Sweet and Sour (Part Four)

Posted on 29 Apr 2013 @ 8:20pm by Lieutenant Kiri Cho

2,113 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 2, Panne's Quarters
Timeline: MD04: 1940 hours

[Continued]

There was a crash? Kiri hadn't heard anything about that, she'd been completely focused on the data. She wanted to ask, to make sure that Maenad was okay, that Kohl was. It didn't seem that it was something Maenad was open to talking about but, Kiri silenced herself. Looking very worried she blinked away her almost tears, "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," Maenad replied, although the sooner she got to bed was probably the better. "Not at all." She migrated to the living room and carefully sprawled herself out on the couch, putting her legs up. "Come and sit," she said, suggesting for Kiri to sit in one of the living room chairs. "Tell me about your day, instead," she said. "How have you been?"

"Okay," Kiri was a little shaken and uncertain but she did exactly what she was told, taking her glass of wine. After a pause she looked up, "I'm doing better," Repeating a little bit of what she'd said before, "I'm getting used to the other personnel in the department." It was a little tough to start with but checking in on them all was starting to become something she enjoyed.

"Yes," Maenad said toward the ceiling, "but how are you?" She turned her head sideways against the cushion. "Aside from the personnel and work."

Kiri found that something hard to think about let alone vocalise, falling silent for a moment she thought about it, "Busy, worried, hopeful," Details felt more personal than the words and they weren't something she had ever really shared before.

"Why?" she curiously frowned.

Displaying reluctance Kiri answered, "I'm busy with so many things going on, and things I want to do. Worried about what might go wrong and what I don't know about things, hopeful things might get better." Cupping her glass in both hands she took a sip, wasn't this a little one sided?

"Are you all right?" Maenad asked, still frowning. She was hoping for things to get better, which meant to Maenad that things were going badly.

Kiri felt she had talked about some of things that had been worrying her but she hadn't really spelled them out completely. Taking a deep breath she looked up from her glass, "Not bad. I just get lonely sometimes and that makes me sad. There are things I want to be better at that frustrate me, that makes me sad too." Kiri felt very small right now, under the microscope, "I also, still had trouble sleeping, but I think everything is getting better."

"Hm," Maenad acknowledged. "Was dinner any good? I've never cooked any of that before."

"Yes, it was good," Kiri nodded. She'd eaten as much as she could, there was still a bit of cheesecake left but she could get back to that later? Pausing for a moment she was surprised by how gluttonous she was feeling. Moving her fingers around the base of the wine glass she made what was left ripple, "Would you like me to cook next time?" Cooking something for real was a little harder without her own kitchen but Kiri was more than happy to work around that.

"Sure, that would be nice," Maenad thought aloud. She didn't know when they would have time again, but she liked the idea. All this cooking felt rewarding, but the lingering thought that it could all be done in seconds by the replicator was always there.

To Kiri the effort was a way of showing she cared, proving her usefulness. As long as she was useful then the chances were higher that Maenad would be her friend. People didn't make friends with people that didn't have a value to them, she needed to be valuable. Thinking of what she would be cooking with Dawn, then making the connection she asked, "What French food do you like?"

"Hmm," Maenad wondered aloud. That was a tough question she had never really thought about. Did she eat French food, she wondered. She ate mostly standardised foods; sandwiches, soups, salads, noodles, crackers. Did she eat much meat? Maenad frowned, pushing out her lips as she tried to figure out what she normally ate. She ate a lot of chicken, more than any other meat. "Oh," she said. "I do like steak frites," she remembered. "But it's not very good for you, so I don't eat it very much. I can't remember the last time I had it, actually," Maenad came to realise. "Baguettes are nice, et les tartes la crme;." Whenever she started speaking French with English, her accent always. "I like a lot of it, I suppose." With a smile, she added, "Do you?"

"Not really," Kiri couldn't really think of a single time she had eaten something that was decidedly French, "I had a rough idea what it is like, I think." It was a quite different style from Chinese food, much more like the food her mother sometimes cooked from England. It was weightier, had larger single parts of the meal, less spices, more herbs, sometimes.

"What was it?"

"Well, things like different larger pastries cooked a different way, soups that are richer and solid." Kiri was less and less confident with each word, "It's, hard to say." Maybe she shouldn't have said anything at all, it was hard to put it into words.

"Hm," Maenad turned her head. How anyone couldn't like French food, she didn't know. "The French diet is the healthiest in the world. There are fewer instances of heart problems and diet-related cancers in France than anywhere else in the world," she said. She had to be patriotic where patriotism was due. "Oh well," she smiled. "A trip to sickbay and we're fine, so I guess it does not matter what we eat anymore."

To Kiri the idea of eating being unhealthy was eating too much, or not enough, or lacking something but not that one style was better than another. To her it seemed a very strange thing to say, cancer was something mundane and almost as historic as the black death, it was almost the same with heart problems. While she wouldn't want one, hearts could be replaced, they were just a muscle. After a few seconds silence she tried to explain, "Dawn wanted to cook something French with me, um, Coq au vin."

