fandomtownies | Lighthouse, Wednesday evening

Entry tags:

Lighthouse, Wednesday evening

Jack was exploring. She'd sauntered around the town itself to familiarize herself with the shops and services and parks but there was only so much of the adorably European architecture that she could handle without turning into a walking vomit bomb. Heading to the fringes seemed to be a good plan. Get some space, look at the water, give her head a chance to clear. Time to think and some nice empty scenery in which to think.

The lighthouse was also an iconic testament standing on the shore. Pursing her lips, she regarded it and then shrugged. "Yeah, ok. I won't be able to see it from the top anyway."

Was access to the stairs locked? Did she care? They hadn't made the lock she couldn't crack. Sometimes even without damaging the door. Jack headed up the stairs to the lantern room. There was a catwalk outside but the wind at the shore level had been cold so she imagined it'd be plain nasty at this height. Staying inside seemed a better idea. The windowsills were made to be sat on anyway. Whether that was the purpose of the design held no interest for her. They were big enough to fit her butt and even let her turn sideways so she could rest her back against the side and bring a knee up to loop her arms over.

Jack glanced down at herself and imagined the picture she was presenting. 'Scary Bitch Gazes Out A Window In A Moment Of Reflective Contemplation'. The very idea of it made her snort an indelicate laugh.

Yeah, right. It was a nice view though. She really could get used to the view. The sky was calm and overcast but the water was choppy. Dark waves broken into whitecaps on the rocks. The splashing, rushing noise a muted metronome to break the silence. It suited her.

[Open]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As much as Fjord appreciated having something to do at the forge, there really was nothing around this place that really compared to the security of the sea. Being landlocked was its own sort of hell. Being landlocked with no clear way out of it wasn't helping either. And so he'd spent his evening wandering the shore, just breathing in the salt air, letting the sound of the waves take his headspace back to the closest thing to home he'd ever really had.

The trouble, of course, with being able to see in the dark was that he could never quite escape the island to his back. But then, he could embrace that, couldn't he?

And so his walk had taken him to the lighthouse, where he figured, if nothing else, the emphasis on how much of a fixture it was in any port would feel a little like home, too. Spent some time at the foot of it, looking up. And eventually just paused and squinted before waving up at the figure in the windowsill, mostly just an occasional silhouette whenever the light came back around, even with his ability to more or less see in the dark.

He considered that for a moment. And then he waved up at that silhouette.

The motion in the dark caught her attention. She watched the person approach the lighthouse. Squinted a little when they waved at her and considered just ignoring them. Something about the features tugged at her with a sense of the familiar.

It was just going to bug her until she found out so she opened the door to the catwalk and stepped out. Jack called down, "Door's open."

Because she'd left it open.

Fjord squinted up, placed the face, finally, and then nodded, heading for the door and making his way up. The view of the water from up there would be better for his head, anyway. The climb already was.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said, once he had reached the lantern room. "Isn't every day I see somebody up here, is all. I was curious."

"Nah, you're not interrupting. I wasn't doing anything but watching the water and pretending there's not a city that looks like it walked out of Europe behind me. How's class going for you?" Jack asked.

"I have an interesting split," Fjord mused, stepping up to the window, looking quietly out at the water, "between students who want to think their way through what I throw at them, students who want to murder their way through problems, and that one in every group who's mostly just there to keep the rest on their toes."

He turned a glance Jack's way.

"And yours?"

"Couple kids for who it's all to fucking real, one who's gonna be an avenging angel if she lives long enough, two smartasses, one wallflower," Jack listed. She shrugged, "Don't know what to do about the wallflower. I put one of the smartasses to work and made her my TA."

Helped that Peebee was a minimum of twice her age and had probably been through more classes than Jack had ever taught.

"Make 'em a smartass with responsibility?" Fjord smirked faintly. "Maybe I should have done that with my group smartass."

Who Fjord had nicknamed Chevy, because he was also, on occasion, a smartass.

"Sounds like you're settling into it well."

"Not my first rodeo," she admitted, "Just different types of kids but then, every class is always different. Kaidan's class was different than mine." Thank god. "The kids I had when the war was comin' were different than the kids comin' after 'em now that the war's finally fuckin' over. Kids here? Different from those."

She squinted at the ocean for a moment. "Is making me want to do a home visit for the ones I got for whom it's too real. I've never tried to punch an entire world at once before. These kids are making me want to give it a try."

"It'd have to be one hell of a punch," Fjord noted, tilting his head a little. Watching the waves. Contemplating the sky.

Totally wrong at night, here, this sky.

"You know, it's the fucking strangest thing, being responsible for people like this. On the ship, those folks were always more than capable of handling whatever came to them. Their problems were the same problems as the rest of us. Here, you have to guess at entire worlds. Never figured I'd be in that position, before."

"One helluva punch is kinda what I got," Jack chuckled. The sky was overcast so she wasn't looking at it. What was the point when she couldn't see the stars?

"Right? Before I was a teacher, all I did was fight shit and I mean look at me," She gestured at the general area of all of her. "Who the hell would put someone like me in charge of kids? It's different to go from being surrounded by everyone who can be responsible for their own shit to suddenly being the person who gets to teach a bunch of little fuckin' kids how to someday be the people who can be responsible for their own shit."

"I don't even know what the hell to do with kids," Fjord offered, not without sympathy. "Figure them out based on who they are, not on who I was, I get that much. But there's a hell of a lot of missing context, there."

He could have been talking about different worlds, different realities, there.

He wasn't.

But he could have been.

"But I figure the first step to doing right by them is wanting to do right by them. That's something."

"I didn't either before I started teaching," Jack admitted, "All I had was how I came up and that?" Her lips tightened, "I wouldn't let that happen to any kid I was even just walking by much less one in my classroom. That's the one thing I can do."

Slouched back against the wall. "Every kid is different. Always true even when they grew up in the same fuckin' town. Wanting to do right by 'em, then figuring out how. What their damn needs are. That part? That part I ain't got figured to the fucking fullest. No idea what to do with my wallflower."

"First step might be finding out why it is they're hugging the wall," Fjord offered. Looked down at the water. "They might open up yet. It's still early days."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject