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#im just. lucy deserves a better sendoff
cattuladaily · 1 year
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If I was physically capable of writing wholesome stuff I'd write a little ficlet about Jack and Mina working together on editing the cylinders and like, the diary starts much earlier than the events so they quickly sort through, jumping from one to the other, and then they start getting close to relevant dates and they have to listen more carefully.
And of course Jack being Jack shows through. Jack is sort of mortified at the start, but Mina shows him some parts of her diary she self-censored and while of course shess still leaps and bounds cooler than him he realises shes laughing with him not at him and cracks a couple self deprecating jokes and soon enough they are giggling together at the whole thing.
But then they get to the entries were Arthur introduces Jack to Lucy and he talks about falling in love with her and they both fall silent. We know Jack can spin a good sentence when he's inspired, and few things in his life inspired him as much as Lucy. They hear his voice describe the way she hid a bit behind Arthur when she first met him, but soon she was hooking her arm with his without a care, how they danced together one evening and he was surprised and endeared at how bad she was at it, how she laughed in a different way when a joke was mean because she was forcing it to be polite, how she said she hoped she afforded him a good study and he died a little inside because he could indeed look at her forever and never tire, but the gallant answer never comes when he's in front of her, only when he's alone with his phonograph.
After that, they're silent for a minute. Then Mina grabs his hand. "My apologies. I shouldn't have listened to this."
"I gave you permission."
"And yet I feel as if I am intruding."
"Madame Mina, if what Lucy said to me about your deep friendship is true, then there is only one person in the world i would tolerate hearing this, and that is you."
Mina smiles weakly. "Your kindness knows no bounds. It's true, you know," she adds after a beat. "She was a being of grace in all things, but she could not dance to save her life."
Jack snorts. "Two beautiful, perfectly formed left feet. A medical anomaly."
Mina laughs now. "She truly was an unique subject of study!"
They waste a whole evening, at a time where every hour could be important, talking about her. How warm she was, how bright, how she never took offence or meant it, how she was tired sometimes and melancholy but never ever forced her bad moods on anybody, how they both wished sometimes that she would.
They tacitly decide they can leave all of this out of the final typed version, and move on.
Later that evening, Jack finds copies of the letters where Lucy talks about him, laid out in neat type on his desk.
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