Now or Never
Posted on Mon 1st Jan, 2018 @ 9:50pm by Purulence Addams
1,832 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
A Phaser as Deadly as a Candlestick
Location: Addams Family Home, Deck 1554
Timeline: 1900 hours, the day after the Halloween Party
Dear Chlamy and Schemy,
Are you both free tonight? I'd like to talk to you this evening (not about the murder!)
Pru
Chlamydia sat in the parlor at the appointed hour. She took a sip of tea and looked across the rim of her cup at her elder younger sister. "You don't suppose she's going to elope with Doctor Graves, do you?"
Ischemia choked on her scone. Coughing, eyes watering, she took a sip of water. "Oh, by all the spirits, I hope not!" She coughed again, and then looked speculatively at Chlamydia. "Although ... he does seem to know how to handle her, doesn't he? Or, at least, how to ... accept her."
"She deserves someone to adore her," Chlamydia responded. "Paul is a good man. And such a delightful name!"
A door closed upstairs, and footsteps could be heard moving swiftly down the staircase. Purulence poked her head through the doorway. She clutched a digital tablet to her chest almost like a shield and drew a deep breath as she saw both of her sisters seated in the parlor. Purulence let out her breath. She sneaked one last look at Ignatius' sketched portrait in the tablet and then blanked the screen. "That tea smells good," she said and joined them.
"You should recognize it. It's the same tea we always have for family chats, probably since we were in diapers," Ischemia said drily. "But by all means, beat around the bush for a moment or two, if you think it will help."
"Without preambles, this is going to be a very short and shocking conversation," Purulence said. She glanced down at her blank tablet for a moment and then looked back at her sisters. "Do you want the short and sweet version, too, Chlamy?"
"I don't know," Chlamydia answered, pouring tea for Purulence and extending the cup to her. "Will the long version leave us less time to conceal the corpse?"
"Thank you," Purulence said as she took the filled teacup. She sipped from it, inhaling the fragrance, and paused. "The what? Oh!" She snickered. "Very funny. No. No corpse to bury." Purulence set her teacup down and looked at her two sisters. "I had sort of expected that one of you would have demanded an explanation by now for why I came here with no warning, claiming that I was running away from the dentist."
"Dearest Purulence," Chlamydia said, "the truth is, I don't care unless and until you decide to share. Your company is its own reward, and you are always welcome to come, and to go, and to stay as long as you like in between. My home is your home." She paused, looked at her other sister. "These words are also true for you, Ischemia, lest you construe otherwise by my phrasing."
Ischemia waved away her concern, "No, I'm not looking for my own place because I don't feel welcome here. You are always generous with your home and possessions."
She looked at Pru for a few seconds, before continuing. "I agree with Chlamydia. Your business is your own, and you are quite old enough to determine when or if you wish to share your life with us ... though I admit to a temptation to shake it out of you. So, if there are no bodies involved, and frankly, I think Vanguard has enough of those at present, then why are we here? And why are you clutching that tablet as if it's your only friend?"
Purulence eyed them both and took a deep breath--and another. "I--Ignatius Collins of the Collinsport Collinses asked me to marry him just before I came here, and I said yes." Another deep breath. "I--I don't think either of you know him, except maybe from my letters." Purulence set her digital tablet on the table and switched it on. The color portrait she'd sketched of Ignatius appeared onscreen. "This is what he looks like." Despite herself, she smiled for an instant when she saw the image.
Ischemia glanced at the picture and then at Chlamydia, waiting to see if she wanted to take lead on this one. She was surprised, but not shocked. Purulence was meant to be part of a couple, and had spent most of her life since the teen years trying to find her other half. If this was the one ... more power to her.
Looking at her sister, Ischemia thought she looked happy, in love, perhaps ... or what holos portrayed as looking in love. Ischemia wasn't sure she, personally, would recognize the real thing from acting in love. Collinsport. Why does that sound familiar? she thought.
"The family which runs that delightful inn up Maine way?" Chlamydia asked. She looked at Ischemia. "You remember the one... delightful stonework, and all those cool, dark shadows."
"The Collinsport Inn?" Purulence said. "Yes, though the Collins family doesn't run it, as far as I know. They design and sell food replicators--went into that when replicator technology made their canning business obsolete. They also run a fishing fleet that sells fresh fish to local gourmet restaurants. Ignatius is more into the replicator side of things, though."
