driftfleet | Twin Roses Mingle

[He's a little curious about the ring, but of course it's from Winn and maybe Kitty still feels bad or self-conscious about talking too much about Winn in Chekov's direction. If she wants to talk about him, surely she knows that he'll listen.]

Is there anything that you need right now?

[Winn.] This. I need this. [A friend. Support. Comfort. Being held.]

Winn would sing to me. He had a great voice.

...I sound like a child.

[He'd make Winn come back if he could, sure, but keep the requests possible for now!]

Since I do not, I can't in good conscience offer to do that.

Even if you do, [and he doesn't think that she does] I think that you're allowed. Needing time to be sad because someone you love has left doesn't make you any less brave or strong.

I should get better with practice. Not worse. [In a way she is getting better. She's feeling her feelings. She's not trying to escape them at least not to any large extent. But in her mind "better" is being unaffected somehow even though she'd never expect or even want that for others.]

You are getting better. [Not that he's an expert in Kitty having her heart broken. This just seems like an improvement over burning down a bar or inviting death-by-raptor.] Although I wish that you didn't have so much practice.

Same goes for you. [Not that he's ever seemed like he needed to get better. He's been pretty on top of his game. But she knows he's left a lot of worlds to be here now.]

[His kneejerk reaction is to deny that he has had practice with anything as painful as Kitty's string of losses, but that would not be productive. Or true, really, since Pavel has lost people. This is just the first time that he hasn't felt like he was capable of coping fairly gracefully. Something about the combination of half of the Enterprise's crew dying, losing a version of Kitty who could love him the way he loves her, and leaving another world that was starting to feel homey all in short order has affected him like no other previous loss.

So maybe they have both done a lot more practicing than anyone would wish for.]

Then it's decided: we should both stop practicing. We will see if the universe agrees.

Odds are it will eventually, right? Seems like now is as good a time as any to be eventually. [She yawns, betraying how tired she is and how little she's slept since he's been gone.]

Maybe. [Probably not.] Now is as good a time as any to be asleep, too. Will you be able to rest?

There's a first time for everything. [it's not a no?]

Okay, I will rephrase. Would you like to try to sleep and, if so, is there anything that I can do to increase your odds of success?

Frying pan or rolling pin to the head always seemed to work in the cartoons. [She's quiet for a moment telling herself not to ask the thing she's about to ask.] Stay?

Hitting you in the head with a blunt object is one of the very few things that I won't do for you, I'm sorry. [Staying here now might belong on that list too, but she does usually sleep better with someone close and he does want to be here.] Okay. I can do that.

I'd probably end up phasing even if you tried. [She's not sure how to feel when he agrees to stay. She shouldn't have asked. Shouldn't have put him in this position. But she's also grateful for it. She wants him to stay.] Then you'd hit your knee or something.

See? It would be ineffective, rude, and potentially hazardous to my well-being. All the more reason for me to never try. [If he doesn't mind, then she has no reason to regret her decision to ask him to stay. Right?]

[She won't regret it. Not unless Winn returns and hears she did this within a few nights of him being gone and can't forgive her or can, but is still deeply hurt.

It's familiar in a way. A week after Reid disappeared on the night he should have returned—and in fact did return, but didn't contact her—she was so overcome with grief and pain that she went to Tyki's bar of all places. She got drunk until she thought she wouldn't be able to feel it anymore, but it never left. It just got a little blurred, but the anguish still clung to her. He stopped her before she could black it out completely. He carried her back to his place and then the villain of the story just held her and nothing else as she sobbed against him. And the next day she woke up to a message from Reid wanting to see her. Spending that night with Tyki wasn't what splinted them and kept them from ever being happy together again just like him avoiding her that day hadn't been the tipping point. There were so many fractures that added up and a resentment that grew in the profiler she never felt. Not in her timeline.

But right now she's not reflecting on these past choices. She's not thinking ahead to what kind of story she wants to be able to tell a returning Winn. This is survival. This is getting from one moment to the next. And right now the thing that feels like it has the best shot of getting her to the next moment is being with someone she trusts like Chekov.]

You're too smart for that. Too much Star Fleet training.

[Yeah, okay, true. Having Winn learn that Kitty slept in the arms of the man who's in love with her shortly after his disappearance could lead to some complications, and Chekov doesn't want to complicate things for her. Her past relationships have been complicated enough; she doesn't need more of that.

But then... how can he want to put distance between them when this is the first time since he's come to the Fleet that he's felt needed?]

Too well-trained, maybe. Not too smart. [Really, there are ways in which he's not that bright.]

[So, she finally helped him by falling apart? Couldn't she have just made him pancakes or something?]

You're an actual child genius. Are you trying to ruin the curve for the others?

[Skipping this falling apart thing and doing pancakes instead would've been way more helpful! A momentary sense of purpose isn't that helpful at all when it involves Kitty being heartbroken. He can't do anything to make it better. He can't give her the person she actually wants because that person isn't him; he's just someone familiar to hold on to until Winn comes back or her heart stops hurting.

Which is definitely a way of feeling needed.]

Was. Now I'm an adult in a universe where almost everyone else is also a genius, including you.

[This helps. This is comforting. She's not alone even if it feels like there's a huge Winn-shaped hole inside. There's not though. It's still full of love.]

Do you think that's as annoying as I do? Especially when most of you have had all the schooling?

Yes, I think it's very annoying that there are so many geniuses. It always disappoints me to not be the only one. [Clearly teasing. But more seriously:] I hope that you don't worry that you are less of a genius.

I spent so much time training my body and improving my fighting skills and my control over my powers. I studied too. I read everything I could find. I learned languages when I could. I fixed computers and cars and jets and created devices to capture power sources while the grid was down. But all of that was a hobby or survival. I'd always wanted to go to college. I was supposed to go early. Not early enough.

...I liked that I could take some advanced classes at the prison like Reid's.

The things that you know are no less valuable because they were learned out of necessity or on your own instead of in a class. You can't measure genius in the amount of time that you spent in school learning.

What would you want to learn, if classes were offered here?

I know, but if there is a genius who did do all the education then you can see why I might feel a little outclassed? Especially here with the augment. I mean, I think it's holding me back from things, but what if that's just me?

Mm...classes... The sciences. Engineering. I've been doing a lot of physics studying since I got here.

I understand it, yes... sometimes with Dr. Reid I felt that way. [There were other and more significant ways in which he felt outclassed by Reid, but that's neither here nor there.] It isn't just you. You are a genius and clever in ways that you don't realize, and if you decide that it is just you and not the augment? Then I will need to accept that my limitations are just me, too, and I know that you don't want that for me.

If you think that I know anything you would like to learn... I like teaching. Or I think I would. It was what I was doing in the prison that time we were twenty years ahead.

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