Fic: The Form of the Good (Being Human/Other, PG-13)
Title: The Form of the Good.
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Being Human/Other.
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: All the Beeb's.
Characters/Pairing: Annie-centric.
Summary: Annie discovers that not all knights wear shining armour, or fight with swords.
Word Count: 1364.
A/N: Spoilers for the S2 finale, and small ones for “The Annie Broadcasts”. Written as a late birthday present for arachnekallisti and for consci_fan_mo.
She does not spot exactly when he arrives.
Annie knows from the telly how new prisoners are meant to be introduced. The gospel of Porridge reruns, George’s DVD set of Prison Break, and the odd small hours indulgence in Prisoner: Cell Block H has schooled her well. The long walk, the cat-calls from the other cells, the slighter figure flanked by beefy warders... she has it all down pat.
But this is not how Annie gains a cellmate. She simply becomes aware - as one might note the twinge, on shifting position, from a leg that has fallen asleep - that there he is, the old man in the suit. Once she thought that They ignored physics like that to prove Their power. Now she suspects it is just carelessness.
Locked outside Life, you sit amongst the drab backs of the painted scenery, the smell of sawdust. You can see how the conjuring trick is done. It really isn’t that impressive, after all.
***
It takes a while to get him talking. Annie suspects that he did not meet many people like her, before... before he came here. (They do not use The D Word, at first. It is a concession to both their frailties. ) So Annie talks instead.
She talks about her mother. She talks about the English teacher at school on whom she had a crush. She talks - a lot - about George and Mitchell.
Eventually, he unbends enough to tell Annie his name. She just about manages not to snort. Even between the Wars, he couldn’t have had it easy in the playground.
***
Once he does get started, it’s hard to stop him.
He talks about Winchester and Oxford. His prizes glitter discreetly between them, for a moment, like expensive cuff-links. A First in Greats, whatever that is, from Baillie. (Annie, who did not go to University but has seen every episode of Lewis, does not recognize the name; perhaps she misheard, and he said “Balliol”.) After that, a career in “public service”, and an accumulating sediment of capitals: MVO; KBE; GCB.
He talks so much, in fact, that it is a long time before Annie notices what is missing.
“What about your friends?” she asks. And, when he frowns, “You must have had some friends outside your job. What were they like?”
His frown deepens. “My dear young lady, to apply so subjective and inherently untrustworthy a criterion as ‘friendship’ in the assessment of a life which, I might tentatively venture to aver, set as its (I flatter myself, not entirely frustrate) goal the joyful subjugation of the private to the public sphere would be a reductio ad absurdum of the highest order.”
Annie takes a moment to digest this.
“Oh,” she says sadly. “You didn’t.”
***
“There was one, you know.”
“Mmm?” Annie replies, distractedly. She is sitting in a corner of the cell, trying to fill out the two forms They have given her. One for all the good things she has ever done; one for all the bad. Annie had vaguely expected that They would lend her a quill and inkpot for this task, but was not altogether surprised to be handed a half-used Bic instead.
“A friend. Of sorts. I worked for him, I think. Or perhaps he worked for me. It’s becoming so hard to keep things straight in my head.”
Annie nods in silent sympathy. Already she has caught herself forgetting her father’s name.
“I told him once that I saw no distinction between ends and means. He said that, if I truly believed that, I would go to Hell.”
Annie manages a tight smile. “Come on in; the water’s lovely.”
“This is not Hell. The show They run here is something infinitely worse. This is amateur.”
She lifts her head at the sudden passion in his voice.
***
Annie Clare Sawyer is Annie Clare Sawyer is Annie Cla... is Annie Clare Sawyer. It’s all melting. Annie Clare Sawyer is melting away like butter in the frying-pan that her mother used in the house where she lived (remember, remember) where Annie Clare Sawyer lived when she was a little girl before George and Mitchell and Mitchell and George who are more important than anything, although Annie Clare Sawyer could no longer tell you why.
Annie Clare Sawyer lies curled on the floor of the cell and weeps her heart out for the life she cannot remember.
And then there is an awkward arm around her shoulders. He does not say that everything will be OK; despite his impressive collection of capitals, that is not a pair of them she would ever catch him banging together for warmth. But he kneels at her side, neglectful of his tailoring, and gathers her into what might be the most embarrassed hug in human history.
As he looks at the blotchy forms in her lap, and strokes his chin, she wonders whether he ever had a daughter. She wonders whether he would remember, if he did.
***
She hears Their footsteps - far off, for now, but approaching. This is a puzzle. They aren’t due to take her for Assessment yet. And They are nothing if not sticklers for Their schedules.
“What do you think is happening?” she asks.
He looks up from the minute examination of his finger-nails. “Well, if I had to hazard a guess... I would conjecture that They are coming to set you free.”
“You’re having a laugh,” she says. And yet... she knows, instantly, that he is right. At the other end of the passage, her Door has opened. Already, her memories are sluicing back. “Why would They do that?”
He scratches his nose. “My dear young lady, I fear that you have presented Them with an administrative conundrum of such intractable complexity that Their sole remaining option is your release. For that, I must reluctantly shoulder much of the blame.”
Annie’s eyes narrow. “What did you pull?”
She could almost believe his smile was guileless. “Well, it was evident that They attached great importance to those forms of yours. You had to fill them out in their entirety, and you could not be Assessed until you had done so. Since it was imperative that the forms should be accurate, I took the liberty, before you submitted them, of penning a small addition to The List of Bad Things that Annie Clare Sawyer has Done.”
They are coming closer, she can feel it. They are coming, and They are not happy, because whatever else They may be, They are sore losers. They will make her suffer, before they throw her back out through her Door. Let them. She can take anything they’ve got, if it means seeing Mitchell and George again. “What did you add?”
“‘Annie Clare Sawyer has failed to complete this form.’”
Annie frowns. “But that wasn’t true.”
“I rather fear it has to be. Either that statement is accurate, or it isn’t. If it is accurate, you have failed to complete the form. If it isn’t, you have done a bad thing that isn’t on the form, viz., making an inaccurate statement on the form. So you have still failed to complete the form.”
Annie suppresses a giggle. “This is madness.”
“This is bureaucracy.”
Their footsteps stop outside the cell. Annie shuffles closer and lowers her voice. “You’ll get into trouble for this, you know.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He sighs affectedly. “I greatly fear that there will be many, many more forms for me to fill.” His eyes are saying the Bring it, biotch that his lips will never mould.
“But you could have escaped yourself as well. You could be free.”
He spreads his hands. “But how would They be able to function, without the benefit of my administrative experience? I am, after all, merely a humble vessel, into which Those more powerful than I pour the fruits of their deliberations.”
Annie lets the giggle out, this time, as the door to the cell begins to open, and punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Get you. Sir Humphrey Appleby - Administrative Anarchist of the Afterlife.”
He cocks his head on one side, and smiles. “Yes, Miss Sawyer.”
FINIS