max_epper | (no subject)

When he gets home, Doris is practically waiting for him. She sees the box in his hands and instantly forgets whatever she was going to say.

"Max?" she asks in a quizzical voice. He never brings his work home if he can at all help it. And given the call he made earlier today...

Max, meanwhile dumps the box on the couch. "Hmmm?"

"What's this about Max? You call to tell me we're having a dinner guest on an afternoon's notice, and now you're bringing work home?"

Max smiles gently at his wife. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you that this might happen. I wasn't sure when he'd get here, though. Jack's come from Australia to help me," he says, watching as her eyes widen at the last statement. "Yes," he continues, "it's about that. Hence why we couldn't talk when he came to see me at work."

Doris settles down on the couch and flips open the lid of the box. "So, are you actually going to tell me any details about that?" she asks, looking at, but clearly not understanding what the stuff inside the box is.

"Well, given I expect it is going to come up at dinner, yes."

Doris looks shocked for half a second, her eyes flickering between the door to the kitchen where the tourtière sat, cooking steadily, Max's face and the box of stuff he'd brought back with him.

"Okay," she says after some time.

Doris gets up, heading back to the kitchen to finish up the preparations. Max meanwhile, sets to getting things out of the box and into place for later on. After a little while, he joins her in the kitchen to assist with the preparations. It's comfortable, and the two of them have developed a good routine out over the years.

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At 6:30 precisely, there's a knock at the door.

Max had just finished doing what he can in the kitchen, when the knock comes, so he almost immediately opens the door and invites Jack in and offers him a drink.

Jack steps inside and lets Max shut the door behind them before he says anything.

"What non-alcoholic drinks have you got?" he inquires. "And good evening, Mrs Epper," he adds, spotting her in the kitchen preparing what was evidently some part of their meal for the evening.

Max raises his eyebrows at Jack's request for something non-alcoholic, then offers what they have, while Doris calls "Jack, is it?" from the kitchen.

Jack just gives him a pointed look and mutters, "You know I need to be sober with what we're going to be talking about." He raises his voice back, "Yes, it is, Mrs Epper. I'll have an orange juice, please."

"Oh, please. Call me Doris," comes floating out of the kitchen.

Max smiles and gestures to the dining table, laid for three, "Take a seat." before he nips into the kitchen to get Jack's drink.

Edited Date: 2013-04-30 05:14 pm (UTC)

Jack looks at the table, and identifies at a glance, which chair is the least used. At least, he hopes he's right in his assessment. He makes no move to sit in it, though. Instead, he moves towards the kitchen door and pokes his head in.

"Can I be of any assistance?" he inquires.

Max returns with a glass of orange juice and pushes it into Jack's hand, declining the offer.

A few minutes later, the three of them are sat down at the table (Jack was absolutely right in his assessment as to where the two of them usually sit), and tucking in.

The conversation follows the usual polite, muted lines that most dinner conversations follow, Max is delighted to hear about Lauren's wedding, and if Jack deftly moves the conversation around his father, both of them are polite enough not to comment. If he also avoids talking about the Gulf war, and what went on there? Well, they don't blame him for that, either.

Eventually, though, as they polish off the last of the rather marvelous apple pie Doris Epper had made, the conversation falls quiet and Jack decides it's time to bring up the real reason he's in Dublin.

"So, Max..." he begins, his eyes flickering semi-pointedly between the two Eppers around the table with him.

Max notes Jack's gaze, and answers the unasked question, plus a few more.

"Doris doesn't know much, yet."

Jack turns to Doris "Well, looks like we're in the same boat then," he says, grinning.

"And you'll have to enlighten us, Max," he adds.

Doris smiles in agreement.

Max, though, rises and clears the bowls away. Doris follows with the last remnants of what was left on the table. Max then removes the tablecloth from the table.

"I'm going to need to lay a few things out," he says, handing the tablecloth to Doris, "and, I'd sooner work on this..." he gestures to the bare tabletop. "Naturally," she says light-heartedly, moving to the shake the few crumbs left on the cloth outside.

Max, meanwhile, turns to Jack "You see that box over there," he says, pointing at the box he and Doris had left on the couch, "Could you bring it here, please?"

Jack turns to look at where Max is pointing, nods his head and collects it. He can't, however, resist looking inside the box before he brings it back to Max.

When he hands it over, his eyes are wide.

Max smiles as he takes it out of his protégé's hands. Well, Jack isn't technically Max's protégé, but...

He settles the box down on the table and begins lifting some things carefully, reverently even, out, laying them on the table with great care and attention.

By the time Doris walks back in, he's basically done. There's a mix of things on the table, from photographs to a couple of books (very well read, by the looks of it), to what looks like a couple of chunks of rock, to some old scrolls.

Doris just stares.

"Okay," Max begins. "It's time to talk about this. It's time to talk about my research, what it means, the implications for the world around us and what we're going to do about it." He's mainly looking at Jack for the last comment.

Jack settles down at the table, shifting his chair around towards Doris, she doing the same, such that Max could talk to the pair of them more easily.

"Go on then," he says, eying a thick hardbacked book entitled 'When Men Built Mountains: The Pyramids'.

"Okay," Max says, noting Jack's interest. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Tell me what you know."

Doris starts, "The Pyramids, The Hanging Gardens, the Alexandrian Lighthouse. What are the others? Wait, The Colossus, that's one isn't it?"

Jack nods, before reeling off the list, ticking them off on his fingers as he does so, "The Great Pyramid at Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Lighthouse at Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes. What of them?"

Doris looks down as Jack reels of the list, pleased she got more than half of them. Max, meanwhile, simply nods.

"They are the key. So to speak. These seven were identified by Callimachus of Cyrene in his text..." he lets himself trail off there, allowing Jack the opportunity to fill in the title.

"A collection of Wonders from around the world?" Jack offers uncertainly.

Max nods. It's not quite the exact title, but it'll do.

"These days, it's perhaps more simply known as the Callimachus text. Now, this was no idle list. This was a very deliberately put together list. There were other monuments just as impressive, yet Callimachus chose these seven, and only these."

Which, of course, leads to the obvious question, which Doris dutifully supplies. "Why?"

Jack has a slightly different question to ask. "What's the connection? And how does this relate to, Tartarus?" he says, trying to remember his briefing materials.

Doris looks curiously at Jack, wondering where he got his information.

Jack shrugs at her. "I've had a half briefing from my CO, but I'd sooner hear it all from the expert, than rely on second hand information."

Doris nods, and Max continues.

"The questions are related. But, in order to do so, I need to explain some things that are a completely different topic. So, we'll leave this discussion of the Wonders for now. Tartarus, is a sunspot."

Max taps the book Jack had been looking at carefully. "There's a more complete description in this book, but for now, it will suffice to say that it is the hottest spot on the Sun's surface. In 14 and a bit years, we will be witness to the second great turning of the sun. Something that has not happened for 4,500 years."

Jack's eyes narrow. He studied Egyptian history too closely not to know those dates. 2570BC was the completion of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Which later was described as a 'Wonder' in a 'not-an-idle' list. It's too close to be a co-incidence, isn't it?

"How many years, exactly?" he shoots at Max.