June 2012, Geneva, Swizerland

[damncompass]

The morning sun is breaking through Joshua's windows, reflecting even more off of the five feet of snow that's starting to melt in the June heat.

Inside, Joshua is snuggled up to the woman beside him, sleeping with a smile on his face.

Comments

[claudiometer]

"'s okay. I'm just glad you didn't follow through on it. Tell Joshua I said hi."

[timelessinventor]

"Will do, darling." Helena hangs up the phone and passes it back to Joshua. "Thank you. I needed to get that off of my chest."

[damncompass]

"It's alright." He takes the phone and dials, waiting, then has a conversation in French. After a moment, he nods. "Oui. Oui. Merci, je vais téléphoner lundi." He hangs up. "Well, at least I have a couple more days before I have to defend." He puts the phone down and relaxes a bit against the headboard.

[timelessinventor]

"What is it you're defending?" She does hope she didn't interrupt anything important.

[damncompass]

"My dissertation. The time travel that Claud was so worked up about." He sighs. "I was supposed to talk about it today, but obviously, the snow's kinda precluded that."

[timelessinventor]

"Just a bit." Helena leans back to join him, a bit of a smirk on her face. "Five feet of snow in June. Let the 'climate change experts' chew on that one for a while."

[damncompass]

Joshua laughs. "And what, pray tell, do you have against climate change people?" It's not his area of science, but the research does at least somewhat seem to make sense.

[timelessinventor]

"Nothing as such, but their basis is off. Perhaps human activity is speeding things along, but first, they all seem to be basing their records on ice, which is known for melting, and second, record-keeping about the weather was very new in my original time. Before that, people really only wrote anything about the weather when something notable happened, and then what they wrote was Frankenstein."

Credit where it's due, of course. Mrs. Shelley is one of her forebears.

[damncompass]

He shakes his head, laughing a bit. "I admittedly don't know much about that sort of science, but it does make a sort of sense that if you're basing things off of ice, it... well, it would be problematic." He shrugs. "Tried Frankenstein once. It was... well, it was ok, but a bit too squishy." He prefers the harder science of HG Wells.

[timelessinventor]

"Oh, she didn't do too badly, considering the world she was moving in." And at least she got to publish under her own name (not that Helena's bitter at all, whatever gave you that idea).

[damncompass]

"Oh, I get that. I just didn't like the story." He shrugs, but raises an eyebrow. "Ok, I'm missing something here."

[timelessinventor]

"Are you, darling? I would have thought you'd been filled in by now." She gestures to the pin box. "After all, I've been contentious since about 1890."

[damncompass]

"Er, not really? Just that there's a meeting next week." He pauses. "What am I missing?"

[timelessinventor]

"What, even Claudia didn't mention it?" She doubts that (Claudia does tend to refer to her by her better-known pseudonym, these days), but then again, odds are good Joshua was half-asleep for that bit. "Perhaps it would help if I told you what I did other than obsess over time travel and chase after curiosities."

[damncompass]

"She might've, but I think I was more than a little asleep." He pauses, just eying her. "Ok, so... what did you do?"

[timelessinventor]

"I wrote a bit." And then Charles kept on doing it without her input, much to her chagrin.

[damncompass]

"What kind of things did you write?" Joshua is beginning to have a weird feeling about this.

[timelessinventor]

Now she's trying not to laugh. "Well, we have already discussed your improvements upon one of my theories."

[damncompass]

"Wait, you're...." Joshua just stares at her, almost falling off the bed in his surprise. "That... you... really?!" You'll have to excuse the boy. He's a bit startled.

[timelessinventor]

"Yes, really." This is Helena's smug face (though really, she's also quite pleased he's not insisting there's no way a woman wrote all that).

[damncompass]

"I...." He squeaks a few times, then in a moment of who-knows-what leans over and snogs the hell out of her. Oops.

[timelessinventor]

Ah, so we're snogging now, are we? Helena's fine with that; she snogs him right back (she'd been half wondering what was taking so long before Mrs. Frederic's appearance; now, she suspects his self-confidence is even worse than Claudia's).

[damncompass]

He almost squeaks again when he realizes he's being snogged back, and not slapped. It takes a lot of his determination, but he does pull back, blushing furiously. "Um. Sorry. I... er, I should have asked first. Or something." He has pretty much no experience with this.

[timelessinventor]

"I assure you, darling, you would know if I took umbrage with you." Helena grins in a way she doesn't think she has in over a century. "Tell me, do you greet all of your favorite authors like that, or am I just special?"

[damncompass]

"Oh, you're special alright." Joshua takes a deep breath and grins right back at her. It's a comfortable, truly happy grin that hasn't shown itself very much since Claudia was about seven.