Participants:
| Scene Title | A Day In Your Light |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Months ago, Delilah one-upped Teo number three's dubious, plot twist surprise proposal of marriage with a very modern redefinition of terms. You just didn't hear about it until today. |
| Date | January 30, 2019 |
Village Renaissance: Delilah's Apartment
Just entering the apartment, it gives of a feeling of comfortable homeliness; light colors, pastel shades, floral designs, clean and sweet smells, and only accents of dark where it most fits. The front room leads to a den further on, with a large sofa in a coffee cream color sitting opposite a similar chair, and a wooden table in between. There is only a small, almost retro television off on the other side.
To the far end is the kitchen, which always seems to smell like something recently cooked there; the appliances and counters are squeaky clean, but obviously used on a regular basis, and the leftover anything in the fridge can attest to that, as can a perpetual dish of cookies on the table. The bathroom is also squeaky clean, and it seems as if anyone coming out smells significantly nicer than when they had gone in; there is a closet within where the washer and dryer stay. There are two bedrooms, but one is emptied and instead made into a big, rainbow-colored sewing room, complete with fabric bolts and racks on wheels centered around a masterfully ordered sewing machine and table.
The actual bedroom is based in those mainly soft colors, yet the lower walls have at least two long, cluttered tackboards home to pictures, clippings, seemingly random crafts, and generally quirky things. A desk in a similar state sits in the far corner by the closet, opposite a low, wide, fluffy-looking bed swamped in pillows and comforters. At least a dozen stuffed animals peek out from various points.
It has been a good visit. A long one. Baby Teodoro had to leave just the one time, down the coast to an appointment with immigration personnel; he's mostly managed to negotiate the rest with couriers, crawling off the couch at strange times of night for routed calls and video conferences. Sicily isn't as aggressively skeptical of immigrants as larger countries in Europe are, lately, but somebody is always going to rumbling against more newcomers, and Teodoro has a vested interest in keeping things tight, these days. He helped Delilah take down the Christmas tree, and showed Walter how to use a tablet pen with enough stroke pressure but to not grind down the nib like the last two. Being a kid sure is different, these days.
But he can't stay here forever. In fact, his departure date looms at the end of the week, already twice delayed. For a young man with multiple— bodies and reality-fused versions of himself present on the same planet, he is spectacularly out of time. And that's pretty much the fucking point.
It's cold as balls out, or he would have taken her to the park. A restaurant? Something. As it is, he gave his hand at cooking— a lasagna recipe from his mother, who he was careful not to mention that they've yet to meet, so as not to seem tiresome— and he got Walter down into bed before he spiraled into over-tired with the kind of hype that comes from prolonged tickle-fights and stories of football riots. He's trying to cut down on those. But he did have to mention the one time he got his feet on top of the lamp post. It wasn't— he regrets it. He hopes Walter's forgotten.
By the time Delilah comes out of the shower, there are two glasses of wine on the dining table and an expectant look on his face. He took the seat on the long edge, by the corner. She's head of house, after all.
Though there are a thousand things that she wants to share with Teo - Delilah knows that his exit stage left looms like a prickling reminder. They haven't talked much of what happened after his arrival before Christmas, but… that's perhaps the best way of it. It absolutely gives her time to think. She needs that much.
Lilah knows that they'll have to cross that bridge too; and when they make a dinner date at home, she can't play oblivious. It's high time anyway. Walter has gotten to spend some good time with his father, and Delilah's gotten a bit of reprieve from mothering amidst her own quality time. Despite his apprehension of the Safe Zone, Dee's quality time likely partially consisted of dragging him around the nice neighborhoods, at the very least. Maybe Yamagato Park. Definitely a short visit to the 'x-men school'. She wants him to know about their life here.
Sicily is dramatically different, but the Safe Zone isn't quite as bad as it looks on the outside. People have come together more than they ever had before, and it shows everywhere.
The boy's room gets just one short check before Delilah ventures downstairs; Walter is completely zonked out, sprawled across the bed more than lying in it. Somewhere inside, Dee is glad that Teo has the energy to run him ragged like a puppy. It means that he'll sleep through the night, even if she doesn't say that out loud. Her hands are in the pockets of the house dress she's pulled on, one side fiddling as she slips into the dining room. The pale green makes her red hair pop, a mostly dry tousle that smells faintly of lavender shampoo.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get me to relax." Delilah masks the flush of her senses with humor, quite taken with his efforts as it is. A hand brushes reassuringly against Teo's shoulder when she moves to sit down next to him, a gentle smile on her lips. Just teasing, of course.
