buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks

[withmyshield]

[Tuesday evening - 4.29]

Sharon Carter is no stranger to stress. Like anyone, she has her coping mechanisms, and while they might not make a hell of a lot of sense, they work for her. Generally when the pressure is on, it's her natural reaction to push back.

She'd attacked her workout routine with frightening intensity through the healing process of her bullet wound. After the Thanksgiving debacle, she'd gone domestic and baked her way back to sanity; a diversion, a way to exert control over something, even something as banal as flour and eggs.

The question of how to ignore the giant clocks that are omnipresent and which now have less than 24 hours on them is hard enough without the fact that she's still not speaking to Steve. But so far there's no crisis on today, nothing to triumph over, no asses to kick, and Sharon's go-to for impotent rage [throwing herself into her work] isn't going to fly, either. She's feeling too antisocial even to maim holodeck projections, at this point. She's half a breath away from asking the computer for a pint of Haagen-Dazs and a pint of vodka to chase it down when she has one last better idea.

She takes the vodka anyway, just in case.

---

It never gets old, even though she knows it's not real: holodeck sunshine is just as satisfying to the senses as the genuine article. It's all a chemical reaction, endorphins and whatnot, so why should it be different? Sharon picks up a 36 inch white ash bat and slides the helmet onto her head. She squares off over the plate and turns to face the pitching machine.

"OK, go."

Comments

[wise_ass]

After his talk with Lauren, Bert finds he's lost his taste for the movie and turns it off. He's not particularly looking for company, either, merely something to do that will fully occupy his brain without making him feel completely useless.

He takes the corridors-less-traveled when it's possible, smoking and thinking, about what Lauren said, about the lockdown last week and about the people he lives here with. Why they're here. What Roland would do, what Alain would think if they somehow found themselves on the station.

His travels take him to the arboretum, where the synthesized sunshine and the feel of real grass under his bare feet grounds him and gives him the space he needs from the station to think about the mess they're all in. While he thinks, he works on a hunk of wood-- lightweight like blosswood but in a beautiful spring-green hue-- and gradually finds that there might well be a turtle living inside it, if he keeps at it. An hour or so later, when he's had his fill of silence and sitting on the hard ground is making him sore, Bert tucks the half-turtle in his pocket, folds away the knife, and leaves the arboretum, wandering the halls of the fifth level and feeling a tidy bit more peaceable than he has in weeks.

He almost passes right by the holodeck, but something in him tugs at him to stop. When he pokes his head in, Sharon's there, playing rounders all by her lonesome-- with the exception of a little contraption that's spitting balls out for her.

She swings hard and knocks one clear over the treeline; it's a good hit, so it's probably safe to speak.

"Not bad. You know, they say my grandma used to play at rounders when she was in braids. The one you like. Sai card sharp."

[withmyshield]

Sharon instinctively steps back from the plate, though she hardly needs to turn to see who's shouting at her. The machine keeps pitching, and the balls clang softly against the fence behind her. She's really not in the mood to talk, but she can't exactly ignore him.

"It's called baseball." She leans on the bat and picks up her pint bottle; his cheer inspires her to take a short, sharp sip.

[wise_ass]

Bert raises his eyebrows and closes the door behind him as he steps in, kicking off one boot and then the other.

"Nope, played it a thousand times and wore out several dozen pairs of denims sliding to base. It's called 'rounders'. Or, in this case, 'rounders without friends'."

[withmyshield]

Sharon thinks there's a little room for distinction between "alone" and "without friends", but she keeps it to herself. The fact that he's making himself at home is a problem for her, since she's trying to get out some aggression on inanimate objects, of which Bert is the total opposite.

"I'm sure you've got a hilarious Roland story about it, too. What did he do, run the bases in reverse?"

[wise_ass]

Ooh. Boy, does she ever have his number. First taking him to task for his culture-lag and now making it quite plain she's had about all the 'back home' stories she can stomach. Fair enough.

He feels strangely relieved to hear her talk to him like this, to reduce him this way, because it lets him see what's there beneath all their genial, teasing palaver, and he's in a mood today to strip away the pretense. It's surprisingly good timing that Sharon's looking to sharpen her teeth on him. 'There'll be water when ka wills it' and all that insufferable horseshit.

"No, no. Roland wasn't much of one for games. Took himself too seriously, y'know?"

Bert walks across the grass, keeping well out of the way of Sharon and her machine.

[withmyshield]

"I know the type," she mutters, and goes back to her game. But he doesn't leave, just keeps taking in the sun and occasionally whistling appreciatively when Sharon knocks one into orbit.

After a few minutes, it's impossible to pretend it's still helping. She pulls off the helmet none too gently and sits against the fence. The bottle comes with, of course.

