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upstartpoodle · 5 years ago

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Moving Forward (Chapter 1)

Rating: T

Relationships: Dwight & George, George & Ross, George & Cary, past George/Elizabeth.

Summary: The next chapter of my post s5 AU. As Ross and Dwight rush to perform surgery on a grievously injured George, Ross begins to question everything he knows about his long-time enemy.

@harry-leroy, @forcebros, @ticketybooser. Here’s the new chapter! Hope you enjoy it. :D

AO3

***

When he first heard the shot, Ross Poldark's immediate thought had been that that damned bastard, Hanson, had—quite literally—taken the opportunity to strike whilst his back was turned. Of course that slimy snake would never dare to attack him whilst looking him in the eye—he had neither the skill nor the honour for that. He barely had time, however, to realise that, for a man who had supposedly been shot, he was not in a great deal of pain, before he noticed that General Toussaint, rather than pressing his advantage at his opponent's distraction, was crumpled on the floor in front of him, bleeding from his neck. Had Hanson missed? But no, surely he would have felt the bullet go past him. He searched about wildly for his saviour—there must be another person here who had fired the shot. Then, his jaw dropped.

Of all the people he might ever have expected to save his life, George Warleggan was at the very bottom of the list.

But, as dark, confused eyes met icy blue, he had no time to ask what he was doing, or why, or even—as was his initial instinct—to splutter incoherently, before there was a sharp flurry of movement around him, and his vision was suddenly filled with sparks and smoke and gunpowder. He coughed, hearing Hanson cry out in pain behind him, but as the smoke cleared, his eyes were fixed firmly on George. It seemed as if all sound had been sucked out of the barn, save for the beat of his heart pounding in his ears, as the man slowly raised a hand to his side, sinking down to the floor. He saw a dark shape dart towards him from behind and catch him, lowering him gently to the ground. Dwight. His friend was wide-eyed, panicked, turning to stare imploringly up at him as he cradled George's head in his lap. His mouth was moving, and Ross heard his words as if from over the roar of the waves against the cliffs in a storm.

“—oss, Ross, help me!”

Ross approached slowly, as if in a trance. George was so pale that in the thin beams of moonlight coming down from the roof of the barn, he looked almost-blue white, his flickering eyes fogged with pain as they rolled back into his head, somewhere between the threshold of conscious and unconscious. His left hand, pressed against his abdomen, was wet with blood. It looked black in the darkness, but Ross knew it would be a vivid, poisonous red.

“Ross!,” Dwight cried again, his tone sharp and urgent. “Make haste, please! He is losing blood fast!”

The fear in his friend's voice was enough to shake him out of his trance. Without another moment's thought, he sprang into action.

“I will take him” he said, slipping his arms underneath the injured man's chest and knees and hoisting him up into a bridal hold which he was sure George would have objected to most vociferously had he not been near unconsciousness. As it was, he simply let out a soft groan, head lolling against his shoulder.

The rush back to Nampara was not an easy one. George, though not heavy, was a dead weight in his arms, and he feared jostling him too greatly, lest he make the injury worse. He vaguely noted that Prudie was stood outside as he hurried past, and he could hear Dwight cajoling her into fetching supplies behind him despite her protests of fear of blood. Navigating through the doors and up the stairs was difficult, but he managed it, and he wasted no time in kicking open the door to one of the unused rooms on the landing and placed George gently down onto the bed. Dwight followed in after him, his bag of medical tools in tow.

George let out a quiet whimper as he was set down atop the sheets. He looked little better in the soft candlelight than he had in the harsh moonlight, his pallid face fast turning an ever more unpleasant shade of white. There was a large, dark stain seeping through onto his coat, growing ever larger by the second.

“Come” said Dwight.

Shrugging off his coat and waistcoat and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, Ross gave him a sharp nod, and they moved into action. They made quick work of his clothes, so that when Prudie entered the room with a bowl of steaming water and a pile of clean white cloths in her hands, they had stripped them away from him entirely, and the gaping wound, blood pouring from it down onto the sheets, was visible for all to see. She gave a little squawk, turning faintly green and, placing the basin and the cloths roughly down on the bedside table, rushed back out through the door as fast as she could. Dwight, however, paid her no mind.

“Pressure on the wound” he said sharply, passing Ross one of the cloths Prudie had left behind, and though he would usually have objected to being ordered about in such a manner, he did what he was told without complaint. Dwight was George's only hope at this point, and he was not about to waste time arguing when a man's life was at stake.

George moaned in pain as he pressed the cloth to the wound. The fabric turned from white to red in a matter of seconds as it soaked up the blood. Ross could feel the hot wetness of it under his palm, and a wave of nausea threatened to overcome him as the coppery smell of it filled his nose, but he forced himself not to move his hand away. He swallowed the sensation down, his eyes flickering up towards where Dwight stood, cleaning tool upon tool in the hot water. Ross swallowed again. He had seen and sustained enough injuries in battle to know exactly how each and every one of them was used.

After he had finished, Dwight turned back towards the bed and spoke again, this time directly to George. His tone, however, was quite different from the tart instructions he had given Ross.

“George,” he said, in a voice of forced, gentle calm. George let out another small whimper, his head turning vaguely in the direction of the address. “George, I'm afraid that what I am about to do is going to hurt a great deal, but I need you to stay as still as you can.”

George couldn't seem to muster a response beyond a faint murmur, his head lolling back onto the pillows, eyes screwed tightly shut. Dwight looked up at Ross, his expression grim.

“You will need to hold him down” he said. “Can you do that?”

Ross' eyes widened. He felt faintly sick.

“Ross,” Dwight repeated, and there was a real bite of urgency in his voice. “Can you do that?”

Ross forced himself to nod.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I will.”

The process was horrible. The pain had sharpened George's senses, and he kept being yanked back into horrible, agony-filled awareness each time he seemed to be falling back into unconsciousness. It had lent him an unlikely strength for one so badly injured, and Ross had to fight to keep him still as he twisted and turned beneath his palms, the cries that escaped through his tightly-clenched teeth mingling with the roaring in his ears. It seemed to go on forever, until, finally, finally, Dwight stepped back, wiping his hands down with a cloth, and announced himself, ever so slightly shakily, to be finished.

“He will need some clean clothes,” his said as he tied bandages about his waist. “Something which will keep him warm.”

Ross called for Prudie and, a few moments later, she returned with one of his nightshirts and an old woollen house gown that he had never much taken to wearing bundled in her arms. Ross doubted they would fit well, but they'd no other options, and so he helped Dwight slip George into them without comment. The man was fully unconscious now, and did not so much as stir throughout the process, his too-thin form sickeningly limp in their arms.

“You should clean yourself up, Ross,” Dwight said as they settled him back down into the bed. He had pulled a warm quilt over him, carefully adjusting the pillows behind his head. “I think—”

But the rest of his words had faded away to white noise. He was falling into that strange trance again, and it was as if Dwight were talking to him through glass, his lips moving but no sound coming out. He blinked once, slowly, and then turned about and, as if moving through thick, sticky molasses, walked out of the room without a word.

He headed to his bedchamber more from instinct than intention. As he slipped through the door, he swayed on his feet, and he put out a hand to steady himself. Why had he come here? There was something, something... But God his head hurt, throbbing painfully with the beat of his heart, and his eyelids drooping as if there was a great weight attached to them. He thought he could hear scuffling and stumbling somewhere nearby, and angry voices that he faintly recognised but could not place, but they seemed so distant amid that strange haze that he could barely tell if they were real.

He let out a groan, stumbling over to lean heavily upon his desk, his head bowed. There was a basin of water there, he realised, and with a grateful sigh, he leaned down and splashed some onto his face. The warm liquid made him feel a little better, but he had become suddenly aware of a faint coppery smell tickling at his nostrils, and when he lowered his hands from his face, he saw that the water in the bowl had turned red. Red on his hands. Blood. Blood on his hands, and on his clothes.