Teodoro smiles at her and pushes out the chair for her, because his mama raised him right. Jk jk. His mama accidentally raised him to have unprotected sex, fight people, and over-rely on his immune system to take care of HPV and adjacent illnesses, but you know, it's been awhile since he could safely blame everything on his parents. (He never really did.) (After you get your little brother's girlfriend killed the first time…)
(But that's a parenthesis for a different time.)
He pushed up a chair for Delilah. He didn't actually get up, admittedly. Preoccupied. "I might want you to stress just a little bit," he said, in a tone of confession, but a complete absence of any real guilt. He probably knows his eyelashes look pretty from this angle, as well. "You know, just to be sure you were giving the whole idea some pretty serious weight." He prods the cheese at the top of the lasagna with the fork purloined from beside her plate, and it makes the creamy surface of it dimple and then make tiny hills, dimple again.
"Do you want to try it?" he returns her fork, the tips of its teeth glistening with dewy points of cheese. He folds his arms on the table again and looks at her. "I cook almost every weekend in Sicily."
In the face of his playful confession, Delilah answers with a tip of her head and an exaggerated Look. Still, she couldn't hold it against him even if he had done it on purpose. Things aren't exactly simple anymore, are they? Dee curls down onto the chair, hands lingering on the table and gaze following the poke-poke of food.
"I better, after you worked so hard." She gives him a crooked little grin and takes up the fork when Teo returns it. "Looks like you're a twee ahead of me, though." There's cheese in your teeth, love.
"Every weekend, huh?" Lilah is already playing, just a bit. "All by yourself?" Despite her good-natured ribbing, she focuses on cutting off a piece with her fork and putting it to her tongue; she knows good food, Teo knows that by now. Way to the heart, yadda yadda. Her answer is less verbal approval and more a loving, small roll of eyes and a sound of satisfaction. Does this count as Real Italian Food(™)? Teo might be a Snack, but his cooking is better. "God, the things you do with Safe Zone food. I'm almost afraid to think about how it is with real ingredients." Delilah says very seriously. She might die. It's that serious.
After a second bite and thoughtful eating, brown eyes take Teo in again. Dee edges a little more earnestly serious this time, but not devoid of tenderness, tinted with gratitude. "Thank you. For dinner, obviously, but- - for staying so long. And besides that, giving me some time to think. Some space…"
She is very sweet to him, and for all that Teodoro Laudani is an impetuous and foolish boy in so many ways, he's always had a knack for seeing kindness. (Sometimes, even when it wasn't there.) He's thinking about that while he eats his food, and also of course, thinking about Walter, and where he would find furniture for the small boy's room, because the one that's his guest room at the moment is occupied by the bed he'll take; the master would be for Delilah, of course, even if she's only there for part of the y—
She's talking to him. Teo blinks, looks up again. Is pleased to see that she's made good progress through her plate. And she's not wrong about his other fine courtesies, is she!! He's been sort of a halfway decent man, for a man who fucks off out of the country from his offspring after a civil war. Halfway decent is better than not at all. "Yeah. I— knew it was a surprise. Actually, my mom thought it was a bad idea— the whole." He gestures. She knows. The ring hidden in a pocket, the coat a gift. It easily could have gone sideways, Walter set up with wrong expectations, ugly pressure. He would've made the best of that too, of course.
"I've really enjoyed my time here." This pressure's just prettier.
"But you know what they say about 'all good things,'" Teo says, unblinkingly earnest. "I wanted to give us the chance to talk about it, too."
Delilah knows that look where he's there, and not- - thinking hard enough that he needs to blink back to the present. Walter does it too, and it drives her nuts because he's eight. Still, she seems amused when he does just that. It's not like Teodoro is lacking in things to be distracted by at the moment.
"I bet she was just worried. About you, or all of this, or both…" There's a small laugh afforded him, brown eyes brighter for it. Dee can understand what she was likely thinking- - she'd not have recommended the tactic to a friend, herself. Not unless she was sure about how it would go. In this case, Teo really didn't. But they share a certain size of heart, at least in slightly different ways, so perhaps he had an idea after all.
