Prods & Worries
Andy very kindly let me run this RP with him. Thanks, Andy!--Maer.
Sunday, 05 Jan 2521
Durance class, Equinox
En route to Whitefall
Georgia (Huang Long) system
0630 hrs, ships time
Thanks to the ruckus of the wee hours, there was no going back to bed and getting any rest. So I found myself hours later in the galley getting a jump on the breakfast prep. Our engines were back online, the lights and everything more or less back on and having the excess energy that interrupted sleep sometimes inflicted on me, I decided to work some of it off with a flurry of chopping. The menu plan on the fridge stated omelets were scheduled and knowing Joshua loved cooking them to order, I reckoned I might as well get the ingredients ready.
I grabbed the eggs and put them aside on the counter to warm to room temperature, then went back to the fridge for the rest of the fixings. We had a free standing floor model, six feet high and over a yard wide, and a separate freezer of equal size in our new galley. Joshua had done an amazing job stocking them. I pulled the fridge door open and heard his step behind me as I got the veggies.
"Hey," I said, head and shoulders into the fridge. "You think they'll want cilantro as a garnish? Or should we just stick to the green onion?" God it sounded lame, but after last night a little inanity seemed preferable to the macabre.
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"Green onion," he said quietly. He stepped beside her and pulled out a knife from the knife rack to use in chopping. It wasn't a great knife - he would have killed for a good chef's knife, but the credits were tight. Besides, it technically wasn't his kitchen, since Kiera was now officially the steward. "Cilantro is hit and miss. Everyone likes green onions."
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I grabbed the onions and added bell peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms to the colander I’d brought over for the purpose, then joined him at the prep counter. Damn. There’s enough room in here for two people to work without bumping into each other. Not that it wouldn’t be nice …
“True enough. It’s that rusty nail flavor that most don’t like. I don’t mind it myself,” I said as I rinsed the veggies. “Especially if the food’s drowning in cheese.” I shook the colander to make it drain faster and put the whole kit and caboodle where we could both reach it. Grabbing another knife and chopping board, I got started on the peppers. “Strips, rings, or diced?”
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"Surprise me," he said in a bit of a monotone. Joshua just couldn't muster up the energy at the moment to care terribly about the shape of the peppers. It had been a long night (morning?).
Suck it up, soldier. He could hear Faria's voice in his head, that slightly gravelly commander's tone reminding him that navel gazing and internal whining about his energy level wasn't called for. Especially not from someone who wanted to be a captain someday. Joshua straightened up a little and started paying attention to what he was doing with the green onions.
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I glanced up at his tone, startled. I swept him with a look. He seemed tired—no surprise there—and the vibe off him was odd. Fatigue and ... frustration?
"Okay." Challenged by his tone, I tossed a pepper and skewered it on the point of my knife before driving it home on the chopping board. The pepper halves rocked gently to either side of my blade and I grabbed another pepper to toss.
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"Pepper halves it is then. Going to be an interesting fit in the omelettes." He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.
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There you are.
“Who says I’m stopping there?” I grinned at him and tossed that pepper. I got it halved and soon had the peppers seeded and diced with my knife, working them first into strips then cutting them crosswise with a steady rhythm. There was something viscerally satisfying in reducing something into tiny bits with a blade and food prep was infinitely more acceptable—and accessible—than the alternative. Not that I had any trouble picturing the alternative. I looked up at him as I scraped the diced peppers into a bowl and reached for the mushrooms. “Of course, poached eggs in pepper cups might be interesting.”
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"Interesting, yes." He shrugged a little. "Appreciated? Probably not. I know it is a short trip, but we shouldn't set the standards high for Kiera." She was still learning, after all. And after dealing with Mr. Grab Ass down in the cargo hold, she probably didn't want to hear complaints about how lunch wasn't as fancy as breakfast.
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"Speaking of whom," I said, glad for the opening. "What happened in the cargo hold? It was too dark for me to see. And as to it being too dark, I'm sorry about that. I'm still chasing down why the emergency lights didn't come on. They're supposed to be off the main power circuit, run on batteries. But getting back to the subject, what happened?"
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"It was nothing. I overstepped my bounds." Not used to giving up steward yet, it seemed.
He finished chopping the green onions and slid the full bowl aside. A tomato was the next easy thing in reach. "The salesman down there was getting a little grabby," Joshua said, putting the tomato on his board and chopping with a practiced hand, "and I told him to back off. You have to be firm or the passengers will walk all over you. But that was Kiera's call to make and I shouldn't have said anything."
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"And would you have held off if it had been me down there, instead of her? Or Nika?" Personally, I didn't see anything overreaching with his reaction but then again, my reaction to that kind of thing wasn't what you'd call normal. "Had I been in your shoes, I'd've snapped the pervert's hand off at the wrist and shoved it down his throat."
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"Well, that would be bad for business, for one thing," he replied, taking her comment calmly, not even breaking his chopping rhythm. "For another, you and Nika can handle yourselves, and so can Kiera. And even beyond that, it is her job as steward to handle the passengers. Me stepping in there would be like me telling you how to fix the engine. You have a job and I trust you to do it."
Not that he expected to have to worry about it again. He'd say something to Kiera about not having to put it up with it, even if they were paying passengers. The line needed to be drawn.