Cleaning, he remembered suddenly. That was what he was meant to be doing. Cleaning himself up. Where...? Water, that was what he needed. More water. He would have to go outside to the pump and get some. With an enormous effort, he managed to push himself away from the desk and stagger out of the room, down the stairs and, with only a brief pause to snatch up a bucket from the kitchen, out into the yard. The pump was stiff from cold, but he forced it to yield through sheer brute force, and he was soon filling the bucket up easily.

“Ah, there you are, Uncle.”

The voice broke through his concentration so swiftly and suddenly that he gave a violent start, almost upending the half-full bucket with his foot. Whirling around, he saw that Geoffrey Charles was standing in the doorway behind him.

“You were successful, I take it?” he asked after a short pause. Words, he found, were not coming easily to him.

Geoffrey Charles grinned.

“Absolutely,” he said, but the expression slipped from his face as he took the sight of Ross in. “Is that blood? Are you hurt? What happened? Did the General—?”

“It is not my blood” said Ross gruffly, more to stem the incessant flow of questions than anything else. The concern on Geoffrey Charles' face turned to confusion.

“Then whose blood is it?” he asked. “Toussaint's?”

Given hindsight, Ross might have been able to come up with a vaguely sensible answer but, unfortunately, tired and overwrought as he was, he merely blurted out:—

“Your stepfather's.”

Geoffrey Charles stared at him incredulously.

“You have murdered Uncle George?!”

Ross stared back agape.

“I— Why would you—? No, of course I haven't murdered George,” he spluttered. “He was shot by Hanson.”

Hanson. Hanson. He suddenly remembered that they had left him in the barn. Was he still there? Was he even alive? Try as he might he couldn't recall—the memory of it was too clouded with the thought of George crumpling to the ground, white as candle wax and bleeding red. Before he could consider what he was doing, he had turned to rush off towards the barn, but Geoffrey Charles caught him by the arm.

“We have already brought him into the house,” he said. “Dr Enys should be treating him now. I don't think he's so badly injured though, else he wouldn't have been able to complain so loudly about it. But I don't understand. Whyever would he want to shoot Uncle George?”

“I suspect him that saving my life had something to do with it” groused Ross, bending down to pick up his bucket of water and heading back into the house. Geoffrey Charles, looking more and more baffled by the second, followed him.

“He—? What—? But that makes no sense at all!,” he exclaimed. “Uncle George hates you. Why would he want to save your life? Was it he that killed the General?”

“And shot Hanson.” Ross placed the bucket heavily down on the table in the parlour, wishing, for once, that his nephew had inherited his mother's rather than his father's tact. But then, the Poldarks had always been more inclined towards bluntness—and himself no exception to that rule—and so he could hardly blame Geoffrey Charles for voicing the very thought that was creeping into his own mind so frankly.

“I thought you had done that,” Geoffrey Charles replied with a soft sound of stunned amazement. “Well, good for him, I suppose.”

Ross shook his head.

“No,” he said, and his voice came out hoarse and grim. “No, not good. Hanson injured him very badly.”

“Oh. I— How bad—?”

But Ross couldn't bring himself to answer, couldn't bring himself to say that he didn't know, that George very well might not— He stared down at the water in the bucket, turned almost black in the dim firelight, not daring to look up. A horrible silence stretched between them.

“Well, I suppose that explains why Hanson wasn't worse injured himself,” Geoffrey Charles spoke up, more as an attempt to break it than anything else. “When he wakes, make sure to tell Uncle George to practise his aim.”

The attempt at humour fell flat, lost in that awful, oppressive silence. All Ross could think of was “when he wakes”. When, when, if, if not... Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Geoffrey Charles casting about for something to say.

“Where is Aunt Demelza?”

The question was enough to jolt Ross out of his stupor, and his head shot up to look about him. Where was Demelza? He hadn't seen her at all in the house. Had she even followed from the barn after – after what happened? Would she even have wanted to, or had something else—?

“Do you want me to see if I can find her?” Geoffrey Charles asked, and it was clear that some, if not all of what he had been thinking had shown plainly on his face. Ross nodded.

“If you would,” he said. “Just – just make sure that she's safe.”

“I will, Uncle.”

And with that, Geoffrey Charles turned on his heel and strode out through the door, and Ross felt himself sink down over the table once again, as if a great hand was pushing down between his shoulder-blades, too strong to resist. He glanced down at his stained hands. Demelza would be cross with him for getting blood on her table when she came back. If she came back. Another if. If, if, if. When he thought about it, it seemed presumptuous to assume she would simply return and play the part of the happy wife after how he had treated her, no matter the reason. Now that she knew, would it change things for her? His mind travelled back to her speech to Toussaint. “A liar, and a bully.” It had been a trick, yes—a trick which had, in part, prevented him being the one on the wrong end of a bullet. But nonetheless, he couldn't help but wonder, in a tiny, niggling corner of his mind, whether there had been a grain of truth to her words.

With a fierce oath, he shoved himself sharply away from the table, in search of a scrubbing brush. He wanted to get the blood off his hands, scourge it from every part of him as if it had never been. The bristles of the brush were rough and sore against his skin, and the water bitingly cold, but he kept scrubbing and scrubbing until it was all gone. From his palms, the gaps between his fingers, congealing beneath his nails. He scrubbed until his hands turned lobster-pink, raw and painful, but he didn't care. Anything to take away the feeling of the man he had long considered as his worst enemy twisting and writhing in pain beneath his hands, anything to quiet the litany of why, why, why whirling about in his head.

Once he was finished, he took the now deep red water and tossed it out into the yard and, leaving the bucket outside beside the door, headed back up to his bedchamber to change his clothes. He could hear Hanson's snarling voice, the words indistinct and jumbled from the other side of the wall. Another voice joined him, soft and calm, but lacking it's usual warmth. Dwight. If only he had choked on his own blood, Ross thought bitterly as he tossed the bloody shirt aside and pulled a clean one over his head. That would have kept him quiet. God curse it, George, why did your aim have to be so appalling? That thought, however, was immediately followed by guilt. It seemed churlish to criticise the man's aim when he had killed a man to save his life.

And that was exactly it, was it not? The question that was plaguing him, that, no matter how he tried, he could find no answer to. Why? Why on God's green earth would George ever want to save his life? And why would he ever consider putting himself in such danger to do so? He hadn't simply been hurt—he had been hurt in defence of Ross, for the sake of Ross. And that, somehow, made it all seem so much worse.

With a tired groan, Ross ran his hands slowly over his face, before casting a tired look towards his bed. He should sleep, he knew, but he doubted he would be able to, no matter how exhausted he felt. There was too much on his mind. George, Hanson, Demelza. No, he resolved, he would go back downstairs and wait, though for what he was not entirely sure.

There was nobody in the parlour when he staggered back down the stairs. No Demelza, no Geoffrey Charles. His heart sank, though he wasn't truly sure what he had expected. He headed over to his decanter and poured himself a large glass of brandy, then headed over to the hearth and sank down beside it. The fire was low, and the room a little cold, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He tipped the brandy back and took a large swig. The taste made him a little queasy, he was so tired, but he ignored it, taking another swill.

After an indeterminate amount of time, there was a click of a door closing, and soft footfalls approaching the hearth from behind him, and though he did not turn about to see who it was, he knew that Dwight had finished tending to Hanson and had come into the parlour. He wanted to turn to face him, to ask him...oh, so many questions, but he couldn't force himself to move. He couldn't do anything, except stare darkly into his empty glass, as if the reflections of the firelight flickering in its depths could give him the answers he so desired.