"I know." Good things, yadda yadda. "I was never a huge fan of that idiom." Delilah fake-grumps about it, injecting a crunch of humor to buffer the incoming conversation. "Just reminds me that I have to get back to normal. Not that normal's not good."
Fork rested on her plate, Delilah cares enough to make sure her fingers are wiped clean before reaching over the corner of the table for his hand. The other angles out to pick up her wine glass, a brow lifting to try and get him to go for his. Best they need it, she feels like.
"So… let's talk." It is a far gentler sound than it could be, lashes downturned as she sets her drink aside again. When Delilah looks into his face, her expression is difficult to read; there is an array of possibilities in her features, all of them tinted with some degree of precaution. Yet she gives him a tiny smile, and tries to be comfortable about it. "Tell me what you're thinking, tesoro."
Sometimes, Teodoro moves sideways to try and get what he wants. But other times, he can be quite matter-of-fact, feat. shouting, swearing, hitting things. It's been some time since he did any of that on American soil, though, so perhaps it makes sense that he's only matter-of-fact right now:
"I want you to come back with me. To Sicily."
That's a plural you, in case she didn't know. (She does know.) "The market for textiles and garments is good there. A lot of people speak English. The weather's better than here, but you have all the seasons. Below-average crime, in my hometown. There's less diversity," he acknowledges, "between races and religions.
"But, people don't give the Evolved as much trouble." The Evolved taskforces within police and larger governmental bodies is known, and not free from corruption or problems, but has managed to develop along much smoother courses than in the United States. Legal scholars have speculated about why, and Teo, honestly, thinks that it's the luck of the draw. There haven't been as many high-powered or out-of-control Evolved in Sicily. Sicily's smaller, in terms of both population and that it had a less robust economy by far than the USA at its peak. It isn't the country where the Peter Petrellis of the world go to blow themselves up. "There are good international schools. English-speaking.
"And a good airport," Teo adds, regarding her reserve with the most earnest blue eyes to have ever peeped at her face. "More than one. You could come back whenever you wanted." Well, not 'whenever,' it wouldn't be the cheapest travel destination. But it is, funnily enough, more affordable than it was before the US tanked in so many ways.
Delilah knows the answer, partly, before he explains; she has always known his antsiness over- - well, everything here, really. Still, she listens to all of it, from front to back.
"You say they don't give the Evolved as much trouble, but I see the news the same as you. The way that the EUSR is… I know the UK has their registration set up like the gestapo still, but even the registration process Europe uses, it reminds me so much of before the war." Her first response brings back a lot of memories, though she stifles her expression so as to not get too riled. "I imagine Sicily is vastly different, but,
"My ability… I'm scared they'd classify me as too dangerous to let in. And Walter, just- -" When Delilah looks into Teo's face it is much more grave. "You know what he'll be able to do, and I think it might be closer than I thought…" She does not elaborate, but Teo knows how cautious she is about knowing what the older Walter was capable of.
She calms with a deeper breath, brown eyes meeting his with a knowing look. Those earnest puppy eyes doesn't work as well on her now! Or maybe they might. A bit. Welp.
"You know all of that still sounds wonderful to me, and I know it too." Delilah faux-scolds Teo, taking a bite of food so she doesn't have to continue immediately. "Even the school, though Peyton's academy has really been great for him. …and there's my dad… we'd have to take him. I couldn't leave him here. Not after all he's been through."
Some things she says are excuses. Some are deeper concerns. It becomes apparent that it is a mixed bag, and so are her options. But one thing is clear, and that is her desire to provide for her family- - same as Teo.
"Sicily is vastly different," Teodoro confirms, after a long and considering moment. He does take a long moment because that's a lot, some of which that is very understandable, and other aspects that he necessarily differs on. But not in any kind of hasty kneejerk way, which is important for her to know. He's perfectly aware, for all his machinations, that if she's to say yes, it would be meaningless if it weren't deliberated upon for a long time. A yes that would last. "The UK has had its own problems for—" well. He gestures abstractly. Blah blah, British colonial history. Interesting, to be sure, and technically related to the sociopolitical landscape under discussion, but not relevant for recap at the current time.
More relevant is the question Teo asks next: "If I can get you and your boys into the country, will you come?"
