Dinner as a goodbye...

[1stmacleod]

After talking with Jelani in the Nexus, Connor returns to the place he's starting, tentatively, to think of as home base. He tucks the envelope full of money away in his suitcase, and takes roughly two minutes to pack, because he's been living out of it anyway.
Then he goes to the kitchen, and rummages, and gets to work. A chocolate cake comes first, made from scratch. While that's cooling he starts on dinner; chicken breasts stuffed with broccoli and cheese, rice pilaf, a little more steamed broccoli in case what's in the chicken isn't enough.

He has to tell Kairos that he's going back to his world, just long enough to get things in order and talk to Duncan, but he's not sure how long that will be.

After it's over, though, this is where he plans to return to.

Comments

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Thank you sir." She'll leave the bigger one for him, sneakily trying to get more food in him. Once she chooses the smaller chicken breast, she cuts into hers, making neat diamond shapes before spearing one of the pieces of chicken and broccoli with her fork. "Probably. I know you can rent some down by the river during the day." There's an excellent view of the river from the windows in the living room.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Maybe... we could do that, when I get back, then?" He takes the other one obligingly, unaware of her conspiracy.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She smiles across the table at him. "I'd be happy to do whatever you like when you get back."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"I guess I'll have to think about what I want to do, then." He smiles, just a little shyly. "I'll be thinking about it a lot."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"...Me too." Pause. "I think about it now, to be honest." She very carefully pays the utmost attention to the plate in front of her.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

Connor sighs, and rubs his face a little. He hasn't taken a bite of food yet. "It used to be, when I saw a woman I knew I really wanted... I didn't hesitate..." Now he's looking down, too.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"And now, when you see a woman you really want?" She sets her fork down and looks at him.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"I'm afraid I'll put her at risk just by being with her. I know... he's dead, he can't hurt my family anymore, but... it happened, and not just once..." Connor swallows. "He's far from the only enemy I've ever made."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She nods, understanding. "Except in this case, anyway ... I may look like I'm ..easy to hurt, I'm not." To prove this, she manipulates the air, pushing him and the chair a good two feet from the table.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

He almost leaps to his feet, old reflexes kicking in, before he recognizes it's her doing it and not a threat. "I... know that. But everybody's vulnerable somehow."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Mmhm. I could get hit by a car tomorrow, or fall asleep in the bathtub and drown. Nice reflexes, handsome."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

He winces a moment, because the mention of getting hit by a car, like the mention of explosions, triggers some very dark memories. Brenda's death was seven years old by the time everything else happened, though, and he's had time to deal with it. "I know. I'm not... trying to push you away, just... understand that I'm afraid? I'm fighting it." He gives her a pleading look, but doesn't move his chair back to the table yet.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She sighs. "Connor, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rush. After..after the last person I was involved with," sort of, "I really don't want to rush either. I just.. want you to know that it's okay to be afraid.. but not too afraid that you stay away from me." She frowns a little, and suddenly there's a pomegranate scented swirl of wind around him, tugging him closer to her and the table.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

He nods slowly, and looks just a little bemused by the moving chair act, this time. "You could... tell me about him, if you need to talk about it." He's given away a lot more about his family than he ordinarily does, without hearing as much about hers.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She frowns a little bit, pushing her fork around her plate. "I..it makes me look bad, Connor. I did something really bad. Figured I could ... I dunno. Change him if I loved him enough. It didn't work."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"I've done plenty of things I'm not proud of." He shrugs, because he'll willingly tell her some of them, later.
"That's... human. People do that. All the time."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"M'not human, Connor. I didn't tell him I loved him from the second I saw him. He warned me that his people don't date, don't fall in love. They just have friends they care about a lot, and they have sex." She shrugs. "I figured I could love him, and I didn't have to tell him about it. He .. he was really great. Wonderful, really. He helped me realize I have worth and he thought I was pretty." She blushes here. "First friend, first lover, first person to really Defend me outside of my family. And then me and my sister had a huge fight, and I told him. He apologized. He didn't mean to lead me on. And he left me there, right in the middle of the Nexus. It wasn't until later that I realized that I'd been the one in the wrong. I'd been the one assuming that he'd be grateful to have someone love him. So it's really embarrassing to see how much of an idiot I was."

She looks up, blushes. "Rambling. I'm sorry."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure if I count as one, myself, but you know what I mean." He starts to cut into his food, at least. "You think as human as I do... and you are pretty." He sighs, and sets down his silverware again without eating. "I could never blame anybody for falling in love. That's just what people do, and whether it's smart or not be damned."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Sh shrugs a little. "I know. I just figured you should know what you're getting into. My people are supposed to be entirely monogamous. One love, forever. My sister and I are.. odd in more ways than one."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

Connor smiles weakly, looking down at his hands on either side of the plate. "I won't lie to you, when I'm not with anyone... I find the outlets I need," Which is as delicately as he knows how to put what in his head is 'I don't have a problem with prostitutes'. "And I've been married twice... engaged once, after that..." Pain flickers in his expression, but it's a little easier to talk about his personal losses in the abstract. "But when I'm committed to someone, I'm committed. I don't cheat. And I don't abandon."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"I know how regular people work, hon." she says a little dryly. "It's just .. weird to go home knowing that I've been attracted to other men besides Phil. My sister's the same. Had a couple of boyfriends, each one was The One.. that sort of thing. Maybe it's because we've been gone for more than a weekend." Not really. Her cousin Mathias lives in Sanctuary, too, and he's pretty much oath bound himself to his high school sweetheart. "The two guys I've been with? They didn't like labels. Loyal to a fault, but not so much requiring sexual loyalty."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

He nods slowly, and looks up. "I... can deal with that. With you feeling awkward about me, because I'm not the first." Heather was 'the One' for most of his life, and he remembers that being a problem for Brenda, but from the other side of things, he can accept it. "And loyalty isn't loyalty if it only goes partway."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She shrugs. "I wasn't required to be monogamous either. And I wasn't, not really." She rolls her eyes. "Towards the end, there, I had a baby-crush on Phil's co-worker. Nothing happened, but..towards the end, I think I was figuring that ... hell, maybe he wasn't The One. Or maybe he Wasn't The Only One."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

Judging from the way she all but jumped him, a dew nights ago, she's got no problem starting a relationship with him, so he's not concerned about that. "I think... there can be more than one..." He smiles awkwardly, partly because it clashes in his mind with the phrase 'There can be only one' even though that applies to something else entirely. Partly because Heather was it.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She spears a broccoli cut. "Yeah. Probably." It's nice to be on the same page as someone else. "Especially if you live a ridiculously long time. People just aren't made to be alone."