happy birthday

[rangerbecket]

WHO: Raleigh Becket
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 11 December
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: none
STATUS: yes

---

It had taken Raleigh most of the day to realize that it was his birthday but, in his defense, the place doesn't really have clocks or calendars. Since arriving, he's been keeping track of the days as best he can and the best he can figure, it's December 11th. That's his birthday and the weather certainly fits with it so he guesses, for all intents and purposes, he's twenty eight now.

He never expected to make it to twenty eight. Jaeger pilots don't exactly have long life expectancy and the way the world had been going before he came here, Raleigh didn't think he'd be living very long. He'd been working top of the wall for top rations and there still wasn't ever enough food; coming here meant good food even if he'd had to work just as hard for it. Twenty eight is a luxury. He wishes he could have a cake or something but he doesn't think he's had a birthday cake since he was a teenager, or something, and he's about ninety percent sure there's not any flour or sugar for such a thing. Still, he's hopeful, so he's stuck his head in the kitchen a couple times in hopes of spotting Kate to ask her. He can make it himself, he knows how to cook, and he's perfectly willing to share it.

He just wants something to mark the day, if he can, so around dinner time he finally gets in the kitchen with his catch for the day and starts working on cooking it. It's a little more than he usually ever cooks for himself but he wants to eat with other people today, share a meal and some conversation, and he's got a smile and a kind word for anyone who happens upon him. He hopes he's not in Kate's way, either, because he knows the kitchen is her domain (and she's good at it). He just wants something special for his birthday.

"Think you could help me lay out the plates?" he asks, not sure who's ducked their head in.

Comments

[rangerbecket]

"It's actually my birthday," Raleigh admits. It's a little awkward, to cook for his own birthday but he doesn't mind sharing a meal with everyone else. It's good to be able to give Kate a night off, after all, since she does so much for everyone around here. He knows the kitchen's her domain and he defers to it as much as anyone but even she needs a break sometimes.

"If you can just lay out the plates, I'll get the food out of the oven and we can start eating. I wanted to eat with everyone else and not feel so lonely today."

[womanofvalue]

It's a lovely idea and she feels awful that they don't have the ability to celebrate properly and take him out to a pub or to buy him a proper gift, but in a way, a good meal and some togetherness is just as good. Peggy starts to set out the plates, wondering when her birthday even falls in a place like this. "How did you know it was today?" she asks, because a calendar is something that she's been sorely missing.

"And how old are you?" she asks warmly, eager to find out.

[rangerbecket]

"I had to guess. I've been counting days since I got here, so based on when I left home...it'd be today. Today would be December the 11th. So if it is December the 11th, and the weather definitely fits it, then I'd be 28 today."

He grins at her. "Happy birthday to me?"

[womanofvalue]

"Older than me, then," she teases, though it's not like she's been keeping track, so somewhere in there she must have turned another year older. Still, if that's the case, Raleigh's still got her beat by a year seeing as she'd only be 27, at this point. "Happy birthday," she says warmly. "I didn't get you anything, unfortunately the shops were closed," she jokes and looks around the room to see if there's anything that she could even pick up in the room to present to him.

"My company will just have to do."

[rangerbecket]

"Well, your company will do just fine," Raleigh promises. "I just like the idea of not spending time alone on my birthday."

It's been a long time since he's had company at all on his birthday so getting to mark the day with a friend is enough. "So, if it's not rude to ask, how old are you, Peggy?"

[womanofvalue]

"I'm a ripe twenty-six years old," she announces. "At least, I think I am. That's assuming that April has passed, but given that it was early spring before I arrived here, I'm fairly sure that we've gone and passed my birthday, making me twenty six and younger than you," she jokes, unable to help herself slightly. She finishes setting the places and regards him, not minding the rudeness of the question. "Honestly, I don't think I've celebrated any of my birthdays since before the war," she says.

"Something else was always more important, generally." And then, in New York City, in 1946, all she'd been doing was missing Steve and the purpose she'd lost, as if her whole life had been struck from her in a fell swoop.

