Achilles (to Poppy): Poppy? Is that you? Fancy running into you here in our neck of the woods. I thought you'd be living the high life somewhere, drinking expensive wine with an elderly, wealthy husband by now.
Poppy (to Achilles): Oh honey, you know perfectly well that I never went for that sort of thing.
Achilles (to Poppy): Well, you can't blame me for thinking that after the way you left the crew, now can I?
Poppy (to Achilles): Well, you can hardly blame me, honey. Besides, I just got a much better offer & a chance to not die in an alley horribly... But, seriously, what brings you to this end of Pleasant Street? I thought your turf ran only through the Tombs. Or are you trying to expand your borders again?
Achilles (to Poppy): Got me a couple of bang up dippers being trained up. Sent 'em off on an test... Just biding my time 'til they come back. No chance of expanding our borders with these new crushers about, they're making it tough for us to earn a living lately.
Poppy (to Achilles): Still pulling kids from the old neighborhood, are you, honey? You never change, do you, Achilles?
Achilles (to Poppy): Hey! Someone's got to look after 'em. And, I didn't hear you complaining when we took you in & showed you the ropes.
Poppy (to Achilles): Didn't have much of a choice, now did I? ... Look, I'd love to chat about old times, honey, but I told Molly that I'd hang this laundry for her, so you can either take this basket from me & help or go find your little hooligans.
Achilles (to Poppy): Well, I'll carry the basket for you, but I'm not sticking aroOW WHOA... Poppy, you're pregnant!?!
Poppy (to Achilles): Stop acting like such a pig-widgeon, Achilles, I know, I'm pregnant. I'm surprised you hadn't heard.
Achilles (to Poppy): No, I hadn't... Clearly, I'm losing my touch. Well, here's your basket. Gotta fly, I see my dippers, now.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hey, lover! I brought you lunch. If Molly asks about this pie, however, you don't know... Whoops!
Poppy (to Vincent): Hey honey. Achilles, here, was just leaving.
Achilles (to Vincent): Greetings and salutations... So, are you the gentleman responsible for that?
Vincent (to Achilles): Heh. You certainly don't mince words. Nice to meet you, Achilles.
Achilles (to Vincent): I've gotta admit it seems a bit of a shame & hard to believe that our Poppy's going to be somebody's mum... Poppy, here, was one of the best dippers & cracksman I've ever seen. We were all sad to see her go.
Poppy (to Achilles): You know, you can hush right up about all of that, honey.
Vincent (to Achilles): I'm terribly biased, you understand, but I have to say I'm pretty chuffed about the fact she's going to be someone's mum.
Achilles (to Vincent): Hmmm, to each his own I suppose. Anyway, I really do have to run now. Oh... I beg your pardon, didn't catch your name.
Poppy (to Achilles): That's because you don't need to know, honey... Go on back to your little games.
Achilles (to Poppy): Tut, tut. Can't an old friend, like me, ask the name of the father of your child? I think that's fairly harmless. Don't you? (to Vincent) I'm sorry for my earlier rudeness… I'm Achilles Fitzhugh Smith, I grew up with Poppy in the old neighborhood.
Vincent (to Achilles): Oh, no worries. I've never met a rule of etiquette I haven't broken at one point or another. Heh. Poppy calls me Perfect Tommy, from time to time, and I'm not about to argue with a beautiful woman.
Achilles (to Vincent): Good to meet you. Now, I really should be off before those little rascals think they're free to run off with my... lunch. (to Poppy) It was nice to see you, Poppy... Maybe, I'll see you around.
Poppy (to Achilles): Don't threaten me, Achilles... I'm not in the game, anymore. Goodbye. (to Vincent) Oh god, honey... I'm sorry about all of that. He caught me by surprise when I was coming out of the inn with the basket.
Vincent (to Poppy): It's alright, hun. I didn't realize leeches could walk upright and wear suits. You learn something new every day. Are you alright?
Poppy (to Vincent): I suppose so... I'll just be so glad when we crossover and go home. There's just too many bad memories over here. Achilles didn't used to be so bad, but apparently age hasn't been much of an improvement… I really need to get this laundry hung up, honey. Will you hand me things & I'll pin it on the line?
Vincent (to Poppy): Sit down and have your lunch, hun. I can hang up the laundry.
