bakerstreet | Now Zog at the bar is a friend of mine

[Ari considers this, very seriously. Again she resists the urge to start giving advice. There's too much she doesn't know - about their work, about their cultural context. She suspects her initial guess of less intense was right, by the mention of days off, but of course that was all relative. It seems to her now that Guin really has cut to the heart of the matter, and she nods, and smiles sympathetically.]

Love can be difficult like that. [She picks up the wine bottle, and tops up her friend's glass and then her own.] I don't want to sound...preachy about it, but what we'd say about that out here is that he's the only person who can decide what's best for him. If, when you discuss it, he tells you that it's you? You've got to believe him.

That's true. I do believe him. He's always been honest and forthcoming, on anything that isn't a job, that is. [Brent's line of work meant that he often had to lie or withhold information when on the field and sometimes couldn't tell her where he was going or what he was going for. But when it came to their relationship, he'd kept his promise to be clear... because Guin had made him promise before she'd date him thanks to her past bad experiences with ex-boyfriends.]

I really just want things to be clear and stable again. I just got to a place where I felt comfortable with my new life and then I blew it up. I guess part of me is still that impulsive, headstrong kid from college. [A small chuckle.] How's your love life going with that...you never told me a name from before.

[There might not have been the same level of secrecy in Ari's line of work, where starships were largely self-contained, but she did understand that it was necessary sometimes, and it complicated things. Brent being less than forthcoming about his work made perfect sense to her.

She inwardly winces when Guin describes herself, at an age older than Ari is now, as a kid, hoping she's not thought of that way. It was associated in Ari's mind with a couple of unpleasant incidents - trying to be professional and responsible and do her job, and having angry stationers mock her for her youth, and stir up trouble until she had to threaten to charge them with obstruction. She's not terribly bothered by it, it's just something that doesn't carry well, culturally. She focuses on the more important issues.]

You've got to balance comfort with challenge, otherwise you get bored. Clear and stable is a good goal, though. That's what everyone wants. I think you've got a good chance of getting there. As for me - oh, you mean Gabriel? Our passenger? He reached his destination. Gone. All for the best, I say. He told me I was too intense. I just know what I want and I don't waste time playing stupid games. Life's too busy for that.

That sounds like kind of a dick thing to say. [Guin could see where it was coming from but she didn't agree. She could have been described the same way when she was younger. And that side of her was still in there, occasionally itching to be let out, she had just stifled it under years of good behavior because she felt like she should.] But good for you, for standing up for yourself. You'll find someone who's a better fit for you. Honestly I thought I would never meet someone until Brent made a pass at me, and then I actually had to ask him if he was serious.

We...are not great with conventional romance.

I'm not great with being a conventional person. [This may be the alcohol talking. But she has a history of being different, often on purpose, whether it was her being bisexual or being the one to literally push all of the buttons. She tries to fit in and it doesn't always work.]

Who wants to be a conventional person? Nobody who ever did anything truly worthwhile was. [Harsh? Probably, but she does have a point.] You're not so far out there that you'd need to worry. Your job's like mine, plenty of codes and regulations, and neither of us have been thrown out, so we can fit in well enough when we have to. Beyond that, you've got to be an individual, and find other individuals who value you. Brent sounds like one of them. [There may be a dash of Tradeliner philosophy in her phrasing, but the ideas are hers.]

I never understood romance, either. It just seems...artificial. A good partner is a friend and an equal, that you...that you're also attracted to, in all the ways that count. Some people don't see that. Especially men. The young ones. [Ari's encounters with older men would probably be more troubling to most people, but that's not how she sees it.] A while ago we had this other passenger who had a stupid crush on me, and he bought me this- [she can't help laughing at the memory of it] - this big pink stuffed toy. I'm left wondering why he thinks I'd like it, and how exactly he thinks it's going to fit in my tiny cabin. It was so strange. Then I get talking to Lowell. He's on our security team. He said that this young guy was going around asking everyone what girls like. As if we've got some kind of hive mind. If that's conventional, I don't want it. You need someone who sees you.

