olyabird | [oom] San Francisco Victorian/Milliways Rooms

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[oom] San Francisco Victorian/Milliways Rooms

[ after this ]

She still eats as if it is a privilege, a throwback to the many times when it was. Proteins first, to sustain the body, and yes, while battered poultry is a novelty, she still manages to enjoy it. Carbohydrates next, and fresh baked bread is fresh baked bread the world over. And finally, because it has a strange scent, and it looks to be rather messy to eat, finally she delves into the watermelon slices. Juice ran down her chin and she had a sense memory of eating apples fresh from the cider press, only this was more like pears, she thought. No, not at all like pears. Something completely new and different.

Not unlike the man seated next to her, his startlingly blue eyes glittering with mirth as she chased bite after bite with a swipe of her napkin.

"This should be served in a glass," she murmurs, taking another bite of the almost ethereal fruit. One could eat for days and never fill up. "What are you laughing at, hmm?"

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She sits back into the couch, glancing around the room again, before returning her gaze to his face. He is very easy on the eyes, and so long as he doesn't expect her to cook, she thinks they might make a go of it.

"You are pig-headed, and rash. And you don't like my smoking in here, do you?"

She has strange ways of showing her affection.

"I've been called both of those before." He notes wryly, standing to collect the debris of their meal. He leaves her the makeshift ashtray. "And do you want my honest medical opinion on that?"

"I don't need it. I can hear your lungs crying out in outrage from here."

She grins at his back, a sudden wash of fondness taking her by surprise. She stubs out her last cigarette, grabs the bottle of vodka and follows him back into the kitchen.

"You need help?"

"I think I'll manage - the resemblance really is a bit eerie. Put a view of the bay outside that window and I'd swear I was back on Earth." He grumbles, more to cover his uneasiness on just how Bar got this information in the first place than any real displeasure at the rooms themselves. The smattering of utensils get dumped into the sink, and after a few moments of rummaging he finds a bottle of dish soap to pour into the warm water.

She hums, putting her hands on the island and hopping just a little bit to sit, her heels dangling. She considers getting a glass to pour a drink, and then thinks better of it, taking a swig right from the bottle.

"Good memories, I hope?"

"Can't complain. I'd just joined Star Fleet then, and worked long hours at the hospital. Junior officers tended to get the the worst shifts." A few more moments of rummaging reveals the drying rack, right where he thought it should be. He gives it a dirty look, but sets it up without comment and commences the washing up.

After a long moment of contemplating the sudsy water, he looks over at her.

"So, I'm pig-headed, and rash, and probably suicidal to boot, but... are we going somewhere with this, Olga?"

She frowns a bit, misunderstanding the question.

"I thought we were staying here," she says, and then it hits her. "Oh you mean," she gestures again, a tiny hand movement that indicates 'this'.

"I told you once. If you ask, I will stay."

"Please stay."

He's practically defenseless, and he has a fair idea of just how over his head he'd be of her kind of trouble came down on them, but he does really want this chance.

Her head falls to one side and she smiles at him. It isn't a broad toothy grin, and she'd never be someone they'd pick to sell toothpaste, but for Olga? It's a look that radiates.

She reaches a foot across the gap between them, plucking at the hem of his shirt with her toes.

"Alright. But I don't cook."

"Oh, that I think I can manage." He's no top chef, but he's had to make is fair share of meals. If he says so himself, he's not half bad at it. "I'm a bit rusty, but with the bar close at hand we won't starve."

His grin, bright and sunny and not in the least restrained, is the part that expresses just how very glad he is that she didn't deny him.

Again, she feels it and she can't help but close her eyes, basking in the warmth as if a ray of sunshine had just broken through the clouds.

She chuckles a bit under her breath, a funny thought just having struck her.

"You're from the twenty third century, yes?"

"Yes." He agrees, dumping the now-clean silverware into the drying rack and drying his hands on a towel. "2267, just beginning the new year, for as much as that matters in the middle of vacuum."

She's leaning forward, perched with her elbows on her knees, fingers interlaced. Her heels bounce lightly against the cabinetry.

