Owner	Pose
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe Beacon was *tired*. She didn't actually care much for crowds, even if she did love them, and had been too embarrassed to openg ifts from the assorted groups and people, most of whom were Outsiders. That had been a night of happiness, and calm, and the most peaceful she had felt in a long time.     Today? More business. Her hair was out of its braids, and wrapped up in a dark purple hair-wrap. She was in well-tailored jeans, a light jacket and a pair of pumps. She had a large cup of black coffee in front of her, and then two other cups -- one with tea brewing in it (as evidenced by the tags sticking out of it), and coffee. She's gotten a little bottle of milk for either of them, and is currently busy building a card house out of the packets of sweetener, her eyes focused on the different colored packets.
Jonathan Sims	This is actually the first time Jon's been back in Manhattan proper since returning from his captivity. He's surprised to find it relatively comfortable to move through the city, even if the process makes him jittery. Of course, this is probably the only outing he's going to have today. He's taking things /very/ slowly.     He seems to have decided to forego the more formal clothing he used to wear, and is in jeans again, a rust-colored sweater, brown cardigan, heavy jacket, sneakers. As much as Phoebe was ignoring the cold, he's feeling it, with all the insulation on his body that he's lost. He pulls off the jacket as he comes into the coffee shop and heads over to join Phoebe at her table.     "Hey there," he says by way of greeting. "How's adulthood treating you?"
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe is not ignoring the cold. She can't feel it, but feels uncomfortable trying to walk around in bare skin with her scars.     She smiles, though, at Jon, and motions to the seat. "Hey. Thanks again for coming, last night. I appreciate it. And the bird was super cute." she gives a small grin to Jon, and she takes a deep breath, taking off her glasses and rubbing her nose a moment as she looks over at Jon.     "You look good when you're more relaxed." she points out, and she takes out some notebooks and a tablet computer -- WayneTech, of course -- and she set everything down. "Need me to open the milk or -- I have these lemony packet things?" she offers, digging out indeed little packets of crystalized lemon. What black magic is this.
Jonathan Sims	Jon shrugs as he sits down. "I saw it and I thought of you. Which... is usually how I buy gifts." He smiles. "And so I have been repeatedly told, but shaking off the need to look 'professional' was harder than I might have liked." That undercut isn't going to be getting him spots at any conferences, anyway. "You look like you're doing well, yourself."     He eyes the milk for a moment and then conjures a glowing orange hand to hold the bottle in place while he opens it. "I've been trying to practice," he explains. "It's glaringly obvious, and it doesn't have fine motor control, but maybe that will improve with time." Presumably milk and sugar are for tea; he shakes his head at the lemon packets. He does not put lemon in his tea.
Phoebe Beacon	It's all good. Phoebe's also been rockin' the undercut since they had to shave parts of her braids in October. At the moment it's helping keeping her well ventilated.     "I can relate. It took the near and total destruction of my wardrobe to convince me to get new clothes." she motions down.     "This outfit cost more than my allowance at the Laughing Magician." she states with the utmost dismay, and then gives a soft huff of breath. "I don't like it. Looking professional. I want my T-shirts and jeans and worn-out patches, Jon, it's no good!" she offers as a joke, and she leans back and skips her coffee.     "All things improve with time." she pauses She wrinkles her nose. "Well. Some things don't. Raw meat. Mmn. No."     She takes a deep breath, and looks down at her notebooks, and she flips to one of her esoteric Egyptian crazy notes pages. "So. I confirmed that the work is good on the overlay transferrance, but both Tim and I are going to have to be there when you die."
Jonathan Sims	"From a maggot's point of view, raw meat improves /considerably/ with time," Jon notes as he stirs his tea and then takes a sip. Gee, he's morbid lately. This is underscored by the way he doesn't even blink at 'when you die,' just nods thoughtfully.     "That makes sense, I suppose. Do you need anything from me ahead of time? A psychic imprint or something?" He raises a brow. "I'm trying to be certain everything's in place before... well, before I die. I have the nagging feeling that appointment is going to creep up on me sooner rather than later."
