS: mentions of domestic violence

The sun started to go down, casting a shred of light right off the top of the car and into his eyes. Lancelot shifted in his seat finding a pair of shades to cover his tired and worn out eyes. He'd been bouncing around after this skipper for a while. He had a rap sheet a mile long of drug deals, bad investments and battery and being witness to a whole arsenal of sins to make any man hang his head. Not that Lancelot wasn't without his own demons, but the modern world was full of so many distractions that it was easy to earn a rap sheet that every common criminal seemed to share.

This target must have gotten wind that he was on his trail, which just irked the tired ex-round table knight. He'd fought wars for things bigger than this and yet he couldn't seem to get his hands on this perp. Lancelot was not going to let this one slip through the cracks, he hadn't lost one yet, now was not the time to start. He'd just have to play it off as he'd been given a bad tip and he'd need a new lead.

He didn't realize that lead could be actually living with his target. He hadn't even thought about possible girlfriends or a wife. The house had looked empty. Had he dozed off and not noticed someone go in?


Andromeda's life was a quiet thing most days. She had her home - well, she had her partner's home - and she had her puppies - two tiny labradors that bumbled around her ankles right now as she laughed and lead them out towards the door. While Jonathan was away doing his business, of which was none of her business, he had firmly informed her the single time she'd asked. She knew not to ask more than once.

Mostly she knew not to upset him, because recently Jonathan was more upsettable than usual and the green-yellow bruise blooming on her cheekbone attested to that. Yet another reason to stay home today, instead of going out to shop and have lunch with the other ladies in her circle. She hoped when Jonathan got home he'd be happier. She wanted to buy him something nice (with his own money as she earned nothing herself, just as he liked it) but instead maybe she'd just order in something nice for dinner. She considered the phone on the wall and who to call, but sometimes Jonathan was very specific about his dinners. She'd leave it.

She unlocked the front door and made her way out into the fading afternoon sunlight, her white dress catching the light breeze. "Come on," Andromeda said to the puppies, grinning as they came running out onto the grass. She chased them, barefoot on the fresh cut grass, scooping one up and letting it lick her face.

Standing on the front lawn she had the sudden sensation of being watched and - still holding the golden puppy - she turned with a frown to scan around her.


Lancelot watched her with a keen eye through his heavy shades. Such a young and pretty thing, he didn't want to spook her, but she might be hugs Jerry to catching this guy. The bruise on her cheek indicated clearly that she was not well treated. Sure was out and about though, so she clearly had some freedoms. The pompous ass hadn't linked her up, so maybe Lancelot could appeal to her gentle spirit to get the information he needed.

One of the puppies made a dash off the lawn and across the street. He managed to bolt across without harm, but now he'd toddled his way best Lance's car. It was the perfect opportunity to approach her. He opened his door, grabbing into the puppy gently to return to her. It was when he got closer that he felt that familiar pang when others like him were near.


"Bruno!" Andromeda called out after the escaping puppy, running across the lawn after him. But then there was a man getting out of the car on the other side of the street and picking him up and coming towards her and then- whoa. The force of what he was hit Andromeda hard, and she found she almost stumbled back because of it. She licked her suddenly dry lips, watching the man who approached and then, when he was near, she said, "hello. You... caught my puppy."


Lance held the puppy who squirmed and happily licked his face. "Looks like an adventurer." He approached Andromeda with a sweet smile, holding out his hand to shake. But instead of a shake he kissed her hand, a more archaic greeting of gentlemen. "I'd give you my name but upon realizing you're an immortal I think my real name is more sufficient. Lancelot." She'd know, she was one as well.


Were Andromeda pale, the blush on her cheeks at the kiss would have been embarrassingly obvious; as it was she momentarily ducked her head and smiled shyly. She recognized his name though and said, "the Knight. A great pleasure. I'm Andromeda, once a queen in Greece but now those titles don't mean so much." Her smile was warm and genuine and seemed to suggest that this loss of royal title wasn't a thing that bothered her. Being a queen (and before that a princess) had really only supplied wealth and sometimes trouble.


She was a very beautiful woman of which he was sure she knew. He would compliment her still because it was something he felt a man should do for a woman. Even though in these days, chivalrous acts at times came across as pompous. He had a feeling she wouldn't knock him in the face for being too forward. "Beautiful name." Titles didn't hold any merit anymore, his was always one that meant lover and protector. He momentarily forgot why he was there in the first place or that she had ties with his suspect because he was sucked into the fact that he hadn't laid eyes on another woman in such a way in a long time. She was one of the first immortal women he'd come across and it was nice to not hide behind the modern guise.


