12032/Angry Mom Visit

Angry Mom Visit
Date of Scene:	15 July 2022
Location:	Hengitsbury Head, Bournemouth, England
Synopsis:	Agatha O'Neil tracks down Cael and Jon in Bournemouth, to find out more about Terry's fate.
Cast of Characters:	Jonathan Sims, Cael Becker, Terry O'Neil

---

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jonathan Sims is relatively easy to find these days. He's not quite at the point of 'semi-celebrity' to have hired personal assistants who might field requests for interviews or screen fan mail. He asked the concierge at his apartment building to help find a petsitter and left an itinerary at the front desk, /specifically/ because some friends of his might need to track him down in England. There were no flights, but clear dates in hotels and a train trip from Oxford to Bournemouth.

    They didn't go to much trouble to hide their tracks, is the point, so a professional investigator should have no trouble finding them.

    At the moment, Jon's on one of Bournemouth's beaches, one of the dog-friendly stretches. The town itself is situated on high cliffs that make a dramatic backdrop for what is mostly /very/ crowded beaches at this time of year. But, see--Jon's a local. He grew up here, and he still knows the place like the back of his hand. So Jon and his family are on the far eastern beach near Hengistbury Head. It's less sand and more shingle, less dramatic cliffs and more dunes, but it also sports /far/ fewer people, and almost none of them are tourists.

    It also, again, makes him easier to find. Because he's pretty much the only person around lying on his back on a beach chair, with a wide-brimmed hat over his face and arms on his chest like he's sleeping. With his shirt off the silvery join between the prosthetic right arm and his shoulder is obvious, which might make the way the arm otherwise looks /entirely/ normal just... weird.

    A little ways away, a girl in a one-piece bathing suit, dark-skinned, with red hair, is running through the surf with a /very/ large dog. Where's Cael? Well, that's up to her.

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael spent some time in the water herself - tossing a ball for Bear, and splashing Agnes more than once. After a while, though, she climbed back out - her swimsuit a bright, dramatic one-piece number in blue, hot pink, and purple, with large stripes of color across it. She slips on her sandals, and makes her way to a nearby vendor where she's able to get two orders of fish and chips - one with snapper, and one with haddock. She's currently walking back towards Jon with the two paper cones filled with food - her damp hair letting the riot of rainbow colors show through.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
There are many ways that a private investigator can use to track someone down. Your average person doesn't go too much out of the way to hide their travel activity, although they should. Checking in at locations on facebook, live videos on instagram, posts about how lucky someone is to be there and how they wish others could experience the blessing? Big signns for burglars and the criminal ilk that knows how to trawl through social media. But there were other ways as well, more specialized, some of them decidedly borderline legal, and others most certainly not.

However, most people jump to option B before they touch A because they think 'too easy, won't work.'

What is option A? Just try asking.

Asking at the front desk saved Agatha O'Neil a great deal of time, and it usually does. It doesn't save her a lot of money, but that's alright: money is no object, at the moment.

Past the Mudeford Sandspit Lagoon, Agatha O'Neil emerges over the dunes of Hengistbury Head. They are slightly reminiscent of the dunes in California, although... not really, but it is close enough. She stands out because she is not wearing proper bathing apparel, although the draping black-and-white cloth at the shoulders over black shorts and shirt and the wide-brimmed hat tilted at an angle is definitely something Hepburn could have once worn at the beach-

Kathryn, not Audrey, there are far more sharp angles than curves, a lot more height and looming.

She has been walking for a small amount of time, and she spots Jon in the distance around the same time that Cael's rainbow beacon calls her attention. These are people she has met, of course. Fought angels with. She knows what they look like. She lets her steps carry her over to them, the simple black-and-white sandals kicking away very little sand.

"Doctor Sims?" she calls out as she approaches them. To her enormous credit, she does not add 'I presume?' to the end of that sentence.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon is not nearly as asleep as he seems, and so he senses Agatha, vaguely, before she speaks. This is just enough warning for him to hide his groan into his hat, because he can /guess/ why Terry's mother has come to find him. Someone in the Titans is blaming him for Terry disappear. Maybe. Probably.

    Maybe not! Maybe she just /happens/ to be in England on holiday. Sure.

    A heavy sigh, and they remove the straw hat from their face. Which reveals that the real reason for the hat is that they have no eyes. Just... none, at all. Empty sockets where eyes ought to be, no longer bandaged. They reach out to pick up a pair of sunglasses off the ground, only groping for a moment before finding them, and put those on, neatly hiding the missing orbs. Still. No eyes.