Poppy (to Vincent): Thank you, honey, you're too good to me... Oh god, where's my damn handkerchief... Oh, there it is... Sorry, crazy pregnant moment... I thought I had the whole emotional outburst thing under control... Apparently, not.
Vincent (to Poppy): Oh, hun! Come here. What's wrong, Poppy? I doubt very much that this is just crazy pregnancy hormones.
Poppy (to Vincent): I think somethings going on, honey... Achilles doesn't normally venture this far west on Pleasant Street. His turf is in the Tombs. And, if he's been running new dippers through this area, it can't be a good thing. It might not be safe to be here, anymore. But, I know Molly & Bernard won't budge from the inn.
Vincent (to Poppy): So, his popping up here looking for you isn't a coincidence. Good heavens... Wouldn't it be nice if it was? Just once?
Poppy (to Vincent): Well, I'd like to think so too, honey. But, what's that phrase you like to use... Oh yes… My spy senses are tingling.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hee hee. And I know better than to doubt your Spy Sense, hun. Besides, one of the patrons inside mentioned a "disreputable looking gent" was outside asking about you.
Poppy (to Vincent): Well, that's just wonderful, honey. I'm sure Molly is going to have a million questions for me & Bernard is going to be terrified that I'll actually answer them. Family... Sheesh. Well, go ahead and ask me what you want to ask me.
Vincent (to Poppy): Oh... Good heavens. I was just about to say, "if there's anything you want me to know, I'm sure you'll tell me..." And I just had the most serious moment of deja vu. Is this what Mouse felt like with me all those years? I owe her a cake. Possibly several cakes.
Poppy (to Vincent): Heh... Sorry, honey. I love you and don't want to have any secrets from you, but I'm not very proud of some of the things that I did growing up. And, a lot of it has to do with Achilles.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hun, you know I'm a firm believer in not letting our past define who we are. I know you lived on the streets in the Tombs. I can make a lot of guesses about what surviving that had to entail. And I did my own fair share of shady dealings. I'm not about to shatter the walls of my lovely glass house.
Poppy (to Vincent): Fair enough, honey, I just don't want you to get blindsided, but if you don't want to know... I will say this, though, I never ran any seduction scams, or worked as a dollymop or anything like that... Which was quite a feat, let me tell you.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hun, I never even suspected you might. I know you better than that. And for the record, I never said I didn't want to know. I'm a Nosey Parker. Of COURSE I want to know, but I don't want you to feel obligated to tell me anything, lover.
Poppy (to Vincent): Heh, I know you are & I'm impressed with how much restraint you're showing. I just don't even know where to begin, honey.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hee hee. I CAN be taught. Start where ever you're comfortable, hun. If f makes you feel better, ask me something embarrassing about myself. No sense in you suffering alone. ;-)
Poppy (to Vincent): Heehee, I can't even think of anything embarrassing about you that you haven't already told me, honey. You've always been pretty forthcoming with me or at least, it seems like it.
Vincent (to Poppy): Have I? Good heavens! How will I manage to keep my mystique then?
Poppy (to Vincent): Honey, you can always be mysterious to others... Honestly, I like being your confidante. And, I feel a bit bad for not being as open with you about stuff. But, I feel like I should… So, I know I told you that I went to work for Tesla when I was seventeen, but that wasn't the whole truth. I kinda got sent to work for him, it's one of the reasons for the last name change. I was sort of in protective custody. I was a part of the Pleasant Street Gang, which is made up of a bunch of chimney sweeps, orphans & street urchins from the Tombs. It's been around forever and Achilles has been the leader of it since he was about 15, which was right before I was "invited" to join. Actually it wasn't even much of an invitation, honey. I was basically told that if I planned on working the streets of the Tombs then I was a member or I wouldn't be around long.
Vincent (to Poppy): You did what you had to do to survive, lover. It's not a shock, you know. I know about the gangs that roam certain neighborhoods. Most pirates do, if only so we know to watch out for them. I always assumed you had something like that in your past. Hee hee. No offense, hun, but you fight like a street scrapper.
Poppy (to Vincent): Well, I'm glad to know that I was concerned for no reason, honey.
Vincent (to Poppy): I certainly don't think anything less of you. I love you. Heh. Besides, it's not like I was hanging about with a better crowd. There's a reason Alistair was called Mad Dog. Royalty can make for terrifying lawbreakers, hun.
Poppy (to Vincent): I've heard stories but I had always assumed they were made up like a lot of the rumors about you, honey.
