kore_logs | the needle's in hand but I cannot sew

Entry tags:

the needle's in hand but I cannot sew

Who: Ned and Meyer
What: ~~SAD CHALLAH~~ Charlie is still missing; Ned decides to distract Meyer with baking lessons.
Where: House 19
When: Day 99
Warning: Will update as necessary

Ned might have spent most of the previous day in Meyer's company, but he isn't sure they said more than a handful of words to one another. What words they did say were only the polite requisites. Part of that, he's sure, had been down to the clearly intolerable hangover under which Meyer was languishing. But part was also a kind of shock and embarrassment over their own behavior and disclosures. At the very least, they were equally mortified by their uncharacteristic frankness, the night before. They were reeling from it, walking on eggshells around one another, both seeing one another doing it, both too cautious to comment on the fact.

If he were a different sort of person, he might not come by today. Might tell himself that Meyer would be fine on his own for a little while, even if Charlie is gone for a third day and the likelihood of him coming back is starting to feel fainter and more desperate with every passing hour. He could do that. He could save face, give himself a little time to recover. After all, it's hard, just being around Meyer, knowing that he knows what he does.

But Ned isn't the sort to run out on his friends. He doesn't abandon people - especially not in times of need like this. So, around late morning he is knocking on the door, awkwardly, his arms full of baking supplies

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Meyer's sleep schedule, already abnormal at best, has been completely thrown off by Charlie's disappearance. Still bothered by his broken ribs and his injured back, although they both seem to be healing reasonably well, still feeling as though he's suffering the effects of the hangover a day later, sleep has been elusive. What little he's managed to get has been on the couch; there's something better about taking a nap on the couch than retiring to his bed entirely. He'd slept there the night he and Ned had had their conversation -- their far too frank conversation, which had left him feeling uncomfortable and unpleasantly exposed -- but that was only because Ned had half-dragged him there.

He'd been up since four that morning, and he'd been cleaning. Although he'd completely ignored the bedroom, and its uncharacteristic mess, he'd scrubbed the kitchen until it practically gleamed. Gone were any traces of that drunken evening, gone was any evidence that anything had been broken, that any messes at all had been made. It looks almost as though it belongs in an unoccupied house. He likes it that way.

He's sitting with a cup of tea and a piece of paper, scribbling some calculations -- it's a soothing technique, as much as it is genuine interest in solving a mathematical problem -- when there's a knock on the door. Almost immediately, he assumes it's Ned. Who else would it be? There are other people who occasionally visit the house, but they only come when invited, and in the last few days, he's seen very few people. Ned has been the exception. Ned has been an impressive constant presence. Part of him still wonders why Ned would bother, when it would be so much easier to ignore the situation entirely, but he's starting to realize that perhaps Ned has no ulterior motive; this is a display of friendship, nothing more, nothing less.

So when he opens the door, he manages to muster a slight smile. "Morning," he says, smoothing down his hair slightly -- while the kitchen may be spotless, his appearance doesn't exactly measure up.

"Morning," Ned echoes, a similar caution in his tone, though perhaps for different reasons. Meyer, even underneath the smile (not up to Meyer's usual, he thinks - it's worn around the edges, listless) doesn't look like he's doing all that well. Ned feels a momentary pang of worry that he's going to lose Meyer, too. If not physically, the way he seems to have lost his housemates and Bruce and Charlie, then in a less tangible way. That the Meyer he's become friends with will fade and diminish and become a less colorful, less lively, less happy version of himself, for good.

He pushes those thoughts aside, lifting his armful of supplies, forcing a little more cheerfulness than he might, otherwise, to make up for the dark circles under Meyer's eyes, "Remember when you asked me to teach you how to bake bread about a month ago, and I said sure, let's do that soon, and we never got around to it?" He glances down at the stack of large bowls, the flour and eggs and salt and things perched in the one on top, "It's not really soon anymore, but if you're still interested..."

Always eager to seize upon a distraction, the smile grows a little wider, a little more genuine as he takes in what Ned carries in his arms. "Yeah, I'm still interested," he replies, and he's not being insincere. He is interested, both because having something to do will take his mind off of what his mind keeps going back to, and because learning new skills has always appealed to him. That, at least, won't change, regardless of whether or not Charlie is there.

He gestures for Ned to come into the kitchen. There's plenty of available space on the counter, given his frantic cleaning, and he only casts the slightest of glances at his paper full of equations and numbers before looking back at Ned. "Thanks," he says. It's partially to be polite -- politeness is important, even in the most dire of moments -- and partially because he knows that Ned is making a real effort to be cheerful and upbeat for him. It's not an effort people often make. It's appreciated.

Ned ducks past Meyer and into the kitchen, setting out the bowls on the counter, putting down the various ingredients into an order that makes sense to him. He can't help but feel a little awkward, being back in this room. The glass might be swept up and disposed of, without a trace, but he can still feel it there. It is same with the emotional detritus: no outwardly mark, and yet it seems to linger strangely in the air of this place in particular.

"There are about a thousand different ways to make any kind of bread, and everyone always swears by theirs, so take all of this with a grain of-" he lifts the shaker of salt, venturing a small smile. Meyer has his math and his statistics, which Ned can see sitting on the table, and Ned has this. Pie may be he specialty, his favourite, but all kind of baking are soothing to him. He feels confident in this, more than in anything else, really. It helps to smooth over the rough edges, the way every time Meyer looks at him he remembers that he knows.

"Yeast first," Ned reaches out, hands the packets of yeast to Meyer as he switches on the taps, "You want lukewarm water - not too cold or too hot, mind. Maybe half a cup." When it's the right temperature, he fills one of the smaller bowls to the appropriate level, pauses to say, "You'll want to measure it, at first. I can pretty much tell what half a cup looks like right away, but I've been doing this for years." It's not a boast, just a statement of fact. Meyer may have memorized the probabilities of various poker hands; this is something Ned's memorized.

He takes the packets of yeast from Ned and does as Ned instructs, finding some solace in following simple instructions, in making things orderly and correct. It's easier to concentrate on something like that, and after a few moments, he realizes he really should be writing all of this down, for later, for a time when Ned might not be around to show him what to do. It isn't a pleasant thought, the idea of Ned disappearing -- there are plenty of people in the town that he can tolerate, and even enjoy the company of, but aside from Charlie, Ned might be the only one he'd call a friend.

He moves back to the table, picking up a piece of paper and a pen, intending to write down what Ned says in that scratchy, scribbly handwriting that is so at odds with his precise, careful personality. He spots the equations again, and looks at them for a moment, then back at Ned, expression unreadable.

"I was calculating," he says, moving back to the counter, piece of paper in hand, ready to take further instruction, "the probability of those who have disappeared returning. It's a difficult thing to calculate. The variables are unclear. I've determined, however, that there's a 23.5% chance, with a margin of error of about 4% in either direction, that the disappeared'll return."

What he thinks about these numbers is just as unclear as his facial expression as he stares at the smaller bowl Ned had just added water to.

About a one-in-four chance, in other words: Ned doesn't really like those odds. Neither of them has to say Charlie's name to know he's the reason Meyer was doing those calculations. Ned nods to show that he was listening, but he doesn't trust himself to say anything. What can he really say to something like that? Empty reassurances would only make Meyer feel worse, he expects, and there's no arguing with numbers. Besides, what else is there to say? Ned can contribute nothing, absolutely nothing, that will make any of this easier for Meyer.

