snowblindrpg | [network] @ADMIN; Arrival [open]

The Great War.

[Alfie nods in confirmation, sitting back and folding his hands.]

Still a bit spooky, hearing it called number one.

[He doesn't actually sound freaked out, though. He's just as steady as he's been throughout the rest of the conversation.]

I can imagine. You had trenches, we had... [She can't say much worse, because a war's a war, and there's no reason to try and guess who suffered the most.] We had gas chambers, and Antisemitism.

[She sighs.]

I didn't get to see the end of it, I ended up here. We were getting close, though.

We win, I'm told.

We have antisemitism too, in my time.

[And there's an extra bit of gravity to his voice there. He knows from personal experience.]

And gas - mustard gas, yeah? Nasty stuff.

[His tone is grave, entirely devoid of humour, and she can guess that he's probably Jewish.

But then - oh. Peggy hangs her head a little, trying to keep her composure to herself.]

No, not mustard gas. The Nazis built out very large buildings that they crowd with - whoever they want to get rid of, and after sealing it shut, they inundate it with poisonous gas.

[It's hard to say out loud; Peggy can't keep her voice from trembling. It's all so fresh, so new in her head. She is sure they haven't found them all, but she saw pictures of Madjanek. She swallows thickly, and takes a deep breath.]

Sorry, this is not - this is hardly a pleasant topic of conversation.

[Alfie has been switching a lot of his conversations to private - not because he’s saying much that he cares about keeping secret, but just because he’s more used to talking one-on-one, without anybody being able to listen in so easily. It hasn’t been a hard and fast policy - some he’s only privated partway through, and others he’s left things entirely open. But this? He locks this down, immediately.]

War never is. I was in the war, but I'm also a gang leader; a criminal. We have our own, smaller wars. I deal in unpleasant every day. I deal it out. I don't shy from it.

[His face is still very straight, and still very serious. He'd purposefully not asked Steve for more information about the future war - time to think about that later, when he isn't reeling from arrival. But with this extra stuff thrown at him now, he figures he's past the point of avoidance.]

I know about the Nazi Party. So what's Germany up to in my future, then?

Edited 2016-05-10 16:58 (UTC)

[Taking another deep breath, Peggy steels herself. She can do this, she can explain things, she can explain what she's lived through. She just wishes she didn't have to.

The revelation that he's a gang leader...doesn't actually surprise her much. His tone says it all, hard and clipped and serious; not a man to take lightly.]

Believe me, I have not shied from a single unpleasant thing thrown in my way in the last 5 years. I haven't had the luxury to. [A woman. In the Army. As if she could have any luxury of any kind.]

They...mainly, imprisoned and tortured Jews. Also, sick, old, handicapped, 'deviant' people. Everyone they didn't deem up to their exacting standards. Hitler wanted to control the world through eugenics. France became a divided country, with half of it being controlled by Germany, and a network of civilians and military alike, outside of Vichy, trying to combat it just outside enemy lines. Lots and lots of families broken apart.

And then there's the Nazi party's scientific division, HYDRA, which has tried to one-up the party, and take the world for themselves by attempting to nuke all major cities off the map.

A lot is happening in the Pacific, too. Japan launched a bombing attack against Hawaii. A lot of it is happening in Guam and the Philippines. Germany declared war against the US, the US declared war against Japan, and then Germany, too.

[Peggy recites the fact like she's at school, facts coming out of a book. Only - it's her life. She's fought alongside the French, and the Americans, and she's pushed back enemy lines, she's freed prison camps, where HYDRA was experimenting on soldiers. How can this be history for someone else, for someone in Steve's brave new world, Peggy doesn't know. How must it sound for someone who lived through World War I, dug trenches, for whom that war is still a fresh memory and not history?]

How many, with the Jews? And where, and when?

[It's all important, but that's really what he's focused on now.]

I don't know. [Another sigh.] The war isn't finished, for me. One camp was liberated just before I ended up here, but I can imagine there are more.

And if there are more...I don't know, honestly. Probably millions.

Millions.

[He pauses very, very briefly, to let that begin to sink in. Is she serious, or exaggerating? Does she know what she's talking about, or is she silly and flighty? He wishes he knew.]

Where, and when? How many were taken from England? Were they all of them soldiers, or were civilians captured too?

Edited 2016-05-11 14:13 (UTC)

I don't know. [Her tone is now clipped, slightly annoyed. She's already told him as much as she knows.]

I do know that civilians were taken, yes. I don't know how many - the majority of the camps, we believe, are made up of civilians. Easier targets than soldiers.

I don't know where they were all taken - the one camp we found so far was in Poland, but it's very probable that there were a lot more, all over Europe. I don't know when it started. I don't know these things, I was currently living them. I am not a history book.

Arthur - England, his username is @SceptredIsle, probably has a lot more factual information. I'm afraid I can only give a very fractured, half-complete picture, since I'm still in the middle of it.

[Figuratively speaking, of course.]

Don't you dare.

[His own tone turns icy. His voice is quieter, but not in a way that makes him sound harmless and docile. He's still controlled - he's keeping his voice even, and choosing his words carefully - but there's an edge to it that he's struggling to keep hidden, if she's good at reading these things. He's furious, and he's terrified.]

Don't you dare act put out that I'm asking questions after you've sprung this on me. I don't care if I'm irritating you, inconveniencing you, yeah, whatever. I’m asking as a Jew, a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle. You don't know everything, fine. But do not tell me this, and then get indignant when I try to find out what I need to know to work out in my head whether my friends and loved ones are gonna be round up and slaughtered.

I'm not - [She's not indignant, she's not mad, she's not put out. She's upset.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes for a second, Peggy does her best to grasp at her self-control. It would do no one any good if Steve saw her upset now, and inquired why.]

I have done my best to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge. [There's no reason to remind him that he started asking the questions, she didn't spring this on him out of the blue just to hurt him.] And I hope, I sincerely hope that your friends and loved ones are fine.

But please, do try to remember I have lost so - so much, myself. [She has lost a great love, maybe the love of her life, to this war. She has lost her brother to this war. She has lost youthful innocence to this war.] You asked, I answered, and believe me, I know exactly just how much of a shock it must be. [She felt it, not long ago.]

However, your feelings don't invalidate mine. You are working on assumptions; I am working from memory. I appreciate if you watched your tone and your words, I have done nothing but answer all your questions with as much detail as I could, despite this all being extremely upsetting for me, too.

You brought it up, yeah, you fucking deal with it. If you can't, then you hang up right now, because I don't care that the murder of my people is upsetting to you.

[Well. So much for that empathy.]

Deal with what, exactly? Your rudeness and dismissive words, like only you can have any kind of feeling or reaction to a tragedy that almost entirely destroyed the world?

[She sighs. She knows, already, that this is going to be like hitting a brick wall. There's no point.]

Look; I apologise. This is - a lot to take in, and you have every right to every feeling you have. I'll just go, before things get worse. You obviously need to - to process. I reiterate, though, that Arthur will have more information, should you wish to know it.

Again, I'm sorry. This is not how I wanted this conversation to go.

[She's not used to people caring about her world's tragedies, in this land. People have seem much too concerned by their own problems.]

Go. Hang up. Now.

[His hand curls into a fist on the arm of the chair he's sitting in.]

[network] @ADMIN; Arrival [open]

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[private] cw: Holocaust talk

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