kore_logs | Apologies are difficult...

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Apologies are difficult...

Who: Meyer & Ned
What: Meyer has some apologies to make, given what happened during the week they were all not quite themselves. Apologies, needless to say, are difficult.
When: Forward dated to Day 67
Where: Ned's house.
Warnings: Swearing? Feelings? Definitely awkward apologies.

A very wise -- and very cunning -- man had once told Meyer that knowing when to apologize was more important than being right. It was also more important to apologize at the opportune moment than to simply do as your conscience dictated (if your conscience dictated anything at all.) The apology needed to sound genuine; it had multiple parts, all of which fit together in a specific way: it was a careful balance of humility and grace -- not too subservient, yet not grudging; not overly wordy, but eloquent and to the point.

Yet for everything Arnold Rothstein had taught him about apologies, there was no simple and straightforward phrasing to fall back on when your apology included seeking forgiveness for turning into a vampire and attacking a near stranger. No apology gift seemed to suffice, either. At home he might have offered a bottle of liquor or a wad of cash, but neither of those seemed quite right here.

Lost for a proper script, Meyer felt a little like he had as a child, when he was still learning the complex game of wriggling out of trouble. It was like going in front of an angry tribunal when the victim knew just as well as you did that you were guilty -- except as a child, the tribunal had been his mother, and in this case, the tribunal was Ned.

That was why, as he stood, hat in his hands, in front of Ned's house, he had to take a deep breath. It wasn't guilt that filled him so much as the queasy fear of losing a potential ally, but luckily, that feeling and guilt translated the same on his face: an unsure smile, a furrowed brow, an appropriately contrite expression all around.

He took one more deep breath, and knocked twice on Ned's door.

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"They're native to China. Don't think they started growing them anywhere else until after your time."

Now that he has enough fruit cut up for the filling, Ned washes his hands and goes back to the dough. He's delighted to talk about his work with Meyer. He'd really much rather be a baker, in Meyer's eyes, than a guy who managed to get himself attacked six times in a single week. One option makes him look pathetic, ridiculous. The other makes him seem competent, worthy. Ned might not be the most sure of himself in a lot of ways, but he knows that he is good at what he does.

"Pie's my specialty, but I can make most things." He is also a good cook in terms of non-baked goods, but he doesn't want to sound like he's bragging. "Went to pastry school and all of that. Waste of money, mostly, but it did broaden my repertoire."

He hadn't been judging Ned for being attacked six times in one week -- although he had been feeling slightly bad for him, considering how unpleasant his attack against Ned alone had been -- but talking about baking lets him put his own role in Ned's attacks further from his mind. Besides, having a professional baker around is never a bad thing.

He finally takes a bite of the slice of kiwi he's been holding, making a face somewhere between confusion and enjoyment. "It's kind of sour." He probably doesn't actually need to say that; he assumes Ned knows what kiwi tastes like, after all, since he's cooking with it.

"What kind of pie do you make best?" Yes, this is obviously a highly necessary question to ask. "And," he continues, "the way I see it, pastry school is probably a lot more useful than most schools."

"They're sweeter once you cook them," Ned points out, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile at the face Meyer makes. "If you stick around long enough you can try them in the pie, see if you like it any better." Once more, Ned doesn't think twice about offering Meyer the fruits of his labor. Giving people pie is just what Ned does. It's the most natural thing, to him.

Ned considers this question as he rolls out the dough, lays it in the tin and begins to trim the edges. "I think that depends on the person eating the pie. If your favorite is apple, I'm best at apple, and if your favorite is peach, I'm best at peach." He could never choose a single flavor of pie above others. That would be absurd. Pie is pie; it's all wonderful, each flavor in its own unique way. Never underestimate Ned's capacity for sentimentality, when pie is involved.

"It's definitely more useful. Can't think of a single thing I learned in boarding school that actually proved useful." That isn't precisely true, of course. He'd learned plenty of useful things: how to hide from bullies. How to hide bruises. How to keep his head down. How to talk his way out of trouble. How to lie. How the world worked. It's just that none of those lessons were the official kind.