At least, nothing in the form of verbal reassurance.

So he keeps on with the baking lesson, though something is a bit different in his voice; a degree of the forced cheer has ebbed away, leaving behind something more neutral. He takes the packets back from Meyer and rips them open, gently, carefully. "Yeast's a living thing. It's a fungus - like mushrooms, only single-celled." Ned doesn't know when people discovered cells, but if Meyer's confused, surely he'll ask. "The yeast in these is still alive, it's just been dried. In order to use it, you have to proof it. You add the water to... to wake it up, sort of. If the water is too cold, it won't work, but if it's too hot, you can kill it. That's why you have to be careful."

He tips the contents of one of the packets into the bowl and gives the other back to Meyer, letting him do it. As he does, Ned is fetching a spoonful of sugar, which he tips into the mix before stirring it up, "You add a bit of sugar at the same time. The yeast breaks it down and that makes carbon dioxide, which is the whole point of yeast in the first place."

He writes down what Ned says, very carefully, despite the scrawling nature of his handwriting -- he'll very likely be the only one capable of reading the notes once he's done with them -- and then imitates Ned's motions, tipping the packet of yeast and some sugar into the bowl. Looking up at Ned, he nods slightly at the explanation. It all makes sense to him. It's much more scientific than he thought cooking would be.

"It's chemistry," he says, as though this is some kind of startling revelation. To be fair, to him, it very likely is. Cooking and baking, to him, had been something mysterious his mother had been exceptionally capable at, and something that he himself could muddle through the basics of. As an adult, he'd made it a priority never to go without a meal, but that didn't mean the meals he cooked were ever particularly inspired.

"I never made it to studying chemistry in school--" he says. They hadn't learned it that young; it was something that was done in the later grades, and although he'd been a good student when he'd attended, he'd never expected to stay in school much past the point he did. "--but that makes sense. Baking's a chemical reaction."

There's likely something else to it, too, something that makes it so worthy of passion for Ned, but that's how he can understand it, right now.

"I guess it is, kind of. I don't remember all that much from chemistry. Stuff about... the shapes of molecules, and neutrons, and working out formulas." Ned remembers, almost against his will, how Meyer had been talking the other night about how he was a disappointment, how his parents had wanted more from him, how he worried that other people would look down on him because he'd left school so early.

"I was never much good at any of that - memorizing elements and learning stuff out of textbooks. It's different when it's hands-on. I'm more of a learn-by-doing type."

He stirs the concoction a little more, until it's evenly mixed, then starts looking in the cupboards for a clean towel to cover it with. When he finds something suitable he drapes it over the top and sets the bowl on the counter, out of the way.

"We have to let that sit for a little while - not too long, maybe ten minutes."

The problem with that is that it leaves the two of them just standing here, without anything to really occupy their hands. Ned speaks quickly, before the awkward silence can settle in too deeply, "The scientific method was a good thing to learn, though. Useful. How to set up experiments, control the variables, find out how things worked. Lots of the time I was half-asleep in chemistry class because I'd been up all night catching fireflies and doing experiments, finding out how my powers worked."

He rubs the back of his neck, all too conscious of the fact that Meyer knows just how wrong things had gone when he didn't know the rules. Meyer will understand, then, that it wasn't idle curiosity that had driven him, but an imperative, desperate, painful need to understand his own limitations and find ways to work around them.

"It's better to learn by doing," he agrees, watching as Ned covers the bowl and sets it aside, wondering what they're meant to do while they wait. There's a huge amount of unspoken things hanging between them -- or rather, things that had been spoken the previous evening, and immediately set into the growing pile of things to never be spoken about again. "As useful as books are, there's something to be said for the hands-on approach."

That wasn't to say he didn't like books. In fact, some of his prized possessions were books, but he'd always been self-taught in a way that many other people weren't. He thinks Ned is likely self-taught in the area of cooking and baking, and he admires that. It may be simple enough to make oneself dinner, but it wasn't easy to cook as well as Ned did without dedication and practice, he didn't think. There was passion there, too, which was immediately obvious whenever he saw Ned talk about baking, whenever he watched him cook or even give instructions for it.

He's curious, he has to admit, to know just how thoroughly Ned had tested his powers, whether many of his discoveries had come by accident -- certainly, some of them had, he now knew, some of the most tragic ones -- or by design. It's difficult to determine whether it's rude to bring up or not, whether finding Ned's powers a source of intrigue and curiosity is somehow vaguely exploitative, so he asks the most benign question he can think of. "When you found out exactly how your powers worked, you didn't tell anybody about them, did you?"

It's not really a question, in that he's pretty sure Ned hadn't, and he wonders for a moment how uncomfortable -- or perhaps liberating, he's not sure -- it had been for Ned to be in a place where those powers were widely known and, seemingly, widely accepted.

"Of course not," he can hear that note of not-really-asking in Meyer's voice, and yet it's still so obvious to Ned that he wouldn't have told a soul. "I didn't say a word about them to anyone, before or after I understood all the rules. Not really sure why I didn't. Instinct, I guess."

He tears opens the bag of flour as he speaks, needing something to do with his hands, even if it's small bits of prep work. He starts folding the strip of paper from the top in his hands, looking down at them as he talks. The two of them are tip-toeing in a conversational direction he isn't sure he likes, but things are different today. If it gets too close, he'll put a stop to it without hesitation.

"The only reason you know - the only reason anyone knows, is because I made a mistake. I didn't talk about it until I'd already been found out, and at that point it was mostly damage control. If I'd been a bit more careful, you'd think I was just a regular guy who made pie." He states it plainly, without any sort of malice. That was how all his friendships and acquaintances had been for the majority of his life. Because of it, there'd always been a certain amount of distance. How much could anyone hope to understand him, without first knowing that one, central thing?

Distance isn't something that he and Meyer really have. At the moment, he almost wishes for a bit more of it. A little more secrecy, a little less knowledge of one another's weak points.

Ned measures out the salt, the sugar, telling Meyer the quantities and waiting for him to write them down before he adds them to his largest bowl. Next, he hands one of the eggs to Meyer. With a little glance to see that he's paying attention, Ned picks up one of his own and shows him how to crack it one-handed, then waits for him to give it a try.

He wonders whether he would simply have thought of Ned as a regular guy who made pie, or whether he would have detected something in Ned, the fact that Ned had a hidden, dark secret, at the very least. Of course, he reasons, most people have their secrets, some darker than others. If he'd been able to pick up on that about Ned, it wouldn't have been particularly impressive -- simply logical.

"And if I'd been a bit more careful, you'd think I was just a regular guy who ran a card game." And not a gangster, in other words. It's not necessarily his fault that Ned knows about him and Charlie's chosen profession, but he can't help but think that if he'd somehow done a better job of hiding it, nobody ever would have found out, those with psychic powers included. To think that it had been unavoidable and uncontrollable for Ned to find out some of the most significant things he knows about him isn't a thought he cares to entertain. Better to blame himself, to find some way he could have been more secretive, than to acknowledge the fact that certain things can't be hidden from everyone in a town like this.

