Schemy and Clamy, Sitting in a... rather comfortable room, actually

Posted on Wed 26th Jul, 2017 @ 10:34pm by

1,756 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Unity Week
Location: The Addams House
Timeline: Day 3, late afternoon

Chlamydia Addams sat at her -- admittedly replicated -- antique oak desk, in her study. A Personal Access Data Device was in her hand, and her black eyes moved over the words displayed there slowly. The article was text dense, and it was taking her some time to absorb it. Suddenly, she looked up, meeting the bony gaze of her glass-encased anatomical skeleton, Bonnie. "Don't lurk in the hallway, Schemy," she called. "Come in and sit down like a civilized person."

Ischemia hesitated and then came in, looking about and choosing a chair not quite in line with her sister's. "Not lurking, exactly. Observing the denizens of the walls, debating whether any would exhibit some untoward behavior as I walked by. An Addams house in any time and place is not to be trusted." She relaxed into the chair, having convinced herself it was only a chair.

Chlamydia chuckled and blanked her PADD. "Do you remember that rug Great-Aunt Loetta had?" she asked. "I could never walk into her house without it tripping me!"

"There was that, yes. It's why I quit walking into her house, but remember that brass owl? That thing had a truly nasty disposition! And what about Uncle Tomás? It was the way the eyes of that strange painting of his brother followed me that put me off going back there. Not that I craved his company, either.

"I've never bothered with that sort of thing in any of my homes, as I'm so seldom there. No one visits, you see. Do you actually have anything out there I need to guard against?" Ischemia asked, wondering if her sister would tell her the truth. It wasn't that Clamy was a great liar, more that she was not prone to sharing much.

"There's a growl module in the leopardskin," Chlamydia answered breezily. "But honestly, Ischemia, to listen to you talk, one would think you didn't value the... quirkiness... being an Addams carries as a heritage."

"Growls I can handle. Sometimes, my dear Clamy, being a quirky Addams, while ... valued ... is a definite disadvantage." Ischemia frowned as she thought about that.

Turning more serious for a moment, she added, "It's hard to uphold two traditions, you know - that of being an Addams and that of helping the downtrodden." Looking into her sister's eyes, she added, "I'd think you'd find the same, but you always were more traditional than I."

Chlamydia sighed, her eyes going to her PADD for a moment. "Why did you come, Schemy? Really why, not the cover story."

Ischemia shrugged, glanced away to focus on the cob's web in the corner, and finally looked back. "I need to distance myself from the quibbling and the pain of my practice. Just for a while. I have to find a way to re-energize my dreams ... or dream new ones, perhaps. I thought visiting you ... you're fairly level-headed, you have a sense of humor and of what it is to be an Addams ... Pru is always so emotional, and I didn't know she'd be here. Maybe it's a bad idea and I should go, but I'm here now. I would like to think about something else for a while."

Chlamydia nodded, smiling slightly. "My home is yours, of course," she said. "Stay as long as you like... or as long as you can stand me, at any rate." Her tone was teasing, but there was a core of truth in the correction, and they both knew it. "I..." she trailed off, her eyes going to her PADD again.

Ischemia stood, smoothing her long narrow skirt. "Actually, I think I may go looking for a place of my own. I might settle in to writing about my career. The Life and Times of Ischemia Addams, perhaps. Or maybe, My Life Among the Lesser Species."

A smile quirked one corner of her mouth, as she realized her sister's attention was mostly elsewhere. She strolled toward the door, stopping to peer more closely at a bat hanging from a picture frame. "No, no, I insist. Go on about your business, Clamy. I'll be fine."

"No, sit, Ischemia." Chlamydia took a deep breath. "You know I have trouble admitting -- especially to you! -- that I could use some help. But I find myself beset by a tangle of mysteries, with no ends to tug on."

Determining that it was an actual living creature on the frame, Ischemia turned back to her chair. The troubled look on her sister's face was ... disturbing. Because Chlamydia so rarely talked about herself, people tended to believe she actually was indomitable. Now, it appeared otherwise.

Still puzzling over why it would be particularly hard for Clamy to ask for help from her, she asked, "What do you need? Information from someone? Or about someone? I have hundreds of contacts in and out of the Federation, you know. I'd cash in any number of favors, if it would help you."