He sets about fluting the edges of the crust, asks, "What about you? What did you do, before all this?"

And once again, he's surprised at Ned's generosity, half of him wondering if Ned has some ulterior motive, half of him wondering whether Ned simply is as kind as he appears to be. The fact that he doesn't hold a grudge for the attack is one thing; he's right, to some extent, that the transformations, the unfortunate effects, weren't the faults of the people who were unlucky enough to undergo them. Regardless, the fact that he's willing to offer not only forgiveness but food strikes Meyer as strange, out of the realm of his experience.

"I think my favorite's apple," he finally says, but it takes some thought. He likes all pie, likes all sweet things. Maybe it's a product of growing up in a place where food itself was scarce, let alone luxuries. Maybe it's that sugary food is inherently comforting. Maybe it's just the taste of it. Whatever it is, he'd happily choose pie, cake, or cookies over almost anything else, although lately, he's been craving cigarettes to the exclusion of nearly everything -- but those don't really count as food, even if he often eschews a meal in favor of chain-smoking and drinking coffee.

The question about what he did before he got stuck here should be an awkward one, should give him pause and make him struggle to fabricate an answer that doesn't sound overly rehearsed and suspicious, but it doesn't make him stumble at all. "I ran a card game. Nothing fancy, mostly poker. I guess you could call me an entrepreneur."

That's all true, strictly. He does consider himself an entrepreneur -- he and Charlie have always found ways to make money, though rarely on the right side of the law -- and he does run a card game, although that, too, isn't particularly legal. Still, nobody could accuse him of lying, even if they could accuse him of glossing over the darker details.

Ned isn't surprised apple is Meyer's favorite. It's a lot of peoples' favorite, had always been the best-selling pie in all the bakeries where he'd worked over the years. Besides which, it is so traditional, and Meyer is from the past. He probably hasn't had the opportunity to try things like quince or kumquat.

"The one in the oven is apple. Actually..." He breaks off, opening the oven to check on the pie's progress. Ned never sets timers for his pies. If anyone were to ask he would say that he bakes intuitively, rather than empirically. When a pie is done, he can tell, from the smell and look and some other ineffable quality about it.

(Of course, there is another, less palatable answer beneath the surface one. The reason he learned to bake without timers in the first place is that, for years, some brands of them made him remember certain things and then have minor panic attacks. Hardly pleasant. So he'd adapted, learned the skills he needed to avoid ever relying on them.)

His senses are telling him that this pie is perfectly done, so he dons some oven mits and takes it out, setting it on a rack to cool. He'll dish Meyer up a slice once it's cooled enough that he won't burn himself.

"Aways been terrible at poker, myself. Don't have the luck for it." Ned doesn't appear to believe there's anything potentially shady about running a card game. What does he know, after all? It was the 20's, people probably played a lot of cards. What else did they have to do? History had never been his strong suit.

"And... Charlie, you said he's your business partner, so he runs it with you?" He might have forgiven Meyer and set all that aside in his mind, but Ned finds that bringing up the other man is still uncomfortable. It jolts him out of the current conversation and reminds him of what happened. Meyer might have bitten Ned, but in the end, Charlie had scared him far worse. Still, he thinks, it hadn't been his fault, just like it hadn't been any of their faults. He lets out a short breath, asks, "By the way is he... alright, now?" Ned mostly sounds awkward, but there is a hint of real concern there. River had hit him rather hard a few times.

He watches Ned move the apple pie from the oven to the cooling rack, aware that he's probably hungrily staring at it, but unable to avoid it. The food around here since his arrival hasn't exactly been gourmet, maybe because neither he nor Charlie bother cooking much, or maybe just because supplies are low. Either way, there's been nothing like an apple pie. If Ned's forgiveness wasn't enough of a reason for Meyer to begin to like him, his ability to make pie is.

