Making Adjustments

Lucifer's Landing
6 weeks from arrival
Summer's Gift - Botany Bay

The pepper plants were thriving. Joshua looked over the green leafy cuttings growing in the water and checked the underside of the leaves for any problems. Hydroponics always seemed a little odd to Joshua, the way the plants just grew without soil. But their nutrient mixture kept them as healthy and vibrant, if not more so, than the standard plant being grown in the ground. It required paying a little more attention, but time was something Joshua had plenty of right now.

Botany Bay, as Joshua had grown fond of referring to it, had completely gone under while the crew had been kept away from the Gift. Almost nothing living had been left. Under Rick's watch, it had split time between growing food for the ship and growing exotic plants for Rick. Anything edible that had survived the lack of attention had been destroyed by the Feds who had turned the ship upside down upon confiscation. Of the exotic plants, a single white orchid stubbornly survived. Joshua kept it off to one side of the bay now, a lone reminder of its former owner. The bay may have been wiped, but Joshua had big plans for it.

Three quarters of the bay was now devoted to full time food production. One corner held food that would be picked off the plant - the peppers being one example, but also tomatoes, strawberries, and squash. Another corner contained root vegetables - onions, carrots, potatoes. And finally, in a third corner was what Joshua was already referring to as Spice Central. Garlic, ginger, and black pepper grew there, as well as various herbs - rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, chives, and more. The pride and joy was the pepper vine growing up the corner. Joshua didn't have any idea how Christian had managed to procure the plantings for one, but Christian had his ways.

The final portion of the bay had been turned into some private space for Joshua to be able to sit and just enjoy the garden as well as a place to store the tools of the trade to keep everything running smoothly. He had managed to get some wood and craft himself a small bench that was somehow both crude and comfortable.

Looking over the bay, he knew he had at least another month's work ahead of him to get everything moving smoothly, but food production should be ready when the Gift was ready to leave. It was deeply satisfying to be able to put this all together on his own, he thought. But that is what happens when you are motivated to keep yourself busy.

***

I came aboard the Gift with the sense of homecoming after a long absence, even though I had been on and off her over the past six weeks for various repairs as the parts came. I had another part that needed installing, repairing the damage done by the Feds when they confiscated our girl and I was eager to fit in place. Once done, I could finish getting our thruster package online. I came off the stairs to the upper deck with a light heart and moved aft. We had the Gift on bare bones power to save her batteries and the lights aboard were on emergency status. So the light spilling from Rick's Botany Bay immediately caught my attention as I crossed the threshold of the lounge. I stuck my head into the Bay and saw nothing but green growing things and the beds and hydroponics racks.

"Joshua?" I called, hoping I wasn't interrupting anything important or sensitive. We'd been keeping at a professional distance for nearly four weeks now and though it wasn't a rancorous break, it was awkward. Still, it had been over a week since I'd exchanged more than a word or two in passing and I was in the mood to talk. "You here?"

***

Rina's voice came from the entrance and Joshua involuntarily perked up upon hearing it. Pavlov would be proud, he thought as he rolled his eyes at himself. He needed to learn to moderate his reactions to her...learn how to be friends. There hadn't been much opportunity for that since they had (sort of) mutually agreed it would be for the best not to be lovers anymore.

No time like the present. He breathed a couple deep breaths in to get himself back into that calmer place and then called out to her. "Rina, I'm here. Just working on the bay, getting her in shape. Anything I can do for you?"

***

"I saw the light and thought I'd check in." I stepped further inside and eyed what Joshua had been busily working on for the past month. Even granting the augmentation that hydroponics gave to the growing cycle, the results were quite frankly spectacular.

***

"Hopefully you are both stunned and impressed." He said it with a bit of snark, trying to downplay the work that he had done. But he really badly wanted her to be impressed. Showoff, he accused himself. Like she was going to suddenly change her mind because of a big garden. And there was his problem. He was thinking about everything in relation to how it might affect his relationship with Rina. Sometimes a garden was just a garden.

He looked around at the fruits of his labor and smiled. "I've had some time and I can only take so many piloting lessons from Nika."

***

"I am, actually." I caught his tone and tried not to read too much into it. If the man had to brag, the work he'd done justified it. If it was a dig at my expense, I was willing to let it slide for friendship's sake. I delicately touched a plant here, a plant there as I walked further into the bay. "This is incredible."

***

"I'm glad you like it," he said sincerely. "I've been thinking about asking Nika about taking on more passengers and this is a necessary first step."

He walked over to her. "You look good. It's been a while. Have you been doing well?" He couldn't seem to find the right tone of casualness. Instead, his voice kept fluctuating between too formal and too concerned. He just needed to pretend he was impersonating someone who had never slept with Rina...who wasn't still hopelessly in love with her. How hard could it be?

***

There was no point in pretending. I caught the undercurrent coming from him and addressed it directly, leaning against one of the tanks to keep some space between us.

