![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apologies (for John)
Jan. 2nd, 2012 01:18 amHelen was still nursing the remnants of a hangover from the evening before (too much fine champagne, too unused to her human metabolism) and had a splitting headache but, more than that, she felt like she owed John an apology for running him off the evening before. It was simply a friendly dance and she'd gotten too friendly and granted him an intimacy.
It was no more than she'd do to Sam and perhaps less than she'd grant Nikola or Kate but for John, a man who so tightly controlled his emotions in general and about her specifically, it was tantamount to offering a recovering alcoholic a tumbler of scotch: he couldn't resist and she shouldn't have done it.
The last time she'd wanted to meet John, she'd gone to Westminster Abbey and Helen had checked the churchyard without finding him. Wherever he was, he didn't want to be found, and when the wind was blowing a little too harshly for her cape to keep out, she ducked into a little bookshop that reminded her of one that she and John used to frequent when they were young. She would be so glad when the island was tropical again.
He wasn't there, of course, but Helen drifted toward the back anyway, toward where the poetry was kept and on a lark, she picked up a slim volume of William Blake that John had favored. They'd read it together, actually, and when she opened it, she was surprised to see a slip of paper fall out from between the pages.
And so, the next afternoon, she turned back up at the little bookshop and settled in to wait, making a valiant attempt at reading Hawthorne while she waited on him to show.
It was no more than she'd do to Sam and perhaps less than she'd grant Nikola or Kate but for John, a man who so tightly controlled his emotions in general and about her specifically, it was tantamount to offering a recovering alcoholic a tumbler of scotch: he couldn't resist and she shouldn't have done it.
The last time she'd wanted to meet John, she'd gone to Westminster Abbey and Helen had checked the churchyard without finding him. Wherever he was, he didn't want to be found, and when the wind was blowing a little too harshly for her cape to keep out, she ducked into a little bookshop that reminded her of one that she and John used to frequent when they were young. She would be so glad when the island was tropical again.
He wasn't there, of course, but Helen drifted toward the back anyway, toward where the poetry was kept and on a lark, she picked up a slim volume of William Blake that John had favored. They'd read it together, actually, and when she opened it, she was surprised to see a slip of paper fall out from between the pages.
Meet me tomorrow, Helen.
- John
And so, the next afternoon, she turned back up at the little bookshop and settled in to wait, making a valiant attempt at reading Hawthorne while she waited on him to show.