repealing

[mind_game]

Time has passed.

Inconsistently.

Jane's network has kept all the Bells' worlds - and every other world with a Janepoint stuck in due to its being attached to Downside - in temporal sync, but when Jane spluttered for just a moment, that was shot to hell.

Peace lost three seconds, because it was where Aegis torched; after that process was complete, Jane was there again. And as soon as a door between Peace and Milliways appeared, she could sync to her ansible hub in the Belltower and, from there, to everywhere else.

Atlantis and Sunshine each stand at about a minute apiece: Shell Bell's aura and Juliet's local copy of Jarvis both enabled them to get to Milliways immediately, pausing their homeworlds as standard for occasions when someone walks into the bar. Shell Bell's the one who connected Peace.

Everyone else was running on luck.

Luckiest is Rainbow, which lost only five hours.

Next is Alethia; in spite of Sherlock's mishap, it's fared reasonably well, spending only six weeks isolated.

Syntropy's just a little worse - seven weeks.

Origin waited two months.

Eos waited three.

Thilanushinyel, ten.

Everyone else is out a decade at least. Samaria's ten years, almost ten and a half.

Aurum is out eleven.

Rêverie has been separated for sixteen years.

All the Bells - and Elspeth, who was stuck in Downside for a day and a half on her end and whose mother was very upset - are collected in the Belltower, as are two Bell-attached Sherlocks who happened to be along for the ride. They all memorize this list of numbers. Aegis replaces her earpiece. And then they all go home to notify their loved ones and staff that there's a party cooking in the Belltower.

(Shell Bell, who has no particular cause on her own account to be distressed, sends her Sherlock to invite Tony in while she refits the Belltower to suit a party of a peal of Bells and their larger-than-last-encountered families and circles of friends.)

Comments

[self_composed]

"Helping you do what?"

[pumpkin_pie]

"Start conversations. I'm really bad at it," she says self-consciously.

[self_composed]

"Did you want to talk to me, then?"

[pumpkin_pie]

"Ki...ind of," she says. "I'm Aedyt. —Which you know already, because nametags."

[self_composed]

"Yeah. I'm gonna guess - Kerron's little sister? What'd you want to talk about?"

[poeticterms]

[We... have been thinking about it,] says Sunshine's original. [We aren't sure.]

[mind_game]

[How come?]

[pumpkin_pie]

"Kerron's little sister," she agrees. "The Joker's daughter. Who grew up on stories of how he met Dad, but never actually talked to you, and - I don't know, I just wanted to... see what you're like, I guess?"

[poeticterms]

He doesn't answer immediately.

[self_composed]

"I'm an approximately prototypical Bell," shrugs Stella. "Not far off from Golden except for vampire stuff."

[mind_game]

Jane waits. (On one level of attention. Others spin off to do other tasks.)

[pumpkin_pie]

"I've never actually talked to her majesty either," says Aedyt.

[self_composed]

"Really? Huh. Okay."

[pumpkin_pie]

"She's not very sociable without her princess. Is what I'm told, anyway, the princess has been gone longer than I've been alive, so I've never seen her majesty any other way."

[poeticterms]

[It's complicated,] he says eventually.

[self_composed]

"Well, now she's got her kid back, that should help."

[mind_game]

[Howso?]

[pumpkin_pie]

"I guess."

[self_composed]

"Why me, with a dozen of us running around? Or - no, on reflection that's obvious, I'm the one who happened to run into your mum before we knew much about the template and put him on an asteroid."

[poeticterms]

[I'm not sure how to explain.]

[pumpkin_pie]

"Yes," says Aedyt. "Yeah, that's - yeah."

[self_composed]

"You want me to explain myself? I think my reasoning's pretty well known, but maybe you haven't happened to hear it."

[pumpkin_pie]

"I've heard Mum's version," says Aedyt. "I think I want yours."

[mind_game]

[Oh.] Pause. [I suppose I could assure you that being in lots of universes is fun, but that's probably not it, is it?]

[self_composed]

"What's his version?" inquires Stella.