    "Ms. O'Neil," Jon calls in return. "What brings you to Bournemouth? Did you, too, see the tourist brochure that claims it 'feels like L.A.' or 'feels like Florida?'" This is said in the wry tone of one who grew up around the tourists brought in by such brochures.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "I got us some haddock, and some snapper, Jon," Cael remarks as she rejoins the man, sitting on a chair next to him, and offering over the paper cone that holds the haddock. "I already put the vinegar." Her gaze is locked onto Agatha; she recalls her from the fight in that awful church, fighting alongside Terry, and there's something distinctly wary in her expression as she considers the woman. She resists the urge to jump between Jon and the woman, though - or to try leading her off. She's fairly certain Jon would read her the riot act if she tried.
    "I was very sorry to hear about the situation Terry is in right now - I- honestly, I like your son. I hope a solution is found quickly to bring him home." Her words are kind - but there's definitely a hint of warning in her gaze, and some defensiveness in her posture.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I appreciate your sentiments, Miss Becker," Agatha says in response. If she feels threatened by Cael's defensiveness, she makes a point to take no offense in it. If there was one thing Terry's friends seemed to have in common, it seemed to be that they all were usually going through something. Troia stopped existing for a time. Garfield was mauled by himself. Doctor Simms seemed to be good friends with Terry, which meant he often was probably up to his neck in trouble.

She may be tense, but she is not without understanding. "I hope you will forgive my intrusion on your vacation, but I was told some things by Kian, and I was hoping you would be able to clarify something for me," she says in her best Jessica Fletcher manner. Sans the below-the-surface accent.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Kian?" This... actually seems to surprise Jon. "And here I thought it'd be Garfield," he mutters. Without looking at Cael, he reaches out a hand to--reassure her, maybe? "If he's sent you to gripe at me for knocking them both over the head, well--I didn't think them staying in Wonderland would help Terry very much." Yeah, /definitely/ one of Terry's friends.

    They shake their head. "It's fine, though--your son is missing, and I'm one of the last people who saw him. You're looking for answers. I'd do much the same, were Agnes missing." They turn their head toward the girl still playing with the dog, an uncanny thing given the lack of eyes. Then they turn back to the other two. "What needs clarifying?"

    A pause, and then, "There should be a couple of beach chairs, if you want to sit? You came all this way. I'm certain we can share some fish and chips." He smiles. "Cael's been eating practically nothing else, we might've found a replacement for noodles."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "We //have not,//" Cael replies firmly. "...but when in Rome." She takes the offered hand, giving it a squeeze. She tries to nestle the paper cone into her lap - but it's hot, and she's forced to pick it up again. Eventually, she manages to get a towel into her lap, with the cone on the towel, all without releasing Jon's hand - then she helpfully drapes a towel over his lap as well, now that she has a free hand.
    "If there were anything I could do to help Terry I would, but..." She has her own problems. And Wonderland is just not something she comprehends.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Knocking them out was probably the most sensible thing you could have done under the circumstances," Agatha admits. She glances at Agnes when Jon turns in her direction, and then back to the pair.

"I know you would," she says to Cael, "But it's an area that is beyond... what we are used to. Which does bring me to you, Doctor Simms."

Without much ceremony, she sits on the sand, cross-legged, and smiles faintly at the offer of fish and chips, "I appreciate the offer, but I had lunch on the way here.... but, Doctor Simms, Kian said something strange. He said that you could see... fate?" she tilts her head, frowning, "And that you reassured him that this was not Terry's fate."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    There's a moment where Jon is suddenly very aware that he can't /blink/ because he's missing pieces of his /eyelids/. He shudders, slightly, at the oddness of it, then says, "Oh! Yes. Ahh. That. Well. I don't know how much Terry's told you about... any of my... erm... situation." He picks up a chip, and gestures with it as he speaks.

    "I am the avatar of the goddess Ma'at. She is the personifications of the concept of /ma'at/, which is an ancient Egyptian word that means... mmmm. Truth, balance, order, harmony. Ma'at /is/ the law, and morality. The scales of Lady Justice were originally hers. It... causes some interesting interactions with Terry. The glitter makes me a little loopy." A chuckle. "I'm really rather fond of him, though, Chaos and all. But..."

