Artie: The Apple

[moonshadows]

((This takes place less than a year before Claire crosses paths with a very angry music box. That's right, I just implied that Claire was the first choice for next Caretaker. Well, Irene wasn't first choice either, now was she? Just do yourself a favor and don't think too hard about when Claire was born and when Artie would have started working at the Warehouse. The Regents, by the way, refused to bend on 'fire current staff' but did decide that out of respect for Artie's service, they would delay any future move until such time as he was unwilling or unable to perform his duties.))

 

“You think you’re gonna find somebody like me?” he yelled into the empty aisle, far enough away that not even the rustling echoes of his echoes would be detected in any of the more heavily-used areas.

The news that the Warehouse would be moving, with a new staff selected from the residents of the host country, would be upsetting enough to the other agents…but they weren’t him. They had lives they could return to, skills that didn’t revolve around snag-and-bag. For Artie, this was as personal a betrayal as when James had left, and he poured everything into the pretense of anger because if he didn’t, he’d be spread out on the concrete floor, weeping.

“Somebody who cares about you like I do? Ha!” The echo of his forced, scoffing laugh came back, and he repeated it. “Ha! Good luck with that. Good luck finding somebody as devoted!” And he was. Devoted, that is. The Warehouse was his love and his life and, like the captains of old, he’d rather go down with his ship than abandon it. Only he wasn’t being given that choice. “Somebody who would give…their whole life…”

Artie trailed off, swallowing tears, mourning the years he could have had, could have spent, but now would have to endure in depression and solitude he couldn’t even explain to anyone.

“…without a thank you.”

Not that he needed one. He was well and truly smitten, his years of service a labor of love, a modern-day priest tending the temple, secure in the knowledge that the goddess it had been built for existed and not caring that her statue had never moved to gaze upon him and smile. But now, with the Warehouse moving…was it too much to ask that he be recognized, just once?

“Without even a…piddling little…miniscule…” Again, he swallowed through a throat that was getting tighter, the words getting harder to force out. “…acknowledgment that they’re appreciated. That they even…matter to you…at all.”

It wasn’t exactly a crisis of faith, but one of love. He’d been worshiping a silhouette behind a silk screen, eyes glued to the shape even as he was being dragged away. It wouldn’t change the love he felt if the silhouette never turned to look at him, just as it hadn’t changed what he still felt for his partner when James had turned on the Warehouse and vanished, but it would be the difference between suffering through an exile soaked in bitter pain, and quietly enduring exile with the knowledge that it had all been worth it.

Artie closed his eyes, holding in tears. He’d laid everything he was on the altar, a sacrifice to the Warehouse, and didn’t even have enough left to think that it was all futile, that there would never be an answer. He just stood there, silently bleeding, and then a wind, a warm wind, caressed his face. The Warehouse had weather of a sort, of course, but he’d never felt anything like this. It felt like…hope. Like love made manifest, ruffling his clothes and his hair and whisking away the wetness on his cheeks. It slipped into his heart, soothed the bleeding places, filled up the emptiness, picked up the pieces of himself that he’d placed on the altar and put them back where they belonged, wrapped in warm affection. When he opened his eyes, the lights were swaying gently but unmistakably.

He hadn’t imagined it.

Before he could recover from that unique experience and accept the acknowledgment he hadn’t actually expected, a sound drew his eyes down the aisle. Something was rolling towards him, bounding and skipping over imperfections in the floor as if blown by that warm wind from…elsewhere. An apple, he realized as it came closer, but the type escaped him. Bemused, he watched it roll to a determined stop right between his feet, as if that was where it had always intended to go. Where he would have sworn it was a red-and-green, now it was entirely red – and a richer, deeper red, at that. He reached for it, discarding the nagging echo of James’s voice reminding him that he shouldn’t touch artifacts without gloves. If this apple was an artifact, it was one the Warehouse itself wanted him to touch and he’d be damned if he rejected the sign he’d all but begged for.

The skin was slightly warm under his fingers, as if the fruit had been sitting out in the sun, and the flesh underneath was firm. Had it been red before? Now that color was slightly washed out, and faded into a pale green. In silent awe, he held it in both hands. It was old, so very old. Centuries. Where had it been? How had the Warehouse hidden it for over two thousand years and twelve moves? Legends had sprung up around apples like this, eternal youth and immortality and curses bestowed if it was taken without permission or eaten selfishly. Somewhat shaken, he licked his lips and glanced down the empty aisle, one finger pushing his glasses back up. When he looked back down, the apple once again was a ruby red.

“Okay then,” he said quietly, not yet able to feel anything past shocked awe and love. What was the priest supposed to do when the statue did turn to smile at him? “You’re welcome.”

That wasn’t the appropriate response, he knew, because the wind and the apple hadn’t been the Warehouse saying ‘thank you’. But they were words of gratitude and acceptance, and they were all he had at the moment.

Slowly, he walked back to the office, the warm apple cradled in both hands, the lion’s share of his attention on the gift that had both kept him alive and nearly killed him: the ability to read the currents of tangential energy in an object. He hadn’t really been saying look at me with his ranting; he’d been saying I love you and I don’t want to leave. By the same token, the Warehouse hadn’t been saying thank you with the apple and the wind; it had been saying I love you too and stay.

When he reached the stairs, he tucked the apple safely into one pocket, out of sight. He’d need to find a good place for it, somewhere it would stay safe and hidden until he figured out what would happen when he ate it. That he would eat it was never in question; it had been a gift, an offer, a plea equally heartfelt as the one it had answered, and he was not going to turn it down.

“Feeling better?” Mrs. Frederic asked as soon as he opened the office door, making him jump.

“Yes,” he answered shortly, waiting for his pulse to settle.

She stood up and approached him, inscrutable as always. “What changed your mind?”

Ah, yes. He had stormed out in rather a black fury at the news, hadn’t he? Lucky that his agents were out on a ping and hadn’t been here to see this. Artie took a steadying breath and prepared to water his little heart-to-heart down as much as possible.. “The Warehouse likes me.”

“Agent Nielsen!” Mrs. Frederic chided, scowling. “The Warehouse does not like you.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with a look that indicated she wasn’t done. “The Warehouse loves you.”

Sheepishly, he said, “I wasn’t sure you’d believe that if I told you.”

Her eyes never wavered. “And when were you going to tell me about the apple?”

One hand moved to cover it reflexively. “Maybe never? I-I don’t even know for certain what it does yet.”

“It came from a tree that grew beside the first Warehouse, from seeds planted by Alexander the Great. It only ever produced two fruits, and the first Caretaker ate one of them.” Mrs. Frederic smiled slowly. “I should consider that offer carefully if I were you, Arthur. For the time being, however, you needn’t tell your agents that I was here. I shall inform the Regents that I don’t think it would be…wise…to transfer the Warehouse at this time, and perhaps convince them to reconsider the tradition of dismissing all of the current staff if it turns out that they are dead set on a move.”

Artie swallowed at the enormity of what he’d been given. “Th-thank you.”

“It’s not entirely for you,” she said crisply. “It would be…awkward…if my successor had to travel to another country in order to find her destiny.”

Well, that changed things. “She’s been- does she know?”

“Not yet, but she will.” Mrs. Frederic smiled faintly. “So will you.”