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"True. There's a reason why I'm not the steward." Something still felt off, something I couldn't put my finger on. If I kept him talking, maybe it would come to the surface and I could get a grip on it. I paid attention to my chopping for a beat. Then, "Although if you'd noticed I was about to do something stupid with the engine, I fully expect you to speak up before I killed us all doing it. You know that, right?"
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He nodded as he slid the results of one tomato into a bowl and reached for another. "Assuming I knew enough to know what you were doing was stupid." He stopped chopping long enough to shrug. "But I trust you, both as XO and as your fiancé. I know you wouldn't get us killed."
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And thus he lobbed the ball back into my court, a high one that made me rush to the net before it could hit the ground.
"I'm not perfect. And I'm trusting you as my XO to say something. And as your fiancée, I would hope you'd tell me if something was bothering you, because wife or not, I'd want to help." I grabbed a bowl to sweep the mushrooms into and put them next to the peppers. "What happened last night? When you were dreaming. Your reaction in the hold must have been you coming down off of that nightmare, right? It's not like you to fly off the handle over a little groping. That's my purview."
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"I don't think I flew off the handle." Joshua smoothly dodged the issue of the nightmare. "A firm reprimand, that's all."
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"I stand corrected." I left the tomatoes to him and rinsed off my cutting board and knife. I hated it when he chose to dodge the issue under discussion. If I pried into his personal business, it wasn't on a whim but for a compelling reason. As a Reader, Joshua was sensitive to things that most others were not and if there was something on this ship affecting him that badly, I wanted to know about it. Yanking a clean towel free of its clip, I wiped my blade dry. "You saying you weren't rattled by that nightmare? I know I was."
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"No, love." Joshua's voice raised slightly as he turned to face Rina head on. He firmly placed the knife down on the counter with a bit of a louder ring than he intended. "I'm saying that I was extremely rattled by that nightmare and would like to leave it in the dark where it belongs. It's done, another pleasant leave-behind of the Blue Sun Corporation, may our corporate overlords be forever blessed for their generosity."
He appreciated her concern but he wasn't ready now to talk about that dream. Just like it had been with him forgiving Kiera, she wanted to push him to do things at her pace. And just like on Boros, Joshua was not willing to give in for the sake of peace.
At least not yet.
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That set my temper flaring and my grip on my knife tightened as I tried to keep my emotions from getting the upper hand. I carefully stowed the knife in the block and clipped the towel over the sink to dry.
"Do you need to sleep alone? If you think it'll help, I can doss down somewhere else. My being proddy over this can't be helping."
Might as well call it as I see it.
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He opened his mouth and then shut it again. He did this again one more time as he struggled to figure out how to respond. So much for their cabin being a place of peace and comfort. "So, because I have a horrible nightmare that I'm not ready to talk about, my reward is getting to sleep alone?"
This day just keeps getting better and better.
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"I'd rather it wasn't. I'd rather offer you comfort where I can. But do you want it? I know I promised not to bring ugliness into our cabin and that's why I brought this up here instead of in our quarters." I sighed and backed off. "I'm your wife in everything but law and I want to do something about this. But if you want me to drop it, I will. Just ... don't shut me out, okay?"
His rebuff hurt but I knew I'd hit the wall with him. I gave him my back and pulled a bowl for the eggs to give him the space to respond without having to look at me. Or not.
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"You provide comfort just in being there, in letting me know that when I awake, the arms of someone I love will be around me." He put his hand on her shoulder and gently turned her around to face him. Arguments should be face-to-face, he thought as he looked into her eyes.
She's never going to believe I'm saying this, but here goes...
"Sometimes, talking isn't the solution. And just because I'm not ready or not wanting to talk about something right away....that doesn't mean I want to shut you out. I just need some time to process upon occasion."
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His touch assured me that I hadn't blundered as badly as I feared and I put the bowl aside so I could hold him. "Okay," I said into his shirt. "Didn't mean to be dense. I just ... worry too much, think too much. Hell, talk too much. I wasn't always like this." I looked up at him then with a rueful grimace and gave him a light squeeze to emphasize my meaning. "Time was, you couldn't pry anything out of me beyond a hello or a thank you. Now I can't stop talking. I'll keep what you said in mind but don't be stingy with the clue bat if I forget, okay?"
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Joshua nodded as he held her closer. "Some things I need to try and handle on my own, to make sure I can stand on my own two feet. But when they get too big for me, you know you'll be the first one I come to." And he leaned down and gave her a long kiss to make sure she knew he meant it.
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I tipped my face to his, expecting a light kiss. His lips and his hands, however, pressed closer, went farther, and a warm tingle flowed up my spine as I relaxed and let him in.
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He let the kiss linger as his hands ran up her spine slowly. It felt so nice. But duty called.
Joshua took a deep breath and then let Rina go slowly, looking at her and at the counter full of prepped food. "If we're going to take the job, we have to finish the job. Eggs call with their siren song."
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I clutched his back, then let my fingers trail off him as I stepped away. Still necking in the galley. Nice to know some things haven't changed. I reached for the eggs.
"Let's get crackin'."
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Go to Joshua's Crew Page or Marina's Crew Page
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Go to Timeline, Season Five, Jan 2522 to Aug 2522
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