disentombs | Duplicity inbox

You didn't.

[30 second pause.]

What are you doing awake?

I'm kind of a night owl, I guess. [ or rather, she has nightmares and she wants to let jughead sleep.]

[What a coinkadink. Him too.

After seeing that memory of Betty's, he has a feeling he knows why.]

Well then. I'll see you there soon?

Yes, you will.

It doesn't take him long to find her. She's the lone light in the entire place at a table with a stack of books next to her. He's glad for being contracted in order to have access to facilities like this.

He's wearing glasses but otherwise is dressed as he would for daytime, polo, khakis and Topsiders included. Gansey smiles at her as he hangs his peacoat off the back of the chair next to her.

"Burning the midnight oil I see," he comments, accent a bit more obvious.

She's in her own WASP uniform. Her peacoat is hanging on the back of her own chair, she's got on a grey sweater and a peter collared shirt beneath that and a pair of jeans and boots on. And when she spots him, she smiles warmly in greeting, nodding at his words.

"So I am." She waits for him to sit. "I haven't found anything useful here. It's all pretty edited, I think."

He takes a seat next to her grabbing the next book off the stack next to her.

"I'm not surprised. But if edited versions exist, unedited must as well, wouldn't you think?"

He opens the book, making note of the year. Perhaps going even further back in time might yield some clues.

Although that's not the only thing he's curious about right now.

"Are you usually awake at this time?" He asks nonchalantly.

"That's what I was thinking," she agreed, knowing that every city must keep accurate records. The ones they want are probably hidden away somewhere secure.

"Sometimes..." She says, glancing at him. "You are too, right?" She saw it in the memory, one that was hard to forget.

He hums his agreement. That memory is the reason his insomnia has gotten so much worse. Paranoia, guilt, and nightmares are potent stimulants.

"Maybe we should look even further back. See how laws were enacted, how they affected each class, et cetera," he replies, sidestepping the other conversation.

She reaches for an older looking book, offering it to him. "This was the oldest volume I could find. It's sanitized too." She sighs softly, frustrated and leans back against her chair, chewing on one of her thumbs as she thinks.

"I need to get back home and none of this is helping me to do that."

There's a slight frown as he skims it, coming to the same conclusion as Betty. He puts the book aside and looks up at her, noticing the tell if only because he does something similar.

"Need to?" He would think Betty could recognize that everyone at least wanted to go home. Surely she's referring to something else.

"I need to go home but..." She pauses for a moment, her cheeks flushing as she keeps her eyes on the book. "I also don't want to be here alone. If Jughead gets sent home and I have to make the quota..." It makes her feel sick.

What she doesn't know is that Jughead is involved with anyone else at the moment, that maybe she ought to be doing the same thing.

"Oh."

Yes that is one of the catches isn't it.

"I suppose I've never thought about it in that manner." Mostly because he had never considered people going home--it seemed like more and more people kept coming in.

"It may not be the ideal thing but...perhaps you should consider finding a backup as well. Just in case." He knows how that sounds, but he's had to make do considering his girlfriend isn't here. It hasn't been terrible.

"I'll have to tackle that if he ever goes home." Ha. Betty. You poor thing.

She'd told Jughead to meet his quota, she just thought he knew that she meant if it wasn't possible for them to be together and not before. "I don't like the idea of finding someone before that... you know?"

He...can understand why she says that.

"I do. Maybe talking to him as well is an avenue."

He sits back in his chair, looking less proper in his glasses and slight slouch.

"I've even gone so far as to ask someone to be a backup Dominant in case mine should leave."

"We've already talked about it. I made him promise to find someone if something happened to me. I don't want him in that jail any more than he wants me in it." She isn't worried about him leaving yet but that doesn't mean she isn't feeling the pressure to get them both home.

"You know... if that backup Dominant also leaves... I'd take you on. No strings or anything. I just want to help people."

He looks up at her at the offer. He gives her a small smile.

"I appreciate that. Really."

Gansey looks at the stack of books and a lightbulb goes off.

"Newspaper," he mutters before getting up and heading towards the section where newspapers on microfiche are contained.

As he walks away, she thinks that maybe she said the wrong thing, maybe she shouldn't have offered that to someone she only knew a little. She moves to start closing up some of the more useless books and stacking them alphabetically, chewing on her bottom lip.

Gansey's learned how to use the obsolete microfiche machine from his years of research, especially when investigating more recent odd phenomena along the ley lines. He's scanning through folders looking for older files. He finds a sheet that looks interesting and places it on the machine, starting to look around.

When he turns back to see Betty nowhere near him, he calls back to her, wondering if something happened.

"Betty?"

When she hears her name called out, she glances up, setting the books neatly to the edge of the table for the librarian to collect before she heads his direction.

"Did you find something already?"

"I was wondering where you went, mostly."

He turns back to the screen and shifts between sheets of old newspaper.

"Surely they couldn't have scrubbed all of the old newspapers..."

"Remember where we are and the people we're dealing with," she murmurs softly, trying not to be defeatist. "What I wonder if there's a way we can read other stories... side, inconsequential stories that might give us clues about... anything. Big events would affect all of the city, you know?"

"More inference than finding actual policies and laws? Marvelous idea," he beams at her and begins looking through the newspapers page by page.

"We should start brainstorming where we might be able to find unedited information though," he mentions offhandedly, looking back at her.

"Exactly, we may not be able to see the stone hitting the water but we can see the ripples, most people don't think to cover that up."

She moves to sit next to him so she's not reading over his shoulder. "It's probably hidden somewhere safe. Out of reach."

"Even more that they can't cover up all of it unless they mean to do away with all of their written history in general. Brilliant, Betty."

He turns his attention back towards the screen. He honestly wouldn't have noticed/minded if she did read over his shoulder. He's used to it.

"Somewhere it's surrounded by the leaders of this place at all times," he adds.

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