    He bites the chip, chews, swallows, and goes on, "One of the main things Ma'at does--and one of my main roles, being her avatar--is that it's her feather that is used to weigh the hearts of the dead, to judge their worthiness to pass to the afterlife. I've developed an ability to see... where people have been, where they're going. Not seeing the future so much as... calculating probabilities?" A pause. "Or seeing the threads of fate, is how I tend to see it. I suppose maybe that's part from connections to Neith, who counts weaving among her many talents."

    There's a pause, and a brief frown crosses Jon's face. "...Hunh."

    They shake themself. "Anyway! I... yes. I can see... hmm. With Terry it was... if there were no other option, if it was his fate to stay there in Wonderland, it would have been... a great tangle, or perhaps a great tapestry, set there, threads weaving into the future. Not that such a fate cannot be denied--I've seen people fated to die, and they did, but they came back." He squeezes Cael's hand. "But Terry's threads... swirled about Wonderland, entwined with it, but also reached back toward the Titans, and back to the Tower. He has much yet to do here in this world."

Cael Becker has posed:
    "I know it all sounds nuts," Cael adds with a wry expression. "A few months ago I wold have told anyone who said something like that... that they were delusional, but-" It's harder to tell your boyfriend that.
    Besides, she's seen some stuff.
    "If Jon says Terry's coming back, I believe them - but then, I know I don't count as unbiased."
    She has an entire cone of fish and chips in front of her - and yet Cael deliberately reaches over - and takes one of Jon's. Stealing from a blind man - that's cold.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
There is thoughtful, deliberate silence for a few moments as she considers what the due tell her, her eyes on the ever-changing water. "These threads you see. These... possible future paths. Where someone is going. May go."

SHe adjusts her hat so that it provides maximum shade. Sharing Terry's fair complexion means that the sun is not often your friend, even on gray days.

"It almost sounds like predestination lite. Who sets these theads in motion, when you say someone is 'fated' to die at one point?"

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Well, I fucking set mine in motion," Cael mutters under her breath. She'd been an idiot - and she'd died for it.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon waggles a hand. "I mean... we can predict the weather with a reasonable degree of accuracy, a couple of days out. If one could be aware of every possible interaction of everything in the system, one could predict the weather /years/ out. Chaos only /seems/ chaotic because we don't have all the information. And we can predict the movements of bodies in space so closely we can say to the second, or maybe closer, when an eclipse will happen. People can be far more predictable than they think."

    Then he reaches over to very deliberately steal a chip back from Cael, just as if he saw what she'd done. "What I mean is--free will is a thing, naturally. The Titans are all free to walk away from Terry and not find a solution. But will they? I think not. Terry's situation is the result of countless decisions made by him, his friends, myself, the Wonderlanders. If I'd seen--I've been avoiding drawing on Ma'at's power, and I'm still learning how to read all of this. I could have seen Terry was heading that way, maybe warned people to come up with a solution sooner. And I'm sorry that I didn't."

    A shrug. "But... well... I mean, the Greeks believed in the Fates. Clothos, Lachesis, Atropos. Three women who spun and measured and cut the threads of a mortal's life. The Norse have the Norns. Egypt had Shai, or Shait, but--well, he determined the length of a man's life, but not every moment. But some things are easier to predict. Water runs downhill; looking at a droplet of water in the White Nile and saying it will wind up in the Mediterranean is hardly a stretch, although it might get scooped up and out first."

    He shakes his head. "But I'm not--hrm. It's not so much 'this is predestined' as... 'this is what's likely to happen.' Mostly what I read is... the effects of people's actions. Like... well... yes." A turn of the head toward Cael. "If you are in Witness Protection, say, and you wind up on international television, and you get shot in the neck, and your boyfriend has no fucking clue how to heal the wound--you're likely going to die. That's a fairly predcitable set of circumstances."

    They turn back to Agatha. "So I would say--there is another solution to Wonderland's dilemma. The Titans, of all people, are both capable of finding it and motivated to do so. There are possible futures where Terry stays in Wonderland forever--but not many." A smirk. "And I suspect most of the people in his life, including you, would have to die very shortly and thus not be able to solve the problem, for that to be the case."

Cael Becker has posed:
    Cael swats at Jon's hand as he take the chip - but there's amusement, not rancor, in the action.
    "Especially if you decide to walk home alone even knowing your cover is blown." There's almost a not of //apology// in her voice for having put Jon through that.
    "There are too many people who care about Terry," Cael agrees. "He's well liked. You raised a remarkably good son - I would say," she remarks, giving Agatha a brief smile, before tearing off and nibbling at some of her snapper.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Agatha smiles a little, looking at the water, and the child, and the dog. "He has always been a good son. He's just never managed to stay out of trouble," she says, a hint of sadness in her voice. She then turns to look at Cael and Jon, her brow creasing slightly.