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe doesn't blink at it either. She is very much in tune with what has to happen. Didn't even get worked up about it during the meeting, was more pissed that someone spent part of it bleeding in the corner refusing help.     "Consider this: ew. But fair paradigm shift."     She jots something down. "I aprobably should take an imprint of your brain psychically for temporary storage, though I'm concerned about degredation if it doesn't hold. Which I shouldn't be, because Sandalphon gave me the finishing touches to make sure I wouldn't accidentally kill Tim.
Jonathan Sims	Jon frowns, at that. "...Is accidentally killing Tim a risk? I mean a real, quantifiable risk? Because we have that key to the Astral Plane now; we could just go and destroy the metaphysical Archive if there's a chance this whole business is going to kill someone." He doesn't even flinch at making the suggestion. "The physical Archive exists as a backup in case of such an event, so it's not even as if that would be a permanent setback." He sips his tea. "But at this point, if the gods aren't going to cooperate and make certain that nobody but me has to suffer for this whole business, then I'm inclined to tell them where they can stick their metaphysical imperatives."     He tilts his head. "That being said... Uriel helped create the Archive, and both is responsible for my upcoming death and has a vested interest in making sure it continues, and he hasn't given me any indication we need to worry /too/ much about the current plans. I can probably provide a psychic imprint easily enough."
Phoebe Beacon	"Considering how lucky my magical life has been I always feel like accidentally killing someone is a possibility. Sparring with Tim could accidentally kill him. I could accidentally give him coffee that's too hot and he hits a speed bump and dumps it on his lap and THAT could kill him." Phoebe points out, "All it does is make me want to make sure the top of the coffee cup is secure and I pull my punches enough to crack a jaw and not a skull."     Phoebe takes a deep breath, and she shakes her head "The whole idea was to stop *Agnes* from getting the powers, on account that inheriting weird magic at the age of fourteen ruins your life. Tim agreed to do it if it could be done safely. Risk of transferrance is minimized from you to him. Him to you is the tricky part. Sandalphon provided me with the corrections I needed on the working."     And then she quietly looks at Jon.     "... Jon. Everyone around us suffers. That's... the problem with being close to anyone who lives this life. We don't get to have the normal end of the day," she states, and she toys with a new item around her left wrist, where typically the leather dog collar is wrapped there is now a multi-stranded bracelet, with little spiders and starbursts carved in wood on it.     "... but that's why we so readily make friends with the others who suffer with us, or try to carry it for us."
Jonathan Sims	"It's not the magic I'm worried about so much. Agnes had magic when she was born. It's the responsibility of being Archivist." Jon regards Phoebe quietly in return. "The easiest way not to saddle her with that responsibility is to be rid of the position altogether. What we're doing with Tim is as much about ensuring the Archive still exists, as that it doesn't go to Agnes too early. So if there /is/ that much of a risk, to you or to Tim? I'm not willing to take it. You and Tim are more important than some moldy collection of ancestral memories."     He sighs, and waves his hand, which waves the tea about a bit. "But if you think you've got it handled, then I trust you, on that. I refuse to believe that suffering is inevitable, however--or at least, that it's somehow more inevitable for us than anyone else. What, we all sit around and mope and suffer together until we die? No. We do what we do because we love, and we care. Do you suit up to protect Gotham just because you think you deserve pain and difficulty? I'd hope not. I know I want to protect people, and help them, and I think we're drawn to people who do the same."     He smiles. "I'm certainly not trying to come back to life so I can be miserable. There are things I want to do--joyous things, happy things. People I want to spend more time with. Maybe life is suffering, but only because we forget that everything is temporary, and hold on too tightly to things that will change, no matter how hard we hold on. So I'm not going to hold on too hard to something that might have outlived its purpose."