"I can't take credit for my name," she said and then asked, "did you come here to save strange women's dogs, Lancelot? This area doesn't seem to usually draw our kind."


"Well, its as beautiful a name as the one who wears it." He scratched the puppy's ear befire setting him down to play with his sibling. "I have a habit I'd saving things, yes. Guilty as charged." He laughed but it was then that he remembered what he was really there for. Knowing who she was, what she was only made her connection to this mere mortal man even more of a conundrum. "I'm actually here for Mr. Alderidge." Her significant other.


The compliment earned him another smile, but when he mentioned Jonathan she frowned in confusion. What could one of their kind have to do with him? Was Lancelot involved with one of her boyfriend's less than upstanding business practices? "He's my boyfriend," she told Lancelot, because it seemed unimportant to keep anything secret from someone who was like her. It had been a long time since she'd been allowed complete honesty. "But he's not home right now. What do want with him?" The wariness in her tone was obvious then.


"He jumped bail. I'm here to take him in." Lance put his hands in his hips, a thought coming to mind. "I don't mean to intrude but being the woman you are, why settle for someone who treats you with such disdain?" She was more than that. Perhaps not a queen in title anymore, but definitely one at heart.


"What disdain?" Andromeda asked defensively, suddenly on guard now that she realised his purpose. "You don't know anything about him or about me." (Bruno headbutted her calf for attention but she had to remain focused on Lancelot, the man threatening her love.)


"I assume and maybe to hastily," he paused trying to not come across as pompous in his thoughts. That was his more aggressive side coming out to protect. "He's left that bruise on you and I'm sure its not the first or the last." She deserved better than that and she should know it.


Self consciously Andromeda's fingers went to the tender spot on her cheek and all the usual lies bubbled to the surface, ready to cover for Jonathan. She closed her mouth a moment after she'd opened it and then dropped her hand. "Its not... it isn't like that. He's just... well," she said accusingly, glaring at Lancelot, "he's got a lot of complicated things going on, you'll note. If he happened to strike me... he didn't do it on purpose."

"That's never a reason to hit a woman." No matter how strong his anger was, there were deeply embedded codes that Lancelot followed. Treating a woman with care and respect was one of them. "He doesn't value you at all if he does such selfish things." Lancelot could get a little preachy at times but he felt she needed to hear it, maybe no one was bold enough to tell her she deserved something better.



"He isn't here," Andromeda said firmly, putting an end to the line of conversation he was trying to take them down. She wouldn't be disloyal to Jonathan. "And I won't help you send him to jail. He's a..." she made a little rueful smile. "No, I don't know if he's a good man, but he is my man and that's enough."

She frowned at Lancelot. "Isn't there some way I could convince you to leave him be, for the sake of what you and I share? Aren't people such as we above the laws of such a newborn country?" It made Andromeda sound like a criminal, Andromeda who only ever wanted good for those around her, Andromeda who behaved well and ladylike. But although Jonathan did sometimes treat her badly, he loved her and she didn't want to be alone. Jonathan at his best was so much better than the idea of being without him just because he was occasionally moody.


"I'm sorry, I can't do that. He's got a track record that I'm not at liberty to let get away." She looked so hurt, and he was more sorry for that because she deserved better. "Look, I'll hold off for a bit, but only on one condition..." He wanted to make peace with the girl because coming by one if their own was of a sensitive nature and unusual. "I'm here as a friend if you need anything. Mortal, immortal, anything." He hadn't her a graceful bow to prove his word. "On my honor I'll be a friend to you whenever you need it." Though it may have been fir his own benefit as well. As a bounty hunter life got lonely.


People often sought to make Andromeda smile, sometimes simply because they enjoyed her company but other times it was because Andromeda had a special smile at her disposal that was like the sun emerging through grey skies. She'd caught more than one man's heart over the years with just that smile, and it was the same one she now graced Lancelot with. "Thank you," she said to him, putting her hand on his arm when he straightened up. "So deeply. And to be friends, I'd like that. I have no friends like myself and on occasion it becomes a lonely burden..."


"Keep that smile malady. It's a beautiful one." He released her hand and bowed out of habit. Chivalry was a dead thing these days, something Lancelot would not give up on. "I have no friends of my own either."


"Well, now you have me," Andromeda told him matter of factly. She wasn't always so quick to trust strangers, but Lancelot's name has put her at ease. She didn't remember any of the details of king Arthur's knights, but she did remember that they were the good guys. They made her think of Perseus, defenders of the weak.

"How long have you been here?" She asked him with a tilt of her head. Then she added, realizing the question was vague: "I mean, in America?"


