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[butcherbaker]

You have something to say to me?

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[butcherbaker]

[Alfie makes a long, humming noise, and gives her another thoughtful look over again.]

I was being a prick before. There is- there is a religious prescription about modesty of dress. Nothing else I could wear for me to ask you for.

[Sharing, quietly.]

How's the scrapes coming? Not healing up?

[garbagepilot]

[It's very likely there's nothing else he could say, nothing anyone could have told her, that would have her rethinking what she's wearing in this moment. She feels guilty for it, for showing up to meet him wearing so little now that she knows he's still dressed the way he is because of his beliefs.

There's nothing she can do about it now, but she'll find something to cover up with when they're together from this moment on. Maybe he was being a prick, but she could have kept her mouth shut instead of harping on about his clothes. It's easier to talk about the scratches, though, so she glances down at her arm, manages not to bring her other hand up to scratch.]

They're not. They don't hurt as much, but they itch and it took forever for them to scab over properly.

[butcherbaker]

Oh no, sweetie. [He assures her, in his rare, kindly way that only comes out now and again.] Why should you believe a thing that I believe? You don't.

[And he's unperturbed by her skin.]

I'm glad. Word is circling that these things are slow to resolve, slower than they have any right to be, despite will or magic.

[garbagepilot]

[She looks back up to him at that, sweetie coming out of him so easily it's like he's always called her that, and memories of the breach where he'd been someone who cared for her make her ache to hear it now. It's something she's starting to admit to herself she wants, not necessarily from Alfie but just in general.

Family. Someone who will call her dumb names she should hate on principle. It feels like weakness to want that, but that door is opening and she's having a hard time closing it up again.]

I don't have to believe it to respect it. [Now she does move her hand up to rub at the one of the long marks down her arm just for something to do with hands that want to fidget.] Have you heard of anything like this ever happening before on the ship? Wounds that don't go away?

[butcherbaker]

No.

[He admits; no smart remarks, no prevaricating, no long winded replies.]

In old fables and folk stories, but not here. Nothing I would have said I believed- but I didn't believe in Styx or harpies, and those were true as could be back there.

The stories all say, something like this takes time, and something like this takes a righteous quest, or an artifact or a water from a fountain- it takes a thing that you'll know when you'll see and it will not go until you find it. True love's first kiss, maybe, or the powdered teeth of a lizard, or the laughter of a babe.

[garbagepilot]

No one really believed in the Force either, after it being gone for thirty years. I thought it was a myth.

[And now it's something that's a part of her, so maybe she shouldn't be all that shocked at the possibility of being charged with another righteous quest. As if flying off in a famous ship after a mythical figure wasn't enough.

As they walk she's careful to lead him through the trees where there's shade, where it's cooler and he'll fair better in the heat of the island, and as she looks around it strikes her that this is probably as good a place as any to look for those things he's brought up.]

Let me know if you see any lizards or babies.

[butcherbaker]

You know, I have something I ought to tell you. For integrity's sake. I ought to have said it earlier, in all honesty, but it's a delicate kind of a thing.

[Says Alfie, as the walk.]

About this boy of yours, Shelby.

[garbagepilot]

[Calling Tommy her boy would have been the thing she'd focus on if he hadn't prefaced with something that sounds serious, so for now she shelves that, how very odd it sounds, in favor of looking over at Alfie curiously.]

What is it?

[butcherbaker]

He and I, this last Christmas, before he met you. We had a bit of a snog.

[Says Alfie, serenely.

This is actually absolutely true, though also terribly misleading.]

[garbagepilot]

I imagine he's done more than just kiss people before he met me, Alfie.

[He's kind of an old man.]

[butcherbaker]

But your own inmate.

[He says, affecting scandal.]

[garbagepilot]

[It's the affected scandal that's making it very hard not to laugh, honestly, but she does her best to keep a straight face.]

He must have been very bad at it if you're warning me now. Are you worried about me, Alfie? That I won't like kissing him?

[butcherbaker]

He's a bit of a pillock.

[He will admit.]

But he loosens right up if you give him a good bite. You should try it- and if you want to see him turn interesting colours, you could tell him I told you to give it a try. If he were in a mood where he needed a little friendly tormenting.

[garbagepilot]

[There are two ways this can go, as far as Rey can see. She can let Alfie go on like this, doing what she assumes is trying to fluster her, or she can give it right back and see how it looks on him, if he even gets flustered.

She's guessing no, but he had looked surprised to see her mostly naked so maybe there's still a chance.]

I probably will tell him you had the suggestion, but I don't know if it'll be much of a surprise. I already bite him when we kiss.

[And that's absolutely true, too.]

[butcherbaker]

[Alfie puts his head back and howls with laughter, in a way he hasn't managed- well, probably since Helena died, but he isn't thinking about that right now, for once.

He's just impressed his little warden can give as good as she gets.]

Then tell him I fucking told him so, eh? Before he knew what was good for him.

[garbagepilot]

[His laughter sparks some of her own, albeit a little quieter than his. It's good, seeing him happy like that, and she doesn't even care that it's at Tommy's expense.]

He nearly had a fit when he saw my knees for the first time and he hasn't seen me in this yet. If we're trading things to torment him with, you could tell him you got there first.

[butcherbaker]

Mm, no. He won't be fooled, he knows I have eyes for only one woman, and that you're as good as family to me.

[He can't even manufacture an excuse for jealousy in play.]

[garbagepilot]

[That catches her by surprise, the easy way he says it, and it's just as important as finding out there's someone Alfie has eyes for. She'll revisit that soon, but for now-]

You told him that?

[butcherbaker]

About being fond of you? I don't think so. But he's not a fool.

[He'd seen Alfie standing over her, lightsaber in hand, facing down the harpy. Spent all those days with them down there.]

[garbagepilot]

[She's quiet for a second while she lets that sink in, the fact that that's just... accepted, now.]

I think that's how it ended up for all of us, after the breach. We spent so long pretending none of those connections meant anything, but they haven't gone away. Now whenever I see Eggsy or Tiffany or T'Pol, I don't see strangers who have become friends.

[She sees the family she wanted, the family she tries to tell herself isn't real, was never real.]

[butcherbaker]

I had a hard time speaking to Eggsy. And I understand that, I do. He had to break up a fight or two with me early on, he's seen me fuck about a fair bit-

[But it was formative; his first experience regretting bad behaviour.]

[garbagepilot]

[She nods, because she can see how that would make it hard for someone like Eggsy. He's not innocent by any means, but Alfie is on a level all his own and there's no point denying that.]

How has it been with T'Pol?

[Maybe it's not fair to ask that, but she glances over when she does and wouldn't take it back.]

[butcherbaker]

[The answer to that is complicated, and so it begins with a long silence. It's not apropos of nothing, but it may seem that way, when he asks;]

Did you ever meet Helena?

[garbagepilot]

I don't think so.

[It's not a name that's familiar, not one she's even heard from anyone else on the ship in her time here.]

[butcherbaker]

Helena was a little older than you. She was- an inmate. She was from the Ukraine, and she liked baking and religious imagery in her violence. She cared something fierce for anyone who got in under her wing.

I started working in the kitchens to make sweets for her while the bread rose. If you saw her in passing, she had huge, fluffy white curls.