#cptnpike:asks

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @storytelers said, ❝ however, you are quite right. let me be more specific. a door ran into me. ❞

disapproval had stilled the light touch of fingers beside the bruising upon his brow, and self-satisfied though he may be at the explanation turned on its head, now she drops her hand to fold her arms before her. ❛ and you allowed it? considering that of you and the door, only you have agency over your movements... the responsibility to avoid a collision would still seem to return to you. ❜

and really, she thinks, to hit one's head against a door — or permit a door to run into one's head — adds an extra level of indignity to the whole proceedings. ❛ what could you possibly have been doing to run into a door? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ve1ljumpers said, ❝ and if you dont think i miss you everyday - ❞

they work by lamplight — or perhaps its better to say that she works by lamplight while they carry on a conversation far too weighed down with undertones to be truly called idle. though he would rather hear of her, she sidesteps any mention of her assignments over the past months and instead draws from him tales from enterprise, of the people to whom she'll never speak again. she knows the big picture already, has tracked their missions, personnel changes, and the like, but it's a far cry from having a finger on the pulse of the ship's heartbeat. the day to day life of the ship was as closed to her as her life has been to him.

the statement is no louder than the rest of his words, yet it yanks her attention sharply from the work before her. shoulders stiffen, head lifts from the padd over which she had poured half her attention, and for the length of nine heartbeats ( she counts ) time seems to freeze. she drops her gaze. ❛ you weren't supposed to. ❜

the words, though barely audible, carry an apology. there was always going to be an adjustment, of course, though he was accustomed to brief interludes of her absence — weeks to a month, rarely longer, while she offered her assistance to starfleet intelligence. this needn't have been so very different, save that she would not be returning. there would be an adjustment, and then ship and crew and captain would settle into a new normal, one that did not include her.

or so she'd figured in all her calculations.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ve1ljumpers said, ❝ you strike me as sneaky. ❞ ( regency!pike )

❛ sneaky implies doing something underhand while striving to avoid detection. ❜ though at face value, the words are mere observation, her tone implies that it is rather a protest: she does nothing of the sort. listening, after all — at least when not done surreptitiously by listening around corners or through closed doors — is scarcely either underhand or furtive. nor is being circumspect in her own words. and as for all her science, work which might well belong in the shadows to avoid the scorn of society, she has never taken pains to conceal it. if few know the extent of it, that's merely because they neither ask nor permit her to speak of it.

there's nothing sneaky to it at all.

despite the protest, however, it strikes her that in a way, his description, while apparently unsuited, is simultaneously more perceptive than any of the many accusatory adjectives, at face value more accurate, assigned to her by so many over the years.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ve1ljumpers said, ❝ don't you think you're overthinking things? ❞

❛ overthinking things is spending over two minutes deliberating on the dress with which cut or out of which fabric one ought to wear.  or whether one ought first to call on which individual of one's acquaintance to best position oneself. ❜    she nearly shudders at the thought,  for she'd heard such fruitless,  pointless deliberations from too many of her acquaintances on too many occasions. 

this — ascertaining from the temperature,  cloud cover,  humidity,  and so on just high high the probability of rain,  and how low the probability that the clouds in question would give way to — was something different entirely.  this was science.  or at least a necessary precursor to science,  as she sought to determine whether a walk in the park could be more than a stroll,  and permit the collecting of scientific data,  or if really she ought to at last relinquish the plans to which she stubbornly clung.  

for,  admittedly,  any sane member of london society  ( taking 'sane' as defined by those same vacuous acquaintances )  would have written off any outside activity at the moment they first noticed the absence of the sun this morning.  in that sense,  if one defines overthinking as putting great thought into something others would not bother to allot more than a moment's consideration,  then his description would be apt. 

but it would be quiet,  few others daring to venture outside,  and being quiet,  she would be spared the demands of politeness — spared the interruptions caused by greetings and inane small talk.

