[FICATHON] To Pluck Bright Honor From the Top of the World, Ma, for gileonnen
Title: To pluck bright honor from the top of the world, Ma
Author: roz_mcclure
Recipient: gileonnen
Rating: 15 (for swears)
Pairings: Hotspur/Kate, kind of Hotspur/Douglas
Warnings: Guns and liquor
Summary: IF Hotspur were a police commander in the 1930s, AND also everyone in the story were genderswapped, THEN he might look like Katharine Hepburn, and anachronisms and tacked-on happy endings would probably abound.
Author's note: Shakespeare condensed characters from the history, and I've condensed characters from the Shakespeare! Another few rounds of this and Hotspur will be the only character in the entire story.
It wasn't raining during the medal ceremony, for once, although the promise of it was heavy enough in the air to make Harriet's hair frizz under her blue cap. She stood sharp at attention, but as Mayor Lancaster's speech fumbled, she blinked and looked for Kit in the crowd. There he was, sitting stiffly in the second row of folding chairs with her mother. Nora Percy's face was fixed in her blank bored public-event smile, but Kit met Harriet's gaze, and waved her a kiss.
He wore a dark navy suit, the same colour as the day they'd met. Harriet pursed her lips and blew back.
The steel-grey sky darkened as the mayor left her podium and approached the assembled policewomen, followed by the medal-bearer. Harriet watched her search for her daughters: Jane, with her dark hair in a neat bun, was easy to spot in the front row, and Honoria was tall and beaming beside her, but Henrietta slouched with too-bright lipstick in the back. No medal for her. She'd been drinking in an East End dance hall when the call for backup came, and arrived half an hour later in someone else's uniform, stinking of gin.
Harriet fidgeted; she wished Kit were standing beside her. She guessed Jane wouldn't appreciate the kind of comments she was twitching to make. Comments like, Why are we having a stupid medal ceremony when I could be out on the streets actually working?, or You know, nobody believes the whole 'undercover' story about Eleanor Mortimer, so maybe you should just let old grudges go like your campaign said and help her, or Newsflash, the only way your appointed commissioner could find the head office is if you cranked up a jazz record and started selling cheap liquor, so maybe you should name someone who actually knows what they are doing.
She was too busy composing angry rejoinders to the mayor's no-doubt-weaselly replies, when the woman herself appeared beside her and Harriet snapped to attention. "Commander Percy," Mayor Lancaster said. Harriet straightened her shoulders. "Once in a lifetime--" The mayor stopped. Breathed. Tried again. "Once in a lifetime, a leader is lucky enough to find a supporter who is clever, brave, strong, persistent, and -- and so bright she's almost stupid." She laughed. "Of course, I'd hoped that would be my daughter Henny, but, mothers, you know how your dreams for your children can be disappointed!" She laughed again. No one else. Harriet saw Kit mouth, Is she cracked? to her mother. "But -- if you're lucky -- someone else comes along to fill that place." Mayor Lancaster cleared her throat. "Since joining the Met five years ago, Commander Percy has exemplified the best police work in the city. In January, she organised and led a week of operations that culminated the arrest and charging of Dolly Douglas and many of her collaborators. Although that activity remains ongoing, I have no doubt that Harriet will bring those involved in the Douglas gang, and any other gang, to justice. Which is why I am proud to present her with the award for Commander of the Year, 1933."
Harriet smiled as the mayor held out the medal, and took a deep, clear breath. "It would be a lot easier to do my job if we had some more funding," she said. Bonnie froze, and Harriet saw that flash of mad surrogate motherhood vanish.
Good. She had enough family. "I mean, Commander Mortimer was kidnapped by the Dowers, what, two months ago? I've been trying to -- I wrote a letter, but maybe you didn't get it -- but you say you don't negotiate with gangsters, even though you're happy to pay old Mayor Roy hush money, I mean an allowance. Ellie Mortimer's the best officer we have, after me, you know."
"We do not," Mayor Lancaster said, "negotiate with gangsters." Her eyes landed sharply on Kit, whose face was pinched. "No matter who, or whose family, is involved."
"But--"
"Deputy Commissioner Lancaster," the mayor said, and moved swiftly past Harriet.
