Synaptic Confetti
by Trianne
Geoffrey Shawcross/?
Rating: PG13
Summary: Geoffrey investigates.
Author's Notes: Thank you to Ladysunrope for the beta :)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and they are borrowed with respect and affection. No profit is made, nor offence intended.
For Jilly
“Now then, Geoffrey, there’s work to be done. Finish your breakfast, check you’ve got your passport and make sure you’ve paid a visit before we go, there’s a dear.”
Hetty used the hall mirror to adjust her hat and turned sharply to her Tinkerbell, who was cramming hot buttered toast into his mouth. “Yesh, Missush Wainthropp,” he mumbled, pulling on his jacket, “I think I can hold on till we get to the airport.”
“How long do you think this will take, Hetty?” Robert asked from the kitchen door. Hetty narrowed her eyes and pronounced: “As long as it takes, is my estimate, Robert dear, though probably not much more than a week. You hold the fort; Geoffrey and I have work to do!” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek when Geoffrey wasn’t looking and smiled, reassuringly.
Geoffrey followed Hetty down the garden path to the waiting cab, dragging his employer’s old suitcase-on-wheels, and his own holdall behind him. No need for the motorbike and sidecar today. They were going international. They were going to Sydney.
They had been hired to find someone – in fact, a lot of someones - and they had no time to lose.
“What’s the background, Mrs. Wainthropp?” asked Geoffrey for the third time. Hetty consulted her notebook and pursed her lips.
“It went down on – let me see, where is it? Small print! Ah yes, here it is… Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney to Los Angeles went down without a trace after apparently changing course for no good reason, on 22nd of September. I had an uncle, Geoffrey, that swore he saw gremlins on the wing of his Wellington bomber in the autumn of 1944. They locked him up; travesty of justice, of course, total travesty.” Geoffrey grimaced in sympathy and looked at the wet pavement whilst Hetty climbed into the waiting taxi and rested her capacious bag on her sturdy knees.
It was going to be a long flight. He joined Hetty and fumbled in his pocket for his walkman, fourth-hand and only a little-battered at the edges.
“Oh, Geoffrey!” Hetty cried, eyeing the wires and headphones puddling in her assistant’s lap. “You’re not going to be using that on the aeroplane, are you? I need to think!”
Geoffrey opened his mouth to protest - he had a compilation tape he’d been looking forward to listening to on the plane – then shut it again, defeated by Mrs. Wainthropp’s beady glare. As he tucked the walkman away again, he wondered whatever happened to them. Driveshaft. Liam was cute.
Charlie was cuter.
His eyes drifted to the passenger manifest on Mrs. Wainthropp’s lap, to the lines of names that until now had been just a blur... He felt a lurch and, for a second, the drab autumn streets flipped over, the sky was down below, and the taxi was not a taxi but a dark, steely cabin, and all the lights in Geoffrey’s head had turned on and off and on again, debris falling like synaptic confetti until he came to with a sudden rush of disorienting normality and whispered: “Charlie Pace was on that flight?”
Hetty, who had been examining the background notes with an eagle eye, turned it onto Geoffrey. “Yes. He was. Why?”
Geoffrey swallowed and turned away, to look out of the window at passing streets now solid and wet and drear. “No reason,” he lied.
The End