a_shadow | Savrou IC Contact

"Before we go, I really think it would be a good idea to wrap these in something."

He glances around, then pulls the blanket off of the bed that doesn't currently have an owner, then sets it between the grenades so they won't shift and knock against each other.

"All right."

He precedes her out of the room, not particularly happy to be carrying the box. His mouth is a straight line, but not a tight one.

Tex isn't as concerned, though what he's done is sensible. So she doesn't comment on it, simply comes to his side after he gets through the door and walks alongside him to the nearest airlock. It's some way, but she's more capable of walking distances now, even if she does need the assistance of a cane.

Once they arrive she keys the control to the inner airlock door to open it. "You just have to set that in there and then we reverse the doors," she says. A quick and easy solution to their problem.

He nods, removing the blanket, then setting the box inside. The expression on his face is complicated: watchful, a little unhappy, also a little curious.

She doesn't notice his expression right away—first she toggles the door closed. Then she glances over at him as she begins the sequence to open the outside door. This is a bit complicated, but only in that the system requires that the doors both be closed before that one can open. "It's okay, Daniel," she says as she works at changing the orientation of the switches. "This is the best solution to the situation."

"It is," he agrees. "It's only that I'm worried that the change in pressure will somehow... well. If there were an accident in this situation, it would probably be catastrophic. Better that they're off the ship, though, even if it's unlikely that they're live."

He'll look more relaxed once they're really gone.

Which they are, moments later. She closes the hatch again and goes over to him. "You've been really helpful to me lately," she says, acknowledging not only this but his help on the minicolony earlier in the month when they retrieved the AI units. "I guess I don't say it much, but thank you."

He nods; his relief allows a tiny smile to make its way to his face.

Reaching out to take her hand, he says, "Thanks aren't necessary, but still... you're welcome, Allison."

He has been helpful. It's a combination of following her cues and attempting to perform the role of "good boyfriend," one that wouldn't come naturally if he didn't put some thought into it, into doing it intentionally. It would be easy to bury himself in his new job, never leave the Tower. But the thought of her pulls him out of that a little, enough to divert some of his attention.

Her reaction is odd; she takes his hand, but she grips it too hard.

"Don't," she says. "I know I gave you permission before but just don't...don't call me that. Call me Tex."

It's weird, it had seemed before that hearing Allison's name in his accent made it okay, but now all she can think about is the Director calling out that name, causing it to echo amongst the AIs and their agents. Allison, Allison, Allison. She knows it's her name but it's not hers in the way Texas is. It will always belong to the shadow of the Director's lost love and so it means death and destruction to all the people that the Project touched.

Tex doesn't realize she's actually blanched. She's usually strong in the face of such things, but this evening everything has come down on her fast and hard and she can't help the physical reaction she's having. She sort of feels light-headed, thus why she's holding on so hard. She pulls his hand to her chest and tries to settle herself, gripping her cane just as hard.

It's easy for him to see that she's distressed -- pale and unsettled -- and he responds with a searching, perplexed, perturbed look.

The way she's gripping his hand means that her request is unlikely to be the result of something he's done. Timing suggests that it's probably something to do with the mail delivery, and she hadn't seemed too concerned about the grenades... she'd been pleased about the clothing. The only part of the delivery that she'd been unhappy with was the hat. But what the connection is between the two things, particularly for an A.I., he can't say. Maybe something has been building for a while, as she regains her strength, and some small element of what's happened in the past fifteen or twenty minutes finally got her to the breaking point.

What, though?

She hasn't told him to leave; she's merely asked for him to call her something else. That's not too difficult, although he thinks of her as Allison... when he thinks of her as he falls asleep, he thinks of Allison, what Allison will like, whether or not he can make Allison smile. More than anyone else, though, he knows that a different name does not make someone a different person.

"I'll call you whatever you want me to call you," he replies quietly. "Tex. Are you all right?"

Tex's tendency is ignore it when she's off-kilter like this—she just grits her teeth and moves on, regardless of the physical reaction going on. Being questioned directly like this makes that harder. She's hanging on to him as if for dear life; she's far beyond hiding the fact that this is bothering her. She takes a slow breath and rolls her eyes upward for a second before forcing herself to soften her grip on him.

"It's okay," she says. "It'll be okay." It's one of those, anyway. She sighs and lowers his hand to her side, not really seeming prepared to let go. She's not really a fan of walking hand-in-hand but maybe she'll just hold on for a few moments longer before preparing to return to her room.

She had meant to treat the reminder of Allison that came via the hat as matter-of-factly as she treated the reminders of her own failures that came via the grenades. It wasn't that simple though—she should know that already just by her decision to put the hat away with the doll. She had thought it would be easy to space the doll once, and look how she failed at carrying through with that.

