[ there is no inkling, no slightest hunch, about what's happening in his brain. it's as if peggy can see just deep enough to diagnose the problem -- a failure to chart time, a disregard for routine, the sort of listlessness that had him coming to her door when he damn well shouldn't have -- but not so deep that she can recognize the root causes.
perhaps she bigs him up in her thoughts. perhaps she refuses to imagine him as ever being quite so vulnerable as he ever was. it's a dangerous bias she carries, towards strength and reason and perseverance. or maybe she merely hopes a nudge is all he needs to go back to who he used to be. after all, she'd never had her heart quite so broken as the day she realized how much seventy-some years had changed someone else; surely, a mere year is entirely recoverable.
peggy maintains her lead. she dances him through the small unoccupied space in his room, between desk and table and shelf and bed, with as much confidence as if they had a whole ballroom to themselves. but without music, without rip leading them with meticulous precision, the steps get sloppier. confident, but careless. and soon after his little kiss, they're left doing nothing more than swaying hanging off one another. ]
Peggy's orders.
[ she settles on an old phrase, one that hasn't been uttered much since her time with the howlies. but they'd always known what it meant: here is a position from which she won't budge, and from which they shouldn't deviate. where everything else might be negotiable, this wasn't. and it's confirmation that what he says is true -- he doesn't have much (or any) choice. ]
no subject
perhaps she bigs him up in her thoughts. perhaps she refuses to imagine him as ever being quite so vulnerable as he ever was. it's a dangerous bias she carries, towards strength and reason and perseverance. or maybe she merely hopes a nudge is all he needs to go back to who he used to be. after all, she'd never had her heart quite so broken as the day she realized how much seventy-some years had changed someone else; surely, a mere year is entirely recoverable.
peggy maintains her lead. she dances him through the small unoccupied space in his room, between desk and table and shelf and bed, with as much confidence as if they had a whole ballroom to themselves. but without music, without rip leading them with meticulous precision, the steps get sloppier. confident, but careless. and soon after his little kiss, they're left doing nothing more than swaying hanging off one another. ]
Peggy's orders.
[ she settles on an old phrase, one that hasn't been uttered much since her time with the howlies. but they'd always known what it meant: here is a position from which she won't budge, and from which they shouldn't deviate. where everything else might be negotiable, this wasn't. and it's confirmation that what he says is true -- he doesn't have much (or any) choice. ]