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe shakes her head, and setting her chin on her fist she replies: "Semantics. I will suffer for Agnes and Geraldine because I desire to *not* have those girls go through what I repeatedly get through as my adopted parents die. I am willing to accept risks and suffer for them because I desire an outcome without harm placed on another. And I have been doing so for three years. A full sixth of my life -- technically a fifth of my aware life." she explains, and she wrinkles her nose. "I suited up to protect Gotham because I was a kid who lost my dad, and was 'gifted' Purpose-with-a-capital-P, and thought it would be a sin to not use it." She does not mention Batman wanted her to move back to Gotham from New York for her own safety, so he could keep an eye on her.     "And Jon, I'm a Z. I'm a Kid. We literally make our friends based on mutual suffering and after nights out we are literally all texting each other with 'dude I kinda wanna die, I smell like mayo and barbeque sauce, but not the GOOD barbeque sauce' and we all reply 'mood'. You've seen me and Tim texting." she states, and she shrugs a moment, and she curls her fingers.     "But, stepping aside from your profession, and stepping aside from what I know about what's going to go on, because dying kinda sucks, and the Afterlife was crazy when I passed through it." she turns over her sketchbook, and unfolds it. There are workings in her own Demotic dialect, Latin, Hebrew. Castillan Spanish and a little bit of workings taken from Sumerian and Latin incantation, based on medical scans of Tim and Jon.     "Constantine helped me check over some of the failsafes, so I'm pretty confident that we'll be good to go no matter what happens
Jonathan Sims	"I'm a millenial," Jon counters with a grin. "We were promised that if only we did our homework and worked really, /really/ hard, the world would be our oyster. The world has thus far failed to deliver, and we're all rather pissed about it. I intend to go give the world what-for, myself. We were told we were going to change the world, after all. I'm not /quite/ yet at the 'checking out of capitalism' part of what that might actually mean, just yet. So... still hustling, and still convinced I can save everyone. Check back with me in a few years when I'm 40 and even more tired."     He leans over to peer at the work; he understands the words, but not necessarily all of the magical workings involved. "This sort of thing is /not/ my forte," he notes. "Magic is more an art, for me, and the ritual sort of magic that John does... well. I understand it, but it feels like looking at the physics of acoustics, as a musician. Yes, okay, that's what happens when my vocal chords resonate, but I can't bloody well tell what /note/ you're trying to play, let alone the emotional content of the song."     He tilts his head a bit. "But... alright, I /think/ what I'm getting from this is... you and Tim need to be in my vicinity when I die, and then you kind of... interrupt the movement of the Archive, to attach it to this... psychic imprint of me that you're going to have set up on Tim? Is that imprint being set up ahead of time?"
Phoebe Beacon	"And I'm singing and playing three instruments at the same time... I'm... basically Bert from Mary Poppins."     Phoebe, as played by Dick Van Dyke, complete with awful Cockney accent.     "... but you can tell. If you know what to look for when you look at a diagram of the resonation, you and see what note is being played. Using context clues from the note before or after, you can determine the key, and from the key? You can determine if the song is supposed to be happy, or if it's supposed to be sad. If it's a dirge, or if it's reverent." Phoebe points out, and she unfolds more paper.     "And if we're going to use musical comparrisons? This is an Opus. Without Sandalphon holding my emotions back, without the work of Lydia's inspiration and the corrections that were made, this would all fail, be too much for someone like me... and yeah. Tim and I are going to have to be there. The overlay should activate once I destroy this circle, basically hot-transferring like a generator switch. Then Tim's temporarily hosting the Archive powers. The switch back is similar. Just... going to be a bit weird on everyone."
Jonathan Sims	Jon nods slowly as he looks it all over, drinking his tea as he considers. "Right, well... whatever you need from me, just let me know. The transfer back should be... somewhat easier than it seems? If all goes as it should, I'll be a proper avatar of Ma'at by then, and I would /hope/ she'll provide some, err, guidance for all of this."     He shakes his head. "It's jazz I'm playing, down in the Underworld. Making it up on the spot, as I go. Appropriate, I suppose." He smiles. "But I have faith that you'll manage this. You've done remarkably well so far."     He snorts. "Three misfit kids from Gotham, Brooklyn, and Bournemouth are going to cobble together enough magic to save the bloody world. At least we're in good company, together. Which reminds me--we need to know who's in charge while we're down there. Did you have any ideas?"
Phoebe Beacon	"I was considering asking you to ask Diana or Manhunter to babysit until we came back. If we ask John, he might feed everyone chocolate for breakfast and then turn them all loose." she gives a wry smile, and she exhales.     "We still need a third as well. And... possibly a fourth. I'm not sure how suited I'll be for leadership once the emotional stabilization is taken off. I can feel like, back there, laying like a viper." Phoebe wrinkles.     "Well. At least we'll have two people who can talk to the gods of Duat. I'll just be glowing in the dark. Make a great target."