It feels different when you're actually in Europe, Teo understands. The parallel here would be to point out that Argentina is a dangerous place to live, and thus the United States might be as well— all the Americas smushed together into the distorted periphery of one's vision. But that hasn't been Teo's experience, and he knows that that's only half the point, anyway. Delilah has built her life here, and Walter is an enormous part of that recent foundation. "I'll do whatever I can," he adds, twisting his knife through his lasagna, paying nearly no attention at all to it otherwise. "To make it feel like home."
Teo is the deliberate one here, and it's a little odd for her; though her mind seems to stretch out in a hundred ways, his certainty velcros her to the table, the floor, the ground. Maybe she is getting paid forward. Delilah chuckles faintly at his mention of the UK's former, ever present issues. Yeah. That.
"I know…" Delilah has no doubt at all that he would do whatever it took to make it a home and not just an escape route. They've had escapes for years and years, and right now it already feels like home too.
Reasons to stay are just as valid as the reasons to go, and yet, the idea of it is intimidating. Lilah would have jumped at the idea just years ago; but now that there has been real, tangible progress, the idea of it has become tentative and uncertain. The Future isn't quite as charcoal gray as it was.
"I- -" The redhead starts and stops, one hand pulling the length of still drying hair over one shoulder, fingers running through the ends, eyes drawn back into thought. "I think I want to say yes…" There's a But coming. "Can I be a little selfish for a second? God, that sounds worse than it is…" Delilah grumbles a tiny bit, chewing on a lazy curse. A moment later she is carefully drawing out that little box to set it upon the corner of the table. Between them, but much closer to her, fingers lingering on it. She's looked inside often enough.
"Is this… is it just being practical? Wanting to keep us close and safe? I know you love us. We love you too." Brown eyes hide behind the turn of lashes. "I can't help but wonder if what's there will be enough. For me, you- - for us."
And here it is. The question that Teo really should have prepared for, though of course, the reason he hadn't— the reason why he had not wanted to think too much about it at all, was because there was no good answer for it. No effective plan.
Teo does love her. Because she is smart, gorgeous, very kind, and all of these attributes also mean that she could have anyone she wants. She needn't settle for him, no matter how attractive the practical offer and frankly, no matter how attractive he might be himself. (And he is. He knows he is. For all of his personality damage elsewhere, he's always been confident about how he looks; not an impressive feat at all, with the amount of positive feedback that he gets.) He chews his way through a mouthful of lasagna, which is delicious, but not as delicious as being in love, he knows.
He should have asked much earlier, actually. But Teo asks now: "Are you seeing someone right now?"
His tone isn't accusatory, there's no heavy emphasis on it. Even if she says no, Teo knows that that does not mean that he'll have his way. But he should have asked earlier, and so instead he asks late, thinking whoever that man or woman is must be lucky, and wondering if the absence of explicitly stated dates from her life meant she was trying to protect his ego.
She likes to protect his ego regardless. It's something she does and probably shouldn't, so she tries to do that now. His dedicated chewing gives her a moment more to consider his features, and when he does ask, Delilah gives him a nonchalant smile, small but notable for its honesty.
"Nothing serious right now, no." Which means there at least was, at one time, "A date or two, here and there… only one really got on with Walter." Delilah has her own lists of who merits what, and if she's going to see someone, her son being accepted is a big qualifier. She pointedly does not mention any, ah, adult playdates that don't really qualify for a status. One thing at a time.
"It's not just about me, either. I remember you with other people… and what if there's a person up the road? I mean," Lilah raises her fork in a lazy whirl, "Not that I'd fight them." Even if the idea strikes her as funny.
"If you'd be into the poly thing that's another story and I wouldn't even be having this conversation- -" She lifts a hand to fuss at her hair, looking like she is keenly aware of her foot cramping into her own mouth. And yet, she can't seem to stop. Help. "I just… don't want you to feel like you have no choice but me- -" Trapped, obligated, whichever you want to choose to define it. "- -and if someday there is someone that you or I have feelings for, I don't want us to hurt each other, either…"
Babbling seemingly over, Delilah pauses again, voice lowering. Her features crease in a distinct discomfort brought on by how she is hearing herself. "I must sound so childish."