He smiles a little at Ned's poker comment. Maybe there's something a little smug in that smile, or maybe it's just simple amusement. "It's not really about luck," he says, "Or at least, not mostly. Some people win a lot because they're lucky, but for most people, it's a game of statistics." It probably doesn't take a genius to figure out which side of the equation Meyer falls on. He's always liked statistics and numbers, always enjoyed figuring out the most profitable solution to a problem. Luck isn't something he puts much faith in -- it's for other people, people like Charlie, who can seemingly fall headfirst into any problem and walk out the other side unscathed.

"Yeah, he runs it with me. We've been business partners for a long time." It felt funny to say that, since below the formal suit and the strange amount of poise with which Meyer seemed to hold himself, he was really very young. People tended to assume he was older, closer to Charlie's age, and he rarely corrected them.

"He's fine. It all worked out." Another man might have offered an apology for his friend, but Meyer doesn't think that's his place. Whether or not Charlie feels bad for kidnapping Ned -- and he's not sure, although he assumes he is; they haven't discussed it in any great detail -- he'll have to be the one to tell Ned himself. It would be disingenuous to deliver Charlie's apology for him, and besides, secondhand apologies rarely hold much weight. Needless to say, their shared house had been an unpleasant place for the duration of the week, and he's glad it all worked out, glad they're all back to normal.

Ned would hardly begrudge him that hint of smugness. Truth be told there are other aspects of poker - statistics, yes, and the ability to lie convincingly - that he knows he lacks. For him, it's a foregone conclusion. If he's just going to lose (and he will always lose) why play at all? That strategy has translated to quite a few aspects of his life.

He remembers Meyer's counting tic when he was a vampire, wonders if that isn't related to what he says about statistics and poker. For a lot of people, their transformations seemed to reflect certain of their traits. For Meyer apparently, it is not so much predator as potential card-counter.

"You seem young to have your own business already, if you don't mind my saying." Ned intends it as a compliment. It had taken him years and years to earn enough to finally invest in opening his own shop. Perhaps starting a card game was a little simpler, in terms of starting capital. He wonders how long a long time is, though, and if it's a question of the times. Curious, the areas in which the differences emerge.

Ned nods his understanding when Meyer reports that Charlie is doing fine, not pressing for more details. He hopes, privately, that there is no lingering animosity between the two of them on his account. He pauses in applying the egg-wash to the in-progress kiwi-lime pie and cuts Meyer a slice of the apple, handing it over with a little smile. It's nice, to have a little normalcy back in his life.

More and more as they are speaking together, he is finding Meyer intriguing. Ned cuts himself a small slice of the pie and sits down to join him. "When I was your age-" or roughly thereabouts, Ned guesses, since he can't quite tell how old Meyer is. Younger than him, he thinks, "-I was still working odd jobs, trying to save up. I'd only just opened my own place when I got brought here."

The counting habit as a vampire had only been a logical extension of what he does anyway. When Dean had asked him later if he was an accountant in his normal life, he'd almost laughed -- it was so close, and yet so far, from the truth. Maybe if he'd stayed in school beyond the eighth grade he might have been an accountant, but that seemed unlikely. The truth was, he'd probably always been intended for a life of crime. It was what he did best.

"I'm twenty one," he says, accepting the piece of pie with a thankful smile. He wouldn't necessarily have said that to someone else, but Ned doesn't seem like the type to take him any less seriously given his age. The way he'd phrased it had sounded far more like a compliment than a putdown. Maybe it was because Ned had his own business, knew how difficult that kind of thing was to get off the ground.

Of course, he doubts Ned's business doubles as a drug front, like his own, and he doubts that Ned has to turn over much of his profits to someone else for protection; maybe it takes longer to start up a business when you're doing it legitimately, when there's nobody backing you and there's no sense of impending doom if you don't succeed -- or at least, not the kind of impending doom that comes with a bullet in the head as opposed to a loss of profits or concern about the business closing. That's what he assumes a completely legal business is like, although he wouldn't know, not really.