Jonathan Sims	"I don't know if I'd have a chance to see any of them... I'm not exactly getting out much. This will probably be all I do today. But I can try." Jon takes a long sips as he considers. "I'm not certain what to do about a third. Or fourth. I'd trust Lydia but I know you have issues with her, I suppose Pezzini has stepped up, but otherwise..."     He frowns, and shakes his head. "Perhaps we'd best see who does well through this whole... business, hmm? Who shows up, who proves themselves trustworthy." He laughs, a little ruefully. "It's not as if we have much of a base of operations to defend or anything, just now. If we /do/ need to be certain /someone/ has the key to the Astral that Cael got and could gather people in a pinch while we're off in the Underworld, I'd say Pezzini if she can get herself harmonized with Witchblade again."
Phoebe Beacon	"... my reservations about Lydia have some to do with her fiancee, and her lack of control at the temple, but if it's lack of control that's the issue I definitely don't have a leg to stand on." Phoebe replies, tapping her head. " but..." she trails off a moment, and gives a small huff. "We're the Dark side of the League. I suppose there's going to be times where we're going to have to forgoe some of the public image, since... you know... we're... dark." Phoebe purses her lips, and gives a slight smile to Jon.     "But Lydia's coming with us, besides. And I can't imagine Pez is going to be left behind willingly when we go." she gives a slight hum.     "Sara's a good choice though. She's got a good head on her shoulders. Lydia's incredibly smart. You may have to pull them both..."     She gives a small, embarrassed smile. "The Big B wants me to stay to Gotham for a while after this, you know. Recenter myself, maybe see a psychologist who isn't also leading two magical groups at the same time and do some physical training. Might be fun." she jokes.     It is not going to be fun.
Jonathan Sims	"Sara's not going to Duat," Jon says, quite firmly. "If she can get control of Witchblade back in time she needs to be /here/. It's a discussion we've had already--the list of people is what it is for a reason, and she has a duty to defend Earth, should anything actually happen. Which goes a long way toward my feeling that at least leaving the key with her is a good idea."     He sighs. "A break is good. I don't know what 'after all this' means for you, and him, but I'm certainly taking a vacation once we have Chas back. My husband and my girlfriend have both been /quite/ insistent." A smile. "Therapy is good, too. I have a therapist, I don't know if I'd be quite... not that I'm /stable/." He wrinkles his nose. "But I wouldn't be /functional/ if I didn't have a therapist. It sounds like a good idea, is my point."     He frowns. "I think I might have to close down my practice, when everything's said and done. I've been finding other help for my regular patients anyhow. Relatively normal sort of thing, really--people's lives tend to change when all of this happens." He tilts his head. "But you, well... you've been through a lot. You should stop, and take stock. I am... trying to. There will be more to do, I'm certain. But... take the opportunity, when you can. The JLD can wait a bit--it'll have to wait on me anyhow. I mean, I'm... /dying/, and coming back. That's a lot to handle all on its own, never mind the rest of what's been going on."
Phoebe Beacon	"Once Chas is back. Once this crisis is over. Once I make sure my promise to Geraldine and Agnes is fufilled." Phoebe goves a small smile. "I've got doubts about Therapy, but only because my last one -- when Chuck died, not you, you don't count, you're kinda like..." she wrinkles her nose a moment, her lips curling to one side "You're pretty much a 'co-worker' at this point. Maybe with a little bit of supervisory." she takes another breath, and lets it out.     "So. Details of your death..."
Jonathan Sims	Jon raises one finger. "You and I have never had an official therapy session. We never could have--the daughter of a friend is too close a relationship." He wrinkles his nose again. "I'm going to be /really/ lucky if I don't lose my license, dating Cael. The co-worker who found out we were /friends/ and I was having sessions with her was kind enough to let me off with 'stop that, you idiot.' That's why it's hard, though... I'm friends or co-workers with the sorts of people who used to be my patients." He shrugs.     Then he smirks. "Details of my death...? I don't know. I suspect it'll happen at the battle for the last wellspring, but that's just a guess. I suppose you and Tim should be there though, hmm?"