He notates the measurements, and then observes Ned as he cracks the egg one-handed. It's impressive, he thinks, and immediately, he wants to imitate the action. He wants to faithfully mirror everything Ned has shown him, in the hopes that, even without the written instructions, he'll remember the motions the next time he wants to try this on his own. Charlie would probably like it if he could bake bread, he thinks, because they've both been complaining about the quality of food around here, and then he remembers that Charlie isn't there (23.5% chance of him returning, give or take 4%, he reminds himself) and, with a little burst of some indefinable emotion, cracks the egg one-handed, just as Ned had shown him. He may not have any natural talent for cooking, necessarily, but he's always had extremely talented hands.

Ned shakes his head a little, not contradicting Meyer aloud, but knowing that no amount of caution or discretion from Meyer would have kept River away from his secrets. It's an unfair advantage, having a psychic sister, but Ned doesn't exactly feel bad about it. He's gone so long without any kind of advantage, unfair or otherwise, that he's willing to take what he can get. Besides, he doesn't exactly think the secrets are quite comparable.

It had been Ned's own insight (and a certain degree of carelessness, though perhaps more on Charlie's part than Meyer's) which had led to him discovering a more intimate secret of Meyer's, but he isn't exactly going to bring it up, just for the sake of a conversational point. He knows, and Meyer knows he knows; that's enough. The last time they'd discussed it, it had caused Meyer acute distress. Ned has no particular desire to repeat that - particularly not when he's already so distressed over Charlie's absence and fighting to hide it.

"You're a quick learner," Ned comments with a genuine smile, pleased that Meyer picked up the trick on his first try. He discards the shells in the sink and starts adding the flour, pouring half the bag into the bowl before peeking under the corner of the towel. The yeast seems to be coming along fine, so he uncovers it and shows it to Meyer. "You want to make sure it's bubbling like that. See the bit of foam at the top? That's how you know the yeast is alive. It's good to check, because sometimes you'll get a bad batch of dead yeast, and you want to know that before you start trying to bake with it."

He tips the foaming contents of the bowl into the flour, then starts the taps again, getting the water to the right temperature, "You want it to be lukewarm again, for the same reasons." He adds the water, a little smile starting to tug at the corner of his mouth, "The first time I tried to bake bread I thought I'd improve the recipe - use boiling water and speed up how fast it would rise, except I poured it right on the eggs and ended up accidentally cooking them and killing the yeast." Ned has to shake his head; it had been quite a mess, and he'd been angry at himself, but it had taught him a lesson that went beyond the baking itself - that sometimes it is better to just follow the instructions, because they're there for a reason.

As he's measuring out the oil -- "You can use canola or vegetable, but I wouldn't go with olive, for challah, unless you have absolutely no choice" -- it occurs to him for perhaps the millionth time that life would be much easier if it were as simple as baking. He asks Meyer to add the rest of the flour, pours the oil on top, and claps his hands.

"Right. Kneading. This is the most fun bit, so I'm going to let you do it."

As a kid, being a quick learner had been one of the few things he had going for him. It had kept him out of trouble -- or rather, taught him how to manage trouble, how to always be one step ahead of whoever was threatening him. It's extended to the rest of his life: if he wants to learn something, he sets about doing it, and almost always does so quickly. He almost wishes that there were more opportunities like this around the tiny town they're stuck in; life would be much easier here if he were constantly busy, learning something, expanding his abilities. As it is, there's far too much time to think.

Ned's instructions are clear and understandable, and he likes that there's more to them than simply directions -- there's an explanation for why things work the way they do, what signs he should be looking for that he's doing it correctly. He jots down what Ned says in his own bizarre form of shorthand. Sometimes, he has to struggle to read his own writing, but that always reassures him that nobody else will be snooping through his notes and observing what he has to write down. Not that anyone would be alarmed by instructions for making jam or bread, but he has a healthy sense of privacy nevertheless.

"My mother sometimes let me knead the bread, when I was a kid. That's about all she trusted me with." It's volunteering information about his childhood, but not in the same way that he had been that drunken evening, when everything he'd said had been shot through with meaning and emotion. This is simply a fact, not a particularly important one, tossed out there because that's what people do when they're making conversation. He wants to make it clear to Ned that he's not intending to discuss anything serious or potentially fraught unless Ned brings it up first, and even then, he thinks they'd both prefer to avoid going down the road they'd gone down the previous evening, when things had ended up shattered on the floor and both of them had felt exposed and uncomfortably vulnerable.

"Well, in that case you know what to do," Ned says, as he stands back, folding his arms across his chest and watching as Meyer takes over the task of preparing the dough. He keeps watching closely, in case there are suggestions to make, mistakes to avert, but for the most part this bit is easy, if rather messy. Swallowing, he thinks what a coward he is, to think one thing and then say another. Surely, he doesn't want a repeat of the other night, but he can mange a word or two. For Meyer. Who will know better than to follow up his statement with questions.

"Mine, too."

He watches as Meyer kneads the dough, leaning in to add a touch more oil when it looks too sticky to Ned's eye, keeping track of its consistency to make sure Meyer doesn't over-work it. Kneading takes a particular kind of dexterity, and it's obvious to him that Meyer has had little practice at this sort of thing, but he is doing well enough. Ned stands by and watches without interfering, until he thinks Meyer has mixed the ingredients sufficiently. Then, Ned steps in, taking the bowl from him and folding the lump of dough over on itself one or two more times for good measure. Next, he sets the bowl aside, covering it with the cloth once more and glancing at the time on the clock.

"Now we have to wait about an hour." The question of how they should fill that time looms before Ned and he suggests, "Hand of cards? Or I could go and come back..."

It's possible Meyer wouldn't want the company. Ned wants to give him that option.

Kneading the dough is almost soothing, in a strange way. Generally, he takes his comfort from other things, mostly intellectual things, things that take his mind somewhere else, that preoccupy his brain so that his tendency to worry can be focused upon something else. This is a physical distraction, but it proves surprisingly effective. He simply has to try to avoid taking out his frustration on the dough, because he imagines that punching it or slamming it against the counter won't make for very good bread.

When Ned speaks and tells him that they'll need to wait for some time, he's quick to speak. "You don't need to go."

That sounds a lot better than asking Ned directly not to leave. He likes the company, but he doesn't want to seem desperate for it; he's always been the kind of person who's been good at being alone, after all, it's difficult to conceive of asking for company. Better to sound this way, as though he's leaving it up to Ned, as though it matters very little one way or another to him. Somehow, though, he thinks Ned will get the general idea behind the words, especially when he pulls his ever-present deck of cards out of his pocket and sets them on the table wordlessly. It's obvious what his preference is.

Ned can see behind Meyer's not-quite invitation; he doesn't really need anything more enthusiastic than permission. Meyer may seem to have a better handle on himself today than he did the day before, and the day before, but Ned still wants to keep a watch on him. There had been more of that heroin, he remembers, in that slip of paper. Goodness knows what might set Meyer off and make him take some. And what would Charlie say, if he came back and Ned had let something happen to Meyer in his absence.

He sees Meyer setting the cards on the table, but he feels a strange reluctance to join him there. Ned's always, perhaps more than most people, strongly associated emotions and experiences within the places where they occurred. Right now, that table isn't a place he wants to be, so he nods towards the door.

"Play on the porch?" he asks, as if it were merely an idea rather than a request, "We'd get some fresh air that way."

It may not exactly be scientific, but Ned has a vague but steady belief in the benefits of a little fresh air. The weather has been getting warmer lately, in the Cape, and he knows Meyer has been cooped up more than is usual for him, for a while now, thanks to his injuries, even though they seem to be healing well.