Maenad raised her eyebrows. She would have to meet this Dawn; Kiri seemed to think highly of her. She was thinking of moving in with her, having dinner with her. The whole thing seemed rather strange. "That can be nice, when it's done right," Maenad agreed.

"I hope so," Kiri fiddled with her fingers, "I just haven't really done it before, I don't want to mess it up." To Kiri Dawn was someone her own age that, didn't feel different. Comfortable, like the friends she had back home, before Starfleet.

"Just follow the recipe," Maenad shrugged. "That's what I did today. I think I passed."

"Right," Kiri would try that, but Dawn would be right there, while she knew almost nothing about the French style of cooking. She'd just have to do her best, that was all there was to it.

Maenad, being a Frenchwoman who'd never really assimilated, had to wonder why Kiri, a Chinese girl, had a sudden interest in French cuisine. While Maenad appreciated her own country's recipes, France wasn't particularly well-known for its meals. Deserts and baked goods, wines, but not its meals. And the traditional foods of her culture weren't exactly like Kiri's, either. They were very different. Hadn't Kiri said that she wasn't that fond of French food? "Why coq au vin?" she asked.

"Dawn said it was her favourite," Feeling foolish more than anything Kiri gave out a small sigh, "I just, that you might know something." It was a bit of an assumption but other than Pawlak, Maenad was the only person she knew that might be able to help.

She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. That was a strange favourite food, thought Maenad. She clasped her hands over her stomach and yawned. She sniffed, licked her lips, and slowly exhaled, wondering what time it was.

Being reclined while talking was something also a little strange to Kiri. She knew that Maenad was tired but she also didn't want her to leave yet. Watching her from the rim of the wine glass she gave a small smile, "Have you made friends on the ship?"

Maenad said nothing for several seconds as she wondered how to answer the question. Time ticked away and she realised that she had to say something. "I think so," was her rather cryptic reply.

"That's good," Kiri was getting the feeling that she shouldn't be talking about that either. Maenad didn't have the same problems she did, of course she had friends. Kiri just hadn't seen much of any of that, "The day after tomorrow, at eighteen zero four, do you think you'll be free?" That would be better, something less personal.

That was a strangely exact time, thought Maenad. She blinked, and have Kiri a weird face, trying not to smirk too much. "Probably," she said. "Why?"

"The light from Theros Darga B reaches the ship for the first time, I was going to invite some people to watch it with me." It was a bit of a silly idea but Kiri wanted to spend more time with other people and she didn't feel she had enough good reasons.

"Hm," Maenad said. "Well, remind me and I'll stop by."

"Okay," Kiri smiled a little, it was nice that Maenad was coming. She felt that on a level of understanding when it came to the star that Maenad would know more than anyone. That it might mean more to her, that she'd enjoy it more.

Maenad let out a long and very slow breath, sinking her further into the couch. She was exhausted. "Don't forget to remind me, otherwise I'll forget," Maenad repeated. "I really will."

Kiri made a note to find time, it would only take a few seconds. Or she could just set an appointment reminder on Maenad's schedule, so the computer would remind her a few hours before. In a slightly quieter voice thoughts escaped her, "I think its nice to do things like that."

Maenad didn't reply because she had fallen asleep. After a day of trauma, scoldings, humiliation, and then cooking a meal she'd never even tried to before, she couldn't keep her eyes open. She looked like a dead body; her hands clasped on her stomach, elbows at her sides. Head straight up, chin to the ceiling, eyes closed, and breaths too small to notice.

It took a while for Kiri to notice. Moments of strange silence between the two of them weren't uncommon that evening. After a few more seconds she stood up worried, checking she was okay. Looking concerned Kiri raise her hands to her mouth, it was most likely just sleep. Shifting her weight Kiri moved silently across the room, back towards the table. Placing her glass down she picked up her fork and quickly finished the last of her cheesecake while standing up. Gathering everything up in careful silence she placed it back in the replicator and removed it from existence. Then she slowly she looked around, Maenad's quarters were far nicer and more alive. It would take forever to replicate things for her own room to this extent, then that was part of what her personal work was for.

Tiptoeing towards the bedroom Kiri slipped inside. It felt wrong but it felt worse to just leave. In the dark she gathered the duvet that dwarfed her and a pillow before staggering back into the living room. Casting out the cover she lay it over Maenad, the sofa and a fair bit of the floor. Then she did her best to slide the pillow under her head, though without picking her up it didn't really work. It was her job to look after her department head, and her friends. Not really sure if there was anything else she could or should do Kiri took a deep breath. It had been nice, spending this much time, a meal, she wanted to do it again.

Walking towards the door she blew out the candles, almost dark. With a whisper she looked back, "Computer, lights to zero." The room now dark she stepped out of the door, there was still some time before she went to bed herself.

[OFF]
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Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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