[rangerbecket]

"Well, you are a beautiful twenty six," Raleigh says, grinning at her. "And hopefully many more, God willing, and maybe not all of them in this place."

While he enjoys Peggy's presence here in the village he hopes - along with most others, he thinks, that they can get home someday. If that's the case, he hopes Peggy can get home and celebrate her birthdays with someone special.

[womanofvalue]

"Praise will earn you everything, Mr. Becket," Peggy assures him, quite pleased with the remark even though she doesn't think that she would ever consider herself vain, precisely. There's something lovely to think about that she doesn't look as old as she feels inside, which is ancient, some days. "It's already been half a year," she shares. "Or close to it, as far as I can tell without calendars. How much longer do you think we'll be stuck here?"

Her temporary prison is becoming far more permanent looking by the day.

[rangerbecket]

"Don't know," Raleigh admits. "It seems like it's becoming permanent, isn't it? And yet, some people have disappeared on us. Have to wonder how they've managed to get out of here and we're still stuck."

Raleigh hasn't really tried too hard to climb out; he's taken the word of Peggy and some of the others who have tried that it's just impossible. "I just worry the longer we're here, the harder it's gonna be to get out, you know?"

[womanofvalue]

"Maybe they didn't vanish so lightly," she shares. "Maybe they were taken," she suggests. In the same way that they all seem to arrive here, she has to wonder if maybe they aren't also being taken away if they don't suit a purpose or aren't working. Should she be trying to become one of those people? Honestly, she doesn't know anymore.

"I know," she agrees as she sinks into her chair, confirming Raleigh's concerns of escaping, "I don't think I'm getting sedentary, but my frustrations keep mounting."

[rangerbecket]

"If they were taken, were they taken back home? Were they taken to another place just like this? I know when I've talked with Riza, she's been in a place like this before," Raleigh explains.

"So if that's the case, where are the other places like this? How do you get to them from here? There's a hell of a lot of questions I want answered and sitting here and passing time is something that isn't going to get them answered, you know?"

[womanofvalue]

"I have to hope that they were taken back home and not to some ungodly additional stage this place has in store," she says, her eyes wide. "But still, what I don't understand is that James Barnes was here and vanished, but he came back different. Older, hurt," she says, her eyes wide with empathy to think of what happened to the man. "But Ren, he came back nearly precisely the same," she shares.

"So then, is it pain and torture awaiting us? Or simply a waiting space? Or do we go home until we do something that earns us a spot back here?" And, now, realizing what she sounds like, she gives Raleigh an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, this isn't really birthday talk, is it?"

[rangerbecket]

"It's not, no, but it's important," Raleigh says. He reaches out and touches her hand, tries to let her know that he doesn't mind having the conversation even if it is his birthday. Peggy is one of the people he trusts the most in this place, along with Riza, and he doesn't want to table the talk if it's important to her.

"I trust you, Peggy. There's a few people here that I really trust. You. Riza. Sansa? The three of you? I would trust you with anything," he says. "But it makes me worry. Why bring us so close and hold us here?"

[womanofvalue]

"There must be something they want, either what we can do or what we know or what we've been through," she reasons, because between her and Steve alone, they probably have enough to somehow restart Project Rebirth, which is a terrifying prospect that she doesn't want to linger too long on, given what it might do if the wrong people got their hands on it.

She's been a soldier and a spy for so long that her mind gravitates to such thoughts with far too much ease. "What if this place is some sort of secret mining facility? Weaken us, soften us up, and get the information they're after."

[rangerbecket]

"I've got a lot of knowledge about the PPDC and how the Ranger Corps work. I don't know if it's relevant to this place, there's no ocean, but it's military training. Still, that's not everyone. Sansa doesn't have any military training."

If anything, she's from a medieval world that has nothing like he and Peggy have in the way of tech. Even he's way ahead of Peggy. What would they hope to achieve by holding someone here like Sansa Stark?

"She's just a girl. That's the part that doesn't make sense."