Phoebe Beacon	"Right, that's what I'm saying. I had a therapist, back when I was fourteen, who prescribed me like, six different meds at once and was surprised I was passing for 'well adjusted' and not 'a zombie'." Phoebe empties her coffee.     "Like I said, the meds didn't work 'cause my body was just adjusting to them on the fly, so instead I turned to the very normal Teenager pastimes of 'fighting crime'." she jokes, and she leans back.     "Well, yes, we're going to be there. I was hoping maybe you had..." she flicks her fingers. New nervous tic. A playing card appears, the nine of hearts, turning into a bus pass, turning into some sort of official ID, turning to a passport card, she focuses it for a moment "... more details. So that we're not caught out of the loop. We have to do the transfer quickly."
Jonathan Sims	Jon rolls his eyes. "I hate it when people over-prescribe. Medication is /not/ the answer to everything." He takes a long drink of his tea, watching the card changing curiously.     "I wish I did too," he says after a moment. "But no amount of cajoling has gotten more information out of Uriel, and honestly... I'm not certain even /he/ knows for sure. It's not like..."     He frowns, then says slowly, "I... didn't plan this. I don't /want/ it. I have, in fact, been trying to figure out ways /around/ it. I've begged Uriel and Gaea both to... find another way, that means I don't have to die. What I've gathered is that whatever it is that's going to happen... it's not like I'm going to be executed. I'm going to do something that's... entirely in my nature to do. Something I might have done anyway, even if I didn't know ahead of time, even if I hadn't been Gaea's Champion."     He frowns for a moment, then shakes his head. "But I'm certainly not going to be... willingly going to be martyred or anything. Knowing myself, thus far, I presume it'll be a badly calculated move during a fight with Michael, or an attempt to protect someone else from a fatal blow. I have little doubt Michael's the one that'll kill me, at this point--I can't see any other reason Uriel would have set things up like this. But he's not planning to, and won't mean to. He doesn't even /know/."
Phoebe Beacon	"... after I was hurt at the gala, and brought to the House to recovery, I did a lot of reading on cartomancy, and learned this trick from him." Phoebe replies, and she flicks the card up, and it shows as a Gotham City metro pass. It still identifies her as Beacon-Constantine-Chandler, and then she taps it again, and now it's Benjamina Dover.     And she tucks the card away. "It's how I was able to get into the electrical room at the shelter. Not that the guard really cared, but hey." she shrugs her shoulders, and then reaches up and rubs her left shoulder a moment.     "... what's it like to have them see you for you?" she questions to Jon.
Jonathan Sims	Jon tilts his head curiously. "Who do you mean? Uriel and Gaea? Or... the people around me? Around us?" He frowns. "I don't know that I'd say very many people see me for me; I didn't even do that until very, very recently."     His brow furrows for a moment, but then he closes his mouth, to let Phoebe clarify the question. His expression is curious, but concerned.
Phoebe Beacon	"I used to be Catholic. I prayed to the saints, the angels, hoping someone would listen. Then when I got involved with magic, Hecatate and Persephone. Anubis. Osiris. Wadjet."     Phoebe shakes her empty coffee cup. "No one has ever come to me, or inspired me, or reached out to me at my behest... and even when I went with you to the City I felt like an outsider looking in at everything involved. I don't feel like a part of everything that's gone on." she gives a shrug.     "You and Zatanna both were able to call the visages of gods to free my ancestors."     She raises her eyebrows. "Gaea and Uriel see you as a champion. You are going to move the afterlife to fix things. You are the key for so many things, the lynchpin for so many plans. You must be inordinarily stressed out."