-------
"So, Mayor Bonnie is kind of a wanker," Harriet said to Kit in bed that night. The Soho streetlights filtered warmly through their thin curtains, and he grunted, facedown and half-asleep. "When I signed up during the election she promised us early-joiners a bonus and it's not about the money, but I haven't done real police work for ages. Nailing Dolly Douglas was fun, but it didn't hurt. Police work should hurt."
Kit might have murmured an assent.
"I like Dolly Douglas," Harriet said. "She doesn't know when to stop."
-------
She turned in her resignation the next week. Jane Lancaster read the letter, as Harriet stood before her desk and watched the dark circles under her eyes grow.
"Where's Henny?" she said.
Jane rolled her eyes, and Harriet grinned. She liked the middle Lancaster daughter; Jane would never be exceptional, like Henrietta could be, but she was neither senseless nor useless, which put her in a considerably advantaged position over her sisters. "Going undercover," she said mildly.
"Really?"
"No. Thanks for the letter, Percy. I appreciate it." She stood. Harriet saluted. Jane returned it.
Five minutes later, she hopped down the stairs to the pavement outside. Kit was loitering by a lamppost, holding a glowing cigarette between his fingers. "Telegram from Ellie," he said. "She's okay. She wants to talk to us."
"Where?"
"Caer Dathyl."
His eyebrow quirked a question.
Harriet snorted. "Let's buy some brandy," she said. "And a gun."
------
Harriet hated this kind of nightclub, and she hated idiot gang leaders with poetic pseudonyms and stinking-absinthe silk gowns. Some Davis lookalike purred into a microphone in the corner while Ellie made wet eyes at him, and Kit watched them both tensely. Glynn Dower was an ethereal brunette with a dreamy expression and sharp eyes, and she smoothed her full white skirt with firm dark hands.
Harriet lit a cigarette. Dower glared. "You can't smoke in here."
"Tough shit," Harriet said, and flicked her ashes at the spreading pools of beaded white silk lapping at her barstool.
"Harry," Kit said, a warning.
"I can hardly breathe in here," Harriet snapped. "Why did we have to have this meeting here, anyway? What's wrong with the old diner? And the music's too loud."
Ellie breezed toward them and sat on a velvet-covered chair. Everyone in this room seemed to be breezing, or flowing, like the air, and the music. It made Harriet's head hurt. At least Kit was still and solid beside her, even if he was giving her the look that usually meant she'd had too much to drink and was talking too loud. "I'm sober," she said.
"Okay," Kit said.
"We've decided to do something," Ellie said. She looked at Dower, as if for confirmation. "Something important."
And that was that. It was as easy as a bank heist ("They always are," Kit muttered). Breaking into City Hall would be the easy part. The council was in session to the end of the month. Glynn gestured as if she were tracing fireflies. "We blow this open, shoot some people--" she said.
"Or not," Ellie interjected, hooking her boot heel on the bottom rung of Harriet's barstool.
"The papers would print it, definitely," Harriet said. "I mean, it would be worth it. It would certainly be picturesque." She uncrossed her legs and tapped her foot quickly against the thick-carpeted floor. "It would be hard, we'd have to do it exactly. Can you imagine the look on her face? I mean the mayor's. I don't, I don't have anything against the kids, but can you imagine, running the city? It would be hard work. We could clean it up, make sure everything happened when it was supposed to. It would be hard work."
"Some of us are used to that," Dower said. "I've managed the West End for ten years, I orchestrated the Bond Street bank heist of 1927. I already run half the city." Her heavy-lidded eyes were a challenge, and Harriet could never resist a challenge.
"Oh, now she's sharp as a whistle," she said. "You weren't so quick last year, when my team took down your entire Charing Cross operation in an evening."
"I choose my battles," Dower said, feigning idleness. Harriet felt a flash of great hatred; idleness was foreign to her.
"Choose which ones to lose," she said.
Dower frowned, and Harriet tensed and felt Kit's hand tighten around hers. "I'm telling you, a true leader understands strategy," Dower said. "It's a long chess game." Her hands began to describe short motions at her waist level. "The queens...and the pawns. And the knights," she added, offhandedly.
Harriet flushed with angry heat, and she brushed her holstered shotgun with her right hand. Kit clucked once and pulled her onto the close dance floor. "Don't waste your time," he said. The floorboards were pitted with age and stains, but the singer, who Harriet recognized must be Dower's brother, or son, was good. She felt herself relax into Kit's shoulder.
"We're going to be gangsters," she said.