He could hear more footsteps, then the clinking of glass, and Dwight appeared suddenly in his field of vision, two glasses of brandy held in his hands. He offered the one in his right to Ross, who took it gratefully—he doubted he could have drummed up the urge to pour himself another however much he tried. Then, he headed over to seat himself across the other side of the fireplace, moving slowly, lethargically, as if walking to the beat of a dirge. With an exhausted droop of the head, he lowered himself down, the beginnings of the early morning light seeping through the window to mingle with that of the fire making him look pale and grey. The silence stretched between them.

“Why did he do it?”

The question was barely audible, directed to the floor rather than to his friend, but he could not contain it any longer. Dwight jolted at the sound of it. It was, Ross knew, the one question that was rattling about in his head—amongst, whens and whats and hows and wills that terrified him for reasons both apparent and elusive—that he had no answer for. None of them had an answer, save for the man lying half-dead upstairs.

“That,” Dwight replied grimly, “you will have to ask him.”

Ross nodded, still not looking up. Despite his words, the other man's tone was not reassuring.

“Will I have the chance?” he asked.

He frowned at himself even as he said it. He had never been one to mince his words, never one to sugarcoat an unpleasant truth, so why did he not say what he meant to ask? 'Will he die,' he thought. That is what I want to know. Will he die at the hands of a bullet that had been meant for me, and leave his children without either of their parents? His heart dropped to the region of his stomach when Dwight shook his head.

“I don't know,” he replied. “If he survives the next few hours, he might... But there are still many risks. He has lost a lot of blood, and should he catch a fever from the wound...”

He trailed off, something grim and haunted flashing across his face. His eyes had turned dark, unfocused, as if lost in a memory, and Ross wondered if he were thinking of the French prison, and the wretched wounded that he had treated amongst that awful squalor, or if, like he, he was remembering the soldiers who had died just so from such injuries in America. Then, Dwight blinked, eyes focusing once more, and the moment passed.

“George is very strong,” he said, staring down at his own untouched brandy, as if he might soothe the blow of his earlier words—both for Ross' sake and his own. He raised the glass half-heartedly to his lips, but the taste of the liquid had him grimacing, and he lowered it again without taking anything but the tiniest of sips. “Strong in ways that not many suspect. And stubborn, just like you. If anybody can survive this, it is he.”

Ross frowned, his gaze finding a new target as he stared across at his exhausted friend. There was something more to those words than the obvious, he couldn't help but feel, something loaded which somehow seemed important to him, but that he could not quite latch onto. It put him of a mind of the time he had ridden to Trenwith in the hopes of buying Wheal Plenty, only to be turned away at the door by Dwight, of George standing at the window, pale and wan, like a wraith on the other side of the veil, and of his questions being met with naught but silence. Something had happened between the two men, he was sure—something which had led both to Dwight's inexplicable appearance at Trenwith and to the way he spoke of him now—but he was damned if he knew what. He desperately wanted to know, but he doubted Dwight would be inclined to tell him. He suddenly thought of the vehemence with which the other man had told him to “ask George” in a recent argument of theirs, and he suspected that reviving the subject, especially in such fraught circumstances, would do nothing but start another one.

He battled with his desire to know and his desire to act sensibly for several minutes before he was saved from saying something unwise by the sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by steps in the hallway outside. Opposite him, Dwight startled out of the heavy stupor which he had been trying valiantly not to fall into, almost spilling his still un-drunk brandy, but he relaxed as the new arrival slipped through the door to the parlour, and he saw who it was. Ross, on the other hand, froze. It was Demelza. Her red hair was wilder than ever, as if she had been running her hand through it, there was a grey pallor to her skin not dissimilar to that of Dwight's, and there were dark bags underneath her usually fierce blue eyes, which were dulled with tiredness, but in that moment, Ross didn't think he had ever seen a more beautiful sight in his life.

“Where have you been?”

The question was blurted out roughly before his overwrought mind had a chance to catch up with his tongue, and he winced as he realised how brusque his voice had sounded. Her arrival, far from preventing him from saying something unwise as he had hoped, only seemed to have caused him to redirect the impulse. Demelza narrowed her eyes at him a little, but she either had too much grace or two little energy to express any real displeasure at his tone.

“'Tis Morwenna,” she said instead. “She 'as had her child.”

Dwight started for a second time, his drink once again threatening to decorate their furniture.

“Somebody should take that from you before it starts developing a life of its own” Ross said, though the attempt at humour that he could not bring himself to feel fell rather pathetically flat. Demelza stepped forward obligingly and plucked the glass from his hand, and it was perhaps a testament to how tired they were when neither man batted so much as an eyelid as, instead of setting the brandy aside, she raised it to her own lips and swallowed it down in one long gulp.

“I—” Dwight ignored them both. “Morwenna has given birth?”

“Aye. 'Tis a girl.”

“A— Are they well? I must—”

Despite his exhaustion, Dwight was already halfway out of his seat, but Demelza pushed him gently, but firmly back down.

“They are both fine. Rosina an' I managed well enough, an' neither Morwenna nor th' babe are any worse for 't,” she assured him. “Ye cannot be everywhere at once, Dwight. Ye are needed 'ere.”

She hadn't entirely assuaged his worries, that much was clear, but Dwight seemed to have at least seen the sense in her words, for he slumped back against his seat, running a hand tiredly over his eyes. Demelza sat down beside him, looking concerned.

“Is it so bad?” she asked.

“That depends,” Dwight replied darkly. “Hanson wasn't injured severely. Some bed-rest for a few weeks and he shall be healed well enough—in fact, I recommend that he be removed to his lodgings to recover as soon as possible. But George... I don't know. Only time will tell. Prudie is watching over him right now, but he will have to be kept a careful eye on to ensure he doesn't regress.”

“Judas” Demelza murmured.

Her gaze met Ross', and he could see in her eyes the same question that had been plaguing him throughout the night. Why? Why, why, why? Suddenly, Ross was horribly aware that he could not bear to sit there in that parlour asking why to people who had no answers for him. He had to do something, had to— Abruptly, he stood up.

“I assure you, I've no intention of allowing Mr Hanson to reap the benefits of our hospitality,” he said, with a twisted smirk that faded as soon as it had come. He threw back his brandy in one swallow, setting the glass back down onto the table. “You need to rest. Both of you.”

“An' do 'ee not?” Demelza asked softly, her head tilted to one side. As ever, she was all too astute to his moods.

“I think I shall watch over George for a while,” he said. If there was one thing he would not be able to do with all those thoughts whirling about in his head, it was rest. “God knows Prudie has probably fallen asleep already.”

And with that, he turned and headed out of the room before either of them could protest. He could feel their eyes burning into his back even once he was out of sight, but he ignored the sensation. Instead, he focused on climbing the stairs—a task which, as it turned out, required his complete attention. Tiredness had made his limbs sluggish and unresponsive, and the early morning light, now streaming through the window on the landing, left weird spots and shadows in his vision, so that he was not quite sure where he was meant to be placing his feet. Eventually, he reached the top of the stairs and dragged himself along to the door behind which the injured George lay, but it was not only exhaustion which was slowing him down now. There was a niggle of fear in the back of his mind, one which did not want to see what awaited him on the other side of the door, did not want to see that George had worsened somehow, and that Prudie had failed to notice, or— But that wouldn't do. He, Captain Ross Poldark, was no coward who was afraid to face the sight of an injured man. And so, he took a deep, steadying breath, opened the door, and walked purposefully into the room.

The sight that met him was less distressing, but far more disorientating than he had imagined, largely due to the fact that the worries and fears at the back of his mind were suddenly replaced by an odd mixture of surprise and ill-placed amusement as he laid eyes upon Prudie. As it turned out, he had been unfair to suggest that she had fallen asleep, for she was watching over George really quite rigorously. That is, if when Dwight had asked her to watch over his patient, he had meant her to do so, not in the manner of one who keeps an eye on the condition of a grievously injured man, but as one who had been put in a cage with a sleeping tiger that might wake at any moment with a sudden inclination to maul them all in their beds. Instead of settling at George's bedside, she had put the chair against the far wall beside the window, and was regarding their unexpected guest with a look of wide-eyed suspicion on her face, as if he might leap up from his pain-induced stupor the moment her back was turned and do something dastardly. Her expression of relief on seeing him enter the room was palpable.