When Meyer gives him a nod of acceptance, Ned heads out, sitting himself down cross-legged on the boards and waiting for Meyer to join him.

The porch somehow seems like a much better idea. He may not consciously associate the table with negative emotions, as Ned does, but there's something in him that feels relief to move away from the table and out into the fresh air. He's used to having so much more space than this, to being able to go wherever he likes; his injuries had held him back even more than normal, lately, and since they were beginning to heal finally, he was eager to get back to a more energetic routine -- or, perhaps, to get into some kind of routine that would be adequately busy to push all other thoughts out of his head.

When they get onto the porch, he sits down with only the slightest hesitation, his ribs still bothering him slightly, and any change in position taking a bit of adjustment before he feels entirely comfortable. Pack of cards in hand, he gazes at them for a moment before beginning to shuffle, motions as smooth and practiced as ever, dealing a round of five card draw without even asking Ned which version he wants to play. It's Ned's favorite, after all; if it somehow doesn't appeal to him today, Meyer assumes Ned will speak up and indicate so.

"I don't know if I was the one to teach Charlie how to play poker," he says, bringing up Charlie's name casually, and without much sadness behind his words, from the sound of it. He thinks about his musing statement, shakes his head, and amends it: "I doubt I was. He was a lot older than I was when we met, and that's the kinda thing he'd've known. Anyway, when I was maybe ten or so, and he was fourteen, fifteen, we played a lot of poker. Hardly ever for money, because neither of us had it, and if we did, it wasn't enough to bother gambling away."

Ned probably remembers how important even a quarter had been to a very young Meyer, from that dream. The value of money had been higher in his time, he realizes, but still, a quarter wouldn't have mattered all that much to a kid who hadn't grown up poor. "We'd wager with other things, meaningless little things. I got pretty good at the game pretty fast, and I beat him a lot. You can guess how he felt about that. He was sure I was cheating, I was sure he was a sore loser. One time, he decided to get me back for my 'cheating.' He found something nice, something I'd've wanted, and wagered it in a game. I won, of course--" There's a little cockiness to his of course, because this really is one of his talents, and had been as a kid, too. "--and as soon as I won, he turned around and told me it was stolen and that the guy he'd stolen it from was gonna think I stole it. He had me scared for days."

He's laughing, now, not thinking about Charlie being gone, but thinking about the way they'd been as kids. They'd never been carefree, their childhoods hadn't necessarily been pleasant, but they'd had each other, and that had made it more tolerable. "Turns out it was never stolen in the first place, it was just something of his that he'd been willing to part with temporarily. Of course, I never gave it back. Guess that means I won after all."

Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a pen and nods at it, indicating that it's the object he'd won from Charlie so many years ago. It's not a fancy one, not by any means, and he could certainly afford better now, but there's a story behind it, and there isn't a story behind many of his other objects. That makes it special, in a strange way.

Ned watches him sitting with care, thinks about asking how the healing is going, but he bites it back, opts for pretending he didn't notice, instead. No doubt Meyer's sick and tired of being asked that. He knows that it's his own preference to hide what injuries he can. Recently, with Daneel, he's started to reverse that, but that's a different sort of relationship.

He listens to Meyer's story about playing poker as a kid with Charlie with interest. It's easy enough for him to imagine: he's seen what Charlie was like as a teenager, and what Meyer was like a little younger than that, and what the city looked like at the time. It's also not hard to imagine Charlie being a very bad loser, and Ned smiles alone with Meyer when he alludes to that fact. He likes that Meyer can talk about Charlie like this without losing his cool. Ned knows, of course he knows, that Charlie's absence must still be like a lump of ice in his gut, but such things can be made manageable.

The fact that Meyer still has the pen with him sends a shock of sadness through Ned, but he doesn't show it. He looks away from the object and back to his cards, trying not to think what it would say about the world if Charlie and Meyer were never reunited, if they'd been torn away from one another after so many years and so much history, without so much as a chance to say goodbye.

"Sounds like the kind of thing Charlie'd do," Ned says. If it also sounds a little bit spiteful, a little bit cruel, well, who is he to judge? Kids can be extraordinarily cruel, and it's not as if Meyer wasn't capable of taking care of himself, even from that age. Their kind of friendship isn't the sort that he thinks he would thrive in, but people are different.

"Had a friend at school, for a while, named Eugene. Every now and then, the two of us would play marbles. He always beat me. I didn't really mind, though." Much in the same way that Meyer always seems to beat him at cards, and he doesn't really mind that, either.

He appreciates that Ned had let him tell the story, which had been seemingly irrelevant, not particularly connected to anything else except for the fact that it had been about poker and that they were playing poker right now. It obviously meant something to him, though, and Ned obviously understood that. Not for the first time, he's grateful that Ned is perceptive, that he sees the meaning behind things, that he doesn't just take things at face value. It's a double-edged sword, he realizes; Ned's perceptiveness can be very useful, when he instinctively understands things without them being spelled out, but it can also be threatening, when he works out things that should stay hidden.

He puts the pen back into his pocket and nods at Ned, indicating that he should make his wager. He's barely paying attention to his hand of cards as it is. This is simply something to do to pass the time until the dough rises and they can continue the bread-making process. "Yeah," he says, nodding, "It is the kinda thing Charlie'd do. Still is, probably. I guess I can't complain, though. He looked out for me. I used to get into fights, as a kid. So did Charlie, but he was bigger, so it was good to have him around."

If that sounds surprising, given what Ned knows about Meyer now, given that he seems like the type to go out of his way to avoid physical conflict, to deescalate a situation rather than letting it spiral into violence, that's because, to some extent, it's surprising to everyone. Even as a child, he hadn't liked fighting, but he'd done it more often than not, simply because it was a good way of making people stay the hell out of his way and stop harassing him. As he got older, he learned to talk his way out of things more and more, to avoid the type of people who goaded him into violence, and even to stop other people from fighting. There's still something angry in him, though, something that's afraid that if he starts punching someone, he just won't stop. Ned had probably seen a sign of that, too, during their drunken evening.

Trying to turn the conversation away from himself, at least momentarily, he looks at Ned curiously. "You didn't have many friends at school, did you?" It's not meant as a judgement, even if it comes out sounding a little impolite. He hadn't had many friends, either. "And somehow, I can't exactly imagine you fighting. Or at least, picking fights."

"How did that start happening? Him looking out for you, I mean." Ned puts down his wager, but he has played enough poker with Meyer by now to be able to do this kind of thing almost by rote. He'd seen, in Meyer's dreams, their very first encounter, and he knows that the two of them must have had some intermediate step between Charlie and his friends attempting to beat Meyer up and steal his money to the two of them having one another's backs, working as a team, as partners.

As for the fights themselves, Ned isn't all that surprised to hear it. Fights at the Longborough School were of a very different kind than the ones in the time and place where Meyer grew up. There had been a degree of violence, of course, but more covert, and impelled by different motives.

"No. Just Eugene, really, and that only lasted..." he trails off, but he doesn't know the exact amount of time. It had seemed like longer, when he was young, than it probably was. In those early years, after his mother died and his father left him, time moved very slowly, for Ned. "...a little while. Only time I ever picked a fight, it was over him." Ned sets down cards to be replaced, notices with surprise and a touch of delight that, without paying all that much attention, he seems to have gotten three of a kind.

