Words Get In The Way
Apologies to everyone. I didn't realize this was an incomplete RP when I got my copy from Terri. Will add the missing parts as soon as I get them.--Maer
Arden shakes his head, smiling, “I can take care of that. Come on on, I got some antiseptic and bandages.”He starts gathering the things he needs.
There’s a bit of a pause and Nika comes all the way into the room, admitting, “It might need a little more than that.” She sounds.... not exactly chagrinned but still a little wary. She moves to slide up onto the bed, setting her hand on her thigh so he can look at it as she unwraps the towel.
Although her left hand is scraped up and just messy looking, it’s the right hand that seems to have taken the brunt. It’s bleeding and it’s pretty clear she broke her hand near one knuckle... and that the injury is a couple of days old based on the swelling.
Arden frowns, “you should have come here sooner. I’m going to have to x-ray and make sure the bones are at the proper angle.” Arden pulls out some antiseptic and some cotton gauze and starts to gently clean the hand. His touch is sure, but gentle and caring. “If your hand looks like this, is the other guy need my treatment too?” Arden smiles softly to so that he is joking.
She’s quiet for a time and says, “I can still move it. It’s not a bad break.”Nika’s had a few broken bones in her day -- it doesn’t hurt enough to be serious. At least... in her non-medical opinion.“I was using the wooden dummy, not Rina this time.”
“Well that’s good. I’m pretty much tired of fixing up Rina. But bad too, I’m not a carpenter so the dummy is beyond my skill.” Arden grins, being silly,“however, broken bones in the hands can be deceiving. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t. There are 27 bones in a human hand. Not to mention the wrist.”
Shaking her head, Nika merely looks down at it. “I expected it to hurt more. I wasn’t sure it was broken until today. I hit the dummy again and felt it grind a bit.” She’s not elaborating too much on the injury itself.
Arden looks at his captain, “You okay Nika? That seems extraordinarily not smart, something you usually aren't.”
“I’m fine. Just... distracted, I guess.” Nika looks up at him. “Lot on my mind. You?”
Arden shakes his head, “Nope, we are talking about you, not me.” He smiles, “You first. What’s on your mind? Anything I can help with?”
“Just wedding crap,”Nika says softly. “They want me to run the ceremony and I’m ... just trying to figure out what to say, I guess.”
“Isn’t there some sort of traditional ceremony or something?” Arden asks. “Can’t you follow whatever that is?”
“Neither one of ‘em follows a religious doctrine -- and hell, Arden, if they did, I wouldn’t be the one they’d ask to do the thing, right?”Nika glances up at him. “I’m hoping I don’t make an idiot of myself or them. You don’t think that... maybe I should tell them to ask someone else?” She hesitates. “They keep saying if I don’t want to do it I don’t have to.”
“Do you feel like you can’t or are you just nervous about being in front of people?” Arden finishes applying the antiseptic and cleaning the hand. hHe then pulls out a flat board (similar to a notepad today). Arden places Nika’s hand on the board and gently and slowly flattens the hand to the board. “Okay, give it a second. There. Done.”
She winces as he cleans the one hand; it stings. Nika is quiet as he flattens the broken hand on his pad there, her flinch barely registering. And when she looks up at him she says softly, “I feel like not doing it would be doing a disservice to two of my best friends. But ....doing it almost feels like... begging for trouble. As stupid as that sounds.”
“You can do it. Should be easier than facing down mass-murderers, pirates, and Blue Sun agents.” Arden moves over to his terminal, types some keys, and there on the screen appears the skeletal x-ray of Nika’s hand. “Hmmm, looks relatively simple. You should keep the hand immobile for a few days and no punching. Definitely no punching.” Arden grins.
“As to the ceremony speak from the heart, say what you feel, then have them say their vows, their feelings for one another, then pronounce then man and wife or whatever,” Arden shrugs.
“Coming from a place where procreation and the softer feelings had no place, I really don’t understand this whole ‘marriage’ thing,” Arden finishes.
Nika’s quiet. And then she says, “The softer feelings have no place. But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel them, does it?” she asks curiously.
“Depends on who you ask,” Arden says. “And since I am no longer on Sofie, it doesn’t apply to me.”
There’s a faint smile. “I suppose that’s true.”Nika peers around him at the x-rays. And then she nods. “I won’t hit anything for a while.”
“Promise?”
Nika looks at him in surprise. “Uhm..... sure, I promise. Why wouldn’t I promise?” It’s the first spark of true interest she’s shown since she walked in. Everything else has been a carefully choreographed ‘everything’s great, I did a stupid’ sort of abashed amusement. But he’s confused her with the request for a promise.