“Cap'ain Ross,” she breathed. “There 'an't been any change, far as I can tell.”

Ross nodded.

“Thank you, Prudie,” he said. “Go and get some rest. I shall watch over him.”

“Thank 'ee, Cap'ain.”

Without further ado, she shot up from her seat and hurried out of the room as fast has her legs could carry her. Ross watched her go, the brief amusement faded away as he turned back to the sight of George lying on the bed. He looked worse, somehow, in the harsh light of dawn, the waxy whiteness of his skin and the too-thin hollows of his cheeks thrown into sharp relief where the firelight had softened them out. But then, perhaps he just noticed it more, now that he had the time to look. He seemed so very small, dressed in Ross' ill-fitting gown, too broad on his shoulders and too long on his arms, so that only the tips of his fingers were peeking out from under the cuffs. It was like seeing a child sleeping in their parents' clothes, and if Ross hadn't already been disturbed by the sight of his long-time rival so frail and vulnerable, that thought would have surely made him so.

With a quiet scowl, he turned away and picked up the rickety old chair from the wall and carrying it back over to the bed, settling himself down as best he could. It was uncomfortable, but that was just as well—no risk of falling asleep in it when he needed to stay awake. It creaked, unfortunately, and rather loudly at that, but then, the noise in this house was usually enough to wake the dead. Dead. Dead, dead, waking, lost, dying. But good God, the man was so unnaturally pale. Like a ghost. It occurred to him that, if George were to die here, he would probably haunt Nampara until he ceased to exist, just to spite him, and a sharp, nigh on hysterical cry of laughter bubbled up from his throat before he could stop it.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, his voice oddly hoarse, not just from tiredness.

But George had no answer for him. How could he have, when all he could do was lie there, white and still, the only movement the ragged rise and fall of his chest as he slept? Yet even as he stared down at him, desperate to know, Ross wondered if it would change anything if it did. There were some things that just made it impossible to continue hating a man, and having one's life saved, no matter the reason, was one of them.

#poldark #poldark fic #ross poldark #george warleggan #dwight enys #demelza poldark #ross x demelza #romelza #geoffrey charles poldark #prudie paynter #fic #mine #my fic #poldark au #poldark s5 #post s5 au #moving forward #sfw

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dwightcarolinesource · 5 years ago

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Luke Norris is Dr Dwight Enys

As he returns for the final time to play Poldark’s trusted doctor Dwight Enys, Luke Norris reveals there is trouble ahead for Dr Enys and his wife Caroline.

"Caroline (Gabriella Wilde) and Dwight reached an uneasy equilibrium at the end of last series, and things are slowly getting back to normal until some new and disruptive characters enter their world, one of whom unintentionally drives a wedge between them.

Kitty Despard (Kerri McLean) arrives this series with this firebrand spirit and Dwight becomes unromantically smitten with her. This naturally causes Caroline to create narratives about him being in love with Kitty, when really it is just a deep admiration he has for her, for her story and her plight. He follows Kitty on her mission for social justice and leaves Caroline behind, so it eventually comes to a head towards the end of the series and he realises he may not have been the attentive husband he should have been, considering what they have been through."

Luke discusses what is in store for his character this series, starting with his interest in mental health and where that leads him.

"Mental illness is a hot and important topic at the moment, which is one of the reasons why our writer, Debbie Horsfield has included it this series. But back then it was ungenerously treated. However, there was a new school of thought about 'talking therapy', rather than just straight-jacketing or lobotomising people, that instead suggested the idea that mental illness wasn’t a moral failure or an inherited one, but that it could affect anyone who has been through trauma, which is something that interests Dwight. Having gone through his own trauma in series three, suffering from PTSD after being a prisoner of war in France, he is the obvious exponent of this new school of thought.

Dwight’s own experience sparked an interest in mental health that has equipped him with a proficiency in the field which leads him to being the key witness for the defence in a contentious murder trial. This storyline is based on a true story of a man who attempts to assassinate the King. Dwight’s argument is that if he is not of sound mind then he cannot be held responsible for his actions, which is something we believe to be self-evident now but was incredibly shocking to people at the time."

Considered to be one of Poldark’s most honourable characters, Luke reveals that audiences will see a brand new side to the noble doctor this series.

"Debbie reminds us at the end of this series that Dwight has not always been squeaky clean, and the reason he has appeared so good in the past few series is because of a fundamental error of judgment in series one with Keen Daniel, and everything afterwards is an attempt at atonement for that.

One of Dwight’s first ever lines in Poldark is, 'I intend to keep my head down here' - which just shows you how much he wants a quiet life but is unable to ever achieve that. This year however, he fights a bit harder for that life. He is not as generous as you might expect him to be with certain things this series because he is sick to the back teeth of the conflict. As a result, he struggles more this series with acquiescing to Ross’s plans, and the two of them fiercely butt heads like we have never before seen.

Aidan and I have a few great scenes where we are nose to nose, which was great to play. After years of gentle cajoling, Dwight’s tactics this series are much more confrontational, as he is just done with it. That's part of their friendship we haven’t seen yet, so it was exciting to lift the lid on it.

Ned Despard (Vincent Regan) was their commanding officer back in the American War of Independence and is a bit of a hot head and renegade - all the things Ross aspires to be and that Dwight loathes. So their differences are mainly about Ned, who has this cross to bear and is righting perceived wrongs which are probably justifiable, but which do not directly involve Dwight.

Dwight becomes involved due to Ross’s involvement, but he would rather Ross stayed out of it for his sake, for Demelza’s sake and for the sake of their children. Dwight, partly because of the events of last year and having lost a child, is much more forthright in calling out Ross’s irresponsibility to his family. Dwight is angrier than he has ever been this year."

Luke reveals a connection that struck a chord with him following the last series.

"After the tragic death of baby Sarah was aired I received one particular letter that was quite staggering and humbling to read. It was from someone who had lost a child, and they talked about how honestly that storyline had been depicted, which was the aim for Gabriella and myself. I felt a responsibility with this storyline to not misrepresent that experience. Part of the reason that television is in everybody’s language is that it allows us to try and make sense of our own lives, and we get to deal with heavy subjects on this show. And whilst we do it through the glossy lens of TV with the beautiful landscapes, there is a huge responsibility to get it right."

Luke offers a final thought on the success of Poldark...

"Its heart is in the right place. Poldark is a story about love conquering all and about courage and equality being rewarded and avarice and greed being punished and that is what we wish was happening in our society - it represents the good of our humanity."

#poldark spoilers #interviews #dwight enys #carolight #poldark #luke norris #i’m tired of this series already lol #you know what actually..... i’m good debbie thanks but no thanks

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xxsparksxx · 5 years ago

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You’re definitely not the only one feeling frustrated with the way the show treats mental health :S it’s such a shame, particularly when the books are actually so much better, generally, about understanding that trauma and pain don’t just disappear. The show just steamrollers over it when it’s no longer essential for the plot, ignoring the fact that without characters, there is no plot.

Why do I feel like now Drake & Morwenna have taken that big step it’s going to be the end of her trauma being mentioned? Much like Dwight suddenly being over his PTSD after one conversation, or George’s severe mental decline being neatly sorted in one episode.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this show, I do, and I have genuinely been enjoying S5, but I’m fed up with all these major issues being swept under the rug for convenience sake, until it’s even more convienent to bring them up again (a la Dwight’s PTSD when talking to Morwenna following Osborne’s death). The only exception seems to be Caroline with Sarah’s death (and to a less prevalent extent, Demelza with regards to Julia). Maybe Francis.

