[FIN] Systems

[Gwennythe]

It had been a very very very interesting and confusing time for the past few days.

For certain it had placed Tambrey, in some respects, in a better place and mood than she been in, and allowed her, or perhaps forced her, to abandon some of the strains that sleepless nights and extracurricular research had been causing her...

In other respects... It had made some aspects entirely worse, for those who might know how to spot them.

KO was -not- dead; this was good, she had her friend and colleague back. She was happy about such a fact.

KO was -not- dead; this threw her off her game; made her question her judgement, what she knew about... a lot of things. And, subtly, perhaps, ate at the idea that she'd wasted time on some of the subjects she'd pursued. She hadn't, in fact, done a thing to help. In fact, that too, was an issue; the guilt over not getting him out of there faster, when she'd thought he'd died, had crystallized somewhat into something... different, yet feeling quite the same.

What had /happened/ to Kirk?

It was a mystery with more mysteries on top, and not enough clues or cues, yet, to offer many answers...

There were other things now, too; things she'd neglected, and things she wanted to do, that could take their place.

Overall, she wanted to talk to her friend, her partner, about all she could.
Talking to Aulus had helped before, more than once. Almost as though feeling she'd needed an excuse, too, though she supposed she didn't, she'd mentioned needing to ask a favour in the 'dex message she'd sent him, on the way back to her room.
It wasn't long before she was knocking on the door from the bathroom.

For once, none of her pokémon, except a sleeping Palu in the corner of her room, were out of their balls.  

[TawnyAngel]

The answer to Tambery's text, of course, had been: //Sure =)//

After sending it Aulus closed down the report he'd been writing on some sessions with trainees and went to fill the kettle from the sink in the bathroom. By the time Tambery knocked it had boiled and just been poured over the teabags in the pot. "Come in!" Aulus called, putting the lid onto the pot - which sat on a little fold up table between his bed and the large beanbag he'd set opposite it - and heading over to the little cupboard where he kept his cups and things. Two mugs, two little plates, and a box of broken biscuits (assorted) from the next cupboard over.

Whatever Tam needed there was always time for tea and biscuits, and if there wasn't time to sit down for them he had a thermos.  

[Gwennythe]

She'd been grateful for the reply, and further appreciative to enter and find Aulus already had tea and biscuits just about ready.
She supposed she should have learned to expect something like that by now, but it was still a nice surprise.

"I... um, I hope I didn't interrupt anything important?" She queried, wondering what he'd been doing /before/ he'd gone into tea-making mode.
A glance around the room to see if she could spot anything obviously abandoned, but couldn't see anything that suggested as much.
From what she could tell, Aulus could have been doing anything or nothing.
"Or, uh, intrude on your time off?" She'd entered a little further- sure he had tea out, but if he was busy and had been being polite, she could take into her room or something.
Vaguely she wondered -why- such thoughts were cropping up now; she was usually confident Aulus didn't mind.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus smiled warmly, the expression softening his scarred features from their neutral 'I might be rather angry' setting. "Psh, you're never intruding if I say 'come in' not 'bugger off'. Seen as you ask though I was writing a report," he waved at the closed laptop, "important but it was neither urgent nor thrilling, so," he waved at the tea set up of neatly made bed and beanbag, "pick a seat. Sometimes I wonder if I should get actual chairs other than the computer chair." That would mean money though and he was trying to keep on saving up for a mega stone for Tortie, and then he'd need one for Red, and he wanted one for Juno.... Yeah, he wasn't going to have disposable income for a long time.

Anyway though, that was an issue for another time. Right now he wanted to know what Tambery wanted, and he also wanted to know why she was hesitating rather than just wandering in and sitting down. "So what's up?" Aulus asked as he headed over to his mini fridge to get out the milk.  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey smiled gratefully, and headed for the beanbag.
Sure, there was the bed, and she -never- minded other people or pokémon or the like on /her/ bed, yet she couldn't shake, when it came to other peoples', that a bed was rather personal.
They were specifically for sleeping, really, after all of course.

Besides. She liked the beanbag.
"Aw, but I like the beanbag..." She voiced allowed, then watched as he moved to get the milk, considering how to answer that question.

"Uh... Beside the obvious?" She smiled, a little ruefully, and then properly again, if wearily. "A few things, but, um, specifically one or two."  

[TawnyAngel]

"It is pretty comfortable," Aulus agreed with a 'heh' of pleased semi amusement as he sat down on the bed and poured milk into their mugs. "And specifically then," he added, motioning to the large box of biscuits before taking the lid off the teapot and peering in to see how it was doing. "Needs a little longer," he concluded, giving it a stir with a chopstick he'd set out for the purpose and then replacing the lid.  

[Gwennythe]

"Thanks..." Tambrey smiled, and reached for a broken custard cream, resisting the urge to dissect it, and tooth-scrape the filling out, for the moment, but being very tempted...

She thought about what to start with.
Well. That was easy.
And Aulus had messaged her when he'd heard anyway.

"It's weird." She stated, not alluding to -what- was weird; she suspected he might have an inkling of what she meant.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus also took a custard cream, smiling a bit as he did so. "We'll be fighting over these before long," he said, twisting it in half and nibbling at the bit with cream on, setting the other half down on his little plate to await team to dunk in.

"Kirk, right?" Aulus continued, pouring half a cup of tea into his own cup, a full cup into Tam's and then filling his own to the top as well. He was pretty sure that was the guy's name, he remembered it because Star Trek.  

[Gwennythe]

"Well, um, these or the chocolate digestives... Or the bourbonnes..." Why were biscuits all so good and more-ish?

"Thanks." She offered again, as the tea was poured and then let out a sigh accompanied by a nod.
"Kirk." She confirmed, fighting the furrowing of her brows as she considered the situation.
"I... I don't even know. It's /weird/." She repeated, choosing that moment to dunk her own biscuit and nibble the damp portion away.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Right." Aulus dunked his biscuit. "So...." How could he say this? "You... you saw him... die? But now he's not dead."  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey rubbed at her head once the biscuit had been eaten.

"That's. Um. That's right but... That's the tip of the... 'Weird'." She decided, then gazed at her tea.

"Have you, um, seen him yet? At all?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"No," Aulus shook his head, "all I know about the situation is that that Lex guy asked him out within a few minutes of discovering he was not dead. And I thought I was socially awkward."  

[Gwennythe]

Well.
There was news that she hadn't been expecting to hear.
Her eyes widened and her brows rose a little; she felt kind of sorry for the pair of them.
She understood -why- Lex might have decided to do such a thing as soon as possibly but still... It was a rather awkward thing to do...

"Uh. Right." She blinked at the revelation; he point was derailed for a moment... and now it was going to have some very weird context that she hadn't intended if she'd gone ahead with her initial wording of 'he looks too 'good' to have come out of a coma'... She tried to think of different wording.  

[TawnyAngel]

...Wait. Waaait. She didn't like him did she? Aulus couldn't decide if that was better or worse than her relationship with Rory. He tried not to say anything negative about Tam's boyfriend, and he even tried really hard not to show that he thought it, but frankly the guy was just... mediocre. She could do better.

He sipped his tea.

"So, what were you going to say?"  

[Gwennythe]

"It's weird because he's... He's not showing the fatigue or the atrophy you'd expect from a coma victim. His pallor is pale, but then /my/ pallor is naturally pale, and he's not exactly so pale as to be incredibly worrying... He's walking around. We have people from that mission /still/ using wheelchairs, but he was in a coma and he's walking..." Tambrey shook her head and frowned.
"I'm, um... I'm very glad he's back. But I can't shake how odd... How weird it all is... It doesn't add up at all..."