"What kind of odd jobs did you used to do, if you don't mind me asking?" He's always curious about people, wanting to figure out where they belong, what possible use they might have in his life. The fact that Ned is a baker -- and an excellent one, he realizes, as he takes a small bite of the apple pie, wanting to savor it for as long as he can -- means he's already more interesting than about eighty percent of the people here, but finding out what other potential uses he might serve is a natural instinct. It's not as though he intends to use Ned, nor does he see his attitude as particularly strange; he assumes everyone thinks of other people in this way, as potential allies, as potentially useful.

Ned can't imagine that Meyer's gotten to where he is, at his age, without a significant amount of work. Somehow, he doesn't seem the type to have just inherited enough money to start a business on his own, and that would rather go against his self-proclaimed title of entrepreneur.

It is such an oddly normal conversation to be having, in this place, with someone he met under such unusual circumstances. Ned is rather grateful for it.

"Whatever I could find, really. Baker's assistant. Cake shop assistant. Florists' assistant. Inventor's assistant. Gardening. Doing deliveries. Dog walking. Teaching baking classes. Window washing. Cleaning people's houses. Waiting tables. The usual stuff."

And then, because he knows his secret is out, knows that Meyer heard his announcement, he is able to add, "Selling fruits and vegetables, too. I'm always mad at myself that I didn't think of it earlier. Started working at a grocery store, and they'd always put me in charge of getting rid of any produce that was going bad. Except, because of my..." he waves one hand, to indicate his powers, "I'd just keep all of it, and bring the stuff back to life to sell at the farmer's market on Sundays."

That was the innovation that had helped him finally start saving up enough to make a difference. It was profit from nothing, was using his power to his advantage, for once.

He can't help but laugh a little as he takes another bite of the pie. "That's a creative way to use your--" he's not sure quite what to call them, and pauses. Powers? Abilities? He finally settles on "-- unique skills." After all, although Ned had made an announcement about his powers, that didn't mean he was comfortable discussing them in any great capacity.

He's impressed by anyone who can use whatever skills they're given in an interesting and profitable way, and although he's never had any experience with someone who has actual powers, he doesn't see it as being much different than any other talent: something that could be and should be exploited for maximum gain. He admires, too, the fact that Ned started his own business through work and saving money, not through simply being handed anything. It wasn't that he had anything against people who inherited money, exactly, but their experience was so far removed from his own he couldn't imagine it.

"I can't say I've done anything exactly like that..." Of course not, since he has no mysterious powers to speak of, "But starting up any business seems to involve an inordinate amount of finding clever ways to sell things."

"Might as well get some good out of it, right? I did the same thing at The Pie Hole - that's my shop. Can't get the fruit any fresher than after I've touched it." It had good for him, too, in ways other than financial. Had been, he now realizes, the first in a long and ongoing series of tiny steps towards accepting his powers. His ability to touch dead things back to life had taken so much from him; it was only right that he should use it to take something back, even if it was only money.

From the sound of it, Meyer knows quite a lot about business for someone his age. That, coupled with his earlier skepticism about schools, and what he'd said about being partners with Charlie for some time, makes Ned even more curious about his life.

"I'll say. Luckily for me, most people don't need much convincing when it comes to pie. So... why cards?"

Edited 2013-04-28 00:19 (UTC)

"Well..." he has to pause as he takes another bite of pie, realizing halfway through beginning to speak that it's rude to talk with food in your mouth. The pie is hard to put down, though, and it's with reluctance that he pauses in his eating of it to address Ned's question. "The way I see it, everyone needs entertainment. So you get a game going, provide entertainment for them, get them to play a few hands of poker, get them to relax a little, maybe they end up becoming a regular customer. You can make some good money off of them, and all while they're enjoying themselves, too. It's a win win situation, for everyone involved -- you're not selling a product, necessarily, you're selling an experience."