She doesn't. "You don't," Teo tells her. Really, he's the one trapped in some kind of adolescence here, a benign ignorance about contemporary sexuality and romance that — well, only makes sense, considering he only figured out he was interested in men when he was twenty-five? Six? He'd cheated on almost every girlfriend he'd had, before he came to the United States, despite loving them each, if never as much as he'd loved himself.
That last part, he had grown out of. It has been a long time, several lifetimes probably, since Teo loved himself in any version, any real sense of the term. It's not the first he's ever heard of 'poly thing's, but he never thought either of them were made for it.
She's a mom. He's Sicilian. He has a bad problem with assumptions, that make an ass of — himself, mostly.
"Would you want an open relationship? Is that something you want?" Teo asks, and when he asks, nothing happens inside his head or his heart that he expected it might. No kick of revulsion, or leap of excitement; neither jealousy nor greed, but a bizarre, faltering hope he might have his family after all. And maybe a needle-shock of something else. She's not wrong, of course; he's fallen in love before, with the kind of foolish, crippling passion that they write songs about. He's fallen out of love. He's never stopped to make sense or meaning of it, falling into a familiar pattern of assuming his own inevitable doom, impulsive immaturity, self-sabotaging pain, none of which were solvable problems or teaching moments. Selfish, probably, to assume she was doomed, immature, would hurt herself, and accept that fate.
She's Delilah fucking Trafford, after all. "I'm not gonna lie—" Teo hastens to admit it, with a stupid, crooked grin, genuine rue. But he's not merely embarrassed for his old-fashioned ignorance. He's also touched. That she loves him enough to know him better than he knows himself, and to want for him what he hadn't bothered thinking about for a few years. "I didn't think about that."
'You don't' feels more like a blessing than he knows. Delilah tips her head, quiet as his cogs move. She knows enough about his history that she is patient waiting. It's not a long time, but in her head it seems to be. There are so many things he could say. When it turns out that Teo seems to understand her perspective, there is a palpable sense of relief for that in itself. Lilah's thoughts are just as much for him as for her.
That romantic, spiraling kind of love he gets drawn into is the stuff of legend, and the heartbreaking much the same. Teodoro never does love and affection halfway, when he means it. It's one reason she fell for those puppy-dog eyes. The whole physical attraction didn't hurt, though.
Knowing him better than he knows himself has been part of her job for a long time.
"It might be." Something she'd want, Delilah means. Her smile back is halfway a smirk, crooked much like his. The redhead's fork tippy-taps on the edge of the plate. "My grandparents were functionally like that, so maybe I had a good example? Not my point. It's not about sex or anything like that." While she is being frank about it, that is just the way she has always been. The truth is worth speaking.
"Happiness matters." Delilah wipes her fingers to open that little box, ears and cheeks pinkening. The same color she was the first evening he arrived, flushed in a sensation of being wanted in such a way. When she lifts her eyes back to him, they steady there. An optimistic , dauntless affection soaks into her voice, dozens of tiny sunbeams. Love isn't a foreign language to Delilah.
"Trust matters, family matters, love matters. There're a hundred ways to get there. I don't want us to get lost, you know?"
Teo does know. Insofar as that he is constantly lost, despite having an understanding consistent with hers, that trust matters, family matters, love matters. Having an erratically reliable set of cardinal directions and moral compass isn't the same as being a functioning person. But it does help maladjusted young man pretend that they are, in polite society.
He eats several mouthfuls of his lasagna without actually tasting it, and all of a sudden, his plate is empty. Not entirely unlike his behaviors in the days of yore. Eking out a minimalist existence between studying and translating, eating the best protein that nearly no money could buy, working out, killing people. He had not been much concerned with quality of life back then, and sometimes, he still lapses into his strange pragmatism, a grey, hard-edged space, where you don't notice all the ordinary things gathering dust in there until a dozen tiny sunbeams show up and lift particles off the floor.
"Okay," Teo says. Uhh.
"Don't get mad—" she won't, he knows, but occasionally Teo wants to pretend that he doesn't necessarily get away with literal murder with the people from his old life. He does all kinds of pretending. "But if we figure it out, if an open marriage would work, if it's…" He's really never thought about this before, not even a little. What is a marriage without exclusivity, no matter how practical, deprived of sentiment? Does it make the marriage not real? He needs to read some Buzzfeed articles. "Will you and Walter come to Sicily? At least for awhile? Soon."