“Being silly.I know you, if you don’t promise you might go seeking revenge on the sparring dummy.”
Her blue eyes go flat and she looks away. “Why would I want revenge on it?” she asks. “It did what I wanted it to.” She looks down at her hand and shifts the focus. “How long will you need it splinted?”
Arden is nonplussed, what did he say? “Um, you really can’t splint a hand, or that bone in your hand. You just have to take it easy on it. In a few days it’ll be set right, no pun intended.”
Nika looks up at him and offers a smile. Her expression is not angry, just... pensive. As it often is.“All right,” she replies. “That should be easy enough, then. Are you, uhm.... are you doing all right with Rina’s family aboard?” she wonders.
“They haven’t bothered me. And it’s like having mini-versions of Rina around. I’m used to that.”
Nika chuckles quietly. “Good to hear. Although I have to admit that I find Rina’smother ....almost comfortable to be around in some ways.” The Russian woman reminds the pilot of Yu-Shin Harrington, though only in certain mannerisms.
“Perhaps you could talk to her about the ceremony?” Arden asks.
Nika looks positively ....terrified. “Oh maaaaaan.I haven’t done that yet. Her mama’s gonna be... furious.” She grimaces.
“Why would she be furious? I would think she would be helpful.”
“Probably. It’s a mom thing. I’ll ask Rina about it.”Nika forced a bit of a smile. “Arden... do you even believe in long-term commitments? I mean... like Joshua and Rina?”
Arden looks startled, then chuckles, “I didn’t, then I did, and now I don’t. I suppose anything is possible.
Nika is quiet as he wraps her hand then eyes him. “You always have the most interesting view on things,” she observes.
Arden cocks an eyebrow, “how so?”
“Well.... when we first met, I understand the fact that you didn’t believe. Then you changed. And I’m... not sure I want to ask why. And then you changed back, and again... I’m not sure I want to ask why,”Nika admits.
“If you don’t ask, you’ll never know,” Arden grins. He seems to like the direction the conversation is going.
She looks down at her hand and says softly, “Why?”
“When we were together, I felt like that could last... Well if not forever, a very long time. Then the whole thing with the ring, and how you dealt with me. At that point I felt like I was the one who was wrong, a stranger, never to be loved.” He holds up a hand to stop her, “But since then I have found that it isn’t *me*, that’s just the way the Verse is.”
The blonde is silent for a very long time. And she says just as quietly, “I broke it on purpose.”
“I know you did,” Arden replies softly. “Doesn’t change how it made me feel, even if logically I knew you did what you thought was right.”
Nika’s confused again. She looks up at him and says quietly, “My hand, Arden. Although I guess I broke what we had on purpose as well.”
Arden colors, embarrassed.“Err, sorry. Forget I said anything. If the hand causes you pain, let me know and I will have an analgesic for you. If you feel like you don’t need meds, use an ice pack.”
Nika starts to laugh quietly. Looking at the ceiling, she says mildly, “I pulled away from you for what I thought were all the right reasons. Joshua kicks me regularly for making your choices for you.” Her feet swing from the perch on the table, much like a child as she cradles her hand in her lap. Those dark blue eyes, so different from her original ones, seem to be focused far away. “I don’t keep the diamond because I think he’s ever coming back for me,” she tells him, not looking at him. “I keep it ... because it reminds me to stay back from you. That I break everything I touch.” Sliding off the table, she bites back further words, taking the bloody towel with her and looking to escape.
Arden looks shocked and confused. “Wait. Let me get this right... You are a leader who regularly gets our butts out of hot water, finds work for us, is a proactive member of the independents, and flies like a demon... And you break everything you touch? I’m gonna to have to call you on that Nika. no way, no how.”
“Now you sound like Joshua,”Nika says tartly. She turned to level those dark eyes that nearly match her sister’s cobalt ones on him. “And yet he tells me I should stop trying to live up to some ideal.” She shakes her head. “All of you are the ones with the idealized version in your heads. She’s not me!”
“She is the one I see every day,” Arden shrugs. “Just cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
Her expression is pained, sad. Fake it til you make it. The words echo in her head for a long moment and Nika simply sighs. And she turns to go, defeated. “Thanks for checking on the hand,” she says to him. “I’ll make sure I don’t hit anything else. I’ll see you at lunch.”
Arden doesn’t reply but watches her go with an expression of regret? Anger? Hard to say.
Go to Nika's Crew Page or Arden's Crew Page
Go back to: Season Six, Aug 2522 to May 2523
Go to EPISODES or TIMELINE