"We'll be in all the pictures," he replied, in an awful American Jimmy Cagney accent. She laughed. The singer stopped, and she turned her head to see Ellie tugging him down to dance, while his band played on.
"It'll hurt," Kit said, reflectively.
"Good," Harriet said, and kissed him.
-----
Kit paid Dolly Douglas' bail in the morning and drove her to Soho in a car with tinted windows. Dolly laughed when Harriet unlocked the door, a bright-red, open smile. "I knew you'd come our way soon," she said. Harriet blushed, and grinned back. "A quick gun like you, you weren't meant to be police. When's the raid?"
"Thursday," Harriet said.
Dolly blinked with unfeigned surprise. "Why not today?"
Kit shook his head. "We've been over this," he said, with a sharp look at Harriet. "Too many reasons--"
"Stupid reasons! No reasons," Harriet said. She held out her hands to Dolly, palms-up. "Listen to these."
"Deputy Commissioner Lancaster will be giving her quarterly report--"
"Jane's a pushover and you know it, she won't stand a foot."
"She raided Caer Dathyl last night. We won't have Glynn and Ellie until tomorrow."
"Please." Even Dolly's plaits looked scornful. Harriet wanted to know how to make her hair look scornful. Now that she was a gangster, she could find out. "As if we need everyone. The council is almost in recess, there will be fewer people milling around."
Kit set his mouth; his hair just looked straight and sensible, like it always did. "That doesn't mean we can do it with just two of you. And anyway, the commissioner--"
Harriet laughed. "Henrietta? If she can find her way to City Hall with two hands and a torch, she'll be too busy trying to walk a straight line to care. And she won't want to smear her lipstick even if she does."
Dolly crinkled her forehead, although her eyes remained bright. "I don't know," she said. "I saw Henny at the gaol, she seemed pretty...clean. Sharp, even."
"I can take her," Harriet snapped.
"I know," Dolly said, and smiled like a July sunset.
-----
Harriet sat in the back of the cab and reminded herself why the fuck they were doing this. The streets curved around them like an optical illusion, pulling them into the Westminster paving-stones, and Harriet felt herself short of breath, not from fear, but thrill. When she was mayor she would put together the best city in the world, with Kit beside her.
The cab arrived with a jolt, and her knee brushed Dolly's, who gave her a broad wink before swinging the door open and leaping out. Harriet felt for her guns before stepping onto the pavement in front of City Hall. She pulled her pistol from its hip holster. "Get out of my way," she said to the guard. He didn't. She shot him in the knee and he went down writhing.
This was the easy part. Harriet kept walking.
Inside, she glimpsed Dolly's dark hair moving into the electric room, and a few seconds later, the building's power shut down. Harriet moved for the door of the city council chambers, but she stopped short at the the safety click of a regulation handgun.
"Harry," a firm, low voice came from the corner. Harriet watched a pale face emerge from the shadows, under a neat blonde coif.
"Henny," she said.
Henrietta Lancaster looked taller in her regulation blues than she ever had in her bright bohemian duds. She held her chin up, and her gun was steady as it followed Harriet. Harriet waved suddenly. A bullet squeezed into the brick wall behind her, and she laughed.
"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Henrietta said. Her voice wavered, even if her grip didn't.
Harriet laughed again. "I taught you that line. At least let me get mine reloaded." She began moving slowly toward the council chamber door.
"Stop," Henrietta said.
Harriet was sure Henrietta didn't have the guts or training to do it, and she was about to say so when the power surged back on, and Henny's arm jumped and it felt like Harriet's right leg exploded.
"Shit," she said.
------
The Portsmouth sky was clear blue, and the train ride had been hard. "Well, that didn't work," Harriet said. She tried to move her bandaged leg, but Kit placed a firm hand down and steered her wheelchair up the ramp.
"I'll say," he said. Kit knew understatements. That was why she loved him. She breathed in the salt air, and tilted her face to the sun.
"Where's Dolly?" "Released with no charges. I heard she's going to Chicago." "And where's this boat going?"
"Chicago."
"Sounds like hard work." They sat in peaceable silence, and Harriet listened to the ship creak. "Want to get me a martini?" she said. "I can't walk, you know."
Kit said nothing.
"Fine, I'll wheel there myself. Or get one of those strapping deckhands to help me. Where's the bar?
"Kit?
"Kit, there is a bar on this boat, isn't there?
