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[butcherbaker]

You have something to say to me?

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[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.

[garbagepilot]

[It makes sense now, why he's bringing up Helena after being asked about T'Pol. She might not have the most experience in the world what it looks like when someone talks about someone they loved but all the signs point there. Making sweets, describing her hair so particularly, it all paints a clear picture.

She keeps quiet while he speaks, not wanting to derail him by asking questions when she isn't sure if this is even easy for him to talk about now.]

[butcherbaker]

I learned that she had left the boat, right, the day- the day we got back from our life there. Our marriage. I went to check her rooms to talk about me having been in some woman's bed, even if I thought we were married. Her rooms were fucking empty, weren't they?

[garbagepilot]

[Now Rey frowns with sympathy, only just manages not to reach out to rest her hand on Alfie's arm. She can't imagine how horrible that must have felt, not even the chance to say goodbye, never being able to speak to her and get rid of his guilt.]

I'm sorry.

[She'd usually keep a sentiment like that to herself, but if she can't reach out for him to show it she feels like she has to do something.]

[butcherbaker]

Nah.

[He reassures her, but doesn't shrug her hand off. Just explains;]

She wouldn't think twice about it. She'd have been off the ground, into my arms, with a kiss to soothe me, in less than a heartbeat. It's all in me head. Girl like her, she was kind about the things you couldn't help.

[Cross her, and she'd go all personal stigmata, but he takes that as read.]

I miss her, and I worry for her. If I had found her down there I don't know what I might have done.

[garbagepilot]

[She nods, and she can see how that kind of person would be good for Alfie, would draw him in. The Barge is a worse place now that it doesn't have someone with that level of acceptance, someone warm enough to not be angry and instead just immediately offer their support.

She can see, too, why things with T'Pol would be difficult now.]

Maybe her not being there means that wherever she is, she's safe.

[butcherbaker]

They don't tell us that. They tell us, change for the better, or you go to hell. Don't believe in hell? Doesn't matter.

[He admits, and clears his throat.]

I was glad not to see her down there, I think I said.

[garbagepilot]

Are there ways to find her from the ship? Maybe you could go to the world she comes from.

[butcherbaker]

No. Ask Tiffany about it- she's our local expert. Can't be done.

[garbagepilot]

[She won't ask Tiffany, not when that will come with questions about why she wants to know, so for now Rey just lets the conversation trail off a little. They've been walking long enough by now to get to her camp anyway, so once they reach the clearing she leads him towards the little grouping of trees.]

See, there are the houses. [She points with one hand, shielding her eyes from the sun with the other.] I don't think anyone has figured out who put them there yet.

[butcherbaker]

Which bodes well, when you think about it, doesn't it?

[Says Alfie, utterly wryly. Oh well.]

[garbagepilot]

That probably depends on your point of view. Either they all left when we got here, or something horrible killed them all and we're next.

[She's nothing if not pragmatic.]

[butcherbaker]

Definitely the second, if our luck holds.

[He says, with a long sigh.]

I'm so fucking tired of near murders.

[garbagepilot]

[She can't really do anything but agree with that, considering the state of her arm and her back and the fact that they still show no signs of healing properly any time soon.]

The Admiral was able to provide better than I expected for us once we got dropped into that place, so maybe he was right about this being a quiet stop. This far out, no one from the ship will be able to find this place unless they know the directions and I can set up traps to keep people who stumble in away. We can be safe here, unless you want to lock yourself up in the ship.

cw: suicidal ideation

[butcherbaker]

Nah. I'm too fucking tired, and from the sounds of it, the things that would happen to me in death back there won't happen to me in it this time around. If we launch into some kind of war, I'm borrowing that moonsword and schwoom, schwooming it.

[He says, affecting some very aggressive sawing at his own neck.]

cw: suicidal ideation

[garbagepilot]

[It's not necessarily new that Alfie can say things that bring Rey up short, have her stuck for a second before she can figure out how to proceed in the conversation, but this is different. This is something she can't understand for the life of her because it's so different from how she's lived her entire life. Life on Jakku could feel impossible at the best of times, but she's never felt like ending her life was the appropriate response to struggling to stay alive.

But she's also never been tired in the way Alfie has. She's still young, for everything she's been through, everything Jakku did to her, and she knows it's not right to expect her way of think will be the only way that matters. Still, though, it has her looking at him like she's worried, scared for him. She'd risked her life to protect him only because she likes him, after all, his death is the last thing she would ever be alright with.]

Did you- would you feel that way in your own world?

[Or is it only here, where death isn't permanent, where it means something and nothing all at the same time.]

[butcherbaker]

No, but there, I was happy. My life had meaning, and joy, and struggle.

[He reminds her, clearing his throat some.]

You don't know much about my work, but it was- a battle. A war. A game that I was good at, and I had friends and family and coworkers, and community and faith. I had men who were learning from me, and boys who were coming up strong in my gang, who it was a pleasure to see thrive. I had a nice mortal enemy, not Tommy, who I liked seeing thwarted. I had Tommy, who was an upstart, but a joy to do battle with.

Every now and again I think 'I'll give it a go here, it won't be so bad,' and then someone kills my girl, or tears my hands and knees off with their teeth, or picks a fight about something stupid, and I care just a little less.