AN: So I have a few ideas of my own, but does anyone have suggestions for what Machiavelli might do with Scatty, now that they're reunited? I try to encorporate most suggestions if they make sense with my overall plan.
After dinner, Scatty started a load of his laundry. She tried to show him how to work the machine himself, but he pleaded nervousness, not trusting himself not to mess up a load of his good clothing. He felt a little guilty, but also felt that his guilt outweighed him ruining every set of clothing he owned. "Thanks, Scatty. Maybe sometime we can practice on Billy's old clothes."
"Don't think I don't know you were being deliberately difficult," she said grumpily, making him laugh.
"I think you're wonderful," he told her.
"That means nothing," she snapped, the corners of her mouth twitching.
"There's an ice cream place down the road," he offered as way of conciliation. "I'll buy you a cone."
"Hmm… let me get my sweater." She ran up the stairs. He tugged on his suitcoat again. Strolling down the sidewalk together a few minutes later, she slipped her arm into his. At his raised eyebrows, she defended herself. "We might run into that psychopath at any point."
"She's not really that bad of a girl," he laughed. They walked a few more feet. "Although, I'm pretty sure she spies on me on a regular basis…" He trailed off. "Maybe it is for the best that we be kind of couply."
Scatty made a small noise of agreement. From the way she was turning her head, Machiavelli knew she was on the lookout for any potential threats in their environment. He glanced over at her. "I like your cardigan," he told her, knowing that he was distracting her quite meaninglessly, but wanting to tell her a million nice things all at once. He was so glad not to be alone anymore after the week without Billy that he felt like he could start laughing. "It brings out that beautiful green in your eyes."
Her nose crinkled happily. "Mac, did you really miss me?"
"I really did," he affirmed.
"Nobody ever tells me I'm beautiful," she admitted, then laughed as if she'd realized too late that she'd said too much.
"Somebody should have," he said fiercely. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
She kept walking, not expecting him to stop, and got pulled back. She shook her head at him, smiling self-consciously. "Did you know that even though Aiofe and I are identical, my father used to tell me he thought Aiofe was prettier than me? And that she'd do better in life. Go farther. I think he was doing it to push my buttons, make me work harder, train more…"
"That's an awful thing for a father to do." They started walking again. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he caught a memory, brief but precious to him (Sono bella, papa? Si, certo!) He'd used to catch them, his daughters, under the armpit and swing them around until they were laughing. His fingers tightened in hers and he blinked.
"Is this the place?"
"No." He shook his head. "That is a place that sells ice cream, but it is not good ice cream."
"Do you know all the ice cream parlors in the city now?"
"Billy and I both have a, what would you call it, sweet tooth. So it is possible, if not probable."
They passed quite a few people on the way to the parlour. Passerby subconsciously parted for the unusual pair; they garnered more than one backward glance. "It's probably the height difference," he joked, knowing that Scatty must be at least as aware as he was of the attention they were receiving.
"Billy's more suited for your height, at least he's somewhat close to your height."
Machiavelli smiled. "This is the place. It's nice of you to be so supportive," he told her as they were waiting for their cones. "I'm glad I have at least one person rooting for me."
Scatty took a bite of her cookie dough ice cream, an actual bite which left an impression on the otherwise rounded scoop. "I think a lot of our friends would root for you, if you told them," she revealed thoughtfully.
"Ah, that would be a very foolish move."
She put on hand on her hip. "Why?"
"Why make myself look stupid when Billy will never care for me in quite the way I would like him to?"
"Haven't you ever thought of broaching this topic with the Kid?" He shook his head, a knowing expression on his face. She switched which hand she was holding the cone with to take his hand in hers. "What's the worst that could happen? He doesn't feel the same way? Billy's not the type to be angry or mean… I think he'd just tell you if he didn't feel that way. And you wouldn't hold it against him either." She shook her head. "You're both very loving men."
He looked over at her, then in front of them. Seeing their brownstone coming up, he turned down a different road, elongating their walk. They ventured down the street that ran parallel to their own. "I think it would be the worst thing, knowing for certain he didn't love me," he said at last. "Not to sound overly dramatic," he added, "but at least this way, I can pretend in my mind that everything will all work out tomorrow. To close the door entirely? I don't think I'd ever stop loving him. It would be a very painful way to spend the rest of my very long life…"
"But you'd still be friends."