She paused. "I didn't tell you he'd proposed because I don't trust myself, and I'm terrified of making the same mistake with Ignatius that I did with Lawrence. I'm terrified of being the kind of woman who falls for the same horrible type of man over and over. I love Ignatius, but I loved Lawrence at first, too. I wouldn't listen to advice from anyone; just barreled ahead and moved in with him. And--since I'd already accepted Ignatius' proposal, I felt as if I had perhaps been monumentally stupid again and leaped before I looked. So I panicked, and that's why I came here. I love him, but how do I know I'm not setting myself up to be hurt again?"
"You don't," Chlamydia answered before taking a sip of her tea. She savored it, then sighed. "It is not given to us to know the future... and sometimes, not even the past. The best we can do is make the best decision we can with the information available to us in the moment. You say you love this fellow. You say he loves you, or at least displays every indication of doing so." She shrugged. "That seems to be all the information needed. If things go poorly, you can revisit the question later."
"If you like, I can have him investigated for you, see whether he has a reputation as an out-and-out bounder, likely to marry you for your connections or your fortune," Ischemia offered, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It was more to see what Pru would say than anything else. Investigations did sometimes turn up helpful information, but didn't provide any assurances. "Of course, there are no guarantees where hearts are concerned."
"He's never tried to sponge money off of me; he has plenty of his own," Purulence said. "I don't feel suffocated around him, the way I always did with Lawrence. He's held down a regular job--but if he owns the company, does that really count? I've been seeing Ignatius for four years, off and on; we only began to get really serious and exclusive about two years ago. He's never promised me the moon and the stars or tried to rush me into anything, the way Lawrence always did. Believe me, I already looked at all that. I requested a background check. There were no findings. The problem is with me. Every time I get a negative result, I feel more panicky that it's all too good to be true. I'm too afraid to believe that normal is...normal."
"No, dear; normal is boring," Chlamydia corrected. She sighed. "Look, what's the worst that happens? You make a terrible mistake and live happily ever after? You betray the childhood promises we made to die gruesome deaths pining away of unrequited love?"
"I was suicidal by the time I got away from Lawrence. I figured that qualified as gruesome enough, and I really don't want to go down that road again." Purulence let out a breath. "My brain thinks Ignatius is okay. Everything in my gut tells me he is, except the part of my gut that says to never trust any man I think I'm in love with. And how can you have a good marriage if one spouse doesn't trust the other?"
"Already gave up on that one myself. It is also terribly boring and takes forever," Ischemia said. "Really, Purulence, don't make a big drama out of this. Just decide you are going to be happy ... and go be happy!"
"So Lawrence was a huge disappointment. Are you going to punish yourself forever for something you really couldn't control? Lawrence was a bounder. All you did was believe in him. There are far worse crimes, little sister." Privately, she decided she would do some digging herself, and see if "no findings" was the report from her people, too. "When do we get to meet this man of your dreams?"
Purulence blinked. "Well--um, I hadn't actually thought that far ahead," she admitted. "I always knew I wanted you both to meet him well before the wedding, but the details of how that would come about were always hazy and far off in the future." She thought a moment. "I'd like to invite him here, since the three of us are already together on Vanguard. Or we could go home for a bit, if you could find people to cover for you."
"Three out of four of us are here. He should join us," Ischemia offered her opinion. As a negotiator, she knew it would be better to see him out of his natural environment, see how he coped with the Addams' way of doing things. "Why don't you see if he's available to come?"
Chlamydia simply nodded her agreement. Leaving the station now was simply not possible for her, not when corpses were turning up on a regular basis and with no obvious connections between them.
"I'll ask him." Purulence connected to her PADD from her digital tablet and wrote a hasty note.
Dear Ignatius,
My sisters would like to meet you, but they are both living on Starbase Vanguard, where Chlamydia is Chief Medical Officer. Would it be at all possible for you to travel here to meet them? There would have to be a literal family emergency for Chlamydia to be able to leave for an extended time on short notice. I know you have obligations to your company, as well, and it's a considerable expense. Perhaps we could split the travel costs?
Love,
Purulence
Lt. Cmdr. Chlamydia Addams, MD
Chief Medical Officer
The Serene One
Ischemia Addams (NPC)
The Skeptic
Purulence Addams (NPC)
The Romantic
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