Accidental Tourists
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sydney/Weiss
Spoilers: I’ve seen up to Season 3 Episode 3, so up till then only.
Summary:
A whistle-stop tour of
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer’s Choice “Accidental Tourist” challenge. I’m spoiler free for everything beyond 3X03, please remember if you’re commenting… had no idea what to write for this one; turns out “Write what you know” works just fine!
For vacation photographs taken with a
disposable camera, Weiss thinks they turned out pretty good, and
Not that it was a real vacation, more a
happy accident, a fault on the CIA plane rendering it unsafe to fly, leaving
them with a six-hour repair stop-over in
They hadn’t had to think twice.
The camera had been Weiss’s first purchase,
along with a guide book, something that
She sits on her couch now as they pass pictures back and forth, and she can’t believe it was only a year ago.
There she is, standing beside the Anna Livia fountain – locally nicknamed, Weiss had read ever so seriously, “The Floozie in the Jacuzzi” – seconds away from doubling over in laughter when Weiss suggested that she should copy the pose sometime.
There is Weiss, standing beside the statue of James Joyce, mimicking the pose exactly, though she got her own back on him, made him laugh when she told him that to be really precise, he should have had his shoes on the other feet.
Trading photographer duty, there is one of each of them beside the statue of Molly Malone (“The Tart with the cart” opined Weiss, in a mock-professorly voice) and two more of them in front of the entrance to Trinity College, and while there are none of the Book of Kells, photography forbidden inside the library, they are each now sipping hot chocolate from mugs with ornate Celtic designs on them, courtesy of the college gift shop.
Two more photographs, this time of them in the Guinness Hops store, requisite pint of “The Black Stuff” in hand. She caught Weiss in mid-sip, giving her the thumbs up, letting her know that it tasted fine. His taste buds are obviously different to hers though, as evidenced by the photograph he took of her. It is taken post-sip, her face screwed up in revulsion, and she begs him now to burn it, but he refuses, muttering something about blackmail material. She laughs again now when he reminds her of how the waitress took the pint from her, swearing it would taste better with a shot of blackcurrant in it – it didn’t, and she ordered a soft drink instead, and took the teasing from Weiss with a smile on her face.
There are photographs of them from the Blarney Woollen Mills, a shop in the city centre where they learned that Aran sweaters really didn’t suit him, but they did her, and she tried on several before she found one that met with his approval. He picked up some souvenirs too; a Belleek vase for his mother, another for his sister, a bodhrán for his nephew – yes, he tells her now, his nephew thinks it’s the coolest present ever, and no, his sister still hasn’t forgiven him – as well as another present that he didn’t let her see, not then at any rate.
There are several more snaps from around the city, shots of the buildings, of a street artist dressed up as what can only be described as a senile Tin Man, of a string quartet playing in the middle of the street.
But her favourite comes near the end, when they were making their way back to where they started. They were crossing the Ha’Penny Bridge (so called, Weiss informed her, because it used to cost Dubliners a half-penny to cross the bridge), the railings of which were, for some reason, festooned with red roses. It was a striking sight, neither Weiss nor Sydney having seen anything like it, and without even having to think about it, each of them posed for the other, smiling for the camera.
At the back of Sydney’s mind was a worry that they were obstructing people, but Dubliners were evidently used to this kind of thing, to the point where they stood back, not moving in front of the camera when she took the photograph of Weiss. In fact, they were so used to this kind of thing that one woman, who must have been in her seventies and looked, Weiss swore, like his Great-Aunt Edith, asked her if she wanted a photograph of her and her husband together.
They’d looked at one another and laughed,
but they hadn’t corrected her, and
That wasn’t the final surprise though; that came once they were airborne, and she was looking wistfully out the window. He’d sat down beside her, told her that he’d bought her something. Opening the flat box, she’d gasped when she’d seen the silver ring inside. “It’s called a Claddagh ring,” he’d told her, and in true tour guide mode, he’d told her the story, the tradition that went along with it. He held her hand as he did so, and when he was finished, he grinned nervously. “I’ll let you decide what way to wear it.”
Grinning, she slid it onto her right hand, heart pointing inwards, her own heart soaring when she saw the smile on his face, soaring higher when he leaned in, brushing her lips with his.
Those photos are a year old now, and she’s waiting for the day that the ring will have to change hands, change direction.
It can’t come soon enough.