Chapter Text
Declan lay face down on his sister Ingrid’s bed, his long legs stretched out diagonally. Ingrid moved around the room, a little tornado of activity, folding and putting away laundry.
“Eleven hours," she declared. "You're going to have to spend some of them packing."
"Don't want to," Declan's objection was muffled by the pillow pressed against his face.
“You know, what I really respect about you is your maturity.”
Declan snorted and lifted his head to look at her. “I hate this part of my job.”
“Based on our conversations, you hate most of your job,” she observed, with that completely irritating insight of hers.
“No, no. I like the numbers. I just hate the travel and the new places.”
“And your partner and your boss…”
“I don’t hate Will.” Will Carter had been Declan’s partner at work for over a year now, and they were friends. Really, they were. Very different people, occasionally at each other’s throats, but friends.
“Don’t hear you defending your boss.”
“Frank is indefensible,” Declan admitted.
Ingrid sat down beside his head, which made the mattress dip uncomfortably. He growled in annoyance.
“Maybe this should be your last job,” she said in that soft, persuasive voice of hers, which even Declan was occasionally powerless against.
The jobs within Declan’s job were assignments, really. He and Will would be sent to some small town for a couple of months and they would audit everything, digging through books and ledgers and spreadsheets, making anyone with any power in the town deeply uncomfortable. There was rarely anything nefarious going on, just shortcuts and shoddy bookkeeping. But if there was something amiss, they would find it, and report back to Frank. Fortunately, the consequences of actual fraud lay with another team, and Declan was usually gone from the town by the time any kind of confrontation happened.
Declan honestly did like the numbers, and he liked that he was essentially a very nerdy detective. Each town was a puzzle that he had the skills to put together. It was that passion for the job that kept him going, town after town.
There was another reason he wouldn’t quit. His job kept him moving forward. It brought variety into his life, exposed him to new people and places. It also kept him from realizing how stagnant his life was. If he was a run of the mill accountant, working at some Halifax firm, he’d be infinitely more boring. He’d come home every night to a dull apartment, likely with a roommate or two. He wouldn’t have the excuse of travel to avoid relationships and friendships. He’d be so obviously alone.
He couldn’t admit any of this to Ingrid, of course. Firstly, she’d be hurt that he’d ever consider himself alone when she was close by. Secondly, she’d want him to deal with it, this avoidance of settling, of real attachments. Declan had no interest in dealing with it. His coping strategies were working just fine.
To prove this, he pushed himself up off of the bed and set to packing. Between jobs he slept on Ingrid’s couch. She never let him pay any rent, but he would buy her groceries and beer, which always made her happy.
Yet another reason to keep at this job: in between assignments, he got to spend lots of time with his sister. He unashamedly loved staying over at her place. He would do all the baking he couldn’t do when he stayed in hotels, and she would make him eat vegetables and watch reality tv with her. It was familiar and comfortable. It was the best part of his life. He wondered, if he lived in Halifax all the time, would they see each other half as much?
But those worries were for future Declan, who would be lying awake in his hotel room, overthinking every choice he’d ever made. Present Declan had packing to do.
“Ten hours, forty-five minutes!” Ingrid called from her bedroom.
“I know, I’m packing. I’m doing it. I’m a grown up.”
He heard her laugh, then she appeared in the doorway. “Where are you going this time anyway? If you told me, I’ve forgotten.”
“A town called Sanditon.”
On days like these, Alison was grateful she didn’t have a commute. Outside the window it was alternating between snow and what looked like ice crystals. Alison could occasionally hear the ping of them against the window. But she didn’t need to go out into it; she just needed to pop down the stairs and she’d be at work. The cons of living above your business: it was occasionally hard to leave work behind. But the very weighty pro: you could avoid bad weather entirely.
Of course, weather like this would also keep away her customers, which wasn’t so great. The cafe was doing well enough, but it very much relied on business from their regulars, those lovely people who made it part of their day to buy a coffee and a scone or a cookie. Ice pellets might inspire even the hardiest of regulars to turn on the percolator.
But that couldn’t be helped, and Alison would start the day as though it were going to be a good one. She grabbed her apron from the hook at the bottom of the stairs and opened the door to the kitchen.
“Good morning, lovely sister.”
When Charlotte looked up, it was clear that she had not had the same optimistic start to the day that Alison had. She looked tired, grouchy, and annoyed.
“Bad morning?” Alison asked in a cautious tone.
“The oven is doing that thing.”
That thing was switching temperatures at random. A fun game for the oven itself? Maybe. A terrible hazard for any serious baker? Definitely.
“Oh no. Have there been any casualties?”
“The cookies didn’t make it,” Charlotte said with a nod to a tray of semi-burnt oatmeal cookies.
“Poor cookies!” Alison picked one up and bit into it anyway. “Ew, this is burnt,” she said, evoking such a look of ire from Charlotte that she almost retreated. “I’ll call Georgiana?”
“Please do. She’s mad at me, and I’m pretty sure she’s sending me straight to voicemail.”
“That’s no way to run a business,” Alison said sagely, “but also: what did you do?”
“I might have brought up Otis one too many times.”
“So you deliberately pissed her off?”
“No!! I just wanted to make sure she was ok, that she didn’t want to talk through anything.”