So she stands there, holding on to his hand with her head turned to the side, away from him, and if someone didn't know her better they'd wonder if she was trying to prevent herself from crying or what. It's not that, though—the only time Tex has ever cried was when she was hashing things out with Wash at the beach party on the planet where they ended up having sex. It wasn't like her then and it wouldn't be like her now. But quiet contemplation isn't beyond her at times, and she holds that pose for a few moments longer before she draws another breath, turning her head back toward him.

"Let's go back," she says. She deliberately releases his hand and starts for her room again.

She doesn't like to be seen as weak, nor does she like to be forced into a position of weakness. It's something he's been aware of for a while, and he's wondered if their relationship will end when she's fully back on her feet -- if she'll see it as a reminder of a bad passage of time where she wasn't herself.

He understands it because he doesn't like it either. Not necessarily weakness, physical vulnerability, but being too emotionally tangled in his past. It's part of why he'd wound up here with her: he'd left the party with her rather than trying to leave it with Darcy, because there was too much meaning and too much failure there.

And he watches her as she folds her disquiet back up into herself, holding his hand and eventually letting it go.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go to my room?"

She studies him for a moment, her mouth changing shape to a wry smirk. She remembers him talking about his room, how it has a completely different feel from hers, different beds and such. And though there are practical considerations for why he might be suggesting this relating to the way she feels about that hat being in her drawer, it's true that it seems like he's wanted for her to come for a visit for some time.

"You can't resist showing me, can you?" she says. "All right. Let's do it."

"It isn't very exciting. In fact, I'll probably be moving soon."

Nonetheless, he begins to steer their path in the direction of a lift.

"Have you ever seen a movie set on a sailing ship?"

It occurs to him that maybe she's never seen a movie at all -- or not many, at least. That might set them about even, if they hadn't been almost inescapable in his world. He's seen things, but less than people would expect, because he'd have been a hopeless detective if he'd been that ignorant of the culture around him... people don't act in a vacuum.

She falls into step alongside him as they make their way. "I've never seen a movie," she says. "I know they have facilities here on board where we could watch things but I've never felt the undying need."

He pauses, contemplative, before responding to her, but continues to move towards the lift.

"Never? I think a lot of them would bore you, to be honest. I could see if the robots still have the Muppet movies, however... how do you feel about puppets?" A beat, and then he adds, in a less serious tone, "They're made for children. No, you'd be more likely to enjoy something like The Seven Samurai."

At the lift, he presses the button, and they're in luck: the doors slide open, and he steps inside.

She's come to appreciate his dry teasing and he manages to bring a chuckle out of her with that change in tone. "I don't know how well I could get into something with fake fighting in it. It'd be like a doctor watching a medical drama—I'd end up dissecting the thing." Of course, she's only making an assumption about the story, based on the title there. Maybe it's something completely different from that.

She follows him onto the lift and stands very near him as the lift begins to move. If they're going to be getting back in the mood for something more physical, it's time to tease a little.

"It isn't particularly about the fighting... and when it is, it's a style you're probably less familiar with. More than anything, I'd consider it a historical drama set in Japan: seven warriors help defend hopelessly outnumbered villagers from bandits. Still, I suppose you could watch Rashomon instead... that's significantly less focused on fighting."

He sees her standing closer and raises her a standing even closer.

"I couldn't even guess what that's about," she says, smirking as he moves closer. "Hey, there," she adds. "Run out of room?"

"It's a very small lift," he drawls. "Small spaces frighten me."

Nothing in his tone indicates that this is the case, because it isn't. And even if it were -- the door slides open. They've only gone down a level.

"I'll tell you about Rashomon later."

A pity, that. She moves away to head out the door. "Well, if only I'd known that earlier," she says. "I could have helped you out more." She's not concerned about the topic of the movie; it's more fun teasing one another for now.

"Oh? How would you have done that?" His eyes are always very wide when he plays innocent like this.

He moves in the direction of his room.

"I would have found a way," she says. She smirks over at him, keeping pace with him. It's good that's she now in this kind of condition where she can travel more of the ship without getting winded. She'd hate for him to be forced to carry her back or something because of being worn out.

"You're very resourceful."

They're at the door of his room now, and he takes note of the fact that there are no deliveries for him. He opens the door.

"After you."

The Nomo cabins are entirely different from the Mero ones. Stacked single beds are built into the wood-panel walls, and there's a long sofa with books shelved in the arms on either end.

One of the upper bunks is curtained.

She notices that he checks his mailbox. That he might have received something as well hadn't occurred to her and she's glad it proved to be empty.

She leads the way in the room and glances around. "It's so weird how different this is," she says. "Which one's yours?"

He points at the curtained upper bunk with his long index finger, his open palm and curled fingers facing her. The curtain itself isn't fully closed.

"Although I suppose you could say all of them do: there's only one roommate right now, and he's never here. But I'm sure, looking around, you can understand why I envied your egg bed. This feels like what I imagine summer camp would feel like, or boarding school... some kind of dormitory situation.

"The bathrooms on this floor aren't as nice as on Mero, I can certainly tell you that."

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