He squeezed her hand. "Is this your way of telling me you don't think he loves me?" he asked her curiously.
"I didn't say that. I'm saying it might never work out if you don't ever tell him how you feel. I know this isn't something that's easy. I'm just saying…" She stopped, seeming to be out of words. She made a small noise of frustration instead. "You're looking for excuses to not even try," she accused.
"You won't say that when you see the album I was telling you about the other day."
"That's right! You've been putting that off long enough, let's head for your house." She turned him abruptly. He was going to direct her on how to get back to Rittenhouse, then realized that like Billy, she had no trouble navigating the streets. Perhaps that's an American skill set- navigation. Passed down from generations of people living in wilderness. In next to no time, they were in front of the house again.
"Tomorrow or the next day, I'll make another copy of the key for you," he told her, letting them both in. "That way you can come and go when you need to. I know you like your independence."
"There's no rush." She slipped out of her cardigan. "I haven't seen you in a month. I'm in the mood to spend time with you." She led the way up the stairs. "Why are the stairs different here?" she added, already on the second flight of stairs up.
"Billy says they were made a little different to optimize the amount of space on the top floor. The corner steps eliminate the space used by the landing so the next staircase ends a little farther in." He followed her to the top floor. "I'll bring it downstairs?"
"Nah, grab it and come in here," she said, flicking on the light to Billy's (now her, he corrected himself) bedroom.
He hovered in the doorway. "Are you sure you want to look at it in here?"
Scatty bounced up and down on the bed. "God, this is comfortable. Yeah, why not?"
"It's your bed," Machiavelli pointed out. "Is it really appropriate for me to be on here at the same time as you are?"
Scatty gave him a look that was half pitying. "Boo, we're supposed to be 'dating.'" She mimed quotation marks. "We're going to have a hard time pretending that if you can't even sit on a bed with me."
"Well, I just don't want to wrinkle my suit," he mumbled.
"Then take it off," she suggested, dropping both shoes over the side of the bed and scooting into the middle. After a moment's thought, she flopped backward.
"I guess I could go downstairs and change."
She climbed over to where he was. "Mac, it's eleven o'clock at night and I still haven't seen that album yet. Loosen up." She undid his tie and let it hang around his neck. "What have you got under all these layers? Yeah, another shirt. So at least get rid of these layers." She helped him out of his suit jacket. He took a step back from her, undoing his button down shirt and pulling it off. "Can I get you out of those pants?" she enticed.
"No."
"Well then you're going to have to sit down and wrinkle them, or stand."
He made to tuck his leg under him so that he could sit and couldn't do it at the last minute. Flailing a little, he stood up straight again. His feet hurt a little from walking around so much today. I could change into one of Billy's pajama pants; they're still up here, he thought. "Okay, I'm going to change, but you can't look," he told her.
"Alright," she agreed cheerfully, covering her eyes with her hands.
He glanced suspiciously at her before undoing his belt buckle and zipper. He pushed the suit pants down. She let out a wolf whistle and he straightened up again. "You're peeking!" he accused her.
She was laughing, her eyes still covered. "No, I could hear your belt buckle hit the floor." She uncovered one eye. "Now I'm peeking." Grumbling, he stepped out of his pants and hung them carefully at her laundry rack. "Wow, Mac, you really filled out from what you were when you left the cabin."
He glanced at her and shook his head. "You've seen me as an adult before," he said, sounding exasperated. "Everyone has. I don't know what makes my body so novel now."
"You were an old man then."
"I was just barely 58. I wasn't decrepit before; my body's always been kind of the same."
"I'm not denying that you had that pinchable ass before," she said cheerfully, causing him to sputter. "I'm just saying that nobody was checking it out before."
"Europeans appreciate an older man," he told her, climbing into the pajama pants.
She patted the bed beside her, indicating that she wanted him to join her. "Hand over the album and sit down with me." She took it from him. "Now, what could be in here that's that upsetting? Oh…" She trailed off, thumbing through the earlier pages of the photo book. Machiavelli thought- rather jealously- that she seemed rather immune to the dozens of photographs. She looked up again after leafing all the way through. "Maybe we should have Billy tested."
"I don't really think he's had sex with all these women in here," Machiavelli pleaded, knowing that he sounded rather plaintive. When she looked at him and didn't say anything, but instead went back to flicking through the pictures, he felt far worse. Great, now I'm pitiable.