"Kit!"
A low rumble, and they were on their way.
Author: roz_mcclure
Recipient: gileonnen
Rating: 15 (for swears)
Pairings: Hotspur/Kate, kind of Hotspur/Douglas
Warnings: Guns and liquor
Summary: IF Hotspur were a police commander in the 1930s, AND also everyone in the story were genderswapped, THEN he might look like Katharine Hepburn, and anachronisms and tacked-on happy endings would probably abound.
Author's note: Shakespeare condensed characters from the history, and I've condensed characters from the Shakespeare! Another few rounds of this and Hotspur will be the only character in the entire story.
It wasn't raining during the medal ceremony, for once, although the promise of it was heavy enough in the air to make Harriet's hair frizz under her blue cap. She stood sharp at attention, but as Mayor Lancaster's speech fumbled, she blinked and looked for Kit in the crowd. There he was, sitting stiffly in the second row of folding chairs with her mother. Nora Percy's face was fixed in her blank bored public-event smile, but Kit met Harriet's gaze, and waved her a kiss.
He wore a dark navy suit, the same colour as the day they'd met. Harriet pursed her lips and blew back.
The steel-grey sky darkened as the mayor left her podium and approached the assembled policewomen, followed by the medal-bearer. Harriet watched her search for her daughters: Jane, with her dark hair in a neat bun, was easy to spot in the front row, and Honoria was tall and beaming beside her, but Henrietta slouched with too-bright lipstick in the back. No medal for her. She'd been drinking in an East End dance hall when the call for backup came, and arrived half an hour later in someone else's uniform, stinking of gin.
Harriet fidgeted; she wished Kit were standing beside her. She guessed Jane wouldn't appreciate the kind of comments she was twitching to make. Comments like, Why are we having a stupid medal ceremony when I could be out on the streets actually working?, or You know, nobody believes the whole 'undercover' story about Eleanor Mortimer, so maybe you should just let old grudges go like your campaign said and help her, or Newsflash, the only way your appointed commissioner could find the head office is if you cranked up a jazz record and started selling cheap liquor, so maybe you should name someone who actually knows what they are doing.
She was too busy composing angry rejoinders to the mayor's no-doubt-weaselly replies, when the woman herself appeared beside her and Harriet snapped to attention. "Commander Percy," Mayor Lancaster said. Harriet straightened her shoulders. "Once in a lifetime--" The mayor stopped. Breathed. Tried again. "Once in a lifetime, a leader is lucky enough to find a supporter who is clever, brave, strong, persistent, and -- and so bright she's almost stupid." She laughed. "Of course, I'd hoped that would be my daughter Henny, but, mothers, you know how your dreams for your children can be disappointed!" She laughed again. No one else. Harriet saw Kit mouth, Is she cracked? to her mother. "But -- if you're lucky -- someone else comes along to fill that place." Mayor Lancaster cleared her throat. "Since joining the Met five years ago, Commander Percy has exemplified the best police work in the city. In January, she organised and led a week of operations that culminated the arrest and charging of Dolly Douglas and many of her collaborators. Although that activity remains ongoing, I have no doubt that Harriet will bring those involved in the Douglas gang, and any other gang, to justice. Which is why I am proud to present her with the award for Commander of the Year, 1933."
Harriet smiled as the mayor held out the medal, and took a deep, clear breath. "It would be a lot easier to do my job if we had some more funding," she said. Bonnie froze, and Harriet saw that flash of mad surrogate motherhood vanish.
Good. She had enough family. "I mean, Commander Mortimer was kidnapped by the Dowers, what, two months ago? I've been trying to -- I wrote a letter, but maybe you didn't get it -- but you say you don't negotiate with gangsters, even though you're happy to pay old Mayor Roy hush money, I mean an allowance. Ellie Mortimer's the best officer we have, after me, you know."
"We do not," Mayor Lancaster said, "negotiate with gangsters." Her eyes landed sharply on Kit, whose face was pinched. "No matter who, or whose family, is involved."
"But--"
"Deputy Commissioner Lancaster," the mayor said, and moved swiftly past Harriet.
-------
"So, Mayor Bonnie is kind of a wanker," Harriet said to Kit in bed that night. The Soho streetlights filtered warmly through their thin curtains, and he grunted, facedown and half-asleep. "When I signed up during the election she promised us early-joiners a bonus and it's not about the money, but I haven't done real police work for ages. Nailing Dolly Douglas was fun, but it didn't hurt. Police work should hurt."