[womanofvalue]

"Don't underestimate anyone," Peggy warns, seeing as if anyone had talked about her at that age as 'just a girl', they were missing a great deal. It also triggers an idea in her head. "Maybe it's not about what we've done, in some cases, but rather what we're going to do," she says. "What if, at some point, she's meant to do something large and looming and important. Perhaps this is a training place for some, perhaps we're supposed to be the ones to ready them," she says, as wild a theory as any of the others she's had.

That's the trouble with all of this. It's just theorizing because there's no actual evidence that she can use to back any of this up. She could have wild theories about aliens wanting them here for nothing more than observation purposes and it would have every bit as much evidence as any other theory, which is just beyond baffling and ridiculous.

[rangerbecket]

"I could see her being meant for something like that. She's got an important family - both her brothers were kings. She's basically a princess. So if she's got something important to do when she gets back home," Raleigh says, "Maybe it is training."

He shrugs. The more they talk it out, the more questions they come up with and it's frustrating to never seem to find the end of the thread. "I don't know. I know one thing, though. I want to find out where the ones that disappeared ended up."

[womanofvalue]

"Yes, that's the alarming part," is Peggy's calm, somewhat dire agreement, given that it's not like any of the potential options as to where they've gone are pretty. It seems like the possibilities could range to the awful and it's telling that she barely even considers the notion that they simply returned home. Strangely, Peggy doesn't see this place as something that will gladly and easily send you home with a pat on the back. "It seems a great number of people are quite important here," she notes.

"You're fighting a war to help prevent the world from ending, Sansa is a princess, there are any number of heroes. I'm afraid I break that pattern," she says. "I can hardly be called critical to any timeline." At least, not a larger one, though she suspects Howard's timeline would be immensely harmed without her.

[rangerbecket]

"Doubt that, Peggy. You've got to be important, somehow," Raleigh argues.

"Because I don't think you'd be here otherwise. Maybe everyone here is important in some way - is meant to do something great or is in the midst of doing something great. Maybe that's the key."

[womanofvalue]

"My time is over," she says, because she'd saved the day time and time again, but she had been in a lull and it had been quiet. "I stopped the threat, I gave my contributions, and in the end, I did more harm than good," she says, accusatory with herself as she thinks of what happened to poor Jason Wilkes and Ana Jarvis and how Mr. Jarvis hadn't been exactly wrong when he'd pointed out that everyone around her died.

Maybe it's for the best that she is here, maybe she's meant to be here to stay out of trouble.

[rangerbecket]

"I find it really hard to believe that someone as young as you is done contributing," Raleigh argues.

"Maybe you don't know what's around the corner for you yet but this place does and that's why it's brought you here. Maybe that's why you're stuck here? There's something great for you out there and this place is keeping you from it."

[womanofvalue]

"Well, if that's the case, then I'm even angrier," she says, thinking that Raleigh is probably right. Isn't that what Natasha had alluded to, in their conversations? She'd started an agency that led to some very good things, but unfortunately, some very bad ones too, given what she's been told about Zola and his involvement in Barnes' life.

"Sometimes, I feel very old," she confesses. "Do you get that? That the war has worn you down and you feel decades older than you are?"

[rangerbecket]

"I feel like that all the time," Raleigh agrees. "I feel like the world's changed around me and I'm still here, still fighting even though I don't have that much left in me to fight."

He gives Peggy a smile and reaches for her hand, touching it lightly. "We're the type to keep fighting, though."

[womanofvalue]

"Only because if we didn't, I'm honestly not sure what I'd do with my time," she says, trying to make light of his words, but he's right. She needs to keep fighting even if it drains her and robs her of her youth. If she doesn't, she's only going to end up regretting it in the end. "And besides, you don't look half bad for your age," she teases.

"Maybe there's some hope for me, two years from now."

[rangerbecket]

"I'll be sure to let you know if my knees start going out or something due to the ravages of age," Raleigh teases, grinning at her. It's just two years but for people like them, two years can be a lifetime.

Two years in the life of a jaeger pilot is at least four to six encounters with kaiju - four to six brushes with death at any given moment. It's a hell of a lot to think about.

"I think you'll age better."