Chlamydia sighed. "Me," she revealed. "I need information about me." She picked up her PADD. "Did you know that I'm a board-certified pre-natal genetic surgeon?" she asked conversationally, as she tapped the PADD's interface.

"I vaguely recall something of the sort. You never shared a lot of your accomplishments, but I kept up with your public profile. Are you saying ... there are things you've forgotten about your past?" Ischemia frowned as she thought about that, searching for people and ways she could recover information for her sister. "Or are there things that are hidden from even you about your capsule recovery?"

Chlamydia nodded. "Yes, to each," she answered. "I have absolutely no recollection of studying for the board, and no recollection of why I chose to pursue that particular specialty. And I have no recollection of anything much beyond when you and I danced the Mamushka at Starbase 50 until Samurai's Marines were opening the life pod." She sat forward, offering her PADD to her younger sister. "I looked at all the journal access articles I read in the year before that night. Notice any pattern?"

Her sister looked down the list on the PADD, checking the titles. While they did seem to follow on a couple of lines of interest, she couldn't see a connection. Obviously, she was missing something, so she read down the list more slowly, swiping over to see more of the titles. There she found it. It wasn't in the subject matter. It was in the authors. More than 50% of them were authored by the same person - Perverto Addams.

"There seems to be more than an average number written by our dear Perverto ... and they went back over a period of years." She glanced up at Chlamydia. "You think what? There's something behind your study of these articles? Perverto was ... hmm, living up to his name in more ways than I care to know, but most of these," she glanced at the list again, reading down titles more slowly, "don't seem to cover particularly ... questionable topics. Am I missing something else?"

"I don't know," Chlamydia said, spreading her hands helplessly. "When you mentioned him earlier this evening, it seemed a coincidence. But why did you happen to bring him up?"

"Actually, mousling, you brought him up," Schemy replied. "Something to do with the lengths he went to for procreation - a subject about which I know absolutely nothing. Added to which is the fact that a quick search of family records also did not reveal whatever he did. Now I'm wondering if perhaps the reason you pursued that entire pre-natal genetic topic might have been our dear cousin ... or his offspring."

Chlamydia's mind went blank, and she stared off into space for several moments. "Well," she said at last. "I believe the tea pot has gone cold." She placed the back of her hand against it, and nodded. "Sorry, dear. What were you saying?"

Ischemia frowned, searching her memory of their previous conversation about their cousin. She chased it around in her head for a moment and cornered it. "Clamy... we were talking about Cousin Perverto... just as we were when Pru came. It's a little strange... you did the same thing earlier. Kind of spaced out and then came back unaware of our conversation. Does this happen often?"

Chlamydia shook her head. "Odd that you should mention Cousin Perverto," she said. "I've been reading a number of articles he wrote over the last decade or so. Brilliant work, about cross-species genetic transcription."

Frowning, her sister slid the PADD onto the corner of Clamy's desk. Something was seriously wrong here. Should she mention it again, or change the subject? Did other names bring the same blank space in her sister's memory, or was it only Perverto's? "Really? And Grandma Addams thought he'd never amount to anything. Remember when Pru spent the summer with Aunt Felonia?"

"And came home with all of her clothes stained with the juice of plums stolen over the back wall of her yard?" Chlamydia smiled slightly. "Indeed I do."

"Grandma Addams didn't think she'd amount to much, either," Schemy laughed, remembering a less well-put-together Pru. "You were her favorite, you know. Even more than Perverto." She held her breath, waiting to see what would happen.

"Ah, Grandmama always doted on you," Chlamydia countered. "Or at least that's how I remember it. I can recall several instances where she 'didn't notice' you getting Thing to steal you a cookie from her horde."

"No, no, that was YOU. Look who Thing lives with. He never hung around me much ... or Purulence, for that matter. You were always his favorite. You know his species tends to cling to the eldest child." A thought occurred to her and before she could screen it, the question popped out, "I guess Thing can't tell you anything about your escape pod time?"

Chlamydia chuckled at her sister's refusal, even after so many years, to admit being a cookie thief. At the question, she sighed. "Can't... or won't," she answered. "Whenever I approach the question, it acts like I haven't said anything at all."

"I wonder what that's about. I'd try myself, but as I said, he was never that fond of me. Not to change the subject, but changing the subject anyway, you have any thoughts on dinner tonight?" Ischemia knew she'd come back to the Perverto pause another time. Just to be sure it was nothing.

 

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