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who: Alex Reagan and hopefully you!
what: An open log. There's a couple open prompts but if they don't work just add your own! And don't worry about styles. I'll match em.
when: The month of August.
where: Anywhere you want her to be that's not the mingle, honestly!
warnings: Not that I can think of at the moment.

I.

Despite everything else in her life, Alex Reagan happened to be someone who was a person of habit, and so where she could be found just happened to be habit as well. So, all too often Alex found herself working at The Coffee Shop rather than her office with the substandard coffee and the annoying interns. She was there almost every day with at least one empty cup in front of her, one full one and some sort of pastries there for anyone who might happen to want to stop by and visit, or for anyone whom she had a lunch date with. The table itself was largely taken up with two books and a notebook, along with her phone from home. She inevitably had one of the books open, even though both of them were on the same lines of things, even if vastly different.

Alex would either be reading from a book on learning Spanish and copying what she was learning into the notebook in small and frantic writing, as if her hand couldn't keep up with her brain, because well... That's basically what happened, even in things like this. Still, she was making a real effort to do it, and the book was deeply into, as Alex was hitting the harder parts of the beginner's section and there were lists of words that went along with it.

The second book is much older and still somehow less well-loved than the first one, and Alex had found it in the back of the library shelves. Despite having taken it out days ago, she was still dealing with the beginning pages of it, and if there was something that was guaranteed that would make her grumble, it was this. But still, she was determined to try and teach herself how to read Cruciform even if it killed her, which at this point it honestly just might do. So when someone came up to her, she was all too ready to sit either of them aside, and greeting the other person with a grin, especially if it was someone who she expected.

ii

The other way in which Alex was a creature of habit came with her walking her dog in the afternoon. Alex's pitbull was large and gray and more than a little friendly, which probably made sense considering Alex Reagan was his owner. Her mornings were normally running and rowing, but afternoon walks were more slow and leisurely and normally made by herself. Well, by herself as well as her playing Pokemon Go, even if no one else was. So, yes, she's walking her dog but she's also got her device out to let her know when there just happens to be a pokemon or two in the area that she's walking in.

Normally she collects one or two, and fights at a gym or so, and then goes about her business and comes home. Not today though. Today, Alex just stopped so suddenly that Apo's leash actually snapped taunt for a moment before the gray dog came back to see her, and Alex is just staring at her phone for a second. The dumbed silence only lasts for a second or two before Alex just yells like the child who she can come times be: "Oh my god! It's a Pikachu! It's a Pikachu!" Then without a preamble other than that, Alex just takes off after it, a giant grin on her face. She's never caught one before.

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He feels a profound pang at that suggestion, and it shows on his face.

"That would be ... my God." He sits back in his chair. "Do you know, I have never so much as considered the prospect of anyone else from my world appearing here?"

Because, quite honestly, he thinks of them all as gone. And he thinks of himself as having been singled out for some other purpose, hence his being here. Could any of the others have been similarly chosen? It troubles him to think.

"Really? For the first three months all I did was wait for people to show up. Well. Richard and my friend Nic. Then he showed up when I didn't expect him to any longer." And after she admitted her feelings about him honestly. Which may have been why he'd actually shown up was something that she'd thought about more than a few times.

But there's something in his expression that makes Alex frown, and she reached over and out her hand on his before she asked. "Would it be a bad thing if someone did show up from home?" Alex may or may not have a list of those she'd rather not so she gets that too.

"That depends on who it is," he admits. "There are some who I would be glad to see again, and others ... it would be difficult." He smiles, not completely humourlessly, but there's a certain bleakness to his expression. "You might say that we did not part on the best of terms."

Alex knows that look, and she just frowns at him for a long moment but nods slowly. "So not everyone back home is a good guy. I get it." Alex does have some enemies back home, so she knows how that is. If Warren ever showed up, someone's going to need to bail her out of jail. But instead of mentioning that, Alex just asks softly: "anyone you want to talk about?"

Harry wants to say no, but remembers that he is trying to...if not be completely open about his history, at least talk a little more about it. Following his own advice, as it were.

What's the worst of it, Collins, that you would be willing to share? It might help to say it out loud.
I've tried, sir.
Well, you haven't tried with me.

"Our expedition was trapped in the pack ice for two winters," he says. "We finally abandoned ship to attempt to walk to safety. And there was a man—the caulker's mate on Terror—who fomented a mutiny." He stares down at the table, unable to look Alex in the eye. "There are many reasons I would not want to see that man or his closest allies again."

Alex knows he wants to say no but when he starts to talk, her attention is focused directly on him, and her chin rests in her hand as she listens to him. She is quiet for a moment when he is done, and instead of speaking, Alex just reaches her hand across the table and gave his own a little squeeze. "He sounds terrible. I wouldn't want him here either, honestly. Any of them."

A beat and then she asked, "you didn't agree with the mutiny, did you?" She doesn't think he did, but you never know.

Harry shakes his head. "No. But after we abandoned ship, the camp was attacked—by a creature that had been stalking us for some time. In the confusion, Hickey and his men fled on their own, but they seized me and took me with them."

Harry's statement leads Alex to want to ask two questions. The first is obviously having to do with the fact that he called it a 'creature' not something like a polar bear or whatever. To Alex herself, calling something a 'creature' means that you have no idea what the hell it was.

But the second question is what Alex chooses to go with because he's her friend not a story. So Alex just gives his hand a small squeeze before she asks softly. "Because you were a doctor?" It makes sense to her given everything. If you were out on an ice pack she would want someone who could help heal people too.

"I was the only one left," he says. "Stanley, MacDonald, Peddie—the other three surgeons were all dead by then. Hickey was a good planner; I'll give him that." A small, bleak smile.