"Well, I can see why this bothered you…" she said finally, "but all things told, there's actually only about a dozen women in there- couple more- and when you consider that Billy's been an unattached young male for over a hundred years, that's not really so bad…"
"But this is just one album, what if he had more of these? What if he just didn't take pictures of all the other women?"
"You know it's funny, Billy's obviously youthful and relatively good looking, but I never really think about him being a player," Scatty pointed out fairly. "He just doesn't seem the type."
"Think so?" Machiavelli asked lightly.
"You don't?"
He shrugged. "Just from what he told me- and I know way more than I want to- it doesn't seem like he's been in a serious relationship since he became immortal. Or before that either, really. He was always running around…"
"Well… Billy was very young when he became immortal and how many people in their teens 'settle down', even back then…" Machiavelli dipped his head in slight agreement. She continued conjecturing. "And after he became an immortal… well, very few of us have relationships."
Machiavelli knew she was right. "I suppose."
"Hm, well there's no telling really unless we asked him, but this book ends about twenty pages in," she pointed out. "So it's likely that if he'd continued, they would have been in this album too…"
"Yeah, I don't know. I don't know anything…"
"Huh, well, wow." Scatty closed the album and tossed it away from them. "Wonder what stopped him?"
"I have no idea."
Machiavelli looked at the album, thinking hard. The last pictures were those ones that he'd taken out. Why had he stopped there? "Billy told me about another woman he'd spent a lot of time with. Erin something- Erin McCarthy- he'd spent years with her. Maybe that's what stopped him…" But that's wrong, he realized, thinking about it. Billy'd told him he had last been in New Hampshire over 50 years ago. That would have been right before these pictures showed up…
Scatty interrupted his musings. "McCarthy? Wasn't that Billy's original last name?"
"No, he was McCarty, no 'h'," he responded vaguely. So he could probably guess what started Billy on this album- he'd had a serious relationship and it had scared him. He came back down to Philadelphia and, apparently, had a lot of sex- the exact opposite. That almost made sense, especially knowing Billy as he did. But what had stopped him?
"Earth to Mac, come in Mac." Scatty was waving her hand in front of his face and he blinked. She tweaked his nose. "You went away for a minute," she said.
"Just thinking about things," he replied. "You know, I feel bad snooping into his life like this."
"No, you don't," she argued, surprising him. "You feel bad that you've let someone else- me- know that you're snooping into his life. You like gathering information; you're like an information packrat."
He huffed, but smiled at her. "Fine. I don't really mind digging through most people's possessions and backgrounds and everything, but Billy… The whole premise is flawed." He thought about telling her what he'd found on the internet search history he'd spent a good hour looking over, but decided against it the last minute.
Scatty fidgeted. She looked around the room as if casting around for a new subject. "Do you really leave the shades up like this, with all the lights on? No wonder that girl watches you, you're a studly idiot."
He cocked his head, glad they had shifted the conversation. "Do you really think I'm studly?" He flopped on his side, legs splayed. She punched his shoulder, knocking him over onto his back. "Oompf. No, I mean sometimes I do. It was hot when we first came here, we had a late summer and heat rises. So we kept the shades up, to let the air in." He flapped his arm, imitating a breeze. She wasn't buying it.
"So why doesn't she think you're gay?"
"What?!"
"If she saw you and Billy shacking up all the time," she ignored his protests, speaking a little louder, "figuratively shacking up all the time, why doesn't she think you're gay?"
"I may have gotten a bit more reckless in my behavior since Billy left," he admitted reluctantly.
Scatty perked up. "Yeah? What did you do?"
"Nothing!" He edged off the bed.
She followed him. "Come now, boo. Don't make me find out from Missy."
"I did," he hesitated, "perfectly acceptable things for a person to do with their own body and furthermore, I resent-" He broke into a slight jog, with Scatty chasing him around the room. "Resent your allegations-" he jumped on the bed and ran over it, "-that-" she tackled him and they landed backwards on the bed, "-okay, fine, some of it was depraved, but I'm allowed to do what I want."
She was laughing and he laughed too, half pinned underneath her; he hugged her. "You're a big slut, aren't you?" she asked him affectionately.
He grinned. "Yeah, pretty much."