Vincent (to Poppy): Alistair would use stories about me as smokescreen. He really didn't want people talking about him. Being a prince and all. Heh. Unlike stories about my romantic entanglements, you can believe most of what you hear about Mad Dog Teech. You know those vaccines I delivered to Charred Cross? That raid was Alistair's idea. He was going to dump the cargo.
Poppy (to Vincent): What!?! That bastard! A lot of innocent children could have died... Oooo… If he were still alive, I would totally slap him, honey.
Vincent (to Poppy): The Queen Mum isn't much better. She wanted to deliver it to upscale neighborhoods and tax it. Anyhoo, it's what finally caused me to mutiny. And how I got the Falcon, actually. I stole the ship and delivered the vaccines to Dr. Thorne. It was just... too much. Things weren't rosy before that, but contributing to the death of a bunch of kids to annoy the Queen Mum was much too much.
Poppy (to Vincent): Well, I can certainly see why you left... You're too decent to hang around jerks like that.
Vincent (to Poppy): I stayed longer than I should have. MUCH longer than I should have, but... I may have been a little desperate for approval. And... Well. I liked the work. Even if it did get me shot. Twice. Alistair's raids were getting downright suicidal at the end.
Poppy (to Vincent): Oh honey... You weren't working for Alistair when he raided the Imperial airship, Jupiter, were you?
Vincent (to Poppy): Damn it... I really was hoping you wouldn't ask me that. The Jupiter happened right after the Reliant.
Poppy (to Vincent): Ummm, I was on the Jupiter, honey, undercover as a crew member...
Vincent (to Poppy): You WERE? Ha ha ha! Oh! Oh good heavens! No wonder it was such a glorious disaster!
Poppy (to Vincent): You don't happen to remember what you were wearing that day, do you?
Vincent (to Poppy): I'm afraid not, hun. I was a bit delirious at the time. About a week earlier, they had dug a lead shot out of my hip. I was probably walking with an impressive limp, however.
Poppy (to Vincent): Do you remember a young boy punching some giant of pirate and then running off? Well, if you do, uh, that was me. I ended up climbing up onto the balloon & I may have shot several of your crew members... Oops.
Vincent (to Poppy): YOU'RE the one who shot Sweet William? Hee hee. I can't say he didn't deserve it. I can't say ANY of them didn't deserve it.
Poppy (to Vincent): Well, I certainly hope I didn't shoot you, honey, cuz that would be embarrassing.
Vincent (to Poppy): Hee hee. No, fortunately not. Honestly, I'm glad you shot some of those assholes. I should have been in the hospital, not trekking around some airship. But since the raid on the Reliant went so poorly, the rest of the crew wanted a proper raid.
Poppy (to Vincent): So, what was so terrible about the Reliant raid, honey? You've mentioned it a couple times.
Vincent (to Poppy): That's not surprising, hun. Drake had contracted Alistair to help him take the Reliant. Half the crew was either slaughtered, or worse. I thought I told you about that raid. Didn't I, hun?
Poppy (to Vincent): You did, honey, but I don't think you mentioned the name of the ship before.
Vincent (to Poppy): Ah. Heh. It makes sense. It's not really something I like to discuss. A lot of innocent people we killed. Not my finest hour. I was hit in the hip by a lead shot pistol. Alistair dug the slug out, but it took two weeks for them to get me to the doctor. It got horribly infected. I don't remember much of that, actually. Within a week and a half, I was pretty much off my rocker.
Poppy (to Vincent): Oh, was that the terrible laudanum experience you told me about that night Percy locked us on the ship, honey?
Vincent (to Poppy): Hee hee. That would be the one, hun. I don't do very well with drugs of any stripe, apparently.
Poppy (to Vincent): Oh well honey, speaking of people who died horrible deaths... I should probably tell you about the Romanovs and the Rajah...
Vincent (to Poppy): Oh? What about them, hun?
Poppy (to Vincent): Ummm, I may have been involved with their assassinations, honey.
Vincent (to Poppy): What?!? Really? Oh. Well, that's, uh... Wow. That's really kinda hot, actually. Oh. Heh. I mean, uh, don't look at me like that. No, not hot. Nope. Not hot at all.
Poppy (to Vincent): No, no, I can explain... Oh, wait. You think that's hot? You are so weird. :-p
Vincent (to Poppy): Um. I plead the 5th.
