entrancelogs | open » please don't be a stranger in my place

Entry tags:

open » please don't be a stranger in my place

Who: Peggy Carter + YOU
Where: Mansion grounds + the 'Palace'
When: August 25th to 27th
Rating: PG13ish
Summary: Peggy struggles with spatial anomalies, with the universe being bigger than she thought it was, and with life in general. Will match prose/brackets.
The Story:

( DAY ONE )

Even after the announcement made by Darcy and Steve, Peggy Carter isn't looking to stay a homebody. Not least of all because somehow (somewhere) in all this spatial mess, she's gone and misplaced one of the very few items brought with her from home. (Home! What a funny concept, just now!)

So, she's on the hunt. It's not an easy endeavor. Quite apart from striding into the kitchen and ending up in the music room, or entering a stairwell only to find herself standing in mild bewilderment in the middle of someone else's bedroom, it seems she can't quite manage to get back to her own quarters without ending up in the lake.

That's right: in the lake. And so if someone doesn't catch her misdirected elsewhere, they might come across Peggy as she's stalking her way back to the mansion with her heels in hand and her clothes soaked through. The unexpected dip has forced her curls undone and her makeup to run. By the stormy look on her face, it's entirely possible this isn't the first time she's made this particular and sodden walk. Little does she know, she's got a lot to be thankful for. At least the lake hasn't taken to freezing yet.

All she damn well wants is to get back to her bedroom.

( DAY ONE + TWO )

With a bit of charity from a fellow resident, she may yet manage to make it through this event with (most) of her dignity intact. Incapable of making it back to her bedroom, Peggy is forced to rely upon the kindness of (near) strangers. It's a position she hates to be in, but it's entirely possible she'll be knocking on your door with a quick and sheepish request to make use of your closet. I'll only be a moment. Hand to heart. She promises with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. Good Lord, this is humiliating. Begging, hand to mouth, while dripping lake water all over someone's doorway.

The Asgardian garb isn't really her style, but it's any port in a storm -- and until she can make it back to her own wardrobe, she might as well make do and mend. And if the whole ruddy place is meant to be so transformed into a palace then perhaps she may as well look the part. Albeit under duress.

( DAY THREE )

-- But it becomes soon apparent that she's not wholly herself in these fabrics and armours. Never great at sitting still, it now feels like tenfold a challenge not to rush to the threatened defenses and do something about it. At first, she tries to resist the siren's call to arms. And when she does begin to wander the palace, she tells herself it's because she's curious about this place that shares some metaphysical connection (apparently) with her own home-world. She can be found leaning her cheek against the warm walls with interest, or tracing the impossible architecture of an arched doorway.

"--Must've taken ages to knock together something like this. Touch more ambitious than Hampton Court. And that's saying something," she comments to passers-by.

But in the end it's with relief that she finally manages to access her own room again -- keen to peel away the alien fashion and find herself a proper pencil skirt again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gotta be honest, I didn't exactly plan it that way -- but once I heard about what was going on with some others I thought it was better I stay here.

[not that she needs an excuse to hang around her boyfriend's room more than he does, sometimes.]

He has a few other books lying around if you want to hole up here for a while with one -- don't feel like you have to talk to me or anything.

[ the polite thing would be to ask wynonna whether she believes her boyfriend would mind. but peggy abandons the polite thing because -- already -- she suspects there's no line to be crossed. doc himself had given her the address in case she needed to talk, and although peggy hadn't intended to ever make good on that offer...?

well. she's here now. ]

I'm not opposed to a bit of conversation. [ books are grand, but she has a taste for puzzling out people. ]

[wynonna doesn't even stop to think whether it would bother doc or not that she's inviting someone else to hang out in his room for a while, boundaries are not always her strong suit. of course she also doesn't realize peggy is someone doc not only knows but has told his secret to.]

Sure. I could talk.

[she's not adverse to it, anyway.]

[ and then, perhaps, two individuals at first blush ill-suited to each others' sense of decorum are left looking at one another under duress of circumstances none too ideal.

even so, she can stomach it. ]

Have you, [ a clearing of her throat, ] been here long?

[wynonna has certainly stomached worse -- she doesn't tend to give a lot of thought in the impression she makes on people -- mostly because people in Purgatory have already formed notions about her -- she forgets that that isn't true here. no one knows her history here, she's not a social pariah.

what a novel concept.]

Not really, almost two months. And you?

Nearly four.

[ -- so! a touch longer than. although peggy suspects she's not made herself near as comfortable in the mansion as wynonna seems to have managed. she'd envy that settled state if she wasn't in such a perturbed mood.

peggy tries to play it off with a shrug. ] Although it hardly feels like it.

It can be a weird place to adjust to.

[wynonna knows she probably shouldn't be as comfortable as she is, she should be trying harder to get home to her sister and the curse and everything else but there's a novelty to wonderland that is greatly appealing to her. in purgatory, for better or for worse (usually worse) everyone knew who she was and tended to have opinions about her that she couldn't control. she was the earp heir. the town pariah. here she could just be wynonna, something she hasn't had since she's returned to her home town.]

Are you the only one from your world?

[though she's never verbalized it completely out loud wynonna knows her adjustment here also would never have been as smooth had she been left completely to her own devices.]

Not at all.

[ and every time she says it, the concept gets a little easier to articulate. it's been a hard-won acceptance, and she doubts it'll ever settle into comfort. the circumstances are too bizarre and the historical knowledge held by anyone from decades onward is too personal. ]

Indeed, there's a whole slew from the same spot. But I only know two of them personally.

I only have Henry here.

[had waverly or someone else been here with them maybe things would have progressed differently than they have, it's something both she and doc have alluded to before.

in contrast, for wynonna, having less people here means for once there isn't people who knows too much of personal history without knowing her.]

