Dark Places

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Thanks to Andy for working out this idea with me. Thanks, Andy!



Saturday, 16 Nov 2025
Kuiper II class, Summer’s Gift
Willow Parish, Muir
Blue Sun (Qing Long) system
1915hrs, local time


Joshua came out of Rina's room and headed straight for the galley - a man on a mission. His detour with Rina, although certainly nice, also meant he was late fixing dinner. He would need to dump the idea of preparing salads individually. Instead, he could put together a salad buffet where people built their own salads. But he still had to chop a wide variety of ingredients. No time to waste.

When he arrived, he immediately pulled out a series of bowls and lined them up on the counter space, behind the pile of vegetables he had collected a couple of hours ago. When that was done, he opened a nearby drawer with one hand and pulled out his favorite knife. Carrots first, he thought as he pulled the pile over and started to chop.

 ***

For once, Joshua beat me out the door and I waited a few minutes before getting my ass through it. Not that anyone looking at us could possibly miss what we'd just been doing, but I was counting on everyone being too knackered by the heat and recent events to take much notice. So I only paused in the head to splash some water on my face before joining Joshua in the galley.

After all, I was the reason dinner was late. It would be churlish not to help him catch up.

"Hey," I said softly as I came through the galley doorway. "Hand me a knife and I'll help chop."

 ***

Joshua paused chopping long enough to look up and back at her. He smiled, opened the drawer again, and pulled out a second knife. As he handed it to Rina, he scooted over to his right to make room. "Why don't you start with the green peppers? Chop them with the grain, keeping full circles, please." And then he went back to cutting the carrots in long, thin strips.

 ***

"Not a prob," I said, taking the knife and grabbing the first pepper. I sliced the stem end off a quarter inch into the pepper and pulled out the seeds in one intact cluster. A few stubborn seeds clung to the ribs. Getting those out was the work of a second. Cutting the rings went quickly after that.

Curve the fingers under, whispered Christian's voice from memory. Slide the blade up and down, using your knuckles as a guide. Push the food toward the knife with your thumb.

In a few minutes I had the peppers topped, cored and sliced into rings. I looked up.

"What's next?"

 ***

"Depends on whether you want to slice onion or mix lettuces. We've got a pile of lettuce from botany bay and the native greenery from Muir. Those need to be washed and then mixed together into a bowl. Onions get sliced into rings." Joshua, having finished the carrots, was chopping a few precious strawberries to add to the mix.

Joshua looked over at Rina. "I didn't get a chance to talk to Nika before I ran into you and we got, um, distracted. Do you know what her dressing of choice is?"

 ***

Undressed. With Brian likewise, I thought but didn't say. It reminded me of something I'd meant to discuss with Joshua but I left it off for a second. "I'll do the onions. I feel like slicing and dicing at the moment, anyway."

I took up the pungent vegetables and chopped the stems off, peeling the outer layers with a flick of the wrist. Once the rings were done, I found a bowl to put them in and turned to Joshua.

"What's next?"

 ***

"Can you find the pecans and pine nuts? They're in small jars in the leftmost cabinet. We should have just enough. Maybe we'll be able to get some more soon." He put the strawberries in one of the bowls and turned on the Coleman stove resting on the cooktop. "The pine nuts you can give to me for toasting. The pecans will go in a bowl."

He reached into another overhead cabinet and found one of two cans of corn. If he didn't need to keep them separate, he could toss the corn in with the pine nuts. But buffet means separation and choices, so he'd take the extra time.

"So, Nika can choose her own dressing anyway," he replied to Rina's non-answer of his question. "I'll just make sure to pay attention at dinner tonight."

 ***

I gave him the pine nuts and tossed the pecans into a bowl and put it next to the onions, mise en place.

"Speaking of Nika," I murmured as I moved around him, "I need your help. And I don't mean with dressing."

 ***

Joshua pulled out a small pan from underneath, and put it on the Coleman, adding the pine nuts at the same time. He turned the stove on medium, and then turned to face Rina. "Ok, it'll be a few minutes to toast those," he said quietly. "I gather we want to keep this hush-hush. How can I help?"

 ***

"I'm not asking you to invade her privacy," I cautioned. "Just keep an eye on her. You're better at the body language stuff than I am. What I'm seeing right now is....she's pulling away from us. Putting up her walls. Assuming command. So she can send us to our deaths for the good of the team. There's a reason why they say it's lonely at the top. Or," I added. "She's walling herself off so it'll hurt less when she jumps ship and runs. Right now, I'm not sure she knows which way it's going."

I rubbed my eyes and sighed, listening to the drone of the insects audible even this deep into the Gift, tracking the sweat running down my back and sides in morbid disgust.