Bite after bite of his dinner gives Teo an oddly focused aura, lost in that dustiness of his, Delilah outside of the window peeking in. Waiting. Watching things shift behind his eyes when she can spot them. He slinks out of himself again, thinking out loud in the way of wondering; the treading of something unfamiliar is admirable, especially in sensitivity. Her getting mad is definitely not in the cards. Dee flashes a slightly more amused smile there. It's more the possibility of something new than it is a certainty. She won't be getting picky about it over dinner the first time they talk properly.
"Okay," Delilah mimes, a mirror as she finishes her own plate. It isn't 'catching up', except that it is.
"Whatever this entails," Nimble fingers make short work of drawing Teo's offered promise from its nest upon the tabletop. "I want explore it with you. We'll see where it takes us, see how we feel together… even if it's a journey and not a jump. What do you think…?" Lips bowed expectantly, Delilah reaches out to tug his hands closer, the lilt of her voice befitting her words. She slips the band into his palm. "You made it this far, so if that notion of figuring us out together sounds good …" Her hands remain resting with his this time, rather than sneaking away, distracted.
Teo closes his fingers around her fingers. His hand is very warm. The metabolism of kings. He looks at her face. He's won something, he knows; that she's willing to come away with him means that some of what he wanted, he's gotten. But at what cost?
This seems like the kind of contemporary American bullshit that Teodoro Laudanis are wont to fuck up. (And this, he knows even without seeing his counterpart's big gay marriage fall apart.) (—Although it's good he hasn't borne personal witness to that; that wouldn't help at all, considering that open marriage is just as… as…) (What the fuck is the word for this, even.)
"I think I should take some time to say yes," he says, in the end. Teo knows that's an absurd thing to say, but it is. He thinks he's going to say yes. He wants her, Walter, to spend time in Sicily— away from this havoc, even if it isn't nearly every day of every year; and importantly, he wants to spend time with them. But it's the sort of conclusion that requires a process, and for them to do it together, he has to do his own work. Like reading Buzzfeed articles. He studies her face, sifting through the small signs, her rosy cheeks and bright eyes, for any hint of disappointment. His heart hurts. Love makes it so, maybe.
"Will you keep the ring?" Teo asks. "I'll come back soon. We'll talk online, too."
"Yes, I will." Delilah's thumb smooths over the edge of his hand, a tiny reassuring touch. "And I get it, I do." She knows that she, at least, is just trying to look out for both of them- - because they aren't going to be joined at the hip, just the finger. "You can take your time thinking it over, decide what feels right. And then we can talk about it." Like this, now, quiet and alone and comfortable. For all of the latter, her features and their small signs speak volumes for her patience, tempered out in the way bigger hearts do over time. Of course she has limits, but right now, Teo is not one of them.
No disappointment. Just an understanding, glued into place by a mutual love.
"We'll come visit." She plants it there like a tree; it's going to happen. "Maybe I can see what it's like for myself." Dee smiles, a curved expression that jaunts to the side. Yeah? Her attention moves back to the band between their hands, taking it into her own and sneaking it onto her finger.
"I'll keep it safe." Partly a tease; she knows she'll be more likely to leave her valuables somewhere safe, or wear it another way- - it only strikes her that right now is a time where small gestures like this one matter. Delilah slides to the edge of her seat, one hand lifting to cradle his face against her palm. "You're my big bad wolf and I love you, no strings attached." She laughs, soft and intentioned, a warm, affectionate kiss closing the short distance between them.
Cheese breath isn't so bad when both parties in a kiss are doing it. Teo's breath flows warmly down her cheek; he closes his eyes as boys are taught to do when they are kissing girls. And despite the great many strange and complicated factors that frame their lives these days, the least of which is the distance, he knows how to do that. It's either the best or the worst possible starting point, as far as 'these adventures' are concerned.
Too many things in Teodoro Laudani's life have not gone according to plan. An unplanned open marriage seems, in this moment, like the least of those. He will continue to think about it.
"Do you want seconds?" is what Teo says now, though. Reaching up to wipe his thumb up the corner of her mouth and smile at her. There will also be more wine to come with that, by the glass, and a more familiar strain of conversation or two until they have to wrap it up in time to pretend with Walter's middle-of-the-night awakening, that nothing particularly important happened at all.