#sparks talks poldark #poldark spoilers #spoilers

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laresearchette · 5 years ago

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Sunday, September 29, 2019 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: 60 MINUTES (CHCH/CBS Feed) 7:30pm GOD FRIENDED ME (CTV) 8:00pm THE SIMPSONS (City) 8:00pm STAR WARS: GALAXY'S EDGE—ADVENTURE AWAITS (ABC Spark) 8:00pm HALLOWEEN WARS (Food Network Canada) 8:00pm/9:00pm BLESS THE HARTS (City) 8:30pm SHARK TANK (CTV) 9:00pm NCIS: LOS ANGELES (Global) 9:00pm BOB’S BURGERS (City) 9:00pm DECLASSIFIED: UNTOLD STORIES OF AMERICAN SPIES (CNN) 9:00pm FAMILY GUY (City) 9:30pm THE ROOKIE (CTV) 10:00pm THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING (CNN) 10:00pm OUTRAGEOUS PUMPKINS (Food Network Canada) 10:00pm ROBOT CHICKEN (Adult Swim) 12:00am

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS (ABC Feed) THE DURELLS IN CORFU (PBS Feed) POLDARK (ABC Feed) GODFATHER OF HARLEM (TBD) RUBY HERRING MYSTERIES (TBD) PRE-SEASON NHL HOCKEY (TSN3) 2:00pm: Jets at Wild

MLB BASEBALL (SN) 3:00pm: Rays at Jays

MLS SOCCER (TSN4) 5:00pm: Chicago at Toronto FC (TSN5) 5:00pm: Montreal at Atlanta (TSN4) 7:30pm: LA Galaxy at Whitecaps FC

HEARTLAND (CBC) 7:00pm: Amy is hired and tasked with calming one of the wild horses, but its temperament may prove impossible to work with...HORSIES!

ANNE WITH AN E (CBC) 8:00pm: Anne's search takes her back to the orphanage, where she's forced to confront new realities; Elijah pays a visit to Avonlea.

ESCAPING THE NXIVM CULT: A MOTHER'S FIGHT TO SAVE HER DAUGHTER (Lifetime Canada) 8:00pm: A mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter from a dangerous sex cult.

THE FIFTH ESTATE (CBC) 9:00pm: The plan for de-radicalizing returning ISIS fighters; the federal government says it has a plan to keep the public safe if or when ISIS fighters return to Canada; Bob McKeown investigates. SUMMER OF ROCKETS (BBC Canada) 9:00pm: After the shooting, Field places the Petrukhin family home and factory under protection. Samuel makes his own plans and goes into hiding where he meets Kathleen in secret.

q (CBC) 12:00am: Alexander Skarsgård talks about how he almost quit acting at 13; Mena Massoud is hot on the heels of starring in the "Aladdin" remake; Supinder Wraich talks about writing her role of a lifetime; Donna Grantis performs.

#cdntv #cancon #canadian tv #canadian tv listings #heartland #anne with an e #the fifth estate #summer of rockets #q #nhl hockey #mlb baseball #mls soccer

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elizadoolittlethings · 6 years ago

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Mark Gatiss: I learnt my entire moral code from Doctor Who - radiotimes

The writer of Who episode Sleep No More speaks passionately about how Third Doctor Jon Pertwee guided his childhood, and why shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who should be cherished for much more than just audience ratings

Mark Gatiss urgently wants to get something off his chest. He’s a polite, affable man, but there’s a furious fire burning in his breast – about ratings. “The ratings system is insane and iniquitous. I’ve seen grown men crying because their show got 6.3 million [viewers] instead of a hoped-for 6.5. They make a difference to a person’s career.”

His scorn has been stirred by the muffled bells ringing quite audibly during this current series of Doctor Who. (He’s written Saturday’s episode starring his old League of Gentlemen mate Reece Shearsmith.)

In September, mirrors were turned to walls and curtains were drawn as observers sorrowfully/gleefully announced that so-called “overnight” ratings saw Doctor Who slump to a “ten-year low” (against The X Factor and Rugby World Cup on ITV) with fewer than five million viewers.

But Gatiss, stage, film and TV actor, documentary-maker, author and co-creator with his great friend Steven Moffat of the stratospherically successful reimagined Sherlock, is having none of it.

“These overnight figures are based on a system of 5,000 set-top boxes, which is essentially a Gallup poll and we all know how accurate they are. If they provided a thumbnail sketch of what people are watching, fine, but people’s careers and projects rise and fall with them. This is nuts. Everybody watches television in a different way from the way they did four, five years ago. Yet the people who make a fuss about overnights are the same people who go home and watch TV in an entirely different way.

“That’s the modern world we live in and I’m not being defensive, but when you add everything together – timeshifting, plus iPlayer – [Doctor Who’s] ratings are the same as they ever were. But there is no capital in saying ‘Doctor Who’s ratings remain roughly the same’, so people make a story out of it.”

‘Bake Off will never be watched again – Doctor Who will be watched in 100 years’ time’

The Great British Bake Off final was recently handed the most-watched show of the year crown with more than 15m viewers, but Gatiss won’t roll over: “There’s a huge difference between the temporary popularity of a game show or factual entertainment show and something that has a proper legacy. Those episodes of Bake Off or The X Factor, and their virtues are manifest, will never be watched again. Yet Doctor Who will be watched in 50 years’ time, 100 years’ time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I love things to be popular, I want things to be watched, but this sort of scrutiny is deadly.”

Gatiss is so angry because he loves, and has always loved, television. Growing up happily in County Durham, he was obsessed by Doctor Who, horror films and horror stories. They provided a refuge from hated PE lessons. In his recent Who Do You Think You Are?, where he found he’s descended from Irish royalty, he held up his career as “a long revenge against PE… children who are not necessarily sporty should take a bit of heart.”

“Television was a huge friend to me. Anything supernatural I would just hunt out, and I loved all of those great big dramas like Poldark and The Duchess of Duke Street, and that Brian Clemens series Thriller. As a kid I really wanted to be in something like The Six Wives of Henry VIII [BBC’s 1970 historical blockbuster with Keith Michell as the axe-happy monarch].”

Though Gatiss satisfied that particular Tudor ambition when he appeared in Wolf Hall as master of the dark arts Stephen Gardiner.

Dodging the eye of their PE teacher, Gatiss and a friend would walk around the football pitch talking about horror. He even made “a small living from writing unbelievably gruesome stories about murdering all the teachers we hated”.

“I learnt my entire moral code from Jon Pertwee”

Bloody tales about javelins being inserted into brains were favourites. “I used to dream of not having to go outside in the cold to play football and instead sitting in the library. I think you can do that now, so maybe the pendulum has swung too far the other way.”

Of course, Doctor Who was little Mark Gatiss’s favourite TV show – and it should still be on at teatime, he insists, not nomadically some time after 8pm: “Put it on at a proper time, put it on where it should be, when Pointless Celebrities is on. That’s where it belongs, otherwise you are almost perversely cutting off your key audience, which is children.”

This is particularly important for Gatiss: “I learnt my entire moral code from Jon Pertwee [the Doctor, 1970–74], and also what TV still should be about, which is a very Reithian thing. I learnt so much from TV in the best kind of osmotic way. I absorbed morality, I absorbed a kind of scepticism and enjoyment of story, and oddness, and narrative. These days it’s so hard to get those things through; it’s almost become a dirty word to say ‘culture’. Education should be so much more than getting a good job.”

I first met Mark Gatiss in 2000 in a chilly disused hospital in Manchester when he and his friends Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson were filming series two of The League of Gentlemen, the one where an epidemic of nosebleeds strikes down the grotesque population of that weird northern town, Royston Vasey.