"I told you, uh, the other night?" There's still a certain amount of caution in his voice when he brings it up - he's not sure Meyer will have remembered such a small detail. He has no idea how much Meyer remembers in general. "About throwing that book at a bully? He was the one they were bullying." Ned shakes his head, remembering. "I let my temper get away with me. Never ends well."

"He was impressed with the way I handled myself, when we first met. Tracked me down a couple days later, and instead of getting into a fight, we started talking. Doubt he could understand half of the things I was saying, honestly, my English was that bad, but I guess he liked that I was a tough kid. We ended up sharing a cigarette and he didn't try to steal my money again, so I figured I'd made a friend. After that, we saw quite a bit of each other -- we lived close together, and we had similar interests. Did similar little jobs, you know? He sold hats, I ran errands for whatever store would take a nine year old kid seriously enough to give them any kind of responsibility."

And, the unspoken subtext is, they had similar criminal interests, as well; their shared interest in protection schemes was just one of them. Both of them had run protection schemes on the Jewish kids in the neighborhood, seeing how much they got hassled by the Italian kids and the Irish kids. People had thought it was kind of weird, seeing the two of them working together, when, based on the way they'd been brought up and the environment they were used to, they should have been beating the shit out of each other, but shared interests mattered a hell of a lot more to Meyer than shared nationality or religion.

"Yeah, I remember you saying that. You're right, letting your temper get away with you is never a good idea, but we all do it. Even as adults." There's a wry note of self-deprecation in his voice as he says it. Certainly, Ned had seen him lose control of his temper recently, and in a particularly out of control fashion. "The way I see it, though, you stuck up for a friend. That was brave, regardless of whether throwing a textbook at someone was a... wise decision."

He passes Ned the cards he wants replaced, and then replaces some of his own. His hand isn't bad, so he doesn't fold right away, instead indicating for Ned to wager again.

So it had been Charlie who had looked for Meyer, not the other way around. That makes sense to Ned. After all, he'd been the aggressor in that first encounter. It wouldn't make much sense, even for a tough kid like Meyer, to try to be friends with a guy he'd attacked. It makes slightly more sense for Charlie to want to be friends with someone who'd fought back so hard. It's not exactly the most idyllic start to a friendship, but then, neither was his own first meeting with Meyer.

It's a little strange to think of Meyer not speaking English all that well. He's so good at it now, accent or no. Strange also to imagine the two of them working from such a young age. Ned had taken what opportunities he could to earn money before he was allowed to leave his school, but he hadn't started until he was fifteen, at least. Even then, his main source of income had been other students: ones with parents who sent them allowances and care packages. Baking for them, cleaning for them, doing their homework for them (though he was only average, himself).

Perhaps picking up on that subtext, Ned asks, "And when did you two start working for AR?" He knows the name from talking to Charlie, but isn't sure whether or not he ought to bring it up, if he's overstepping his bounds. It's not as if him knowing about their mob dealings is going to have any impact on their lives back home, most likely. All the same, he knows how secrecy can become a habit.

Ned catches the note of self-reference and light self-mockery when Meyer alludes to losing his own temper. He's right, though. It's bound to happen now and then, no matter what. Particularly in a place like this, when they are constantly robbed of autonomy and control over their lives.

Shrugging, Ned says, "I don't know about brave." He doesn't think of himself as brave. Quite the opposite, in fact. He's easily frightened: timid. Sure, now and then he did something stupid like throw a textbook at a kid he knew would kick his ass later as thanks, or shout at a saber-toothed tiger that was in the process of mauling his friend, but that didn't make him brave. Those were just outliers, extraordinary incidents. Anyone would do the same.

"Most of the time I think the brave thing to do is... not to let yourself sink to their level. But sometimes you haven't got a choice." He remembers what Meyer said about wanting to kill the men who'd taken Charlie, how he'd agreed that he felt the same. From the sound of it, Meyer ought to remember that, too. Along with everything else that had been said, no doubt.

"It's not like they stopped picking on him after that, either. Or me, for that matter. That's sort of why we were friends in the first place. We were the easy targets." He sets down his wager, continues, "Him because he had braces and he was from India and they thought the way he talked was funny, and me because..." Ned trails off with a shrug.

Surprisingly, he finds he doesn't mind talking about it much, doesn't mind being asked questions like that. What can Ned do with the information, even if they all get back home? Ned's from a different time, a time far in the future when Meyer and Charlie and AR are probably long dead. He shrugs. "I was pretty young when I met him. Right around the time I left school. I met him at a bar mitzvah, of all places." That wasn't exactly the place most people would have expected mobsters to meet each other, but then, it wasn't like Meyer and Charlie had ever exactly done anything the expected way. "Everyone knew who he was. One of those guys, you know, becomes a millionaire by the time he's thirty. Didn't start working for him until a little later -- and at first, we didn't get to do much of anything -- but he took interest in what we did pretty early on, kept an eye on us."

AR had never meant the same thing to Meyer as he'd meant to Charlie. He'd mentored Charlie far more, had taken him under his wing in a way, had helped him dress and speak differently, had taught him a great deal. Meyer's never been jealous of this relationship, nor desirous of a similar one; to him, AR is a useful business partner, a powerful ally, someone he doesn't mind working for, but doesn't imagine working for forever. He leaves these thoughts unspoken, though, and omits any of Charlie's story. That's Charlie's to tell, if he wants to. They may be close, but he tries not to speak for his partner, as a rule. Perhaps there's some self-protection there, too; he can say whatever he wants about himself and his associations, but even indirectly implicating Charlie seems like something of a betrayal.

"You strike me as brave," he says, matching Ned's wager. "You knew they wouldn't stop picking on you. You stood up to them anyway. It's not like anyone ever stopped picking on me." Until, of course, he'd gotten a little older, a little bigger, a little more obviously able to handle himself. He'd won more fights than he'd lost, even as a kid, but he knew what Ned meant about being an easy target: being a small kid -- and he'd been scrawny back then, too, no appreciable strength to him -- in ragged clothes who barely spoke English hadn't been easy. He wouldn't go back and change it, though, any more than he'd've changed his childhood. There was a value to it, he saw now, something that had made him the way he was, so quiet and calm and unflappable.

"I think..." Ned isn't sure if Charlie would have mentioned it, but he sees no harm in telling Meyer, "I think I'd... heard of him. Maybe. I'm not sure, but Charlie was talking about him a while ago and some things he mentioned sounded familiar."

Ned thinks that becoming a millionaire before the age of thirty must have been even more impressive in Meyer's time, when a quarter was enough for a piece of pie. He wonders how much that would be, with inflation, in his own time.

(It strikes him then, how oddly accustomed he's beginning to get, not thinking about money on a day-to-day basis. How he's getting used to always having a thing strapped to his wrist, cameras on all the walls, no phones, no cars, no stores. That thought chills him; he doesn't share it.)

He doesn't ask for more details about what sorts of tasks they had earlier on, or indeed later. Ned knows, on some level, that what they do for a living can't exactly be pleasant. It's not just booze, he knows now. It's drugs, too. And considering the illegality of alcohol at the time, and the way Meyer had spoken about killing people, there must be a fair amount of violence involved. Ned's decided that the less he knows about that particular element, the better. What he doesn't know can't bother him, after all. And it's not his job to judge Meyer or Charlie for doing what they needed to do to survive.