Alison sighed. “Charlotte, you know Georgiana better than that. If she wants to talk about something, she will make that very very clear. If she doesn’t want to get into it, she will shut you down.”
“It’s not the healthiest way to handle your problems,” Charlotte muttered.
“I’ll be sure to remind you of that the next time Tom brings up Sidney and you flee the room.”
Sidney was Charlotte’s ex. Tom was his oblivious brother who had no idea that Sidney had broken her heart and would happily bring him up at any opportunity.
“Why are we antagonizing the grumpy baker?” Charlotte asked.
“We are not. We are going to start the coffee and the tea and call Georgiana. We love the baker, grumpy or not.”
“Good.” As Alison moved towards the front, Charlotte called after her. “We might not have much in the way of baking today.”
“Have you seen the weather? We might not have any customers!”
Alison waited until the completely reasonable time of eight thirty before calling up Georgiana, but Georgiana still sounded groggy with sleep.
“Why is my morning being interrupted?”
“I have a job for you!” Alison tried to make it sound like an adventure. She had spent a great deal of her teenage years babysitting, and she sometimes found herself employing the same strategies with adults as she had with the children. It had a fairly good track record of working.
“And here I thought Charlotte was calling to apologize.”
“Oh, I’m sure she was. But we also happen to have a broken oven. Again.”
“Again? Did I fix it badly?”
“No, no, you were out of town with…” Alison skipped past that part. “You were out of town and we had to use that Denham guy. He obviously didn’t properly fix it. But now you’re back and we can get it done right, by a real professional.”
“You’re laying it on a bit thick there, Ali.”
“Am I? Did I mention I’ll make you as many fancy coffees as you like?”
“Oh, I just assumed.” Georgiana sighed. “I’ll be there in half an hour. But Charlotte is not to talk to me about anything not related to work.”
“Of course. See you soon, thank you love you bye.”
Georgiana was the best handy person around, and the only one either sister really trusted to do a good job. She was also one of Charlotte’s oldest friends, and close with Alison too. But she had had her heart broken, and she was very touchy about it, which had caused some discord between the friends. Alison tried to stay out of it as much as possible. She knew it was hard for them to each balance their own hurt and empathize with how differently they both coped with it.
In her worst moments, she felt a bit jealous of them. No, she did not want to be left behind like they were, or hurt like they were. But she did want to be loved. She wanted romance, and she was willing to contend that it was worth any eventual heartache. Besides, there was always the chance it would work out.
Unfortunately, Alison’s romantic prospects were dismal. She knew everyone in Sanditon much too well. She had tried to see some of her neighbours in a new light, but then she’d remember the prank they’d pulled in junior high, or how drunk they’d gotten at that house party, and any desire to pursue them would go right out the window. Besides, no one seemed interested in pursuing her. She hadn’t been asked out or hit on in ages. Maybe she should be more forward, do the asking out herself. But she saw how it was for Charlotte – how men just wanted her and made their desire known. Alison thought she deserved some of that, too, that obvious attention. Yes, she could see that it was tiring. No, she didn’t want it all the time. But once in a blue moon, to have someone notice her – that would be something.
These lonely verging on desperate thoughts were interrupted by the rattle of the bell over the door. Alison stood up straight behind the counter, ready to serve whichever customers braved the cold. She would make sure they got a nice hot coffee and a good conversation. She would make them feel at home.
They’d been driving for almost four hours and Declan was out of patience. It was supposed to be a two hour drive, but the construction and accidents had doubled it. Now he had a full bladder, an empty stomach, and an earful of Will’s singing. So yes, when they finally pulled into Sanditon, he was most definitely done.
And then they faced another obstacle. A woman was crossing the road when her grocery bag broke. She started to chase her groceries around the crosswalk.
“Come on,” Declan groaned.
“Baaaaabyyyyy!” Will sang beside him. Declan had given up control of the radio three hours ago. It was better to let Will fall into a daze of music than to have to actually talk with him for the entire drive.
Another can rolled away from the woman. Declan tried not to whimper. He leaned on the horn. Obnoxious, yes, but apparently necessary to make this whole situation move towards a resolution.
The woman jumped at the sound of the horn, which made him feel bad. Then she waved at him, a bright cheery wave backed by a smile.
“What?” he muttered, confused by her friendliness. He knew small towns; they weren’t really all sunshine and good neighbours.
Then she put down her grocery bags in the road, stood back up, and gave him the finger with both hands.
Oh. Yeah, that made more sense. He almost laughed, because she was still smiling at him. She went back to collecting her things, and it wasn’t his imagination, she was definitely taking her sweet time.
Will, still playing air drums along to the radio, was completely oblivious to the situation. “Hey, why are we stopped?” he asked when the song came to an end.
“Woman. Groceries. Mess.”
“Uh-oh. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the monosyllabic stage of Declan Fraser’s day. Watch out, Will Carter, it is all downhill from here.”
It had been downhill from the moment they got in the car. There wasn’t anything more trying for their friendship than road trips, and their job had them doing them frequently. Something about the small, enclosed space set Declan on edge, while also bringing out all of Will’s most irritating qualities. The singing. The inane chatter. The third person monologuing.
Finally, the road was clear and Declan could drive forward. He glanced in his rearview to see the woman carry on in her journey. Then he put his focus on the road. Five more blocks. Five more minutes. They could make it.