The four of them became friends and performers after meeting on a drama course at Bretton Hall, then a part of Leeds University. “We had a totally shared sensibility. Sometimes people talk about the League as if we spotted a gap in the market and filled it. But basically it was just what made us laugh, horror tinged with all of those things we loved, like Rising Damp, Porridge, Mike Leigh films and Alan Bennett, who is an absolute copper-bottomed god.

“After my Desert Island Discs I got a postcard from him. I was so touched. He said he was in a real hole and stuck on something and I’d said something about him on the show and he told me it completely bucked him up. I thought… if I’ve done that for Alan Bennett…” Of course, he doesn’t have to end that thought.

Sherlock Christmas special will be modern and period

Gatiss, who’s 49 and lives in north London with his husband, actor Ian Hallard, is currently writing scripts for the new series of Sherlock, in which he also stars as Sherlock’s ascetic brother Mycroft – but anticipation for the Christmas special, The Abominable Bride, is heady.

“It’s a Sherlock ghost story for Christmas, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.” Unless the trailers are particularly obtuse, it’s set in the Victorian era. Why take Sherlock back to his original chronological habitat? “Steven [Moffat] and I realised that now, and at no other time, we would have the chance to do what Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce did [in the Sherlock films, 1939–46], which was modern and period.”

Gatiss and Moffat’s shared love of Doyle’s books and the Rathbone/Bruce canon sparked many meandering “wouldn’t it be nice if” conversations between the two before the decision to go ahead with a modern Sherlock was made.

“We confessed that the modern-day-set Rathbones were our favourites of all, which was heretical. We talked and I said, ‘Isn’t it funny that in A Study in Scarlet Dr Watson is invalided home from war service in Afghanistan and we were going through another Afghan war. We looked at each other and the light bulb went on.”

Benedict Cumberbatch, whose star has rocketed to the highest reaches of the heavens, was their only choice. Casting Watson took a bit longer. “We saw about half a dozen people but as soon as Benedict and Martin [Freeman] were together, Steven leant over to me and said, ‘There’s the show.’ ”

#MG #radiotimes #mark gatiss #i learnt my moral code from doctor who

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xxsparksxx · 5 years ago

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Absolutely. It’s not that he supports slavery, it’s that he was completely humiliated in Parliament!

And yeah, George never does learn that the chip on his shoulder is HIS chip, not anyone else’s.

Ross (Aidan Turner) fights for Ned’s (Vincent Regan) liberty as the Warleggans, shunned by society after George’s (Jack Farthing) humiliation in the House, prepare to marry George to Cecily (Lily Dodsworth Evans).

Geoffrey Charles (Freddie Wise) hatches a daring plan to save her.

Drake (Harry Richardson) and Morwenna (Ellise Chappell) enjoy wedded bliss, but Sam (Tom York) finds his growing attachment to Rosina (Amelia Clarkson) usurped by Tess’s (Sofia Oxenham) claim to seek a purer life.

Ross determines to free Ned by any means, but suspects there is a traitor among his allies. While Ned’s fate hangs in the balance, Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) must conquer betrayal at home and Ross’s own life comes under threat.

5x06 synopsis

#sparks talks poldark #poldark spoilers

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diamond-blush · 7 years ago

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*slides closer and whispers* Do tell friend. O v O

most of these are just concepts atm so -

Gabriel Poldark (male noble necro) - He’s a teen with absent yet controlling parents (think Victorian parents if you will) who eventually runs away to see the world for himself and find his own purpose in life. I was thinking that maybe his parents have a reward posted for his return which would cause bounty hunters or opportunists to be on his tail (unbeknownst to him). Gabriel had a lonely childhood and his only friends were really the ghosts around the manor, which sparked his interest in necromancy and death at a young age. I can totally see him being awkward with people and coming across as a snooty asshole when in truth he just really doesn’t know how to talk to people ; w ; He’s been in my head for a while so I’ve had some time to flesh him out!

Sylvari necro (I really like the name Oz for him for some reason!) - He’s connected to my mesmer Odair. I was thinking that maybe they awoke around the same time and befriended one other or met not long after. They become close friends and decide to travel and explore the world together. Somehow some kind of corruption begins happens to Oz and it eventually makes the two drift apart because Odair can’t figure out what’s going on. (I feel like their personalities would also kind of contribute? Like Oz is extremely reserved and quiet, while Odair’s hella extroverted). I really gotta look up some lore haha

Fem Asura enginner/Sylvari thief- I’m thinking that these two are in a group of bandits or probably treasure hunters? I like the idea of opportunists looking for a way to get rich quick haha. I can already see the Asura being The Master of Sass and liking to pull pranks on people with her gadgets and stuff and the sylvari being suave as shit B). I’m still working on em tho!

#sorry for the info dump but i just have a lot of ideas ; w ;#im liking how the human necro is turning out tho!#i also really need to look into lore #asks #lionsocks

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xxsparksxx · 3 years ago

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I found the Poldark show Ross different from the book Ross. I realize time constraints limit what's shown, but DH seemed to make Ross more action hero and less introspective than how he is in books. I prefer the book Ross who is less arrogant,a deep thinker, more sensitive, more loving, caring and attentive to Demelza, children and home and domestic life. I am also puzzled why Dh cut the scene where Ross apologized and actually said the words he was sorry to Dem for his adultery. Why cut this?

So, you sent the identical question to @nervousladytraveler, so firstly I'll point you towards her answer.

And then I'll add that I think an awful lot of his introspection - his broodiness, essentially (and I would strongly argue that introspection does NOT equal self-awareness in his case) - was lost in translation.

I use that word deliberately. Translation. Nothing that is translated from book to screen can be an exact replica of what we read on the page, simply because it's different media. Without long voiceovers (a perfectly good stylistic choice, but one they didn't go with), there's an awful lot of Ross's internal processes (and everyone else's) that simply is impossible to get across on screen. Some of it they put into words; some of it they put into actions. Both of those translations have merit, but that's all they can be - a translation.

And sure, it's about time constraints, and it's about writing choices and directorial choices. It's about the novels being written through both an omniscient narrator and focalising characters, and that being practically impossible to perfectly convey on screen.

S5 aside, though, I think there's actually relatively little 'action hero Ross' on screen that doesn't also have a match in the books. The only incident I can think of off-hand that's completely different from the book is the brawl on the beach in s4, when Ross first comes back from London. In the book it's line-fishing, still physical but it's Ross fighting the tide rather than fighting anyone else!

Also...I think there's a slight tendency, in fandom, to idealise Ross in the books in comparison to Ross in the show. The things Ross does in the show - he still does them in the books. He pines for Elizabeth, cheats on Demelza, withholds things from her at various points right up until the end of The Angry Tide. As @nervousladytraveler points out, he's also quite physical with Demelza several times in their earlier years, and not in a good way!

Ross in the books isn't always sensitive, he doesn't always see things going on around him, and he often misinterprets both his own feelings and Demelza's. He improves with age, as people often do - in the later books, particularly, they're so much in sync that it's easy to forget how out of sync they were in their early married life. In the time period that the show covers...in the books, he's still arrogant, he's loving yes but caring? Attentive to Demelza? Really? In 'Jeremy Poldark' she's miserable because she thinks he doesn't want either her or her unborn baby (Not only does he not want our child but he no longer wants me, she thought.). In 'Warleggan' she's so uncertain of him that she actually asks if he's still attracted to her ('You should know that I love you. What other reassurance do you ask?’ She smiled obliquely but with a new warmth. ‘Only that I should be told it.’). They have periods, long periods, where they're emotionally estranged from each other.

I agree there's less space for Ross to be introspective in the show. I disagree that book Ross is fundamentally less arrogant and more caring in the same period of time that the show covers. I absolutely agree that the later books show him very loving, attentive and caring, with very little room between them for any kind of doubt.