"Just once," Ned reiterates, going a little red in the cheeks, surprised by how gratifying he finds it, Meyer calling him brave. He's hardly immune to compliments. "Most of the time I just kept my head down, or hid, or let them get it over with." He shrugs. He would be more wary talking about it to someone like Daneel, or someone like Riley. Meyer, he knows, won't make a fuss about it, won't make it into a bigger thing than he wants it to seem. "Anyway, Eugene convinced his parents to transfer him somewhere else when we were twelve or so. We weren't really friends anymore, by that point."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you had heard of him. He's one of those guys who'll be remembered in your time, too."

It's not pride that makes him say that so much as pragmatic belief that the powerful and wealthy will always be remembered in some way. AR had an interesting enough story that people would write about him. Someday, he thought, maybe he and Charlie would make their way into the history books, but likely only as footnotes to someone else's story. That was fine by him; he'd never courted fame, simply wanted to make enough money to be comfortable, simply wanted to have enough power to protect himself and the very few people he considered worth protecting.

Both of their wagers are placed, and neither of them had folded. He lays his cards down on the porch, knowing that his hand is bad, knowing that Ned's likely won. All he has is a pair of threes, which is almost completely useless, although slightly better than the indignation of simply having a high card. He should have folded, he thinks, but his mind is elsewhere, and he wonders how much it really matters, losing a hand or two of poker, in the big scheme of things.

"Sometimes once is enough. You choose your battles, you do what you can. When everyone's against you, sometimes keeping your head down is the smartest thing you can possibly do." He'd done that, too, made himself seem nonthreatening, made himself invisible. It's why he's never hated his small stature, though he's taken quite a bit of teasing (mostly good-natured, some surprisingly vicious) about it: it allows him to remain underestimated until he wants to be noticed. Ned, perhaps, had had other ways of seeming nonthreatening -- and he had had to seem nonthreatening, hadn't he, with those powers of his, powers he had likely feared even more, as a child.

Ned nods his agreement; he and Meyer understand these things, that it can be safer,to take a few beatings, to seem harmless, until the moment comes when pretending is no longer a viable option. The two of them slip into silence, playing the next few hands without saying much of anything. Ned checks the time now and then, until an hour has passed since they began playing.

"Okay, so it's about done with its first rise, now. We have to go in, punch the dough a few times to get the air bubbles out, and then let it rise another hour."

He gets to his feet, pretends not to notice the way Meyer sets a hand against his (apparently) still-healing ribs as he, too, stands up. That little reminder of his injury sends Ned's mind back to that night, to the way Charlie had bellowed and swore at him and shoved his way past, refusing to be separated from Meyer for a single second longer while he was hurt. Ned hopes that he comes back, and he hopes that when he does, it isn't in a bad state, the way some people have.

Once they're inside, Ned washes his hands first, notes that the one dishtowel within sight is currently draped over the rising dough. He looks around for another, eventually spots a small stack of them on a high shelf in a cupboard. Without much thinking about it, he pulls one down, uses it himself before offering it wordlessly to Meyer.

That little motion, the simple act of Ned reaching up to that tall shelf in the cupboard and handing down a dishtowel, shouldn't be enough to set him off. It shouldn't call back any memories, shouldn't remind him of anything, shouldn't be worthy of anything except perhaps a thank you and a self-deprecating comment about being short. It's only logical for Ned to reach the higher shelves. And yet...

Charlie's always been the one who got things down from shelves for him. Charlie's been the one who teases him about his height, who offers to get him a chair to stand on whenever he's reaching in vain for that one thing high up, just beyond his grasp. That Charlie's not here to grab him a dishtowel and, likely, throw it at him while saying something insulting but somehow affectionate suddenly strikes him as being completely and utterly rage-inducing.

Maybe the rage is there to cover something else up, something far more delicate and complicated and unapproachable -- the intense sadness he feels at knowing that things aren't the way he's used to, anymore, and perhaps never will be again. They'd been stuck in this damn town, facing the unknown, but at least they'd both been there. There had been a sense of normalcy to it, the feeling that, if they had to be stuck, at least they were still living together, still working together, still fighting for each other. Now that's not the case, and without meaning to, with one simple, casual movement that he probably thought nothing of, Ned has called up all of the emotions attached to it.

So as soon as the dough is uncovered, the punch he delivers to it is far more forceful than necessary. The dough offers little resistance; it deflates easily, but Ned had said that they needed to punch it a few times, and he intends to follow the instructions to the letter. Two more hard hits are delivered to it, the kind of hits that would seriously injure someone, were he hitting a person and not a ball of dough. He pauses, for a moment, wondering whether that's enough, wondering vaguely, too, why his hands have suddenly begun to shake so much.

It takes Ned a moment or two to notice, but when Meyer starts punching down the dough with far more aggression than is strictly necessary, Ned can tell something has upset Meyer. He doesn't know what - for all he's aware, it could have just been something in Meyer's mind, rather than the result of anything external - but it's gotten him into quite a state. There is none of the flamboyant anger of the other night, but all the same it's unmistakable. The fixity of his features, his absolute silence, the violence with which he pounds the dough down to half its size.

Not really sure what is the best course of action, Ned opts not to ask, and certainly not to act as though he's noticed anything different. He busies himself sprinkling a touch more flour atop, muttering something about moving the yeast around, but he doubts that Meyer is really listening to him right now. Maybe after he's cooled down, Ned will say it again, will remind him to write it down on his notepad.

He wishes he were better at comforting, had more experience with being a friend. He's trying his best, but Ned knows that what solace he can provide Meyer right now is far too little to make much of a difference at all. There's nothing he can do to prevent this sort of swing in Meyer's mood - and why shouldn't he be angry? He might have been a captive, might be bored and taken away from his home and family and job, but he'd had Charlie. For all his guardedness and paranoia, Meyer had had someone there, a constant in his life since he was a kid. And now he has no one. It has to hurt; Ned knows how much it does.

"Another hour now," he says, tentatively, covering up the bowl once more and tucking it away. Then, because he can't bear not saying anything, he says, shortly, "I wish I knew the right thing to say or do that would make all of this easier for you, because you're my friend, but at the same time I know there isn't any single right thing. It's awful and nothing I can do is going to make it any less awful, is it?"

As soon as Ned speaks, he comes back to his senses, staring at Ned with something very like confusion when Ned expresses that concern, that seemingly completely genuine caring evident in his tone, the admission that Ned knows there's nothing he can do, but that he'd be willing to try anyway. It's all completely foreign, this particular concept of friendship -- with the exception of Charlie, of course, he's always the goddamned exception, always the one who challenges the status quo -- and he doesn't quite know what to do with it.

"No," he says, agreeing with Ned's assessment, and there's something uncharacteristically unguarded on his face as he says it. There's a moment where he almost wants to open up to Ned, to tell him just how awful it really is, but then, he'd done enough of that the previous evening, and he doesn't think either of them need a rehash of that particular incident. While he doesn't remember all of it (there are bits and pieces that are spotty, like the continuing question of why his knuckles hurt so bad, as though he'd punched something, or how exactly he and Ned had managed to get him safely into his bed after he'd collapsed onto the floor) he remembers well enough to be ashamed by it. They're meant to be making bread today, and not thinking about the things that had driven them to reveal far too much about themselves.