"Pause pitching machine," she snaps at the computer.

[wise_ass]

I know the type.

So this is about Steve. Bert knew she'd been on the outs with him last week, but he's surprised they haven't smoothed it over yet.

Sharon's helmet hits the ground, and he watches as she leans against the fence with a pint of something that's probably not lemonade.

When she doesn't say anything else, he returns to the turtle, keeping companionable silence for the moment.

"Feel like talking?" he asks, finally. His tone isn't loaded in the least; it's as blithe as if he's just offered her a slice of orange.

[withmyshield]

"Absolutely not." There's a bitter little laugh in the words.

It's almost funny, how their positions have reversed in just a few days. She pulls the cork from the bottle and tosses it aside; she's not going to need it again.

"Your timing is impeccable, as always; this is probably the worst mood I've been in since the wheelchair."

[wise_ass]

"I missed that happy calamity by a few weeks so I'd say my timing is right on the nose."

To say the very least. Ye gods, but she must've been wretched.

"Anything I can do to help?"

[withmyshield]

She shakes her head.

"Nothing comes to mind, unless..." She pauses, weighing how much the vodka wants her to spill her guts against the regret it might cause her later.

"Unless you've got a cure for stone cold....bitchery. Or stubbornness in general."

[wise_ass]

Bert gives her a vaguely sympathetic smile without looking up from his carving.

"If I know one, you're holdin' it."

The turtle's shell looks good, and he knows if he keeps at it he's going to overwork the damn thing, so he blows the shavings off, tucks it in his pocket and moseys over to Sharon, sitting a few paces down the fence from her so she doesn't have to look at him if she doesn't want to.

"This about Steve?" he asks, after a long pause. Sure, it's none of his damn business, but he's not an idiot and she knows that, so he figures they might as well air it.

[withmyshield]

"Yes and no." She makes a disgusted face at how cliche relationship bullshit that sounds. It's not him, it's me.

"We had a procedural disagreement."

[wise_ass]

Bert blinks and briefly considers cleaning out his ear before asking her to repeat herself.

"...'procedural'?"

He wonders, idly, if Steve has to first file a motion for candlelit suppers.

[withmyshield]

Sharon's really not impressed if Bert's just pretending not to understand. But on the off chance that he's actually confused, she continues.

"Yes, procedural. We had a fundamental disagreement about ship's security."

The fact that it had turned into something personal and deeply troubling is fairly evident, she thinks.

[wise_ass]

About the ship's security. Huh.

Deep down, it seems there's always a part of Bert that feels smug about romance, and it pipes up now, wondering wide-eyed if anybody might've seen such a problem coming in a place where not a one of them can get away from another, and between two people who take their stations-- however arbitrary they might be, here-- so seriously. It's not a nice thought, and he scarcely knows where it comes from, but he knows he has much less sympathy here than he ought to. Mayhap if she'd shelf the jargon and admit that she's just as sad as she is mad, but Bert knows better than most that righteous anger makes for satisfying armor... temporarily, anyway.

"Why not put it to a vote?" He leans his head back against the fence, causing it to rattle, and watches as the clouds sail by overhead.

[withmyshield]

"For once, I'm the one who thinks we should."

Usually Sharon's reputation puts her just slightly to the left of Atilla the Hun, and it would probably be a surprise to most that Steve's the one circumventing popular opinion this time.

She digs the heel of her hands into her eyes.

"At least that's what this was about a week ago. The rest is mostly me being an asshole."

[wise_ass]

The gesture squeezes Bert's heart a little. It might mostly be the vodka, but she's certainly making an effort.

"Clock's running out tomorrow," he says, and scooches a little closer to her. "Might want to say you're sorry tonight."

He gives her a smile to let her know he's kidding-- whatever the hell the station has planned, he doesn't think it's going to catch Sharon Carter by the tail-- but there's some truth in it. Besides, he's not in any position to give real relationship advice.

"If I were in your shoes, my next procedure might be 'bring over a bottle and make nice'." He shrugs. "But, of course, if I were in your shoes, Steve would probably look at me funny and hold me for questioning."

[withmyshield]

"Yeah, but I'd have to actually be sorry first. Just because I know I'm being an ass doesn't mean I can stop whenever I want."

Sharon's been considering it, of course. The power of a ticking clock is hard to deny, and there's no reason to think that it couldn't be a self-destruct sequence. She'll feel pretty stupid if she's been wasting her last viable hours shunning Steve over a couple games of table tennis.

She puts the bottle down.

"Can we talk about something else? I have a much better time when we're talking about your problems." She's really not kidding.

[wise_ass]

"Sure," he says, too easily, unnerved by how quickly that particular table got turned. From the look of her (not to mention the vodka level), Sharon had a few hours of ranting in her yet.

