Re: [jude & hannah: tea]
Jude had an inkling that Hannah had shadows cast in all that sunshine. The doll, after all, who had been crafted for someone and kept behind locked doors and even without a snatch of it to see, all warm sunny looks and a smile that gave readily and looked as if it held nothing back he thought perhaps that it was there. Wishful thinking, perhaps, given present company managed the same exercise, albeit with locked doors and nooks and crannies the further in you worked.
He contemplated her for a moment, a look more thoughtful and serious, perhaps even Rochester rather than Willoughby, under the thick thatch of curls before his smile curled once more. And then back to the Romanovs and Jude rather felt like sweeping them all into the grave once more. There was a little boy sitting with his mother, surrounded by shopping bags who had long since defeated whatever electronic enemy there was on his little device, and who looked madly bored but was listening to the story. Jude's elbow skidded back an inch on the table, and he turned his head ever so slightly, smiling at Hannah as he did, with a 'look, there', without letting the little boy know.
"The Romanovs are ghosts, we'll keep the descendants out of it. Messy, to have them weep for Jane Bennet. My eulogy will be magnificent, I'll make people cry," he said cheerfully, the unworried appetite for novelty similar but oh so different to a boy all clockwork who'd wound down the longer the night ran.
But his story was being criticized and Jude opened his eyes wide, the picture of offended innocence, his wrist turned, his hand to his chest, 'who me?'. "The time unreeled, and unreeled and it sped up as you ran down it, like a hill that goes only down, as there isn't much in time to hold onto, and meet. The little girl picked up so much speed (and she was sobbing all the while, for little girls who are brought up with governesses probably weep) that when she hit the end of time, it bounced her. Hard, all the way back through the ages. She saw her mother, young and beautiful and her father as a little boy with games of soldiers, and she saw herself as a tiny thing, all red faced and bawling. She saw that she was adored, and the special look her parents gave her as the first child, because there isn't replacing the first child. And when she saw her brother coming for her things, she dropped smartly out of time (as time was exhausted by then, she was rather a heavy little girl) and smacked him firmly on the back."
Jude's grin glittered with mischief and apparent belief in his own success. "She was rescued and she learned never to jump into time without setting a date and an exit, if you please."