Yeah, you're right. [Guin has never been comfortable in her own identity. She may project as such, but it's been constantly changing since her teenage years, which made it hard for her to orient herself. Every time she thinks she knows what her world is, it changes. This situation is yet anothe example of that.] I think romance can be a real thing, if you're honest with the sentiment. My very first boyfriend was incredibly romantic, and won me over despite the fact I really didn't want to date anyone. But that turned out to be a facade, or at least I feel like it was because after a couple of months he disappeared and I never heard from him again.

In contrast, that's why Brent and I got married. We didn't actually mean to; we kind of backed into it. But I knew even if the gestures were weird or accidental that he really cared about me. He wanted us to have a future. Which made it such a punch in the gut to get divorced. I just want people around me to actually be truthful, which shouldn't be so hard. Yet it seems like it is.

I hear that. It shakes you up, when someone lies. Makes you doubt other people who come after them. Genuine care is different, it's not someone trying to play out some stupid relationship script. Although I still prefer being straightforward. Find someone you like spending time with, ask them outright if they want an overnight. What kind of romantic things did he do, that they didn't seem contrived? [She can't think of any, but that might be a lack of imagination on her part.]

It's different where I'm from. Partnership contract isn't like marriage, not in every way. Some people do it for business reasons, or because they're both lonely and they want to see if it works out. If it doesn't, it's all just temporary.

Only - you and Brent, you didn't get divorced because of lies, or because you stopped loving each other. It was a rational decision.

My ex-husband, or my duplicitous ex-boyfriend? The latter used to quote Shakespeare at me. I was young and I fell for it.

[Chuckles.]

You would never believe half the stories I could tell you about my marriage. Or maybe you might, you've seen a lot out here already. Most of the four years we were together was a series of strange but usually happy accidents. Which is better than the rest of my life, which was just strange and usually not so happy accidents.

[Quoting Shakespeare just sounds very intellectual to Ari - all those plays are over seven hundred years old to her. It does seem unique, though, so she can appreciate it as a romantic gesture. Even if, knowing what she does, she doesn't appreciate the liar who came up with it.

She leans forward, interested in the stories of these strange accidents.]

Let's see if I believe it. What's one of the strangest things that ever happened to you both?

Well, we spent a day stranded in Paris. That's where that picture I showed you comes from.

[She laughs.]

He proposed to me by pointing a fork at me. He didn't actually mean to do it, to propose or to do it that way, but we were having lunch in the mess and he asked me if I'd ever want to get married. I asked him if he wanted to get married. Awkward silence ensued and we kind of just came to an agreement that well, if we both wanted to do it, we may as well do it.

He did insist on formally proposing later, though. He bought a ring and popped the question on a beach in Morocco. Then we spent six months living either on the boat or in his tiny single apartment.

It sounds like you did things the Tradeliner way first! [Ari grins. She's lacking some cultural context, and she's aware of that fact, but two people mutually agreeing that if they both want to do it, they'll do it is...how partnership contracts happen, most of the time.] Sounds perfectly rational to me. Mutual agreement. Not usually with a fork involved, I'll say that. I'd have wanted to make a ring out of the metal of the fork, or at least keep it as a memento. [And there's her idea of romance.]

What happened when the six months were up? Did you get a bigger shared space on the boat?

We got a condo. He still has it; I let him keep it in the divorce. But you try sharing one bathroom with a 6'2" soldier.

[She snickers at the reminder. A tall man in a small space had been fodder for plenty of unintentionally hilarious moments.]

I don't talk about this often, but we worked together on a couple of missions over the years, so we ended up in some strange places and...a couple of rough situations. I can't say too much since I don't know what's been declassified or not. But at least I got to see the world like I always wanted.

Oh, I got lost in a hedge maze in college. Fucking hedge mazes.

Now Zog at the bar is a friend of mine

this got lost in my inbox and I just spotted it, sorry!

NP!

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