In terms of Ross's apology/non-apology, I've definitely talked about that before, so have a dig in my 'Sparks talks Poldark' tag :)

#sparks talks poldark

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mmmuses · 7 years ago

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anacrusis -- ch 6 snippet or, I should say, chunklet?

Slowly making progress, but work has been kicking my ass and energy levels to the point I simply want to collapse on the couch and veg out on Inspector Lynley Mysteries. Anyhoo, I managed to put this together yesterday....enjoy!

Ross stared down at Demelza standing near the podium, her eyes meeting his in shock and utter disbelief for a full five seconds before she cleared throat. “P-Please take a seat.” Her voice, low and husky, forced his feet to move forward. He tore his gaze from hers, stumbling a few feet over to an open spot near the top of the auditorium.

He collapsed in his seat, the flap on his messenger bag sliding open to dump his laptop and textbooks onto the carpeted floor with a dull thud. “Be careful,” a voice whispered to his left. He turned to find a pretty young woman, dressed in full on hipster regalia, from the woolen beanie perched atop her curly blonde hair to the oversized sweater, barely there skirt, black tights and Doc Martens on her feet. “Don’t want to break your computer on the first day of class.” She handed him his book and a copy of the syllabus. “I’m Jemma.”

“R-Ross,” he said automatically, nodding his thanks.

“Excuse me, Dr Carne,” a harsh, abrasive voice came from Ross’s right, on the other side of the aisle from where he sat. She gestured in his direction. “This student seems to think we are in the middle of a social club.”

Ross felt the blood rush to his cheeks and barely kept from rolling his eyes. Why hadn’t he paid attention to where he was sitting? Dr Thomas-Tregothan had had it out for him for the past year, as he’d ducked and dodged his way out of the introductory courses his last two years in school. That was until this semester, when he’d been cornered by his adviser and re-registered two the two intro classes he’d been evading: music history and music appreciation. “I’m sorry, D-Dr Carne,” he stammered, her last name tasting foreign on his tongue.

She met his eyes, giving him a jerky nod and flipping through her notes before continuing on with her lecture. “Students will be required to describe general stylistic characteristics of music and influential composers of the Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Identify various musical styles and genres, extending and enriching their comprehension and enjoyment of music. You will need to apply your knowledge of elements of musical style to identify musical works by historical period and genre. Comprehend the historical development of musical style in western culture in relation to political, economic, social and religious developments and values of various periods in history…”

She could be speaking Swahili for all I know, he thought to himself, his brain failing to make sense of what she said. His eyes surreptitiously watched Demelza over the top of the syllabus. Her hair was bound in a low bun at the back of her head, the collar of the off-white sweater climbing up to leave an inch of skin exposed at her hairline, a red-gold tendril feathering past along her neck as she moved. The soft, woolly garment skimmed over her body, demure yet enticing the touch of his fingers. The autumnal plaid fabric of her skirt smoothed over her hips and thighs, ending midway down her calves. He stifled a groan. She wore sleek, chocolate-brown leather boots, the heels doing gorgeous things to her legs.

What were the chances of this happening? He’d thought they might run into one another. There were under twenty-thousand people who lived in Truro, so it stood to reason it might happen at some point. At some fundraiser, where 3C were booked to cater, or maybe if she’d had to move something and had done a search in Yelp – he did have amazing reviews. But for her to be a music professor here at the college? Never in a million years! Music professors were grouchy, attitudinal, perfectionistic, and…well…old. He cast a sideways glance at Thomas-Tregothan. The old goat was watching every move Demelza made, busily scratching notes into her composition pad. Aha…first day observation, he thought to himself, and here I am being the arsehole student for Demelza’s first day. Nice move, Poldark.

Had Demelza said anything about her profession? They’d been too busy fucking each other’s brains out to chatter about what they did for a living. All he knew was she was smart, witty, and insatiable. It had definitely worked for him. Was this the same woman who’d seduced him with her infectious laughter, her confidence, her sensuality a little over a week ago? Sleek, professional, her sea-green eyes were hidden behind the teal and brown tortoise-shell frames, her makeup subtle and natural, the shell pink of her glossy lips torturing him, knowing what those lips could do to him, what he’d dreamt of them doing every night since they’d parted.

He forced himself to pay attention to what she was teaching, but it was difficult when he’d catch glimpses of her when she would do or say something, a mannerism or an expression, that he’d seen or heard from her at the hotel. Like when she’d run her hand up along her throat, or if she’d bit her bottom lip. He’d bitten back a groan when she’d leant forward on the podium, her pert bum almost the mirrored image of the moment when they’d fucked by the window sill, making him wonder what it would be like repeating the act, except in her office, that pencil skirt shoved up to her waist, her booted feet spread for him. Sparks raced along his skin, the pulse in his crotch heavy, his cock thickening.

The bell rung, drawing Ross back to the present. Perfect time for a hard on, you twat. “Read Chapter 1 - Music in Antiquity and Chapter 2 - The First Millennium for our next class,” Demelza called. “Coursework includes the first three quizzes in the gradebook as well as your brief essay on why you are studying music. One page only using the online template in the gradebook. Office hours are noted on your syllabus, however I will be delayed until four o’clock this afternoon. Thank you very much, everyone.” The din of the students leaving the room was staggering, but he noticed she’d raised her head to meet his eyes before she turned off her computer. He had to talk to her, to sort all of this out, and he thought he read the same need in her eyes. Her expression changed when Thomas-Tregothan started to make her way through the students swimming upstream towards the exits. He imagined Demelza would be busy with her for a while. Just as well – he had reserved one of the practice rooms until half past four o’clock. He slung his pack over his shoulder and exited the room.

#poldark anacrusis #anacrusis snippet #or should I say chunklet?

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xxsparksxx · 5 years ago

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Agreed. It makes no sense for Sam at all. There’s a difference between liking someone enough to flirt with them (walking together, reading lessons, etc) and trying to save a lost soul. The latter doesn’t actually require reading lessons, for one thing!

But it’s also just...not the Sam we’ve seen, to get distracted by a pretty face. He was loyal and devoted to Emma for over a year, without looking twice at anyone else, and we’re expected to believe he’s now letting Tess distract him this much from Rosina? Especially since Sam has been fairly clear that he doesn’t trust Tess and knows she’s a trouble-maker! I mean, okay, we had that moment in 5.01 where he was talking about lost souls and Drake hauled him away and told him not to get involved, but even so. The Sam we’ve seen all season wouldn’t forget all that Tess has done just because she claims to want to be saved. He would try to help her to salvation without letting her get this close personally, surely?

Tess’s motivations still make no sense to me in general, and I’m still waiting for some revelation that will make everything make sense. We’ll see if that comes :S

You know, I’m going to get a lot of hate for it, but I’m going to say it. (Also this is probably very messy because it’s almost half past 2 in the morning).

The Carne brothers have both been the worst where Rosina’s concerned, but I’m honestly more upset with Sam than I ever was with Drake.

Drake was open and honest with Rosina about his feelings for Morwenna from the start (at least the start of the engagement, but Rosina had probably heard anyway - Sawle’s pretty small, and there would definitely have been gossip about the dramatic romantic life of Ross Poldark’s brother in law).

Secondly, had he actually gone through with the wedding, they would both have ended up miserable. It would’ve been Francis/Elizabeth, but worse. Drake would always have resented, maybe not Rosina herself, but the marriage because it would’ve robbed him of his chance to be with Morwenna. Of course, it’s Drake so he wouldn’t have said anything to Rosina, and tried to play the part, but it would’ve eaten away at him. Rosina’s intelligent enough that she would’ve known this, and it would’ve eaten away at her. It would’ve been awful. What Drake did was horrible, as he admits, but in the long term, it was the right thing.