"Or..." Bert stands up and heads over toward the plate. "We could both agree that in our potential last moments together, words are crude, trifling things that ever fail to satisfy the essence of our feeling, and hit things."

[withmyshield]

Well that suits her just fine; she hadn't wanted to talk in the first place. Sharon stands up and stretches, not quite wobbly but loose for sure.

"If I'm pitching you won't be hitting much of anything, so perhaps you'd rather the machine?"

[wise_ass]

"I thank you for your candor," he says, now in full, punchy Bert splendor as he picks up her bat, stepping on the narrow end to take it up.

For all his talk of 'rounders', he takes up a traditional baseball batter's pose, knees bent but unlocked and a hand-over-hand grip on the bat.

"Computer, resume pitching machine."

There's a gear-grinding noise as it gets ready, and Bert's eyes are locked on the dispenser, squinting slightly in the sunshine.

The ball is thrown; he reels back quick and swings forward with a hearty krak!, knocking it out of the proverbial park.

"Not bad for a fellow who hasn't set foot on a diamond in better than five years," he says, turning to Sharon with a self-satisfied look on his face. "I'd say-- AH! Fuck!"

The second ball takes him hard in the shoulder and bounces away, and Bert scrambles out of what he hopes is the machine's reach, because the gods-be-damned thing is apparently out for blood!

"Aren't these things supposed to be smart?" he demands of the room at large.

[withmyshield]

Sharon sees the whole thing play out, and misses the half second window where she can stop it. Maybe because Bert didn't let her shame him with her amazing pitching skills, but probably just because the booze is making her a little slower herself.

"Oh Bert, oh shit! Are you OK?!" And then she just loses it. He's such a cartoon, especially when he's insulted and in pain.

[wise_ass]

Bert's vigorously rubbing his shoulder and giving the machine a reproachful look when Sharon bursts into laughter, and then she gets the full force of his attention.

"Oh, nice! How do you like that?" Again, to an invisible audience. But just about any laughter is catching for Bert, and pretty soon he joins in, albeit while valiantly fighting it with every muscle in his face.

The machine fires again, and the ball rattles the fence as it hits in a way that strikes Bert as actively insulting.

"Oh, stop the program!" The room flickers rapidly to white. "I've had enough of this. We can't even agree on what it's called. Give me, ah. Give me... "

He pauses, looking suddenly curious, and oddly tender.

"...can you give me Gilead?"

The landscape starts building the moment the word leaves his mouth, and for a moment, he's delighted to see the blue mountains in the distance and the scrubby grass of the foothills ahead... but then he realizes it must be another Gilead, for there's no city in sight. Mayhap a small town, he thinks, tucked away in those hills but the castle isn't the kind of thing you miss, even at this distance.

"All right." He finally drops his hand from his shoulder in a kind of surrender; the damn thing hates him. "Gilead of All-World?" he tosses out, just to see what it does.

And this time he knows it's right in seconds; the flagstones line up right under their feet and though it's a sunny day, they're standing in the shadow of the castle overhead. It's taken them to the bridge that separates Upper Town from Lower Town, and it's a busy, bustling and cacophonous market day.

"Well, I'll be damned," he says, and takes a few tentative steps forward, his heart lodged roughly mid-esophagus. When he can finally peel his eyes off the scene, he looks back at Sharon for a reaction.

[withmyshield]

He'll be damned? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

Sharon's jaw is indelicately ajar, eyes wide. It's like John Wayne decided to do Shakespeare or something. The scale of the city they're in is even more impressive than the beach she had created, and there are so many people. She has to remind herself that they're just projections, even though she can smell them from here, even the ones haggling over the price of candles thirty feet away.

"Cuthbert, this is..." Actually, pretty amazing.

[wise_ass]

"I know," he says, and he's frankly as amazed as she is, even if it's for a different reason. There'd been nothing lacking in the realism of Sharon's beach, but somehow, it's an altogether astounding feat that this thing has managed to take a scene Bert's walked through nearly everyday of his young life and replicate it so thoroughly. There are a few things that strike him odd-- the fashions, for one, and a few buildings, some he doesn't recognize and others that don't seem to be in the right place-- but otherwise, this is the city of Gilead, Bert's Gilead, to the very life.

He knows it looks vastly different from 'New York' thanks to some of the movies they've watched, but Sharon's awestruck expression starts to tickle him once he's gotten used to the scene.

Two women pass by them and give Bert, his striped vest and his trousered ladyfriend an ugly look.

"Rowdies," they whisper to each other as they pass by, which causes Bert to, first, just about choke on his own mirth and second, kindly steer Sharon through the crowd before they start attracting more lookieloos.

"You're causing quite a ruckus," he manages to get out, but every time they catch a look from someone else, he's gone all over again.