"I suppose by then they have invented a pill for the man to take. So it isn't always the woman's responsibility?" He hasn't mentioned the subject, and it's hardly as if they've used protection.

If she were also from his time, he'd be straight-up insulted. Only barbarians, or the sort of scum one doesn't want to meet in a dark alley, would loose the threat of an unwanted pregnancy on their partner.

But she isn't from his time. And he knows full well things weren't like they are for his now. (It's one of his favorite rants)

"There is. Injections, actually - most of the crew is on it, for shore leave." His voice is dry as the Vulcan deserts.

He pauses, his head bowed over the sink, twisting the towel in his hands.
"I went the more old-fashioned way." Every medication has risks of failure. After losing Joanna, he couldn't emotionally afford more of those risks.

The wave of loss takes her by surprise. It's as sharp as a winter wind, and it cuts deep. Her brow furrows and she leans a bit to one side, trying to catch his eye.

"Talk to me," she says, her voice gentle and soft.

He knows what she's doing, he's done it himself a time or two (or ten or twenty) - there's no ship's psychiatrist. If someone has a problem it falls on him to get them to talk it out. It's harder to talk your way around someone if you have to look them in the eyes while doing so.

He doesn't particularly want to go further down this road.

He turns, leaning against the counter, his hands still tangled in the towel, a flash of steel in his eyes.

He saw her once, after he left. She was five. She was beautiful.

The memory is so vivid, so perfect in his mind, she can't help but see the child.

His child.

She slips down off the counter and moves to stand behind him, her hand brushing down his back. When she speaks, her voice is pitched low, tinged with a wistfulness that verges on haunted.

"I have told you more about my life, Lyonya, in the passed few hours, than I have spoken of in decades. If you don't want to speak of it, I understand, but please remember -- you asked."

Asked her to stay. Asked her for a chance to be a part of his life.

He did. He just did, understanding what he was getting into. She's right. He doesn't want to do this, but she's right.

"Right before the divorce... we had a girl. Joanna." He remembers standing in the nursery, in full scrubs, holding his newborn daughter and watching the sun rise. "We shouldn't have. We were barely functioning as a couple. But she wanted a child so badly, and I did too."

When he'd arrived home from the hospital that day his world was re-arranged, they were already gone. There had been a lawyer waiting for him.

"Sometimes there are letters." There is a very small locked box he keeps under his bunk, halfway full of letters written in childish script. The last was sent over a year ago.
"I couldn't risk missing out on another life."

She rests her forehead against his shoulder, and he can feel her nod. A tragedy, and one he feels deeply, so she bites back her instinct to tell him, 'At least the Ottoman Turk didn't bash her brains out against a rock.'

She's seen the horrors that humans can inflict on one another. The theft of a child is tame compared to some. Eventually she finds the words, and even knowing how pale and useless they are, she uses them.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

McCoy turns, setting the towel aside to hold her instead. He fills his lungs with the scent of her and closes back the pain of the family he didn't have.

"I am too, darlin'."

She slips her arms around his waist and nuzzles under his chin. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, content to hold him for a long quiet moment.

Eventually, she pulls away enough to look into his face, capturing his hands.

"That which does not kill us, eh?"

He snorts, rolling his eyes dramatically at her. He uses a variant of that line on certain high-ranking crewmembers when they complain about quarterly physicals.
"You must've been talking with one of those crazies up in Command Central who give us our missions."

She smirks. Better. She hadn't meant to sour the mood so distinctly.

"Come on. I want the tour."

She backs away, still holding onto his hands. Dark grey eyes hold his gaze, and maybe he can see the colour rising in her cheeks.

He only has himself to blame - he knows better than most about the importance of not letting things fester like that, but he still refuses to do anything about it other than go on ignoring it.

He follows where she leads, instinctively stepping around floorboards that used to creak at odd moments.
"The tour, huh? But of what, I wonder?"

And where Olga comes from, ignoring it is the time honoured method of dealing with such things. So she'll be no help at all.

"The oddly draughty linen closet, what else?"

There might be a door to a bar in another dimension in there. Who knows?

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