manwithaplan: (Default)
Steve Rogers ([personal profile] manwithaplan) wrote2013-04-24 06:43 pm
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Don't let anybody know that it's hard to live in the city.

Steve had never lacked for purpose before. It was a luxury few young men ever saw back in his day, so great was the need for soldiers. He knew that he wasn't alone; readjusting to civilian life was always a challenge, and there were some who never quite managed, but he had never imagined that he would be one of them. It made a twisted sort of sense, though: he had been just a kid, then, so determined to prove himself that he'd never spared a moment to consider what might follow once he'd achieved that goal.

Well, there was time to spare for that now. In fact, he found himself wandering the city often these days, either in the name of reconnoissance or in search of something (he wasn't entirely sure what). Today, it was both, but he stopped at the café when he recognized the woman from the park.

"Excuse me, miss," he greeted her, stopping near the edge of her table. "I'm not sure if you'll remember me, we met in the park a while ago? I'm sorry for not introducing myself then; my name is Steve."
adifferentlife: (conversation - i wonder)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-04-28 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
For once Sybil is not studying at the cafe, but simply enjoying a cup of tea in a bid to relax and try to simply enjoy her spare time. It's been a hard thing for her as of late. Ever since her time in that other Darrow she's worked hard to fill each moment; afraid of what might happen should she stop moving and working.

"Oh," Sybil stands when he greets her as is only polite, especially with a near stranger. She does remember him, and what he'd been doing that day which seems nearly a lifetime ago. "The artist? You were sketching I believe?"
adifferentlife: (conversation - i wonder)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-04-28 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
"Sketching is somewhere to start. I'm afraid my own drawing skills are not lauded. I tried, when I was younger, and my parents would guess that a dog was supposed to be a flower." There's no shame or reproach in her words, rather a contented memory that makes her miss her family all the more.

"I'm Sybil," she puts out a hand as is common now and not thought over-familiar for near strangers as it would have been in her own life. "Would you care to sit?"
adifferentlife: (content)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-04-28 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
“Life often does. I never imagined-“ she pauses briefly, thinking of the many losses that had affected her family. First the Titanic, then the onset of the great war. So many people she knew gone. It was what had driven her into nursing and now she couldn’t imagine a life without it. “I became a nurse, because of the war. I’d never had any interest in such a thing before, and now… Now it’s such a part of my life. So I suppose it is strange sometimes, the turns we take in life. What did you end up doing instead of becoming a cartoonist?”
adifferentlife: (Default)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-04-30 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
“I’m glad you made it through in one piece,” she says sincerely. So many didn’t, whether it be in spirit or in body. Often it was both, the wounds of the soul so much harder to heal. She thinks of the death, of the awful things that happened and how one dear man had been driven to taking his own life. “I worked with so many men – boys really – who didn’t. Those trenches did awful things to so many of them. They always made it seem like war was filled with glory in the posters, but it isn’t really.”

Sybil pauses, realising that she’s talking of her war and all that she’s learned since, and that Steve may not be from the same time that she is – so few are. “I should say the Great War. I know there are others, after. It was 1917 when I arrived here.”
adifferentlife: (will you?)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-06-02 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Who knows, in another life I might have served with her. Though it is unlikely if she was American. I worked in a small hospital not far from Downton itself, though I trained in Yorkshire. Men from the region would come there from Holland or France." Her hospital was one for recovery, not one where she was treating the wounded on the front lines. That never would have been allowed, not for a woman of her station.

"I'm sorry," she mistakes his look for one of regret, the grief and anger she's seen from those who've fought and survived. "That any of us had to go through such things."
adifferentlife: (introspective)

[personal profile] adifferentlife 2013-06-02 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
"I think the people here so lucky some times. To not have experienced that." To not feel as if most boys she had known had all gone to die for something that to Sybil seemed largely fruitless. "I know it changed everyone. But I can't help but feel I am a better person now. I never would have found nursing, for one. Likely would have lived the rest of my days planning parties and riding horses, living in our own little world."