(Untitled)

[cant_kim]

Even good pickpockets are sometimes not quite as deft as they'd like. Kim went for a swell mort's purse today, and the woman, feeling the tug, yelled that there was a pickpocket in the crowd. Kim had had the presence of mind to fall back and yell that there he goes -- but in the resulting surge of the crowd, a would-be nabbing cull saw fit to elbow

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[over_europe]

There is already someone sitting by the fire, as it happens. Nix sits on the edge of the sofa, hunched over a series of maps and papers spread across the coffee table, with his forearms on his knees. His rifle rests at his feet and his helmet - twin holes in the front of it matching the brown line seared across his forehead - on the table. His uniform is battered and his face and hands streaked with dust and dirt, as is the norm these days, but his expression is intent and every few minutes, he traces faint lines on the map of the Netherlands.

For all his foibles, Lewis Nixon is a damned good intelligence officer, and he puts the time that he is allowed in Milliways to good use.

Until he hears someone coming his way, that is, and he glances up. Even damned good intelligence officers need a break, sometimes.

A raised eyebrow. "Bad day?"

[cant_kim]

Kim starts a little at being addressed, and her eyes widen fractionally at the uniform. Even if it's not one she recognizes, the look of a military man doesn't change much.

She ducks her head -- half in a show of respect, half to hide her face -- and mutters, "Bad enough, sir."

[over_europe]

Nixon glances upward consideringly. "I guess I wouldn't think any day involving harpies would be an especially good one." He turns a bemused eye on the boy.

[cant_kim]

She blanches.

"It -- I just ran into this mort, got banged up."

[over_europe]

This isn't exactly a reaction that Nix gets often. His manner is, perhaps, a little easier - don't want to scare the boy, even if he can't fathom why he'd pale like that - when he says, "Mort? What's a mort?"

[cant_kim]

Right -- nobody here understands cant.

"A woman. Wasn't looking where she was going."

[over_europe]

"Yeah," says Nix, and there's good humor in his voice and his manner. Decent humor, anyway. He's cranky over the retreat, but he's got no reason to take it out on a kid. "They do that."

He offers a hand. "Lewis Nixon, and you are . . .?"

Technically, it's Captain Lewis Nixon, but given that he just immediately tells people to call him Nix, and given that he's not all that attached to the rank, he leaves it off on occasion.

[cant_kim]

Kim hesitates, then puts out her hand and shakes his, quickly. Hers is small, grubby, smoother than a laborer's but rougher than a merchant's.

"Tom Divers, sir."

[over_europe]

"A pleasure, Tom," says Nix. "If you're looking for a seat, it wouldn't break my heart to move any of this."

[cant_kim]

Quickly: "I ain't lookin' to be a bother, sir."

The maps and papers do get a curious look, though. "What is all that?"

[over_europe]

Nix exhales, and, true to his word, starts to shift some of his things over. "It's not a bother," he says honestly, as he tosses a clipboard on top of the general stack that he's making. The exhalation and paper-moving don't have much to do with each other; the former is due to the frustration of the paperwork, and the latter to the fact that Mrs. Nixon didn't bring up her baby boy to take up entire sections of rooms with his mess.

"The regiment's retreating," he says, "and it's my job to keep track of where all of the units," a handwave in the direction of one of the maps of the Dutch countryside, which has various multi-colored marks and arrows drawn here and there, "have gotten their asses to."

He wouldn't be so free with information with someone from his own time, but given the style of the boy's clothes, Nix can be fairly certain that he isn't giving away vital information to a Nazi spy.

[cant_kim]

She glances at the maps -- not that she can read them. "Where're you fighting?"

[over_europe]

"Europe, mainly," says Nixon. It's not entirely the truth. 'Europe, entirely' would have been a more precise answer. "At the moment, getting the hell out of dodge, which happens to be the Netherlands."

[cant_kim]

"When? When are you?"