"Mornings are hardest." I looked down at my booted toes. "Sometimes, there's a second or two when I wake up and turn over convinced someone's with me. I never had a problem waking up alone before. It's ... disconcerting."

***

Joshua was a little relieved not to have to be dancing around the subject. If he was honest with himself, he wasn't even sure why he had tried. What had he thought it would accomplish?

He nodded quickly. "I mean, I can't speak to before, but you're right, waking up feels a little weird. I'll be sleeping in here and I'll expect you to be there." He paused for effect. "On a narrow one person bench."

He looked at her standing there and wanted to take her in her arms, but instead quietly said the one thought dominating his waking hours. "I miss you, Rina."

***

I couldn't help it. I looked up and the words were out my mouth before I knew they were coming.

"I miss you, too."

***

He started to step forward when a ugly thought bolted across his brain and halted his feet in motion. So ugly; so cold and mean that it felt foreign, a thought someone else would think. Not him. But he had thought it. It was still there keeping him from moving. She'll miss you...until Mike comes back. Then you'll be left alone again, discarded like an old engine part she doesn't need anymore.

It was totally unfair. She wasn't like that. Sure, she would go back to Mike, but it wasn't spiteful. The rational voice in his head was being cruel, turning Rina into the villain in the story, when she was no such thing.

But it worked, didn't it? You didn't go to her. The rational voice spoke up again, cold and emotionless.

Joshua sighed out loud in response. "I hate this, Rina. I hate that I can't be with you. But it's what is best, right?" He ended in a question, looking for confirmation, some indication that the calm, merciless voice of rationality was correct...or maybe, he thought, that it wasn't.

***

I saw him start for me and stop, saw something flicker behind his eyes, and wondered what it was. What he said next made it clear and the undercurrent between us stirred, pushing and pulling at me, and I gripped the tank I leaned against. I hate it, too…

“I … Joshua, this ... this wasn't something Christian and I went through after we were done. I wasn't as ... invested in what he and I had, so the issue never really came up." I sighed and scrubbed my face, wishing for a more eloquent way to say it. I dropped my hands and looked at him. "This time it's different. Maybe it's because Christian's a professional and I'm not, or maybe this time I'm in over my head. I don't know. I just know that I miss you and that we can't go back to the way we were. There's falling back in bed and there's being strangers and there's the ground in the middle. I don't know if it's something we're supposed to find alone or together but I just know we have to find it."

***

Joshua nodded, not really trusting himself with words at the moment. If it was this bad when they had spent a month apart on land, what the gorram hell was going to happen when they were in close quarters on the Gift in the Black?

Think positive, Joshua. People lived in these kind of situations all the time and they couldn't all have an iron force of will. Could they? No, they had to deal with it the same way he was going to have to deal with it. One day at a time.

As he thought that, he remembered sitting on the aikido mat less than 6 months ago, coming to that realization about his lost memories and his confusion about what he was meant to do. It had brought him peace then, maybe it would now. And then he remembered the conversation with Rina right afterwards. Those first steps towards whatever it was the two of them had together. A fresh surge of pain coursed through him and one day a time seemed like a very hard path indeed. One step at a time, then.

"So, what brought you here in the first place? Anything I can help with?"

***

As a cure for worry, work is better than whiskey, my parents were fond of saying. I looked at all the work Joshua had put into the Bay and had to admit it was true. It also gave me an idea.

“This came in by post today,” I said, lifting the flap of my tool bag and letting him see the part I carried inside. “I could do it alone, but I could do a better job if I had some help. You wanna?”

Maybe if we did something that didn’t involve getting groinal, we could find that middle ground. If nothing else, it would give us a different frame of reference when it came to occupying the same space together. Repeat as necessary for proper results. I tipped my head at the invitation, hoping to strike the right balance between friendship and professionalism, and waited for his answer.

***

"Yeah, that'd be good." Joshua motioned his head back towards the garden behind him. "I love my plants, but..."

He looked at the part, which looked moderately complicated. He'd have to pick up some repair from Rina, which probably wasn't a bad thing either. He hadn't had to adapt any skills since taking the part of a blue hands agent on Colchester. It wasn't like he was afraid or anything, but getting back on that proverbial horse probably wasn't a bad idea either.

And, he thought, it wouldn't be a bad idea to do something that didn't involve sex with Rina. They had fun doing things with each other before they started sleeping together. Of course, doing those things together was what had eventually led to the two of them sleeping together. He mentally shrugged. Nothing's perfect.

He nodded in the direction of the engine room. "I'll follow, okay?"

***

I watched him carefully and wished I was better at reading people. Even after six months of friendship and three months of something considerably more, Joshua was still hard for me to anticipate. All I had were my instincts and my track record where they were concerned didn't foster confidence. But I had to try.

"Okay," I said. "We'll pick up what we need on the way." I pushed off the tank and took his hand to pull him along with me. "Let's go."

***

The contact from her hand set off a tingle in his hand, but although it was sweet, it was also short. He could do this. One step at a time.

***

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