It'd be a lot harder without him here, I got lucky that we arrived at the same time.

[why are you saying things to strangers you've barely said to him?]

Have they been here longer than you?

They have, yes. Some of them for quite some time. [ which is its own problem in some cases -- but nowhere near the sort of thing she's prepared to discuss. ] But the real issue comes in the differences back home. I lag some seventy years behind the rest.

That must be hard -- I can't imagine having that kinda gap. I know Doc is still adjusting to the modern era but at least we're on the same page. ish.

[wynonna you were doing so well. this is why he doesn't always tell you things,
you're bad at keeping your mouth shut]

[ -- a flicker. nearly a smile. but beyond it, she doesn't draw any deeper attention to wynonna's slip. peggy could recount how bizarre it had been to meet a man claiming to be from the 21st century but with no knowledge of the second world war, but she doesn't.

she gives the woman her plausible deniability. after all, the man -- no matter the name -- is still a doctor. doc can still be explained away, if she wants to try. ]

1947. [ she volunteers, almost as a way to slide off the tricky ground of wynonna's failed secrecy. ] For me, I mean. It was 1947 when I left. Back home.

1947. [something clicks in wynonna's mind -- recently doc had pointed out how they had messed up and not filled him in on the world wars, he's been reading up on them...]

You've met him before, haven't you? Doc, I mean. He's taken a recent interest in the World Wars.

[ busted. ]

I have. I did. [ and now that it's said, she eases her way into the truth. ] It's how I realized he'd been lying about his circumstances: I references the war and he hadn't the foggiest.

[ and then she'd promised to keep it all to herself -- even, it seems, in the face of his girlfriend. only now that it's made explicit does she drop the act. ]

Didn't realize this was his room, however.

He got on my case about that recently -- not filling him in on that. To be fair, there wasn't always a lot of time to catch him up on things back home.

[also wynonna, and he rest of their group, was pretty neglectful when it came to remembering how out of place doc was in the world. hell, wynonna never even figured him out for herself, he had to explicitly tell her who he was unlike the rest of their group.

there's small, petty relief at the knowledge that the other woman hadn't known about his room, at least. unlike that pretty blonde she had seen exit before she and doc made sense of things together]

Good. [a beat. ] I mean, I don't think he's telling a lot of people where his room is. He's kinda a private guy.

[ and then perhaps it's a good thing that peggy doesn't go on to clarify that she'd known the room number -- that doc had offered it up to her like a comfort, as a place where she might find a soul with whom she might commiserate. but having been somehow transported here instead? well, peggy wasn't to know that this room corresponded to that floor.

details. silly, unimportant details. ]

I suppose I owe you an apology. In that case. [ if she's the one that catalyzed the man getting on wynonna's case. ]

[yes, probably for the best. there's a reason why doc didn't mention how he had learned about the world wars, he knows how wynonna can get. she can be a little unreasonable, sometimes.]

It's not your fault -- I just didn't know how he had learned about them.

We didn't discuss them. Not much. Didn't really seem like appropriate conversation for a first impression.

[ not least of all because it's more than mere strokes of history for her. she's seen those fronts; she's been on them. she's fought and she's lost in the mud, and although not every thought of the war is a sour one she knows better than to start chatting about it with just any old stranger. ]

We did talk a little bit about his work. [ peggy offers, wondering if this woman is the same colleague alluded to in that conversation. ]

He talked about Black Badge?

[that is his most recent work -- and she knows he has told other people that they're US Marshalls]

We're both US Marshalls. [ Wynonna puffs her chest out a little.]

You probably don't know this but I'm kind of a big deal back home. I'm the Earp heir. There's a curse. It's a whole thing.

[ the irony nearly makes her smile. peggy is, herself, something of a 'big deal' back home -- but only to the people who come after, the souls some seventy years ahead of her representing the lion's share of residents from her world. whatever she might think of anyone being the 'earp heir' or 'cursed' or what have you, she manages to shrug it off.

she knows the burden of recognition, now; she wouldn't wish it on anyone else. ]

Marshals, yes. [ peggy therefore decides it's relatively harmless to tell wynonna what she told doc. ] I haven't got my credentials with me, but I'm a fellow federal agent.

[ different agency, no doubt. and certainly a bit of an oddity considering she's not a u.s. national. but so it goes. ]

[Wynonna has always been well known, for better or for worse, usually for worse. she was the town pariah for things that happened in her childhood, things that never would happened in the first place if it weren't for the curse put on wyatt's family.]

Wouldn't of pegged you for one, what with the accent and all.

[but she supposes stranger things have happened. no one ever thinks wynonna is a marshall just because of her...everything...]

The war made for unconventional bedfellows. [ or perhaps not so unconventional at all, really. ] I found myself attached to an American outfit at the time -- and I suppose the attachment stuck.

Sometimes that's just how things work out -- connections you aren't expecting stick.

[when dolls first blackmailed her into joining Black Badge she hadn't thought much of it, she figured it wouldn't last and now their whole group are members -- well not by choice they were forced into signing blood oaths but still.]

I suppose one might call it a comfort. [ she says with a cocked head. ] The way some things never change.

[ inconvenient connections, sticking. it's a mild invitation for wynonna to expand upon the thought, but with just enough wiggle room to let her off the hook if she's disinterested in doing so. ]

I dunno, some things could use changing in my opinion -- but my town is a little set in it's way. [like cursed set in them -- but that much is going to change, one way or another wynonna is going to end that curse and all of the terrible cycles it perpetuates in purgatory. a cheeky grin spreads across her lips]

Some things that haven't changed aren't so bad though. [you know, like immortal gunslingers who knew your great great grandpa.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject