[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?"
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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"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.
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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?"
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"Good memories, I hope?"
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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?"
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"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."
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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.
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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."
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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.
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She chuckles a bit under her breath, a funny thought just having struck her.
"You're from the twenty third century, yes?"
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"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.
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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.
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"Talk to me," she says, her voice gentle and soft.
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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."
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"I am too, darlin'."
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Eventually, she pulls away enough to look into his face, capturing his hands.
"That which does not kill us, eh?"
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"You must've been talking with one of those crazies up in Command Central who give us our missions."
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"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.
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He follows where she leads, instinctively stepping around floorboards that used to creak at odd moments.
"The tour, huh? But of what, I wonder?"
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"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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