That is to say, if you play it right, if you do it subtly, nobody knows they're being cheated. And there are always businesses on the side; the alcohol, the drugs, selling stolen goods. The card game may not be his dream job, but it's a means to an end: money. Someday, maybe someday soon, he and Charlie won't have to be under anybody's thumb. It looks like Ned can work for himself, not take orders from anybody, and that, as far as Meyer's concerned, means that Ned is living the American dream, more or less.

He takes another bite of pie before continuing. "Besides, I'm good with numbers. Always have been. There're statistical intricacies to card games that most people don't even begin to recognize. I like to work that kind of thing out." And, needless to say, he doesn't like things that aren't intricate. If something isn't a puzzle, it's not worth spending his precious time on.

Ned has never been good at detecting untruths, or half-truths, or slanted truths in the words of others. He believes Meyer about his intentions entirely, smiles as they strike a chord with him. He hadn't thought about a poker game like that before. For normal people, people who aren't too screwed up to fret so much over gambling, people who have an easy time interacting with others, a poker game must be an excellent experience. Rewarding emotionally, if not financially.

"That's exactly how I feel. People don't just come to a pie shop because they're hungry. Pie reminds people of home. It makes them happy. So they come in to be happy, and that's something I can give them." It may be cheesy, but it's clear that he means every word of it. It's also clear that the same is true, now. That he's just as happy to give the pie away and to draw enjoyment from Meyer's happiness at eating it.

"It's good that you found a way to use what you're good at."

Were he a more moral man, the fact that Ned seems to implicitly believe what he says to be entirely without guile might produce some sense of guilt in him. People rarely take him at his word when he talks about gambling; most of them either assume that anyone who runs a card game is generally cheating -- true, to some extent -- or that their card game masks other, more nefarious activities -- true, unequivocally. Ned, however, seems to accept that Meyer's special form of crime (though of course he hadn't described it as crime) is actually done out of some sense of altruism. It's not guilt that fills him for so easily having tricked this man, but a certain sense of wonder; how can anyone be so trusting?

"I bet making pie's a pretty satisfying job. Nobody could hate a guy who feeds them stuff like this." He gestures with his fork to the nearly devoured piece of apple pie, pausing before he takes the last bite so that he can savor it. The unspoken message is, of course, that people can (and do) hate him in his line of work, but then, that would probably be true even if he were simply a card shark -- people hated losing money.

It's obvious from the conversation thus far that he's not necessarily going to drag any additional information about Charlie into the discussion than what's absolutely necessary. He has the feeling from the cautious way Ned asked about him that he might be more frightened of Charlie than he ever was of Meyer -- this is a common response, even back home, although occasionally a misguided one -- and he doesn't want to bring up any lingering resentment or anger at being kidnapped.

The recipe for making Ned happy is a fairly simple one: compliment his pies, even if only by implication. When Meyer says no one could hate him because of the quality of his baking, he ducks his head, smiling. He has one of those faces that is transformed by a smile. It's as if a light has been turned on inside him and keeps spilling out, bright and contagious.

"Thanks."

He doesn't even catch the implication that some of Meyer's customers might hate him for running the card game. He assumes that Meyer means him, because Ned got into the habit, over the years, of assuming that everyone would hate him unless he gave them a reason not to. He'd seen all that play out in his school years. Right from his arrival, the other boys had despised him, had excluded him and bullied him and hurt him when they got the chance, for no reason that he could ever identify. (He'd often wondered if they couldn't sense there was something off about him, something that made him a target). But when he'd snuck into the kitchen at night and made them all pies, they were suddenly his best friends. The lesson was clear: the way to stay safe was to keep everyone else as satisfied as possible.

"I was thinking about maybe trying to set up some kind of pie shop here. Or restaurant. Except without money, because what good would that do any of us here? But there are plenty of people in town who aren't good at cooking and it would be more efficient to set up communal meals, particularly since the supplies are limited. It's just a little daunting. Don't know where I'd do it or if I'd be able to convince anyone it's a good idea."

"Well, you don't necessarily need money to run a business, right? You could set up some kinda barter system, maybe offer to cook for people if they brought their own ingredients, something like that. The way I see it, it's a great idea. People need diversion; they need entertainment. What's better than some comfort food?"