Kit might have murmured an assent.
"I like Dolly Douglas," Harriet said. "She doesn't know when to stop."
-------
She turned in her resignation the next week. Jane Lancaster read the letter, as Harriet stood before her desk and watched the dark circles under her eyes grow.
"Where's Henny?" she said.
Jane rolled her eyes, and Harriet grinned. She liked the middle Lancaster daughter; Jane would never be exceptional, like Henrietta could be, but she was neither senseless nor useless, which put her in a considerably advantaged position over her sisters. "Going undercover," she said mildly.
"Really?"
"No. Thanks for the letter, Percy. I appreciate it." She stood. Harriet saluted. Jane returned it.
Five minutes later, she hopped down the stairs to the pavement outside. Kit was loitering by a lamppost, holding a glowing cigarette between his fingers. "Telegram from Ellie," he said. "She's okay. She wants to talk to us."
"Where?"
"Caer Dathyl."
His eyebrow quirked a question.
Harriet snorted. "Let's buy some brandy," she said. "And a gun."
------
Harriet hated this kind of nightclub, and she hated idiot gang leaders with poetic pseudonyms and stinking-absinthe silk gowns. Some Davis lookalike purred into a microphone in the corner while Ellie made wet eyes at him, and Kit watched them both tensely. Glynn Dower was an ethereal brunette with a dreamy expression and sharp eyes, and she smoothed her full white skirt with firm dark hands.
Harriet lit a cigarette. Dower glared. "You can't smoke in here."
"Tough shit," Harriet said, and flicked her ashes at the spreading pools of beaded white silk lapping at her barstool.
"Harry," Kit said, a warning.
"I can hardly breathe in here," Harriet snapped. "Why did we have to have this meeting here, anyway? What's wrong with the old diner? And the music's too loud."
Ellie breezed toward them and sat on a velvet-covered chair. Everyone in this room seemed to be breezing, or flowing, like the air, and the music. It made Harriet's head hurt. At least Kit was still and solid beside her, even if he was giving her the look that usually meant she'd had too much to drink and was talking too loud. "I'm sober," she said.
"Okay," Kit said.
"We've decided to do something," Ellie said. She looked at Dower, as if for confirmation. "Something important."
And that was that. It was as easy as a bank heist ("They always are," Kit muttered). Breaking into City Hall would be the easy part. The council was in session to the end of the month. Glynn gestured as if she were tracing fireflies. "We blow this open, shoot some people--" she said.
"Or not," Ellie interjected, hooking her boot heel on the bottom rung of Harriet's barstool.
"The papers would print it, definitely," Harriet said. "I mean, it would be worth it. It would certainly be picturesque." She uncrossed her legs and tapped her foot quickly against the thick-carpeted floor. "It would be hard, we'd have to do it exactly. Can you imagine the look on her face? I mean the mayor's. I don't, I don't have anything against the kids, but can you imagine, running the city? It would be hard work. We could clean it up, make sure everything happened when it was supposed to. It would be hard work."
"Some of us are used to that," Dower said. "I've managed the West End for ten years, I orchestrated the Bond Street bank heist of 1927. I already run half the city." Her heavy-lidded eyes were a challenge, and Harriet could never resist a challenge.
"Oh, now she's sharp as a whistle," she said. "You weren't so quick last year, when my team took down your entire Charing Cross operation in an evening."
"I choose my battles," Dower said, feigning idleness. Harriet felt a flash of great hatred; idleness was foreign to her.
"Choose which ones to lose," she said.
Dower frowned, and Harriet tensed and felt Kit's hand tighten around hers. "I'm telling you, a true leader understands strategy," Dower said. "It's a long chess game." Her hands began to describe short motions at her waist level. "The queens...and the pawns. And the knights," she added, offhandedly.
Harriet flushed with angry heat, and she brushed her holstered shotgun with her right hand. Kit clucked once and pulled her onto the close dance floor. "Don't waste your time," he said. The floorboards were pitted with age and stains, but the singer, who Harriet recognized must be Dower's brother, or son, was good. She felt herself relax into Kit's shoulder.
"We're going to be gangsters," she said.