When the look on his face becomes studied and calm again, it's almost as though there's a tangible wall going up, something to protect him from his own anger, but something, perhaps, to protect him from Ned's compassion, as well. That's almost harder to deal with. His tone is careful and precise as he responds more fully. "What you're doing right now is perfectly good. I'm fine."

I'm fine had to be the most meaningless sentence in the world, but in truth, he was fine, wasn't he? He was alive. That was the best anyone could hope for, under the circumstances. There's a pause, and then a slightly less stiff response. "I appreciate your concern, Ned."

Ned senses Meyer poised on the point of disclosing something, watches him hesitate, retreat, throw up a wall of bland politeness and indifference. He doesn't blame him. A thousand times, Ned has been on the other side of this equation. Has been the one promising that there's nothing to say, nothing to do, insisting that any perceived distance or darkness or coldness is purely in the mind of the observer. So he doesn't call Meyer on it, and manages (for once in his life) not to take it personally. In this case, it really does take one to know one, and he and Meyer are very similar in this regard.

He links his hands behind his back when Meyer thanks him for his concern, nodding towards the door. "Don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind a walk around town." It's true, in part; after twenty years of walking Digby twice a day, he's so used to perambulation that he still does it, dog or no. But he also thinks that Meyer could use a change of scenery, a little activity. It might not be as drastic or as satisfying as punching dough or breaking bottles, but it's something.

"Yeah," he says, "A walk sounds good." And it really does. He hates being cooped up, and back home, he tended to go for long walks when he felt that way. Around here, though, he'd fallen out of the habit, partially due to injury and partially due to the fact that there weren't many places to go. With company, though, a walk might well be worth it.

Instinctively, he looks around for a jacket before he realizes that it's both fairly warm outside, and that he hasn't been wearing a suit jacket here, not since the very first days they'd been there. It still feels strange, to go outside in something so casual as jeans and a t-shirt, and he adjusts his shirt a little, feeling underdressed. The wound on his collarbone from the tiger attack has healed well, but it's still an angry red mark, and will probably always be an obvious scar. Were he at home, where he could cover up with button-down shirts and high collars, that wouldn't be a problem. Here, in this ridiculous t-shirt (do people in the future really wear chartreuse v-necks? He supposes beggars can't exactly be choosers, but it really is hideous) he feels even more vulnerable, knowing that he can't hide the results of his tiger encounter. Yet another thing Ned had had to help him with. Yet another thing he's indebted for. The list is piling up.

He opens the door, gesturing for Ned to go ahead of him, and then very carefully locks it behind them. It's an ingrained habit, one from home, and although he knows that it won't keep their captors out, if they really want to enter, it feels better, somehow. He doesn't know where they're headed, but he starts off in the general direction of town. "When you were a kid," he begins, and he's really trying to avoid the tragic parts of Ned's childhood, although he knows there're quite a few, "What'd you want to be when you grew up? Was it always your plan to become a piemaker?"

Once Meyer has locked the door, the two of them start off. Ned thinks for perhaps the millionth time how dull and lifeless everything looks here, how sick he is of the sight of these same few houses, the same buildings and lanes, the same patches of grass, the same sound of the ocean.

Ned has to admit he's not all that fond of questions that start 'When you were a kid-', and he gives Meyer a quick, wary glance before he finishes. What he's actually asking is not dangerous territory, though. At least not on the surface of it. It's not really possible for him to navigate around the painful parts of his past: they are interwoven into everything else, permeating the whole. But that is a question he can answer without any particularly difficult explanations. In a way, it's easier, now that Meyer has some sense of the shape his early life took. He can say less about it and still be understood.

"No, that wasn't always the plan. I only decided that a little while after I started boarding school." After, in other words, his mother died and his father left him on his own.

"Before it was... oh, the usual stupid things boys want to be when they grow up. For years I wanted to be a cowboy." He smiles lopsidedly, shakes his head at his childish folly. "An astronaut. A, uh- a stage magician." It comes out easily enough. According to whatever vicissitudes there are that govern his moods, he finds it not all that hard, talking about his father in this context and at this moment, so he adds, "When he was around, my dad used to put on little magic shows. Coins behind your ear, rabbits out of hats, that kind of thing."

Strange, really; he's never talked to anyone about this kind of thing. "I also wanted to be a blue beret, like him and like Chuck's dad, only-" he hesitates, buries his hands in his pockets, not sure how to put this, to Meyer in particular "-what I didn't really get back then was that they weren't exactly just peace-keeping. I'm not... certain exactly what it was, but looking back I'm pretty sure he was, uh. Breaking more laws than he was enforcing. I'm pretty sure he was a smuggler, at the very least. It's not like he told me, exactly, but... kids notice more than people give them credit for. I just didn't understand it, until I got older."

"Children are often more perceptive than adults assume," he replies, and it's vague enough that he could be talking about anyone, not just him and Ned. There are certain things he and Ned have in common, and their childhoods, while different in terms of details, seem to have had similar effects on the both of them -- he can't say he understands what it's like to have the powers that Ned does, of course, but their reticence in getting close to people, their discomfort with disclosing facts about themselves, that, at least, they share.

"I have to say, I'm glad you ended up as a piemaker." It's partially selfish, since he gets to reap the benefits of Ned's work, but also partially pragmatic. It seems to make Ned happy. Ned doesn't strike him as the kind of person who's happy, in general. He can't imagine Ned as a stage magician, or as an astronaut (although, at the very least, he's begun to understand what an astronaut is, from his time here) and certainly not as a cowboy.

"The way I see it," he says, shrugging a little, "people in positions like that -- 'peace-keeping', anything to do with the law -- are crooked, more often than not. He probably was breaking quite a few laws."

It's a cynical viewpoint, but it's held true, in his experience. He's never met someone with any kind of governmental job that isn't solely out for themselves, that isn't just as bad as the criminals they say they're catching, that isn't breaking the laws they claim to enforce. It makes for good business, on his end, but he can imagine, that for people who live on the right side of the law more often than not, like Ned, realizing that about one's own father might be difficult.

"I'm glad I did, too."

It is, after all, the one thing Ned truly, unreservedly likes about himself. The one thing he's sure he's good at, the one way he knows he can make a difference in the world. He's had a limited opportunity to do that, in this place, and it eats away at him more than anyone other than River probably knows.

Though he's been quite candid with Meyer, there is more that he chooses not to say. He'd said that when he was very young he had wanted to grow up to be like his father. What he didn't say was that he revered the man in part (he realizes now) because he was so unpredictable: there one minute and gone the next, adoring and then indifferent by turns. He'd only just started to notice, but only later fully comprehend, the loneliness that it caused his mother.

Once he was at school, spending all his free time looking back, turning the memories over and over in his mind just to survive, he realized that his father was rarely there for her, or for him. His mother was the one who had raised him, done the thousand little things he wasn't properly aware of until they were gone. She'd loved him, fed him, clothed him, watched over him, corrected his mistakes and reprimanded him when she had to, answered his questions and taught him.

His father, he'd realized gradually as the years stretched on, was a bad person, who didn't deserve his love. If he wanted to grow up to be good, and try to atone a little for the bad things he'd done, he should make it his goal to be in every particular as much like his mother as he possibly could.

