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Arms Hotel Lobby, Tuesday

Nana was still pink. And Jeff was still fixated on the football.

Having now figured out which channel the matches were broadcast on, he spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to compensate in terms of timezones.

There was no way he'd miss out on France versus Italy. No way. ...Above all, however, he might have been rooting for the team in the other game to win so they'd both wind up out of the competition.

Sometimes, football bureaucracy was excellent.

[ open with no ocd! ]

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There was, of course, eventually at some point of the day, a girlfriend coming in with the usual bags with sandwiches in them, although she maybe have seemed a bit more tentative than she usually would be. "Hey, Jeff." Turtle gave him a small smile, and tilted her head at the TV. "More football, huh?"

"Yeah," Jeff said, grinning, his eyes flicking from the TV to Turtle to the TV to Turtle to... "Holland got the top spot in pool C, which means there's only one spot left for the other three teams to take. You've got France against Italy and Romania against Holland in the other match and if Romania wins that match--"

It all dissolved into an endless stream of babble regarding disqualifications and ties.

Turtle blinked at Jeff a little. She wished he had made a chart; she could have understood a chart. "So..." she said, after realizing that he was only going to stop if she interrupted, "who are we rooting for, then?"

"...Romania," Jeff said, coming to a stop mid-babble, grinning, "'Cos then it doesn't matter who wins France against Italy, they both go soaring out the window."

Turtle nodded a little. "Well, then..." She lightly pumped a little fist in the air. "Go, Romania. Also?" Her other fist lifted with the bag. "Sandwiches."

"Excellent," Jeff grinned, and nodded his head at one of the chairs in the corner. "I have crisps!" he announced, pointing at the desk, "And I found the game." Pause. "Well, I think I did, because there was this sudden drop in density of women on the telly."

Turtle set the bag on the counter and then went to drag the chair over so that she could join him, and she frowned slightly. "I suppose that is a pretty good indicator," she realized after some consideration.

"It's the only part of any year where a lack of women signals anything good," Jeff said, wisely, throwing another bag of crisps on the table.

Turtle snorted slightly at that as she took a seat. "Is that so?" she asked. "I'm not sure if that's a refreshingly progressive statement, Jeff, or just the opposite."

"It really just depends on which perspective you pick," he continued, offering her the open bag of crisps. "You should keep watching!"

"I am!" Turtle said, hand diving into the offered bag. And she was, really. She just wasn't paying any attention, really.

Actually, her eyes kept jumping down toward any marquees that appeared at the bottom of the screen, and kept feeling disappointed to see sports scores other than stock market information.

She was trying, anyway, to watch...

"...Are you sure Mary doesn't mind you just watching the game at work?"

"It was part of the whole union thing," Jeff said, taking some crisps for himself before putting the bag back down. "River and Hoshi got to cook, I got the television."

He was perfectly happy with this arrangement, and popped a crisp into his mouth. "Oh, see that marquee in the upper left corner? If the name of the team is green, it means they'd qualify for the quarter finals with this score."

A pause.

"...Think the Italians just scored..."

"...And the Italians are playing against the French, right?"

No surprise, then.

"Who aren't Romanian, so it doesn't matter?"

She was trying here, come on.

"It does matter," Jeff said, patiently, while gesturing soundly, "See, they're all in the same pool," gesture, "Four teams, and the top two carry on into the quarters, and Romania's got two points and France and Italy both have one, and if you win, that's three, and if you tie it's one point, and if you lose it's zero, so the Romanians have to win or tie with the French and the Italians tieing... which is of course impossible 'cos the French are kind of really awful and the Romanians are worse, look, they're turtling!"

"Turtling?"

She did not like how that sounded like a bad thing!

Oh.

He was pretty sure that wasn't a good answer.

"You know..." Jeff said, scrambling a little, "...Pulling their heads into the shell. Defense. Like a turtle."

Turtle's expression was quite a bit like a pout. "But, isn't the best offense a good defense?"

Or something like that. She realized, of course, that her namesake was actually quite different from her true disposition, except perhaps that she was determined and tenacious and had a thick outer shell (or so she liked to think), but still, there was some sort of solidarity to defend here.

"Not if you have to score two-nil to pass on into the quarters," Jeff said, with the absolutely most apologetic shrug he could ever manage.

"Oh, I'm sure they're just hiding their assets until the most profitable time," Turtle insisted brusquely, frowning at the TV as if daring the Romanians to even think about any other strategy. "Slow and steady, that's how turtles work, and that's how they win the race, remember? Or, in this case, soccer ga-- err, football game."

If those Romanians didn't win...There was going to be a very annoyed Turtlem but she was rather riveted to the edge of her seat now. Leave it to a descriptive metaphor of a term that boarded vaguely on defamation to get her into sports.

"They could be," Jeff replied. He'd learned it was always a good idea to just agree with the girlfriend if there was a possibility she might get emotional. Something like that.

And footie did tend to do that to people. "The only reason why they're still up for qualifying is 'cos they turtled their way through the first two games, too. It might be some sort of strategy."

"See? It works for them," she said, although she seemed distracted, eyes firmly on the screen to make sure they didn't mess up, as if they could feel the power of her intent gaze through the wires. "You can't go wrong with Turtling."

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Arms Hotel Lobby, Tuesday

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