With the whole Rosina/Sam/Tess thing, it just comes across as if Sam’s just found a shiny new toy. If Tess had made this move on Sam earlier, before things began to develop with Rosina, I wouldn’t have minded so much.

It would’ve been much easier to accept, especially since one could’ve argued that it was still related to his failed relationship with Emma. He couldn’t ‘save’ her the way he wanted to, but now he’s got a second chance. This doesn’t feel that way. Especially with him and Tess reading together in the exact same way as he did with Rosina. It makes what he has with Rosina seem less significant.

I also don’t understand it from Tess; like I get it in as much as it’s about hurting Demelza in whatever way possible, and Tess is likely at least somewhat genuinely attracted to Sam, but she’s in league with Jacka. Surely even Jacka wouldn’t take kindly to someone messing with his daughter’s feelings. Even if it is feelings for another Carne. Like I said, it would’ve made more sense earlier in the story, before Jacka/Tess became a dastardly duo.

Tess making a play for Sam was set up when she spoke to Drake (and when she flirted with a somewhat bewildered Sam a little bit in 5x02). She wants to hurt Demelza, and it’s pretty clear how much Sam&Drake mean to her. Easy targets. That’s why we see her testing the waters with Drake; there’s probably all sorts of rumours about his marriage, we’ve seen the way the people of Sawle looked at Morwenna, so it can’t hurt to try. When he makes it clear he sees through her, and isn’t even remotely receptive, she makes it very apparent she’s going to go for Sam. But why has it taken her this long to actually make that move? It doesn’t make sense (only to create unnecessary drama between Sam&Rosina).

This isn’t the Sam we know, and I’m hoping this mess will be sorted out pretty quickly in episode 7, because it’s unnecessary, and the way he’s treating Rosina is out of character. Sam would never just drop someone like that. Whatever interest he’s taking in Tess, he would still feel that responsibility towards Rosina. And it’s been made pretty clear he’s attracted to her, and it would certainly damage her reputation for people to have seen them stepping out together, only for him to seem to move on so quickly. It would also be devastating for his reputation as a religious leader; Preacher Carne stepping out with multiple unmarried young ladies?! Forget the scandal that would’ve come from marrying a girl with a reputation like Emma Tregirls...this would be so much worse for him.

It just makes no sense! Rosina (& Sam, and their entire relationship) deserves better than this!

#sparks talks poldark #poldark spoilers #spoilers

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amarguerite · 7 years ago

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Might you be persuaded to write the Mr Bennet time travelling grad student stuck in regency hell fic? Because I am loath to tread on any literary toes, but simultaneously have some ideas... Not that I'll get to them any time soon.

… I’m weak and I started it. (Though I would love to hear your take on it, since I just cobbled together a bunch of fake science from wikipedia.) Here you go:

Thomas Bennet was a theoretical astrophysicist, a choice first made to annoy his parents, but later clung to when he discovered that fifty percent of advanced academic theory was pointing out the flaws in the arguments of other people. The first years of his Ph.D. at Trinity Hall, Cambridge he mostly sat at home in his pyjamas and dressing gown, reading away. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, etc. or whatever his girlfriend would quote at him while he was thinking about quantum mechanics. (Their relationship was mostly Thomas talking at Jane about the actuality of wavefunction collapse, and her talking at him about the common rhetorical devices of diaries c. 1780-1830, until they both grew so bored of the other person’s thesis they made out to shut the other person up.)

The fact that after his qualifying exams he had to earn his meagre stipend by going into a lab where he had to put on goggles and a lab coat and proper trousers struck him as highly unfair. Academia had betrayed him! Here he had been thinking theory meant he could sit in a library forever but no, he had to go on shift with fucking Chad from Harvard (“Maybe you’ve heard of it?”), and Liz Yee from the University of Hong Kong, and stare at code and mathematical equations until his eyes dried out. Liz was a mechanical engineer, which struck Thomas as the only job worse than his own, since she had to put down her blowtorch seemingly every ten seconds to re-measure very small bits of metal, which seemed to magically change shape every time she did so. This caused her to swear in Mandarin, very loudly and without cease.

The fact this this experiment would probably produce data useful to the completion of his thesis was immaterial. Thomas did not care if his ideas about wavefunction collapse causing time travel could be proven or not.

It was therefore singularly unfortunate that they were.

On one miserably rainy day in late September, fucking Chad popped his collar (again) and said, “Hey Liz, I think maybe, uh, you, like need to cool down. You built your Schrodingers box thing. It’s like, done. You don’t need to keep swearing at it.”

Liz aimed the blowtorch at him.

Fucking Chad opened the window.

“There is a thunderstorm outside,” Liz shouted at him, running to the window, “and we are in a laboratory full of expensive electronics!”

To Thomas’s surprise, his computer beeped. “Oh,” he said, lowering his mug of tea and going over to the box Liz had finally gotten to fit together. “The box is functional and ready to be electrified. We should tell Professor–”

To Thomas’s utter amazement and annoyance, a bolt of lightning hit the building their lab was in. Everything in room lit up, ghastly as the Fuseli paintings Jane kept trying to hang up in their apartment. Chad and Liz, by the window, wore ludicrous expressions of shock, their faces too bright for comprehension, then the desktop started sparking and he was momentarily blinded and all was noise and confusion and then– for no reason he could think of, he was suddenly in the middle of a field.

“What the fuck,” said Thomas, really meaning it. Some man dressed like an extra from Poldark staggered over from what appeared to be an exploded carriage. There were horses rearing in front, and panicked men in livery trying to calm them.

“Oh my God!” the fancily dressed man called out, staring blindly about him. “Are you alive? Are you alive, sir?”

Thomas looked down at his white dress shirt, gray slacks and white lab coat, and then at this man’s knee-breeches, cravat, frock coat, and powdered wig. “I am not entirely sure.”

The man stretched out his hands and felt at Thomas’s face in a way that rather proved that staring blindly had been an apter turn of phrase than he could have guessed.

“Forgive my unmannerliness, dear sir,” said Thomas, attempting to sound like Poldark, “but what the hell are you doing? Who are you?”

“Your late uncle’s steward, sir,” said the fancy man, with a gasp. “Oh Mr. Bennet, have you hit your head in the explosion?”

“Probably,” said Thomas. “Where are we? Cambridge?” It was conceivable he had been concussed in the explosion and wandered out onto a movie set. Cambridge was picturesque in that capitalist way that meant people were always paying for the privilege of putting it on film.

“No, Mr. Bennet,” said the fancy man. “We are but a mile from Longborn. In– in Hertfordshire.”

“Hertfordshire!” exclaimed Thomas. He could not possibly have wandered into Hertfordshire without realizing it!

“It is as I feared,” exclaimed the steward. “There has been an injury to your head sir, allow me to feel for a contusion– what year is it, sir?”

A horrible thought occurred to Thomas. “1994, surely.”

“It is 1789, sir!” cried the man. “A doctor for Mr. Bennet! Oh God– what horrors to happen to a family! First Mr. Bennet dies of apoplexy, now the nephew, his only living male relative, struck in the head on the way to the funeral–”

Thomas was relatively sure there was a charred corpse nearby that was the actual Mr. Bennet, but wasn’t inclined to look. It occurred to him suddenly that he had somehow managed to be right– his advisor had thought all wavefunctions, even in collapse, were linear, and therefore the collapse would create multiple timelines. He had devised an experiment in a specialized ionized box to prove the existence of multiple worlds, and Thomas had thought this incredibly stupid. The collapse of a wavefunction would be similar to a blackhole, even in a small and controlled setting like the weird metallic box Liz had made. All data would be scrambled, all ordinary functions of matter distorted. One was likelier to cause time to become non-linear than to create a parallel universe.

It appeared he had traveled through time.

That, or he was in some parallel universe where he owned an estate in Regency England.

Either way, what the fuck.

#my fic #mr. bennet #crack fic #this science is not good #oh well

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