what it feels like (what it felt like)

x

"Captain?" Kitty calls, running up behind him and tapping him on the shoulder. "Oh, Captain? Can I ask you a question?"

The Captain turns from the window, eyes away from the sun setting over the closed gates and expansive lawns. It's getting dark inside the house. He must ask Alison to turn all the lights on soon. He'd use a torch, of course, but... Alas.

"Good evening, Kitty," he says, polite smile coming back to his face. "What can I help you with?"

"Oh, oh, Captain, you absolutely must come!" She beams, rocking back and forth on her toes. "We're all having the most beautiful conversation!"

"You are, are you? Well, I suppose I'll come join in — give my expert opinion on whatever it is that you're all talking about."

He chuckles at her subsequent squeal and follows her bouncing skip with his quick march all the way to the living room.

They're all gathered there — all the ghosts, anyway. No Alison, nor Michael. Probably having dinner together, he supposes. Ah, to eat again...

"Hello, Captain!" Pat grins as he walks in. "You're just in time, mate. Thomas was just finishing up!"

Thomas' jaw drops, his brows furrowed, and the Captain assumes that he was absolutely nowhere near finished speaking.

"Right. Well," he says. "What's this all about, anyway? Discussing, what, favourite books, are we?"

Thomas' mouth opens again, finger rising to edge in his point, but he gets interrupted.

"No, silly!" Kitty laughs. "Though that would be such a wonderful topic! I once read a —"

"I know not how to read," Mary says, mostly to herself. "Books be the work of witches."

"Oh, for goodness sake," Julian groans. He waves a hand in the air, rolls his eyes. "Love. They're all talking about poxy love."

The Captain's eyebrows shoot up his forehead and, thankfully, nobody seems to notice. Everybody is suddenly focused on shouting at Julian, calling him heartless, cold.

Love, the Captain thinks. He's unsure how this has never come up before.

"You never have been in love, Julian?" Mary asks. "That's sad... Very, very sad..."

"Love, shmove, I say," he tells her, and mimics covering a yawn. "Overrated. I might nap, wake me up when we talk about lust!"

Fanny purses her lips and voices her disapproval of this statement. She talks of marriage and children, of the luck that all the rest of them must have had in love — compared to her, at least.

Kitty sings of a boy who once bought her flowers (though her sister then had to dispose of them, apparently scared she'd be allergic), and Thomas rhapsodises of Isabelle and Alison. Pat recalls his lovely Carole, and Mary tells them all of her husband.