una at last draws the parlor window closed,  latching it against the impending weather — and the damp chill — outside.    ❛ I intend to dare it. ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ve1ljumpers said, ❝ i could have made you prouder. i should have made you prouder. ❞

his humor ought to make it easier to breathe,  ought to reset them to square one,  as if the past hours had never transpired.  they had transpired,  though,  and her ribcage still refuses to expand to allow unrestricted breathing,  the tension in her jaw which has run aching tendrils up into her skull still refuses to ebb.  her tone is acerbically crisp as she agrees,    ❛ yes,  you should have.  starting by not dying. ❜

by the measure of others,  it's scarcely a greeting.  no hellos,  no I'm glad you're not deads,  no are you okays.  not even an I'm sorry.  but this is them,  and none of that is a surprise.

it's not about being proud,  but she needs one thing of him — one — and he's failed in it.  no reminders that it wasn't as bad as it could have been would satisfy:  that it wasn't permanent did not erase that,  technically speaking,  he'd been dead for several minutes.  m'benga had already tried such futile reassurances before permitting her to see him,  fearing perhaps that she would reverse all his hard-won efforts.

maybe in the immediate aftermath,  had she been at his side when the doctor revived him,  when he regained consciousness,  had she not had a ship and crew to tend to and an incident to resolve,  she might have.  as it is,  necessity had forced her to maintained an iron grip on a level head long enough to get them all  ( rather,  get the rest of them )  safely out of danger. she still clung to it now.

❛ was that really so much to ask? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ you really think I would try that? again? ❞

the better question in this moment, una thinks, is does he really need to ask? her lips part to offer a reminder that his record indicates that, yes, he would try precisely such a thing, but he stays that argument by adding that one, last, wry word. ❛ considering that you have to specify 'again'... ❜ as she often does, una lets the end of her sentence remain mere implication: having considered it a reasonable plan once, he had forfeited any right to indignation.

❛ I do not trust that you did, in fact, learn your lesson the last time. or that you would not decide to test whether I might, assuming you would not attempt something so ridiculous again, let my guard down. ❜ the latter possibility comes accompanied by the slightest mock-suspicious narrowing of her eyes.

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ oh, and i mean this with the intention of kissing you goodnight at the end of it. think about it. ❞

the past few weeks have done much to counter the limbo of the preceding months — of a ship out of commission, of his temporary reassignment, of his prolonged near silence. a silence that she still does not know what to make of, yet chooses to let disappear unquestioned into the past. after all, they are both back on enterprise where they belong, and thus the world back on its axis.

— that is, until he follows a perfectly normal ( or so it seemed ) invitation to dinner with... that, preempting the easy agreement already upon her tongue.

una can't name the series of emotions that she knows write themselves across her features before she has a hope of wrangling them — along with her thoughts — into any semblance of her accustomed discipline. each is too fleeting for her to grasp, blending as a whole into vague disorientation.

they've crossed into some alternate reality ( unlikely ), or she's misheard him ( she knows she hasn't ), or... and it isn't that she's never thought — but all of that she's — and is this more out of place after the preceding months or after a decade... though, really, that's irrelevant because even if — but, no, it's not an if. she knows it to not be a joke, knows the humor he employs when he seeks to provoke her, and there's not a trace of it — she cannot begin to put to words, even in her own mind, all the ways in which...

but she cannot just stand there looking — well, stunned, she's sure. ❛ I... ❜ she begins, but she doesn't know where that sentence goes. tries again — ❛ chris, what... ❜ — but that's no better. those unidentifiable emotions wrest control of her expression from her once more, and she draws a steadying breath. then, with something that's almost a laugh ( as much bewildered as amused ), she finally manages, voice softer now, ❛ where did this come from? ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @cptnpike said, ❝ it was very wicked. ❞

ultimately, una is not certain that the object of the ( supposedly ) injudicious remark she had made the previous evening fully comprehended the half of what her words conveyed. still, he had possessed enough awareness to recognize that there was something subtle in her carefully worded remark at which he ought to take offense.

❛ it was perfectly truthful, and someone had to say something. why should it not be me? ❜ she knows why it should not be her, of course. she knows why, but it's a stupid reason she therefore chooses to dismiss. even if one assumed she had not known at the time ( and it would be far too generous an assumption ), it has been made excessively clear to her — repeatedly — since, and una has no doubt she has yet to hear the end of it. she would bristle more at this newest accusation if it sounded, well, more accusatory and less amused.