Jonathan Sims	Jon chuckles. "I... am, yes. Stressed out. But I've been stressed out most of the time you've known me. I'm very, very good at hiding that behind a posture of professionalism."     He frowns. "The gods have been involved in my life since... well, since I was eight, at least, but quite probably long before. Uriel claimed to know about every Archivist who will be, claimed he knew I'd exist eons before I did. But I... didn't know about any of that, for a very long time. I was Anglican, myself. I wanted to be a vicar. I prayed for help, when I was being bullied, and got nothing. I prayed to different gods, the Egyptian gods, for help when I was trying to escape a cult, when my friends were dying... and the help I got was almost worse than nothing. It wasn't even the gods who responded, directly, back then. Just a woman who claimed to speak for them."     He sighs. "I didn't start being able to talk to them directly until I started /serving/ them directly... but that comes with a price. I can call on Gaea and Uriel because I'm suffering in their service, because I'm going to die for their game. I talk to Ma'at because she's going to take me and... change me into something else. Merge with me, somehow. Thoth gives me pointed looks, but he never wanted me in the first place; if it were up to him, I wouldn't be Archivist at all. I have support from the gods, but that's restricted my choices. I couldn't walk away from the deal I made with Michael without giving up my power. I /have/ to take a statement every week, I /have/ to record the things I do, I am finding it harder to... lie, to bend my morals in any way. So many people have /chosen/ whether or not they're going to be involved in this... and I don't get that choice. I never had a choice."     He shakes his head. "The grass is always greener, right? You look at me and see someone... involved, and in the middle of everything. But I feel alone, profoundly alone. Most people in this city have no idea who I am, and wouldn't care if they did. I've had precious few visitors in my recovery, no balloons or get-well cards, no medals or fanfares or parades. I find it entirely possible that I could die, and stay dead, and save the world in so doing, and most of the people involved would think me a foolish man who ran to his death, over-eager to martyr himself. I've had very little feeling of... support, or validation. I have, more than once, seriously considered turning aside from this whole business and letting the world burn. I still feel very much an outsider in the group I /lead/. People I trusted turned away when they found out this burden fell on me, and I still haven't quite forgiven them."     He gives Phoebe a sad smile. "But you /are/ part of what's going on. Chas cares about you, and so do most of the others involved in this. Look at everyone who came to your party, hmm? People care. And I would imagine more people care about me, and trust me, and would be sad if I died, than I know. But it's..." He frowns. "People don't... reach out, enough. They don't try to let others know that they care, enough. I try, but I don't always get it right. I told Cael the other day, I'd like to think that if someone else had been Champion, I would have given them the support I haven't felt I've been getting... but I have to admit maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe I'd have just... gone off and buried my head in the sand. Paid attention to my own problems, my own well-being."     He looks down at the table. "It's been hard. You look at me and see a Champion--I look at you and see someone with her whole life ahead of her, with /choices/ I never had, with friends and a life I would have literally killed for, when I was just 18. And yet, we're both lonely, and confused, and struggling. We're both right, and we're both wrong. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle."
Phoebe Beacon	"Then, for what it's worth... look at me and don't feel so alone." Phoebe comments. "I don't have a real choice in moving back to Gotham. I didn't really have a choice in fighting Leksandra, was never given really a choice when contending with my powers on my own." she gives a slight, sad smile "I'm barely eighteen. I'm literally hours into being 'an adult'. And for better or for worse, I'm kinda a leader in both The Group and our League. I've got marginally more experience with magic but without the ability to draw on the years of experience. And a lot of people look at me and see someone who's willing to just wreck herself for... y'know. This guy who made a dumb decision."     She leans back. "Or another guy who made a dub decision. Or someone else who has."     She looks back to Jon.     "Whatever you are going through, Jon, you're not going to be completely alone."
Jonathan Sims	"Chas made a dumb decision, but I can't say I don't understand. I /just/ offered to blow up the Archive for Agnes' sake. And you're fighting for Geraldine more than anything." Jon regards her with a smile. "I try not to judge people before I've heard their side of things. Even Michael... I'd feel sorry for him, if he'd let me. I /understand/ him now, and he got a raw deal. It doesn't excuse what he's done, but it... makes it explicable. So much of this whole business is about absent parents."     He sighs. "Thank you. I know I won't be totally alone... I know I'm not alone, not really. But it can be hard to shake that feeling. Who can ever really know another? Even telepathy isn't a guarantee of understanding. But... you're not as on the outside as you may think. Sandalphon helped you, right?"     A pause. "If anything goes wrong... contact Uriel. Literally all you need do is pray to him and he'll appear. He's been my... spy on the inside, this whole game was his idea. If you need help, contact him and tell him I sent you. I hope it won't come to that."     He sighs. "Speaking of not being alone, I... should probably be getting back home. I have people who worry." He smiles. "Tim is there for you, no matter what; I can tell that much. You can trust him, and he trusts Batman, yes? The gods, in my experience, are about as confused and messed up as we are--this entire business is happening because Michael's Father isn't paying enough attention. I'll put my stock in the mortals that are there for us."