He was pleased at least to hear that he had not lost her completely to his badgering. Sometimes he could get a bit pious in his thoughts on certain subjects. Treatment of others was definitely on there since he'd spent a lot of his time rolling in his own sins. He'd hidden from his best friend his affair with his wife. There was no greater sin that that, for him it had been a burden he wished he'd not been created to bare. It had however made him very faithful in those friends he made now because they were hard to come by.

Lancelot had been here for some time. At least a couple hundred years. "Oh, at least since the 1600's with the Pilgrims in Massachusetts." He'd not strayed very far north ever since.


"That's almost the beginning," she noted, trying to even remember when this nation had been settled. They were so young. "Compared to you I've only just arrived. I think it was 1870... or near enough. Those early years get messy when I think about them."

Andromeda looked back towards the house and then at Lancelot again. "I'd invite you inside, but considering your reason for being here, I don't think that's wise."


"Our stories are much older than this country. Do you remember much of what was going on when you first came over?" There was a lot of rich history to both their pasts that had been dwindled down to fantasy stories now. Things worth writing novels about. "I realize you don't trust me in your house and I'm fine with that." It was still her home, her solace, he wasn't going to invade that on another woman again. He'd gotten too comfortable with another man's wife before, he didn't need to repeat history just yet.


"So little," she admitted. "It was artists who brought me here in the beginning- artists painting me chained to that rock and academics talking about what it all really 'meant'. They've interest since then, but here I still am. And you?" These were things she never got to talk about, and even if Lancelot was here to interrupt her nice life, talking with honest felt wonderful.

When he understood her reticence, she gave him a little grateful smile. "Thank you. It's all just a lot of white walls in there anyway. I'd hoped this might become a family home but... well, as we know, my current partner doesn't seem a good family man." Andromeda wouldn't bring children into some sort of criminal life.


"Chivalry is not a dead language, I think modern times has always been fascinated by the fantasy of King Arthur and his knights...But personally my life became one of solitude for so long after everything and I took up priesthood. I think that's when I came back when religious persecution was so big and men fled here for sanctuary." There was a lot more involved with his return, and a reason it was such a lonely one.


"A priest? For the Christians?" Andromeda asked him, another confused tilt of her head. It seemed so strange to her that ones such as them would worship the Christian god. "Although," she added, as though she'd spoken her other words out loud anyway, "I still think on my own gods of old, so I suppose it's not as strange as I first thought." Perhaps it was just that the Christians, when they gained power, had done so much to remove the gods of Olympus.


"I was from a different time. After things happened between me and...well, the whole kingdom falling into flames I felt responsible." Arthur had condemned him and Guinevere both, maybe putting a block on Lancelot's heart forever more. He had some atoning that no matter how many years past he hoped to one day reconcile. It was his biggest dream, his biggest hope that he could patch up what he'd undone. "So, yes, the Christian God was a means of repentance for me." Lancelot was a martyr.


Andromeda was not one who'd through to deeply on repentance - she'd never really done anything she needed to repent for. Even the crime that had got her made into a sacrifice had been her mother's and not her own. Andromeda was merely the damsel.

"I'm sure it wasn't your fault," was what Andromeda said, because while she had no idea of that, she didn't like to see anyone sad. She resisted the urge to pat his arm comfortingly, and instead asked, "do you have a phone on you?"


"It was my fault. I destroyed a marriage and a man's trust in his people and those around him. I destroyed Camelot." Lancelot would never forgive himself for the lives he shattered. Sadly, he would have done it all over again. It was a selfish thought, one he would always have and that weight some heavy guilt on his shoulders.


'I destroyed Camelot' was certainly a heavy burden to bear, and Andromeda didn't really know how to make him feel okay about that, but she noted that he'd completely ignored or missed her question about the phone. So instead she reached out and took the pen she could see poking out of her jacket pocket and took his big hand in her smaller one, turning it over and writing her cell phone number on the inside of his wrist, following it with a little heart. "That's me," she told him with a smile. "I don't know anything about Camelot or any of that, but you can call me and we can be friends."

Lancelot was an attractive man, if not just in his honesty alone. He didn't question Andromeda's forwardness because the both of them needed a friend in this modern world. Lancelot just didn't keep female friends. This would be new for him. He gave her a charming smile. "Perhaps we both will learn something about each other." He now needed to brush up on his Greek mythology.

Andromeda nodded in agreement and then looked at the dogs. "I'd better get these little ones back inside," she said to him. "Besides, if the neighbours see me with you... it'll get back to Jonathan." A small uncomfortable smile that said she didn't want another bruise if she could help it. "But call me," she assured him. "I'll put you in my phone under someone else's name."