"More often than not," Ned agrees. His cynicism is not quite equal to Meyer's, but then again he's had less personal experience with the type. No reason to come across crooked politicians and law enforcers in his line of work, and if he did, he only knew them as customers. He also has a stronger sense of right and wrong than Meyer, even if it doesn't always correspond to the actual law. By the time he'd realized that his father must be some kind of criminal, he already despised him enough for other reasons that it didn't affect him much, one way or another.

It's not so much that he has a pressing desire to share his personal life with Ned that makes him speak about his childhood, but because Ned has been fairly candid with him in his discussions of what he wanted to grow up to be, and because thinking about his own childhood is far better than thinking about being trapped here. "My parents," he says, "were in continuous disagreement about what I should grow up to be."

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, still obviously uncomfortable with the whole ensemble -- and the fact that the only shoes he has here are the ones he'd been wearing at home, and they're incredibly formal doesn't help -- and shrugs, trying to quell the desire to reach for a cigarette. That's gotten a bit better, over time, but as long as people keep providing him with cigarettes every so often, he knows the cravings won't abate entirely. "My mother thought I should be an accountant."

That's probably a logical thought, really, and in some ways, he is an accountant, though perhaps not in the way his mother had desired. "Max--" and he still seems constitutionally incapable of saying ''my father," even if there's no venom behind his words when he speaks about him, "--wanted me to be a rabbi." Now that's utterly laughable, and it does make him laugh, quietly. His father had obviously never spent much time truly getting to know him, if he thought that would have been at all an appropriate calling.

"I think I would have been a mechanic." There's an unspoken "if" there, just as there probably is in Ned's life story. If things had been different, then perhaps the two of them would have embarked on entirely different lives. They might not be stuck here, trying to distract themselves, trying to ignore their own demons.

"A rabbi?" It earns a laugh from Ned, too, because they both know well by now one another's lack of faith and problems with their respective inherited religions. Ned tries to picture it, but he really can't. Accountant, yes. Mechanic, yes. But rabbi? About as ridiculous as imagining himself as a soldier or an astronaut is, now. If Meyer's father had wanted that, it is likely it was about his own ambitions and desires and ideas about what his family should be, rather than about Meyer at all.

"Why a mechanic?" Ned has to admit, it wasn't really what he was expecting. Like Meyer's mother, he would have thought accountant would be more appropriate. Perhaps mechanics had a slightly different social connotation, in Meyer's own time. Ned knows, in a vague way, that cars and other machines were far different in the 20s, that it would probably take a different sort of person to want to repair them.

"I know, it's not exactly the most prestigious job."

He takes Ned's seeming surprise for the same reaction his parents had given him, when he'd discussed that future career path as a child. They'd thought it was beneath him, somehow, a waste of the intelligence he so obviously possessed. Of course, he hadn't gone that route anyway, so perhaps it was all a moot point.

"I like to take things apart and figure out how they work. I like to put things back together and make them work better than they did before. I like cars, machines, that kind of thing. It's just a hobby, as it is."

It didn't matter, in the end. He hadn't become what his parents had wanted him to be, and he hadn't become what he'd once dreamed about as a child. But then, who did? He thought it was probably a very rare individual who truly lived out their childhood dreams, if they'd ever been allowed to have childhood dreams at all.

Ned smiles, a touch guiltily, when Meyer quickly intuits his thoughts and voices them aloud. He's not really one to judge, of course. Being a piemaker isn't exactly prestigious, either. It is according to his own system of values, but not objectively, not in the eyes of many.

When Meyer talks about why he thinks he would enjoy being a mechanic, however, it makes sense to Ned. He had never really thought of it in that light. It never occurred to him that it would be anything more than rote, boring maintenance, swapping out old parts for new ones, seeing the same problems over and over again until the tedium was unbearable. Then again, people might see his own job that way - to make pie after pie after pie, only to have them be eaten and start afresh the next day. But it's never been tedious, for Ned. So he may have been too quick to judge.

"I understand," he says, "I like cars and machines and that kind of thing, too. As a hobby." That wasn't the sort of thing they taught, at the Longborough School. There, anything that involved working with your hands was considered somewhat vulgar. But Ned had his own particular, somewhat neurotic reasons for always wanting to know how things worked, to take things apart and find out the way they worked. It had always been a bit of a substitute for being unable to do the same thing for himself: he'd found out how his powers worked, but never why. So to be able to solve other, simpler, tangible things was a substitute.

As they are making their way through the center of town, Ned says, "I've always liked making little gadgets. Last thing I was working on before I came here was a kind of hand at the end of a pole, with articulated fingers you can control with strings, for petting Digby." He realizes, with considerable surprise, that while he's spoken to Meyer about Digby, and while Meyer had seen him as a puppy in Ned's memory of learning to swim, he's not mentioned the fact that Digby isn't quite like other dogs. That detail had gotten wrapped up in Ned's general reticence about what happened on that day.

"He got hit by a truck, when I was a kid. He's the first one I ever brought back. That was-" he pauses, remembers as vividly as ever his shock, his confusion, his delight, "-a bit of a surprise. But it means that I can't actually touch him, so..." Thus the need for a mechanical hand at the end of a pole.

"You ever try to work on little gadgets around here?"

If he does, Meyer thinks, it goes without saying that he'd like to see them. Things have been so strange here, though, so very unlike what he's used to, that he hasn't had time to work on much of anything, and he doubts Ned has, either. It's been frustrating; fixing things or making things had been one of his surefire ways to quiet his mind and calm down, but around here, there simply aren't the resources to do it the way he'd like to. Back home, he could preoccupy himself for hours, just tinkering with any car he could get his hands on. It didn't matter whether he was trying to fix it or improve it, sometimes simply taking it apart and putting it back together was enough to quiet his mind.

"You've got a dog you can't touch that's been alive for, what, twenty years?"

If his tone sounds somewhere between amused and somewhat baffled, it is. He understands Ned's powers, or at least, he does in an abstract fashion. He knows, of course, that, assuming Ned doesn't touch Digby again, the dog could theoretically live forever. But it's difficult to imagine the measures Ned must go to to avoid touching the dog -- Meyer doesn't much care for dogs, himself, but he assumes that if he had a pet, there would be some amount of touching involved, even perfunctorily, when taking care of it. That Ned has managed to keep Digby around for so long without carelessly touching him and returning him to the dead is, he thinks, impressive. It shows how very meticulous and careful Ned is, something he's always instinctively recognized, but never been quite able to put his finger on.

"Not really." It hasn't really crossed Ned's mind to try. He could improvise anything intricate enough to help their chances for escape, or to really increase his quality of life. Besides, he'd been busy with other things. This place is such a strange mix of crisis and tedium. Perhaps he ought to pick it up again. It might be a good way to distract Meyer, in the days to come. Can't bake bread every day. He thinks that tomorrow he'll gather some supplies and see if he can't invent some silly machine with Meyer, to take his mind off Charlie.

"Pretty much, yes." Ned can hear the disbelief in Meyer's voice; he shrugs, smiling a little as he thinks about Digby, missing him with sudden fierceness. "It... takes a bit of work, but it's better than the alternative. He's been with me since the beginning. He found his way to the school all by himself, just to be with me." With a touch of sadness showing now, in his expression, in his voice, he adds, "He's the only thing I really miss."

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the needle's in hand but I cannot sew

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The amount of fact-checking I did for this tag is hilariously sad

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