"Did either of you have any idea he was going to do... what he's doing? He kept me completely in the dark, but he might have said something to someone. Not Kian nor Garfield, though," she shakes her head. "I don't think either of them would have let him go if they had the slightest idea..."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I..." Jon hesitates for a long moment. "I wouldn't say that I had an idea, but I did--I asked him what he thought would happen to him, if Wonderland disappeared. To the other Wonderlanders. I was asking because I felt /I/ needed to know the extent to which..." He frowns. "We were saving the world for them, you know? They couldn't exist without Wonderland. I think, likely, /Terry/ couldn't exist without Wonderland. I needed to know how serious this was."

    He sighs. "He didn't answer. And... I suppose I should have thought about that more..." He reaches up to rub at his face with his free hand. "Terry's been doing this superhero business longer than I have, but I'm old enough to be his--uncle, I guess? I have to wonder if he thought about just what that would mean a little more than he should have, and didn't bloody well tell anyone, and, well--I /did/ sort of give the example of sacrificing oneself to save the world."

    A pause. "Oh, gods. You don't think--gods, do--do you think--do you think the kids think that's a /good/ idea now? Do they--look up to me? Terry cannot possibly /look up/ to me. He has /plenty/ of better examples. Right?" Yes. All of whom would probably have done the same. Well, shit.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "I'm afraid I wasn't really involved in the things happening in Wonderland," Cael admits. "I mean, we discussed it all briefly when he came over to our flat - but that wasn't really-" She lets out a sigh before adding, "I'm sorry. I suppose I wasn't being a very good... friend to him. It's still something I'm struggling with."
    She hastily puts another piece of fish into her mouth, rather than have anything else to say on the subject of friendship - though she does reach out to give Jon's arm a squeeze as he starts worrying about the influence he may be having.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Careful the things you say," Agatha says in a voice that is almost, but not quite, like singing, "Children will listen."

She gives them a little smile, "It's a piece of advice I should have paid more attention to myself. But then again, people make mistakes. Parents make mistakes."

Well, now you know where Terry got his love for Sondheim. r
"Examples? Superman. Wonder Woman. Troia. You get the gist," she gives them a glance, "Don't trouble yourself so much, Doctor Sims. If you're not a trend-setter, you are a trend reinforcer." She sighs softly and nods at Cael, "Don't sell yourself short. Terry has a tendency not to share things. Especially if he thinks someone is going to stop him. And he wouldn't have to worry about that with a bad friend."

She grabs a handful of sand and lets it trickle through her fingers. Wonderland fading away. Terry fading away. Terry stopping it. "Some things make more sense now. Thank you."

She stands up and brushes the sand off her wrap, legs and shorts, "I must return to my hotel and make a few calls..." she points in a north-easterly direction, "I'm at the Christchurch Harbor. Would you consider joining me for dinner?"

The journey back to the hotel isn't as long as it might seem, since the Mudeford Ferry cnnects with Mudeford Quay up north, and then it is a relatively short ten minute walk.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Those were the sort of people I said should be tapped to save the world instead of me. I imagine they had their own examples of who would've done better. The cycle started long before any of us." Jon sighs. "Terry is a good man, though. A good friend." Another glance toward Agnes. "She keeps wanting his autograph, which is--funny to think. Lyra always preferred Troia, but Agnes would like the /cat/." A smirk.

    Then, to Cael, "What d'you think? I wouldn't mind heading over to Christchurch Harbour, and dinner sounds excellent." Yes, he's still eating fish and chips. He eats like a teenager, these days, though he hasn't quite yet explained why.

    (It's hard to find satisfying food when you're a /demigod/ and don't know it.)

    "Anyway, can we /possibly/ deny Agnes the chance to meet Vorpal's mum?" A grin.

Cael Becker has posed:
    "Oh, God, put //that// on me, why don't you! 'We were going to go out and eat with Vorpal's mom, but Cael said no,'" Cael says in an //awful// immitation of Jon's voice. Mimicry is not amongst her skills. She rolls her eyes - then grins. "Yeah. We can go to dinner." She lifts another chip before she adds, "But it might be a while before I'm hungry."
    Lookin at Agatha she adds, "You're too kind to me, believe me. But- yeah. Maybe he wouldn't have told me even if I was being a better friend."
    She glances out towards the water, then back to Agatha again as she adds, "We'll meet you there when Agnes and Bear have exhausted each other."