That bleak smile of his spoke volumes about what a terrible person that Hickley was, with all of his planning and Alex frowned tightly before she looked around the crowded coffee shop. She has questions of course (when does she not have questions honestly?!) but she wants to try and set him at ease so she just asks softly. "Do you wanna get out of here? Talk at my place or my office? I've got scotch at both."

That she stole from the house but shush. If nothing else, it would be quiet there and Harry didn't need to worry that someone might overhear them talking about this. After everything with Richard, Alex is trying to be more aware of people's privacies. It doesn't always work, but at least she's trying here which is more than she did back home.

Harry looks down at his book. He's never going to be able to get focused on it again, he realises, so he nods. "Yes—I think I have managed as much as I can, for the day." Which isn't much, but he'll find a way to make up for it later.

Alex's work ethic was shot for the day too, but there was always another one. That was the good thing about being in a place like this: there was always another day. Starting to shift her books into a stack to make it easier to shove into her bag, she just asked softly. "So my place or my office. Richard's teaching, and Stan's at school so it might just be Simon at the house." A beat. "But he tends to avoid people." For good reason and all of that, but she wanted to warn him before he made his decision about where the two of them were going to go.

"That will be all right," Harry said. He began gathering up his own things as well. "I think—I have rather had enough of offices, of late."

"Okay. Cool." Honestly, Alex is relieved she doesn't need to explain Simon. It's sort of impossible to fully explain Simon even if you weren't keeping pieces of your backstory locked behind so many locks at this moment. "There will be a lot of scotch and cookies, because I have a feeling that we're going to need to have both." Because what goes better with a tale of heartbreak and terribleness than good scotch and good cookies?

With her things stuffed into her bag, (It's going to break some day when she does that, but for now it holds fast) Alex just dropped a generous tip on the table and smiled at him. "All set?"

Harry nodded. "Lead the way, then."

He was content to make small talk as they went, but obviously was saving the more harrowing stuff for later.

One of the reason that Alex tends to frequent that coffee shop is that it's a sort of reasonable distance from the house. And of course a reasonable distance to the elevated train that would take her the three stops over to her office. Today though, they're heading home and Alex just leads Harry up the steps of the victorian house, letting him in with a grin over her shoulder. She doesn't pause in the living room where she'd talked to him before, instead going into the kitchen. The kitchen was where the cookies lived after all, and they lived on the counter as long as no one...

"God damn it." The swear was soft, and Alex moved onto her toes to reach into the cabinets. The box is just outside of her reach. "Harry would you mind? Sometimes being surrounded by tall people means that they forget to place things where I can reach them too."

"And not even the courtesy of a step-stool?" he says with a smile, but he easily reaches the box and passes it to her. "Though I admit, my brothers and I were similarly thoughtless" All the Goodsir men are tall, something that was occasional cause for annoyance from the charwoman who looked after their rooms at the flat on Lothian Street.

"Well," Alex said, drawing out the sound of the word with a grin. "I wouldn't have needed it if I was alone." Because you can bet she would have just climbed up there to get it. And to stand on Ruby's hand installed counters if she needed to and Richard was being a complete dick and intentionally putting something on the high shelf. It happened sometimes. But she wasn't about to do it in front of someone when she didn't need too. "It's okay though, honestly. Sometimes short people put things in the back of bottom cabinets to make up for it." Like she did, clearly, which was why she ducked down underneath to pull out a bottle of scotch, which she handed to him in return. Glasses at least were reasonable to be reached and she got two of them out before she asked, "do you want it with ice or water or neat?"

"A little water, thank you."

He put his bag down and took out his notebook again. Turning the pages, trying to think of how to continue with his story.

Alex added both ice and water from the door of the fridge to her own, and just a little water to his before she joined him at the table with a smile, sliding one of the glasses across the reclaimed wood towards him. (Ruby was the one who decorated the house, because she was Strand's assistant and she was pushy in a similar way to Alex. Even if they didn't exactly share the same tastes.)

Adding the cookies, she just asked softly: "better?"

He took the glass, but didn't drink right away. "Yes—thank you." He left his notebook open to where it had fallen: another sketch from memory, this time of the cairn at Victory Point.

"It is not a pretty story, what became of us," he said.

The drawing that he showed her was beautiful, but it was bleak, and it made Alex frown. You didn't need someone who's brain went as fast from 'everything's fine' to 'worst possible scenario is happening right in front of me' as hers did to realize that what was shown there was some kind of memorial or something. A grave, it felt very much like a grave, though what it was for wasn't something that Alex was sure of.

But then she gave him a little smile and put her hand over the top of his, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It's okay, I don't expect pretty stories here, Harry. You can tell me whatever you need too, alright?"

He took a sip of his drink and sat back.

"This stone cairn," he said, indicating the sketch. "It was built by a prior expedition, and we left records of our own there. I think they may be the only records we left behind. I have learned ... that the fate of our expedition is a mystery, that artifacts and traces have been found, but little else. We wished to be remembered, I think—but not in this way."

The last time that Harry had been here, they'd spoken about how he didn't know what had happened to the exhibition, and if someone there might tell him. The fact that someone had told him made her heart hurt for him for a moment, but she also understood wanting to know. She would have wanted to know if it had been her.

"I'm sorry. What happened? How did it all go so wrong?"

Harry takes a deep breath. "Our ships were trapped in the ice for two winters. We were supposed to be provisioned for that long, perhaps longer, but our stores of tinned food were contaminated—the tins poorly made and the food rotting and the lead solder poisoning us all. Scurvy set in as well. In the end we abandoned ship and attempted to walk to safety."

He takes a drink, and it's clear that his hands are trembling a little. "All the while there was a creature on the ice, stalking us."