"I've seen it before, Joshua. People who, to keep the job from tearing them apart, just go remote. Make it so nothing touches them. They think they're doing themselves a favor, but they're not. When they've got nothing inside but themselves, they either go crazy for the lack of company and try to kill it with booze or drugs, or they go the opposite direction and start doing reckless shit to kickstart their feelings again. I'd like to save her from that if I could."

 ***

He looked at Rina, his face growing more serious, even as his hands kept busy moving the pan of pine nuts. "I understand what you're saying, Rina. And I'm happy to keep an eye on her. But..." and he put up a single finger of warning. "Like I told Arden earlier today, these have been the first quiet moments since the Decatur. Quiet means time to reflect, to finally take in what happened. She needs time to grieve, to rebuild her shattered defenses." Joshua, perhaps more than most, understood how painful it could be to be emotionally raw, with no defenses.

He shrugged. "If she stays, maybe she'll build those defenses too high and we'll be forced to help tear them down some. If she chooses to run, we can't stop her - forcing her to stay where she doesn't want to be can never work." Another thing that Joshua was intimately familiar with. "But either way, she needs some space right now."

He turned back to the stove as he removed the pan and poured the now lightly browned pine nuts into a bowl. His voice lowered to an almost inaudible whisper. "Sometimes you have to go into those dark places so you learn not to go back there again. We can be her friends and hold a light for her to show the way back. But I'm not sure it's our place to keep her from going there."

 ***

I thought back to the few times I'd been lost in the dark and realized I'd been lucky in my sign posts back to civilization. Mike. Christian. Joshua. But then, I hadn't been running away but had been looking for the road back.

"Just...help me keep an eye on her?" I answered lamely. I wasn't able to challenge or refute Joshua's reasons as he'd given them, but I wasn't going to let the matter slide, either. "Whether we like it or not—whether she likes it or not—we need her present and whole because we need her as Captain. If all we were doing was running cargo, a looser command structure would suit. But we're not just running cargo, Joshua. And it's for those jobs, or those aspects of our job, that we need a Captain. She may not have realized it before, but she's been Captain for a while now and I think her head's just caught up with it."

I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter.

"Like I said, help me keep an eye on her?"

 ***

"I said I would, didn't I?" Joshua pulled the can opener from the drawer and opened the can of corn, pouring its contents into the already warm pan. "But it'll be from a distance. I'm not arguing with you that we need her as Captain. Me especially. I've been pushing her that way since I came on board. But if we get too close now, we'll push her away."

He shrugged again as he put the pan back on the stove. "I might be wrong. I'm not Christian, not a Companion. But I go by what I believe since that is all I have," he said calmly.

 ***

I stood behind him and put my hands on his hips and my chin on his shoulder, standing on tiptoe to do it.

"I can remember a time when my beliefs were all I had, when I couldn't even claim my body as my own, and they got me through it. I've never demanded you to go against your beliefs, Joshua. I might have asked you to define them a little, but break them? No. And if I do, tell me."

 ***


"I didn't mean to imply..." Ah hell. Joshua turned around and held her close for a minute. He kissed her softly on the cheek and then ever so briefly on the lips. "I know you would never ask me to do that." He turned slightly to the side, keeping his left arm around her as he used his right hand to move the pan and keep the corn from burning. "I'm just a little scared, honestly. Lately I seem to be attempting emotional surgery without the necessary skill set. I don't want to end up accidentally giving someone the metaphorical lobotomy. Just more responsibility than I deserve to be holding, perhaps."

"But," he continued slowly, "if it is the choice between being a poor substitute for a Companion or letting a friend drift away, it's not really a choice at all."

 ***

He tasted of salt and smelled faintly of pine, and when he pulled away, it didn't draw me out of my skin as before. Maybe his arm around my waist had something to do with it. Maybe. It was a wet weight against my sweaty back and as much as I loved his touch, the squick quickly became too much. I eased gently out from under him and fished around in the utensil drawer for the tongs. He needed both hands for the cooking anyway.

"Not much of a choice at all, no," I agreed, picking up the interrupted thread of our conversation. “As for lacking the necessary skill set, I think you already have everything you need--sensitivity and common sense. Speaking of which..." I found the tongs and laid them athwart the salad bowl. "Have you given any further thought to what we discussed two nights ago? About determining you range, your defensive and offensive capabilities?"

 ***

Joshua nodded quickly. "Oh yes, for sure."

He looked over everything, checking to make sure they had all the pieces. Looks good, he thought. "You want to take that out to the table while I go call people into dinner?"

 ***

"On it," I said and gave him a nudge with my hip as he leaned over to check the tray I held. "Go yodel them in. The food's getting hot."

I slid the tray off the counter and got going.

 ***



Since this season turned out to be RP heavy, it's only fair to include the link to everyone's efforts.

Go back to Clarion | Skip to Whispers.
Go to Peripatetica - Rina's Journal entry and RP log
Go to Rina's Russian Glossary
Go to Rina's Crew Page
Go to EPISODES or TIMELINE