mind_game | repealing

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.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"My name is Elspeth," says Elspeth. "And I know he's your son, and if it were just you maybe I'd leave him, but it's not just you. Is it."

"I don't know what you're trying to imply," she says frostily.

Elspeth cradles the baby Joker. "If I leave him here your husband will hurt him. Badly. Often. He's already started, just a little, and it will only get worse. The entire mess is overwhelmingly likely to end with you and your husband dead," she adds.

Judith stares for a long moment.

"I'm dreaming," she says at last, and she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

If you still want your son, in a few years, you can send an email, Elspeth sends her, it doesn't matter to where, saying so. And one of my friends will find it, and we'll talk about it then.

And she cues Jane, and she goes.

The baby Joker continues to sleep peacefully in her arms.

"Here he is," says Elspeth to the deck and peal. "I told his mother that she could send an email to anywhere in a few years, if she still wants him then, and we could talk about it. Also there will be no Voices coming from that world."

"Good," says Queenie.

"Names," murmurs Elspeth.

"Be prepared to have him decide he doesn't like it," says Queenie.

"But we can warn you off ones we know he's probably not gonna go for."

"Maybe something unisex. Or that's differently gendered depending on language maybe. Harley. Andrea."

"Those're cute," says the Joker. The other two retirees grin and nod.

"Should I bother with a last name?"

"If you feel like it," says the Joker.

She peers at the baby. "I'm not clear on whether I would do better to adopt him or just sort of - foster him."

"Am I going to be involved in some capacity here?" Jacob asks.

"Only when I'm asleep," Elsie says. "Which I can stop doing, if you'd rather."

"I realize the only constraint I explicitly put on you making me a grandmother was that I had to be at least forty-five, which I now am, but this is admittedly not how I expected it to go."

"And it'd be a little weird for him to have a Bell for a grandma," the Joker observes. "Y'know, considering." He makes a gesture that encompasses Kas, Micaiah, Jellybean, and Sue, who all happen to be standing next to one another.

Elspeth nods. "When the empire started up, not all the vampires could remember their original last names, if they ever had any. It's not like the Imperial software will break if I don't put anything in. Harley Andrea, no last name."

"Fine by me," says the Joker, to general agreement from the rest.

Elspeth conjures up a baby sling and tucks Harley into it. "All right then."

"Cute kid," says the Joker. "Good luck with his childhood."

"Thanks," says Elspeth. "Do you want me to avoid having him around you too much while he's little?"

"Yeah, that's a good plan."

"Will do." And she wanders away.

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