"We'll be in all the pictures," he replied, in an awful American Jimmy Cagney accent. She laughed. The singer stopped, and she turned her head to see Ellie tugging him down to dance, while his band played on.
"It'll hurt," Kit said, reflectively.
"Good," Harriet said, and kissed him.
-----
Kit paid Dolly Douglas' bail in the morning and drove her to Soho in a car with tinted windows. Dolly laughed when Harriet unlocked the door, a bright-red, open smile. "I knew you'd come our way soon," she said. Harriet blushed, and grinned back. "A quick gun like you, you weren't meant to be police. When's the raid?"
"Thursday," Harriet said.
Dolly blinked with unfeigned surprise. "Why not today?"
Kit shook his head. "We've been over this," he said, with a sharp look at Harriet. "Too many reasons--"
"Stupid reasons! No reasons," Harriet said. She held out her hands to Dolly, palms-up. "Listen to these."
"Deputy Commissioner Lancaster will be giving her quarterly report--"
"Jane's a pushover and you know it, she won't stand a foot."
"She raided Caer Dathyl last night. We won't have Glynn and Ellie until tomorrow."
"Please." Even Dolly's plaits looked scornful. Harriet wanted to know how to make her hair look scornful. Now that she was a gangster, she could find out. "As if we need everyone. The council is almost in recess, there will be fewer people milling around."
Kit set his mouth; his hair just looked straight and sensible, like it always did. "That doesn't mean we can do it with just two of you. And anyway, the commissioner--"
Harriet laughed. "Henrietta? If she can find her way to City Hall with two hands and a torch, she'll be too busy trying to walk a straight line to care. And she won't want to smear her lipstick even if she does."
Dolly crinkled her forehead, although her eyes remained bright. "I don't know," she said. "I saw Henny at the gaol, she seemed pretty...clean. Sharp, even."
"I can take her," Harriet snapped.
"I know," Dolly said, and smiled like a July sunset.
-----
Harriet sat in the back of the cab and reminded herself why the fuck they were doing this. The streets curved around them like an optical illusion, pulling them into the Westminster paving-stones, and Harriet felt herself short of breath, not from fear, but thrill. When she was mayor she would put together the best city in the world, with Kit beside her.
The cab arrived with a jolt, and her knee brushed Dolly's, who gave her a broad wink before swinging the door open and leaping out. Harriet felt for her guns before stepping onto the pavement in front of City Hall. She pulled her pistol from its hip holster. "Get out of my way," she said to the guard. He didn't. She shot him in the knee and he went down writhing.
This was the easy part. Harriet kept walking.
Inside, she glimpsed Dolly's dark hair moving into the electric room, and a few seconds later, the building's power shut down. Harriet moved for the door of the city council chambers, but she stopped short at the the safety click of a regulation handgun.
"Harry," a firm, low voice came from the corner. Harriet watched a pale face emerge from the shadows, under a neat blonde coif.
"Henny," she said.
Henrietta Lancaster looked taller in her regulation blues than she ever had in her bright bohemian duds. She held her chin up, and her gun was steady as it followed Harriet. Harriet waved suddenly. A bullet squeezed into the brick wall behind her, and she laughed.
"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Henrietta said. Her voice wavered, even if her grip didn't.
Harriet laughed again. "I taught you that line. At least let me get mine reloaded." She began moving slowly toward the council chamber door.
"Stop," Henrietta said.
Harriet was sure Henrietta didn't have the guts or training to do it, and she was about to say so when the power surged back on, and Henny's arm jumped and it felt like Harriet's right leg exploded.
"Shit," she said.
------
The Portsmouth sky was clear blue, and the train ride had been hard. "Well, that didn't work," Harriet said. She tried to move her bandaged leg, but Kit placed a firm hand down and steered her wheelchair up the ramp.
"I'll say," he said. Kit knew understatements. That was why she loved him. She breathed in the salt air, and tilted her face to the sun.
"Where's Dolly?" "Released with no charges. I heard she's going to Chicago." "And where's this boat going?"
"Chicago."
"Sounds like hard work." They sat in peaceable silence, and Harriet listened to the ship creak. "Want to get me a martini?" she said. "I can't walk, you know."
Kit said nothing.
"Fine, I'll wheel there myself. Or get one of those strapping deckhands to help me. Where's the bar?
"Kit?
"Kit, there is a bar on this boat, isn't there?
"Kit!"
A low rumble, and they were on their way.