In case it wasn't immediately obvious, Meyer's extremely business-minded. When the opportunity to discuss business arises, he can't help but jump into it with both feet, wanting to immediately puzzle over the difficulties and possibilities, wanting to figure out how a business can prosper. There's a darker side to this puzzling, too -- he's almost always thinking of how to make competing businesses fail, of how to take other people out of the picture before they become dangerous.

Luckily, Ned opening a restaurant wouldn't threaten him in any way, directly or indirectly. In fact, he might reap the rewards from it, if the rest of Ned's cooking is anything like the way he makes pies. His own business here is as yet undetermined, but he imagines it will have quite a bit to do with poker. That, after all, is something that can work well in any town.

Ned is nodding along with Meyer's reasoning. The idea is starting to seem more solid, now that he's run it by a few people and they have all given their support. He talks more warmly about the subject, eager to hear Meyer's take on things: clearly he has a knack for this sort of thing. "We'll all have to share ingredients, yes. It's not just comfort food. It's not practical, everyone hunting on their own, cooking on their own, trying to make the best of what mismatched things they have around their own houses. If we bring it all in one place, have a few people who know what they are doing handling the food, we can make a little go a long way. The only difficulty is convincing everyone it's a good idea, that we're not just trying to... to steal all the food or something."

He remembers how badly wrong things went when all he was trying to do was make an inventory, after all.

"Some people won't like the idea -- that's fine, they don't have to be involved in it. Might be better for everyone if they weren't, actually. And there'll probably be people who try to take advantage of the idea, too. People who do try to steal the food, since it's all in one convenient place."

Food being scarce does strange things to people. He's seen it time and time again, both as a child and as an adult. Though supplies here aren't dangerously low, they could start approaching those levels unless more food is found. He likes Ned's idea, thinks it could actually work out, but there's no sense in being overly optimistic about something.

"And the people who have no idea how to cook would probably appreciate the help. Gets a little old eating things out of cans all the time."

"I would think so, yeah." Meyer is right, and certain contingencies will need to be planned for, perhaps even a kind of security arranged. But those are just the finer details. The plan itself, new and unformed as it might be, is solid. Ned is bolstered by this, feels better at the mere thought of a project to dedicate himself to. Should keep his mind off the captivity, off wondering what the next horrifying experiment will be and if he'll survive it.

Speaking of keeping his mind off things...

He gets up, goes back to the counter and the egg-wash. "Can I just say it's really odd, knowing you're from the '20s?" He wonders if this is how people like River and Daneel feel about him - that he's this slightly baffling relic of a bygone era. "I suppose it doesn't matter much, in a place like this. But it's still blowing my mind a bit."

"It's strange to me that you're not from the '20s," he replies, smiling slightly. "It makes me wonder what the future's going to be like."

And about his place in the future, but he's not sure he's eager to learn that. If there were someone here who could tell him how it would all turn out, tell him his own fate, he's not sure he'd want to know. It seems like knowing those things could unravel some kind of horrible mess that could never be put back together again. What if someone knew your eventual fate, and what if that fate was unpleasant? The fate of the world, though? He'd like to know that.

"What's odd about the '20s, anyway?" he asks, curious to know just how much things have changed. "I mean, aside from the fact that you all have better technology and dress more casually."

"I can try to tell you, if you'd like. I'm no historian, but I could give you a general overview or answer questions." Ned rather likes the idea of himself as a mysterious oracle of the future, dispensing prophecies both hopeful and horrifying. Of course, he wonders if telling Meyer about world events will in some way alter them if he's ever brought back, but he remembers what Galen said. He'd been back home, for a brief period, and had remembered nothing about his stay here. Chances are the same will happen to the rest of them, if they are ever put back where they were taken from.

"I don't know. No odder than any other time. It's just... after a while, decades start to pick up cliches. In the films its all jazz and bootleggers and Model-T's." He smiles at Meyer's comment on his clothing, glancing down at his flour-smudged grey t-shirt and apron, "It's stuff like that. People dress a little different, speak a little different, think a little different."

