(no subject)

[simon_doctor]

When Simon and Kaylee step through the door into his parents' house, it's just after sunset. There's enough time to bring their overnight bag up to the guest room, and to exchange a few quiet words with his mother, before the aircar arrives. Kaylee gives him a quick, tight hug on the doorstep, and murmurs I'll be right here when you get back. It'll be hours past midnight before he gets back, too late to wake either of his parents to walk them home.

Even by private semiballistic, it takes the better part of two hours to get from New Mayfair to Cortez. Simon spends the time trying to read, but keeps finding himself staring unseeing at a page of the medical journal or at the curvature of the planet below, his mind worlds away. Years away.

When the car lands in Cortez, pulling up outside the gates of the Whitakers' lakeside house, it's a few minutes to noon.

* * *

People sit in rows of folding chairs on the lakeshore, quiet and somber in the formal black or white of mourning, facing the small podium that's been set up under a tree. Dunash and Ksenya are seated four rows back, and there's an empty seat next to Dunash that they've been saving for him.

It's a short service: a few short speeches, a ritual scattering of the ashes, a long moment of silence. A handful of mourners come forward to place stones or flowers on the podium, or to light incense sticks in the sand in front of it.

Afterwards, in the Whitakers' parlor, there's time to talk. And to exchange condolences.

Comments

[walk_ins]

Their social circles are not small; it's no real surprise to Dunash that Ksenya finds one of her acquaintances across the room and moves to make small talk.

Which leaves Dunash to turn to Simon. Simply: "I am very glad you were able to make it."

[simon_doctor]

"So am I," he says quietly. "Though the circumstances...."

He trails off, shaking his head.

[walk_ins]

"Could be better," Dunash supplies, lifting his head to glance around the room. "Still. It is a beginning."

[simon_doctor]

Pause.

"That's an odd way to look at it," he says slowly. "Beginning of what?"

[walk_ins]

There's an odd smile that Dunash gets when he feels as though he's done something worthy of smugness -- never quite smug, and not quite pleased; more rueful than anything else. "You know I followed the feeds. I might have also made some inquiries among our friends to see who wrote, afterward."

[simon_doctor]

Simon's smile is equally rueful. "I see."

Pause.

"What did they say? About ... the situation?"

[walk_ins]

"That it explained a few things." There was water, on the table; Dunash poured himself a glass. Now he glances down at the glass in his hands. "Rika and Terence were preparing for their first child, at the time. I shouldn't be too surprised that you did not hear from them, if I were you."

Which leaves Liz and Jordie, of course.

[simon_doctor]

"...I didn't know," he says, startled -- and not sure why. "And did, did they...?"

He glances across the room at Rika and Terence, speaking quietly with Liz's mother.

[walk_ins]

Dunash follows Simon's glance -- and waits for him to finish the question.

[simon_doctor]

"They had their first child?" he finishes, looking back at Dunash.

[walk_ins]

He nods. "Estella Li. She turned two not too terribly long ago. -- and she does go by Li. In case it should come up."

[simon_doctor]

"That's wonderful," he says softly, smiling -- and if there's a pang (oh, there is), he manages to keep it small and hidden.

[walk_ins]

"I believe the plan was to leave her with Terence's parents for the duration of their trip -- they've settled on Sihnon."

Dunash's gaze drifts down to the lake, where there's one very tall figure lingering by the shoreline. His mouth tightens, just a little.

[walk_ins]

One person is, of course, still out by the lake -- where else would he be, all six-foot-seven of him (and still thin as a rail), cigarette in hand? Nice people don't smoke indoors.

Of course, Jordie stopped smoking years ago. Nasty habit for a doctor. And he did promise Liz about fifteen years ago, but like a lot of other things, that tended to slip by the wayside. Besides, he figures he deserves just one. It's been a rough couple of weeks.

"This one's for you," he mutters.

[simon_doctor]

Eventually there's someone else out there too, footsteps crunching on the gravel.

Simon doesn't say anything at first, just comes to a stop a few feet away.

[walk_ins]

"I thought I saw you," Jordie says after a long several seconds, after tilting his head to the side (away from Simon) and letting out a long plume. "Do you want one?"

[simon_doctor]

"No," he says, "thank you."

Beat.

I thought you quit, he doesn't say.

[walk_ins]

There's a dinghy out on the lake. An empty one. "You think that's supposed to be symbolic?" Jordie nods out at the boat. "I mean, it probably slipped its moorings, but doesn't that make it even better? If you're into that sort of thing."

[simon_doctor]

"Maybe." He studies the boat. "Though if it wasn't done deliberately, I don't know if you can say it's supposed to be symbolic...."

[walk_ins]

Jordie waves the hand with the cigarette with absent force. "Come on, Tam, like you never stared at some kind of tableau and wondered how come it fit like that. Are you planning on lecturing me on the cigarette?"

He doesn't sound like he cares too much. More like he's curious.

[simon_doctor]

"I hadn't planned on it, no." He almost says would you like me to? -- it's the kind of thing he might have said years ago, back at the MedAcad, when everything was normal.

He doesn't.

[walk_ins]

"It's appreciated." He draws on it -- it's getting close to the filter. (He wonders, briefly, if he should take up chain-smoking.) "So appreciated that I won't ask you how come it takes a funeral to get you to show your face around here. I like being generous. A generous man. Dr. Llewellyn Jordan: A Generous Man." Jordie's talking with his hands, as though framing the concept. "It sounds like a really wretched one-man show. There goes that idea."

[simon_doctor]

It sounds like an epitaph. Simon tries to banish that thought.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around," he says, low. "I, I didn't know...."

Didn't know if I'd be welcome. Didn't know Liz was dying.

[walk_ins]

"I said I wouldn't ask, Simon." Now, for the first time, Jordie turns to look at Simon, hooded eyes dark with darker circles under. He hasn't been sleeping much. "Of course, it's different if you're telling, isn't it."

[simon_doctor]

"Honestly, there isn't a lot to tell. Just ... misunderstandings, I think."

He makes himself meet those eyes. "It doesn't matter. I'm still sorry."