"Most of those cliches sound pretty accurate to me," he says, laughing a little. The bootleggers part, especially, hits close to home, but he's not sure how anybody around here would take it if they knew the extent of his involvement in that particular business. From what he's gathered, alcohol is perfectly legal again for the majority of the people here, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't a criminal in his own time. Besides, he doesn't know how drug laws have changed, and bringing up the heroin business seems unwise, too.

"All I know for sure about the future is that you have a second World War. And you have something called cellphones." That's what he's managed to pick up from people so far, mostly because he hasn't been asking many questions, for fear of seeming ignorant. Of course, he couldn't logically be expected to know the future, but as someone who wants to know everything all the time, he doesn't like being at a disadvantage.

Ned realizes somewhere around the moment when Meyer says second World War that, actually, summarizing the events of the last century is hardly the kind of light conversation he was hoping for to distract him from their current situation. But he doesn't want to go back on his offer, just because the majority of human history seems to amount to horror and tragedy. He'll just try to balance it as much as he can with the good things.

So as he starts carefully layering the fruit into the pie crust, he talks. Picks up where he imagines Meyer left off, tells him about the end of Prohibition, about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. He tells him about Pearl Harbor, WWII, D-Day. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Holocaust. Tells him about Communism and the Cold War, about spies and McCarthy and mutually assured destruction, Vietnam and Korea and puppet dictators across Latin America. Tells him about the collapse of the British Empire and independence movements all around the globe. Tells him about Watergate and the sexual revolution and hippies, the war on poverty, the war on drugs. Tells him about civil rights and women's rights and gay rights, the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At that point, he realizes that he's been talking for a very long time without pause, without even looking up from the pie which is now entirely filled. He glances over at Meyer, realizing he probably should have gone slower, given more context, found more evidence of human decency to mix in with all the rest.

Some of what Ned says makes sense, is the logical extension of things he's already seeing happening in his time: women's rights, civil rights, the end of Prohibition, the economic collapse, all of that has always struck him as something that will happen sooner or later. There are other things, however, that he can't begin to imagine, although he has no reason to believe Ned would lie to him, especially about future historical events (how strange it is, to think in terms like that -- it's history to Ned, but the future to him.)

When Ned finishes speaking, when he looks up from the pie, he'll see Meyer staring at the table, seemingly lost in thought. He's fiddling with a book of matches, clearly wishing he had a cigarette, needing something to do with his nervous energy. Maybe there's something sad on his face, but then, he's always had an unreadable face -- it could just as easily be deep thought, an attempt to process all of the events Ned has explained to him over a relatively brief amount of time.

"I see," he says, and his voice is flat. His brain is stuck somewhere between World War II and the Cold War, trying to unravel what he's just heard. He swallows hard before he speaks again. "And people think the '20s were odd."

"Oh."

Ned can tell he's miscalculated. Meyer might not be saying much or doing much, but there's something in his stillness, his distraction, that bodes ill. In their interactions up to this point he'd been so attentive - polite, but also watchful. Now that focus seems to be turned inward, or elsewhere. The tonelessness of his voice, the fidgeting with his hands: Ned picks up on these cues without quite realizing he's doing it and knows that he's made a mistake.

And he should have known better. These aren't just things out of a book, for Meyer. They are things that might - probably will - happen to people he knows. His family and friends and neighbors. The thought that he might have depressed or perturbed Meyer is a painful one. Ned chews on the inside of his lip, wonders if he should apologize. He decides against it. Apologizing would mean admitting that he can tell Meyer is upset, and it's probably more polite to pretend he doesn't notice.

"There are people here from thousands of years later than either of us. Like River. She was living in a spaceship, before she was brought here. Can you imagine?"

It's a fairly obvious ploy, but Ned hopes it will be an effective one. If worst comes to worst he can always give Meyer another slice of pie. That would make the atrocities of the next few generations a bit more bearable, right?

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